Okay. But a lot of science is about theoretical constructs such as gravitational fields, electromagnetic fields, entropy, energy.
Of course. But those concepts were invented to deal with why rain, rocks, volcanoes, planets, decaying plants, lightning, stones that attract metal, etc. behave the way they do. In some cases, those concepts may represent real “things”; in other cases, they may be useful mathematical descriptions, e.g., entropy as degree of disorder. But the goal is always to understand nature, even if in the course of doing so scientists discover that there are some real things in nature that they didn’t know about before, because they weren’t obvious to the senses. Those new things then become further objects of curiosity and scientists seek knowledge about them. So we can expand the statement to say that science seeks knowledge of natural “objects” (in a loose sense), including ones not immediately known but discovered later. The task of science would then in principle be complete if there was ever complete understanding of all objects, currently known and yet to be discovered. That complete understanding is what science implicitly seeks, even if it doesn’t yet have a list of all actually existing objects.
If this were ever achieved, then we would have total knowledge of nature. And then we’d probably be bored, with nothing new to look for. But we could always turn to thinking about God. 
I have trouble accepting that you know many scientists, given your obvious contempt for them. Do you behave differently when you’re not using a pseudonym?
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I’m okay with “goal is always to understand nature”. That seems correct. My disagreement has been with the idea of “searching for truths about nature.”
I could ask the same question of you, O man of many pseudonyms (not here, but elsewhere).
I don’t have contempt for scientists as such. I reject the overreaching of scientists when they speak out of their fields (e.g. molecular biologists who bluff about their knowledge of climate change), when they make metaphysical claims in the name of science, or when they show reflexive hostility to fresh approaches (e.g., Scott Turner’s) before they have even read what the new scientific writer has to say.
Well, if that was your problem, then our discussion has been an unnecessary exercise in pedantry. I think there is an everyday-language rough equivalence between “understanding nature” and “finding truths about nature.” Therefore, trying to understand nature means searching for truths about nature. I think you find my expression ungainly or stylistically not your cup of tea, but it means nothing more than “trying to come to a true or correct understanding of nature.” I thought that would have been obvious from the outset. So it appears that we have been arguing over nothing more than stylistic expression. A waste of time and energy for both of us.
That seems more than a tad hypocritical, as you worship Behe, Denton, and Shapiro, all of whom speak out of their fields, and none of whom produce any evidence.
I’m interested in fresh approaches that test hypotheses and produce evidence, not just words.
You didn’t answer my question. Do you behave differently when you’re not using a pseudonym?
First time I’ve seen the name. Care to summarize his view of evolution? I see he has a book. May have to read it. How many ID proponents accept a form of universal common ancestry? Behe, Denton, Sternberg (doesn’t he?) does Scott Turner?
Behe, Denton and Shapiro all write about biological matters which are either right in their areas of training and publication or within very close shouting distance. Climatology is nowhere near your area of training. You comparison is thus not only irrelevant, but obviously so.
I think you know very well why I do not intend to answer any question put to me by you about behavior under pseudonyms. I will not say more, because in order to say more I would have to “out” certain people’s internet identities, and for moral reasons I don’t believe in doing that.
Hi, TJ.
Turner has three books out.
He does not consider himself an ID proponent, at least, not at the time of the publication of his most recent book. However, he is aware of the work of the ID people, and has contact with them, and does not make the blanket rejection of everything they say that some other biologists do.
I’ve read about 2/3 of his newest book. He argues that alongside traditional mechanist-reductionist biological explanation (which he doesn’t belittle, as it contributed much to our understanding), we need a more “holistic” understanding of organisms, a more “top down” than “bottom up” understanding, which makes room for something like “purpose” or teleology within genuine scientific biology.
He does not mean externally imposed purpose such as that imposed on a watch by a watchmaker, but something more along the lines of Aristotelian teleology.
His book is very interesting, and I’m not interested in proving that everything he says is right; nor do I contend his book is flaw-free (what book is)? Still, if he is even 1/10 right about the need to re-understand “life” so that we can better understand its evolution, he is worth listening to.
I think the fact that he is a physiologist rather than a population geneticist (which group has historically dominated evolutionary theory) gives him a bit of an outsider perspective, and a fresh set of eyes. I think you might enjoy the book, or parts of it.
Behe and Denton both accept common ancestry. Sternberg is an unclear case, but in his older public statements he said that his work was “orthogonal” to the question, i.e., it did not matter to his work one way or the other. So he has never opposed common ancestry, or written anything against it. However, he has a new book imminent, and whenever it comes out, maybe this year or next, whatever he says there will take precedence over earlier statements.
Most Catholic ID proponents accept common ancestry, or else are open to it. There are a few exceptions, and of course, regarding the ancestry of man there are some reservations due to past Papal statements. Several of the leading lights in the ID movement are Catholic (beyond Behe, there are several at Discovery), and their publications aren’t anti-common descent.
You will see much more ID opposition to common descent in the Crossway anthology, but in that anthology, every contributor except Ann Gauger is Protestant and some quite fundamentalist. It is not a Discovery publication.
You are eliding a very important point. You idolize those who claim to understand a field outside their own better than those who actually do the work. I don’t.
