Guest essay by Rick Wallace
A useful method for gaining an initial understanding of complex social-psychological phenomena is to collect and compare case studies. Despite the humble character of such material (with respect to its role as evidence), it still performs the vital service of grounding discourse in concrete fact, thereby giving it a substantiality that it would otherwise not have. Another benefit is that once a case study has been brought to peoples’ attention, they can make their own assessment after exploring it further for themselves.
In the course of a personal study of evolutionary biology, which includes the phenomenon of speciation, I had occasion to look over a number of papers concerned with the question of how to define what a species is. Although there are now numerous species definitions, the leading one still seems to be the “biological species concept” or BSC, associated with the names Dobzhansky and Mayr. Roughly speaking, under this definition a species is a reproductively isolated population; this implies that the gene flow from outside that population is at most highly restricted and possibly non-existent. This definition is associated with an account of speciation in which the most common scenario is for two populations that once formed a single species to become separated geographically so that they come to diverge. When they have diverged sufficiently, so that hybrids are infertile or inviable, then they can be regarded as separate species. This is called allopatric speciation.
Now, as I said, by a rough consensus, this is still probably the leading definition – at least for organisms that reproduce sexually. What is interesting is that for 30 to 50 years it has been subjected to continuous criticism from numerous people in the field, including botanists, paleontologists, systematists, as well as field zoologists. Along with their critiques, some have proposed alternative definitions, so that according to a fairly recent (1997) summary, more than 20 different definitions have been put forth. (From what I can tell, the penchant for coming up with alternative definitions has fallen off since the turn of the century, probably because the range of possibilities has now been pretty well covered, so this number is probably still accurate.)
Very early on, the practical usefulness of the BSC was questioned. Here is a typical comment:
“The biological species concept considers the species as a collection of genetically similar populations capable of interbreeding that, through genetically determined isolating mechanisms, are evolving in a pattern distinct from other similar collections of populations. This concept … is the most widely accepted definition of species, although its application to practical taxonomic work is limited and its conceptual bases flawed …”1
And here is another, even stronger, statement. After discussing various perceived deficiencies, especially having to do with ancestor-descendent relationships, the authors say:
“For these reasons, the Biological Species Concept … is an obstruction to empirical evolutionary biology.”2
To be sure, there are plenty of substantive problems, such as, (i) difficult to unravel species-complexes in animals (e.g. birds, butterflies) and even more so in plants, where there is sometimes evidence of widespread and continuing hybridization (and therefore possible gene flow) between closely related species, (ii) uniparental ‘species’, where the clonal lines together retain common, species-like features, just like biparental species (iii) the need to develop classifications that include both extinct species and living ones. One upshot is that many botanists and zoologists have concluded that the BSC cannot replace the classical taxonomic species, based on phenotypic (e.g. morphological, but also genetic) features. Others have argued that “evolutionary” or “phylogenetic” species concepts should be taken as primary. And some researchers have gone further and called for abandoning the notion of species altogether, a position at the opposite pole from the assertion of others that species (as opposed to higher taxa) are the focal points of evolution.
To give the reader a flavor of the discussion, here are some quotes from a 1992 review of a book devoted to the topic of species in biology (obviously, the author of the review is not a nonpartisan observer):
“Most authors … admit that species are real and not arbitrary groups demarcated by humans. There is, however, no agreement about the nature of species, save that it is not adequately described by the biological species concept. Once again we hear the standard catalogue of objections to Mayr’s definition …
“To replace the biological species concept, the authors proffer nearly a dozen new species concepts, some of them quite ingenious.
“The authors snipe at one another’s concepts, with some of the best criticisms coming not from biologists but from philosophers … When the dust has settled, however, only Mayr is still on his feet, with his original concept remaining the simplest and most useful …”3
In other words, to the degree that the BSC remains the prevailing species definition, it is more a matter of still standing after a vigorous and drawn-out brawl than because it has been upheld by workers in the field collectively as the one true account of things4. But I would contend that this is what real scientific consensus looks like. In such cases, discussants never take the ideas in question as sacrosanct, and because – at least in a normal, healthy science – intelligent inquiring intellects are constantly evaluating ideas for themselves and setting them against their own experience, such ideas are subject to vigorous and even harsh examination, often leading to a range of opinion, especially if there are serious conceptual or semantic difficulties (as there are in the case of the species concept).
