Design inference: What do these Stone Age markings on beads mean?

This piece is a good example of the varying degree of certainty that arise in science publications. At the most certain, and accurate end of the spectrum, scientists looking at these teeth can say what species the 70 teeth came from with some strong assurance that no one is likely to gainsay. With almost the same level of assurance, the authors can say how the teeth were perforated. At a somewhat lower level of certainty, but still quite reasonable, they can say the teeth were beads used to adorn the buried woman, because that is the sort of thing human cultures do, and science has found similar arrangements before. Thus, these conclusions are probably good. Moving along, we enter the regime of supportable hypothesis, when they start talking about the engravings and the insights suggested about social practices. Here too, humans still bury their dead in similar ways, so it is somewhat reasonable to assume that we understand what is going on in this context, although we cannot prove it, and some may cast doubt on the detailed interpretations. At the next level, we have conjectures about the scene, the social organization behind it, and how the people of that group related to each other socially. For example, the social status of the woman. These would be suppositions, based on similar experiences today, but subject to a variety of alternative interpretations. At this level authors usually use words like, "probably, most likely, apparently, seemingly" to bracket their conclusions. Finally, at the lowest level, we have speculation or "educated guesses" about the society, the purpose of the engravings, the other aspects of the woman's life, and so on. There authors use contingent words like, "could have, might explain, suggested", and so on to bracket their views and opinions, showing that there is considerable doubt. The problem in publicizing science arises when the author or the media reporting on the paper put their emphasis on these lower levels of interpretation, rather than the hard science of the higher levels. Thus we get headlines based on wild speculation rather than supportable facts. After all, the speculative aspects of the story (e.g. "Woman chieftain's burial shows gender equality and advanced religious beliefs 19,000 years ago!") are usually more interesting and exciting than the hard facts ("Engraved deer teeth found in 19,000 year old burial site."). The public then overlooks the contingent and evocative aspects, and simply accepts the speculations as certain science. The same can (as does) happen in various sciences, although the social sciences are particularly prone to speculative interpretation sold as firm conclusions.Fasteddious

July 7, 2019

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