Scientific Facts

Evolution is a scientific fact. Science sets the standard for what qualifies as a fact, and the theory of evolution satisfies that standard with plenty of room to spare.

Scientific facts are useful because they are both consistent and predictable in the realm of other scientific facts. It’s good to know that A + B = C if you want to make a new batch of C. But is a scientific fact the same as being true?

Sometimes a scientific fact is falsified by newer and better science. That’s how science works. So while we assume it is rare, a scientific fact can be false in reality, especially in the short run.

Thinkers through the centuries have pointed out that human brains are not suited for interpreting reality. Our five senses can detect only a few forms of energy fluctuations in our general vicinity, and every person interprets the same inputs differently. If ten people witness a crime, you can end up with ten different descriptions of what happened.

Our memories become even less reliable over time. Do you remember your actual 12th birthday, or do you only remember the photograph of it that you saw in the photo album? There’s no way to know.

It’s a scientific fact that most, if not all, of our major decisions are made independent of logic. For example, if one of the major religions is “true,” it means that 70% of the world, or more, are living their lives based on a hallucination – they picked the wrong interpretation of God. And the people who are wrong are no less certain of their rightness than the people who are right, if indeed anyone is right. Certainty is a poor guide to truth.

Human brains perceive time as linear, and space in three dimensions. But it’s a scientific fact that reality is far more complicated. Perhaps there are ten other dimensions. Gravity is a bending of space-time, whatever that means. How about the forward arrow of time? Is it a feature of reality, or just a point of view? How would a human brain sort out the difference? It’s like trying to fit the ocean in a teacup.

You can distinguish the front of your dog from his back because we all agree that the front is the part with the face. But dogs have no natural front and back. It’s just our point of view that they do, because it’s useful to think of things that way. Time is similar. We favor the here-and-now because our senses can’t interact with the past or future. Our perceptions of truth are built around what is practical, not what is true. Even the smartest human brain doesn’t have the capacity for discerning true facts. That’s why so many of us settle for scientific facts. It’s the best we can do.

Some of you will say that I’m inventing a phrase “scientific fact,” and that’s right. But you know what I mean in this context. You also know that it’s a scientific fact that scientific facts don’t need to be true.

Evolution is a scientific fact. Truth is unavailable. Hallucinations fill the void.

Comments

[GaryB]

IMHO ... not so humble ... at ~ our mass, size and speeds, we perceive the world fairly accurately. That is, to perceive it in x-ray as a giant clustering of quantum states does not help you escape being a tiger's lunch. The world at our level is perceived fairly accurately by we humans. This level of perception afforded uses for problem solving in 3D etc that extends surprisingly far into other areas of reality ... and it definitely has gaps and almost certainly has limits -- apes are pretty good at 3D reasoning too, but Shakespeare readings are just a funny kind of purring humans do. We *must* suffer from similar limits.

Our one advantage over just apes is self-knowledge/self-simulation so that it is possible to know that we probably don't know all. This is why our robots will eventually know more ... and their robots...

Shoot, the truth is, we're probably already living in some simulation ... one hopes it wasn't just some student project now sitting on a shelf somewhere.

[Mani]

Arguing that our perceptions of reality may be inaccurate is worthless unless you can give us evidence to assert that they are, at least probably, so unreliable that we cannot use them to ascertain functional models of trends in reality.

It's a fun (and occasionally worthwhile) mental exercise to remind ourselves of the assumptions we make in interpreting reality (one being that there is an objective reality to be interpreted in the first place), and thus curb fallacies in those interpretations.

The fact that our understanding is limited - and perhaps to some degree inaccurate - does not mean it isn't workable, nor does it mean it is wrong, nor does it specify in what ways it is wrong and to what degree and why.

I'm annoyed to hear people say "scientific fact." The connotation in that phrase is "told to us by experts," which leads to the all-too-common implication that "scientific facts" and thus science cannot be trusted because it is just hearsay from experts.

There are no "scientific facts." Science is a method, not a category - and a pretty universal method: it applies, functionally, to all objective reality (insofar as we can know it). Anything that can be rightly called a "fact" is a "scientific fact"; the phrase is at best redundant with misleading connotations. "Science" isn't a category of reality which is told to us by experts. It isn't even a body of knowledge.

Kudos for the meditation, but I wish people with loud speakerphones and big audiences gave the complete picture.

[Chris]

I Like You :)

You can't argue with Science bitches!!

(science being the process you just described not the "facts"...the whole point of science is that "facts" are best explanation given available evidence until new evidence comes along)(and that just killed all the impact I might have had, but I always prefer clarity it seems)

Oh and it is useful/logical to define the front of the dog the way that we do because it corresponds to a dogs usual direction of travel.

[Byron]

Fact in normal usage means somethings that is definitely true. However if you redefine fact as something that is provisionally true then there is no problem. Personally I would not use that term. See for example the article that appeared in Physics in Canada:

http://trshare.triumf.ca/~jennings/PhysicsInCanada-63-2007-7.pdf

[Prime Minister Dingley Dan]

"If you make the same guess often enough, it ceases to be a guess and becomes Scientific Fact." - C.S. Lewis, several decades ago.

[youtube]

thats super information

[Matt B]

Evolution to me appears to suffer from the same problem as other known 'scientific facts' like;
* Comets are dirty snowballs
* The craters on the moon are cause by impacts
* The solar system looks pretty much like it did now millions of years ago.

We're stuck with evolution in science because there's no other real alternative that doesn't challenge your (assuming you're a scientist) personal beliefs. Unless you're a Christian / Islamic scientist, in which case you're a scientific fool if you blindly clinging to 'Creation' for which there is 'no scientific evidence'.

The fossil record puports to generally show organism complexity growing over time. From my limited understanding of Intelligent Design - that would fit very nicely with the concept (although somewhat sacriligious to current doctrine) where God improved on his design over time. Perhaps he was taking previous creatures and 'morphing' them into a more complex one. The difference with this vs evolution is that you could accept larger gaps in the fossil record as we could assume God could handle the complexity of making a few changes simulataneously.

Besides - the Bible already has somewhat of a precedent for that.. He took Adam's rib to make Eve. Specifically a bone, which contains marrow, which generates other cells...

[Matt B]

Evolution to me appears to suffer from the same problem as other known 'scientific facts' like;
* Comets are dirty snowballs
* The craters on the moon are cause by impacts
* The solar system looks pretty much like it did now millions of years ago.

We're stuck with evolution in science because there's no other real alternative that doesn't challenge your (assuming you're a scientist) personal beliefs. Unless you're a Christian / Islamic scientist, in which case you're a scientific fool if you blindly clinging to 'Creation' for which there is 'no scientific evidence'.

The fossil record puports to generally show organism complexity growing over time. From my limited understanding of Intelligent Design - that would fit very nicely with the concept (although somewhat sacriligious to current doctrine) where God improved on his design over time. Perhaps he was taking previous creatures and 'morphing' them into a more complex one. The difference with this vs evolution is that you could accept larger gaps in the fossil record as we could assume God could handle the complexity of making a few changes simulataneously.

Besides - the Bible already has somewhat of a precedent for that.. He took Adam's rib to make Eve. Specifically a bone, which contains marrow, which generates other cells...

[Bytesage]

Peter said it better than anyone .. that is if you want to make the religious right feel dumb(er) ... then again I tend toward the (sarcastic?) Church of the FSM (Pastafarism?)

