Evolution and the myth of "scientific consensus"

[RickG]

And who interprets that published research in order to judge whether or not it supports a particular theory? Scientists.

Not just scientists, but scientists who are experts in that particular field. It is called peer review. Then subsequently, when the research found to be scholarly and is published, becoming available to the entire scientific community, it is then reviewed by everyone, kind of a secondary peer review. Thus, people who disaegree can and do make their concerns known to the scientific community. Would you prefer non-professionals judge what is scholarly and what is not? Peer review is not perfect, but it does exceed any other method.

 

[The Cadet]

One of the evolutionist's favorite tactics is to immediately appeal to a "scientific consensus" that Evolution theory is beyond all reasonable doubt. If the vast majority of scientists accept Evolution theory (or more accurately, do not publicly oppose it) then it simply must be true. This reasoning is absurd on its face to any sophisticated reader,

Because it's not the reasoning at hand. The point being made is that here we have a complex scientific theory. There is a certain group of people particularly well-equipped to make judgment about this theory - they are people who have spent a lot of time studying and understanding all of the relevant information in the field. These people overwhelmingly accept the theory as valid, and reject the various complaints lodged at it. At that point, our opinion as laymen should be seriously tempered - who are we to say that we know more than them?

Your version of the argument is similar, but also ignores some important qualifications. We're not saying it has to be right, we're saying that unless we're willing to put in the legwork, we should consider our opinions rather unimportant by comparison. We're not saying all scientists, we're saying scientists with specific interest in the field. You wouldn't ask a dermatologist to examine your heart palpitations, and you wouldn't ask a mechanical engineer or computer scientist their professional opinion on the age of the earth. Because they don't have a professional opinion on the subject. They aren't qualified to offer any sort of professional opinion on it. For example, while I'm sure William Dempski is a fine mathematician, he has no qualifications to speak on natural selection or population dynamics.

First, think about how many popular-science presentations you've watched where you've been matter-of-factly assured that the Big Bang really happened and is beyond reasonable doubt. It is casually stated as if it were as clear as the sky is blue. Audiences are never given the slightest hint that anyone with relevant expertise questions whether or not the Big Bang really happened.

Because that would be presenting false balance.

Scientific consensus does not hinge on 100% acceptance. You can find geologists who deny plate tectonics; medical doctors who deny that HIV causes AIDS; historians who believe that the holocaust never happened. You name the field, you can find some crank with a relevant degree who believes something completely crazy. Treating this fringe as though it was anything more than a fringe group is misrepresenting the state of the science.

And of course, popular science is just that - pop. It's for a layman audience. If I had to write a pop-sci piece on evolution, it would look very different from an entry in a peer-reviewed journal! The whole point of popular science is to entertain and educate, and going into the nuances of "there's a fringe minority that believes that none of this true" follows neither goal, unless your piece is about trouncing that fringe minority (which can be very entertaining, as Poltholer54 proves on a regular basis).

Next, have a quick read through the following publication. (some technical jargon snipped)

An Open Letter to the Scientific Community
(Published in New Scientist, May 22, 2004)
http://homepages.xnet.co.nz/~hardy/cosmologystatement.html

"The big bang

Wait, hang on, I thought you were talking about evolution! That's a totally different field with its own problems. What does that have to do with biology?

However, this thread is not about debating the Big Bang theory. It is to shed light on the reality of "consensus" and the nature of the academic world in general.

Notice what is being expressed in the letter above, that a dominating theory is so entrenched, that scientists do not feel comfortable openly questioning it. Not because of the strength of evidence for the theory - (as stated they have sound scientific reasons for calling it into question) but because the theory is being protected ideologically. It is protected from question because so many parties are invested in it.

As much as this claim is made, the letter offers no evidence to support it. Its author, Eric Lerner, belongs to the same fringe group as many citizen cosmologists here - he believes in an eternal universe based on plasma physics. It's no surprise that he'd try to explain away the failure of his theory to catch on by blaming bias within publishing, but he offers no evidence, and the 33 signatures he gathers is simply not impressive, regardless of how big the names are.

This paints quite a different picture than the mantras we hear day after day about how the consensus is based strictly on scientific merit, how scientists are eagerly waiting to have their theories disproved, how any young scientist who finds a hole in a reigning theory will be fast-tracked to a Nobel prize, etc. etc. This is all simply a myth that is perpetuated to give the scientific community an aura of righteousness and selfless pursuit of truth. It is simply not true.

