Question: Kansas School Board Vs Rational thought - What is the state of play?
November 25th, 2005 by Deoxy
I know this is mentioned in other topics but I would really like to establish a point where we can just get updates on where we are with the Evolution Debate in Public Schools.
I've read as much as I can from other topics here on this forum, from news sites, from various blogs and opinion columns but I still cannot figure out what, currently, is the state of play in the ongoing attempts by the Christian Right to ride roughshod over the American education system.
Are the attempts to install Intelligent Design BS into official public school curriculums still going on or are we done?
I heard that one all-Republican anti-evolution school board was fired and replaced with a board of all Democrats and pro-Darwinian ppl. I'm not sure where that was though - was that in Kansas?
I'm lost I have to confess.
I'm guessing that someone here is savvy enough to know the big picture of whats going on.
Thanks in advance to anyone who can clear this subject up for me.
Deoxy.
I've read as much as I can from other topics here on this forum, from news sites, from various blogs and opinion columns but I still cannot figure out what, currently, is the state of play in the ongoing attempts by the Christian Right to ride roughshod over the American education system.
Are the attempts to install Intelligent Design BS into official public school curriculums still going on or are we done?
I heard that one all-Republican anti-evolution school board was fired and replaced with a board of all Democrats and pro-Darwinian ppl. I'm not sure where that was though - was that in Kansas?
I'm lost I have to confess.
I'm guessing that someone here is savvy enough to know the big picture of whats going on.
Thanks in advance to anyone who can clear this subject up for me.
Deoxy.
November 25th, 2005 at 11:32 am
Try these.
http://www2.ncseweb.org/wp/
http://www.pandasthumb.org/
http://aclupa.blogspot.com/
Just about all the information you could want on the evolution/creationism/intelligent design fiasco.
November 25th, 2005 at 11:56 am
As for Kansas, the Kansas Board of Education by a 6-4 vote, chose to redefine science so that it is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena.
Interestingly enough, ID has been justified thusly:
http://www.intelligentdesignnetwork.org/
Of course it’s just another way to say humans were specially planned and are uniquely relevant: God did it and he did it all for us.
Dover citizens chose an entirely new school board by replacing all eight Intelligent Design proponents with Dover Cares Campaign contenders. It was a clean sweep. However, winners received an average of 51% of the vote, the losers 49%, so the issue was dangerously close to being decided differently.
http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/11/apparent_end_of.html
November 25th, 2005 at 1:06 pm
I suppose the big picture is bleak.
On the one hand, you have a stunningly large percentage of the population that believes in a more or less literal interpretation of Genesis and religious fundamentalists trying and succeeding to wreck science education where it contradicts their accepted dogma.
Then you have an administration that more or less overtly meddles with the free pursuit of science, depending on whether scientific results are ideologically correct or not.
I will leave it as an exercise to the reader what the likely longterm results will be…
November 25th, 2005 at 1:21 pm
try this blog too:
http://redstaterabble.blogspot.com
November 25th, 2005 at 2:33 pm
The one with the school board sweep was Dover, PA, I think. Rep’s were the only ones to vote in favor of ID (although there were a few that voted against it), and it came back to bite them in the ass.
November 25th, 2005 at 2:57 pm
Unfortunately, I have to agree with elwed that the prospects are bleak. True, ID suffered a setback in Dover, but its backers are not going to take that sitting down. Unfortunately, the inherent absurdity of ID posing as “science” is not apparent to most Americans (here in Europe the issue basically does not exist- yet).
Why is this? My hypotheses:
a) evolution is harder to understand (even Darwin said it was “a real stretcher”) than “some very intelligent being designed the complicated stuff”.
b) ID fits more comfortably with religion (for most Americans) than evolution.
c) Americans are ahead of everyone else in the world in relying on celebrities to tell them what to think (don’t worry, the rest of the world is catching up!), and ID has very good PR.
For instance, the Discovery Institute has been able to convince many people that the flapdoodle about ID is a controversy among scientists, when in reality there is no scientific controversy. But to understand that, you need to go deeper into it than a ten-second sound bite from a newscaster who probably doesn’t understand the issue at all, and who can be bothered nowadays?
A depressing example of this was the little blogspat last week or so between Scott Adams, of Dilbert fame, and PZ Meyers, the crusading biologist of Pharyngula (you will have to scroll down a bit to find the posts and counterposts, but wade in at your own risk- there are well over a thousand comments). Adams basically repeated a bunch of creationist canards (without explicitly endorsing them), and said he didn’t know whom to trust in the debate between (as he put it) “darwinists and ID”. When PZ jumped on him (supported by his laser-armed death squid minions), and obliged with info, Adams replied that none of the sources were credible, because they all made money and/or careers from peddling their opinions.
This was annoying enough, coming from someone who probably wields a fair amount of influence in the ideosphere. But the truly appalling part was the number of comments from dismally uninformed readers, who were obviously yearning for some authority or celebrity to tell them what to think, and not interested at all in checking out the many sources (on both sides of the issue) and sorting it out for themselves. Grrr.
November 25th, 2005 at 3:13 pm
Then Intelligent Design is basically Intelligent Philosophy and has nothing whatsoever to do with science.
“Investigation of the nature, causes, or principles of reality, knowledge, or values, based on logical reasoning rather than empirical methods” - Dictionary.com
Human nature is such that we will always search for cause and reason but we do ourselves disservice by accepting easy answers. As the human knowledge base grows, we become more aware that if organisms are anything remotely akin to being intelligently designed, they are intelligently (in order to survive and reproduce) designing themselves.
November 25th, 2005 at 6:38 pm
Zilch: It doesn’t require a towering intellect to understand the principles behind evolution. The way I see it, faith trumps fact for most Americans, which isn’t a cheerful thought. For that matter, it remains to be shown that faith is indeed the virtue it’s made out to be.
Brock: ID hardly qualifies as a topic of philosophical discourse - it’s an answer begging the question and not a very intersting one at that. As somebody on Slate (I believe) put it: Intelligently designed organisms are intelligently designed by an intelligent designer. That’s pretty much all there is to ID…
November 25th, 2005 at 7:13 pm
I’m a college student in KS so I’ve gotten a front row seat here. Here’s an outline.
1999-
School board decides to downplay evolution and subject it to heavy critisism.
2000-
Conservatives lose majority on school board. Evolution restored to rightful status.
2005-
KS school board once again decides its time to critisize evolution. Begin talking of new standards. National Academy of Sciences and one other group deny KS the right to use their preprepared standards. Thus school board has to rewrite standards from scratch.
New standards come up for vote in November but have not yet been written. Regardless, they’re approved.
KS approves a new director (Bob Corkins) for the school system that has absolutely no experience in teaching or organizational skills. Pushes ID and attempts to strong arm in a “voucher system” that would allow parents that didn’t want their kids going to public school to recieve funding to send them elsewhere.
The university of Kansas prepares a class on Intelligent Design teaching it in the religion department as mythology. Professor teaching the class sends an Email to the KU atheist group (SOMA) saying this will be a “slap in their big fat faces”. A spy in the discussion group forwards it to fundies and news outlets across the state demonstrating how Christians are being “persectued”.
2006-
4 of the 5 school board members that voted to revise the standards come up for reelection. Several candidates have stept up to oppose them (majorily from the republican moderate side) and it looks to be a repeat of the 2000 reversal and similar to the sweep of Dover’s school board.
November 25th, 2005 at 11:01 pm
This is part of the problem. The people in the position to explain evolution in an effective and persuasive manner act like arrogant asses when it comes to those that believe in God. This teacher is prime example number 1.
zilch, I like PZ Meyers. I have no doubt that when it comes to the science he is dead on right. Have even turned to him to explain to me some material I ran across and didn’t understand. The man was very generous, and was kind enough to respond. However, his website preaches to the folks that want to mock the masses. If persuasion and education are the goal of the website, it misses the mark badly. Mocking somebody who is ignorant only serves to ensure that the person now has a personal motive to ensconce themselves in their ignorance.
November 25th, 2005 at 11:36 pm
Consiquliere, I’d agree that people acting like arrogant asses don’t help the situation. However, the email in which his comment was made was a private communication that was only intended to reach the people int he SOMA group.
The big difference here is that it was private, unlike the Christians who openly mock anyone disagreeing with them making up terms such as “evilutionists”.
November 26th, 2005 at 12:22 am
Consi,
did you succumb to the rationalistic fallacy? If so, I’ll put you on notice that you just invaded moonbat turf. Watch out or we’ll fling guano…
The principles behind evolution can be understood by people with a less than towering intellect, which leads me to suspect that either the American population is plain stupid or there is another reason for the controversy about evolution in this country.
Personally, I doubt that any amount of explaining, small words, cute graphs, or whatnot will convince creationists, who seem invariably willfully ignorant.
For what it’s worth, I disagree with the professor. Even if your motives are transparent, it’s not prudent to voice them where they may be overheard. He should have done the course and kept his cards close to his chest; a closed mouth gathers no foot, eh.
Regarding PZ Myers, it is up to him to explain what objectives he pursues with his site.
The way I see it, it’s not a question of piercing the veil of ignorance, but two firmly entrenched camps facing off with no possibility of either side yielding an inch - a majority of people that reject evolution because it contradicts religious dogma and/or questions that Homo Sapiens Sapiens is the crown of creation on one side, and those that can reconcile with their religious beliefs, if any, and to whom the science simply makes sense.
What you have looks like trench warfare to me; instead of HE and incendiary shells each side lobbs more or less carefully crafted mockery at the other.
Quite frankly, what’s your estimate of the percentage of creationists that are sincerely open to abandoning their position when confronted with Evolution 101 course work?
November 26th, 2005 at 1:23 am
Hi All,
Two big thank you’s to sandyw1952 and Matt for the links - I’ll cut my way through those soon.
Another tip of the hat and a thank you to Brock for comments and a summary of the recent arguments being used by the Kansas School board - That really helped me catch up and understand the meat of the debate from the Creationists perspective.
Thank you to elwedriddsche (Wow, that’s quite a name!) for comments on the issue although I think that you might be being a little pessimistic - I don’t think that it is the majority of Christians that are fans of this ID stuff.
Pope John Paul did recognize Darwinian Evolution and the “Big Bang” theory and accept both as fact conceding that the stories of “Genesis” are metaphoric fables representing the spiritual occurances within the physical truth of the “Big Bang”.
Most Churches officially reject the strict literalist interpretations of the bible and the offshoots that have given rise to the ID movement and prefer to leave the science class well alone and instead simply add the more unassuming stance that God triggered the big bang and Darwinian Evolution.
I Don’t think it’s quite as bleak as some might believe although it is singularly depressing that we are in 2005 and yet still there is not a universal consistent agreement in the 1st world to accept science.
Thank you to arc_legion for clearing up the issue of the school board sweep - thanks for you clear, concise summary of that issue.
Thank you to Zilch too - it’s sad that Scott Adams is misled by Creationists, I’ve always been such a Dilbert fan being a software engineer myself. Thanks for your comments, Zilch.
Thank you to VoijaRisa for your summary of the timeline of events in the evolution Vs ID debate in Kansas.
Finally, thankyou to Consigliere for comments. There is an old saying you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, If only the evolutionists were a little more humble sometimes and realized that a little kindness and understanding will win over sarcasm, mockery and arrogance every time when you are trying to get people to accept your side of an argument maybe this wouldnt be happening.
I personally believe that many scientists are arrogant, impatient and unkind even to people like myself, a lifelong atheist, supporter of scientific causes and arguments, and someone who has a scientific degree under his belt too.
Many seem to think they are too good to stoop down and explain to someone they consider a “lesser mind” to give them the time of day needed to give people enough of an understanding of evolution that one can believe in it’s concept.
This is a really bad thing for the scientific community.
Thank you all for your comments.
Regards,
Deoxy.
November 26th, 2005 at 2:15 am
Okay, here’s the deal. I’m a born again Christian, and I happen to believe the Biblical version of creation. “Why,” you may ask? Because the Bible claims that this is the true story.
Now, if it can be shown that this account is not true, then one has no choice but to discount the authority of the Bible as unreliable. It would then be difficult to believe ANY of it.
The thing is, I’m not threatened by scoffers who claim that the biblical account isn’t true. After all, biblical salvation is a matter of FAITH. People disbelieved in Christ’s own lifetime, EVEN THOUGH many of them saw miracles that he performed.
At any rate, most evolutionist that I’ve talked with ultimately admit that if it could be shown to them that the biblical account of creation were in fact true, they still wouldn’t be interested in a religious faith.
The one thing that consistently bothers me about evolutionists is the pompous condescension with which they regard those of faith. And the ironic part of it is the fact that the theory of evolution is every bit as much a decision of faith as is ID.
Here’s the thing, species evolving within their own species is NOT the argument. Where evolution completely breaks down is in trying to prove that there has been evolution from lower life forms to higher life forms. This specious argument is completely unsupported in the fossil record. But I don’t even have to enter into an argument like this, since there real issue isn’t even evolutiion, its the origin of species. Science is completely bankrupt on this element.
The desparate hope that water can be found on Mars, with the idea that some how amino acids arrived from somewhere else in the solar system is absurd. Whom of us didn’t see the space shuttle explode a couple of years ago upon reentry? Granted, there were highly combustible rocket fuels involved, but anyone who is old enough to remember the Apollo flights, (as I am,) remembers how hot the unpowered lunar module became upon reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere. I don’t have to be a scientist to be able to know that it would be very difficult for amino acids to survive those temperatures.
And not only that, but these amino acids have to find their way into the cosmic pool of sludge and swim around and find each other in order to attach themselves in just the proper order billions of times in order to magically turn into DNA.
Oh yeah, that’s right, we’re supposed to add the element of time to the mix, and that solves everything, right? But, I guess I didn’t realize those amino acids could survive the millions of years it takes for this miracle to happen. Stooopud me!
