Sep 21 2009
“The” Scientific Method
Or – Why are there so many engineers on the list of scientists who doubt Darwin?
At a recent live SGU show (at Dragon*Con 2009) a questioner asked why it was that so many of the scientists who have added their name to the list of those who doubt Darwin were – and then I cut him off and finished for him – engineers. He was not the first person to make this observation. (You can download the list here: http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/download.php)
First, on a separate note, this list has been the focus of much ridicule because after years of scouring the globe they have only managed to come up with 700 scientists willing to sign the list. And, whenever they add scientists to the list they boast that the number of scientists dissenting from Darwin is growing, as if the percentage of scientists is growing, and therefore the scientific community is moving away from evolutionary theory (which they tellingly equate with Darwin). No – they just added another buffoon to their list.
Also, I have to point out that the National Center for Science Education, to parody the silliness of this list, launched Project Steve, and have now listed 1,107 scientists named Steve (or some variation of Steve) who support evolution (and of which I am a proud member).
But back to my main point – why so many engineers on the Doubting Darwin list? This could be just confirmation bias. I confess I did not go through the 700 names, count up the engineers, and do statistical analysis, comparing the percentage to the background rate of engineers among scientists. If someone has the time and inclination to do this, please send me the stats and I will happily steal them from you – I mean give you full credit for this important scholarly work.
If it is true that engineers are over-represented on the list, what are we to make of it? (Please ignore my prior recommendations to avoid speculating about the cause of phenomena you have not first verified.) In any case I think there is an underlying principle that may offer insight.
The problem comes from assuming that there is one scientific method, or a limited set of methods by which science is done. I know that referring to “the” scientific method is often nothing but a convenient shorthand, not meant to be an accurate description, but it may also reflect an inherent bias. The reality, rather, is that there is a host of methods that various disciplines use under the broad umbrella of science. As long as you are testing hypotheses against reality, you are probably doing science (not necessarily good science, but science none-the-less).
Most scientific disciplines use a subset of scientific methods, and it is a mistake by the practitioners of any one scientific discipline to assume that they are therefore experts in all of science. I see the folly of this assumption most often when the field of expertise is most distinct from the field of speculation.
For example, I have read astrophysicists comment naively on the practice of medicine; biologists on the collapse of the world trade center on 9/11, and doctors and engineers on the plausibility of evolution – all with embarrassing results. The probability of folly probably increases as the disparity in disciplines increases – which leads to a plausible hypothesis about engineers and evolution.
Engineers (as an engineer recently pointed out to me) are involved with designing systems that behave predictably according to reliable principles and calculations. Engineers are pretty good at predicting, for example, if a bridge with a particular design will collapse under a certain load. This top-down process of design within predictable parameters is probably as far as you can get from the bottom-up evolution of biological systems with all their messy complexity and variation. Evolution is also a historical science – it is about reconstructing what happened in the past, and relies upon inferential methods that the average engineer probably does not need (an exception might be forensic engineers – if that is an actual term…wait, I guess it is – who have to reconstruct why a plane crashed or a building collapsed).
I would also add that a particular scientist does not necessarily understand other sciences – but they may. In my experience many working scientists are also amateur science enthusiasts outside their field of expertise. Their experience as a scientist probably gives them a huge head start in understanding other sciences, but does not give them automatic expertise. Those who understand the distinction, like Carl Sagan for example, can become a true science polymath.
What does all this mean for the average skeptic? We do need to remember to avoid the argument from authority – that a particular claim is likely to be right or wrong because of the credentials of the claimant. However, there is some legitimate authority to be had in the scientific community as the consensus opinion is more likely to have been vetted by logic and evidence and not be quirky or biased. However, only the consensus of appropriate expert opinion is relevant, and the opinion of scientists outside their area of expertise should not be looked upon as carrying any authority.
Further, I think it is critical for skeptics to realize that there is a wide variety of methods used by scientists of differing disciplines. We need to avoid the parochial opinion that classifies sciences as “hard” or “soft”, or artificially limits science to a subset of methods. Such attitudes cause confusion over the real demarcation between science and pseudoscience – confusion happily exploited by deniers and pseudoscientists.
So if engineers are actually overrepresented as doubters of Darwin (a hypothesis awaiting confirmation or refutation) it likely reflects a generic problem of too narrowly conceptualizing science, rather than anything unique to engineers (by which I mean if you are an engineer – do not e-mail me).
85 Responses to ““The” Scientific Method”
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DonExodus2 on youtube has a video where he contacts all the biologists that are on the list to see if they actually reject evolution.
many of the signers actually accept evolution and some of them didn’t even know their name appeared on the list.
Also, as anyone who has seen or read Lee Strobel knows, the creationists love to rattle off all the prestigious affiliations of the signers. But as DonExodus2 found out, the Disco Tute would simply take the most prestigious university that the signer had ever been affiliated with even if it was just as an undergrad for a year.
So not only does the list completely misrepresent the consensus, the list itself isn’t even representative of those that do dissent.
…but you probably suspected that anyway given its origin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty1Bo6GmPqM&feature=PlayList&p=EBDE4D7DB15BED77&index=6
As an engineer, I would not be surprised to learn that the number of engineers who reject evolution is disproportionately high compared to the other sciences. I also would not be surprised to learn that engineers are disproportionately more religious. It’s based entirely on my experience (therefore probably wrong), but I imagine that engineering draws in a significantly larger number of people who are deeply religious than most other science. I don’t know why this would be the case, but if I’m correct , it could explain the potentially high number of signatures from engineers on the list.
I can think of at least one other possible reason why engineers might be more inclined to accept the Intelligent Design nonsense than the evidence for evolution. The Intelligent Design argument rests on seeing the successful bodyplans and survival strategies found in nature as solutions to engineering problems developed by an intelligent engineer, instead of as the product of a slowly iterative process happening over countless generations with no goal in mind.
