Reg Prescott

That's generally not the beef. It's not, by and large, that macro and micro evolution are denied; rather the claim is that the processes which account for the latter are unable to account for the former.

I know nothing about this dude (yet - gonna write to Santa), but I could easily point you to various places in these forums where our senior members tell us scientific theories are never (or almost never) disproven. And I'd say they're largely right. Do you believe they can be disproven?

And the people I have in mind who disagree (about the micro-macro thing) do the same day job.

I agree. The consequences of dissent are ferocious indeed. Never heard of him. I'll look him up. Merci! I know a few more who say pretty much the same thing. Their voices are seldom heard, and on the rare occasions when they are, the ridicule is merciless.

Problem solved then. Would that it were always this easy. I could name a few. Haha!

Not everyone thinks so.

Hmm, so much could be said about this (hope Francis doesn't mind -- just shout if you do) First, not all theories are explanatory, as you assert. Newton had no explanation to offer whatsoever for his action-at-a-distance gravity. With regards explanatory theories, what is taken as an explanation in one age is often mocked by those of a later age: See Aristotelian physics, for example. There are many (well, a few) among us -- non-religious included, like myself -- who feel that Darwinian-type explanations are as vacuous as Aristotelian "the rock falls to achieve its natural place" type, or "morphine puts you to sleep because it has a dormitive virtue". Also beware of the ambiguity in the word explanation: Do you mean "an" explanation or "the" explanation"?

Correction: 2nd paragraph (to Studiot): I wrote: (Your pure knowledge is also, of course, belief inasmuch as it is true and justified.) should say: (Your pure knowledge is also, of course, belief inasmuch as it is true and justified.) Whoops!

Hi again, I'm inclined to agree with you here, at least in so far as I often suspect myself that the "essentialness" of Darwinian theory to applied biology is frequently exaggerated. Like yourself, in a similar conversation somewhere else, I was told by a scientist, more or less, that flu vaccines would not be possible without Darwinian, or neo-Darwinian, theory. But wasn't Edward Jenner getting along just fine with his vaccine research before Darwin was even born? I hasten to add, like yourself Francis, I'm no expert, and there are plenty around (so gotta watch my mouth, haha!), Perhaps other members might cast some light on this for me. Furthermore, you've been told above by two different members that the micro-macro evolution distinction is "artificial" and a mere Creationist fallacy. I think this can be challenged. Might take us off-topic but I'll provide sources if necessary.

