Mark, over at Cosmic Variance, surveys The Perils of Poor Science Journalism, dismantling an article about climate change by Chris Monckton (not George Monbiot). Mark asks:
Could it really be the fact that an important ingredient in the frightening implications of climate models is that scientists from many institutions are deliberately violating the laws of physics to arrive at the conclusions they desire?
This is essentially what Monckton had argued, but no sensible person would really think that that's how science moves forward. The advantage of science as a way of asking questions about the world is that there are institutional and formal ways to prevent just such biased results being advanced.
Even if climate scientists were trying to fudge the laws of physics, someone would catch that error and the papers would never get published in the first place. Plus, someone else would come along and use the same data with the real laws of physics to produce results more palatable to Monbiot.
This approach to science - the idea that scientific findings are generated from ideology, then supported by data - is widespread and harmful. The Discovery Institute is promoting a book called Darwin's Conservatives: The Misguided Quest, by DI senior fellow John West. The argument is that "attempts to reconcile conservatism and Darwinian biology misunderstand both," and that "Darwinism promotes moral relativism rather than traditional morality ... utopianism rather than limited government. It is corrosive, rather than supportive, of both free will and religious belief."
The problem is that, whether or not you agree with any of those things, they are not arguments against a scientific theory. Indeed, if a well-established and extensively tested scientific theory did promote any of those things, it would be a strike against those ideologies, not against the science.
There is another way to look at it.
Regarding climate change, it is simply wrong to assert that a particular set of scientific findings compels some ideological course of action. The decision to do anything at all about climate change rests not just on whether it is happening, but on our decisions about what we want to care about. Someone could, for instance, insist that even if we are causing climate change, and even if it is a problem, it isn't our problem.
That argument doesn't tend to carry much weight, though. Even if we agree that we ought to do something if we are changing our climate, and we agree that we are changing the climate, what we do becomes a complicated issue. Do we change our energy usage, change energy generation, put a giant mirror in space? Do we make these changes through taxes and regulation, or by incentives and deregulation?
At least in principle, you can come to the problem of climate change with your own ideological preferences, and use them as starting places for your proposed fix. Science constrains your options by telling you what would or wouldn't achieve stated goals.
As far as "Darwinism," it isn't even clear what we're talking about. If we're talking about modern evolutionary biology, then it isn't evidence for or against the supernatural, free will, traditional or objective morality, let alone limited government or deficit spending. It's evidence that life on earth shares a common ancestor billions of years ago. That's all.
Attempts to use that as evidence for or against some ideology are foolhardy. Science constrains the realm of plausible ideologies, I suppose, but ideology does not constrain plausible scientific results. If John West is right that evolutionary biology demands utopianism, off we go to utopia.
Benjamin Franklin was chastised in his day for inventing lightning rods. Clergy and scientists, we are told, "warned that it was 'as impious to ward off Heaven's lightnings as for a child to ward off the chastening rod of its father.'" How's that for undermining traditional morality? Was Franklin wrong about lightning, or were his critics wrong in their exegesis?
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Erm, I think you have it exactly wrong here.
Christopher Monckton is the guy who abuses the science in a 'debunking' of climate change in the Telegraph. George Monbiot is the guy writing in the Guardian afterwards rebutting the debunkation, and who Mark *supports* in his blog.
Oops. I've fixed that mistake. Thanks for catching it.
[quote]
The Discovery Institute is promoting a book called Darwin's Conservatives: The Misguided Quest, by DI senior fellow John West. The argument is that "attempts to reconcile conservatism and Darwinian biology misunderstand both," and that "Darwinism promotes moral relativism rather than traditional morality ... utopianism rather than limited government. It is corrosive, rather than supportive, of both free will and religious belief."
[/quote]
But what, pray tell, is "traditional morality?" How far back does "tradition" go? To the Old Testament? In that case, by all means, let's stone teenaged sons who talk back. Let's chop off hands of thieves. Let's stone to death adulteresses. I wish the IDers would define "traditional morality," or is being vague the point -- so anyone could believe they're promoting "my" morality?
Climate change can have profound effects on the environment and ecology whereas the controversy over Darwinism can only affect our ideologies. There's the difference. We are already seeing profound effects of climate change. Polar ice is melting, which is destroying the habitat of polar bears, and the resulting rise in ocean levels could flood low-lying coastal areas. Coral reefs are dying because of a rise in ocean temperatures. Glaciers are retreating in the mountains of Africa, which may eliminate a source of water during the dry months. There may be disgreement as to what is causing climate change, but there is no question that it is happening.
What's depressing though, is that every time it looks like we're actually getting to this level of debate - with the publication of the Stern report, for example (whether you agree with its conclusions or not) - we get people like Monkton trying to drag public consciousness back to 'is it happening at all?', and getting serious attention in a major newspaper.
Climate change can have profound effects on the environment and ecology whereas the controversy over Darwinism can only affect our ideologies.
Um, Larry, did you miss the part where those leading the charge against science (er, they call it 'materialism') stated that one of their "Twenty Year Goals" is "To see design theory permeate our religious, cultural, moral and political life." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_strategy)
"the controversy over Darwinism can only affect our ideologies."
First of all, I disagree that evolutionary biology affects our ideologies, and second, it has profound consequences. We spend tremendous amounts of time and money arguing about issues of science education that are utterly uncontroversial.
