Hello, I would like to ask a straightforward question: Is there a logically valid way to call evolution science and creationism a pseudo-science? I am not creationist, I just hope I will strengthen my evolutionistic opinion. And I would like to have it in a clear form. I must admit that because of my family member I visited a specific creationistic site. And there was the extraordinary claim that there is no such logically valid way and I would like to disprove this for me and my family member by stating at least one. And I want to stop visiting that site after disproving. Thanks for answer in advance.
Maybe the answer is that creationistic hypotheses don’t make any falsifiable but confirmed predictions, but I am not sure.
And I would also like to ask a broader question whether there is some rationally efective method of looking for the truth on the internet. Or more simply stated, who to believe.
I think this is a reasonable question to have, but is something that LessWrong has kinda tried to move on from as a whole, so you may not find many people interested in answering it here. (i.e. LessWrong doesn’t focus much on traditional skeptic/woo debates, instead trying to settle those questions so we can move on to more interesting problems)
Just wanted to let you know. I do think reading through many of the core sequences may help. (Unfortunately I don’t currently know which sub-sections will be most relevant to you offhand)
Is there a logically valid way to call evolution science and creationism a pseudo-science?
I’m not sure what’s meant by “logically valid” here. Formal logic does have a notion of validity, but it’s not particularly useful for these kinds of questions. If I just came up with a definition for science and said that evolution matches that definition, thus therefore evolution is a science, it would be a logically valid argument… even if my argument made no sense.
For instance, if I said that “scientific fields are those which involve eating cheese on the moon, evolution involves eating cheese on the moon, thus evolution is a scientific field”, then technically, this is a logically valid argument. (See the link for an explanation of why.) It also makes no sense, but making sense is not a requirement for the technical meaning of “logical validity”.
So either the page has its own definition for what “logically valid” means, or it’s just making a meaningless but impressive-sounding claim.
It doesn’t have a generally accepted solution , but it doesn’t follow from that that creationism is science. Pragmatically, science is what scientists say it is, and very few scientitists are creationists.
This sounds like an XY problem. What you’re looking for isn’t logic, but epistemology.
Science is, and always has been, Natural Philosophy. Now, philosophy can be done well or badly. But Natural Philosophy has a great advantage over other philosophical branches: better data. This makes such a difference that scientists often don’t think of themselves as philosophers anymore (but they are).
What makes the modern Scientific Method especially effective compared to older approaches is the rejection of unreliable epistemology. The whole culture of modern science is founded on that. Sure, we have better tools and more developed mathematics now, but the principles of epistemology we continue to use in science were known anciently. The difference is in what methods we don’t accept as valid.
So is Creationism a philosophy of nature? Sure is! But they’re making embarrassing, obvious mistakes in epistemology that would make any real scientist facepalm, and yet call themselves “scientific”. That’s why we call it pseudoscience.
If you’re trying to win an argument with a creationist family member, presenting them evidence isn’t going to help as long as their epistemology remains broken. They’ll be unable to process it. Socratic questioning can lead your interlocutor to discover the contradictions their faulty methods must lead them to. Look up “street epistemology” for examples of the technique.
Hello, I would like to ask a straightforward question: Is there a logically valid way to call evolution science and creationism a pseudo-science? I am not creationist, I just hope I will strengthen my evolutionistic opinion. And I would like to have it in a clear form. I must admit that because of my family member I visited a specific creationistic site. And there was the extraordinary claim that there is no such logically valid way and I would like to disprove this for me and my family member by stating at least one. And I want to stop visiting that site after disproving. Thanks for answer in advance.
Maybe the answer is that creationistic hypotheses don’t make any falsifiable but confirmed predictions, but I am not sure.
And I would also like to ask a broader question whether there is some rationally efective method of looking for the truth on the internet. Or more simply stated, who to believe.
Hey Peter, (I’m a mod here)
I think this is a reasonable question to have, but is something that LessWrong has kinda tried to move on from as a whole, so you may not find many people interested in answering it here. (i.e. LessWrong doesn’t focus much on traditional skeptic/woo debates, instead trying to settle those questions so we can move on to more interesting problems)
Just wanted to let you know. I do think reading through many of the core sequences may help. (Unfortunately I don’t currently know which sub-sections will be most relevant to you offhand)
I’m not sure what’s meant by “logically valid” here. Formal logic does have a notion of validity, but it’s not particularly useful for these kinds of questions. If I just came up with a definition for science and said that evolution matches that definition, thus therefore evolution is a science, it would be a logically valid argument… even if my argument made no sense.
For instance, if I said that “scientific fields are those which involve eating cheese on the moon, evolution involves eating cheese on the moon, thus evolution is a scientific field”, then technically, this is a logically valid argument. (See the link for an explanation of why.) It also makes no sense, but making sense is not a requirement for the technical meaning of “logical validity”.
So either the page has its own definition for what “logically valid” means, or it’s just making a meaningless but impressive-sounding claim.
The question of what constitutes science is called the demarcation problem.
It doesn’t have a generally accepted solution , but it doesn’t follow from that that creationism is science. Pragmatically, science is what scientists say it is, and very few scientitists are creationists.
This sounds like an XY problem. What you’re looking for isn’t logic, but epistemology.
Science is, and always has been, Natural Philosophy. Now, philosophy can be done well or badly. But Natural Philosophy has a great advantage over other philosophical branches: better data. This makes such a difference that scientists often don’t think of themselves as philosophers anymore (but they are).
What makes the modern Scientific Method especially effective compared to older approaches is the rejection of unreliable epistemology. The whole culture of modern science is founded on that. Sure, we have better tools and more developed mathematics now, but the principles of epistemology we continue to use in science were known anciently. The difference is in what methods we don’t accept as valid.
So is Creationism a philosophy of nature? Sure is! But they’re making embarrassing, obvious mistakes in epistemology that would make any real scientist facepalm, and yet call themselves “scientific”. That’s why we call it pseudoscience.
If you’re trying to win an argument with a creationist family member, presenting them evidence isn’t going to help as long as their epistemology remains broken. They’ll be unable to process it. Socratic questioning can lead your interlocutor to discover the contradictions their faulty methods must lead them to. Look up “street epistemology” for examples of the technique.