Either that's a myth, and by the same token, the entire peer review system is corrupt and none of science (including medical science, mechanics, and the like) can be trusted... Or Lerner's a crank who got a handful of frustrated physicists to cosign his letter. Or maybe he lied to them about the content - see also: "Dissent from Darwin". And it's not like we haven't had complaints like this in biology as well - "Expelled!" tried to ride this particular hobby-horse and failed miserably.

Do you really think this level of ideological investment is not playing a role in maintaining the "consensus" and protecting the theory from question?

Interesting theory! Unfortunately, it sort of falls apart the moment you examine the evidence. For example, this list. Scientists promoting intelligent design seem perfectly capable of publishing their research in peer-reviewed journals. It just hasn't gained much traction with anyone, because it's mostly junk science.

Do you really think the average young scientist trying to make a living feels comfortable openly questioning the theory, or even voicing the slightest hint of doubt?

Do you really think they're being honest and upfront with you about Evolution theory's weaknesses?

I think that conspiracy theories like this ignore the realities of scientific publishing. Every time cranks fail to get their ideas pushed to the forefront, their go-to response is to claim that the establishment has suppressed them. But it's not tenable.

My real wheelhouse, the area I consider myself most interested in and most qualified in, is medicine. I love me some medicine. And in medical science, we have ways of doing things to ensure that treatments actually work, and aren't just attributable to placebo effects. There are a host of rules any study in medicine or toxicology should follow in order to be good research. And the first thing cranks whose treatments don't work do when the science doesn't bear them out is complain about oppression. It's the same in virtually every field. Nobody is stopping Stanislaw Burzynski from publishing his incomplete trials, but nobody is going to take them seriously because they're just downright silly.

Similarly, nobody is stopping fellows of the discovery institute or other creationists from publishing work in their respective fields, but nobody takes it seriously. Why? I wonder. It couldn't have anything to do with their claims being nonsensical to anyone who understands biology, could it?

 

[Justatruthseeker]

Not just scientists, but scientists who are experts in that particular field. It is called peer review. Then subsequently, when the research found to be scholarly and is published, becoming available to the entire scientific community, it is then reviewed by everyone, kind of a secondary peer review. Thus, people who disaegree can and do make their concerns known to the scientific community. Would you prefer non-professionals judge what is scholarly and what is not? Peer review is not perfect, but it does exceed any other method.

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/08/11/its-that-time-again-broken-peer-review/

Which isn't saying much. To paraphrase Winston Churchill’s invocation of a famous quote about democracy, peer review is the worst way to weed out bad science and promote good science, except for all the others that have been tried.

"Moreover, reviewing manuscripts is hard work. That’s why higher impact journals not infrequently use a triage system, where the editor does a brief review of submitted manuscripts in order to determine whether it is appropriate for the journal or has any glaring deficiencies and then decides whether to send them out for peer review."

So first an Intelligent Design paper would need to make it past the evolutionary biased editor. Then go to an autonomous review board so credentials can't be verified.

So since it should be reviewed by experts in the particular field, then ID should be reviewed by experts in the field of ID? Plasma cosmology should be reviewed by experts in plasma physics and electrical engineering - not astronomers?????

I wouldn't send a doctors paper to an astronomer, so why should a plasma physics paper be sent to one?

Even when the papers get published by evolutionists even - you still ignore them because they don't fit your pre-conceived system of beliefs.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10607609

 

[lifepsyop]

Either that's a myth, and by the same token, the entire peer review system is corrupt and none of science (including medical science, mechanics, and the like) can be trusted...

Thanks for reminding me to touch on another related myth. The myth of the impeccable veracity of the peer-review system.

Drummond Rennie, deputy editor of Journal of the American Medical Association is an organizer of the International Congress on Peer Review and Biomedical Publication, which has been held every four years since 1986. He remarked:

There seems to be no study too fragmented, no hypothesis too trivial, no literature too biased or too egotistical, no design too warped, no methodology too bungled, no presentation of results too inaccurate, too obscure, and too contradictory, no analysis too self-serving, no argument too circular, no conclusions too trifling or too unjustified, and no grammar and syntax too offensive for a paper to end up in print.

Richard Horton, editor of the British medical journal The Lancet, said:

The mistake, of course, is to have thought that peer review was any more than just a crude means of discovering the acceptability—not the validity—of a new finding. Editors and scientists alike insist on the pivotal importance of peer review. We portray peer review to the public as a quasi-sacred process that helps to make science our most objective truth teller. But we know that the system of peer review is biased, unjust, unaccountable, incomplete, easily fixed, often insulting, usually ignorant, occasionally foolish, and frequently wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_review#Criticism_of_peer_review

 

[The Cadet]

So first an Intelligent Design paper would need to make it past the evolutionary biased editor. Then go to an autonomous review board so credentials can't be verified.

