Why "scientists" don't get it.

Article from "The Scientist," Volume 22, Issue 10, Page 29

"What makes Science 'Science'" by James Williams

As a science educator, I train science graduates to become science teachers. Over the past two years I've surveyed their understanding of key terminology and my findings reveal a serious problem. Graduates, from a range of science disciplines and from a variety of universities in Britain and around the world, have a poor grasp of the meaning of simple terms and are unable to provide appropriate definitions of key scientific terminology. So how can these hopeful young trainees possibly teach science to children so that they become scientifically literate? How will school-kids learn to distinguish the questions and problems that science can answer from those that science cannot and, more importantly, the difference between science and pseudoscience?

Undergrad course in history and philosophy of science
Here are some of the data from the 74 graduates that I've surveyed to date:

• 76% equated a fact with 'truth' and 'proven'

• 23% defined a theory as 'unproven ideas' with less than half (47%) recognizing a theory as a well evidenced exposition of a natural phenomenon

• 34% defined a law as a rule not to be broken, and forty-one percent defined it as an idea that science fully supports.

• Definitions of 'hypothesis' were the most consistent, with 61% recognizing the predictive, testable nature of hypotheses.

...

Only a few of the graduates had studied any history and philosophy of science, and therein lies the problem. The majority had high quality degrees and some had doctorates in a science discipline, so it wasn't that they were not well qualified in science. It was just that their study of science had been utilitarian, a means to an end with the end being a practicing scientist. They had not been given any grounding or instruction on what makes science 'science.' It was not their fault: history and philosophy of science was an optional part of their degree programs and many could not see the point of it.

...

(End of quote).

That's the exact conclusion I'd come to in explaining how so many "scientists" can be so completely ignorant when it comes to the nuances of philosophy of science. Of course, this author goes on to lump "creationists" in with the anti-science crowd, but that only assumes his particular philosophical definition of science -- and as with all issues in philosophy, definitions are malleable and debatable. The point is, scientists aren't being educated in the issues of philosophy of science -- why in the world do we trust their opinion on things they've neither studied, practiced, nor shown any competence in, as a group?

Dark Ages?

Occurred to me today that the old secular narrative that sees the Dark Ages as a reversal of progress and culture is false -- and an example of selection bias. Proponents are able to maintain the story by focusing on the decline of the Italian peninsula, rather than noticing that the capitol of Roman empire and European culture had simply moved -- to Constantinople.

Emperor Constantine (the first Christian emperor) moved the capitol of the Roman empire to Constantinople (previously Byzantium, today Istanbul). So a Christian Emperor never ruled in Rome. Constantine moved the capitol because Rome was just no good -- it was isolated, and subject to flooding and Malaria. So when we think of Christian Rome, we mustn't think of it as centered in the city of Rome -- because it never was.

The Roman Empire of Constantine (which "scholars" call the Byzantine Empire) was never called the Byzantine Emperor by anyone who lived there. In fact, no city named Byzantium existed under this "Byzantine Empire." Its residents called their empire the Empire of the Romans.

So, no longer the Capital of the Empire, the city of Rome declined and ultimately fell in 410. But that was insignificant. The Capitol of Christian Rome, Constantinople, stood untoppled until the 13th Century. And while Rome was in ruins, the new capitol of the Roman Empire was thriving, economically. Classical science was retained and expanded upon. Justinian made huge legal and political reforms. The magnificent Hagia Sophia was built.

Then, Plague decimated the population in the 500s, and the Muslims seized the moment to attack -- Muslims, incidentally, who were advancing mathematics and science to previously unknown heights.

The story is not one of "Christianity took over and culture stopped." That fiction is maintained only by ignoring that fact that the Capitol of Rome and the center of European civilization moved from one city to another.

The story is very clearly one of "The center of culture -- Christian culture -- and the Roman empire -- moved from the Italian Peninsula to Constantinople."

Check and Balance

The US government is usually portrayed as a system of checks and balances. It occurred to me that much more of our system is based on checks and balances than just the 3 branches of government. For example:

Our market system is based on checks and balances -- consumers' unlimited demands are checked by producer's prices. Producers' unlimited desire for profit is checked by consumer choice. Producers' willingness to take shortcuts in ways consumers' can't identify or fight is checked by the regulators. Regulators are checked by the laws of the legislature.

It also occurs to me that the vote is better seen in terms of check and balance than as actually determining our leaders. Everybody knows an individual vote is never of any significance, because the margin of victory is always more than one. However, the vote does function as a check and balance -- because elected officials are (at least somewhat) checked by the reality that if they tick off the electorate, they'll get fired. We don't get to decide who leads us -- our leaders are selected by party officials, lobbyists, special interests, and connections of the rich. But the leaders we don't get to select are bound by the reality that if they piss enough of us off, they'll get fired. It's not really a representative government -- but it is a check and balance. Seen in that light, it seems less naively noble; but at the same time, it appears to actually accomplish its purpose.

