Hossenfelder, one of our fan faves, tries her hand at the difference:
Let us look at some other popular example, Darwinian evolution. Darwinian evolution is a good scientific theory because it “connects the dots” basically by telling you how certain organisms evolved from each other. I think that in principle it should be possible to quantify this fit to data, but arguably no one has done that. Creationism, on the other hand, simply posits that Earth was created with everything in place. That means Creationism puts in as much information as you get out of it. It therefore does not explain anything. This does not mean it’s wrong. But it means it is unscientific.
Another way to tell pseudoscience from science is that a lot of pseudoscientists like to brag with making predictions. But just because you have a model that makes predictions does not mean it’s scientific. And the opposite is also true, just because a model does not make predictions does not mean it is not scientific.
Sabine Hossenfelder, “How to tell science from pseudoscience” at BackRe(Action)
Why do people like Hossenfelder feel they need to honor Darwinism’s rotting carcass?
A model that makes testable predictions is not scientific?
Hossenfelder is not doing herself a favor here. The theory is held in place by court judgments and tenure, not by science findings.
There are real ideas in biology, as well as in physics. Find them.
Hossenfelder is a scientist and as such she recognizes the difference between science and pseudo science. Nothing controversial about that.
In Sabine Hossenfelder’s book “Lost in Math” she eviscerates supersymmetry because it is untestable and/or unfalsifiable.
Sabine Hossenfelder would do very well to remember her criteria for rejecting supersymmetry as a science, (i.e. because it is untestable and/or unfalsifiable), when she tries to evaluate whether Darwinian evolution qualifies as a good scientific theory or not.
Contrary to what Sabine Hossenfelder apparently readily accepts without any deep reflection on her part, it is Darwinian evolution itself that is a unfalsifiable pseudoscience.
In 1967, Stanford Professor Paul Ehrlich stated that the Theory of Evolution ‘cannot be refuted by any possible observations’ and is thus “outside empirical science.”
Likewise in 2015 Denis Noble, President of International Union of Physiological Sciences, stated, “it is then incumbent on modern neo-Darwinists to specify what would now falsify the theory. If nothing can do this then it is not a scientific theory.”
Here are a few falsifications of Darwinian evolution that Darwinists, (since they basically treat Darwinian evolution as a religion instead of as a testable science), simply refuse to ever accept as falsifications of their theory:
Verse:
Besides Darwinists refusing to adhere to the criteria of falsification for their supposedly scientific theory, by any other reasonable measure that one may wish to judge whether Darwinian evolution even qualifies as a science or not, and as is shown in the following video, Darwinian evolution fails to meet those criteria as well:
Simply put, Darwinian evolution is more properly classified as a pseudoscience, even as a religion for atheists, rather than ever being classified as a real and testable science.
Moreover, all of science, every nook and cranny of it, is based on the presupposition of intelligent design and is certainly not based on presumption of methodological naturalism as is presupposed by Darwinian atheists.
From the essential Christian presuppositions that undergird the founding of modern science itself, (i.e. namely, that the universe is rational and that the minds of men, being made in the ‘image of God’, can dare understand that rationality), to the intelligent design of the scientific instruments and experiments themselves, to the logical and mathematical analysis of experimental results, from top to bottom science itself is certainly not ‘natural’.
Not one scientific instrument would ever exist if men did not first intelligently design that scientific instrument. Not one test tube, microscope, telescope, spectroscope, or etc.. etc.., was ever found just laying around on a beach somewhere which was ‘naturally’ constructed by nature. Not one experimental result would ever be rationally analysed since there would be no immaterial minds to rationally analyze the immaterial mathematics that lay behind the intelligently designed experiments in the first place.
In fact, (as I have pointed out several times now), assuming Naturalism instead of Theism as the worldview on which all of science is based leads to the catastrophic epistemological failure of science itself.
Thus, although the Darwinist may firmly believes he is on the terra firma of science (in his appeal, even demand, for methodological naturalism), the fact of the matter is that, when examining the details of his materialistic/naturalistic worldview, it is found that Darwinists/Atheists are adrift in an ocean of fantasy and imagination with no discernible anchor for reality to grab on to.
It would be hard to fathom a worldview more antagonistic to modern science than Atheistic materialism and/or methodological naturalism have turned out to be.
I have a lot of respect for Sabine Hossenfelder, especially for how she called out supersymmetry for being, basically, an untestable and/or unfalsifiable pseudoscience. I would hope that she would hold to the same criteria, i.e. being untestable and/or unfalsifiable, in her evaluation of Darwinian evolution and also reject it as a pseudoscience.
In fairness, she’s wrong on two counts:
“I think that in principle it should be possible to quantify this fit to data, but arguably no one has done that. Creationism, on the other hand, simply posits that Earth was created with everything in place. That means Creationism puts in as much information as you get out of it. It therefore does not explain anything.”
Evolutionists have attempted to quantify the fit of their evolutionary trees to the data, coming up with various metrics whose names I forget. Not terribly impressive, but they have tried; not sure why SH doesn’t know this.
I have no idea what she means by “putting in as much info as you get out.” That itself sounds like an unscientific statement. If she’s saying that all the information was front-loaded somehow, then she provides no basis for that claim. If she’s saying that we don’t learn anything, that’s clearly wrong also.
??
