Proof?

[SkepticalJack]

Scientists care about one thing, and one thing only. The truth. They constantly search for new evidence, and constantly attempt to prove old theories wrong. If anyone had any solid proof that evolution was false, scientists wouldn't ignore them. They would give them the Nobel Prize.

Scientists follow the evidence. They believe what the evidence shows them. If there were evidence of miraculous creation, 99+ percent of biologists wouldn't support evolution.

 

[trust_in_the_name]

Scientists care about one thing, and one thing only. The truth. They constantly search for new evidence, and constantly attempt to prove old theories wrong. If anyone had any solid proof that evolution was false, scientists wouldn't ignore them. They would give them the Nobel Prize.

Scientists follow the evidence. They believe what the evidence shows them. If there were evidence of miraculous creation, 99+ percent of biologists wouldn't support evolution.

Sure enough. God revealed Himself through the gospel of Jesus Christ, not the fossil record. If He had decided to show His providence through science, faith would be an intellectual matter instead of a moral or spiritual one, and what sense would that make?

 

[ItinerantLurker]

I am trying to prove evolution is wrong.

Why? Have you honestly asked yourself this?

I know the basic proof from the Bible but so does everyone else...including non-Christians.

Surely you realize that anyone, Christian or non-Christian, who doesn't hold to your particular interpretation of the Bible isn't going to view this as a "basic proof" don't you?

i need deeper more hard facts to prove that the Bible is true to strong atheist and non-Christians.

If that's your intent then why waste time trying to disprove the leading theory in biology?

So if anyone could give me any proof from the bible that is supported well enough to present to a crowd of non-believers your help wold be greatly appreciated...

Why would a non-believer care about a proof from the Bible? They don't believe in it, ergo any "proof" based on what it says will be entirely without merit in their minds. You are not going to be able to prove the Bible by quoting the Bible to people who don't view the Bible as reliable.

Oh yeah! not to sound picky but if you have a website could you leave a link or the url THANKS!

Sounds like you want us to do your homework for you, why not actually research the issue yourself? My advice would be to focus your thesis statement a bit more - either decide to persuade your audience of the reliability of scripture or to persuade them of the unreliability of the ToE (I'd suggest the former as attempting the latter would, by definition, be a tremendous fail).




Lurker

 

[Credo_ut_Intelligam]

Scientists care about one thing, and one thing only. The truth. They constantly search for new evidence, and constantly attempt to prove old theories wrong. If anyone had any solid proof that evolution was false, scientists wouldn't ignore them. They would give them the Nobel Prize.

Scientists follow the evidence. They believe what the evidence shows them. If there were evidence of miraculous creation, 99+ percent of biologists wouldn't support evolution.

This is an incredibly naive and outdated view of science. Of course scientists, like everyone else (e.g. theologians, artists, and Young Earth Creationists) will claim allegiance to truth. But to assume that scientists (or anyone else) just looks at the facts and follows them wherever they lead without pre-theoretical commitments, biases, prejudices, or an entire worldview which effects their plausibility structure of interpreting data is literally absurd.

As the atheist Richard Lewontin famously (or infamously) admitted:

Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.​

("Billions and Billions of Demons." NY Times. 1997.)

Or as the physicist Paul Davies more recently put it:

science has its own faith-based belief system... its claim to be free of faith is manifestly bogus.​

("Taking Science on Faith." NY Times. 2007.)

Or as the atheist philosopher Massimo Pigliucci put it:

[New Atheists] seem to equate science with reason, yet another position that is abysmally simplistic from a philosophical perspective. Science is conducted through the application of reason to a particular type of problems and in particular ways... Indeed, even science itself is far from being an activity rooted in reason alone.​

("Jerry Coyne, Then and Now." Rationally Speaking blog post. 2010.)

I provide all these quotes from scientists and atheists simply to demonstrate how out of touch you seem to be with what should be your own posse. It's sort of like the Young Earth Creationist who uses the argument that lack of moon dust proves the earth is only 6,000 years old. All the while, he doesn't realize that his own authorities in the field have said "Pssst, we dropped that argument a long time ago."

