Posted on 12/05/2004 1:16:27 AM PST by OnlyinAmerica
Ah. Popper is authoritative when he agrees with us, but when he disagrees, we ignore him. Got it.
He says "I recant," and -- personally -- I believe that, like most "recantations" in the past (such as the one by Galileo) it was made under duress.
What difference does it make what you "believe"? Do you have any evidence for such a claim? After all, the probative value of such statements, standing on their own, is more or less nil - they're worthless, except insofar as they let us rationalize away the inconvenient and the annoying, of course. I could just as easily dismiss his original suggestion that the theory of evolution was unscientific by suggesting that it was made under duress, but unless I bring something to the table to substantiate such a claim, it's precious little more than a red herring designed to distract from the statement itself.
His recantation, which references an essay he wrote called "On Clocks and Clouds" is confused, and makes rather confusing reading.
Ah, A Stove fan. If the Dialectica piece is confused, it is largely a result of the fact that Popper was confused about the theory of evolution from the beginning. Nevertheless, this is it:
When speaking here of Darwinism, I shall speak always of today's theory--that is Darwin's own theory of natural selection supported by the Mendelian theory of heredity, by the theory of the mutation and recombination of genes in a gene pool, and the decoded genetic code. This is an immensely impressive and powerful theory. The claim that it completely explains evolution is of course a bold claim, and very far from being established. All scientific theories are conjectures, even those that have successfully passed many and varied tests. The Mendelian underpinning of modern Darwinism has been well tested, and so has the theory of evolution which says that all terrestrial life has evolved from a few primitive unicellular organisms, possibly even from one single organism.However, Darwin's own most important contribution to the theory of evolution, his theory of natural selection, is difficult to test. There are some tests, even some experimental tests; and in some cases, such as the famous phenomenom known as "industrial melanism", we can observe natural selection happening under our very eyes, as it were. Nevertheless, really severe tests of the theory of natural selection are hard to come by, much more so than tests of otherwise comparable theories in physics or chemistry.
The fact that the theory of natural selection is difficult to test has led some people, anti-Darwinists and even some great Darwinists, to claim that it is a tautology. A tautology like "All tables are tables" is not, of course, testable; nor has it any explanatory power. It is therefore most surprising to hear that some of the greatest contemporary Darwinists themselves formulate the theory in such a way that it amounts to the tautology that those organisms that leave the most offspring leave the most offspring. And C.H. Waddington even says somewhere (and he defends this view in other places) that "Natural selection ... turns out ... to be a tautology". However, he attributes at the same place to the theory an "enormous power ... of explanation". Since the explanatory power of a tautology is obviously zero, something must be wrong here.
Yet similar passages can be found in the works of such great Darwinists as Ronald Fisher, J.B.S. Haldane, and George Gaylord Simpson; and others.
I mention this problem because I too belong among the culprits. Influenced by what these authorities say, I have in the past described the theory as "almost tautological", and I have tried to explain how the theory of natural selection could be untestable (as is a tautology) and yet of great scientific interest. My solution was that the doctrine of natural selection is a most successful metaphysical research programme. It raises detailed problems in many fields, and it tells us what we would expect of an acceptable solution of these problems.
I still believe that natural selection works this way as a research programme. Nevertheless, I have changed my mind about the testability and logical status of the theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to make a recantation. My recantation may, I hope, contribute a little to the understanding of the status of natural selection.
A theory can be WRONG and still be classified as "scientific."
Of course, but you presented it along with the suggestion that it was unscientific, as Popper himself originally suggested. To claim that the issue now is the truth of the thing renders Popper wholly irrelevant in the first place.
I'll look for it. I was living in Los Angeles at the time and remember hearing about on the news.
