The Boston Globe reports that Nathaniel Abraham is suing the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, alleging he was fired for his creationist beliefs. From what the Globe reports, it appears Abraham claims Woods Hole discriminated against him for his religious beliefs. Woods Hole allegedly fired Abraham, a biologist, after he refused to work on "evolutionary aspects" of an NIH research grant the institution received.
The lawsuit is the latest in a series of cases pitting creationists against scientists in academic settings. Last year, a University of Rhode Island student was awarded a doctorate in geosciences despite opposition after it became known that he was a creationist. Earlier this year, an Iowa State University astronomer claimed he was denied tenure because he did not believe in evolution.
Like these cases, the Abraham lawsuit pointedly raises the question: Can people work in a scientific field if they don't believe in its basic tenets?
"I have a cleaning woman who is a Seventh-day Adventist and neither of us feel any tension," said Michael Ruse, a philosopher of science at Florida State University who has written extensively on creationism and evolutionary biology. "Yet, what is a person doing in an evolutionary lab when they don't believe in evolution . . . and didn't tell anybody they didn't believe in evolution?" . . .
Eugenie C. Scott, executive director for the National Center for Science Education, which defends the teaching of evolution in public schools, said Abraham was clearly being disingenuous when he applied for the job because he was hired to work in the field of developmental biology.
"It is inconceivable that someone working in developmental biology at a major research institution would not be expected to deal intimately with evolution," she said. "A flight school hiring instructors wouldn't ask whether they accepted that the earth was spherical; they would assume it. Similarly, Woods Hole would have assumed that someone hired to work in developmental biology would accept that evolution occurred. It's part and parcel of the science these days."
I am not an expert in the law of religious discrimination, but it seems to me that even insofar as Abraham's views are protected from discrimination, belief in evolutionary theory would be a bona fide qualification for the specific research position he had at Woods Hole.
UPDATE: A reader forwarded a copy of the complaint. I've posted it here.
I find the juxtoposition of these two threads to be fascinating.
Several articles I have seen recently paint too broad a brush on people who disbelieve in evolution. I myself was labeled a creationist in an argument once for the sole reason that I said evolutionary psychology was a myth (and yes, evolutionary psychology definitely is myth masquerading as science). I am most certainly not a creationist. But even disbelieving evolution does not translate into believing the earth is 6,000 years old. There are many varied levels of creationism. One common one is those who believe in "micro-evolution" but not "macro-evolution." One should be careful about ascribing to someone else beliefs that they may not necessarily have.
Yup that seems reasonable, sort of like belief in the germ theory of disease would be a bona fide qualification for the practice of medicine as a physician.
That is not to stop folks believing disease is caused by evil little goblins casting spells, but such belief is outside of the realm of the study and practice of scientific medicine.
Moreover, the distinction between "micro" and "macro" evolution is a red zebra fish. Believing in micro, but not macro evolution is like believing in centimeters but not kilometers; someone who has that belief shouldn't be paid for measuring things, no matter how small.
The school wasn't sure what to do, but they decided to give him the Ph.D. I think this was correct.
The guy in this article, however, lacks this ability to "put on his evolution hat" and deserves to go.
That would certainly suggest a low-cost method of dealing with the uninsured. Perhaps someone needs to apprise Bush of this important new theory!
". . . You have indicated that you do not recognize the concept of biological evolution and you would not agree to include a full discussion of the evolutionary implications and interpretations of our research in any co-authored publications resulting from this work," Hahn wrote in the letter, which the commission provided to the Globe. "This position is incompatible with the work as proposed to NIH and with my own vision of how it should be carried out and interpreted."
Now declining "to include a full discussion of the evolutionary implications and interpretations of our research in any co-authored publications" seems like a deal killer, doesn't it?
Scientists do themselves a disservice every time they say that the current state of scientific theory is true without doubt, and that anyone who questions it should be banished from his field of science. The greatest strength of science is that even the most widespread beliefs are always open to question -- otherwise we would still believe in the existence of phlogiston or luminous ether or manmade global warming.
However, the Woods Hole case and the RI case seem distinct to me. One is where the person refused to requested work, it seems. The other is where the person did the work, but did not necessarily believe in all the underlying foundations. I think in the second case the PhD should still be awarded, but the first case is much trickier.
To make one analogy, it could be like a creationist institute hiring a writer/researcher, then having that writer/researcher say that they refused to work on anything to do with creationism, because they did not believe in it.
Very true. It then ceases to become science and starts becoming it's own type of religion.
As I understand it, the difference between micro- and macro-evolution, as seen by creationists (or ID-ers) is thus: an organism can change shape, size, and some characteristics, but will never actually become something entirely different. Bacteria may become resistant to drugs, but they will never become, say, clown fish.
I'm a hard-core evolutionist, but I understand that there are gaps in the fossil record. I'm sure that, several hundred years from now, people will point and laugh at us for our approach to human evolution. Until then, though, it is a testable idea with predictive value, and thus valuable to science. Creationism and/or ID explains the various gaps in the fossil record, but has zero predictive value.
Am I the only one who is slightly bothered by this? Does it not seem as if they are doing research in order to bolster evolution (i.e. with a predetermined conclusion)? I mean, if the guy said, "I'm not going to put my name onto research with a pre-determined conclusion," that doesn't mean you fire him for not being a good scientist.
Exactly. And his boss is perfectly within her rights to terminate his employment for that choice.
