Posted on 03/31/2007 1:09:59 AM PDT by Ethan Clive Osgoode
What? You have no confidence in revisionist science? Oh ye of little faith.
If it came from the NYT, it is suspect.
How was Piltdown Man DISproved by the way? Answer: Science, right? So you're using what, exactly, to prove your point?
Ah, the Piltdown Man. How was that proven to be a fake, btw?
The main thing I get from this article is that reporting of science often suffers.
There is no reputable scientist I've ever seen who say something like he had "proved Darwin true." They'd take away his scientist license at the next meeting.
Scientists are human and we all want to do something worthwhile but time after time I've seen a scientist make a careful statement about the possible implications of his work if they are confirmed by other scientists.
Then a science publication gets the story right but tacks on a headline or tries to make the story interesting because they want to sell copies too.
Then a newspaper picks it up and takes a phrase or two out of context, draws an over reaching conclusion and adds an exploitive headline and a science urban legend is born.
The giveaway in this story is that "proving a theory" is a math term not a science term. So we are never gonna "prove Darwin," first because Darwin said lots of things and some of them were wrong. But second because a theory in science if the best available and generally accepted explantion to fit the facts - you can disprove a theory but you can't prove one.
Ecclesiastes 1:2
We can both agree that it was not accomplished by the weaving-of-fairytales method.
Disclaimer...
That not to say that scientist don't suffer from all human flaws and often get an extra helping of arrogence.
I recently spent couple of torturous hours at a hideously expensive restaurant with non-existent service trapped between two junior professors trying to the women that a few of naively brought with lines like "Fortunatley I had written just such a super-computer compiler that very week and was able to save the day."
When we were alone in the car, my wife said "You owe me more for tonight than you can ever repay so I'm just going to write it off under wifely duties."
Didn't want you to think I was arguing that scientists never exaggerate or believe their own hype- its just that they tend to be very careful about career ending false claims of grandeur.
Yeah, I agree, they didn't look it up in the Bible.
Maybe it was that crazy "science" stuff I keep hearing about. Some sort of strange process known as "peer review".
Apparently, neither you nor Darkwolf377 has any free will. So then, the question is, what curious mechanistic process compells you to post those comments?
Piltdown Man: Fake but accurate.
Because you say so?
I can't speak for Darkwolf, but not believing in a god makes me more likely to accept the notion of free will, not less.
No becaise Evolution says everything happens by random chance (It's right there somewhere in Oriole of Specie)
Not random, per se, more based on environmental pressures.
Because Scott "Dilbert" Adams says so. Do you guys read posted articles before commenting? It's a good habit. Try it.
I just find it funny when someone uses the progress of accumulated knowledge, leading to an inevitable discarding of something proved untrue, as "proof" that science is somehow invalid as a field of endeavor. Anti-intellectualism is always so riddled with ignorance and inconsistency that it's amusing to watch its adherents in action.
So the theory goes.
Isn't it amusing how one man's opinion becomes another man's theory...and a fact is born?
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