Anyways he said it so well, I'll quote him here :)

[Why does no one ever realize that evolution is a fantastic invention for a deity...

My God (the one who invented Evolution) invented a system so clever it could adapt itself to deal with any eventuality perfectly. That way he could take most of the rest of enternity off to feel smug and chat to his prophets when no one else was looking.

Pete]

[Matt B]

Re: 70% of the world or more disagree with your religion.

But since Christianity (33%) & Islam (21%) stem from beliefs (somewhat differing granted) about the same God (Judaism does too - but at 0.22% it doesn't really factor from a size perspective), then 54% of the world might be onto something. Particularly if God is not so doctrinally caught up as to say that only one of those religions is 'the only way'.

Petty humans though are known to fight over skin colour...so he has to be long suffering anyway.

[Peter]

Why does no one ever realise that evolution is a fantastic invention for a deity...

My God (the one who invented Evolution) invented a system so clever it could adapt itself to deal with any eventuality perfectly. That way he could take most of the rest of enternity off to feel smug and chat to his prophets when no one else was looking.

Pete

[Peter]

Why does no one ever realise that evolution is a fantastic invention for a deity...

My God (the one who invented Evolution) invented a system so clever it could adapt itself to deal with any eventuality perfectly. That way he could take most of the rest of enternity off to feel smug and chat to his prophets when no one else was looking.

Pete

[Janos Csongor]

Hi Scott,

I get the part where you challenge "ultimate truths" and say they should be challenged; after all, that's how the world moves forward (human's world, anyhoo); I even work at a place where we promote the idea that no one is in posession of the ultimate truth (on a social/political level, not in schmience, but that's not the point here). Not being a scientist, I can also easily accept that you list evolution among these "truths".
What I don't get is how you mix writing a damn interesting piece on human perception, and mix this whole evolution thing into it, without a clear connection (clear to me, anyway). It is almost as if two separate articles were copied together. Note that I am not even implying that you are not the original author of said blog entry, I am just trying to metaphorize the lack of connection in my mind.
So, does this lack of perception make me an induhvidual?

[Carl_Spackler]

Here's what I've found talking to people that don't believe (a.k.a. don't understand) what evolution is or means:

Anti-evo: There is no way that 1+1=3.
Evo: It does if you add it twice.
Anti-evo: What does that even mean?
Evo: 1+1+1=3
Anti-evo: That's true, but that's not what evolution states.
Evo: What does evolution state?
Anti-evo: That 1+1=3.
Evo: It does if you add it twice.

You can substitute free will and anti-free will and you'll find a similar conversation.

Ultimately what you end up with is two people talking about a subject without properly defining what the subject is first. In the end both people are correct, but neither would admit that the other is right.

[MB]

Absolutely true... science aims to find the root truth of how things work, but everything is necessarily seen through "human-sense-colored" glasses, so to speak.

Here's a thought experiment my sister and I developed: What if every person saw colors differently, that is, the color "red" is called "red" because that's what we learned, but what if you see and interpret "red" as what I see as blue? There is no way to tell, because we've both always called that color "red" even though, if I could get behind your eyes, I would interpret what you're seeing as blue. Sensory measurements, which are the foundation of science, are always like that. We can come up with a definition, "red", but that doesn't mean it's true, even among different people, let alone cosmic truth.

[Tom]

"Before you stand on Evolution (its proper name is Darwinism)" --Matt

No, It's proper name is "Evolution By Natural Selection".

[Matt]

Scott;

Before you stand on Evolution (its proper name is Darwinism), I suggest you read _The Politically Incorrect Guide to Evolution & Intelligent Design_.

While you may or may not agree with ID, the book does a complete analysis of Darwinism and clearly illustrates its failings as a theory.

Matt

[Stratobot]

Science is just another way of trying to find the truth, right?

The only problem is that the very nature of science is to disprove things. It is not capable of proving anything.

Accepted scientific fact is just the theory that they haven't disproved yet.

Oh and religion is an attempt to do the same, right? My only issue with it is that a lot of religions tend towards "the universe was created for humans". Something potentially infinite in size for a species that only exists on one planet that will likely never inhabit such a large space. I have to admit, that's a little egotistical.

[Greg M.]

The same weasels who indoctrinated us in the 60's with mutually irreconcilable shibboleths ('truth is unavailable';'evolution is fact') were likely the same weasels who frightened us with scenarios of global cooling (remember the picture of the icebergs in NY harbor?). I've done time both in college and in the military. In the military everyone knew everyone else was a weasel, and it was kind of fun. But the college folk took B.F.Skinner, Machiavelli, Marx and the Huxleys seriously, as if they had actually achieved some sort of truthness, and were not merely writing wonderful comic material. Do we really expect to gain truth (or even factual knowledge) from weasels who tell me that the interior of the sun is 27,499,990 degrees F.?

[West]

Scott Adams, if your point is that I don't know whether I share common ancestors with all the chimpanzees that are alive today, you are mistaken. I do know that I share common ancestors with all the chimpanzees that are alive today. Either I share common ancestors with all the chimpanzees that are alive today, or I do not. And I do. Here is a link to an article that presents some of the kinds of reasons that have helped some people know that all the humans alive today share common ancestors with all of the chimpanzees that are alive today:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

I also recommend Ernst Mayr's book What Evolution Is.

[Keith]

Great post!

(Laughing out loud at some responses niggling on definition of "fact".)

[MonkeyBoy]

Evolution doesn't even qualify as a theory, because a theory has to explain ALL the relevant facts. Here's a few which make evolution impossible, and for which the theory doesn't even attempt to account:

1. Photosynthesis cannot occur absent the presence of a chlorophyll molecule. Photosynthesis is the only chemical reaction capable of creating such a molecule. Which came first?

2. Amino acids exist in both right-hand and left-hand versions, which behave chemically identically. Proteins in life use only left-hand amino acids. There's no way to chemically sort left from right, so life is simply impossible to explain from a chemical perspective.

3. There is ABSOLUTELY no evidence yet on record of any species evolving into any other species. The Horse Series is a classic fraud: 18 ribs, then 19, then back to 15, then up again to 18? Drivel, absolute drivel. Even the different museums and textbooks choose different non-horse small animals to offer as ancestors of the modern horse. The complete absence of any intermediate-stage fossil, especially in rich fossil beds which preserve an unbroken record of local deaths, means that there is good reason to assume that there were no intermediate-development animals. Why, for instance, are there no snake fossils with short fangs, showing the development from no fangs to long fangs? It's because there never were such snakes.

I don't care what theory you come up with, it has to follow the rules of science. At this point, it's scientifically accurate and correct to say, "We have no clue. Not even a small one."

I'm not espousing Creationism or Intelligent Design or Alien Seeding or anything else: I'm telling you I know crap when I smell it, and evolution is crap on every level.

[Steve Ferry]

Evolution is a fact in the same way that gravity is. Darwin's theory of natural selection by descent is the basis of the best explanation we have of it just as Einstein's theories of relativity and space time try to explain gravity.

Did God create us? The Jatravartid People of Viltvodle Six firmly believe that the entire universe was sneezed out of the nose of a being called The Great Green Arkleseizure. They live in perpetual fear of the time they call The Coming Of The Great White Handkerchief.

Anyway to claim God created us only pushes the problem back a stage. Who created God? My eight year old nephew asked me this the other day. Out of the mouths of babes!