Like the Muslim cab drivers in Minnesota not wanting to carry dogs or alcohol or the Somali cashiers at Target not wanting to ring up pork products, some jobs may simply be incompatible with certain religions.
manmade global warmingthe corporate shilling of the ExxonMobil "climate scientists""Scientists do not use evolutionary theory just so they can announce "hey, evolution is true!" They use it to infer other conclusions, such as where a species may have originated.
In the absence of any other theories with the explanatory or predictive power of evolution, refusing to use it severely limits one's ability to add to the body of scientific knowledge.
That itself is a common refrain of creationists.
The flaw is that there evolution is such a basic part of modern science that not accepting it as a predetermined conclusion is like not accepting the germ theory of disease, or the existence of atoms. Evolution is so well established that the chance of anyone being wrong about it is the same as the chance that scientists are wrong about the existence of germs or atoms.
If an atomic physicist doesn't believe in atoms, we fire him. It doesn't matter that his work requires the predetermined conclusion that there are atoms.
So... this could be a "he said, she said" situation, no?
Disclosure: I'm an atheist molecular biologist who believes that you need evolution to do pretty much anything in biology.
Well they generally don't assert that a "theory is true without doubt", most scientists tend to use rather more measured and carefully couched terms.
The trouble is, that 'creationism' just isn't science.... anymore than 'goblinism'. A scientific theory has to explain something. If my car breaks down I don't think 'it's goblins wot did it!'No, I look for natural explanations....I follow an empirical, diagnostic approach based on parsimony, I don't look for supernatural causes.
'Goblinism' just doesn't do this; and, in the same vein, neither does creationism. They are both - to borrow from Daniel Dennett - 'skyhook' theories. Science works on 'crane' theories. Creationism isn't a 'crane' theory; creationism isn't science.
Oh, and 'intelligent design' is nothing but creationism making a feeble, all too transparent effort, to masquerade as science.
"Hard-core evolutionist." Yeah, sure.
An additional issue is the place of evolution in science. In Physics the Standard Model is something everyone can agree on as the core of the science. It is an analytical set of propositions on which everyone who can understand them can agree and say, "Yes, that's what Physics is at the core about." For biology, evolution is the closest thing to such a "core topic," but it is not really the same type of thing as the Standard Model in Physics.
Biology in general and evolution specifically is much more synthetic, as it is more generally irreducible to a set of equations, as Physics can be. That doesn't knock it as a science; it just makes biology a different kind of science, since it can be done in an objectively empirical manner. The fact that Biology is more irreducible makes it harder to make common judgments as to what "discuss evolution as a theory" means. Therefore, it is easy for 2 people not to be on the same page when arguing about these type of issues.
Ha, ha. I'll be here all week, folks.
Evolution is a *fact*. It is not like the Standard Model. It is more like the atomic theory.
Now, how do we explain evolution? There are theories. Far and away, natural selection ("Darwinism") is the most successful.
Different aspects of natural selection are up for grabs, and there are still issues about whether some aspects of evolution are not explained by natural selection. For an informed scientist to argue some of these issues would not have resulted in this fellow's being fired from Woods Hole.
But, pretty evidently, that's not what happened here. If you reject *evolution*, or if you reject natural selection as a valid theory, then you are not doing science, any more than if you were a physicist who argued for an Empedoclean "theory" of the elements.
Now, how do we explain evolution? There are theories."
You can separate the facticity of a process from the process of the process? That strikes me as questionable.
There was nothingness but a H atom, and it exploded and created the heavens, some being suns and some being planets.
There was nothingness on earth, until liquid and gas combined into life, which grew and became man over time.
All life on earth is linked, and man is part of the earth.
The earth is our mother.
The earth is mad because [we use to much gas, we drive SUVs, we have children even though gay is okay, we stop women from havng partial birth abortions]
The earth is punishing us by [getting warmer, killing spotted owls, getting colder by getting warmer, weather getting worse]
The way to appease mother earth is more abortions, less cars we like to drive, less trendy bottled water and pop, and higher taxes which can be paid to poor people in other countries.
Any disagreement with any of these points will result in not being hired at any university or research center.
Any faith expressed in God, other than once per year taking yom kippur off or bowing to mecca for ramadan, is treason against the state faith and punishable by workplace death.
Even the truthers believe that the World Trade Center was destroyed. They disagree on mechanism.
Anderson: as a soon-to-be-lawyer, I do not think that I need to pledge my soul to every cause that I find defensible. As an atheist, I do believe in evolution and I firmly believe that Genesis was the attempt of early people to explain what they could not explain, not literal truth. (Shrug.) But, apparently, you have amazing, some may even say supernatural, insight into my mind that I lack. /sarcasm
Second, conflating evolution (an idea which connotes something which Abraham disagrees with) and natural selection (an idea which I would bet Abraham does believe) is exactly the kind of black-and-white thinking which is in the article and many of the comments about this. I have no idea what his problem with evolution is. The fact that, as you say, there is an absence of a generally accepted, detail causal theory for evolution, or the fact that broad issues in evolutionary theory are unsettled, may be his basis.
Even the Creationsist believe that we now have plants and animals, they just disagree on the mechanism.
No - science works thus - Observation, Hypothesis, Prediction, Experiment. It has a feedback loop, it IS a feedback loop!. Religion generally eschews this approach. Science uses peer review, parsimony, scepticism is built into it.
Religion generally doesn't work like this. The scientific method gives result, it has a proven track record; the religious 'method' just doesn't.
Science is simply a methodology of rationalism, the very antithesis of religion.
And I found this sentence curious as well, ""I have a cleaning woman who is a Seventh-day Adventist and neither of us feel any tension," said Michael Ruse, a philosopher of science at Florida State University who has written extensively on creationism and evolutionary biology." What the hell is a "philosopher of science" and how can I get a job like that?
