Let’s lay this one to rest, shall we?
All science is observational – observations are what we call “data”.
All science is predictive, whether it concerns events that happened in the past, and are unlikely to occur again, or events that are reproducible.
The scientific method is simple: you construct a model that fits a current set of observations, and then use that model to predict new observations.
There IS a difference between correlational and experimental inference, and some of what the likes of Ken Ham call “historical science” is correlational rather than experimental inference. The difference is that in experimental methodology the experimenter manipulates a randomly allocated variable. That way, if the observations correlate with the manipulation, you know the observed phenomena were the result of the manipulation – you know that the observation did not cause the manipulation. Although that may be moot in QM, I don’t know.
But it has no bearing on Ham’s faux distinction. We can make models about the past that we can test by making predictions about what we will find e.g. Tiktaalik, as Bill Nye pointed out. The fact that Tiktaaliks are long dead is as irrelevant to the methodology as the fact that a murder victim is dead is irrelevant to forensic methodology. In fact there is a sense in which all observations are in the past by the time we’ve observed them.
And it is possible to make predictions about what observations we will make if the world is 13 billion years old, and if it is 6000 years old. And the predictions arising from the former model are confirmed by multiple independent observations, and those from the latter by zilch.
And I and others pointed out that’s incorrect. There’s lots more to science than that. You don’t get to make up your own definitions which don’t fit the reality of what we call science.
I notice you have ignored the several examples of experiments which give different results when repeated.
No, I made no mention of ID or ToE or anything wrong with any theories. Stop putting words in my mouth. I wrote exactly what I meant and you can’t address it. Changing the subject doesn’t work.
I see you are unable to support your idiosyncratic definition of science
Ken Ham admitted at one point in the debate that the “research” that goes on at AiG is to find out how events took place in a way that is in agreement with his “natural reading” of the Bible.
Ham wants to claim that “historical” science is based on a person’s “world view” and that we “interpret” scientific evidence in the light of a “world” view. He then goes on to assert that the answers are in Genesis because they are being reported by someone – presumably God – who was there.
Bill Nye’s mention of the gossip game illustrates the problem with assuming that the Christian bible is an eyewitness account of what when on in the past. Ham doesn’t appear to know about the Nicean Councils and the rancorous politics that went into decisions about what Christian doctrine would be and what writings were to be included in the bible of the Christian religion. Ham wasn’t there – and yes, he admits this – but he takes gossip as evidence anyway.
In his response to the audience question asking if evolution violated the second law of thermodynamics, Ham’s answer boiled down to yes; the typical YEC answer.
That long-standing YEC assertion –going back to Henry Morris and Duane Gish (Ham is a protégé of Henry Morris) – is just plain wrong. There is no such second law of thermodynamics that says everything decays; that is the ID/creationists’ second law. Such a law is not observed in the universe. The real second law – the one that actually applies to the universe – is about the spreading around of energy; and the existence of life and evolution requires the second law instead of violating it.
This one example alone – out of many more that can be given – shows what is really going on with Ken Ham and the YEC version of “observational versus historical science.” Ham and his organization are bending and breaking science to fit a preconceived sectarian dogma; a narrow dogma out of the thousands of constantly changing and conflicting sectarian dogmas that are out there.
Sectarian dogmas have been evolving, splitting, and diverging faster than speciation takes place in evolution; but science – real science – converges. We can see the evolution and splintering of sectarian dogmas within human lifetimes.
Ham claims that “historical science” – and even “observational science” – is a matter of “interpretation” based on “world view.” To Ham and his followers, YEC science isn’t about finding about how the universe works, it is about finding a way to rationalize sectarian dogma; it is sectarian apologetics to its very core
The logical consequence of Ham’s “historical science” is Last Thursdayism. If it is true that we can’t do historical science and must “interpret” based on “worldviews,” then it is perfectly reasonable for anyone to assume that we and all our memories were created a few seconds ago and that we can know absolutely nothing about the past. All criminal activity is now permitted because we can make no assumptions about what happened in the past and who did it. Nobody is responsible for anything; and that goes against Ham’s sectarian dogma.
That’s not a difference. How do the “practical parameters” show that the theoretical model is a good enough predictor? It’s (theoretical) turtles all the way down.
Lest there be any doubt about what is happening here, the FDA requires that a post-market study validate the surrogate marker, NOT that it show that the drug has clinical benefit.
Just because a particular drug lowers HbA1c or LDL, it doesn’t prove that the drug lowers CV risk, but drugs can be approved based on this theoretical model, without demonstrating a mortality benefit for that drug.
Ken Ham’s use of the distinction between “historical science” and “observational science” is much like the creationist’s use of the distinction between microevolution and macroevolution — they take a distinction that has a perfectly good use among biologists and philosophers of science and twist it beyond recognition while denying that they are doing so.
“The fallacy of borrowed concepts,” anyone?
More like shoplifted, broken, and then returned for a refund.
All Science models should come with a’ ridiculousness quotient.’ Black hole firewall, observation changes universe, curled up dimensions, worm holes, negative energy, 10^500 universes – I find it hard to believe any of this is science. I can’t understand why you find it hard to believe in God if you can believe all those models.
coldcoffee,
Needless to say, this isn’t science. It’s a wild speculation in the absence of experimental constraints on string theory.
Its not laid to rest yet!!
Ham made a important point.
Proving past and gone events is not the same as proving present events.
Present operations of nature can be tested with your prediction stuff.
past processes and actions/results can not be tested as they are gone from present operations, as far as testing is concerned, and the past action also can’t be tested.
historical science was coined by non YEC people.
It means any predictions are still predicting very little and hardly verifiable.
Lets be simple here.
Predicting present actions of gravity is fulfilled by testing which can be done.
That is what is called operational science. Operations to prove a point.
Historical means operations can’t be performed.
You can’t make tests of evolution today. The process doesn’t exist. in fact they try to say bacteria changes equals evolution proof.
Yet this is all they can do.
There is no predictive power to evolutionary biology. There is no testing as its about invisable things.
In fact evolutionary biology has no scientific biological evidence.
Nye didn’t bring any up.
Ham is saying conclusions about origin matters can’t be investigated like things like gravity.
Its a good point.
Yet theres a better point about evolution not practicing any science at all.
You really are priceless, Robert.
How about these concepts:
Genetic variation between individuals in a population.
Phenotypic differences leading to differences of survival and/or reproduction.
Wierd??
No?? Well, if not, what does it imply?
All of those are speculative models awaiting observational confirmation. Nobody runs around strongly believing in these, and certainly nobody believes in all of them. Nobody should believe them until they have been confirmed through observation and experiment.
You guys have a hard time distinguishing speculative models from confirmed theories.
coldcoffee,
*cough* ID!
The ‘ridiculousness quotient’ would only be a subjective assessment, and would be informed by one’s level of knowledge about the subject. I’m no physicist, but I think black holes are a perfectly respectable idea, given the inevitable difficulty in actually seeing them. Observation and the universe? Tricky one. Strange things happen down in the quantum world, and our intuitions on how thing ‘should’ behave are based upon the behaviour of summed trillions of quantum objects. You can’t look at a quantum object without using another one. Worm holes and curled up dimensions – don’t get it; don’t really understand it; that’s why I went for biology! Multiverses (as in infinite) – doubtful. But more than one? Yeah, why not?
Thing is, I don’t feel the need to take my difficulty with some of these ideas to a battleground, and pronounce from my limited understanding that it’s all garbage. But evolution has this special status – simple enough to be understood by everybody, and yet so easy to dismiss on such a cursory glance, insufficient to compete with repeated utterances of Fiat Anima as a set of causal principles. That, I really don’t get.
How about the idea that your house is traveling at (pick your frame of reference) between 1,000 mph and 1,000 km/s, and while it does this it is rotating. Clearly ridiculous!
But, as Allan points out, our intuitions are based on the behavior of objects about the same size as us, +/- a few orders of magnitude. If we were made in the Lord’s image, you might expect us to be slightly less parochial.