@ Studiot First let me see if I understand you exactly, then proceed. We'll assume here, for the sake of argument, that your senses are infallible -- no Matrix, no hallucinations, no Cartesian demon, no evil scientist probing your cortex. What you call "pure knowledge", then, is that which is directly perceived. (Your pure knowledge is also, of course, belief inasmuch as it is true and justified.) If you think you see an object buzzing around the daffodils, then there is an object buzzing around the daffodils. Right? We're further assuming that there exists a taxonomy (of which you are originally unaware in the tale below) which distinguishes moths from butterflies (to quote yourself: "specialists distinguish for reasons unknown"). They are two different kinds of insects. Whether this taxonomy actually carves nature at her joints needn't concern us. All that matters is that there is such a taxonomy. Right? May I now spin a yarn to see if it captures the distinctions you want to make? Shout if I get derailed. Studiot spent the first 20 years of his life locked in a dungeon. He has the concept INSECT and uses the word "insect" competently. He's even had a few creepie-crawlie visitors in his dungeon from time to time: flies, ants, Madagascar hissing cockroaches, maybe even a tapeworm in his gruel for good measure, whatever. Studiot, however, has never seen a moth or a butterfly. Studiot has never even heard the words "butterfly" and "moth". Upon his release, Studiot understandably spends a lot of time in the park, reveling in his emancipation. To his delight he discovers a new kind of pretty flying insect he hadn't known existed: some are blue, others are green. He names this new insect kind "broth". Some broths are blue and others are green; they are all broths to him nevertheless. (Studiot, your own choice of names -- Red Admiral Butterfly and Hawk Moth -- I fear will lead to confusion. Your names presuppose, or might be taken to presuppose, knowledge of moths and butterflies, but you've never heard the words before, right?) Is this conceptually right so far? Now, one day Studiot has a chat with another stroller in the park, and excitedly tells his new friend of his discovery. He even points out blue broths and green broths flying above them. The new friend explains: "Ah, you're wrong. They do indeed look similar, but these are not two varieties of the same insect kind. They are two different kinds of insect. One is a moth; the other is a butterfly". "How can I tell which is which?" Studiot implores, with no reason to believe his companion is making this up. "The green ones are... aaaarrggghhhh!!!!", upon which Studiot's new friend succumbs to a massive coronary and drops dead. Right so far? So, by hypothesis, you know (and believe) there are such things that you call broths. Their existence is not in doubt. You've been told, though, that what you call a green broth and a blue broth, and take to be varieties of the same kind, are actually different kinds of insects. One is a moth, the other a butterfly; you don't know which is which. Now, the existence of broths is what you refer to as "pure knowledge", since it was directly perceived. That there is a distinction in kind (not just color or variety) between green broths and blue broths is what you refer to as "pure belief". I assume you call it pure belief because your information is "second hand" so to speak. That there exists a distinction in kind between the two critters, whatever we call them, is something you're taking someone else's word for. The distinction between the two sources of your information, then, seems quite legitimate. We might describe it as sensation vs testimony, or first hand info vs secondhand info, or direct vs indirect learning. What I don't think can be upheld is the distinction you're making, I think, between the former being knowledge ("pure knowledge" in your own terminology) and the latter being mere belief ("pure belief"). The former is knowledge, by hypothesis. But why can't the latter be knowledge, too? Wouldn't this depend on the reliability of your tragically deceased new buddy? Supposing your now decomposing pal was the world's leading authority on lepidoptera. His testimony on these matters would be as reliable as one could hope for. Thus, you would not only have a belief that moths are distinct in kind from butterflies, your belief would be justified, moreover true. And that sounds an awful lot like knowledge to me. Have I gone wrong anywhere, Studiot? Looking forward to your reply. Oh, finally, you asked: No reason of any significance at all. We could rename the thread "Science, Knowledge, Belief, and Truth" if you like. Will it improve ratings?

Your first answer won't do, I'm afraid. I may not have been as clear as I might have been last night, though, so let me try to state this clearly now. First, to remind ourselves, I had said... "We can first of all say that one cannot know what one does not believe" to which you objected "Sure you can: I know smokings bad but I don't believe it'll affect me." Now, what I'm saying is, you cannot know something without believing it. That is, you cannot know something without believing the very same thing. Or put another way, "You cannot know X without believing X", where X stands for a particular statement, proposition, hypothesis or whatever. The same one. However, your proposed counterexample takes the form "I know X but I don't believe Y" Therefore it doesn't have the right form to constitute a counterexample. Hi Eise. Glad to see you back and hope you'll be joining the fun and frolics. A few fast shots in return... I know Dennett's work pretty well, Eise, but not much of a fan of his philosophy. He's certainly an engaging writer, though. I have two of his books propping up my computer screen as we speak as a mark of "respect" haha! (and a Sam Harris book as a soggy beermat). Now, I'm not sure whether Dennett ever describes himself as a behaviorist, but the behaviorist leanings are replete and unmistakable in his philosophy, not surprising given his tutelage under Quine. Presumably you're familiar with his work on consciousness and the mind in general. Dennett is one of those strange people who subscribes to (a form of) "eliminativism", i.e. the mind and all her furnishings -- beliefs, desires, hopes, fears, even consciousness itself -- do not exist, at least as commonly understood. A belief, for example, for Dennett is not psychologically real. You won't find beliefs in the brain. The only reality that he imputes to beliefs (and all the rest) is patterns of behavior. Our ascription of beliefs, on his account, are real only insofar as they allow us to predict and explain behavior; a task which would be practically impossible using physics. This is what he calls "the intentional stance". The patterns (i.e. patterns of behavior) are real; the beliefs qua mental states realized in the brain are not. Dennett's book "Consciousness Explained" might have been more aptly entitled "Consciousness Explained Away". And as John Searle likes to scoff, whenever you meet one of these guys who deny consciousness, you just want to go up and pinch them. I suspect he means "punch" rather then "pinch" but that would be rude. Consider this, for example, that I just googled: http://web.mit.edu/abyrne/www/behaviourism.html Quite so. A lot of scientists and science fans are simply unfamiliar with the philosophy of science, hostile even. What they don't realize is that, by and large, the majority of philosophers of science are unequivocally pro-science; they're just trying to enhance understanding as you rightly note. This is a bitter pill for many to swallow: "Who understands science better than scientists themselves, asshole!!!???" To which I'd reply, we'd be foolish indeed not to listen to what the scientists have to say. But just because Ronaldo, say, is the greatest footballer in the world, if it's an accurate account of the history and philosophy and football you want, including North Korean strikers of the 1930s and the influence of the Internet on Greek premier league soccer, Ronaldo may not be the best man to consult. Personally I find it a delight to read the popular works of philosophically versed scientists such as Gould and Lewontin, say. Extremely clever, sophisticated men. On the other hand, though, those most clueless of and hostile to philosophy -- Krauss and Dawkins (aaarrrggghhh!!!) -- are almost painful to have to listen to as they advance one screaming absurdity after another. Wise words, my good man. Perhaps we can lock horns together sometime in a thread on the philosophy of language sometime. One of my passions. You're Dutch, right? Bring Grolsch. I'll bring bad breath. Haha!

I edited as you were typing, and added... Or "I know smoking will affect me but I don't believe it will". You were denying my claim that "one cannot know what one does not believe". Could you say the sentence above (about smoking) without blushing? I'd be scared. Now you can say anything you like, of course. It's a free country. But you might be deemed irrational. Horror of horrors! A fate worse than lung cancer on a science forum!

Re the above (DrP). You're under no obligation to accept the standard definition of knowledge (justified true belief). If you don't, though, you may find yourself countenancing absurdities. Neither are you under any obligation to accept the definition of a bachelor being (at least) an unmarried male. But would you be willing to countenance "My pal Tom is a bachelor. And he's married"? Or for that matter "I know Donald Trump is president but I don't believe it"? Rather you than me. You're conflating two claims: (i) your knowledge (if it is) that smoking is bad, and (ii) your belief that you won't be affected. Different claims. They needn't be inconsistent. Were you to say "I know smoking is bad but I don't believe it's bad" then you would be courting absurdity. Or "I know smoking will affect me but I don't believe it will". In your example, though, several things could be said without a red face. E.g. I don't believe it will affect me ... because I only smoke after Partick Thistle win the Premier League. (Or in my own case, I only smoke after sex. No risk of lung cancer here) On the other hand, you might smoke like a chimney and just be in denial. *shrugs* There are bound to be a few oddball cases. Consider the grief stricken parent: "I know he's dead, but I can't quite believe it".

