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

[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.)