There's more debate in the scientific community about the process of gravity than of evolution. Is the facticity of gravity open to question? Should someone who believes in Intelligent Gravitation based on a Divine Gravitator be paid by a prestigious institute to work in the field?
The problem is that creationists want to insert their model of "how it happened" (not the best description, but descriptive) into a framework where it simply doesn't fit. This is very analogous to the bored jailhouse "attorney" that harasses the legal system with weird claims. They are factually incorrect, have no way of credibly playing within they system they wish to take part in, and persist in being annoying. Modern biology is just as correct rejecting them as the exasperated judge is rejecting the bozo with his 67th handwritten Motion to Abolish the IRS.
I've no problem with people believing whatever they want. Heck, if you want, you can even believe it is science. Feel free to believe in the literal truth of the tooth fairy, too. However, suing to make other people act like they believe it is science, too, is not freedom of religion. It is foul behavior.
If your faith is such that you cannot do your job without causing conflict, then you need to change jobs. Don't expect the job to change to suit you.
The origin of species is a historical question, not one that lends itself to testing in a lab or to statistical analysis. The state of data represented by the fossil record is incredibly poor.
Some types of evolution as a process have been demonstrated in the lab, and are well-established. Many call this "micro-evolution."
The common evolutionary narratives for the origin of species require viable "macro-evolution" which has never been demonstrated in a lab. To maintain these narratives as being scientific "fact" is blatantly unscientific.
To me the only reasonable scientific stance on the origin of species, given the current state of knowledge, is an agnostic one. I find the dogma and rhetoric on both sides to be disturbing, and likely the result of the politicization of science.
THIS is the sort of thing that I'm bitching about. The fact that Creationism is not an empirically verifiable--or even researchable--explanation for current biology does NOT exempt science from epistemological humility. And consitency.
As to your frivilous comments about gravity: I've addressed that problem above, along with what Newton had to say about it. Which is the point: There are multiple theories of gravity. It depends upon scale. So someone who said Newton's law was a "FACT" in 1900 would have to be considered mistaken now. Newton's law doesn't work on the cosmological scale. You don't have to posit "Intelligent Falling" to recognize that Einstein proved newton's theory inadequate.
So let's not imagine that we are smart, and others are stupid. since we don't really know much ourselves.
The origin of species is something that we can, and do, observe in laboratory conditions. It seems that you don't know very much about biology.
To me the only reasonable scientific stance on the origin of species, given the current state of knowledge, is an agnostic one.
Those who do know a lot about biology--and I'm thinking specifically of biologists, here--disagree with you. Am I politicizing science if I credit the hands-on research of highly educated and objective experts over anonymous and arrogant internet crackpots?
This is an old chestnut equivocation fallacy over the term faith, possibly the most common one trundled out by superstitious folk...I can't even be arsed to explain it, it's so common and so old. So I've outsourced it here, here, and here.
No, being able to do the work would be a bona fide qualification for the specific research position he had at Woods Hole. I see no reason why a creationist is incapable of knowing all the details of evolutionary theory, as commonly accepted in the scientific community, enough to "work on the 'evolutionary aspects'" of the NIH research grant. It would require him to assume, for purposes of his work, premises that he happens to believe are false, but that doesn't prevent him from logically applying those premises to the phenomena he observes in his research.
(Similarly, there's no reason why a Christian Scientist, who believes not only that disease is an illusion, but that all matter is an illusion, albeit one that is very convincing and that "appears" to follow certain predictable patterns, from drawing conclusions about what will "appear" to happen if a pathogen is releases into a community's drinking water. Sure, he'll say that it will "appear" that X percent of the people will come down with cholera, and he'll have a mental reservation that says the only reason that appears to be the case is that all those sick people have a "belief" in cholera, but he can still come up with valid epidemiological conclusions.)
Of course, if he refuses to do the work at all, then fire his ass.
s/lab/paleontological_dig
The fossil evidence for macro-evolution is quite strong, but for some reason creationists are still using a plaMy-book from the 1930s that claims no one's ever found a "missing link" showing how one species transformed into another. Might I suggest you spen some time reading Talkorigins.org?
What I love about Creationists is how when they want their view taught in school it's a science, not religion; when one of them gets fired for it, suddenly it's religious persecution.
But, even controversial aspects of evolution, such as Darwinian macroevolution, can be tested through quantitative predictions, and these predictions have all been verified. For an very, very well-written and interesting discussion, see here.
This is going to go nowhere. the Institution is private and I don't know if he had "tenure" here or not WHOI lives on "soft money" ie. grants and the overhead that comes with them.
If he turns down NIH funding, it's not like he could have gotten it from the Admin.
But like I said, I'm unfamiliar with the story.
Hoosier, consider the fossil record. Generally, the deeper you dig, the older the specimens you find. There's an easily inferred progression in time from simple organisms to more complex. That's evolution, regardless of *how* it happened.
In general, as suggested above, I don't think your point is valid. We may know that Celts settled in western Europe without knowing the process by which it happened.
We knew that hemoglobin carried and released oxygen long before we knew *how* it did so.
If you consider atheism a religion, do you have a word for the absence of religious belief?
Under atheism you can do whatever you want and it cannot be morally wrong. Perhaps some athiests can get to an ethical utilitarinism, but they simply cannot say that any actions or morally absolutely good or bad. Very scary world view if you ask me...
