A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association finds that the conclusions of nearly one-third of purportedly "scientific" studies on medicine don't hold up over time. (No word yet if this scientific study will prove correct.) "Contradicted and potentially exaggerated findings are not uncommon in the most visible and most influential original clinical research," explained study author Dr. John Ioannidis. Ioannidis based his research on studies in the pages of JAMA, The Lancet, and The New England Journal of Medicine, three prominent medical journals.

Science isn't. Science contradicts other science. Events prove science wrong. Science serves agendas. Scientists confuse their own prejudices for science. Today's cutting-edge medicine is tomorrow's quack remedy. Who's to blame for the endless blackeyes for science? Scientists, of course, who are constantly proving other scientists wrong.

The same people who would mock faith in religion demonstrate blind faith in science. The former is by definition a matter of faith and the latter is by definition a matter of proof. One needn't be a scientist to understand that faith is more at home in matters of faith than in matters of science.

"The general public should not panic," the study's author noted. "We all need to start thinking more critically." Indeed. A good place to start is to cease treating science as a religion. Veneration of science tends to inhibit critical thinking.

Exactly. The problem is not with Science as way of testing fact. The problem lies with the way people stand at the end of the conveyor belt of Science asking it, "Whadja bring me today, Mr. Science?!"

We don't ask daily blessings from God anymore, because the Scientistics want us to replace our dependence on God with a dependence on Science. We should depend on Science in all of our ways, and lean not unto our own understanding. Yea, though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, Science is with us. We're going to colonize space!!

With a public that waits for news from the scientific oracles like girls behind a cordon waiting to see a rock star, there is a pressure to give the people what they want. We need proof that Science is acting in our lives daily. Thus, "New studies suggest that tobacco might cure Alzheimers," is the kind of buzz that we are willing to put up with. Then the media can spend days discussing the new study, people who want to feel more-scientific-than-thou can chide their family and friends that contrary to their silly notions, we're nearing a cure for Alzheimers. And the atheists in chat groups can rub the face of the religious in the fact that the Church didn't cure anybody's Alzheimer's.

I've been telling atheists (and Christians) that they need to start thinking more critically for a long time. But, what are some of us going to do without that closer walk with Science? My Science, my science, why hast thou abandoned me?!?!

You better be careful. Daniel Dennett will come pick you up and confine you in a cultural zoo. No one questions science, and comparisons to faith are beyond the pale.

"Dennett doesn't confine himself to matters just of theoretical interest. He sees serious religion as steadily dwindling with the progress of science, but suggests that we should keep a few Baptists and other fundamentalists around in something like cultural zoos (no doubt with sizable moats to protect the rest of us right-thinking nonfundamentalists). We should preserve a few Baptists for the sake of posterity--but not, he says, at just any cost. "Save the Baptists", says he, "but not by all means. Not if it means tolerating the deliberate misinforming of children about the natural world." Save the Baptists, all right, but only if they promise not to misinform their children by teaching them "that 'Man' is not a product of evolution by natural selection" and other blatantly objectionably views. But what if they do insist on teaching these heresies to their children? (Baptists will be Baptists, after all.) Will we be obliged to remove Baptist children from their parents' noxious influence? Should we put barbed wire around those zoos, and check to see if perhaps there is room for them in northern Siberia? Dennett doesn't say, but it would be interesting to hear his answer."

From Alvin Plantinga's review of Dennett's "Darwin's Dangerous Idea."

http://id-www.ucsb.edu/fscf/library/plantinga/dennett.html

Forgive me for pasting a prior argument I used with a colleague some time ago:

I think we have to be real careful when we rely too much on science to make decisions, especially decisions of the heart. I will stand by my initial instinct - that we should go to any length to preserve innocent life where we detect it; that her husband was not only guilty of irresponsible care for an alleged loved one, but quite possibly guilty of getting her into that decrepit state in the first place.

Regarding government and "Terri's Law" I admit to not being familiar with the law. If I initially stated that the government was right to intervene, I am not moved sufficiently to retract that statement, but would find it hard to believe I did not temper my pronouncement with regret that the government felt inclined to, or that a situation came to pass that it was necessary even to intervene.

Again, though, science is not the peg upon which society ought to be hanging its hat. Remember, it was science that was used to convince judges to pass Roe v. Wade. Contrary to popular myth, it was not simply a fundamental belief in a woman's right to choose that lead to that decision. It was the currently available scientific data that was used to convince public opinion and the Supreme Court majority that a fetus was no more than a blob of tissue, and who would deny a woman a right to expel a blob of tissue?

