Darwin Max Bagley Chapter Two - Scientific Method Internet Review

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1 I chose the Association for Psychological Science as the website that I wanted to review. I was particularly interested in the article A Commitment to Replicability by D. Stephen Lindsay. The website that I chose to review was chosen because I wanted a much greater understanding of the Scientific Method. I had been taking some pounding online from the Naturalists and Atheists because my understanding of the Scientific Method was weaker than it should have been. Chapter 2 in Introduction to Psychology 9 th Edition by James Kalat has proven to be my most favorite chapter of the book so far, particularly the sections regarding the Scientific Method. The information has proven timely and necessary. Evaluation of the Website: The authors are qualified. The purpose is to do science. The drop-down tabs are too small, making navigation a bit difficult. I can t tell the difference between advertising and articles at a glance. I was looking for the articles, and I had to scroll down the page to get at them. The website is kept current, with new articles being posted all the time. scientific research in regards to psychology. They have a positive bias towards increasing the quality of In the particular article that I chose to read and review, the author Stephen Lindsay referred us to a wide variety of reading material to enhance our understanding of the material and ideas that he was trying to present. The content was definitely relevant to my interests, because I m interested in studying the different Methodologies that are employed in the Scientific Method, besides the Naturalistic Methodologies that the Atheists are constantly referring us to. It interests me to observe the extra lengths that scientists studying psychology have to go to in order to do good, replicable science -- since the mind, or thoughts, or spirit, or psyche is non-physical and doesn t fit in well at all within the Naturalistic and Atheistic worldviews. Obviously, scientists have to go to extra lengths and employ a great deal of creativity if they want to do

2 legitimate and interesting studies and research into the human psyche. In the article, Stephen Lindsay was indeed mentioning Testing Methodologies that I had never heard of before. That interested me. Personal Reactions: I have a pro-lds blog, and I also discuss religion and politics on my Facebook Page. My chosen subject matter invites the Atheists, Naturalists, and anti-mormons to come along and pound on me for a while. I have to unfriend some of them, periodically, because they can get a bit too rabid and unruly and become more than I can handle. The reason for my interest is as follows: My study of Chapter 2 on the Scientific Method within Kalat s book, along with my renewed interest in trying to understand how they develop replicable studies and methodologies for the Science of Psychology, led me to write up a couple of articles for my blog in which I try to talk intelligibly about the Scientific Method and the new and different methodologies that have to be employed whenever scientists are trying to examine something that is intangible or non-physical. The Atheists and Naturalists would call these articles of mine, Fruits from the Poisoned Tree ; but, I would call them a psychologist s attempt to try to get a better handle on how the Scientific Method is creatively adjusted and tweaked so as to do real, actual science on the intangible human psyche. I will now append personal examples of actual content that I have written about the Scientific Method that interests me personally.

3 The Scientific Method: I am a scientist. I study and try to employ Psychology and Philosophical Logic. Psychologists consider themselves to be scientists, and they use the Scientific Method in order to pursue and document their science. However, Psychologists and professors of The Science of Philosophy run into a difficult and insurmountable problem whenever they try to train their scientific instruments onto something like Psyche or Thought. These things cannot be detected or measured with physical instruments. When dealing with the non-physical, the scientists are forced to abandon the Standard Scientific Testing Methodology and forced to develop and to use different Testing Methodologies within the Scientific Method, in order to explore and do science whenever they are dealing with the non-physical. In other words, because of the existence of Psyche or Thought and other things non-physical, the scientists were forced to develop additional Scientific Testing Methodologies before they could then examine these things scientifically using the Scientific Method. Intrigued? I know that I was when I was first introduced to this scientific reality. The best professional discussion regarding this scientific reality, that I have found so far, is in the book Introduction to Psychology 9th Edition by James W. Kalat. He is an evolutionist and tries his best to cater to the Naturalists, but he can t avoid this scientific reality and was forced to deal with it in his book. Chapter 2, Scientific Methods in Psychology, is particularly revelatory. I quote from page 29: The philosopher Karl Popper argued that because no observation proves a theory to be correct, the purpose of research is to find theories which are incorrect. That is, the point of research is to falsify the incorrect theories, and a good theory is one that withstands all attempts to falsify it. In other words, it wins by a process of elimination. A well-formed theory, therefore is falsifiable that is, stated in such clear, precise terms that we can see what evidence could count against it if of course such evidence existed. Falsifiable means that we can imagine something that would count as evidence against the theory. However, when Popper wrote that research is always an attempt to falsify a theory, he went too far. Why did Karl Popper go too far? It s because there are some things in this world that are not falsifiable. Karl Popper went too far by limiting science to naturalism and only to things that can be falsified or proven false using our physical scientific instruments! There are things in this world that cannot be falsified nor detected with scientific instruments; yet, we want to employ science in order to discover and identify and explain these things. That means that scientists had to develop new and different and more sophisticated Scientific Methodologies that could then be employed within the Scientific Method in order to explore the non-physical realities of our existence. Psychology considers itself to be a science; and, psychologists and philosophers like me consider

4 themselves to be scientists. Do you see the problem here that we have to deal with? Probably not if you are a Naturalist or a Darwinist or an Atheist and have deliberately blinded yourself to the non-physical. Psychologists run into difficulties and effectively kill their science dead if they deliberately limit themselves to naturalism and limit themselves exclusively to materialistically falsifiable evidence. Psychologists were forced to develop other Scientific Methodologies that they could then use to study Psyche or Thought scientifically using the Scientific Method. There s no way determine what a person is thinking, with our scientific instruments. If you want to know what a person is thinking, you have to ask them. Our physical instruments can indeed detect brain activity, but they cannot detect what thoughts or experiences are taking place within that brain activity. We can t read or detect a person s mind or thoughts with our scientific instruments. Mind, or consciousness, or thoughts, or spirit are not detectable with physical instruments; and thus, they are not falsifiable, because they can t be detected in the first place. How can you falsify something if you can t detect it? The original definition for Psychology was the study of the spirit or the study of the mind. Literally, the study of the psyche. The human psyche is not detectable with our physical scientific instruments, so how can you study such a thing scientifically? How can you study the non-physical or the spiritual scientifically? Well, first of all, you have to drop any pretense to Naturalism. Naturalism is a bane to science it stunts and kills scientific exploration and scientific discovery across a wide range of different sciences and scientific endeavors. Second, you have to shift over to a different mode of scientific evidence and scientific discovery. You have to shift over to the burden of proof method of doing the scientific method, or the preponderance of the evidence method of doing the scientific method, whenever you want to discuss or pursue scientific discoveries regarding the non-physical or the spiritual realms, because you can no longer rely upon the ability to falsify the evidence using the various physical instruments at our disposal. My psychology texts tell me that in order to study such a thing as spirit or mind scientifically, the scientists have to get very creative with their scientific experiments. They have to step up their game! In contrast, the Naturalists simply run away and hide, by stating that Intelligent Design, or The Study of the Spirit, or the Study of Thoughts and the Mind, or the study of God are NOT SCIENCE and NOT SCIENTIFIC. I can t count the number of times that I have heard the NOT SCIENCE claim from a Naturalist or a Darwinist or an Atheist. But, they really have nothing better to offer in defense of their beliefs. They have to in principle delete and deny anything that they can t detect with their physical instruments, because they truly believe that the physical is all that there is and all that exists. It s a very crippling and limiting worldview that the Naturalists and Atheists adopt, so that they don t have to deal with things like spirit, spirituality, intelligent designers, and God. The Naturalists and the Atheists try to take all of the fun out of life. After all, think about it, happiness, joy, pleasure, love, friendship, and feelings are to one degree or another triggered by thoughts. The

5 effects or the results of those feelings can indeed be detected with physical instruments, but the precise thoughts that triggered them cannot. A person could in fact be exhibiting a great deal of happiness and joy while he is thinking about killing his worst enemy. Physical instruments cannot detect or determine the thought that is causing the happiness or joy. It could be anything! You never know what the person is really thinking about, unless he or she tells you honestly what he or she is thinking about. So, how do psychologists study such a thing scientifically since it is impossible to get our scientific instruments to detect thoughts, or spirit, or consciousness, or mind, or psyche? How can you study these things if they can t be falsified? Those are questions that psychologists keep asking themselves all the time, because Psychology is a science and Psychologists consider themselves to be scientists. On page 29 of Introduction to Psychology 9th Edition by James Kalat, we have this quote: Instead of insisting that all research is an effort to falsify a theory, another approach is to discuss burden of proof, the obligation to present evidence to support one s claim. In science, the burden of proof is on anyone who makes a claim that should be demonstrable if it is true. These claims about Psyche or Thought or the Existence of God should be demonstrable if true. Burden of Proof is the obligation to present evidence to support one s claim! Burden of Proof is a different type of Scientific Methodology or Scientific Testing within the Scientific Method. It is a legitimate Scientific Methodology that is used all the time in criminal cases and courts of law. Since we have no ability to read a prisoner s thoughts with our scientific instruments, we have to develop other ways of getting at the truth we have to develop other Scientific Methodologies in addition to the Falsifiable Methodology. Burden of Proof is a very power and an essential Scientific Methodology. The goal is to go with the Preponderance of the Evidence. Juries do so all the time. Whether a person is guilty or innocent is demonstrable. A question that I love to ask myself from time to time is, Has God met His burden of proof? I believe that He has. Why? Well, let s run this little thought experiment. If you input the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price as the PREMISES, then it is logical to conclude that God Exists. The conclusion follows logically from the evidence or the premises. God has met His burden of proof within the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. Within those books, the preponderance of the evidences states and proves that God exists. The existence of God is demonstrable through the Scriptures and through the modern-day revelations of God and revelations from God! Belief in God and a belief in God s existence are not falsifiable; but, they are demonstrable! The scientific prediction is that if you take the LDS Scriptures seriously and treat them as truth, God s Truth, then you will find God. God meets His burden of proof in the Bible and the Book of Mormon. God s existence is not falsifiable. There s no way for us to trap God in a cage and then examine Him and falsify Him with our scientific instruments. However, the existence of God is demonstrable through a preponderance of the evidence. A lot of things in Psychology are not falsifiable or replicable. However, they are demonstrable by a

6 preponderance of the evidence. Scientists dealing with spirit or mind or thoughts have to meet their burden of proof. God deliberately met His burden of proof. However, when it comes to the other areas of Psychology and Philosophy and Theology, it can be difficult (or impossible) at times for the scientists to meet their burden of proof, but that doesn t stop them from trying. Hugh Ross PhD. and his Reasons to Believe team have developed Scientific Proofs of God s existence, through a wide variety of different sciences and scientific evidence. I believe that they successfully meet their burden of proof from time to time. Their different books using science to prove that God exists can be a fascinating read. Gerald L. Schroeder PhD. does the same thing with some of his books, including one of his books entitled The Science of God. The Science of God is not falsifiable. However, it is demonstrable. It s based upon the pursuit of the preponderance of the evidence. Drop in sometime and read some of the books from Hugh Ross or Gerald L. Schroeder and decide for yourself whether they meet their burden of proof, or not. When it comes to God, each person has to take a leap of faith either to conclude that He does not exist or to conclude that He does exist. However, a study of the scientific evidence for God s existence, the philosophical evidence for God s existence, and the revelatory evidence for God s existence does make it easier to be sure that your leap of faith is based upon True Evidence, rather than being based upon false evidence or no evidence. Since everyone has to take a leap of faith when it comes to God, you want to make sure that you are taking the right one. A demonstrable preponderance of the evidence and the Scientific Method makes that possible. God meets His burden of proof through the philosophical evidence, the scientific evidence, and the revelatory theological evidence. There is no evidence that proves that God does not exist. ALL of the evidence is on God s side, and proves through a demonstrable preponderance of the evidence that God exists. Because God deliberately met His burden of proof, we can in fact use the Scientific Method to demonstrate that God exists. Let the research and experimentation begin!

7 Macro-evolution Cannot Be Replicated: Macro-evolution is the spontaneous generation of a living cell from non-living matter. This type of macro-evolution is synonymous with resurrection from the dead or animating the dead. Macro-evolution is also one genus giving birth to a completely different genus -- like a cat giving birth to a dog, or a reptile giving birth to a mammal. That's macro-evolution. Macro-evolution is synonymous with miracle. The Scientific Method consists of four essential parts: 1. Forming a Hypothesis. 2. Designing Methodologies to Test the Hypothesis. 3. Creating and running Replicable Science Experiments to either confirm or falsify the Hypothesis. 4. Trying to determine fair and accurate ways of interpreting the Scientific Data that comes from the Experiments or Measurements. Have any of you ever had the scientific evidence that you presented labeled as "not science" by the Atheists and Naturalists to whom you presented that evidence? It's annoying and unscientific, but that's really the only defense of Naturalism and Macro-evolution that the Atheists and Naturalists have at their disposal! Why? Their baby, macro-evolution, the thing that the Atheists and Naturalists base their whole religion and worldview upon is not Replicable. Think about it! Macro-evolution through natural random processes has never once been replicated in any science lab, it cannot be replicated, and it will never be replicated. It cannot be done, because the design and creation of a science lab and a science experiment requires intelligent intervention and cannot ever take place through random luck. There is no way to make luck or random processes create a whole new life-form on demand. Nature doesn't work that way! Macro-evolution is not replicable! Therefore, macro-evolution through natural random processes violates an essential part of the Scientific Method because it cannot be replicated. Macro-evolution is a pseudo-science. It's not even a real science; but, since it has become the established paradigm, special exceptions and special pleadings are made for macro-evolution all the time. So, whenever the Atheists and Naturalists label your science experiments as pseudo-science or "not science", realize that they are being hypocrites of the worst kind, because their whole religion and whole worldview is based upon a non-replicable pseudo-science that they themselves call macro-evolution through random mutations. Macro-evolution has never been replicable, so it directly violates a necessary part of the Scientific Method. Consequently, the Evolutionists try to make it demonstrable, but they always fail to meet their burden of proof. Nobody, except for the Naturalists and the Atheists, are convinced by the evidence that the Evolutionists try to provide. There is always a better interpretation of that evidence than the one that the Evolutionists try to provide! Think about that for a moment. The Darwinists and Evolutionists and Naturalists have had 150 years to get some scientific evidence to

8 support their theory of evolution, and they have gotten none. By the very definition of macro-evolution through natural processes and random mutations, it makes it totally impossible to develop a Scientific Experiment to either verify or falsify the proposition. Belief in macro-evolution requires a huge, monumental, blind-leap of faith. That's not science! That's emotion! That's religion! There's no way to design a fair and accurate Science Experiment to either confirm or falsify macro-evolution. It can't be done! Macro-evolution cannot be falsified, and it cannot be confirmed through experiment, and it cannot be replicated. The theory of Macro-evolution violates large portions of the Scientific Method, yet the Atheists and Naturalists continue to insist that it is science and true science at that! Yet, the very same Naturalists and Atheists will take all of your science experiments and scientific data and label all of that as "not science" or "pseudo-science" whenever it contradicts the theory of evolution. That's the only way they have of defending and maintaining the theory of evolution, because there is no replicable scientific evidence that actually supports macro-evolution through random processes. Instead, the Darwinists, Naturalists, and Atheists worship macro-evolution as if it were a god. It's fascinating to watch them gushing over how perfect and prescient and knowledgeable macro-evolution is. Those dice are loaded! And, the Atheists worship every second of it. Scientists, real scientists, avoid the word "prove", except for the Darwinists, Naturalists, and Evolutionists. I can't even begin to count the number of times that the Evolutionists have made the statement that Evolution has been proven true and that Evolution is a Law and not just a theory. The Evolutionists have to stand on authority because they have no scientific evidence to actually back their claims. Evolutionism is a religion, not a science, and therefore they don't need any scientific evidence to support their claims or to believe in evolution. The Evolutionists want you to believe in Evolution -- to take that blind leap of faith and choose to believe that Evolution and Random Mutations can do all the miraculous things that the Evolutionists say that macro-evolution can do. They want you to have faith and trust in Evolution. Evolution is an idol, a false god, and they anthropomorphize it and deify it; and then, they imbue it with teleology, design, purpose, directionality, planning, desires, cunning, and intelligence. Macro-evolution rests squarely in the domain or class in which miracles, thoughts, and God reside -- the kind of "science" that we can't get our scientific instruments to detect, and the kinds of science that can't be reproduced or experimented on within a science lab. The Atheists and Naturalists are so dense and deluded that most of them don't even realize that their own science doesn't have a leg to stand on; yet, they continue to believe in the truthfulness of macro-evolution with a blind-faith that rivals and exceeds the kind of faith that a theist is capable of manifesting. Self-deception works, and it works every time! There is a great deal of denial and self-deception where macro-evolution is concerned. It's possible for the evidence (or data) to be good, but for the interpretation of the evidence to be faulty. There are a lot of faulty interpretations associated with the theory of evolution. Scientists who employ the Scientific Method have to make it a point to eliminate chance as an explanation for their scientific measurements and scientific interpretations! In good science, those are the rules! Eliminate chance so that the results can always be replicated reliably. Evolution through random chance violates this particular rule of the Scientific Method as well. In fact, macro-evolution relies upon nothing but chance to get the job done. That's not good science! It violates the Scientific Method! The fact that macro-evolution cannot be replicated, that macro-evolution has never been observed as

