Go ahead and believe the “intelligent design” theory if you want to – I think it’s claptrap and an insult to theists – but please keep it out of the science classroom. Our social studies and humanities classes are already polluted by enough asinine nonsense from the fuddy-duddy left. We don’t need to have science turned into Bible class (covert or otherwise) from the other side.
I don’t blame the biology teachers in Dover, PA for keeping this pseudo-science out of their classrooms. They’ve got plenty to do getting their high school students prepared for the serious (and worsening) competition of the global economy. (You can bet their peers in Tokyo, Seoul and Shanghai aren’t wasting a helluva lot of time on “intelligent design.”)
To be clear. I have no objection to crèches at the mall, the Ten Commandments in court rooms, “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, etc., etc. Although I support separation of church and state, I’m happy to respect everyone’s beliefs and I’m not particularly scared of this country turning into a theocracy. But the science classroom is for science. Students in Dover, Pennsylvania and other rural areas are just as entitled to a real education as those in Los Angeles and New York. In fact the country needs them to have it, especially in science and math. And in the case of public education, it is not in our interest to waste precious taxpayer dollars teaching mythology in biology.
Well, in the other classes it is ‘unAmerican’ to even discuss the fact that most Americans see God’s place in the world. Just where in the already “claptrap” free classrooms would you allow children to be told that most Americans, most humans, see God’s hand in our origins.
You make it sound as if our children are free to discuss their belief in God in schools if they wish, just keep it out of the science room. That is a public school that the ACLU hasn’t gotten around to suing.
ID adherents have simply tailored their belief in God’s role in their lives to try to pass muster with those who want to marginalize people of faith out of public view and life. But nothing gets by the eagle eye of our secular priests.
Don’t forgot to mention the deepest respect you hold for other’s “claptrap” beliefs, of course.
“Religious belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today.”
That’s from the Timesonline(UK) religious correspondent referencing a paper published by American ‘religion and society’ scholars. Clayton Cramer, the guy who revealed Michael Bellesiles as a fraud, discusses it at his blog.
So, I was wrong, there is a place for religious discussion in academia, as a disease.
Sorry to go off topic, slightly, and the two in a row post. It’s early and I came across the Times citation by chance.
BTW, I enjoy your blog very much.
I don’t particularly believe the “intelligent design theory”–in fact, I don’t really think it qualifies as a theory, since it isn’t testable. The problem, though, isn’t “intelligent design theory”–the problem is that there are widely unacknowledged problems with Darwin and neo-Darwinism. These problems should not be white-washed out of the discussion, and students should be made aware of them. I have an MS in geology, and I’m very familiar with the drill on evolution. Its adherents will wax hysterical if you try to insist that they recognize the problems. They often aren’t as interested in science as they are in teaching that evolution is (1) an established fact and (2) random and purposeless. ID should not be taught as such, perhaps, but no one should think that making up a series “just-so” stories about evolution is the same thing as science.
‘Intelligent Design’ is just the hoary Argument from Design, and certainly can be taught in the History of Philosophy (if such things were taught in schools) or Theology. But it ain’t science.
The fossil record is a fact, not a theory. It plainly shows that organisms evolved from simpler to more complex. So ‘evolution’ is a fact.
How that occurred is the question the theory of Natural Selection attempts to answer. Like all theories, it explains some things well, and others less well. It is the focus of an enormous amount of research and refinement within many subfields of biology, i.e. of scientific inquiry, and Darwin probably would not recognize much of it today. That’s science. ‘Intelligent Design’ is theology.
Roger Simon is exactly right.
/Mr Lynn
Dear Mr Lynn,
The fossil record does not “plainly shows that organisms evolved from simpler to more complex.”
There is no proof for evolution, there are theories, note the plural. And as has been stated above there are many problems with those theories, not the least of which is the untestability. Intelligent Design is a theory, too. How does it map to the Scientific Method? I don’t know, nor care because I don’t believe it to be any more than a reaction to the secular priesthood by the religious.
Personally I’m agnostic. I don’t believe in God and especially don’t value religion. BUT, there are things that are unknown and unknowable so I’m not ruling anything out. Hence I’m not an atheist.