Hey, I almost forgot that pesky third law of thermodynamics. Crap, that blows everything, the fact that everything in the known universe DEVOLVES into a random state of chaos, and for evolution to work completely violates that principle.
And the scientific community accuses Christians of having faith? I’d like to see the Vegas oddsmakers calculate the odds of a “Big Bang,” or whatever other current theories exist on the origin of species.
November 26th, 2005 at 2:25 am
Incidentally, I forgot to include this in my previous diatribe, but as a conservative Christian, I DO NOT expect nor do I want the public schools teaching my kids about creationism. That’s my job as a parent.
I do think, though, that science ought to be honest enough to admit that the current crop of theories about the origin of species are just that— theories.
November 26th, 2005 at 2:50 am
I’ve read some Greek mythology. Does that mean Mt Olympus is real, and the Greek gods are just as real as yours?
We’re not the ones making that claim. The burden of proof lies with you.
You apparantly don’t understand what a scientific theory is. And they DO admit theories are theories - why do you think they are called theories? They are constantly being tested, but you won’t hear much about it unless something contradictory comes up and can be proven as such.
Understand, not believe. For a number of people, if you can’t put it in a simpler term than “God did it”, they can’t/won’t understand it.
November 26th, 2005 at 3:00 am
Oh, I gotta subscribe to this thread.
November 26th, 2005 at 3:42 am
Hey Ragman:
“I’ve read some Greek mythology. Does that mean Mt Olympus is real, and the Greek gods are just as real as yours? “
I’m not an expert on Greek mythology, but that’s not the point. My argument is based on the fact that the Bible CLAIMS to not only be a canon that shows a way for humankind to be reconciled to God, it also purports to be a historical record of the origin of species. Not only is the claim made, but it is backed up by the actual historical record.
This is not to say that Greek mythology, and for that matter other world religions don’t make the same claim. It’s just that I happen to believe the Judeo Christian record, for a variety of reasons that are beyond the scope of this discussion. I can just say the arguments are quite compelling.
====================================
“Now, if it can be shown that this account is not true…
We’re not the ones making that claim. The burden of proof lies with you.”
Perhaps there is some truth to this statement, however, for the scientific explanations of origin to be true requires that ID or creationism must be vanquished. They cannot both be true in their current form, which, again, requires that science at least to handle the basic arguments from the other side.
====================================
“I do think, though, that science ought to be honest enough to admit that the current crop of theories about the origin of species are just that— theories.
You apparantly don’t understand what a scientific theory is. And they DO admit theories are theories - why do you think they are called theories? They are constantly being tested, but you won’t hear much about it unless something contradictory comes up and can be proven as such.”
No, I DO precisely understand scientific theory. The trouble is that science today arrogantly posits ALL scientific theory as fact, in other words seeking to employ a “blanket stamp of approval,” and that any thing based on faith to be rejected out of hand. Unfortunately, this violates the principle of scientific theory or the scientific method. In the absence of empirical evidence for these so-called scientific theories, the scientific community should at least CONSIDER faith-based assertions, at which and until they can be discounted. My point is that the scientific community is not able to RULE OUT creationist theories with anything other that outright dismissal because they sound preposterous. Well, this is in direct contradiction to how science approaches evolution or big bang, by giving the benefit of the doubt. Consider this: not much more than a century ago, the thought that a 747 jet airliner would be able to get off the ground would probably have been met with derision by the scientific community as there was no empirical evidence that this could happen, other than the fact that birds could fly. However, now with the study of physics and aerodynamics and other applied sciences, we don’t even question the the principle of flight. Again, science should be honest enough to admit that what we know today makes creationism seem like a longshot, however this is not to say that its not true.
====================================
“Deoxy: to give people enough of an understanding of evolution that one can believe in it’s concept.
Understand, not believe. For a number of people, if you can’t put it in a simpler term than “God did itâ€?, they can’t/won’t understand it.”
While the “God said it, I believe it” argument may seem intellectually bankrupt to you, for many Christians, this is enough. The Bible says that the wisdom of the world is foolishness to God, and vice versa, the wisdom of God is foolishness to the world. Further, the Bible says that when one comes to Christ, a veil is removed from their eyes and they can then understand the things of faith, that before didn’t make sense. Again, this is beyond the scope of this discussion group, but I can personally attest to this mysterious understanding that comes when one comes to Christ. I was an athiest and a MAJOR skeptic prior to really investigating the claims of Christ. And at the time I came to faith I did NOT even believe many of the claims of Scripture.
Anyway, I’ve gone farther than I should, but you get the point, I’m sure.
November 26th, 2005 at 4:56 am
If that’s true, FabulousRog, you should agree with us that ID has no place in public school science classes, and that’s the topic of this thread, and the main concern of us naturals (to use PZ Meyers’ term, embracing both atheists and believers who accept natural explanations for the findings of science). What you believe, and teach your kids, is another topic.
If you doubt the identification of ID with creationism, read the Wedge Document, an outline for the use of ID as a “wedge” to introduce fundamentalist Christian thought into public school curricula.
If you want a debate about your understanding of evolution, you can have that here too, but I frankly don’t have time to point out all your misconceptions. I’ll just settle for one: you say
Hint: do a modicum of research before you quote fundy canards about physics. One: the Third Law of Thermodynamics states that “if all the thermal motion of molecules (kinetic energy) could be removed, a state called absolute zero would occur. Absolute zero results in a temperature of 0 Kelvin or -273.15° Celsius”. I don’t believe this is what you mean.
More likely, you are referring to the Second Law of Thermodynamics: “the total entropy of any isolated thermodynamic system tends to increase over time, approaching a maximum value.” For “entropy” we can read (for the purposes of this discussion) “disorder”. This means that the total amount of order in the Universe can only decrease with time. No scientist disagrees with this.
Fundamentalists such as yourself interpret this, over and over and over and over and over, to mean that biogenesis and evolution cannot occur, because they represent (truly enough) increases in order. But what fundamentalists strangely, or conveniently enough, overlook, is the qualification “isolated” in the Second Law. The Universe as a whole is indeed an isolated system by definition, and as a whole, its entropy must increase. But the Earth, and bacteria, and redwoods, and Pat Robertson, are not isolated systems. They are open systems, which can utilize energy (ultimately from the Sun) to locally increase information, by increasing entropy elsewhere. Why creationists continue to misunderstand this is a riddle.
November 26th, 2005 at 5:44 am
Well, Consi, everyone has their own style and audience, and ultimately all you can say is “suum cuique”. Sure, PZ is pretty sarcastic, and probably turns off some people. But I think there’s a time and a place for all approaches, from the gentlest persuasion to the harshest mocking. I look at PZ’s cynicism as a foil to the odious “wedge strategy” of the IDers, the attempt to insert their parochial brand of fundamentalist belief into American public schools. These people will not be persuaded by soft words, and richly deserve the skewering they get at Pharyngula.
And we mustn’t forget that Professor Meyers is a fallible human, much like some others I could mention, and has only so much patience dealing with nonsense before he gets angry, and summons his dread laser-armed death squids. At least he’s funny, unlike, say, William Dembski or Scott Adams.
Ultimately, who can say which approach is more persuasive, and for whom? It is a legitimate question, Consi, and Deoxy may be generally right in saying that “you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar”. But there’s a place for vinegar too.
Speaking of flies- I feel one should either do some research before regurgitating nonsense, or heed the Mexican aphorism: “en boca cerrada no entran moscas” (“no flies enter a closed mouth”). That is, unless it’s entertaining (to leave the last word to Mose Allison- not referring to you, Consi):
November 26th, 2005 at 8:24 am
FabulousRog:
And there you have it. You chose to selectively reject science, because it contradicts religious dogma. Short of deconverting you from Christianity, I doubt that any amount of debate about evolution will sway you.
There is little point in responding to the rest of your diatribe (your words). You don’t really present arguments against evolution, but rationalizations designed to buttress the question you beg. I.e., god exists.
Even though you make claims to the contrary, you do not appear to understand the nature of the scientific method, scientific inquiry, and the meaning of a scientific theory. If you would, we wouldn’t be treated to statements like
Are you aware that you have it backwards? It is religious dogma that by definition posits fact. You would also spare us the demand to inject faith into science - it’s special pleading and the argument from ignorance…
Just to pick a few more random comments:
Pity and sorrow is more like it. Not that there aren’t fundamentalists that richly deserve all the condescension and scorn that I can muster.
The scientific community summarily rejects creationist claims because they do not qualify as scientific theories. They contribute nothing beyond goddidit and expose a mindboggling hypocripsy by accepting science where it doesn’t get in the way of the literal interpretation of scripture.
It’s not much of an argument, as opposed to simple contradiction. And yes, it is intellectually bankrupt.
Yes, we do.
November 26th, 2005 at 8:37 am
Deoxy:
In Europe, it’s a non-issue except for the rare individual that overdosed on religion. In the U.S., a recent study showed that more than half of the population are creationists (or at least reject evolution).
Whether I’m pessimistic or not is open to debate. I have long had the impression that Americans have grown indifferent to the pursuit of science, but in recent years I increasingly observe a climate of outright anti-intellectualism. Simply put, rational thought leads away from god, atheists lack the proper patriotic spirit, therefore intellectuals are bad citizens.
The problem isn’t what point of view the majority subscribes to, but what the religious extremist fringe can get away with. I don’t believe that complacency is called for…
November 26th, 2005 at 9:55 am
Zilch, you rock. Your comments are full of “keepers”.
Not limited to scientists. Many mechanics, evangelists, dentists, economists, mothers, and candlestick makers are the same way. Cussedness is common. That is why a thick skin is an asset to discourse.
Once again, FR, find out what the difference is between an hypothesis and a theory. Then ask yourself, how patient would you be with the 500th person to come along and say; “It’s just a theory! So there!” After a while you just get tired of explaining.
Creationists often show up here and spout the same tired old crap, and then - invariably - resort to whining that we’re impatient with them. Suppose we came onto a Christian blog and said; “Well, what about when St. Paul brought the 12 Commandments down from Mount Ararrat, huh?! That disproves YOUR understanding of the gospel!” You might patiently explain to the first ten or so, that we had a number of Bible stories all mixed up.
Then suppose hundreds of us did that, one after another, using the SAME tired misunderstandings of Christianity, for years on end? After a while, you’d find some nice, Christian way to say; “Get lost, dipshit.”
November 26th, 2005 at 10:33 am
I’m so glad you guys got to FabulousRog’s comments before I did or I’d likely be demonstrating that PZ Myers isn’t the only condescending and sarcastic blogger on the net.
There’s not much I can add other than he really needs to get a basic grasp of science and the scientific method, let alone Evolutionary theory, before it’s even worth trying to address anything he said. I’ll just add his name to my list of nut case Christians and keep moving along.
November 26th, 2005 at 10:35 am
Gosh, thanks for the compliment, DoF. You rock too.
But didn’t St. Paul actually bring the 12 Golden Hemorrhoids for the Philistines to put in the Ark of the Covenant?
And Deoxy- “elwedriddsche” is cognate with “eldritch”. Our elwed is indeed a bit otherworldly…
November 26th, 2005 at 10:39 am
I think I need to paste this one on my mirror so that I see it every morning.
Don’t know. I had thought that most people here were confronted with evolution during high school, but have been surprised to find that it is not the case. These folks are prime candidates for the fundies because with only bits and pieces of knowledge the get sucked in by the fundies false science.
I agree with you about the trench warfare analogy. This is problematic for science. Because the fundies have widened the debate. Evolutionists are being painted as arrogant asses who are anti-God, anti-country, anti-mom, and anti-apple pie. If scientists want to educate the populance they will cut the bullshit that feeds into the widening of the argument. Scientists need to narrow the argument to what it should be about-the facts.
November 26th, 2005 at 11:05 am
Consi writes…
The problem with that is most of the anti-Evolution crowd isn’t interested in facts and will dismiss any you provide them with out of hand.
Scott Adams, though he claims otherwise, is kind of a good example of this very thing. His blog entry that started the big flare up between him and PZ Myers was basically a long essay about how he doesn’t know enough about either Evolution or Intelligent Design theory to be able to decide which one is correct AND that there were no credible people on either side of the debate that he could trust to give him correct answers because everyone on both sides had their own agendas and biases.
In short, his argument was that he didn’t know and both sides had vested interests other than pursuit of “The Truth” that automatically made them non-credible sources of information as far as Scott is concerned. Myers jumped all over Adams because Adams appeared to be claiming that the claims of the Intelligent Design crowd were just as valid as the claims of the Evolutionist crowd and Adams responded back with: “See? This is exactly what I was talking about.”
In this situation Adams will discount any facts that Myers may present simply because Myers has “an agenda” as actual working scientist and university professor. Whether what Myers presents is factual or not doesn’t enter into the equation as far as Adams is concerned because Adams doesn’t trust Myers to be truthful with him because of his status as a scientist.
Now as much as I enjoy reading Dilbert, I have to wonder how Adams gets through life at all if he’s going to discount evidence provided by professionals because they have a vested interest (e.g. making a living) in doing what they do? I wonder if he goes to his doctor with a head cold and then tells the doctor that he has no credibility in determining what Adams’ illness is because the doctor actually makes money from being a doctor? Or how about his car mechanic? Does he discount what the mechanic has to say because the guy is charging him to fix his car?
Adams isn’t, as far as I can tell, part of the anti-Evolution crowd (he even admits that, if pressured, he’d side with the Evolutionists), but he still makes a great example of how people can just write off the facts because they don’t want to accept the people who are presenting them as any kind of an authority.
So simple presenting the facts alone isn’t likely to change anyone’s mind. If you don’t show these people why they’re being idiotic they’re going to think they’ve got more than a couple of brain cells to rub around. You’re not likely to convince them, but you are more likely to convince the others who have a few more brain cells to spare.