If you're looking for an explanation as to why this simplistic view of science has been dropped, you can start with Thomas Kuhn's book "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions." In analyzing the idea that scientists just look at facts, without prior theoretical commitments, Kuhn observes:

...history offers no support for so excessively Baconian a method. Boyle's experiments were not conceivable (and if conceived would have received another interpretation or none at all) until air was recognizes as an elastic fluid to which all the elaborate concepts of hydrostatics could be applied. Coulomb's success depended upon his constructing special apparatus to measure the force between point charges. (Those who had previously measured electrical forces using ordinary pan balances, etc., had found no consistent or simple regularity at all.) But that design, in turn, depended upon the previous recognition that every particle of electric fluid acts upon every other at a distance. It was for the force between such particles--the only force which might safely be assumed a simple function of distance--that coulomb was looking. Joule's experiments could also be used to illustrate how quantitative laws emerge through paradigm articulation... No process yet disclosed by the historical study of scientific development at all resembles the methodological stereotype of falsification by direct comparison with nature… the act of judgment that leads scientists to reject a previously accepted theory is always based upon more than a comparison of that theory with the world... [Counter-instances to a scientific theory] can at best help to create a crisis or, more accurately, to reinforce one that is already very much in existence. By themselves they cannot and will not falsify that philosophical theory, for its defenders will do what we have already seen scientists doing when confronted by anomaly. They will devise numerous articulations and ad hoc modifications of their theory in order to eliminate any apparent conflict.​

(Unfortunately I only have the Kindle edition of this book, which means I don't have any page numbers for these quotes, but these are from sections 3 and 8 of the 3rd edition.)

The truth is, science, no matter how high your idealistic expectations, is practiced by scientists (not disinterested robots).

It is practiced by scientists who are persons with their own set of religious or irreligious commitments, prejudices, and worldviews.

Scientists who can be just as dogmatically committed to a position, despite the evidence, as a priest.

Scientists who can even be so dogmatically committed to a position that they will twist and distort the evidence (as Harvard scientist Marc Hauser was recently found to be doing with research on monkeys).

Scientists who can enter the field of science, not because they have a noble, disinterested aim to discover truth, whatever that may turn out to be, but because they believe they have already arrived at truth (prior to becoming scientists) and now they want to set out to prove their conclusion. As the atheist scientist Francis Crick observed:

"I went into science because of these religious reasons, there's no doubt about that. I asked myself what were the two things that appear inexplicable and are used to support religious beliefs: the difference between living and nonliving things, and the phenomenon of consciousness."​

("Do Our Genes Reveal the Hand of God?" The Telegraph. 2003.)

So what are we to make of your claim that

If there were evidence of miraculous creation, 99+ percent of biologists wouldn't support evolution.

Really? Atheistic scientists, who are motivated by their atheism, would just throw off Darwinism were there any evidence at all? Recall that Richard Dawkins has said that Darwin made it intellectually respectable to be an atheist. In other words, if you are an atheist, then Darwinism is the only game in town. These scientists can't afford to let Darwinism fail, lest their entire house come crumbling down.

But the only thing that is crumbled thus far is your ideas that scientists only care about truth and would gladly dismiss evolution were there evidence.

 

[Credo_ut_Intelligam]

As per the topic of the thread:

I would suggest you simply pick a different subject to persuade your audience of. Primarily because the subject is too complex if you haven't already studied it in some depth to be capable of presenting anything that would approximate a persuasive and understandable case in however long your speech is (5 min?).

 

[ItinerantLurker]

This is an incredibly naive and outdated view of science. Of course scientists, like everyone else (e.g. theologians, artists, and Young Earth Creationists) will claim allegiance to truth. But to assume that scientists (or anyone else) just looks at the facts and follows them wherever they lead without pre-theoretical commitments, biases, prejudices, or an entire worldview which effects their plausibility structure of interpreting data is literally absurd.

Enter the scientific method. In science bias is checked by a rigorous methodology of observation, experimentation, and conclusions based on evidence. Not only that but those observations, experiments, and conclusions are then published with the express purpose of having other scientists the world over who may or many not agree with the conclusion in question be able to do the same experiment and reach the same result. And while this, of course, is not a perfect check of all bias history supports its success as time and time again controversial theories with which many scientists vehemently oppose at the time of their first being proposed have been accepted because of the evidence supporting them.

{snip quote mines}

Why should I care about quote mines? The history of various theories such as general relativity and evolution clearly demonstrate scientist's ability to overcome their bias in the face of overwhelming evidence. If you're trying to fight historical trends with anecdotal evidence then I've got some bad news: historical trends > anecdotes.

Really? Atheistic scientists, who are motivated by their atheism, would just throw off Darwinism were there any evidence at all? Recall that Richard Dawkins has said that Darwin made it intellectually respectable to be an atheist. In other words, if you are an atheist, then Darwinism is the only game in town. These scientists can't afford to let Darwinism fail, lest their entire house come crumbling down.

