To wonder what repectable scientific notions of today....

[RubyGates]

will be laughed at in a hundred year's time?

Things that were believed by scientists in the past:
www.toptenz.net/top-10-most-famous-scientific-theories-that-turned-out-to-be-wrong.php

[EllieArroway]

But when have you ever heard that used in a philosophical discussion, Grimma? I certainly never have. It's ALWAYS used either in quasi-science discussions with the deeply faithful or ones about ghosts, ghoulies, bonkers medical ideas or astrology.

Science indeed doesn't know everything - it never will. But we don't make rational decisions based on what we don't know.

If homeopathy, ghosts, god & astrology all turn out to be true (and yes, there's a weeny chance they may) guess who'll discover that? Scientists & they will be delighted to have done so.

And that article you've linked to is utterly infuriating, Avuncular. Can you see the extraordinary logical fails littered within it?

[Avuncular]

Oops - carelessness

find not fid

[EllieArroway]

What is there to explain? Someone upthread suggested that evolution from "primeval slime" (a stupid way to refer to very early life) is hard to prove. It's not - it has been proven. People who think like that are evolution deniers/doubters and, yes, nobbers. Although I would have spelt it knobbers.

[GrimmaTheNome]

Ellie - oh, ITA. Its a quote that should be reclaimed and turned right back on people who try to apply it to scientists.

[Avuncular]

Ah, Ellie - tempted to leave this thread right now, but I think instead I'll come back on Gracelo's theme of the honesty and integrity of scientists - I like to think of myself as one of them - and then you can explain to me me the error of my ways.

Gone away to think ......

[Gracelo]

Avuncular, that sort of phrase does make it sound like you are throwing doubt at evolution itself rather than how evolution proceeds. Maybe it was just an unfortunate way of wording it. For what it's worth, for me early evolution is a lot easier to get my head around than once eukaryotes are involved but early evolution is something of great interest for any Archaea researcher.
I'm btw not saying that there is no fraud in science. There is, but that usually gets discovered eventually. What I'm saying is that the idea that scientists would suppress hypotheses for which there is valid evidence is nonsense. Continental drift took a while to be accepted, or even my favourite microbes, the Archaea, when Carl Woese suggested that they are a distinct phylogenetic domain, as separate from Bacteria as they and Bacteria are from the Eukaryotes, his former PhD supervisor rang him up to tell him that he just ruined his career by publishing such utter shite. Today, Woese's three domain concept of life is accepted standard.

[EllieArroway]

I think it's you who needs to explain yourself now, Avuncular. Were you the person who made the remark about primeval slime then? I hadn't realised.

But it doesn't make any difference. It does sound like the remark of a creationist, to be honest.

That all life emerged from a primordial soup/slime whatever HAS been proven true. What caused the initial flicker of life to occur in non-living matter is still open to debate, but that's abiogenesis, not evolution.

Fecking hell. Why do people keep flouncing?

[EllieArroway]

Ah.

So this was your initial comment:

Evolution - once David Attenborough has fossilised

Darwinian 'natural selection' is one thing - but development from primeval slime is a bit harder to prove. More of a leap of faith IYSWIM

Given the thrust of the thread (scientific notions that will be laughed at 100 years from now) you are clearly a doubter when it comes to evolution.

There is no doubt that evolution occurred. None. There's no leap of faith of any kind....science has no use for "faith".

We have on this thread two superb evolutionary biologists who I am sure would be happy to answer specific questions you might have.

[Avuncular]

Hmmm .....

I don't really want to divert this lovely thread, but in the mean time I find myself going back to the original post 'Notions which will be laughed at'

In the spirit of patient and honest scientific enquiry, it certainly would not be kind or fair to ridicule them; but would it even be fair to laugh?

All these theories were presumably advanced 'in good faith', or at least seemed to be a 'good idea at the time'. Don't you agree?

And before we get into any more isms, I've been where you're at, by the sound of things. IMO you need to hear my story, whether you believe it or not ......

[EllieArroway]

Sorry - in the nicest possible way - but what on earth are you on about?

You asked for an explanation of a comment and you got it.

You cannot compare evolution with the idea of an ether, for example (or aether, whatever it is). One was an idea cooked up by people who had no other explanation for reality, and the other is the best attested and greatest scientific theory (theory in the scientific sense of the word) in history.

Evolution will never be laughed at. People who don't and can't accept the fact of it, however, will be (and are).

And if your suggesting that I need to hear your tale of conversion then no thank you. Unless you have direct, measurable, unequivocal evidence (which you won't) then I guarantee that I'll disappoint you by being completely unimpressed. Sorry.

But each to their own, Avuncular. Happy days :)

[EllieArroway]

As said before - none of the list of "theories" that are now being laughed at actually were "theories". They were possibly hypotheses - but many never even got that far as they weren't based on any observed phenomena. They were ideas, that's all. Just to be clear.

[Avuncular]

Just to be clear:

Either Evolution occurred (and continues to progress), or There is a very strongly supported theory that Evolution is the process by which the current pattern of living things on the Earth came to exist.

Maybe you think I'm being too pedantic. At school, as a sincere young scientist, I was brought up with the former notion - it was in all the popular coffee table books; we were taught about Darwin etc (and I don't really have any issue with that - it seems demonstrable and believable, and I did the maths about the length of time it can take for inter-generational change etc).

But I was very very cross indeed to discover that I had been misled - whether by the scientific community or popular media presentations - 'general' evolution was still only a Theory, not a fact (like the existence, say, of Big Ben).

