Lessons for Evolutionary Theory from My Cousin Vinny: Opinion vs. Fact

[David Shiang]

I faxed Eugenie C. Scott my Open Letter regarding Ernst Mayr’s first step in natural selection (“everything is a matter of chance”), but I haven’t heard from her. I am not sure of the reason for her lack of response, but I don’t think she can show how such a statement qualifies as science. If she can, I am very receptive.

According to Carl Sagan, science is based on "experimental results, data, observations, measurements, 'facts.'" How does “everything is a matter of chance” fit that definition?

The answer: it doesn’t. (So sorry if this offends you in any way.)

Mayr’s statement is opinion, not fact. And the consequences for evolutionary theory are quite serious. One might even say devastating.

Let’s draw a lesson from a 1992 movie called My Cousin Vinny. The climax of the film takes place in the courtroom, where the Defense Attorney (played by Joe Pesci) questions the Witness (played by Marisa Tomei) about a photo showing tire tracks made by the getaway car. (Incidentally, Tomei won an Academy Award for her role. In a “major upset,” she triumphed over Joan Plowright, Vanessa Redgrave, Miranda Richardson, and Judy Davis.)

Here is the dialog:

Defense Attorney: Does the defense’s case hold water?

Witness: No. The defense is wrong.

Defense Attorney: Are you sure?

Witness: I’m positive.

Defense Attorney: How could you be so sure?

Witness: Because there is no way that these tire marks were by a ‘64 Buick Skylark. These marks were made by a 1963 Pontiac Tempest.

Prosecutor: Objection your honor. Can we clarify to the court whether the witness is stating opinion or fact.

Judge: This is your opinion?

Witness: It’s a fact.

Defense Attorney: I find it hard to believe that this kind of information could be ascertained simply by looking at a picture.

Witness: Would you like me to explain?

Defense Attorney: I would love to hear this.

Judge: So would I.

Witness: The car that made these two equal-length tire marks had positraction. Can’t make those marks without positraction, which was not available on the 1964 Buick Skylark.

Defense Attorney: And why not? What is positraction?

Witness: It’s the limited slip differential which distributes power equally to both the right and left tires. The ’64 Skylark had a regular differential, which anyone who’s been stuck in the mud in Alabama knows, you step on the gas, one tire spins, the other tire does nothing.

Tomei’s analysis shows that the tire marks could not have been made by the car driven by the defendants, and the case against them is eventually dismissed. Her observation led her to a fact.

Mayr’s “everything is a matter of chance” is opinion, not fact.

The idea that “chance” is responsible for a mutation or variation is pure speculation and is subject to testing or experiment. As such, it cannot be considered science. Mayr and his colleagues see chance, accident, and randomness everywhere, but this view of reality is brought to the evidence, not drawn from it. Lottery thinking pervades today’s science, but it is based on opinion.

Dawkins: “The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people.”

The idea that “potential people” could be here instead of the “actual people” we really see is pure Contra-Factual Definiteness. Unfortunately for the proponents of natural selection, this is not what Sagan would call sound science. As I say in God Does Not Play Dice, “In Dawkins' hypothetical world of people who don't exist, there is no experiment or evidence. If any science is taking place, it is science fiction.”

Back to my Open Letter and quest for sound science. To borrow from Nassim Nicholas Taleb, if you know Dr. Scott, please let her know of my major gift offer for the National Center for Science Education. Time is of the essence, however.