Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site cybvax0.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxb!mhuxn!mhuxm!mhuxj!houxm!whuxlm!akgua!sdcsvax!dcdwest!ittvax!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) Newsgroups: net.origins Subject: Re: Honesty Message-ID: <341@cybvax0.UUCP> Date: Thu, 7-Feb-85 11:06:11 EST Article-I.D.: cybvax0.341 Posted: Thu Feb 7 11:06:11 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 10-Feb-85 05:13:43 EST References: <968@utastro.UUCP> <4565@cbscc.UUCP> <1012@utastro.UUCP> <4639@cbscc.UUCP> <330@cybvax0.UUCP> <4724@cbscc.UUCP> Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA Lines: 58 Summary: In article <4724@cbscc.UUCP> pmd@cbscc.UUCP (Paul Dubuc) writes: > [From Mike Huybensz:] > }If you think standards of honesty and critical scrutiny are not applied > }by scientists to eachother, I invite you to read the letters sections of > }journals such as Scientific American, Nature, Science, and a host of > }others. The scrutiny can be so intense as to be flamelike. Or read > }"Not In Our Genes", an attempt by several Harvard scientists to rebut > }some of the claims of sociobiologists. > > Sure. I'll do that if you will read _Betrayers of the Truth_. (Oh, I forgot > you're one who doesn't have to read an argument to know it's unfounded). I'll check out _Betrayers of the truth_. But I'd like an apology for that last sentence (mail will do.) It is at best a misquotation. I said that I need not read all the details of an argument once I had spotted fundamental fallacies. Your bible has a relevant reference to houses built on sand that applies equally well to arguments built on fallacies. > Letters to journals hardly constitute scientific review. In paticular they > don't do much to expose things like faked data. A good scientific review > process involves scrutiny of work by one's peers before anything is even > published. Do you have any idea how many scientific journals there are > published today? The British Medical Journal noted that there are at least > 8,000 in medicine alone. Do you think they're all covered by the review > process? 90 percent of all the scientists that ever lived are alive today. > Do you think all their work gets checked? Do yourself a favor and read the > book, Mike. You're correct that not all science receives appropriate scrutiny. This is partly because there is no monolithic scientific bureaucracy that decides what is good or bad science. Anyone can publish his own work, if only by creating his own journal. And much the same is true of religion. BUT. Some science is extremely well criticized and reviewed. For example, most new ideas in evolutionary theory. Which is (surprise!) what we're discussing. > }> I make no judgements as to what the "worst" of science or the > }> "best" of creationism is. > }Oh, but please do. I really want to see what the best of creationism is. > }Everything I've seen is little better than the pamphlets whatshisname is > }putting out. There is a qualitative difference involved: creationist > }publications seem (to me) always to depend heavily upon fallacies of > }argument, while scientific works seldom do. Perhaps that is sufficient > }to explain the differences in criticism you perceive. > Your condesending attitude goes a long way toward the explanation, I think. > Why don't you give us your definition of what "best" and "worst" mean? > Some things that seem one way to you seem different to me. Why don't you try to change the subject and worm out of trying to show us what YOU think creationism is at its best? I invite anyone else to show what they think creationism is at its best also. And would it be too much for me to ask that you provide a "positive" example? You know, not something that merely attacks evolution, but something that explains natural phenomena in terms of general principles of creationism. -- Mike Huybensz ...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh