Did you know evolution was 'in crisis?' Neither did I, but Jason Rosenhouse at Scienceblogs is on the case, this time debunking a somewhat sing-songy phrase by philosopher of science John Dupre.
Now, we need more philosophers of science as much as we need fewer philosophers. Unlike their kooky humanities counterparts, legitimate philosophers of science get both the context of science and its bigger meaning. While being a philosopher is easy, because it's all made-up nonsense these days, a philosopher of science needs to have a strong grounding in both. Some of my favorite physics articles ever on Science 2.0 were written by a philosophy professor.
That said, any philosopher knows words have meaning and using them in ways that de-construct science, by accident or on purpose, is going to get called out if they are wrong. Rosenhouse does that nicely, first showing all the things Dupre has done right so that his criticism has its own context.
The criticism is over “Evolutionary Theory’s Welcome Crisis” and then the sentence, "The creationists are right about one thing: contrary to the impression given by much popular writing on the subject, the theory of evolution is in crisis."
The problem, he notes, and I won't belabor it because this is in the Cool Links section so it's better to just go read his article,
is not simply that it is politically unwise to phrase things as Dupre has done. It is that Dupre’s statement is completely false, and not at all supported by anything that comes after it. When creationists tell their flock that evolution is a theory in crisis — and I can tell you from personal experience that they use that phrasing routinely — do you think they have in mind any of the esoteric points Dupre is discussing? Of course not.
He thinks the title of the essay should instead have been “New Developments Show Evolution is More Interesting Than We Thought” and I agree, so I made it the title of this linking blurb.
Article: Evolution is Not in Crisis by Jason Rosenhouse, Scienceblogs.com
