Seven Rules For Spotting Bogus Science 759
keynet writes "Robert L. Park is a professor of physics at the University of Maryland at College Park and the director of public information for the American Physical Society, wrote a list of warning signs to help federal judges detect scientific nonsense. (OK, so it hasn't worked and the Patent Office sure hasn't got a copy.) As he says, 'There is no scientific claim so preposterous that a scientist cannot be found to vouch for it'. What he doesn't say is that there are plenty more who will invest in it or base legislation on it."
They have to care first (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:They have to care first (Score:5, Insightful)
How we are wired (Score:3, Insightful)
We have instinctual systems that make it hard to apply these seven rules, and it helps to be aware that people who seem to believe lies are mostly following their gut.
Re:How we are wired (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How we are wired (Score:3, Insightful)
Humans are genetically predisposed to religion...
Really? Pray, which genes are responsible for this phenomenon?
Blaming everything on god is one kind of pseudoscience, blaming everything on genes is another.
Re:How we are wired (Score:3, Insightful)
I would argue that you can neither prove nor disprove the existance of a supernatural creator. Depending on your perspective, there is just as much evidence for one view as the other. Not a troll - just saying that you can't prove the unprovable. Nor can you disprove it.
Religion != Science (Score:5, Informative)
Young Earthism attempts to make scientific statements, and fails the tests of observation. (ie, attempts to describe the history of the Universe, and is quite falsifiable). So Young Earthism is bad science, **not religion**.
Intelligent Design says that a Designer is behind the behavior of the universe, but makes no scientific statements, and can not be falsified observationally, so it is not science: it is Religion, **not science**. For the beliver in Intelligent Design, scientific observations about the behavior and history of the Universe tell about God's nature (since, by presumption, God exists). For the non-beliver, they do not (since, by presumption, there is no God). But science can make no (firm) statement about which is true.
Religious descisions (for both the believer and the non-believer) are descisions of faith and experience. No amount of science will (or can) ever change this.
Scientific Scrutiny (Score:5, Informative)
Not quite. One of the most important parts of any theory is parsimony. Creationism violates this, and therefore science can discount it.
It boils down to a simple hypothetical conversation.
Creationist: Where did the universe come from?
Scientist: I can't say for certain.
Creationist: God created the universe.
Scientist: Where did God come from?
Creationist: I can't say for certain.
Basically, you add to the equation, but don't get any answers. The question of 'Where did X come from?' is posed, and saying 'X=Y' is unneccessary and unparsimonious. You can't bring 'Y' into the equation unless it will bring you closer to an answer. Creationists do so, with the claim that science cannot discount it, but science can, and does, say it is incorrect. True, science can't change your 'beliefs', but you can believe 2+2=5, but there's no reason for that to be taken seriously.
Creationism isn't outside the realm of science, but claiming it is is the only way to keep it around.
Re:Scientific Scrutiny (Score:3, Insightful)
All else being equal, science will consider the simpler explanation more likely to be true. Both of the italicized phrases are very importent.
The simplest possible theory of everything is simply "God wills it thus." You invoke one entity, and don't muck around with gravity, electomagnetism, etc. You even get some predictive power: "God wills that apples fall, so when I drop this apple, it will fall."
The reason that science discounts this theory is not that it has a simpler one. Quite the contrary; just try to learn quantum mechanics in anything less then five or ten years. What it has is a theory that predicts things much better. "God wills it" doesn't work well as the only theory of the universe, because it's a disguised form of appeal to experience, and there are a lot of edge cases, such as the famous gold foil experiment that gave strong evidence for the existance of atoms, where your experience isn't sufficient.
First, the point is that given two theories that make the same prediction, science prefers the simpler one. Second, the point is that that means nothing about the truth of such theories; the more complicated one may still be correct.
Thus, if there is a God who did indeed create the universe, then there is one, regardless of how the additional apparent complication may offend your sensibilities. Thus, Occam's Razor is only a rule of thumb useful for proceeding with scientific discovery; it is not a fundamental truth of the universe and has no power.
Finally, in this particular case the true paradox is "Something, instead of nothing, exists." "God exists and created a universe" and "A universe exists" are really on the same level of complexity; both simply assert something exists. From our point of view it may seem simpler to simply assume the existance of a universe, but again, that has no power over what is true. A pet bird that never leaves a house may find it easier to simply assume the existance of a house, but that doesn't mean that the house was not created by humans and lots of raw materials that weren't a house to start with, even if it never sees the humans of the house do anything remotely resembling construction.
Re:Scientific Scrutiny (Score:3, Interesting)
The notion of an all-powerfull being does not a consistent world make! Don't you watch the simpsons?
Homer: "Could God microwave a burrito SO hot, that He himself could not eat it?"
This outlines a contradiction in the all-powerful-being explanation. If god can do anything, then god can make something undestroyable by anyone including himself. If god can do anything, then god can also destroy this thing. BOOM! contradiction!
Either way, if a religious argument is one not based on observations but rather information passed from someone else, then there is another serious problem:
Let's assume you have an arbitrary but consistent explanation for how the universe was created (that is, you have no evidence for your proposal, so it is a religious argument). I propose that the set of all of these explanations is infinitely large. Given that, independant of all other factors, the probability of any one of these explanations being correct approaches zero, making it impossible to guess. This makes evidence necesary to even consider a theory for how the universe was created.
Now is there an infinite number of specific explanations? There are additive properties to any explanation, such as it took x years to create the earth, or whatever. You'll have to keep generalizing on your theory in order to get a FINITE probability that your theory is correct. I can't prove this yet, but I would guess that generalizing that much would probably meet the definition of agnostic (since the trend is heading this way as you remove all stringency and specificity from a system)
Basically, you can't prove a consistent argument wrong, but you can prove that there's absolutely no reason to believe in it.
The fact that supporters of an argument cannot formulate their beliefs in terms of scientific principles does nothing to prove or disprove their beliefs.
Descartes said "I think; therefore I am.". If you want to get right down to it, this is the only thing you can prove about the universe. Everything other than your existence could be an illusion. Therefore we have to make some assumptions if we're going to carry on with life, such as, if I walk outside of my house I won't be eaten by invisible monsters. However, the only reasonable assumptions you can make are those based off of your observations and logic. So, you can certainly say that religious people are misguided.
