Dawkins on Evolution

@Dave Allen,

Dave Allen;92203 wrote:

If you can't do it that's OK, I honestly don't mind - but just admit that and we can move on.

Of course I can do it. I just did a few minutes ago by googling. The question is whether you can or want to do it. Anyone on this thread who wishes to find bias in scientific/medical studies can google experiment, observer, medical bias. It is a whole field of study.

Now, if someone wants to challenge themselves a bit more, he/she can look at double blind medical studies and ask themselves where are the implicit biases and give themselves extra credit. This is a tougher question and really requires one to remove themselves completely from the gold standard and think, what am I assuming?

Now, if this was a test in college I am sure everyone would be off and running for the answers. But, alas, we are only talking about life and maybe it is not worth the effort.

Maybe I should offer a monetary reward of $100,000. I bet you then I would get tons of posts about medical bias. Smile

Rich

0 Replies

@richrf,

Whoever asked you to show an example of medical bias?

Not me.

I asked you if you could give me a single example of a scientist whose belief or faith had been made into an article of scientific consensus without challenge.

You keep on saying "can you do it" - I've answered that by saying I cannot.

Fourth time of asking - is it something you can actually do?

1 Reply

@Dave Allen,

Dave Allen;92208 wrote:

Whoever asked you to show an example of medical bias?

Not me.

I asked you if you could give me a single example of a scientist whose belief or faith had been made into an article of scientific consensus without challenge.

Fourth time of asking - is it something you can actually do?

Your beliefs are your biases. A strongly held one, as you are demonstrating, is faith.

You have faith that your beliefs will not reveal themselves in your own biases. You are not alone. Now, let's see if you can challenge your own faith and your own belief by self-inspection. If not, that is OK with me. We all have our faith and beliefs.

Do you have faith in double-blind experiments? Do you believe in them? Are you biased in favor of them?

Rich

1 Reply

@richrf,

richrf;92211 wrote:

Do you have faith in double-blind experiments? Do you believe in them? Are you biased in favor of them?

Not in and of themselves, no.

Now:

Can you give me the name of a single scientist whose ideas based on faith and belief have been made into an article of scientific consensus without challenge?

Fifth time of asking.

1 Reply

@Dave Allen,

Dave Allen;92213 wrote:

Not in and of themselves, no.

Now:

Can you give me the name of a single scientist whose ideas based on faith and belief have been made into an article of scientific consensus without challenge?

Fifth time of asking.

Any one who relies on double-blind experiments or any type of experiment in which biases are introduced. That is pretty much every scientist.

Do you believe that any double-blind study has validity? Any?

Rich

1 Reply

@richrf,

But not everyone who conducts double blind experiments gets to have their ideas become aritlces of scientific consensus, and many of those who do are challenged as to the veracity of their experiments.

So it doesn't address my question, let alone answer it.

Can you give me the name of a single scientist whose ideas based on faith and belief have been made into an article of scientific consensus without challenge?

1 Reply

@Dave Allen,

Dave Allen;92218 wrote:

But not everyone who conducts double blind experiments gets to have their ideas become aritlces of scientific consensus, and many of those who do are challenged as to the veracity of their experiments.

So it doesn't address my question, let alone answer it.

Can you give me the name of a single scientist whose ideas based on faith and belief have been made into an article of scientific consensus without challenge?

I don't care whether or not there is challenge or not. Do you believe that any double-blind study has validity?

Rich

0 Replies

@richrf,

richrf;92215 wrote:

Do you believe that any double-blind study has validity? Any?

Depends on the quality of the experiment and the aptitude of those performing it.

---------- Post added 09-20-2009 at 09:47 AM ----------

richrf;92220 wrote:

I don't care whether or not there is challenge or not.

So you aren't able to answer my question.

That's fine.

1 Reply

@Dave Allen,

Dave Allen;92221 wrote:

Depends on the quality of the experiment and the aptitude of those performing it.

---------- Post added 09-20-2009 at 09:47 AM ----------

So you aren't able to answer my question.

That's fine.

You wanted to go down this road, let's go down. Do you believe that any double-blind study has validity? Let's see your where your faith lies.

Rich

1 Reply

@richrf,

richrf;92223 wrote:

lol. You wanted to go down this road, let's go down. Do you believe that any double-blind study has validity? Let's see your where your faith lies.

Rich - you asked this question before, and I answered it on the first go.

This isn't the same road you have to travel, in which a question has to be asked half a dozen times before a straight answer is supplied.

Read my earlier posts to find out my answer to whether or not I believe that double-blind tests have any veracity.

1 Reply

@Dave Allen,

Dave Allen;92224 wrote:

Rich - you asked this question before, and I answered it on the first go.

This isn't the same road you have to travel, in which a question has to be asked half a dozen times before a straight answer is supplied.

Read my earlier posts to find out my answer to whether or not I believe that double-blind tests have any veracity.

I asked whether any have veracity, whether or not they are challenged? Challenged ones or unchallenged ones. Do any have veracity? It is a simple question. You have read about them I am sure. Did you ever believe in a paper because it was a double-blind study - challenged or unchallenged? Why?

Rich

0 Replies

@richrf,

Do any have veracity? Well in the context of a metaphysical debate it's clearly hubris to credit anything at all with veracity - so the jury's out. I'd say my belief in the ability of the tests to demonstrate what they claim to demonstrate depends on the quality of the test itself (as I perceive it), and the professionalism of those conducting it (ditto).

1 Reply

@Dave Allen,

Dave Allen;92149 wrote:

What are you on about? People are having a discussion - no one is trying to censor anyone else as far as I can see.

I agree, that's why I deleted that comment minutes after posting it . I'd appreciate it if you would honor my decision not to publish that moment of personal frustration and edit your post. Thanks.

0 Replies

@Dave Allen,

Dave Allen;92228 wrote:

Do any have veracity? Well in the context of a metaphysical debate it's clearly hubris to credit anything at all with veracity - so the jury's out. I'd say my belief in the ability of the tests to demonstrate what they claim to demonstrate depends on the quality of the test itself (as I perceive it), and the professionalism of those conducting it (ditto).

This is part of your belief system. And there is an additional implicit belief that: the concept of double-blind studies in themselves have any validity at all in finding desirable results.

It is like Godel's Theorem. We all have to start with our assumptions, our beliefs. And then when those beliefs become very strong (and there are many, many scientists who believe very strongly in he double-blind as their gold standard) then it becomes faith, because it is the pillar of their belief system.

Rich

1 Reply

@richrf,

richrf;92234 wrote:

This is part of your belief system.

Implicit in my use of the word 'perceive'.

It's based on the things I find valuable, like physical evidence and reasoned logic - things I beleive in.

That's not to suggest I can't differentiate between poor quality applications of such things, or to deny that I can be fooled.

But I've yet to find phenomenological/metaphysical/theological alternatives as satisfying.

C'est la vie, eh?

Les - It's done.

1 Reply

@richrf,

richrf;92097 wrote:

Biology can study anything it wants. The problems arise when people get so enamored with thinginess that they begin to suggest that it is a fact that thinginess is all that we are.

That totally misses the point. Biology is the study ONLY of thinginess, in its own case restricted to the domain of life and its constituents. Within the scope of a scientific understanding, thinginess is the only thing that can be talked about. From the perspective of biology, thinginess is the fact, and biology takes apart the things that make up the thinginess.

A conversation that entertains something beyond thinginess is not science. It's interesting stuff, but Oden might call it the woowoo -- biology has no mechanism to entertain it.

So the problem doesn't lie with biology. The problem lies with people trying to ask of it something it doesn't do. You can't taste the chicken with your eyeballs, and you can't talk about collective consciousness and god and souls with biology.

---------- Post added 09-20-2009 at 12:44 PM ----------

richrf;92234 wrote:

there is an additional implicit belief that: the concept of double-blind studies in themselves have any validity at all in finding desirable results

A double blind study is the most likely to offer unbiased results, whether or not those results are desirable.

0 Replies

@Dave Allen,

Dave Allen;92235 wrote:

Implicit in my use of the word 'perceive'.

It's based on the things I find valuable, like physical evidence and reasoned logic - things I beleive in.

Yes. And when the beliefs are never challenged because they are very strong, then they become a faith. As long as they are recognized for what they are.

Dave Allen;92235 wrote:

That's not to suggest I can't differentiate between poor quality applications of such things, or to deny that I can be fooled.

