PZ Myers. 2005 Dec 09. Advice to a historian. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/advice_to_a_historian/>. Accessed 2008 Dec 04.
Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Friday, December 09, 2005
Advice to a historian
I'm begging for more interdisciplinary interaction between academics trying to teach material outside their discipline. Every once in a while, I run across classes that try to inject a little biology into their history, and it can be embarrassingly bad (not always, of course—historians of science can be competent in understanding their source material!) As an example, Mona Albano sent me a link to the syllabus for an introductory history course taught by a Dr Nicassio at Lafayette University. I don't know whether Dr Nicassio gives much thought to creationism at all, but the section of her lecture notes that describes scientism has a major flaw: it presents creationist objections to evolution a bit too seriously.
Objections to Darwin's theory:
- Although the vast majority of biologists still consider evolution to be a fact, scientists from other fields such as Information Theory and Physics have begun to question some of its assumptions.
- Atheist Fred Hoyle (astronomer) has said that the likelihood of life developing by a random process is on the same order of probability as the likelihood that a typhoon could blow through a junkyard and construct a 707 jet aircraft. (He thinks spacemen did it.)
- Evolution by natural selection and survival of the fittest would require unimaginably vast spans of time if were possible at all: almost all mutations are fatal, and of those that are not, most have little or no survival value.
- Organisms are much more complex than Darwin realized. Many organs, such as they eye, have no survival value at all until they are complete.
- Neo-Darwinists, which retaining the idea of evolution, have greatly modified Darwin's original theory.
- Some, who accept micro-evolution (minor changes within a species), continue to doubt macro-evolution (major changes from one species to another)
- While most religious groups have agreed that evolution itself does not contradict the idea of creation (it mere alters the way in which it was accomplished), others reject it on the grounds that it contradicts the Bible, and makes man an accidental part of nature rather than a special creature.
These are actual objections that creationists make, so it's valid to list them as a historical account. However, it pains me to see them just left there as if they actually had some credibility, and that students should take them seriously. They're all wrong. They're misleading. They're dishonest. I sure hope that in her lectures Dr Nicassio spells that out and explains that these are all fallacious arguments.
- I haven't seen any credible argument against evolution from Information Theory or Physics. I have seen creationists spin out error-filled interpretations of information theory, and make some real howlers over thermodynamics, but there aren't any serious objections. How could there be? Evolution occurred, the genetic processes have been documented…anyone who claims otherwise is in the position of the engineer who claimed bumblebees can't fly.
- Hoyle said that the likelihood of life developing by a random process is on the same order of probability as the likelihood that a typhoon could blow through a junkyard and construct a 707 jet aircraft—he's right! Of course, this says nothing against evolution, because evolution is not a random process.
- Most mutations are not fatal. This one is trivially false; we know the mutation rate, and we know that essentially everyone is born carrying multiple mutations…and we're not all dead.
- Darwin himself addressed the issue of the evolution of complex organs such as the eye—that's one of the most common examples of quote-mining. We have many examples of intermediate grades of eye formation, and their utility is clear.
- You know, if someone is going to teach anything about the history of science, they ought to appreciate the fact that one of the strengths of science is that ideas change as new information becomes available. Objecting to evolution because it was able to accommodate the ideas of genetics in the neo-Darwinian synthesis is just backwards—would it have been a stronger theory if it rejected accurate rules of inheritance?
- That "some doubt" a component of the theory like macroevolution is not a credible objection. "Some doubt" that the Apollo program put men on the moon; "some doubt" is not a magic mantra to give a claim any power.
- Similarly, that fundamentalists reject evolution because it contradicts their interpretation of the Bible is true, but that doesn't make them right. That they disbelieve it because of their personal dogma is not an objection we should take seriously.
I'm sure there are good biologists at Lafayette who would be happy to take a quick look at her discussion of evolution and nicely explain any errors. I'm sending her a friendly email myself, to bring these points to her attention.
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My school is lucky - the resident historian of science is an actual biologist whose PhD dissertation veered into history in its late stages, helping him discover the love and aptitude for history.
He still teaches field animal behavior class every summer and reads scientific literature to keep up to date. No wonder he is one of the best loved teachers here and I took FOUR graduate history-of-science classes with him. -
I would add in reference to point number 3 this: a billion plus years is an "unimaginably vast span of time."
