Thoughts in a Haystack

Clive Thompson, a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine and a former Knight Science-Journalism Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has a theory. Noting that creationists take advantage of the language used by scientists to inculcate doubt in the general public's mind about evolution, he seconds the call of Australian-born physicist Helen Quinn for the scientific community to revise scientific terminology. The obvious example is the use of the term "theory," as seen in this letter in the Tifton (Georgia) Gazette by an otherwise articulate and reasonable-sounding man, who has been obviously mislead about the present state of science by the Discovery Institute and its minions, through such things as its list of "dissenters" from "Darwinism" and the supposed "icons" of evolution. Central to his position, however, is the confusion over the meaning of "theory":

Thompson correctly diagnoses the problem:

The justification for using tentative language in science is obvious:

So what do Thompson and Quinn propose:

I don't agree. While the boundaries in science between "law," "theory" and "hypothesis" have always been somewhat fluid, a "law" has never been just a "grown-up" theory. Scientific laws are, for the most part, about simple physical relationships that are subject to direct empirical confirmation. Newton's law of gravity describes how two objects act in their mutual gravity fields (under "normal" conditions) and can be repeatedly tested under easy to reproduce conditions. Theories, on the other hand, are mostly broad explanations of the interplay of the many physical properties that go into complex systems and have to be tested piecemeal and, often, indirectly.

What, for example, would the "law of evolution" entail? Common descent? But that's not in any sense a "law," it is a fact about life on Earth that could have arisen from many different, and inconsistent, natural causes, including natural selection, Lamarckism or some sort of development inherent in genetics. That, of course, doesn't even include non-natural causes, such as directed variation or progressive creationism.

Natural selection may come close to being a "law," insofar as, if the proposed conditions exist, the occurrence of selection is a logical conclusion from the premises. But even the strongest adaptationists don't claim that natural selection is coextensive with evolution, which has additional causes, such as genetic drift. It wouldn't be close to correct to call natural selection "the law of evolution."

Worst of all, scientists would have to agree to such a change in terminology and that would necessarily require widespread discussion within the scientific community. How would the creationists be kept from learning of this change and the reasons for it? If their aim is discredit science and dismantle the trust the public generally has in scientists, and it is, what better weapon could scientists hand them but an admission that they were trying to practice semantic jujitsu on the uninitiated?

Not only would calling it "the law of evolution" be incorrect, it would be a public relations nightmare far worse than the present misapprehension of the scientific meaning of "theory." There is no linguistic "magic bullet" for the public misunderstanding of science. And even if there were, it would not lie in sleight of hand or adopting the tactics of creationists. Being as honest and clear as possible and working to improve the science literacy of society may not be easy -- and certainly won't be quick -- but it is the only path consistent with the principles that science itself is practiced by.

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Update: John Wilkins has a much more detailed (and accurate) description of the relationship between theory, law and hypothesis in science.
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