You got another literal LOL out of me
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I understand and disagree, because at its core, science is about testing the predictions of hypotheses. The whole point is that all the interpretations should pre-baked in, in that the predictions are empirical–what one will directly observe.
This idea that science is more about retrospective interpretation is a staple of pseudoscience, because it provides an excuse for pseudoscientists not to go to the trouble of testing hypotheses.
Yup, because those fields rely far too much on retrospective studies and are riddled with politics. You don’t see nearly as much of that in evolutionary biology, and even less in biochemistry, molecular biology, and genetics, because it is much easier to rigorously test hypotheses.
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Mercer
John Mercer
Molecular BiologistBrianLopez
10m
When I said what I said, I simply meant to say that knowledge in general of a particular subject (of whatever, and at whatever level you are) is not the same as applying it correctly in the context of the field of study at large–that requires not only knowledge of the evidence, but knowledge and experience on how to interpret it at large overall.I understand and disagree, because at its core, science is about testing the predictions of hypotheses. The whole point is that all the interpretations should pre-baked in, in that the predictions are empirical–what one will directly observe.
This idea that science is more about retrospective interpretation is a staple of pseudoscience, because it provides an excuse for pseudoscientists not to go to the trouble of testing hypotheses.
I’ve seen this for the past 13 years in Nutrition Science (veganism vs paleo / does dietary cholesterol raise blood cholesterol, does saturated fat cause heart disease, etc.), Biblical Studies (among scholars themselves and scholars vs amateurs vs laypeople).
Yup, because those fields rely far too much on retrospective studies and are riddled with politics. You don’t see nearly as much of that in evolutionary biology, and even less in biochemistry, molecular biology, and genetics, because it is much easier to rigorously test hypotheses.
When I said knowledge is one thing and application is another, I was not thinking about testing hypotheses in the way you frame it here!!! You were thinking about testing hypotheses in biology and genetics, and I was thinking about other sciences and humanities that do not necessarily involve testing a hypothesis, but sometimes involves philosophy of science, such as origins of life, or evaluating archaeological discoveries or inscriptions and literary texts (history, which is not predictive nor repeatable). In the humanities, it has nothing to do with testing hypotheses, but interpreting textual evidence in the respective contexts. Nutrition Science is plagued with confounding factors because we don’t all have the same immune system, not the same microbiota, not the same physical activity and stress management; some already have leaky gut, and the like. Nutrition Science is not always retrospective, we do have cohort studies and randomized trials that are followed up in the present and outcomes are studied over weeks. What I said was not only necessarily referencing what you are clarifying here about scientific hypotheses since what I said was referencing Valerie’s YEC perspective and her knowledge of some pieces of scientific information which, according to you and others, did not apply correctly in her questioning and argumentation because she did not understood correctly what she read. Therefore, I stand by what I said: knowledge of the evidence of a topic is not the same as applying it correctly at large while truly knowing the field in an all encompassing manner along with its established paradigm.
So what you mean is knowing and understanding the various lines of evidence for scientific ideas. The thing is you can know and understand the evidence for evolution and still ignore it, which is the point John is trying to get at.
AFAIK all fields of science has some philosophy of its own and where did you get the notion that origin of life research does “not necessarily involve testing a hypothesis”? OoL research, especially prebiotic chemistry is driven by hypothesis testing.
Valerie ignores evidence that contradicts her position. Show her a phylogenetic tree connecting gorillas to chimps and she accepts it as evidence for diversification within ape kinds, then show her the same tree connecting gorillas, chimps and humans and she ignores it as evidence humans evolved alongside the other great apes from a common ancestor. You can blame not understanding the evidence (like a phylogeny) for this, but that won’t hold in the case of people like John Sanford, Kurt Wise, Nathaniel Jeanson etcetera who have a relatively better understanding of the evidence for evolution but still choose to ignore it anyway by not allowing the evidence change their views on the history of life. Instead they cling to ideas like genetic entropy, for which there is no supporting evidence.
Like I said above, evidence for evolution is ignored by creationists. Show them trees connecting other organisms and that’s when you know they understand (at a high or deeper level) and accept phylogenetics, but put humans in the mix and they ignore it. Show them radiometric dates that fall within a few thousand years and they are cool with it. Show them bigger numbers and they ignore it or simply call radiometric dating flawed.
