Science Can Be Totally Wrong At Any Time
Offline If I have to hear this argument one more time, I may lose it. Variants include:
"Once we thought the earth was flat, and it turned out we were wrong, so evolution could be wrong, too!"
"At one time, everyone thought the sun revolved around the earth, so physics can be proven wrong at the drop of a hat!"
No, no, no, NO.
Any and all of these ridiculous statements ignores the MASSIVE amount of testing that has happened since we thought anything that ridiculous. Now, we're way past ridiculous and into refining the details of a pretty well thought-out body of knowledge.
Certainly, we don't know everything. Of course we could learn something new that refines what we know. That's what we do every freaking day! Saying that the current level of scientific knowledge is in some way equivalent to "the earth is flat" is so monumentally ignorant of ... everything ... that I'm staggered this type of statement can be considered part of an acceptable argument.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
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Perhaps in future battles we should simply tell them that science never claimed the Earth was flat. It never would have got to the theory stage, simply because there was no way to test the Earth's flatness. As soon as there was, the hypothesis got tossed out.
Of course, they probably won't get it.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
...is that it can admit to having had wrong/inadequate ideas. It can also correct such mistakes. Religion *can't* do this, without completely invalidating its own self-important claims of infallibility/inerrancy/prophecy. Some examples:
--the Bible: You know...bats as birds, 3 as an approximation of pi, etc., etc. ad nauseum.
--the Koran: Humanity came from a clot of blood. Except that it didn't.
--the Book of Mormon: Nobody inside the LDS Church today dares mention the unambiguous teaching of this text that a person's skin color changes due to the presence--or absence--of personal righteousness.
--the "constant" Catholic tradition: This, of course, never changed on usury, slavery, the salvation of non-Catholics, and...what? It did change? Oops.
In this light...being able to admit to, and correct, mistakes puts science light-years ahead of religion. The sort of "infallibility" displayed by religion is almost more of a sick joke than anything else.
Conor
First of all, early ideas like the flat earth were never part of anything that could be be called 'science'. One of the earliest groups who started to think in something like what we call scientific terms, ie basing one's ideas on observation and testing, were some of the Greek philosophers, who not only accepted a spherical earth, but came up with surprisingly good estimates for its size.
And complete overturning of scientific theories is not all that common. Even Newton's work on gravity is still quite applicable to ordinary circumstances, where we don't require extreme accuracy, and/or are not dealing with extreme velocities, accelerations, gavitational fields, etc.
Whereas if you are not using science to validate your ideas, as with religious faith and revelation, you have no basis for claiming any truth value. You may not be subject to the occasional major revision of ideas as in science, but that just means you never get to correct and improve the accuracy of your beliefs, so you are most likely permanently stuck in error. Meanwhile science, by continually testing and updating, progressively gets closer to an accurate description of reality, albeit with the occasional, but self-correcting, wrong turn.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
There is a reason that every undergraduate budding physicist studies the mechanics of Newton, Euler and Lagrange. There is a reason that Relativistic mechanics cannot be understood without a firm understanding of the Galilean transform group. There is a reason that Lavoisier’s Law is still used in chemistry. There is a reason that every student of genetics must have a firm grounding in the laws of Mendelian inheritance. There is a reason every student of statistical physics must be acquainted with the work of Joule and Clausius. There is a reason that every nuclear physicist must know the model of Rutherford and Marsden. The process of formulating new scientific theories work on principles of cumulative knowledge. The term “completely wrong” is used a little differently in scientific circles. Polywater and Phlogiston theory were “completely wrong”. Newton and Clausius were not. When a theoretical proposal is grounded heavily in empirical data gathered by sound methodology, it is almost never completely wrong. What we usually find is that it is a special case of a more general and more inclusive theory which explains a wider range of phenomenon which supersedes it. For example, consider the Relativistic equation of total energy of an observed object:
Et=Ek+Erest
Where:
Erest=m0c2
The total energy recorded in an arbitrary frame of reference in which the speed of the object is recorded to be v is:
Et=γ m0c2
Where:
γ =1/( √(1-v2/c2)
Thus:
Ek=( γ-1) m0c2
Let:
v2/c2=x
Now expand the following in a Taylor series:
(1-x)-0.5=1+(x/2)-(3x2/8)+(x3/3.2)…
Thus:
Ek= m0c2(1+(x/2)-(3x2/8)+(x3/3.2)....)-m0c2
Take the limit of the series as v becomes small compared to c:
Ek= m0c2(x/2)=m0v2/2
Which is equivalent to the formation of Ek derived to Newton’s laws. There is a perfectly good reason why this equation is still used to send rockets into space.