Wittingly or unwittingly, our system appears to work because it makes sure nobody has unbridled choice, but everybody has an incentive to push their own agenda.

Psychology of persecution

Seems to me there are two possibile explanations for why people persecute others for their beliefs:

1) A genuine disagreement over the issues, a belief that such people are morally reprehensible and/or dangerous for holding them.

2) A cynical desire to maintain their power and position by stifling opinions that draw their own authority into question.

The first is possible, I suppose. But I lean toward the second, because it seems to me that persecution occurs in all realms of human intercourse, both religious and secular -- but is rarely led by people who don't have an economic and/or political stake in the outcome.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm sure there are many troops in these wars who genuinely believe the enemy is bad -- but it seems to me they're just pawns who have been deceived and emotionally manipulated by leaders who always have a personal stake in the outcome.

Consider the Catholic Authorities trying to maintain their hold on Europe through the inquisition. Given the unfalsifiable nature of their claim to authority, could they afford an alternative whose claims were equally unfalsifiable drawing their own into question?

Or evolutionary biologists insisting so rabidly that no alternative is worthy of consideration. What would happen to the funding for their research if it were acknowledged that their theories are absurd?

Or Republicans and Democrats (whose policies are often indistinguishable) using the rhetoric of ideology and morality, and then turning around when in power to do things totally counter to what they said. What would happen to their power and ability to draw contributions and alter the law to benefit themselves and their friends if the other side's moralizing went unanswered?

Or Muslim clerical authorities who use law to stifle religious dissent. What happens to the religious authorities' power if others are free to question it?

And on and on and on ...

It occurs to me that if one attempts to take on these forces through ideology -- through arguing about ideas -- one is simply wasting one's time; because the oppression is not itself about ideas -- it's about the power and authority of those whose ideas are being questioned.

Rewriting history

Offhand, the other day, I told my then-fiance, now wife, that (with only a very few exceptions) everybody in the educated classes of Europe knew the world was a globe from before the time of Jesus. She was shocked. She'd been told a thousand times (as I had) that everybody thought the world was flat before Columbus.

In fact, Eratosthenes of Cyrene (276-200 B.C.) calculated the circumference of the Earth to startling accuracy. 1700 years before Columbus.

Columbus' bold move was not to assert that the Earth was round, but rather his adoption of the Ptolemaic (rather than Eratosthenesian) circumference of the Earth. The ptolemaic calculation was, of course, much smaller, and ultimately wrong. But he thought the Earth was much smaller than previously believed, and therefore thought he could survive the voyage to Japan.

Right? No. Desperately wrong. He just got lucky there was another continent in the way.

But why the widespread lie about medieval folks believing the Earth was flat? I had TEACHERS teaching me that lie.

Or consider this limerick, in which the author breaks down the galileo affair to a conflict between "natural laws versus mystical cause."

The facts, of course, are radically different.

First of all, neither side was arguing about naturalism vs. supernaturalism. Both sides believed in a Creator. The debate was about whether the Sun revolved around the Earth (The Ptolemaic System) or the Earth revolved around the sun (The Copernican model).

So scratch one.

Secondly, this "mystical cause" theory (you know, the ptolemaic system) was devised by a pagan, not a Christian.

So scratch two.

Thirdly, this "mystical cause" was developed through the scientific method -- Ptolemy observed the physical universe, and developed a system to explain his observations. Turned out his system was wrong -- but it was certainly not based on mysticism. Quite the contrary, it was based on science.

Scratch three.

So what you had, actually, was the Church adopting secular science as dogma. And then the secular science turned out to be wrong, the Church didn't want to let it go.

Analogous to the adoption by many churches (like even the Big One, Catholicism) of the ludicrous doctrine of common descent? Perhaps.

But most importantly, perhaps, Galileo's model was inferior to the ptolemaic system, because he insisted the orbits of the planets were round. On this score, Galileo fell far short of his contemporary, Kepler. Galileo rejected Kepler's (correct) idea that the planetary orbits were eliptical -- because he thought circles were more "perfect" than elipses.

But the funny thing is, because Galileo refused to accept the eliptical orbits of the planets (as calculated by Kepler), his mathematics were actually inferior in their description of reality than the ptolemaic system Over the millenia, ptolemaic astronomers had added in all sorts of ad hoc adjustments to match their geocentric system to observed reality -- absurdly complex and ultimately wrong, but a much more accurate description of the observed fact's than galileo's circular orbits.

So why this whole thing about how Galileo was this "martyr for science?" Seems to me to be another anticlerical fiction -- a little rewriting of history that confirms the popular impression that the church opposes "science."

So who does things like this? Well in the case of Columbus, it was a guy named Washington Irving. In the case of Galileo, I suppose it's the morons writing and passing along limericks that rewrite history to serve their own purposes.

What I really don't understand is how people can actually make up stories to support their argument. As though the truth of the matter is less important than persuading people. Secular Fundamentalism strikes again, I guess.