Three decades later, it is science that is being used, in the form of medical advancements and increased knowledge about life, that is allowing in-utero operations that save lives of the unborn, provide for sonograms, and the sustaining of the life of the prematurely born. These scientific advances will cause in coming years society to reconsider a woman's right to choose to terminate the life, that can no longer be considered a blob of tissue, but a viable human.

One need only look back upon history, for example the life of Copernicus, to see how fickle popular opinion can be when it comes to matters sustained by scientific theory. At best such theories are temporal, lasting only until the next best scientific discovery, at worst they can be destructive, resulting in the constitutionally guaranteed death of 50 million unborn children.

I prefer the stability of faith and heart and instinct...

Isn't one of the most dangerous things about worshipping science's infallible greatness that it encourages errors on the opposite side? It encourages people who (often reacting in fear that their relgion has been challenged) act as though science is not a good finder-of-fact about the structure of matter in motion.

Short, the scientistics ventured into that territory themselves when they posited that there was no higher truth than that we are just matter in motion. The universe is just an elaborate game of billiards. The vast majority of human beings, religious or no, hold a confusion about a variety of things.

Secularists started to confuse thought with motion. Moreover, they claimed that it was as obvious as apples falling from trees. They changed the base concept of motion as a result. When the theory of observation derails there are various spills. Not everybody keeps the claims clear, not everybody wants to put in the effort.

But I wonder who you think distrusts basic Newtonian mechanics? Postmoderns? I'd dare say that's a false take on postmodernism, if so. Solipsists? Phenomenologists? Creationists? Very few people would doubt that when a car is speeding at them, the weight of the car + the speed of the car (^2) = a whole lot of hurt (E).

But I think there can be deep skepticism about the theory of its implications, since so many have read so much into its basic theory of motion.

Sea King: Let's see, who distrusts Newtonian mechanics, you ask? Einstein. lol. No really, there have been people who urge us to reject science. Biblical literalists still exist, don't they? There are people who think that the Bible tells us how old the planet is. Also, 1/3 of Americans believe in ghosts; I think a lot of them think it's a religious thing. Silliness. Some people seem to think it is impious to teach geology or to point how how incredibly similar gorrillas are to humans. Do you deny that such people exist?

I think you are confusing "faith in X scientific theory or study" with "Faith in sceince"

I don't think there is anything wrong with science per se. Yes, certain scientific theories may be wrong, and you can use science and reason to prove that. This means we should look at every scientific study critically, but I don't see how this means that we should be critical of logic or science itself. Certainly you can't you prove any scientific theory or science itself to be wrong using faith unless you already have it because it ipso facto does not requrie any logical proof. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with people who believe, but then you should simply say that faith supercedes reason and science, as opposed to science is somehow deficient.

Look at evolution, which seems to be the most contested scientific issue when it comes to politics. Of course no one should take Darwin's theory with blind faith or something that is not open to critical evaluation. At the same time, if you beleive that the Bible is the world of God, evolution clearly did not exist, and you really do not need anything else to prove it wrong. Still many creationists, the vast majority of whom believe in the biblical view of creation because of their faith, will come up with various scientific arguments about intelligent design and the like. While this may be a bit of a circumstancial ad hominem, I think it's fair to question whether these people are just making procrustean scientific arguments. I'll give an even more extreme example. I know someone who is very intelligent and told me that he thinks that people really lived to be over 600, up until six thousand years ago. This is based on his religious conviction, and I'm not going to fault him for that. However, he then went on to go and say that this is because the great flood, which killed off the Dinosaurs, somehow changed the Atmosphere so that more UV rays got through and that'd the reason why people no longer live to be 600. Now I'm not a meteorologist, but I seriously doubt that anyone who is not a Christian fundamentalist would come up with that theory would never think that's true, and if faith alone is enough, I don't see why those people need to come up with scientific explanations to justify their dogma.

At the same time, I'll admit there are certain people who really don't like Christian Fundamentalists and will just accept evolutionary theory to make themselves feel superior to creationists, without really knowing much about it themselves. While those people should be criticized, their fault is relying on their own prejudices rather than scientific reason, not science in and of itself.

(On a unrelated and somewhat humorous note, the filter would not let me put the word "A-N-A-L-Y-S-I-S" because the first four letters were "questionble content" )

All I have to say that probably has not been or may not be said by another is that anything that cannot be tested simply because it's actual occurence or existence is in the past is not part of science as we can currently control it or manage it and slips into the realm of faith.