I have an idea for a documentary on this: scientists who believe in God (not just "practice religion," which is different) but are afraid to say so. I don't think we should be too surprised at any of this. On a different issue -- cancer research -- a journalist named Edith Efron wrote a book many years ago (I've forgotten the title, but I'm sure it's listed in Amazon.com) interviewing doctors, biochems, etc. on the state of cancer research. She said that many of them consented to be interviewed only anonymously: they feared losing their research grants, tenure positions, etc. by admitting that we really know NOTHING about how and why a cell becomes cancerous, despite positive claims to the contrary. Improvements in care, according to them, have come from hard "nursing" experience: building up a database and statistics, so that we know "If you have X and we do Y, your chances of surviving/dying are Z. This is still useful, practical knowledge, but it's very different from a firm CAUSAL understanding of what's going on biologically. The book is probably scientifically out of date today, but the interesting thing is how scientists come across sociologically -- they are governed by the same sort of ambitions, fears, etc., as anyone else in any other sort of profession. Look, how many persons in a blue state were simply afraid to state openly that they supported Bush? Lots. And with good reason. The NY Sun had a pre-election article in which one or two of their journalists walked around the city wearing big "Bush/Cheney" buttons. They were spit on, sneered at, openly insulted, etc. Who wants to go through that? It's no different for a scientist in an academic or research position. Even if he sincerely doubted Darwinism, he dare not say so openly (unless his reputation were just so big and so untouchable that he didn't give a damn -- Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA with Watson, and a Noble laureate in biochemistry comes to mind).
There were atheists and assholes then too; the difference is decent people didn't associate with them.
He asked about evolution, not atheism or assholism.
Talk about a conspiracy theory!
("All those anti-Darwinists nuts are just a bunch of disgruntled post-docs with unearned Ph.Ds -- all right, a few unearned Nobel Prizes, too, OK??? -- sulking around, unable to earn an honest living. So, like bums being paid to fight one another for some sick videographer, these guys are simply in the pay of religious, anti-science hacks, who want to add some legitimacy to their claims.")
Yep. Another conspiracy theory.
Considering your language, I assume you don't number yourself among the decent. In which case, it's probably lucky for you that decent people will deign to associate with assholes these days.
The concept of a jump here is relative. Major changes can occur over "small" period of time in the context of a geological time scale of billions of years. Keep in mind "small" here can refer to thousands of generations of a population.
where are all the intermediate forms?
Everything is technically an "intermediate" form. A necklace with 2 beads is "intermediate" to one with 3 beads and so on. They are all necklaces in their own right.
b. Most important biochemical processes -- the blood-clotting cascade, the vision cascade, and some others -- cannot be reduced to a series of incremental steps.
These (and other examples) of irreducible complexity have been torn to shreds.:
c. During each shake of the bag, it's just as likely that two beads on a string could come off as come one; so "productive evolutionary change" accomplished during one trial might very well be undone during the next.
To make this analogy closer to the truth, you would have multiple strings shaking in multiple bags occuring simultaneously. The string that lose their beads "die" to be sure. The ones that gain beads not only proceed to the next trial, but "reproduce" to be greatly represented in subsequent trials.
he difference is that he took the idea of selective breeding and carried it to absurd extremes and absurd conclusions.
How do you explain the fact that humans, apes, mice, fungi, plants, paramecium, and dictyostelium share many of the same genes and have virtually identical codes (keeping in mind much of the codon designations are for the most part arbitrary) ?
I know, I know "godwanteditthatway".
Beautiful. Creationist comprehension in all its glory.
Bah! Citations are for atheists.
Don't go into such a snit. Plato said one thing in the Republic and contradicted himself many years later in the Laws. Which one is Plato's view?
Popper based his ideas of tautology on the statements of great Darwinists of his day. He was shocked that they admitted the theory was a tautology, yet did NOT admit that this therefore made it useless from a scientific point of view. Then a bunch of new guys come along and say "those old guys don't speak for us. Nobody speaks for us. The theory is testable and not a tautology." The fact that they kowtowed to these guys for decades is not mentioned.
As for your silly idea of dismissing his earlier notions, you've simply not read Popper. Had Einstein, at the end of his life, said, "You know, I've reconsidered relativity. I was hasty in throwing out the idea of an aether," we'd say "that's not in keeping with the last 50 years of your work. take a stress pill and relax." Same with Popper. His life's work -- and a perfectly solid understanding of neo-Darwinism -- led him to a sound conclusion on its status. Then he comes out with ths one statement saying "oops, I was hasty." Many readers of past work on science find his recantation inconsistent with his overall philosophy, not just his earlier conclusion. It would be one thing had he said "my entire philosophy and way of classifying theories were wrong and hastily considered." Instead, he claims "my philosophy is essentially correct; I misapplied it." It's perfectly legitimate to say "You're philosophy is, indeed, essentially correct. You correctly applied then; you are misapplying it now.
