Steven J doesn't save Rusty Sites mistaken view of "evidence"

On Sun, 31 Aug 2008 12:33:04 -0700 (PDT), "Steven J."
<steven_j@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Aug 31, 12:42 pm, T Pagano <not.va...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Rusty Sites recently offered several related myths that have infected
secular thinking in this forum for at least 10 years:

1.  "Evidence" can exist in the absence of a theory, hypothesis, or
conjecture.

Actually, I'll concede your point here: "evidence" is data as it
applies to a particular theory or hypothesis. Charles Darwin went
further: against the philosophy of science that insisted that
scientists just accumulate data and see what it added up to, he stated
that no observation was of any account unless it was for or against
some theory.

1. You are referring to the philosophy of science which Francis Bacon
proposed in his magnum opus long before Darwin. Bacon also discovered
and published that his proposal was mistaken.

2. Bacon proposed that scientists could make raw observations in the
absence of a theory and then derive knowledge (and/or the theory) from
the raw data. Bacon discovered to his terrible disappointment that
this conjecture was mistaken. Nonetheless Bacon contributed greatly
to the practice of collecting and analyzing data.

3. It is astounding that Bacon's failed proposal still pops up
periodically in this forum and elsewhere. Rusty Sites is the most
recent to foist Bacon's failed proposal.


2.  "Evidence" is gathered by investigators or sought by them in the
absence of any guiding theory, hypothesis, or conjecture.

I'm not so sure I'll concede this. You seem to be implying that
there's no such thing as serendipity, no discoveries of data that are
bear on a hypothesis even though the discoverer was trying to test
some unrelated hypothesis. At least you ought to note that
investigators can gather data that *becomes* evidence when someone
examines it in light of a theory, even when the investigators have no
particular theory in mind when they gather it.

1. This is the quality of argument I was used to in the old days from
Steven J. Good show...

2. A good example of "serendipity" was Wilson and Penzias from Bell
Labs in 1965 while looking for sources of noise in satellite
communications also found with their radiometers an excess 3.5 K
antenna temperature.

3. They eventually realized that this exess "temperature" was
consistent with the prediction made by Gamow in 1948 using his Big
Bang theory. The discovery of the data was serendipitous but
Wilson/Penzias (and others) explained it with the prediction of
Gamow's theory. We follow theories not raw data.


3.  Investigators follow the "evidence" rather than being guided by
the reining theory, hypothesis or conjecture.

That would be "reigning" theory. Spelling flames are of course the
lowest, least convincing, and most dangerous form of rebuttal, but I
half-suspect that there's some significance to this particular
misspelling: you see theories as "reining in" the conclusions we allow
ourselves to draw from data, forbidding conclusions contrary to the
theory. But we have seen, on several occasions, scientific theories
being abandoned or modified in response to new evidence: if this is
not "following the evidence," what could the phrase "following the
evidence" even mean?

1. Sorry nothing hidden or sinister in my mispelling.

2. It is because we have a theory that we know some raw data is
discordant. Discordant data does cause us to modify or abandon our
theory; however, the discordant data leads us nowhere. It can't tell
us where to go from this point.

3. Only AFTER the investigator modifies his theory or invents a new
one does he/she know where to look next and how to interpret the once
discordant piece of data. The data never leads us anywhere nor do we
ever "follow" it.


Consider how the Michelson-Morley experiment, which was supposed to
confirm the existence of the luminiferous ether, was generally
regarded as having shown that no such ether exists.

Again the data led nowhere, it was the theory concerning the nature of
space that was modified and led investigators forward not the data.



Consider, closer
to evolutionary theory, how the researches of Weismann led to the
abandonment of Darwin's "pangene" theory and the idea of the
inheritance of acquired characteristics. More subtly, the lack of
observations of subtle mutations producing finely-graded effects led,
for decades, to the "eclipse of Darwinism," the widespread rejection
of natural selection as the main cause of adaptions (it was revived as
further data revealed that such small gradations could in fact be
produced by mutations). That common descent itself has not been
abandoned, nor natural selection tossed on the scrap heap a second
time, is not the result of "neoDarwinism" being "sacrosanct," but
about its core elements being uncontradicted by any evidence but being
supported by many different lines of evidence.

1. Again these discordant observations have a role to play just not a
leading role. It is because we have a theory that we know the
observation is discordant. Up until the point the scientist modifies
the existing theory or invents a new one the discordant relationship
with the existing theory is a dead end. The data leads us nowhere.

2. It isn't until we modify our theory or produce a new can that the
investigation can proceed with the modified or new theory leading. It
is only then that the once discordant data be explained. The data
cannot lead anywhere; it is the theory which always leads.


4.  Finite collections of raw uninterpreted observations point
uniquely and deductively to one theory, hypothesis, or conjecture.

There was a time when finite collections of raw uninterpreted
observations did not distinguish between Einsteinian relativity and
Newtonian mechanics, but they pretty decisively refuted Ptolemaic and
Tychonian (and, for that matter, purely Copernican) celestial
mechanics. It's one thing to point out that there are numerous
slightly alternative theories of evolution that predict the patterns
of evidence we have; it's quite another to suppose that the evidence
is equally consistent with evolution and with recent, special creation
by a remotely sane and trustworthy Creator (of course, if you're
willing to posit an omnipotent Trickster God, you can reconcile that
with any data whatsoever, but such a God is on the one hand precludes
the very idea of testing theories, and on the other hardly seems worth
trusting or loving).

Refutation is entirely a deductive process; this the interpreted data
can do. However, your examples do not show the data "uniquely" and
deductively pointing to the correct theory. At best the bad theories
are refuted leaving those that might be true.


You've conceded in the past that theories can be falsified by evidence
(by observations that bear on that theory). To the extent that
special creation, or a young Earth, or a global flood, are theories,
they have suffered such falsification repeatedly over the last couple
of centuries.

**************************************************
CAN ANY DARWINISTS/ATHEISTS/AGNOSTICS PROVE (IN SOME LOOSE SENSE) ANY
OF THESE THREE MYTHS?  THE ATHEIST NEED NOT ADDRESS THEM ALL.
*************************************************

I will respond to every direct response to this post (including Flank
if he's grown a pair).  I will not engage in endless debates so make
your first reply the best one.  My positions on all three of these
claims were posted in reply to a Rusty Sites post in a current thread.

SOME MINOR BACKGROUND ISSUES:
A.  A "raw uninterpreted observation"  is not equivalent to
"evidence."
B.  I make little distinction between the labels "theory,"
"hypothesis," and "conjecture."

You make little distinction between "something some bronze age goat
herder made up to answer his kids' nagging questions," and "testable
scientific theory," either.

Not sure this is relevent to anything; however, I am sure that you did
nothing so save Rusty Sites belief (and the belief of some other
atheists in the forum) in the power of raw data to lead us anywhere.
It is our theories and models which do the leading.


Regards,
T Pagano

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