We cannot definitively recreate that which we suppose occurred in the past due to evolution, thus we take the idea that these evolutions occurred as they did as fact, on faith.

Faith is evidence of things we cannot see.

Hi Marcus: "I'm not saying there is anything wrong with people who believe, but then you should simply say that faith supercedes reason and science, as opposed to science is somehow deficient." I guess the word "science" is ambiguous. Science(1) as "certain and systematic knowledge of causes" is not fallible and ranks with logic as something a rational person isn't critical of. Science(2) is an historically knowledge of causes of the order of matter in motion. Science(2) seeks science(1). Scientists(2) and their groupies often confuse their transitory feelings of certainty for the authority of the science(1), and act like everyone who is skeptical of them are a bunch of neanderthals. That's is what Dan seems to be complaining about. Science(2) is deficient, because its human and therefore wrong sometimes. Natural science(1) is limited (not deficient) insofar as it looks only to matter in motion. It cannot treat non-physical issues (say, like the origin of physical stuff in the first place).

Although I agree with your rejection of biblical "science" (and your rejection of silliness generally), this is just wrong: "if you beleive that the Bible is the world of God, evolution clearly did not exist." God does not always speak literally; if we thought so then we'd have to assume he liked contradictions and nonsensical scientific theories (and then rational people wouldn't believe in him). Faith doesn't require literalism about every sentence of the Bible (as St. Augustine, e.g., explains 1700 years ago when discussing theories of time and creation). That false conception is one reason the science crowd often thinks the faith crowd is a bunch of idiots. Sorry this is so long. Peace.

Short, I think what you have ahold of there is a caricature. I'm sure there are some outright luddites out there to fit that description. But on the whole, I don't recognize that under the broader experence of "Bible-literalism". I am a semi-literalist myself, but I know more than a few of the full-fledged kind. I've read the literature of scientists on the Creationist side. So let me tell you about my side of the fence and Science: we're fer it.

Your claim was that basic laws of motion are challenged. Those things you mentioned have little to do with basic laws of motion. So, I have to wonder why you chose to frame the conflict in those terms.

Were ghosts to somehow exist, we don't know enough about their physics to know what regular patterns their nature follows. If we accept that ghosts do not exist, we do not do so by appeal to basic laws of motion.

We do so by a Humean supposition. Not science. If people tell us of ghosts it is easier to believe that something is wrong with them than that "laws of nature have been violated" (or the world acts in ways we don't suspect.) I don't think Hume is terribly off base, but it has more to do with interpretation by paradigm than it does testing or reproducing anything.

The basic laws of motion and heat propagation describe the way my bread gets toasted often enough that they are highly useful. The backstory that I may have arisen from an what resembles a modern ape remains always in the past. In fact it only impinges on me today as a litmus test of my "sensibility" or "modernity" based on my fidelity to this chain of inference, whose patterns we don't even attempt to repeat because we so dimly understand them.

And because some of us don't offer fidelity to the utterances of Science about the dimmest recesses of theory, I have to deal with an almost tribal-like behavior that says that we may offend the gods of Science which give us our daily toast if I'm more inclined to believe in the everyday, often-repeatable physics of the toaster more than I believe in the best guesses of scientists in hazy matters.

Plus on top of that, if I should doubt that part of science which has birthed no principles so repeatable to base a technology on them, I have to answer to the caricature that we do not believe in the phsyics of technology (which relies on repeatable patterns in order to be technology.) And me and people like me are luddites who want to destroy technology, because of our infidelity (non-"modernity") to the source of technology---whether or not the science in question has anything to do with technology.

To add that on top of that many mechanical models for evolutionary theory have failed under the tests of Microbiologists and that both the uniform smoothness and, later, the clumpiness of the distribution of matter throughout the universe are both "explained" by the Big Bang, and we're not talking about the same physics that burns gas in my tank, sends controlled electrical current through silicon and provides me with a nice living and a way to get me there, everyday, like clockwork.

*Sorry, I obviously erased something critical:

"Science(2) is an historically FORMED HUMAN PRACTICE SEEKING knowledge of causes of the order of matter in motion."

The people posting here against science don't seem to have a very good understanding of it.

If you think science offers answers for anything at all, you are wrong. People offer answers, using science as a guideline to ensure rationality presides over stubborn beliefs. To say 'science' has failed in something shows lack of understanding of the meaning of the word. You could say 'the scientific community', but then there are many thousands of scientific communities, many with competing positions. That they can discuss these competing positions without killing each other should teach you something. Are some scientific communities completely full of it? Oh yes. And they get the respect they deserve.

