December 28, 2008 by Dr. Mc.

With this post I begin a slightly different format. I have been posting once per week with my comment to Mark, followed by his immediate comment to me. Starting today I’m going to post each comment separately. There will still be one post from each of us per week, so the same pace, but allowing each comment to stand alone for a few days before posting the reply. As you read the close to this one, you will see how far behind the actual communication these posts fall, but be assured they are the actual, unmodified dialog.

Mark,
Re democracy: In general I prefer to ignore the words other people put into my mouth, but since you return to them, I will reply. I hope this is sufficient to dismiss them. I agree that science is not a “democracy.” Perhaps you would not have concluded that I meant “democracy” by “modern society” if I had said “educated” or “enlightened society.” I was attempting to compare the squelching of alternative views with primitive societies. I will stand by that. As for “balance” (the word from which you move to “journalism”), that was not my word choice, and we have only Gastaldo’s text to suggest that it was my friend’s choice. I do not feel compelled to defend the word, for either way, the intent was to place competing views side-by-side for the sake of debate. I don’t find that to be rare in scientific circles.
Re mistreatment: Perhaps I should have used your word for our treatment, “roughly.” Remember that in both examples we were treated “roughly” for our positions, not our evidence. If any rule of science was broken, it was to dismiss positions without hearing evidence. Evidence was never on the table. It wasn’t allowed.
Re minds only allowing one view: I would say anyone who will not hear evidence for an alternative view by definition only allows one view. If you are open to hearing, and truly considering, an alternative view of the data, then it is a non-issue. Let us proceed.
To get off Square One, I must back up from an assumption you have placed on me. You ask me to “please tell [you] what explanation [I] prefer for that period of evolutionary change.” I do not assume evolutionary change. I see differences between the complexity of organisms below and above the Precambrian-Cambrian demarcation. Evolutionary change is your presupposition for the difference. A person committed to evolution as the only possible explanation will only look at data in order to find HOW the data fits the theory, never asking IF the data fits the theory. If the data cannot be made to fit the theory, then the question is HOW can we tweek the theory to fit the data, never is there a more appropriate theory to fit the data.
So my question is, “What is the most rational explanation for the differences observed between the Precambrian and Cambrian deposits?” The question presupposes nothing about evolution, nor does it set limits on what that explanation might be. I have numbered my logic not necessarily because it is complete or sequential, though to the best of my ability it is, but so that you may refer to my statements by number, should you find objections or leaps in logic.
Every (multi-cellular) body plan found to exist today, plus many that do not are found in Cambrian rock. Depending on how one counts, that come to 30 to 40 phyla compared to today’s 20-30.
This Cambrian variety includes many phyla with eyes, including trilobites, anomalocarid and opabinia. Some trilobites had eye types more complex than found in any fauna today.
Precambrian rock contains almost no multi-cellular organisms (three phyla).
The Precambrian fossil record contains many soft-bodied organisms in great detail, including bacteria, suggesting that there were no developmental stages left out that can be blamed on preservation inadequacies.
The Cambrian is generally considered to have begun around 540 million years ago, with about 10 million years as a window for the end of the Precambrian. Precambrian dates cannot be pushed back further without major conflict with earth cooling and other formation issues.
Possible explanations for the findings:
Darwinian evolution posits that there was a gradual development of all organisms from one or a very few original organisms by naturally selected chance mutations. Darwin recognized that the Cambrian-Precambrian differences were problematic, but expected future fossil discoveries to provide transitional forms. They haven’t. The fossil record shows more distinct fauna in the Cambrian than today, not less.
Stephen Jay Gould’s solution was punctuated equilibrium, for which the main supporting evidence is the lack of support for gradual transformation. (Very rapid evolution, even without a mechanism, had to be his conclusion, because his atheism would not allow him to consider an alternative to evolution. But I agree with you that lack of evidence is not evidence.)
I suggest that without the possibility of time or fossil record to explain the vast differences between the two depositions, known laws of physics do not make chance mutation an option. The most logical explanation for the historical event (or advent) of Cambrian complexity is intentional, outside intervention. Translate that “design.”
 
Have a great Thanksgiving.
Don Mc

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December 21, 2008 by Dr. Mc.

