We have allowed a disease to fester in our Scientific culture. There are many different examples, but the most well known that I can draw on is the Natural Selection vs. Intelligent Design debate. Wait, wait, hear me out, I would love to hear someone more intelligent than I on this subject, and you will have your chance to add comments, but please, give me the respect of humanity and hear me out.
To understand my inquisitive argument, you must first understand my possibly flawed understanding of science and the scientific process in general. If you know of flaws to this understanding, let me know.
First of all, I would expect the current theories and ideals of science to be tested against the laws, processes, and accepted truths of science. I also expect the current accepted beliefs of science to be testable in the first place, and if there is a theory that is not testable, I expect scientists in general to decry the junk science for what it is. This though, brings up a question; does science ever prove anything correct, or does it just seek to disprove theories? What then does a theory which cannot be proved wrong by the logic structure alone mean? If a logical circle, for example, were theorized to be scientific fact, what would the scientific community do with it? Personally, I think they would accept it with open arms and hail the author as a scientific genius, lack of proof and all. Why do I believe this? They already have.
As I begin, let us not forget, as I fear mainstream science has, that the roots of modern science spring from philosophy and logic. This is why the logical circle has defeated modern scientists; they have forgotten and neglected their education in philosophy and reasoning.
So we come to it. Natural Selection cannot be tested; it is a logical trap. Whether Charles Darwin knew it was untestable when he posited the idea or not, it does not matter. But ever since he published this idea, it has never been tested and all the opposing ideas since Natural Selections publication have been logically ‘tested’ against Evolution, not Natural Selection. Interestingly enough, Erasmus Darwin, Charles’ grandfather, was one of the forerunners and proclaimed Evolution. Charles Darwin did not discover Evolution. Evolution was already gaining wide acceptance in Charles’ day and is not what is at the heart of this current debate.
The factual support for the theory of evolution is impressive… the evidence against it is usually discounted, until one new discovery or another is found which ties the theory back together, or forces us to revamp the entire evolutionary tree. Yes, this has happened countless times, but it does not mean that evolution is bunk; it does mean that we don’t know everything yet. If you are surprised, relax and realize that even though mankind still isn’t the see-all, end-all of knowledge, you will be alright.
Over two hundred years later, enter Intelligent Design. ‘ID’ is, in one form of definition or another, the same mechanism that ‘powered’ evolution before Natural Selection, ‘NS’, came along, (the time when Evolution was gaining wide acceptance between Erasmus Darwin and his contemporaries, and Charles Darwin and the advent of ‘NS’). For my purposes, we will define Intelligent Design as the most rudimentary definition possible; that ‘something’ with intelligence ‘guided’, (or planned- depending on the amount of intelligence you grant this individual/group), the evolution of species through controlling the environmental pressures or by actually manipulating the genetic structure.
If you have followed this argument so far, you might have already made the logical leap of understanding that the only difference between NS and ID is that the proponents of ID believe there is ‘God’ behind the environmental pressures that so perfectly guided us to this point, while the proponents of NS believe that the environmental pressures simply were, and that ‘God’ had nothing to do with it. This, though others may dispute, is the base definition of each, when laid bare. Take the fluff away, this is where it starts and ends.
But neither is science. That is my argument. Neither one is provable, disprovable, or even testable. In fact, I don’t believe either has ever been properly tested. It is impossible to do so.
To test the theory of Natural Selection, one must control, view, and record all stimuli working in the test… but wait, isn’t that the definition of ID? If you ascribe to quantum physics, and believe that an experiment on NS would only require you to simply watch, it gets even better, because the simple act of observation forces a certain probability to be. Again, you have only proved ID.
By the same token, you cannot test ID without becoming ridiculously entwined in your own control scheme; for as a true test of NS would mean endless, currently unknown variables and require you to never see the results, a true test of ID would require you to remove all chance of failure, (are you ‘intelligent’ enough?), therefore there is no variable that would allow NS to break ID, thus invalidating any results for each. (Let’s not even touch the questions of time, or if quantum physics and probabilities are testable.)
So how did these circles get into science in the first place? Who let them in? Well, this is the problem. While NS, and ID, (and quantum physics with probabilities), all adequately explain what we currently are able to observe, without the ability to test them they leave us nowhere to go; writing on a brick wall, not a springboard.
The only function that NS performs that ID does not is atheism. While I believe that anyone should be able to believe what they want, and that people want to have an answer to at least one of the great questions of life, I don’t believe that an endorsement of a fundamentally flawed explanation should be allowed to survive or be accepted in modern science.
We can’t afford to ignore this problem. Though this is not the only logical trap in science, it is one of the most frustrating. If we (as a society) ignored all the things we could not explain, or attribute to God, with a blanket statement of ‘for what we know now, it doesn’t need to exist, therefore it doesn’t’, we would not have discovered the atom or radio waves or ac vs. dc electricity or plastics or DNA or whatever.
Am I the only one that is disappointed that we have not answered many of the questions of the origins and evolutions of life, and that the accepted and defended theory which is taught to everyone, seems to be a logical trap – and we have not tested this theory, or refined it, in over two hundred years? Every other facet of science has progressed infinitely in comparison during this time, because they were allowed to be questioned.
But who can question NS and not be banned from ‘Science’ and branded an apologetic religious nut?