Re: [asa] historical versus experimental sciences

Regarding the general acceptance of historical science, YEC and ID
advocates are generally quite ready to accept historical science
assertions from YEC or ID sources, respectively; the problem is more
one of not applying the same standards for accepting historical
science that doesn't match up with what they want to hear. ID has not
produced any 500 page books detailing exactly when and how God has
intervened in the course of evolution, but that does not invalidate ID
in my opinion.

> The point is that in science what is "boss" is not the historical reconstruction but the empirical data, and that all historical reconstructions must fall in line with the (verified) empirical data. "Cooking" the data, or even just ignoring it, to sustain a favoured historical reconstruction, is out of line. This applies equally to sacrosanct theories like the Big Bang -- which at one time was sneered at by the majority of advanced theoretical physicists -- and macroevolutionary theory. <

Very true. However, there's a huge loophole in that we must decide
the difference between data and noise. One odd result is not enough
reason to reject a generally very well-supported model, though it may
be worth checking out the odd result to see what's up. For example,
there were the reports of seasonal variation in radiometric decay
getting a bit of publicity within the past year or so (I think Science
News had it.) Given how much work has been done on nuclear decay, and
the number of ways in which seasonal changes in weather and in human
behavior might subtly affect the sensors (cf. high water use at class
change affecting some lab equipment in the same building), not to
mention the failure to report the obvious control experiment of
simultaneously monitoring apparent background radioactivity with no
sample, I'm not going to take the claims too seriously.
Unfortunately, there's a lot of cooking or ignoring data in YEC and ID
arguments about the past, and a lot of work cleaning that up is needed
on the part of serious ID advocates.

> The point Dr. Skell -- one of America's elite scientists -- is making, is
> not that Darwinian theorizing cannot serve as an overarching theory, or even
> that Darwinian theory is false. Rather, it is that Darwinian theorizing has
> been of little practical use in the major biological breakthroughs, that it
> is largely an 'after the fact' gloss on empirical discoveries.

Rather, it provides a framework for making sense of the empirical
discoveries. Evolutionary models help us know where to look for
something and how to understand it, but they generally give more than
one possibility for a specific situation.

> This is very odd for a scientific theory. In atomic theory, nuclear theory,
> electromagnetic theory, wave theory, etc. the theoretical perspective has
> generated massive amounts of new data, countless confirmed or at least
> viable explanations for what actually happens in nature, countless
> technological applications, etc.

Check on the volume of data generated by evolutionary studies. It's
not small. Evolution provides a viable explanation for what actually
happens in nature. Historically, the applications tended to be more
agricultural than technological, but the advent of biotech has changed
that.

> The task of sequencing the vast majority of genomes still lies before us, and can be
> accomplished by well-trained technicians who believe the earth was created in six days.

But they won't be able to make sense of the data, nor will they be
able to predict which genomes will be most informative, without
evolutionary considerations. (E.g., we need better sampling of
invertebrate genomes, especially lophotrochozoans, to understand
animals generally, not to mention the usefulness of this for my work
on mollusks.)

> The mysteries of embryology will continue to be probed via microscopes, inter-uterine cameras, biochemistry, etc., and will continue to be uncovered, no matter what the fate of Darwin's theory.<

Again, evolution lets us make sense of the patterns observed in embryology.

> If Darwinism were to fall, only Coyne and Dawkins and Orr and Eugenie Scott and their ilk -- the small number of biologists and anthropologists whose scientific activity depends entirely on the truth of Darwinian theory -- would be out of work. <

This would be true of any theory. In reality even those folks when
they're doing science are trying to generate data on empirical
reality, which would be relevant even if some significant modification
of current evolutionary models seemed necessary.

> The same could *not* be said of atomic theory, electromagnetic theory, the theory of stresses in materials, aerodynamic theory, etc. A refutation of any of these would bring vast areas of physics, chemistry and engineering to a complete standstill.<

No. Whether for evolution or any of these, a new model would have to
explain the successes as well as the failures of the previous model.
If a major flaw were found in aerodynamic theory, airplanes would not
immediately fall out of the sky. The existing work would be gone
through to integrate it with the new results.

> Biology is unique among the natural sciences in that the theory it claims as its most vital and overarching conception is virtually irrelevant for further advances in most branches of the science.<

Biology and geology have a much larger component of empirical data
generation relative to physics or chemistry-not that all four do not
have a lot of both empirical data and theoretical modeling, but that
the relative proportions differ. Anyone dealing primarily with
empirical work is not going to be as directly affected by changes in
the overall theory.

Just as electroweak theory is probably not what I need in trying to
build a simple circuit, you don't need evolution to answer "how does
the human body work", which probably constitutes the majority of
biological investigation. However, you do need evolution to address
"why does it work this way and not that way?" or "why is it similar to
other organisms to varying degrees?" or "where did this function come
from and what might be unexpected side effects from messing with it?"

(NB-Given that a) my research interest is pretty much in the field of
evolution and b) jobs and funding for basic research in the field are
scarce, I am somewhat disgruntled with regard to this topic.)

-- 
Dr. David Campbell
425 Scientific Collections
University of Alabama
"I think of my happy condition, surrounded by acres of clams"
To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.