(In my opinion, this is why Patterson et al. in their 2008 BAMS article were able to say, truly but perversely, that in their terms there was no “consensus” regarding future warming or cooling back in the 1960s and 1970s. At that time climatology was still a normal area of science, so there was bound to be disagreement, especially about future trends.)
Another example comes to mind in this connection, which I will discuss very briefly, since I don’t know the field at all. This is the status of quantum mechanics. Reading Lubos Motl’s blog, The Reference Frame, over the years, one notices that although this is clearly the leading ‘paradigm’ in subatomic physics, there are still any number of people who are quite willing to argue endlessly about whether it is truly valid. Now in this case, these may often be zealots on the fringe, but the message is the same: in a real field of science people don’t line up behind a so-called “consensus”. The image one has, even of a well-established doctrine like quantum mechanics (one which, I gather, has been subject to tests of excruciating rigor for almost 100 years), is not of a phalanx of people standing shoulder to shoulder, chanting in Monty-Pythonesq unison, “This is the Truth!” Instead, there is a general assent along the lines of, “Yeah, this seems to be the way it is” or a more assertive, “Yup, this is the way things are.” And the attitude toward heretics is not expressed as, “You must believe!” but (at least until they become insufferable), “Well, you either get it or you don’t.”
Thus, in real science any state of agreement is labile at best – and establishing a consensus is about the last thing on peoples’ minds. I would go so far as to say that under these conditions, as often as not, a leading idea is a target to take aim at rather than a flag to rally ‘round.
Obviously, this cast of mind is utterly different from what we find in the AGW arena. Which in itself is compelling evidence that the motivations are different in normal science and in (C)AGW.
This brings me to my final point.
What is perhaps most fascinating about modern spectacles like the AGW movement (and here I’m thinking in particular of the Moscow show trials of the 1930s) is that the truth is always right there in front of everyone – and it is always apparent to those who can see. For such people, and this is true of most (but probably not all) AGW skeptics, the fact that some sort of charade is in progress is obvious, even if one does not characterize it in those terms.
Once this is understood it also becomes clear why these affairs are always imbued with an air of intimidation. (In fact, perhaps more than anything else, this aspect is what gives the game away.) This is something that is never present in real scientific discourse, even on those occasions when things get nasty. In such cases (for example the controversy over the wave nature of light in the early 19th century), scientists may get catty, and they may even act to keep work out of print (by negative reviews). But there is no real intimidation (at least none that I know of, and I have some personal experience in this department); there is never a covert message to the effect that, “This is the proper account – and you had better not contradict it!”
1R. R. Sokal. (1973). “The species concept reconsidered”. Systematic Zoology, 22(4), 360-374.
2D. R. Frost & A. G. Kluge. (1994). “A consideration of epistemology in systematic biology, with special reference to species”. Cladistics, 10(3), 259-294.
3J. A. Coyne. (1992). “Much ado about species”. Nature, 357, 289-290.
4Just for the record, I will note that at this point it seems clear that no one of these concepts will prevail over the others, and in fact a more multi-faceted approach to the problem which takes into account several of the species-definition proposals seems to be emerging.
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Interesting comment on what normal scientific discussions are like.
….97% of WUWT readers agree with yo !!….. ; )
YOU !! arrrrggg……
It is ‘yo…dude!’ 🙂
Devastatingly smart.
I can see your problem Rick. Now that the Eastern Elk is extinct, because it could never meet another elk, it could like, we have the new and more recent discovery, that there are actually 57 different biological genders, and not all combinations , of two, three, four, or more sexual combinations, lead to successful progenation.
But at least we have enough genders to be able to postulate a future with at least one new human species for each of the 57 States of the USA.
Now there’s a comforting thought for you, just when we began to develop a consensus (97%) that there were far too many specimens of Homo sapiens sapiens on this planet for its resources to sustain, nature finds a way to carry on; and I do mean carry on !
g
Mr. Wallace,
You are spot on. You don’t have to compel people to believe something that is patently obvious. You won’t find mobs storming the castle and demanding folks “believe” in the law of gravity. Folks who don’t believe generally find themselves testing the efficacy of their health insurance or the competence of the coroner.
The problem for the prophets of doom is their predictions have simply failed to come true. Orbital mechanics is understood well enough to put a craft into orbit around a distant planet but climate modeling comes nowhere near this level of accuracy.
This comes from IPCC working group I – executive summary: “The climate system is a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”
And yet another news source reports that the US Department of Justice has apparently discussed legal action against “climate deniers.” How curious.
