Aww, that’s kind of sweet. The creationists are trying to cheer me up while I’m on my sick bed. How else to interpret these wacky assertions from Austin Casey, a 19 year old student?
Science is fundamentally a search for the truth about the universe, and Perry’s acknowledgement of the holes in evolution theory manifests a much better understanding of science than Huntsman’s faith in scientists.
Cute. No, sorry, Perry doesn’t know anything about evolution, and acknowledging “holes” that don’t exist and denying the existence of processes well supported by the evidence is the antithesis of good science.
Scientific observations are classified into three categories: hypotheses, theories or laws. Hypotheses are the weakest interpretations of evidence, while theories garner more support. Laws are said to be the strongest explanations, but even they aren’t facts.
No, Casey is inventing a hierarchy that doesn’t exist. Which is more significant, Ohm’s Law or cell theory? Hawking’s theory of black holes, or the Hardy-Weinberg law? And hypotheses are a preliminary prediction about something; they aren’t in the same ballpark as theories and laws. A theory is “The grandest synthesis of a large and important body of information about some related group of natural phenomena”, according to Moore (from our intro textbook this year!) A law just refers to a body of observations that can be quanitatively summarized by a short mathematical (or in some cases, verbal) statement. I certainly do think that a law and a theory can be a statement of fact!
Moreover, the theory of evolution comes from one interpretation of available evidence. Contrary to Huntsman’s claim, the Republican Party is proving more scientific because of its legitimate recognition of the gaps in evolution.
To point out one weakness, evolution relies on the assumption that beneficial genetic information has been repeatedly added to genomes throughout the history of the universe. But not even Richard Dawkins, a leading evolutionary biologist from Oxford University, could name a single mutation that has added beneficial information.
Oh, piffle. Of course he can: read his books. Every evolutionary biologist can think of examples, and it’s trivial to find lists on the web. Biologists routinely identify traits with selective advantages.
It is not scientific when the Republican party denies reality.
I’m afraid it didn’t really cheer me up. I still feel icky and it’s no reassurance to know that clowns like Casey are lying in the newspapers.
(Also on Sb)
When Jesus said, “The poor will be around tomorrow, but I won’t,” he was uttering an early formulation of “Someone will ALWAYS be wrong on the Internet.” The important thing is to keep them from mucking with our educational system and keep them out of power in general. Take a rest and get better: we’ll handle them for a few days.
Basically just a bunch of unproven assertions ending with a lie.
Beneficial mutations are common and we literally see them every day. They are huge problems for medicine and the basis of our agricultural systems that feed 7 billion people.
Just another dumbass who hasn’t looked at evolution with either intelligence or open-mindedness, and just as stupidly claims that we don’t look at criticisms of it.
Sorry, IDiocy isn’t an explanation for anything at all. It isn’t a theory, even though people slightly brighter than Casey try to claim that it is (look at Meyer’s stupid book to see “ID theory” trumpeted, although never explained).
ID is nothing but one great gap. If evolution has “gaps” (and it does, if you’re using a fairly trivial definition), that’s because it has enough coherency to define problems. IDiocy doesn’t even have problems, as it has no capacity for producing answers.
Glen Davidson
Ok, so you’re on your death bed and Austin’s efforts didn’t work. Let me give it a try.
I just raised a frosty cold one to your health…ummmmm.
You’ve got to be feeling better now. Right?
They’re looking for the magic mutation that creates a new limb or something.
Or one that turns a fish into a salamander.
You have to ask yourself, is it just coincidence that two people named “Casey”–albeit one is a surname, and one is a first name–are so monumentally clueless and prone to stating falsehoods about evolution?
We may at last have seen evidence of the Designer in action… Beats the hell out of pointing at a flagellum and saying “God did it” as evidence, anyhow.
Glen Davidson
Well look at how popular culture portrays mutatation. It makes evil monsters, telepaths, and just all around changes people into not people.
A 19 year old student? Of what, the 7th grade?
PZ, that was painful to read, no way will that make you feel better …
and I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again (I even have it in my signature)
I don’t “believe” in evolution, I understand evolution
The good news is, as of this writing every comment is correcting/chastising him for his ignorant stance. Clearly, it is not Fox News.