Senses of "evolution"

The word "evolution" is used in so many senses that it's often confusing. The most commonly used senses I've heard are:

* Development of an individual ("I started out as a mathematician. But I gradually evolved into an engineer").

* Development of an idea ("Continue the discussion, and brainstorm, until your ideas evolve into something you can put into use.")

* Development of a design ("Cars evolved from the relatively primitive Model T to the modern Hybrid.")

* Adaption of an organism ("Organisms vary naturally, and those best suited to their environment tend to spread.")

* The story of the origin and history of life ("Life appeared as a spontaneous, self-replicating protocell, and developed through variation and natural selection into everything we have around us today.")

What's interesting to me is how loosely many evolutionists use the terms. I once made the old argument that "similarity does not imply common descent any more than it implies common design because there are "intermediate forms" among cars, but we all know cars didn't evolve" to an evolutionist. His response was puzzling -- "Of course cars evolved, you idiot -- look at the changes in them over time!"

I found this to be amazing. The fundamental difference between change in gene frequencies stemming from unguided, natural processes and the "evolution" of cars through the intelligent effort of hundreds of thousands of engineers over the course of a century" seemed to be totally lost on him.

Similarly, I remember watching a youtube video by other evolutionists in which the narrator said, "If it can grow, it can evolve." The fundamental difference between an individual changing due to inborn programming and change in gene frequencies stemming from unguided, natural processes appeared to be lost on her, too.

Then today, I ran across this blog by a PhD, in which he rather extraordinarily says:

"But we most certainly do not need fossils to demonstrate the fact of evolution, as we are surrounded by evolutionary intermediates right here in the modern world. In fact, if we didn't have any fossils at all we would still conclude - from the living organisms that surround us - that evolution happens..."

In what sense is he using the word "evolution" here? Does he mean changes in gene frequencies due to unguided natural processes? If so, then how does he know that organisms are intermediates without a fossil record to show a path of development from a common ancestor to the divergent species? How can one conclude that organisms are "evolutionary intermediates" without identifying their common ancestor which would necessarily only be found in the fossil record?

These "scientists" never seem able to grasp that point. They don't seem willing or able to effectively define their terms in this area such that criteria can be effectively applied to test whether reality corresponds with theory.

The real question about "evolution" is not whether organisms adapt to their environment through variation and natural selection. That's obvious, and was known well before Darwin ever showed up on the scene. The real question is also not whether many organisms have similar characteristics. That's also obvious, and was known long before Darwin ever showed up on the scene.

The real question about evolution is unguided, universal common descent. The idea that everything descended from a single protocell that came about by happenstance and subsequently diverged into all life through variation and natural selection alone. That's the only point of contention.

Does this guy seriously think you can make claims about history without looking at the historical evidence of fossils?

If he does, he's an idiot.

But I don't think he does. He probably never sat down to really think through what he means by "evolution."

Realms of inquiry

I was reading a book about the early middle ages (around the time of Justinian) called "Justinian's Flea" -- great book, incidentally -- and the author noted that while early medieval architects and engineers were extraordinary geometers, able to calculate and measure complex shapes, etc, they were very poor at the physical aspects of engineering -- e.g. managing stress, torque, etc. That reminded me of the classical Greeks and their mastery of, and indeed obsession with, geometry.

And it got me thinking, that maybe human inquiry can be broken into three phases:

In the first phase, extending from the beginning of human history to the Renaissance, we investigated primarily the abstract -- geometry, the "forms," numbers, and abstract theology. We had no particular interest in, much less mastery of, the physical. In fact, many explicitly despised the flesh, epitomized in neoplatonism.

In the second phase, extending from the renaissance until today, we have investigated primarily the objects within our environment -- biology, physics, chemistry, psychology, medicine -- all are increasingly detailed investigation of the things within our environment. Our ability to conduct these inquiries is in fact dependent upon our mastery of abstractions -- in other words, without the ability to think that was developed during the age of abstraction, we would be unable to grasp the physical universe, so as to understand it.

But we still do not understand the environment itself. What I mean is this: we don't know what gravity "is" -- we don't know why the physical constants are what they are -- we don't understand the relationship between space and time -- we don't understand the "origins" or lack thereof -- of the universe.

And perhaps the next stage of inquiry could (will?) be into the nature of the universe itself. Einstein made some real headway into it -- but the contradictions between relativity and quantum mechanics seem to indicate that there is something deeper -- more fundamental -- about the universe than we as yet understand.

Maybe, just as our mastery of the abstract gave us the ability to grasp the physical, so our (impending?) mastery of the physical will give us the ability to grasp the nature of the universe itself?

Of course, such an understanding would be predicated upon mastery of abstraction and the physical -- something many cosmologists, materialists, and theists aren't much interested in. They preach hypothesis and speculation as somehow "science."

But understanding the universe itself would require a much deeper, more nuanced mode of thinking -- because unlike logic (in which propositions can be tested against rules) or physical reality (in which propositions can be tested against experiment) there is as yet no way to "test" propositions about the environment itself, because we have nothing to test them against.

Maybe someday?