I could make several other sociological arguments against religion, but I think I'll cut this here before I get completely off-topic... I feel myself slipping into rant-mode...
Re:Scientific Scrutiny (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Religion != Science (Score:5, Informative)
The basic concept behind irreducible complexity is an attack on Richard Dawkins' ideas in The Blind Watchmaker. Dawkins compares evolution to a blind watchmaker who puts together or creates a watch from a jumble of parts without knowing what they are. Behe presents certain systems (the visual system and the hemocoagulation cascade) and shows how there are interlocking and interdependent components within them. The eye needs both the lens and cornea and the retina. A retina without a lens and cornea does not get a focused image. A lens and cornea without a retina will focus an image, but there will be nothing there to receive it. Behe thus postulates that this is a chicken and egg problem: neither could have come first and neither has any reason to evolve without the simultaneous co-evolution of the other, thus he states that the only possible solution is that there must be a designer, an intelligent designer who created this interlocking system. Behe also presents the interlocking biochemical cascade of clotting factors in a similar argument. He is wrong.
The examination of multiple species shows multiple conserved elements of the visual system: certain cratures have different types of lenses, others have no lenses at all and only have eyecups with physical depressions that concentrate reflected light. Starfish and molluscs have different types of photoreceptors, and plants and single celled organisms have simple photoreceptors that are very similar to the G-protein opsins that we humans have and which serve a similar function: to transduce light into a biochemical signal.
Behe's arguments are testable and are becoming less relevent as more people become aware of them and of the arguments against them.
Re:God and science (Score:3, Insightful)
The oldest records of my family tree date back to 1860. Therefore the world was divinely created 140 years ago?
The oldest living dog I know of is 16 years old (determined by reading his showdog papers). So the world was divinely created 16 years ago?
Stories about demons, elves, pixies, ghosts, spirits, goblins, superhumans, giant mutated lizards that breathe fire and demolish largish cities, also exist in many (most?) world cultures.
Punctuated equilibrium accounts for problems seen with traditional natural selection, not for problems with evolutionary theory. It's important to realise there's a distinction between the theory and the mechanisms behind the theory. The mechanisms are constantly being changed as new evidence is discovered. The theory has withstood all serious attempts to be discredited.
Re:God and science (Score:3, Insightful)
Since the last ice age ended around 10,000 years ago, no tree can be 20,000 years old because its climate would have changed too drastically for it to survive.
Flood stories exist in most world cultures because it rains on most world cultures.
You confuse the principle of a theory with the application of the theory. If a theory says that new species arise due to natural selection and evolution, that doesn't tell us anything about the population dynamics, rate of evolution, or why two populations may find interbreeding uninteresting. If I can't fix your television, that doesn't mean that there is an error in Maxwell's equations.
Re:Typical Slashdot (Score:5, Informative)
Agreed, dating by strata is a bit uncertain at times - in the absence of any other evidence, all you can really say is "this is older than that, because this is underneath that." But the presence of dateable bits in the strata itself, or of well-known events (a layer of ash may correspond to some well-known volcanic eruption, for example) allows scientists to more accurately assign an absolute date range to the item at hand (your cat).
Read a first-year archeology textbook for more information, and then come to your own conclusion.
Re:Typical Slashdot (Score:3, Interesting)
And? They have no idea how long it took for those layers to form. No way to verify the numbers they come up with.
When's the last time you buried anything close to the surface? By the time you're 6 feet in the ground, according to evolutionists who will date the rock you're buried in, you'll be millions of years old.
It's all based on unproven assumptions. You can observe the formation of tree rings. You can't observe the formation of sedimentary layers. You have NO idea how the dirt got there to form the layers. You have NO idea how many people/animals walked on the dirt causing it to be more compact. You have NO idea how many people/animals geological events dumped dirt in that area. You have NO idea how many rivers or whatnot have come and gone removing layers.
Evolutionists make a professional out of ignoring the obvious unknown variables. They of all people should be aware of the fact the earth doesn't stay constant. Animals and people bury things. Sometimes very deep. Like in wells that have since collasped. Now you're millions of years old because so many layers are above you even though you actually died yesterday.
Hence the cave example. Caves go down down down millions of years so "millions" of years of dirt are above you significantly falsifying your true age to Evolutionists.
Ben
Re:Typical Slashdot (Score:5, Informative)
Finally, we have excellent ideas about sediment deposition - there is an entire science dedicated to dirt and its formation. Just because you don't understand it, or it doesn't make sense to you/your church/your belief system, doesn't mean it's not a well-understood process. Please do some reading.
Re:Typical Slashdot (Score:3, Insightful)
So if I throw a dead cat (that died yesterday) in a well and it caves in you know the rock on top of the cat is younger than the cat. Or if I throw it in a cave and the cave collapses the cat is younger than the rock of the cave? Are you serious?
Thanks for demonstrating my point. "Evolutionists" *don't* know that the rock above something is younger. In fact it's always the case when you bury something that what's buried is SIGNIFICANTLY (on the order of millions of years) younger than the dirt piled on top.
A person buried 6 feet under is less than 100 years old but the dirt is millions upon millions of years old.
So no, you don't get it at all. But in true Slashdot fashion your ignorance is moderated up.
Ben
Global Warming = Creationism (Score:3, Interesting)
There are [sic] a surprising number of us right here who are willing to believe the stories about zero-point energy, anti-gravity devices, "Echelon", oil-is-an-unlimited-resource, global-warming-is-unproven, the "Elbrus E2K", and so on.
Excuse me, but it is the proponents of the "global warming" myth who are failing the test. It was they who went to the popular Press without first submitting their theories to the rigors of peer review. It is they who talk incessantly of "conspiracies" by "evil corporations" (and let's not forget that "evil President Bush" person!) to destroy the planet. It is they who are using anecdotal evidence ("disappearing" polar ice caps, a heat wave somewhere, et. al. ad infinitum ad nauseum) to bolster their claim. It is they who are invoking ancient superstitions about "Gaia" or whatever the hell the Earth Goddess' name is this week. It is they who are using tiny temperature swings, at the edge of detection and well within the limits of normal fluctuations for this planet, to predict doom and disaster for us all unless we repent and go back to a stone-age hunter-gatherer culture.