We're not here by accident but as a byproduct of inevitable physical and chemical processes. Ultimately life is only the universe's way of speeding up entropy. The fact that we are capable of believing in things like God and Oprah Winfrey doesn't mean that they exist.

Tell you what. If God exists then, when you die, ask him to give me a sign. He'll know how to find me. Let's say a tap dancing wildebeest could deliver me a pizza. Pepperoni, olives and sweetcorn please, make sure it's thin crust. Or maybe he'll be to busy being ineffable or something.

[Sa Tre]

This sounds suspiciously like existentialism.

[Len]

Skeptical Fanboy, what does the first S in TToSETNS stand for? It's not in your explanation.

Your para "Virtually all scientists who've studied the topic agree..." is more an argument for natural selection. When the environment changed, the moths and finches you mention either adapted (finches) or died (moths).

This is an example of what often happens when people want so much to believe in their religion of evolution. They say "look at the moths and finches. That proves evolution happens. Therefore, it also proves (to use an example from an earlier blog) that a dog can have kittens." Show me the proof.

[mdc]

Actually, evolution is a scientific theory. That means it hasn't been proven wrong yet, but it could be. Gravity is a scientific fact (or law). Quit harping on evolution. Just because you can't remember your 12th birthday doesn't make evolution not real.

[Jerry McLellan]

"Evolution is a scientific fact. Truth is unavailable. Hallucinations fill the void."

I was with you until you got to this. I like the Lego castle analogy from another post. Not only are scientists constantly pulling bricks out of the castle, they are replacing them with better bricks as they come available, making the castle even stronger.

The whole "truth" of evolution may not be available, but the scientific community is constantly striving to reach it.

It is my understanding that we "think" in patterns, and when our brains don't have a full picture, our brains fill in the gaps. Is this hallucination? Unfortunately, much of our religion works this way. "I don't know why (fill in the blank) happens, therefore God must have done it." Using your logic, God is a hallucination. If science is hallucinated, and God is hallucinated, aren't we all just a part of the Matrix?

[George Gooney]

Man this global warming is killing me. I'm freezing my ass off.

[Dwai Lahiri]

Hi Scott,

Interesting thoughts there. Seems like 'almost' everytime I visit your blog, I come across something that I was discussing with some "antagonists" online (or otherwise).
:)

The realities we interpret are apparently just "conditioned" programmatic interpretation of our sensory data (5% of all the sensory data at that) by our Left-brain's interpreter module.

A very interesting article in this matter --

http://medhajournal.com/columns/indic-classics-and-bio-cultures/the-biocultural-paradigm-the-neural-connection-between-science-and-mysticism.html

would shed some insight into why is it that different people interpret realities in different ways.

Also, raising the question -- is there any "Ultimate reality"?

Regards,

Dwai

[WuShu Fitz]

OK, Scott, you are a great cartoonist and humorist, but stick to that or take some courses in science and philosophy before trying to redefine a term like scientific fact. Evolution is a theory that seeks to explain observation. For now its the best that we have and much better than the several Hebraic myths of creation in the bible. I would not call it a fact. You could say its a fact that they have found fossilized bones that are similar to humans, but our explanation of them is a theory. Nothing wrong with theory. Electro-magnetic theory allows me to send this to you, so it works, but it could be superceded by other theories in the future.

[concatenator]

What is 'scientific fact'? Just some predictable, repeatable phenomenon. Doesn't mean we understand it completely, just that we have grasped enough of it to manipulate it to certain ends of our own. And even while it seems to be working to that extent of meeting our goals, it is probably creating unexpected unpredictable side effects to other things we are not watching. Which is why 99% of scientific 'facts' can only be observed/demonstrated independently under the extreme conditions of the lab. Show me a quark right here in broad daylight, and I'll eat my words.

Yes, theories (not hallucinations) fill the void. Its a hallucination only if you search for the truth, and think you found it.

I don't think most of us are even being practical, just wishful.

Our only aim in life is to not look like an idiot.

How do I know you're writing this blog? It could be some intern you hired when you got tired of blogging every day. That's one theory. Another is this is really Scott Adams himself. I just go with the theory that allows me to respond with comments without feeling like an idiot.

The Concatenator

[Stargoat]

Wow. The levels of vitriol in some of these responses reaches the point of impressive. But the defense of the indefensible typically requires that most unique stench of defensiveness, willful ignorance, and just plain zealotry. So being the fool I am, I find I must contribute.

As theories, facts, and truths are social constructs, they must be interpreted as such. Or to put it otherwise, there is no verifiable proof of the existence of a higher power, despite it being the chief occupation of humanity for the past ten thousand years. There has been nothing but support for the Theory of Evolution, despite the desperate attacks against it for the past one hundred fifty years. The rational mind, regardless of calling it fact, theory, or truth, can only interpret these conclusions one way.

[Sam D]

Scott and humble masses there is a decent book out on how the mind works with things like memory and time: “Stumbling on Happiness” by Daniel Gilbert. I listened to it on my ipod, and I think it was available on audible if you are so inclined.

[Plod]

The principal difference between scientific fact and any other bollocks floating around claiming to be the truth, is that the scientists are at least making an effort to look for "la verité", and not just taking for granted stuff that has been spoon-fed to them from an ideological tenet or any other man-made pile of baboon poo!

[Joshua]

I've noticed that Scott, that 30% of your blog readers are dopes, 40% are pompous asses, and 20% "normal"

THe other 10% pecent?
Half are Europeans who always posts "Just like you Americans, blah blah blah"
And the other half just post "Well, I have no free will anyway...." months after that blog entry passed.

[Sam Thornton]

All truth is relative. Or so my cousin tells me.

[brian]

Alright,

So our consciousness - the part of you that sits behind those eyes and believes it is in control - is in a constant state of receiving input and predicting what will happen next. Comparing the predictions with the next set of received inputs.

We direct our various outer appendages to do things, they do them, and then our brain receives the input and compares what it thought should have happened to what actually happened (based on sensory input). We have a working memory of only a couple seconds - and we can only process 2 or 3 things simultaneously (I suspect we have different states, in Fight or Flight mode, more parts of our awareness come on line). This is consciousness. Actively working on trying to make our inputs match expected and predicted patterns. Our subconsciousness is working also in there, with larger bigger patterns over larger time scales.

We have "free-will" if only in the sense that we are in a state of constantly requesting our bodies and sections of the brain to do things, and comparing the results to what we perceived. There is no higher meaning, there are no Gods - we are complicated animals and we strive to piece the pieces together so that all the patterns are aligned. (or not - based on brain chemistry).

There are certain states - meditation is a state where you are bringing the expected and the actual closer together, making a finer loop. Meditate in a stance, with a mantra, staring at a flame in a dark room - you are effectively controlling your inputs with the ocular input completely rewired to the side of the brain that experiences time, and can overload it.

So far, I've not seen one research paper or book on intelligence that doesn't support this view. This is how we "work". Throw in the current research on addictions - where a part of your brain is deciding what it needs and is telling the movement center what to do, our consciousness just riding along - pattern recognition is somehow "good" in our brains, so even though we know we shouldn't smoke that crack, we do - because we know where that path will lead.

Does this make any sense to anyone else though? It has taken quite a few reworks to see this pattern.