Atheism pre-dates Darwin, ergo Atheism "needs" evolution about as much as Christianity "needs" plate tectonics.




Lurker

 

[Credo_ut_Intelligam]

Enter the scientific method. [...] Why should I care about quote mines? The history of various theories such as general relativity and evolution clearly demonstrate scientist's ability to overcome their bias in the face of overwhelming evidence. If you're trying to fight historical trends with anecdotal evidence then I've got some bad news: historical trends > anecdotes.

Clearly you're not familiar with the landscape, which confirms Massimo Pigliucci's remark that "many scientists do not understand the nature of science as well as philosophers do, and are hence prone to make exaggerated claims about how science works and what it can do. This should not surprise anybody, since the business of scientists is to do science, not to spend time thinking about its history and methods. That is why philosophy (and history) of science are scholarly activities that are legitimately distinct from science itself."

But if you ever get the chance to pick up Kuhn's book go ahead and do so. You'll see why paradigm shifts to relativity or Darwinism don't help your case. He uses both to support his remarks.

To even speak of "the" scientific method evidences naivety. I have three philosophy of science books within my reach as I sit at my desk here. Thumbing through each of them I notice a conspicuous absence of any discussion on demarcating "the" scientific method. In fact, the first, Rosenberg's, only speaks of "methods of science" (notice the plural). The second, Godfrey-Smith, only mentions "the scientific method" to point out that "recently textbooks seem to have become more cautious about this" due to developments in the philosophy of science. And the last, Okasha's, suggests that science may be more like a Wittgensteinian "game" with "no fixed set of features that define what it is..."

Of course you're more than welcome to cover your eyes and try to march on in some Baconian ideal, reminding yourself that "It rests on observation and experiment after all!" But science is still practiced by humans having all those qualities I listed earlier.

And adding peer review won't help you plug any holes in that idealism. Take, for example, scientists experience with fluctuating assymetry and the decline effect:

Leigh Simmons reported, "...when I submitted these null results I had difficulty getting them published. The journals only wanted confirming data. It was too exciting an idea to disprove, at least back then.” (The Truth Wears Off. New Yorker). The article continues: "Jennions, similarly, argues that the decline effect is largely a product of publication bias, or the tendency of scientists and scientific journals to prefer positive data over null results, which is what happens when no effect is found. The bias was first identified by the statistician Theodore Sterling, in 1959, after he noticed that ninety-seven per cent of all published psychological studies with statistically significant data found the effect they were looking for... Richard Palmer, a biologist at the University of Alberta, who has studied the problems surrounding fluctuating asymmetry, suspects that an equally significant issue is the selective reporting of results—the data that scientists choose to document in the first place... 'Once I realized that selective reporting is everywhere in science, I got quite depressed,' Palmer told me. 'As a researcher, you’re always aware that there might be some nonrandom patterns, but I had no idea how widespread it is.' In a recent review article, Palmer summarized the impact of selective reporting on his field: 'We cannot escape the troubling conclusion that some—perhaps many—cherished generalities are at best exaggerated in their biological significance and at worst a collective illusion nurtured by strong a-priori beliefs often repeated.'"

By the way, Marc Hauser, the guy I mentioned last time for getting busted, got his work published. Oops...

To dismiss all this as quote mining and anecdotal evidence only misses the point. These are descriptions of how real science works (or fails to work), despite the overly glorified and idealistic view of science (or should that be Science) that many worshiping in the cathedrals of Scientism would have you believe.

Atheism pre-dates Darwin, ergo Atheism "needs" evolution about as much as Christianity "needs" plate tectonics.

Boxing with a straw-man? Or just responding for the sake of it? I never said atheism "needs" evolution, especially not in the sense of ~Darwinism = ~Atheism. But nice try.

 

[Thomas60]

I'd argue there is no 'study of science' except in philosophy, doing science literally is 'using the scientific method', science is a method, to base investigation into topics such as history, archeology, meteorology, biology, physics, astronomy.. almost anything etc. I wouldn't call them mutually exclusive topics.

 

[trust_in_the_name]

This is an incredibly naive and outdated view of science. Of course scientists, like everyone else (e.g. theologians, artists, and Young Earth Creationists) will claim allegiance to truth. But to assume that scientists (or anyone else) just looks at the facts and follows them wherever they lead without pre-theoretical commitments, biases, prejudices, or an entire worldview which effects their plausibility structure of interpreting data is literally absurd.