And finally, it is the "global warming" promoters, not the skeptics, who are studiously ignoring ample evidence of a 200-year-long global warming period a thousand years ago that not only did NOT bring gloom and doom to the planet but actually brought a period (lasting, coincidentally, two hundred years!) of then-unparalleled peace, prosperity, and social and scientific progress.
Please don't lump rational skeptics in with the religious nutcases.
Re:They have to care first (Score:4, Funny)
That reminds me... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:They have to care first (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Elected judges are not much better vis-a-vis science.
2. An appointed judge may be in a position not to care what people think of his decision and be less likely therefore to be swayed by ideological reasoning.
3. Most judges I work with on a daily basis want to (1) do the right thing and (2) become less, rather than more, ideological from the first day that they put on the robes.
GF.
Re:They have to care first (Score:3, Interesting)
Can you spell Creationism?
Are you trying to suggest that judicial activism [eagleforum.org] is an exclusive phenomenon of the religious right? I've seen many recent and amazing examples of selective memory with regard to the behavior [williamcooper.com] of past administrations. When we religious folk practice such selective reasoning, the word most often used to describe it is, I believe, hypocrisy.
Re:Oh puhleaase. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Oh puhleaase. (Score:5, Funny)
You know why the speed of light is finite? Well, that's so that you cannot see that the universe is still under construction. Until the universe is finished, no one will be enabled to find faster-than-light travel.
And yes, I can even make a prediction: For the forseeable future, no one will invent a working warp drive - constructing an universe is a complex task, and will last quite some time. Therefore every day from now on, where no working warp drive is invented, is clear evidence for my recent-creation-theory.
Anyone who can show any evidence that I'm wrong? (Remember: Evidence for an older-than-five-minute universe is evidence for my recent-creation-theory, because it explicitly states such evidence was created.)
And of course, you cannot say it could not be falsificated. Show me a working warp drive any time soon, and you've disproven it.
Well, it seems like a quite good theory, after all
Re:Oh puhleaase. (Score:3, Interesting)
We choose what we believe, if I think that it's more rational to believe that the universe is billions of years old and that all the science makes science, it is a choice I made (and I did that choice). But believing that god created the universe as it is now and the devil spreaded evidence of a diferent way so we would doubt gods words is also a choice. I dindt done this shoice, but I would not say its a worst one.
tring to make everyone believe that one way is better then other is what make wars...
Re:Well, then...let's look here. (Score:5, Insightful)
I do not regard this as a scientific theory. I do not associate it with Evolution either. This is a theory of *origins* much like the big bang. While they seem to offer a plausible/possible scenario for the orign of life and the universe they should not be lumped in with the Theory of Gravitation nor the Theory of Evolution. It is an important distinction!
Regarding the Theory of Evolution and repeatable experiments.... Some recent observations have *demonstrated* the *recent* evolution of one species into another. See the recent Slashdot history on a particular weed/shrub in England. While this is not an experiment... it is powerful evidence demonstrating the *fact* of Evolution. Other experiments *have* been conducted using software and biological models with greater and lesser success in verifying the *Theory* of Evolution.
All this being said, Evolution is certainly not a perfect scientific theory, but it is the best one we have and it is remarkably powerful as a construct around which many in the biological and scientific communities can think and communicate scientific discoveries. This is invaluable.
Your argument that any experiment conducted to mimic the Origin of Life would lend credence to Intelligent Design theory is a straw man argument. It ignores the fact that, the Universe is capable of setting up the exact same scenario that the scientist has duplicated, entirely at random. You are basically saying that random processes do not exist. Would you argue that any experiment which seeks to verify the Theory of Gravity
The claim that any experiment that seeks to verify theories of random processes must necessarily refute the said theories, because the scientist was required to setup the experiment, is a non-sequiter. It does not follow that it requires Intelligent Design. The very act of modeling Weather proves the existence of God? It's absurd.
Creationism psuedo science offers no benefit other than assuaging the religious faiths of it's adherents.
Re:Well, then...let's look here. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Well, then...let's look here. (Score:5, Insightful)
You wouldn't. Because this has so little resemblance to the theory of evolution it's laughable. Or at least it would be if I didn't think you were serious.
In order for something to be scientifically valid, in ANY field OTHER THAN evolution, you have to be able to repeat the experiment.
No you don't. You have to be able to make observations, fit those observations into the theory, make predictions from the theory, find new observations that fulfil those predictions. We don't create new stars in laboratories, but that doesn't mean that astrophysics isn't science. And they don't even have to be direct observations, either. No one has ever seen an electron, but we know they are there. How? By the traces they leave behind. Indirect observation is still valid science.
In fact, it proves that there was an intelligence behind creating those amino acids. The scientist has a brain, did a lot of research, and set up chemicals and reagents in the appropriate way as to create whatever organic compound he was hoping to get.
Do you honestly believe that the result of mixing two chemicals together is dependent on the person standing over the test tube? That if there was an earthquake and two beakers fell and their contents mixed, the chemical reaction would be different than if a person mixed them on purpose?
If you really believe that, then there's truly no hope for you to ever have even an elementary understanding of science.
Re:Oh puhleaase. (Score:5, Insightful)
Both groups are on shaky ground, yet each is ready to defend their beliefs without even looking closely at the other side from an objective viewpoint.
It seems laughable that the scientific community defends completely their sacred held beliefs, fiercely attacking all those who doubt them until some other scientist comes around and says that everything has changed because of this new bone, or that new interpretation, etc. Right back they go to their unassailable tower of science, forgetting that the old one was destroyed from within, not acknowledging that they might still have it wrong.
The other side is even funnier because of the emphasis that they place on "Biblical Truth" contrased with the fact that what they "believe" is not even represented in the Bible. The irony of this situation is almost too incredible to imagine. I speak here of those who believe in a young earth especially. Without going into a theology lession let me just say that the Bible definitively states that the Earth existed for eons before man got here. The travesty is that these and other creationists don't understand what they are trying to defend.
All this leads me to believe that the most vehement agitators and debaters are there for some other reason than the pursuit of truth. All I can see are people who have an agenda either to validate themselves through identification with a "cause", or who hope to reinforce their own ego's through intellectual conflict, or maybe they are not secure in their own beliefs enough to believe them quietly.
Either way it seems pointless to argue so vehemently...one is gonna be wrong when something new is discovered, and the other is wrong due to lack of due dilligence. Sad.
