tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500247109010734075.post8289597965140341841..comments2024-03-15T03:20:54.442-04:00Comments on Fossils and Other Living Things: Fallacy of the Best-in-Field FallacyTony Edgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11636818323982123697noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500247109010734075.post-16805008211881187872011-08-18T20:47:52.999-04:002011-08-18T20:47:52.999-04:00Anton:
A thoughtful and thought-provoking comment....Anton:<br />A thoughtful and thought-provoking comment. I considered some wrinkles to the racing analogy (e.g., a starting line partly shrouded in fog), but the critical point, which you make, is that, in this race, we must acknowledge that don't have complete knowledge about the field. We take our best shot at picking the winner with that understanding.<br /><br />Perhaps some scientists are guilty of writing about evolution with a touch of hubris, as though all is known, all questions are answered. Macbeth may well have been reacting to that and, because scientific theories are always being tested, he could cherry pick a bunch of criticisms of evolution. But I don't think he identified a logical fallacy damning the whole enterprise. It's science at work, knowing it's using the best data available at the moment.<br /><br />I like your Sagan quotation and would respond that I think with regard to evolution and natural selection we do have extraordinary evidence.<br /><br />Finally, since this particular race is being run under the rules of science, one thing we do know is that no supernatural runner will materialize in this field. As you note, that's a different race entirely.<br />TonyTony Edgerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11636818323982123697noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500247109010734075.post-48960624422729689182011-08-18T17:13:19.651-04:002011-08-18T17:13:19.651-04:00I think "best-in-field" is closely relat...I think "best-in-field" is closely related to uniformitarianism. As such it plays a role in constraining scientists, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. I often quote Carl Sagan to my students: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." But, as you say in your last paragraph, the only way to improve the field is to increase the data.<br /><br />Repurposing the race analogy, imagine a 400 m race. Before the starting gun sounds, all participants are equally likely to win (there's no data). When the race starts, after 20 meters (limited data) one runner has already fallen way behind (the crackpot/pseudoscience ideas). Perhaps after 100 meters, it's clear half our runners are not going to win (reasonable ideas, but demonstrably wrong), and by 300 meters there's a definite frontrunner.<br /><br />Now maybe at this point someone drives a race car onto the track, and they pass the leader with 50 meters to go. We'll then change our favored prediction and instead say the race car is going to win, but only because we have the new data that the car is present and leading.<br /><br />This is essentially the "best-in-field" argument; that if we constrain ourselves to the runners, we might not predict the race car. But science plays the odds, and assumes that it's very unlikely that the race car will show up. If you're watching the race and predict that the race car will win, when there's no race car on the track, your suggestion would be laughable.<br /><br />Note also that, as soon as the race car appears, we would almost always pick it as the winner. I described the race car joining the race when the front runner was 50 meters from the finish, but suppose instead the race car started at the same time as everyone else. We would still pick the race car as the winner; we just have to have the data at hand (the presence of the race car).<br /><br />Finally, to completely beat the analogy to death, imagine one more scenario. The race car only starts the race when the front runner is 1 meter from the finish line. In this case our extraordinary data (the presence of the race car) is found, but it doesn't affect the outcome; the frontrunner wins anyway, because he's supported by mountains of data (a 399 meter lead).<br /><br />This would be like piecing together tons of data that showed that the Chicxulub impact occurred, but finding out that it happened 10 million years after the dinosaurs went extinct (an extraordinary event that has no bearing on the question at hand).<br /><br />Or tying it to evolution, even if somehow someone could prove the existence of God, it would still not disprove evolution; it would simply prove that there was a God.Alton Dooleyhttp://www.paleolab.orgnoreply@blogger.com