Bri

[Dalebert]

Many scientists feel they have to show more confidence than they really have in the specific theory of Natural Selection. I think they're very confident of evolution but realize there are holes (so far) in Natural Selection and the fossil record. The reason they feel this burning need is because they have to argue with Creationists who have FAITH. Unfortunately, by showing such confidence, they're not being very scientific. Both sides are really obnoxious and pushy, if you ask me. I don't think the world is coming to an end if some parents, due to their religious beliefs, manage to prevent their kids being taught something that directly contradicts their religion, however silly their religious beliefs may be.

[Mark]

Excellent post! Now I don't know what I'm living for... I'll get back to you on that one.

[Paul H.]

If I just double-posted, please delete one of them.

[Paul H.]

"Truth is unavailable."

Truth is everywhere, always. It can't be unavailable. It is, however, ungraspable.

The truth can't be understood because understanding involves conceptualization. A concept is a different part of reality than whatever it represents.

If I represent chairs by the number 1, and cars by the number 2, and horses by the number 3, it makes sense that adding chairs to cars equals horses.

Of course, concepts are extremely useful and practical in everyday life. My concept of a car doesn't come close to the reality of what my car is, my understanding of a clock doesn't come near describing a clock, and my concept of time doesn't match what time is. However, with a clock and my car, I can get to work on time. It's all too easy to forget to see the concepts for what they are, and that I'm living in an illusory world I create; while the real world is always present.

[Dalebert]

The wisest among us have always known that the one true religion has been perverted; that the pope was meant to be a descendant of St. Peter, who was actually a rabbit.

[whatever]

I used to think you were an intelligent person. This entry is the last I read from this blog.

[mike]

There's an interesting article by Asimov called "The Relativity of Wrong" you might enjoy reading some time.

In summary - we were wrong when we thought the earth was flat, we were wrong when we thought the earth was spherical, and we're probably wrong now thinking of it as an ellipsoid... but which of those was more wrong.

And that is the essence of science - we're always wrong, but we're hopefully approaching the "truth."

[Jason Dumler]

You know, we may be programmed for what's practical, but that doesn't mean we always go with it. It's not very practical to have the realization that what I'm seeing is not the universe out there, but rather a three dimensional reconstruction of the universe in my head, based on sensory input that can be easily fooled. It's not very practical to walk around with the realization that there are thousands of things my eyes aren't seeing, and my brain is just filling in the empty spaces with what it thinks is the right stuff. It's very distracting.

It's even more distracting to realize that something could be sitting in my kitchen with me, but it could be so alien and different that my brain would be incapable of recreating it in the three dimensional reconstruction. That's not very practical at all.

To Bob - you have a better chance of Scott Adams emailing you than pretty much any other famous person. I personally know of instances where he's emailed people with non-canned responses that actually had something to do with their emails or posts.

[kash]

The world of our sense is transient, anything and everything perceived by our senses will change. Why try to grasp on to something that is "not going to be there" anyway. What is that, that which does not change with time ?

Science, as we know today is "pattern recognition" of these transient phenomenon. It sees a pattern in the external world perceived by our senses, sees if it is repeatable and then tries to capture it with an underlying theorem. It then tries to extrapolate the theorem beyond the original patterns, and if unsuccesfull comes up with newer, more comprehensive "pattern recognitions".

All creatures in nature, including humans, are constantly trying to get to a "better state" which mostly constitutes a less insecure and more pleasurable state. This is the pattern we observe "today". It is possible that this same pattern has existed and resulted in creatures evolving from a lower to a higher form. What is that state that one is seeking where one reaches the culmination of this search.?

Kash

[craig]

You made a mistake.

Any scientist will tell you that evolution is a theory (an explanation or interpretation of facts) not a fact which is why it is called the theory of evolution. Other than that good post

[G. H. Diel]

Amen.

[Palaeobill]

Given that you have the time and money, I have a suggestion for you. Go to college and take a science degree. Any one will do. Then perhaps you will stop talking crap.

[Lamark]

A bit OTT, but in response to Chris and Notralph below. Measurements of skeletons from before the Black Death show that people from the middle ages were of similar height to modern humans from about 40 years ago. After the Black Death average heights dropped off dramatically. ( data was from britain only)

There's a lot of reasons why some ( not all) suits of armour you may see in museums are small, yes, some were made to show off the craftsmans' work, some were also made for young nobles who were still growing. All in all I'd tend to believe direct bone measurements over indirect assumptions based on door sizes.

Of course average heights have risen in the last 40 years, so I guess strictly speaking people from the middle ages were smaller than people living today.

[wernman]

I know what you're trying to say, and I hear you. But I must point that evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics, is not supported by the fossil record, carbon dating has been proven false, etc, etc, etc. Evolution is very far from having scientific support. The only "science" supporting evolution is that to an atheist the alternative is unthinkable. Talk about hallucinations.

[Andrew]

Well, in following your reasoning, one needs to notice that even the words are not properly real; just like there is not a front part of which dogs are aware. This happens also to us, what we call people; how many times do people use the same word to express different meanings? How many misunderstanding are caused by different emotional meanings we associate to words?

What is then a scientific fact? What is fact? Don't you agree that in fact we don't know anything?

Very Socratic, isn't it?

[Andrew]

Excellent post Bane. I wonder what Scott made of it. There's so much confusion and sloppy thinking around in relation to science.

What's so bad about the current situation is that this confusion and sloppy thinking is being fostered by people who have considerable power and a lot of money. The ID brigade, for example.

Luckily the IDers and creationists haven't made much of a mark on this side of the pond - our very low rates of church attendance/belief help to ensure that's the case.

But I do fear for America's future: if this anti-science/anti-scientist mind-set continues to throttle the minds of your young people, what future for America's great science and engineering driven businesses - and economy - I wonder?

[james]

And thanx to kominetz for all the diction. snore.

[james]

Hallucinations like free will? Or hallucinations like it doesn't exist? Which is it? Will we ever know? And will I ever really care if it does or not?
Some people seem absolutely passionate about the existence of freewill. Others are in stout disagreement (like you.) I just don't care. If it does or doesn't, we all keep living and going.
Or is that my hallucination?

[Hoddy]

>>But dogs have no natural front and back

Doo what, Scott?

A while ago, a pet dog went to attack a soldier, on guard at a military base.
He stabbed it with his bayonet, killing it.
The owner sued.
In court, the owner's lawyer asked the soldier: "Why did you not beat the dog off with the butt of your rifle, rather than using the bayonet?"
The soldier responded: "Why did the dog not attack me with its tail?"

Dogs have "a natural front and back" just like a rifle has a front and a back. The wordd describes the role/ purpose/ function. Very few dogs chase cars ass first or approach their food bowl backwards.

So, semantically, a dog DOES have a natural front and back...

Hoddy

[Andreas Toscano]

Though the post offers no "conclusion", I liked it.
Not much of a comment...