I don't think most people really appreciate how long the Earth (much less the universe) has been around. We tend to define "a long time" in human terms (a lifetime or centuries). When pressed, we might invoke the dinosaurs of millions of years ago, but the Earth is over 4 billion years old. Orders of magnitude differences are difficult to comprehend. That's all I'm saying.#: Posted by on 12/09 at 12:54 PM -
As a historian who seems not to be trained in the history of science, she'd probably benefit from reading some works of historians who are, like Ronald Numbers and Ed Larson. In fact I suspect she probably is at least broadly familiar with them, and that she softpedaled the weaknesses of the "objections" knowing what kind of trouble this sort of thing can sometimes get you into (see Mirecki, Paul). Not that that's a sufficient excuse, but this is in the South after all, a region not known for friendliness towards evolution. Perhaps she'll be more stern w/them in class than she is on paper.
Not to be too hard on Louisiana. I love the South and want to move back and work there, all the Fundamentalists aside. My MA advisor is a respected historian of science who published a lot with LSU Press, which IIRC is a well-respected press for the history of science. There is intellectual life below the Mason Dixon line, and I wouldn't judge our historian too harshly yet.#: Posted by on 12/09 at 12:54 PM -
Sadly enough, there is a huge disconnect between historians of science and historians in general. It is very difficult for a historian of science to get a job in a history department and there are relatively few history of science departments (Penn, Indiana, Harvard, Wisconsin, Cornell, Pittsburgh, Yale, John's Hopkins to name most of them!)
Most straight up historians are very out of touch with the history of science. History and the history of science are, sadly, two very different fields.
Moreover, there is a major debate amongst historians of science that one actually has to know any science or to take science seriously (i.e. the conceptual content of science seriously) to be a good historian of science.
However, this all being said, history deparments are no place to teach evolution. Much like biologists don't want religion taught in their departments, it's not the historians job to explain why these objections are 'fallacious'. Importantly, it is the historians job to explain why objections are or are not relevant in a given context. For example, there is a decent size chunk of history of science that is devoted to the history of alchemy, and, in particular, Newton's alchemy. No treatment of Newton's alchemy attempts to show why Newton was 'wrong' for studying alchemy. Rather, they discuss why Newton thought alchemy was right!
More generally, it's seriously frowned upon to explain some theory's success or defeat by saying that it was 'right' or 'wrong'. What counts as right and wrong changes over time and imposing our standards on historical cases is dismissed as 'presentist' or 'Whiggish'. In biology, the most famous case of this is the rejection of the inheritance of acquired characteristics. This was a seriously teneble position even into the 1940s eventhough it's widely taught in biology classes now as 'just wrong'. The same with saltationism. Goldschmidt's 'hopeful monsters' are quickly dismissed in a couple sentences in most modern textbooks as ridiculous, eventhough many very famous biologists believed it into the 1940s as well.
I don't know if this really addresses your concern with this particular class, but it just inspired a bit of a rant I suppose. -
I can't wait to hear what she says back to you....
#: Posted by Christopher Mason on 12/09 at 02:11 PM
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"Moreover, there is a major debate amongst historians of science that one actually has to know any science or to take science seriously (i.e. the conceptual content of science seriously) to be a good historian of science. "
Absolutely. When I was an undergraduate I took two history of science courses. One, by Lynn Nyhart (who has written some interesting books, btw), was really fascinating -- she turned me on to the personalities and scientific debates in 19th century biology. I seriously considered becoming a historian of biology rather than a biologist because of that course. But the next course, by a guy whose name I've forgotten, was just awful -- it was a lot of post-modernist nonsense about how science is just an appeal to authority just like religion and so forth. And at least in that pre-Sokal time, that sort of "history of science" seemed to be on the rise.#: Posted by Jonathan Badger on 12/09 at 02:59 PM -
I am taking a course in History of Physical and Biological Sciences (Renniasance to present) at the University of Florida next semester. As an entomology (insect biology) major, I hope I get a biologist teaching.
Currently, I find that my microeconomics teacher is very one-sided (to the right). He likes to involve conservative economic theory into his lectures, and when a student asks about the liberal side of the issue, he denies its credibility as false propaganda. For example, his recent discussion on how the sale and purchase of polution permits (so that firms causing less polution can sell them to firms causing a lot of polution) is great and has absolutely no negatives as many of the "economically-ignorent" claim.
