What Do You Think?

[pmaust]

I want to preface my question by stating that I have been thinking about the theory of evolution. I'll state my bias so you don't have to guess or so there are no misunderstandings. I accept the theory evolution within bounds that are reasonable to me. I have no god agenda nor am I by any means antievolution. Having said that, I would like to discuss some things that to me at least, are unsettled, unresolved, or debatable. But before I posted anything, I wanted to snoop around and do a little reading. Who knows, maybe my questions/issues have been discussed before. So, I did some searches. I have never read any creationist or ID stuff. In the course of searching and reading, I see the debate raging full bore. I have seen this before on other sites as well. I did go out and google creationism to get a little better understanding.

Also in the interest of full disclosure, I will mention that when the book Forbidden Arheology came out, I did buy and read through most of it. Maybe we can discuss that at another time. Or perhaps, you have already discussed it and you can refer me to the threads.

 

Having said all that, here is my concern and the reason why I started this thread.

 

Does the creation vs evolution debate put undue stress on peer review? Not so much on the findings of the good science that is being done. But, on the interpretation and presentation of the those findings? There appear to have been some blunders in the past. Especially, concerning "missing link" declarations. Can we safely air our dirty laundry out in public and still cope with those who would exploit it for their own agenda?

Does that stress if it exist, affect objectivity and judgement?

 

I'll stop here. I think by now, what I am asking is pretty obvious. Or, maybe not? :)

 

Cheers

 

Paul

[Tormod]

Does the creation vs evolution debate put undue stress on peer review [...] on the interpretation and presentation of the those findings?

A very interesting question. I think the main problem is not the peer review process, because it is vital for the current scientific journal system (although the web opens up new possibilities - possibly another discussion for us). Peer review basically ensures that whatever is published follows the scientific method, is credible, and also that it is unique (and not a copy of someone else's work).

 

that an issue is hotly debated may appear to put stress on the scientists, it is probably horribly tiring to spend years researching fossils and evolution of species and the face the angry cries from ID-ers and creationists who cry foul whenever someone mentions evolution at all.

 

However, I do believe that the scientists will continue with their work regardless. Most of them work and study in an environment where evolution is a proven theory and they are no longer working to prove that it has happened, but to understand how, why etc.

 

It's pretty much like the first cars - people did not believe vehicles could move without external power (ie, horses) so they dismiss the idea. Yet cars are a fact today and nobody questions whether cars do exist - but still they are improved upon and changed all the time. Okay, a silly analogy but the point is that for evolutionists evolution has long since been accepted by the scientific community. That there is dissent also within the scientific community is healthy.

 

There appear to have been some blunders in the past. Especially, concerning "missing link" declarations. Can we safely air our dirty laundry out in public and still cope with those who would exploit it for their own agenda?

The evo/cre debate is particularly venomous because it is a science vs faith discussion and as such you have one side (scientists) who are used to trying out theories and disqualifying them to get the right answer, and the religious people who will deny any attempt at denouncing the power of god.

 

You do get the occasional crossover people but as you have probably seen the debates are pretty fruitless.

 

But as to your question - does this put stress on peer review? I would hope not. What we discuss here as laypeople is one thing. What scientists do is a different thing. I am not worried about it.

[Tormod]

Forgot to ask this:

 

Which "blunders" are you talking about? Would be interesting to see what you have been reading.

[Stargazer]

Science should go about its merry way unravelling the mysteries of the universe, while creationists can pretend to be unaware that they completely lack any kind of evidence. The problem is of course the methods the creationists use. They play martyrs sacrificed on the altar of 1) liberalism, 2) atheism, and/or 3) secular humanism. Sometimes also paganism and satanism, depending on how fanatic the creationist happen to be. They shout about censorship when it's nothing of the kind. They loudly declare that their religion is proper science, and that science is bad because it's not religious and because it is a religion... at the same time. There's little point in using time to try to understand this - it's clearly superior creationist logic, something the evilutionists are beneath.

 

Really, I've yet to see a creationist do some actual research regarding their "theory" - probably because they don't really have one, or it's too vague, or it's completely baseless. They focus on attacking contemporary mainstream biology, mostly the theory of evolution. Modern big bang cosmology is a popular target as well. Curiously they haven't presented any evidence that would overthrow current scientific wisdom, let alone support their own alternatives!

 

Science is not without responsibility though. What the scientific community must be better at is to reach out to the public and teach us all about what science is, why it's so great and useful, and to present new science in an accessible and accurate way. We're using science all the time, yet we ignore it or disregard it or even hate it at times. This is not good for the future.

