bill@utastro.UUCP (William H. Jefferys) (08/09/85)
Pat Wyant's points are well taken; the questions raised in net.origins cannot be solved by discussions of the kind we have been having. It is first necessary to recognize that the Creationist ethos is fundamentally opposed to that of science. Having learned a little of the vocabulary of science, the so-called "Scientific Creationists" imagine that they are engaged in a scientific discussion, and those of us on the other side are easily fooled into sharing that delusion. The discussion is not, in fact, a rational discussion based on the same rules of evidence that are customary among scientists. It is, as Pat points out, almost certainly a futile effort to approach it as if it were. In many ways, Science is like a game. Any game, such as baseball, has certain rules, and anyone who wants to play that game has to abide by those rules. If, for example, I want to have a private rule that says "four strikes and you are out", then I am no longer playing baseball, but some other game. It may be a perfectly good game, it may even be a better game than baseball, but it is NOT baseball. In a similar way, those who play by rules different from the rules of Science may be engaged in worthwhile activities, activities that may be more valuable than Science, but they are NOT doing Science. Suppose I were to join a baseball team, but insisted on playing by my private rules. The other members of the team would rightfully point out that I am not playing baseball, and would probably kick me off the team. If I insisted that I *was* playing baseball nevertheless, they would rightfully call me a liar. Similarly, there are standard terms for those who claim to be doing science when, in fact, they are not playing by the rules of Science. We call such people "pseudoscientists" or "crank scientists", and what the produce is "Pseudoscience" or "Crank Science". It is not very difficult to recognize Pseudoscience. Ted Holden's recent article illustrates very well some of the characteristics that distinguish Science and Pseudoscience. I will list some of them and illustrate them by quotes from his article. (1) One of the characteristics of Pseudoscience is the fact that pseudoscientists do not like to submit their ideas for critical evaluation by acknowledged experts. The notion of Peer Review is alien to them. They would much rather engage in spreading their ideas among lay people, using the popular print media, debates, popularly written books and the like. Thus, for example, Ted Holden writes: > My own training was in > science (math) and not religion. I wouldn't feel > good about publishing in a journal "refereed" by > "scientists" in the case of the creation-evolution > debate. I would prefer well attended debates with > members of the press present as was the case in > Roanoke. I know "scientists" a little bit too well. The problems with debates and similar presentations is obvious: Each side can claim victory, and no one can tell who really won. The press, with some notable exceptions (such as Walter Sullivan), is ill-informed and ill-equipped to distinguish between Science and Pseudoscience. Furthermore, pseudoscientists aren't really interested in affecting the progress of science anyway, since their real motivations lie elsewhere. In the case of "Scientific Creationism", for example, the real purpose is to get Creationism taught in the public schools, or failing that, to prevent the teaching of evolution. So it is not surprising that pseudoscientists prefer propaganda and debate to publication in scholarly journals. To have the guts to submit an article to a refereed journal, one would first have to believe that it will measure up to some minimal standards of scholarship. Pseudoscientists aren't generally willing to allow that kind of exposure. I am sure that most scientists would agree that IF THE IDEAS IN AN ARTICLE ARE SCIENTIFICALLY VALID, THEN THE ARTICLE SHOULD BE PUBLISHED. When I referee an article, that is the standard I adhere to, since I would rather have an article published that turns out to be wrong, than prevent the publication of an article that turns out to be right. I may suggest changes or improvements, but I am opposed to censorship. To do otherwise would be to impede the progress of science. I am sure that most journal editors would agree with me. By the same token, however, IF AN AUTHOR IS NOT WILLING TO SUBMIT HIS IDEAS TO PEER REVIEW, THEY ARE UNWORTHY OF THE ATTENTION OF SCIENCE. Creationists, for example, consistently avoid even submitting their ideas to the only forum that counts in science...the refereed journals. Why, if their ideas are correct, do they avoid the *real* debate? THE FACT IS, MOST CREATIONIST ARGUMENTS ARE SO FULL OF HOLES THAT THEY COULD NOT STAND UP TO THE TESTING OF THE PEER REVIEW PROCESS. (2) A second distinguishing characteristic of pseudoscientists is that they portray them selves as heroic fighters for the truth against an unyielding science establishment. They whine, "They all laughed at {Columbus|Marconi|...