#scientific errors

“The history of science, like the history of all human ideas, is a history of irresponsible dreams, of obstinacy, and of error. But science is one of the very few human activities - perhaps the only one - in which errors are systematically criticized and fairly often, in time, corrected. This is why we can say that, in science, we often learn from our mistakes, and why we can speak clearly and sensibly about making progress there.”

100% correct. It's really weird.

They act like faith is a valid alternate form of knowledge production. They say things like "science can't know everything" and "god is beyond human conception" and "it's arrogant (or sometimes, sad) to think there isn't anything other than what science can find."

And then they torpedo the whole thing by saying things about "scientific miracles," things that science has (supposedly) verified. Which is another way of saying "yes, my god can be tested and verified" - if not the god, then at least its footprints on our reality.

These are two completely contradictory claims. They defend the absence of their god by saying it's undetectable, then insist it has been detected.

What's also true though is that it makes their scripture and their god subservient to the scientific process. That is, the bible and quran are not authoritative. If they were, then you could reliably derive divine truth through the scripture without having to "resort" to validating it with mere human science.

It's therefore an admission of the worthlessness of "faith." If "faith" was epistemologically (how we decide what is true) valid and reliable, why would anything held through faith need to be scientifically accurate?

Religious scholars insisted for centuries that the Earth was flat because their book said so. It was the Truth™, and those who said otherwise were blaspheming heretics and liars. Now religious apologists try to pretend that their scripture knew it all along, such as pretending that a circle is the same as a sphere (or spheroid), or that "spreading" the Earth out means stretching it like an ostrich egg... despite the Earth being an oblate spheroid, not a prolate spheroid (egg) anyway.

What this means is that humans can't derive knowledge from scriptures. It means their god doesn't know the shape of the Earth, or can't communicate it accurately. It means divine knowledge must be adjudicated by human knowledge. Worse, it means divine knowledge is altered by human knowledge, since it means that, like divine morality, what "god" knows is beholden to, and changes based on, what man knows.

Whenever "scientific miracles" comes up, I like to refer to the following lists:

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Biblical_scientific_foreknowledge#Criteria_for_actual_foreknowledge

In order for a statement to be Biblical scientific foreknowledge, it must fit five criteria:

1. It must be correct. A statement cannot be scientific foreknowledge if it is incorrect, because the scientific method necessarily eschews incorrect data. 2. It must be in the Bible. A statement cannot be Biblical scientific foreknowledge if it isn't in the Bible, because the only possible source of Biblical scientific foreknowledge is the Bible. 3. It must be unambiguous. A statement cannot be scientific foreknowledge if it is ambiguous, both because science is necessarily precise and because ambiguity allows modern science to be shoehorned into ancient religion when none is present. 4. It must have been outside of contemporary knowledge. A statement cannot be scientific foreknowledge if it was already known, because this makes the "foreknowledge" into merely "knowledge" and makes divine intervention unnecessary. 5. It must have been outside of contemporary technology. A statement cannot be considered scientific foreknowledge if it was knowable with the technology of the time, because this makes divine intervention unnecessary.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Qur%27anic_scientific_foreknowledge#Criteria_for_scientific_foreknowledge

For a statement to be Qur'anic foreknowledge, it must fit all of the five following criteria:

1. It must be accurate. A statement cannot be Qur'anic foreknowledge if it is not accurate, because knowledge (and thus foreknowledge) excludes inaccurate statements. TLDR: It's true. 2. It must be in the Qur'an. A statement cannot be Qur'anic foreknowledge if it is not in the Qur'an, because Qur'anic by definition foreknowledge can only come from the Qur'an itself, rather than modern reinterpretations of the text. TLDR: It's in plain words in the Qur'an. 3. It must be precise and unambiguous. A statement cannot be Qur'anic foreknowledge if meaningless philosophical musings or multiple possible ideas could fulfill the foreknowledge, because ambiguity prevents one from knowing whether the foreknowledge was intentional rather than accidental. TLDR: Vague "predictions" don't count. 4. It must be improbable. A statement cannot be Qur'anic foreknowledge if it reasonably could be the result of a pure guess, because foreknowledge requires a person to actually know something true, while a correct guess doesn't mean that the guesser knows anything. This also excludes contemporary beliefs that happened be true but were believed to be true without solid evidence. TLDR: Lucky guesses don't count. 5. It must have been unknown. A statement cannot be Qur'anic foreknowledge if it reasonably could be the result of an educated guess based off contemporary knowledge, because foreknowledge requires a person to know a statement when it would have been impossible, outside of supernatural power, for that person to know it. TLDR: Ideas of the time don't count.

I've never seen anything survive past #3 in either case. And that's even with being extremely generous about #1 and #2.

Every single time you can tell it's some kind of metaphorical or poetic re-interpretation with 20/20 hindsight.

