Last night's dinner conversation was about global warming, and in particular the Channel 4 documentary that attempted to disprove it. The theory goes that climate change is on a 75-year cycle, and so the current rise in temperatures is entirely natural, and not the massive problem we currently fear.
To which my answer is: possibly.
But what is pretty clear is that the science that underlies this programme (and, indeed, virtually everything you ever hear about global warming) is bad science. The people involved have taken a subset of the available evidence, moulded it to fit their chosen hypothesis, and presented it as 'proof'. It is, of course, nothing of the sort.
But I'm not surprised. You have to work really hard to get access to good science these days. Good science is built as follows: Develop a hypothesis. Then build an experiment to try to disprove it. If your experiment fails, then that acts as a supporting point in favour of your hypothesis. If your experiment succeeds, your hypothesis is wrong. (Oh, and if you're doing a comparitive study, change one thing. Don't have your kids take a dietary supplement, and fix their diets, and take more exercise, and then claim the dietary supplement improved their brane development.)
Incidentally, this is where the saying "the exception that proves the rules" comes in handy. Testing 'normal' cases against your hypothesis isn't going to get you anywhere - you wouldn't develop a hypothesis that was obviously wrong in the first place. Instead, you try the hard cases... or, if you will, the 'exceptional' ones. If the tests at the extremes work as expected, then that serves as a very strong indicator that your hypothesis is correct. So, the saying means the direct opposite of what most people think it means.
However, all of that is a fairly lengthy aside from where I was intending to go with this. Instead, my topic of choice: evolution.
This has become a major battleground between religion and science. See, the theory of evolution does not require the existence of God for life to have come into existence (it doesn't preclude it either, but some scientist then like to refer to Occam's Razor as 'proof' therefore that God doesn't exist. That Occam's Razor proves exactly nothing, and in fact makes no claim to do so, seems to elude them). So, significant numbers of people of faith are absolutely determined that evolution must be wrong, and will stop at nothing to have it discredited. And, they are absolutely insistent that it must not, under any circumstances, be taught to children.
On the other hand, we have the scientific community. Large portions of which take this as a personal attack on their profession as a whole. And, there is therefore a significant push to see evolution regarded as a matter of incontrovertible scientific fact, to which they will brook no opposition. (And, of course, it must be taught to children because, you know, knowledge is good.)
And here are two inconvenient truths that seem to have been missed by both sides: 1) Evolution is almost certainly correct. 2) Evolution is almost certainly wrong.
The first statement is based on the incompatibility between the mass of available evidence and the nature of the God believed by the men of faith who oppose evolution. In order for evolution to be false, they must pre-suppose a God who deliberately created the world, then went to great effort to not only hide his influence and existence, but even put in huge amounts of effort to indicate to the contrary. That seems a very strange world-view to be taking.
The second statement is based on the very nature of science. Newton's theories about gravity were superceded by Einstein's relativity, which itself looks to be replaced by string theory. So it is with evolution: what we think happened is probably reasonably correct in some aspects, but will almost certainly be shown to be incomplete in several areas, and simply wrong in others. (There are also some major holes in evolution, not least the jump from an ape-like ancestor to a human-like one. There are a number of ideas on how that could have happened, but no clear evidence as yet.)
In the meantime, we're stuck between bad science on all sides. 'Creationist Science' is a joke, and a bad one at that. But so too is any excessive assurance in the correctness of evolution - it's not a matter of scientific fact, but rather the 'best fit' theory we currently have.
(At some later time I may discuss last week's Sunday conversation, in which Richard again shows his weakness with probability. And, also, in which I dissect "Deal or No Deal".)
5 comments:
I don't really have a problem with evolution-I've always just accepted the teaching we have been given, yet I of course believe that God created the Earth as he said. Doesnt it say in Genesis 1 v 24 'Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds' and earlier in v11 'Let the land produce vegetation'. (NIV version). In all this, God wasn't waving a magic wand and things miraculously appeared- he ordered the Earth to bring forth life and it did so. It was producing it. This seems to fit in with the way some evolution happened.
But yes, I agree there certainly is a lot of bad science around.
Anyone who tries to make arguments against climate change- what exactly are they trying to achieve? Are they saying 'don't give a monkeys what you are doing to the Earth,let's just ruin it etc...' I would question their motives. Certainly, even if they were right and it is to do with cycles,(which I personally don't agree with), we are supposed to be embracing a citizenship, taking responsibility for our actions', because we can't prove these things and what do we do if it is wrong, and anyway, I think we have only been given stewardship over this Earth- we don't own it. We should care for it. (hmmmm.... aware I am wittering from the top of my old environmental high horse!)
That's quite alright - there isn't a single thing you wrote that I don't agree with (except for the climate change cycles thing, where as I said: perhaps).
Although, it would also have been fine if you'd disagreed with everything I wrote. By all means, witter away.
If it is a bad joke I bet it isn't as bad as the squirrell ballet one.
And didn't Richard win your last exchange re probability?!
Not that I wish to devalue either side by using words such as "win" or "lose".
But I thought you conceded the point to him, although I could be misremembering?!
On reflection, he called me a fool though, so I am on your side.
Oh yes, the actual post. Yes, broadly speaking I agree. What it is important to remember however is that great advances were made in mechanics (for example) when the Newtonian world view held sway. Nothing would have been gained by saying "well this will be superceded soon, so we may as well not base theories on its premises" - indeed much would have been lost.
Evolution is a great theory. But it is a theory like you say, and one which will indeed be replaced at some point.
I guess another important point is that when "confronted" (for want of a better word) with the new theory, most of the scientists will say something like "brilliant!" and not go about dissembling to protect the old out of date theory. This is not true of proponents of so-called "intelligent" design.
Some unrelated ramblings for you, since you are a witter fan.
Nope - the last round was the Clock Solitaire problem, which I won by virtue of posting an actual proof. Huzzah!
I won't go on my own rant here. I did it the other day at dinner, and Stephen's heard it several times before; it must be getting boring by now. Instead I shall just breathe deeply.
That's better.
I never actually got round to pointing out (or finding) the hole in your proof. But I did concede the point in the end. However ...
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