Without ID, you have nothing to explain the origin of the universe, laws of physics, mathematics, origin or life, etc. Hawking, who was a brilliant mathematician and poor physicist, said the math only worked until after the Big Bang occurred. Anything prior to expansion failed to be defined mathematically. If the Big Bang occurred, than what cause the expansion to begin?
Einstein made it clear that the more he studied the universe, the more he believed in God. Anyone who acknowledges the laws that govern the universe must accept that there is a lawmaker behind them. He did not humanize God, nor did he believe God intervenes in human life.
The Big Bang should have brought nothing but chaos to the universe, since chaos only creates more chaos. For anyone who does not believe in ID, how can any law exist to govern the universe? Where did the laws of physics come from? For those who do not believe in God, simply ask yourself, as Einstein did, if it is possible for something with far greater intellect than man to have created the universe and set the laws of physics in place?
LoL! Darwinian evolution isn’t even a scientific theory. It is untestable pap.
No one knows how one population evolved into another population with a different body plan. That premise is completely untestable.
We do observe many minor. slight changes. But there isn’t anything we can look at and extrapolate new body plans from.
ET, yeah she doesn’t seem to have done any deep dives into Blind Watchmaker Evolution. (Nor did she acknowledge or even mention ID, and that it’s not creationism. So I doubt she knows much about it.) There are huge problems the current set of theories cannot account for. And when it comes of Origin of Life, its a whole new world of no theories at all, just a couple of very lame hypotheses.
Nonlin.org3:16 PM, June 22, 2020
To the contrary. If Darwin were right, you would be able to reply with your “fitness function” and you would be able to forecast “natural selection”. But you can’t because there is no such thing as “fitness” or “natural selection”. On the other hand, Paley was right: watch-watchmaker, universe-universe maker. And Occam is satisfied.
Guess why “it should be possible to quantify this fit (Darwin’s) to data, but arguably no one has done that”? Precisely because “evolution” is not scientific. Also, guess what? You can quantify Mendel’s observations. Because unlike Darwin, Mendel was doing real science. That’s why. Science IS quantifiable.
Incorrect: “Darwinian evolution is a good scientific theory because it “connects the dots” basically by telling you how certain organisms evolved from each other.” Telling a story is myth, not science. Unless of course said story can be observed which is definitely not the case for Darwin’s story.
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Sabine Hossenfelder1:06 AM, June 23, 2020
“If Darwin were right, you would be able to reply with your “fitness function” and you would be able to forecast “natural selection”. But you can’t because there is no such thing as “fitness” or “natural selection”.
You are very confused about how Darwinian evolution works. What counts as “fitness” and what means “natural selection” is defined by the environment. You don’t postulate it.
“Telling a story is myth, not science. Unless of course said story can be observed which is definitely not the case for Darwin’s story.”
That’s wrong too. For starters, I suggest you watch that (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zENv5EDElgA), and then discontinue making ill-informed comments about topics you know very little about, thank you.
Nonlin: Of course “fitness” depends on the environment and for that precise reason it is not scientific. It is not observable, not measurable, not useful to forecasting, therefore NOT science. It is just a measure of our ignorance like black matter and black energy. Think!
Antibiotic resistance is just a built in feature of ALL organisms, you and me included. It goes away when the stimulus is removed (hence only prevalent in hospital-like-environments and weak organisms – thank God) and NEVER EVER leads to any new organisms. Like antibiotic resistance, Darwin’s Finches REVERT when the stimulus is removed, and so does the Peppered Moth, the LTEE E.Coli, the feral animals and all else. Experimentally, nothing, and I mean NOTHING EVER “evolves”. Hence, not science. Think!
If you can’t observe and can’t forecast, it is not science. Explaining is not sufficient. Forecasting is the key. Astrologers, phrenologists, tarot readers, etc, all “explain” but none forecasts with any accuracy. That is the difference between science and pseudoscience. And as such, “evolution” falls squarely in the pseudoscience realm. Think.
BA77@2
“I have a lot of respect for Sabine Hossenfelder, especially for how she called out supersymmetry for being, basically, an untestable and/or unfalsifiable pseudoscience. I would hope that she would hold to the same criteria, i.e. being untestable and/or unfalsifiable, in her evaluation of Darwinian evolution and also reject it as a pseudoscience.”
Unfortunately, from her words quoted in the Op, she is woefully ignorant of Darwinist evolutionary biology and also of ID. She actually seems to think Darwinism adequately explains macroevolution, and thereby probably qualifies as science. And she seems to have swallowed the prevalent Darwinist propaganda and thinks that the major alternative to Darwinism is Biblical Creationism, apparently being ignorant of the major alternative really being scientific and empirical ID theory which is not grounded in Biblical fundamentalism-based Creationism.
This woeful ignorance is probably genuine and naive; she simply has bought all the Darwinist propaganda and not bothered to study the issue in depth since it didn’t seem worth the effort.
Or alternately, a lesser possibility could be that this is being cynical and calculating and self-serving. Knowing full well that Darwinism is unfalsifiable, unscientific and with no empirical experimental or observational substantiation of its claims when they get to the most important aspects of evolution , in particular macroevolution. Self-serving because she probably knows full well how professionally deadly the Darwinist reaction and push-back can get in response to any attack on their pseudo-religion. The reasoning might be, better to go along with the farce rather than to poke the hornets’ nest and risk career suicide.