Edutopia Gets it Wrong

A recent article in Edutopia tackles the nature of science question. The author, Christopher Thomas Scott, attempts to distinguish between facts, theories, and laws, but bungles it in a way that just adds to creationists' confusion about evolution's place in biology:

We don't yet talk about the law of evolution, because the theory is still being refined and polished.

No, no, no! For comparison, here's the National Academy of Science's definition of terms that should inform all such discussions about the nature of science (emphasis mine):

Glossary of Terms Used in Teaching About the Nature of Science

• Fact: In science, an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed.
• Law: A descriptive generalization about how some aspect of the natural world behaves under stated circumstances.
• Hypothesis: A testable statement about the natural world that can be used to build more complex inferences and explanations.
• Theory: In science, a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses.

As I repeatedly stress with my students, theories do not grow up to become laws. Think about it, Newton's Laws did not become laws after decades of testing and refinement, they sprang from his mind as laws because they are descriptive in nature - they do not explain WHY or HOW bodies in motion tend to stay in motion, e.g., simply that they do under prescribed circumstances (no external forces working against their motion). Another important aspect of laws is that they tend to be stated mathematically. Since we are describing nature, we can usually quantify these observations - for all the words we use to teach Newton's laws, at least in the lower grades, it all boils down to f=ma.

On the other hand, as the NAS definition of theory suggests, there are many laws that are Incorporated into the theory of evolution - for example, Darwin himself referred to the major components of his theory of natural selection as laws: reproduction & growth, variability, overproduction of offspring, struggle for survival, etc. (Source)

Part of the confusion arises, perhaps, from the fact that both theories and laws (and hypotheses for that matter) are inductive propositions. They both look at a limited, imperfect, set of data and infer order and predictability on a larger scale. From this derives the caveat that all scientific knowledge, both theories and laws (and to a lesser degree "facts" themselves), are "tentative" and subject to refinement or dismissal.

A final point about terminology - "scientists" aren't particularly hung up on these sometimes hair-splitting debates, they are too busy DOING science, while the ID crowd, conversely, spend all their time (and money) trying to confuse people with words and doing no science whatsoever to support their so-called "theory."

UPDATE


This article in the same issue by the same author is a lot more satisfying.