Saturday, July 08, 2006
Calling a thing by its name
"Penne Rigate will spontaneously insert itself into Rigatoni (order pasta) under liquid to gas transition conditions of H2O to create the previously unobserved species Noodleous doubleous. The estimated probability of this spontaneous generation event is too low to be explained by thermodynamics and therefore apparently represents intelligent design."
Intelligent Design is hilariously lampooned in the above link which details an experiment in the random self-organization of kitchen noodles. But ignorance of what is meant by the "theory of Natural Selection", has much more serious consequences.
ID and its ilk always trade on the use of the word "theory". (As in "theory of evolution" or "theory of gravity".)
Most of the time, scientists use the word "theory" to mean "General or Overarching Truth". NOT "something dubious", which is what it means in common english.
Of course, such scientific "General Truths" begin as "tentatively proposed general truths" - which is still the only translation laypeople can make of the word "theory." To quote Caltech Professor David L. Goodstein:
"There are theories in science, which are so well verified by experience that they become promoted to the status of fact. One example is the Special Theory of Relativity-it's still called a theory for historical reasons, but it is in reality a simple, engineering fact, routinely used in the design of giant machines, like nuclear particle accelerators, which always work perfectly. Another example of that sort of thing is the theory of evolution. These are called theories, but they are in reality among the best established facts in all of human knowledge."
- David L. Goodstein, 1985, Atoms to Quarks, video lecture 51 of "The Mechanical Universe ... and beyond"; California Institute of Technology/Intelecom
So it's time for scientists to change, so as not to mislead the public further. Use "the 'General Truth' about Gravity (as discovered by Newton)" and "the 'General Truth' of Evolution", etc, and leave the word theory for tentatively proposed General Truths such as String Theory (until some evidence piles up.) What can be simply fixed should be simply fixed.
Of course, all human truths might possibly be overturned - we know that Newton's General Truth about Gravity isn't quite true, post-Einstein, for example. But these scientific claims to truth have as much gravity as any others we know of.
Intelligent Design is hilariously lampooned in the above link which details an experiment in the random self-organization of kitchen noodles. But ignorance of what is meant by the "theory of Natural Selection", has much more serious consequences.
ID and its ilk always trade on the use of the word "theory". (As in "theory of evolution" or "theory of gravity".)
Most of the time, scientists use the word "theory" to mean "General or Overarching Truth". NOT "something dubious", which is what it means in common english.
Of course, such scientific "General Truths" begin as "tentatively proposed general truths" - which is still the only translation laypeople can make of the word "theory." To quote Caltech Professor David L. Goodstein:
"There are theories in science, which are so well verified by experience that they become promoted to the status of fact. One example is the Special Theory of Relativity-it's still called a theory for historical reasons, but it is in reality a simple, engineering fact, routinely used in the design of giant machines, like nuclear particle accelerators, which always work perfectly. Another example of that sort of thing is the theory of evolution. These are called theories, but they are in reality among the best established facts in all of human knowledge."
- David L. Goodstein, 1985, Atoms to Quarks, video lecture 51 of "The Mechanical Universe ... and beyond"; California Institute of Technology/Intelecom
So it's time for scientists to change, so as not to mislead the public further. Use "the 'General Truth' about Gravity (as discovered by Newton)" and "the 'General Truth' of Evolution", etc, and leave the word theory for tentatively proposed General Truths such as String Theory (until some evidence piles up.) What can be simply fixed should be simply fixed.
Of course, all human truths might possibly be overturned - we know that Newton's General Truth about Gravity isn't quite true, post-Einstein, for example. But these scientific claims to truth have as much gravity as any others we know of.