}", all the time forgetting that they also laughed at T. J. J. See and thousands like him. And they still laugh. Among other things, pseudoscientists use this paranoia as an excuse to avoid submitting their work to refereed journals. They carp about how the editors of these journals are going to reject Creationist articles out of hand, despite the fact that the hypothesis has hardly been tested. (See"The Elusive Scientific Basis of Creation "Science"", *Quart. Review Biology* *60*, pp. 21-30 (1985) for a detailed study). A bit of this paranoia shows when Ted Holden says, explaining his preference for debates over publication in scholarly journals: > I know "scientists" a little bit too well. (3) Yet a third distinguishing characteristic of pseudoscience is that those engaged in it consider themselves in possession of a grand, unconventional view that can *explain everything*. The more grandiose and crazy the idea, the more it conflicts with conventional science, the more convinced of its correctness they are. You can't argue them out of it, because they've got an "answer" to explain away every possible objection to their obsession. Contrast this to scientists, who will readily admit the limitations of their knowledge! For example, when I asked: >>Really? And what mechanism do you propose to change >>the force of gravity on the earth? Ted Holden responded: > I can forgive Mr. Jefferys for this one. This one > involves a radical departure from present > thinking. Immanuel Velikovsky was aware of this > but refrained from including it in "Worlds in > Collision, Vol I" specifically because it would > seem too weird to most people. and continued: >......................................................... > > Velikovsky's long promised "Worlds in Collision, >Chapter II", dealing with the nature of the world prior >to the flood, was essentially published in 1980 in the >form of "The Saturn Myth" by David Talbott, available >from DoubleDay. ... [Then he quoted from "The Saturn Myth"] > Prior to the flood, we were a planet of Saturns. >This sounds crazy at first, but the pictures inside the >pyramids depict this repeatedly. The idea definitely >didn't sound crazy to Akhnaten. The North pole faced >Saturn directly, and we hung perilously close to the >small star. The gravitational interaction between the >star and planet was intense; particals and debris were >trapped in between permanently and picked up the glow of >the star, resembling a great mountain rising straight >from the North Pole to the star, the myth of the god on >the mountain, Zeus on Olympus, Jahveh on Zion etc. These ideas violate all the known laws of physics. Not only do they *sound* crazy, but they *are* crazy. They are as "off the wall" as any of the many crank ideas that have been sent to me by aspiring pseudoscientists over the years. To give only an elementary example, it is impossible for a planet orbiting another body to maintain its rotational axis pointing towards the other body. To do so would require a gross violation of angular momentum conservation. (4) Another distinguishing characteristic of pseudoscience is the failure of its adherents to do genuine research, research that might possibly show their theory to be wrong. Mostly they engage in what we might call "armchair science", meaning a lot of library work to try and find any piece of evidence that might support their cause. At the same time, they avoid noticing any evidence on the other side. On those rare occasions that they do actually get into the field, their purpose is not to advance science (for example, by journal publication) but rather to find evidence that can be used to proselytize their cause among the public at large. For example, the Rev. Carl Baugh has been digging at the Paluxy River in Texas for years. Has he ever submitted any of his findings for publication? No. This despite the fact that he has actually made a few significant finds (he recently unearthed a genuine and rare dinosaur skeleton; unfortunately he didn't know what he had and he thoroughly bungled the excavation, destroying the scientific value of his find by his amateurish methods). His real purpose is to stock the "Museum" he is building at Glen Rose with "evidence" that humans and dinosaurs once roamed the earth together, and to provide Creationist debaters with ammunition. This failure to do the obvious things that might prove ones pet theory wrong (as all real scientists are obliged to do) extends to a failure even to do the obvious calculations that would show whether a particular claim is even physically plausible. The very first thing a physicist does when he has a new idea is to do a "back of the envelope" calculation that shows whether, for example, the energetics of the proposed idea make sense. This is something that is seldom, if ever, done by pseudoscientists. For example, Velikovsky makes some amazing assertions about the origin of Venus (it is supposed to have been a comet that was ejected by Jupiter), but he doesn't do the elementary calculation that shows the idea utterly preposterous on energetic grounds (Carl Sagan has done it. It is presented in a rather long article, well worth reading, in his book *Broca's Brain*. I am sure that Mr. Holden will tell us why we shouldn't believe Dr. Sagan.) These are only a few of the ways that Pseudoscience can be recognized. Perhaps if I have the opportunity I can provide some others later. The bottom line for me is this: I do not care whether someone believes the kind of nonsense that Mr. Holden has been writing. It makes no difference to me whatever. But I strongly object when this nonsense is passed off as science. I greatly fear for the future of our country if schoolchildren, for example, were to have the Creationist model held up to them as an example of good science. The experience of the Soviet Union under the pseudoscience of Lysenkoism shows what can happen when pseudoscience is allowed official sanction. It would be a great disaster if something like that were to be allowed to happen here. -- "Men never do evil so cheerfully and so completely as when they do so from religious conviction." -- Blaise Pascal Bill Jefferys 8-% Astronomy Dept, University of Texas, Austin TX 78712 (USnail) {allegra,ihnp4}!{ut-sally,noao}!utastro!bill (uucp) bill%utastro.UTEXAS@ut-sally.ARPA (ARPANET)