November 26th, 2005 at 11:42 am
FR,
It’s simple really. Science says to test your hypothesis. That’s all. If you think something might be true, then gather some data, interpret it using sound, cogent reasoning, and let others independently test for the results. That is really all that science demands.
This isn’t a popularity contest. I don’t care whether the women and men in white lab coats are surly and can’t hold a proper cocktail party conversation. I care that you can show me, independently and whether I can repeat it, assuming I follow your steps exactly.
As for whether a theory is true or not, gravity is a common example. Clearly, I can’t see gravity per se. All I can do is ask the question “why do things fall?” I might come up with Sir Newton’s theories, but for me, for my personal decision whether to believe in gravity, I’m left with my own personal observations and evaluating how well someone else’s explanation holds up in explaining those observations.
Science doesn’t predict as much as it attempts to explain. A point once made to me in 8th grade science class by my patient teacher was that as a scientist he could never guarantee that the pencil he held would not fall when he dropped it. That is, science is empirical. I’m from Missouri, says science, show me.
So, with regard to evolution, it is only a theory. Theories are just explanations of observations, the facts themselves. Evolution does not guarantee that the next species must evolve from what we have; evoluation can only examine data from the past. We can extrapolate and attempt to predict where it might go, but then such predictions are only as valuable as later confirmation of the evidence shows it to be. To paraphrase from Hume, you don’t know fire will burn you until you try it.
Yet, I’m not a biologist, and FR you make a reasonable point. Is science a kind of faith? Well, to anyone, with a science background or not, to accept the conclusion of anyone else, without having done the groundwork of education, of examining details myself, from reviewing all other research in the area, is the same as accepting a premise on faith. Surely, an astronomer or physicist with Ph.D. is in the same boat as I when it comes to biology.
The difference is that which marks whether I accept the reasoning of any other individual: could they prove it if I asked them to show me? Can they trace their reasoning from data gathered to their end conclusion? Have they tested it? Do I have a reasonable basis on which I could expect to independently repeat their work and reach the same conclusions? Even so, I can’t really count on science to guarantee the results as predictive, just as an explanation of what was previously seen.
So FR, it’s simple. We can quote academically reviewed articles on various experiments that confirm various evolutionary results, within and among species. Can you, will you, provide us with articles that demonstrate from specific, independently gathered data how ID is supported by confirmable or repeatable observations?
If my only argument is that some Dr. Smith said it and so it’s true, then you’re right. This isn’t science, it’s faith. My acceptance of his answer is based on whether I trust Dr. Smith could show me if I was willing to invest the time and energy to follow his 8 years of post-secondary education and years in a research lab.
If your only argument is fundmentally that “the Bible says it, so I believe it”, and you point to Genesis, then this isn’t science, it’s faith.
You’re left with somehow convincing us to leave Missouri and accept you at your word. Please, FR, why should we?
November 26th, 2005 at 11:44 am
It seems to me that FabulousRog is intelligent and stepped into the lion’s den in good spirit. As with most sweeping social debates, we can’t expect some immediate resolution; instead, it comes down to educating people one at a time. Personally, I don’t mind if Creationists want to believe what they wish. Still, science should be about empirical evidence. They can take or leave the evidence, but it should remain intact and free from religion in the class rooms. It kind of parrallels the whole “Give unto Caesar” deal.
One of the fundamental arguments behind the debate is the claim that agreeing with evolution requires faith, too. And, yeah. It does, ultimately. Unfortunately, that’s an older philosophical debate that has no resolution. Ultimately, with all knowledge there has to be a starting point based on assumptions. All of knowledge and all of science is ultimately undefendable if reduced far enough. Those arguing with the Creationists often pull out the sledge hammer and attack the Creationists for a lack of understanding of scientific theory. When the “just a theory!” cry goes up, that’s code for “all knowledge is ultimately based on assumption and/or faith.” Rather than gamely addressing this claim, most evolution defenders ignore it simply because Creationists often do not share the same ideological memes to express it this way.
The concept of evolution is easy, but, to be fair, it takes a huge amount of study to have an understanding of scientific principals behind evolution. Understanding the base principals that allow age dating techniques ultimately requires relatively advanced knowledge of physics, math, geology, chemistry, botany, at atmospheric studies. The great majority of people arguing for evolution don’t even come close to having that knowledge. Where the IDers are saying God told me so, the vast majority of evolution supports are essentially saying “12 (or 50) sceintists tell me this is so.” That’s faith in my book.
What if the 10 smartest methmeticians/physicists in the world were the only ones with minds prepared to truly understand a new deduction from string theory..? Play along. Someone on a modern day level like Einstine pops out a very solid deduction from String theory (or your physics/math of choice) that unquestionably shows the existence of a God. Of all the scientific community, only nine others have the smarts, knowledge, and imagination to really visualize the concept in their minds’ eyes. These are nine of the most respected cornerstone of our scientific community. And now they say string theory proves god’s existence. Would you devote your life to advanced study in the hope that you have the makeup to someday see the formula at work for yourself in your own mind’s eye? Or would you just believe what the ten told you? Or would you call them quacks and be another group like the IDers that rejects good solid science?
November 26th, 2005 at 12:01 pm
Well, CitizenX, it depends on what you mean by “understanding”. Of course, to understand evolution in any detail takes a huge amount of study. But to understand enough to see that it provides a better fit to the evidence than, say, Young Earth Creationism, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist.
And “faith” is a loaded word. If my belief in evolution is “faith”, so is my belief that the Sun will rise tomorrow morning.
Also- I don’t understand string theory, but I have “faith” that God cannot be hiding there, because that would be illogical, no matter what string theory says.
November 26th, 2005 at 12:09 pm
RDNewman has the better reply.
You do realize the only fact you mention is a claim. Your argument is just as valid for Greek, Roman, Norse, etc, mythologies. They have the same historical backing. Just b/c a story is based in a real setting, does not make the story factual. It’s like claiming Joss Whedon’s “Angel” is all real b/c it’s based in Los Angeles.
No, it doesn’t. Only changed, if dogma can change. A theory is changed as the FACTS change. Theories conform to facts, dogma discards facts to fit the theory.
That was my point about the pratical impossibility of explaining evolution in less than three words. Not to mention that even those who can understand it, may not WANT it to be true b/c it upsets their comfortable little world.
No, exactly. The scientists can produce evidence and experiments to back them up. The only faith is taking them at face value without looking into their evidence.
Again, they’d have to show the proofs.
November 26th, 2005 at 12:10 pm
Should’ve been “Not exactly”
November 26th, 2005 at 12:19 pm
zilch, technically, your conviction that the sun will rise tomorrow is faith. Exactly. Any bookie would round the odds up to 100% based on past observations. The fact that evidence is so overwhelming doesn’t change the underlying faith issue.
Actually, Ragman, the centuries devoted to an unsuccessful search for provable first knowledge leaves all of science technically in the realm of faith, even for those scientists you are talking about having faith in. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not arguing that science is an equal leap of faith. I’m just saying that, logically, the ID argument about both stances requiring faith is legitimate though rarely addressed due to IDers often failing to make the point clearly.
I’ll put $10K on the sunrise for tomorrow.
November 26th, 2005 at 12:22 pm
Consi,
Which leads to the next question: What are kids taught in high school anyway? I have never attended an American one; my sister did for a while and I can’t begin to tell you how upset she was about the “academic standard” compared to the schools back home.
Which leads to another question - since the creationist’s objections to evolution are of a religious and not a scientific nature, shouldn’t it be up to the calmer religious minds instead of scientists to educate their own? This is a start: An Open Letter Concerning Religion and Science.
Perhaps the proper way to deal with creationists is to refer them to the nearest member of the clergy that’s compatible with their beliefs…
November 26th, 2005 at 12:34 pm
You’re equivocating on the meaning of faith.
Try to see it from another angle. What changes if you develop cracks in religious ‘faith’, as opposed to ‘faith’ in empiricist methods?
November 26th, 2005 at 1:21 pm
This line of thinking essentially becomes an argument over which type of faith is less or more rigid. The fundamentalists will argue that certainty is better.
On another note, I feel we as a scientifically enlightened culture are reaping what we sewed. Evolution is not compatible with a literal view of Genesis, buy no area of science is contrary to the existence of God. However, our liberal media and many professors have blatantly attempted to marginalize the faithful of our country. Surprise, they are coming out fighting. Yes, the U.S. is founded on principles of religious freedom; yet it is foolish to marginalize the majority. ID probably wouldn’t be an issue if the religious majority had not felt attacked at every corner. It’s far too often that children from religious backgrounds find ridicule in higher education in areas far outside of debate on evolution or the big bang.
I don’t believe what the fundamentalists believe, but I do believe in the right to take a stand for what you believe in. I’m not at all surprised to see the fundamentalists regrouping and counter attacking. Were I responsibe for leading that group, I’d be looking to take the conflict to my oponent’s home turf, too. Tit for tat, perhaps. “You want to pull our Ten Commandments off the wall after decades of display? You want to take our prayer from the schools? You want take away our charitable tax status? Let’s see how you like it.”
November 26th, 2005 at 1:38 pm
I sympathize with people who are ridiculed in the arena of higher education.
On the other hand, if you’ve been taught for your entire life to -not- question, and to -not- exercise critical thinking skills, it’s not really that surprising if you don’t excel in an environment that privileges those skills.
If you turn in a paper, in a humanities class, that uses “God said so” as the support for your argument, yeah, people are going to laugh at you.
Yes. Just like we want to do away with laws that preclude women from making decisions about their own reproductive system, just like we want to do away with a system that says that women and black people shouldn’t be allowed to vote, just like we want to do away with a system that says that it’s OK to deny someone a government position because they aren’t sufficiently ‘Christian.’
The fact that something has been done ‘for decades’ doesn’t mean that it was the right thing to do.
It’s not surprising at all that people who are doing the wrong thing don’t like to be called on it, and ‘fight back’ when people get fed up with their shit.
November 26th, 2005 at 1:44 pm
Unabashedly triple-dipping…
Nope, it’s the argument from authority, combined with the argumentum ad numerum in the latter case.
Where scripture is accepted voluntarily or as a result of indoctrination, anybody can sit down and think his or her way through the principles of evolution. Anybody with a modicum of programming skills can write a few toy programs that demonstrate that these principles can be successfully applied to real-world problems.
November 26th, 2005 at 1:57 pm
Once you admit that there are different types of faith, that particular debate is over.
Which is exactly what happens in the big picture. On the one side, you have religious troglodytes who want to ram their personal beliefs down everybody else’s throat; on the other side you have people that will have none of it. Science is just an innocent victim of a drive-by thumping.
November 26th, 2005 at 2:11 pm
Elwed and nowiser beat me to it. What they said.
Christians can be just as condescending to other religions, if not outright hostile. Atheists don’t usually throw bricks through the windows of christian cars.
It’s not god I have a problem with. It’s his fanclubs.
November 26th, 2005 at 2:47 pm
I’m not saying Adams is right, or that his position isn’t a result of laziness. I’m saying that Myers reaction was overblown and the complete wrong approach. All it did was make Adams point in a lot of minds.
Disregard the screwed up thinking Adams and others are using to draw their conclusions that this makes their point. The bottom line is that what Adams is reading and hearing is the howling and screeching coming from both sides at decibel levels that fail to promote understanding, but somehow get the “faithful” on both sides all jacked up to play.
Myers missed an opportunity. Here he had Adams openly saying I don’t know enough. All Myers had to do was to ask a simple question: If a lay person with no stake were to explain the foundations for both positions would you be willing to listen? How freaking reasonable does that sound? How can ya say no to that? Why not just play on the other guy’s field with the other guy’s refs and in front of a hostile audience? If your case is strong enough, play wherever. I do.
I do not know. I was getting my hair cut and the horror stories I heard about an English teacher were mind boggling. The teacher was using the whole period to teach that everybody was a reincarnated cat and they all had cat names. Before being canned, the gal had the kids sitting in circles getting in touch with their former catselves and discerning their previous cat names.
Either the scientists get in touch with the art of persuasion or they will find their future research assistants spouting off about the geological evidence for Noah’s flood. I see it as a matter of self-interest, as well as a public duty to children across the land. Lawyers aren’t the only profession that should have to do a bit of pro bono work. It’s good for the soul.
November 26th, 2005 at 3:53 pm
I don’t believe you fully understand the ramifications of the religious fundamentalists winning. Or perhaps you do and you are indeed a victim of the rationalistic fallacy.
Evolution is not a specialty field of study in biology, but something that pervades almost all hard science. It won’t happen overnight, but once science education in America is subverted and acceptance of evolution is an outcome of a popularity contest, it is just a matter of time until an exodus of scientists and foreign students to greener pastures sets in. Arguably, the fallout from 9/11 has already set this in motion.
This inevitable brain drain will be detrimental to the American national interest; science in America will become second-rate and the next generation of scientists-to-be will fight for research assistant jobs in the U.K., continental Europe, and everywhere else where science isn’t held bondage by the religious. What scientists remain will favor foreign students for research assistant jobs that don’t have to unlearn as much and these students will know better than to stay once they’ve learned what there is to learn.
I personally believe that there is a lot more at stake than the watering down of the American science curriculum. It is indeed a matter of self-interest for sciencists to get their point across. However, it’s not as simple as putting in some pro bono work. I doubt there are many people sitting on the fence that can be won over by explaining things just the right way; before scientists can even go there they have to fight an uphill battle against the results of the neglected and underfunded American school system. By and large, scientists have to fight a vicious circle that works against them.
Perhaps the battle is already lost anyway:
Slacking Off in Science
November 26th, 2005 at 4:34 pm
Granted, the varieties of knowledge we have, or believe we have, about the world, is a large and slipslidy topic, CitizenX. That said, I beg to differ. Some people may use the word “faith” in the way you describe, but it’s not the way I use it. My usage is closer to the definition in Wikepedia:
If anything can be said to be “rationally proven”, it’s the rising of the sun tomorrow. Broadening the definition of “faith” to include all possible knowledge of future events makes “faith”, in this context, indistinguishable in meaning from “knowledge”, or “prediction”. For me, and perhaps for most people and dictionaries, “faith” implies trust that is not based on material evidence, and “knowledge” implies trust based on material evidence- a rather large difference in meaning, and one that is often ignored by fundamentalists, to whom belief in God and belief in evolution are both “faiths”.
Of course, you can rationally believe in the Bible, or parts thereof- i.e. not take it on “faith”, but believe that it describes historical events and personages: the Flood, Herod, etc. These beliefs can be investigated scientifically, and some of them can be substantiated or disproven to a reasonable degree of confidence, without faith entering into the picture at all. But as soon as invisible superior beings enter the picture, faith comes too. That’s fine for those so inclined, but it has no place in public school science classes.
November 26th, 2005 at 5:51 pm
When little Suzy gets bashed by the teacher when she answers a question with “God did it”, then Suzy is probably going to end up one of the adults that is out trying to overthrow evolution in the public school system. Our teachers need to be open minded enough to give kind explanations and to leave students’ beliefs in God alone. For instance, when Suzy explains the orbital path of Pluto by saying God made it that way, her answer isn’t provably wrong. The teacher should respect that. Profs should have the sense to br respectful and offer some mind-expanding information. The prof might approach it like this: “Well, Suzy. There are many educated Christians that believe the truth in Genisis is alagorical, God’s way of explaining the nature of humanity. The previous Pope felt this way for instance. Einstine belived in a God. For these Christians, they see God’s power and mystery at work in the mechanical laws of the Universe. In science, we study these laws in isolation without consideration for who put them there or for what reason. It is perfectly natural for you to have your own beliefs about religion. Now, Suzy, what mechanical systems do you think might explain Pluto’s orbit?”
See? Rather than teachers leading religious students to feel there is some conflict, as though God is the wrong answer, they should teach them to separate scientific knowledge from faith. If the prof bashes Suzy’s belief, then she is likely going to reject education and science as the enemy of her faith. If she is handled wisely, fairly, and without the prof. making sweeping and unprovable assertions about God being the wrong answer, she won’t be forced to find the two systems at odds. She might even go on to help others in her religious community to see that good unbiased science is just another wonder of God’s Universe.
That jerk prof. with the ID class may have found a way to piss off a bunch of IDers, but he is also doing a wonderful job of creating more of them. I think the professors and scientists that alienate the faithful for no good reason are a very large part of the problem.
November 26th, 2005 at 10:14 pm
That’s an excellent point CitizenX, and well-explained. Just to drag out a bit on some material that was previously covered, and I could be wrong, but part of the testing of many kinds of phenomena (including the physics of stellar bodies like Pluto) beg the prediction of the following result. Unfortunately, doing that is becoming very very tedious, and relies on principles not made easily intuitive to the current generation of students. However, it’s still a common problem, and one that “God did it” will never address, since “God works in mysterious ways”. Einstein, if I remember correctly, thought of coming closer to God by discovering the Universe’s mysteries. Using that example is a more intuitive way to help people make place for science in their world.
November 26th, 2005 at 10:16 pm
If Little Suzy answers goddidit in a science class, she’s already a lost cause. She education system has failed her miserably and it’s much more likely that she’ll join the ranks of evolution opponents than turn into a goodwill ambassador for science.
I agree that people skills shouldn’t be neglected, but I also invite you to examine the hidden assumptions in your post.
November 26th, 2005 at 10:41 pm
I grade papers for an introductory astronomy class. I’ve actually seen people turn in homework saying “God did it.”
They got a 0.
November 26th, 2005 at 10:47 pm
“When little Suzy gets bashed by the teacher…”
We should not require a teacher to be deferential to nonsense.
We need to start teaching our kids to ask the right question. If the teacher says something upsetting, the question is not “Is the teacher being mean to me?” but “Is the teacher right? What do I need to know in order to decide?”
Niceness is overrated. We hurt our children by letting them pout and refuse to learn because someone wasn’t nice to them. Not just for science class, either; in literature, history, English, math, etc. Yes, some people are jerks, including some teachers. Dealing with jerks is an extremely valuable skill. You probably can’t change the jerk, but you can try to get as much value as possible from the transaction.
I taught my kids; “You do not have to like your teacher, or even respect him/her. Just learn as much as you can, and don’t disrupt the class.”
And let’s reserve the term; “bashing” for something you do with a club. It has become just another way of whining that someone was mean to you, by which we mean they disagreed and were not sufficiently deferential. (Bush-bashing, Kerry-bashing, evolution-bashing, religion-bashing, etc.)
November 26th, 2005 at 11:52 pm
Well CitizenX, I myself can not solve complicated calculus problems or work out the physics necessary to put a probe on Mars and could, if I had no self respect, claim that while I do not understand them God does. How would it make you feel if I launched a multi-million, or possibly billion, dollar probe into the ether wasting all that taxpayer money because I BELIEVED God would guide it to Mars? Would you encourage NASA to put me in charge of another mission? Would you encourage the taxpayers to fund another faith-based space project?
I believe you should encourage children in many persuits, but there is a place for religious encouragement and it is in the churches and the homes of those who want such things. I want to encourage critical thinking and acedemic excellence, religious indoctrination has no place in public schools. Any child who can not learn the material that is taught, whether they choose to believe it or not, should not be coddled when they choose to use metaphysical mumbo jumbo as a cop out. The last thing America needs more of are people pretending to be scientists who have no understanding of scientific principle.
November 27th, 2005 at 12:54 am
I don’t expect I will be in support of any God probes into empty space. I don’t call for educators to support religious thinking in schools. You miss my point. The teacher has absolutely no evidence to say God didn’t do it. The point is to accomodate both sides and then focus on exclusive empirical thinking. No matter what science goes into a space probe, the teacher can’t say God isn’t behind it. God really isn’t an issue, but the educator is wrong to alienate anyone for thinking God is involved. The teacher should diplomatically show that the science doesn’t prove or disprove God and should definitely not attack the faithful or even show disdain. What the educator should do is to say that, even if God is or isn’t behind the wheel, there are these nifty physical laws that are amazing, intricate, and predictable. Let’s study them, class.
You know, those who handily write off the kids that come in with a God solution are as much of the problem as any fanatic literalist preachers. We are talking about half the damn nation coming from this background. We’ll just write off half the population—no, half the kids—because they were raised in a religious home? That kind of thinking will sink our country just as fast as all our scientists fleeing to other countries. That’s the big problem. Two sides in their trenches and both don’t have the sense to look after the greater good.
November 27th, 2005 at 2:48 am
Minor nitpick here…
Actually, he didn’t. Or at least not in the anthropomorphic concept of God most people are thinking of when they use the word.
It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere…. Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.—Albert Einstein, “Religion and Science,” New York Times Magazine, 9 November 1930
Einstein even regretted his whole “God does not play at dice with the universe” quip because the religious folks had subverted it to their own ends.
It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.—Albert Einstein, 1954, from Albert Einstein: The Human Side
Quotes borrowed from the Positive Atheism website.
November 27th, 2005 at 8:31 am
Thank you for saying it short and sweet, and much better than I.
If it makes it easier for you, think of Little Suzy as having a learning impediment in this one area.
November 27th, 2005 at 8:56 am
I don’t think children have any control over what they’re taught to believe. They don’t have the investment in their beliefs that adults do. So I don’t consider them a “lost cause” at all, and I don’t think they should be subjected to ridicule and scorn. In fact, when they’re at the age where they’re already starting to question the wisdom of their parents, that’s the ideal time to teach them to do it RIGHT—to teach them critical thinking and the scientific method.
If they’ve gone through most of their adult lives clinging tenaciously to this particular “learning impediment,” THEN I would declare them a lost cause and move on.
November 27th, 2005 at 8:58 am
Suzy’s learning impediment is that her parents told her a falsehood. There will be some teachers who use the very diplomatic approach CitizenX suggests, some who rather brutally slap down her preconceptions.
Children are not interchangeable parts. One approach will work with some kids, the other with other kids, and some kids will never catch on. What is universal is that we cripple our children with the notion that if someone isn’t nice to them, they should curl up and cry “I am a victim”. With that mindset there is no opportunity for challenge or rigor. Difficult concepts will forever be beyond the reach of the victim-child’s grasp.
I’m not saying “be mean to kids” and I agree with CitizenX’s call for consideration of how science is presented. But it is an illusion to think that adopting any one method will serve all children.
This may be a moot issue. Does anyone here have actual experience as to how this situation is handled in real classrooms? I doubt most science teachers will be as confrontational as people customarily are on a blog whose tagline is; “What the fuck is wrong with you people?”
November 27th, 2005 at 9:42 am
Saying “God did it” may just be her copout for not wanting to learn all that biology. For some, it’s the easy way out of a test question.
It’s been too long since I took high school biology, but evolution didn’t make a fuss - I would have remembered that. The biggest dread of our bio teacher was covering sexual reproduction (not sex ed, mind you) with the Beavis & Buttheads that we were. The day we started it, she wrote “sexual reproduction” in HUGE letters on the board, and told us “Get over it (the laughing) before we start.”
I was wondering if there’d be any issue over evolution, since 99.9% of my classmates were christian, but there wasn’t any. Of course, the Satanic panic and sex ed controversy probably took up all the worrying that they didn’t have time to bitch over evolution.
I’d imagine some fundie parents teach their kids that any response less than positive to “God did it” is religious persecution.
Many people use hard times as a badge of honor, for good or bad. Those who have comfortable lives growing up sometimes want to claim some hardship, to have “paid their dues”. Makes me wonder if the religious persecution card is what comfortable middle class christians want to use as their “badge”. Has a nice omnious ring to it, and doesn’t require you to lose the McMansion or the SUV. The house and car can be considered victories over the insidious liberals that are obviously controlling the govt., since GOP control of congress, POTUS, and appointing two SCOTUS justices hasn’t stopped the evil liberal empire.
November 27th, 2005 at 11:23 am
Who said anything about writing them off? If I was going to write a kid off, I’d nod pleasantly, pat them on the head, and move on. Which is what I do now, as I’m teaching in a public school, and challenging a student’s preconceptions is probably more than my job is worth at this point. It’s a shame, really. I just waded through a stack of papers on Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge, and I don’t know how many times I read something by my students about how the main character’s marriage was ‘failed, because he didn’t have children,’ or that he was being ‘punished, because he didn’t believe in God.’ As a childless-by-choice atheist, I gave a little mental groan every time I saw that.
Oh well. They call ‘em Sophomores for a reason.
We also seem to have lost a little context here. My reference was to a student taking a humanities class. Presumptively, ‘Little’ Suzy is a full-grown adult in a college level humanities course. She should know better than to make a ‘goddidit’ argument, just as I should know better than to go to someone’s church and then stand up in the middle of a sermon and shout “Actually, that’s a pretty common misconception!” Explaining the conquest of the Americas with “God loves Christians, and wanted them to take care of and convert the savage Natives,” is going to get you an F. AND IT SHOULD.
The academy operates on the assumption that some answers are -correct- and other answers are -wrong-. It’s -supposed- to be a place where students learn to think -well-.
When I was teaching rhetoric and composition at the college level, I made it very clear to my students that the Academy privileged logic and rationality. I did this without ‘bashing’ anyone’s religion. We live in a society that explicitly endorses religious freedom, which means that you can cast your -personal- vote on the basis of ‘God tells me what to do.’ On the other hand, we also have a society that explicitly honors a SECULAR basis for law. If an instructor assigns you a paper that asks whether or not assisted suicide should be legal, and you, as a student, respond with “No, ‘cause God said so,” you’ve just failed that paper, because you’ve revealed that you don’t even have the basic groundwork to -begin- discussing the issue AS A SOCIAL ISSUE.
Students, by the time that they hit college, have been ‘nurtured’ into idiocy. They truly believe that everyone has an opinion, and that they’re all equally valid.
Now we probably can’t do anything about that at the public school level, because the public will prevent that. But at the college level, there’s absolutely no reason why the farce should continue.
P.S.
Citizen X, I’m -always- polite and nurturing to my students. It’s my job to help them think better—I don’t operate under the assumption that they’re worthy of contempt because they aren’t already thinking well when they come into my class. So, when I get ‘goddidit’ answers from my students I explain politely, and at length, why that’s not an acceptable response in academia.
P.S. To ANYONE who feels the need to start giving teachers advice about how to do their jobs, spend some time teaching. Not sitting in the back of a classroom, watching someone else teach, but teaching. That means planning the lessons in accordance with state guidelines, managing behavior issues in the class, responding to the daily email and phone requests of parents who want to know why their children got a 96 instead of a 98 on the test. And don’t forget assessment. According to state guidelines, you should be assessing students during -every- class. That means if you have five classes of thirty students apiece, that you should be collecting approximately 150 pieces of evidence EVERY DAY, which you’re supposed to look at and assess.
Which is why I’ve been pretty much absent from this board for months now, and will probably disappear again, tomorrow, as it’s the end of Thanksgiving break. That means it’s back to 12-16 hour days, five days a week, and a minimum of eight hours a day on weekends.
When they told me I’d get summers off, they didn’t mention I’d still be working the same number of hours, and that I’d just have to pack those hours into the school year.
And to top it off, I’m a ‘student’ teacher, so I’m not being paid. Fun fun fun. [/rant]
November 27th, 2005 at 12:09 pm
Suzy isn’t a lost cause. I didn’t renounce Christianity until I was in my early 20s. My family was fairly quiet with regard to religion but I fell in with some fundy friends in high school. Even went so far as to burn my rock music tapes (sigh) because of their “influence.” It wasn’t until I fell in with some friends after high school that prized thinking for one’s self that I grew up some and eventually admitted to atheism. For me I tried to walk the Christian line but then realized that there are only two real ways: either you must believe everything in the Bible absolutely or you can believe none of it. Anything else is intellectual cowardice and social conformity.