Oh, and as to proving that creation did not happen, it is not so easy when you look at what the Bible ACTAULLY says, not some kook's mis-interpretation or some provably flawed and mistranslated piece of literature (King James Version).
So all of you go and argue about it, I'm gonna laugh at yall and go study some more. You never learn anything form arguing. You only learn if you put in the time to study it yourself: dilligently, systematically, objetively.
Re: Oh puhleaase. (Score:3, Informative)
> Evolution, for example, would not be easy to falsify
Actually, evolution runs a risk of falsification every time someone sequences some DNA or digs a fossil out of the ground.
It simply has a stunning track record on the falsifiability issue.
Notice, for instance, that when Darwin published it he was predicting that there exists some mechanism for generating variation and passing it on to offspring. Then notice that he published before Mendel did.
Re: They have to care first (Score:3, Interesting)
> Can you spell "Evolution makes up so many rules and was proposed by a 'scientist' working on his own"
Tell us about some of those rules "evolution" makes up.
Also, FYI, Darwin was in consultation with his colleagues. In fact he had to rush to press before he was ready because he was about to get scooped by someone else working within the same intellectual milleu and coming to an identical conclusion.
Evolution isn't a problem for anyone except those who have made special creation a central article of faith for their religion.
Conspiracy theory buffs (Score:3, Funny)
Dangit... (Score:4, Funny)
Owwww, my wrists!!! I think the placebo effect is wearing off... Curse you, /.!
Re:Dangit... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Dangit... (Score:3, Interesting)
In other words it doesn't do a damned thing. I'm sure in some cultures past or present, ludicrous notions such as drinking tea made from horse shit, sleeping on a bed of dead fish or smearing pig fat in your armpits would be "believed by many to relieve stress". It doesn't mean it actually does.
Shame on Boots the Chemist for selling this junk and various other homeopathic / aromatherapy 'remedies'. Is it any wonder why people believe in this nonsense when a 'reputable' company like Boots peddles such shit from its pharmacy counter? If they sell it, it must work right?
Pseudo Science and Crystal Homeopathy (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Pseudo Science and Crystal Homeopathy (Score:3, Funny)
"Sorry, your browser doesn't support Java(tm)."
Hey! who took my magic Java crystals??!
What about the 8th rule? (Score:4, Funny)
A WITCH!!!!!!!
Re:What about the 8th rule? (Score:2, Funny)
Rule #1 (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Rule #1 (Score:5, Funny)
Only need one rule (Score:5, Insightful)
The big problem is that people are greedy, lazy, and generally lacking in common sense. Another set of rules isn't going to change that.
Re:Only need one rule, but not this one. (Score:5, Insightful)
8. If it looks like shit and smells like shit... (Score:2, Insightful)
hang on a minute... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:hang on a minute... (Score:3, Funny)
Huh Wha? (Score:5, Informative)
As he says, 'There is no scientific claim so preposterous that a scientist cannot be found to vouch for it'. What he doesn't say is that there are plenty more who will invest in it or base legislation on it."
From the article, the full paragraph of the quote is:
There is, alas, no scientific claim so preposterous that a scientist cannot be found to vouch for it. And many such claims end up in a court of law after they have cost some gullible person or corporation a lot of money. How are juries to evaluate them?
The very next sentence indicates that there are very many people who are willing to invest or base laws on bad science!
Hmmm, (Score:5, Insightful)
I just know the above disclaimer will be ignored by most. Which makes the whole thing a bit dangerous. Afterall, according to the rules, Quantum Physics could be considered bogus.
Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
By which of these rules, exactly? Even when it was first proposed, Quantum physics was NOT pitched directly to the media, was NOT claimed to be suppressed by the establishment, was NOT at the edge of detection, was NOT based on anecdotal evidence, was NOT based on centuries-old information, and was NOT developed by one person in isolation. Yes, it was a radically new theory that descriped new laws of nature, but atomic-scale physics was already known to be different, since Rutherford and before.
Yes, science is often weird and disturbing and hard to understand, but that's not a reason to confuse it with pseudo-science.
(Anti-disclaimer: IAAP)
It's a great idea... (Score:2)
---
There is, alas, no scientific claim so preposterous that a scientist cannot be found to vouch for it.
---
Which means that at some point these seven points are going to be debunked by one of these guns for hire scientists
Schematic for sale... (Score:3, Funny)
For sale desgin for Flux capacitor, will pay shipping in US....
Alternative list of 7 ways to detect bogus science (Score:5, Funny)
reduced to one line (Score:5, Insightful)
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." -- Carl Sagan.
Re:reduced to one line (Score:5, Informative)
Reduced to one book (Score:5, Informative)
Karl Popper has a hard nosed approach
If either of these don't apply then it isn't science.
Peer Review (Score:3, Insightful)
Wiggle room (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not a conspiracy theorist, so I'm not automatically inclined to believe in, for instance, claims that a powerful establishment is suppressing certain scientific work (Park's point 2). However, I think we should be careful about dismissing out of hand the possibility that the establishment might stop at nothing to suppress discoveries that might shift the balance of wealth and power in society. Instead of making this a criterion for junk science, perhaps we should be sensitive to the influence of the establishment. After all, we're willing to question research that is funded by a party that has something to gain by the results. Why not keep an eye out for cases where the opposite might be happening?
I suppose what I'm saying is that we should allow for some wiggle room in our interpretation of Park's criteria. Park seems to think so too- just before he gives his list, he notes that "even a claim with several of the signs could be legitimate."
What about the ever-popular crackpot index?? (Score:5, Interesting)
Needed: a high-tech business plan version (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, what happened is that we had the high-tech bubble which then popped. Now the VCs are so suspicious that very few high-tech business plans ever attract funding.
Ancient folk wisdom can still trump modern science (Score:2, Interesting)
Now would be a good time to point out that science still doesn't understand how aspirin (derived from salicylic acid, which was discovered at least 2000 years ago, works.
Re:Ancient folk wisdom can still trump modern scie (Score:4, Informative)
You're right about one thing though: it did take a long time.
This bears a link to the crackpot index: (Score:4, Interesting)
It's written for physics but seems to apply pretty well to any science...
Teach it in your schools (Score:5, Insightful)
Methodology or anything that teaches kids to discern right from wrong should be taught in schools, so that we can protect ourselves from wrong ideas based in nothing. This could be by just explaining kids how you can know something is true and when something hasn't been proven yet, but might be true and when things are real BS. (BBC's Panorama had an illusionist who debunked the claims of homeopathy. Entertaining and educational)
I also have one fundamental rule I adher by: Never trust data given by the person that is going to benefit from the decision you make upon it.
Best quote from the article (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm particularly stuck by this one (Score:5, Insightful)
The only real exception to this is in new fields, such as computational biology; sometimes a whole new way of looking at the world comes along, and for a few years -- even decades -- the frontiers are wide open. Quantum physics was an example of this in its early years. At that moment, individuals and small groups and big organizations are roughly on a level playing field. But once the easy discoveries in the field have been made, the balance tilts back toward big science. That's just the way it is.
Re:I'm particularly stuck by this one (Score:3, Insightful)
But you did forget one thing; to this day almost all advances in pure math are made by single people working alone. Often after years of thinking about a single problem to the exclusion of everything else (including food and hygene).
Re:I'm particularly stuck by this one (Score:3, Informative)
No way. Do you have a research degree in mathematics (e.g. Ph.D.)? If not, then you're not in a position to know how research mathematics is done.
I would certainly agree that pure math is more amenable to solo progress than any other science, but to say "almost all advances" are done solo is going way too far.
These days, even if you work alone, you are still utterly dependent on conferences, seminars, and publications by others in the community. No mathematician can get far today without other people helping. If nothing else, you need to know what others are doing so that you do not duplicate their work.
Re:I'm particularly stuck by this one (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I'm particularly stuck by this one (Score:3, Informative)
the small science has been done.
Not really. A lot of small science has been done, but there's lots left. (Note: I'm defining small as "Can be done with a single investigator, a few grad students and a modest NSF grant" as opposed to projects in high-energy physics where the author list is longer than the paper.)
Want an instant Nobel prize? Come up with an equivalent to BCS theory for high-TC superconductivity. My bet is that this is going to come out of a group of no more than 5.
Amateurs can still make significant discoveries in astronomy, paleotology or geology with equipment you can buy in Wal-Mart. Shoemaker-Levy-9 was an amateur find. A friend of mine in college stumbled across a fossil while looking at sediments in a local stream: the fossil was of a walrus that wasn't thought to exist anywhere in North America or anywhere near the time is was dated to: various scientists had to recheck their assumptions of what the climate was like at that time and place when he published.
As you point out, there is a *lot* of science in computational biology out there still: cheap Linux clusters bring the price of this kind of work way down. I could afford to do it at home if I had the time. Saying this is a new field is somewhat disengenuous: virtually all non-trivial new discoveries come in "new" fields. Major discoveries create those new fields in the first place.
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Informative)
Bardeen, Cooper and Schrieffer figured out how this works back in the 50s: see a quick intro here [chemsoc.org]. They won the Nobel for BCS theory in 1971.
However, the highest temperature found (and predicted possible) for a conventional BCS superconductor was about 30K. In the mid-80s a group found ceramics that superconducted at 35K, there are now ones known that superconduct at 77K at room pressure. (Important since you can use cheap, easy to store liquid nitrogen to cool rather than very expensive liquid helium.) These materials became known as high-TC superconductors.
Nobody knows how these work, although there are a lot of people trying to find out. A workable theory that explained how this happens while ruling out the other competing theories would get you a Nobel in short order. Manage to come up with one that can predict the composition of a room temperature variety and you'll be rich beyond the dreams of avarice.
That's fine, but . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
A) That there's always a friendly attitude towards actual innovation in science.
B) That there's no corruption in "accepted" scientific communities.
The "respected" scientists of various fields can be manipulated and manipulating, have their own vested interests, and have their reasons to be questioned as well.
That being said, I think a lot of these are spot-on, and that people do need the knowledge to ask good questions and spot frauds.
Another rule... (Score:3, Funny)
Missleading science on TV (Score:5, Interesting)
Warning sign number 2
>2. The discoverer says that a powerful establishment is trying to suppress
>his or her work.
Well, a member of the secret scientific establishment brotherhood would say that, wouldn't he?
I'd like to add another tell-tale sign
8. The scientific study was funded or conducted under the auspices of a media company.
Recently in the UK we've had a number of TV documentaries about controversial theories. One was an investigation into homeopathic medicine. The other was into the idea that otherwise very mild diseases might lead to obesity. In both cases the TV company funded a small scale test.
The problem was that the tests involved only about 100 subjects, far too small to have any statistical validity whatsoever. They said so in the show, but is that enough? Several people I've talked to afterwards recieved the impression that the tests in the show proved something.
Far from promoting an understanding of science, the shows succeeded in missleading the public not only as to the validity of the theories under examination, but also as to the value of such small scale tests.
I've never come across this kind of thing in the UK before, is this happening on TV in other countries too?
Simon Hibbs
religous bunk detector ? (Score:3, Funny)
I protest against this list (Score:3, Interesting)
However, more generally, making rules for evaluating innovation is a dangerous thing. Like art, there are no rules of what is art and what is not and creating rules for that can only be tyrannic. Who's to decide? There are plenty of scientists working alone in their backyard, UFO's might exist, and extrasensory comunication is not much more freaky than the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen distant-action paradox.
By the way, this list rules out the validity of religion as well on all seven points :-)
Rules for judges (Score:5, Informative)
Five criteria are used:
1. Is the expert qualified?
2. Is the expert's opinion supported by scientific reasoning and methodology?
3. Is the expert's opinion supported by reliable data?
4. Does the expert's opinion fit the facts of the case (relevance)?
5. Does the expert opinion qualify under general evidentiary rules of Federal Rule of Evidence 403?
Criterion 2, above, relies on determinations as to whether a scientific theory can or has been tested; what the error rates are; whether a theory has been subjected to peer review and publication (these are not dispositive, but they are certainly considered by the court and if they are missing, hackles are raised); whether a theory is generally accepted in the scientific community or whether it i ssubject to debate still; and whether the details of the case "fit" the theory.
A "Daubert" hearing is usually convened if any of the above are in question, and the judge rules on whether expert testimony should be permitted. The experts C.V. and the materials he relies upon in the case, as well as his expert report (prepared prior to trial) are all discoverable, so there are no surprises either at the Daubert hearing or at trial.
