Scientific Integrity

I disagree with Nobel Prize winner James Watson who said, "“Today, the theory of evolution is an accepted fact for everyone but a fundamentalist minority, whose objections are based not on reasoning but on doctrinaire adherence to religious principles.”

While I believe it is the duty of all scientifically educated people to promote and encourage the use of science as a valid means of investigating the natural universe. I also believe it is incumbent upon the same to remember the philosophical underpinnings of the scientific method.

Failure to do so will promote science as an ideology - scientism - which I vehemently oppose.

Scientific theories are ultimately based on an inductive interpretation of a data model obtained through experimentation, and therefore, not based on certitude. To promote any scientific theory as fact, in other words, absolute, is not only intellectually dishonest, and a misunderstanding of the nature of science, but, it serves to promote deceitful dogma.

To use an analogy from Calculus, science is like the limit of a function in that experiments produce theories that become increasingly close to truth, but never quite reach it.

Consider:
lim f(e) = T
e->i
where e=experiment, i=infinity, T=Truth.

Thus, the above equation states that as e approaches i (an infinite number of experiments ) theories become increasingly closer to Truth.

Or, restated, over time, as knowledge of the physical universe increases through continued experimentation. our confidence in theories will strengthen but, they should never be considered as absolute.

So, here's the bottom line, promote scientific discoveries, yes, but never forget the scientific method is not a static, rigid model to uncover natural absolutes, but, a fluid, dynamic method of reasoning for approaching Truth.

Dr. James Watson would do well to remember that in my humble, opinion. I much prefer the comment made by Francis Bacon, "A little science estranges a man from God, a lot of science brings him back."