Confused about science and evolution

[hecd2]

Mistermerlin:

My own theory is simple and to the point:
God created the universe in such a way so as to give the appearance that some other type of occurence happened. He may have created the universe only 6000 years ago and made it seem like there was life here millions of years before that. Or He may have made the universe millions of years ago. Either way, He is all powerful isn’t He? I think it’s a big test of our faith in HIM.

So you promote the concept of God the Deceiver?

Galileo’s retort to Pope Urban VIII, Maffeo Barberini is apposite here:
‘Surely, God could have caused birds to fly with their bones made of solid gold, with their veins full of quicksilver, with their flesh heavier than lead, and with their wings exceedingly small. He did not, and that ought to show something. It is only in order to shield your ignorance that you put the Lord at every turn to the refuge of a miracle’

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[BLB_Oregon]

SocaliCatholic:

I am not a scientist, but I like science alot and after reading some of the evolution threads wrote down some questions becuase I am even more confused about what science is, and how it is possible?..

You ask some great questions. The idea behind modern science is that every theory has to be supported by physical findings, that physical findings to refute the theory have not been brought forth, and that a simpler or better explanation cannot be given. There is trust involved, because of course you can’t stand there next to every scientist making sure that he isn’t throwing experiments into the garbage when they refute his pet theory or that his observation method isn’t sloppy. (He or she will give a detailed summary of their data and the method by which data is collected when they publish their work in scientific journals, and all the good journals are reviewed independently and anonymously by other scientist well-versed in the field.) It is okay to be wrong in science (just a little ego bruising, that’s all), but it is way out of bounds to be dishonest with your data or your data analysis. That will get you thrown out of the ballgame.

The thing is, there is always someone else with their pet theory, and they will stay awake nights thinking up experiments to prove themselves right and you wrong. And every once in awhile, that someone wants to score the big half-court shot by proving some theory wrong that everyone “knows” is right. These all are the people that are there to save civilization from opinions masquerading as facts. If you are smart scientist, you run the very experiments your opponents would think up before you tell the world about your great theory, because you don’t want egg on your face (okay you also don’t want your opinions out in the world masquerading as facts).

If this sounds like jurisprudence, it is a little like that. And like jurisprudence, it is more personal than people like to admit and less clean and pretty than people like to admit. (Scientists are people, too, no matter what they like to tell you.)

So, the thing is, at some point there does get to be so much evidence that something is true that other scientists will think you are a moron if you try to prove it wrong. For instance, if you wanted to figure out how to get the sun to come up in the west for a change, obviously the evidence against your ever succeeding is so overwhelming that you would be a laughing stock to try it. The contentious part is when a particular theory has reached that point. I would say that point is somewhat later than the people in the field think, but that’s just me.

I would say that it is the other smart scientists out there always trying to prove each other wrong that are your best defense against “heresy.” Which is to say, if they all get fooled because of a blind spot in their thinking, they will undoubtedly pass that blind spot on to you. Without the opportunity to learn the math and crunch the numbers yourself, you have to trust them.

 

[Oolon_Colluphid]

SocaliCatholic:

If a Christian claims charity is integral to being a Christian, and I hold him accountable to his own principles as to why he is not being charitiable, is it a logical paralell to ask the same to a scientist who believes in evolution by asking him how his beliefs in evolution evolved?

I’m not sure what you’re getting at here. Our ‘beliefs’ (ie understanding about (?)) evolution perhaps could be said to have evolved, but the parallel between what ideas do and what reproducing heterogeneous populations do is somewhat debatable, memes not withstanding. The populations and lineages do and have done their own thing; what we do with science is try to find out what they’ve gotten up to. That this means that our ideas about it have changed in light of new information does nothing to affect what the lineages have done.

• Because evidence, tools for discovery, and theories are always changing, at what point is it logical to believe something that science puts forth?

If you see science as working à la Popper, science is constantly closing in on what the world is like by refuting what it’s not like. Anyone can come up with hypotheses; but a scientific hypothesis must be testable – that is, open to potential refutation. Therefore ideas that can withstand attempts to show they’re wrong stand a good chance of being approximately correct.

So science progresses by getting closer and closer to ‘how the world is’. This means that the current (at any point in time) might turn out to be incomplete… but to have withstood the tests so far, it is probably pretty good. So any replacement must explain what the current one does, explain it better, and account for further stuff too.

So for instance, you may have heard that Einstein’s general relativity ‘overthrew’ Newton. No, it didn’t. Newtonian mechanics is still good enough an approximation to send space probes out past Saturn, meeting up with other planets and sling-shotting round them on the way. Relativity comes into play under certain conditions not normally encountered; it is a deepening, showing that Newtonian systems are a subset of the bigger picture. Newton wasn’t wrong, merely incomplete.

There have been occasional radical (‘paradigm’) shifts, such as with Wegener and ‘continental drift’ (plate tectonics). But they are few and far between. And even then, the new system did not entirely replace all of geology, merely show that one aspect was misunderstood. (I’d call that a good thing.)

Basically, because science progresses by refutation, even if the present paradigm is changed, the one thing it won’t change to is back to an already-discredited idea. (Creationists don’t seem to understand this: even if their attacks on evolution were successful, their own system is no substitute; we’d need something different again.)

Therefore, although science does not offer certainty, it offers our best approximation to it for now, based on all the evidence we have. If we’ve got something wrong, then at least we know what the correct answer isn’t.

So, when is it logical to accept something science puts forth?

Well if you’re after absolute certainty, the answer is ‘never’… because, not knowing everything there is to know about the entire universe, we cannot achieve quasi-mathematical certainty. (Mathematical ‘proofs’ are so watertight because they are not about the real world: the world in question is defined at the start. As they say, 2 + 2 = 4, but only for certain values of 2 .)

But if you can put up with merely ‘as far as we can possibly tell, based on everything we know already (but we’re still checking)’… then science is as certain as we can be, so you can accept its findings – provisionally – straight away.

Science is… always being prepared to admit you’re wrong (but you don’t think so because…).

 

[Oolon_Colluphid]

• At what point am I qualified to belive in a scientific theory?

Whenever you like. Because, if you want to take the trouble to look into it, you’ll very likely reach the same conclusions as the experts precisely because they are able to show you how they came to their conclusions at every step of the way.

For example, if I am an expert physicist, but not biologist, do I still have to take on faith what a biologist has discovered?

I suppose so, generally. The alternative, if one disagrees with the biologists (or whoever), is to show why they are wrong… and that means understanding it at least as well as they do. In short, the chances of talking gonads about something that is not your area are pretty high, if what you’re saying is not what the experts agree with. It’s possible, but not very likely… apart from anything else, because they’ve spent all this time testing their area’s ideas to check! If they can’t find flaws in it (and believe me, there’s nothing a scientist would like better than to overturn a well established theory ), what chance do non-experts have? So if one disagrees about a field one knows little about, you are in effect accusing all the experts of being morons.

How does a scientist protect himself from scientific heresies in other fields he does not specialize in or fully understand?

By having a regular read through Nature and Science, usually .

 

[Oolon_Colluphid]

• If all the science community agrees on a particular fact or theory, are we still at the mercy of the grouping of previous definitions or descriptions? For example, if eveyone takes a snapshot of the earth from satellite, it appears the earth is round, but upon further inspection, the surface is not perfectly smooth, therfore it is not a perfect circle, so what is it? It is not flat or circle. I can observe all I want but cannot perfectly describe what it is beucase the variations of the earth defy any perfect geometric description. Is there error in calling the earth spherical in the first place?

Yes. The word is ‘spheroid’. (And I don’t mean that facetiously .)

• There are some very smart scientist with big words I don’t understand, so if they tell me that something like evolution is likely true based on evidence, what guarantee do I have that they are correct it is true, if I am not an authority in that discipline?

The guarantee of effort. If you put some in, you can see the evidence for yourself. Anyone can do it.

And if someone says something you don’t understand, get them to explain (or look it up). If they really do understand it, they will be able to explain it. If they can’t, then maybe they were just blinding you with blather to distract you. (This is a neat trick to pull on creationists, eg when they tell you that evolution can’t add information. Get them to define ‘information’. Or ‘no transitional fossils’. Ask them what would count as a transitional, in their opinion… and therefore why all the fossils we think are intermediates somehow aren’t.)

Does scientfic authority come from the evidence presented, the person presenting it, or some other source?

The person presenting it is, by definition, presenting evidence. Therefore the authority of science always ultimately derives from the evidence. But we can use a shorthand for everyday life, and simply go with the experts… because they and their ideas have made it to expert status by being familiar with the evidence. The experts might be wrong… but be prepared to research it if you want to argue with them! They, you see, know what they’re talking about!

 

[MichaelTDoyle]

So for instance, you may have heard that Einstein’s general relativity ‘overthrew’ Newton. No, it didn’t. Newtonian mechanics is still good enough an approximation to send space probes out past Saturn, meeting up with other planets and sling-shotting round them on the way. Relativity comes into play under certain conditions not normally encountered; it is a deepening, showing that Newtonian systems are a subset of the bigger picture. Newton wasn’t wrong, merely incomplete.

Is this correct? Specifically correct? Newtonian physics breaks down at some point, yes? Approximate is not the same as correct and good enough to get the job done is not the same as truth.

To say that it is a deepening is accidentally misleading. I bring this up, because theological thought uses the term “deepening” in a very serious sense that states firmly that an accepted new idea about a topic is in no ways a contradiction of the past de fide doctrine. That’s not the case with Einstein and Newton’s theories.

I don’t want to accidentally mislead people on a really important concept as “deepening” your understanding about a topic.

peace

postscript hope I got the terminology right

mike

 

[MichaelTDoyle]

Oolon Colluphid:

The guarantee of effort. If you put some in, you can see the evidence for yourself. Anyone can do it.

Now this seems a bit absurd or maybe I am just a lazy slob. But no way can I put in effort to understand super string theory in the sense to know whether the descriptions about it have a logical foundation unless I want to spend my life learning mathematics. And certainly the same may well be true for evolution or astrophysics.

The effort to assume an evidentiary understanding of these concepts is more than I (who ain’t in a particular field) can do. And the assumption of faith is what I am left with. Faith in a human community famous for its fallen nature. So I am not ready to enthusiastically deny monogenism or take up the crusade of evolution versus creationism on the same order I would on a de fide Truth (and an easy scientific Truth) like life begins at conception.

I am only alloted so many hours on this earth so I should probably be focusing on carrying my cross better. While science can be an amazing instrument for good for those where it is actually their vocation, I can only admire and doubt from the sidelines and ponder how science fits with the de fide Truths.

Thanks for listening. Writing this clarified my thinking. I hope I didn’t muddle anybody up

peace

 

[rossum]

MichaelTDoyle:

Is this correct? Specifically correct? Newtonian physics breaks down at some point, yes?

Like all of Classical Physics, Newton assumed that he could extrapolate from what is immediately observable to things much more massive and much faster. For a long time the errors of this assumption were hidden within the margins of experimental error, the errors are mostly very small. The usual example of where Netwonian physics breaks down is the precession of the perihelion of Mercury which was measured as 5,600 arc seconds per century, which was 43 arc seconds per century more that predicted by Newton. Because of Mercury’s closeness to the large mass of the Sun the Newtonian assumptions were beginning to reach the limit of their usefulness. Einstein’s theory of General Relativity accounted for the extra 43 arc seconds, which was part of the evidence that led to it replacing Newton’s theory. Newton’s theory explained a great many observations. Einstein’s theory explained all of the observations that Newton did, and then some more.

Approximate is not the same as correct and good enough to get the job done is not the same as truth.

Agreed, but science is not in the business of “truth”, science is more focused on “what is the best answer we have at the moment”. Einstein’s equations are a more complex and more difficult to program than Newton’s. There is no point is spending time and resources to extend the answer from three decimal places to six decimal places when an accuracy of one decimal place is all that is required. Better to save the time and resources to apply to areas where they will make a difference.

rossum