[Dean's World] Aziz P: on scientific conspiracies

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Posted by Aziz P:
on scientific conspiracies
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1152911103.shtml


   The Derb [1]lays down the smack upon the latest round of Creationist
   politics at National Review. Now I am a believer in Intelligent Design
   myself. I just believe that the mechanism of that Design and Creation
   follows certain rules, for which Science is doing a faantastic job of
   elucidating. Hey, I'm a scientist too. But all that aside, as Derb
   does his thing, he observes:

     Creationists respond to this by telling us that they canât get a
     hearing in the defensive, closed-minded, âinvestedâ world of
     professional science. Creationist ideas are too revolutionary, they
     say. The impenetrably reactionary nature of established science is
     a staple of Creationist talk. They seem not to have noticed that
     twentieth-century science is a veritable catalog of revolutionary
     ideas that got accepted, from quantum theory to plate tectonics,
     from relativity to dark matter, from cosmic expansion to the
     pathogen theory of ulcers. Creationism has been around far, far
     longer than the ânot yet acceptedâ phase of any of those theories.
     Why is the proportion of scientists willing to accept it still
     stuck below (well below, as best I can estimate) one percent? The
     only answer you can get from a Creationist involves a conspiracy
     theory that makes the Protocols of the Elders of Zion look
     positively rational.

     [...]

     Creationism has been around in one form or another for well over a
     century, which is to say, more than 20 times longer than the
     interval between Max Planckâs first broadcasting of his quantum
     theory and his election as president of the Deutsche Physikalische
     Gesellschaft. The fact that Creationism still has no scientific
     acceptance whatsoever â no presidencies of learned societies, no
     Nobel Prizes, not a bean, not a dust mote â does not show that the
     science establishment is hostile to new ideas, it only shows that
     scientists cannot see that Creationism has anything to offer them.

   Derb is alluding to how Max Planck's revolutionary theory of quantum
   radiation was essentially scientific blasphemy in 1900, yet less than
   two decades later he was awarded the Nobel prize (and made president
   of the German Physical Society along the way).

   Now, the point above is focused on replying to the claims of
   conspiracy by the IDers, but it also applies to any upstart theory
   whose advocates claim that they aren't being given a fair hearing.
   Note that this is not the same as claiming that scientific orthodoxy
   is flawed; in fact, the basic assumption of all science is that the
   present orthodoxy is flawed. But existence of flaws in the
   conventional wisdom you are trying to upend does not translate to
   validation for YORU alternative; and crying about being shut out of
   the process is tantamount to admitting you aren't willing to put your
   ideas to the test of real rigor.

   Scientific history shows us that ideas flourish when true, and are
   then gleefully replaced when their usefulness ends.

   And yes, I do believe that the same standards apply to the SENS issue
   or HIV-skeptics. SENS is yet young, but HIV-skepticism has been around
   for quite some time. What new discoveries does the latter have to show
   for it? And how long will the former chug along with the same lack of
   results?

   Theories must have redictions, results, testable hypotheses. Anyone
   claiming to be doing true science (and complaining about The Man
   keeping them down) is ignorant of science's history, and science's
   method. But then again, being the closest to a true meritocracy we
   have in teh history of human civlization, the edifice of science and
   peer review is the highest-profile target.

References

   1. http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YzUwMDliZTQxYTJlNjUzZTQ5YTRhNGJhOTQ0NmMxMzk=