Why Dont You Blog?

(hat tip: post by SurfinSeaOtter on FSTDT)

Popularity: 32% [?]

Popularity: 32% [?]

(*Update: it seems while I was writing this, the post I am discussing vanished from the Savvygeek site - it may have been posted in error, but I think the comments made in it were common enough that they can be addressed anyway*)

There seems some debate recently about reconciling science and religion (or even if some thing is possible). For the record, this is something I have no major issue over, religion is (to me) nonsense so if scientists want to be religious it is no different than if they think socks and sandals look cool. I also see no driving reason for science and religion to be “reconciled,” nor do I have any idea how such a thing can take place.

Today I came across a post on Savvygeek called “Religion Vs Science” which made some points which intrigued me. Broadly the post is saying:

Popularity: 41% [?]

Popularity: 41% [?]

Once more, the Great Tuatatis has guided me to some more erratic websites (I suspect I actually found it as a link on someone else’s blog, but unfortunately I cant remember who to tip my hat to, sorry).

Anyway, however it happened, on the phs1966.com blog, there is a post called “Can we really call evolution science.” It is a short post, so I will copy it here in full:

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Popularity: 26% [?]

Should peoples opinions (or more accurately opinion polls) be a valid method of deciding what is, or isn’t good science? Is science, or the scientific method, something which can be validated by debate?

On Pharyngula, there is an interesting post (as always), titled “Ken Ham is still getting his PR for free” which has the following extract (from a blog entry on an ID supporting museum):

“Mocking publicity is free publicity,” Looy [curator] said. Besides, U.S. media have been more respectful, mindful perhaps of a 2006 Gallup Poll showing almost half of Americans believe that humans did not evolve, but were created by God in their present form within the last 10,000 years.

Now creationist nonsense aside, the bit which intrigues me is the assumption that because almost half Americans believe something it must be valid. This is a recurring theme where ever bad science, creationism and the like try to get publicity.

There are routinely requests for the likes of Richard Dawkins to attend public debates about Evolution vs Intelligent Design and the same thing happens in other areas (vaccinations springs immediately to mind, but there are lots more).

Now, what scientific purpose can be achieved by having two people trying to score points of each other in front of a lay audience? More importantly, the side with the better speaker will win, independently of the quality of their science. If someone has an excellent trial lawyer arguing that (for example) gravity doesn’t exist while a stereotypical physics professor tries to argue it does there is good reason to assume the audience will walk away thinking Gravity does not exist.

Yet it would still exist.

“Science” (for want of a better term) is independent of public opinion. The Popperian scientific method requires repeatability and falsifiability as the hall marks of “good science” not simply being “believed” in. It constantly amazes me that people will assume that simply because lots of people believe in something which is wrong, it must be right.

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Popularity: 15% [?]