Cheers
Tom
You see similar things for climate change – lists of scientists who don’t believe humans are affecting climate which seem to be dominated by geologists, engineers, and other scientists whose work is completely unrelated to climatology. Locally there’s also been a fairly vocal group of medical professionals (primarily family doctors) trying to influence policy on environmental issues that seem to think their opinion should count more than experts in the various relevant fields (e.g. they seem to believe they understand pesticide toxicity better than toxicologists).
I’m a little confused about your statements in this blog post. You first say that being an expert in one scientific field does not make you an expert in all fields, which I agree with, and that missing that fact can lead to people making and accepting claims from people whom are not much better than any other lay person. You then go on to say that while being an expert in one field does not make you an expert in all fields, but can incline one to be an amateur enthusiast with a higher skillset than those who do not have a scientific backgrounds. I guess what I am getting at is that you are a academic neurologist who quite regularly defends Evolution, and examines all types of scientific discoveries outside of your field. It’s true that Evolution touches many fields, but there still seems to be quite a distinction between a strict study of Evolution and of Neuroscience. I certainly don’t have any problem with you or what you talk about, in fact I find you rather informative, but I am curious as to why you talk about all these types of scientists in the third-person without referencing yourself or more to the point, defending yourself for speaking with authority about science that is outside of your specific field.
I admit that I am no expert in either Evolution or Neuroscience so if I have overlooked something here, I apologize, but I think that the question still remains for when you talk about other fields like Quantum Theory that are most definitely not your field. Are you just saying that scientists can only comment on fields that they are not experts in, if they are defending the concensus in that field?
@ eternally learning
“Are you just saying that scientists can only comment on fields that they are not experts in, if they are defending the consensus in that field?”
I can’t speak for Steven Novella, but I think it’s only prudent to rely on the scientific consensus of any field that one is not an expert in. However, that doesn’t seem to be the point of Steven’s post. In any case, I have yet to see him take a position in contrast to the scientific consensus in any of his posts on this site.
Ha, got a dig in on Neil Tyson I see, nice one.
As a biomedical engineer, I have a feet alittle deeper into bio than most other engineers. I think the issue is much less complicated than you suggest. Engineers for most part simply do not know biology but there degree sounds fancy. Couple with the fact that some of the anti evolution rhetoric is rather sophisticated and youc an see why they are over represented.
“This top-down process of design within predictable parameters is probably as far as you can get from the bottom-up evolution of biological systems with all their messy complexity and variation. Evolution is also a hist0rical science – it is about reconstructing what happened in the past, and relies upon inferential methods that the average engineer probably does not need”
(sorry, I must respectfully take issue with this)
There’s plenty of bottom-up analysis of complex systems done by engineers during the process of ‘debug’. And there’s plenty
of historical science going on – when an engineer is tasked to
take over someone else’s project for example.
‘Engineering’ is much less of a methodology description and
much more of a job description.
As far as the disco-tute’s data-set – why question its validity
in every aspect *except* the number of engineers who signed.
This could well be some weird artifact, such as noted by ADR150 above.
Hey, has everyone seen this? Its totally cool:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZZ3DD_tV9k&feature=related
BR
Eternally Learning,
A point should be made the Dr. Novella does not take the position that his viewpoints on this blog should ever be taken on authority, and he never argues from that vantage, i.e. “Believe this because I’m an expert”. In the blog and the podcast there is a possibly an overly self-conscious attempt to have listeners/readers verify information or positions independently. On the rare occasions that Steve does take on nueroscience topics in one of these mediums, he has used argument from authority (but generally cites his sources anyway).
As someone who is both a scientist and engineer I have often wondered about this myself. I would add to the Darwin Dissent List the 9/11 Truther movement which has drawn more than its fair of those in the engineering profession. (AE911Truth.org for example).
Is it the profession and its training? or the personality of the people who chose a career in engineering over the sciences?
Having been through both processes myself, I think the answer is personality. While both scientists and engineers take the same basic science classes at the beginning of their academic training, and succeed at them, there is a difference in personality and intellectual makeup that leads to the decision of which career path to take. This difference is reinforced by subsequent training in their career. Even if the training is the same, the scientist-mind and the engineering-mind take away very different lessons.
Why this personality difference produces dogmatic individuals unable or unwilling to apply the scientific knowledge they certainly should possess, I do not know. I have had many strangely surrealistic moments with professional civil engineers in the 9/11 Truther movement, where they deny the mathematics that form the foundation for their profession, when it conflicts with their certainty of controlled demolition as an answer.
Actually, yes, when I speak outside my professional area of expertise I am typically distilling the consensus of scientific opinion – not putting my own opinion above the experts. I am acting more like a science popularizer than a scientist. When I am talking about neurology, I feel free to give my opinion, but even then will give great deference to my colleagues who have greater expertise than I in specific areas.
At the very least, I am given great pause if my understanding is different than the experts – I take as the default assumption that this is a defect in my understanding, not the experts.
Regarding the topics I choose to write about here, they are waited towards those topics I am the most comfortable with. I have studied evolution my entire life and feel very comfortable with it – but I still respect the opinion and knowledge of the experts. I don’t rely on my own opinions.
And – I believe that I bring a separate skill set to the topics I discuss, that of a scientific skeptic – understanding the difference between science and pseudocience, the mechanisms of self-deceptions, the strategies of deniers and cranks, etc. This is a skill set many scientists don’t possess, and so even though they may know their field better than I, I can still deconstruct a crank better than they can.
re_moore – I think you have a good point about the different personalities. Like you I am both scientist and engineer (degrees in biology and engineering) and interact regularly with people in both fields, and the types of people who go into engineering seem to be different than those in biology or other sciences (from personal observation only of course).
There are also differences in education; while engineers obviously have a solid grounding in the core sciences, the focus of their education is on applying science rather than doing science. Also, the sciences most engineers focus on are more on the physics and perhaps chemistry side; not many engineers have much background in biology, particularly in the more ‘traditional’ engineering branches like civil or mechanical (you wouldn’t even need high school biology to become an engineer).
Medmonkey; point well taken. I didn’t consider Dr. Novella’s considerable effort to have people check his facts and call him out on anything that they find quesitonable.