I don’t idolize anyone. Behe and Denton are trained biochemists. They have each published more than enough work in their field to show that they understand how biochemical science is done. If they dispute with, say, Larry Moran, also a biochemist, how are they claiming to understand a field that is not their own? Or if you say, they aren’t disputing biochemistry but evolutionary theory, and evolutionary field is not their field, well neither is it Larry Moran’s. He’s completely self-taught in the area, and by his own admission has never published a single article in a peer-reviewed journal dealing with evolutionary biology. So why does he get to talk about evolution as if he’s an expert, and they don’t? He doesn’t do any “work in the field” at all. He just blogs and holds popular internet discussions. So the worst you can say is that neither Behe nor Moran should be debating evolutionary theory; they should stick with biochemistry. Fine. But that applies to you as well. Evolutionary theory is not your area of training or research either. So be consistent. Either everyone gets to debate things out of their field, or no one does. You can’t say you get to, but Behe doesn’t.
So do you agree to refrain in the future from speaking here as an expert on evolutionary theory? Do you agree to qualify all your statements on evolution with a diffident, “Look, I’m not an expert on evolutionary mechanisms; it’s not my field, but my layman’s understanding is…”? When you start taking that tone (which you never have taken, in my years of experience of you on the internet), then you will be in a position to lecture Behe etc. not to stray “out of their fields.” Until then, your complaint is transparent special pleading.
Denton is a trained biochemist?
Please list Denton’s biochemistry publications. I don’t think any exist.
Because Moran has more evolutionary publications than they do combined.
Where did you get this idea that Denton is a biochemist?
Technically speaking, biochemistry is a fairly narrow field. Larry Moran has broadened his knowledge beyond that, to include much of evolutionary biology. Behe seems more narrowly focused.
I don’t go by their formal educations. I go by what they demonstrate in their participation in public discussions.
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Unlikely. He said directly in answer to a question from someone on Uncommon Descent that he had never published a peer-reviewed paper specifically on evolutionary theory (or, if my memory is not quite accurate, that he had never published a paper in a peer-reviewed journal devoted to evolutionary theory). Of course, that was maybe 5 years ago, and maybe he has published something since. But back then, he was mouthing off regularly about how evolution works while by his own admission not having to contributed professionally to the field of evolutionary mechanism. But since my memory may be faulty, I will quite willingly withdraw this point if you give me a list of his peer-reviewed papers on evolutionary mechanism, preferably ones where I can read the abstract or the whole article without dealing with a paywall.
From the fact that he graduated in Biochemistry, with a Ph.D. from King’s College. This information is easily accessible on the web and is found in some of his books (so I gather you don’t own them, or haven’t read them). And with your access to journals (which I don’t have), you should be able to find some of his publications in biochemistry. His research field was the genetics of retinal cancer. Of course, he is now retired from that, and writes exclusively about evolution nowadays, but his thoughts on evolution are based on good training in biochemistry, so if you say that Moran has the right to move into evolutionary theory from a biochemistry career, you can’t deny the same activity to Denton.
But blog discussions have no standing in science. As I have told in stern lectures here many times, what counts are publications in peer-reviewed journals. Even books, I am told, pale in importance in comparison with peer-reviewed articles. So any knowledge that you believe Moran shows in his blog discussions, to count as part of the modern scientific knowledge, would have to be written up and presented in a peer-reviewed journal, before it would be accepted as a professional contribution to evolutionary theory.
I’m not saying Moran’s discussions are worthless. I’m just saying they have no more formal status than a popular book a scientist might write.
You’re entitled to your own judgment. I find Behe to be a much richer and broader thinker overall. I find Moran to be more of a technician, though I admit he is considerably broader in his understanding of evolutionary thought than many of the atheist and agnostic scientists who post on websites.
Irrelevant.
Coffee room discussions also have no standing is science. But that’s where we learn about our colleagues, about the breadth of their knowledge and about their abilities.
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Moran is taken seriously not because he publishes a blog, but because his blog is uncommonly coherent, thoughtful, and accurate.
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Not according to Joshua and several others here, who several months back made sure I understood that popular expositions were not taken into account in hiring and tenure decisions. In fact, some people (not necessarily Joshua) even suggested that if a scientist dabbles in popularization, it can lower the respect his colleagues have for him, and might harm his professional career.
I am not rejecting your point that we learn a lot about what people know from coffee room discussions. I agree with you. But if said to Mercer here, “Hey, Behe and Dembski held a very intelligent open-line discussion on design and evolution, and showed a very broad knowledge of a wide range of facts and evolutionary mechanisms,” he would surely say something like: “Who cares about their discussions? Science isn’t about discussions, or debates, or other chitchat. It’s about DATA, and about publication in peer-reviewed journals.” I think you and I have a little looser and more flexible idea about how knowledge is obtained, but in these discussions I often find myself up against rather rigid professionals who take a narrower view.
I don’t deny it, but unless you are taking a position different from your former one, nothing Moran says on his blog would count toward hiring, tenure, or promotion, if he were a younger scientist moving up the ranks. You said that popular publications count for nothing, that peer-reviewed publications were the main thing. So no matter how thoughtful and accurate Moran’s thoughts on evolution are, they could not help him to become a tenured professor of evolutionary theory unless he translated those into peer-reviewed publications. Correct, or not?