The Nature of Science 21Science is open to all sorts of ideas, from the conventional to the wacky. It doesn’t matter
where they came from, but they all have to pass muster. If your ideology has failed the test
of science, you can’t just claim you’re a misunderstood genius—it is more likely that your
cherished hypothesis is just plain wrong. Scientists are too busy, and there are too many
worthwhile and important scientific goals for them to pursue for them to waste their time
testing and evaluating every wild scheme that comes along. The fringe element might wail
that they are persecuted and misunderstood geniuses. But if they want to be taken seriously,
they must play by the rules of science: get to know other scientists, exchange ideas, be will-
ing to change your own ideas, present your results at scientific conferences, and submit them
to the scrutiny of peer-reviewed journals and books. If your ideas can survive this rigorous
gantlet, then they will get the attention of scientists that they deserve.
The list of logical and scientific fallacies goes on and on (see Sagan 1996:210–217;
Shermer 1997:44–61), so I will not try to cover all of them here. As we review the scientific
evidence discussed in the latter part of this book, we should always have in the back of our
minds questions such as: How do we test this hypothesis? Is it falsifiable or unfalsifiable? Is
the evidence strong enough to support an extraordinary claim? Is the claim supported by
multiple cases and statistical testing, or is it just anecdotal? Does the arguer use quotations
out of context or flaunt their credentials? Does the arguer present a false dilemma? Does the
arguer attempt to rescue their failing belief system with special pleading and ad hoc hypoth-
eses, or are they willing to accept that their conclusions might be wrong?
Follow the Evidence Wherever It May Lead
Sit down before a fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived
notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall
learn nothing.
—Thomas Henry HuxleyBelief systems are so powerful that many people have difficulty when the evidence begins
to accumulate against them. As we just discussed, it’s human nature to cling to a cherished
idea and not reject a belief system in the face of new evidence but to explain it away with
ad hoc rationalizations. To many people, the comfort of the belief system is more important
than the self-deception they are willing to employ to salvage it. Most of the time, we don’t
worry about people who have their own beliefs, as long as they don’t try to impose them on
us, or as long as their belief systems don’t lead to dangerous actions, such as flying airplanes
into buildings.
It’s another thing when people reject scientific evidence because of their belief systems,
yet keep claiming to be scientists. The American creationist movement is a good example of
this. Proponents try to find as many members of their group as possible who have advanced
degrees and then advertise these people prominently, as if the fact that a few of them passed
through to the Ph.D. level of education makes them experts on everything. As we already
discussed, the Ph.D. is irrelevant unless it is in the field of study that is being argued. Like-
wise, these creationist “authorities” almost always freely admit that they are driven by their
fundamentalist religious views and reject evolution because their predetermined belief sys-
tem forced them to. For example, in Ashton’s 2000 book, In Six Days: Why 50 Scientists Choose