Damn. Where is that slacker Jesus when you need him? (“Take up thy pallet and walk.”) I mean, there are all these people who say he’s alive and interested in the tiniest details of men’s lives, but where the heck is he when you’re sick and he could be useful. Nowhere to be found!
teawithbertrand,
You did well. Very well. Check your USB for rewards.
…This was written by a 19-year-old in the year 2011?
Modern US education really must have a huge vein of fail running through it. :(
Better stick with the grog today PZ. The saloon is serving fish head, bovine udder and pork hooves swill, with peas.
Good thing the Redhead served planned over “fried” chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn on the cob, and fruit turnovers.
He’s a student, there might be still time for his teachers to unlearn that idiocy.
“To point out one weakness, evolution relies on the assumption that beneficial genetic information has been repeatedly added to genomes throughout the history of the universe. But not even Richard Dawkins, a leading evolutionary biologist from Oxford University, could name a single mutation that has added beneficial information.”
Ah, somebody has been watching the Australian creationists quote-mining videos on YouTube.
Patricia #14, can I get it without peas, or must I pick them out?
As a lapsed agrologist I amm always astonished at the idiocy of such claims as “no beneficial” mutations. Where for fuck sake do they think the high yielding crops come from? Be it cereals, legumes etc. Where do cows come from that are able to produce almost 10 000 l/year in milk? Fell from a UFO?
Those idiots should not be permitted to buy any food that was selectively bred for higher yields, they should be condemned to live on a diet of emmer, einkorn and spelt, only the wild varieties as selection early on yielded higher results than then undomesticated variety.
It makes me choke to hear such a nineteen year idiot who is an absolute know nothing imbecile who regurgitates utter shite fed from religious fruit cakes.
Someone needs to fund a team to copy and paste a brief refutation of that video into the comments every 2 minutes. I volunteer. Go on, fund me. FUND ME.
How about sickle cell. A mutation that’s an advantage/disadvantage depending on environment. On the one hand, gives carriers an advantage in malaria areas. On the other hand, is detrimental in non-malaria areas.
Randomfactor – Peas are the dessert. Normally the saloon only serves swill in the trough or bucket, but this being a holiday we though what the hell – give em’ peas.
Peas are examples of lovely beneficial mutations guided by human agriculture. Wonderful crisp snow pea pods in a stir fry. Peas that can be dried and split, re-hydrated into a rich soup with chunks of nice, salty ham. Fresh sweet peas right off the vine, shelled from the pods and popped into one’s mouth on a pleasant summer’s day. Raw snow pea pods dipped in ranch dressing and munched as a snack. A cold salad of peas with mayo and onion and chunks of cheddar cheese. Peas added to give a little kick to a hearty beef stew.
Ahhh, peas. What sick and twisted mind could not appreciate the guided mutations that have created such a lovely legume?
“But not even Richard Dawkins, a leading evolutionary biologist from Oxford University, could name a single mutation that has added beneficial information.”
So let me get this straight. Dawkins failed to name a mutation, therefore there are no mutations? Didn’t bother to double-check with Dawkins before making the article? Didn’t bother to check with other biologists? Couldn’t have picked up a copy of The Making Of The Fittest? Nope, straight to an argument from authority – leading biologist doesn’t have answer to fundamental problem therefore it’s bunk.
What a moron!
Add to that several thalassemia mutations, which do the same thing. Of cystic fibrosis, which provides resistance to cholera.
But putting aside these “dual-action” mutations that have clear beneficial and harmful effects, depending on the situation, how about the duplication of the salivary amylase gene? Or the mutation in gene regulation that results in lactose tolerance? Or the gene duplication and subsequent divergence that created our third opsin gene? Or the two whole-genome duplications in vertebrates?
It seems like it should be pretty uncontroversial to admit holes in evolutionary theory—isn’t that precisely why people research it?
What’s stupid is not saying there are holes; it’s thinking that the presence of holes is evidence against the theory.
I especially liked the part where he told you who Richard Dawkins was.
What a maroon!
Just in recent times we have many examples of beneficial mutations in humans.