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
Yah, it is true that science does correct itself all the time. However, it is somewhat important to recognize what the nature of those corrections may be. Let me make a distinction between what goes on at the cutting edge of science and what makes it into a high school text book.
Sure, the cutting edge work is full of material that is conjectural in nature. At that level, the actual scientists doing the work may not all agree on any given matter and in fact, it is not unusual for there to be different schools of thought that can't all be right. The self correcting nature of science is that eventually, such things get worked out.
The material that makes it down to the level of regular science books should be what has been throughly worked over and any potential weaknesses identified and dealt with. Along the way, some of the discarded ideas should be included as part of the history of science, so that students can get a feel for how the process works.
Honestly, what amazes me is why basic material like the size and curvature of the earth and the heliocentric model are only taught as numbers in tables. They are not all that hard to determine. If you simply could not graduate high school until you had personally measured the curve of the earth, the size and distance of the moon and the sun and determined that venus does indeed orbit the sun inside the orbit of the earth, I wonder how many people would still be able to lodge such questions. Heck but you could do all of those activities in a single week in physics class.
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But that argument can be countered even without the references to the scientific method that you guys use above. Here's the beauty of argumentation. Hear what your opponent is saying, and use his own argument against him:
My opponent says: "Once we thought the earth was flat, and it turned out we were wrong, so evolution could be wrong, too!"
I reply: "But how do you know that it turned out we were wrong?"
My opponent: "Well, because today we know it is round!"
Me: "But how do you know that we are not wrong now, and that indeed we were right when we thought it was flat?"
Opponent: "Well, because we've seen that it's round now"
Me: "Well back when people thought the Earth was flat they saw it too. They observed the world around them and saw that the surface of the Earth appeared flat, and also that you cannot stand on the underside of a sphere without falling off. So they had good reasons for thinking the Earth was a flat disc."
Opponent: "Yearh, but that's just because they didn't have spacecrafts and modern psychics to observe what was really the case."
Me: "But still, how is your trust in modern psychics and spacecrafts any different from their trust in the most sofisticated science and technology of their day? How can you be sure you are not wrong about the Earth being round?"
Opponent: "Well, I suppose I can never be absolutely sure"
Me: "So do you still believe the Earth is round?"
Here the conversation can go one of two ways:
The first:
My Opponent says: "No, I no longer believe the Earth is round. I can't know for sure, so I just don't know what shape it is. Nobody does."
And I reply: "Well good. Then I believe the Earth is banana-shaped, and you are infact a blue walruss from an alien planet. That may well be the case. My guess is as good as yours, because nobody can know anything for certain, and there is no way of quantifying wether something might be more likely to be true than anything else. Do you agree?"
Opponent: "..."
The second, and most likely reply:
Me: "So do you still believe the Earth is round?"
Opponent: "Yes, I do, because while I cannot know for certain, there is an abundance of evidence to indicate that the Earth is indeed round. If it isn't then we can't trust any observations we ever make."
Me: "Good. So you admit that if there is an abundance of evidence for something, then it is counter to reason and common sense to not believe it to be the case, even though on some level, we must admit that we can never know for absolutely certain?"
Opponent: "I suppose so, yes"
Me: "Well then please tell me again how it is that evolution is probably wrong... I would suggest you take a biology class and then come back and tell me again that evolution has no basis in reality whatsoever.
You see, my dear opponent: either you trust observation or you don't. You can't say that we know now that the Earth is round as part of your argument, and then at the same time argue that evolution is wrong. Either you admit that you don't believe all the scientists and NASA astronauts, when they say the Earth is round, or you are saying that science is right about the Earth's shape but not about evolution.
If you say the latter then you are making a value judgement about the quality of the observations made that the earth is round vs. the quality of the observations that evolution is right. That judgement of yours holds little arguing power if you are not familiar with the observations that evolution is right.
If you go into the Amazon rainforest and find a primitive tribe, and go tell a small child there that the Earth he is standing on is round he might not believe you. But you know that's just because he hasn't seen photographs from the spaceshuttle, or flown in an aircraft around the globe. If he did that, of course he'd believe it, just like you do. How could he not, if he'd seen the evidence with his own eyes?
Well, I assure you, if you studied evolution you'd see the evidence too, and you'd believe it, because the evidence is abundant. You might be wrong in believing it, sure, but you would undoubtably believe it. How could you not, once you've seen the evidence with your own eyes?
And yet, like I said, you could be wrong, because you can always be wrong. You might be wrong in thinking that we are having this conversation right now. You might be dreaming it all.
But I ask you this: do you believe we are having this conversation?"
