Scientific Guess

[joreth]

 So, in one of datan0de's entries about the phrase "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof", femetalwrote what I think is one of the clearest, most consice, and yet still not angry or offensive, explanation of what scientists mean when they use certain words.  We've all heard or said something along the lines of "theory does not mean a guess with no evidence" when referencing those ID-iots who want to include Intelligent Design and/or Creationism alongside evolution as alternative "theories" of the origin of life (let's overlook for the moment that evolution doesn't even cover the origin of life at all - but what happened to life after it began).  I'm archiving femetal's post here, both for easy access in future debates and to share with everyone who doesn't happen to read datan0de's journal:

skeptic -
• a person inclined to question or doubt all accepted opinions
(That would include the current accepted paradigm as well as the proposed new paradigm.)

extraordinary -
• very unusual or remarkable

patently absurd -
• obviously wildly unreasonable, illogical, or inappropriate

claim -
• an assertion of the truth of something, typically one that is disputed or in doubt

theory -
• a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, esp. one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained
• a set of principles on which the practice of an activity is based
• an idea used to account for a situation or justify a course of action

hypothesis -
• a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation

theorem -
• a general proposition not self-evident but proved by a chain of reasoning; a truth established by means of accepted truths

So, "extraordinary claims" are by definition very unusual or remarkable assertions of the truth of something, which are typically disputed or in doubt. Why, exactly, should we not require evidence commensurate with the degree of "extraordinariness" of the claim? A claim is *not* a hypothesis, it's not a theory, it's not a "feeling about how things might work," it is, by definition, an assertion. Hence, by the time someone is making a claim, they should have, or be willing to provide, evidence to back it up.

For example, if I said, "I think I could walk out of my office today, flap my arms, and fly home," that is a hypothesis. One which can be tested, and one which, I imagine, people have been testing (and failing to support) for as long as man has watched birds fly. If, however, I said, "I walked out of my office today, flapped my arms, and flew home," that would be a claim; a rather extraordinary one which defies all existing evidence, and which would require extraordinary evidence to be taken seriously. A simple demonstration of performing this feat would constitute the requisite extraordinary evidence to justify more rigorous study, but until someone sees me do it, I don't blame the scientific community for its skepticism. Further, until the phenomenon has stood up to the rigors of scientific testing, it's still an extraordinary claim. I would even go so far as to say that, until the mechanism behind it can be modeled and understood, it remains an extraordinary claim which just happens to have attained the evidence necessary to be accepted. (Much as quantum mechanics is still extraordinary; it just happens to also be accepted as the best possible model of reality we currently have.)

I'm also including an image of the Scarlett A, a la Richard Dawkin's OUT Campaign and Greta Christina's latest blog entry, The Scarlett Letter: Visibility And The Atheist.  It's not directly related, but science and atheism is related in my mind and I didn't want to write a whole new entry just to put up a picture of a giant letter.

 

*Edit:  Woo hoo!  I figured out how to add images to my sidebar!  Now I can permanently "label" my blog as an atheist blog (even though I don't really write much about atheism, but rant against religion).  Eventually I'll buy one of the Out Campaign t-shirts too since I normally use my shirts and jewelry to make my political statements for me, to educate the public and to let others know that the're not alone

Comments

[slouchinphysics.livejournal.com]

Fuck Yeah! That is both a clear and concise example married to a text book definition.