History contains no shortage of religious people fully capable of atrocities either despite or because or their religious beliefs. And you misunderstand atheism if you think it necessarily entails the lack of any moral standard.
Or maybe you infer it's Satan's scheme to deceive you into thinking evolution has some validity.
That was science, long ago. Now science is "here are a list of things to believe, failure to do so means you are bad."
The gist of this guy's argument is that he believes the Bible is infallible and does not acknowledge evolution as a "scientific fact," but rather as a "scientific theory..." States that he would apply "evolutionary concepts if warranted," but that WHOI required that he "accept the theory of evolution as scientific fact," and that WHOI fired him for his religous refusal to accept the theory of evolution as scientific fact.
Don't shoot the messanger.
Oh, and his alleged damages are even more wacky...
(1) Jonathan Adler. It wouldn't be a BFOQ defense, it would be a "legitimate non-discriminatory reason other than religion" defense. BFOQ is a very limited defense that says X category of person (typically based on gender) is simply incapable of performing the job -- e.g., no man can do the job a female stripper does -- and it doesn't apply to unwillingness to do a job based on beliefs.
(2) Hoosier. There is a religious accomodation requirement under Title VII and there is an accomodation requirement under the ADA, but they are different. Specifically, under Title VII, the employer does not have to undergo anything more than an de minimus burden to accomodate a religious practice; the requirements under the ADA can be greater than that. Given that test, I don't see a successful religious discrimination suit here, at least as I understand the facts.
Would you please send a copy to the address in my tag? (Minus the x's.) I'd really appreciate it. I'll preserve the anonymity of whatever address you send it from.
But that does not make evolution a "fact." It still makes it the best explanation of observable phenomena, according to the methodology of science. But even facts that seem unassailable--namely those that deal with relationships between constructed symbols--can prove to be inadequate as we learn more about the natural world. Plane geometry has definitions--actual definitions--that we have accepted since the Greeks. But some of these don't prove to be empirically correct when applied to cosmology. For example, parallel lines DO in fact meet--at least according to current theories about the Universe.
And this is all that I am saying. Science has a history. And it tells us, or at least tells me, that it isn't the job of science to prove theories. Just to disprove them, and utilize them until something better comes along.
(Apologies for feeding the troll, but some statements need to be countered).
http://www.whoi.edu/services/HR/ppp/100.htm
They don't tell grad students anything.
Given the complexity of the system studied, evolution is both reasonably accurate and not going to be falsified. We know species form, change and disappear; we have seen changes under selection pressure; we can account (in retrospect) for many of the changes we see in the fossil record. These observations are not going to change, and any future theory of developmental biology will incoroprate these observations (the indirect accounts less so, of course). That general relativity gives better predictions for the orbit of mercury does not mean that Newtonian gravity suddenly stopped predicting the trajectories of baseballs.
Oh, of course. This is why we have so many breakthroughs in stem cell research, nanotechnology, virology, cosmology, physics, etc. etc. etc. Funny, you could almost swear that the mavericks who "buck the system" outnumber the scientific "thought-police" by a significant margin--but we know that can't be true, right?
it seems that this is not a question of belief, but of work
Indeed, and these should be separated. I am not comfortable with people being fired for belief.
I often work on projects that I believe will fail, but that doesn't stop me from doing what I'm paid to do. (And sometimes I believe they could succeed, but those with the gold tell me to stop doing it.)
To a certain measure, I believe in fundamental Biblical Creationism. I'm not sure that any of this world is real, in the sense that there isn't a greater world of what we call the soul that is more real. But as Nick Good said above, and as Stephen Jay Gould said when he discussed Creationism in his paleontology course, that is not science. This notion isn't unique to me. I don't know why the Creator, whether or not Noodly, set up this elaborate universe somewhat recently that looks almost exactly[*] like a 15-billion-year-old universe, where Occam's Razor appears to apply, where the physical laws and constants are invariant except where more advanced theories and models show why some of them aren't, and so forth. Religion is self-complete, and Science is self-complete.
I don't have any trouble discussing evolution, just as one could discuss the works of Arthur Conan Doyle without believing there really was a Sherlock Holmes. (Our world is a lot bigger and more complex and more self-consistent than Holmes'.)
[*]Or maybe it looks completely exactly like what it appears to be, and even the religious traditions, and the occasional signs that I think I've seen, are artificacts of what a universe looks like 15 billion years after the Big Bang.
Lately I've been stuck on the Prime Mover, the creator that was not created, and wondering where all the matter and energy came from in the first place. I can't get anything better than Turtles All The Way Down. Which is not useful, so I go back to whatever else I was doing.
No, failure to do so means your faculties of reasoning are so different from those of everyone else that you aren't qualified to do science. You are certainly free to reject the theory of gravity. It's only a theory after all, and being a scientific theory does not even purport to explain what gravity is, only how predict what it's like. But the latter part it does to prety good accuracy -- such accuracy that if you reject it and want to be taken seriously you have better be able to back your views with a theory that is even more accurate. Google "MOND" if you want to see serious (but so far rather unsuccessful) attempts in that direction.
Humanity has tried many approaches to understanding the world around us. Religious dogma is one; philosophical speculation is another, art is yet another. Only one attempt has actually worked thus far. That attempt has given us vitamin A rice, reinforced concerete and digital watches. It has literraly enabled us to change the world. Given that, you should understand the scientific method better before you attack scientists.