As the atheist Richard Lewontin famously (or infamously) admitted:

Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural.
​

Common sense is fallible and has no inherent claim to authority apart from reason.

We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

("Billions and Billions of Demons." NY Times. 1997.)

Or as the physicist Paul Davies more recently put it:

science has its own faith-based belief system... its claim to be free of faith is manifestly bogus.
​

("Taking Science on Faith." NY Times. 2007.)

Or as the atheist philosopher Massimo Pigliucci put it:

[New Atheists] seem to equate science with reason, yet another position that is abysmally simplistic from a philosophical perspective. Science is conducted through the application of reason to a particular type of problems and in particular ways... Indeed, even science itself is far from being an activity rooted in reason alone.
​

The conclusion is a non-sequiter. It's not substantiated by the argument given. The fact that science is a particular application of reason doesn't imply that it's rooted in something in addition to reason.

("Jerry Coyne, Then and Now." Rationally Speaking blog post. 2010.)

I provide all these quotes from scientists and atheists simply to demonstrate how out of touch you seem to be with what should be your own posse. It's sort of like the Young Earth Creationist who uses the argument that lack of moon dust proves the earth is only 6,000 years old. All the while, he doesn't realize that his own authorities in the field have said "Pssst, we dropped that argument a long time ago."

If you're looking for an explanation as to why this simplistic view of science has been dropped, you can start with Thomas Kuhn's book "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions." In analyzing the idea that scientists just look at facts, without prior theoretical commitments, Kuhn observes:

...history offers no support for so excessively Baconian a method. Boyle's experiments were not conceivable (and if conceived would have received another interpretation or none at all) until air was recognizes as an elastic fluid to which all the elaborate concepts of hydrostatics could be applied. Coulomb's success depended upon his constructing special apparatus to measure the force between point charges. (Those who had previously measured electrical forces using ordinary pan balances, etc., had found no consistent or simple regularity at all.) But that design, in turn, depended upon the previous recognition that every particle of electric fluid acts upon every other at a distance. It was for the force between such particles--the only force which might safely be assumed a simple function of distance--that coulomb was looking. Joule's experiments could also be used to illustrate how quantitative laws emerge through paradigm articulation... No process yet disclosed by the historical study of scientific development at all resembles the methodological stereotype of falsification by direct comparison with nature… the act of judgment that leads scientists to reject a previously accepted theory is always based upon more than a comparison of that theory with the world... [Counter-instances to a scientific theory] can at best help to create a crisis or, more accurately, to reinforce one that is already very much in existence. By themselves they cannot and will not falsify that philosophical theory, for its defenders will do what we have already seen scientists doing when confronted by anomaly. They will devise numerous articulations and ad hoc modifications of their theory in order to eliminate any apparent conflict.
​

Initially, this may be true, and has been seen to be true in some cases in the history of science. But it was just these sorts of anomalies that eventually led to the extension of classical physics during the first half of the twentieth century through the formulation of relativity and quantum mechanics.

(Unfortunately I only have the Kindle edition of this book, which means I don't have any page numbers for these quotes, but these are from sections 3 and 8 of the 3rd edition.)

The truth is, science, no matter how high your idealistic expectations, is practiced by scientists (not disinterested robots).

It is practiced by scientists who are persons with their own set of religious or irreligious commitments, prejudices, and worldviews.

Scientists who can be just as dogmatically committed to a position, despite the evidence, as a priest.

Scientists who can even be so dogmatically committed to a position that they will twist and distort the evidence (as Harvard scientist Marc Hauser was recently found to be doing with research on monkeys).

Scientists who can enter the field of science, not because they have a noble, disinterested aim to discover truth, whatever that may turn out to be, but because they believe they have already arrived at truth (prior to becoming scientists) and now they want to set out to prove their conclusion. As the atheist scientist Francis Crick observed:

"I went into science because of these religious reasons, there's no doubt about that. I asked myself what were the two things that appear inexplicable and are used to support religious beliefs: the difference between living and nonliving things, and the phenomenon of consciousness."
​

("Do Our Genes Reveal the Hand of God?" The Telegraph. 2003.)

So what are we to make of your claim that



Really? Atheistic scientists, who are motivated by their atheism, would just throw off Darwinism were there any evidence at all? Recall that Richard Dawkins has said that Darwin made it intellectually respectable to be an atheist. In other words, if you are an atheist, then Darwinism is the only game in town. These scientists can't afford to let Darwinism fail, lest their entire house come crumbling down.

But the only thing that is crumbled thus far is your ideas that scientists only care about truth and would gladly dismiss evolution were there evidence.

 

[trust_in_the_name]

Clearly you're not familiar with the landscape, which confirms Massimo Pigliucci's remark that "many scientists do not understand the nature of science as well as philosophers do, and are hence prone to make exaggerated claims about how science works and what it can do. This should not surprise anybody, since the business of scientists is to do science, not to spend time thinking about its history and methods. That is why philosophy (and history) of science are scholarly activities that are legitimately distinct from science itself."

But if you ever get the chance to pick up Kuhn's book go ahead and do so. You'll see why paradigm shifts to relativity or Darwinism don't help your case. He uses both to support his remarks.

To even speak of "the" scientific method evidences naivety. I have three philosophy of science books within my reach as I sit at my desk here. Thumbing through each of them I notice a conspicuous absence of any discussion on demarcating "the" scientific method. In fact, the first, Rosenberg's, only speaks of "methods of science" (notice the plural). The second, Godfrey-Smith, only mentions "the scientific method" to point out that "recently textbooks seem to have become more cautious about this" due to developments in the philosophy of science. And the last, Okasha's, suggests that science may be more like a Wittgensteinian "game" with "no fixed set of features that define what it is..."

I'd say that it's generally understood in science that the scientific method is not a singular method, despite the common use of the singular form with the definite article, which is often just a matter of convention or convenience for the sake of simplicity.

Of course you're more than welcome to cover your eyes and try to march on in some Baconian ideal, reminding yourself that "It rests on observation and experiment after all!" But science is still practiced by humans having all those qualities I listed earlier.

And adding peer review won't help you plug any holes in that idealism. Take, for example, scientists experience with fluctuating assymetry and the decline effect:

Leigh Simmons reported, "...when I submitted these null results I had difficulty getting them published. The journals only wanted confirming data. It was too exciting an idea to disprove, at least back then.” (The Truth Wears Off. New Yorker). The article continues: "Jennions, similarly, argues that the decline effect is largely a product of publication bias, or the tendency of scientists and scientific journals to prefer positive data over null results, which is what happens when no effect is found. The bias was first identified by the statistician Theodore Sterling, in 1959, after he noticed that ninety-seven per cent of all published psychological studies with statistically significant data found the effect they were looking for... Richard Palmer, a biologist at the University of Alberta, who has studied the problems surrounding fluctuating asymmetry, suspects that an equally significant issue is the selective reporting of results—the data that scientists choose to document in the first place... 'Once I realized that selective reporting is everywhere in science, I got quite depressed,' Palmer told me. 'As a researcher, you’re always aware that there might be some nonrandom patterns, but I had no idea how widespread it is.' In a recent review article, Palmer summarized the impact of selective reporting on his field: 'We cannot escape the troubling conclusion that some—perhaps many—cherished generalities are at best exaggerated in their biological significance and at worst a collective illusion nurtured by strong a-priori beliefs often repeated.'"

By the way, Marc Hauser, the guy I mentioned last time for getting busted, got his work published. Oops...

To dismiss all this as quote mining and anecdotal evidence only misses the point. These are descriptions of how real science works (or fails to work), despite the overly glorified and idealistic view of science (or should that be Science) that many worshiping in the cathedrals of Scientism would have you believe.



Boxing with a straw-man? Or just responding for the sake of it? I never said atheism "needs" evolution, especially not in the sense of ~Darwinism = ~Atheism. But nice try.

 

[Credo_ut_Intelligam]

I'd argue there is no 'study of science' except in philosophy,

Yes, the question "what is science?" is a philosophical question that obviously cannot be answered by a "scientific" method. You cannot apply a scientific method to demarcate science until you have established that a thing constitutes a scientific method.

doing science literally is 'using the scientific method', science is a method, to base investigation into topics such as history, archeology, meteorology, biology, physics, astronomy.. almost anything etc. I wouldn't call them mutually exclusive topics.

Except for there is no singular method employed by all science. For instance, not all sciences can practice experimentation, as Okasha points out.

 

[Credo_ut_Intelligam]

The conclusion is a non-sequiter. It's not substantiated by the argument given. The fact that science is a particular application of reason doesn't imply that it's rooted in something in addition to reason.

I wasn't giving his argument. Notice that he starts the last sentence off with "Indeed" and not "Therefore..."