9 happening for real, and that new life-forms do not spontaneously generate, should be enough evidence to cause the biologists and evolutionists to doubt the veracity and usefulness of the theory of macro-evolution. But, what do we see in reality? The biologists and evolutionists continue to assert the truthfulness of macro-evolution even though all the scientific evidence shows that macro-evolution or the origin of life is impossible through natural, random, spontaneous means. The fact that the biologists and evolutionists continue to deny the scientific evidence, which proves the theory of macro-evolution is wrong, shows that the evolutionists have an emotional and personal investment in the outcome of their theory. It s not logic and science and evidence that the evolutionists are employing to support the theory of evolution, but rather it is emotion that s driving their continued belief in the veracity of the theory of evolution. There is a more parsimonious explanation for the origin of life on this planet, and that is Creation or Intelligent Design, because Genetic Engineers are already creating new species of existing organisms by genetic manipulation and genetic experimentation. According to Occam s Razor, Intelligent Design is the simplest and most feasible explanation for the origin of life on this planet rather than luck, magic, random processes, panspermia, or macro-evolution. Intelligent Design is clearly a superior explanation for the Scientific Evidence than macro-evolution or spontaneous generation. Macro-evolution through natural processes of any kind is NOT replicable in any way, shape, or form in any kind of science laboratory. Macro-evolution or spontaneous generation has never been witnessed! Even our world as a whole has failed to exhibit or replicate macro-evolution of any kind. We have been waiting for over 150 years for the evolutionists to come up with any kind of scientific evidence to support their theory of macro-evolution, and so far they have come up with none. In contrast, scientists have discovered that to create whole new life forms would require a monumental amount of new information, genetic experimentation, genetic engineering, and a deliberate decision by intelligent beings to create that completely new life form. These things don t just put themselves together! Proteins, genomes, living cells, and living life forms do not spontaneously generate or put themselves together. It requires nano-machinery and intelligent designers and programmers to put those kinds of things together! Remember, macro-evolution is not replicable, and it cannot be measured. If you are to believe in macro-evolution, the scientists proposing the theory have to meet their burden of proof, which they have repeatedly failed to do because macro-evolution cannot be reproduced naturally and randomly anywhere in this world. When it comes time to interpret Scientific Evidence or Scientific Data, there has always been a more parsimonious explanation than macro-evolution or random chance. Creation or Intelligent Design has always been a more parsimonious explanation of the Scientific Evidence. It has been there all along. Stephen Jay Gould had to go far out of his way in order to create the theories of saltation and punctuated equilibrium in order to make evolution look more like Creation than it really is. Many Evolutionists try to put a lot of magic into evolution so that evolution more closely resembles Creation or Intelligent design. That's not good science, because it violates Occam's Razor. When it comes to Origin Sciences, there is also an inherent flaw when it comes time to take measurements or run the experiment. The flaw is that there's no way for any of us to go back in time 3.8 billion years and watch what really happened. The origin of the first living cell is not a replicable event. Any kind of Origin

10 Science suffers from an inability to reproduce the First Event. The best we can do when it comes to the Origin Sciences is to wait for God to tell us how He really did it. The veracity, stability, surety, and accuracy of the scientific evidence supporting macro-evolution has been misstated and misrepresented and grossly exaggerated in the media and by the evolutionists and Darwinists and naturalists for decades now. There is no hard evidence to support their theory, yet they continue to insist that it is true. Psychologists would call that a state of denial. Whether you are talking about the creationists or the evolutionists, the primary fundamental flaw in their scientific studies is the fact that there s no way for any of us to go back 3.8 billion years in time and watch what really happened. Any scientific evidence regarding the origin of life on this planet is subject to a multitude of conflicting interpretations or explanations. The data can be interpreted any way that the scientists want to interpret the data, and only God knows which interpretation is right and true.

11 Content and Reference Material: The Scientific Method: The Scientific Proof of God's Existence: Association for Psychological Science: The Chosen Article: proving-replicability-an-interview-with-psychological-science-editor-d-stephen-lindsay.html Introduction to Psychology, 9 th Edition by James W. Kalat: