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Originally Posted by blankall
See, this is the issue.
Science is not a popularity contest. You can't have an election on a scientific issue. Science is truth.
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Consensus does not equal a popularity contest. Consensus means most or all research across all relevant disciplines supports the theory.
But in a way it very much like a popularity contest.. science that is successful in describing and explaining phenomenon is popular. In that it gets tested, reproduced, confirmed, quoted, referenced, tested again, all in an attempt to disprove it. Consensus is arrived at via a kind of election, that election is the body of scientific evidence becoming overwhelmingly supportive of the consensus via testing and passing and continued use of accurate and successful science and the rejection and ignoring and disproving of inaccurate and unsuccessful science.
Science isn't truth, at least not in the way I think about truth.. true or false are boolean, it's either one or the other. Science does not work that way, science can have confidence that a theory is the most accurate explanation for a phenomenon, but it can never say something is absolutely true in the unquestionable sense of the word.
Ask a scientist if the sun will come up tomorrow, and they'll say that given the known laws of physics and the history, probably...
Quote:
Originally Posted by blankall
When you have people on both sides threatening scientists with oppossing views with violence, something has gone horribly horribly wrong.
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Well yes, the horribly wrong part is involving humans in the endeavor.
Though I don't see many threats of violence in the scientific literature itself, I think it takes beliefs rooted in ideology to inspire one to violence (unless the ideology is pacifism I guess). I wouldn't get violent to protect the theory of evolution, but I might to protect freedom of expression.
Quote:
Originally Posted by blankall
This issue is far from settled and continued investigation into multiple theories should be encouraged.
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On the surface this sounds nice, but I think practically it doesn't actually mean much.
The issue of evolution is far from settled, every day they probably generate more questions than answers, but that doesn't mean evolution in general should be regarded as false, or that we should be artificially directing money investigating intelligent design despite there being no good reason to do so.
In order for some theory to be pursued, there has to be some kind of indication as to why it is worth pursuing. Science builds on itself, and unexpected results or gaps in knowledge or theory drive advancement. Picking a random direction just because it's different than a consensus doesn't make much sense.. unless it's ideologically driven that is.
Even then investigation into multiple theories is absolutely possible, as I mentioned the BEST temperature series is a good example of something that started out that way. No one said they weren't allowed to do their work that some expected (or desired I guess) to come up with a different result than the other big temperature sets.
If someone has an alternative and they can support it, they will absolutely be recognized.