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What is wrong? You are fussing over words, when what I said was not meant to contradict or specifically dissect what John said, but he took it to mean that I did not properly distinguish knowledge versus evidence. I understood him and I agree with him! My comment was indirectly directed at Valerie’s YEC perspective, or YEC in general, or any other view out there that is normally rejected by mainstream studies (e.g., Jesus Mythicism). Evidence must be known, it must be learned, but then applied correctly in an all encompassing manner. As you admit, which I agree, some choose to ignore the evidence because they are committed to other truths (e.g., God and the Bible / Inspiration). But this is fussing over what I said. My comment, once again, was superficial and supplementary, indirectly directed at Valerie’s YEC perspective. Therefore, to fuss over dichotomizing knowledge versus evidence–because evidence must get to be known, some dont know it, some dont know it correctly, some ignore it!
Everything you said, I agree with. That doesn’t appropriately correct nor adjust what I said! You guys are now trying to correct my actual elaborated clarification and saying that because you found something to be corrected in my clarification, that therefore my comment " Knowledge [of the evidence] is one thing, application of it is another " was flawed because I apparently did not distinguish between knowledge and evidence. Cheese wheeze. I dont see how my understanding is in conflict with anything John or you said! Now you are dissecting my clarification when in fact my comment was generic and indirectly directed at Valerie’s YEC method of interpretation.
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I know this, so what’s the payoff? Just because the unpacking of my explanation of what I was thinking of when I commented that knowledge is one thing, but application is another, was not unpacked in the same precise way that John did or that you did doesn’t contradict what I said and that what I said was generic! If you poke my initial comment, which was generic, it creates this can of worms for no good reasons, because in the end I do not fundamentally disagree with anything you guys have said because I was not focusing when I commented on scientific hypotheses. I was thinking about everything in the sciences and humanities!
Evidence isn’t learned, it is discerned from data. What we learn is how to collect and process data to discern what type of evidence it provides.
Evidence is based off data interpretation. It is not known until data is rigorously (more or less) collected and analyzed. For example, you collect genome sequences to test common ancestry for all great apes. Post analysis, you see a tree connecting all the great apes, which becomes evidence for common ancestry. Creationists acknowledge phylogenetic trees are evidence for common descent as long as it doesn’t connect all extant organisms and excludes humans. When it connects humans and all extant organisms, they blatantly ignore it.
Valerie ignores evidence for and misunderstands evolution. However, its unlikely her participation here won’t keep her from regurgitating some creationist tropes.
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Honestly @Michael_Okoko this doesn’t make much sense to me.
Of course evidence is learned, and it is not discerned from data. Rather, we discern interpretations from data. Data that is relevant to our questions is evidence.
That is not quite correct. There is a range here.
I don’t think that’s true. @thoughtful is making the best effort she can to understand and engage the evidence. She does trust creationist scientists quite a bit, but she is also doing the best she can to think for herself.
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I couldn’t disagree more. Please show me an example of her citing evidence and not what someone says about it if you believe that.
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swamidassS. Joshua SwamidassConfessing Scientist
Michael_Okoko
Honestly @Michael_Okoko this doesn’t make much sense to me.
[quote=“Michael_Okoko, post:214, topic:13872”]
Of course evidence is learned, and it is not discerned from data. Rather, we discern interpretations from data. Data that is relevant to our questions is evidence.
That is not quite correct. There is a range here.
[quote=“Michael_Okoko, post:214, topic:13872”]
I don’t think that’s true. @thoughtful is making the best effort she can to understand and engage the evidence. She does trust creationist scientists quite a bit, but she is also doing the best she can to think for herself.
I mostly second @swamidass 's responses to @Michael_Okoko
He still misunderstood the point I was making and I agree that Valerie is where she is for the reasons already perceived. She can progressively consider what I make of Biblical Studies over time.
I’m perfectly content with you having a different assessment of her, and a debate about it is not worth our time.
My comment makes perfect sense. Scientists propose hypotheses all the time, but need evidence to support or reject those hypotheses. Such evidence cannot be learned or known until you do the research and gather it. That’s my argument. In contrast, Brian says “evidence must be known”.
If by learning evidence, you mean being told about phylogenetic trees and other things that support evolution, then that surely happens, but I was talking about evidence which is not known prior to research.
I was speaking loosely here, but I was referring to YECism.
I guess we can test this hypothesis. @thoughtful, if I showed you a phylogenetic tree showing ancestry of humans and other great apes would you accept it?
Certainly makes perfect sense to you.
As a practicing scientist, I’m just letting you know that this doesn’t match my experience at all. I don’t think this is how science (or science education) works.
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As you are neither the first or last author on all of these papers of yours, did you disagree with the way that the abstracts were written?
Impacts of diphenylamine NSAID halogenation on bioactivation risks.