What's more troubling is that the "scientific miracles" claim always reveals a profound lack of understanding of how science works. Science must account for all the data, not just the "hits" but the "misses." If it’s going to ignore something, it must explain why, or build into the theory the limitations of the particular principle. If we found a single Precambrian rabbit, theists would be on the warpath that evolution is wrong. And they probably should be.

But what's abundantly clear is that they deflect, distract, make stupid excuses, or just don’t care about the many, many misses in their own scripture. Okay, so the bible/quran says the Earth is "round" - they don't, and insist it's flat, even though this was already known among the Greeks - but let's push past that. Jesus thinks that disease is caused by demons, and Allah thinks that sperm comes from between the spine and the ribs, and both books insist that the Earth was formed before the stars, including the sun, and that the moon is its own source of light.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/the-texas-sharpshooter

Those are metaphors, we're told. Except that once again, we can only know that by judging the divine knowledge through the authority of science, and only after the fact. If you squint. And don't take it too seriously. Or literally. Or misrepresent a complex principle in overly simplistic terms, Or take statements that aren't prophecies and pretend they are.

The Ex-Muslim Guide to Scientific Miracles in the Qur'an.

The Simpsons stated that Donald Trump would be President, so how can The Simpsons not be true??

Maybe if you spent more time considering your critical thought process instead of scouring the Quran for bits to creatively reinterpret after the fact, with 20/20 hindsight, in a desperate bid to appear relevant, you might be more successful. Because this is not how you do critical thought.

Seriously, just stop. It’s embarrassing, and you’re fooling nobody.

Who should I believe? You, or the founder of the Islamic Research Foundation?

Are you suggesting he’s Not A True Muslim™? How could he get it so wrong if it’s so clearly spelled out for all Muslims to see and understand? You know, as opposed to you trying to pummel a square peg into a round hole.

The Qur’an states that man was created instantaneously from clay (salsalin صَلْصَٰلٍ) / mud (hamain حَمَإٍ). There is no indication that the author is aware of the evolution of human life over millions of years nor our common ancestry with apes and primates.

“We created man from sounding clay, from mud molded into shape;”

Similarly, it says that the first man was created from dust (turabin تُرَابٍ).

“Lo! the likeness of Jesus with Allah is as the likeness of Adam. He created him of dust, then He said unto him: Be! and he is.”

The Qur’an and Hadith contains stories concerning the ‘first humans’ and how all people are descended from these two earliest ancestors. It states that humans were created in a garden (paradise) and then brought to earth fully formed. This view of the origins of human life is clearly contradicted by DNA evidence and the numerous fossils of pre-homosapien species that lived on earth for millions of years before modern humans first evolved.

“He it is Who created you from a single being, and of the same (kind) did He make his mate,”

Another verse is clear on literal descent of humanity from one man by sexual means (i.e. semen) after Allah had created him out of clay.

“Who made all things good which He created, and He began the creation of man from clay; Then He made his seed from a draught of despised fluid;

The word translated “seed” in Pickthall’s translation is nasl نسل, which means progeny (i.e. descendants).

Genetic evidence overwhelmingly indicates that humans diverged from earlier species as a population, not a single couple.

BTW, the Quran also can’t count to one.

Zero steps forward, five steps back…

Misconceptions, preconceived notions, and outright falsehoods are threads found in three new books covering a wide swath of disciplines; from archeology and economics to epigenetics, history and neuroscience, there is much to ponder here. 

“In recent years, new areas of biology, especially epigenetics and neuroscience, have enthralled the public imagination. They have been used as powerful arguments for developing social policy in a particular direction, from early intervention in the lives of disadvantaged children to seeking 'biomarkers' as identifiers of criminality. Blinded by Science, written by leading commentators, critically examines the capabilities and limitations of these biotechnologies, exploring their implications for policy and practice.” -- Provided by publisher

“In this long-awaited follow-up to his well-regarded bestseller, The Lady Tasting Tea, David Salsburg opens a door to the amazing widespread use of statistical methods in Errors, Blunders, and Lies by looking at historical examples of errors, blunders and lies from areas as diverse as archeology, law, economics, medicine, psychology, sociology, Biblical studies, history, and war-time espionage. In doing so, he shows how, upon closer statistical investigation, errors and blunders often lead to useful information. And how statistical methods have been used to uncover falsified data.” -- Provided by publisher

Brilliant ideas gone wrong and the essential need for replication: adventures in scientific research, on the new book shelf.

“Without replication, the trustworthiness of scientific research remains in doubt. Although replication is increasingly recognized as a central problem in many scientific disciplines, repeating the same scientific observations of experiments or reproducing the same set of analyses from existing data is remarkably difficult. In Stepping in the Same River Twice, an international team of biologists, philosophers, and historians of science addresses challenges and solutions for valid replication of research in medicine, ecology, natural history, agriculture, physiology, and computer science.” --Provided by publisher