Good article, but I was mislead a bit by the use of “normal science” in the title. I was thinking something more “Kuhnian” was in store.
The traditional definition of species is unhelpful, because it doesn’t let us define the dingo as a new species. The fact that it can interbreed freely with ordinary dogs is neither here nor there. It is obvious that it has to be a new species, because then we can claim naming rights.
Just another example of your tax dollars corrupting science.
Perhaps the dingo is not a different species but a ‘breed’ ie doberman, alsatian, wolf, hyena etc
According to Neils DeGrasse Tyson, or at least the writers of the TV show he was on, all modern dogs originally derived from Wolves so ‘breed’ would appear to make more sense since the modern traits are a result of “breeding”
This may be another interestingly problematic case for the BSC, although I don’t know enough to say. I’ll have to check it out.
Two gems:
“…Mayr is still on his feet, with his original concept remaining the simplest and most useful.”
[These need for two qualities apply to almost any concept in science]
and
“…these affairs are always imbued with an air of intimidation. (In fact, perhaps more than anything else, this aspect is what gives the game away.)”
Amen! Great article!
At least since AR4 and the absence of the Tropical Hotspot, Climate Science has been unable to engage in any debate about it’s core tenets of catastrophism.
That’s because the core tenets have been disproven.
That CO2 is a GHG is true. That increasing CO2 causes the end of the world through amplification by water vapour is untrue.
Thus the field needs to start again with a lower importance for policy-makers. But that means the field needs to shrink. Who would tell their post-grad that “Oh. You shouldn’t have followed me?” They had to defend the field.
But that defence cannot be by scientific debate. The observations show that the field is not critically urgent to research.
So in climatology the debate has to be about control of information. It cannot be about the information itself.
Is that unique to Climate Science? Sadly, No.
Coming soon to a Pharma trial near you. And no doubt other places too.
Well said!
The question about consensus or non-consensus is determined by whether anyone really cares. We have seen examples where one scientist or corporation can effectively shut out conflicting opinions: ‘the fat you eat is the fat you become’ and ‘transfats are good’ are two examples.
Scholars who produce works that contradict the politically necessary ‘party line’ in homosexual or transgender studies will be made to suffer. Evidence will be fabricated or criminal charges will be leveled without any evidence at all.
We all know what happens to any scientist who bucks the accepted consensus.
Check out Heterodox Academy.
Dead link, SIr.
Thanks Alan. Heterodox Academy
Nina Teicholz has written about Ancel Keys. He and his buddies started the idea that fat caused heart attacks. They controlled research funding and shut down dissenting voices. Here’s a link to Nina’s TedX talk. I’ve transcribed a bit:
Nina also points out that the American Heart Association was a tiny group until it started receiving sponsorship money from the vegitable oil producers.
So there you have it: Commercial interests and a scientist with a big ego combined to pervert science.
I would agree that the saturated fats saga is a very interesting parallel case study. In fact, it would be worth working out the parallels in detail.
I agree. Nina’s book “The Big FAT Surprise” is a masterpiece. It is thoroughly researched and shows many many obvious parallels between the ‘fat’ controversy and the ‘global warming’ controversy. The lesson to be learned is that, because of the abandonment of science, 50,000 or more of our current population are obese and/or have diabetes and/or heart issues. Because of this many will die who would not otherwise have perished. The parallels and implications are truly astounding.
Nice Post & Thanks For Sharing…
In my view the BSC is like phrenology.
I recall grade 10 biology and being presented with Haeckel’s embryos as evidence for human evolution. In my view the embryos did not look the same at all. So I said so. Welll……THAT was a mistake!
Now, as it happens, Haeckel’s embryo theory and his falsified images has been completely discredited. (see Ken Miller)
I was also told that human beings (homo sapiens) evolved from neanderthal. No, according to extensive DNA analysis of neanderthal DNA from teeth, we know that there is insufficient time to account for the differences between neanderthal and modern homo sapiens. Also, it is more likely that neanderthals interbred with homo sapiens and were absorbed into the human being family. Opps.
Again I recall being brow beaten by ideologues (who had no proof) that we came FROM neanderthals.
Piltdown man…
I don’t see how a structure alone leads to speciation definition. Wouldn’t you think that there are molecular roots to evolution and sameness must be at a DNA level? BSC is so antiquated.
“I was also told that human beings (homo sapiens) evolved from neanderthal…Again I recall being brow beaten by ideologues (who had no proof) that we came FROM neanderthals.”
