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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
 Posted - 07/15/2007 : 21:25:50
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I've been giving a lot of thought behind making a topic about Philosophy of Science, as the subject has always been very fascinating and thought provoking to me. It wasn't until one of Dave's recent posts that I saw the opportunity and decided to jump on it.
Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by JEROME DA GNOME
You presented a definition of evolution that encompasses almost every biological function. |
It has to, Jerome, otherwise evolutionary theory would fail to explain what we see, and so it would be a bad theory.
But the key word is "almost." If we see a horse sprout bird-like wings, it would falsify evolution. If we find a Devonian bunny, it would falsify evolution. There are plenty of scenarios we can dream up which would falsify evolution, but they're not found in nature. |
I disagree. At first glance, it certainly seems that this is the way it should be. You test a theory and if the answer doesn't come out as you expect, the theory is falsified and it is thrown away. When falsification first came around with Popper, this was his view of how science should work.
But Duhem, a strong and in my opinion very successful critic of Popper, showed that scientific theories are almost never that simple. Theories themselves rely on other theories. Even doing something as simple as looking through a microscope relies on optic theories and the properties of light. Similarly, when you shoot electrons at something, you need to have at least some understanding of how you're shooting electrons and the properties of electrons themselves. Duhem concluded that since a test actually tests multiple theories simultaneously, you can't choose which one to blame, which one to falsify. It sounds disastrous, but Lakatos showed that in the end, this isn't such a devastating blow to falsification.
Lakatos, a student of Popper, agreed with Duhem that Popper's view of falsification is wrong. But he tweaked it a bit into what he called Methodological Falsificationism, or what I refer to as, "Save the theory". An established theory can't be falsified by one mere test, or two, or three, or so on. Instead, as long as the theory continually, doesn't necessarily have to be consistently, makes new successful predictions, you keep it. And if you find you can modify your theory in an ad hoc sense so that it would have passed the test, feel free to. Anything you can do to save the theory is perfectly fine. The question of course becomes how is it that you do falsify a theory? If a new theory comes along and not only has the explanatory power of the old theory, but also passes the test that the old theory didn't, then you falsify the old theory and replace it with the new. We see this happen in science quite often when it comes to theory change. There were problem with Newtonian physics, the orbit of Mercury, but no one discarded it until Einstein came along.
Now I want to apply this to the idea of falsifying evolution. Evolution is possibly one of the greatest examples of how this philosophy can be applied. Not only does it show how it saves falsification, but it shows that it is in fact better than what Popper first suggested. And in the end, it accurately describes how science actually works rather than some idealized notion of how it should work.
Let's imagine we did find a Devonian bunny. How many theories does this find rely on? The entire theoretical basis of how fossils form and geologic dating for starters. We of course are relying that it is not the most elaborate hoax every pulled, although I'm fairly certain we have sufficient ways of testing for hoaxes. But on top of this, we are supposing that there isn't any weird phenomena we don't yet know about.
Out of the thousands of fossils found, the genetics studied, the observational research both in and out of labs, the medical advances made. Would scientists be willing to throw the theoretical basis behind all of this away because of a single fossil? I certainly hope not.
Instead of falsifying evolution, it would put evolution into a problematic state. We know there exists a problem, but we have no idea what can be done to solve it. Perhaps there was something wrong with the tests? Do them again. Maybe there is an unknown geologic phenomena in the vicinity of the fossil? Have geologists survey every inch of the land to see if there are any more anomalies. Could there be some biological phenomena which could have made the fossil improperly date? Suggest different possibilities and test them. Do anything and everything you can to save the theory. If it is the theory that is to blame, it would not be able to be saved, and hope that some brilliant scientist can come up with a competing theory to evolution.
But in the end, one fossil, no matter how grand, can't falsify evolution. And that's the way it should be.
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Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 07/15/2007 : 21:47:53 [Permalink]
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Yeah, I wasn't about to get into the depths of the philosophy of science with Jerome, and took a shortcut.
See, Mozina would have been all over your post, Ricky, talking about how it proves that science is dogmatic and if something doesn't fit into a theory, the theory gets modified to fit the facts - as if that were a bad thing. He really didn't get that any current theory of anything - even his own theories - are already a zillion times removed from their original formulations as they are modified over time and experimentation to gain more and more explanatory power.
Jerome, on the other hand, was saying that almost everything fits into evolutionary theory already - as if that were a bad thing. He doesn't get that a theory that explains almost everything is infinitely better than a theory which explains everything (even things which won't ever happen), because the latter won't actually explain anything. Pointing out things that current evolutionary theory could not explain was my goal, and "falsify" was shorthand for "require revision to the theory." |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 07/15/2007 : 22:02:57 [Permalink]
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Yeah, a theory as well established as the ToE isn't going to be suddenly thrown away. It has been changing slowly for the last 150 years, and will continue to do so as we learn more.
The most a devonian bunny (you'd have to have multiple specimens at that) could do to the ToE is change some of the premises and facts. It wouldn't alter the molecular evidence for evolution (which is the most compelling evidence anyway) at all.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9687 Posts |
Posted - 07/16/2007 : 03:10:04 [Permalink]
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| Also note that The Theory of Biological Evolution isn't in itself a huge mathematical formula, but rather an umbrella definition encompassing a large number of "sub" theories. |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Hawks
SFN Regular
Canada
1383 Posts |
Posted - 07/17/2007 : 03:28:21 [Permalink]
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Elliot Sober has a very good article at Talk Reason that goes to the heart of this matter. Named "What is wrong with Intelligent Design?" it details why ID fails as a science by explaining some philosophical underpinnings of science. Just some snippets to wet your appetites:
As the philosopher Pierre Duhem (1954) emphasized, physical theories, on their own, do not make testable predictions. One needs to add "auxiliary propositions" to the theories one wishes to test. For example, the laws of optics do not predict when eclipses will occur. However, if propositions about the positions of the earth, moon, and sun are added to these laws, they do make predictions. Duhem's thesis holds for most theories in most sciences, and it has wide applicability when prediction is understood probabilistically, not just deductively.
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It is crucial to the scientific enterprise that auxiliary propositions not simply be invented.
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When we test the laws of optics by observing eclipses, the auxiliary propositions we use are "independently justified" in the sense that our reasons for accepting them do not depend on (i) assuming that the theory being tested is true or (ii) using the data on eclipses. The reason to avoid (i) is obvious, since a test of optical theory should not be question-begging. But why avoid (ii)? The reason is that violating this requirement would allow us to show that any theory, no matter how irrelevant it is to the occurrence of eclipses, makes accurate predictions about them.
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It is definitely worthwile reading the entire article.
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METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL
It's a small, off-duty czechoslovakian traffic warden! |
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Evolution and Philosohpy of Science