You said “Then, if given the same initial conditions we are not sure we can expect the same outcome how science can make any prediction at all?”
Since we know that in in QM experiments the same initial conditions lead to different results,, it is a simple logical deduction to conclude that your definition of science leads to science not being able to predict anything at all.
In addition to black-white thinking few if any creationists are capable of simple logical deductions of the consequences of their claim.
And several people have pointed out that’s false in at least two ways. I challenge you again to support your claim by reference to some credible authority or reasoned argumentation. Obviously you can’t. But your assertion about what science can or cannot do is not credible.
In this subthread we are discussing your risible definition of science. Not errors in any particular theories
Hogwash. ‘Evolve’ is the wrong word/term in this context. Meanings of ‘change’ cannot be monopolized by evolutionist ideologues without wishful, naive thinking (neither can ‘diverged,’ ‘adapted,’ ‘bifurcated,’ ‘variegated’ or ‘splintered’). Either way, it’s certainly not something a physicist (like Mike in Kalamazoo) is trained to know, nor is it something studying ‘evolution’ vs. ‘creationism’ in the USA would train a physicist for. It is simply hogwash dressed as knowledge that people in Michigan might mistakenly fall for.
It’s just like Lizzie’s high-school level HPSS, where she still talks about ‘the’ – meaning a SINGLE – ‘scientific method’ as if there aren’t multiple methods used in various sciences. Not knowing the last 30+ years of HPSS is evident in both Mike’s & Lizzie’s comments.
Lizzie writes: “The scientific method is simple.”
Yeah, a simple, misunderstood myth, perpetuated by folks like Lizzie and Mike.
But I’m not going to defend either Nye or Ham here: they’re both low-level on HPSS.
p.s. Would anyone like to bet that Vladimir Putin says his one sentence at the OC in Sochi correctly tonight, which George W. Bush (apparently the only Head of State ever) couldn’t manage to do?
Tell us which scientific method involves theology.
Is there a Slavic version of ‘weeaboo’?
What the hell is HPSS, Gregory? Could you switch to English?
I assume he means “History, Philosophy, and Sociology of Science,” since that’s Gregory’s academic specialty — though a small part of me was hoping that he meant “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”.
And I was going with High Performance Storage System.
Could be Health and Personal Social Services.
Apologies to KN, but I still haven’t seen any discussion of what scientific opportunities are being missed as a result of incomplete knowledge of HPSS.
I’d just like an example.
I’m at a loss myself.
At my most charitable, I would say that a deficient understanding of the history, philosophy, and sociology of science could lead one to make mistaken claims about science — for example, claiming that science has shown that philosophy is dead (as Hawking did) or that God is a “failed hypothesis” (as Stenger did).
However, I also think it is a mistake to interpret Gregory as making any claims about missed opportunities about the course of scientific research itself. That’s just not what he’s up to — and it’s certainly not a claim I’ve seen made in any of the HPSS that I’ve read. (Granted, I’m not well-read in the sociology of science, but I’m basically competent in the history of science, the philosophy of science, and the history of the philosophy of science — I have a few friends active in HOPOS. Note that there’s nothing at all there about how a neglect of the history of the philosophy of science has led scientific inquiry down a wrong path!)
I would suspect that Gregory is more about public policy. Even so, I would personally argue that working scientists are better able to analyze policy thin philosophers.
In the same way that stockbrokers are better than economists at predicting trends.
At least that’s what I heard from my old college roommate, who got his PhD under a Nobel Laureate and headed the econ department at a major university.
aside from slinging epithets and insults, I don’t think Gregory has made the case that philosophy hasn’t become science, pretty much the same way that alchemy became chemistry.
I can’t think of any branch of thought that isn’t now, or in the process of becoming, empirical. Even the precious gems of ethics and morality are now analyzed in terms of utility.
That ethics can be handled in terms of utility has been known since the philosophers Bentham and Mill first proposed the idea. But whether we should conceptualize ethics in terms of utility remains as contentious today as it was when it was first proposed.