A

[Kevin Kunreuther]

Time to break out the bottle of wine and some cheeses and crackers, invite some friends over and have an avatar discussion. Imperfect beings that we are, our perception of the universe and how we interact with this perceived universe is being hampered by everyday trivia and distractions, otherwise called "noise". Since we appear to be the creators of this "noise", I wonder if we are being manipulated unawares to keep ourselves distracted as a species, to weed out those who are unaffected by this "noise", who move on up to the next level of awareness or cognizance.
The "noise" can be a barrage of mediated experiences, unavoidable cacophonies of human activities, waves and sheets of titillations and sensations in a cascade of bombardments assaulting our nervous systems, masking the true nature and scope of the universe. Those that can not be overwhelmed by the noise but can contemplate and realize the tremendous entirety of creation itself, its purpose and one's point of relevance to the general mishmash of existence results in either a beatific inscrutable calm or complete nervous breakdown, resulting in a massive paranoiac pantophobic reaction, refocusing and reconstituting the psyche into a paradigm of xenophobic proportions.
This, unfortunately, is going to happen quite a lot in the coming century. A lot of these paradigmatic quixotes will have just enough charisma to convince enough bloodthirsty sheep to commit grand scale atrocities to exact revenge against a large unfeeling universe. Interestingly enough, the inscrutable calm beatific ones will remain unaffected by such upheavals, accepting such episodes as part and parcel of the pre-ordained chaos of the universe.

[WCE]

Sorry I didn't post sooner, I read your entry earlier today and felt it was so obviously correct that I didn't expect any controversy from it.

Funny how the closer one gets to obvious truths, the more virulent the responses get.

[Joce]

"In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know
that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,'
and then they actually change their minds and you never
hear that old view from them again. They really do it.
It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists
are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens
every day. I cannot recall the last time something like
that happened in politics or religion."

- Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP keynote address

[Joy]

Hi Scott, that was interesting reading. I just thought I'd add something that my cousin (who's a doctor) told me. He said that there is no proof that everyone sees the colours in the same way. That means, the way my brain sees "Green" maybe very different from the way your brain sees "Green". Maybe the way your brain sees "Green" is the way I see "Red". But we manage to agree as from early childhood we have been taught what is red and what is green. So we call the same colours by the same names, irrespective of the mental image they form.

[Icomey]

So, I wrote a haiku based on your last line.

Scientific fact
Truth is unavailable
Hallucinations

[Brad K.]

Interesting that so many oppositions to evolution, the summary Charles Darwin came up with, to try to explain his observations that Stuff Happens. And species seem to adapt, change form, change habits, change appearance.

I figure evolution and the rest of science comes under the homily, 'render unto caesar', etc. When considering beliefs the story will be one of the versions of creation. When in the lab, the story will look more like evolution.

BTW, the phrase is 'the sons of Adam'. Who did the sons of Adam marry, weren't there any daughters, and was there a marriage, or just, well, like when God presented Eve to Adam and said 'Here. I made this for you.' Was that an arranged marriage, social pressure, or just 'huh, you're cute, let's do it.'

[Bilious Prudence]

A smart guy paraphrased:

...all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration ... we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There's no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we're the imagination of ourselves...

BP.

[you'd what?!]

Scott, since when has evolution become a scientific fact and not a naturalistic hypothesis?

[Mike T]

Reminded me of Plato

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

[~C4Chaos]

"Our perceptions of truth are built around what is practical, not what is true. Even the smartest human brain doesn’t have the capacity for discerning true facts. That’s why so many of us settle for scientific facts. It’s the best we can do."

bravo Uncle Scott. but what i really wanted to know is, on what spectrum are you in the God Debate? check out this link:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17889148/site/newsweek/

i don't mean for you have to pick on each side exclusively. but let's say you have $100, and you have to use it all up by putting a bet between Warren and Harris, how much bet would you put on each camp? a bet of $50-$50 is not a valid bet.

same question goes to all you Dilbert blog trolls out there ;)

~C

[~C4Chaos]

"Our perceptions of truth are built around what is practical, not what is true. Even the smartest human brain doesn’t have the capacity for discerning true facts. That’s why so many of us settle for scientific facts. It’s the best we can do."

bravo Uncle Scott. but what i really wanted to know is, on what spectrum are you in the God Debate? check out this link:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17889148/site/newsweek/

i don't mean for you have to pick on each side exclusively. but let's say you have $100, and you have to use it all up by putting a bet between Warren and Harris, how much bet would you put on each camp? a bet of $50-$50 is not a valid bet.

same question goes to all you Dilbert blog trolls out there ;)

~C

[bill]

It would appear that I have walked into a room full of people getting physical exams. That is the only explanation I can come up with for all the knee jerk reactions to words such as "evolution" and "fact."

Scott is right in stating that evolution is a fact. That debate is over. It happened.

What is still unknown, however, is the nature of the engine that drove it. It is unproven that accidental mutations filtered through natural selection are a sufficient explanation for evolution. Using examples like drug resistant bacteria to try to prove development of humans from single-celled creatures runs afoul of the fallacy of composition.

This being the case, the thoughtful believer can still posit that God or a superior intelligence of some kind guided evolution, ex. the monolith from 2001: a Space Odyssey.

In regards to the differences between the major religions, Scott is guilty here of engaging in fallacious, all or none thinking. He ignores significant areas of overlap, ex. the universality of moral precepts, belief in an afterlife, and the fact that the three major monotheistic religions all worship the same God. In fact, prominent theologians from all three faiths have acknowledged that Jews, Christians and Muslims all serve, love and experience the exact same Deity. The Catholic Catechism goes as far as to say that devout Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, etc.,can obtain salvation by following the truths found in their traditions.

Given this, it is more accurate to say that one religion may have the largest amount of truth, but that all the great faiths are ultimately true as well.

[bill]

It would appear that I have walked into a room full of people getting physical exams. That is the only explanation I can come up with for all the knee jerk reactions to words such as "evolution" and "fact."

Scott is right in stating that evolution is a fact. That debate is over. It happened.

What is still unknown, however, is the nature of the engine that drove it. It is unproven that accidental mutations filtered through natural selection are a sufficient explanation for evolution. Using examples like drug resistant bacteria to try to prove development of humans from single-celled creatures runs afoul of the fallacy of composition.

This being the case, the thoughtful believer can still posit that God or a superior intelligence of some kind guided evolution, ex. the monolith from 2001: a Space Odyssey.

In regards to the differences between the major religions, Scott is guilty here of engaging in fallacious, all or none thinking. He ignores significant areas of overlap, ex. the universality of moral precepts, belief in an afterlife, and the fact that the three major monotheistic religions all worship the same God. In fact, prominent theologians from all three faiths have acknowledged that Jews, Christians and Muslims all serve, love and experience the exact same Deity. The Catholic Catechism goes as far as to say that devout Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, etc.,can obtain salvation by following the truths found in their traditions.

Given this, it is more accurate to say that one religion may have the largest amount of truth, but that all the great faiths are ultimately true as well.

[rd]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65_HJJfPVNg

[Simmy]

"Evolutionists say that they can't belive in intelligent design because it would require a miracle that could not be reproduced in a labratory. But evolution is another thing that cannot be tested experimentally, isn't this a doubel standard?"