[Freethinker]

I'll stop here. I think by now, what I am asking is pretty obvious. Or, maybe not? :)

Actually, maybe not?

 

Are you asking whether scientific journals requiring a peer review process will eliminate eorros? Or that it was not used in the past and that is why we have errors in missing links declarations.? Or that ID/ Creationism is incorrectly excluded from peer reviewed journals because of some "protectorism" based on some mob rule of "Evolutionists" having a strangle hold on the journals?

 

As SG1 suggests, the bottom line problem for Creation and ID is that neither is a THEORY, neither has factual data, predictability or falsefyability. "God happens" offers nothing in terms of scientific value. Why would a Scientific Journal publish things that aren't Science?

 

Have Science sources made errors in the past? Ya many of them. But they get corrected and usually quite quickly. Remember "Cold Fusion"? Pilt down man is an interesting case. It was intentional fraud. It came at the very begining of our pusuit of fossils for early humaniods. We did not have accurate dating techniques. Yet with all of this, it was still exposed as fraud and outright rejected in a reasonbly short time. Even a conserted effort of scientific fraud could not stand for long. It's very existence promoted extensive improvements in the peer review process. The very thing stopping the Creationists and IDers froom promoting their frauds in peer reviewed journals.

 

Meanwhile the current peer review process is working as the most effective way of both allowing a reasonably quick venue to provide insights to the latest scientific findings while providing a reasonable level of firewalling against the more bogus and egregious efforts to promote psudeo-science and erroneous claims.

[TINNY]

would you mind telling me what 'peer review' is? sorry.

[Freethinker]

would you mind telling me what 'peer review' is? sorry.

There are many ways to get info out to the general population or to specific groups of people. With the internet, anyone can put up a web site making about any claim they want. How do you know if the info is valid or not? Even before the net, and before various governments established various laws requiring some form of "truth in advertising", people could make what ever claim they wanted to. All kinds of cures and claims were made for all sorts of potions, charms, ...

 

The same can be true for "scientific" information. There are all kinds of "snake oil" marketers. People that will sell some combo of stuff and even just plain water and make claims about it's effectiveness. Or claims about how some physical process works. How can we tell, without doing the research ourselves, how truthful or accurate these claims are? One way is to consider the source of the info. Does the venue have a history of credible reporting? Or does it pass along any claim it recieves?

 

So some venues established a process by which they would first review information submitted before publishing it. They would assemble a group of established authorities on various topics so any articles submitted for publication would be sent to the specific group for review. Naturally the group would be peers of the person submitting the article because they would all be in the same area of investigation. e.g. a group of acknowledged experts on biology would review any article on biology. This way if an article appears in that publication regarding some new theory in biology, it has already been reviewed by the group of peers to make sure it has a reasonable level of credibility. Thus the reader can accept the info without having to start from scratch to test for credibility. The tougher the publication is on scrutinizing submitted articles, the higher the level of credibility given to anything it publishes. Some venues strive to be considered THE refernce source for it's area of interest. Such as JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association. If an article appears in it, it is considered to be highly credible just because JAMA evn bothered to allow it to be published.

 

Where this also comes in is on the flip side. When someone can't get published in venues that are restricted to this "review by peers", that does not mean they can not get thier claims published. As mentioned before, they can make a web site. Or perhaps some rag like the "Enquirer", which will post almost anything, with the more absurd the claim the better. "Aliens transport entire town to their home planet" would make major headlines in it. They'd even have a pict of a big hole in the ground where the town supposedly was. Or the author could just write their own book. There are all sorts of publishers that will also publish about anything. Or even failing that, they can self publish.

 

As this threads topic includes Creationism and ID, this is particularly relevant. IDers and Creationists always cry about not getting their nonsense puublished in peer reviewed publications. They want to claim that it is because of some conspiracy to keep their "truths" from "exposing the atheist agenda of the scientific community". While the actual problem is that their claims just can not hold up to close scrutiny. The "peers" in the specific area of research see a lack of factual scientific rigor. A lack of proof. An approach filled with fallacies. So we get the Behe's and McDowell with their books which failed getting acceptance by review of their peers, finding publishers that do not hold as high of standards or even self publishing.

 

"Peer review" helps us promote new information to the public while assuring some level of credibility without requiring everybody to have to research everything themselves before gaining new knowledge. But it is not 100%.

[TINNY]

thanks. that's excellent. you have a very clear mind.

so why is there stress? I thought those creationists and IDers are too naive that you just throw them away at the mention of their names as author. That really makes things easy for the peer reviewers. Not like other obscure and miniscule branches of science like nanotech. That is more rigorous to examine.