For whether we should think about ethics in terms of utility to begin with is, and always will be, a philosophical question that just can’t be handled by science. There’s no substitute for science when it comes to telling what is the case, but empirical inquiry into matters of fact is just the wrong kind of discourse for telling us what ought to be the case.
While ethics informed by science (e.g. by cognitive psychology, sociology, or ecology) is better than science-free ethics, I see no way how the subject-matter of ethical deliberation — “what ought one do?” — can be superseded by any empirical science whatsoever.
Gregory certainly doesn’t know that many of us have had direct experience with ID/creationism’s perpetrators, their followers, and the people who have been directly attacked by the likes of Duane Gish. There are thousands of written records spanning the entire history of the ID/creationist movement. There are books written by ID/creationists in their own words. There are court documents that even he can access if he tried.
And Gregory’s presumptuous comments on the professions of others, even as he excuses himself from having to learn any of it, is certainly not the mark of a professional scholar with the necessary skills to do research in the areas of the sociology of science.
I don’t believe that anyone can claim to be a scholar of the history, philosophy, and sociology of science when one repeatedly mischaracterizes and gets completely wrong the knowledge and experience of others. Sassy, juvenile schoolyard taunting is not what scholars do to study and learn about people and their work. So I am not convinced that Gregory is what he claims he is.
But you will notice that he has just now, yet again, shifted the topic of conversation onto himself.
I say we stick to the OP. Many of us here in the US know the socio/political history of Ham’s organization.
If anyone is interested, here is another sectarian organization distancing itself from Ken Ham and Bill Nye.
They even provided links to former debates – e.g., the multipart series of the debate on the John Ankerberg show – that allows one to observe in real time the tension among sectarians about the age of the universe.
The question of what should we do is of the same category as what products should we make and what factories should we build.
They are intractable to reason because they all depend on knowing something about the future that is simply unknowable.
It’s the same problem faced by biological populations in producing variants and adapting to changing environments. You don’t really know what will work.
Imagine if you will, having command of a population’s genome, and having the ability to produce a new generation having a new allele, a new variant fixed in one swoop. No messy path to fixation. Just do the right thing.
That’s been the approach many societies have made to designing and implementing ethics and morality. Just reason out the one true path and enforce it, either through religion or through the law.
I think there are inborn personality traits that lead different people to favor different approaches to ethics and morality. Some people seem to desire authoritarian solutions and some people are comfortable with the hustle and jostle of a relaxed society. I think people gravitate toward philosophies that fit their temperament rather than by reasoning from objectively true premises.
So when I call myself an evilutionist in nearly all things, I include ethics and morality, because I am one of those people comfortable with messily evolving ethics.
Indeed we do.
And while I do not endorse the conflict model as a way of thinking about science and religion per se, I simply cannot be charitable to creationism (and ID) in the same way. I regard creationists pretty much the same way I regard other conspiracy theorists (Holocaust deniers, 9/11 “truthers”, Obama “birthers”, etc.) — they just aren’t the kinds of people with whom it’s possible to have a rational conversation.
(And as I say that as someone who has had many delightful and reasonable conversations with various believers, religious scholars, rabbis, and priests over the years.)
Kantian Naturalist,
Very well put, KN.
And while I’m handing out (justified) praise, I think that Liz nailed it in the OP.
🙂
Yeah; the “conflict model” is a naive assessment of the relationship between science and religion. Anyone who has studied the history would know it is far more complex than that.
Yes, that’s what I meant by HPSS. It’s one of my fields of study/teaching and current focus of research. “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” is more appropriate for the discussion here (e.g. KN’s sophistic ‘myth of the given,’ proto-empiricism, self-doubtful-quasi-naturalism, ex-Reform non-religious Jewish, pseudo-atheist eclecticism) and that which Nye vs. Ham engaged in.
Lizzie is on that same low level HPSS with her single MONOLITHIC ‘the’ scientific method talk (like they teach to school children). KN could have corrected her, but chose not to.
petrushka’s growth seems to have been stunted such that he can’t ask anything other than instrumentalist questions.
