Understanding the Nature of Science: A Critical Part of the Public Acceptance of Evolution

1
Understanding the Nature of Science A Critical
Part of the Public Acceptance of Evolution

• Keith B. Miller
• Department of Geology
• Kansas State University

2
Science educators have largely failed to
communicate the processes by which scientific
understandings of the natural world are obtained.

3
Widespread misconceptions of the nature of
science underlie much of the popular resistance
to the conclusions of modern science --
particularly evolution.
4
Misconception 1

• Science is a thinly disguised effort to promote a
  godless worldview.

5
Response

• Science is
• 1) a methodology
• 2) a search for chains of natural
• cause-and-effect processes
• Science is NOT
• 1) a statement about the nature of
• ultimate reality

6
Misconception 2

• Supernatural action is a legitimate subject of
  scientific inquiry.

7
Response

• The methodology of science is incapable of
  investigating supernatural action.
• A supernatural agent is effectively a black box,
  and appeals to supernatural action are equivalent
  to appeals to ignorance.

8
(No Transcript)
9
Misconception 3

• Evolution is inherently atheistic.
• (corollary)
• Evolution and Creation are two mutually exclusive
  choices.

10
Response

• Science does not affirm or deny the existence of
  a Creator. It is simply silent on the existence
  or action of God.
• A simple conflict or warfare view of science
  and faith is historically invalid.

11
Misconception 4

• True science deals with proven facts
• Theories are mere speculation and philosophy

12
Response

• Science is NOT a mastery of a body of unchanging
  scientific facts.
• Observational facts by themselves do not yield
  understanding.
• Theoretical inquiry is the essence of science.
  Theories integrate diverse observations and give
  them meaning and coherence.

13
Response

• Theories are modified and replaced as new
  observations accumulate, and improved explanatory
  models are developed.
• The very strength of scientific methodology is
  that ideas are subject to testing and
  verification.

14
Misconception 5

• Historical sciences are not testable

15
Response

• The predictions of hypotheses about past events
  are continually tested by new observations.
• Research in the historical sciences proceeds by
  an almost continuous process of hypothesis
  creation and testing.

16
Misconception 6

• There is no way to objectively select among
  theories. Theories win acceptance for
  political and social reasons.
• (corollary)
• Public opinion is a valid basis for determining
  public science curricula.

17
Response

• Good science is not determined by popular vote.
  Rather, it is the consensus of the community of
  science professionals that determines the
  currently best theories. That community
  includes individuals with a wide range of
  cultural and religious worldviews.

18
Conclusions

• We should all be quick to distinguish scientific
  practice from a philosophical scientism that
  denies the ultimate reality of anything beyond
  the material.
• As scientists and science educators we must be
  attentive to teach not just the content of our
  science, but its methodological foundation.
• Science is a dynamic, open-ended, and thoroughly
  human enterprise.