Fooled is one thing. But I am questioning the thing that you are being fooled about.

Dave Allen;92235 wrote:

But I've yet to find phenomenological/metaphysical/theological alternatives as satisfying.

There are certainly alternatives.

Dave Allen;92235 wrote:

C'est la vie, eh?

Les - It's done.

Yep, c'est la vie.

Rich

---------- Post added 09-20-2009 at 12:11 PM ----------

Aedes;92245 wrote:

So the problem doesn't lie with biology. The problem lies with people trying to ask of it something it doesn't do. You can't taste the chicken with your eyeballs, and you can't talk about collective consciousness and god and souls with biology.

I agree. The issue is that not every scientist sees it your way. Then what? I guess one just has to point it out. Nothing more can be done.

Aedes;92245 wrote:

A double blind study is the most likely to offer unbiased results, whether or not those results are desirable.

This may or may not be. There are so many ways to introduce bias before and after the experiment. Double-blind may give the observers and the readers an undo amount of confidence in something that is fundamentally flawed from the inception or the interpretation.

This is what I call observing one's own biases. It is a process that I have been going through for thirty years.

Rich

1 Reply

@richrf,

richrf;92249 wrote:

I agree. The issue is that not every scientist sees it your way. Then what? I guess one just has to point it out. Nothing more can be done.

I thought we'd basically agree on this. I think there are two problems here. One, because science deals with the finite and the empirical, we presume truth based on a sort of 'vector addition' of evidence. If nearly everything in the scientific world is consistent with a certain story, even if much about it remains unknown or controversial, then it is a paradigm that is difficult to reject on rational grounds. Paradigm shifts happen when the data no longer fit the story. The second problem is that laypeople misinterpret the nonscientific communications of scientists, and assume that colloquial use of words like "fact" and "truth" are actually scientific terms.

richrf;92249 wrote:

There are so many ways to introduce bias before and after the experiment. Double-blind may give the observers and the readers an undo amount of confidence in something that is fundamentally flawed from the inception or the interpretation.

There are other kinds of bias that need to be accounted for in other ways. Having a control group is a major way to limit bias. Doing a power calculation and having sufficient sampling is a major way to limit bias. And there are others. Furthermore, even a 100% perfect study with zero bias is not necessarily 100% generalizable. But the potential for flaws, real though it is, does not support an argument that we should ignore it all -- that would be foolhardy.

0 Replies

@richrf,

I suppose it is conceivable that some dramatic discovery (alien spaceship, dramatic new fossil finds, etc) could result in a major paridigm shift in biology but it does not seem likely. Until then one has no choice but to base ones view on currently available evidence.

There is no major accredited respected university or biology department in the world that does not teach the fundamentals of evolution as the unifying theory in the biological sciences. There is no major piece of evidence in conflict with the theory. The fundamental premise that complex life forms have evolved from simpler life forms over time seems indisputable and it is hard to conceive of the evidence which would overturn this perception.

There are large disputes over the exact course of evolution, divergent versus convergent, punctuated equilibrium versus steady rates, etc. but the general pattern is not really open to rational dispute (young earth and special creationists not withstanding).

There is nothing in the theory itself which demands one view it as an overall random, accidental or chance happening which eliminates any form of divine influence or persuasion being involved. Genetic variation is not really completely random and natural selection is anything but random. For the determined sceptic no amount of evidence will suffice it seems; but they are able to offer no credible evidence and no credible theory to the contrary. Yes, knowledge of any historical process or event is always partial and incomplete but as a practical matter, there is no credible alternative to evolution and it constitutes the science of the current day.

If the sceptics wish to provide evidence to the contrary from a credible academic or scientific source, I am sure we would all be willing to examine it? I just hate conspiracy theories all the biologists, biology departments and academic institutions in the world are conspiring to conceal the real truth or so blinded they are unable to consider alternatives? I think not.

1 Reply

@prothero,

prothero;92279 wrote:

but they are able to offer no credible evidence and no credible theory to the contrary.

I think natural selection to explain things is an incredible theory, and I see no reason to try to guess what might have happened millions of years ago, until the time is right, which may or may not come. I am in no rush. It is only for those who feel comfortable that such an incredible theory can possibly account for the enormous variations in the character of all species. I am not so gullible.

Rich

1 Reply

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