November 30, 2008 by Dr. Mc.

[An email conversation begun
Oct 19, 2008]

 Mark,

Civil dialog is the most important thing we can agree upon.
Anything else that may come I’ll consider a bonus.  I have begun our dialog
posts at AcademicFreedomBlog. You threw a lot at me in your last email. I’ll
start with the “obvious variations” of organisms in your original comment: I am
not denying the existence of variation. That is why I brought in the dog
examples. Variation is rampant. The question posed by baraminology is, “Is there
a clear boundary between variations.” You ask if I “have evidence of clear and
unchanging boundaries.” Perhaps you have not thought of the Cambrian explosion
in that light. (Now, don’t stop reading, just because you are so familiar with
this that it no longer leaves you with wonder.) You know that
every major body plan (link requires “Quicktime”) known today (plus many we
don’t have today) are found in the
Burgess shale and Chengjiang Deposits. We can’t just say the fossil record is not complete,
because these fossils are in great detail, including soft body parts and
organisms with no hard parts, and though there are
many duplications across these deposits, there is no ancestral fossil record
of transitional forms across most body plans. I am not here arguing that this is
conclusive of instant creation, but I do suggest it is sufficient evidence to
investigate further, which is all that science should require.

You give two reasons for not giving origins the same chance
would give eastern medicine: “1) It does not require a supernatural explanation.
2) It is testable by modern scientific methods.” I suggest that the first is the
sum of the objection for the far, far majority of objectors. If the first were a
consideration, the second would not be an issue. Let me put that another way. If
the first were not the stopping point, then they would be able to entertain the
possibility of scientific method being applied to the hypotheses. If what I am
saying is true, then the objections are actually on religious grounds, not
scientific ones.

This leads to your third paragraph–Are reputations in
jeopardy for even considering non-traditional explanations of origins? You write
off Sternberg and Gonzalez. I believe there is room for discussion there, but
let’s get personal. I don’t think you can talk me out of believing
what happened to me. And the scenario I gave you in my last email was not
hypothetical. A friend of mine was “black-balled” from his position as editor of
the Alabama Geological Newsletter for contacting a scientist and suggesting that
his submission on slow deposition of coal should be “balanced” with one from a
quick-deposit perspective. No evidence was ever considered in his case either,
just what his position was and whom he quoted. Since he was a creationist, no
further evidence was needed. At this point I can only lay my hands on the first
page of that person’s email to all members of the society, and I have blocked
out the names of the sources of this information.

I hope in the future we can deal with one issue at a time,
so our letters don’t get too cumbersome and too spaced.

Don Mc

Which of these issues would have the highest priority for you?

Posted in Science and faith | 1 Comment »

November 23, 2008 by Dr. Mc.

[I continue an email conversation begun with a blog comment to my Oct 19, 2008 post. Each time I will allow my guest to have the last word. My
beginning each time will therefore be my response to the previously dated post.]

Well said, Mark,
I see your position: Yes, if I substitute in phlogiston or astrology, the debate
does seems fruitless and even tiresome. And you are right about the
whining: If the other guys are wrong, get out there and prove it.

May I make a comparison with Eastern medicine? There are
spiritual theories underlying most of these traditional herbal treatments, but
the herbs themselves or their techniques of application may in fact have
beneficial affects on the body or psychological state of the person. It is
logical that if a treatment has been used for thousands of years, it would have
survived only because there is something to it, even if the ascribed reason is
wrong. Some of these treatments are only just now being allowed credence in
"modern" medicine. Even if the theoretical base is rejected for religious
differences, couldn’t the establishment allow competition of ideas based on the
establishment’s rules?

This is really a poor analogy, but I couldn’t think of a
better one. It’s poor because there is little hostility toward eastern
medicine. The main delay there is simply that drug companies will not sponsor
research on something they cannot patent. In the case of any setback to the
theory of evolution the response is hostile. By hostile, I mean regardless of
the nature of the evidence, the effort is squelched and the reputation of an
otherwise well-published scientist is ruined.
I’m not talking about articles that quote verses or even elude to an
Intelligence. For instance, slow build-up of peat bogs fully supports the
assumption that coal formed over a period of millions of years. Still, a person
should be allowed to submit and have published a well-written article that
argues from the data that the layers seem to be quickly deposited. What’s wrong
with coal fodder being laid down quickly and then millions of years passing
before the next layers are deposited? That article will not see publication,
because it will immediately be assumed (and perhaps rightly so, because no one
else would dare suggest the idea) that the author’s unspoken position is
creationism. What has that got to do with the scientific quality of the
submission? Or the contribution to science, for that matter? But what if some
creationist should find support for their position from the publication? Yes,
scientists are pragmatic, but not "nothing else." I’m not arguing here that
creationism or intelligent design either one are right; only
that such implications should be irrelevant to science.

Continue they will, and even though their credentials and
scientific method are ignored (trashed?) once their underlying assumptions are
known, perhaps science will eventually be allowed to advance in new directions.