bill@utastro.UUCP (William H. Jefferys) (08/11/85)
> >On the other hand, if one fails to submit ones research to such > >scrutiny, one as much as admits that it is not worthy of > >serious consideration. Creationists sometimes complain that their > >work would be automatically rejected, but the fact of the matter is that > >they have barely put that hypothesis to the test. A recent study > >showed that Creationists have submitted *hardly anything* > >for publication in refereed journals (except for submissions, not related > >to Creationism, in their own fields of expertise). > > > And in fact some Creationists *do* get published in refereed > journals, look at all the references to Dr. Gentry in the 116 Reasons > pamphlet. These come the *closest* of anything in it to being real > evidence. At least I feel I must treat them seriously. Gentry's work is a very interesting example of exactly what I was talking about in this paragraph. His research on polonium haloes and haloes in coalified wood is solid, if highly specialized science of the kind done every day by the vast majority of scientists. He did it according to the rules, it passed muster and was published. Under ordinary circumstances, it would have made its contribution to its field in some way, according to its importance. It is elsewhere,when Gentry started making outlandish claims as to the significance of this work that he moved out of the mainstream of science and into the fringes of Crank Science. Despite the fact that there are several quite plausible explanations of his anamolous findings, he has insisted that the *only* way they can be understood is by adopting an extreme position as regards the creation of the Earth, that completely overturns all of the rest of science. This is hardly an "Occam's Razor" approach! After all, scientists are *always* discovering anomalous data, most of which are understood in time. If we adopted Gentry's attitude, we would never accomplish anything. As has been pointed out many times here, it is unlikely that any single experiment or observation would ever, in itself, cause a scientific revolution. Such things happen only when the weight of many unresolvable anomalies forces a change of perspective. Sir Fred Hoyle is another example. Much of his earlier work was of great significance, and his work with the Burbidges and with Fowler (of recent Nobel Prize fame) on the origin of elements is still absolutely fundamental and absolutely first-class. But in recent years he seems to have moved decidedly towards the fringes. He appears to harbor a flickering hope that his now-discredited Steady-State theory of the universe might be revived. When it was proposed, the Steady-State theory was respectable, nay, provocative science. Perhaps more basic research has been done in trying to resolve the Steady-State versus Big-Bang controversy than any other issue in modern astronomy. But now, it has been cast upon the dustheap of astronomy, useful in its day but hopelessly contradicted by new evidence. Yet Sir Fred has ranged farther and farther afield, into areas (such as biology and the origins of life) in which he is not competent, searching for ways to revive his theory. Regrettably it is *this* that the Creationists have picked up on. It is really sad to see a good scientist go off the deep end like this. So the point is that people can be good scientists, and the same individuals (in other contexts) can be crank scientists. It is often difficult for those on the outside looking in to tell the difference. -- "Men never do evil so cheerfully and so completely as when they do so from religious conviction." -- Blaise Pascal Bill Jefferys 8-% Astronomy Dept, University of Texas, Austin TX 78712 (USnail) {allegra,ihnp4}!{ut-sally,noao}!utastro!bill (uucp) bill%utastro.UTEXAS@ut-sally.ARPA (ARPANET)
carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) (08/13/85)
[This program posts news from many hundreds of machines throughout the world. Are you absolutely sure that you want to read this?] Both Bill Jeffreys and Ted Holden are probably aware of this book, but I would just like to mention *Beyond Velikovsky: The History of a Public Controversy* by Henry Bauer. This is a historical and sociological study, somewhat similar to Nelkin's study of the creationism controversy. Bauer concludes that Velikovsky was a crank (a term he defines), but blames scientists for mishandling the controversy. I can't pass judgment on the book's scholarship, but it looks very interesting. Bauer discusses Velikovsky's book *Cosmos Without Gravity* (1946) to show how amazingly incompetent V. was in matters of basic physics. I'd like to thank Bill Jeffreys for his well-written debunkings of pseudoscience -- must be something good in the water in my favorite town of Austin. Also let me thank Pat Wyant for his fine article on cultural differences. Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes