Why is skepticism not always welcomed in science?

Question

Why is it that people don't seem to be allowed to question certain scientific theories such as evolution or human induced climate change? Some will say it is because there is conclusive evidence for these but what about something like gravity? There is overwhelming evidence for the general theory of relativity and it offers the most accurate prediction of gravity. It is yet to fail. In saying this, people are still allowed to ask questions about it and even question its validity in favour of other hypotheses. In my experience, if anyone so much as asks a question *about* (not even questioning its validity) evolution, they are ridiculed as being a religious nut, creationist, science denier etc etc.

Answer 1

Not true...



Scientists ask questions about evolution every day...



They probe it and test it - every Biologist in the world would like to overthrow it with a better theory (that would have his name on it)...



The fact that the modern theory explaining evolution is significantly different than the one proposed by Darwin and Wallace attests to the constant questioning of the theory...



The modern theory is referred to as the new synthesis, the modern synthesis, the evolutionary synthesis, millennium synthesis and the neo-darwinian synthesis...



Why are crackpot ideas not listened to??? I'll bet you can figure that one out...



"Why is it that people don't seem to be allowed to question certain scientific theories such as evolution or human induced climate change?"



You are allowed to do so...



Just write a thoughtful, well documented, well written, logically rigorous and concise paper outlining your proposed modification or replacement to the current theory...



Be sure that what you propose hasn't already been considered and discarded - so research the field...



By the way, biblical accounts of biological evolution were under attack before 1800 (before Darwin was born)...



Between 1794 and 1796 Erasmus Darwin wrote Zoonomia suggesting "that all warm-blooded animals have arisen from one living filament...



Jean-Baptiste Lamarck had a naturalistic theory explaining evolution in 1809 (the year Darwin was born)...



The first scientific treatment of what would now be recognized as a dinosaur was described in 1699 by Edward Lhuyd...



People who put forth already discarded "theories" are "vainly beating the air"...

Answer 2

Skepticism is *required* in Science. Science is about attacking your own beliefs.



Let's say you could disprove Relativity in some region of experimental testing that we had not already tried. What would happen is other researchers would pester you for how you set up your experiment, so they could try and duplicate your results. And if they get different results than you, it is of course, *your* problem. It is a very dog-eat-dog business.



General Relativity is known to fail in a few ways, and some not within its purview (so it could be an accounting problem, or new physics is required):

- it fails in the realm of quantum mechanics (no big surprise)

- it fails to describe the internal motions of galaxies (Dark Matter invoked as a band-aid)



People that "question" General Relativity usually show they have essentially no familiarity with the theory, where it has its problems, and where it doesn't. They get derided constantly, should you choose to look where they are flayed alive (say Usenet newsgroups).



I don't see that evolution or anthropomorphic-global-climate-change are any different topics, in any way. Given that Science is at heart, antagonistic, to make a counter claim is your right, but you *will* be challenged. If you aren't, it is because you either struck paydirt, you have "discovered" old ground, or your audience has pigeonholed you.



When building a structure strong enough to support the masses we have attained on the surface of this planet, the members of the structure must be put under stress. Which means if you are to be a member, it behooves you to research the topic... not just what you want to read, but where we are looking now, where the new stress is applied. Yes, you can work near the foundations, you might see something overlooked... like Einstein did...

Answer 3

I am skeptical about your question. Are you really interested in knowing how science works? Or, are you trying to pick and chose what you want to accept from what science has to say about the natural world, keeping only those parts that agree with your world view?



>>>Why is skepticism not always welcomed in science?<<<



Skepticism is an essential part of the scientific method. Before we can accept a conclusion, we have to rigorously test all possible explanations for the data. That includes coming up with alternative explanations, even explanations that disagree with current theories. Please give an example.



