Getting lucky is not good science

[unixronin]

In the interview in the January 2009 issue of Discover Magazine, Stanford's Professor Robert Proctor (who teaches the history of science) submits creationists' rejection of the Piltdown hoax as an example of good science coming from a strong, although incorrect, ideology.  I submit that he is flatly wrong in, at the least, his choice of example.

Yes, creationists rejected the Piltdown skull as a fraud.  They also rejected, and continue to reject, every other piece of data and scientific theory that contradicts their dogma that the Universe was created in seven days by divine fiat six thousand and twelve years ago.  The mere fact that in the Piltdown case, they happened by sheer luck to be right that it was a fraud, doesn't make their rejection good science; in fact, it doesn't make it any kind of science at all, because their denial was based on dogma, not on scientific method.  Their judgement on the Piltdown skull was made not for scientific, or even non-scientific reasons, but for actively anti-scientific reasons.  It contradicted their dogma, and their dogma was by their definition unquestionably right, therefore the Piltdown skull was automatically and necessarily a fraud.  It was not the "missing link" because, to them, no missing link could possibly exist.

Being right by sheer blind chance, one time in a hundred, for totally the wrong reasons, can't be good science — because it isn't science in the first place.

Comments

Well, actually...

[guppiecat]

Being right by sheer blind chance, one time in a hundred, for totally the wrong reasons, can't be good science — because it isn't science in the first place.

If you take a fairly large group of primates and apply sheer blind chance, over a few million years, one of their decedents might come up with the theory of relativity or somesuch.

Just sayin' ;)

Re: Well, actually...

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but if he justifies his theory by saying that it must be so because the equation looks totally bitchin' printed on a T-shirt in dayglo ink, he's still talking out his ass. :)

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

This highlights two logical fallacies:

1. The truth of a conclusion does not validate the logic being used
2. The invalidity of a logic does not cause the conclusion to be false

I am amazed, just amazed, how often perfectly intelligent people fuck these two simple rules up.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I think it's largely because many, many perfectly intelligent people have simply never been educated in formal logic or in recognition of the various classes of logical fallacies. I took a class in classical logic while I was at EWU simply because it looked interesting, but it wasn't a requirement for my degree. (One would have thought that it would have been, for a CS degree. There is definite applicability, even if only in teaching one to think clearly.)

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

It is also disturbing. Conclusions are drawn from the fact that what they WANT to be true, must be true. Even people that should know better, because they have been taught logic, screw that up.

[house-pundit.livejournal.com]

Even when people know logic, they suck at it once you bring their preconceptions into the picture.

1) All cats are animals
2) Some animals are black
3) All cats are black

Doesn't follow, right? Substitute "cheerleader" for cats, "high school girls" for animals, and "snotty" for black.

X number of people follow the logic of the above and can say, "No, that's clearly false." Y number of people get it right if you substitute A, B, and C as variable names. Z number of people get it right if you tailor the wrong answer to their preconceptions.

X > Y > Z

Furthermore, if you make it a multiple choice question and include 3 among the possible answers, people disproportionately pick 3. IOW, they weren't just guessing because they didn't know.

A classmate and I tested this on our cognitive psych class when the prof made us use each other as guinea pigs. This was Georgia Tech seniors in Psychology. I expected everybody to get them all right and not to be able to replicate the original experiment's results. I expected this even though I had to write all the syllogisms for our test, because my partner just didn't "get it."

Nope. A bunch of them screwed it up, alright. And we had at least one guy who still didn't get it after the prof pulled out the Venn diagrams and explained it. Repeatedly. Slowly. In words of one syllable.

Psych majors at GT go through the same admissions criteria as the engineers, and have to take all the math the engineers do except for DiffyQs. The department didn't want to become a haven for refugees from calculus.

These were not dumb people. It's just that a lot of people simply can't do logic.

In my programming classes at GSU, we had an inverted bell curve for the grades. You made A's or high B's, or you made F's and low D's. Logic. You either got it or you didn't.

These were people who couldn't do an accurate pencil trace through a program where a variable named "thirteen" ended up equaling 10 somewhere in the mess.

And the question was "unfair." Nobody said it, but you could see it in the grumbling.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I hear you. Socrates notwithstanding, man is not "the rational animal".

Minor Quibble

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

I believe in creationism. In my version, about 14 billion years ago, the heavens were created. After about 9 billion years, enough matter had been fused out of Hydrogen for G-d to create the earth. When the earth had been prepared, man was introduced. I have yet to find any scientific facts, that have not been proven hoaxes, that contradict my theology in any way. There is nothing in the Bible that contradicts that account. There are people that do not understand the Bible, that have come up with theories of what the Bible "must mean", but they do not have to be correct. (They frequently are incorrect.) Setting up interpretations on what G-d really meant leaves people scurrying for the edges of knowledge when revealed truth shines a light on their false assumptions. (Kind of like cockroaches.) I love the sciences teaching me how G-d does things. Not all Christians have the stinted understanding you attribute to them.

Re: Minor Quibble

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

I can best be described as a Christian agnostic, or as an agnostic Christian. I have far too many collisions of belief with the laity (but, strangely, not with theologians!) to ever feel I can honestly claim to share a belief structure with them. At the same time, though, the Episcopal Church has never kicked me out and has, in fact, been quite kind to me at times. They understand I don't subscribe to the entire Nicene Creed. They don't ask me to; they just ask me to keep an open mind and heart.

I can do that. And for that, I have no qualms about describing myself as a Christian agnostic.

