I keep having to remind myself that science is self-correcting …

_{Denyse O'Leary

May 20, 2009

Ethics}

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I have often been wearied by legends in their own lunchroom huffing that science differs from other endeavours because it is “self-correcting.”

To which I reply: Aw come off it, fellas. Any system that does not go extinct is self-correcting – after it collapses on its hind end. This is true of governments, businesses, churches, and not-for-profit organizations. I’ve seen enough of life to know.

Here’s a classic: At The Scientist’s NewsBlog, Bob Grant reveals (May 7, 2009) that

Scientific publishing giant Elsevier put out a total of six publications between 2000 and 2005 that were sponsored by unnamed pharmaceutical companies and looked like peer reviewed medical journals, but did not disclose sponsorship, the company has admitted.

Elsevier is conducting an “internal review” of its publishing practices after allegations came to light that the company produced a pharmaceutical company-funded publication in the early 2000s without disclosing that the “journal” was corporate sponsored

[ … ]

The allegations involve the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine, a publication paid for by pharmaceutical company Merck that amounted to a compendium of reprinted scientific articles and one-source reviews, most of which presented data favorable to Merck’s products. The Scientist obtained two 2003 issues of the journal — which bore the imprint of Elsevier’s Excerpta Medica — neither of which carried a statement obviating Merck’s sponsorship of the publication.

The linked related stories and comments are most illuminating, and bear out my critique of “peer review” here. Let’s just say that peer review started out as a good idea, but …

(Note: There is no paywall, but you may need to register to view the story, .)

Also, today at Colliding Universes

Neutrinos: Sudbury Neutrino Observatory does the sun’s bookkeeping

Origin of life: The live cat vs. the dead cat

Cosmology: Wow. It takes guts to wage war with Stephen Hawking … he appeared in Star Trek

Universe: Arguments against flatness (plus exposing sloppy science writing)

Origin of life: Latest scenario gives RNA world a boost

Colliding Universes is my blog on competing theories about our universe.

Comments

Several of you have mentioned past scientific mistakes or current areas of scientific disagreement as if they somehow show that science is not self-correcting. That makes no sense. The fact that we are even aware of past scientific mistakes is precisely because science is self-correcting. How else, besides using science, did we figure out that phlogiston doesn't exist or that alchemy is a forlorn hope? Nobody is claiming that science is immune to error. After all, to claim that science is self-correcting is to presuppose the existence of error. Isn't that obvious?beelzebub_{May 20, 2009
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Clive, Did you even read my comment? The scientific consensus I'm referring to is on the six questions I posed:
1. Do atoms exist? 2. What are they made of? 3. Why does the sun shine? 4. How old is the earth? 5. Are perpetual motion machines possible? 6. From a given point on the moon’s equator, how much energy is required to put a 10 kg rock into a circular orbit with a radius of 70 kilometers?
Second, if you think that scientists haven't yet resolved the disputes over phlogiston and alchemy, then you need to crack open a few issues of Scientific American. From 1900.
If you’re going to talk about a “progression of science”, it must be remembered that that trend is also wrought with abandoned scientific endeavors, which seemed valid at the time, but weren’t.
Of course. Humans are imperfect creatures operating on imperfect information. They're bound to make mistakes. The genius of science is that it provides a systematic way of detecting and reversing these mistakes. The six scientific questions above demonstrate this beautifully. Contrast that with religion, which tends to enshrine its mistakes as dogma instead of seeking to correct them.
If you put all you’re faith into it, you won’t necessarily know how you’re being deceived...
That's why blind faith is such a bad idea. Hold all of your beliefs provisionally and never cease questioning them.
...until it’s too late, for the correction, even if there is one, lies in the remote future, long after you’re dead.
Welcome to the human condition. We can do the best we can, but no better. Science is wonderfully self-correcting. Religion doesn't even come close.beelzebub_{May 20, 2009
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beelzebub @3:
2. What are they [atoms] made of?
It is not true that scientists know what atoms are made of. They may have identified some constituent particles (electrons, protons, quarks, etc.) by their interactions but they would be hard pressed to tell you what they are made of.Mapou_{May 20, 2009
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beelzebub, I should also mention Darwin's belief in "gemmules". Indeed.Clive Hayden_{May 20, 2009
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Clive- Exactly. That is why it is foolish to claim something as "fact" without being thoroughly, scientifically validated. As stated many times before, this is usually glossed over because people honestly think Darwinism and evolution are the same thing (i.e., if you prove evolution to be true, that proves Darwin/atheists are right)uoflcard_{May 20, 2009
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beezlebub: What is your point? That religion sucks because people disagree? An odd conclusion since you started with an experimental design to falsify a claim that did not exist (Denyse never said science is not self-correcting, just that she had to remind herself that it is because of all of the corruption involved in the system). But here's some other thoughts: What do religious disagreements have to do with this discussion? Another attempt to oppose religion with science (when they really have nothing to do with each other, unless your religious belief hinges on a scientifically-falsifiable claim, like the Earth is 6,000 years old) You seem to believe science is the search for consensous instead of the search for truth. If ID is true, materialist science will be blind to the truth, and that couldn't be more obvious in modern day science. I don't know how much brilliant complexity we would have to discover to convince materialists that ID is correct. At this point, it seems like it would never happen; they would just keep evoking "deep time" and an infinitude of universes until our current state of brilliant design is a statistical requirement by chance and necessity alone. Here is a clear example of the dogmatism of materialist science in field of evolutionary biology (from a recent issue of New Scientist, in an article titled "Darwin Was Wrong"):
If anyone now thinks that biology is sorted, they are going to be proved wrong too. The more that genomics, bioinformatics and many other newer disciplines reveal about life, the more obvious it becomes that our present understanding is not up to the job. We now gaze on a biological world of mind-boggling complexity that exposes the shortcomings of familiar, tidy concepts such as species, gene and organism. ... None of this should give succour to creationists, whose blinkered universe is doubtless already buzzing with the news that "New Scientist has announced Darwin was wrong". Expect to find excerpts ripped out of context and presented as evidence that biologists are deserting the theory of evolution en masse. They are not.
"We were wrong, but we'll continue to be right." ...Hmm, sounds open-minded to me. Again, if the current discoveries in biological systems aren't enough to even evoke doubt (meta-information in the genome, sections of DNA being used for multiple, different "programming" functions [like programming in 3 or 4 dimensions instead of just one like us simple humans do]), then nothing will ever penetrate that dogmatism ID was ruled out on purely philosophical grounds when methodological naturalism morphed into metaphysical naturalism in the natural sciences. Dogmatic concensus, morphing scientific discovery to fit a worldview, is not what I would call progress. For the 6 scientific questions you posed above, they are purely analytical science, and do not fall into the areas where worldviews are called into question. It is historical science, like origin of life, NDET, multiverse theory where dogma can hinder true progress. See the ignorance of "junk" DNA for decades since materialism required it to be "junk". Of course dogma does/has existed within religious circles for millenia. There has also been dissent in religion, just as there has been in science over the centuries, which led to progress. Most disputed religious claims are not scientifically verifiable, thus a concensus is much less likely. What does that mean? That we should not pursue theology because it's impossible to scientifically verify many claims? If that's the case, then I hope you also despise multiverse theory on the same grounds.uoflcard_{May 20, 2009
