Darwinists are Delegitimizing Science in the Name of Science

_{Gil Dodgen

October 25, 2011

Intelligent Design}

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What Darwinists don’t recognize is that, in the name of promoting science, they are actually promoting skepticism about what can be trusted in the name of science.

Bears evolved into whales? No, that’s been rejected. “Scientists” suggest that whales might have evolved from a cat-like animal, or a hyena-like animal, or (fill in the blank).

“It is thought by some that…”

This is “science”?

Evolution is a fact, if evolution is defined as the observation that some living systems are not now as they once were. According to this definition I count myself as an evolutionist.

But Darwinists are unwilling to acknowledge their ignorance concerning how this all came about, and persist in presenting unsupported speculation in the name of science.

This is ultimately destructive of the scientific enterprise. When people read such things as “science has discovered…” or “scientific consensus assures us that…” or some such, people are likely to assume that they are being conned, even if this is not the case, because they have been burned by so many claims in the past that turned out to be transparently false or eventually invalidated by evidence.

Based upon what I’ve learned over my 60 years of existence — mathematics, chemistry, physics, music and language study, computer programming, AI research, and involvement in multiple engineering disciplines — I find this Darwinism stuff to be a desperate attempt to deny the obvious: design and purpose in the universe and human existence.

The irony is that Darwinists are doing much harm to that which they presume to promote — confidence in claims made in the name of science.

