Teach Me Science

[DavidLeon]

What is the scientific method and how is it different than the way we teach and learn ourselves? If I were the inventor of the airplane wouldn't I be employing the methodology of science just as if I were learning how to change a flat tire or make a website? How would they be similar and how would they differ?

[DavidLeon]

[Replying to DavidLeon in post #10]

You are trying to insinuate the theory of evolution with the absence of a theory on where life came from? Could you demonstrate how an experiment to ascertain evolution would look?

The Theory of Evolution (TOE) says nothing about how life originated ... only that it did via some means. Lots of people make the mistake of thinking that TOE should explain origin of life when it makes no statement of any kind on that issue. TOE only describes how life diversified once it did form, independent of how that initial event happened (could have been a god creation, or abiogenesis, panspermia, etc. ... TOE does not address that issue at all).

That's why I used the word absence.

As to experiments on how to ascertain the validity of TOE, there are 150+ years of observations, countless scientific articles, books, etc. on the subject. It is the digesting and analysis of that giant mountain of data that led to TOE moving from the hypothesis stage to the theory stage where it sits now. There has been sufficient evidence from the fossil record, direct observations on short lifetime species, and the genetics work of the last 50+ years to confirm TOE as a valid theory. A little Googling could easily keep someone busy for days or weeks just plowing through all of the available documentation on TOE.

Days or weeks?! I'm thinking decades. So much data that it's easy to get lost in. For me problematic when discussing the subject with scientific atheists because how could they possibly know all of that. So how much does one, such as myself, have to know to be certain? What is the evidence from the fossil record, direct observations on short lifetime species (fruit flies?), and genetics work? How likely is it that the assumption is made and so conclusions are drawn to support it when those conclusions could have some alternative interpretation?

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to DavidLeon in post #16]

I don't see evolution as a result of the scientific method or the search for knowledge. I see it as the typical nonsense of Greek philosophy becoming popularized during the industrial revolution and the advent of intercontinental travel due to the steam powered engine. At a time when people began to seriously question traditional religious beliefs and their social functions but were still prudish.

TOE is the result of trying to explain observations made by Darwin and others, and finding answers in the concept of change via natural selection. Darwin and the people of his day knew nothing whatsoever about DNA. ... they only noticed similarities among species and apparent transitions between them over time due to environmental changes, changes to the mix of predator and prey, etc. that prompted changes in the animals. The observations suggested some common mechanism forcing this general type of change to animals and plants over time. Natural selection was the term Darwin used to describe the mechanism for this type of change over time (again, the people of that day knew nothing about DNA or how to dig deeper into the mechanisms occuring at the molecular level), and evolution is the term describing the changes ("transformations") themselves.

So it very much is the result of the scientic method and search for knowledge, and not some kind of anti-god campaign. It was developed simply to try and explain observations and it has succeeded, and it makes no mention of gods or religion as far as the scientific evidence and papers surrounding the subject. There are certainly some people who may try to weaponize TOE and use it to promote anti-religious viewpoints, but TOE itself, as a scientific theory, makes no statements concerning gods or religion at all. Darwin had to be very careful in how he worded comments on man's evolution because he knew they would not be received well by the religious groups of the day:

"Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history."

"It has often and confidently been asserted, that man's origin can never be known," he wrote in 1871. "But ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science."

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/orig ... volDescMan

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science- ... -45637001/

[DavidLeon]

[Replying to DavidLeon in post #17]

What about when it goes wrong and doesn't prevent a fraud from taking place for four decades or more? What I mean is with all of this procedure in place how is such a thing possible?

I expect you are referring to the Piltdown Man hoax. The reason that hoax was able to carry on for so long is that it was a good enough hoax to fool the techniques and knowledge of the day. But that is a rare example of something lasting that long before being sorted out. You can be sure people were trying as no one believed it for most of the period. But anthropology and the fossil record were not nearly what they are today (or near the end of that hoax) so it passed muster for far too long. But it was eventually shown to be a fraud and that is what counts. Took longer than it should have, but it was good enough to fool the knowledge of the day so it took longer than normal to uncover as a hoax.

I believe we've had this discussion before. My apologies, but you said something that got my attention. No one believed it for most of the period? Can you name any scientific teachings in your lifetime that were done away with completely? Also, what are some personal criticisms you would have for science?

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to DavidLeon in post #21]

Days or weeks?! I'm thinking decades. So much data that it's easy to get lost in. For me problematic when discussing the subject with scientific atheists because how could they possibly know all of that. So how much does one, such as myself, have to know to be certain? What is the evidence from the fossil record, direct observations on short lifetime species (fruit flies?), and genetics work? How likely is it that the assumption is made and so conclusions are drawn to support it when those conclusions could have some alternative interpretation?

It would certainly take a very long time to plow through ALL of the documentation surrounding TOE, but there are lots of summaries and reviews, etc. like the two sites I gave in the earlier post from today (just two examples of no doubt many thousands). But to understand the basics it is not necessary to go through such a gigantic mountain of documentation. The basic idea is very simple ... changes in phenotype and/or genotype are driven by changes in the environment (used generically to mean geographic, weather, predator/prey mix, etc.), which prompt adaptation in order to survive and compete in the changed conditions.

Darwin did not know how to describe these "transformations" (the common word in his day) at a molecular level, but his fundamental point was that the transformations were driven by the need to adapt to changed conditions, and over time a series of small transformations could lead to very large changes in phenotype and/or genotype, speciation, etc.. This is the basic premise of TOE by natural selection, and of course a great deal of refinement, and elucidation of mechanisms at the molecular level, have occurred since Darwin's time and the understanding of DNA and the genetic code. But these new understandings do not change the fundamental idea of TOE ... change in phenotype and/or genotype over time driven by the need to survive and compete in changed conditions.

The fact that we can and do practice artificial selection where we selectively breed plants and animals to create changed versions is proof that changes in phenotype and/or genotype can be created artificially. We can also change environmental conditions and see changes in phenotype/genotype occur without any selective breeding. Natural selection is just the same process but with nature imposing the new conditions. At the molecular level, the mechanisms are the same. So it isn't hard to accept that however the "forcing function" comes about (natural, or artificial), plants and animals adapt to new conditions in order to survive and compete, and that sometimes results in major changes over time such a speciation. This is the guts of TOE.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to DavidLeon in post #23]

Can you name any scientific teachings in your lifetime that were done away with completely? Also, what are some personal criticisms you would have for science?

I'm sure there are many examples of where a scientific description of something turned out to be wrong after new data comes along, new observations, etc. Most subjects are in a continuous state of refinement over time. For example, we don't know what dark matter and dark energy are and there are hypotheses on what they could be. But since the answer isn't known yet and hasn't been for years now, it is open season for people to offer up hypotheses and ideas for how to test them.

That is how things usually work in science, and while the problem is open there will be erroneous explanations that have to be abandoned when they are shown to be wrong. Both dark matter and dark energy are inferred from observations that suggest that they must be present, but those could turn out to be wrong for some reason. Other things are not likely to ever be showed to be wrong (eg. the heliocentric model of our solar system ... I think we can safely say now that planets orbit the sun and that this model is 100% correct).

I don't have any criticisms for science in general, but it is true that it takes money, and is done by humans. So there is competition for grant money for example, and like anything involving humans there are bad actors who may cheat, or try to discredit another research group competing for the same pot of research dollars, or pull hoaxes, etc. I don't see any way to eliminate the bad actors completely because most scientists are not indivudually wealthy and have to get the research money somehow. But I believe the huge majority of scientists are honest and can admit to mistakes, and there are some checks and balances (eg. the peer review process). It isn't perfect, but is the best method we have for explaining nature and discovering new things, addressing disease treatments, improving quality of life via technology (cars and airplanes are better than horse and buggy), and many other examples where science has made life better for humans.

[Difflugia]

My perception of peer review was that it was essentially dogmatic. Either fit in with current science or take a hike. A method of control.

This could be somewhat true, depending on how you mean it. It's true if "fit in with current science" means "do science using the method that we've been using and come to expect." It doesn't exclude any particular conclusion, but it does exclude unscientific methods. The control is to make sure that science stays science. What peer review usually rejects (read: "sends back to the author for a revision") is a missing step in a method, failure to control for some variable, or failure to acknowledge apparently conflicting data in some other current or influential study. If the method is bogus or the conclusions are completely unwarranted by the data, then it might be rejected outright, but in practice, this is rare (those usually don't make it past a submission editor).

Most problems caught by peer reviewers don't invalidate the study, but just require some sort of acknowledgement. "We didn't implement a control for age of the subjects because of the limited number of trial participants" or "these data conflict with those reported by Smith, et al, but we believe they failed to control for...." In fact, look through Google results for "these data conflict with" and it should be obvious what I mean. The goal is to make sure that any potential limits to the conclusion are explicit.

Though there are some defects that might invalidate a conclusion, but most of these are so obvious that an editor catches them and they don't even make it to peer review. Most often, the paper is sent back with the understanding that the author will correct the details and resubmit. Occasionally, an author will decline to do so (or perhaps submit the paper to a different journal), but that's uncommon. There are horror stories about bad peer reviewers that keep sending the same papers back with new lists of complaints, but journal editors are as annoyed by that as authors, so reviewers that do that tend not to be invited back. That's a bigger problem in very narrow fields where the number of "peers" is limited.

Like Expelled! No Intelligence Allowed.

Neither good science nor a good movie is anything like Expelled! No Intelligence Allowed.

To be clear, peer reviewals are rarely, if ever, an all-or-nothing sort of thing. Most often the criticisms that arise are not deal breakers, but point out specific errors, mistakes in methodology, overlooked elements etc. etc. More than anything, looming peer review serves to keep scientists and such on their toes. Play by the rules or be prepared to get your reputation dragged through the mud a bit.

Like . . . Expelled! No Intelligence Allowed.

Not in the way that Expelled! wants to portray, no. Here, "by the rules" means using a sound scientific method, reporting your data correctly, and limiting your conclusions to the data you have presented. If you're not doing that, you're not doing science. You could perhaps argue that what you're doing is as good as science, but if you weren't doing science in the first place, you can't have been "expelled."

What about when it goes wrong and doesn't prevent a fraud from taking place for four decades or more? What I mean is with all of this procedure in place how is such a thing possible?

Peer review isn't about catching fraud, it's about good methodology. If I lie about my data, it will pass peer review. If I describe my methods accurately, though, anyone else can try to replicate my study. If they can't, then other labs will try.

Occasionally, nobody tries or those that do assume they themselves made a mistake. That's actually why research fraud is such a big deal. It only occasionally results in something like jail time, but it is nearly always career-ending.

The best way to get a feel for how scientific papers should be written to to read them. One of my favorite papers ever and one that I often offer as an example of good science (as I'm doing here) is this one: Lacroix R, Mukabana WR, Gouagna LC, Koella JC (2005) Malaria infection increases attractiveness of humans to mosquitoes. PLoS Biol. 3(9): e298.

The paper is short, easy to understand, and an absolutely textbook-perfect example of a well-designed study with a flawless writeup. The study was to demonstrate that mosquitoes are attracted to people with malaria in its infective stage. The experiment set up three tents. One had a child without malaria, one had a child with non-infective malaria, one had a child with infective malaria. Mosquitoes were captured in tubes leading to each tent, then counted.

The controls are simple, but thorough:

• Tents are swapped randomly between the three groups to control for any preferences mosquitoes might have for a specific tube or tent.
• Children that showed any malaria symptoms were excluded, so the mosquitoes weren't responding to something like elevated temperature
• The trials were run a second time with the same children after they had been given antimalarial drugs and cleared of parasites. This showed that the mosquitoes were responding to the presence of the parasites and not, perhaps, something that made those children more susceptible to malaria in the first place.

If you look through, you'll see the kind of narrowing statements that I said peer-reviewers look for. One in particular is striking and has the feel of something that might have been suggested by a reviewer:

As we did not use molecular techniques, infections with low densities of parasites may have been missed. Thus our results compare, strictly speaking, individuals with no parasites or a low level of parasitaemia with individuals with more intense infections, rather than comparing uninfected with infected individuals.

Once you've read through a few scientific papers, go back and read discovery.org's list of peer-reviewed papers. Look to see what conclusions the papers actually draw. Common themes are "the subject bears more study" or "current explanations may be inadequate" to explain some narrow problem. The trick to passing peer-review isn't so much to write something that's right so much as it is to write something that isn't obviously wrong. That's a pretty high bar for traditional creationists, which is where Intelligent Design comes in. The problem they're facing is that the "intelligence" signal that they're looking for is so weak that it's hard to write it up in a way that's both accurate and compelling. If the writeup is narrow enough to be accurate, then it's so obviously speculative that it's unconvincing. If they start ignoring the competing (and quite frankly, more plausible) explanations for whatever signal they're claiming to see, then competent peer reviewers catch them out.

[brunumb]

I don't see evolution as a result of the scientific method or the search for knowledge.

But that's exactly how the theory of evolution came about. Darwin and Wallace came to the same conclusions based on the evidence they had accumulated. Even before them, people observed nature and had the same inklings. In the 150+ years since 'On the origin of Species' was first published, more and more compelling evidence has confirmed the theory. It may be questioned by creationists, but it has never been refuted.

[brunumb]

It's a thing with militant atheists.

What exactly is a militant atheist? Do you prefer your atheists to keep their mouths shut and simply move to the back of the bus? For centuries Christians have suppressed any questioning or criticism of their faith. Now that the threat of reprisal is largely gone, atheists have found their voice. Some Christians find the cognitive dissonance it invokes too hard to handle.

[brunumb]

Like . . . Expelled! No Intelligence Allowed.

If the intelligent design proponents have the truth, why do they have to rely on deceit to make their case?

Ben Stein's Expelled: No Integrity Displayed
https://tinyurl.com/y9nj8yco

Six Things in Expelled That Ben Stein Doesn't Want You to Know...
https://tinyurl.com/y9679jb3

[DavidLeon]

It's a thing with militant atheists.

What exactly is a militant atheist? Do you prefer your atheists to keep their mouths shut and simply move to the back of the bus? For centuries Christians have suppressed any questioning or criticism of their faith. Now that the threat of reprisal is largely gone, atheists have found their voice. Some Christians find the cognitive dissonance it invokes too hard to handle.

What I mean by militant atheist is outspoken, active. Everyone I know is an atheist and not one of them would waste a moment of their time, discussing, debating, parading, buying bumper stickers, renting billboards, protesting or taking any active part in any of theists doings. They don't care that evolution is or isn't taught in school. They know most of what is taught in school is nonsense and in one ear out the other of the kids forced to listen to it. They don't care if there is a nativity scene or 10 commandments at the courthouse because they know the courthouse is corrupt to the core. They don't care if there is prayer in the school, they would never post on a forum like this or an atheist forum. They don't care if the guy down the street believes in God or practices Buddhism.

They don't know how we got here and they know no one else does either and it doesn't matter to them anyway. Why should they care? They don't care that for centuries Christians or Muslims suppressed any questioning or criticism of their faith.

To me personally I wish it would be beneficial for the atheist to be more outspoken and organized against church and state, against Christianity meddling in politics, in diminishing the power of the corrupt bloodthirsty religions. To question and criticize their practices when they exceed their boundaries, and be better equipped to expose their apostate teachings for what they are, but I don't put my faith in mankind, such as you and I. Because we are as corruptible as they are and it's hypocritical of you and me to go beyond our personal opinion.

The militant atheists are emotionally crippled and blinded by something. Their hatred, their frustration, their ideology. That's why I find them so interesting because I don't know what it is that motivates them beyond those petty differences. They are the same as their opponent only they aren't behind the wheel. And they never will be because the majority of them have better sense and know that they wouldn't steer any better course than the ones at the helm.

The only difference between the majority atheist and myself is God and puzzled disapproval of the minority militant atheists behavior.