I don’t know who told you that or when, but this has not been believed for a long time.
It can take an awfully long time for the textbooks to catch up with current science. A fun example from one of my own teaching subjects is acetone metabolism. Degradative pathways that convert acetone to pyruvate (and thus, ultimately glucose) have been know for about 40 years. To this day, however, many biochemistry textbooks state that acetone is a dead end of metabolism.
…this has not been believed for a long time.
Some of us are older than others….
: > )
It was 1978 and the biology text was “a new one”. Miss Newman was my teacher. I looked at the Haeckel recapitulation images and said, “why are all the embryos the same size?” and ” they look different to me!”
Both of these criticisms were cited by Ken Miller who had the defunct images removed from USA biology texts.
The bothersome point was that I was 16 years old and raised a legitimate issue and the Stalinist ideologues had no answer based on facts. Instead, they resorted to ridicule and shaming me for not believing the evolution religion as per 1978.
I say that this is common amongst biology types. First they accept their flawed concepts with the scope of possible evolutionary pathways, then the construct models based on the concepts despite the flaws. Now …they have to, because if they don’t, they too are ridiculed.
Now the line of discourse is.. “Oh you believed that? No real scientists believe that anymore. Where have you been?”
I criticize not the theory, theories come and go. Rather I criticize the phony scientists who are both dishonest about the obsolete science, dishonest about having advanced fact-less theories, and who today continue to advance bad science c/w their endless dishonest ridicule of their critics.
Paul, I remember the “similar embryo” argument myself. It was more the humans descended from neanderthals one I was thinking of. I am not familiar with this argument. It i sad that teachers are not always good at dealing with pertinent questions. I suppose they get so many questions aimed at trouble causing and disruption that it is understandable that some end up feeling that any question is a challenge to their authority. Understandable, but not acceptable.
Paleontologists and anthropologists are famous for jumping to truly devastating conclusions from extraordinarily little evidence. They then go on to state those conclusions as fact. Its seems to be the nature of the work.
“DOJ ‘DISCUSSED’ LEGAL ACTION AGAINST ‘CLIMATE’ DENIERS…” (from Drudge) http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2016/03/09/ag-loretta-lynch-testifies-justice-department-has-discussed-civil-legal-action-against-climate-change-deniers/
It has been obvious since the 80s that this cAGW charade has been politics, rent-seeking, grant seeking, and a power grab. The Drudge report on the DOJ is just another data point.
Science does not need the police state to enforce truth. Truth can take care of itself. It is falsehood that needs the protection of laws.
~ Mark
….What is perhaps most fascinating about modern spectacles like the AGW movement (and here I’m thinking in particular of the Moscow show trials of the 1930s) is that the truth is always right there in front of everyone – and it is always apparent to those who can see. For such people, and this is true of most (but probably not all) AGW skeptics, the fact that some sort of charade is in progress is obvious, even if one does not characterize it in those terms….
What we are seeing in Climate Science is simply a feature of modern society, which is mirrored in practically every other area of life – particularly politics.
Not being a sociologist I find it hard to describe – but it seems to be associated with the growth of an elite ‘establishment’ class in many areas of social activity, and a corresponding concentration by the ‘establishment’ members of their own particular position in their hierarchy, to the exclusion of any interest or skill in furthering the actual work that they are nominally meant to be doing.
Thus politicians or environmentalists fight for a position on their respective ladders, without caring about the constituents they are meant to represent, or the actual on-the-ground environmental issues which are happening. You keep your position by ‘not rocking the boat’ – not by actually delivering clean water or a sensible foreign policy. I think this is happening in all walks of life – and we are seeing phenomena like the rise of Trump, or the rise of sceptic blogs, exactly because the establishment elite are no longer interested in engaging with the task they are nominally required to do. Or will not succeed in their profession if they do try to address that task – which amounts to the same thing….
Fine observations and commentary, Geezer. Many agree with you.
Ayn Rand captured this precisely. “Science” is now the pursuit of a selfie with the right politician, pundit, or elitist appointed thought leader. Mix in a heavy dose of “Argument from Authority” and you have the recipe for the perpetuity of CAGW which lives on despite all its obvious failures.
You’re describing something along the lines of James Burnham’s Managerial Revolution (publ. 1941). At the time, however, he didn’t see all the various pathologies that would be associated with the rise of the managerial elites.
Well stated! Authoritarianism is a powerful force and will continue to be so. Science and democratic processes continue to struggle against it.