If a case has enough at stake to require an expert to testify, generally there will be a competing expert. This gives you a dueling experts scenario (cue the music from "Deliverance") where bought and paid for experts contradict each other, in whole or in part.
The primary issue usually then becomes credibility which unfortunately usually is not based on scientific validity, but is instead based on more subjective criteria. Qualifications also come into play -- the guy from Harvard usually beats the guy from Podunk State all else being equal. Fair? Not really, but it is reality.
The problem with legal disputes and science is that you cannot set up special courts for every case in which science is a key issue. It would fracture jurisdiction even further. Besides, specialization doesn't really help because every case involves different science.
There is no way a tribunal can be all-knowing. For some limited types of cases that recur frequently, there may be some benefit to setting up specialized courts. Unfortunately, after you get past the trial, at some point it is impossible to set up specialized appellate courts to hear appeals. Laymen will be involved in the process at some point.
GF.
Warning signs, not indicators (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess I was hoping for something a little more along the lines of a philosophy of science. Although I agree that bad science is usually accompanied by one or more (usually more) of these conditions, the conditions could just as readily be applied to certain particularly brilliant scientific breakthroughs. The conditions need fine-tuning to eliminate the false positives if we want to be sure to encourage the next Einstein, rather than mistakenly brand him a charlatan and run him out of town.
Galileo (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not a scientfic historian, but couldn't points "2. The discoverer says that a powerful establishment is trying to suppress his or her work." and "7. The discoverer must propose new laws of nature to explain an observation" be used to discredit a scientist on the order of Galileo? Or, for that matter, couldn't 7 and "6. The discoverer has worked in isolation" be used against Einstein? I am sure to be corrected if wrong, but I always kinda thought Einstein worked pretty much in isolation.
So these aren't a litmus test--just a leaning.
And we need this common sense. (Score:5, Insightful)
Just last week I was with some people, otherwise intelligent people in a book club, who turn out to believe in predestination and ghosts - one lady says she hears voices of dead friends and they tell her they are OK and they give her comfort.
What is scary is not so much that (we all need comfort when friends die, and whatever we choose to believe is at least understandable), but the fact that the entire group of people misunderstood science. "There must be types of radiation that are not yet known causing this", was the consensus. Everyone just took this lady at her word!
Last week on a radio show here in Canada a "shaman", Doctor Somethingorother, took questions. One went like this:
"Doctor: Fred here from Winnipeg. My question: When you are about to get in touch with your spirit self, do your electrons speed up their frequency? And does this mean I have a talent for communicating with the spirits? Because this happens to me weekly: first I suddenly feel like my inner electrons are speeding up their frequency and then I am unable to talk for what seems like a while, I am like a Zombie for a few minutes, and meanwhile I feel like I am in the spirit world and communicate with their mystery, and then I come back again". Doctor: "Yes! Exactly! And Yes! And Yes! You are talented in spirit communication, and indeed the frequency response of the electrons increases as we get near the spirit communication level, as the energy increase is a presurcor to this communication..." bla bla bla.
Now this poor caller was presumably an epileptic or narcoleptic. He should have been told to get (science-based) medical treatment. But no-one found it necessary to point this out: just because someone starts talking in an authoritative voice, he is believed.
Just now as I typed this message received a junk fax for "Marina, a Leading Psychic". Many people will pay for this stuff, in 2003. Not 1403! Weird.
This suspension of disbelief is dangerous. I think we need to be forceful in debunking myth. It seems to me that in the early 21st century we are a bit too apologetic.. "emotional correctness": it is seen as necessary to respect all beliefs. I think we do ourselves a discredit by that.
The Browser... (Score:3, Funny)
Rule #1 (Score:3, Funny)
Science != Truth (Score:3, Interesting)
In the same way, science is unable to deal with any reality that is not observable or verifiable. Theology and metaphysics are by definition unscientific, but that doesn't mean that they don't deal with truth; it just shows the limitations of science.
I'm not knocking science; I'm just saying that it's not ultimate truth.
Re:Science != Truth (Score:3, Interesting)
And if ancient folk remedies were really all that great, why is the average human lifespan so much shorter where that's the only medicine available? (Even when other living conditions are good.)
Goodbye to My Karma (Score:4, Interesting)
The world of science is being affected by the media far more than the media is affected by science. If somebody comes up with an anti-gravity machine, for example, it is QUITE possible that they will try to secure their place in history by announcing it directly to the media, to prevent the news from leaking prematurely or other scientists from stealing the idea, or, heaven forbid, patenting it before the originator can claim "prior art". The other scientists can examine it to their hearts content, ONCE the originator has had his day in the sun. Look at Apple's secrecy with their products. News leaks KILL these people. The same psychological principles hold true for a scientist who comes up with something completely new. Look at the greatest invention of the 20th Century, the Segway [snicker].
2. The discoverer says that a powerful establishment is trying to suppress his or her work.
Yes, conspiracy theorists often seem like quackpots. But to discount the POSSIBILITY of establishment interference is to deny basic economic theories of self-preservation. Don't you think it's possible that oil companies would fight to stop alternative fuels from coming forth, or would they welcome their own doom joyously? Would Microsoft welcome a perfect disassembler that would reveal all their source code, or would they see this as a threat? Does Microsoft support Java for its cross-platform functionality? How about a pill that took the place of food, would MacDonalds say, "Sounds good, who cares about the bottom line and the millions of jobs we're going to lose?" If the establishment didn't want to preserve the status quo at all costs, FUD wouldn't exist. But it DOES exist, and I see it being used daily to kill small innovators (BeOS, anyone?). NOBODY welcomes a better product or idea if it's coming from a competitor.
3. The scientific effect involved is always at the very limit of detection. Alas, there is never a clear photograph of a flying saucer, or the Loch Ness monster. Thousands of published papers in para-psychology, for example, claim to report verified instances of telepathy, psychokinesis, or precognition. But those effects show up only in tortured analyses of statistics. The researchers can find no way to boost the signal, which suggests that it isn't really there.
Nice science - If we can't prove something exists, it doesn't. This ignores the reality that our scientific methods are still in their infancy. *Of course* we can't prove aliens exist in the billions of galaxies out there, we can't even make our own space shuttles work without exploding. And just because I've never been to China doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. There are enough people who claim to have been there, and many even have photographs of it, but I've never been there, so I wisely discount these "tourists" as quacks. Same goes for religious experiences, aliens, telepathy, precognition, etc. 100 years ago, Nuclear Power would have seemed insane, but not because it is "crazy", but because our own limitations prevented it from becoming reality for us. Everything is "at the very limit of detection" at one time or another.
