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Frankly, Dawkins didn't answer the question, which was about a /scientific/ idea "ready for retirement". But Dawkins is so blinded by his ridiculous, anti-intel

Frankly, Dawkins didn't answer the question, which was about a /scientific/ idea "ready for retirement". But Dawkins is so blinded by his ridiculous, anti-intellectual scientism that not only did he find himself unable to discredit just one single scientific idea (which, by their sheer quantity and variety, /must/ contain among their number some failure), but he can't even distinguish the boundary between science and philosophical positions which haven't been popular (in their entirety) in millenia. As such, while Dawkins would have provided a convincing (to me) opponent for Plato, in this context, his essay is pure poppycock.

bradfordarner 12y ago
Agreed. This is a great example of a "straw man attack". He sets up an intellectually shallow definition of a philosophical ideal and then somehow manages to connect it to Florida politics...Brilliant! He deals so fluently in generalities that he starts sounding like a new-age prophet predicting the next earthquake that will blight humanity.
Crito 12y ago
Feel free to substitute "scientific idea" with "idea within the scientific community". Challenges to any strictly "scientific idea" as you are thinking of them are not going to come in this form of article. They will come in the form of scholarly papers and studies published in major journals. They won't be prompted by these sort of fluff questions for celebrity scientists, they will naturally arise through research. Dawkin's answer was not off; your expectations for what this question was asking and how it could be answered were off.
alexandros 12y ago
It's a bit of an impossible ask though. If a "scientific idea" is one which is supported by the balance of the evidence at this time, then no current scientific idea is ready for retirement. Scientific ideas don't "have to" contain some "failure". If they do, we don't know about it yet. When we do, we retire it proactively. Unless you zero in on one idea where the balance of evidence has very very recently shifted against it, you have to look a bit further than the "current theories/hypotheses" space, into the philosophical ideas, which is what Dawkins is doing. What would you suggest as a scientific idea ready for retirement?
- tedunangst 12y ago
  Perhaps he could answer the question, what is the most recently retired scientific idea? I imagine it's likely most readers are unaware that that idea (whatever it is) has been retired.
  - smsm42 12y ago
    Clockwork universe is one prominent idea which was very popular and has been completely retired by now.
  - lutusp 12y ago
    I can think of a few, starting with a very recently retired idea: 1. All biological life depends on sunlight. Falsified first by bacterial colonies that thrive near deep-sea volcanic vents. 2. Light requires an ether for its transmission. Falsified by the classic Michelson-Morley experiment. 3. The universe is static in overall size, "... which required Professor Einstein to add a cosmological constant to his intellectual masterpiece to make it agree with observation." Falsified soon after by observations that led to the Big Bang theory. 4. Phlogiston, the idea that burning matter relied on a hypothetical essence responsible for the combustion. 5. Universal and constant space and time, an idea favored by Isaac Newton, falsified by relativity. 6. Inheritance of acquired traits, falsified by modern genetics (but to some extent argued with by the new field of epigenetics). Just a few that come to mind.
- MattHeard 12y ago
  I think that Thomas Kuhn would disagree. The scientific community works within paradigms which adequately explain their experiments. There may be some weird results, but as long as they remain few, new scientists will remain convinced of the paradigm's merits. The areas of weird results are the most interesting, and attract attention and further exploration. When the weird results multiply after further investigation, ad hoc modifications to the theories of the paradigm might be necessary. This might work for a while, satisfying the scientists' need to explain their results. However, ad hoc changes may push the paradigm to its limits. Crisis occurs within the scientific community. Scientists may start to abandon core tenets of the paradigm in search for new theories which are better at explaining all the weird results. The paradigm might be so ingrained into the world-view of its scientists that only young scientists who are yet to be indoctrinated might be able to see past it. The famous examples are of relativity, quantum physics, and heliocentrism. Ptolemaic geocentrism, particularly, had a lot of ad hoc modifications to explain the loopy movement of planets. In this sense, scientific ideas are certainly retired. More can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superseded_scientific_theories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superseded_scientific_theories If someone understands Kuhn and philosophy of science better than me, please correct me. I know that Imre Lakatos and Paul Feyerabend have different views on "scientific progress", but Thomas Kuhn is the only one I have read on this topic.
IvyMike 12y ago
Have you looked over the other responses to the same question? Were any of them what you were looking for? http://edge.org/responses/what-scientific-idea-is-ready-for-retirement http://edge.org/responses/what-scientific-idea-is-ready-for-...
wglb 12y ago
I am quite unclear on where ridiculous, anti-intellectual scientism comes from. Can you clarify?
- belovedeagle 12y ago
  Dawkins is a proponent (probably the loudest, save possibly for NDT) of scientism. Scientism is inherently anti-intellectual (thus setting it apart from "science", which is, of course, not at all anti-intellectual). It's ridiculous that someone would blind themselves as thoroughly as Dawkins does with this position.
  - wglb 12y ago
    Hmm. So for many theologians and philosophers, scientism is among the greatest of intellectual sins would put me more on the science side. Sounds like you have pretty strong feelings about this.
lutusp 12y ago
> But Dawkins is so blinded by his ridiculous, anti-intellectual scientism that not only did he find himself unable to discredit just one single scientific idea This is nonsense. Dawkins' topic wasn't scientific ideas ready for retirement, so it's not surprising that the issue didn't come up. Also, those who understand science realize there are no accepted ideas, ideas beyond challenge, ideas that have become truths. Scientific theories can never be proven true, only false -- this is one of the most basic scientific principles. I'm sure Dawkins fully understands this, but it happens it wasn't the topic of this article.

bradfordarner 12y ago

Agreed. This is a great example of a "straw man attack". He sets up an intellectually shallow definition of a philosophical ideal and then somehow manages to connect it to Florida politics...Brilliant! He deals so fluently in generalities that he starts sounding like a new-age prophet predicting the next earthquake that will blight humanity.