1. Adult lactose tolerance. This is so recent it is mostly found in historical cow herding populations and hasn’t yet swept to fixation.
2. Apo A1 Milano. Makes people resistant to artherosclerosis and heart disease.
3. Different human populations have different copy numbers of amylase. Depending on how much starch is in their historical diet.
4. HIV/AIDS. It was once thought that untreated HIV was 100% fatal eventually. We now know that 1 out of 500 people are resistant to HIV induced AIDS. Several mutations are known that explain this, probably others have yet to be characterized. Bonus question. Where did HIV come from and how? It evolved quite recently from a chimpanzee virus.
In times past, a disease like HIV/AIDS would have just swept through the population, killing huge numbers. A few generations later, it would just be a nuisance. Which is what evolution and natural selection does.
One more for the road. We have just fought off a novel flu, the “swine” flu that turned out to be a new version of the old 1918 flu virus. So where did this new flu come from? It evolved by mutation to easily infect humans again. A typical example of beneficial mutations, beneficial to the flu, not us.
Perry is an idiot. Evolution is all around us and we see it every day.
@12
Just calling ’em like I see ’em.
Randomfactor – Even if you don’t want the lovely peas, consider the self defense angle. Once the Ilk start getting rowdy, peas will fly.
“It seems like it should be pretty uncontroversial to admit holes in evolutionary theory—isn’t that precisely why people research it?”
It’s like calling evolution a theory – when some people hear holes in evolutionary theory, they take it as a sign it’s a theory in crisis. Gaps in the fossil record, for example, aren’t due to the fossilisation and discovery processes, but that the fossil record doesn’t have anything to show that evolution actually took place. Yes, there are plenty of gaps in the fossil record, but what is more telling is the fossils we do have.
It’s amazing how a subtle use of language can be used to present a highly misleading case.
Not really. We study evolution to learn more about it and understand it in greater and greater detail.
We still study the Germ Theory of Disease. Not because there are holes in it which prove the Demon Theory of Disease. But because there is always more to know. If nothing else novel human pathogens arise at the rate of about one every few years.
Why do creationists continue to use this dead argument? (Rhetorical question. I know the answer).
I can haz? Pleez? Seriously. I could really, really use that.
I could see a creationist dismissing those examples as not satisfying the criteria of not adding new information; that they would agree that such examples constitute microevolution but that it would be just tinkering with what’s there. In other words, we haven’t satisfied the “new information” criteria.
And there’s the new boundary in the microevolution / macroevolution distinction – the goalposts have shifted to a new criteria; and one that’s ambiguously worded that they can dismiss any attempts to demonstrate that criteria as not satisfying it. What do they mean by “new information”, exactly? Is a mutation on a gene “new information”? Is a gene duplication “new information”? Or do they take “new information” in terms of Shannon entropy, where the overall bits to describe a system increases? My guess is that they don’t really know – only that every possible example doesn’t satisfy what they’re after.
OCA2 is one mutation I can think off.
LOL. So could most of the US population, at least eventually.
They’ve been trying to turn this finding into a drug. Apparently it does work but is very difficult to produce enough.
IMO, just injecting Apo A1 isn’t going to be too useful. Injections of protein drugs are expensive and not too popular for millions of patients. Ideally, they would want to find a small molecule that mimics the functional phenotype.
Well, actually having atherosclerosis and having had a heart attack at the ripe old age of 36, you’ll forgive me for saying I have more than the average American’s stake in this:))
Maybe this will help you feel better? Read the post about not doing debates anymore and got to thinking. The problem with the debates isn’t that they happen or that people don’t listen to what they don’t want to hear. The problem is it costs you effort and has a return value that isn’t what you want it to be. So… how about we turn that the effort is coming from the other direction? Here’s one way to do it, no clue if it’s workable or not.
———
A riddle. The answer is a kind of person, a role in society or an occupation. See if you can come up with at least three answers. Extra credit if you take my silly little idea and improve on it. :)
I had a thought. It was a compelling, wonderful idea.
I think everyone should have this idea. I will share it with the world.
The idea itself is incomplete unless everyone shares it.
I know not everyone will welcome this idea. The idea is worth more to me than other people. I will force it on them.