>>>Why is it that people don't seem to be allowed to question certain scientific theories such as evolution or human induced climate change? <<<



Because the people who question these theories are religious nuts, creationists, science deniers etc etc.Because they are not questioning these theories on the basis of data. Because they do not understand science, critical thinking, logic and basic science and yet they think they know more about how to interpret data (or ignore data that disagrees with how they were indoctrinated as children) than trained scientists.



Evolution happens. Allele frequencies change in populations over time. That is observed. It is a fact. There is no real dissent among scientists about how and why allele frequencies change in populations over time. Some people still prefer to invoke magic instead of natural selection but that is not science.



There is no real dissent among scientists about human induced climate change. Just like evolution, for some reason, scientifically illiterate persons feel qualified to make judgments about climate models. These judgments based on belief that go against what almost all scientists say are to be given the same amount of consideration as reasoned arguments?



>>>There is overwhelming evidence for the general theory of relativity and it offers the most accurate prediction of gravity. It is yet to fail.<<<



You are wrong. Gravity has yet to be reconciled with the most successful scientific theory: quantum mechanics. The theory of relativity fails on the quantum scale. And there is still no explanation for inertia. And there are several variations of general relativity that are being tested. That doesn't mean that gravity doesn't exist. That would be just as silly as saying evolution can't exist because it doesn't explain everything.



In my experience, people who question evolution are not sincere in their pursuit of knowledge. They are trying to advance an already held view and their views are limited by religious indoctrination and not by reasoned, informed inquiry.



So, please give an example of where a scientifically literate person is being prevented from raising objections based on data and models that are better able to predict allele frequency changes in populations or changes in global climate.

Answer 4

It's a difficult question, which requires careful thought. Fortunately, people *have* been giving it careful thought, for a few hundred years. There's a whole discipline called the 'Philosophy of Science', which looks at how scientific theories are formed, what makes scientists come up with the ideas they do, and whether anything can be proved true or whether continual scepticism is required. (By the way, philosophy of science is a sub-category of epistemology or the philosophy of knowledge - which asks similar questions about everything we know, scientific and otherwise).



It's difficult to summarise 300 years of philosophical endeavour in a short answer on YA. But suffice to say ... science probably welcomes scepticism a lot more than you might think. One of the most influential philosophers of science in recent times was Karl Popper. He argued that good scientific theories must be 'falsifiable' - it must be possible to prove them wrong. If a scientific theory can be proved beyond all reasonable doubt, then actually it is probably badly formed. The only things that can be proved with certainty are deductive theorems - and while they are interesting, they aren't science! Science deals with hypotheses and inductive theories. A theory can be "proved" to within a certain degree of reliability - but never 100%. In Popper's falsifiable world, a good theory must *always* allow a way for it to be disproved - perhaps by empirical evidence which hasn't been discovered yet, but which is at least possible and imaginable.



This has been hugely influential over the last 50 or so years of science. There is also a large body of mathematical statistics which aims to calculate exactly how reliable scientific evidence is. As a rule of thumb, a good scientific theory should be 95% reliable (in technical terms, there is a confidence interval f0.05). Most research published in scientific journals includes the calculations to show the statistical reliability of the data.



However, the pace of modern science over the last 100, 50 and even 35 years has been dazzling, beyond human ken. It is simply not possible for anyone, no matter how brilliant, to have a good and deep understanding of a broad range of science. As an anthropologist, I have a very good and detailed postgraduate understanding of human evolution; and I can do all the mathematical bits to the level of a typical science graduate. I can keep up with most of the biochemistry. As a citizen of the modern world, I also try to understand the Large Hadron Collider, and I could talk for 5 minutes about the Higgs Boson. But basically, modern particle physics is way, way beyond anything I can undersatnd. I just have to trust the guys in Geneva and I'll be happy if they tell me the answers.



But I'm not going to say to them, "Hey that Higgs Boson is rubbish! I can't see it. Show me a photo".