Initially, this may be true, and has been seen to be true in some cases in the history of science. But it was just these sorts of anomalies that eventually led to the extension of classical physics during the first half of the twentieth century through the formulation of relativity and quantum mechanics.

As I pointed out to Itinerant Lurker, Kuhn addresses the very example. To point out that paradigm shifts take place is not to demonstrate that they take place by a purely rational process of just looking at "the facts," where scientists who held to an older theory are persuaded by "the facts" to adopt the new one. So it does no good to simply point to relativity theory and say "Seee! We didn't used to believe THAT! Ergo, progress and Science (read "just observation and experimentation") wins again!" That itself is a non-sequitur. As Kuhn points out, many factors are involved, like a process of the old scientists who hold to the old theory simply dying off. The new scientists, not yet embedded in the old paradigm, have an easier time accepting the newer theory. Eventually the new theory becomes the new paradigm.

 

[Credo_ut_Intelligam]

I'd say that it's generally understood in science that the scientific method is not a singular method, despite the common use of the singular form with the definite article, which is often just a matter of convention or convenience for the sake of simplicity.

Godfrey-Smith didn't think so, which is why he pointed out that science textbooks are trying to be more careful about the issue. Apparently science textbooks don't think so either. It looks like they recognize that "the scientific method" gives a false impression, or at the very least is misunderstood.

 

[trust_in_the_name]

Godfrey-Smith didn't think so, which is why he pointed out that science textbooks are trying to be more careful about the issue. Apparently science textbooks don't think so either. It looks like they recognize that "the scientific method" gives a false impression, or at the very least is misunderstood.

My general chemistry textbook, Chemical Principles: The Quest for Insight is copyright 2008 and says:

How Science Is Done

Scientists pursue ideas in an ill-defined but effective way called the scientific method, which takes many forms. There is no strict rule or procedure that leads you from a good idea to a Nobel prize or even to a publishable discovery. Some scientists are meticulously careful, others are highly creative. The best scientists are probably both careful and creative. Although there are various scientific methods in use, a typical approach consists of a series of steps (Fig. 6). [Then goes into various details.]

FIGURE 6. A summary of the principal activities that constitute a common version of the scientific method. At each stage, the crucial activity is experiment and its comparison with the ideas proposed.
​

 

[Credo_ut_Intelligam]

That's not a counter-example to what Godfrey-Smith says. If anything, it's a case in point since it exhibits the caution he was talking about. Nor is it a counter-example to my statement that he and many science textbooks seemed to think there was any confusion or miscommunication over the term: hence the caution.

 

[ItinerantLurker]

Clearly you're not familiar with the landscape, which confirms Massimo Pigliucci's remark that "many scientists do not understand the nature of science as well as philosophers do, and are hence prone to make exaggerated claims about how science works and what it can do. This should not surprise anybody, since the business of scientists is to do science, not to spend time thinking about its history and methods. That is why philosophy (and history) of science are scholarly activities that are legitimately distinct from science itself."

Really? Pigliucci is your go-to guy on this subject? That's odd since he quite obviously does not at all share your views on science,

"In fact, the history of science shows that more often than not, the scientists tend to be conservative in their acceptance of new theories and new notions. That is, the typical response of a scientist to a new theory is, ‘I don’t think so,’ or ‘I don’t believe it,’ or ‘Show me the data,’ or ‘Let me see why you think that that is the case,’ which of course is a quintessential skeptical stance. And frankly, I think that’s for good reasons.

You know, science is a well-established set of procedures and it has produced a well-established body of knowledge, so any new theory, any new notion, especially if it is contrary to what science has accepted up to that point, ought to be received and is, in fact received by scientists with skepticism. That doesn’t mean that scientists don’t change their mind. It doesn’t mean the new theories are not eventually accepted if in fact they are good theories; they are sound theories.

But the initial reaction is always one of-when you write a scientific paper, which I’ve done several times in my career as a scientist before becoming a philosopher–when you write a scientific paper, the first thing that the editor does, or the journal where you submit the paper does, is to send it to two, three, or four people to criticize it. The first reaction is one of skepticism. People want to make sure that what you write is sound, that it makes sense that your conclusions are congruent with the data that you have and so on and so forth.