My ends always justify my means. This is proportionally true for other people in direct relation to how much they agree with me.
I have goals I will not share with the world. My idea fuels my agenda.
People who don’t share my idea are not worth listening to.
What am I?
It’s pathetic that he doesn’t realize nearly all the mutations that have him alive right now and make him able to survive in his environment are beneficial mutations. Very little of him isn’t a beneficial mutation for homo sapiens!
That’s funny. I was just watching a lecture PZ gave at a Minnesota Atheists meeting where he mentions lactose tolerance and how mutations for lactose tolerance have risen multiple times in different populations. That’s one of the most obvious beneficial traits that anyone can think of. Even before I began studying biology I recognized it as a beneficial adaption.
@32 and 33:
I don’t think you quite got the import of what I was saying. What I was trying to say is that saying that “there are holes in evolutionary theory” is true, but it’s as little an objection to evolution as “evolution is just a theory.” There are gaps in our understanding of evolution that research strives to fill in, and these gaps are evidence of the fact that we don’t fully understand evolution (or germ theory), not that evolutionary theory is flawed.
My point is that saying, “there are holes in [x] theory,” as if it’s evidence against [x] is predicated on a misunderstanding of what it means for there to be holes in a theory, in very much the same way as saying “[x] is just a theory” as if that is a condemnation of the scientific standing [x] is predicated on a misunderstanding of what it means for something to be a theory.
Yes, there are holes in evolutionary theory, and every other wonderful theory we’ve ever had. That’s why we still have scientists researching them and enhancing our understanding. Raven: “There is always more to know”—precisely. There are always questions that we can ask but haven’t yet answered. These are holes, gaps, whatever. And, just as you said, this is not evidence against the theory, but a motivation to further research.
Really, in both of your responses, you reiterated the content of my post and objected to the semantics. But I think it is useful to keep the word “holes” in this case and to understand properly what it means—it only underscores how little Perry et al. understand what they’re saying. Though I suppose that hardly needs underscoring.
Indeed. But what a creationist hears is “aha! so you admit evolution is just another faith!” To qualify science as being provisional knowledge with explanations as incomplete isn’t going to be done by using the language that they use to dismiss evolution. The “holes” in evolution aren’t holes in the sense they think of it, so why concede that point?
If a person could really show that beneficial mutations never happen, that would be pretty earth-shattering. That would be tantamount to falsifying evolution, which is after all predicated on the occasional appearance of beneficial mutations among the millions and billions of neutral or deleterious mutations.
I’m not sure in what sense you could mean “holes” in such a way that would warrant it’s use.
Your laugh is like bad medicine. Bad medicine is what I need. (I think I have a cold too!)
Uh, oh, better don’t read other articles by the same author. One of his recent masterpieces is titled It’s time for the American ‘poor’ to share the same sacrifice. It’s just as bad as it sounds.
Josh,
I wonder if I have such a beneficial mutation? I shall be 54 in November. I have had high cholesterol all my life, but negligible atherosclerosis (a tiny amount in my carotid arteries).
That is why it took ten years for my chest pains to be diagnosed as angina. In my case, the arteries aren’t blocked by plaques; they go into spasm.
@ Jett Perrabone
Curse you and your infernal earworm!
Well, that’s just the deal isn’t it. The only card they have to play is lying. Tell a lie enough times and there will be people who believe it. How do they do it and sleep at night?
Well Kepler’s laws and Newtons are two of my favourite ones & are pretty important in making sense of the universe. :-)
But Copernican theory and Einstein’s relativity (Special and General theories) trump both of them – or, at least, are extremely important in other broader ways. It’s not like we have to choose betwixt ’em as all apply in different areas and are well established facts.
Plus Arthur C. Clarke’s laws esp. the apt – “Any sufficently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” ;-)
Hope you feel better soon PZ. :-)
Good lord, girl. Spasming arteries? A nightmare. How do you deal with it?
Since my heart attack I’ve had to learn how to manage my already-panic-prone personality even more tightly. It’s a daily struggle to keep my anxiety about my heart under control sufficiently that I don’t a) Call for an ambulance b) Completely melt down and become convinced I’m dying c) Turn every palpitation into a crisis and freak the fuck out.