Yeah, that seem true, KN. Usually they start with Merton in your USAmerican context. It would help you interpret why Ruse (PoS) was replaced with Fuller (SoS/STS) in the Dover trial. The topic of most significance nowadays is how people interpret ‘science,’ not only ‘natural(istic) science’ and it relates to the core of this blog’s raison d’etre contra IDism. But most USAmericans and Brits don’t yet recognise this – and it might indeed be SoS practitioners to blame because people there simply aren’t aware of integral knowledge and often flail away at gnats (thinking that’s most important) instead opening into the heart of the conversation.
That’s why quite a few people here at TSZ balk at actually facing and contemplating ‘scientism’ (a thread that KN started on the topic displays the TSZ escapism amply) as if they won’t admit it into polite discourse. They simply won’t acknowledge one of the key ‘skeptic’ ideologies that they hold publically, and oftentimes not even to themselves! Scientism cannot exist, because to exist as ideology would mean to undress their worldview for the public to see.
Those people afraid of discussing ‘scientism’ these days, who cry publically that it is (and can be) *ONLY* used as a pejorative and not as a legitimate descriptive term, are simply outdated or unaware of more important conversations. They are not important in the broader discourse. And they are usually angry and frustrated that more and more people (e.g. Pigliucci, Pinker, Hughes, Kitcher, C. White, Hutchinson, etc.) are taking it seriously and criticizing it as a representation of the ‘new atheist’ worldview in USA and UK.
They want to shut their eyes, close their ears, cover their mouths…and try to make it go away. That’s what a guy like Mike Elzinga represents at TSZ, even though I largely agree with him about Ham and about much of IDism and creationism.
One could engage with the ‘science wars’ of the 1990’s/2000s too, KN. But that’s above the pay grade here.
What’s with the unwise lunacy of conflation by petrushka?
Bottom line: Lizzie was wrong about a mythical SINGLE scientific method in her OP. Mike was later wrong about non-biological ‘evolution.’ Full stop. But most atheist/skeptic folks here at TSZ likely will defend Lizzie and Mike at any cost, heads in the sand. ‘Wrong’ to them simply means, anything that threatens their epistemology-lite ‘worldview.’
Gregory,
You are oft-times barely distinguishable from Willam J Murray. The only reason people don’t buy your arguments being their lead-brained, blinkered inability to see their fundamental rightness? Well, sure … if you say so.
Allan Miller,
Oh, right, Allan, this is a no-psychology, no-sociology-allowed blog, no matter how accurate and on-display here ‘scientism’ is at TSZ. You’re above all of that, of course, Allan, because you are an expert on ‘scientism’ and write about it often here at TSZ, right? Please show us where, if not here: http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/?p=3334
Carry on then and don’t forget to clean the sand…
Gregory,
Gregory,
Would it be scientism to suggest that sociologists generally don’t understand quantum mechanics? 🙂
Actually, Gregory, in your torrent of invective, you have neglected to say anything that we could agree or disagree with.
I would say Gary Gaulin.
olegt,
That’s like saying ‘division of labour’ was discovered by physicists or mathematicians or that ‘Oleg’ is a typically Latin American or Arabic name. Both are of course blatant untruths. Why should sociologists be expected to understand/study quantum mechanics?
olegt is acting goofy (thus the smiley emoticon), when actually he should know better than most at TSZ about ideology, given his Russia-to-USA pathway. Atheist Russian/Soviet emigrant scientists/scholars *should* realise more about positivism, empiricism and scientism as IDEOLOGIES than most USAmericans. 20th century SoS reveals this profoundly, in depth and interdisciplinarily.
It seems instead that olegt has his own special story to tell about why he seems to support and/or advocate scientism, framed and molded within his personal worldview. Otherwise, why would he mock a legitimate topic that undresses his own position? A Russian-American atheist who couldn’t (read: refused to) see atheism’s (sometimes diabolic) influence on Soviet science and scholarship (never heard of Lysenko?!)? Strange, but possible.
I fail to see a link between atheism and Lysenkoism.
