Eugenie Scott Coaches Scientists to Talk About Evolution Without Revealing Any Weaknesses

Evolution News & Views ^ | July 27, 2009 | Casey Luskin

[GodGunsGuts]

Eugenie Scott Coaches Scientists to Talk About Evolution Without Revealing Any Weaknesses

Eugenie Scott plays many roles in the evolution debate. Now, in a recent enlightening interview in Science News, she offers her wisdom as a media coach for scientists talking publicly about evolution. Her most important piece of advice? Never use terminology that could imply any real weakness in evolutionary biology. Dr. Scott counsels:

To put it mildly, it doesn’t help when evolutionary biologists say things like, “This completely revolutionizes our view of X.” Because hardly anything we come up with is going to completely revolutionize our view of the core ideas of science.... An insight into the early ape-men of East and South Africa is not going to completely change our understanding of Neandertals, for example. So the statement is just wrong. Worse, it’s miseducating the public as to the soundness of our understanding of evolution.

So what happens when we do make a discovery that refutes or challenges some evolutionary hypothesis? Are scientists supposed to just spin it positively and never acknowledge they were wrong? Essentially, Dr. Scott says yes, because, in her own words: “You can say that this fossil or this new bit of data ‘sheds new light on this part of evolution.’” Funny, because I always thought that scientific progress is made when we reject false hypotheses, and scientific literacy would require disclosing those sorts of things to the public.

Later in the interview, Scott makes an even more startling comment, saying: “Ultimately the solution to this problem is not going to come from pouring more science on it.”

When scientists in a field are instructed to avoid publicly admiting when they’re wrong, and are advised that improving the public’s perception of science is not best served by doing better science, then you know that field is steeped in intolerance towards dissent, and political pressure to give assent to orthodoxy. These are not the signs of a healthy science.

[GodGunsGuts]

Ping!

[tiki]

“If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance baffle them with bull$$$t”

[freespirited]

Actually there is much truth to what she is saying. It is exceedingly rare for a single study to revolutionize biology.

Replication is the hallmark of science. Change comes slowly, over time, with the accumulation of evidence, not overnight with the publication of a single study.

[GodGunsGuts]

Perhaps. But the main point she is making is that when their evo-predictions fail, scientists are encouraged to spin it as shedding further light on evolution, rather than stopping to consider that the ToE, or any part of it, might have weaknesses, or even be just plain wrong.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[tpanther]

Yet the evos hee-haw about the creationists being dishonest. Riiiiight.

[Pale]

“Ultimately the solution to this problem is not going to come from pouring more science on it.”

She's absolutely, positively, 100 percent correct. Because this is not a scientific question; there are quite literally mountains of evidence that prove evolution of species through natural selection to be both a theory--in the sense that it has broad explanatory power--and fact, in the sense that it actually happened.

This dispute is cultural. Creationists will never be convinced of evolution through natural selection because to do so would destroy their entire worldview. An entire galaxy of science would not matter one whit.

It's like the Birthers and their nonsense. It doesn't matter what documentation is produced or how many government officials swear on a stack. Any evidence will be "fabricated," and anyone who swears otherwise is "part of the conspiracy."

[dimk]

It’s a media coaching though, when talking to people who 1. try to grab any sensational headline they can 2. barring 1 will create a sensational headline.. it is much better to understate anything one could say about importance of a new study. Not specific to biology even. Every couple years I read another headline about a “breakthrough” in AI research which turns to be a small probably important next step, which turns into a massive headline and people talking about the whole “singularity” and AI controlling our life in the future and other BS. And I would bet that we are closer to solving evolution vs ID then to creating a real AI

[count-your-change]

And of course Scott would never describe what she advocates as “sophistry” but that is what it is in an attempt to “frame the discussion”.

“So you urge scientists not to say that they “believe” in evolution?! (Interviewer)

Right. What your audience hears is more important than what you say.… “ (Scott)

But when one conflicts with the other fall back on what was said since that is what will be recorded, right?

[AndrewC]

Creationists will never be convinced of evolution through natural selection because to do so would destroy their entire worldview.

I suspect you are speaking for the mouse in your pocket.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Now if only Dr. Scott can get biologists to read a popular magazine.

[Jewbacca]

Good post.

Not all conservatives (or Biblical literaists, for that matter) are luddites, only the loud ones.

[goodusername]

“Perhaps. But the main point she is making is that when their evo-predictions fail, scientists are encouraged to spin it as shedding further light on evolution, rather than stopping to consider that the ToE, or any part of it, might have weaknesses, or even be just plain wrong.”

—Actually, it’s often just the opposite. Particularly with paleontologists, no matter how mundane and in-line a find is with evolutionary expectations they often spin it as “rocking” the world and being “revolutionary”. And as Eugenie put it, that’s “just wrong” and misleading.
The Leakey’s are particularly notorious for that. I greatly appreciate their work, but it’s tiring the way every find is “earth shattering” no matter how unsurprising. Ida is also an example: a purported lemur/monkey intermediate at precisely the time we’d expect to find such an intermediate and reports were coming out about it being “revolutionary”.

[Moonman62]

This dispute is cultural. Creationists will never be convinced of evolution through natural selection because to do so would destroy their entire worldview.

You must mean the world of ignorance and despair, but everything gets a whole lot better after you're dead.

[GourmetDan]

"Because this is not a scientific question; there are quite literally mountains of evidence that prove evolution of species through natural selection to be both a theory--in the sense that it has broad explanatory power--and fact, in the sense that it actually happened."

You seem confused about what science is and what science is not. Proof only comes through science and you have either theories or facts. A theory is not a fact and an opinion is not proof. If this is not a scientific question, then it has not been proved.

"This dispute is cultural. Creationists will never be convinced of evolution through natural selection because to do so would destroy their entire worldview. An entire galaxy of science would not matter one whit."

If the dispute is cultural, as you say, then it is not scientific. It is a meaningless philosophical statement. Turn your statement around and see that it is still true.

"Evolutionists will never be convinced of creation because to do so would destroy their entire worldview. An entire galaxy of science would not matter one whit."

"It's like the Birthers and their nonsense. It doesn't matter what documentation is produced or how many government officials swear on a stack. Any evidence will be "fabricated," and anyone who swears otherwise is "part of the conspiracy."

Likewise, no matter how much science is performed showing that biologically-complex, coded, fault-tolerant, error-correcting, self-replicating information systems do not spontaneously arise out of chaos; all such evidence is 'irrelevant' and anyone who says otherwise is 'superstitious'.

[Pale]

I suspect you are speaking for the mouse in your pocket.

Heh. If you mean that "evos" are the same way, I'll cop to that. If someone were to "prove" to me that the earth and everything on it were created from the ether 6,500 years ago, I'd have a lot of thinking to do. But it's going to take a helluva lot more than pointing to words in a book.

Personally I've never understood the other side completely. Which God is greater: The one who creates everything in an instant, fully formed? Or the one who does so over billions of years, with such miraculous complexity, through such a simple process as selection (both natural and sexual)?

I know my answer.

[metmom]

This dispute is cultural. Creationists will never be convinced of evolution through natural selection because to do so would destroy their entire worldview.

Likewise with evolutionists. Creationists Evolutioninsts will never be convinced of evolution through natural selection special creation because to do so would destroy their entire worldview. Except then they'd have to admit to being wrong, which they are loathe to do from the tone of this article, in addition to facing up to God's claims on their life.

An entire galaxy of science would not matter one whit.

Nor would a miracle convince someone who didn't want to be convinced. Even if someone were raised from the dead.

[AndrewC]

I see. Keep on trucking(Not that you need my permission).