When people say that they believe in g*d or in the absolute truth of their
religious books they do not mean anything provisional. Belief is absolutely
certain and immutable, unless of course the believer decides to switch to
another religion for practical or romantic reasons. To say that scientists
believe in Darwin or Relativity or Benzene Rings is not being totally
honest. I think that belief is not part of the scientific vocabulary.
Professor Robert Bruce Lindsay, author of "The Nature of Physical Reality"
and other fine books on the philosophy of science, observed that while
science cannot arrive at knowledge of absolute reality, what we can do is
try to construct models that we cannot distinguish from reality. I think
that is an excellent guideline, but not one that can easily be wrapped up in
a single word.
As for the quote: "Correlation is not causation," that is one of those
sophistries that statisticians use to clobber anyone who tries to do
anything useful with statistics. I used to run into this when I started usng
path analysis to work out the structure of fish population dynamics. One
statistician even went so far as to write my department head that I was
committing a dangerous heresy by doing so. My response was to point to a
recent study (ficticious, but what the hell!) showing that there was a
correlation between people being hit by cars and admitance to hospital
emergency rooms with broken legs. Causality could of course go either way -
if you are on your way to the hospital with a broken leg it is hard to dodge
cars. Still, that is not the way I do science.
Bill Silvert
----- Original Message -----
From: "Wayne Tyson" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, February 13, 2009 11:28 PM
Subject: [ECOLOG-L] EVOLUTION of Darwin theory or transmogrification? Re:
[ECOLOG-L] Isaac Asimov quote/was Gallup poll on evolution
Many scientists and scholars "BELIEVE" that the distinction between
"believe in" and "accept as valid until persuasive evidence to the
contrary is received" is not only not crucial, but a needlessly pesky
quibble. Could this be part of the problem?
A PREPONDERANCE of the evidence is sufficient for a PROVISIONAL "belief."
And this does not necessarily have to mean that there is 49% (or x %)
doubt.
WT
Who is primarily responsible for the quote: "Correlation is not
causation," please?