The consequences for the practice of science if evolution were wrong would be profound and wide-reaching in medicine and research.
nunyer said,
Um, and did you miss the part where those leading the charge for Darwinian dogmatism -- e.g., Richard Dawkins -- want Darwinism to permeate our religious, cultural, moral and political life?
Josh said,
It is obvious that a large part of the controversy over evolution is ideological.
"Utterly uncontroversial" ! What a joke.
????? How could finding out that evolution is wrong harm medicine and research? And can you name one instance where the controversy has harmed or threatened to harm medicine and research? The controversy actually helps science by forcing scientists to confront weaknesses in evolution theory.
Setting aside the silliness of the claim that there is some movement for "Darwinian dogmatism," in what sense is Dawkins suggesting that evolution has implications for politics, etc.?
I agree that the objections to evolution are mostly ideological, and the argument here is that it is backwards to claim that ideology would trump scientific data. If an ideology insists that evolution must be wrong, the ideology loses, not the scientific data backing evolution.
Evolution is, in fact, scientifically uncontroversial. Scientists do not change the way they practice medicine or research because of the controversy, but that isn't what I was writing about. What I wrote about is the ways that the practice of science and medicine would change if evolution actually were wrong.
I did that to parallel your points about the harm that would arise from being wrong about climate change. The controversy over climate change doesn't change the practice of science, either.
"????? How could finding out that evolution is wrong harm medicine and research?"
Because the vast majority of work dealing with antibiotic resistance is based on evolution. For example, I believe there is a focus on neutralizing bacteria's ability to relay genes to each other. If evolution is wrong, not only am I planning to study something that does not exist, but untold millions have died beacause we were trying to solve a problem the wrong way.
"How could finding out that evolution is wrong harm medicine and research?"
All those studies on rats and mice would mean nothing for humans. The search for medicines in species related to those we found drugs in before would be worthless. All that work on preventing antibiotic resistance would have to be re-thought.
Research aimed at predicting or controlling the spread of avian flu would be tossed out the window. We'd need new explanations for every instance where there seems to be a good fit between an organism and its environment. Biology would have to start over from square one.
Well, if (hah!) evolution was wrong, it would be good to know so we could re-evaluate our conclusions. If we do need to start over from square one, the sooner we do so the better. It would be not finding out evolution is wrong that would be harmful.
But so too would rejecting evolution when it is in fact correct be harmful. It's important we get it right.
While there is always the possibility of new evidence, the evidence we have so far is pretty conclusive. It's not for nothing that the scientific consensus is that evolution is pretty much correct, and that natural selection (and sometimes sexual selection) are major forces shaping evolution.
Just as there is no scientific controversy over global warming, there is none over evolution either. (There are, of course, controversies about some of the details). All the bloviation in the world isn't going to change that; no what the opponents to evolution need to be taken seriously by scientists is either new evidence, or alternative theories well-supported by the evidence. It would take something pretty impressive to replace a theory as well-supported as evolution through natural selection. But the bar to a theory being of interest to the scientific community is much, much lower. The opponents to evolution can't even clear that bar.
"Science is a tool, not an ideology"
The title of this message tells all. The religious cannot fathom life that is not governed by group-think and ideology. They do not understand free thinking. Even those "spiritual" folks who are not affiliated with a specific organized religion still pick and choose from existing religious superstitions to create their own custom package. This is not the same as thinking for yourself. It is just comparison shopping.
Josh said,
That simply isn't true. Those research results would still be valid. Relationships between organisms would still exist in the absence of an accepted explanation for those relationships.
Promotion of this idea that evolution is a grand overarching unifying theory in biology is just an asinine prestige war that biologists are waging against other fields of science and technology that don't have such a theory.
Andrew Wade said,
Where is it written that a scientific theory may not be criticized without presenting an alternative scientific theory at the same time?
"Relationships between organisms would still exist in the absence of an accepted explanation for those relationships."
Those relationships only exist because of evolution. There is no other reason to think that they exist where they haven't been demonstrated to exist. They are testable predictions of evolution, and would not exist otherwise.
"Promotion of this idea that evolution is a grand overarching unifying theory in biology is just an asinine prestige war that biologists are waging against other fields of science and technology that don't have such a theory."
No. You don't know what you are talking about.
"Where is it written that a scientific theory may not be criticized without presenting an alternative scientific theory at the same time?"
Any philosopher of science will point out that this is exactly how science has always moved forward. Simply saying "we can't explain X" isn't a strike against existing theory. Maybe some other phenomenon operates in addition to known phenomena, or maybe known phenomena work slightly differently than we previously thought.
We throw out old ideas when a new theory explains the old data better and also explains additional phenomena. That's how science works.
Touché. The opponents to evolution would (hopefully) be taken seriously if they came up with a new line of theoretical analysis of evolution. Such analysis may even end up restricting the scope within which the theory is considered valid. Still, successful theories are not just abandoned without viable replacements.
That's true, though I don't see any point in simply abandoning our current explanation. We could, if we were perverse, simply limited ourselves to theories on the pattern of those relationships, without reference to the source of the pattern. Such as ... common descent. Sometimes called the theory of evolution. (To confuse matters, Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection is sometimes also called the theory of evolution. And among the really confused, the big bang is also part of the theory of evolution—this usage is not current among biologists!) And if for some really perverse reason you were to restrict yourself only to species of the current day you would end up with a hierarchical pattern of relationships described by cladistics. Although, there has been some common descent action occurring even in historic times.