4. Evidence for a discovery is anecdotal. If modern science has learned anything in the past century, it is to distrust anecdotal evidence. Because anecdotes have a very strong emotional impact, they serve to keep superstitious beliefs alive in an age of science. The most important discovery of modern medicine is not vaccines or antibiotics, it is the randomized double-blind test, by means of which we know what works and what doesn't. Contrary to the saying, "data" is not the plural of "anecdote."
See my last answer. Anecdotal evidence is not hard science, but it points toward science. The millions of people who speak in tongues should direct scientists toward examining the possibility and searching to explain and understand the phenomena. Scientists must keep their minds open, not closed.
5. The discoverer says a belief is credible because it has endured for centuries. There is a persistent myth that hundreds or even thousands of years ago, long before anyone knew that blood circulates throughout the body, or that germs cause disease, our ancestors possessed miraculous remedies that modern science cannot understand. Much of what is termed "alternative medicine" is part of that myth. Ancient folk wisdom, rediscovered or repackaged, is unlikely to match the output of modern scientific laboratories.
Acupuncture. Works.
And a lot of "old wives tales" have a logical scientific basis that was undiscovered until much later. But people recognized that certain things worked for them, for whatever reasons (like bread poultices, washing regularly to prevent illness, etc.) And I still think the Pyramids, the ancient batteries, and Captain Kidd's Island security system are pretty cool. Oh yeah, crop circles, Bermuda Triangle, blah blah blah. We don't understand everything, but we also shouldn't discount everything we don't understand, either. I personally don't understand wrestling, so it must be a hoax, too... No, wait, bad example...
6. The discoverer has worked in isolation.
Didn't ALL the great scientists work in isolation? It's hard to say "Nobody understands me" when everybody you know works at your lab 8 hours a day and is in total agreement with your seemingly insane ideas. Same with persecution. Persecution never happened, since everybody was on the same page. "You're right, dude, the world ISN'T flat!" "The world revolves around the WHAT?? Oh, yeah, right. Okay, cool. I'll change the history books." "God isn't smiting the sinners with the Black Plague, it's just a disease? Damn, shoulda known. Thanks for the update."
7. The discoverer must propose new laws of nature to explain an observation. A new law of nature, invoked to explain some extraordinary result, must not conflict with what is already known. If we must change existing laws of nature or propose new laws to account for an observation, it is almost certainly wrong.
That Einstein guy was a quack. Same with Newton. Same with Copernicus. Our knowledge of the world is full and complete and needs no revision. Thank you.
Did you read the article carefully? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you saw a person waving a few of the aforementioned red flags, it would warrant closer investigation of the claims then might normally be required, not dismissal.
Dogmatism is bad no matter how you slice it; the author of the 7 rules was aware of this.
Conspiracy theorists.. (Score:4, Informative)
Pathological Science (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the best papers ever on this sort of thing is now, finally, on line here [princeton.edu] - N-Rays, Mitogenic Rays, Allison Effect and much more.
I prefer Sagan's "Baloney Detection Kit" (Score:4, Informative)
If it matches any of the baloney detection tests it's not just a wishy-washy might-be "warning sign", it's proof that some part of the claim is bogus.
And for the curious, please...
It's the rudest thing I've ever seen in my life, and does a horrible discredit to the memory of the man.-Rick
Bogus Science (Score:3, Informative)
"Near the noise threshold" is the key one (Score:3, Informative)
This happens in Big Science, too. Neutrino detection experiments detect very few neutrinos. Most attempts to experimentally verify general relativity also have problems. (The precession of the orbit of Mercury [ucr.edu] is tiny, and mostly accounted for by effects from other planets.) But that work has been repeated multiple times using different techniques by different people, which yields some confidence. Still, there's no single killer result in either area.
As for suppressed inventions, those are rare, but they do exist. A major attempt was made by MagneTek (later Universal Manufacturing), which made old-style inductive fluorescent lamp ballasts, to suppress the electronic fluorescent lamp ballast. Litigation [townsend.com] resulted. The lone inventor won. The verdict was for about $96 million. This created the compact fluorescent lamp industry.
His "rule" 2 is not airtight (Score:4, Informative)
Timex appealed to the government to block digital watch imports. When they lost, they decided to compete instead of complain, and have done very well since. But most times the entrenched old guard is displaced, which is why they fight so hard to keep the riffraff out.
The point here is simple: there is a tyranny of the status quo. Look at Microsoft - they are not trivial to displace from a monopolistic position; neither are corporations and universities that have a vested interest in gradual instead of rapid, massive change.
Gradualism is always more accepted by the powers that be than revolution. Remember the old adage: evolution not revolution. That's what the powers in place want to see, they do not want to see something that will displace them. And when they hold the power, they will act in their own interest the vast majority of the time. If a Star-Trek transporter were invented, imagine how the airlines and automobile manufacturers would fight it and would fund studies showing how dangerous or energy inefficient it was. Their survival would be at stake, and they'd fight to stay around. Yet their vigor in fighting would not be indicative of whether transporters were useful.
Re:To the man with a hammer every problem's a nail (Score:5, Insightful)
I've got nothing against the scientific method, it's a valuable tool, however it's also a tool with limitations, and one of those is that those who practice technology mostly use it for profit, and that in turn is more than a little likely to skew the results.
The whole point of double blind is that nobody has enough information to skew the results, accidentally or deliberately.
Re:To the man with a hammer every problem's a nail (Score:3, Interesting)
Huh? First you say that the treatments have to work better than a placebo, then you say that that produces treatments which work worse than placebo's? You are contradicting yourself there.
Anyway, I think you're off the mark anyway, seeing as a treatment only gets FDA approved if it does better than the placebo by something like 10% in Phase III trials, due to the costs involved (if it only helps 10% of the people, it's not worth having).
Re:To the man with a hammer every problem's a nail (Score:4, Interesting)
The FDA basically perpatuates it's own existence and creates a monopoly-prone environment thru the high regulatory barrier to market-entry.