This hinges on claims by modern evols that the so called "synthetic theory" (Darwinism + genetics + statistical studies of populations) is different in essence from old fashioned Darwinism. In other words, Natural Selection as stated by Darwin himself was really a tautology; Natural Selection as stated by Richard Dawkins is scientific and testable. Popper claims that since the evols conceptions of Natural Selection has matured, his original appraisal of it must now change.
He was incorrect on this. The modern conception of Natural Selection is still, at root, a tautology, though hidden by a lot of other bunk.
No. Popper's earlier claims are the more typical of him, and certainly much more in keeping with his own theories, whether or not his feelings about Natural Selection had changed.
I didn't say they were unearned.
Ph.Ds have become a dime a dozen in science. Providing a list with 100 or so is trivial compared to the tens of thousands of real accomplished biologists in academia and industry doing real science.
Great lists- thanks for posting them. One you may have forgotten is Volta, where we get the volt from. He was a pal of Frederick Ozanam, the founder of the St. Vincent de Paul Society.
Excellent. So BY DEFINITION, everything is an intermediate form. No problem!
You see how all the data are made to fit the theory?
To make this analogy closer to the truth, you would have multiple strings shaking in multiple bags occuring simultaneously. The string that lose their beads "die" to be sure. The ones that gain beads not only proceed to the next trial, but "reproduce" to be greatly represented in subsequent trials.
he difference is that he took the idea of selective breeding and carried it to absurd extremes and absurd conclusions.
How do you explain the fact that humans, apes, mice, fungi, plants, paramecium, and dictyostelium share many of the same genes and have virtually identical codes (keeping in mind much of the codon designations are for the most part arbitrary) ?
The same way I explain the fact that refrigerators and air conditioners have similar parts. Nature uses many of the same parts in different species. So what. How do YOU explain that in spite of genetic similarities, an ape never turns into a fungus, and humans have articulate language and a transmissible culture while animals do not? As Sheldrake pointed out, genetics is an interesting technology, but irrelevant for explainnig origins or speciation.
As for major changes, some of them seem to have occurred over tens of thousands of years, of not less -- much too short of a time for any conceivable process of natural selection. Besides, as usual, you omit the important points:
when it is pointed out that many species have NOT changed over millions of years, despite changes in the environment, you cite stupid notions of "genetic stability." When it is pointed out that there's no such thing as "genetic stability" you point to stupid notions of "environmental stability." Not only is neo-Darwinism useless in explaining evolutionary change, it cannot explain non-change. And as Macbeth points out in his book (Darwin on trial), it cannot explain extinction either.
In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, why should we not take his most recent statements as being indicative of his current thinking? You, like everyone else around, including me, have undoubtedly made mistakes in the past, and then corrected them later on. Is it not a tad disingenuous to decide from such a thing that we don't really know what you actually mean? If you were to accidentally write "2 x 2 = 5", but then erase it and write "2 x 2 = 4", is it really fair to you to derive from that some sort of dilemma, and claim that we can't be sure which one you really believe to be a true statement?
As for your silly idea of dismissing his earlier notions, you've simply not read Popper.
I'm afraid your crystal ball needs polishing, my friend. It is precisely because I have read Popper that I can dismiss his early assessment of the theory of evolution as wrongheaded, because he clearly did not, at that time, understand it very well. To be sure, that's not entirely his fault - he says as much in his recantation, although the tone strikes me as somewhat defensive - in that it's relatively easy to find examples of sloppy language among proponents of neo-Darwinian theory. But to take those examples of sloppy language as the definitive elucidation of the theory is to misrepresent the theory, and any attack on such a misrepresentation is fundamentally flawed from the beginning - it is a strawman attack, whether intentional or not.
The modern conception of Natural Selection is still, at root, a tautology, though hidden by a lot of other bunk.
I'm sorry, that's simply false.
I know I shouldn't, but ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3004112.stm
Why so defensive and angry? Who cares who's list is bigger? A list means nothing and has no relevance on the truth. Clearly you have two sides with professional people willing, able and ready to debate the issue. We should encourage this debate and not get so darn angry. All human beings desire a search for the truth, so let's do it.
Completely wrong. Novel mutations and adaptations have been observed in the span of several generations in both controlled laboratory settings and in nature.
It is obvious you have no absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
Don't quit your day job (whatever that might be).
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