Steve, thanks for the explanation! I guess I can just evolve my question into something a bit different. I am someone who is not learned in any specific area of science, but I consider myself a scientifically-minded person who questions everything without mercy. Sometimes, I admit that I can get complacent in a certain mindset, but on the whole I try to break through that complancency whenever I notice it (a good example would be my jouney out of religion). I like to have conversations with people on various philosophical and scientific topics (as you may recall from your earlier blog about my Uncle’s question), but as I am not an expert in any of these fields I can only go so far. What is your opinion on how to converse with others when there is this spectrum between expertise and ignorance? At what point is it ok to comment? Should we all just follow your example and provide a disclaimer? How can I legitimately and convincingly answer others’ fallacious claims without invoking some authority in the field?
Speaking as an engineer, I find that engineers are a lot like medical doctors in that they get enough science education to make practical use of scientific discoveries, but not enough to assure they understand the scientific method — and certainly not enough to foster the degree of patience required to conduct science properly. Their expertise is not in the systematic probing of an interesting question but rather in straightforward problem-solving. This is good; that’s what we want them to do. But because they get a significant amount of science education along the way, they can fall into the trap of thinking they are, themselves, scientists, simply because they know a lot of scientific information. This is compounded because unlike scientists, they spend a lot of professional time around people who rely on them for expertise and tell them how smart they are. Scientists, on the other hand, spend a lot of their professional time around people dedicated to tearing them down if they are wrong, which forces them to examine their own methods and conclusions much more carefully before going public.
Another problem for engineers in particular is that not only do we specialize in creating things, but we are trained additionally to be able to reverse engineer — to figure out how something works. We usually take an almost perverse delight in doing this, which is why so many engineer’s homes contain devices that no longer work because they are strewn across a tabletop in pieces.
Indeed, reverse engineering is often a budding young geek’s first exposure to engineering. Many of us tend to think of science as a sort of particularly opaque reverse engineering job. Taking apart molecules to see what makes them stick together. While this isn’t entirely incorrect (though it is an oversimplification; this isn’t what science is, but is rather the motivation for going through with the scientific method), it leads to a dangerous conclusion: if science is a sort of reverse engineering, does that imply that the universe was engineered in the first place?
Of course not, and indeed, a humble engineer should realize that even man-made things can (and frequently do) arise with characteristics which were never engineered at all but just sort of happened. But I think that’s where many engineers who believe in ID start to go off the rails. They know about reverse engineering. They see complexity as evidence of intention — the more complex code modules are probably more important or at least more heavily maintained. It is a short step from there to concluding that if these same things are seen in the universe, perhaps it, too, is engineered.
Mind you, the ones who actually signed the document are probably fundies, or at least most of them, and went off the rails not over reverse engineering but over Scripture. After all, it’s really quite a short list. I doubt that’s even a significant fraction of the engineers who are evangelical Christians/Jews/Muslims/etc worldwide.
“They see complexity as evidence of intention — the more complex code modules are probably more important or at least more heavily maintained. It is a short step from there to concluding that if these same things are seen in the universe, perhaps it, too, is engineered.”
And should they NOT think that PERHAPS it is? The problem is in the jumping to the conventional conclusions. You might call it the Falkenstein dilemma – through the eyes of conventional wisdom, he has seen no Gods that can do engineering, yet sees accidentally fashioned men that can.
Eternally Learning asked “How can I legitimately and convincingly answer others’ fallacious claims without invoking some authority in the field?”
Appeal to appropriate authority is not a fallacy. While a convincing answer cannot depend solely on a pissing match between “authorities” cited, it’s not at all illegitimate to suggest, “Well, I’d sure rather depend on a neuro guy to advise me about my brain cramps than a plumber.” That’s what “authorities in the field” are for: To know more about their area of specialization than I do.
Rats. Pressed “Submit” too soon.
My view of engineers (and I have a lot of experience with them) is that they have less tolerance for ambiguity than those of us who stayed on the science side. If one is building a bridge or designing a rocket, one can’t afford ambiguity. If one is doing research on one or another scientific issue, ambiguity is a condition of life. The most helpful thing my Ph.D. supervisor told me, eons ago after I’d spent 8 years working with engineers in the aerospace industry, was “RBH, you have to cultivate a tolerance for ambiguity.” And that’s a direct quote.
Steven, SBM’s down again. Has it been the victim of DOS attacks?
I hear from Orac that you’re already aware, sorry for the spam.
I’d love to find out what’s been going on. Has SMB been the target of some jerk’s DOS attacks designed to push it over its service limit?
The Darkness of ignorance fears the light of critical thinking, reason, and science.
“My view of engineers (and I have a lot of experience with them) is that they have less tolerance for ambiguity than those of us who stayed on the science side.”
As you noted, in a professional setting, it is the job of the engineer to stress (too mild a term) that if you want something to work reliably, you must strive to reduce all possible sources of error.
I don’t know if “tolerance for ambiguity” (as opposed to “stickler for detail”?) is a personality trait or a consequence of the profession. It may be that those who value one over the other as an aspect of their personality may select their careers based upon this.
Speaking of the jump to the conclusive, where has it been written that the MAJORITY of engineers are evolution deniers?
“There are also differences in education; while engineers obviously have a solid grounding in the core sciences, the focus of their education is on applying science rather than doing science. Also, the sciences most engineers focus on are more on the physics and perhaps chemistry side; not many engineers have much background in biology, particularly in the more ‘traditional’ engineering branches like civil or mechanical (you wouldn’t even need high school biology to become an engineer).”
True there are differences in the education, but what I mostly noticed was how different people my peers were in graduate level engineering courses vs. graduate level pure science courses.
Even much more pronounced in the professional arena.
I could not see these groups mixing well at a party at all.
“Speaking of the jump to the conclusive, where has it been written that the MAJORITY of engineers are evolution deniers?”
You have it backwards. I think the received knowledge is that the majority of evolution deniers are engineers. (Based upon the Darwin Dissent List)
We could test this hypothesis (through the sophisticated form of measurement known as counting), but alas, we lack funding.
Or perhaps we are just admitting that on this issue, rampant speculation possesses more value than actual knowledge. They are all loons, who really cares what credentials they have?