How is the inefficiency of a bureaucratic government agency in ANY way a condemnation of the double-blind test? And this high regulatory barrier is actually a result of the political fall out of such things as the thalidomide disaster; blame Congress not the FDA.
I've got nothing against the scientific method, it's a valuable tool, however it's also a tool with limitations, and one of those is that those who practice technology mostly use it for profit, and that in turn is more than a little likely to skew the results.
This is just bizarre. How is a scientific tool designed to eliminate bias used to skew results?
I've been involved with getting two different products (medical imaging and genetic diagnostics) approved by the FDA. I've seen lot's of problems but none related to the FDA's maintaining of monopolies and certainly nothing to suggest double-blind tests are being used to skew results.
Re:To the man with a hammer every problem's a nail (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually I wasn't commenting on the test in particular, rather in the net results: we are willing to pay exorbitant prices for treatments which are often statistically valid but only marginally better than placebo.
this high regulatory barrier is actually a result of the political fall out of such things as the thalidomide disaster; blame Congress not the FDA
Huh? FDA failed to approve Thalidomide not due to any diligence (after the fact the reviewer cited 'concerns' about its safety), but rather because of a bureaucratic screw-up. And for 3 decades, every time *Congress* takes them to task they trot out their accident, casting it as a heroic achievement.
I've been involved with getting two different products ... approved by the FDA... seen lot's of problems but none related to the FDA's maintaining of monopolies
Very good, I've been involved in bringing several dozen FDA regluated products to market, including drug delivery, diagnostic instruments, radiology and surgical equipment, and hold 5 related patents. Imho/imx the pace that's set by the many vested interests (FDA is just one) have created a result which is overprice and underperforming -- but that's just my view.
Ask someone who's HIV+ or who's waiting on trials for Parkinson's or Huntington's syndrome treatements about the delays in delivering cost-effective solutions.
Look a the materials-selection process. FDA has a high degree of skill in materials science. Yet due to the regulatory process thousands of devices continue to use inferior materials simply because they are approved and the regulatory path to change is prohibitively expensive.
Probably the best example is Latex rubber. It's been used for decades, has been known for 20 years to be highly cyto-toxic, and more recently to have a high incidence of allergic reaction. This applies to many forms of diagnostid and theraputic catheters devices.
It also applies to latex condoms. No non-latex condom as yet is allowed to use the label-claims standard on hundreds of latex brands. This is spite of the fact that many of the latex brands have been shown by independent researchers to have high breakage rates, probably mostly due to inferior manufacturing controls.
Re:Like evolution you mean? (Score:5, Informative)
The "Darwin == Evolution" meme is so thoroughly imprinted in most people's brains that many creationist types seem to use it as evidence that Darwin produced the idea ex nihilo, and what had been a God-fearing, Creation-believing world suddenly turned atheist, evolutionist, and immoral as a result, leading over the next couple of centuries to world wars, eugenics, the Holocaust, and Bill Clinton. In fact, evolution was a theory that itself evolved, and continues to do so to this day; that's pretty much how scientific theories work. Darwin was an important step -- a major internal node in the phylogenetic tree, one might say -- but he wasn't the be-all and end-all, and has numerous "ancestors" and "descendants" in the history of the theory.
He did publish it in a book -- after several of the leading scientists of the day, with years of urging, persuaded him to do so. He was reluctant to do so both because he didn't want to be accused of stealing other people's ideas (kind of a Newton/Leibniz thing, only without the monstrous egos involved) and because he was well of the theological shitstorm he was going to unleash. In modern terms, his work was thoroughly peer-reviewed before On the Origin of Species came out.
Science is suppressed by ideological forces, governments and churches not least among them. What marks that crank is when he claims that this suppression is being done in secret. Real suppression -- from the Catholic church and Galileo to fundamentalist Protestantism and Darwin to Stalin and anyone whose science case doubt on Communist ideology -- tends to be very blatant.
Evolutionary biology is an observational science, not (in most cases, microbiology and some botany excepted) an experimental one. Do you consider the existence of other stars besides the Sun to be "anecdotal evidence" because no one can create a star in a lab? And yet we have just as much observational evidence for evolution, and in fact more laboratory evidence.
Darwin was not proposing a new law of nature; the idea of evolution had been around for decades. What he did was to take the hypothesizing of others in the field (e.g. Lamarck) and give it rigorous theoretical underpinnings, much as Einstein took the results of Maxwell's equations to their logical conclusion and explained contradictions in Newtonian mechanics that had bothered generations of physicists before him.
Evidence of macroevolution (Score:5, Insightful)
Think about it: man has invented various Gods all throughout history. The ancient Gods (Greek/Roman mythology, etc) were easy to disprove... (no Atlas dude holding up the Earth). The only reason the Christian God has hung around so long is because he is defined as untestable. News flash: You cannot invent something, make it untestable, and put the burden of proof on the opposing side to disprove it.
Re:Evidence of macroevolution (Score:4, Insightful)
That is not nearly so true as you might think. The New Testament makes a lot of historical fact claims, that are potentially falsifiable. If enough archaeologists "get lucky," Christianity's factual foundations could very well be torpedoed.
Re: Like evolution you mean? (Score:3, Insightful)
> Science just isn't intended to answer every question. One question it doesn't answer is WHY.
Very often, science does answer the "Why?" question. For example, "Why do apples fall toward the earth rather than in some other direction?", "Why can we construct a nested hierarchy of species on the basis of their morphology?", "Why can we construct a nested hierarchy of species on the basis of the mutations in their genes?", etc.
> Science can give you many equally valid explanations of HOW species could have resulted, stemming from different base assumptions, demonstrating which one is accurate is completely outside of the realm of science.
This goes on in every field of science. Meaningfully different hypotheses have different implications for potentially observable phenomena, so we try to make the relevant observations and discard the hypotheses that aren't compatible with what we see.
> Think back to your science fair days, Can it be reproduced? Can it be verified?
We can't reproduce the reactions that we know happen in the heart of the sun, and yet for some reason we don't have thousands of preachers ranting against that knowledge every Sunday morning.
> Evolution is religion and superstition just as much as Creationism or Hinduism.
Ah, the last desperate argument of the creationist rears its ugly head.
> It's no more provable than either, at least, until you die.
Science isn't in the business of "proving" anything. Science is in the business of explaining observations. The theory of evolution explains lots of observations; the religion of creationism explains none.