So yes, until you fully understand what's happened in the field you are probably not qualified to have an opinion on the merit of the theories. And yes, unless you can come up with your own ideas that explain the data at least as well as the established ones, your rejecting the commonly accepted ones cannot be taken seriously. In some sense, the thing you are expected to believe with the accepted theories is not that they are literally true (in the way the word of god is supposed to be literally true) but that they predict the world around us better than all alternatives so far. But experience has shown that it is nearly impossible to think effectively about the world around us without a good framework for doing so -- and the accepted theory is the best framework we have at the moment. After centuries of trying to understand the world around us we know that unless you are actively working on a new framework, you won't contribute much to human knowledge unless you believe in the current one.
In a nutshell: I know about baseballs and farm fields. My comments about Euclid and Newton have not suggested that I think that triangles now have four sides or that things no longer fall. It is that (again) there is a tendency for SOME people to make broad epistemological claims for science under which science cannot bear up.
To take this from a different perspective: In the Wittgensteinian world of "language games," the words "fact", "reality," and "truth," are used in the public's language game of science to suggest that the thing being so described is both complete and closed. Euclidean geometry, it turns out, was not closed: Space warps, and that doesn't help parallel lines when they try to keep from intersecting in infinite space. And Newton's theory did not preclude other explanations for attraction when you deal with really big or phenomenally dense objects, as Einstein showed us. So it was not complete.
To say that evolution "will not be falsified" is a probablistic statement. Since it presupposes a conclusion that science cannot empirically validate, it is not a scientific fact.
I just don't see why people are so hostile to my advocacy of epistemological humility on the part of science and its advocates. Let's all read some Oakeshott over the weekend and reassemble here on Monday.
The best example, perhaps, is Carnot's theory of the efficiency of heat engines. His calculations were based on the then-current caloric theory of heat (in which heat was a conserved fluid). Today we know that that theory was completely wrong. Nevertheless the engine cycle he claimed to be optimal is in fact optimal, and its efficiency is the one he claimed.
If the Creator set up the universe to look like it's 15 billion years old and it is not, then the Creator is deceptive. If Creator=God, then what good is a promise of Salvation from a deceptive God?
If you believe in a God that is the Creator, then if the universe looks 15 billion years old it is because it is 15 billion years old. You cannot believe any promises from a scam artist God.
Aquinas said this in the 1200s. Thus proving--to my satisfaction--that an idea can be either new or good, but not both.
But something about this is different. Something.... Something.
Well, I think few atheists would cede that point, because the vast majority of us don't believe it to be true. Ethics and morality are definable without an Invisible Man In The Sk. It isn't hard to define, and if you're unwilling to google for the arguments, I'm going to consider that you're unwilling to debate rationally (I've spent two years studying religion in school, and more in the last 15 informally; surely you can spend an hour or two looking at random internet tracts.)
If you want to sit at the basis that Big Dawg has to define the rules, and no other rules count, then fine, there you go. But denying that other rules can apply is just intellectually weak.
I thought Decartes ruled out the 'prime deceiver' like 300 years ago.
fishbane: So Alasdair MacIntyre in "intellectually weak"? Maybe YOU should be the one to break it to him. I would, but he's kinda a big guy. And he's a Scott, so I bet he has a nasty temper.
I don't know if there is or is not a personal God. But it bothers the hell out me that I think MacIntyre is right: After the Nietzschean/PoMo assault on reason, what are our options? No secular attempt to found a basis for moral imperatives has made it through this radical skeptical grinder.
For those of us who are essentially secular, but who also care very deeply about the foundations of the 'good life,' things aren't easy. In fact--as MacIntyre would not put it--I think we are hosed.
But it's not like I'm bitter . . .
Lots of things are known only by inference (quarks), but are nonetheless "facts."
If you consider atheism a religion, do you have a word for the absence of religious belief?
"Episcopalianism"?
What do you get when you cross an Jehovah's Witness and an Episcopalian?
Someone who knocks on your door for no real reason.
Regarding your specific scientific theories: Euclidean geometry as a mathematical pursuit is mostly still correct (you have to add a few axioms Euclid omitted). As a physical model, it's not quite accurate. By the way, the curvature of the universe seems to be slightly negative, so "parallel" (whatever that means) lines actually do not meet. Newton's theory did not contain any exceptions for dense objects or for satellites orbiting the earth or any particular situation. It was stated universally, and in fact is generally accurate even in places where it was not experimentally checked originally. Moreover, the corrections in most cases are mind-boggingly small. The perihelion of Mercury precesses 43 arcseconds per century; the timing corrections for GPS satellites are measured in nanoseconds. I don't think you'll say evolution has been "falsified" if it turns out you have to correct the 3rd decimal digit of its predictions. If our current theory of evolution turned out in the end to be accurate in order of magnitude I would consider that a major vindication of the theory.
.
The reason science does not need "epistemological humility" is that this hinders the progress of science on the one hand, and denies the general public its benefits on the other. As I explained earlier in the thread, belief in evolution is warranted not because evolution is the ultimate theory of everything, but because thinking about the world within its framework has been found to be clearly superior to thinking within all other proposed frameworks, and because (based on past experience with science) future theories are unlikely to give radically different predictions for the phenomena we have already observed.
Most progress in science is cumulative, and is made within the existing framework, no matter its weaknesses. Thus a scientist should generally think through this framework -- if he can show that thinking through a different framework works better (or even, as well) that would be major progress. This applies even more to the layman. Refusing the advice of experts without being one is not a good way to go. What would you think of a layman refusing to use Euclidean geometry to design his house because he has heard somewhere that spacetime is in fact curved? When epicycles were our best theory of the heavens, following that theory would have allowed the common man to have the best predictions for the motion of the planets. That today we can do better doesn't mean a layman at the time would have been better off not believing in epicycles.