So I disagree that the stance of science is not one of skepticism. Of course it is. But it is of skepticism in the positive sense; it’s not skepticism in the sense of ‘I don’t believe it not matter what,’ it’s skepticism in the sense of ‘Okay, let’s see what you claim is and if the evidence that you put forth is proportional to the claim.’"
(source)​

But if you ever get the chance to pick up Kuhn's book go ahead and do so. You'll see why paradigm shifts to relativity or Darwinism don't help your case. He uses both to support his remarks.

Sorry, but I can't fathom how two examples of scientific consensus shifting as overwhelming evidence to support a theory is brought to light shows that scientific consensus is not based on evidence. You'll have to do a little better than a book reference to support this I'm afraid.

To even speak of "the" scientific method evidences naivety. I have three philosophy of science books within my reach as I sit at my desk here. Thumbing through each of them I notice a conspicuous absence of any discussion on demarcating "the" scientific method.

I'm sorry that your philosophy books don't mention the scientific method, but I don't see how that's an argument for much of anything. If you'd like to bury your head in the sand and pretend that the process of science does not operate according to a certain methodology then you are within your rights to do so.

Of course you're more than welcome to cover your eyes and try to march on in some Baconian ideal, reminding yourself that "It rests on observation and experiment after all!" But science is still practiced by humans having all those qualities I listed earlier.

At some point you may consider going beyond your philosophy textbooks and reading some of the many scientific papers available on virtually any subject which outline clear questions, observations, hypotheses, methodologies, results, and conclusions.

To dismiss all this as quote mining and anecdotal evidence only misses the point.

No, actually, it doesn't. Many of your quotations are obviously out of context and are being used to support points their authors obviously don't agree with and you are simply using anecdotes to support your position whilst ignoring the general trends staring you in the face. Science is based on evidence, not bias. Does this mean that scientists have no bias? Of course not. Does this mean that the overall trend is that of evidence trumping bias? Yes.

These are descriptions of how real science works (or fails to work), despite the overly glorified and idealistic view of science (or should that be Science) that many worshiping in the cathedrals of Scientism would have you believe.

We're not talking about how this or that philosopher thinks that science works, we're talking about how science is actually done. In the real world scientists use a methodology involving observation, prediction, experimentation, conclusion, publication, and revision to refine our knowledge of the physical universe. This methodology has produced an incredible body of knowledge from which we reap benefits every day of our lives.

I never said atheism "needs" evolution,

So you then understand that just because a given scientists is an atheist he/she does not "need" to prop up evolution, yes?




Lurker

 

[Credo_ut_Intelligam]

Really? Pigliucci is your go-to guy on this subject? That's odd since he quite obviously does not at all share your views on science,

And how do you know he doesn't share my views on science? Honestly, I doubt you even grasped the point I was making, as you clearly failed to grasp my point in relation to Darwinism and atheism. All you've done is give a knee jerk response because you have some view of science that, whenever anyone points out that it's still a human enterprise practiced by flawed humans, you go into defense mode.

In the quote you provide, I don't see anything I disagree with or that contradicts what I've said. I agree with Pigliucci in the quotes I provided earlier: New Atheists (and many Christians) equate science with reason. That's a mistake. And they also see science as "being rooted in reason alone" like Pigliucci says. That's also a mistake and I agree with Pigliucci on that too.

Do you think Pigliucci has contradicted himself in your quote? If so, then why would it matter that I disagree with his contradiction? Why would I be constrained to agree with him when he contradicts himself if I agree with his other claims? If not, then what's your point? Clearly, if he isn't contradicting himself, I can affirm both sets of statements and your Pigliucci quote is irrelevant.

Pigliucci says: "the history of science shows that more often than not, the scientists tend to be conservative in their acceptance of new theories and new notions. That is, the typical response of a scientist to a new theory is, ‘I don’t think so,’ or ‘I don’t believe it,’ or ‘Show me the data,’ or ‘Let me see why you think that that is the case,’ which of course is a quintessential skeptical stance."

This is the same phenomena that Kuhn points out in the aforementioned work. Scientists don't all just jump onto the new paradigm when it's first proposed. In fact, many wont ever jump on the new paradigm at all! Kuhn doesn't argue, and I never argued, that the shift is an entirely irrational process. And I certainly didn't say that scientists are quick to jump on and accept new theories. I can agree that scientists have a skepticism about new theories and that this skepticism isn't entirely a rational process of just looking at the facts in some naive foundationalist sense.

Sorry, but I can't fathom how two examples of scientific consensus shifting as overwhelming evidence to support a theory is brought to light shows that scientific consensus is not based on evidence. You'll have to do a little better than a book reference to support this I'm afraid.