A theory I have heard proposed is the “Lies told to children” theory. Basically, we all learn rules of thumb, usually in school, that are simplifications of a more complicated reality. “Survival of the fittest” is one good example (instead of “survival of the barely adequate and the lucky”, which is closer to evolutionary reality), or that speed is additive (shoot an arrow from a car, and the speed of the arrow is the speed from the bow plus the speed of the car). They’re good good enough as rules of thumb that probably cover 99.9% of what people deal with regularly.
The problem with some engineers is that they get a more in-depth education in sciences than most non-scientists (well, physics anyway), and they’re smart enough to figure out problems with those rules of thumbs, but they don’t specialize in science enough to know that the “problems” either aren’t because specialists in that area have figured out the solution, or that it’s only a problem to begin with because the rule of thumb, the “lie” they were told when they were younger, isn’t entirely true but only a simplification.
My half-baked hypothesis:
I don’t think it’s the wandering outside one’s primary area of expertise that’s the problem. In fact it’s my impression that there’s actually less wandering on the engineering side as compared to the pure research side of the sciences.
Basic scientists expect all knowledge of the natural world to be coherent. They look for connections between their specific interest and other areas of study. Good ones wander a little all the time, I think.
Contrast this free inquiry model with engineering and its cottage industry of proprietary certifications granted outside of a university. An engineer with a PhD isn’t necessarily at the top of his game and free to follow his nose. He may need to get Microsoft certified, Cisco certified, etc., before he’s recognized as an expert.
Presently I’m annoyed by the ABA certification thing. I love the behaviorsts I work with and am glad for their special focus. But I don’t agree with their training system.
I see PhD psychologists taking courses taught by someone with a BA in psychology plus an ABA certificate. They do this not because they respect the ABAs expertise and not because they can’t self-study, but because they need to market themselves as ABA “certified.”
Certification programs produce technicians – people who know the material from the inside but not the outside. An ABA certified behaviorist will understand a lot about operant conditioning but typically won’t be able to explain how a functional analysis of behavior fits with other things we know about the brain, cognition, memory, emotion, attachment, etc.
The recent invasion of psychology by certificators seeking a market niche troubles me. Patients now say they want a therapist with a “board certification” in ABA, autism, etc. They don’t see the anti-academic sectarianism hiding behind these certification programs.
I’d like to tell the PhDs to cowboy up and put the smack-down on the certificators. But then I remember the DAN! doctors with their board certification in the biomedical treatment of autism, and I remember the many new departments of “integrative medicine” at leading med schools. I can’t fault the PhDs for being pussies when the MDs are no better. EMDR may be stupid and yes, I’d be happier if therapists weren’t conned into seeking EMDR certification. But the DAN! program will likely kill more patients.
In short: proprietary certification systems may be fine for technicians. But educational material isolated from the wider library of human understanding and broad-based peer review will tend to foster crankery.
Exactly, the majority on the list are engineers and you seem to have extrapolated from this that there is a direct correlation between the makeup of the list as selected by deniers themselves and the makeup of society at large, and particularly of the society of professional engineers.
I will speculate, perhaps rashly, that there is enough funding available to detect the hidden contradiction involved in believing both that “the majority of evolution deniers are engineers” and “the majority of engineers are evolution deniers.”
Sorry, should have specified that the preceding comment was directed to Mr. Moore.
artfulD,
Men are not “accidentally” fashioned. The environment determines gene frequency among one generation to the next.
“while engineers obviously have a solid grounding in the core sciences, the focus of their education is on applying science rather than doing science.”
True.
Engineers in general don’t explore or push the boundaries of science, but instead mostly make practical use of and developments from science established by others.
It is sometimes about the argument from authority, even when that authority is your own. The mistake to assume that you understand something well enough to comment on it intelligently and form firm conclusions even if you have not objectively and critically examined the available evidence or consulted people more knowledgeable about the topic than yourself. I studied engineering in college and come form a long line of Engineers, and can say that many of the Engineers I have met consider their education and knowledge base well rounded enough that they feel no scientific topic is beyond them.
titmouse writes:
“Men are not “accidentally” fashioned. The environment determines gene frequency among one generation to the next.”
Is that by direction then?
artfulD –
I am not sure whether we are in agreement, disagreement, or you are arguing with yourself.
The population under discussion is the Darwinian Dissent List. It contains (we assume, as we are all evidently without the motivation to count, or do not wish to spoil the fun) a disproportionate number of engineers.
Egro, “the majority of evolution deniers are engineers”.
We wonder why. We speculate. The engineers and scientists here trade gentle insults. All good clean fun.
But you seem annoyed, and wish to bootstrap this into a complaint over our methodology:
“I will speculate, perhaps rashly, that there is enough funding available to detect the hidden contradiction involved in believing both that “the majority of evolution deniers are engineers” and “the majority of engineers are evolution deniers.””
Well, no one claims the latter, so I do not see any contradiction. I did suggest that the personality traits of engineers and scientists may be different, and this influences their career paths. I did not specify what those traits might be. Some speculated a that scientists are better at tolerating ambiguity.
But while it may be true that the trait of curiosity is present in all humans, and this may lead some of the more curious to insert a paper clip in a wall socket, it in no way implies that all humans seek electrocution.
If I am understanding you correctly, I see a logical fallacy at work. Or if I am completely misunderstanding your point, forgive my denseness, and I apologize.
“Direction,” artfulD? You mean God guides the environment to favor certain genes over others? I’m not sure how that helps.
Example: If there’s more rain in an area for a few years, there will be more wetland-type plants there. No God needed to explain that.
No titmouse, direction by the organism is what you seemed to imply if you object to the conventional wisdom that men are accidentally fashioned. (And since I’m aware you’re reliably informed that Gods are loathe to explain themselves.)
And Moore, the tone of most of these comments has been that engineers by the nature of their education and practice are prone to be deniers, which, if so, would be to reference the majority. But to use the particular list (suspect in and of itself) as in any way compelling evidence of such is where the logical fallacy is being employed.