Dodgy:
You are hitting that nail square on. The opportunity to ‘make a difference’ is open to all and there are parallel paths available which evade the requirement to jump the ‘accepted’ hoops. I draw a line separating education from schooling. The unschooled are frequently better educated than the schooled, but can lack the style that prevails in a specialised field.
There are pluses and minuses as a result. A plus is independent thought. The environmental movement that got into full swing in the 70’s was mostly composed of people whose main qualification was burning interest, not relevant schooling. It was ‘Peace Corps does Environment’. ‘Appropriate Technology from the masses for the masses’ and ‘Mother Earth News readers write environmental legislation’.
Anyone could be an expert. If you were shrill, that was proof of ‘involvement’ and ‘activism’. Now, burdened with years of indoctrination, filtering, schooling and accumulated debt, the participants are heavily qualified and highly vulnerable to a new generation of amateurs who have access to all the documentation. In consequence the anointed retreat to the cave of ‘you are not qualified to speak’ and ‘that does not appear in a peer reviewed journal’ and ‘that journal is not reputable’ or ‘if the reviewing had been rigorous that sentence would have not been permitted’. The last example happened to me in 2015. The ‘sentence’ implied that something was false, baseless, in line with the experimental evidence. The comment desperately diverted attention from the facts to the style, unsuccessfully.
There are forms of gatekeeping. Defending turf. It goes beyond grant seeking. It is more visceral. They are defending their unique identifiers, their boasting rights. If every Bob, Dick and Willis can access the same data and come up with better conclusions, their scribblings are worth no more than an article from Mother Earth News claiming you can build your own biodiesel plant from $15 worth of plumbing parts from Home Depot and a surplus air conditioning system from an F18. The casual expert is an existential threat to the clique.
Here is what the administration thinks.
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/melanie-hunter/ag-lynch-doj-has-discussed-whether-pursue-legal-action-against-climate
“Mayr is still on his feet, with his original concept remaining the simplest and most useful” This is very much like the descriptions of models as wrong but useful. Probably nobody thinks this is an exact, and certainly not a universal definition, but in most cases it is good enough.
“In such cases, discussants never take the ideas in question as sacrosanct…”
In science there is a strong consenus that the second law of thermodynamics is right. Thus any patent application is checked to see if it is a perpetual motion machine of some kind. If so, it is rejected. The idea is sacrosanct.
“In my opinion, this is why Patterson et al. in their 2008 BAMS article were able to say, truly but perversely, that in their terms there was no “consensus” regarding future warming or cooling back in the 1960s and 1970s. At that time climatology was still a normal area of science, ” Not only a normal area of science, but an unexplored area. There were only a few tens of papers published in the 60’s and 70’s. It is somewhat rediculous to say that the lack of a concensus was becasue it was “normal area of science” when it was clear that it was simply a poorly understood area.
Another example is AIDS/HIV. This is also a politicised area, like global warming. In this case, when people like Mbeki persue policies that are harmful to millions because of a pseudo-science rejection of the real science, there is a somewhat similar outcry. We tend not to simply say “well, you either get it or you don’t” when lives are at stake.
“is that the truth is always right there in front of everyone – and it is always apparent to those who can see. For such people, and this is true of most (but probably not all) AGW skeptics, the fact that some sort of charade is in progress is obvious, even if one does not characterize it in those terms.”
This was also apparent to the HIV/AIDS refuseniks
Missed by a mile, seaass. The science behind HIV/AIDS was well-founded, whereas the “science” behind CAGW is simply well-funded.
Bruce – you seem to have made a typo there. I think there is a lot to be learned from the HIV/AIDS debate. Look at this:
“Here is Fraser Nelson, political editor of the Spectator, promoting the Spectator event next Wednesday at which they will be screening this film: “Is it legitimate to discuss the strength of the link between HIV and Aids? It’s one of these hugely emotive subjects, with a fairly strong and vociferous lobby saying that any open discussion is deplorable and tantamount to Aids denialism. Whenever any debate hits this level, I get deeply suspicious.””
See – there was a strong and vociferous lobby saying that open discussion was deplorable. That is exactly what Rick Wallace (the author of this post) says does not happen in scientific debates.
There is good reason for this. The debate is not scientific, it is political. The scientific debate largely happens in journals. When it gets political -that is , when it directly affects policy- then we get the political debate about the science. This is not unusual, and indeed is the norm. When the Copenhagen vs Many Worlds interpretations of quantum mechanics starts affecting tax rates, you will see the same happen with that scientific issue.