Love you, too, Gregory.
I am still trying to figure out what scientism is. I am aware that ID proponents and amateur philosophers throw the word around a lot. Still don’t know what the term means exactly. So I was only half-joking when I asked my question. Maybe it’s a legitimate topic, but I have to figure out what the topic is.
For what it’s worth, my operational definition is that it’s a variety of sour grapes. But I could be wrong.
And you are not helping, Gregory. You jump back and forth between scientism, atheism, and creationism and I have trouble following your train of thought. Was Lysenko a product of scientism or atheism? I think it was a random outcome of the Soviet bureaucracy that sometimes put good scientists at the top (Kapitza in physics) and sometimes bad ones (Lysenko in biology). The system didn’t get everything right, but neither did it get everything wrong.
And positivism as an ideology? Oh, come on. Where is the positivists’ program of action?
Lysenko was an atheist. Atheism is inherent in Lysenkoism.
olegt probably knows this, although perhaps he chooses to forget it in order to uplift his agnostic-atheist worldview.
“I am still trying to figure out what scientism is…Maybe it’s a legitimate topic, but I have to figure out what the topic is.” – olegt
Maybe?! Go and read something then. There are probably 30-40 articles written in English-language newspapers and another 15-20 articles in journals over the past three years. (I even listed SIX names above, which you might lift a finger to discover!!) Russian native scholars tell me ‘scientism’ is widely discussed in Russian language news, as do even my students.
Do you not know how to do an internet search on ‘scientism’ olegt?!?
It is not (or certainly, no longer) just IDists and creationists who use the term. This is a reality people who hold your worldview seem unprepared to openly face.
Please go and learn something and come back with elevated knowledge. Otherwise, discussion is a waste of time.
“positivism as an ideology? Oh, come on.”
Goodness, you’ve been out of the picture too long. You’ve read Comte, right? You know the 3 stages ‘theory,’ his course in ‘positive’ philosophy and general positivism from your Soviet education, as well as his ‘religion of humanity,’ right? Or not?
As with many failed ideas, the problem with Lysenko was not that he was wrong, but that he and his political allies failed to learn from experiment.
Rule one in science: form a hypothesis. Rule two: test it. Rule three: return to rule one, with revisions.
The Lysenko problem is not unique, even if it’s consequences were enormous.
If Gregory wishes to talk about the misuse of science by government, I’ll listen. But I don’t think it’s conceptually different from the misuse of religion by government.
One, and only ONE scientific method? And *everything* evolves? Wrong. Out.
Gregory,
What does it matter to you what I choose to contribute to? I read much that gets written here, but post or not according to my interest and time. Mostly, I post about protein and DNA and evolutionary theory and suchlike.
I have lesser interest in the questions you find more interesting. But you can of course post what you like.
My comment was prompted by the familiarity of the non-argument – “it’s yer ideological blinkers’. Addressing people while in the same breath saying “but you won’t get this, of course, you’re too [insert pejorative here]”. I have no deep interest in ‘scientism’ per se.
It was spelled out before I was even born, Allan! You are talking nonsense.
Again, that you don’t care is on you.
And ideology is not an ‘non-argument.’ Unless one simply wants to ignore the social world, of which you are a part. Neo says ‘Wake up!’
Is scientism a code-word for the misuse of science in public policy?
A little help here would be appreciated.
If Lysenko is an example of scientism, that’s a partial response to my request. Elaborate, please.
Gregory,
You’re right, Gregory, I edited that out of my post, but you’d spotted it before I pressed ‘Save’.
Gregory,
I read Pigliucci’s article Steven Pinker embraces scientism. Bad move, I think. He is one of the six people you mention above.
Alright, let’s see what this is about. He chides Pinker for saying that science is the only force for the good:
If that’s what scientism is, I am not a proponent of that. Science can’t produce Mozart’s piano concerti or Tolstoy’s War and Peace. There, I said it. It cannot produce a functioning civil society, either. It can facilitate it, but its methods are no good at creating it it in the first place.
Nuance, Gregory, nuance.