If “Scientists” want to have their theories respected more, they might want to consider a little humility. The hubris of those who parade theories as proof, from Global Warming to Evolution, do more harm to science than any two bit evangalist.
ID is more a school of criticism than a theory, since all it does is kick the can of causation down the road to a place science can’t go, G-d’s hand.
Still, evolutionists have had 150 years to deliver the goods. They’ve nailed down the variation of species, but not the emergence of new species, where huge areas of uncertainty remain.
Time to entertain new ideas. I suspect some sort of spontaneous organization does lend a hand.
ID unverifiable and un-scientific? Fair enough, but I would like to see the missing links in evolution one way or another admitted. That is scientific.
ID does fall more under philosophy than science, yes. But so does much of what’s currently taught in science classes under the mantle of teaching evolution! If you’re teaching, “Natural selection causes the gene pool to tilt towards the more favorable adaptations and away from the less favorable ones,” that’s testable. It’s repeatable. It’s science.
But the minute you switch over to “… and thus the origin of the species came about through random mutations, guided by nothing but pure chance,” you’re not engaged in science anymore, but philosophy. Just as are those who would say “… and thus the origin of the species came about through carefully planned mutations, guided by a designer.” Both of these statements are in the realm of philosophy.
So since you’re already doing philosophy in the science classroom when you teach about how species came about, why not at least acknowledge the fact that there’s a philosophical debate on the point you’re about to teach? You don’t have to cover it in detail, just say, “Now, how exactly this came about is debated. Some people claim it was guided by nothing but random chance, others talk about the evidence of design. But that’s a point for philosophical debate. In this class, we’re going to focus on the question of how rather than why.”
“The fossil record does not ‘plainly shows that organisms evolved from simpler to more complex,” says AlanC.
The fossil record is STRATIFIED. Older fossils are LOWER. That’s an historical (well, pre-historical) RECORD.
Do you want to suggest that the fossil record was cleverly placed there at the time of the Earth’s creation, just to fool us (in which case you have stopped all research in its tracks)? Anything’s possible, I suppose–but not likely.
Robin Munn: No biologist would claim that speciation arose through just ‘random mutations’. That’s a vast oversimplification of the work on the mechanisms of evolution that’s been done over the past hundred years in population genetics, microbiology, DNA research, etc. Do some reading.
/Mr Lynn
Yes, I was vastly oversimplifying. That’s because my point was not on the mechanics of evolution but rather the philosophical underpinnings: “random chance” vs. “guided evolution” (a.k.a. ID). Sometimes you just have to leave things out if you don’t want to post something ten pages long that nobody will read.
My main point was that claims of how evolution occurred fall within the realm of science, while claims of why it occurred fall within the realm of philosophy.
Uhhh, Roger L., if NOT teaching something equals better education, we surely have superb public education already, producing illiterate, ignorant high school graduates.
Intelligent design supports the scientific method. You see, there is discoverable order throughout the universe, from quarks to prions to galaxies. Without such order, science would be pointless, an investigation of chaotic cacophony yielding no conclusions. In fact, nothing would exist: no protons or electrons or neutrons, no atoms or molecules or anything derived therefrom, like DNA.
That the Asian religions don’t have this issue in their culture’s schools just shows the harm being done us by our secular humanists. The dystopians insist, once again, their’s is the only way, the only truth.
The reponses to your post thus far are interestingly tilted in favor of ID.
I think it was Einstein who said that the more he learns of physics and the workings of the universe, the more he sees the hand of God.
The debate of science and a guiding being/intelligence is as old as either discipline.
Those who have tried to say that both can be true include scientists and theologians. Those same disciplines have also produces idealogues that deny the existence of the other.
The our science classes would not at least nod to “God at the boundaries of our knowledge” as a possibility is furtherance of one point of view.
Although I believe in God, I think science is the only valid subject for a science class.
Clayton Cramer is a big supporter of religion. If he has bad things to say about it, I would take him seriously.
Mr. Lynn,
You are indulging in a good example of a post hoc fallacy. Stratification does NOT prove causation aka evolution. That a trilobyte preceded a dinosaur does not prove that the dinosaur descended from the trilobyte.