The other area that tends to cause debate about the science, rather than scientific debate, is religion. Politics and religion – best avoided at the dinner table for good reason.
We can assume that Mayr was fully aware of the limitations of his species concept. Ring species have been known for a long time.
Virtually all of the terms and concepts that we use to describe reality are a little fuzzy around the edges, and it is not really too much of a problem in practice. Is that color red or orange? Is that individual with partial androgen insensitivity and XXY chromosome set male or female? Is this or that drug use a case of treatment or of doping?
We all understand intuitively that for some edge cases we need more elaborate and exacting terminology, but that does not detract from the usefulness of broad categories that succinctly and sufficiently describe the other 97% (sorry, couldn’t resist). It is when we neglect this insight that thinks can get out of hand. An example is the ham-fisted application of overly broad legal categories – “assault,” “organized crime,” “terrorist organization” – without due consideration of specific circumstances.
Indeed, these, perhaps in particular “terrorism”, are words that we think we know what they mean but defy definition. Even life itself is somewhat resistant to definition. The BSC is good enough for most uses, but there are exmples where it falls down. It is not my area, but I would imagine that there were few if any who would cling to it as a universal definition of species.
“Is this or that drug use a case of treatment or of doping? ” This is getting somewhat off topic, but i think the way banned drugs are defined leads itself to problems. A drug must be two out of the following:
•Potential to enhance sports performance
•Actual or potential health risk to an athlete
•Its use violates the spirit of sport.
If it is not performance enhancing I see no reason to get involved.
Re doping: Many drugs that are therapeutic — beta-2 adrenergic agonists in asthma, corticosteroids in inflammation — are also performance-enhancing. Hence the common excuse by athletes “I was sick at the time.”
Well I don’t differentiate chemical doping from mechanical doping.
Using a machine to put on muscles is no different to taking a chemical booster shot.
I used to eat a bunch of honey within the hour before jumping in for a competitive swim. I never ever won a race.
Izzat a banned doping ??
G
“Using a machine to put on muscles is no different to taking a chemical booster shot.” I would certainly draw the line at some machine use – using a motorbike for the 400m for example. But using machines as training aids is probably a lost cause.
Drugs are certainly not the only issue. There is an interesting case in baseball. Apparently, pitchers often injure the tendon in their elbow. They then have surgery to replace it with an artificial one, and can then train longer than they could before the injury. There is no question that this surgery to repair damage is acceptable. However, some have the surgery before there is any injury, at age 18 or so, which facilitates longer training. There are serious questions about this procedure when there is no injury.
However, I am pretty sure that honey is safe from the banners.
And of course, the analogy of climate models and the BSC concept is completely silly. Mayr’s species concept is just a definition, and as such it cannot be judged as true or false, only as useful or not. It is mostly useful.
The climate models are not just definitions, but they make specific predictions about the future. These can be right or wrong, and so far they have proven mostly wrong.
Here and below, you’re making some interesting points – and obviously not treating the posting as sacrosanct.
Taking one of these, the difference between a “normal” science and an unexplored area – in the first place, these are not mutually exclusive, so you haven’t refuted the point made. Also, if we follow your logic, the current consensus must mean that the climate is now well-understood. No, I really think that the normal/abnormal distinction plays a role here.
The point about “HIV/AIDS refuseniks” looks to me like a non sequitur. At any rate, I don’t think they thought it was a charade in the same sense – just that the majority were misguided. (The remark is a non sequitur because even if the refuseniks did think it was a charade, this has nothing to do with someone seeing a real charade for what it is.)
Re: Quantum mechanics. There is negligible doubt that quantum mechanics is “right” in that it produces results that compare magnificently with experiment. I misremember the number of digits, but it is something like 8 or 9, that the anomalous magnetic moment of the electron calculation and experiment agree. And analytical chemistry, nuclear physics, and transistor-based electronics, are but three areas of application that are completely dependent on QM. One would have to be perverse to deny QM.
There is lively discussion about interpreting QM. People ask “what is really going on?” and get a huge variety of answers.