If I had to deal with spasming arteries on top of my blocked ones. . . I don’t know what I’d do.
@Jett Perrobone :
You mean this? : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOUtsybozjg&ob=av3e
With the comforting thought that they’re doing God’s work, saving others from the eternal lake of fire…
So that’s a 19 yo who’s failing basic biology and being held back – at high school level right?
Clicks links and finds that assumption sadly wrong :
Medical physics? Really?
Is he getting a passing grade I wonder – and doubt.
Josh – wow, 36? I hope you’re taking really good care of yourself. A couple of friends had attacks in their early 40’s, which is quite scary enough.
So much for intelligent design, eh? Hearts that can fail so early, eyes that don’t focus right ( my problem ), arthritis, and that tragic problem of brains that are so malformed the host body actually votes publican.
@StevoR:
Yes. Bad medicine as in “Rock”, not “Alternative”! ;)
Josh,
I manage it (and the atrial fibrillation) with a slew of pills; and a nitro spray when the pills aren’t sufficient.
Unfortunately, it isn’t just the coronary arteries that go into spasm. Depending on which one is playing silly buggers I can get sudden pain anywhere from my head to my toes and when it is one in my brain I get anything from a vicious headache to partial or total paralysis, with weird and wonderful effects in between those extremes.
“Holes” is really the wrong word to use. In most of these cases, it was the theory itself that showed us these areas where our understanding was lacking. Without having had the theory to provide a framework for asking the right questions, we wouldn’t even have known that these questions were unanswered or were important to ask at all. In some cases without the theory we wouldn’t even have been able to formulate the question at all.
For example, one big “gap” in our current understanding of evolutionary theory is the origin of sex. But without the theory of evolution, we wouldn’t even have known that this was a question that needed to be asked.
A more accurate term to me is “target”. We used the theory to find these gaps in our understanding, and we are using the theory to guide and plan the research needed to fill them.
Contrary to Huntsman’s claim, the Republican Party is proving more scientific because of its legitimate recognition of the gaps in evolution
“Nevertheless, a growing number of noteworthy scientists have rejected evolution and are noted creationists, such as… [several names] …and the famous philosopher of science Karl Popper.”
Posthumously recruiting actual scientists to the cause again, how pathetic.
Re Holms @ #62
As I understand it, Popper originally objected to evolution on the grounds of falsifiability. After further investigation, he later admitted that evolution could be falsified.
Right. Austin Casey is just stringing ancient old lies from creationists together. Probably got them from the ICR and AIG.
If their religion was true, they wouldn’t have to lie all the time.
Popper once claimed that evolution wasn’t falsifiable. He changed his mind like any normal person when it was pointed out that it is easily falsifiable.
It just hasn’t been falsifiable. FWIW, the hardest theories to falsify are ones that happen to be true. By now, evolution is well into that category and can be said to be true.
I note with some amusement
(who’s a Catholic)
Right now, Perry is the leading GOP candidate.
Right now, the presidency is the GOP’s to lose. Our economy is sick thanks to Bushco, and Obama hasn’t really fixed it. Usually the party in power gets tossed when that happens. It might not be his fault, maybe no one could fix it quick, but the voters aren’t going to worry too much about maybes.
If Perry gets elected, the USA is over with for the next generation. His track record in Texas is pretty abysmal and he is clearly an amoral sociopath and an idiot.
If it happens, I suppose I’ll get a few more cats and lay in a supply of white wine. And work on my survival plans.
I’m starting to see how the Russians felt when the USSR fell. The world’s other superpower and then one day, it just collapsed. I knew Russian scientists from that time, they all ran West to get jobs when their’s disappeared. Nice people, interesting, intelligent, well educated, and in a total state of shock that we in the USA can’t even imagine. Yet, our turn might be coming soon.
Dhorvath, #7:
Quelle trouvaille!
Indeed. And one of the very few dumb enough to take it seriously. IIRC, Behe has 9 kids or 12 or some incredible number.
I’m sure from that, that Austin Casey is some budding christofascist moron from some weird cult, who believes the vast majority of xians are Fake Xians and are all going to hell. Must be a lovely person in a fundie Death Cult sociopathic sort of way.