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eligoodwin, Google bathybius haeckeli, if you think no one ever thought the cell a simple blob of organic matter. It was members of the prophet Darwin's exalted circle who thought that - as it happens. Beelzebub, try applying your theory to global warming - or any current issue - and see what you come up with.O'Leary_{May 20, 2009
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beelzebub, ----"So in 300 years, science has gone from complete disagreement to a consensus. Meanwhile, religion has gone from complete disagreement to complete disagreement." You're joking right? There is no singular voice of science now, not by any stretch of the imagination. Phlogiston, alchemy, ether, evolution, multi-verse, memes...yeah, that's agreement, sure thing. Radio waves were once considered supernatural. The point is that in the future advances may or may not correct a misunderstanding now. The question is what misunderstandings are we currently living in? Alchemy was considered real by folks in that time. If you're going to talk about a "progression of science", it must be remembered that that trend is also wrought with abandoned scientific endeavors, which seemed valid at the time, but weren't. If you put all you're faith into it, you won't necessarily know how you're being deceived, until it's too late, for the correction, even if there is one, lies in the remote future, long after you're dead.Clive Hayden_{May 20, 2009
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Denyse O'Leary writes:
Any system that does not go extinct is self-correcting - after it collapses on its hind end.
Denyse, A simple experiment will falsify your claim. Take a sample of scientists from every continent on the globe and ask them these questions: 1. Do atoms exist? 2. What are they made of? 3. Why does the sun shine? 4. How old is the earth? 5. Are perpetual motion machines possible? 6. From a given point on the moon's equator, how much energy is required to put a 10 kg rock into a circular orbit with a radius of 70 kilometers? You will get stunning agreement on the answers, including the precise numerical value called for by question #6. Now take a sample of holy men, religious "experts" and theologians from every continent on the globe. Ask them the following questions: 1. Does God exist? 2. Is there more than one God? 3. What characteristics does God have? 4. Does God meddle in the world? 5. Is there an afterlife? 6. What is God's plan for humanity? It would take you days to catalog the discordant answers you'd get to these questions. Now imagine the answers you would have gotten to both sets of questions, religious and scientific, if you had asked them in the year 1700. A cacaphony of disagreement. So in 300 years, science has gone from complete disagreement to a consensus. Meanwhile, religion has gone from complete disagreement to complete disagreement. Which one is making progress? Which do you think is self-correcting?beelzebub_{May 20, 2009
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Uh, the cell was never assumed to be a simple blob of organic matter. The idea investigators could reproduce cellular events in vitro from supernatant was still inconceivable 50-60 years ago, as the cell was held undecipherable. Much of cell/molecular biology is in states of flux regarding roles and functions of proteins or non-coding RNA, but such fields do not receive as much criticism as evo-devo by IDists. Bottom line: it's easy to argue against a caricature...eligoodwin_{May 20, 2009
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One of the most interesting classes I took in grad school (for Mechanical Engineering) was a Rehab Engineering class - basically studying different types of injuries and physical states that cause people to be disabled and the equipment that is engineered to aid them to live life as uninterrupted as possible. As we were required to produce a journal-style article at the end of the semester, 3 or 4 times throughout the class we reviewed a peer-reviewed article from maintstream rehab journals, then had a class discussion of the article. It was amazing what was published, and these were in the most respected journals of their field. They were filled with horrible statistics, poorly designed (or at least poorly described) experimental procedures, vague, inconsistent logic and highly questionable (and many times self-fulfilling) results. And this is an analytical science! That is, it's testable, repeatable, observable, realisticially falsifiable [i.e., we could falsify Darwinism if we found a 60 million year old chicken, but no one is positing that], etc. It's hard to imagine the amount of corruption and flat out bad science that exists in journals that study historical science, like evolutionary theories. Evolution itself is highly observable from the fossil record, but its driving mechanism (RM+NS) was accepted decades ago, under a materialist mindset, when we thought the cell was a simple blob of organic matter. Yes, in a way, it's self-correcting, because it will change its mind on given issues and theories. There is no a more frequently self-correcting science than evolutionary biology. Why? Because it is the most noble? No. Because accepted evo. bio. ideas are wrong at a much higher rate than in other sciences. How many "junk" DNA articles were reviewed and accepted for decades? Hundreds? Oops!uoflcard_{May 20, 2009
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