Mark,
Evidence? I suggested we discuss the Cambrian Explosion. I can’t find your reply. You asked for an example of “someone” mistreated for holding a different view of the facts. I gave you two, but two were considered anecdotal. If two were not enough to open the door to possibility, why ask for one? You stated that “it is impossible to get objective scientific evidence for a supernatural phenomenon.” If that is your view, and I don’t doubt you, then there is no evidence that would be acceptable. Do you have any comment on the main point of my last communication, that if a mind only allows one view, then no evidence can be acceptable for another? After that I will be glad to deal with my “straw man.”
Don Mc
 
[Don]
Please tell me exactly what about the “Cambrian Explosion” is problematic for evolutionary theory. Don’t just parrot some creationist website that says it is a problem, tell me specific problems and the evidence for those problems. And please tell me what explanation you prefer for that period of evolutionary change, as well as the evidence in favor of that explanation. Negative evidence doesn’t count; you can’t just tell me that there is a problem with the current explanation so therefore your explanation wins.

Re mistreatment, I don’t accept that someone who was trying to circumvent the rules of science was mistreated. Your and your friend were applying the analogies of democracy and journalism to science, and science doesn’t work that way. If it is mistreatment to have someone point that out to you, then we have a very different definition of mistreatment. Do you think you would get away with an accusation of mistreatment if a police officer pointed out that you were violating the traffic rules? That’s an accurate analogy.

I am pretty sure that there is plenty of support for my view that objective evidence for a supernatural phenomenon has, so far, been impossible to obtain. If you hold the contrary view, and it seems that you do, the easiest way to convince me is to provide that objective evidence. I’m open to being convinced, but I won’t just take your word for it. Show me that evidence, or how to obtain it, and I’ll gladly pursue it.

Re your point that “if a mind allows only one view, then no objective evidence and be acceptable for another” is just plain wrong. Scientists test hypotheses every day. They have one view, their hypothesis, in mind. But if they obtain objective evidence for another view, they readily adopt that other view. As I noted before, it is simply insulting to posit that scientists are close-minded about the evidence.

Mark
 
Mark,
Are you OK with me continuing indefinitely to post our dialog on the blog?
Don Mc

Yep
Mark

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December 15, 2008 by Dr. Mc.

Mark
I will not argue with your most fundamental point: science is about evidence and testable hypotheses. Pardon me for being elementary, but I want to be sure we are on the same page: An hypothesis is a logical prediction from a theory. The hypothesis begins with a theory. Theory > hypothesis > evidence is the inductive (scientific) method. Somewhere there must have been a deduction, i.e., observations that piqued the formation of a theory. It was outside the scientific method, but cannot therefore be divorced from it. You ask me to separate method from philosophy; I ask you to remember what PhD stands for after your name and mine. Every theory begins with a philosophical base. To say that scientists “will go anywhere that the evidence suggests” distorts the role of the scientific method and ignores some world view that inevitably underlies the scientist’s questions. “Evidence,” new or old, doesn’t point anywhere except toward support or rejection of a given theory. It says nothing about whether the given theory is based on the best philosophy, or even whether it is the best theory within a given philosophy. With a step back, one can see the tautology: Show me the evidence for the world view, but no evidence is acceptable from that world-view, so there is no evidence. If the world-view is allowed, the evidence is overwhelming.
No, science is not a world-view, but it cannot exist without one. I argue that for the fullest exploration and advancement of science that science should be allowed to exist with more than one world-view. If by “methodological naturalism” you mean that only material evidence should be considered, I can go along with that. If by it you mean that only materialistic explanations can be considered, I must disagree. Who proved that there are no non-material explanations for materialist observations?
This point is hardly necessary in most cases where observations are of repeatable or replicable phenomena, such as measuring chemical reactions in a bottle or predicting the paths of planets. (At the risk of digression, may I point out that many laws of physics were discovered in their time because certain scientists refused to believe that observable phenomena were separable from a logical Creator.) Nevertheless, it cannot be so easily dismissed when attempting to explain an historical event. Time is neither repeatable nor replicable, but we do have forensic science, which explores the probabilities of past events based on known laws of physics, chemistry and biology. To disallow a set of possible explanations before theorizing greatly hinders science from explaining observations. Would you say to a forensic scientist, “Go into that fire-gutted building, and tell us how you think the fire started. Oh, and by the way, you must conclude that is was an accident.” To say one cannot suggest that what we find in nature may have an intelligent cause is simply another way of saying, “There is no god who ever has, could, or would intervene in the affairs of the universe.” Like it or not, that is a religious position. It certainly is not going “anywhere the evidence leads.” “Balance” is not the issue. Getting at the truth is.
Science is not a democracy, but I am afraid what we practice as science is more socially constructed than one might care to admit.
Don Mc
 
[Don,]
 
You wrote: Would you say to a forensic scientist, “Go into that fire-gutted building, and tell us how you think the fire started. Oh, and by the way, you must conclude that is was an accident.”