Well I was born an original sinner
I was spawned from original sin
And if I had a dollar bill for all the things I've done
There'd be a mountain of money piled up to my chin
Actually, you can test yourself the fact that Earth is round. The two most straightforward ways to do this are:
1. Construct a Foucault pendulum (although you need to be familiar with rotational dynamics and the Gauss-Bernoulli theorem to interpret the results)
2. If you have a high-powered weapon like a high calibre rifle, you can test for the existence of the Coriolis effect
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
The best part of the argument is, the people making it are trying to push for their absolutely insane claims over it. Honestly, people...
*Our world is far more complex than the rigid structure we want to assign to it, and we will probably never fully understand it.*
"Those believers who are sophisticated enough to understand the paradox have found exciting ways to bend logic into pretzel shapes in order to defend the indefensible." - Hamby
This is why I reuse any more to debate the genetically retrograde amongst us. Arguments like this represent both the cusps of desperation AND madness. Observe reality as best you are able, and get over it!
Or try method #3 which is far easier and can be done with about a buck and a pocket calculator. Here is what you do:
The first day of summer will be coming up fairly soon. When that happens, put a stick in the ground vertically and measure the height that sticks up. The math will probably be easiest if you make that 1 meter.
At noon, measure the length of the shadow.
With a bit of simple geometry, you can calculate the curvature of the earth. I picked the first day of summer because a matching stick on the tropic of Cancer will show essentially no shadow. You will also need to know how far you are from the tropic of Cancer but that is easy enough to determine. Calling your local observatory will give you an accurate enough number.
The method will work on any day (assuming good weather of course) and for any reference point that is far enough north or south but then you would need to know where you are in relation to the reference point and the length of the shadow at that location.
Although I do like the idea of using a high powered rifle too. It is at least, in concept, possible to get a confirming measure by timing the drop of the bullet. In practice, there are probably too many variables to make it worthwhile but even so...
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Quite right. That's part of my frustration, that a misunderstanding of science counts as a critique. I usually respond, "Scientists never thought the earth was flat. Ever." Because seriously. When was Epicurus, 3rd or 4th century BC? We had this shit covered 2200 years ago. And that's just in Greece! Don't think Asia was sleeping.
In fact, anyone who can admit to being wrong puts themselves light-years ahead in being able to learn.
It can't be, by virtue of the fact that it's based on something that was actually observed as happening (empirical data). The obviousness of this point is something that I wish I could impart psychically.
That's actually a really good idea. I'm not joking - that's brilliant. Make it a big assignment that everyone has to do in front of a teacher. Accuracy wouldn't really be a problem, and getting some steps wrong wouldn't be a big deal, either: you just get 4/5 or whatever. Physics at the high school level should be outside measuring stuff and calculating. I don't know why that isn't the case.
This is the most difficult part, I'd say. It seems as though popular taste has moved away from education to ... "whatever floats your boat", unfortunately. Asking someone to learn something is like pulling teeth. Likewise for insisting that people only address things with which they have some familiarity.
Oh, that gave me a chuckle. You're such a card. Thanks for the math above, too: it's like Valium on the frayed nerves.
Honesty would be nice. Humility of a sort, too.
There should probably be a Venn diagram for this type of thing. Hmm ...
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
I think the entire education system needs to be changed in order to reflect actual application of knowledge and skills, as opposed to boring and stuffy lectures where you busy yourself trying to keep your writing up with the teachers speech.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
There's a more elementary way to test the Earth's roundness, and even measure its circumference. Eratosthenes of Cyrene did this circa 200 B.C.E.
Science, or rather, the modern scientific method, is a fairly new phenomenon, only coming into its own within the last 500 years or so, ushered in by Francis Bacon and Galileo Galilei.
If anything, it was the birth of modern science (well, that and the printing press, plus mass literacy) that finally dispelled such notions.
Well, I covered that in post #10. Also, I have not seen DG on the forums in months. Bat yah, Eratosthenes did do the experiment based on the fact that the sun would shine down wells in Syene on the first day of summer.
Honestly though, I am serious in proposing that the educational system should have some universal standards. I had the substantial advantage of having some good teachers who would come up with lesson plans that really helped develop critical thinking. If educational standards were looked at much more critically than they are today, we would not be dealing with the same type of anti-intellectual junk that we do today.
Seriously, as it has been noted, science can and does correct itself all the time. However, such corrections are really grounded in the details and not the big picture. For example, it has only been about a dozen years since the question was resolved as to whether penguins are birds (they are). However, evolution in general is quite well worked over and it is rather improbable that it will turn out to be wrong.
Just for fun though, let's say that there is some traction to the idea of evolution not working out as a theory. Well, what would replace it? Another scientific theory that was better supported by the evidence. Not the biblical story.
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Since there is such a strong correlation between the decrease in number of pirates and the warming of the planet, we should all become pirates to stop global warming.
“Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.”
Laymen make the mistake of confusing a person, with a tool a person uses.
A scientist is a person.
Scientific method is a tool.
If you try to use a sledge hammer to put the pin back in a grenade you are a DUMBASS!
Scientific method is something any laymen can understand as a concept. But the fields scientific method are applied to can be complicated.
Scientific method is simple observation and falsification with a control group to insure quality. It simply means to compare.
Can scientists be wrong? ANY CREDIBLE SCIENTIST WANTS YOU TO CHALLENGE THEM! It means that if they have gotten something wrong, THEY GET TO LEARN SOMETHING NEW and correct a mistake. But in all this, there are things that have been thoroughly established over and over and over.
Gap answers such as ancient myth are absurdities that should be left in the past, just like claims of Thor making lighting.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
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Nikolaj wrote:
Opponent: "Well, I suppose I can never be absolutely sure"
I have had almost this EXACT exchange with a Creationist. I'm sorry to report that this particularly hard-headed individual absolutely refused to admit that there was a possibility, of ANY kind, that he could be wrong. He would not admit under repeated assaults that any other view had any validity. All he would do was refer me back to earlier arguements that I had dismissed, such as the "but that's not what the Bible says" standard.
My tactic in that debate was to simply get him to say that he didn't know everything. His answer was to say that GOD knew everything, and he trusted in God.
How does one open a closed mind?
Robb
"The general opinion is not always the perfect truth..."
- Giordano Bruno
One cannot. One can pry a hole in the door so that it can be seen through, but one cannot make another open the door. The more holes there are in the door, however, the harder it is not to look.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Isaac Asimov has an essay regarding this line of logic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tcOi9a3-B0
Here's the summary of it with the actual essay in the description.
It's essentially incorrect to think that an old theory is as wrong as the current version of it.
However there's a problem with the logic. The theory is that we once believed that the earth was flat ... which is almost true. The curvature of the earth seems so slight that it almost is flat. But then we figured it was round. Now we figure that it's not quite round, but bulging a little at the equator.
So he figures that the change from flat to round was a relatively big change. The change from round to bulging a little is a small one so we are closer and closer to the truth.
Unfortunately the same logic can be used to justify almost anything. Imagine that I know Hawkins is quite famous and well known. I also know he's controversial so I theorize that he's a gangster rapper. Later I abandon that theory in favor of the idea that he's the Speaker of the US House of Representatives. Later I abandon that theory for just a normal US Congressman. I can then (using the same logic above) demonstrate that I am converging on the truth.
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"The church at the time of Galileo was much more faithful to reason than Galileo himself, and also took into consideration the ethical and social consequences of Galileo's doctrine. Its verdict against Galileo was rational and just, and revisionism can be legitimized solely for motives of political opportunism." -Paul Feyerabend
"Let me just anticipate that nobody to date has found a demarcation criteria according to which Darwin can be described as scientific, but this is exactly what we are looking for." -Imre Lakatos
Only if you do not acknowledge that theories are NOT simply 'true' or 'false', but fit more or less of the data, to a greater or lesser degree, which is how we decide which ones are currently the best ones to go with at any point in time.
The amount of change between different theories is NOT the point.
Newton's Theory is still quite usable in many circumstances, even though the the version of gravity described in Einstein's General Relativity is more accurate.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
You said the amount of change between the theories is not the point. To that extent, I take it that you disagree with the audio.
While it's true that theories are not simply 'true' there are some theories that are simply false. There's no way of knowing if a theory is true, but you can, however, know if a theory is false. Finding one talking donkey would falsify the theory that donkeys don't talk.
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"The church at the time of Galileo was much more faithful to reason than Galileo himself, and also took into consideration the ethical and social consequences of Galileo's doctrine. Its verdict against Galileo was rational and just, and revisionism can be legitimized solely for motives of political opportunism." -Paul Feyerabend
"Let me just anticipate that nobody to date has found a demarcation criteria according to which Darwin can be described as scientific, but this is exactly what we are looking for." -Imre Lakatos
I didn't listen to the audio.
Of course, some theories are simply false.
This reflects the basic asymmetry of logic - it can only show with confidence when an argument or theory is 'false', ie inconsistent with the input assumptions, not when it is true, only that it may be true.
That is a triviality - we only apply the more rigorous analysis to theories which have been shown to have no basic errors.
We CANNOT know by such simple 'observations' which one of a set of plausible competing hypotheses is the best model of reality, ie, best fits the data, and makes the most precise predictions, which is all we try to do. We already know that no theory is going to precisely describe reality, so again 'true' and 'false' are not useful at this level.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
UM..... When I signed onto this site, It was my understanding that there would be no Math....
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