I think that’s an overstatement. I know very good scientists – leaders in their fields – who rarely if ever produce their own data.
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This obscure paper from 1953 is a classic example. 
I strongly agree with @glipsnort and would go a bit further: producing new data is not by itself any indicator of science/pseudoscience. Profound new insights can come from reanalysis of old data, for example, unless you want to call those new insights “data.” But more problematically, by a standard definition of “data” it is easy for someone to sit down in the lab and so some experiments, then use the results to write a paper full of crude errors of the kind we identify as “pseudoscience.”
I think @BradKramer’s criteria are excellent as they are.
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[quote=“BradKramer, post:15, topic:34877”]
Does the writer make a grandiose claim?
Does the writer have the credentials to support making such a claim?
Is the work self-published? If so, is it vetted by experts who are currently working in the field?
Does the writer make dismissive or overblown comments about the work of the mainstream scientific community?
Does the writer defend her/his perspective by basically saying, “I have more common sense than the experts”?
Brad,
Thank you for allowing me to see why you seem to have a negative attitude toward my ideas.
Let me respond to them.
- Does the writer make grandiose claims?
I would say that grandiose is in the eyes of the beholder. I would also that we are discussing very important scientific, theological, and philosophical questions. That means that they have very serious implications which we ignore at our own peril. This might be considered grand, but not grandiose which is pejorative.
- Does the writer have the credentials to support making that claim?
I have made it clear that I do not have a doctorate in the sciences. On the other hand BioLogos is not strictly about science. It contains two elements, Bio as in the science biology and Logos as in John 1:1 Who is Jesus Christ and the logos which is a basic concept of philosophy.
I believe that I have good credentials in theology, and a solid education in philosophy and science. It is strange to me that many scientists, like Dawkins and Hawking, think they can speak authoritatively about theology and philosophy, but are offended when laypersons question science.
If laypersons are to be knowledgeable about science, then scientists must be willing to respond to the questions knowledgeable laypersons.
- Is my work Darwin’s Myth self-published? Yes.
If so, is it vetted by experts who are currently working in the field? Are you interested in giving your criticisms?
In the absence of a clearly defined field, I am using BioLogos as a sounding board for my ideas.
- Does the writer make dismissive or overblown comments about the work of the mainstream scientific community?
No doubt people are upset when I say that Darwinian Natural Selection has not been scientifically proven, following Karl Popper. As far as I can tell this is not overblown or dismissive. This is factual.
- Does the writer defend his/her perspective by basically saying, "I have more common sense than the experts.’? NO
My book lists a number reasons, scientific, theological, and philosophical, why Darwinian Survival of the Fittest Natural Selection is not correct. The biggest reason is because the science of ecology provides better answers to how Natural Selection works than Thomas Malthus.
It is good to hear @glipsnort say “Symbiogenesis as a critical step in the history of life on this planet is in the former category; symbiogenesis as an important ongoing evolutionary driver of novelty is at the latter end of the spectrum, I believe.”
Symbiogenesis is part of the ESS understanding of evolution and is based on ecology, rather than Darwinism. Michael Ruse documented the conflict between Dawkins and Lovelock in his book the Gaia Hypothesis.
The field is changing for the better, and BioLogos needs to recognize this. I am pleased to report that I was the first one to discuss ecological Natural Selection on the BioLogos website and hope that more will get on board.
With all due respect, my faithful opponent, you do spend an awful lot of time characterizing professional academics as materially excluding considerations of ecology.
But it has been my experience that all of the best examples presented to students and other readers demonstrating how Evolution works virtually always include ecological factors.
- Terrestrial tetrapods to Marine Whales; fish become plentiful with Dinosaur extinction;
- Hominids to Humans: From Forest to Savannahs, and a millennia in an African river;
- Extinction of the Terror Birds in South America when North American predators make contact;
- The Explosion of Mammals: Dinosaur predation ends by Meteor;
- Giraffes grow longer necks to reach tops of tree “islands”.
Etc., etc.
If you would just stop assaulting Academia with this particular (and unsupportable) accuation, I think your general persuasiveness would dramatically increase.
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There are some good candidates right here on this forum. Have you asked them to vet your ideas? (I admit I haven’t checked to see if this has already happened here.)
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I can’t help but consider that remark unfair. I can imagine that some would even consider it a rather snide remark, or at least a bit of a jab. I certainly hope that wasn’t the intention. To suggest that people who find Marshall’s book not worth their time are calling it “heresy” is a straw man argument. I could say much more but I’ll just say that I think this is at least very unfair.