Also, isn't it ironic how IDers claim that evolution violates the laws of thermodynamics? I mean, they claim that nothing more than the will of a higher being resulted in the formation of organisms. This certainly violates those laws.#: Posted by on 12/09 at 03:16 PM -
No treatment of Newton's alchemy attempts to show why Newton was 'wrong' for studying alchemy. Rather, they discuss why Newton thought alchemy was right!
Do they leave students with the impression that chemical methods might well turn base metals into gold or confer immortality and are those theories which are currently being pushed into schools and the public arena today or can they be assumed to be known by all students to be bunk? Now, if she had characterized those as 'dishonest objections', it would be another matter.
I'm reminded of the Monty Python sketch about the University of Woolamaloo ('The Bruces', IIRC) where the new member of the philosopy department was introduced and the faculty were told he'd be teaching Marxist philosophy, but only so long as he taught that it was wrong. I take the same attitude to creationism. It is one thing to avoid being too categorical when something is up in the air, but it is misleading to leave students with the impression of a controversy where there isn't one.
BTW, I had a look at her syllabus on WW2, and area of some familiarity to me and found it bizarre that she starts off 'the fighting' with the German invasion of the Soviet Union, simply skipping over the first two years of the war. She also has a bit about British perfidy trying to get their empire back instead of invading France and giving Stalin his second front, which is well off the mark, particularly considering that she, like Stalin, ignores the fact there was a 'second front' but at the time Stalin was Hitler's ally and busy supply him with the materiel needed for the conquest of the West and urgin that he turn that way. Not as wonky as her treatment of poor old Evolution, but not encouraging.#: Posted by on 12/09 at 03:44 PM -
While I think you're absolutely right about the problems here, wouldn't have it been better to contact Dr. Nicassio privately first? These are just outlines of lecture notes for a class --- it's not a blog or otherwise rhetorically oriented to a larger audience, though of course anything posted on the web is subject to this sort of thing. I could imagine, for instance, having a somewhat similar outline up stating the so-called arguments against Shakespeare's authorship, but using the outline in class to demolish them.
#: Posted by on 12/09 at 04:51 PM
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"Also, isn't it ironic how IDers claim that evolution violates the laws of thermodynamics? I mean, they claim that nothing more than the will of a higher being resulted in the formation of organisms. This certainly violates those laws."
Many gods seem to make wonders. But since a god concept violates all the facts observed in one of the longest run experiments (ie human history) and all the theories of nature anyway, one trivial detail doesn't matter much to a faithist.#: Posted by on 12/09 at 05:14 PM -
The goal of a good historian is to understand the past societies s/he studies on their own terms rather than to judge them by the standards of later societies. So, yes, if I were studying or teaching Newton I would be more concerned with his beliefs about alchemy and why he held them and how they influenced his work than whether they were right or wrong in scientific terms. At the same time, no, I wouldn't leave my students thinking alchemy had any real basis. Don't be fucking stupid. It is perfectly possible to balance the notion that people in the past had sophisticated, ingenious and powerful ideas that we need to know about and take seriously (because they affected what those people did in their world) without in any way lessening the understanding that they were mistaken.
Scientists doing history, including history of science, frankly, tend to do it badly, and this discussion demonstrates why. I don't try to teach you your job. Don't try to teach me mine.#: Posted by on 12/09 at 06:17 PM - Testimonial objections to scientific theories beginning with the qualifier "Atheist scientist once said x" invariably make my eyelids heavy and drool appear at the corner of my mouth. Atheists can use dumb arguments and question-beg just as well as god-botherers.
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Scientists doing history, including history of science, frankly, tend to do it badly, and this discussion demonstrates why. I don't try to teach you your job. Don't try to teach me mine.
This seems to be the standard mantra of elitist intellectual hyper-specialisation, precisely the insular phenomenon PZ is hoping to negate through posts like this.
Incidentally, shouldn't it be "Advice to an historian? Nevermind... now I'll have all the linguists trying to kick my ass. -
As a historian of science, I think a case could be made that training in the sciences could be detrimental to your training as a historian. After all, in almost all of the history of science you are learning science that is, by present-day standards "wrong." Knowing the faults it has could conceivably interfere with putting yourself in the shoes of past scientists, which is the whole idea of being a historian.
