Richardthughes
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Joined: Jan. 2006
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[quote class="userCommentQuote"]<b>Hylomorphic: 9/20/09 12:33 PM:</b> <br><blockquote class="userCommentQuote"><b>Jason1975: 9/20/09 3:20 AM:</b>
Actually Hylomorpic, you've just made Vox's point for him.
Gould made the same point, that if evolution was reversed and allowed to run again then the outcome would be different than what we have. However lack of repeatability equals lack of predictability equals lack of status as a scientific theory.
You last point fails on exactly that point. You can't claim that the evidence for evolution is empirical if evolution doesn't predict anything you can actually empirically test.</blockquote>
A common point of confusion among those whose understanding of the philosophy of science goes no further than the first chapter of their chemistry book is that science demands the prediction of outcomes of future experiments.
While it's certainly true that the easiest and most reliable method of acquiring scientific data is by planning and running repeatable experiments, this is often impractical or impossible. Particularly for fields like archaeology, geology, and paleontology, which primarily investigate past events. It is not essential that the event discovered and added to the data set be repeatable. It is only essential that the observation of the event itself be repeatable--other scientists can come look at those dinosaur fossils, for instance.
Astrophysics is another example of a science which cannot make repeatable experiments, though it frequently does deal with the future. It is simply not possible to experimentally repeat sending a particular comet around the sun. Which is why, when an interesting celestial event occurs which is rare enough that future observations will be difficult, multiple scientific organizations try to train their telescopes on it to mitigate observer bias.
<blockquote class="userCommentQuote"><b>VD: 9/20/09 6:47 AM:</b>
Agreed. So what? One can't reasonably claim the credibility of scientific rigor and then complain that doing the actual science is too hard. The fact that you CAN'T do it is conclusive evidence that you AREN'T doing it. Most evolutionary "science" is in fact the use of proxies for science. Not unreasonable, but not science either.</blockquote>
I was trying to make the point that a method unreliable for the social sciences may be much more reliable for the hard sciences. What did you think I was trying to say?
<blockquote class="userCommentQuote"><b>VD: 9/20/09 6:47 AM:</b>
<blockquote class="userCommentQuote"><b>Hylomorphic: 9/19/09 1:03 PM:</b>
Second, biology makes little use of backtesting in the way you describe it. Evolutionary biology, as far as I'm aware, makes none to speak of. </blockquote>Real biology doesn't. Evolution apologists certainly do. That's what many the citations of the fossile record are based upon. Or look at the way the discovery of the Tiktaalik fossil is portrayed.</blockquote>
You must have revised your definition of "backtesting," and you look rather like you've fallen into the same fundamental confusion as Jason. It is not backtesting merely because it deals with past events; it only becomes backtesting when a simulated model is run. That method is not (as far as I know) used by biologists.
In fact, it would be a sign of the strength of evolutionary theory if the sort of backtesting you describe could be done (though, as I said, I think that's a wildly optimistic hope). It would verify as never before its theoretical soundness.
As it happens, Tiktaalik was discovered through logical inference from known factors in the fish-to-reptile transition. For the transition to occur in the way believed, such and such a kind of creature would have to have existed at some point, and it probably would have had to live in such and such an area at such and such a time. A prediction having been made, the scientists went out into the field to make their observations. And in this case, the observation confirmed the hypothesis.
This is a textbook example of scientific discovery. Not "backtesting."<hr />[/quote]
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