@ Studiot Ok then. To get us started, a few thoughts. Any additions or criticisms you might have are welcome. Re belief and knowledge. Given the standard definition (justified true belief) we can first of all say that one cannot know what one does not believe: if you know something you believe it, too. The converse does not hold: you can believe something but not know it. And you'd be almost certainly right. Still though, even without resorting to radical skepticism of the kind you alluded to -- "We're all in the Matrix" -- you/we could all be wrong about this, even if our senses are functioning perfectly. Hilary Putnam used to have a lot of fun concocting far-fetched examples to show that certain statements traditionally taken to be "analytic" (i.e. true or false in virtue of the meanings of the terms alone; no empirical inquiry required) are not so. For example a statement like "tigers are animals". On the traditional view, we could not possibly be wrong about this, since part of the concept of [TIGER] is [ANIMAL]. It's true by definition, as they like to say. Putnam asks us to imagine first that we discover one particular "tiger" is actually a cleverly constructed, anatomically exquisite robot sent to spy on us by Martians. Presumably, upon making this shocking discovery, we'd conclude: "That's not a tiger. It's a fake. But the rest are tigers". But now suppose they all turn out to be robots! What do we say now? This tests our intuitions, but here I side with Putnam in saying we'd conclude "It turns out tigers are not animals after all" (as opposed to "There are no tigers"). Now do the same thing for butterflies/insects... To emphasize, no one is suggesting the above scenario is even remotely likely. It does make a conceptual point, though. You have a belief; it's a well justified belief, but it may not be knowledge. Here I'm confused as to why you don't say of moths what you say of butterflies? Why are butterflies more deserving of your knowledge affiliations than moths? Well, if it is indeed the case that you do not know the difference (i.e. you cannot tell one from the other) then you lack the knowledge to discriminate. That said, it may be the case that even though you cannot distinguish moths from butterflies, you know that there is a difference. And if you believe there's a difference, you have good reasons for so believing (the expert testimony of David Attenborough, or whatever), and there really is a difference, then you have knowledge -- you know -- that the two are not the same. You not only believe "there is one [i.e. a difference]", but know it! Personally I can't tell Hungarian from Polish. I'm pretty sure -- dare I say I know -- they're different languages, though.

I'll do my best. But before I go out on a limb, risking injury and ignominy, you'll have to clarify some terms that you used (on page 1) which are unfamiliar to me. What is "pure knowledge"? What is "pure belief"? And I don't understand your bracketed phrase "at the level of meaning of know". Please explain.

He doesn't call Darwin's tree a myth. He doesn't call his tree of life a myth, and he hasn't dodged the question. Ditto. First of all, in the opening post it is stated, "there exist no practical uses for Darwin's tree of common descent in applied biology" which is already to presuppose the reality of Darwin's tree. Next, in Francis' second post, we see: "I would suggest you think it's ludicrous because you've been indoctrinated to believe that Darwin's tree is essential to all forms of biology and you've never stopped to question this myth. And I believe it is a myth, because it seems to me that no practical use in applied science depends on it. Darwin's tree is "useful' only for formulating evolutionary theory, and mere theory is not a practical applied use." The first sentence in this passage is quite clear that the myth in question, the one that "you have been indoctrinated to believe", is not Darwin's tree per se, but that "Darwin's tree is essential to all forms of biology". I know this isn't really my business. But as I've expressed concerns over in other places, it seems that on this site logical fallacies only constitute a problem -- even if none have been perpetrated -- when the perpetrator is a newbie, especially when advancing opinions that may not accord with the party line. When the big boys do it, everyone turns a blind eye. Reward it even with a few votes.

Francis, you have my sympathies. The savagery of the responses to what strikes me as a perfectly innocent and reasonable question you posed is quite staggering, though given my own experience on this site, not altogether surprising . When you mention "practical uses" what comes to my mind immediately is technological applications. And it seems I'm not alone. Take a look at this page, for example, that I just googled. https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-practical-uses-of-theoretical-physics The question posed -- almost identical to your own -- is "What are some practical uses of theoretical physics?" The answers, if you read through, take the form of practical applications of theoretical physics, including the writing of computer programs to simulate real-world engineering scenarios, nuclear power, rockets, high voltage transmission lines with small losses, airfoil designs in wind power turbines, etc., etc. Just the kind of answers I would have expected. Now regardless of whether your own question can be answered in the affirmative, most of the responses above do not fit what I would personally characterize as practical applications. E.g. you've been told that "practical applications" include keeping scientists from accepting bad hypotheses, rendering the fossil record understandable, confirming the theory of evolution, predicting functions in functional genomics, and so on. Meanwhile, other respondents have pointed out that knowledge is valuable for its own sake; perhaps true, but quite irrelevant to the question you posed. And in return for your curiosity, in the space of just a meager few replies you've been described as, or implied to be, ludicrous, anti-science, incapable of understanding, a Creationist; not to mention being blatantly misrepresented with a transparent strawman attack ("So Francis, the argument is, that Darwin's tree is a myth, because you can't identify a practical use for it?) -- a miserable distortion of your words that seems to bother no one here but myself. Speaking from personal experience of the savagery you were just subjected to, Francis, I generally just refrain from voicing any misgivings I have over evolutionary theory (and no, I'm not religious). The risks to health are just not worth it. One might be safer standing up in Mecca and shouting obscenities at a certain unnamed prophet. Welcome to the Science Forums.

