Dawkins-The Greatest Show on Earth (page 4)

adamah

WAWUM said-

I prefer to say that I believe evolution to be a more reasonable hypothesis than creation, but the truth is I can't say with certainty that it is factual scientific theory. If you choose to take a stance on one side or the other that's your choice. Mine is to say I can't say with certainty, nor can anyone else, and I'm okay with it.

Keep believing in the existence in absolute certainty at your own peril and risk. Absolute certainty just doesn't exist expect in the minds of fools, and the meme results from a narrative created and perpetuated by the religious who sell faith as a virtue (and the stronger the faith, the better, per them).

Free yourself from such mental handicapping, demanding to examine evidence and proof; the onus is on you to do the actual work, and most people are just too lazy to do it (and it IS a daunting task, esp if you're doing it solely for the sake of self-education, without a career payoff at the end).

Cofty said-

If you reject the genetic evidence for common ancestry please decline jury service. The techniques are exactly the same as the ones used to convict murderers and rapists.

If only it were as simple a matter of getting out of jury duty by saying, "your honor, I'm too ignorant to understand the science, but not ignorant enough to be able recognize my own ingorance of science".

Here in the States, we make people sit on juries, whether they are able to think logically or not.

Adam

KateWild

A theory is as proven and true as it gets. There's no point in disagreeing with this explanation of the word, Kate. The entire purpose of the chapter is to show the difference in how the scientific community uses the word versus how YOU use it.-CO

I have read it again, like you recomended. In my experience the scientific community use the word theory in different ways dependig on the circumstances. Science teachers are part of the scientific community. So the schoolgirl definition is correct for that situation. There are no hard and fast rules, it's just semantics.

What Dawkins is saying in this chapter is for the purpose of the phrase "The Theory of Evolution", this theory has been proven. I already knew this before I read chapter one. He does not state anywhere in his chapter that the scentific community uses the word theory in the same sense all the time. He does not even use the term scientific community.

If you think I am wrong please copy and paste the section you are referring to.

Kate xx

cofty

Here's my take on that point from another thread...

He now turns his attention to this most basic and frustrating of all objections to evolution, “It’s ONLY a theory”

There are two quite distinct definitions of the word “theory”. When referring to evolution scientists mean something very different from its common meaning of a “mere hypothesis, speculation or conjecture”. A scientific “theory” is a system of statements held as an explanation of a group of facts or phenomena. It is a hypothesis that has been confirmed by observation or experiment.

The heliocentric Theory of the solar system is an example of this meaning of “theory”. The earth and other planets orbit the sun; this is a theory. Evolution is likewise a theory in this sense. It too has been confirmed by observation and experiment and it accounts for a massive group of facts.

It is necessary to acknowledge the pedants who claim that scientific theories, unlike mathematical theorems can never really be proved. The best scientists can do is to fail to disprove things. Pythagoras’ theorem can be proved; the claim that the sun is bigger than the earth cannot, but any reasonable person would accept the evidence and credit it with the status of fact. Evolution is a fact in the same sense that it is a fact that Paris is in the Northern hemisphere.

The two senses of “theory” can be illustrated by the mathematical terms “conjecture” and “theorem”. For example the Goldbach conjecture (any even integer can be expressed as a sum of two primes) has been demonstrated to be true for all numbers up to 300 thousand million, million, million but has never been proven mathematically and therefore is denied the status of theorem. But does anybody doubt it is a fact? Dawkins proposes “borrowing” the term theorem (but spelled theorum) for scientific “theories” such as photosynthesis, the earth is not flat, and evolution by natural selection.

“ As Bertrand Russell said “We may have come into existence five minutes ago, provided with ready-made memories, with holes in our socks and hair that needs cutting”. Given the evidence now available, for evolution to be anything other than a fact would require a similar confidence trick by the creator, something that few theists would wish to credit. ”

Dawkins then goes on to discuss the way in which we should understand the word "facts" in connection with evidence for a science like evolution.

adamah

Kate said- In my experience the scientific community use the word theory in different ways dependig on the circumstances. Science teachers are part of the scientific community.

