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From: Piet Hut
Date: 8.28.01

I enjoyed reading the interview with Michael Shermer, which contained a number of interesting angles that were new for me. I was puzzled, however, when he said: `"we believe in Darwin's dictum, as I like to call it, that all observations must be for or against some view if they are to be of any service."

In my field of astrophysics, many of the most important discoveries were completely unexpected, and were not made with a particular view in mind — that came later, when we were trying to make theoretical models for the new phenomena. Quasars, pulsars, gamma ray bursts, you name it: in each case the challenge was only after discovery to come up with a view for what they could possibly be.

I suspect that 'Darwin's dictum' holds in most cases, but not everywhere, and therefore it seems doubtful to make it a condition for what good science is. In fact, historical attempts at defining what is and what is not science, by philosophers or philosophizing scientists, have often been a description of the contemporary state of science, without universal validity. For example, a hundred years ago it seemed obvious that a good scientific experiment should be exactly repeatable; and then quantum physics taught us that only average outcomes can be repeated, not the results of individual experiments.

Science is a living body of knowledge, and any attempt to prescribe fixed rules or axioms or foundations is likely to fail. I realize that this presents a difficult challenge to the Skeptics: if they prescribe science too tightly, fringe people will jump in eagerly when science turns out to be wider than thought before; but if they are more realistic in leaving open what science can be, fringe people will see this as an open door invitation for their crackpot ideas. Inconvenient as it may be, it might be better to tell the public that ultimately science is simply what holds up in the long run, in being agreed to be science by active scientists, and leave it at that.

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From: Helena Cronin
Date: 8.23.01

Thanks for the latest Edge, which I enjoyed.

Just in case nobody has pointed this out to you, "Popper's answer to that question was that of false viability" should be "Popper's answer to that question was that of falsifiability".

And, while I am here anyway ... According to Shermer, Wallace dies first in 1913 and then in 1911. Even for a believing spiritualist, that's an unlikely achievement.

It was fun to read what a fellow Wallace-enthusiast had to say. I developed a soft spot for Wallace when tracing his career as Darwin's sparring partner on sexual selection. (It's a fight that, in an odd way, Wallace seems to have won. The first time that I met Bill Hamilton was when I gave a seminar that he attended. He came up to me afterwards, very intrigued, and said "I hadn't realised till now that all this time I've been a Wallacean".) I am looking forward to reading Michael Shermer's book.