@ Silvestru. Hi again. In your first post (third remark) you tell us that scientists go about their business, do certain things, produce certain constructs, but that (and I quote yourself) "This is not knowledge or truth". I'd like to show here, by way of examples, that your claim is problematic. I just spent a few minutes browsing through today's activity on the forums collecting a small sample -- which could be expanded almost ad infinitum -- of scientific assertions that I'll list below. "Though you couldn't actually travel at the speed of light, just close to it" "Nothing can exceed the speed of light" "As speed increases the energy of the object increases. Energy and mass are equivalent (Obviously, I was only referring to what we currently know)" "light speed cannot be exceeded (or even achieved) by a massive object because mass/energy would become infinite if that happened" "Dark matter has nothing to do with expansion." "We know a lot about dark matter (less about dark energy)" "But galaxies are not flying apart from each other." Two points to note first. (1) I don't know whether the claimants are scientists themselves, though I'd suggest the claims advanced are fairly typical of those made by working scientists. (2) These are all claims to knowledge/truth. Whether the claims are indeed true, hence that the claimant possesses knowledge, is of course another matter. Nevertheless, in each case the claimant is implicitly saying "these things are true and I know (i.e., I have knowledge of) their truth", and so does anyone else (have knowledge) who believes it. The last quoted example is from yourself, Silvestru, so let me focus on that one for illustration. You're making an assertion; a statement. To assert something is to assert that it is true, and also that you believe it; i.e., you have a belief. (Except, as I noted earlier, in deviant cases such as lying. Clearly, this does not apply here). And if that belief is justified and indeed true, then you have knowledge: you know that galaxies are not flying apart from each other. If you still have any doubts, consider the following tests. Would you have said the following?: (i) "Galaxies are not flying apart from each other, but it's not true" Presumably we can agree this makes no sense, thus you are making a truth claim. (ii) "Galaxies are not flying apart from each other, but I don't believe it" Again, though not an outright contradiction, this would be an extremely peculiar locution. Thus, in making your assertion you are expressing a belief, namely that "Galaxies are not flying apart from each other". Now apply the same tests to the other quotes above. I think you'll agree these are all claims to truth or knowledge or both. If pressed, I've little doubt the claimants, including yourself, would admit to fallibility in their claims, nonetheless your own claim that "This is not knowledge or truth" is belied by the evidence before us. In each case the claimant is saying of a particular statement X that "X is true", moreover that anyone who believes X, including the claimant him/herself who obviously does believe it, has knowledge (on the assumption that the claim is well justified). In contradistinction to your own "This is not knowledge or truth", then, our respective claimants are telling us "This is knowledge and truth".

Ah, well, behaviorism is pretty much dead nowadays, isn't it? Except for the occasional stick-in-the-mud like Daniel Dennett perhaps. A belief these days, since the cognitive revolution 60 years or so ago, is no longer construed as forms of behavior or dispositions to behavior (including verbal behavior, like say the utterance "Donald Trump is president") but a mental state which, among other things that beliefs do, is (partially) causally responsible for that behavior. Looking back, it's kinda mindblowing (pardon the pun) how behaviorism held academia in such a vise-like grip for so long. The whole idea (pardon another pun) behind it seems... well, preposterous. See also idealism.

