The Consilience of Induction; or, Bull Shit, Sherlock
Back in (IRRC) Philosophy 102, Logic, we learned the dirty little secret of Victorian literature. Sherlock Holmes sometimes got it wrong.
Seated to the Right,
An Entertaining Occassional Mis-Speaker
You see, he was widely quoted as presenting the conclusions he based upon evidence as a "deduction." That is incorrect. A deduction is specifically used to remove evidence or conclusions from consideration. For example, if Mary has a solid alibi for being elsewhere during the crime, and the time of the crime can be solidly established, one can deduce that Mary cannot have been the perpetrator.
However, when it came to reconstructing the scene of a crime, Sherlock's speciality, the addition of detail was necessary. One needed to know more than who didn't do it. One needed to know who did.
This, folks, requires induction.
Furthermore, when one induces based upon evidence, one does not "prove" anything. An induction is a speculative reconstruction based upon evidence; by definition, proof is deductive -- and therefore conclusive -- not speculative.
It seems whenever challenging scientific findings, critics of this theory or that often cite the "lack of proof" as an argument closer. There's only one problem with this attack: As I remarked above, it is completely irrelevant.
You see, many of the sciences (outside of mathmatics) have no proof supporting their claims. They have, just like Sherlock, evidence.
Evidence is not proof. It does not claim to be, nor do the scientists providing supporting evidence claim this.
Scientific theories are speculative reconstructions supported only by repeatability and cited evidence.
Anomalocaris in its
reconstructed Cambrian habitat
In presenting his argument for the historical misclassification of the Burgess Shale fauna, Stephen Jay Gould generally outlines the scientific perspective for the lay audience:
The firm requirement for all science -- whether stereotypical or historical -- lies in secure testability, not direct observation. We must be able to determine whether our hypotheses are definitely wrong or probably correct (we leave assertions of certainty to preachers and politicians). History's richness drives us to different methods of testing, but testability is our criterion as well. We work with our strength of rich and diverse data recording the consequences of past events; we do not bewail our inability to see the past directly. We search for repeated pattern, shown by evidence so abundant and so diverse that no other coordinating interpretation could stand, even though any item, taken separately, would not provide conclusive proof.
(Gould, Wonderful Life, Norton, 1989, p. 282)(Emphasis mine)
That emboldened portion should be shouted to attempting critics everywhere, for it is just the attack they persist on repeating. They put all effort in "poking holes" in points supporting the general argument, forgetting that the very strength of any successful argument depends not just upon the individual pieces, but upon the interwoven and connecting data points that, in some way, agree:
The great nineteenth-century philosopher of science William Whewell devised the word consilience, meaning "jumping together," to designate the confidence gained when many independent sources "conspire" to indicate a particular historical pattern. He called the strategy of coordinating disparate results from multifarious sources consilience of induction. (Gould, ibid.)
Remember, folks, Whewell is the guy that coined the word "scientist."
Darwin, Gould continues to note, was the master at weaving such a pattern of consilience. He is regarded as the author of the theory of natural selection -- very soon after the publication of The Origin of Species popularized by Herbert Spencer as the theory of " evolution" -- simply because he leaves very little observational route unexplored in laying out his theory. Origin is a vast and masterful jumping together of evidence. It's strength lies not in his evidence per se, but in the way Darwin patterns the pieces to each other.
Sadly, the same strength of supporting evidence, the same consilience of induction, can be found in the supporting evidence behind the theory of Global Warming. I say sadly simply because I am definitely not looking forward to the next few years and what those that extrapolate the theories predict the phenomena will bring.
It's going to get ugly.
I am fairly certain of the coming ugliness simply because of the vast data number of data points and the fact that GW is pretty much the only theory that takes all of them into account. There is in the global warming theory enormous consilience of induction.
No proof, true; but again, if you need proof for everything you believe, it should be easy to find a politician or preacher to give you some.
I'm sure they could provide you a more comforting deduction.
Seated to the Right,
An Entertaining Occassional Mis-Speaker
You see, he was widely quoted as presenting the conclusions he based upon evidence as a "deduction." That is incorrect. A deduction is specifically used to remove evidence or conclusions from consideration. For example, if Mary has a solid alibi for being elsewhere during the crime, and the time of the crime can be solidly established, one can deduce that Mary cannot have been the perpetrator.
However, when it came to reconstructing the scene of a crime, Sherlock's speciality, the addition of detail was necessary. One needed to know more than who didn't do it. One needed to know who did.
This, folks, requires induction.
Furthermore, when one induces based upon evidence, one does not "prove" anything. An induction is a speculative reconstruction based upon evidence; by definition, proof is deductive -- and therefore conclusive -- not speculative.
It seems whenever challenging scientific findings, critics of this theory or that often cite the "lack of proof" as an argument closer. There's only one problem with this attack: As I remarked above, it is completely irrelevant.
You see, many of the sciences (outside of mathmatics) have no proof supporting their claims. They have, just like Sherlock, evidence.
Evidence is not proof. It does not claim to be, nor do the scientists providing supporting evidence claim this.
Scientific theories are speculative reconstructions supported only by repeatability and cited evidence.
Anomalocaris in its
reconstructed Cambrian habitat
In presenting his argument for the historical misclassification of the Burgess Shale fauna, Stephen Jay Gould generally outlines the scientific perspective for the lay audience:
The firm requirement for all science -- whether stereotypical or historical -- lies in secure testability, not direct observation. We must be able to determine whether our hypotheses are definitely wrong or probably correct (we leave assertions of certainty to preachers and politicians). History's richness drives us to different methods of testing, but testability is our criterion as well. We work with our strength of rich and diverse data recording the consequences of past events; we do not bewail our inability to see the past directly. We search for repeated pattern, shown by evidence so abundant and so diverse that no other coordinating interpretation could stand, even though any item, taken separately, would not provide conclusive proof.
(Gould, Wonderful Life, Norton, 1989, p. 282)(Emphasis mine)
That emboldened portion should be shouted to attempting critics everywhere, for it is just the attack they persist on repeating. They put all effort in "poking holes" in points supporting the general argument, forgetting that the very strength of any successful argument depends not just upon the individual pieces, but upon the interwoven and connecting data points that, in some way, agree:
The great nineteenth-century philosopher of science William Whewell devised the word consilience, meaning "jumping together," to designate the confidence gained when many independent sources "conspire" to indicate a particular historical pattern. He called the strategy of coordinating disparate results from multifarious sources consilience of induction. (Gould, ibid.)
Remember, folks, Whewell is the guy that coined the word "scientist."
Darwin, Gould continues to note, was the master at weaving such a pattern of consilience. He is regarded as the author of the theory of natural selection -- very soon after the publication of The Origin of Species popularized by Herbert Spencer as the theory of " evolution" -- simply because he leaves very little observational route unexplored in laying out his theory. Origin is a vast and masterful jumping together of evidence. It's strength lies not in his evidence per se, but in the way Darwin patterns the pieces to each other.
Sadly, the same strength of supporting evidence, the same consilience of induction, can be found in the supporting evidence behind the theory of Global Warming. I say sadly simply because I am definitely not looking forward to the next few years and what those that extrapolate the theories predict the phenomena will bring.
It's going to get ugly.
I am fairly certain of the coming ugliness simply because of the vast data number of data points and the fact that GW is pretty much the only theory that takes all of them into account. There is in the global warming theory enormous consilience of induction.
No proof, true; but again, if you need proof for everything you believe, it should be easy to find a politician or preacher to give you some.
I'm sure they could provide you a more comforting deduction.