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

[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".