Adam Seagrave defends the layman's knowledge as the foundation of the expert's knowledge.

The Layman and the Scientist: 

A Response to Miller

by S. Adam Seagrave

The layman's understanding of the world can't be considered mere guesswork--it's the necessary starting point for understanding reality.

I am grateful to Professor Miller for his thoughtful engagement with my "eye test" argument regarding evolutionary theory, and I appreciate the opportunity to clarify certain aspects of this argument that may have given some a mistaken impression of their inspiration or tendency. The liveliness of the debate over evolutionary theory since Darwin's time undoubtedly attests, at root, to a passionate concern for the truth shared by the debate's participants. This passionate concern is a credit to Professors Miller, Barr, and Kemp, regardless of whether they or I am more correct on the point under contention.

Turning to Miller's recent critique in particular, I believe he has misunderstood my argument as dismissive of or even opposed to various modern scientific discoveries such as those in genetics or cell biology.

Using the example Miller provides in pursuance of this point, I entirely agree that the progressive understanding of elephants in terms of their DNA, cellular composition, etc. helps us to understand elephants better than we did before. And I entirely agree, moreover, that ordinary observation falls far short of disclosing a clear and complete knowledge of anything. In fact, as Miller does not quite say, it is evident that neither casual observation nor modern science will ever be capable of attaining perfect knowledge of anything. No matter how much we eventually come to know about elephants, we could never assert with any level of confidence that there is nothing more to be discovered. Scientists are in no danger of driving themselves out of business.

Scientists have, however, successfully driven the layman--and this includes the highly educated philosopher--out of the business of knowing something about the world. The primary point of disagreement between Miller and me lies not in acknowledging this state of affairs, but rather in how we evaluate it. Miller is not in the least troubled by his description of the ordinary layman's given mode of understanding as a "current best guess about what the world is like," a guess that must await the investigation of scientists for confirmation, clarification, or complete overturning.

And neither am I--in a sense and up to a point. At the risk of drawing Miller's ire, the beginning of Aristotle's Physics may be helpful in illustrating my position here. Aristotle agrees in one way with Miller's depiction of the ordinary layman's sort of understanding, describing this understanding as "confused" and "vague," and asserting that "we do not think that we know a thing until we are acquainted with its primary conditions or first principles, and have carried our analysis as far as its simplest elements." So far, so scientific.

At the same time, though, Aristotle holds that the admittedly confused and vague understanding with which we all start must be more certain, or better known to us, than what we come to understand through subsequent investigation. We can't avoid starting the process of knowledge acquisition with what we know best. The certainty of later steps depends upon the certainty of prior steps, just as the stability of a structure depends upon the stability of its foundation.

...................Read more: www.thepublicdiscourse.com