One of the things I especially love about Episcopalianism is its belief in triune dogma (and I don't mean dogma about the Trinity). In Episcopalianism, dogma must be supported by Scripture, by tradition, and by reason. If any piece of dogma fails on any of these three, it is considered suspect and not required belief of followers.

Re: Minor Quibble

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

We don't use creeds at all. Neither as stepping stones or stumbling blocks. Reason can, and should, be applied to beliefs. I can take or leave tradition. Just because we have always done it, is not a valid reason to continue doing it. (Neither is doing it because it is new.) Here, multiple viewpoints can help clarify goals and impacts. Scripture should allow G-d room to speak symbolically, with room to apply instruction and teaching to ourselves. (I have real problems applying G-d's instructions to others, it creates a huge mess of bad feeling, and I won't go near the restriction of liberty.) I'll shut up now. People have tendencies. Not all religion is opposed to science, or social progress.

Re: Minor Quibble

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

In Episcopalianism, dogma must be supported by Scripture, by tradition, and by reason. If any piece of dogma fails on any of these three, it is considered suspect and not required belief of followers.

How astoundingly ... reasonable.

Re: Minor Quibble

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

That's why there are so many Anglicans who don't believe in God.

Re: Minor Quibble

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

There's a fairly strong theological argument that says exactly this. The overwhelming majority of Christians say "God exists." Now, separate all things into two sets: those that exist and those that don't. Not only does God get placed into a set larger than God is, but the set God is placed into is the smaller of the two sets. This is clearly contradictory: if God exists procol his, God cannot be pigeonholed so neatly.

The great 20th century theologian Paul Tillich went so far as to say that no truly faithful Christian could ever assert the existence of God: that to assert God's existence was a slander to God's majesty. In Tillich's view, the proper Christian creed is not "God exists," but simply "God?"; the replacing of a declarative statement to our fellow man with a personal invitation to our Creator for a conversation.

I can't say as how I agree with Tillich wholeheartedly, but I do think that theologically speaking he raises some excellent points.

Re: Minor Quibble

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

That is, indeed, a thought-provoking point.

I'm minded to quote Jethro Tull:
I don't believe you, you've got the whole damn thing all wrong
He's not the kind you have to wind up on Sundays...

Re: Minor Quibble

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I think one of my problems with creationism is that even interpretations such as this, while they don't actually contradict any scientific knowledge, neither do they add anything except questions to which the usual response is either accusations of blasphemy or mutterings about Things Man Was Not Meant To Know.

There's a greater problem, though, and I submit that it falls to Ockham's razor:

The world is full of creation myths, almost all of them incompatible, and almost all of which assert that they are the one truth and all others are false and heretical. In general, out of N faiths in the world, there are approximately N incompatible creation myths, for each of which n faiths assert its truth and N - n faiths deny it, where n is small compared to N. Further, in general they each assert that their version of events is not subject to logical proof or scientific verification, and must be taken solely on faith, even when they contradict scientific evidence and established theory.
The simplest and most obvious conclusion is that it is overwhelmingly likely that all of them are false.

Re: Minor Quibble

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

I have spent some time comparing creation myths. There are so many common elements that I believe that they all come from a common root.

There are elements of science that can be profitably advanced by the application of religious writings. It is the religious supposings and creeds that are the problem.

I think your anti-religion hat is on too tight. There are some groups that still claim the earth is flat. They do not do so for religious reasons. You will have reactions against science theories from many sources, for many reasons, singling our religion as the only culprit does not acknowledge the entire set of resistance.

[jmkelly.livejournal.com]

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but a clock that's set wrong and off sync is wrong almost all the time.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

[mrakg.livejournal.com]

Well...almost all of my clocks are 24-hour. So that drops to 'once a day". :)

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Point. :) I wish all of mine were, but appliance manufacturers still insist on fitting brain-damaged 12-hour clocks....

[johnkzin.livejournal.com]

I agree with pretty much everything you said, except this:

in fact, it doesn't make it any kind of science at all, because their denial was based on dogma, not on scientific method.


If we eliminated dogma from science, we'd have precious little science to study. Dogma is a fact of human thought, not religious thought. Even Einstein was prone to Dogma (re: God, Dice, Quantum Mechanics).

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I disagree with that, although I see your point. The history of science is full of cases in which dogmatic "facts" that Everyone Knew Were True were proved wrong because someone asked "Yes, but is it really so?" or "But why should that be?" or "That's all very well, but how do you reconcile that with this observation?"

[johnkzin.livejournal.com]

At best, science is better at challenging its own dogmas than perhaps other fields of human thought. But, it still has its dogmas. Look at how much resistance there was to the emergence of Chaos as a field of study ... or how much in fighting there is between the different factions of string theory, or how being of a particular faction can affect your funding at some institutions.

Scientists wrap their insecurities and egos up in their conclusions and assumptions. And that becomes their dogma. It infects their experimental biases, and what they pass on to students, junior colleagues, etc. And they are VERY reluctant to entertain challenges to those things, even in the face of experimental proof. So much so that outsiders can easily mistake it for being comparable to a religion.

With enough experiments, and validations, the ice thaws ... but that doesn't change that the ice is there ... and that that the ice looks, smells, and tastes like dogma.

[fair-witness.livejournal.com]

Makes me think of something I tell my students on a regular basis:

"Being sure isn't the same thing as being right."

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Hence, "truthiness".

I came here to post that.

[zeekar.livejournal.com]

Well, actually, I was going to boast about the phenomenal accuracy the scientific instrument that is my broken clock achieves twice a day,