Nobody is saying that.  This is a strawman of profound proportions.

What happens is that scientists make observations. Based on the observations they generate hypotheses. If it is a scientifically useful hypothesis, they test it and get new observations. If the new observations support the hypothesis, it is provisionally accepted.

Assuming the conclusion is not among those steps. It may be part of how you do whatever it is that you do, but it is not a part of the scientific method. And frankly, it is insulting to hear that you think scientists assume the conclusion on a daily basis.

I will say this until you understand it. Show us the evidence. Give us ways to test your hypothesis that a supernatural event was involved. If you can’t do one or both of those, you can’t blame a scientist for ignoring you. If you could provide one or both of those, you would have a herd of scientists working on the problem immediately.

[Dave]

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December 7, 2008 by Dr. Mc.

Mark,
My personal concern, and the reason I began the blog in the first place, is not to pit one piece of evidence against another in order to “prove” any position (Many times just the same evidence viewed from different perspectives.), but to take off the social blinders that prevent science from exploring all possibilities that the evidence suggests. What happened to me and what happened to my friend Bill do not advance science. Science and the scientific method had nothing to do with our treatment, and as a result, advancement of science is the loser. Science has been taken captive by one world-view (secular materialism), which prevents all opposing views from presenting evidence toward alternative views. This is as wrong as prevention of the exploration of evolution was in the days of the Scopes Trial. It’s like a fiefdom being taken over by another and all members of the former regime being hunted down and executed. That’s not what is supposed to happen in modern society, and it’s not what is supposed to happen in science. I don’t know if there is a solution for co-existence of world-views, but like racism, the solution has to begin with recognition that it happens and that it is a problem. Some will say it doesn’t happen so we won’t have to face that it is a problem. I’m saying it happens, and I’m saying it’s a problem.
Don Mc

[Don]
Okay. I simply don’t agree that it is a general problem that scientists have “social blinders that prevent science from exploring all possibilities that the evidence suggests.”  As I noted before, scientists are competitive; they will go anywhere that evidence suggests. As I noted before, there is no new evidence pointing toward a teleological explanation for the origin or diversity of life on the planet. In addition, the current teleological explanations (ID and creationism) both posit something which is scientifically untestable at this time, a supernatural entity. So there are some problems with the thesis that scientists are being hindered by social blinders. The greater hindrances are lack of evidence and a scientifically untestable mechanism. Social blinders or not, it is impossible to follow evidence which does not exist, and it is impossible to get objective scientific evidence for a supernatural phenomenon.

The anecdotes about you and your friend Bill do not provide much evidence for your thesis. What new evidence was being suppressed in these situations? Old evidence from creationist literature in the form of “quick-deposit” geology, which has been shown to be incompatible with too many other observations and stratigraphies? Calling for the inclusion of long-defunct hypotheses is not science. Here’s why.

Science is not journalism; there is no need to “balance” a scientific explanation with a bogus one.

Science is not a democracy, so the comparison to what is supposed to happen in a “modern society” based on equal treatment of all persons is not analogous to equal treatment of all ideas.

Science is not a world-view, so your call for “co-existence” of opposing world views is simply a false analogy.

Methodological naturalism, which is the heart of the scientific method, is not the same as philosophical naturalism, which is a world view. Your conflation of the method with the philosophy is appallingly common, but also appallingly wrong.

Look, I understand that feelings can get hurt, and it sounds like you and your friend were treated roughly, based on your account. That is unfortunate. But it does not bespeak a greater problem with “blinders”. In order to get traction, you have to provide objective evidence for your notions, and be prepared to keep hammering away at the opposition with new data and fundamentally sound logic. In the absence of that you will get very little respect from the science community, and sometimes that lack of respect may seem a tad rude or socially inept. But the basis for the lack of respect, no matter how it is delivered, is still the same. New objective evidence and testable hypotheses are required to get that respect. Show us the evidence. Give us the tools to test supernatural explanations. If you can do that, and you still suffer disrespect, you will have a valid complaint. Until then, your complaints simply show your misunderstanding of science and the scientific method.
Mark

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