>How do we ever decide "reasonably high probability" in science? Let me
>approach it from the other direction. When do we decide inductively that so
>many systems obey a certain natural law, that the law is actually
>universal, and that it applies to as-yet-uninvestigated systems?
I have gotten the impression from discussions on this list and elsewhere
that the above question may be moot, because it assumes things about the
process of science that are not quite accurate. The process of science
seems to be one in which a model is tentatively adopted and empirically
tested. A model that fails badly enough (say the phlogiston theory of
heat) will be discarded, but usually not until a better model has been
proposed. Frequently, experimental evidence leads to a model being
adjusted and improved. There is always a model which makes the predictions
which define the experimental program. So perhaps a better question should
be "When do we discard a medel?" The answer as I understand it is "When a
new model is proposed which explains the data sufficently better that the
research community adopts it."
In electromagnetic theory it didn't take very long to get from the initial
experiments of Ampere and Faraday to Maxwell's equations, and Maxwell's
equations can be established with great confidence. But the phenomena
described by Maxwell's equations are considerably less complex than the
phenomena evolutionary biology address. Biology is a very different, far
more complex, "animal" from physics.
>Example:
>by the early part of this century, the law of the conservation of momentum
>seemed written in stone. But eventually certain nuclear phenomena led to
>the postulate that a "neutrino" existed. There was a real problem, because
>it seemed as if some momentum was lost. Some physicists actually toyed with
>the idea that perhaps the law of the conservation of momentum was not
>actually universal. But in the 1950s experimental evidence revealed the
>existence of the neutrino and, to make a long story short, there was no
>further worry about the validity of momentum conservation. So why can't we
>hold off a bit on the universality of the law of evolution in biological
>systems when there seem to be some anomalies? That is, why can't we adopt
>the tentative attitude some physicists had for a while concerning momentum
>conservation?
I would like to see more tentativity on the part of evolutionists myself.
Walter ReMine's claim that evolution is a smorgasbord has some validity.
However, I wonder if the creation/evolution controversy itself isn't a
significant contributor to the lack of tentativity in the public attitudes
of researchers in the field. People like Stephen Gould have gotten
justifiably frustrated with creationists' efforts to use their research to
support creationism. Some workers in the field see a potential threat to
future research grants, and so in their view they are fighting to save a
branch of science -- one they have invested considerable time and effort
in, and one they consider worth pursuing.
Bill Hamilton
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William E. Hamilton, Jr, Ph.D. | Staff Research Engineer
Chassis and Vehicle Systems | General Motors R&D Center | Warren, MI
810 986 1474 (voice) | 810 986 3003 (FAX) | whamilto@mich.com (home email)