I've pointed you to a source that I say uses your "counter-examples" to show how they fit the theory and your response is "I can't fathom it... you'll need to do better"? Seriously? Sorry, but I can't fathom how your knee jerk response is supposed to undercut anything I've said. You'll need to do a little better I'm afraid.

I'm sorry that your philosophy books don't mention the scientific method, but I don't see how that's an argument for much of anything.

You would think books devoted to analyzing science and how it operates would mention something about there being some set in stone method of how science is done or what constitutes science. Yet they do mention methods of science, that science has no clear demarcation, that not all things we consider science operate in the same way (e.g. experimentation), and that philosophers of science have "become skeptical about the idea of giving anything like a recipe for science" (Godfrey-Smith 6). I guess all of us (including the chemistry textbook cited by another poster) just have our heads in the sand about there being "various scientific methods" (as his textbook put it). The only ones with their heads not in the sand must be your New Atheist friends and your friends in the 17th century.

At some point you may consider going beyond your philosophy textbooks and reading some of the many scientific papers available on virtually any subject which outline clear questions, observations, hypotheses, methodologies, results, and conclusions.

That a particular scientist does a particular instance of science in a particular way doesn't make that normative for the field. Surely you know this.

Many of your quotations are obviously out of context and are being used to support points their authors obviously don't agree with

Yet you failed to show any of it was out of context. The one person you go to, Pigliucci, doesn't demonstrate that he would disagree with anything I've said. If you think there is some contradiction between what I quoted Pigliucci as saying and what he says in your other quote then, as I already pointed out, that's really not my problem but Pigliucci's. If you think Pigliucci can make both sets of statements without contradicting himself, then it only demonstrates a lack of reading comprehension on your part in my use of his quotes.

and you are simply using anecdotes to support your position whilst ignoring the general trends staring you in the face.

This is an assertion in search of an argument. If we are talking about how science is actually practiced by scientists, which is what I'm talking about, that will have to include looking at historical examples or anecdotal evidence. Pointing out that it is anecdotal really is missing the point. To construct a theory of science and assume that this is how science is done is... well, naive. As I already pointed out, showing that a shift has taken place or that science has changed isn't going to be sufficient to prove your case. Some scientists are instrumentalists. Do you think you'll seriously defeat their instrumentalism by pointing to changes in scientific communities? This is starting to look like Johnson kicking the stone to refute Berkley. I'd rather not waste my time if you're just going to kick stones.

Science is based on evidence, not bias. Does this mean that scientists have no bias? Of course not. Does this mean that the overall trend is that of evidence trumping bias? Yes.

Of course the statement "science is based on evidence, not bias" means that evidence trumps bias. But that's trivial. The problem is you're taking a normative description and assuming it's descriptive at the same time.

We're not talking about how this or that philosopher thinks that science works, we're talking about how science is actually done.

Right, which is exactly what Kuhn is doing. That's why his entire book makes its argument from how science has actually been practiced. That's why Rosenberg, Godfrey-Smith, and Okasha make the statements they do. Because they are looking at how science really operates and not how some naive scientists thinks it operates because their science teacher, entrenched in 17th century enlightenment ideals, told them "this is how it should operate" and then assumed that's just the way it does operate.

So you then understand that just because a given scientists is an atheist he/she does not "need" to prop up evolution, yes?

That would depend on what you mean by "need." You pointed out that atheism predated Darwinism. I agree and this demonstrates that ~Darwinism =/= ~Atheism. So there is no "need" in this sense of logical entailment from a modus tollens. Atheism does not need Darwinism to exist such that IFF Atheism then Darwinism. But this doesn't rule out other senses of need, such as an epistemic or psychological sense.

The Dawkins quote I mentioned earlier is an obvious example. He feels that Darwin made it possible for him to be intellectually respectable in his atheism. And as PZ Myers and Jerry Coyne would be happy to tell you, it's the only good explanation as to how we humans got here. And with it "there is no sign of a loving, personal god, but only billions of years of pitiless winnowing without any direction other than short-term survival and reproduction. It's not pretty, it's not consoling, it doesn't sanctify virginity, or tell you that god really loves your foreskin, but it's got one soaring virtue that trumps all the others: it's true" (Myers. "Confrontation All the Way." Scienceblogs). For a person like Dawkins, letting Darwinism fail would mean giving up his intellectual respectability (unless of course he comes up with another explanation such that humans are the product of chance and natural processes... but this would simply be Darwinism by a new label).