There are several similarities with speciation and AGW:
– Each is considered “settled science”
– Each has a “missing link” (there is no quantifying formula for the greenhouse gas property)
– Each offers no axioms, postulates, laws, nor tools of Reason
– Each is a stagnant theory with no advancements since their inception (over 100 years)
With no tools of Reason, each is incapable of structuring an answer to simple questions:
– Is the greenhouse gas property influenced by the quantity or density of a gas in the atmosphere? IOW, if the level of CO2 alone were doubled in the current atmosphere, the density would be almost doubled as well, how does that compare to a doubling of the entire atmosphere so CO2 density remains the same but the quantity is doubled?
– if man were able to establish a self-sustaining colony on Mars and then lose the ability to travel between Earth and Mars, when and how does the Mars’ colony become a different species?
Any theory with no tools of Reason is a specious theory and vapid science. When do we acknowledge this and bend the arc of scientific knowledge towards truth?
When it comes to “settled science”, I’m not sure what this means in connection with speciation. (Nor do I understand what it means to call the prodigious empirical activity in this area during the last 20-30 years a “stagnant theory”.) I would say that the ‘consensus’ is that we still don’t have a deep understanding of how new species arise. In fact, even with sexually reproducing species, of the BSC type speaking roughly, a host of genetic studies, especially on hybrid incompatabilities, suggest that there may be many roads to speciation.
Like I said before, the priesthood is almost always corrupt.
The analogy here seems off point.
Rick Wallace is referring to how species are grouped which can be whatever characteristics you find useful. BSC has proven the most useful over time and so has become the most used implying consensus. The other proposed methods do not change the accepted characteristics of the species (mammals are warm blooded) only how they are grouped. If another method of grouping is found to be more useful it will not change the characteristics of species.
The argument in “climate science” is not about how we group artifacts of climate for discussion, it is about the characteristics of the science itself. We don’t argue over what is a GSM or the PDO, we argue over the impact of increased CO2 on climate and even whether it is good or bad, will it increase global temperatures and by how much. We point out the climate models are not skilled at predicting/projecting temperature because observations prove they have failed. Alarmists claim polar bears are not surviving in a warming climate, and we point out the population is growing and thriving.
The definition of a species is concerned with grouping animals, the CAGW crowd with their claims about CO2 is the equivalent of claiming mammals are cold blooded.
The analogy here seems off point.
I think the point is not to draw out similarity between the issues of biological taxonomy and those of climate studies. Rather, the point is to show the similarity (or dissimilarity) of reactions to “unconventional” views.
Strictly speaking, I don’t think his point requires drawing an analogy between the issues themselves.
Most times, not always I’ll admit, unimportant “unconventional views” are easier to discuss rationally. Biological taxonomy does not raise my interest much, Alarmist claims do.
Agreed.
While I am thankful to see that there is, even among practicing scientists, a healthy skepticism of allopatric speciation (which is nonsensical on a metaphysical basis), I doubt that dissent would be so tolerated if a practicing scientist were to make bold enough to deny Darwinian evolution itself, (which is equally nonsensical on a metaphysical basis).
That will probably be changing within a generation or so, however. The present day near-universal acceptance of Darwinism is a bona fide curiosity. For one thing, the idea is certainly not original to Darwin. The ancient Greek philosophers discussed similar notions among themselves 2,400 years ago and rightly rejected them because they confused the processes of substantial and accidental change. Immanuel Kant, writing roughly a century before Darwin, summarized and refuted every point in the Darwinian program avant la lettre (which once again proves that “Darwinism,” at least as an argumentative trope, was familiar enough to learned men long before its eponymous “discoverer” came along). The reason that the millennia before the mid 1800s rejected Darwinism was not because they were unfamiliar with it, but because they knew it was metaphysically impossible and not worthy of serious attention. So what accounts for the fact that Charles Darwin revives a long-discredited idea in 1859 and it rapidly advances to s state of scientific dogma?
The answer is to be found in the broad historico-morphological development of Western civilization, which of course is far too broad a topic to explain in a blog comment. Suffice it to say for now that Darwinism is not really a scientific hypothesis at all but rather a categorization scheme. It is, in the last analysis, simply a reification of taxonomic tables, a means of disposing of one’s data. The Western world was ripe for such a scheme as part and parcel of the general historicist and materialist outlook that was coming into fashion at that time, which also helps to explain the contemporary ideas of Marxism and Hegelianism.