I am agreen with you

[D. Mented]

We're looking through a gallery of photographs. I look into a small side room.
You ask "what's in there"
I answer "A picture of grey horses in a field."
I like horses, so I go in and look closer "It's two kinds of grey horses; Percherons and Arabians."
Does that added information prove the first statement false?
(for those of you who don't know horse breeds, Percherons and Arabians are both breeds of domestic horses, but they don't look alike - the Percherons are draft horses, and Arabians are smallish and agile riding horses. Both breeds can be grey, and Percherons almost always are)
We're studying evolution. The theory is based on survival and reproduction of the fittest.
Looking closer, we find that sometimes the process is slow, but when there are big changes, such as a climate shift, it can be relatively fast.
Does that added information prove the original theory false?
Maybe it's the speculative painting titled "the ascent of Man" showing a progression from ape to human in gradual and direct steps.
It was an influence on cultural attitudes toward evolution, but it was not the work of a scientist, just an artist's speculation on the subject.
I haven't heard of any serious scientist declaring that evolution was a direct line with no false starts or unsuccessful mutations, in fact, I was taught (in the 60's) that only the few successful mutations managed to domitate the gene pool, while most died out in one generation, and the rest were around for a while, but then faded away.
On the other hand, science in America these days is a big joke (the joke is,"we'll find any result you pay us to find!")
I have seen bits of information about how various studies in our generation have been done;
the one that found that spanking is violent abuse and inevitably leads to psychological scarring was HUGELY cooked at every step
So was the one that found that sugar has no effect on children's behavior.
There was only one distortion in the study that found that medical birth-control (anything but abstinence) is highly ineffective and abstinence is infallible but it was a big one:
They erased everybody from the study that had started with a committment to abstinence but then failed to abstain consistantly.
They counted everybody who started out committed to a medical form of birth control, but then failed to use it consistantly.
This voided all results, but they don't teach that when they take that study into abstinence-education class.
I saw one documentary about the famous study where people were asked to shock other people in a study of the learning process (and not told the other people were actors)
They dropped the information that 25% of the people who showed up refused to participate.
They played down the fact that 75% of those who did participate stopped the first time the actor sked them to stop and refused to continue. (they had all been told the "learners" were volunteers just like themselves, so when they said "stop" they became - in the test subjects' minds - non-volunteers)
The only results that were widely published were that most people got over their initial reluctance when an authority told them he'd take responsibility, and that some of them went on into ranges that were listed as painful, dangerous, or (a few went this far) fatal.
Puts a little differernt light on those results. I wonder if my own or younger generations would be as honorable if the expiriment were repeated today.
D. Mented

[terry k]

Truth? Facts? As a scientist I have no idea what you are talking about.

To understand what research is like, it is working on the edge of knowledge, observing some phenomenon that is sometimes fleeting (and all the time trying to understand why it is fleeting), one is always battling self doubt but at the same time needing to publish the observation along with some mechanism of how it occurs. Funding and more research does not follow unless some proclamation is stated and an explanation proposed (based on one's experiments) in a publication.

The "system" usually leads to simple and easily proveable explanations. May not be the "truth" but it helps us to creep forward (and sometimes backwards) to some explantion of the observed world.

[ShirtBloke]

My God, he's right about the dog......
http://jokes4all.net/funpics/doggy_style.jpg

[Bob]

What I don't understand is...

Congratulations, you've come up with the basic tenets of nihilism, that there is no objective existence, that all values are completely arbitrary, including such values as 'front', 'back', and by extension 'object' and and 'value'.

You've worked out that there is no such thing as objective truth, one man's truth may be another man's nonsense, and even that applies even to this statement. You've noted that even if there were such a thing as truth, our minds are completely incapable of comprehending it, being far more suited to catch things thrown at us and run after things rather than to understand the fundamental nature of the universe.

So, why the ideological support of pointless things like money, society and the discipline of restaurant workers, which are relics from people who hadn't developed their thinking as far as you have? You could possibly be slightly more free!

I'd be interested in your response, if you feel like emailing. Not that you will, but the offer's there.

[Bane]

So, exactly when did the Religion of Evolution become a 'fact', and not just another theory? Scott, if you're not already smoking pot, you may as well start, because that was perfect hippy pot-brain logic, right there.

Next you'll be jumping off the garage with a blanket for a cape, hollering "I'm Superman!"

Let me know how that whole 'Law' of Gravity thing works out for you. And that's not really your blood pouring down the driveway to the gutter, it's simply 'moist robot oil'. Hey, I think I'm beginning to see how this works, Mahatma!

[Good reading comprehension. -- Scott]

[kominetz]

“The test of all knowledge is experiment. Experiment is the sole judge of scientific truth.” -- Richard Feynman

Scientific FACTS like the Galapagos study, the fossil record, and comparative genetics SUPPORT the scientific THEORY of evolution. A scientific theory is well supported by many such facts and has proven to have great predictive value. The layman's notion of theory is more akin to hypothesis, the first seed of a theory that will thrive or die based on the facts.

A scientific fact is a repeatable result or a verifiable observation. The accumulation of supporting facts promotes hypothesis to theory to law; contradictory facts force theories to improve or be discarded. Facts don’t change as much as better instruments or deeper inquiry generates new facts that may further support or contradict standing ideas.

Science starts from uncertainty but gets more accurate with time: More facts improve good theories or kill off bad ones. Religion starts from absolutely certainty and can only go downhill from there: New facts contradict explanations of the physical world based on ideas thousands of years out of date. Consider the Catholic Church recanting on evolution and the sun-centered solar system. Science isn’t perfect, but at least it knows it and is trying to get closer.

[Diana W]

I like Hungry's analogy of religion being like food - I've always been inclined towards picking and chosing from a religious buffet. The only part where the analogy falls apart is that you can survive perfectly well without religion, as Scott can attest to.

[sung]

Interestingly, even Jesus tells us that "many" people who are certain that they're serving him are actually wrong.

(Matthew 7:22-23) 22 Many will say to me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and expel demons in your name, and perform many powerful works in your name?' 23 And yet then I will confess to them: I never knew you! Get away from me, you workers of lawlessness.

[Jez]

I don't think it is a correct or fair assumption that religiosity implies believing oneself to be right.

[Paul]

Any scientist who claims that scientific facts are absolute is an idiot. Every scientist agrees that facts are merely a collection of the most likely explanations.

[Richard Commin]

"Human brains perceive time as linear, and space in three dimensions."

Hi Scott some interesting facts about the brain you should know, only one half perceives time as linear.. can do maths/read/understands symbols/count/ name objects and logic the other half has no concept of time at all.. is artistic,has 3d perception.. motor movement.. but no language skills.. do some reading on what happens to people when they have had both hemispheres separated to prevent a type of epilepsy.. you will find the results very interesting.. I would like to hear what new musings these um scientific facts would create.

You actually have two systems of perceiving reality.. that often clash.. unfortunately the symbolic logic side likes to try and dominate and do tasks it just can't handle.. like playing sports or drawing or driving.. or concepts of how many leaves are in a tree.. your logic side can't cope with that and shuts down... which is needed in order to able to draw a realistic tree with thousands of leaves. I'm sure you've experienced the, "I'm doing really well at some task" and as soon as you've started thinking about it you stuff up.. well that's because the logic side is trying to rest control from the visual side. There're exercise you can do in order to get the logic side to shut up.. staring at a tree or anything that has more items than you can count usually works quite well.

Anyway I hope that gives you some food for thought.

[MommaSquid]

Scott, you said dogs have no natural front and back. Does this mean your dog, when called, walks toward you ass first? That would be a sight to see.

[zzyzxmo]

Pass that bong over here... I needa hit. The rest of the world is hallucinating and the only logical thing to do is catch up to it.

[Minister of Silly people in green]

Interesting reference frame you live in.

[Long Tsun]

"Scientific Facts" describe the closest we have come to truth at some point in time.

So who is aggressor animal now?