@44:
Of course that’s what creationists hear. But they mishear everything, either deliberately or simply out of stupidity or dogmatism, so it’s not like we can really protect against that, in the end.
@60:
Your choice of “fill them” in your final sentence is a metaphor that goes much better with “holes” than with “target.” :P
And I think your point about using theory to even see the holes, gaps, targets, whatever is a great one. I’m hoping to enter grad school for philosophy of science next year, and this sort of issue is one of those that most draws me to philosophy of science: investigating what distinguishes an interesting question from an uninteresting one. I think it’s fascinating how a question like, “how did sex originate,” certainly one of the most interesting questions scientists (in any field) are researching today, is not even a particularly sensible question until you have evolutionary biology in place to tell you you should ask it.
At this point, I think I’ve responded to here agrees with me in everything that really matters. What my position at this point really comes down to is that I find it more aesthetically pleasing to think, “Rick Perry is saying something strictly true, and using that truth moronically,” than to think, “Rick Perry is saying something false.” That, and I dislike the idea of letting creationists determine our language use. It feels like pandering.
Because the lies are for Jesus. Hell, Lying For Jesus is built into the religion…
Romans 3:7 For if the truth of God hath more abounded by my lie unto his glory, why yet am I also adjudged a sinner?
… and perpetuated by its leading practitioners:
What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the good and for the Christian church … a lie out of necessity, a useful lie, a helpful lie, such lies would not be against God, he would accept them. – Martin Luther
Sadly, the Baton Rouge paper isn’t making a very good case for their local education system…
slc1 (#63):
Popper thought that evolution (i.e., common descent) was eminently falsifiable – his doubts were about natural selection, as expressed as “the survival of the fittest”. And as soon as someone pointed out that this was not a tautology, and that fitness is not defined as mere differential survival, he publically withdrew his criticism and acknowledged that natural selection was a testable mechanism after all.
So the claim that Popper ever rejected evolution (and was a creationist) is just yet another contemptible creationist lie.
slc1 (#63):
Popper thought that evolution (i.e., common descent) was eminently falsifiable – his doubts were about natural selection, as expressed as “the survival of the fittest”. And as soon as someone pointed out that this was not a tautology, and that fitness is not defined as mere differential survival, he publically withdrew his criticism and acknowledged that natural selection was a testable mechanism after all.
So the claim that Popper ever rejected evolution (and was a creationist) is just yet another contemptable creationist lie.
Ugh, double post. Sorry.
@66. raven : 3 September 2011 at 6:34 am
Really?
I would’ve thought Mitt Romney was still favourite to win?
I’m standing by my prediction of a 2012 Romney (R) vs Obama (D) campaign with Obama probably the likely winner.
I really don’t think Americans will be that silly that they vote for Perry to be President or even GOP nomination – & Perry and Bachman will clash and take votes off each other.
We’re just at the very start of a re-eally tediously looo-oong road with many twists and turns 2012 US presidency race~wise and how politics looks now won’t be how it finishes up – I expect and hope.
Maybe. Who knows right now.
Romney at least appears human. His track record as governmor of Massachusetts wasn’t bad.
Romney is widely hated by the Tea Party. Which owns the GOP right now. He is also a Mormon. Who are widely hated by the True Xians.
It is a long tedious election but the thought of President Perry or President Bachmann seems a lot like the coming of the Sleeping Dead Nameless Old Ones from beyond Cthonic Chaos.
It’s sad theorems and lemmas are usually left out when creationists talk about their imaginary hierarchy of scientific ideas. Let’s strike a blow for lemmas!
I liked PZ’s use of “Oh, piffle” following the claim that even the mighty Richard Dawkins could not name a single mutation that turned out to be beneficial.
I’m not a biologist, and even I laughed at that howler. Oh, piffle, indeed. That’s such an obviously erroneous statement that it doesn’t even deserve a round of good, solid swearing. No cuss words for you, Casey.
The boy is probably a first year student at Liberty University.
Intelligent Design is the “theory” (I shouldn’t call it a theory) that has the biggest gaps. It has not a single shred of supporting evidence and is based upon the argument from ignorance fallacy.