Apply logic and the scientific method to all theories equally. Remember, too, that the whole classification of species is an arbitrary invention of man. The hierarchy of characteristics could easily have been different, and then where would we be?
As was pointed out, an examination of random chaos (yes, a redundancy) is pointless as there is nothing to learn.
I
To be scientific a theory, and after all Intelligent Design is only a theory, must be falsifiable.
Is there a fact that would disprove an Intelligent Designer involved in the day to day running of the universe?
Like say we find out how the eye evolved.
Intelligent Design is dependent on ignorance – “we don’t yet undersand how xxx happened so we will posit an intelligent designer”.
The march of science is reducing the islands of ignorance. There is less and less for the Intelligent Designer to do.
In fact I would limit the Intelligent Designer to the first sigularity – the big bang. After that the universe runs on its own. Of course my God is smart enough to get it right at the beginning. Intelligent Design posits God too stupid to get it right the first time.
If people want to worship a stupid God it is fine with me. It is not science, however.
Explicitly put philosophy back into the curriculum, and it will not be an issue in science class. Better yet, remove funding from public schools and give to students to go where they want, and schools will arise that aren’t ashamed to talk about philosophy and religions (note the plural) in literature and social studies classes as appropriate.
Philosophy classes means at least a bit of study of formal logic. Besides the obvious benefit for the citizens of a democracy, this would lead to some marginal improvements in mathematics education.
The ID debate is a symptom of a larger issue. But then who worries about root causes?
eretzgo,
There is a spontaneous ordering principle.
It is called chemistry.
We do not have a tornado in a junk yard.
We have a tornado in a magnet factory (i.e. certain reactions are prefered over others).
The above of course is a vast oversimplification (leaving out natural selection) but the idea holds.
If Intelligent Design is really science and not religion, then let’s talk about how many designers there might have been, shall we?
I do not know much about Intelligent Design as a theory. I would agree that it is a rebuttal to the randomness that is admired in evolutionary theory. I would further agree that it probably is more appropriately taught as a philosophy, given my limited understanding of it.
I am dismayed, though, to hear it called “claptrap” by the proprieter of this site, whom I very much admire. Just because a theory is sparse, or poorly articulated, or unfalsifiable does not make it claptrap. Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity is difficult to articulate and is not well understood either, but that doesn’t make it claptrap.
Pretending that there are no philosophical underpinnings to scientific research and thinking is not doing students any favors. I fail to see the harm in acknowledging the parallel philosophical debates that often follow scientific debates.
TomTom,
I hope you will allow me a small modification to your words above. They should read:
…we surely have superb public education already, producing supremely self-confident and incompetent high school graduates.
A bit harsh perhaps since I’ve had the good fortune to have witnessed evidence that this in not universally so. It does, nonetheless, capture the nugget of what I believe to be a growing problem in our educational system. See the rejoinder surrounding the Confessions of an Engineering School Washout.
It may be unfair to suggest that the Washout author was a supremely self-confident but incompetent product of public primary and secondary school education. It may be more fair to say that his primary and secondary education was insufficiently rigorous to adequately prepare him for an engineering education he certainly seems to believe he was qualified to tackle in the first place.
To try and recover this to something related to the topic of ID, our current level of primary and secondary science courses are little more than introductory. Since I don’t claim to know whether the biological world around us is the product of the relentless trial and error or natural selection, or the outcome of intelligent choices, or simply what happens in a dust bunny in a neglected corner, I have no particular issue with the acknowledgment, within the context of “science education”, that there remains wide areas of disagreement, or questioning of the currently favored theories, among intelligent people.
But I have a somewhat different take on the idea of Intelligent Design discussion in the context of science education. We, mankind (and we clearly believe we are intelligent), has rather assertively entered the realm of biological design. IMHO we’d best find some way to discuss the implications of that “intelligence” in matters of biological design.
My main point was that claims of how evolution occurred fall within the realm of science, while claims of why it occurred fall within the realm of philosophy.
And this is really the core point. Honestly, I can’t say I’ve ever seen a single “substantive” point in the usual “evolution can’t be proven” “criticisms” that isn’t factually false, based on an equovcation of some term (like “prove”) or both, but these errrors of fact and mistakes of reasoning end up concealing the really amazing thing: the fact that the universe “happens” to exist in such a way that biogenesis happens, evolution happens, consciousness happens.