Crito 12y ago

Feel free to substitute "scientific idea" with "idea within the scientific community". Challenges to any strictly "scientific idea" as you are thinking of them are not going to come in this form of article. They will come in the form of scholarly papers and studies published in major journals. They won't be prompted by these sort of fluff questions for celebrity scientists, they will naturally arise through research. Dawkin's answer was not off; your expectations for what this question was asking and how it could be answered were off.

alexandros 12y ago

It's a bit of an impossible ask though. If a "scientific idea" is one which is supported by the balance of the evidence at this time, then no current scientific idea is ready for retirement. Scientific ideas don't "have to" contain some "failure". If they do, we don't know about it yet. When we do, we retire it proactively. Unless you zero in on one idea where the balance of evidence has very very recently shifted against it, you have to look a bit further than the "current theories/hypotheses" space, into the philosophical ideas, which is what Dawkins is doing. What would you suggest as a scientific idea ready for retirement?

tedunangst 12y ago
Perhaps he could answer the question, what is the most recently retired scientific idea? I imagine it's likely most readers are unaware that that idea (whatever it is) has been retired.
- smsm42 12y ago
  Clockwork universe is one prominent idea which was very popular and has been completely retired by now.
- lutusp 12y ago
  I can think of a few, starting with a very recently retired idea: 1. All biological life depends on sunlight. Falsified first by bacterial colonies that thrive near deep-sea volcanic vents. 2. Light requires an ether for its transmission. Falsified by the classic Michelson-Morley experiment. 3. The universe is static in overall size, "... which required Professor Einstein to add a cosmological constant to his intellectual masterpiece to make it agree with observation." Falsified soon after by observations that led to the Big Bang theory. 4. Phlogiston, the idea that burning matter relied on a hypothetical essence responsible for the combustion. 5. Universal and constant space and time, an idea favored by Isaac Newton, falsified by relativity. 6. Inheritance of acquired traits, falsified by modern genetics (but to some extent argued with by the new field of epigenetics). Just a few that come to mind.
MattHeard 12y ago
I think that Thomas Kuhn would disagree. The scientific community works within paradigms which adequately explain their experiments. There may be some weird results, but as long as they remain few, new scientists will remain convinced of the paradigm's merits. The areas of weird results are the most interesting, and attract attention and further exploration. When the weird results multiply after further investigation, ad hoc modifications to the theories of the paradigm might be necessary. This might work for a while, satisfying the scientists' need to explain their results. However, ad hoc changes may push the paradigm to its limits. Crisis occurs within the scientific community. Scientists may start to abandon core tenets of the paradigm in search for new theories which are better at explaining all the weird results. The paradigm might be so ingrained into the world-view of its scientists that only young scientists who are yet to be indoctrinated might be able to see past it. The famous examples are of relativity, quantum physics, and heliocentrism. Ptolemaic geocentrism, particularly, had a lot of ad hoc modifications to explain the loopy movement of planets. In this sense, scientific ideas are certainly retired. More can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superseded_scientific_theories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superseded_scientific_theories If someone understands Kuhn and philosophy of science better than me, please correct me. I know that Imre Lakatos and Paul Feyerabend have different views on "scientific progress", but Thomas Kuhn is the only one I have read on this topic.

IvyMike 12y ago

Have you looked over the other responses to the same question? Were any of them what you were looking for? http://edge.org/responses/what-scientific-idea-is-ready-for-retirement http://edge.org/responses/what-scientific-idea-is-ready-for-...

wglb 12y ago

I am quite unclear on where ridiculous, anti-intellectual scientism comes from. Can you clarify?

belovedeagle 12y ago
Dawkins is a proponent (probably the loudest, save possibly for NDT) of scientism. Scientism is inherently anti-intellectual (thus setting it apart from "science", which is, of course, not at all anti-intellectual). It's ridiculous that someone would blind themselves as thoroughly as Dawkins does with this position.
- wglb 12y ago
  Hmm. So for many theologians and philosophers, scientism is among the greatest of intellectual sins would put me more on the science side. Sounds like you have pretty strong feelings about this.

lutusp 12y ago

> But Dawkins is so blinded by his ridiculous, anti-intellectual scientism that not only did he find himself unable to discredit just one single scientific idea This is nonsense. Dawkins' topic wasn't scientific ideas ready for retirement, so it's not surprising that the issue didn't come up. Also, those who understand science realize there are no accepted ideas, ideas beyond challenge, ideas that have become truths. Scientific theories can never be proven true, only false -- this is one of the most basic scientific principles. I'm sure Dawkins fully understands this, but it happens it wasn't the topic of this article.