You should not be so afraid of religion disappearing - it looks as strong as ever from my vantage point. What it is doing however is bending to overwhelming reality. The Vatican has already asceded that evolution is no longer contested. Sure, they are trying to push their own version. They will adapt - ironically, they have evolved, and will continue to.

The amazing thing is, showing that one third of scientific studies don't hold up over time is an incredible verification of science. That we can look and see that these articles were wrong, the first step towards correcting them, only further illustrates that most scientific communities are doing what they are supposed to do - verify their peers work, and tell them when it is wrong.

What happens when a religion is wrong? Answer that and you have the difference between science and faith. Don't forget to include 'people get killed' in your answer.

I just have to respond to this one: "anything that cannot be tested simply because it's actual occurence or existence is in the past is not part of science.."

Doesn't really relate to evolution, since we can most certainly observe the results of things that happened in the past. To question this is to question your own existence (certainly a valid passtime but ultimately fruitless thus far). But you do have an excellent point, let me follow it further.

If it cannot be tested, then it cannot be observed, even indirectly. If it cannot be observed, even indirectly, there is no reason to think it might exist. I'm with you here. However, we can come up with infinite possibilities as to things we may hope or think could exists which we cannot observe - lets go with 'intelligent bacteria colonies from the 9th dimension'.

Since they exist in 9 dimensions (trust me, they do, they wrote this post by channeling through me), we cannot observe them. We cannot with any certainty verify that they exist, or that they don't exist. And they tell me they created our universe, and we should be nice to each other. You will have to accept they exist, as a matter of faith. Because I said so. Send me money.

You may think this is just a stupid idea, don't believe me, and think I am being rude and self serving in asking you to send me money for such an improbable concept. If so, welcome to my perspective.

Now, what is the probability that these colonies actually exist and created our universe? Well, there are truly an infinite number of possibilities as far as things that could exist which we have no way of observing. Thus, lets say infinity to 1 against. The lowest non-zero probability. Any other thing we can dream up - marshmallow based life forms in 7 super intelligent flavors, the council of the missing socks, an retentive diety that lays out bones for us to find, a nitpicking insect clan that intelligently designs life, or perhaps Thor -they all have the same probability. Infinity to 1 against. If you want to pile up evidence for any one of them, we can start with the bacteria colony. It certainly dwarfs the others.

To believe in any one of them is certainly faith, unless repeatable evidence shows otherwise. Lest you think I am insensitive to the needs of the populace, let me close with this: most people need faith, they are not capable of delving further into reality. Life is too scary, reality is too difficult for many people without faith. That's fine. Now, the rest of us have work to do, so leave us alone and stop sending me pamphlets.

Get A Clue: Thanks for illustrating so vividly the pro-science ideology that Flynn was complaining about. You also illustrated the philosophical naivity about God that is my favorite aspect of most science-fawners. (9th dimension bacteria and God are not similar concepts.)

One point of substance where you're confused: You say that only someone who doesn't understand science could ever say that science has failed at something... Hmm.

If we can't ever say that "science" is wrong, this is only because science doesn't exist; it is a goal. What exists, and always calls itself 'science' when it writes textbooks etc is particular men engaging in a institution of human practices. So we can either say that science is fallible, or we can say, as Flynn does, "science isn't." Those are our choices.

Also, you seem to have no concept of science having any limits. That's what most people "posting against science" here have seemed to be complaining about. Some people think that science can and will ultimately know everything about everything and be able to do anything to solve any problem. Science-- is there anything it can't do? (That's a real question. I now I may sound sarcastic, but I'm not.)

As a scientist with a PhD in Biochemistry I am going to try to explain what I have spent my life doing.

The idea of the scientific method is that science is imperfect. We built that in. That's what the scientific method is all about. We know that humans have ideas, make predictions, test them and draw conclusions. We know that because we don't already know everything (we aren't God) that these ideas and observations are going to be imperfect.

So we do the best we can. We look at the world around us, use our brains to make hypotheses that explain what we see, then we go out and collect data to prove or disprove these hypotheses. Scientists spend a lot of time working to prove each other wrong. This serves two purposes. First, if you prove that a widely held idea is wrong, then you have just come up with a new idea. If someone else can verify this then you've move d knowledge forward. Second, if your data further supports the current idea then there is now more evidence that that the idea is correct. That's good too because then we have more evidence that we are thinking in the right direction.