[Dingleberry Satchelcarry]

Just curious - what makes you think that "gotten" is a word? (o_O)

[Bruce IV]

One thing - all these posters citing 1+1=2 as scientific fact. Of course it is - Mathematics is a highly abstract discipline, with no intrinsic relevance to reality. It is only useful for describing all these "scientific facts" we have been talking about with precision. 1+1=2 because 2 is defined as 1+1. I could just as easily say Q + whackamole = {, where { is defined as Q + whackamole, and it would be completely mathematically correct. And useless, unless I assign some meaning to three of Q, +, whackamole, and {, and find their connection to the fourth. The lovely thing about mathematics is that something only has to be internally consistent to be declared mathematically true.

[rolphi]

Scientific theories do not become scientific laws based on standing the test of time. It is not like bills becoming laws in Congress.

Scientific laws are exact and defined by mathematics. The law of universal gravitation states that every single point mass attracts every other point mass by a force heading along the line combining the two. The force is proportional to the product of the two masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the point masses (from wikipedia).

This doesn't explain why this happens, but it is measurably, observably true in every way we've tested it. As for why, there are many competing theories of gravitation as to why the universe works this way, why we have a particular value for a gravitational constant, etc. Some theories are better than others, but none of them will be "promoted" to law.

[An historian]

I couldn't disagree more with your concluding line.
Science is a truth-seeking endeavor--like history, or any other field in which the practitioners are engaged in research. The "seeking" concept is important because it implies that the conclusions drawn from any research are not "true" in an absolute sense. They are, at best, the closest one may approach truth given the limitations of human understanding at that time. Further research is always needed. And good researchers are open to the possibility that the current consensus in their field about any given issue is wrong.
That said, it is difficult to argue against the notion that human understanding of some aspects of external reality has improved over time. At one point in history, humans couldn't build engines, or construct pain-killers, or fly airplanes. Now we can. Of course, the ability to manipulate external reality to produce a desired result doen't mean that our understanding of that reality is total, or even totally accurate, but it does mean that we know something about what exists beyond ourselves.
I don't think that "hallucinations" fill the void between scientific fact and truth, or for that matter, historical fact and truth. What lies between is generations of hard work--researching, testing, thinking, evaluating, testing again--to inch closer to a better understanding of ourselves and the universe. I'm not arguing that "progress" in human understanding is linear, either--sometimes the best work by the best minds turns out to conform less to external reality than did the consensus prior to their work. But the notion that knowledge of "truth" is either total, or else it is an hallucination, is deeply flawed. Our "facts" represent our best, partial approximations of truth. They shouldn't be dismissed because they are partial, but rather should be taken as the building blocks for further investigation.

[Jason Allen]

Mr Bongo stated "See how foolish you sound?"

Every point of view looks foolish when questioned or explained by someone with the opposite view. Your views look equally foolish to me as Scott's stated views look to you.

[Joe M]

A lot of folks seem confused and use the "Well, weren't Newton's Laws proven incorrect and won't that happen to evolution one day..." argument. First, Newton was not disproven. Rather, his laws are a special case of the larger theories. Quantum Mechanics and Relativity use great big math equations with lots of weird symbols. On the scale of rocket ships and planets, all of the weird stuff can be ignored and you are left with Newton's laws again. So he was right as far as he went. Evolution will be the same thing. One day, the sort of random drift Darwin supposed may only be one of many possible mechanisms for evolution, but the dinosaurs will still have lived 90 million years ago.

Old story. After giving a lecture on cosmology, an old lady came up to a scientist and said, "I don't care what you say young man, the world stands on the back of an immense turtle." "My dear," said the scientist, "what does the turtle stand on?" "Don't try to trip me up young man," said the lady, "Its turtles all the way down!"

If evolution is ever "disproven" it is just as likely we will determine that the world is on the back of a turtle as we will determine it was created in six days in 4004 BC.

As a practicing Catholic all of this seems silly to me. Why would anyone want to attribute to the Bible something (scientific truth) it was never intended to contain?

[RJ]

This is nothing like the "worlds most annoying man" story you said I was missing if I didn't read your blog. Nothing like it. This is you having "deep" annoying thoughts about science and philosophy and truth, and then inviting your readers to do the same in the comments - not a funny rant about an annoying person. I feel so mislead.

[JP]

Declaring a particular scientific analysis as "Fact" has one main purpose - an attempt to finish the discussion of whether or not it is true. Therefore, it is especially unscientific to do so, as it serves only to stop people from examining the data. If, on the other hand, scientists are so convinced that they stop bothering to question the theory, and it's only the lay-people who don't accept it, then you get into faith-based truths and non-scientific beliefs. Either way, in this case, I would not be so quick to declare the truth debate over and the religious zealots defeated. Strong evidence exists to show that evolution occurs, and that the world is older than 6000 years. There is no factual data that demonstrates explicitly that homosapien can be traced back to a primordial soup.

Completely different - heard one of the authors of the "Left Behind" novels on Fresh Air a couple years ago, talking about a religious conference in Jerusalem. He told a story where he turned the corner and ran into the Dalai Lama. He was so surprised that all he could get out of his mouth were the words (and I might be paraphrasing slightly) "Pleasure to meet you, do you know the Truth of our lord Jesus Christ?" Attempting to convert the Dalai Lama aside, few things get under my skin more than the use of the word Truth in this context. Do people think calling Christianity that means no one will question it?

[Skeptical Fanboy]

Scott,

There's a difference between the fact of evolution and The Theory of Evolution Through Natural Selection (TToSETNS).

Virtually all scientists who've studied the topic agree that evolution is a fact. That fact is directly observable in nature today in the case of light and dark moths in a forest near a coal-burning factory, or in the case of the Galapagos finches. The finches of the Galapagos islands generally have beaks that are optimized for the current environmental conditions, but some have beaks that are sub-optimal. When the environmental conditions on the islands change (as they do), the proportions of beaks optimized for the new environment vs. those optimized for the old environment rapidly switch places within a few years (or even months).

Nearly as many scientists agree that TToSETNS is as solid a theory as you're likely to find to explain how life on our planet got to where it is today. That does not mean that those scientists view TToSETNS as a scientific fact--they don't.

Nor does it mean they view it the way a layman would view what he calls a theory. To scientists, a theory is a way of describing observable facts and making predictions about future results based on a given set of input conditions and facts. That doesn't mean theories can't get modified or even disproved, but when a scientist talks about a theory, she's talking about something that's already withstood experimental verification.

What a layman thinks of as a "theory" is really more of a postulate. A postulate is a guess about why something might be so, but it's not proven or even tested yet.

Still, even though your post today calls TToSETNS a scientific fact when it's not, TToSETNS is still a better basis for making predictions about where life on our planet will go in the future than any of the current alternatives, which I think was the point you were trying to make.

[Trotta]

I don't think I am suitable for commenting on that because, damn, I don't even remember anything from my 12th birthday AT ALL! O.o

[Jason]

If you define evolution as that animals are different now then they once were, then you are right, it is a scientific fact, one even creationists would agree with you on. Everything else we know is constantly changing and well.. evolving. Remember, a scientific fact is a theory that is backed up by numerous experiments that behave in a way that the theory predicted. We test evolution by digging up more bones. Often times the bones make us rewrite that theory.

[synapticmisfires]

I had a teacher for Honors and AP Physics back in high school. He repeatedly told us that he was going to lie to us, that in fact the much of each course would be made up of lies. He explained that the we had been lied to our entire academic careers to make things simpler, and that each year the teacher merely destroys some of the old lies and replaces them with ones that are closer to the truth. He further explained that even he still believes in a great deal of lies that it are currently beyond science's ability to disprove.