But the cultural antecedents that lead to the popularity of such notions are not permanent. Darwinism, refuted a thousand and one times already, will continue to live as long as there is an intellectual community which requires belief in it to justify itself. In the end it will be overthrown and abolished not by arguments but by boredom. Men tire of the old ideological conflicts and simply don’t care anymore. We are fairly near the point now when the mention of evolutionary ideas will cease to exercise the same sort of mystical hold over the passions of learned peoples. Practical biology does not require it, and intellectual history will have had done with it.
eponymous…More than anything else about WUWT, I enjoy the requirement to have a handy dictionary and a place to read a four paragraph summary of the history of philosophy for the last 250 years. If we are discussing showing evidence in scientific posturing it would be fun to hear why we call differential calculus that category of mathematics Newton kept secret under the name “fluxion” until beat to publication.
The bottom line is that there is no such thing as “Climate Science” in today’s world! When Enviro-Wackoes and Politicians agree, then Science is relegated to the Dustbin of History. The first major Idiocy came in the 1960s with the “Population Bomb” and was followed in the 1970s with the Idiocy that Northern Hemisphere Freon Releases created an “Ozone Hole” over the Southern Hemisphere, despite NO EVIDENCE whatsoever or even a postulated mechanism for transporting Freon derived Free Chlorine to the Southern Hemisphere. To prove that Science “doesn’t matter”, NASA studied this for over 10 years, including radioactive traced releases of Freon and never identified any Freon derived compounds in the upper atmosphere of North America, much less anywhere South of the equator. Then we have the 1980s ridiculousness of Global Cooling followed, of course, by the 1990s Global Warming. In reality, nothing has changed! The same morons pushing all of these claims are anti-Science, anti-Capitalism, Global Socialists who see a chance to gain Global Power through the Redistribution of Wealth.
BTW, the Ozone Hole is a naturally occurring phenomenon caused by free chlorine releases from lightning strikes on sea water and volcanoes in the “Ring of Fire”. Both occur predominantly in the Southern Hemisphere – Oceans comprise the majority of the Southern Hemisphere surface and the “Ring of Fire” sits mainly South of the Equator. Also note that 25 years of Freon Ban have produced no identifiable change in the Ozone Hole either in Maximum Size or Seasonal Variation.
Rick Wallace,
A reasonable and even toned essay. I like your level of circumspection on the matter of consensus.
How a short bio on yourself?
John
Edite of my immediately previous comment, ” How about a short bio on yourself?”
John
QM only begins to have problems when attemptind to explain How, or Why, some things happen, ie particle entanglement, observed wave front collapse, not in predicting what will actually happen, where it is spot on. Climate science fails miserably in the prediction of What will happen. The difference is between science and politics. It is what happens when networking and grant money are injected into the hiring process.
Rick Wallace,
Nice, reasonable essay.
As Dan points out, no serious scientist doubts the validity of the postulates of quantum mechanics as a set of rules for calculation, or that those calculations can be used to describe a wide variety of phenomena. The dispute is over the *interpretation* of what those postulates mean. There is indeed a dominant, but unproven, paradigm called the “Copenhagen interpretation”. There are those who challenge that interpretation. And those who do, tend to be marginalized. But that debate is not as politicized as climate science since there are no public policy implications of the debate.
One thing that complicates the climate science debate is that there are aspects of climate science, such as the basic mechanism of the greenhouse effect, that are indeed firmly established science. There are also many things that are debatable. There are many “skeptics” that challenge the sound science, as well as the more debatable results. There are many climate scientists who hear the nonsense mixed in with reasonable criticism, lump it all together, and conclude that the reasonable criticism is based on the nonsense. Lots of blame on both sides.
The main thing that is abnormal about climate science is the public nature of the debate. The primary literature still looks very much like normal science, including all the foibles that are normal in science.
See my comment above. Ignore the typo, ” attempting”.
Jim G1,
“Climate science fails miserably in the prediction of What will happen.”
Climate science is not about prediction. It is an observational science, like astronomy, concerned with understanding what is observed. The use of climate models for prediction is just one piece of climate science and those results are, at best, debatable. Predictive models should be just a small piece of climate science; sadly, they have come to dominate the field.
“The difference is between science and politics. It is what happens when networking and grant money are injected into the hiring process.”
That is pretty much the case in every area of science. It is indeed damaging. It seems to be especially bad, and especially damaging, in climate science.
These are good points, although there has been a fair amount of biasing in the literature itself, as the people at Climate Audit have shown time and again.
I refuse to believe anything about quantum mechanics or speciation until I hear the feminist/LGBT perspective. If you think I’m going to take your masculocentric, XY-influenced interpretation of science you’ve got another think coming…
LOL!
According to recent reports that may only arrive at a glacial rate!