Schleiff MA, Payakachat S, Schleiff BM, Swamidass SJ , Boysen G, Miller GP. Toxicology. 2021 Jun 6:152832. doi: 10.1016/j.tox.2021.152832. Online ahead of print. PMID: 34107285
Differences in toxicity are attributed to structural modifications to the diphenylamine scaffold rather than its inherent toxicity. We hypothesize that marketed diphenylamine NSAID substituents affect preference and efficiency of bioactivation pathways and clearance. …
Significance of Multiple Bioactivation Pathways for Meclofenamate as Revealed through Modeling and Reaction Kinetics.
Schleiff MA, Flynn NR, Payakachat S, Schleiff BM, Pinson AO, Province DW, Swamidass SJ , Boysen G, Miller GP. Drug Metab Dispos. 2021 Feb;49(2):133-141. doi: 10.1124/dmd.120.000254. Epub 2020 Nov 25. PMID: 33239334 Free PMC article.
Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) bioactivation is a common molecular initiating event for hepatotoxicity. Thus, we hypothesized a similar mechanism for meclofenamate and leveraged computational and experimental approaches to identify and characterize its bioacti …
Deep learning quantification of percent steatosis in donor liver biopsy frozen sections.
Sun L, Marsh JN, Matlock MK, Chen L, Gaut JP, Brunt EM, Swamidass SJ , Liu TC. EBioMedicine. 2020 Oct;60:103029. doi: 10.1016/j.ebiom.2020.103029. Epub 2020 Sep 24. PMID: 32980688 Free PMC article.
The percent steatosis in a donor liver biopsy correlates with transplant outcome, however there is significant inter- and intra-observer variability in quantifying steatosis, compounded by frozen section artifact. We hypothesized that a deep learning model could identify a …
Dual mechanisms suppress meloxicam bioactivation relative to sudoxicam.
Barnette DA, Schleiff MA, Osborn LR, Flynn N, Matlock M, Swamidass SJ , Miller GP. Toxicology. 2020 Jul;440:152478. doi: 10.1016/j.tox.2020.152478. Epub 2020 May 11. PMID: 32437779
Both drugs undergo bioactivation, but meloxicam exhibits an additional detoxification pathway due to hydroxylation of the methyl group. We hypothesized that thiazole bioactivation efficiency is similar between sudoxicam and meloxicam due to the methyl group being a weak el …
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But John, why are you so only focused on actual hypotheses and papers? I think we understand and agree with what you are pointing to, but you are sidestepping the fact that outside the realm of doing scientific experiments as a practicing scientist, you can have students or laypeople or someone like me who is in the humanities and no so much into science, and we can all read textbooks or books like Your Inner Fish and we acquire knowledge that way (science education, like Joshua said in parentheses). We can read the wrong textbooks about another field of study entirely and acquire the wrong knowledge that way, too. Your splitting hairs once again.
I can’t judge whether she is doing the best that she can. However, her commitment to creationist ideology is showing.
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I’m focused on hypotheses and evidence, because they are what differentiate science from pseudoscience.
I’m not sidestepping anything. My point is that acquiring knowledge that way, while providing a foundation, does not give a layperson a basis from which to question scientific consensus.
In fact, creationists routinely avoid evidence by pretending that it’s all about rhetoric, with one expert saying one thing and their expert saying another. They’ll routinely claim that “both sides are just interpreting the same evidence differently,” which would require a lot of familiarity with the evidence itself to make in good faith.
That’s why understanding hypothesis testing and evidence are so important for laypeople. Science is not a collection of facts; it is a method for learning new facts, even when starting from a blank slate, that is particularly good at overcoming our human tendency to make rapid, false, intuitive judgements.
Indeed. That’s why I am pointing out that doing so is much harder if one engages with the actual evidence instead of rhetoric.
No, it’s a very important distinction in science education, which has changed for the better in recent decades. The buzzword is “inquiry-based.”
Children are much better at this than adults. I have easily explained the scientific method to 4th-graders using testing of the hypothesis, “My dog understands the English word “sit.””
No creationist is going to apply the scientific method to a creationist hypothesis, though.
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This is splitting hairs: splitting hairs means making careful distinctions, and unpacking technical details which is exactly what you are doing here. Splitting hairs doesn’t mean that you are wrong. It means that it was not necessary, but you explicitly asked me to clarify what I had meant. It led us into this. But, in the end this gave us a good post for those who are not scientists to review at a later time as to what is knowledge, data, hypotheses, etc. Once again, I had the humanities in mind, too, not only only what you are specifically referencing.
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It works for OEC too. The only wiggle-room is in what counts as the human “kind”. But it never, to my knowledge, includes chimps.
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