Getting involved in a fussy notion that biogenesis required active intervention after the universe was started isn’t even good theology — at its heart, it insists on a limitation on Deity. That there’s no evidence anywhere that an “activist God” is needed to break Its own laws to arrive at this current world doesn’t change the degree to which the result is astonishing, amazing, awe-inspiring.
BTW, I believe this current Darwin vs. ID catfight is a tempest in a teapot. Our yutes are not learning either serious science or philosophy or much else at “serious” levels in our public HS’s. I don’t think I’m going the least bit out on a limb to say that the impact of HS biology on our “economy” is so small as to be impossible to even measure. We are not educating our scientists in our high-schools and mention of notions of ID will not send our future scientists off on wild-goose chases for the Hand of God through science.
The vast majority of our HS students will spend as little of their future thinking about ID as they do about natural selection. Those prone to spending their time exploring science will do so.
I don’t mean to be the bearer of bad news, but for those who don’t yet know, our HS’s (whether the classrooms or the playing fields) are not great forges producing our future citizens.
Non-scientists may not be aware there exist respected college courses in the History and Philosophy of Science. Taught by ‘scientists’, not ‘philosophers’.
Roger, science is more than number-crunching, chemical reactions, or how many microbes can dance on the head of an aphid. Science is a philosophy, of which the issue of intelligent design is a not inappropriate part.
As has been pointed out many times, the design – of humans at least – isn’t particularly intelligent. We’re a bag full of kludges, half-measures and repurposed designs.
An intelligent designer, for example, wouldn’t run the male urethra right through the middle of a gland prone to swelling. Our backs are clearly designed for walking on all fours: standing upright causes no end of problems. Our immune systems are sadly prone to mistaking parts of ourselves for invaders. You can go on and on with hundreds of unintelligent aspects to our design. Look at our public officials and argue with me over “intelligent design” – I dare you.
That said, I think Intelligent Design should be taught, just not in science class. All of us should be aware of the major beliefs of all major religions. One can’t be tolerant of what one is unaware of. You don’t know not to offer port to a Muslim unless you have some idea of their beliefs.
By the way, evolution is about as much a “theory” as gravity is a “theory”: just because we can’t explain the details it doesn’t mean we haven’t observed and measured it closely. Speciation has been directly observed, both in the field and in the lab, on many occasions. A lot has happened in the last 20 years and some folks here should probably go over to Talk Origins and read up.
“Look at our public officials and argue with me over “intelligent design” – I dare you.
hehe We’re buggy. Since having an “intelligent designer” implies that said design was the result of central planning, we shouldn’t be shocked we’re rather Soviet in design.
What do evolutionists say about homosexuality?
Bravo, Roger! The place for “Intelligent Design,” if it has a place in the curriculum, is in a class on religion or comparative religions. It is not, nor will it ever be, science.
http://www.newyorker.com/printables/shouts/050926sh_shouts
The Church of Science is a religion so why is it taught in a school and not in a church. The congregation in the Church of Science provides that Science must be worshipped simply because
of perceived ‘proven’ facts yet the data from whcih these ‘facts’ are incomplete, faulty or yet to be discovered. Science can also be considered blind faith simply because we humans need things in which to believe.
Likewise, why is the super religious Church of Environment allowed to preach Words of Junk without restriction. Hey, the second coming is coming in the form of Global Warming!
Paraphasing Vaclav Havel ‘When we use man as the the measure of all things, we lose control of ourselves and our humanity’.
How can Modern man be so backward in thought?
Correction ‘from which these ‘facts’ are based upon are imcomplete, faulty or yet to be discovered.’
Great thread. And now for some wishful thinking…
Wouldn’t it be great if a fascinating explication of Darwin lead to an equally fascinating exploration of origin theories during which the instructor was able to delineate the boundaries between the disciplines discussed. This is the proper purview of science, and here we dip into the history of ideas, and this broaches theology, and here’s why the distinctions are important….
Back to reality. Let’s master the three Rs first.
