From: Chris Cogan <ccogan@telepath.com>
>At 08:35 AM 10/26/2000, you wrote:
>> >
>> >>Chris
>> >>To be fair to Bertvan, I think she's talking about the political
>> >>shenanigans at Baylor, not any alleged "science" that may be involved.
>>
>>Richard:
>> >No, I think Bertvan was trying to cast aspersions on the value of the
>> >scientific work of academics generally. All scientific work involves
>> >interpretations. If the public accepts Bertvan's assertion that the
>> >interpretations of scientists cannot be trusted, then public
understanding
>> >of science will become a free-for-all, where people pick and choose
whatever
>> >bits of science or pseudoscience suit their personal prejudices. This
what
>> >Bertvan does, and she wants others to do the same.
>>
>>Bertvan:
>>You are absolutely right, Richard. Many people believe whatever the
>>"experts" tell them to believe. You'll find them in Doctors waiting rooms
>>eager to ingest the latest "happy" pill the drug companies have for sale.
>>They paid a fortune for psychiatrists to investigate their mysterious ID,
ego
>>and super ego, and damaged psyche with which " psychiatric science" had
them
>>convinced they were afflicted. Having been convinced by "science" that
they
>>have no free will, they became the victims of their genes and their
>>environment. Even rapists relax convinced their behavior is the logical
>>result of random mutation and natural selection. Great numbers of women
who
>>believed the "experts" suddenly retrieved repressed memories of sexual
abuse
>>that occurred before the age of one year. They had their appendixes and
>>adenoids removed and underwent hysterectomies for no reason. They fed
their
>>babies bottled milk, rather than nursing them. They were bled by leeches.
>>They accepted social Darwinism, and sterilized people in the name of
>>eugenics. They recognized meteorites as a hoax. (How could rocks fall
from
>>the sky?) They accepted the scientific judgement that women were mentally
>>inferior to men. They used cocaine to treat morphine addiction, heroin to
>>treat cocaine addiction and methadone to treat heroine addiction. They
are
>>confidently waiting for a treatment of methadone addiction. They give
Ritalin
>>to hyperactive children, confident the drug companies will discover a
>>treatment for Ritalin addiction. They were told that that masturbation,
>>condoms and suppressed sexual fantasies cause impotence, consumption,
>>paralysis, seizures and insanity. They were told homosexuality was a
mental
>>illness caused by a dominant mother and an absent father. Thousands of
>>people were unknowingly subjected to harmful, government-sponsored,
>>scientific medical experiments. Surgeons performed thousands of
lobotomies
>>before anyone noticed the harm they were doing. For a while the tobacco
and
>>pesticide industries had no trouble hiring scientists who assured the
public
>>their products were safe.
>
>Chris
>Well! Pretty good listing, though others could be added, I'm sure. And, I
>agree that we need to be cautious about accepting scientific claims as of
>any other kind of claim. However, I don't agree that what people ordinarily
>call common sense is an adequate basis for evaluating scientific theories.
>What *is* a (more nearly) adequate basis is education in what science is,
>what it does, how scientists work, what scientific theories and hypotheses
>are, how they are validated/tested/corroborated, and, when they do
>contradict "common sense," why they do so and why, in some cases, they may
>still be better than common sense. The ability to rationally analyze ideas,
>concepts and theories is also needed.
>
>"Common sense," even more than scientific work, is notoriously subjective,
>variable, and unreliable, and it is "common sense" that got many people to
>accept such theories as scientifically validated facts to begin with, in
>many cases.
>
>Further, many of the "scientific" ideas you listed were hardly scientific.
>They were sold as science, but lacked some or all of the basics of a
>scientific theory in some cases. In other cases, they were the type of
>theory that could be scientific, but they were not scientifically
validated.
>
>Richard's suggestion that public understanding of science will become a
>free-for-all, is, unfortunately, a "postdiction" of the way things are.
>Without adherence to hard reason, with the acceptance of ideas not
>according to reason but according to "common sense," with junk science
>being routinely accepted in courtrooms, with grotesquely flawed "research"
>being touted as scientific proof of this and that, and so on, such
>"free-for-alls" are to be expected.
>
>Your own suggestion of "common sense" skepticism is better than complete
>general gullibility, but only marginally, because it produces its own kind
>of gullibility. Your acceptance of design in the Universe is an example.
>You don't like naturalistic evolution, and you show little sign of even
>understanding it or how it's supposed to work (other than at the cliche
>level), so you can't give a coherent explanation of why you think it's not
>acceptable. But you belly up to the bar of design theory without any
>apparent "common sense" qualms. The double standard here is fairly obvious,
>and yet, I gather, you have gone for years and years without noticing it.
Of course critical analysis is far better than unquestioning acceptance of
authority. However, none of us is in a position to analyze every piece of
evidence for ourselves, and most people lack the time, inclination and/or
ability to rationally analyze scientific evidence at all. Bertvan, for
example, has specifically stated that she's not interested in the scientific
arguments. So what do we do in those circumstances?
(a) Remain undecided.
(b) Follow our intuition (aka common sense).
(c) Listen to the scientific consensus.
(d) Listen to some other authority.
Remaining undecided is OK for some things, e.g. on the origin of the
universe. On practical matters, however, we have to make a decision, e.g.
whether to get innoculated.
Intuition, I would argue, is subconscious analysis. Sometimes our
subconscious can retain information that our conscious mind doesn't, and at
times may be more rational, but, in general if we're poorly informed on a
subject and/or not inclined to rational thinking, than we can't expect our
intuition to do much better than our conscious mind. If you think that
intuition comes from some sort of "higher self" or divinity, then you might
be inclined to trust it more. But that's effectively what people did before
the advent of scientific thinking, and look how much more progress we've
made in learning about the world since then. Indeed, studies show how
misleading intuition can be, especially on matters which are divorced from
our everyday experience.
That leaves listening to an authority. Of course the scientific consensus is
fallible. And caution is sensible. I wouldn't want to be the first test
pilot of an aircraft based on a new scientific principle! But if I had to
choose between an aircraft based on mainstream science, one based on fringe
science, and one based on intuition, I know exactly which one I'd pick.
Richard Wein (Tich)
--------------------------------
"Do the calculation. Take the numbers seriously. See if the underlying
probabilities really are small enough to yield design."
-- W. A. Dembski, who has never presented any calculation to back up his
claim to have detected Intelligent Design in life.
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