Personally speaking, I have to prioritize my time and precisely because I’m familiar with Marshall’s writings, I’ve determined that I don’t have time for his writings. It is not a matter of thinking him a heretic. (I don’t.) I just know that the time I spent reading his “information theory” arguments against the Theory of Evolution in the past was a waste of my energy expended in working through it. Perhaps he no longer holds to those ideas today. Whatever the case, if I have more time on my hands, I’d rather learn from the people who have proven the merits of their ideas in peer-reviewed journals, not someone who bypasses the academy and writes self-published books. I just don’t have any reasons to include Marshall on my priority list. I do think he is an expert on Internet marketing and very much worth the read on that topic. But he isn’t a scientist and his scientific writings are rife with not quite grasping the concepts he critiques.
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Heresy!
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I think the whole “lost information” criticism is a giant straw man fallacy, launched at Evolutionary Theory, because it is sure to bog down anyone who tries to discuss all those nitty gritty details.
I stay out of the whole conversation by flatly saying: Evolution is change… it doesn’t matter whether there is information loss or information gain, because there’s no way to measure that.
If snakes evolved from lizards … do we say the snake did not evolve because he lost the genetic information for his legs?
If a whale evolves from a land mammal… do we say the whale did not evolve because he lost his legs and his ability to even survive on the land?
It’s a dumb argument to get sucked into …
George,
These are relative new examples being brought to the attention of science by the past Darwinians including myself. BioLogos is taking Dawkins and neoDarwinism as the gold standard of evolutionary theory, which excludes ecology.
I said that change is coming as you indicated, but the old guard has failed to accept this, or does BioLogos want to accept this important change in evolutionary theory. I am making it clear that I am not condemning all academics, only those who stand with Dawkins and reject ecology.
When we confuse evolution with Darwin we make it impossible to criticize any of Darwin’s ideas. P. S. The Darwinian examples of how evolution works centered on predation.
Thank you for the suggestion. I consider all conversations that I have online are tests of my ideas found in my books and elsewhere. Certainly I tested my ideas out online before I wrote it, looking for the latest research as well as talking to people who knew about evolution.
If you are interested I would be glad to share it with you.
I am familiar with the ideas of Perry Marshall. I disagree with his approach, not with who he is.
Roger, I don’t understand a word you are writing.
There are some vocal members of the BioLogos “camp” that don’t like talking about God guiding evolution. But you can’t say that this is a majority position. We can’t take Dawkins and neoDarwinism as the gold standard if these gold standards don’t accommodate God in the model, right? So I just don’t understand how you are boiling together all these sound bites into a coherent critique.
I don’t even recognize anything I said in your discussion. I pointed out that all the great stories of Evolution involve populations adapting to changes in ecological factors … and creating amazing new species in the process.
And by the way … predation is a part of the ecological equation. The Terror Birds either had to compete with, or defend against, a host of North American predators when the Isthmus of Panama formed a land bridge between the North and the South.
So your dismissive comments about Predation seems to be rather unwarranted.
My question was about whether your work was vetted by experts. If the work claims to overturn major scientific theory(ies), then it cannot be taken seriously if it hasn’t been reviewed. In fact, credible challenges to major theories evolve in the context of expert input and critique. This is exactly what the story of the EES is about: a group of experts is having a discussion about if/how to revise evolutionary theory. It seems to me that you did not form your idea in conversation with experts, and that you have not had it reviewed or assessed by experts.
To earn the requisite credibility for your writing to be read and discussed beyond this forum, you need to demonstrate that you have been in conversation with science. You are welcome to send me an outline/digest/abstract for comments and suggestions. But if the book is already written, and if it arose outside of scientific critique, and if it rests to any significant degree on a critique of Malthus (?!?!), then this might not be a good use of our time.
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Stephen,
The question is fairly simple. It is, Is Darwin’s understanding of Natural Selection, also known as Survival of the Fittest verified or confirmed by scientific experiment or field test?
Now there is a most simple way to answer this, and that is to do an experiment or field test which confirms this theory. The problem with this is that there are no such verifying experiments.
Therefore the answer to this question is also very simple, Darwin’s understanding of Natural Selection cannot be called a scientific theory because it has not been scientifically verified.
However I did not leave it there. There are many studies that point to the fact as George has pointed out that ecology does guide evolution. These studies have been verified.
My book is intended not to overthrow the theory of evolution, but to point out a serious weakness in the traditional theory and show how it could be made stronger. We must bring science, philosophy, and theology closer together so we would not have the conflict that is eating away at our civilization right now. Sorry if this is grandiose.