I guess I don't accept the notion that The Big Evil Atheist has to Overcome the Believer in order for something to be made sense of. Or of which something should be made sense. I don't mind believers. I like several of them. A lot. We agree to disagree. This has nothing to do with schooling, or policy. Or at least, it shouldn't. They are, for whatever reason, capable of distinguishing between what is good for their children and what some political goal wants them to think.
In the mean time, we'll have a nice Christmas dinner together.
If you can't see the value of infinite regress, you've obviously never had to argue on behalf of a client whose sole virtue is the ability to pay your fee.
Framed this way, my guess as to the likely outcome would be acknowledgement that the firing was caused by just a big misunderstanding, with relieved handshakes all around. I would like to see how WHOI frames the issue.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/aprilfool.html
Not the verb I would use re: MacIntyre. But his assessment of the failure of rationalism doesn't require any theological component. He was a Marxist when he first developed it, prior to his conversion to Catholicism. So we're left with the question of whether one has one choice, or none.
I don't think so either. Over the last 150 years, the most significant philosophical problem for the Big Evil Atheist who believes in rationalism has been with the Big Evil Atheist who does not. Voltaire and Pascal can coexist and debate. Voltaire and Nietzsche have nothing much to say to each other, and Nietzsche always wins.
Parallel lines? They meet at infinity in projective space. I'll take you there and show you some time.
As to assertion one: How?
As to assertion two: How?
That may be true, though much progress that has been critical has been due to a break with prior conceptions/assumptions. E.g., during that era, Tyco Brahe's theory accounted for all the available data at least as well as Copernicus's theory - and Brahe's observational data was better informed, was more complete, than Copernicus's data. But Brahe was tied to Aristotelian assumptions/conceptions related to physics while Copernicus broke with those conceptions.
"This applies even more to the layman. Refusing the advice of experts without being one is not a good way to go."
That assumes the experts are 1) functioning within their field of expertise, 2) are functioning while applying the disciplines and tenets demanded by their field and 3) are not leveraging an agenda beyond that narrower expertise. It also and likewise depends upon the reason(s) for the refusal. E.g., which theoretical system should the layman have chosen in the late 16th century, Brahe's or Copernicus's? And why?
"The reason science does not need "epistemological humility" is that this hinders the progress of science on the one hand, and denies the general public its benefits on the other."
Au contraire. It's precisely that humility (of the mind, in facing the tenets and rigors demanded by science) which has allowed science - genuine science - to progress. Incaution (a lack of "humility," as used herein), in formulating hypotheses and theories may well be warranted, but caution is a prerequisite when reason, empirical methods, intuitions, etc. are applied for purposes of testing those hypotheses and theories. E.g., it was epistemological humility which allowed the Copernican theory to (eventually) gain ascendency over Brahe's system (with the aid of Brahe's observational data). Brahe's scrupulous observational data, Kepler's and Newton's mathematical findings, etc. were advanced due to epistemological humility and exactness, i.e. the "humility" of the mind, subservient to the exacting rigors and tenets of mathematics, empirical verifications, etc.
"As I explained earlier in the thread, belief in evolution is warranted not because evolution is the ultimate theory of everything ..."
Glad to hear that because when listening to many, from Dawkins to his varied and sundry epigones and unthinking sock-puppets, a layman might be led (to believe) otherwise.
assertion(s) in this regard, but very much like to know what it is.
Also, what in modern science other than notions of evolution do you view as the equivalent of religious dogma ("here are a list of things to believe, failure to do so means you are bad.")? Again, I can't think of any, including those notions of evolution, but maybe you change my mind with illustrative examples and persuasive argument. For example, do you think that it is tantamount to religious dogma for the scientific community, with the exception of Peter Duesenberg, to maintain that AIDS is caused by a retrovirus, specifically HIV, notwithstanding Thabo Mbeki's insistence that isn't so? Or do you have other, perhaps better examples of science operating as something like religion?
Michael B: You are suffering from hindsight bias. When Copernicus published his book, the average layman was in no position to judge its correctness. Just because we know today that Copernicus was on the right track, doesn't mean
that the layman at the time should have (or could have) realized that. The experts should have paid attention -- and they did. After Kepler ironed out the details, showing that the heliocentric idea was right but that the circular orbits were not, the experts arrived at a concensus and at that point the public should have followed their lead. But until then, why should the public have believed Copernicus? His predictios were in general less accurate than Ptolmei's. Of course, Copernicus had a much simpler theory than Ptolmei -- but there is no promise that the world is simple. The general public should have believed Ptolmei until the experts came to the conclusion that he was wrong. Look at what happened among the experts: the quesion was if Copernicus's theory made sense at all given what Brahe saw, not if what Brahe saw made sense given Copernicus+Kepler+Newton (the way you seem to think about the issue).
Actually, this example strengthens my point. Brahe was able to do great work even though he interpreted his result in terms of the wrong framework. If Ptolmeic cosmology was good enough for one of the greatest astronomers of all time, why shouldn't it have been good enough for laymen of this time? Today, unless you are an expert in developmental biology, not believing in evolution marks you as a quack. Does "expert" mean "academic"? Not necessarily, but non-mainstream experts are exceedingly rare. To understand what it takes to form an intelligent opinion about a scientific field, read this.
Maybe skepticism is especially warranted when dueling experts are being presented in a courtroom, in front of regulatory agencies, or in the course of Congressional hearings. Unfortunately, I have come to think that an extra measure of skepticism is often in order when the current administration brings forward their choice of scientific experts.