Comments

kairosfocus
And, as a pre- information age theory in an information age in which it has been discovered that digital coded, functionally specific prescriptive information is at the heart of cell based life, that fall is coming.
Cool! Yet another variation of the undefined meaningless buzzterm! "digital coded, functionally specific prescriptive information" dCFSPI! These multiple acronyms remind me of a wanna-be pretentious restaurant whose menu says "free range organically grown pesticide free hand selected and gently allowed to expire in a coop with soothing music poultry" ...so it can charge you $45 for a single piece of fried chicken.GinoB_{October 26, 2011
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Try the recent post & exchanges here for a raft of them.kairosfocus_{October 26, 2011
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Gil: The irony is, that the proper foundations of scientific warrant lie in philosophy. Specifically, in the epistemology of inference to best explanation as applied to scientific issues:
Science – “knowledge” in Latin – is today’s dominant contender for the title: “provider of reliable (or at least probable and credible) knowledge,” and it has a great inherent plausibility because Scientific methods are often glorified common sense: sophisticated extensions to how we learn from day to day experience. But, while such methods and their findings have a proven track record of success that has positively transformed our world, there are in fact many limitations to scientific knowledge claims. A little deeper glance at Charles Sanders Peirce’s Logic of Abduction (also cf. here and here or even here) concept rapidly shows why:
1. Observations of the natural (or human) world produce facts, F1, F2, . . . Fn; some of which may seem strange, contradictory or puzzling. 2. However, if a proposed law, model or theory, E, is assumed, the facts follow as a matter of course: E is a scientific explanation of F1, F2, . . . Fn. [This step is ABDUCTION. E explains the facts, and the facts provide empirical support for E. In general, though, many E's are possible for a given situation. So, we then use pruning rules, e.g. Occam's Razor: prefer the simplest hypothesis consistent with the material facts. But in the end, the goal/value is that we should aim to select/infer the best (current) explanation, by using comparative tests derived from the three key worldview tests: explanatory scope, coherence and power.] 3. E may also predict further (sometimes surprising) observations, P1, P2, . . . Pm. This would be done through deducing implications for as yet unobserved situations. [This step, obviously, uses logical DEDUCTION.] 4. If these predictions are tested and are in fact observed, E is confirmed, and may eventually be accepted by the Scientific community as a generally applicable law or theory. [This step is one of logical INDUCTION, inferring from particular instances to -- in the typical case, more general -- conclusions that the instances make “more probable.”] 5. In many cases, some longstanding or newly discovered observations may defy explanation, and sometimes this triggers a crisis that may lead to a scientific revolution; similar to Thomas Kuhn’s paradigm shift. 6. Thus, scientific knowledge claims are in principle always provisional: subject to correction/change in light of new evidence and analysis. 7. But also, even when observations are accurately covered/predicted by the explanation, the logic involved has limitations: E => O, the set of current and predicted observations[2], does not entail that if O is seen then E follows: “If Tom is a cat then Tom is an animal” does not entail “Tom is an animal, so he must be a cat.”[3]
In short, scientific knowledge claims, at best, are provisional; though they are usually pretty well tested and have across time helped us make considerable technological, health and economic progress.
As I have recently clipped from Newton in his Opticks, Query 31 (1704) he knew this instinctively and intuitively, 300 years ago:
As in Mathematicks, so in Natural Philosophy, the Investigation of difficult Things by the Method of Analysis, ought ever to precede the Method of Composition. This Analysis consists in making Experiments and Observations, and in drawing general Conclusions from them by Induction, and admitting of no Objections against the Conclusions, but such as are taken from Experiments, or other certain Truths. For Hypotheses are not to be regarded in experimental Philosophy. And although the arguing from Experiments and Observations by Induction be no Demonstration of general Conclusions; yet it is the best way of arguing which the Nature of Things admits of, and may be looked upon as so much the stronger, by how much the Induction is more general. And if no Exception occur from Phaenomena, the Conclusion may be pronounced generally. But if at any time afterwards any Exception shall occur from Experiments, it may then begin to be pronounced with such Exceptions as occur. By this way of Analysis we may proceed from Compounds to Ingredients, and from Motions to the Forces producing them; and in general, from Effects to their Causes, and from particular Causes to more general ones, till the Argument end in the most general. This is the Method of Analysis: And the Synthesis consists in assuming the Causes discover'd, and establish'd as Principles, and by them explaining the Phaenomena proceeding from them, and proving the Explanations.
Where too many of Darwin's champions go off the rails, is they confuse an explanatory model of the deep, unobserved past with a "fact" -- even trying to compare [macro-]evolution favourably to gravity or gravitation. (It has been aptly highlighted that a better comparison would be theories of the origin rather than the current operation of the solar system. Actually, there are no such generally accepted Theories, just models with one degree or other of difficulties. The raft of exo-planets being discovered in recent years, also appear to be making such models ever more difficult; e.g. the latest idea that maybe there was a fifth gas giant that happily manged to stabilise the rest of the system when it got kicked out. Unobserved and suggested as a way to make some difficulties less intractable, but it is all acknowledged that this is not unquestionable fact, just modelling of the suggested deep past of origins for our system.) Secondly, since Darwinian theory has become the origins myth of today's quasi-religion, "scientific" materialism, it has been embedded with an aura of invincibility that will make the fall thereof a terrible sight to see. And, as a pre- information age theory in an information age in which it has been discovered that digital coded, functionally specific prescriptive information is at the heart of cell based life, that fall is coming. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{October 26, 2011
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When I was in a psychology lecture once, we were each given a questionnaire. On it were a series of statements for which we had to guess "True or False?" Against each statement was an argument indicating why the statement was obviously true or obviously false. One I remember was: "After a natural disaster, the situation is worsened by the fact that people are less capable than usual of organising themselves. This is not surprising, as natural disasters are deeply traumatic events". At the end the lecturer asked us to say what percentage we'd answered "True". Most of us said "80%". Then he revealed that while we all had the same set of statements, the "obvious" arguments were different in one half than in the other. And we'd all been suckered by the argument that the answer was "obvious". It was a very salutary experience. What seems obvious ain't necessarily so. (BTW, the statement above turns out to be false. People are usually very good at organising themselves after natural disasters. After all, they are well-motivated to do so :))Elizabeth Liddle_{October 26, 2011
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I find this Darwinism stuff to be a desperate attempt to deny the obvious
But the truth often isn't "obvious". That's why the scientific method has been so successful: It gives us a means of determining the truth without relying on what seems "obvious" or on "common sense".NormO_{October 26, 2011
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But Darwinists are unwilling to acknowledge their ignorance concerning how this all came about, and persist in presenting unsupported speculation in the name of science.
Could you give an example of an unsupported speculation that a Darwinist has presented in the name of science? And while I agree that we should not say "science has discovered...", that applies just as much to common descent, or the speed of light, or the theory of gravity, or even the germ theory of disease. All scientific conclusions are provisional. That doesn't mean that we can't, for practical purposes, assume they are pretty much true.
Based upon what I’ve learned over my 60 years of existence — mathematics, chemistry, physics, music and language study, computer programming, AI research, and involvement in multiple engineering disciplines — I find this Darwinism stuff to be a desperate attempt to deny the obvious: design and purpose in the universe and human existence.
Well, you are a year or two ahead of me, Gil (60 next birthday!), but I can muster a comparable learning history: music, psychology, design, structural engineering, computer programming, computational modelling and neuroscience - and I find "this Darwinism stuff" to be a pretty compelling fit of model to data, and in no way do I find it "denies the obvious" - clearly many living organisms have plenty of purpose, including humans, and for some of us, that purpose includes making music :) But science remains always provisional. Not only are scientists willing "to acknowledge their ignorance", that acknowledgement is intrinsic to the domain and its methodology. And at a practical level, scientists literally thrive on what we don't know - how else would we persuade anyone to fund a research project?Elizabeth Liddle_{October 26, 2011
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