Re: Just So stories and science

["Matthew Bonnan" <mbonnan@hotmail.com>]

Brian "philidor11" writes:

> The examination of testability seemed appropriate in the context of the
> response that whatever leads to the choice of a hypothesis, that hypothesis
> must live through tests.  The question then becomes whether proving a
> hypothesis plausible advances the discussion, given the number of other
> possible hypotheses which might also pass plausibility tests using logic,
> and also given the need to make choices and assumptions when applying 
> logic.

If I am understanding you correctly, you are asking whether or not 
establishing the validity of an hypothesis of, say, dinosaur systematics or 
functional morphology, advances the important discussion that keeps paleo 
(and all sciences) going or whether it stymies it.

If that is what you mean (I hope?) then there are two answers:

1. Yes, but only if the temporarily validated hypothesis or theory is then 
put out of bound for future testing, authoritatively stated as "fact," or 
any number of unfortunate things that can and do happen by practioners of 
science.

2. But, usually, no for many reasons.  Let's say we establish to the 
satisfaction of the scientific community some dinosaur relationships.  Even 
if most workers no longer seriously delve into the continued testing of 
these relationships, the newly proposed and currently accepted system now 
provides new questions, new conversations, new reasons to go to field 
looking for specimens, new ideas about the development of novel structures, 
etc.  If anything, paleontology (and science in general) advances by 
establishing a body of knowledge, and then building upon that framework.  
Some have called it "standing on the shoulders of giants," sometimes with a 
cynical tongue, but this is how we make advancements.

The important point in all of this, which Brian is speaking of, is that 
science dies if doubt and continued discussion about even things we "know to 
be true" are not allowed to continue.

> You might like another quote from the same essay:
> <The key point that blunts the Gould and Lewontin critique of adaptationism
> is that natural selection is the only scientific explanation of adaptive
> complexity. "Adaptive complexity" describes any system composed of many
> interacting parts where the details of the parts' structure and arrangement
> suggest design to fulfill some function. The vertebrate eye is the classic
> example.>

I thought the criticism of Gould and Lewontin was that people were 
suggesting that various organs, structures, etc., were evolving toward a 
particular end.  Although natural selection works on the raw and somewhat 
random process of genetic mutation, selection of the "winners" is not toward 
any goal, but rather is more a combination of environmental, genetic, 
phenotypic, behavioral, historical, and other factors.  Maybe I don't 
understand the quote.

Matt Bonnan
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