Thank you. This struck me as a rather significant point.
1) I think you mean me, not Happy shooter. I mean, it wouldn't be nice to be so rude to HIM.
2) It's funny that you'd take that tone in response to my advocacy of humility.
3) Perhaps you're correct (about my expertise, not my name). In that case, you should just stop responding to me. Bye.
Since you accept the three provisos, we don't disagree, at least as stated and in those general terms.
Hoosier,
Yes, indeed. It certainly needs to be properly conceived, but epistemological humility is such an elemental aspect of the scientific method that it's queer (the old usage in mind) to hear a seemingly informed advocate suggest otherwise. E.g., we regard Newton's explorations in physics highly largely because of this factor, we don't highly regard his explorations into alchemy.
Lior,
What you "suffer" from is presumption, inadequte reading comprehension and a near total lack of serious engagement.
My purpose was not to forward an opinion about what laypeople should have believed in the late 17th century (I don't have a strong opinion on the subject), that was more a rhetorical question designed to probe (indeed, you displayed your assumptions via your circular reasoning). Rather, my purpose was 1) to note scientific progress has, at critical junctures, been achieved only via breaks with received opinion and past assumptions/conceptions, 2) to forward some healthy skepticism and cautions concerning experts and 3) to emphasize and further clarify the need for "epistemological humility," properly conceived before the tribunal of rational and empirical inquiry. Nothing you forwarded successfully argues against any of that, indeed you barely engage it.
However, my first point was to note some appreciable agreement - while also noting some critical scientific progress has been made only via breaks with prior conceptions/assumptions. I cite the historic example of Copernicus and his break with Aristotelian conceptions of physics, and further contrast Copernicus with Brahe. You don't obviously disagree with this (or perhaps you do?), though you do elaborate along a line that again emphasizes the authority of experts and the authority of traditional opinion/conceptions (Ptolemy, Aristotelian physics), likewise emphasizing how laypeople should have followed the lead of these authorities and experts. This leads into my second point.
In qualifying the range within which experts are to be granted a healthy degree of respect, depending on the specifics (e.g., the expertise of the "intelligence community"), I'm still affirming the validity of expertise within that qualified range. It's not clear if you agree or disagree with those boundaries, which I deem to be an unremarkable set of qualifiers.
Similarly, when I (rhetorically) ask whether a layman during the late 17th century should have agreed with Copernicus vs. Brahe, you resort to question begging, merely re-emphasizing that laypeople should have followed Brahe's modified version of Ptolemy's system since he reflected received opinion and the accepted authority of that period, much moreso than Copernicus. But given one of the issues being addressed (breaks vs. continuities with received opinion) that is in fact circular reasoning and question begging, it doesn't answer the question why laypeople of that era should have accepted Brahe over Copernicus. (E.g., why not trust Copernicus's explication over the interpretation Brahe accorded his empirical data with the aid of Aristotelian conceptions? Certainly, I value both empiricism and rationality in scientific pursuits, but empirical data (Brahe's observations) obviously do not come with their own self-contained and conclusive interpretations, rather Brahe interpreted that data with the aid of his own deductive, inductive and abductive reasoning. ) Circular reasoning and begging the question does not answer the question.
My third and final point was an emphasis upon the importance of epistemological humility, with some distinctions (contrasting theory and hypothesis formation with the more rigorous demands of testing those theories and hypotheses). You don't obviously take that up either, unless the whole idea is: simply trust experts and little or nothing beyond that dictum.
And the link, that's intended to impress concerning the role and qualifications of the expert. But to what end? Again, I wasn't decrying experts or expertise as such (and certainly not so in the area of theoretical physics), I was rather qualifying when they should be deemed viable and when they should be deemed less viable or perhaps not viable at all. Again, Dawkins was the only specific example I cited and you did not address that example either.
It is not surprising that experts are much taken with expertise and their presumed authority and power as epistemic gatekeepers, but the circular reasoning deployed in support of said expertise is theadbare.
Every time you start to complain about those arrogant biologists and their evolutionary theory, you eventually progress to complaining about how your critics haven’t read or understood what you wrote. At some point, it behooves you to seriously consider that the problem is with you, not your readers. If you really can’t make a comprehensible point in half a dozen paragraphs, then you need to hire an editor. Also, “inadequate” has two ‘a’s.
Your three points are a just-so story. 1) Yes, scientific progress has often entailed “breaks” with conventional wisdom. But those “breaks” also happen with crackpots and poor theories. The scientific community can only discern the difference between a Copernican break and a Dembskian break by looking to see if the proposed new theory entails a better description of observed results, superior empirical results, better predictions, etc. None of that is happening with the bitter critics of modern evolutionary biology; they (like you) talk a great deal about biologists are arrogant and close-minded, but never quite manage to show how those biologists are wrong. Of course, doing so would require actually being an expert, which is much harder than complaining about experts. Forget “epistemological” humility—try some of the vanilla flavor. Similarly, 2), yes, experts should be skeptical. I have never seen you identify any way in which modern biologists aren’t properly skeptical. Again, you complain vociferously but never explain why, exactly, you have a stick up your rear about modern science. Finally, 3), “epistemological humility” is a ten-dollar label for a two-dollar sneer. You haven’t shown how WHOI, or any other scientific agency, isn’t appropriately humble. Should they be paying a philosopher-king to control their grant money? Are you volunteering for the job? I hope they give you time to keep complaining about science online; I do love reading your glossolalic just-so stories.
You can fool (or brow beat) some of the people all of the time into unthinking conformity, but ...