I think this is similar to your point. We can say once a hypothesis has been around a while, with reasonable accuracy, whether or not it is more realistic than the previous theory. However, we have no means to determine if it is absolutely accurate. Even if the formulas it produces yield accurate results every time, maybe we're not testing the right input, or maybe there is some implicit assumption that won't hold.

To say that a large body of science is "lies" [in the sense that my physics teacher said it, and not in the sense that crazy baseball player Carl Everett said it], simply means that there are matters that are above human understanding at least so far. It is easy for us to say dogs don't understand astrophysics. However, not many humans admit that some solutions may actually exist which no human can comprehend. We know of no higher level of intelligence, therefore we assume that one cannot exist.

[Big Al]

I agree with you for the most part. But evolution isn't just a big fact, its based on many many smaller facts.Aa bunch of which will probably will be altered or proved wrong, but that doesn't mean evolution is completely false.

[notralph]

Chris:

Doorframes were smaller in the Middle Ages, too. So, did everyone just duck? Or do you think the massive improvement in nutrition and health care might have had a part to play? Hmmm.

[hockey monkey]

Time is Linear.
Space has three large dimensions, while there may be, and most likely are more dimensions(according to string theory), they are nearly infinitesimal and thus harder to detect.

[Harry]

A doctor calls two patients into his office and say's, I have some bad news, some good news and some bad news. But before I tell you what it is, I need to ask you both a question. Do you believe in time? The first person responded, "What r u talking about, I don't understand the question? Do you want to know What Time it Is? The second person gave a long winded philosophical answer and in essence concluded with, "Time is just an illusion! - an hallucination!" The Doc said thank you and now I can tell you the news. First, the bad news is, unfortunately you both have a rare and fatal form of cancer. Second, the good news is there's a cure. Third, the bad news is that I only have enough for one person. Then, the Dr. asked the second person to leave as he proceeded to tell the first about the treatment he is about to receive. The second patient protested, Why does he get the cure? And, the Dr replied: because he would be very upset if I didn't give it to him, and for very good reason, you on the other hand, are just getting upset about nothing.

[Will Von Wizzlepig]

I get a very distinct hey!-who's-been-reading-my-blog/mind feeling from that post, Scott.

Creepy. I don't know whether to call you a copycat or my soul brotha.

[swanie]

Am I really reading this?

[aikimark]

You might want to wrap your head to prevent explosion.
You might want to restrain your head from violent shaking.
You might want to have a lined trash can nearby before viewing this.

...sorry. I can't do anything about the bile you are likely to taste as a result of watching this.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/50013/

(original link to this piece of work)
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/03/the-art-of-denying-evolution/

[Robert Hamilton]

Scientific facts are usually not proven to be untrue, just incomplete, when they are subsumed into a newly discovered and larger more encompassing fact (facter), in a process which will then repeat, until a theory of everything is found (factest), which all of the worlds religions will then use to claim that their religion is "true". Then there will be the mother of all wars (Nostradumass), and ..and.(someone take it from here)...

[Billy B]

I contend that we are God in evolution even though I can't prove it scientifically. Not that I can convince many of you monkeys of this fact though.
Billy B

[Don]

Last time I had a conversation like that, let's just say it involved tequila, a bong and stereo blaring out music from Meatload's "Bat of Hell" album. I don't specifically recall if MTV was playing Dire Straits "Money for Nothing" video at the time, but I do recall a craving for Jack in the Box super taco.

[Major Domo]

Pascal says, "Place yer bets!"

[Quincy]

I do enjoy when people get upset when you say everybody is wrong about something or in this case almost everything since you are also saying you are wrong and this could be one of those cases :~)

[Royce]

I don't think you've invented a new term at all really.

I was taught in high school that were levels of scientific truth.

Scientific:
1. Observation: things that make you go "Hmmm."
2. Hypothesis: "I have a six-pack that say this happens because of that."
3. Experimental Result: Outcome of test of the hypothesis.
4. Theory: Numerous experimental results confirming hypothesis.
5. Law (or Fact): Everybody and their grad-students have tested the theory and got confirming results for years and years and years.

I'll bet you can find similar definitions in most any grade school science book.

[XX EE]

Scott, the last few posts have been a real snort. I don't always agree with every word, but that doesn't stop me from thoroughly enjoying them. Thanks for injecting a few bona fide belly laughs into my life--the laughter is much needed and very welcome. Laughter is also good for the immune system: it increases health and therefore happiness ... so, since Scott is already helping to cure so many of us readers of countless diseases by keeping our immunity strong, I argue that he is already a Saint. :) (As a Catholic who saw JPII assiduously eschew holding the Church accountable for the clergy sexual abuse scandal and myriad other injustices perpetrated by that institution during his tenure, I'd rather see an alive-and-well Scott Adams "fast-tracked" for sainthood instead of JPII. Hmph!!!)

Here are two tidbits of helpful information for the confused and the unbelievers among us ...

... from Wikipedia, a definition: "Biological evolution is the process of change over time in the heritable characteristics, or traits, of a population of organisms." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution)

... and from Doonesbury, a pearl of practical wisdom regarding the treatment of TB:
http://images.ucomics.com/comics/db/2006/db060702.gif

As for me, I'll take fact-based science over faith-based any day.
:}

[Dan]

I would agree that humans really have little idea of what is really true, but that deosn't deny that truth exists - finding it is the hard part. Even with the religion thing, there is a some possiblity that one or more of are wrong or right, which really emphasises the importance of searching for truth, at least if your wrong you can say you tried. The ability to search for truth is on of the few but important aspects that separate us from animals.

[Are Riksaasen]

The arrow of time exists because the universe is expanding.

[Adam]

Scott, you make an old and fallacious argument. Because human senses are fallible, and human knowledge is not perfect; you conclude that humans can perceive nothing, and that humans know nothing.

Surely you know better than that. Are you just posturing for philosotainment purposes?

[LA Clay]

I received " my little ray of bitter sunshine" today.
Thank you and what took so long.

[Sheilah D.]

A lot of hypnotists say the the mind is a computer that records every event like a video camera. No, not really... because our perception really distorts the image.

Have you ever noticed that someone attractive, interesting, and fun seems brighter and bigger than everyone else in the room while everyone else seems to fade into the background? Heck, if your imagination is good enough, you can remember him/her with a halo (or horns depending on your preference).

Right now, I'm preparing for my 20th high school reunion (already??) and I know I'm going to hear about my cross-dressing first love. In my memory, it was a kilt...but the photographs say something else! Sigh...

One another note, evolution is the reason my teenager knows she's smarter than me!!

[Bob]

The fact is that all facts are, by definition, true.

That being said, if I follow your train of thought, not even science is factual. Only mathematicians and physicists comprehend muliple dimensions, and this depends on their understanding of mathmatics.

Space-time, scientific facts, and any facts are constructs of our minds. Getting to the truth is like trying to grab a wet bar of soap. It's a slippery thing. Truth is relevant to the beholder.

String theory is supposed to tie all this stuff together, but, nobody I know understands string theory. I just have to take someone else's word for it.

Most people have to take the word of other people about what is factual. The few who postulate their own facts are the pack leaders, and the rest of us are followers.

Facts are what we observe, and we are not always sure about that. All we know is that some things hurt, and some feel good.

That's a fact.

bb

[Singleton]

My current favorite quote:

"I reject your reality and substitute my own."
- Adam, Myth Busters