So faith or reason. To a child the choice is not obvious. It is ridiculous for us to assume it will be; we all had our journey to traverse to answer that question.
We don’t need to coddle Suzy but we don’t want to be disrespectful of her or her family. Simply phrase the question more to the answer being sought: “please explain how Pluto keeps its orbit” should be sufficient. The original question of “why” Pluto orbits that way is sloppy.
Much of the conflict we have between religions, etc., has as much to do with a lack of respect. Unfortunately, we “enlightened” ones are just as guilty. We pounce on those that disagree without regard for assuring that we’ve considered their POV. We don’t know that Suzy’s parents have attempted to indoctrinate her, we just assume it based on our own prejudices (sp?).
If we castigate those that come from religion, we drive them back into the arms of those you will say “see? they don’t care about you the way we will.” Reason need not be cold and inhumane, it just needs to disciplined.
This isn’t the time for ivory tower pronouncements that lement that the rest of the world isn’t as smart as us. We are in the minority. Over 50% of the country doesn’t know who is right or wrong. We’re taught that if we’re not Christian then we are evil. So if we act like it (closed minded, callous, condescending), then all we do is to reinforce the notion. We need to educate, but to do that people will understandably require an emotional reason to want to listen to us.
We need not enforce our own dogma, but rather to set an example. Suzy must want to be more like her freethought teacher and follow her example. This isn’t coddling or pandering, it’s being a role model. We don’t remember those teachers we were forced to state an agreement with, we remember those teachers that made us want to be more like them.
Besides, Suzy lives with her parents. She is immersed in their belief system. As her teacher, we simply need to expect and require that she learn the facts and reasoning process that the curriculum requires. No more, but certainly no less. Beyond that, we would be just as guilty as those we complain about.
It is my unfortunate belief that non-theists will be in abject minority for decades to come. Simply put, the theists have a more active and enticing marketing plan than we have. They have more children (by edict) and so better expand their ranks (look at the astounding advent of the Mormon Church). They have a 30-second plan to being accepted and enjoy riches in some afterlive.
What do we have? Study hard and someday you might be smart like us and oh yeah, you need to take responsibility for your actions: this is the only life you got. Hardly a recruiting message…
November 27th, 2005 at 12:22 pm
Nowiser and my posting cross. I’ll change little Suzy’s name to little Samual and then our examples can reconcile…
November 27th, 2005 at 12:42 pm
nowiser: It’s precisely that crap you mentioned that made me decide to give up my pursuit of an education degree.
November 27th, 2005 at 1:22 pm
Fair enough, I’ll provisionally retract the ‘lost cause’ remark until such time as everybody agrees on a set of scenarios that don’t leave as many blanks to be filled. Perhaps I should qualify it and say that Little Suzy is probably a lost cause and leave it at that.
In the non-American school system I attended, orbital mechanics was on the physics curriculum somewhere between 11th and 13th grade. Then and probably now, there were three tiers of public schools, one to prepare students for college, one for students headed for academically challenging professions, and one for basically unskilled labor. Each tier requires a demonstrable level of academic achievements, which in practice means that how well a student does upon completing elementary school at 4th grade determines which school doors are open to him or her.
Little Suzy would be a misnomer; she may be already old enough to vote, she probably has a long history of giving the wrong answer of goddidit (yes, it is the wrong answer to a science question), and for that matter it’s doubtful that she could remain in the most challenging tier of schools.
Whether she deconverts later in life is outside of the scenario’s scope, but in the way I instantiate it, she lacks the basic qualifications to attend the physics classes I did. We never had a case like this, but I strongly suspect that the school’s principal would have encouraged her parents to voluntarily remove Little Suzy to a lower-grade or private school.
Just as an openly atheistic student may run into problems with his peers, the overly religious Suzy would not have had an easy time with her classmates. It’s more likely that she’d be subjected to ridicule and mockery by her classmates than by teachers.
This is where I part ways with CitizenQ and Consi. They present a false dichotomy - either be completely abrasive or follow what amounts to a policy of appeasement.
The only teaching experience I have is eight semesters worth of TA at college. Goddidit isn’t in the range of conceivable answers to what I graded and it depends on Suzy how I would have responded to such an answer in class.
November 27th, 2005 at 1:37 pm
Why, that’s an absolutely ridiculous system [/sarcasm]
Here in America, everyone is Rocket Scientist material, and if they don’t live up to that potential, it’s because their teachers sucked.
VoijaRisa said:
I don’t want to completely divert this thread, but I have toyed with the thought of submitting a post to start a new thread that deals with American education, and my own experiences with pursuing a teaching credential. I know there are many people on this board who are interested in the topic, either because of their own experiences in school, or because they have children in the public school system.
I just want to qualify my earlier remarks while acknowledging VoijaRisa. Yes, there is a LOT of crap associated with this process. And there is a LOT of crap involved with daily teaching obligations. Quite frankly, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to handle that well enough to stay in this profession. I may choose, ultimately, to do something else.
But I do want to say that, despite the amount of work that I’m doing, I see something very cool or interesting -every- day. Every day I see a student say or do something, or just write something in their journal, that makes me go ‘that’s pretty cool. He/She is just a sophomore, and is already thinking about these things.”
So it’s not an entirely crappy job. It’s just that it’s very similar to working at a job where you have five different bosses that you report to, all of whom want different things from you, and none of whom communicate with each other.
OK. I would really like to end my derail here.
DOWN WITH ID IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS!
ah. That’s better.
November 27th, 2005 at 2:23 pm
Go for it, nowiser. I for one would love to read it. If you can spare the time.
November 27th, 2005 at 2:58 pm
Sarcasm or not, it worked very well.
Each type of school could tailor the curriculum to what the students were likely to need in their professional lives and the classes were filled with students of comparable aptitude. For the ones preparing for college, traditionally there were three major variations - those with a focus on “old languages” like Latin and Greek, “new languages” like English, French, Younameit, and of course the natural sciences version. I was in one of the latter and goddidit would have been completely out of place. A more likely one for Suzy would have been the old-language type, which is the most compatible with a future career as theologian.
To be accurate, it was technically possible to fail all the way down to special-ed schools, but to do so pretty much required retardation in the clinical sense.
Then there were all kinds of private schools, often boarding schools, that catered to the affluent; as often as not parents seeking a non-traditional education like the Waldorf schools or simply the type of secluded boarded schools rich parents park their unmanageable brats in - I suppose in the hope of preventing them from becoming delinquents until the parents were not held legally accountable for the kid’s actions anymore.
By the way, teachers were considered sucky if too many students failed their classes. It was their job to teach the kids well, goddamnit, and they had to figure out how to make them pass without compromising academic standards or slowing down the whole class.
Even colleges came in different flavors, the pure universities or a version that was lighter on theory, but very hands-on.
All things considered, I really don’t want to inflict an American high school on my daughters…
You, on the other hand, may have enjoyed teaching then and there.
November 27th, 2005 at 3:16 pm
They have the same system here in Austria. Both my kids are enrolled in the college-prep “gymnasium”, Modern Language branch. My tenth-grade daughter Rosi will be attending high school in San Francisco for a semester starting next January. It will be interesting to see what she thinks of it.
Of course, the most important factor for quality of education is the teachers, not the system. My kids have had some good ones, and some not so good ones, just as I did in the States.
November 27th, 2005 at 3:29 pm
My sister attended schools in both countries and transferred from Europe to the U.S. at roughly the same grade. To say that she was pissed off at the quality of education she received in the States is a gross understatement.
November 27th, 2005 at 3:30 pm
You know what would be a really cool wake-up experiment for American education? Subject 500 American school kids to the German school placement tests, and show where each one would be directed if they were in the German school system. Then compare those percentages to their German counterparts.
Nowiser, that’s a very bleak assessment of the teacher’s life in America. Thanks for writing it. I think I’ll share it with anyone who says; “Teachers only work 9 months out of the year so why do we pay them so much?”
I really believe most teachers could do a much better job if it weren’t for the “5 bosses” thing. Imagine a pilot receiving landing instructions from five different towers?
November 27th, 2005 at 10:32 pm
DOF, you claim nowiser’s assessment of teaching answers the question “Teachers only work 9 months out of the year so why do we pay them so much?â€?
But nowiser’s description is only part of the answer. First off, we DON’T pay them so much. My friends who went straight into business after college make more than most teachers after 10 years in their profession.
Secondly, without a good education, business does not function as well. Americans bitch and whine about the outsourcing of jobs, but refuse to do the one thing that will ensure that they and their children are marketable in the world economy: EDUCATE THEMSELVES.
November 28th, 2005 at 8:03 am
Good point, Christina. Teachers are paid as if their jobs barely mattered, and there is common ‘misunderestimation’ of how hard those jobs are. Yet business utterly depends on an educated workforce.
At the risk of giving offense, however, there are several things that make it difficult to spot and reward exceptional teachers, including; teacher’s unions, rigid public-service pay scales, bureaucracy, political correctness, and abysmal-quality books. That is probably not an inclusive list.
November 29th, 2005 at 5:43 am
There is a website that cites biblical evidence for a flat earth at the centre of the universe. I think the scientific phrase here is QED (or is that too arrogant- me saying I’ve proved my point?)
The site is either so heavily into Irony as to be able to make battleships, or the guy really is a nast small minded piece of work.
Since I started reading SEB a few weeks ago I’ve been analysing British TV. Apart from religeos programs Evolution is the norm- used routinely in the news as well as chat shows. As I have posted before ID/Creation news items tend to be ‘look at those funny Americans’ (Kansas, Creationist Natural Hisry Museum etc’
November 29th, 2005 at 6:37 am
Reasoning thusly is exactly what nipped in the bud any chance of my becoming a Christian, back when I was fourteen or fifteen. It took a couple more years before I was sure I was a muggle.
November 29th, 2005 at 7:00 pm
As a native Kansan, I can truly tell you how embarrassing and ignominious all of this creationist bullshit is, and as I now live in San Francisco, I can also tell you how idiotic it (deservingly) makes my homestate look. I grew up in Wichita (where there are as many True Believers as there is sand in the Sahara), and my mom still works in the public schools there. The horror stories she tells me are sickening. One of the members of the school board is anti-public education, for god’s sake! Worse, the citizens of Wichita sit idly by and watch this crap happen(many are glad to see it happen, as well). Even though I’m never having kids (regardless of whether or not I get married), I was lucky to get out of Kansas when I did. It’s the school system today, it’ll probably be the medical system tomorrow, etc. etc.
December 1st, 2005 at 11:28 pm
By way of Pharyngula:
Editorial: Bush science policies hurt U.S.
Brain drain in action…
December 3rd, 2005 at 12:18 am
Well, now that I’ve read through all the commentary, I have to say I’m surprised at two things: (1) the amount of mischaracterizing that seems to be the case so far, and (2) the absence of anyone calling much attention to it. If you truly accept the prognosis of a lot of the critics of ID, you’d think anyone who dares suggest any belief in it at all is a hard-headed, ignorant, young-earth “fundie.” The fact is,there’s a much larger spectrum covered by the belief in creationism, and a much larger “middle” than a lot of people recognize (“middle” = any of a variety of mediating positions that offer a combination of the two).
This kind of blanket assumption of ignorance is what I find puzzling. After all, the very term “Intelligent Design” was locked into the language of the debate by the pivotal work written by William Dembski with that title. Dembski is no ignorant “fundie.” He has 2 Ph.D.’s, in mathematics and philosophy, and holds degrees in theology and psychology. He has received two fellowships from the National Science Foundation and at the date of writing Intelligent Design, he was senior fellow of the Discovery Institute’s Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture. He is a scientist in every sense of the word, and bases his findings on scientific method. And unlike the ultimate claims of some evolutionists, he knows where to draw the line and not claim more than can be proven. He does not present ID as a claim of proof, simply as another theory that merits consideration. He has found enough that evolution cannot explain and ID can, to present ID as a theory to be considered on a rational as well as a scientific basis.
His work was followed up by Darwin’s Black Box, by cellular biologist Michael Behe, who observed, by scientific method, interactions and interrelated activity at the most basic cellular levels which could not have developed by a process of evolution over extended periods of time. Some of the processes he observed were so intricately linked that all of them were required in order to function. (The most well-known of these is the bacterial flagellum or tail, used for movement, and blood clotting.) So there does not have to be the uncrossable chasm between faith and science that so many people insist must be the case. If nothing else, the current state of the debate has brought about a reconciliation between my brother and me. We parted ways a few years ago after he (a professing atheist) became greatly offended when I shared with him concerning my then new-found conversion. He went off to his science fiction reading he loved, and I went off to Bible College. With time and attitude changes, things are different. For one thing, my bookshelf now contains several science fiction selections (Orson Scott Card is my favorite), and one book on loan from my brother, Has Science Found God?, by Victor J. Stenger, a rebuttal of ID theories. And we both appreciate Science & Theology News magazine. It’s a different world.
I really have no problem with some basic ideas of evolution, that is, theories about the process and patterns of evolution that are discernible and provable even over periods of relatively short duration. I have a bigger problem with what is termed “descent with modification,” the “larger picture” of evolution that makes unproveable assumptions concerning life origins, and modification across species lines. This is evolution’s notorious “missing link,” and one that evolutionists in recent times have back-pedaled to avoid. In a recent debate between William Dembski and Eugenie Scott (executive director of the National Center for Science Education), she insisted, “none of us are arguing about descent with modification.â€?
I’m sure she was sincere, but I remain skeptical. I’ve seen plenty enough of the old charts showing the amoeba-like form gradually developing fins, then legs, crawling up from the water to develop further, eventually into human form. Talk about a leap of faith! Even scientists themselves don’t believe it. Take a look at the reconstructions made with dinosaur bones, which resemble reptiles. Take a look at any modern creature said to have descended from them, and—what a surprise—they have reptilian features.