All this experimentation and verification takes place in the scientific literature that the news media comments on day in and day out. So that's why you hear conflicting reports. Conflict is part of science! We all agree to disagree constantly and a good scientist never blindly believes everything he or she reads in a scientific textbook or journal article. We're all skeptics because we know we don't know everything.

The important thing to a scientist is not that we are entirely "right" or "wrong" but that we have contributed to the collective knowledge in a useful way. With enough people and enough time we get a better and better outline of the rules that govern our universe. Science won't be absolutely "right" every time, but we get closer and closer to the truth every day. Although it's a great work, there is more to the world than what's written in the Bible. If the whole universe was totally explained in the Bible, humans would have cured smallpox, driven cars and flown to the moon 2000 years ago. Unfortunately there's not enough there for this. We need science to understand the rules of the universe. Some of these things were described in the Bible in rough detail or vague language. We use the brains that God gave us to fill in the blanks in useful ways. Each little step we take toward the truth gives mankind more food, better medicine, smaller computers, faster communication and safer environments. Trust us or if you don't trust us use the brain that God gave you to understand what we're doing. Stop biting the hand that's really trying to help you.

Scientist: Great concrete description of science and conflict. But, whose "biting the hand that's trying to feed" them? As far as I can tell, no one here--except those trying to defend science as not able to fail--have said anything contradicting how you described scientific procedure. Right? It's the "bible" people here agreeing with you, right?

Clue, I just searched this page. Nobody said Science failed. Your greater trust and devotion to experts on physical matters is no substitute for critical reading.

And begging the question? We can tell what happened from the past otherwise (were our theories invalid) we wouldn't be here? I'm sorry that we are here is the fact. It is the first bit of information. That we are here by unrepeatable changes is the inference. The validity of the inference never changes the fact.

You see were we to argue your way near the turn of the 20th century, we would "know" that we came from Piltdown Man, because had we not come from Piltdown Man we would not be here. What? Piltdown Man's a fraud? I guess we are not here, then. Darn.

Oh and millions can die when Science is right. Don't believe me, go ask the citizens of 1940s Nagasaki. Hundreds of millions died when vehement anti-religion spread across this globe. This is what happens when man is wrong.

And Clue, all your junk about bacteria in other dimensions really sounds more like an increasingly popular naturalistic explanation for our "finely-tuned" universe. Because were there a universe that would generate such intelligent bacteria, then it exists. We might as well call it the 9th dimension. In fact there are millions of universes that we will never have any proof of just to make the rise of human life probable in some universe. And in that universe, they will wonder how they came to that universe despite their seeming improbability. We might as well call them us. So we observe an improbability, but we imagine an infinite number of monkeys typing out plans for an infinite number of universes, and we have us. Except you can't see the infinite monkeys or infinite universes. We don't know if we will ever see them. Send me grant dollars, please.

short: point taken about the Biblical literalism, my point was more directed to those who believe in creationism based on their religious faith, but then feel compelled to come up with a scientific reason to back them up. If its based on faith, that's all they need.

I agree with pretty much everything you said, but I would simply add that to the extent that science (2) has been wrong, any particular theory should just be proved right or wrong based on science (1)

But science works exactly because of the kind of critical eye displayed by this study (which, as you point out, may or may not prove to be accurate when it is itself subjected to other critical eyes).

When people point to fallen scientific theories as proof of science's fallability, I'm always suprised by their surprise. The fallability of science is self-evident, acknowledged, and understood as a necessity of science itself.

You didn't make the argument that this demonstrates that religion is superior to science, but many make arguments along those lines. I always want to ask, "When was the last time a religious demonination announced that 1/3 of existing teaching was false?" The Council of Trent? Vatican II? The Southern Baptist Convention's purges of progressives in the 80s?

Perhaps these count. But it should be noted that when a church acknowledges error, it's considered a historic moment. When science does, it's considered routine.

I think this thread proves one thing: It's not religious people misunderstanding science as much as it's science-people misunderstanding religion.

(Shamanac wants religions to announce its teaching is false, the way science does sometimes--which assumes that religious truth-claims are like science's truth claims. Scientist constructs a strawman that thinks that the universe is totally explained in the Bible, (and somehow science's cure for small pox is supposed to disprove religious naivite?). Get-A-Clue thinks of God as ana-logous to an unsensible bacteria. They're all science-centric stupic views of religion.)

(PS: SeaKing, I agree with your correction of me.
Marcus: But it's the classical epistemological problem! We don't know have any access to natural-science(1) apart from science(2).)