permaculture

[Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com>]

On Feb 28, 2011, at 7:41 PM, wenshidi@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
> 
> Toby,
> I do not mean to argue with you, especially when I consider you to be one 
> of the most valuable contributors to this list, but I must point out that 
> plate tectonics, just like Darwin's evolution, the Big Bang etc are all 
> just theories.

I used the phrase "plate tectonics" as shorthand for the movement of 
continental plates and the consequent uplift, which are observed facts, not a 
theory. The relevant observed fact here is that large areas of the continents 
are rising and have been for tens or hundreds of millions of years, with no 
sign of slowing down. There is no evidence to dispute it. None. There is not 
one shred of evidence to suggest that the continents will disappear "in a few 
million years." The people who wrote that remain inexcusable ignoramuses who 
damage what might be useful work  by bolstering their words with nonsensical 
pseudoscience.

I don't think you understand what "theory" means to a scientist or 
philosopher of science. You are using it in the same way that the 
creationists do (I understand that you are not a creationist), as in 
"evolution is just a theory," as if there is some doubt about it. Theory does 
not mean in doubt or tentative. To a scientist, a theory is a profoundly 
powerful explanation that is consistent with, and accounts for, observed 
facts. It it a very different use from the lay person's, "well, here's my 
theory." Einstein's theory of relativity, Newton's theory of gravity, 
Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection etc, are "just theories" 
but they explain observed facts in such a coherent manner that the likelihood 
of their being discarded is vanishingly small. There is no more powerful word 
in science for an explanation than "theory." We could call the above 
theories, and plate tectonics, "facts," and I do hear scientists speak of the 
fact of evolution because we have seen it and measured it. But formally, they 
are explanations that make facts coherent, and not facts themselves, so we 
don't call them facts. Of course, some theories cover facts that seem 
contradictory or don't explain every phenomenon, but the overthrowing of a 
theory as established, and as consistent with observation, as plate tectonics 
just isn't going to happen. Geology makes no sense without it, just as all of 
biology and medicine are made coherent only by evolution. Those theories may 
get tweaked, but I am willing to bet a large sum that they will never be 
discarded. (I am a student of the philosophy of science, so I appreciate the 
change to rant about this confusion a bit!.  It is a confusion used as a 
smokescreen by numbskulls to ignore facts that conflict with their religion's 
stories.)
> 
> "Textbooks frequently extol plate tectonics theory without questioning what 
> might be wrong with the theory or without discussing a competitive theory. 
> How can students be taught to challenge popular ideas when they are only 
> presented a one-sided view?"


Nonsense and untrue. We should teach that one plus one might make three, just 
so we give other views? Gimme a break. Science is not a democracy where every 
loony-bird gets heard;  "God did it" is not science. Besides, all the 
textbooks I've seen describe the steps we went through to arrive at plate 
tectonics, and the flaws, just as every evolution explanation I've seen 
mentions what it fails to account for. The author of that quote is simply 
lying. Most textbooks have been forced to include creationism and other 
idiocy because that particular lobby is so powerful. It is the facts that are 
in danger, not the religious myths.

Toby
http://patternliteracy.com