Akademik

n.

A scientific endeavour — such as a computer simulation of a biological process — that does not take into account real-world constraints such as chemical or biological data.

Biochemist Michael Behe calls evolution fact-free science. That describes the Gazette's editorial page, which conducts a fact-free inquisition against all the unconverted (to evolutionary theory) week after week.

— Stephen Bell, "Evolution an alternative," The Charleston Gazette, March 30, 2001,

I discuss below a particular example of a dynamic system — Turing's morphogenetic waves — which gives rise to just the kind of structure that, as a biologist, I want to see. But first I must explain why I have a general feeling of unease when contemplating complex systems dynamics. Its devotees are practicing fact-free science. A fact for them is, at best, the output of a computer simulation: it is rarely a fact about the world.

— John Maynard Smith, "Life at the Edge of Chaos?," The New York Review of Books, March 2, 1995