And yet, despite all this alleged bias, the fact remains that they get their papers published. So I'm not sure what the problem is here.

Thanks for reminding me to touch on another related myth. The myth of the impeccable veracity of the peer-review system.

Drummond Rennie, deputy editor of Journal of the American Medical Association is an organizer of the International Congress on Peer Review and Biomedical Publication, which has been held every four years since 1986. He remarked:

There seems to be no study too fragmented, no hypothesis too trivial, no literature too biased or too egotistical, no design too warped, no methodology too bungled, no presentation of results too inaccurate, too obscure, and too contradictory, no analysis too self-serving, no argument too circular, no conclusions too trifling or too unjustified, and no grammar and syntax too offensive for a paper to end up in print.

Richard Horton, editor of the British medical journal The Lancet, said:

The mistake, of course, is to have thought that peer review was any more than just a crude means of discovering the acceptability—not the validity—of a new finding. Editors and scientists alike insist on the pivotal importance of peer review. We portray peer review to the public as a quasi-sacred process that helps to make science our most objective truth teller. But we know that the system of peer review is biased, unjust, unaccountable, incomplete, easily fixed, often insulting, usually ignorant, occasionally foolish, and frequently wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_review#Criticism_of_peer_review

Well yeah. Peer review is not a final passing grade, it's an entry exam: "You must be at least this legitimate to be worth consideration". But this doesn't exactly support your hypothesis.

 

[Loudmouth]

One of the evolutionist's favorite tactics is to immediately appeal to a "scientific consensus" that Evolution theory is beyond all reasonable doubt.

We appeal to a scientific consensus for two reasons.

1. To show that more than 99% of the experts agree that there is evidence to support the theory, contrary to the claims of creationists.

2. To show how creationists are a tiny minority.

As in all things, the findings of experts holds more sway than the nonsense written by non-experts on internet forums and science denial blogs like AiG.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

Because it's not the reasoning at hand. The point being made is that here we have a complex scientific theory. There is a certain group of people particularly well-equipped to make judgment about this theory - they are people who have spent a lot of time studying and understanding all of the relevant information in the field. These people overwhelmingly accept the theory as valid, and reject the various complaints lodged at it. At that point, our opinion as laymen should be seriously tempered - who are we to say that we know more than them?

Your argument is baseless. Over and over throughout history that consensus belief by experts has been overturned - by an individual paper or experiment. The only difference is that today, that even the observable evidence that reproduction occurs by breed mating with breed producing a new breeds is ignored, in favor of something never seen - one creature evolving over time into another creature. One can't even create doubt in the minds of evolutionists by the actual evidence before our eyes, let alone falsify Dogma.

And at one time almost every expert, how did you put it, "overwhelmingly accept the theory (Of the Milky-Way being the only galaxy) as valid, and reject the various complaints lodged at it." But of course the majority opinion was shown to be incorrect.

Now you simply reject out of hand any paper that does not fit your belief. 100+ years of mutational research in plant and animal husbandry? Rejected because of pre-conceived beliefs.

http://www.weloennig.de/Loennig-Long-Version-of-Law-of-Recurrent-Variation.pdf

Your tree dissolving into bushes as technology advances. Rejected because it does not fit your pre-concieved beliefs.

HGT becoming increasingly more predominant in experiments where it is looked for. Rejected because it does not fit your pre-conceived beliefs - even if it passed that very peer review you subscribe to.

But please, cite your strongest experimental case and we'll go from there and show you how your pre-conceived ideas influence the outcome. Because I can assure you the processes are all known reproductive processes and that mutations only occur by re-writing through transcription - what already existed within the genome to begin with. Nothing new is ever created. No new species have arisen - only infraspecific taxa.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

And yet, despite all this alleged bias, the fact remains that they get their papers published. So I'm not sure what the problem is here.



Well yeah. Peer review is not a final passing grade, it's an entry exam: "You must be at least this legitimate to be worth consideration". But this doesn't exactly support your hypothesis.

But then if ID get their papers published anyways, then they "must be at least legitimate to be worth consideration" are they not? Are these not your own words? Or you just meant that when it comes to evolutionary papers, right?

 

[The Cadet]

Your argument is baseless. Over and over throughout history that consensus belief by experts has been overturned - by an individual paper or experiment.