Iain Walker – double post or not: where can I read about this turn of events. Does Popper cover it in one of his books or where?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Ah, but that’s a point in its favour.
Evolution, you see, has thousands of pieces of evidence, and thus thousands of gaps between them.
Intelligent design, on the other hand, has no evidence at all, and thus only has _one_ gap.
Thus, since ID has fewer gaps, it’s clearly the superior theory.
It looks like the comments to Casey’s spew are entirely negative.
“Let’s strike a blow for lemmas!”
Ring-tailed, Northern giant mouse or Grewcock’s sportive (is it just me or does it seem like Terry Pratchett has been inventing species again?)
What I want to know is just where these people get the idea that ‘law’ is greater than ‘theory’. I shall hypothesize that it is a side effect of the mental damage causing their primary symptoms, perhaps leading to the inability to understand that words can have different meanings In different contexts. Thus we see them conflating the important (to them) use of ‘gods laws’ (trumpets and heavenly choirs) with the fairly mundane use as ‘scientific law’. In order to develop this hypothesis in the hope of building a theory, we can perform tests such as removing the brains of the victims and rummaging around in them.
Surely any faintly science related higher education course ought to be able to find time for a couple of hours lectures on the very basics of the philosophy of science? At least so students know some simple stuff like inductive & deductive reasoning, falsifiability and why it is not all that Popper did, Kuhnian paradigms, Lakatos’ research program idea, Feyerabend, stuff like that. It’s fascinating stuff in it’s own right but if you don’t even know the basics how can you possibly make any sense of science?
kantalope (#81):
For a summary and references, try:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA211_1.html
I think it’s significant to point out that even in my high school biology class, when my teacher (relatively briefly) covered evolution, she told us at least some form of that “hierarchy” of theories and laws.
She basically said the theory has abundant evidence but couldn’t be classified as a law because we can’t directly observe evolution taking place due to it taking place over millions of years and all that. But I guess that’s not true.
I’m beginning to think we should just call all scientific laws “facts”, because these idiots are too ignorant to care to learn science. I can stomach “Newton’s First Fact” if it shuts these putzes up.
I think you have to be far too charitable to prefer that assessment. It’s like choosing to believe that “evolution is just a theory” matters for the semantics rather than the meaning.
tbh, I wouldn’t use the word “holes” when talking about the incompleteness of scientific theories – it seems to misrepresent the scientific endeavour. All science by its nature is provisional and incomplete, it doesn’t mean theories are full of holes. What are the holes in general relativity, for example? It seems an absurd question. It’s not that general relativity is a complete theory, nor that there aren’t research problems (such as the big one – reconciling it with quantum mechanics) but that describing them as holes doesn’t make any sense.
But in terms of altering language for an audience, I don’t think this is so much pandering to the creationists as it is recognising that understanding is more important than the words used. The words are meant to be markers for a particular meaning, if people don’t take that meaning with the word is used, then what fool would continue to use the word?
Stephen Roos,
that’s definitely not true. There are industrial amounts of examples like these.
Evolution does happen across million of years, but it also happens at a more rapid scale which we can see directly.
references most appreciated
award yourself one pharyng and/or a margarita!
Nothing wrong with the scientific meaning of theory.
We speak of the Germ Theory of Disease. The Theory of Internal Combustion Engines.
Few people doubt that “germs” cause disease. There are Germ Theory of Disease Deniers though. They frequently end up dead from…germs that cause disease.
Not sure if there are any Internal Combustion Engine Theory Deniers. Maybe they all got run over by cars and trucks that they don’t believe can exist.
Of course not. But when talking to a lay-audience, using the word theory in the scientific sense and expecting the audience to grasp it doesn’t seem like a very smart thing to do.
There’s a gap between science and science communication, explaining the nature of science in scientific terms to an audience who has a very different understanding of the meaning of those terms is sheer idiocy.
Have to agree with Kel on that one. It is a meaningless marketing thing but it has impact.
Example: Canola oil…from rape seed; you can see how rape oil has a built in disadvantage.
@ #24:
“Peas added to give a little kick to a hearty beef stew.”
You would even consider a beef stew without peas? Peas are integral to the “kick!”