Hi there. I'm having trouble understanding your post -- quite possibly my own fault. How about we go through it sentence by sentence, until I get lost, and see if we can get more clear? The commonsense notion of truth implicit in my posts so far has been the "correspondence theory of truth"; i.e., a relationship of correspondence between propositions, statements, or beliefs, on the one hand, and states of affairs in the world (i.e. facts), on the other. The facts themselves are, of course, not unchangeable. It just started to rain here, dammit! Well, seems to me if I have a belief, say, that Donald Trump is currently US president, then the object of that belief is the man himself. My belief is about Donald Trump, and when I express my belief in the form of a spoken assertion, I predicate something of that man, namely, that he is US president. Ok. This is where I get lost in your reasoning. The belief, or statement, "Donald Trump is currently US president" surely refers to Donald Trump, the man. The causes of my belief might be, for example, that I saw it on CNN, a friend told me, etc., etc. I can make no sense of the claim that the object of my belief (Trump, the man) refers to my watching CNN news. In any case, surely what does the referring when I state my belief is not the object (Trump, the human being with orange hair), but the name ("Donald Trump", the linguistic entity with eleven letters in written form). The name refers to the dude. Trump (the man) is the referent; "Trump" (the name) refers to the referent. (Or more correctly, in my view, rather than the name referring, I use the name to refer. But let's just say the name refers for simplicity). Likewise for the Flat Earther. The object of his belief/assertion is the Earth, to which, when he speaks, he predicates "is flat". The term/name "the Earth", a linguistic entity, refers to the Earth, a big round thing.

Yes, these things take years of training and practice to attain expertise. Those of us who are not experts have little option but to accept their testimony if we are to claim knowledge at all. Or withhold from doing so, as the case may be. The same as you do yourself, I presume, in areas where you lack the relevant expertise. Well, it's seldom the case that we hear scientists assert that such-and-such is TRUE -- and that's that! On the other hand, it's fairly routine that scientists assert we have good reasons (evidence!) for believing such-and-such a claim. (just browse through the forums here). And to assert something is to assert that it is true -- by definition. Likewise, to believe something is to believe that it is true. It makes little sense to say "I hereby assert X but I don't believe X" or "I believe Y is the case but Y is not true". Science is, to a great extent at least, a belief system. Scientists have beliefs like all the rest of us. They would normally claim, though, I think, that when they do make a commitment (e.g. well tested theories in mature sciences, etc.) that the beliefs they commit themselves to are sufficiently justified. Their beliefs, in other words, are supported by ample evidence. Again, I've no idea what is meant by "absolute truth". It's not a term I use myself. And to suggest, as you do, that truth changes ("current truth") leads to highly counterintuitive consequences. Would you be willing to concede, for example, that it was once true that the Sun orbits the Earth but is no longer so? Most of us, I suspect, would prefer to say instead that it was never true that the Sun orbits the Earth, regardless of how strongly justified that belief may have been to our forebears. It was believed to be true; it was believed with justification to be true; but it was not true. And thus no one ever had knowledge (no one ever knew) that the Sun orbits the Earth. Edit P.S. - You won't have to look far in these forums, for example, to find it asserted that there is a "fact" of evolution. And facts are, by definition, true. There are no untrue facts.

You tease It does raise a good point, though. You may have noticed how I vacillate between the terms "statement" and "proposition". Can we now say that the statement "Euston Station is one stop away from Camden Town station" is both true and false? And civilization as we know it grinds to a halt (much like the London Underground). Yes, but the one statement can express more than one proposition. And vice versa: multiple statements may express the same proposition. Propositions, we're told, as opposed to statements, are unambiguously true or false.

Different lines?

Knowledge grows...

What you've been expressing here (and above) is a stance of "instrumentalism". The instrumentalist would typically claim that scientific theories/models are not truth-evaluable. To read the theory literally is a mistake. Just as it would be a mistake to read "the average American taxpayer pays $3000 in taxes per year" and then ask for his phone number. The instrumentalist would nonetheless claim knowledge, though, as you're doing yourself: not of the truth of the theory/model (because they're not in the truth line of business at all), but of the observable consequences derivable therefrom. The realist, meanwhile, would throw a fit! Hmm, doesn't sound right to me. It's hard to make sense of a screwdriver being "false". Statements (for example) can be true or false. An object, like a chair, say, cannot. Wouldn't it be more appropriate to say "My pozi screwdriver isn't up to the task"? (Er, what's a pozi screwdriver? A starhead? I think the Americans call it a Philips screwdriver. I dunno)