Physicist/historian Steven Brush made the reverse point in 1973 in an article in SCIENCE entitled "Should History of Science be Rated X?" Brush argued that learning the history of science could actually interfere with scientific training since the histories being produced did not make clear that there is a steady march of scientific progress but a messy and complicated past.
I don't think this is a case of "elitist intellectual hyper-specialisation" (whatever that is) but a recognition that training in one area does not give you authority in another. This is not to excuse the shoddy example that PZ posted, which seems to be BOTH bad history and bad science.
And to Dbpitt: The terrific historians of biology at the U of Florida, like Betty Smocovitis should give you terrific history of science class.#: Posted by on 12/09 at 07:27 PM -
Sharon,
I'm not sure if you're taking issue with my claims or whether you agree. The 'don't be fucking stupid' comment leads me to believe you disagree, but the 'Scientists doing history, including history of science, frankly, tend to do it badly' remark leads me to believe you agree.
Either way, I think you're right that in undergraduate course, it's important to make it clear what modern science says about some position. But this is an interesting and terribly confusing issue because what modern science says about anything is completely irrelevant to history of science and is certainly not what professional historians of science worry about. For example, at the ISHPSSB conference this past summer (social studies of bio conference) I heard an historian say that he uses a specific book for his Darwinian revolution undergraduate class even though he thinkgs it's all wrong. That seems weird and somewhat paradoxical for the field. But I guess it's similar in every field, you have to start somewhere.
In the course I taught this semester, a philosophy of science course, we did deal at length with demarcation and I made it very clear that ID is unscientific, and that even if it was not, somehow, it's not a very good science and that it could never be a very good science. But in a history course, it's less clear if this is even relevant. An historian should explore why some community accepted or rejected a theory by doing more than simply saying the theory is right or wrong by today's standards. Unfortunately, ID arguments DO carry some "credibility" with the majority of Americans, apparently, and this is a terribly important thing to consider when discussion the debate.
Also, in my previous post I meant to say that inheritance of acquired characteristics and saltationism were two of the most famous examples IN BIOLOGY, not necessarily in the history of science. -
And Ben, it's just a fact that all historians of science agree (and they're the relevant community of experts here) that scientists generally do poor history.
PZ is certainly not trying to argue against this "insular phenomenon". Because if he was, why should biologists have any privilaged position in the debates over ID as he often claims they should? But not historians over the way history is taught? -
I doubt there will be much reasoning with Dr. Nicassio. Her syllabus defines "scientism" as Faith in Science, and she goes on to write this about it:
SCIENTIFIC: the final phase, when people turn to the "logical" and "positive" explanations provided by science.
Now, I know there are many scientists out there who would believe that, but a great number more don't. Those scientists who tend to pause to examine their epistemology probably find themselves to be pragmatists, and I would certainly label several of the ones who I know personally who don't give much thought to the topic as pragmatists as well. Plus, there's that whole falsifiability thing. Further down the article she lists several Hovind-esque "Moral Implications" of the theory of evolution.
This reminds me of a class of this sort I took a while back. The professor kept repeating, over and over, "Modern Science claims the universe is composed entirely of carbon atoms". No matter how many times anyone said to the contrary, that gem kept coming up.#: Posted by on 12/09 at 09:25 PM -
I don't think this is a case of "elitist intellectual hyper-specialisation" (whatever that is) but a recognition that training in one area does not give you authority in another.
Nor does it, a priori, give you "authority" in the field in which you specialise. There's a reason why this fallacy is referred to as an appeal to authority. Such an attitude invariably leads to the increased compartmentalisation of knowledge and frustrated anti-intellectualism of the general public.
PZ is certainly not trying to argue against this "insular phenomenon". Because if he was, why should biologists have any privilaged position in the debates over ID as he often claims they should? But not historians over the way history is taught?
As I have said, biologists are in no "privileged position" over creationists regarding the ID issue merely because they are biologists, but because they have evidence on their side, and I'd be genuinely surprised if PZ has ever insisted otherwise. Such elitist theology may work wonders for the arts, but it undermines the credibility of the sceptical and evidentiary social and non-social sciences by threatening to carve them up into competing ideologies (political economy, anyone?) at the expense of elegant and complementary systems for rational inquiry. -
"...We have many examples of intermediate grades of eye formation, and..." anyone with half an eye can see that "...their utility is clear."