I think of an accident as some outcome one didn’t intend. But where there’s no agent doing any intending, I’m not sure “accident” applies.
If a tree falls in the forest, is that an “accident”?
This is one reason I’m a skeptic. There is so much else to ponder that I don’t like wasting my time speculating on reasons for things that may not even be true. This comment thread seems to be our version of debating the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin.
–Yep, I’m an engineer too.
No, we don’t know what percentage of engineers are pseudoscientists. We only know that there seem to be more engineers than basic scientists among certain pseudoscience groups. That may mean that a small percentage are drawn to these groups, but that percentage just happens to be a little higher among engineers than basic scientists.
Other speculative hypotheses are possible.
I think superstitious thinking is normal for humans. Basic scientists simply have this tendency beaten down by constant reference to evidential standards and peer review. Few professions are like that.
titmouse, what’s your point? My definition of accident would be an event that happens by chance or that is without apparent or deliberate cause. No agents need apply.
The tree in the forrest may be an accident waiting to happen, but then again it may not.
I am a chemical engineer by training, but also a scientist having a concentration in philosophy which was mostly formal logic. I think for me, being a scientist goes way back to my childhood. I have Asperger’s, and things not “fitting together” in a logical coherent way causes significant cognitive dissonance for me.
I think the more important difference is “top-down”, vs. “bottom-up”. Most engineering projects are built from the top-down. There is the overall engineering goal, build a bridge across a river, then there is a conceptual design, then a detailed design, then the details of the details. A top-down hierarchy is the normal human social pecking order; the charismatic authority figure/leader at the top, then his/her lieutenants, then the sergeants, then the draftees, then the civilians. Evolution has configured things from the bottom-up. That is the only way that science can be done, from the bottom-up, from myriad facts the larger structures of science are built using logic. There is pretty good evidence that people with autism are somewhat better at being able to see and focus on the details (so long as those details do not involve communication).
An extremely important aspect of being a successful engineer is to not over specify the problem. For example in the phase rule (F = C − P + 2) the number degrees of freedom (intensive variables such as temperature and pressure) equals the number of components (C) minus the number of phases (P) plus 2. For example for water at its triple point, you have 3 phases, so 0 = 1 -3 +2 and there are no degrees of freedom. You can’t specify a system to have an arbitrary pressure or temperature at its triple point.
Attempts at over specifying always lead to inconsistencies. When you observe an inconsistency, then you know that you have over specified the system you are working with. This is the problem that YECs have. They have specified physical reality to correspond with the story of Genesis. When reality doesn’t correspond with your model, you can adapt your model to fit with reality, ignore reality so there is no conflict with your model, or ignore the logic used to compare the two versions.
In how one approaches life, there is the archetypal “reasonable man” (by George Bernard Shaw) who said “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
In many social situations, other humans can be made to change so as to conform to your demands. This is the essence of a top-down pecking order. Those at the bottom follow the demands of those at the top. Reality cannot be made to change so as to conform to your demands. I think the problem of non-skeptics is that they want/demand reality to conform to their expectations in the same ways that humans can be made to conform to their demands. The appeal to authority is the appeal to the one at the top of the pecking order, who (if anyone could) could make reality conform to his/her demands. This is the essence of what God is, the supreme authority that can make reality conform to His demands. That is what charismatic leaders sometimes try to do, try and make reality try and conform to their wants, rather than conforming their wants to reality.
artfulD: “titmouse, what’s your point? My definition of accident would be an event that happens by chance or that is without apparent or deliberate cause. No agents need apply.”
1. Chance plays a role in genetic drift, but that’s a minor part of biological evolution. Natural selection itself is not random. If it were, we wouldn’t be able to generate predictive hypotheses concerning changes in gene frequency over time.
2. “Deliberate” implies an agent. Just sayin’.
Men did not evolve by chance but via natural selection.
Is photosynthesis an accident?
First this business of there being “so many” engineers on the list of scientists who doubt Darwin, or any other anecdotal evidence that engineers believe in pseudoscience in larger numbers, hits me where I live, being an engineer. It evokes a strong emotional response that makes it hard to respond in a rational way.
In my experience, I have seen many engineers get an engineering degree as a means of career advancement, rather than to actually practice engineering. They go on to be project managers, middle management, sales people, marketers, lawyers, and other higher paid positions. Whereas it’s my impression that people train to become a scientist to actually become a scientist, not for career advancement.
So it would be my hypotheses that if it were indeed true that there were a disproportional number of engineers that believe in pseudoscience, the number would be skewed by people that only have a degree and aren’t actually practicing engineers.
Or looking at it from another point of view: To paraphrase what I’ve heard Dr. Novella say many times, that simply having a college degree actually increases the odd that you believe in pseudoscience, that generally people only become skeptical of pseudoscience with advanced degrees. Chances are engineers are only going to have a Bachelors or Masters.
titmouse, you keep assuming that when I comment on the common assumptions, that I believe them myself. How many times, I ask rhetorically, have I pointed out here that natural selection through random mutation cannot in fact be completely random, because the organism has to play a role in the selection process.
And when I define accident as WITHOUT deliberate cause, how then does your tree falling by accident imply an agent? And if you still think it does, I no longer care.
“Without deliberate cause” is everything that happens that some agent didn’t try to make happen.
So photosynthesis is an accident then, eh? LOL.
Your definition kinda screws up the meaning of the word “accident,” I think.
Jesus, I just said I don’t believe in the random accident theory of selection. And when there’s an agent, it’s as often as not the organism itself. Which is how early life forms developed photosynthesis by their own selective mechanisms.
Here, go away and read this: Reasoning in Biological Discoveries: Essays on Mechanisms, Interfield Relations, and Anomaly Resolution (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Biology) (Hardcover)
by Lindley Darden
Then maybe you’ll understand what you think you’re talking about.
artfulD, you’re not much fun. When someone points out an error in your post, you ought to say, “Ok, I misunderstood, I see what you mean now,” or something like that.