Say what?

Again, you're just making up stuff out of thin air and trying to BS those who actually HAVE experience in the field of science, since even the term 'science community' has a definition, and refers to eg members of an academy of science who are recognized by their colleagues as qualified to engage in research and publish, conduct peer-review for journals in their field, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_community

Kate said- So the schoolgirl definition is correct for that situation.

Sorry, but a public-school science teacher is NOT a member of the 'science community'; they MAY be members of a group like NCSE, but that is nota requirement to teach kids (where even having earned a bachelor's degree in a science discipline is not required to teach, just an interest). Certainly a schoolgirl's understanding (even one who got a "A" in their course) and opinion on the topic has about as much relevance on science as, well, nothing.

Kate said- There are no hard and fast rules, it's just semantics.

(Speechless)....

Adam

konceptual99

What are Dawkins motives for chapter one?

I am not sure really, he doesn't make it clear, but I conclude he wants the reader to believe all following chapters are "the truth" and must be trusted as fact.

His motives are not to force any assumptions about the following chapters.

His motive is to explain what is meant is by theory and facts in the context of the scientific method.

The reason he has to do this is that very few school girls and boys leave school with the understanding that there is a difference between the use of theory in the context of "theory/practical" and theory when applied to "theory/hypothesis/fact". For whatever reason, many science teachers are failing to ensure the difference is made clear.

The reason Dawkins has to address this in chapter one is because the first refuge of the critic against evolution is to claim it is "only a theory", using the word in the wrong context and as a pejorative term.

It is not just semantics.

konceptual99

WAWYM - I think you have been watching too much Ray Comfort.

Try http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0k9NyHh7TQ to get some balance.

You don't have to agree but you do need a less disingenuous argument.

LV101

Just found Cofty's summary of "Greatest Show" posted a yr. ago under his screen name - it really is helpful to read this and noticed he's linked above.

Captain Obvious

I need Jaclyn Glenn in my life

GLTirebiter

That is exactly how scientific discoveries are made, we have a theory, do an experiment. Some prove our theory some do not.

The word "Prove" is where this statement deviates away from Science. Experiments are not performed to "prove" a theory, they are deliberate attempts to falsify that theory. Theories that survive the gauntlet and make useful statements about natural phenomena are accepted and continue to be used--only while they remain unfalsified and continue to make useful statements. When experiments falsify the theory, when it fails to make accurate statements about natural phenomena, then it must change: be corrected, expanded, restricted in scope, sometimes abandoned.

This distinction between "prove" and "falsify" is no minor detail. Scientific rigor, scientific progress is firmly rooted in the humility to say "I must continue to test the theories I accept, because they could be just as flawed as the ones that came before them." The hubris of believing any theory is The Answer, that it is The Truth, is the death of honest science. That is how investigators become blind slaves of their preconceptions. That is when theories wander down blind alleys of increasing absurdity, trying to preserve the "Truth" of a favored (erroneous) concept: for example, planetary motion in epicycles, or the static eternal universe.

The phrase "settled science" is an oxymoron: genuine science is, by definition, always subject to revision. When a theory becomes sacrosanct, it is no longer scientific.

Vidqun

My first inclination would be to go to the Dictionary definition of "theory" and "hypothesis." An up-to-date dictionary usually gives most current definitions. In summary:

HYPOTHESIS, THEORY, LAW mean a formula derived by inference from scientific data that explains a principle operating in nature. HYPOTHESIS implies insufficient evidence to provide more than a tentative explanation (a hypothesis explaining the extinction of the dinosaurs). THEORY implies a greater range of evidence and greater likelihood of truth (the theory of evolution). LAW implies a statement of order and relation in nature that has been found to be invariable under the same conditions (the law of gravitation). See Webster.

Dawkins-The Greatest Show on Earth

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