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Entry: The Right's Science Problem Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/the_rights_science_problem#17484 Post contents: Science is not a collection of facts but a disciplined method of thinking about nature. It begins with an hypothesis, a guess about how some part of nature works. Simple observation disproves many hypotheses. At some point the body of experience favoring some hypotheses rises to the level of theory. A valid theory must consistently explain all observed phenomena that fall within its purview, and it must have predictive value. Finally, it must be possible to devise experiments to test the predictive value of the theory, so that, should experimental results not turn out as the theory predicts, the theory is disproved. Successful theories are those that survive this experimental testing, and even they are considered true only until experimentally disproved. An implacable scepticism is essential to the scientific method. Not only the general public, but educated non-scientists and even some within the sciences have no notion of the philosophical assumptions on which the scientific method is founded. They assume that science is a collection of facts, or 'the truth,' without stopping to consider the essential tentativeness of all scientific claims, or the possibility that while the scientific method is one path by which we pursue knowledge of the truth, it is not necessarily the only one. A failure to apprehend these points leads one into scientism, a false assumption of the scope and certitude of scientific knowledge. Evolution is scientifically problematic. While Darwin was an astute observer of nature what he asserted in 'The Origin of Species" was based more on analogical than on deductive reasoning. Artificial selection - selective breeding of crops and animals by deliberate culling of specimens exhibiting undesired traits - has been known to humans since time immemorial. Darwin's speculation was, what if the random occurrences of nature functioned as did the deliberate practice of selective breeding did, to bring about the distinct characteristics of the different species of plants and animals? He thought that it did, and that there was a process of natural selection, 'nature' functioning to guide the development of living things in much the same way as Adam Smith asserted that an 'invisible hand' guided economic markets. The problem with Darwin's theory is that it is not possible to conceive a controlled experiment by which to test it. Phenomena that are thought to demonstrate the existence of natural selection, such as the development of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria, simply reflect inadvertent consequences of human intervention. They demonstrate only what we already know: first, that artificial selection or selective breeding works, and second, that we can bring it about unintentionally as well as intentionally. At the core of modern evolutionary theory is an unprovable and undisprovable belief that life originated and developed by completely random patterns having no creative force or design beyond the self-referential. Epicurus asserted this in classical antiquity without bothering to clothe it in the trappings of modern science. And rightly he did so, for it is a faith, every bit as much as is belief in the literal truth of the book of Genesis, or the Mahabharata, or the Popul Vuh. To claim otherwise is scientism. It is unfortunate that so many public discussions of these issues never address this point, but are instead diverted before they get to it, into revivals of the Scopes Monkey Trial or, worse yet, the fictionalized account of it in "Inherit the Wind." We must extract whatever factual value we can from the work of the naturalists - and there is much of it - while bearing in mind that the rest of it is merely another just-so story, one more conveniently suited to modern tastes and prejudices than those of more ancient societies. Sent at: 2008 07 24