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.