Yep. And you know what happens as a result? Slowly but surely, the discipline shifts to accept the new paradigm. It can take time, but it happens. But creationism has had over 150 years, and there's still nothing happening there. In fact, the novel strategy has been not to find new ways of attacking evolution scientifically, but rather to ignore science altogether, as we see with Presuppositionalists and Ken Ham.

The only difference is that today, that even the observable evidence that reproduction occurs by breed blah blah blah blah blah

I'm sorry, but the moment you say "breed" my eyes glaze over and I stop paying attention, because you have absolutely no scientific basis for this claim.

Now you simply reject out of hand any paper that does not fit your belief. 100+ years of mutational research in plant and animal husbandry? Rejected because of pre-conceived beliefs.

http://www.weloennig.de/Loennig-Long-Version-of-Law-of-Recurrent-Variation.pdf

I feel the need to point out that Lönnig was reprimanded by the Max Planck Institute for peddling this crap on official MPI websites. Something about being a black mark on MPI's record or something, I can't find the quote. As far as I can tell, this particular paper was not published in a peer-reviewed journal. A similar paper was, albeit with considerably weaker conclusion statements, but it was cited a grand total of 4 times. That's a pretty darn low impact factor.

Your tree dissolving into bushes as technology advances. Rejected because it does not fit your pre-concieved beliefs.

No, the change from the tree of life to a more bush-like construct towards the bottom due to HGT is widely accepted science at this point. What you are proposing is not widely accepted because it's not actually true.

But then if ID get their papers published anyways, then they "must be at least legitimate to be worth consideration" are they not? Are these not your own words? Or you just meant that when it comes to evolutionary papers, right?

It means they're free of obvious errors and that their data is not manipulated. That's all it means. Whether their conclusions are valid is another story entirely.

 

[florida2]

Thanks for reminding me to touch on another related myth. The myth of the impeccable veracity of the peer-review system.

I don't think anybody is saying that peer review is perfect, but it's the best system there is.

Would you prefer random people of the street to judge the merits on papers on quantum electrodynamics or evolutionary genetics for example? Or experts in those fields?

 

[lifepsyop]

I don't think anybody is saying that peer review is perfect, but it's the best system there is.

Nah, it would be more accurate to say that peer-review is "better than nothing", than "less than perfect"

Big difference.

Richard Horton, editor of the British medical journal The Lancet, said:

The mistake, of course, is to have thought that peer review was any more than just a crude means of discovering the acceptability—not the validity—of a new finding. Editors and scientists alike insist on the pivotal importance of peer review. We portray peer review to the public as a quasi-sacred process that helps to make science our most objective truth teller. But we know that the system of peer review is biased, unjust, unaccountable, incomplete, easily fixed, often insulting, usually ignorant, occasionally foolish, and frequently wrong.

 

[RickG]

Nah, it would be more accurate to say that peer-review is "better than nothing", than "less than perfect"

Big difference.

Peer review is better than anything used, past or present. You have a better method? Then please share it.

 

[Loudmouth]

But then if ID get their papers published anyways, then they "must be at least legitimate to be worth consideration" are they not? Are these not your own words? Or you just meant that when it comes to evolutionary papers, right?

What ID research do they have that could be published? Most of what I have seen is just arguments against the conclusions found in other papers. Real original scientific research seems few and far between.

 

[Loudmouth]

Nah, it would be more accurate to say that peer-review is "better than nothing", than "less than perfect"

Big difference.

Richard Horton, editor of the British medical journal The Lancet, said:

The mistake, of course, is to have thought that peer review was any more than just a crude means of discovering the acceptability—not the validity—of a new finding. Editors and scientists alike insist on the pivotal importance of peer review. We portray peer review to the public as a quasi-sacred process that helps to make science our most objective truth teller. But we know that the system of peer review is biased, unjust, unaccountable, incomplete, easily fixed, often insulting, usually ignorant, occasionally foolish, and frequently wrong.

Peer review is a really low bar for a paper to get over. The problem is that you need research to begin with, and that is what the ID/creationist crowd lacks. The crocodile tears over peer review is nothing more than a smoke screen to cover up the fact that they have no science to publish.

 

[AirPo]

So first an Intelligent Design paper would need to make it past the evolutionary biased editor.

No, first Intelligent Design would need to be science.

 

[lifepsyop]

Peer review is a really low bar for a paper to get over. The problem is that you need research to begin with, and that is what the ID/creationist crowd lacks. The crocodile tears over peer review is nothing more than a smoke screen to cover up the fact that they have no science to publish.

This thread is not about promoting ID/creationist papers.

 

[Loudmouth]

This thread is not about promoting ID/creationist papers.

It appears to be a thread about attacking your strawmen.

 

[florida2]

Nah, it would be more accurate to say that peer-review is "better than nothing", than "less than perfect"

Big difference.

You were the one who said there was a myth of 'impeccable veracity' of peer review. I explained that I don't think anyone is claiming that.

What's your alternative to scientific papers in a field being reviewed by experts in that field?

If you've got such a bee in your bonnet about peer review, I'm sure you have a better system to suggest.

 

[lifepsyop]

I can't say I see the logic here. Yes, there is a scientific consensus that the Big Bang is a good model for the early universe, and yes, there is a scientific consensus that evolution (especially common descent) is a good model for the history of life. Yes, there exist scientists who disagree with the consensus in both fields. From this we can conclude . . . what, exactly? None of these facts tell us how likely a consensus is to be correct, nor do they address the important question: how much evidence is there in favor of the consensus?

The point is to show the reality that a consensus theory can just as easily be maintained and protected for ideological reasons, instead of being based on rigorous scientific merit. It also shows that the continuing lifespan of a consensus theory can be for the same reason, that it is being ideologically protected, rather than because it has "withstood the test of time".

Now, some evolutionists (not many in my experience) don't appeal to these kinds of mantras and actually want to debate the evidence and that's great. But most evolutionists will hide behind this idea that Evolution can't be false because it's been around for so long and has "overwhelming support of the scientific community". They believe that automatically equates with the idea that Evolution has been rigorously tested, and scientists have searched up and down for holes in it. That is a clearly mistaken assumption.

I've read so many dismissive one-liners to that effect on this forum that I thought this thread was needed for some clarification.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

Yep. And you know what happens as a result? Slowly but surely, the discipline shifts to accept the new paradigm. It can take time, but it happens. But creationism has had over 150 years, and there's still nothing happening there. In fact, the novel strategy has been not to find new ways of attacking evolution scientifically, but rather to ignore science altogether, as we see with Presuppositionalists and Ken Ham.

No evolution has had over 150 years too. So what's that mean?

I've attacked it scientifically - it's you that avoids the science. Show me anywhere where anything has evolved from one thing to another - except as we observe in the real world - breed mating with breed and producing a new breed?

Or if you prefer in over 100 years of experiments with plant and animal husbandry, where species become anything but subspecies, breeds, varieties, sub-varieties or formae (infraspecific taxa) of the original Kind?

I'm sorry, but the moment you say "breed" my eyes glaze over and I stop paying attention, because you have absolutely no scientific basis for this claim.

I'm sorry, but the moment you say species my eyes glaze over and I stop paying attention, because you can't even get it right by your own definitions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species

"Presence of specific locally adapted traits may further subdivide species into "infraspecific taxa" such as subspecies (and in botany other taxa are used, such as varieties, subvarieties, and formae)."

Just as is used in the "real" world in plant and animal husbandry, versus the imaginary world in which evolutionists live.

I feel the need to point out that Lönnig was reprimanded by the Max Planck Institute for peddling this crap on official MPI websites. Something about being a black mark on MPI's record or something, I can't find the quote. As far as I can tell, this particular paper was not published in a peer-reviewed journal. A similar paper was, albeit with considerably weaker conclusion statements, but it was cited a grand total of 4 times. That's a pretty darn low impact factor.

I think you are now making stuff up you have only ever seen on blog sites. You can't find the quote because when you do it will only be found on a blog site.

No, the change from the tree of life to a more bush-like construct towards the bottom due to HGT is widely accepted science at this point. What you are proposing is not widely accepted because it's not actually true.

So you say, so you say. Claims are a dime a dozen. That's what those same scientists told those that believed in expansion too. That's the same excuse the church used to not look into Galileo's telescope. And here you are - still refusing to look because of religious dogmatic beliefs.

It means they're free of obvious errors and that their data is not manipulated. That's all it means. Whether their conclusions are valid is another story entirely.

So you say, so you say. But opinions are a dime a dozen. And the overall opinion is highly against your claims.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01173636#page-1

http://faculty.washington.edu/c3/Lee_et_al_2013.pdf

I say their conclusions are not valid. That new species do not arise in the fossil record, but merely what we observe - breed mating with breed, producing a new breed. That those transitional forms are no more missing than they are missing between the Husky and Chinook. They have simply misinterpreted the data because of bias to a preconceived belief.

You say their conclusions are valid, besides not being able to provide a single solitary real example. No new species have ever arisen - species only become infraspecific taxa.