I can accept that there is a 'Law of Gravity' which explains the process by which an apple came to fall on Isaac Newton's head - (it is observable and repeatable), and even that the Special Theory of Relativity is valid (once upon a time I could do the maths, and I believe the reports of the observation of anomalies of the transit of Mercury across the sun's face).

But please please don't perpetuate the confusion between Theory (however straggly supported by evidence) and absolute incontrovertible fact. (I appreciate that we are potentially straying into areas of philosophy as opposed to science here, where I'm definitely not qualified to wade in, or even paddle.

(posted in haste - got to go off to a doctor's appointment.)

[EllieArroway]

Oh, Avuncular. You have made the classic creationist mistake of not understanding the term "theory" when it's applied scientifically. I'm afraid that it's you who is confused.

A theory, in science, is the very, very closest that science can ever get to declaring something a fact. It has a VERY different meaning from the vernacular use of the term (which generally means idea or hypothesis).

A scientific theory is an explanation for an observed fact. Evolution is an observed fact - the theory of evolution is our explanation for it.

Gravity is a good example (it's both a law and a theory).

That gravity exists is beyond doubt. Drop a pencil, it falls to the floor. But WHY does the pencil fall? How does gravity work? What forces are involved? For that a theory has been devised - our explanation for the OBSERVED FACT of gravity. Maybe, in time, the theory will be refined, new data added etc - the "theory" may be challenged, but the FACT of gravity never will.

We're in the same place with evolution. It is a FACT - observable & testable. The theory is our explanation for how it all happened, why it all happened. Again, the theory may be refined, but the FACT of evolution will remain just that - a fact.

The National Academy of Sciences explains it well:

www.nationalacademies.org/evolution/TheoryOrFact.html

*We must always remember, of course, that nothing is ever proven 100% true (except in mathematics). It is not 100% certain that the Earth orbits the sun - at best it's 99.999999999999999999999999999999% certain. But there has to come a point where there's a level of acceptance that something is what it seems to be when all the evidence suggests it.

[EllieArroway]

www.nationalacademies.org/evolution/TheoryOrFact.html

Sorry.

[EllieArroway]

And, btw - your two statements.....

Either Evolution occurred

or

There is a very strongly supported theory that Evolution is the process by which the current pattern of living things on the Earth came to exist

....mean exactly the same thing. It's only your confusion over the usage of the term "theory" that makes you think they're different.

[LeBFG]

That was why someone has already talked about evolution being a scientific theory. Relativity is just a theory. So is gravity if it comes to that.

When you have such overwhelming evidence from across multiple and diverse sources, a theory does become considered as fact. It is right that evolution is talked about in everyday parlance as fact.

If you want to say theories can never be considered facts, you are moving into the realms of philosophy - how can you tell you really exist, are we all a dream in the mind of god etc.

Why have those posts been deleted btw?

[Avuncular]

OK - I was confused .... you learn something new every day.

[GrimmaTheNome]

Why have those posts been deleted btw?

Maybe someone thought that Brian Cox was being personally attacked. Which would break talk guidelines. I suppose the blog linked to was a personal attack on him but didn't think the posts were.

[EllieArroway]

Is relativity just a theory, though, LeBFG? And gravity is a Law.

"Just a theory" in the "Pffftt....evolution is just a theory, no one's ever proved it true" sense of the word.

Although, given that no one actually really knows what gravity even is, then I can see that it is a different kettle of fish from evolution.

If it's any consolation, Avuncular I may be about to learn that relativity is not classed as a scientific theory, which I thought it was. Yep - you learn something new every day :)

[LeBFG]

Sorry, don't get what you're saying Ellie. There is the theory of relativity - that's what it's called. Yes, the effects of gravity are described by maths - this is a law. But it's still just a theory that two masses will attract each other. We could, in theory, find a mass that didn't behave in this way.

I used the italics in just a theory to mock the 'evolution is just a theory you know' oft quoted by clever-clogs. It IS just a theory. Bloody great one though .

[ICBINEG]

We measure stuff and we propose a hypothesis. We test and after some period of time we accept as unlikely to change....but we keep testing....
ie we measure: Stuff falls.
we hypothesize: maybe all matter has a property known as mass. And maybe all masses attract one another.
We test: Every piece of matter we have ever found attracts every other.
We accept....

Newtons theory of gravity passes a lot of tests but not all. Einsteins theory of relativity corrects a bunch of the problems in Newton's theory. So far relativity has passed all the tests that I know of but maybe when we have better telescopes or more powerful particle accelerators we will need a new improved version.

[EllieArroway]

OK...clarification. I'm getting lost in all the "theories".

*Right - idiots, er, creationists will say "It's just a theory...." because they are confused by the two uses of the term "theory" and they think it means that it's just an unproven, speculative idea that lots of scientists like the sound of. They'll also say "Oh yeah, if it's a fact, why is it called the the theory of evolution, then" .

So, we try to point out that when scientists use the term "theory" they mean something very different from the everyday usage of the term - it means the opposite of what they think it means

The Theory of.....Evolution & Relativity, Cell & Germ theory, BB & Plate Tectonics etc etc are well substantiated enough to be considered factual in any meaningful sense of the world. Since everything in science must be falsifiable then theoretically all of these things could be proven wrong...... a neutrino travelling faster than light, or "bunny fossils in the Precambrian" for example would shake special relativity & evolution. Neither are likely but can't be considered impossible.

A Law in science is explanatory but not descriptive, It says what will happen, but not why.

Newton's Law, eg., predicted the effects of gravity but could not explain why it happened. We needed Einstein's General Relativity for that, which does explain why.

So, the Law of Gravity is what happens & the theory of relativity explains why.

That's always been my understanding. Isn't that moreorless right?