{"id":214,"date":"2008-09-21T21:25:52","date_gmt":"2008-09-21T09:25:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2008\/09\/how_to_argue_against_a_scienti\/"},"modified":"2008-09-21T21:25:52","modified_gmt":"2008-09-21T09:25:52","slug":"how-to-argue-against-a-scienti","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2008\/09\/how-to-argue-against-a-scienti\/","title":{"rendered":"how to argue against a scientific theory&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230; and also, how not to. This is an excellent essay by the <a href=\"http:\/\/sensuouscurmudgeon.wordpress.com\/\">Sensuous Curmudgeon<\/a>. I&#8217;ll list his key points here, but you really should go over and <a href=\"http:\/\/sensuouscurmudgeon.wordpress.com\/2008\/08\/22\/advice-for-creationists\/#comment-623\">read the whole thing<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>What to do:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>You could present a fact (a verifiable fact) that contradicts it (this, of course, means that you have to be sure you understand the theory that you are trying to contradict).<\/li>\n<li>Or you could put forward your own testable theory &#8211; but it will have to be at least as good as the existing theory at explaining all the available evidence.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What not to do:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Make an argument from personal incredulity.<\/li>\n<li>Argue that the theory fails because there are things that scientists don&#8217;t know yet &#8211; no scientist would claim otherwise.<\/li>\n<li>Say something&#8217;s wrong when all the evidence suggests that it&#8217;s correct.<\/li>\n<li>Argue that the theory is wrong because some scientists have done something fraudulent in obtaining their results.<\/li>\n<li>Make&nbsp;<em>ad hominem<\/em> attacks on the scientists, rather than engaging with their ideas.<\/li>\n<li>Present as evidence the opinions of people who don&#8217;t work in the field in question.<\/li>\n<li>Object to the theory because you don&#8217;t like its consequences.<\/li>\n<li>Claim that the scientist later renounced his theory (a claim commonly &#8211; &amp; incorrectly &#8211; made about Darwin). Even if true, it doesn&#8217;t invalidate the theory.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In other words &#8211; an excellent checklist if you are weighing up a the arguments about a particular scientific theory \ud83d\ude42 Again, my thanks to the Curmudgeon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230; and also, how not to. This is an excellent essay by the Sensuous Curmudgeon. I&#8217;ll list his key points here, but you really should go over and read the whole thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,15,2],"tags":[3,10,4],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>how to argue against a scientific theory... : BioBlog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2008\/09\/how-to-argue-against-a-scienti\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"how to argue against a scientific theory... : BioBlog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&#8230; and also, how not to. 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