It is a simple question of evidence that no one seems willing to look at, but is visible for all to see in readily available scientific literature. Since I wrote the book in 2010 the evidence has become more plentiful and it seems that the tide is turning, but the problems of climate change are getting worse rather than better, and many people/Christians are still unwilling to take it seriously. Sorry if this is belittling other academics.
Natural selection as Darwin described it has been verified in the lab and in the field thousands of times. Surely you know this. I have whole books on the subject. But what matters is this: your statement shows that you don’t know your science, and disqualifies your book from consideration scientifically.[quote=“Relates, post:32, topic:34877”]
ecology does guide evolution
[/quote]
Yes, that’s a well known fact. Ecology and evolution are typically studied together at the graduate level partly for that reason. Strong new strands of evolutionary biology are emphasizing ecology (and a few other topics) more than in the past, and if I thought you were pointing to these interesting developments, I would be interested in hearing more of your ideas.[quote=“Relates, post:32, topic:34877”]
It is a simple question of evidence that no one seems willing to look at, but is visible for all to see in readily available scientific literature.
[/quote]
Claims like that, in writings from laypeople, are almost always a bad sign.
I am sorry to learn that you have written a book about evolution, apparently calling on philosophy and theology, that seems to begin with error. I don’t know what else to say, or how to help. I hope I have written with appropriate respect.
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For what it’s worth, at Princeton University evolutionary biology is not taught in the Department of Biology. No, indeed! It is taught in the…
…drum roll, please…
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology!
Link here. It’s a great department. My daughter almost chose that undergrad major, but eventually chose psychology.
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Steve,
If that is true, please give me one reference. Just one valid reference is all I need.
Google it and see what you come up with.
The argument over EES is primarily over ecology and the people at BioLogos are arguing against EES .
I am sorry to learn that you have written a book about evolution, apparently calling on philosophy and theology, that seems to begin with error. I don’t know what else to say, or how to help. I hope I have written with appropriate respect.
What is my error? That Natural Selection is based on ecology? That Malthusian Survival of the Fittest is wrong? That the Dawkins’ Selfish Gene is a myth?
If all those things are true and I can assure you that they are and you seem to agree, there is no error.
Thank you for the information and link. It looks as if Princeton has got it right. Thank God. They even glorify God by uplifting the diversity, interrelatedness, and complexity of God’s Creation. BioLogos should do more of that.
It is significant that Ecology is placed before Evolution. This is right because ecology is an interdisciplinary field of study that goes beyond biology. However it also indicates a change in importance and emphasis.
The old saying was “Evolution is the foundation of all biology.” Now it is more accurate to say that ecology is the basis of all biology. This change of emphasis and understanding means a change in prestige and allocation of funds, so it is with good practical reasons that biologists are concerned about the rise of ecology.
I am not concerned about ecology. It is dong fine, although too many people for their own selfish reasons are trying to sabotage it.
What I am concerned about is Christians who seem willing to replace the Logos, the rational divine Word of God, Jesus Christ, with some other ideology which is less demanding. In Jesus you shall know the Truth and the Truth will set you free from slavery to the World.
[quote=“sfmatheson, post:22, topic:34877”]
I strongly agree with @glipsnort and would go a bit further: producing new data is not by itself any indicator of science/pseudoscience. [/quote]
You’re both right and I am wrong in that it doesn’t apply to individuals.
It does apply, however, collectively, in that if your “work” doesn’t result in yourself or anyone else producing any new data, it’s clearly pseudoscience.
If those insights are profound, they then are cultivated to produce new data.
[quote] But more problematically, by a standard definition of “data” it is easy for someone to sit down in the lab and so some experiments, then use the results to write a paper full of crude errors of the kind we identify as “pseudoscience.”
[/quote]True, but it’s a far better marker than peer review, which we all know is and has been easily subverted.
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Here’s the latest in a test of Darwinian sexual selection:
doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2011.03.016
Maybe Google isn’t the best choice…
A handful:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182075/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2672153/
Altitude adaptation in Tibetans caused by introgression of Denisovan-like DNA
Both halves of that statement are wrong. EES is about many more things than ecology (e.g. horizontal gene transfer, transposons, evo-devo), and I haven’t seen anyone at BioLogos arguing against EES. There are varying degrees of enthusiasm for it and of concern about overhyping, but no one denies that EES includes many important elements of contemporary evolutionary theory.
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Would it be accurate to say that science makes progress while pseudoscience does not?
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