For my own part, I have more interest in the science/theology connection in other areas, such as the relation of health and religious belief. Studies have been done showing that people of religious faith are significantly healthier. Stanger tries to explain this away by other factors, such as the tendency of religious groups to be less likely to smoke or to drink heavily. But such factors do not explain some studies, such as one I read about concerning a study of the effects of prayer. People in the study, with the same medical diagnoses, were prayed for without being aware of it, while a control group of equal number were not prayed for. Even after the consideration of other factors that had the potential of skewing the results, it was still found that that the study group was substantially healthier than the control group (30% as I recall—these details are from memory of a study discussed in a clinical group I was associated with, around 5 years ago.)
No, we’re not all Fundies, and we don’t all see church and state issues and government foisting undesirable consequences upon us. Many of us have an interest in both disciplines and do not see the current status as an either/or proposition. There is even sadness at seeing the harm that we can all do to one another as we entrench ourselves even more deeply than before. I would think scientific method and “quality educationâ€? both would demand that all theoretical possibilities be considered and taught, rather than choosing a path that is the equivalent of censorship of valid ideas.
December 3rd, 2005 at 1:16 am
Did I just see what I thought I saw? Did you really just use Behe as an example saying he uses the scientific method?
My my. While I won’t imply you’re stupid, I will say you’re gullible and not intellectually honest enough to go look at both sides.
First of Dembski is a mathemician. They don’t use the scientific method. He deals with probabilities. They’re big numbers to be sure, but with the driving force behind evolution, natural selection, they’re completely reasonable.
Second…. I’m still not beliving you just cited Behe. And you used the flagellum argument?! You’ve got a few things wrong. Behe hasn’t used the scientific method. He started to, but abandoned it. He got as far as a hypothesis in which he predicted that systems, such as the flagellum, or blood clotting cannot function without all its constituent parts.
However, that’s where he quit. Behe abandoned the scientific method and claimed absolute veracity wihout even bothering to actually test his little hypothesis.
But other people did. Turns out that it fails. The flagellum is reducible. Take out a few bits and you get a device that infectious bacteria use to inject venom. With blood clotting, you can take out components and there’s several species which lack them and are still able to clot blood.
Thus, Behe seems to be a very poor “scientist”.
As far as wanting “all theoretical possibilities be considered and taught”, I have nothing with that. However, ID hasn’t been established as a theory. It’s barely even a hypothesis. And incase you forgot the difference, a hypothesis comes first, and only after RIGOROUS amounts of testing can it become a theory.
Additionally, if you claim to want to put out all competing theories, ID is very low on the list of alternatie theories out there as far as support goes.
If you want to be completely honest, gravity has a much more accepted and tested opponent that actually IS a theory. It’s called Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND). Look it up sometime since you seem to be the curious sort. The point is, that there’s actually a fair number of real scientists that support MOND. Meanwhile, ID remains untested and is only “supported” by .0001% (yes that’s the actual figure) of scientists. So why should we give privledge to something that’s not actually a theory and has a factor of 10,000 times less support than MOND?
The reason is that it’s not a scientific debate. It’s religion trying to wear sheeps skin. It’s done a cute job, and I’m sorry to say, you’ve been duped. If you really want the truth on how bad Behe’s science is, take a look at the transcripts from the Dover trial. Behe admits under oath, that by his definition of science, such things as astrology are sciences.
Additionally, you seem like you like to read, so I recommend Barbra Forrester’s book. I can’t remember the title, but it’s the product of a several year investigation into the history of ID, and just how it functions as Creationism’s Trojan Horse.
December 3rd, 2005 at 3:52 am
Mxyzptlk writes…
Is there now? Perhaps you’d like to elaborate on that statement. I’m not personally aware of any “middle” which offers “a combination of the two.”
Interesting to note that Dembski is a mathematician, philosopher, theologian, and psychologist, but not a BIOLOGIST. Hmmmm.
So tell me, when you’re seeking a medical opinion on some condition you have do you go and consult a cosmologist? Seeing as you seem to think that any scientist is fully qualified to propose theories outside their realm of expertise I’d guess the last people you’d ask for medical advice would be actual doctors.
Anyone associated with the Discovery Institute Center is pretty much immediately suspect. Weren’t you just bitching in another thread about using sources that have an axe to grind? The folks at Discovery have been grinding a really big axe for a really long time. Play by the rules you’re insisting others play by or go home.
He certainly qualifies as a scientist, it’s just too bad it’s not in a relevant field. It’s not like he’d be the first scientist to latch onto a stupid idea and refuse to let go. I’ve read a lot of Dembski’s work and I’d dispute the idea that he basis his conclusions on the scientific method.
As for finding stuff that ID can explain, please elaborate. ID doesn’t explain anything. It just’s another way of saying “Goddidit.” It makes no predictions, it’s offers no explanations, not only is it not a theory, but it’s hardly a hypothesis.
Now I know you’re on crack. Behe is a joke of a scientist. His performance during the Dover Panda Trial in Pennsylvania was a laugh riot:
HARRISBURG - One of intelligent design’s leading experts could not identify the driving force behind the concept. In his writings supporting intelligent design, Michael Behe, a Lehigh University biochemistry professor and author of “Darwin’s Black Box,” said that “intelligent design theory focuses exclusively on proposed mechanisms of how complex biological structures arose.” But during cross examination Tuesday, when plaintiffs’ attorney Eric Rothschild asked Behe to identify those mechanisms, he couldn’t. When pressed, Behe said intelligent design does not propose a step-by-step mechanism, but one can still infer intelligent cause was involved by the “purposeful arrangement of parts.” ... After Behe could not identify intelligent design’s mechanism for change, Rothschild asked him if intelligent design then isn’t just a negative argument against natural selection. Behe disagreed, reiterating his statement that intelligent design is the purposeful arrangement of parts.
In other words, “If it looks like it was designed than it was designed and the proof that it was designed is that it looks like it was designed.” Gotta love good old fashioned circular logic.
Oh, but it gets even better! Behe actually admitted that in order for Intelligent Design to qualify as a scientific theory he had to change the definition of the word theory to such an extent that even Astrology would qualify as a scientific theory:
HARRISBURG - Dr. Michael Behe, leading intellectual light of the intelligent design movement, faced a dilemma. In order to call intelligent design a “scientific theory,” he had to change the definition of the term. It seemed the definition offered by the National Academy of Science, the largest and most prestigious organization of scientists in the Western world, was inadequate to contain the scope and splendor and just plain gee-willingnesses of intelligent design. So he devised his own definition of theory, expanding upon the definition of those stuck-in-the-21st-century scientists, those scientists who ridicule him and call his “theory” creationism in a cheap suit. He’d show them. He’d come up with his own definition. Details aside, his definition was broader and more inclusive of ideas that are “outside the box.” So, as we learned Tuesday, during Day 11 of the Dover Panda Trial, under his definition of a scientific theory, astrology would be a scientific theory. Astrology? Who knew that Jacqueline Bigar, syndicated astrology columnist, was on par with Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe? Eric Rothschild, attorney for the plaintiffs, asked Behe about whether astrology was science. And Behe, after hemming and hawing and launching into an abbreviated history of astrology and science, said, under his definition, it is. He said he wasn’t a science historian, but the definition of astrology in the dictionary referred to its 15th-century roots, when it was equated with astronomy, which, according to the National Academy of Science, is a science. So, taking a short logical leap, something Behe would certainly endorse since he does it a lot himself, you could say that intelligent design is on par with 15th-century science. Sounds about right.
How anyone can take Behe seriously on the validity of Intelligent Design after the fool he made of himself in Dover is beyond me. The fact that you seem enamored with him just gives me every reason to write you off as another lost cause.
Both of which have been shown to be quite reducible. Of course both of those links were written by people who are advancing the Theory of Evolution so you’ll naturally claim they have an axe to grind and thusly not as credible as Dr. *snicker* Behe, no matter how big a fool he makes of himself.
Bully for you and your brother, but I fail to see how that makes Dembski or Behe’s thoughts on the issue any more relevant.
And no one ever said there had to be a huge chasm between science and faith. I personally know a lot of people of faith who have no problems with science in general or Evolution in particular.
There’s nothing unprovable about descent with modification. There’s new supporting evidence coming in for it just about every day. The fact that you’re not up on it doesn’t mean it’s not there.
Of course your choice of the word “unprovable” shows your ignorance of science. Proofs exist only in mathematics, everything else is just a theory. Evolution, Gravity, Electromagnetic Radiation, none of it’s proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, they’re all “just theories.”
Outside of Behe and Dembski, which scientists don’t believe this? More specifically, which biologists don’t believe this?
Look, just because a concept is too much for you to get your head around that doesn’t make it false. Not that the Theory of Evolution is all that difficult to understand, but some folks just seem to have more trouble than others with it.
Yes, we’ve discussed that supposed study here not too long ago. That was the Columbia University Study back in 2001 which claimed that prayer doubled the success rate of IVF treatments and was even published in the Journal of Reproductive Medicine. Too bad it turned out to be a fraud.
So far there haven’t been any major studies that show a significant link between prayer and health, though there may be something to it. Then again many doctors think just having a positive attitude is enough to affect your health for the better.
Tell us something we don’t already know, eh? It’s not just atheists who hang out at this site. We’ve got plenty of believers here as well that seem to have little trouble reconciling their faith with their acceptance of science.
I agree wholeheartedly and just as soon as you can demonstrate that Intelligent Design is a theoretical possibility that is equally valid to the Theory of Evolution then I’ll agree that we should teach it in science classes. I won’t be holding my breath if the best you can do is to quote more of Behe. I’ll be too busy laughing my ass off. At the very least you should try to find a Biologist who actually buys into that nonsense.
December 3rd, 2005 at 6:31 am
Well, Les, true to form, you’ve beaten me to the punch again. Nice work.
Myxyzptlk (man, that’s hard to type)- I will only add this to what Les said:
You seem to be impressed by Dembski’s and Behe’s scientific credentials, even though they aren’t in biology, as Les points out. If sheer numbers of accredited scientists spin your wheel, check out this, a list of more than 600 (and growing) scientists against ID named Steve.
Of course, science is not a democracy. As I’ve mentioned before here at SEB, I was in the first generation of junior high students to have plate techtonics in their textbooks. Only fifty years ago, most scientists did not believe in plate techtonics. But the evidence in favor of it accumulated, and it was eventually accepted. Perhaps the case of ID is similar?
No. The only “evidence” for ID is negative: the argument from incredulity: “I don’t understand/can’t explain how such and such a feature (flagellum, blood clotting) could have evolved. Therefore it must be Designed”. There is no positive evidence for ID.
But the main problems with ID as a scientific theory, in my opinion, are that ID is not falsifiable, makes no predictions, and simply begs the question of the origin of order which it claims to explain. All of these are characteristic of religion, but not of science.
December 3rd, 2005 at 10:48 am
But apparently, and by your own admission, it’s ON the list. Except in places where some people feel they ought to exclude it. Like public schools.
Another mischaracterization. Not everyone who believes in ID does so on religious grounds.
Funny you should mention Newton. There seem to be some laws he noticed about nature, one of which raises serious questions about a “Big Bang� theory. Something about objects at rest tending to remain at rest.
Then take the time to actually dialogue with someone besides “fundies� and you will find the “middle� I speak of. I’m not talking about any incontrovertible evidences, I’m simply stating that there are a lot of people whose beliefs are formulated in a way that embraces both evolution and creation. Saying “God created� does not automatically put one in diametric opposition to evolutionists.
Even more interesting to note that you choose to address these and totally ignore the recognition he has as a scientist, from scientific organizations. Hmmmm.
Okay, so you knock the Discovery Institute. “Interesting� that you ignore the part about the National Science Foundation. Even more interesting is the NSF’s slogan: “National Science Foundation: Where DISCOVERIES Begin.�
No, I was simply pointing out for those who may be unaware of the nature of the sources you quoted, that an atheist quoting an atheist may feel he/she has answered definitively, but it falls under the category someone has already mentioned about numerical arguments. If a position is true, it matters not how many people see it is true, it is not “more true� as a result, nor is it even thereby proven to actually BE true.
No “insistencesâ€? here. Seems to me Discovery is doing a good job of approaching the issue from the ground rules people in the scientific community have laid out. But of course, the scientific community doesn’t think so, and as with anyone they disagree with, then begins the old “death of a thousand qualificationsâ€? (which has already surfaced here as well, I see from some of the responses being offered).
And now I know you simply want to discredit his work by whatever means you find at your disposal. Your chosen method (and theirs, quite obviously) of reduction to the absurd is considered invalid argument, by the way.
Or maybe you’ve forgotten that science has its own “Piltdown Man?” Are we then supposed to invalidate all conclusions of science based on the one case that brought them embarrassment?
Thank you. I can only marvel at the irony of you doing so.
I never claimed it did. I was addressing the one-dimensional focus of the responses so far, which characterize anyone who accepts ID as either ignorant or “fundie� or both.
They didn’t have to, implied remarks often speak more loudly than outright declarations. It has been an almost unanimous presupposition throughout the thread.
I think I just said that. And up until you just stated it, I haven’t seen anyone else come close.
Now there’s a hoot. As if consistently repeated outcomes don’t constitute “proof.� I’ll quit believing in gravity the next time I drop something and have to grab it quick before it floats away. Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there—kinda lke a Creator.
You gotta like it. I make one comment about a prayer study and you automatically know which one I’m referring to? Exactly where did you miss my comment about it being “five years ago?” The course I was taking was in Fall of 2000. The study you mentioned was in 2001. I’ll let you do the math on that one. *heh*
There are numerous studies out there, and with similar results. Scientists are slowly but begrudgingly beginning to acknowledge “there is something there.�
That’s where you’re mistaken, there are plenty of them, unless you have your head buried too far in the sand to see them. A good place to start would be the archives at http://www.stnews.org/index.php They have published news about many of them. But of course, once you’ve seen the information, then there will be the inevitable parsing of the information so that it can be dismissed and/or disqualified on one technicality or another that “explains” why it isn’t good enough, and supposedly thereby “invalidated.”
December 3rd, 2005 at 11:14 am
Can we cut through the creationist crap, please?
Yes, ID is a theory and there are more creation theories than I can shake a stick at. What the ID proponents have yet to show is that it’s a scientific theory. What does ID contribute to our knowledge? How long has it been around, how many peer-reviewed ID papers have been published in the relevant fields of science? If ID wants to be recognized at science, it has to play be the established rules and it has to stand and fall on its intellectual merit. There is no special pleading for transparently religiously motivated objections to science.
Yes, there are many flavors of creationism, ranging from the flat earth folks, young earth creationism, old earth creationism, theistic evolution, and plain old biological evolution. Not every creationist is a fundie, but almost everybody trying to push pseudo-science on the curriculum is.
You feel the Discovery Institute, Behe, Dembski, and whoever are being slighted? No problem, show us the science. What alternate explanation does ID have for the crushing body of evidence and observations in support of evolution? What mechanism does it propose? What predictions does it make? How can it be falsified? What experiments does it propose? How does ID enrich our knowledge about nature? How is it intellectually enriching?
December 3rd, 2005 at 11:53 am
No. I don’t admit that ID is a theory. Again, it’s only a hypothesis. It has to undergo testing before it can be counted as a theory. Oh, wait. It has undergone testing and it’s failed. I guess it’s not really even a good hypothesis anymore.
I’ve never claimed this. However, people such as yourself that claim to believe it on other grounds, ie scientific, have only been hoodwinked by liars like Behe, Dembski, the Discovery Institute, et al.
Again, ID fails to make any testable predictions. Thus, it would fail any peer review that would ever take place. But let’s also remember that the DI knows this which is precisely why they haven’t written any scientific journal articles and instead write things for the common person that can easily have the wool pulled over their eyes.
How could we forget. Ignorant people won’t let us live it down. However, perhaps you should realize who it was that discovered the hoax: scientists. We have our rules that are meant to discover such hoaxes, and as the Piltdown man demonstrates, we do a good job at uncovering them. If there were really the vast gloabal conspiracy to make such hoaxes, then why would scientists betray their own hoax?
Meanwhile, the Piltdown man doesn’t really have a huge effect on whether or not evolution stands or falls. There’s a gigantic mountain of other information out there supporting it. If the Piltdown man were true, then it would only be another boulder on the mountain.
However, with ID, there’s barely a small tree in comparison. Behe’s tesimony takes out the trunk. What’s left is a few disconnected branches of nonsense that aren’t tied together in any respectable way. Why? Because ID isn’t science.
You seem to want to believe this, but there’s never been any such implications. This seems to be the persecution complex hard at work. But remember, there’s been a statement signed by over 16,000 religious and scientific officals stating that science & religion don’t need the great divide.
Amazing how little you know about science. No. Consistenly repeated outcomes do not constitute “proof”. The theory of gravity said every time you drop something it will fall. Can you really test every instance? Of course not. Thus, you can’t have “proof”. You can only attempt to approximate it by testing as often as possible.
However, let’s take a look at ID again. What tests has it done? None. Can it even do tests? Of course not. It doesn’t make predictions.
December 3rd, 2005 at 12:01 pm
Apropos: A Roguish Chrestomathy - The Wrathful Dispersion controversy: A Canadian perspective
I think this beats The Onion’s Intelligent Falling…
December 3rd, 2005 at 12:18 pm
I just gotta say to Myxyzptlk, it looks like you’re really jumping through whatever available hoop in the hope that it’ll defend your argument. You’ve been playing on words, criticising others statements instead of taking the criticisms of your statements in tow, and in general failing to understand the nature of the conversation. No offence, but they had you at ‘ID is a failed hypothesis, not a credible theory’. Leave this thread be, and come back when you’ve got stronger arguments for ID. I’d be glad to hear any good ones (as they’d be the first - I’d be part of something actually sorta significant).
December 3rd, 2005 at 1:20 pm
I saw two copies of Philip Johnson’s book, Darwin On Trial on one of my co-worker’s desk yesterday. We talk about lots of stuff; he’s very religious and I’m waiting for him to tell me where I’m going wrong.
Should be fun.
December 3rd, 2005 at 2:32 pm
Sigh. Mxyzptlk, I should know better, but I can’t let this stand. In addition to all your misapprehensions about the nature of scientific theories, ably pointed out by Les, elwed, voija, and arc above (arc’s advice about doing some research about what ID has contributed to science and coming back with some data is good), we had this exchange. I said…
...to which you replied
Okay. First- which scientific theories are “contrary to the laws of science”? Please think of something more entertaining than that old fundie favorite of evolution being at odds with the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
And second- You didn’t contest my characterization of ID as not being falsifiable, not making predictions, and begging the question of the origin of order. You merely said that ID is “at least not self-contradictory”. Fine. Now we know what your criteria for a scientific theory are.
That puts ID right up there with theories like “Les is a doodie-head”. The LDH theory is not self-contradictory, not falsifiable (barring a formal definition of “doodie-head”), makes no predictions (doodie-head behavior? No way to know), and does not explain the origin of this condition (Les is a doodie-head because a DoodieBird doodied on him? Maybe this is what the Book of Doodie says, but it can’t be empirically established).
December 3rd, 2005 at 3:37 pm
He’s back to babble some more…
I have no control over who comes to my site and engages in conversation here. If the majority of people who show up are Fundies then the majority of people I’m going to end up talking to are Fundies. Most of the folks who are believers who aren’t Fundies that show up here seem to accept Evolution without needing any middle ground theories about it. You’re the first to even propose that such things exist, though you haven’t actually elaborated on what they might be.
I didn’t ignore the recognition at all. Being a scientist in one field, however, doesn’t mean you’re automatically qualified in every other field. Again I ask you a simple question: Do you seek out medical advice from Cosmologists? Questions about the relevancy of someone’s field of expertise are legitimate concerns when judging the quality of their research.
So now you’re claiming that because the NSF has the word “discoveries” in their slogan that this means the Discovery Institute is a perfectly legitimate science organization because it has the same word in it’s title? Again I have to wonder what you’ve been smoking.
Bullshit, you were trying to imply that because the source was an atheist that made it immediately suspect. Therefore the same logic should hold true for anything dealing with the Discovery Institute and ID. Nobody was using the argument from numbers fallacy.
You’ll pardon me if I question your sense of judgment with regards to the job the Discovery Institute has done in playing by the rules of the scientific community. I’ve read the entire site and have yet to see anything from them that fit the definition of a proper scientific theory.
And yes, qualifications are important if you’re going to speak as an authority on something. Again I ask if you would seek out a Cosmologist to give you a diagnosis of an ailment you’re suffering from. If not, why not? By your logic they should be just as qualified as any doctor simply by virtue of being a fellow scientist.
Which isn’t to say that they may not have something to contribute to the conversation, but that anything they propose that flies in the face of accepted scientific theories should be heavily questioned if they are not actually active in the field they are attempting to change.
I don’t have to discredit his work. He’s doing a fine enough job of it himself. Read the trial transcripts for yourself. He looks like a friggin’ idiot especially when he’s being cross-examined. At one point Behe was presented with a plethora of peer-reviewed papers that offered explanations of how both blood clotting and bacterial flagellum developed via natural selection and his response was to dismiss them out of hand:
HARRISBURG - Surrounded by stacks of thick books and more than 50 peer-reviewed articles on the subject of the evolution of the immune system, Michael Behe, a leading intelligent-design expert, was asked repeatedly whether he thought scientists had produced written works on the subject. Eric Rothschild, plaintiffs’ attorney in the trial against the Dover Area School District, piled the material onto the witness stand in order to challenge the Lehigh University biochemist’s statement in his 1996 book, “Darwin’s Black Box,” that the “scientific literature has no answers to the question of the origin of the immune system.” But Behe sat steadfast. He remains unaware of any evidence of work done “in a detailed, rigorous fashion” detailing “how immune systems or their irreducibly complex components could have arisen through natural selection and random mutation,” he said.
Kinda like what you’re doing here when asked to demonstrate how ID qualifies as a legitimate scientific theory. So I suppose this means you don’t have a problem with redefining what a “scientific theory” is just so you can fit your pet cause under the umbrella even if it means including long debunked nonsense such as Astrology? How convenient. I hear they’re trying to do that in Kansas as well. Hey, if you can’t beat ‘em then just change the definition until you can join ‘em.
So then you admit that Behe is an embarrassment who doesn’t really know what the hell he’s talking about? That’s a step in a positive direction.
Yes, scientists have been fooled by hoaxes before. They also managed to figure out the hoax and correct themselves in the process. It’s not like the same isn’t true in reverse.
Another famous “Dr.”, Kent Hovind, latched onto an 1999 April Fools prank by scientists as proof that dinosaurs and humans co-existed. The sad part is this prank is still showing up as “proof” on various pro-ID/Creationist websites.
And that’s one of the big differences between the Evolution camp and the ID/Creationist camp. The Evolutionists abandoned Piltdown Man as soon as it was clear it was a hoax, but Onyate Man keeps showing up as proof for the true believers. You can’t find an Evolutionist who doesn’t admit that Piltdown Man hoodwinked the scientists, but you’ll still find plenty of IDers who will insist that Onyate Man is a real fossil that proves their point.
You’re welcome. Everyone needs more irony in their diet.
Ignorant of current Evolutionary Theory, not ignorant in general. A distinction that has been made previously. Scott Adams is a very intelligent person, but he freely admits to being ignorant of current Evolutionary Theory and that immediately calls into question the validity of any judgments he makes about it. There is a difference between an opinion and an informed opinion. You can have as many of the former as you wish, but I’ll take you more seriously if you have more of the latter. The moment someone shows up here to argue for ID without using the same old tired arguments that have already been beaten to a pulp I’ll dance a little jig. You certainly haven’t managed to do so what with pulling out the old favorites of blood clotting and the like, issues that indicate you haven’t been keeping up with the science.
And I’ve yet to meet a Fundamentalist who wasn’t firmly in the ID/Creationist camp. I suppose it’s possible there are some out there somewhere, but I’ve yet to come across one myself.
If you say so, I don’t see it and there are plenty of regulars here who represent the demographic of believers who don’t have a problem with science. You’re new to the site, though, so I’ll give you the benefit of unfamiliarity.
Perhaps not in this thread, but there are over 3500 threads here. Again the difference between an opinion and an informed opinion. Try not to judge everyone based on the content of one or two threads until you’ve had the chance to read some of the other stuff that’s been written. You might be able to avoid repeating dead arguments that way as well.
This paragraph demonstrates that you don’t really understand the scientific method or the nature of scientific theories. Allow me to enlighten you:
As noted above, in common usage a theory is defined as little more than a guess or a hypothesis. But in science and generally in academic usage, a theory is much more than that. A theory is an established paradigm that explains all or much of the data we have and offers valid predictions that can be tested. In science, a theory is not considered fact or infallible, because we can never assume we know all there is to know. Instead, theories remain standing until they are disproven, at which point they are thrown out altogether or modified to fit the additional data.
Emphasis mine. Theories are never proven and all are vulnerable to being falsified. The best theories stand the test of time and repeated experimentation, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be upended should some new data come to light. Continuing from the Wikipedia entry:
In science, a body of descriptions of knowledge is usually only called a theory once it has a firm empirical basis, i.e., it- is consistent with pre-existing theory to the extent that the pre-existing theory was experimentally verified, though it will often show pre-existing theory to be wrong in an exact sense,
- is supported by many strands of evidence rather than a single foundation, ensuring that it probably is a good approximation if not totally correct,
- makes predictions that might someday be used to disprove the theory,
- is tentative, correctable and dynamic, in allowing for changes to be made as new data is discovered, rather than asserting certainty, and
- is the most parsimonious explanation, sparing in proposed entities or explanations, commonly referred to as passing Occam’s Razor.
This is true of such established theories as special and general relativity, quantum mechanics, plate tectonics, evolution, etc. Theories considered scientific meet at least most, but ideally all, of the above criteria. The fewer which are matched, the less scientific it is; those that meet only several or none at all, cannot be said to be scientific in any meaningful sense of the word.
Given the above, please (once again) demonstrate how ID qualifies as a valid scientific theory.
You’re right, I jumped the gun on that one and for that I apologize.
Considering that the best you can do is mention some study you vaguely recall from five years ago without any sort of a reference, you’ll pardon me if I find your claim specious at best. Who are these scientists who are “begrudgingly” beginning to acknowledge the effect of prayer? What studies are you referring to? Where are the supporting references for your claim? Why should I just accept your word on it when I don’t even know who the hell you are?
I find it amusing that you’re quick to dismiss links that point to resources that disagree with your view and then when you do finally provide a reference you immediately qualify any response we might give as being unworthy of your consideration. You seem quite willing to swallow whole claims that agree with your worldview while dismissing out of hand those that disagree as being from sources with an axe to grind.
But any reference is better than no reference. I’ll see if I can’t dig up a few of the studies to look over and consider. I won’t bother with trying to find rebuttals as you’ll just dismiss them anyway.
What the hell are you talking about now? If you’re going to make a claim like that and don’t want to be considered an idiot then you should really take the time to back it up with some sort of a reference.
December 3rd, 2005 at 3:50 pm
Thanks for the link to Onyate Man, Les. I didn’t know the story and I almost wet myself…
December 3rd, 2005 at 5:31 pm
Les, I wish I had an informed opinion agreeing with ID, as I would very much like to witness your jig. Sadly, I don’t even have an opinion agreeing with ID, as I believe to be entirely unscientific and most probably incorrect.
