December 21, 2005What is science?In yesterday's Dover opinion, Judge John E. Jones has written a lucid definition of science that deserves to be in textbooks (p. 64):
Update 12/31: Here for more thoughts from John Polkinghorne and others Posted by David at December 21, 2005 11:32 AMComments
How well does evolution between species fit into this definition of science? Can this kind of macro evolution be tested? Replicated? Is evolution truely a scientific endeavor, or is more of a science-inspired metaphysical idea? Posted by: Chouser at December 21, 2005 02:07 PMThe decision says teachers can't even mention the fact that an alternative theory to Darwinian evolution exists. In the 16th centry, scientists were jailed for creating theories that excluded a god. In the 21st century we have the converse: teachers may be jailed for mentioning the existence of a theory that may include a god. Aren't these policies equally wrong? Posted by: Peter H. at December 21, 2005 06:39 PMInteresting comments. Of course, scientists wouldn't study macro evolution unless it could be tested; and they test it every day. Theories that imagine a timeline that looks back in time can have predictive value for things that we can see today. For example, various big bang theories can predict the characteristic shape, frequency, and distribution of the cosmic microwave background. The closer we look at the sky, the more carefully we can pick between competing theories. Theories on the macro evolution of species predict characteristic patterns of genetic drift in nuclear and mitochondrial DNA; the closer we look at various species' DNA, the more carefully we can pick between competing evolutionary theories. Theories that have no predicitive power are not part of science - after all, what would the experimentalists do with all their time? Teachers thrown in jail? Not happening. Scientists are framing the discussion more crisply than that. They do not speak of "morality of science." For them, the question is not about morals; it's about "what science is and what it is not." The text book message: matters of "faith," "meaning" and "purpose" are not part of science. Maybe matters of "theory," "prediction" and "verification" should be excluded from religion. Posted by: David at December 23, 2005 06:28 AMDavid, thanks for avoiding ad hominem comments that so often are a part of discussions on this topic. Not that I would have expected any less from you. It is interesting to me that the definition quoted says "observe, test, replicate, AND verify" [emphasis mine]. You have addressed testing of macro evolution, and I'm willing to grant you that. In fact, if that testing has been verified, that requirement has also be fulfilled. But what of the other two requirements? I don't think that observing your own test counts for the observation requirement -- generally you want to have observed the behavior "in the wild", wouldn't you? Even if observation of DNA fulfills the observation requirement for macro evolution, what about replication? Has any experiment been created to reproduce macro evolution? None of my objections amount to anything close to proof that macro evolution hasn't taken place, but has intelligent design been disproved either? Testing the theory that a being that created the universe, has similar (if not worse) problems for replication. But creation would have been observed, if only by the creator. I can understand an unwillingness to accept scripture as scientific documentation of an observation, but I think it's interesting to mention. But if testing DNA to verify the theory of macro evolution is acceptable, is similar secondary testing of creation ok as well? We might expect to find evidence of the creator in things like creative beauty throughout the universe, a sense of spirituality that crosses cultural boundaries, and a more or less consistent sense of a morality that values the life that the creator made. Of course many scientists and others will simply dismiss such "evidence", and I don't really expect to persuade anyone with a few poorly arranged words like this. But I think that when it comes to convincing someone of a truth, prejudice, upbringing, and the consequences of accepting that truth generally trump evidence anyway, regardless how prevalent that evidence is. Posted by: Chouser at December 24, 2005 02:10 AMIs the power meter on the side of your house a direct way to observe electricity? Is there any way to directly observe electrons? Most science relies on indirect observation. Yet I think epidemiologists who are furiously trying to track the evolution of the avian flu (or drug-resistant bacteria, or evolution of herbicide-resistant weeds) would tell you that natural selection is on pretty solid ground. They use the theory to predict events that they wrestle with every day, and it works well enough that they don't worry about it any more than you worry about your power meter. On the other hand, science teaches us to be always skeptical of a theory. A theory gets thrown out by science when it fails to work. If the theory is not useful, it gets rejected. Really, this is the the thing that bothers me about the whole Creation Science movement. By putting scripture into the crosshairs of science, by measuring religion using methodology of science, it does damage to the understanding of religion. The essence of religion is the leap of faith. It is in believing in something that is outside ourselves and outside all evidence. Religion is about embraing a larger purpose that is beyond all our inward-looking self-obsessed, self-interested instincts. If we apply the scientific method to scripture, it means rejecting the parts that don't stand up to verifiable observations. Is this a way of being more faithful, or is this a way to reject faith? If we only accept the parts of religion that we can test, does that make the universe more meaningful, or does it make religion vacuous? Applying the scientific method to religion seems like a terrible mistake to me. Posted by: David at December 26, 2005 07:37 AM(I initially tried sending this to 'Chouser' but my email was returned, so here's my post) Hello, The most convincing work in human origins (in my opinion) is the phylogeny work based on analyzing variations in DNA in modern populations. Geneticists have taken a variety of approaches, such as comparing differences in synonymous and non-synonymous mutations, mitochondrial DNA, nonrecombining Y chromosome DNA, and lots of other clever techniques (like tracking patterns of retorviral insertions). Some examples: http://www.uchicago.edu/aff/mwc-amacad/biocomplexity/conference_papers/goodman.pdf Lots of other references on how phylogenies are deduced can be found on the tolweb.org website, for example: http://tolweb.org/tree?group=Primates&contgroup=Eutheria Some textbook content on the subject: http://www.botany.uga.edu/~suew/comp_gen_plos_rev.pdf I also find the recent work in using population genetics to infer human prehistory very interesting. For example: http://hpgl.stanford.edu/publications/Underhill_2004_p487-494.pdf Post a comment
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