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One of Darwin's evolution theories finally proved by Cambridge researcher

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Re: One of Darwin's evolution theories finally proved by Cambridge researcher

#21

Post by vikramkr »

marcosdumay wrote: post #11
normalnorm wrote: post #5

Scientific theories are not "proven", that is not how science works. All theories are always and forever open to falsification. The scientific attitude is one of eternal doubt. "Proof" is something that only exists in the realm of pure math.

Yes, and on this case this is completely correct. But evolutionary theories are so close to pure math (ie., they assume so little empirical knowledge) that it does happen once in a while to have some aspect of them proven on the literal sense. Every scientific theory has this thing where a complex conclusion is proven to follow from a simpler set of hypothesis. It just tends to happen more often with Evolution. Edit:…

In those cases, is something about evolutionary science proven, or is a mathematical concept proven derived from a model of evolutionary systems? We can create proofs and do real math in extending and understanding the implications of the mathematical models we use for the world, but I don't think proving anything about the behavior of the model implies any proof of the behavior of the underlying science - it suggests it's likely but proof?

Re: One of Darwin's evolution theories finally proved by Cambridge researcher

#22

Post by grabbalacious »

normalnorm wrote: post #5

Scientific theories are not "proven", that is not how science works. All theories are always and forever open to falsification. The scientific attitude is one of eternal doubt. "Proof" is something that only exists in the realm of pure math.

The main thing is, "so-and-so proved that" or "he showed that" or "they demonstrated scientifically that" refer to processes that can't convey certainty. Even in mathematics there's no certainty because mathematicians are fallible and someone may eventually find a flaw in a proof.

Re: One of Darwin's evolution theories finally proved by Cambridge researcher

#23

Post by bayesian_horse »

One problem when discussing species and subspecies is that there is no clear-cut definition between species, subspecies and "just some genetic diversity".

The best hint is the genetic distance between any two individuals. In general, that distance is bigger between species than between subspecies. But no clear thresholds can be applied to the whole tree of life.

Taxonomy is still mostly defined through differences a researcher can see with his own eyes (or a microscope). Much of taxonomy is in the process of being redefined through molecular methods, though.

Re: One of Darwin's evolution theories finally proved by Cambridge researcher

#24

Post by gnulinux »

BaronSamedi wrote: post #14
normalnorm wrote: post #5

Scientific theories are not "proven", that is not how science works. All theories are always and forever open to falsification. The scientific attitude is one of eternal doubt. "Proof" is something that only exists in the realm of pure math.

I think the reality is more subtle than this. Is, for example, the discovery of DNA going to be falsified? I don't think so. Is the notion that living organisms evolve going to be falsified? Again, I doubt it. The case of Newton and Einstein is relevant here. Einstein didn't "falsify" Newton but rather enriched our understanding of physics. A better model seems to be that scientific theories fit into a spectrum of ce…

From a purely theoretical point of view, there are things Newtonian physics and modern physics predict differently, particularly for very big or very small or very fast objects. So in that sense Einstein DID falsify Newton. What you're missing is Newtonian physics' subject was not very big or very small or very fast object so for the things scientists researched on, they predicted things quite well. But that only means they overfit to the universe around earth, and weren't able to model the universe in its entirety. Although you do have a good point, it's not true to say Einstein did not falsify Newton.

Re: One of Darwin's evolution theories finally proved by Cambridge researcher

#25

Post by vharuck »

vikramkr wrote: post #20
sn41 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually I wonder whether Karl Popper is considered very important by philosophers of science. I have had arguments with people who claim that Feyerabend has a better "approach" to science. On the other hand, practicing scientists consider Popper's falsification one of the great unifying themes guiding scientific research. Though perhaps not as well-known, Popper's approach towards falsification of probabilistic clai…

We discussed popper in some classes I took, the main theme for that for like an explanation yes it needs to be falsifiable, but also sometimes science is just "look I made a thing!" Or "look I found a thing!" And it's less relevant there. The unanimous belief accross different classes in the sciences I took was that yes, when we think about science we look at it from the perspective of falsification, but when we actu…

>Nobody is really running an RNA sequencing experiment to evaluate the impacts of a drug on the rna transcriptome with falsification in mind (even if in a sense the null of "nothing changes" is what you're trying to falsify"). Psychologically it's just seen as some exploration to see what happens.

Isn't this, along with and maybe encouraging p-hacking, a major cause of the non-reproducability crisis? Scientists hunting out supporting evidence instead of showing their theories don't easily break?

Re: One of Darwin's evolution theories finally proved by Cambridge researcher

#28

Post by shard972 »

smoyer wrote: post #26

My key take-away - humans have no sub-species but it can be beneficial to the species as a whole. Let's get to work people! (or perhaps we just haven't formed divisions in the human population yet?)

There are divisions but it's considered politically incorrect to posit that their might be.

Re: One of Darwin's evolution theories finally proved by Cambridge researcher

#29

Post by jfengel »

sn41 wrote: post #12
keiferski wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, thank you. I really wish scientists (and the general public) learned more about the fundamentals of their field. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science

Actually I wonder whether Karl Popper is considered very important by philosophers of science. I have had arguments with people who claim that Feyerabend has a better "approach" to science. On the other hand, practicing scientists consider Popper's falsification one of the great unifying themes guiding scientific research. Though perhaps not as well-known, Popper's approach towards falsification of probabilistic clai…

Feyerabend isn't so much a "better approach" as a lack of an approach. He does a good job trying to get past the numerous problems of Popper's work, but in doing so largely just reverses it without adding anything useful.

The way I read it, it really dates back to Hume and the problem of induction. Until we have a Final Theory to hand, we never really know anything. That is a statement of epistemology. But science can't proceed on that basis: people make decisions on where to focus their efforts, and not all hypotheses are equally worth considering. That is a statement of scientific pragmatism, and those two fields don't overlap as much as we'd like them to.

Feyerabend is easily read as continuing to conflate the two: "Hey, all knowledge is provisional, so you might as well study astrology." Maybe that's useful from an epistemological standpoint, but it's not helpful for grants committees to think that way. Nor is it helpful for epistemological anarchists to insist that grants committees never really know and therefore really should fund astrology. The question of how scientists actually work is an important one, but it's a separate question from what TRVTH actually is -- even though scientists would like to believe otherwise. They're not as close as they think.

Re: One of Darwin's evolution theories finally proved by Cambridge researcher

#30

Post by JumpCrisscross »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #23

One problem when discussing species and subspecies is that there is no clear-cut definition between species, subspecies and "just some genetic diversity". The best hint is the genetic distance between any two individuals. In general, that distance is bigger between species than between subspecies. But no clear thresholds can be applied to the whole tree of life. Taxonomy is still mostly defined through differences a…

> there is no clear-cut definition between species

It's not clear-cut in all cases. But it's clear cut bilaterally. Two organisms are in the same species if they can successfully reproduce, i.e. produce an offspring that can itself produce offspring. If they can't, they're in different species. (Multilateral fuzziness arises if A can reproduce with B, and B with C, but A not with C.)

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