Example: when you said that if engineers are more prone to deny evolution than scientists, that means a majority of engineers will deny evolution. The bit about “majority” actually isn’t necessary. Hope you see this now. I’m assuming you can,. That’s why I’m puzzled when you don’t tidy up the loose end. Loose ends leave people talking past each other rather than with each other.
artfulD, no one believes in the random accident theory of selection. Educated people accept the theory of evolution via natural selection.
Natural selection doesn’t mean that organisms themselves direct the story of life’s variety on earth. Evolution is a process without direction (aside from the tiny amount of artificial selection here and there).
A process can be without direction and non-random.
But I didn’t say ever, or even agree, that engineers are more prone to deny evolution than scientists. What I argued was that if this was what others were implying by their tone, they were wrong.
Find the place where you think I argued that the majority WERE so prone and and quote me, and don’t select it out of context.
And educated people also believe that evolution via natural selection involves random mutations, that are undirected and therefor accidental.
A process can be without direction and non-random? LOL
I think you’re all overreacting. Using a rough search script I get:
Engineering: 124
Physics: 114
Chemistry: 104
Biology: 95
Math: 46
M.D.: 19
The rest are obscure things that I didn’t take the time to search for like “Chairman, Division of Natural Science” or “Associate Professor, Dairy Science”.
Yes Engineers top the list, but that includes every kind of engineer. I think it’s safe to assume there are more engineers than chemists or biologists. At my school there were more engineers than students of every other science combined (not to say that’s true everywhere).
-Smed
Hi guys! Those engineers sure are dumb! LOL!
I’m glad I’m a high school science teacher, everybody knows how grounded and well versed in science we are. No evolution denial in education!
I mean… wait…
Ok, artfulD. Perhaps we can clear this up.
Saying that group X is more prone to Y than some other group does not necessarily mean that a majority of X do Y.
Smokers are more prone to lung cancer than non-smokers. However, the vast majority of smokers do not get cancer.
Is this now clear?
Yes. Take, for example, the position of the sun in the sky.
Be careful about conflating mutation and selection. Mutation is random. Selection is not random. This distinction is crucial. The theory of evolution would be useless to scientists if selection were in fact random.
The position of the ripe apples on the tree may appear random. The ones you pick and put in your bag will not be random.
Like apple picking, artificial selection is directed by humans. Humans decide which dogs or cats or whatever get to breed. In contrast, natural selection is not directed by any particular agent in service to any particular outcome or goal. Rather, the environment favors certain organisms over others. This favoritism changes as environmental conditions change and is predictable over short periods of time.
“Predictable” is the opposide of “random.” That’s the point I’m trying to make.
You appear to sort causal explanations into two categories:
1. Directed by some agent.
2. Random.
I’m advocating for three categories:
1. Directed by some agent.
2. Random.
3. Predictable but not directed.
Natural selection goes in the third category, along with gravity, thermodynamics, electromagnetism, etc.
Oh and just to beat more dead into that dead horse:
The theory of evolution does not require random mutation. Remember, Darwin knew nothing of DNA when he developed his theory.
Darwin recognized that natural selection couldn’t work if all members of a population were identical copies of their parents. Offspring must vary. Without variability there’s nothing for natural selection to select.
Random mutation due to DNA transcription errors and damage to DNA from a variety of sources explains some of the variability among a population. But there are other sources of variability –e.g., sexual recombination and ERVs.
I suspect the conflation of “random” or “chance” or “accident” with the theory of evolution is motivated by those who want to make the theory seem implausible to a naive audience.
I’m an undergrad engineer and i believe in evolution. And i have actually met a number of classmates that don’t believe in evolution and are creationists. It always boggles my mind. If i happen to become friends with one i always end up mocking them for it in a joking manner.
Predictable but not directed? What would be making these predictions, if not some choice making apparatus? Gravity predicts what it will cause every time it’s causative, as if it had a choice? I’ve been advocating the study of causation here for what it seems like years, and this kind of reasoning confirms the need.
Selection is choice. We can agree on that, or so it appears. But we have so far identified only one choice making entity or force in nature, and we have called that life. Those of us unable to conceive that we are creatures of our own cumulative choice found need to conceive of living gods as the choosers and the doers of their choices.
Those who found no substance to that conception in turn assigned choice to what they conceived were “laws” in nature. Laws with nary a chooser in their history from the presumed beginning of time. And certainly not a form of life, or that might lead us back to a first lawmaker. But with selective capabilities nevertheless. Because, we argue, life selecting for itself cannot have selected for its own creation.
And when we have come so far as to learn there is likely no great selector in the cosmos, we must NOT fall back down the slippery slope of self-creation. Our magical laws must be their own selectors.
Well, it works for titmice.
The overrepresentation of engineers among Creationists was noticed many years ago on the newsgroup talk.origins. IIRC, it had an eponym to recognize the first person who pointed it out.
In the early days, usenet was available from the Bell system, some university department (especially computer science and hard sciences), and a few tech firms. The sampled population possibly had engineers overrepresented, but the effect was still noticeable. The newsgroup was formed from a group for discussion of fine points and issues concerning the mechanisms of evolution. It became cluttered by Creationists and talk.origins was spun off.
At first, a lot of the Creationists were intellectually honest and puzzled. They’d been brought up as fundamentalists and seriously couldn’t understand how evolution could be accepted as a given, considering the plausible refutations they’d heard all their lives. So people tried to explain the evidence to them in a helpful way. The Creationists who arrived later tended to go on the attack in the first posting, and attracted those who enjoyed the sport of counterattack.
One aspect that isn’t much discussed is the connection of Borderlands background to Creationism. For 500 years, neither England nor Scotland could control the Borderlands for an extended period, and one aspect of the culture was extreme distrust of authority, including religious authority. The idea was that each believer worked out an individual theology — relying on the written text when it became available. The general attitude seems to extend to distrust of theoretical reasoning apart from text. As James Webb observed in his book on the subject, the progeny of the Borderlands (= Scots-Irish, rednecks) tend to go into applied fields (engineering, medicine) more than pure science. It would be interesting to control out for ethnic background in looking at the incidence of Creationism.
On usenet, the good guys made a few fumbles. Some of them got all huffy about physicians arguing for Creationism, stating that they would never trust their care a doctor who didn’t accept evolution. About the only medical application of evolution they could come up with was antibiotic resistance. Like a Creationist is going to ignore a lab report that says a strain of staph is resistant to penicillin. I mean, really.
“Selection” doesn’t imply a choser or a choice when it describes “selection pressures” or “natural selection”. It’s a reference to deterministic (causal) conditions that prevent or impair the reproductive success of organisms with a specific genetic trait.
An earthquake doesn’t choose an epicenter, the epicenter is determined by the circumstances. An earthquake doesn’t make a “selection” but it can be the cause of “selection pressures”.
Bullshit.
“Bullshit.”
Articulate.
The label for the analogically challenged that says it all.
I had to look up “analogically”.
You’re kind of an emotional guy, aren’t you?
“They’d been brought up as fundamentalists and seriously couldn’t understand how evolution could be accepted as a given, considering the plausible refutations they’d heard all their lives.”
Wait, fundamentalists have plausible refutations for something?
“Like a Creationist is going to ignore a lab report that says a strain of staph is resistant to penicillin. I mean, really.”
That depends on whether they prayed for the staph or the penicillin…
All snarkyness aside, isn’t creationism founded on ignoring research that conficts with ones ideology? Would you allow a physician to treat you if you know that he was apt to give his personal beliefs primacy over hard evidence?
I’m not sure if anyone did this yet….
I extracted the pdf to plain text and ran the following python script:
——————
import re
f = open(‘$HOME/Most.txt’, ‘r’)
lines = f.readlines()
matches = []
p = re.compile(‘engin*’, re.IGNORECASE)
for l in lines:
if p.search(l) != None:
matches.append(l)
len(matches)
I got 127 matches. So out of 774, 124 are engineers giving about 16% engineers. According to the
NSF http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf05313/pdfstart.htm there are 2,157,300 scientists and 1,256,400 working in the US in 2001. That gives us 1,256,400 / (1,256,400 + 2,157,300) ~ 37% of scientists and engineers are engineers. So the standard error of the sampled proportion is about (0.16(0.84)/774)^0.5 ~ 1.3%. At 95% confidence we get an interval for the population proportion of 16% +- 1.97 * 1.3% or (13%, 19%).
It seems that engineers are underrepresented.
Speaking of bullshit. There is a book titled The Philosophy of Bullshit. I feel I should have patented my bullshit philosophy in 1972 when I used it on exams.
I downloaded the document Steven referenced and counted up the different branches of science and engineering.
The signatory count I got was:
Scientists 372
Engineers 126
This gives almost three times as many scientists as engineers, and completely discredits his conjecture. When Steven said:
he was right about the confirmation bias.
I emailed him the Excel file I used, so hopefully he will do an update post soon.
“Wait, fundamentalists have plausible refutations for something?”
The people I was talking about had heard standard “refutations” all their lives from authority figures they respected. To them, the refutations were plausible. On that newsgroup, a sneering tone, like your remarks, tended to antagonize the ones who were honestly looking for information. Telling people they’re trashy for asking an honest question isn’t the best way to use a “teachable moment”. It may confirm an agreeable feeling of social superiority, but perhaps there are better ways.
“Would you allow a physician to treat you if you know that he was apt to give his personal beliefs primacy over hard evidence?”
That would rule out followers of most organized religions, so I would certainly allow it, if the question crossed my mind.
More pertinent to the specific example of bigotry I mentioned, I can’t think of a single medical situation or decision that would be handled any differently because the physician happened to believe in Creationism. It might be correlated with the reputation of schools attended. It might be correlated with narrowness of education or general incuriosity or a preference for naturalistic explanations. But those correlations aren’t crucial if I just want someone to yank my gall bladder.
To clarify – I was not claiming that the doubting Darwin list represents evidence that engineers are overrepresented among creationists. The list itself is not scientific and not a data-set worth delving into. I thought I clearly made an obvious enough joke out of not crunching the numbers. It was just a pretext to discuss the larger issue, as the title of the post suggests. I also made it obvious that I was simply taking the alleged connection between engineers and creationism as an assumption for a convenient premise.
But – I will say that the observation that engineers have played a disproportionate role in the creationist movement goes back decades. I did not make it up. If I were going to write a post actually about that claim I would have addressed that claim.
For example, here is an article from 1982 written by an engineer who writes:
“There are many facets to “scientific creationism” and the movement can be discussed in any of several ways. However, it is best viewed as a loosely connected group of fundamentalist ministries led largely by scientifically incompetent engineers.”
ref: http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/thermo_patterson.html
Just search “engineers” and “creationism” and you will get an idea of the history of this notion.
What we really need, and what I am not aware of, is a scientific survey of the demographics of creationists and engineers to see if there really is a connection. I don’t know of any data other than anecdotal.
artfulD:
Using Newton’s laws, I can predict the orbit of the moon. But I have no choice over where the moon happens to be. I can’t direct it or make it be anywhere other than where it is.
I’m starting to worry about you. Gravity is not a concious agent capable of predicting stuff or choosing stuff. This is crazy talk.
titmouse;
My point almost exactly. You can’t direct the moon as your “magical” laws of nature have already given it directions. But in turn, those laws have no predictive powers except in your imagination.
As to gravity being an agent, selective, conscious or otherwise, that was your inference, not mine.
And I noted earlier you didn’t catch the meaning of the phrase “would be to reference,” but perhaps that’s because you have problems with the subjunctive mood.
Hey guys just as an FYI because someone wondered what the breakdown of fields for people on the Darwin Dissent list was I worked it out:
Biology – 97 people (also 3 biophysisits and 31 biochemists)
Chemistry – 99 people
Physics – 76 people
Math – 50 people
Engineering (Total) – 113 with a breakdown as follows:
General – 20
Civil – 11
Industrial – 2
Bioengineering – 6
Structural – 2
Nuclear – 9
Mechanical – 25
Electrical – 21
Aerospace – 6
Chemical – 18
Computer – 1
Optical – 1
Ok, let’s revisit:
Allow me to restate your position, from your point of view, as I understand it:
1. People on this blog are making exaggerated comments about engineers.
2. People are saying that the kind of training engineers receive makes them prone to deny evolution.
3. If engineering education makes engineers prone to deny evolution, that must mean that the majority of engineers deny evolution.
4. But the majority of engineers do not deny evolution.
5. Therefore, engineers are not more prone to deny evolution than basic scientists.
Have I got it right?
titmouse, or should I say titwit, your understanding needs help, or it’s your tactic to make stuff up as provocation. Or likely both.
1. Your inference, not my premise.
2 Yes, some are, and some are not.
3 Completely false, as if seen in context, I’m pointing out that if the comments were leading to that inference, they were wrong.
4. Never said that, don’t know that, and neither do we know the opposite from evidence presented.
5. Where does that come from? Purely a syllogistic fallacy of your own invention.
But then all along we’ve seen that you are syllogistically and inferentially challenged.
This is of course anecdotal, but having worked on a NASA project with numerous engineers, my guess is if there were any of that caliber that didn’t believe in evolution, they nevertheless understood the elements of the theory better than some like yourself (whatever you claim to be) that believe in the theory yet are unable to understand or properly explain how it works.
I’ll likely not respond further to this silliness. You won’t need my help to make a further fool of yourself.
artfulD, I’m more interested in how you think and in understanding why communication is difficult than I am in the engineering-evolution topic.
I suspect you equivocate between two “ifs”:
If people are saying that
____If engineering education makes engineers prone to deny evolution then
________that would “reference the majority of engineers.”
____end if
end if
I pointed out the problem with the nested “if.” You responded as if I’d missed the first “if.”
It comes from your insults. You don’t appear emotionally neutral toward the notion that engineers are more prone to deny evolution than basic scientists.
1. If
See, you just changed the paradigm again. First you had me comparing engineers against each other and when that didn’t fly, you have me comparing them against scientists. That won’t fly either. It’s your own emotional brain that’s taken over whatever there is of the rational in you. It fears an attack on the more vulnerable of its sacred cows, and strikes preemptively with wild surmise at it’s point. A pointlessness to the end of course.
Change likely not to surely not as to the prospects of my dealing with you further.
I had meant to add that you could care less what I think about engineers. It’s what I think about your own weak grasp of evolutionary theory that has given you fits.
aD,
Your comments towards titmouse sound vaguely familiar. Why does it seem like you start attacking the character of the poster, complete with juvenile name calling, when your ideas are called into question?
“…A pointlessness to the end of course.
Change likely not to surely not as to the prospects of my dealing with you further.”
When you write like this, which you frequently do, your language (as in your phrasing and the construction of your sentences) obscures your thoughts rather than explaining or illuminating them.
Do you build such verbal barriers to hide the fact that there’s nothing of substance behind them?
Questions are one thing, sneering another. Those who live by the sneer die by the sneer.
And when did you ever have an idea of substance? You’re the type who thinks a quote from Wikipedia is the equivalent of an analytical response. You represent the poster child for analogical fallacy.
Roger Bigod was the latest to get and bloody your number. There will be more.
artfulD:
Perhaps this is the source of misunderstanding. I’d assumed that this discussion was about engineers being a little different from scientists. So I read “prone to be deniers” as meaning engineers are more prone to be deniers than scientists. You apparently meant something else. I confess I don’t understand the comparison you’re making.
artfulD, your smugness suggests that being misunderstood pleases you. If so, we can’t enjoy a meeting of the minds no matter how much effort we put into it.
.
titmouse,
If it’s a smuggary contest, you win. You come with more presumptions of the next man’s need for your socratic insight than anyone else we’re likely to encounter. The discussion SHOULD have been about the accuracy of the common perceptions of such differences, but you brought sophistry to the table instead. A nitpicker prepared to plant a nit for the picking. And a nitwit like nohayes to help with the planting it seems.
Give me a good constructive engineer any day of the week over you two bozos. At least they understand the ins and outs of functional mechanisms. But then neither of you is an actual working scientist so the comparison is somewhat off topic.
Have a nice day, artfulD.
Another discussion that has several parallels is the belief held by many magicians that scientists are susceptible to woo (http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=561).
“And when did you ever have an idea of substance? You’re the type who thinks a quote from Wikipedia is the equivalent of an analytical response. You represent the poster child for analogical fallacy.”
I should add predictable to emotional…
Just so you know, expressing an idea is a behavior and inherently requires cognitive analysis. Wikipedia is a source, not a response; a source can be analytical but it can’t be an analytical response. A “poster child” is an allegory for a set of characteristics, it is already a representation. One cannot represent a representative. One can be a poster child but one can’t represent a poster child. Analogical fallacies require a declarative assertion about an unknown on the basis of an analogy. I asked a question, (are you hiding something behind your writing) on the basis of an analogy (your writing is like a wall). A question is not declarative.
You’re such an internet tough guy.
“A nitpicker prepared to plant a nit for the picking. And a nitwit like nohayes to help with the planting it seems.”
As long as you can denigrate the details (nits?) in the deconstruction (picking?) of your ideas, you never have to really defend them. That would explain why you’re so quick to insult, it hides your inability to reason.
No, it hides my inability to match you sneer for sneer.
You know… I think some of my comments here and on The Feminism Thing are completely out of place.
Silly of me not to have realized this before… but this isn’t a forum, it’s a blog.
I apologize, Dr. Novella, for comments that deviated from the topics you’ve posted. I’ll reign them in and be a good blog guest in the future.
I’m a computer programmer, and I have both read (sorry, no source) and found by experience that mathematicians and computer scientists are more likely to be creationists than other scientists.
I argue for an opposite causation than what most are proposing, and it makes sense for Engineers as well.
Let’s say you’re a child born with religion in your family and a math/science bent to your intellect.
When choosing among what kind of science to go to school for, you choose one that least threatens your religion. Biology and geology pretty much deliver a smackdown to creationism. It’s much easier to study math or computer science or engineering, where having to form an opinion about the age of the earth isn’t integral to your studies.