‘Science’ is just a tool of attempting to gain practical experience of the world around us. ‘Scientific communities’ however are groups of people, and people have motives and biases. People are strongly affected by groupthink. I have strong reasons not to trust ‘consensus science’ (an oxymoron). I will never place the consensus view of a group of human beings over and above the testimony of Scripture which comes from God, who cannot lie.
Yes, scientific communities have biases and studying and exposing those is part of those fields I mentioned, as well as science itself. It is also true that funding decisions influence what science is doing, witness eg drug research which is often confined to men. What is important is to have a transparent process to expose those biases and take appropriate action to correct them.
Your personal faith and priorities are a matter for you and you alone. For me, the issue is about the role of personal faith and intuition in judging the claims of the public enterprise of science and in deciding how societies should spend their money on science and technology and in educating children in publicly funded schools. I say such processes cannot privilege one faith or even having a faith.
Klugman has a strongly expressed opinion on Trump and this issue (NYT paywall):
God Is Now Trump’s Co-Conspirator
His message to people in one social/literary/historical context can be misunderstood by people in a second context, who interpret it as if it had been written directly to their second context.
Best,
Chris
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30 posts were split to a new topic: YEC and The Doctrine of Perspicuity of Scripture
We do not have this. And it is severely naive to think we ever will. Any such “transparent process” will ALSO be governed by people with biases. Just like so-called ‘fact checkers’ in the media.
I think the bare minimum is the ability to speak the language of the existing community, expressing your ideas in those terms, and having a firm understanding of the current dominant viewpoint, such that you are able to communicate well with the leading mainstream practitioners, even if you are an outsider. Establishing this could be done by e.g. building a reputation by publishing work within the dominant “scientific paradigm”. Having done an apprenticeship certainly helps a lot to build personal credibility and learning about the details of scientific practices (such as details of experimental methods) which are often not exhaustively written out in formal journal articles.
I have heard of Collins’ long-term study of embedding himself in the GW community and eventually being able to convince others in passing that he was an actual scientist. It’s fascinating and reminds me of my own initial experiences in meeting new fellow scientists and paying attention at what words people use in the conversation to signal their level of understanding and “street-cred” as a scientist.
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Well of course. That is why it is both a ongoing process and a transparent one.
It is also why its science’s embrace of fallibility is a necessary part of the success of science.
Science would never be successful were it to be based on any sort of dogma.
I suspect we are at an impasse in our discussion so I will leave the last word to you.
Yet, it is. Evolution and deep time are both very clearly treated as dogma in the modern scientific world. Dissent from these is not tolerated. Watch Ben Stein’s documentary Expelled if you doubt this. Thanks for your time.
Philosophers and sociologists may do that, but scientists rarely look at their work. I can’t speak for all scientists, but I don’t know of any scientists who keep up on the philosophy of science or read the work of sociologists who write about scientists.
It is interesting that creationists believe whole groups of scientists are mistaken or wrong, and yet cite other scientific studies as infallible gospel if it serves their preconceptions.
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You just described the creationist community.
Scripture coming from God is a consensus view among groups of humans called Christians.
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Maybe, but the creationist community is not my source of authority. Scripture is.
Scripture coming from God is a consensus view among groups of humans called Christians.
Again, that is true by definition (a tautology), but my belief in Scripture is not derived from the fact that Christians believe it. I don’t believe the Bible, in other words, just because somebody told me to. I thought for myself and I decided that there was sufficient reason for me to trust the Bible as coming from God.
I find that a useful exercise in this regard is what I call the flat earth test. Replace creationism by “flat earth” and whatever science you don’t like by “round earth”. This will enable you to imagine how you sound to a scientist. As in “Round earth is very clearly treated as dogma in the modern scientific world.” I do suppose that anything so well established by evidence as a round earth, or deep time, or evolution, might be considered dogma by one unversed in that evidence. But I would claim that the fact that the evidence is there provides a different explanation for the prevalence of those ideas as well as the intolerance for dissent from them — which is directly analogous to intolerance for the flat earth.
Is there anyone in that “documentary” who dissents from deep time?
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Nature is not governed by scientists. Anyone can do experiments or observe nature.
In a scientific paper you can find the methods the scientists used and their results. With the advent of the internet it is also becoming more common for scientists to make raw data publicly available. This means that any experiment could theoretically be repeated, although there are obvious practical problems that make some experiments more difficult to replicate. If you don’t believe a published DNA sequence is correct, then you can sequence the DNA yourself. If you don’t believe the published isotope ratios for a given rock in a geologic formation, then you can go to that same formation and have the ratios measured yourself.
Science, by its very nature, is transparent. There is no way around it. If you are going to claim that scientists are wrong it isn’t enough to make some vague claim of wrongdoing. You need to actually demonstrate that they are wrong with evidence. This is why the professional creationist community avoids the scientific community because they understand how their arguments will crumble under scrutiny. This is why they set up echo chambers of their own, with articles that put forward their bad arguments and nothing from the mountains of science and evidence that would challenge them.
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We have heard that before:
The acceptance of evolution among scientists is not derived from the fact that other scientists believe it. Scientists think for themselves as well, and they have seen the evidence.
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In my experience that is rarely the case. Most scientists, and most people in general, accept evolution primarily because “everybody else does”. Or “the evidence is overwhelming, whatever it is.” Perhaps we’ll just have to agree to disagree here, though, because I don’t care to chase that into a lengthy debate.
Most people also accept the Earth is a sphere but how many people have actually done experiments to verify the fact for themselves? Scientific consensus gets to be scientific consensus because of the evidence studied and reported by scientists. It’s beyond hypocritical to dismiss evolution only because people are agreeing with the scientific experts.
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I will leave you with this account from a former YEC, Glenn Morton. He was fully within the YEC community, and was involved in publishing YEC articles. At one point in his life, he got a job as a geologist who analysed seismic data. When faced with the actual evidence, it all came crashing down.
I would suggest that you read the entire article.
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Please provide several examples.
Maybe most people in general do, but scientists don’t.
That’s likely because the groupthink you attribute to scientists is a defensive figment of your imagination.
If you’re the one following the evidence and we scientists are mired in groupthink, why is it that scientists do oil exploration and pharma research, while creationists produce mostly rhetoric?
If you truly have faith in your positions on geology and biology, why not start a YEC oil exploration company or a YEC pharma company? Either one would be a win-win if you have true faith.
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Well, what else would one expect? If philosophers wanted to do science, they would do science, not philosophy!
Sociology is a science in its own right, but the sociologist who studied the community of scientists building gravity-wave detectors was not trying to be an experimental physicist.
There are, on the other hand, many scientists who work with philosophers, in fields such as quantum
foundations, consciousness studies and other cognitive science, morality and AI.
Edit: I acknowledge that there are many scientists who are happy to do philosophy on their own without seeking the input or alternatives that may be on offer by philosophers. Similarly, there are electrical engineers and mathematicians who are happy to build their own theories of biology, without seeking or even respecting the criticism of biologists. Some of them have even posted at PS, I believe.
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Scientists usually don’t publish works of philosophy, and when they do it is of mixed quality. The same would apply to engineers and biology.
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