#: Posted by Whimsical Monkey on 12/10 at 01:54 AM
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I'm begging for more interdisciplinary interaction between academics trying to teach material outside their discipline. Every once in a while, I run across classes that try to inject a little biology into their history...
I wish there were more examples of this as well. Sadly, academic turf/economic issues very often get in the way, with historians deeming biologists "unqualified" to cross the line, biologists making the same judgement about historians, and neither side interested in investing faculty time in experimentation. Many institutions give lip service to "interdisciplinarity" but don't really like or know what to do with genuine interdisciplinarians.
Here are a couple of old syllabi that cross the science/history line and that worked relatively well for me:
Scientific Lives (lower division undergrad)
http://rjohara.net/teaching/middlebury/bi-075.html
Darwin and His Critics (upper division undergrad)
http://rjohara.net/teaching/middlebury/bi-496.html#: Posted by Bob O'Hara on 12/10 at 01:57 AM -
"The goal of a good historian is to understand the past societies s/he studies on their own terms rather than to judge them by the standards of later societies."
True, but irrelevant to this discussion. The list of creationist objections above is wrong by the standards of its own time, not just by the standards of modern science.#: Posted by on 12/10 at 08:03 AM -
It seems that it would be more plausible for a historian to discuss what the objections were to Darwin at the time of the publishing of the Origin or whatever, and in particular to the scientific objections. Kelvin's calculation of the age of the Earth and showing that there was no time for the evolution needed is clearly one. This case is good as it genuinely leads to aporia, only resolved after the deaths of the participants.
As for genuine interdisciplinarity, it is difficult to do as it is difficult to avoid being banal in the two (etc.) fields. A philosopher of science I studied with told me one is in the right place (as a philosopher of science) when the philosophers think you're too much of a scientist, and the scientists think you're too much of a philosopher.
And as for the sorts of history of science, it seems to me (as an outsider) that there is a great split in approaches as Jonathan alluded to. I have run into both. Frankly, the science-ignorant "science studies" [(historians, philosophers, rhetoricians, sociologists, etc.)-of science] are annoying, since the content of scientific ideas matter. Science is not just a matter of institutions and personalities, however important these are - in fact, you can't figure out how important these are without appreciating the content, since you can't judge the relative contributions then. (I have a whole paper on this very topic, as it happens - see the papers section of my website, the paper called "Nothing But-ism".) Sure, one wants to avoid presentism and whig history, but I think the danger of idea-less science is far worse. (The paper cites some examples, I can produce more if people care.)
I might add also that there are a fair number of philosophers of science and technology who are also historians of same to some degree. This seems to be especially common in philosophy of biology for some reason. (Not my subspeciality, so I am not entirely sure, but ...)#: Posted by Keith Douglas on 12/10 at 08:38 AM -
The question about the eye boils down to this:
Is there a possible Darwinian pathway for the development of the eye, starting from only a photosensitive cell, such that the organ at each stage of the pathway is adaptive for the organism (or at least not badly maladaptive)?
Unless we see such a pathway in real life (not gonna happen because it takes too long), or we have a detailed step-by-step example of such a pathway (not available anywhere), how do we know such a pathway is even possible?#: Posted by on 12/10 at 04:57 PM -
Advice to PZ:
Follow your links.
This is not Lafayette University, but The University of LA-Lafayette.#: Posted by Thoreau Reader on 12/10 at 09:18 PM -
Logan,
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB301.html#: Posted by on 12/11 at 12:06 PM -
The other thing is that this is an 'Introduction to History' course that seems to cover the whole history of the world in a term. By definition this is a bad history course; trying to cover this breadth means that there will be virtually no scope for debate, for looking at disagreements, and yes, critical thinking about the issues raised. First year history courses do have to be quite general surveys because you don't really know excatly what your students know; but you are starting to introduce them to debates, to different sources, evaluation of evidence and so on.
Declaration of bias: I have a degree in medieval history, and this course covers 'the world to 1500' in one frigging lecture.#: Posted by on 12/12 at 03:13 AM