Don Mc

Don

Thanks for the reply, and the insights. I do note, however, that you are still
ignoring the substance of my original comment, re the reasons that taxonomy is
imperfect. You are also ignoring the questions I posted there, regarding the
evidence behind the opinions that you expressed.  Can I assume that you have no
evidence for clear and unchanging boundaries between the taxa that we call
species?  Can I assume that you understand that there is substantial observed
variation within species, and that this variation is relevant?  Please advise.

Re the rest of your message, yes, it is a poor analogy to compare eastern
medicine with ID/creationism. It fails on two counts. 1) It does not require a
supernatural explanation. 2) It is testable by modern scientific methods. You
can take a plant extract and study it to see if it has pharmaceutical properties
of interest. You can’t test ID or creationism.

I also don’t believe, without evidence, that scientific evidence is being
squelched, or that reputations of scientists are being "ruined" because they
buck the system and try to publish scientific papers in support of ID. Where’s
the evidence?  If you are talking about R. von Sternberg, I’d be happy to tell
you why this description is at odds with the facts. If you are talking about G.
Gonzalez, ditto. If you are talking about someone else, please provide me with
the evidence. As a practicing scientist, I can tell you that lots of scientists
would be very happy to overturn a paradigm as well-established as evolutionary
theory. That pretty much would guarantee you scientific immortality as well as a
trip to Stockholm. But it takes EVIDENCE to overturn an established theory. That
EVIDENCE has to be solid, repeatable, and unexplainable by the current theory.
That’s how science works. Publish the evidence, and folks will consider it, test
it, and eventually move to your position if it works out. No evidence, no
paradigm shift.

Mark

Academic Freedom wrote:

Mark,
I appreciate our interactions. They are stimulating, even if each of us falls
short of convincing the other. With your permission, I would like to put our
conversation so far into the AcademicFreedomBlog. Are you OK with that? I will
not assume your permission on any further dialog without asking again.
Don Mc

Don

That would be OK with me. Hopefully it will encourage civil dialogue, rather
than the invective that seems to dominate these discussions at other blogs.

Mark

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

November 10, 2008 by Dr. Mc.

[This is the continued posting of an email conversation begun with a blog comment to my
Oct 19, 2008 post.]
Mark,
I see that you are a biologist, while I am only a sociologist. I would not call it a “conspiracy theory,” because by that I would mean something intentional and organized. As a sociologist I see humans as having a natural tendency to not collect information contrary to what they already want to believe. I do that. All humans do (cognitive dissonance). Collectively it is even more powerful (social identity theory). My (truly unsupported) hope is that scientists can allow others to pursue research based on assumptions contrary to their own without condescension. Perhaps, just perhaps, there may be a discovery that otherwise would not have been made. Then each has the option to abandon his or her conceptual frame or work the new fact into their own. In either case, science is the winner. Can we agree on that?
Don Mc
 
Hi, Don

Condescension is bad, but it can happen when individuals pursue investigational paths that have been proven fruitless in the past, and/or when those paths are championed by folks who honestly don’t know the field of science in which they are allegedly pursuing those investigations.. A chemist might be condescending toward someone who wanted to investigate the hypothesis of phlogiston. An epidemiologist might be condescending toward someone who wanted to investigate the hypothesis that witchcraft or demons caused outbreaks of disease. Those approaches have been tried, and found lacking in the past. Better approaches exist, and are productive today. So why go down those paths again?  In the hope that there will be a “discovery that otherwise would not have been made”? Perhaps, but the odds are extremely high that it is a waste of time and resources. Substitute “creationism” or “intelligent design” for “phlogiston” or “witchcraft” in those examples above, and you will get a clue why biologists find discussion of creationism and ID so tiresome.

Scientists are pragmatic, if nothing else. Wasting time and resources is not going to appeal to a pragmatist. If condescension is the outcome of telling someone that you are pursuing an avenue that has been proven to be a dead end, that is unfortunate. But the best answer to that is not to tut-tut and moan about the attitude of others, but to get the EVIDENCE that will convince the others. There are numerous examples of scientists whose work was dismissed out of hand at the beginning, but who continued to work and gather evidence to convince the nay-sayers. Some of them (Peyton Rous, Peter Mitchell, Stan Prusiner, for example) got the Nobel Prize eventually. How did that happen? By continuing to gather data in support of their hypotheses, and by publishing in the peer-reviewed literature. That’s the difference between science and pseudoscience; scientists don’t just throw up their hands and whine when somebody is condescending to them.

But that could all be just “opinion”. I notice that you ignore the major point of my comment, highlighting the obvious natural variations in organisms, and the consequent problems with taxonomical systems. But those were not just rhetorical questions in my comment. Is that variation nonexistent in your opinion?  Do you have evidence for “clear and defined” boundaries between taxonomic units at the species level? Let’s hear it.

regards
Mark