A lot of the criticism raised by creationists and others about evolution etc, is at that level. They are perplexed about things they don't understand. There's a heavy burden and responsibility on anthropologists to explain our work in terms the general public can understand. But hey, that's really hard. There's no ulterior agenda, we're not trying to deceive anyone. It's just a very complex field with an enormous amount of complex data. But we're doing the best we can.

Answer 5

Skepticism is built into science - it's the whole point of the peer-review process. Whenever a scientist makes a discovery, he or she holds it up for examination by the general scientific community. The questioning is intense, and other scientists basically try to tear down the idea. If the idea survives the process, then it emerges that much stronger. If it doesn't survive, then it's because it had significant flaws and needed to go back to the drawing board.



The key thing here, though, is that this ruthless skepticism is based in evidence. The skepticism you're talking about, though, is not based in evidence. I respectfully answer questions about evolution all the time. When I'm NOT respectful, it's always in response to the standard Creationist tactics of bringing out Straw Man arguments, misunderstood research, and outright lies. I don't usually answer climate change questions, but it's similar there, too.



I guess another way of putting it is that scientists love to talk about science. If someone comes to them with a genuine desire to learn, we're more than happy to help them. We're also used to having to defend our ideas. When we discover something, other scientists try to combat it with knowledge. What we have no patience for, though, is when someone comes in and tries to combat us with ignorance or dishonesty.



A final thing to consider is that Y!A is part of the internet. If there's one thing I've learned from the internet, it's that anonymity + strong opinion = jerk. Not all the time... but frequently. Don't take the arguments you see online to be an accurate representation of scientists as a whole.

Answer 6

What is your basis for saying that people are "not allowed" to ask questions about evolution or human-induced climate change ... since you are here asking about those very questions, and nobody is stopping you?





>"In my experience, if anyone so much as asks a question *about* (not even questioning its validity) evolution, they are ridiculed as being a religious nut, creationist, science denier etc etc."



Can you provide an example?



People (often kids doing their homework) ask questions *about* evolution all the time here on Yahoo Answers, without being accused of any of those things.



What is often met with a lot of hostility are questions of the form "If evolution is true, then why ?"

Answer 7

Most of your question has been answered well, I'll try to answer the last bit.



The main reasons you'll get hostile answers to even reasonable questions about evolution are fatigue, shortcuts, and/or laziness.



When you've seen a hundred questions on the order of "If evolution is true, why are there still monkeys?", your automatic reaction to any question about evolution may well be "Here's yet another idiot creationist who thinks his flawed understanding of evolution trumps real science". A lot of people have "canned" answers that they copy and paste into any relevant-seeming question, because they get tired of typing in real, specific, individual answers to the same stupid questions over and over and over. And some people are better than others at making sure the "canned" answer actually matches the question properly.

Answer 8

Real scientists are skeptical by nature. They need to see evidence, test it and conclude a finding.

That being said, many lose patience with nonsensical stupidity. Even Newton's theory gravity did not "fail", it just became a less accurate theory than general relativity.



if you have any evidence for creation or that climate is not influenced by greenhouse gases, get a degree and write a scientific paper paper. YOU must also be open to skeptics at that point.

Answer 9

The whole point of science IS skepticism. Every time a scientist comes up with an idea, it's the job of every other scientist to try to prove him wrong. That's how science works - by trying to destroy all new ideas. Only the ones that can withstand every test emerge as good science. You obviously don't understand how this works. No one is ridiculed for asking questions. That's how you learn. But asking the same questions over and over in a combative manner after you've been told many times why you were wrong and shown the evidence is merely willful ignorance, and won't be tolerated.

Answer 10

You triggered some really good answers regarding evolution. Yes, it was treated with skepticism, as are all new ideas in science. And yes, some of its ideas have been clarified and modified. But what stands now as evolutionary biology has been thoroughly confirmed with massive amounts of evidence.



