Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

He said it: Science is giving us a reality check “when it tells us something we do not want to hear” – Really?

Denyse O'Leary
October 2, 2011
Culture, Darwinism, Intelligent Design, News
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Galileo facing the Roman Inquisition, painting by Cristiano Banti (1857). This is a faithful photographic reproduction of an original two-dimensional work of art. This work is in the public domain in the United States, and those countries with a copyright.

Darwinist Donald Prothero writes,

There may be biases in our perceptions, and we may want to find data that fits our preconceptions about the world, but if science is done properly, we get a real answer, often one we did not expect. That’s the true test of when science is giving us a reality check: when it tells us something we do not want to hear, but is inescapable if one follows the scientific method and analyzes the data honestly.” – Denialist Demagogues and the Threat to Science. (It’s an attack on those scientists who question human causes as a big factor in global warming.)

Unfortunately, when Darwinists use the term, they mean: “Science is giving us a reality check ‘when it tells other people something they do not want to hear.’”

The recent dialogue on carnivorous plants provides a marvellous illustration. One Darwinist simply could not get it through his head that carnivorous plants are not restricted to areas of poor soil simply because they have an advantage over other plants there. The simple fact that having an advantage there does not add up to having a disadvantage elsewhere eluded him – because it is not Darwin.

Hat tip: Pos-Darwinista

Comments
Well, Nick, you appear to be an expert at editing history. I would also say that the claim was that CPs arising via Darwinaian mechanisms is the myth. So, yes, science does indeed give reality checks but all your position has are promissory notes. Joseph
Really? Who has establishde "evolution" (please understand it as a species transmutating into another one)? Can you lead me to any paper or research that has established it a scientific fact such as the law of gravity? If you can present me one, I will fall back again into Darwin's arms... Enezio E. De Almeida Filho
The recent dialogue on carnivorous plants provides a marvellous illustration. One Darwinist simply could not get it through his head that carnivorous plants are not restricted to areas of poor soil simply because they have an advantage over other plants there. The simple fact that having an advantage there does not add up to having a disadvantage elsewhere eluded him – because it is not Darwin.
Well, this is a nice editing of history. The original claim that IDists were making on UD was that the carnivorous plant preference for nutrient-poor environments was just a Darwinist myth, and you guys were believing it apparently on the grounds that anything Darwin believed must therefore be wrong. But, even the claim as you make it now isn't really true. Most CPs are literally restricted to nutrient-poor bogs and wetlands. The trap structures give no advantage if they aren't needed for nutrition, and as photosynthetic leaves they are a lot more expensive and less effecient as photosynthetic surfaces than are regular, flat leaves. Science does indeed give reality checks, and you guys have just been on the wrong side of this simple, empirical one. NickMatzke_UD
Given the variability of weather, generally (quantum effects?), it would not be easy to come up with data - in the period in which it has been collected - that would justify some of the proclaimed certainty. You raise a very good point about double blind studies. Allanius. It is difficulty to keep everyone in any human group in the dark for long - as anyone who has ever tried organizing a surprise birthday party knows. We default to making sure that the one person we most want to keep it a surprise for does not guess. Even that often doesn't work: He knows, but pretends he doesn't, to spare your feelings. (Because he happened on a discarded note - while fishing a paper clip out of the waste basket - the note that says: Bakery staff: Here's the iced message: "Happy birthday, Allen - 51 years a champ!") Someone should have shredded it, but ... News
Oh, too dear. Our heroic lefties again, “telling us something we don’t want to hear.” Of course they fail to mention that there’s a problem when science tells us something we DO want to hear. And that’s the case with them. They want the AGW story to be true. It supports their Luddite worldview and their faculty lounge anti-corporatism. And because they want it to be true, the “scientific method” they use is compromised. Look, I work in a business where the power of self-delusion is so widely acknowledged that companies are forced to do very large, double-blind, randomized studies at huge expense in order to get their drugs approved. And STILL the “investigators” find a way to figure it out. If they want the drug to succeed, if they believe in it, they can help it along in spite of blinding, for instance by taking note of the side effects patients are experiencing. Where, in the “science” that supports the AGW hypothesis, is the equivalent of double-blinding? The “investigators” make certain assumptions about carbon and feedback in their computer models that reflect their own belief that AGW is a fact. Is it so surprising, then, that the resulting “data” reflects their initial assumptions? AGW may in fact be real, but the “science” that is being used to support it is a joke. Climate science is almost unimaginably complex. The fervor of the AGW crowd reflects their love of simple explanations, especially when those explanations reinforce a certain antithetical identity. allanius

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