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From: bch@mcnc.UUCP (Byron Howes)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: Let's be fair.
Message-ID: <429@mcnc.mcnc.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 27-Mar-85 10:44:02 EST
Article-I.D.: mcnc.429
Posted: Wed Mar 27 10:44:02 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 30-Mar-85 01:30:43 EST
References: <1332@decwrl.UUCP>
Reply-To: bch@mcnc.UUCP (Byron Howes)
Organization: North Carolina Educational Computing Service
Lines: 58
Summary: 

In article <1332@decwrl.UUCP> arndt@lymph.DEC writes:
 
>Look, let's admit that there are some pretty far out claims on the part of
>'scientists' who understand neither evolution or the limits of science.

Of *course* there are Yo-Ho's in the scientific community.  That's simply
an application of Sturgeon's Law:  90% of everything is trash (or the
expletive of your choice.)  What you see in print is merely the tip of an
enormous iceberg of research of highly varying quality.  Is it an indictment
of science that some ideas espoused by scientists are ill-thought-out or
at worst patently silly?  I don't think so.

It does bring out another aspect of the conduct of science, however, that
the so-called creation "scientists" seem to take lightly:  dialogue and
peer review.  The history of natural science is a history of competing
theories and competing ideas.  Among researchers working in the same area
mutual criticism is more the norm than mutual admiration.

This is healthy.  It tends to weed out the junk and promote an environment
for the synthesis of new ideas.  Creationists seem to look at it as some
sort of deficiency; the fact that natural scientists disagree indicates 
some kind of flaw in their world-view -- or so I gather from what I read.
Creationists, in fact, go to great pains to *avoid* this kind of mutual
critique.  I remember reading that at a recent creationist conference
the geocentrists were regarded tolerantly, if not warmly.  This is the
equivalent to a conference on evolution listing tolerantly to a Lysenkoist.
More than likely they'd hoot him off the stage.

When scientists attempt to engage creationists in legitimate scientific
critique they appear to be invariably ignored.  A case in point is the
discussion of thermodynamics.  No matter how many times the fallacies
in the creationist interpretation of the second law of thermodynamics
are pointed out, the same arguments are trotted out as if they were 
fact -- as if there had never been any criticism.  

Creationists will, no doubt, respond that scientists do the same thing:
ignore their criticisms.  I submit this is not the case.  I have seen
point-by-point refutations of virtually all of the creationist's major
positions both in this newsgroup and in the more conventional media.  I
have seldom, if ever, seen equally comprehensive rebuttals by creationists
-- merely statements like "You have to read the creationist literature"
or "This is covered in ...." (when you find the reference, it never is --
I've found that these are generally restatements of the original argument.)

At any rate, disagreement has a more than legitimate place in the conduct
of science.  It is essential if science is to take its pulse and insure
that inquiry isn't going off in bizarre directions (at least not for too
long.)  It is good to remember that virtually all of the embarrassing
frauds, gaffes and pieces of poor research found in the history of
evolutionary inquiry were pointed out by other natural scientists, not
by creationists.  The lists of these that creationists so fondly provide
are testimony to how well science works, not to its foibles.


-- 

						Byron C. Howes
				      ...!{decvax,akgua}!mcnc!ecsvax!bch