Also, I would like to second your insistence that to trust a scientist’s claims on subject x, we should make sure his or her degree is in subject x.
As an example, consider Serge Lang. Lang was a brilliant mathematician and wrote one of the three major graduate texts in Abstract Algebra. If Lang were to claim the truth of a mathematical theorem, I would trust him without bothering to scour his proof. However, I wouldn’t trust his opinions on medicine - until the day he died (2 or 3 months ago, I think) he believed that AIDS was not, in fact, caused by a virus.
December 3rd, 2005 at 5:40 pm
I’d just like to mention before the silly boy with the unspellable username posts again, I’m a junior in college working on a dual major in astronomy and physics.
If he’s having problems swallowing what everyone’s saying, I recommend he take a gram of arsenic after dinner. It’ll clear that indigestion right up. And let’s remember, I’m a medical expert by his definition…
December 3rd, 2005 at 10:41 pm
TO VOIJARISA:
Oh, man, how are we going to break the news to zilch? He seems to think one of its main problems is that it’s “not falsifiable.�
So one person says they’re “suspect,� another says they’re disproven, and somehow we follow this line of illogic to the infallible conclusion that they have become “liars???�
And I never said what grounds I believed it on, so you’ve made your own assumption. I just stated it has proponents who are approaching it from that angle.
More likely, it is because the scientific community has ways of shunning those who won’t toe their line and chant their mantra. So they take it to the larger audience.
Jeez, don’t have a cow! Vast global conspiracy? Where did you ever get that by my offering one example?
Yes, a very good job. That particular one only took 41 years.
You haven’t refuted a man’s observations on molecular biological processes by backing him into a corner on a basically unrelated statement about astrology. And so far that’s been about the main counter to his position.
Well, for one, I don’t consider myself a fundie at all, mainly because there are enough issues on which I’ve dialogued with fundies and they all call me a liberal. And secondly, just because you don’t see them doesn’t mean they are non-existent. For example:
(Now who’s paranoid? This was, after all, your comment)
(This one is pretty direct—attributing “fundamentalist beliefs� to “IDers�)
I could go on, but you get the point. And that covers less than halfway down the thread, and is not even a comprehensive list (or this would be an awfully long post), the rest is all just more of the same.
Oh, this is too easy. With a lifetime of dropping things, which I seem to be developing more of a propensity for with each new day, I’d say 53 years of observing that 100% of things I have dropped have confirmed gravity, that’s pretty safe grounds to “prove� it exists. But then, of course, I’ve never taken a ride on a space shuttle. But that would take me outside the gravitational field, making it inapplicable anyway.
And what tests have evolutionists done on hypotheses like, for instance, descent with modification? None. Can it even do tests? Of course not, descent with modification allegedly occurs over too large a time span to even be testable (or so they claim, even against obstacles like the Cambrian explosion).
Some people deny it, but this is the place evolutionary theories eventually come to, an attempt to connect the dots to make an observable phenomenon of change within species somehow also turn into a theory with cosmological significance. But as such, it is fraught with enough difficulties that it has been rejected by many scientists.
But by many others, what is called a theory is purported to be established fact. For instance, Ernst Mayr states:
He makes the statement without any delineation of his understanding of “theory of evolution”—is it the observable form or the speculative and unverified notions that are an expansion of it?
Another one of those “reducibles,” I see. The weapon of choice here apparently, reduction to the absurd. But if it’s all the same with you, I think I’ll get a second opinion on the diagnosis. I don’t figure I’ve got 41 years to wait around for the results.
December 3rd, 2005 at 10:59 pm
That’s just it. It seems to me that this is simple induction—while not all adherents or simple believers in ID may not be religious fundamentalists, I personally have yet to meet a religious fundy who does not adhere to ID. The correlation seems, for the most part, positive. That’s what is so pernicious about the movement to undermine the (well-backed) theory of evolution in public schools. Despite some admittedly sound arguments from non-fundamentalist proponents of ID, I don’t think one can argue that the teaching ID in schools is not a Religious Wrong endeavor.
December 3rd, 2005 at 11:06 pm
Really? So are you being deliberately obtuse then?
If you don’t believe it on religious grounds then you must believe it on some sort of “scientific” grounds. Thus, I and others have debunked nearly every one of the “scientific” claims that have been made.
But if we haven’t gotten the right one, please tell us what it is that makes you believe so we can subject it to critical analysis. Unless of course, you’re afraid to subject your reasoning to such scrutiny. Either that or you don’t really have a reason and are just pretending you do now to try to save face.
Again, you have no evidence for this. In fact, quite the opposite. Scientists frequently publish things in peer reviewed journals that don’t go along with the mainstream. There is a physicist at the University of Missouri Rolla (UMR) that has a theory that the sun is actually made of iron. His stuff is still published dispite being blatantly against the mainstream.
It’s based on your assumption that scientists are somehow trying to hide the fact that their pet theory is in trouble. If that’s not a conspiracy, I’m not sure what is. Given that scientists across the globe nearly unanimously support evolution, that makes it one hell of a conspiracy.
Yes, that was my comment. And I’m not paranoid in the least. Given that the mole outed himself, I don’t call that an unreasonable suspicion. Yours is simply paranoid delusion.
Again, the only thing that’s easy is your continued proof that you are completely clueless as to how science operates. Having things work 100% of the time thus far only shows that it’s worked for that range of possibilities. But how do you know gravity isn’t a function of time that takes 100,000 years and then reverses itself? We don’t. Which is why gravity is “just a theory”. You can’t test every case. We can be pretty damn sure, but never positive. The same is true for Evolution. EVERY test for it has been successful. That doesn’t prove it, but it makes it pretty damn well supported.
If you wish to claim that a few dozen is “many scientists” out of the several hundreds of thousands, you should really relearn some high school math.
That’s about as intellectualy honest as saying “many christians believe the rapture will happen this decade” because there’s a few delusional ones out there.
You’ve done a good job of doing that to your own argument.
December 3rd, 2005 at 11:22 pm
Look, let’s cut to the chase. We’re not vested in evolution, so instead of bickering what whatshisnick about why evolution isn’t, ask him to put up or shut up and tell us why ID is right.
So:
What is the theory of ID?
How does it explain the body of fact and observations that evolution currently does?
What mechanisms does it propose?
How we can we falsify the so-called theory of ID?
Are there any lab experiments that we can conduct to prove or disprove ID?
Until such time as whatshisnick ceases to evade answers to these questions, it’s a waste of time going round and round points that have been refuted far too many times already.
December 4th, 2005 at 3:29 am
Mxyzptlk- what elwed said. You support ID. And ultimately, ID must be judged on its merits, not on the ratio of scientists or creationists for and against it. If you want to participate in a logical discussion about the status of ID as a scientific theory, answer elwed’s questions. Otherwise we stay on the merry-go-round of “my source is better than your source”. And some of us have spent lots of time on this particular ride, and it’s not as entertaining as it once was.
That said, I will respond to particulars of your post that involve me. First: VoijaRisa said
to which you replied
I’m not sure exactly what VoijaRisa meant by “failed”, but I suspect (correct me if I’m wrong, VR) he or she was referring to, not the failure of the basic premise of ID, i.e. that some features of living organisms evince design that could not have evolved, but rather to the particular failures of ID’s poster boys- the flagellum and blood clotting (already cited by Les). The unfalsifiability of the basic premise remains.
Second: you seem eager to disavow the creationist underpinnings of ID. True, there are a few flying saucer IDer’s out there, but not many. But the motivation for the invention of ID was, and remains, the penetration of fundamentalist ideas into public school science classes. Have you read the Wedge Document? If you haven’t, please don’t complain about our equating ID with Christian fundamentalism.
December 4th, 2005 at 8:40 am
Don’t count me out just yet. I spent a considerable amount of time last night responding to two separate posts, and after getting it completed, hit the submit button and it totally vanished. Hitting “back” did not bring it back, and at that point I was too tired to continue. I do have a real life and can’t respond as quickly as I would like, and may not get back to this until tonight, so bear with me.
Thanks for the links, that at least gives me some substance to work with. The general tenor of the response so far has been “everybody accepts evolution, what’s wrong with you?” which leaves me thinking, “No, not everybody does, and why don’t you have anything to go on by way of response other than ‘Dembski’s an idiot, Behe’s an idiot, and you’re an idiot to believe them?’”
It just seems that the general approach I’ve faced here is, to lay back and wait for me to provide something so critics can take potshots at it. And when I’ve asked for someone’s estimation of Behe’s work, I get a general sense that no one has actually read it. So the link is helpful, even though it still is not someone’s direct estimation of Behe from an informed stance of having read his work. But I will see what they have to say, and I have a bit more to add from Behe’s work itself, which certainly does not rise or fall on the flagellum issue.
December 4th, 2005 at 8:50 am
I have an idea. Let’s revisit a question of David’s from a year or two ago.
How does ID explain that the grass is green?
December 4th, 2005 at 10:01 am
In any lengthy reply I’d recommend copying the final result to the clipboard prior to hitting submit. The net is a wee bit unpredictable at times so it’s better to be safe.
As for Dembski and Behe, I’ve read their work. Dembski doesn’t strike me so much as an idiot as much as just misled. Behe strikes me as an idiot, especially after seeing some of his lectures (which almost always end up being non-step attacks on Evolution rather than an explanation of how ID supposedly works) and his antics in the Dover Panda Trial.
You’re quite right, however, to say that not everyone believes in Evolution. We’re well aware of the fact that the majority of Americans don’t believe in it. That’s the problem as there’s quite simply an overwhelming amount of evidence in support of it and no one has come up with a better theory to replace it with. IDer’s keep claiming there’s this big controversy among scientists over the issue and there really isn’t. There’s a handful of scientists, mostly from fields unrelated to biology, who object to it.
In the end you can believe whatever you want, but then I’m free to believe you’re an idiot for your beliefs as well.
December 4th, 2005 at 10:49 am
Of course it doesn’t. Behe doesn’t claim that NO forms of life are the products of natural selection, he merely claims that SOME forms of life are products of design.
Here’s how it works.
Behe “Wow. That’s waaaaay too complicated to have evolved.”
Scientists. “Shit. There he goes again. Now we have to abandon the search for a cure for cancer, and spend eight years doing research to establish an evolutionary pathway for the flagellum.”
[Cue Jeopardy theme]
Scientists [with angry frowns]. “Here it is, you fuck. Now leave us alone.”
Behe. “Oh. Well, I suppose I might have been mistaken about =this particular example=. But, look over there, now THAT’s super-ultra-complicated. No WAY that one evolved! “
Scientists [with frowns turning slowly to irritated comprehension] “Ok. Nice one. You made us look. Don’t think we’re gonna fall for it again, though.”
Behe’s claims can never be disproven, because he acknowledges that -some- complexity is the product of evolution. He can, therefore, always ‘move the goalposts’ once one of his ‘proof’ examples has been dispensed with.
Hence, Behe’s ‘theory’ is so poorly articulated that it lacks 1)predictive power and 2) falsifiability.
It has -explanatory- power, but so does “it sprang from the end of his noodly appendage.”
There’s a couple of reasons for that Mixy. One is that we’ve had the discussion, right here on this board, numerous times. David’s just one example of a proponent of ID and, despite his other tics, probably one of the more articulate. Frequently, the people who show up to rant about ID are people who can’t spell ID. Nor do they know what IC is, or why it’s the cornerstone [and a crumbly one, at that] of what Behe is claiming.
http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/22794;jsessionid=aaadwu3j1rLbqZ?fulltext=true
http://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/dawkins/WorldOfDawkins-archive/Catalano/box/behe.shtml
[if you scroll down on this page, you get about seventy links that address flaws in Behe’s work, from the general to the very specific, from IC to the blood clotting cascade in vertebrates.]
Bear in mind, Mixy, that it’s not uncommon for IDers to show up crowing “you sheep! I have discoverd the trooth! Ewe are all sheep, and are just beleeving the Ziontists becuz yu are sheep!”
The truth is that very few people on this board have NOT read at least some of Behe’s arguments, and I’d lay money that even more people have read numerous critiques of it. I’d be cautious, if I were you, before I started making claims that people ‘just don’t understand’ Behe’s arguments.
December 4th, 2005 at 10:56 am
zilch, you’re precisely right as to what I meant when I said the few “tests” that could actually classify ID as a science have failed.
Let’s recall that Behe continuously posits that such objects could not arise naturally. A scientist should test this. But when asked, on the stand at Dover, if he had ever bothered to test his hypothesis, he replied with a big, fat “no”. Now you tell me, Mxyzptlk, how does this make Behe a good scientist that we should be trusting?
Perhaps you could give us another way to go by providing something to actually critique. I believe this is the third time I’ve had to ask you for this.
I too have read some of his work. But he continually relies on the assumption of “irreducible complexity”. Given that his two poster child systems for irreducible complexity have turned out to be, well, not irreducible, I don’t find him having much of an argument anymore given that’s the underlying supposition to everything.
This would be like an astronomer assuming that gravity works on all scales, having someone prove that it doesn’t work for thing the size of galaxies, but the astronomer keep saying that galaxies were held together by gravity. He’s been proven wrong.
So why do you seem to think he’s such a credible source when he can’t even be enough of a scientist to complete the scientific method and modify his hypothesis when it’s been shown to be wrong?
I look forward to seeing it. However, if it still rests on the platform of irreducible complexity, that puts it on extremely shaky ground.
December 4th, 2005 at 10:59 am
nowiser,
Concise version: God in the alleged gaps.
December 4th, 2005 at 11:03 am
Elwed.
Oh sure. Go with succinct. I’m a teacher, I’m -supposed- to be verbose.
(Besides, the mental image of a bunch of scientists realizing that they’ve had a huge prank played on them made me laugh. I had to share).
December 4th, 2005 at 11:16 am
Oh. This is cute, by the way. I had to share it as well.
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/dec96.html