You complain endlessly about arrogant scientists. Please give us practical examples; what are scientists doing that is arrogant? What would "epistemological humility" look like in practical scientific research? Do you contend that WHOI should not have fired this creationist?
1) I think I was the one who introduced the phrase "epistemological humility" to the discussion.
2) I introduced the phrase in response to a post quoting a prominent scientist as saying that "science" is just another word for "reality."
3) I amplified the comment by saying that there are both scientists and non-scientists who have become so unhinged by the Creatinist/Intelligent Design-crowd that they make sweeping statements about what science is, and what it can do; and that these claims go to far.
4) I added that the methodology of science precludes the sort of knowledge- claims that are routinely made by "defenders" of evolutionary theory.
5) I gave examples of some parts of our lived reality that science cannot address, and some historical examples of scientific theory grasping less that the whole of the reality that it sought to explain.
6) Some people argued with me on the second point, and Lior got snooty but kept throwing out detail that reinforced my point about the disjunction between scientific theories and the natural world.
7) You posted, saying that one needs to be an "expert" to show how biologists are "wrong" about evolutionary theory.
8) I wrote point (8), returning to the issue of humilty, since it is predictable that "experts"--by which I mean professional biologists--in fact WILL demonstrate in the future that our current understanding of evolution is incomplete. This does not make the theory "wrong." But it does suggest that experts would do well to remember that science is a means of learning about a thing, but is not the thing itself, anymore that History is the same thing as "The Past."
9) I stipulated, yet again, that I am confident that evolution is the best theory that we currently have to explain the biological phenomena (="stuff") on our Earth; and that I'm a very enthusiastic amateur paleontologist, which more-or-less excludes me from the ranks of Youg-Earth Creationists. (They also consider my agnosticism a problem. Go fight City Hall, eh?)
10) I posted my summary of the the conversation thus far, and then went to see if Mrs. Hoosier needs a bit of warming-up on this cold evening.
2. Should grant money be made available only to evolutionists? No.
3. It is very dangerous when the science community bows to political correctness.
4. It is also dangerous when the science community bows to science (?).
It seems to me that there is an element of a political litmus test in play here in a spillover of the culture wars that the right has encouraged over the past decade; in this case, one can probably fairly guess that the left-leaning predominate at WHOI, and that they were happy to find a reason to eliminate someone who did not fit cleanly into their tribe.
h/t William Saletan:
As an example of the way in which you’re arguing for concepts that I think everyone here accepts, with slightly different rhetorical handles, you contend that “it is predictable that ‘experts’--by which I mean professional biologists--in fact WILL demonstrate in the future that our current understanding of evolution is incomplete.” Experts already (and readily) admit that our current understanding of evolution is incomplete. It would be hard to justify research grant proposals, otherwise.
You could change my mind on whether it matters that someone equates science with “the thing itself,” but only if you could show me that (A) someone is actually making the conflation you’ve identified (as I said, I think you’re talking past the commenters here and possibly misconstruing the Tyson quote), and most importantly that (B) the conflation has practical ramifications.
But I didn’t mean to imply that you were unclear; I think I’ve understood what you’ve been writing.
I am fully qualifed as an attorney, which means I know BS when I hear it. I know when someone is supessing free speech and thought.
Some science follows the old way, mostly that funded by commerical groups, and they invent things. Things like hella cool tech devices, new strains of food, and better drugs.
Left to themselves, though, scientists make proclaimations as to the state of what is and what must be done.
They no longer state a theory, they order belief. I wondered about the MWP I recalled reading about in classics class in undergrad (as it was already banned the subject in science class) when the scientists proclaimed that man was ruining the earth by living too well, and we would bake to death.
Then more orders came from scientists. The Weather Channel research scientist who asked that all non-believers in man made global warming should be stripped of their ability to do TV weather forecasts. The UN scientists calling for war crime trials and executions for those who failed to support them.
That looks like one hell of a faith to me. In fact, it looks like the Christian faith circa 1500-1600s, with the question just around the corner.
There are a lot of latent ambiguities in the vocabulary of this conversation. I think that's the source of much of the argument here.
After you are fired for blasphemy tell me science is a process of asking questions, forming theory, and testing that theory for correction.
Maryanne, this is one of those situations in which the people complaining most loudly about dogma are those following a dogmatic script. See, i.e., Happyshooter, whom I doubt has any idea what the state of the scholarly literature is with regard to any of the fields he claims to be thinly researched. Here, specifically, you complain that Abraham "said he would work at his job using evolutionary principals," and ask why WHOI would not "allow Christians to have their beliefs." Abraham is allowed to have his beliefs. He can believe anything that he wants to, just as a dentist is free to believe that gum disease is caused by witches and demons. But no patient is required to hire such a dentist, just as WHOI isn't required to hire medievalists as biologists.
Similarly, if you'd read the linked article, you'll see that WHOI staff "wrote that Abraham said he did not want to work on 'evolutionary aspects' of the National Institutes of Health grant for which he was hired, even though the project clearly required scientists to use the principles of evolution in their analyses and writing." Contrary to your assertion, there is at least some doubt as to whether Abraham was willing to "work at his job using evolutionary principals."
Can't so much as stand up for the most elemental and widely agreed upon tenets that govern the scientific method; can't reason through or articulate an argument without resorting to bland assertions of presumptive authority and indulging in question begging. Pathetic - and genuinely and substantively so. Then there's Colin's yet more dissolute tactics, likewise representative of much that transpires in academe and similar ideologically blunted confines. All of it far more telling than most would care to consider.