Spinoff thread from Ben's turkeytalk challenge - where we debate scientific method

OK, I don’t want to hijack Ben’s thread (Why won’t the Creationists talk turkey?) any more than has been done already, but Freakboy has asked me a question in response to my statement about the difference between science and creationism; I said:

To which Freakboy poses the argument:

**

It’s lucky you asked me that Freakboy because over the last six months or so I have been asking myself exactly the question that you raise; and as a result I have been forced to abandon my belief in creationism as the hollow sham that it really is.

Yes, I’m sure there is a certain amount of bias in any investigation, but the plain fact remains that the whole creationism package consists almost entirely of misinformed attacks on evolutionary theory - not much real science is being done by creationists; why should they want to research anything? - they already have the answers.

Let me elaborate on my original statement above;
Science examines physical evidence and makes testable hypotheses about the nature of that evidence (“given that A appears to lead to B, we should expect C to be true”) - if these hypotheses test true, they add weight to the theory (but they don’t close the case), if they test false, then the theory is modified or scrapped entirely, if new evidence arises that challenges part or all of the theory, again, the theory is modified, new hypotheses are made and tested, it’s a continuous process of trying to understand the universe as best we can given the information available. Much as creationist organisations would love to argue that this is done to promote some hidden agenda (humanism, atheism, whatever), I have to say that I can’t find any evidence of truth in those claims.

Crwationism, on the other hand is different; it has a set of core beliefs/claims which must not be questioned, great effort is made to find evidence which can be interpreted as supporting those claims, any evidence that appears contradictory to the core claims requires hurried construction of an often elaborate explanation to make it fit the claims, at no point will the claims be altered because the evidence doesn’t fit (and there is an overwhelming heap of such evidence; you can only really claim that there isn’t by shutting yourself away from the world and refusing to open your eyes), furthermore, many of the glossy ‘scientific’ assertions made by creationists are little more than propaganda (for example the whole polystrate trees issue). Creationism is fine as a religious viewpoint, but it shouldn’t try to present itself as science, it’s nothing like science and they are not equals; creationism approaches the universe from the other end of the chain of logic.

Now sure, you can probably point out examples of scientists who manipulated evidence to promote their theory, but I suspect that we’d find that most of them were quickly discredited by their peers (again, contrary to creationist propaganda, the scientific community isn’t some dark conspiracy plotting to overthrow religion/faith/God, the plain fact is that when scientists agree with each other it’s not because they have been told to, it’s beacuse they have (often independently) reached the same findings.

Four hundred years ago, this debate would not have been about the origins of life, it would have been about whether the sun orbits the earth or vice versa.

I’d like to point out another shortcoming of creationism.

The purpose of a scientific theory (like gravitation, or thermodynamis, or macroevolution) is twofold. First, the theory must explain available data. Second, the theory must make predictions about data we haven’t seen yet.

This second part is what sets scientific theories apart from non-scientific theories. Evolutionary theory does do this (see 29 Evidences for Macroevolution over at talkorigins.org).

This is important not because predictions can verify a theory, but because they can falsify it. The statement “God made the world through direct intervention 6000 years ago and left evidence to make it look like the universe is 15 billion years old” is not scientific, simply because it can’t be proven false. There’s also a bit about Occam’s razor, but there’s no need to drag that out just yet.

Thanks, man.

I wonder… is the fact that a theory is not falsifiable reason enough to discount it? I can think of something that isn’t scientifically falsifiable (as far as I can tell) but which none of us would consider to be non-existent: human emotions.

Emotions are observable. However, what is the cause/purpose/origin of emotions? A theory that attempted to explain that would have to be falsifiable. (E.g., if they are simply chemical actions in the brain triggered by certain stimuli, then a theory to discuss their source would first have to demonstrate that the same stimuli triggered the same chemical reactions (something David B mentioned in another thread), then it would have to explain why those reactions were triggered by those stimuli. Those investigations would require falsifiable evidence.)

To expand upon what tomndebb said, there are two different considerations when dealing with human emotions. First, there’s the observable fact that humans have emotions. Second, there’s at least one theory that explains how emotions occur.

It’s the falsifiability of that second part that we’re interested in. Theories don’t just say “X happens”, they say “X happens by the process of Y”. If that second statement isn’t falsifiable, you haven’t got a scientific theory.

Just in case anyone is interested in some psychological theories of emotion, here’s an list of some of the classical models.

That something isn’t falsifiable might be enough to discredit it as a scientific theory, but please note that knowledge doesn’t have to be scientific to be valid or useful. The scientific method deals only with one kind of knowledge- the physical state of the universe. Other types of knowledge (like aesthetics, ethics, mathematics, and so on) require different sorts of epistemologies to verify them.

Freakboy, if you’re still around, I’d be most grateful if you would be kind enough to visit this thread: (Two questions for creationists…) and give some examples of evidence that better fits the creation model, this thread got off to a bit of a bad start and I’ve had to restate the OPQ about halfway down page 3, but so far, nobody’s posted details of the evidence you mention above.

Thanks

Freakboy mentioned:

I think that a lot of people have this misconception. Over at pizza parlor, they mention this type of thing. The problem I see with it is that there are testable consequences for an evolutionary theory – something like: “If X decended from Y in a short time, X will be very similar to Y” More strongly, their DNA will be very similar – but that is harder to test, of course.

My question is, do we have any better tests for “very similar”? We have predictions “No animals will appear in the fossil record without animals that are similar occuring within a set amount of time”. (of course this is affected by the sparsity of the fossil record). But, are there good easy to grasp examples of this around?

Me’Corva

Mange Tout-- just looked up your name, appears to be french for “eats a lot”. Do you really identify yourself by your gastronomical tendencies? Or does the literal translation mask a more profound meaning? (I wouldn’t normally ask, but you brought it up)

Read the FAQ- it has a detailed explanation of molecular phylogeny that goes beyond creationist misconceptions about “similarity.”

-Ben