AGW (anthropogenic global warming) receives its share of denialism, though not as much as evolution because it's not viewed as threatening to religious doctrine. Global climate trends are extremely difficult to assess. Assigning a cause to human activity is also difficult to test. It's based mostly on attempts at correlation, which is not a definitive proof of causality. But any objective evaluation of AGW is very heavily biased by political and economic considerations. Some want to believe AGW because it will give them political control or economic advantage. Many scientists are biased toward AGW because of peer pressure and funding decisions. If my work doesn't support AGW, my work won't get approved for publication, and I won't get any future funding. It's very hard to do objective science in this kind of environment. For some related examples of science done badly, read the reference.

Answer 11

It is because most of those people who ask such questions (though, in fact, they are usually not really questions, but rather unfounded, nonsensical assertions) about evolution ARE religious nuts, creationists, and science deniers. Unfortunately, as a result of their nonsensical noise, they cause others who ask questions about evolution to get painted with the same brush.



If someone comes up with a REAL question about evolution that demands an answer, it will be taken up as a challenge and will likely provide the basis for further research and discovery.



But idiotic, ignorant "questions" like "how can evolution occur when it violates the second law of thermodynamics", or "how can evolution occur when it is impossible for new genetic information to arise." are not based on honest skepticism and they do not deserve any kind of welcome in science. Those who voice such questions aren't really looking for answers, and they will ignore whatever answers are given. And believe me, I have repeatedly answered such questions here on Y!A and those same askers just go on and repeatedly ask the same questions.



The fact is that there is a reason that evolution is accepted by the vast majority of scientists. There is a massive amount of evidence for it and there has not been found one single piece of evidence that prohibits it. And, like Einstein's theory of relativity, evolutionary theory has provided numerous predictions that have been verified. Evolutionary theory is the best explanation for the fossil record, for the variety of life forms on this planet, and for the genetic relationships of those life forms



As for questioning climate change, take a look at this.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/15/-ex-skeptic-richard-muller-congress-global-warming_n_1094966.html



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Could you please give an example of a question about evolution that you think is valid? If it is an honest, reasonable question, I will will welcome it and try to answer it. I am also sure that several others of the responders will also try to answer it if they come back and revisit your question.





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@Prometheus: "As far as I can see, it is an unproven concept or idea promoted by the super-wealthy like the Rothschilds and so on to keep us ignorant of our true potentials... hence easy to control !!"



And that is another class of evolution deniers besides "the religious nuts, creationists, and science deniers." Actually, I think he does belong to the science denier classification. But in his view evolution is just a big conspiracy.



It really astounds and annoys me that those who don't know squat about evolution think they know more about it than the great number of scientists who work with it and have tested it and found that it passed with flying colors.



http://www.mathprog.org/Old-Optima-Issues/optima10.pdf

http://www.utm.edu/departments/cens/biology/rirwin/391/391EvidEvol.htm

http://www.physorg.com/news192882557.html

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100512131513.htm

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v297/n5863/abs/297197a0.html



And there is this, as I provided in answer to a question.



https://answersrip.com/question/index?qid=20110102154906AAw6CG4



And then there are those scientists who work in fields relating to evolution and have used its application in genetics, medicine, agriculture, etc., for the benefit of mankind.

Answer 12

relativity is not something which can be taught to young minds and so they are not indoctrinated to its principles. However evolution and its principles can be taught at a very young age and this period is when minds are susceptible to indoctrination since they do not question anything which adults say. It is written in indelible ink on their minds. The results of this are twofold... they believe what they are told and also this belief is reinforced by the beliefs of their peers around them. It is therefore an established precept in their belief system that evolution must be a fact... which of course is unproven.

For these reasons relativity is still open to debate since those who study it in later years are not being irreversibly iindoctrinated.

I happliy have not been thusly indoctrinated and have the ability to think for myself about it. As far as I can see, it is an unproven concept or idea promoted by the super-wealthy like the Rothschilds and so on to keep us ignorant of our true potentials... hence easy to control !!

Answer 13

I dunno. It's the same with computers: you are not allowed to ask what's so great about Apple. You either love it totally or you need to be insulted a lot.