That said, let’s also eliminate the quasi religious pseudoscience that pollutes many high school science curriculums.
The problem with Intelligent Design is simple.
“We do not know how x, y, or z came about.”
What do we do?
Start looking for answers or just say the Intelligent Designer did it and forget the question?
Intelligent Design is a dead end for a scientific people.
In other words clap-trap.
Since this discussion is about “intelligent” design, please forgive me for asking some dumb questions, but I hope to get some serious answers.
Does anyone really understand the concept of “intelligence” in this context? Wouldn’t an intelligence that is capable of creating life in all its complexities be something so vast and so alien to our own cognitive capacities that it hardly makes sense to talk about it?
The Church of Science is not religion because religion hasno method of correcting errors.
In science errors are corrected by making predictions and then checking them against results.
Suppose you wanted to prove the Christian Trinity Theory was false? Exactly how would you go about it?
We know how to prove Newton was false (or at least incomplete). We make predictions. Make measurements. List possible sources of error. Then we try to explain why the error is out of bounds of the prediction. The history of the explanation of the precession of Mercury is instructive. Or the history of the photoelectric effect. Or the explanation of black body radiation. All show how science is self correcting.
The only dogma that underpins science is this: eventually explanations (theories) can be found to explain the evidence and the theories will be consistient with other “proved” theories. i.e. the universe is a coherent whole. Chemistry will not violate physics. If it does new explanations will be needed. The history of the periodic table is another good one for a view into the coherence problem.
If intelligent design/creationism is to be taught as a means of reinforcing humility and reminding our children that there’s more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in our rationalist philosophy, then we should apply the principle to every area of instruction.
Start with sports instruction.
Our basketball coaches falsely presume that it’s their poorly-understood techniques for raising and releasing a basketball, rather than God’s grace, that ultimately cause the ball to float into the basket. Their theories are incomplete, flawed; their arrogance is appalling.
We should demand equal time during basketball practice for prayer and introspection, and also require that every basketball used in the public schools be inscribed with a warning inscription that “The race is not to the swift, nor the hoop to the well-prepared….”
Thibaud,
I’m coming to the conclusion that we should remove sports from our schools. They who wish to play may join clubs. That, of course, would take an Act of God to accomplish.
I’m with Roger all the way on this one.
And I’d like to add that there is…
an elephant in the room.
Islam.
The Islamists are doing a march through the institutions (no, I’m not being paranoid. It isn’t all muslims, just the Islamists.)
And there will be a push to get more Islamist ideas into the classroom.
What will the ID’ers do then?
I’m not about to open that door to any science classroom.
It’s all or nothing. Keep it in religion or philosophy because it is not provable. Keep it out of science.
It really is this simple: Our public schools (elementary, high, and university) have been the target of a widespread attempt to indoctrinate the public on various leftist causes. Just try to tell me that it isn’t so. See this timely article by Victor Davis Hanson on university presidents: http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007319.
In the process, the leftists have taught the public well. Why are moderates then surprised that someone would try counter-indoctrination, however misguided?
M.Simon, I agree with the other poster and would like to know your answer to this question: When does the global warming claptrap get called out?
The question to me is: when does the global warming clap trap get called out?
The answer: when better explanations of the facts are well known.
To demolish anthropometric global warming you need only ask one simple question: explain global warming currently observed on Mars.
Once you have simple questions that the theory does not explain the mistake (hoax) is over even for the general public.
The problem is that not enough people know about Mars global warming. Educate yourself.
Lindenen’s comment about central planning reminds me of H.L. Mencken’s dictum that the evidence suggested to him that the universe “was not created by God, but by a committee of gods.”
(A physician I work with says “take off you clothes, look in the mirror, and tell me you believe in intelligent design.”)
From what I have seen, those promoting Intelligent Design are not (unfortunately) the best and brightest representatives of their faiths. I suspect that to the extent that people of faith promote ID, it will result in discrediting other of their beliefs, if those beliefs are held to be contingent on (the validity of) ID. They might consider their position carefully before jumping off this particular bridge.
Syl,
The Islamists are doing a march through the institutions (no, I’m not being paranoid. It isn’t all muslims, just the Islamists.)
And there will be a push to get more Islamist ideas into the classroom.
What will the ID’ers do then?
Very good question. It also begs the question, “what are the ‘pure science secularists’ doing now?”
Oh, right, of course. They agree with the jihadists that the modern world and it’s rampaging infidels need destroying. I forgot.
Goebbels Warming
You will note that this info dates from Nov of 2004.
In fact some lefty was grilling me on the Mars question yesterday. He didn’t like the data. Didn’t fit his religion. Heh.
I just love destroying lefty beliefs. I love seeing them (e-mail) sputter.
Nobel Prize winning Physicist and Cosmologist once remarked that he finds that the religious have more interesting things to say about the universe then your average secularist even if they wrong says a lot about this thread.
Let me clairify vis-a-vis claptrap. I don’t mean the validity of the science. I assume that scientists will take care of that (on any question) in due course. I mean, when does the ideological nonsense masquerading as global warming science get called out by the MSM as exactly the same thing going on with ID? And that’s just one example of many (see cultural anthropology, and so forth).
Or to state it even more plainly, ID gets nailed not because it is bad science, but because it conflicts with MSM politics. Scientists asked to speak up on this should be brave and call the journalists out on their agenda. Knucklehead’s point is pertient. However, I understand why they don’t, given what it would probably do to their careers. It might cause them to moderate their tone a bit when discovering who the real enemies of science are.
In fairness, that should not have been directed at M. Simon directly, since it was largely a rhetorical question, and he was addressing the validity of the science.
Rudersdorf,
I think you’re right that the more poorly informed proponents of ID do everyone a disservice. So much so that we often forget that the general concept has a long and estimable intellectual heritage. Aquinas makes a case quite nicely, but granted in a much different context. We probably shouldn’t muddle a high school science curriculum with it, though.
I try to avoid your physician friend’s mirror exercise at all costs. I’ll spare you the gruesome details. But I might reframe it somewhat. Despite my manifest flaws, the only thing more absurd than presuming that I had an intelligent designer is to presume no designer at all.
Mysteries upon mysteries. In the words of the ancients, “it’s turtles all the way down.”
First the humor, then the facts…
http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/050530fa_fact
Steve,
I got a query from Time Magazine when I put the Mars question to them re: their recent hurricane issue.
The MSM will get it when enough people begin asking questions they can’t answer.
You have to be brutal with them and simple. They are not very smart.
So no. I wasn’t addressing the science at all.
BTW I have the same thing re: drugs. Can you prove drugs cause addiction (habituation is not the same question)? When enough people start asking the right questions the belief systems crumble.
Old Dad,
I was trying to figure out how to work in the turtles bit (the quote I think is recent). You beat me to it.
Dang.
M. Simon:
Heard the turtles bit from a prof in grad school many years ago. He put it in the mouth of an ancient Hindu mystic, but it might just as well have come from Johnny Carson.
Turtles All the Way Down
“… science is more than number-crunching, chemical reactions, or how many microbes can dance on the head of an aphid. Science is a philosophy, of which the issue of intelligent design is a not inappropriate part.” TomTom
Yes. And if only science were presently being taught in science classes this issue would not incite in the manner it does. Science and its philosophical underpinnings don’t lend themselves to a facile reductionist or positivist comprehension.
Patrick Tyson,
Thanks for the link. I enjoyed the article. As I said I think the catfight over ID is a tempest in a teapot.
If this,
Biologists aren
OK, I think we can agree that Intelligent Design theory, though posited by scientists as a possible way to explain the 15-billion-year trend in evolution toward the more complex and the more integrated, is not demonstrable by strictly scientific methods and therefore is more philosophy than science. And that it therefore should not be “taught” as science. And that philosophers should not represent themselves as scientists. Fine.
But then scientists need to stop claiming to be philosophers. And philosphers of the materialst persuasion should stop posing as scientists. It’s fine, for example, to say the current manifestation of the physical universe appears to have begun with a Big Bang. But don’t attempt to say, then, that that is how “the universe” began. Because when it is asked precisely what was it that banged, where that come from, how did it come into being from nothing, and so on, science has precisely no answer. So let’s not pretend it does or get too uppity about claiming you’ve explained the origins of the universe.
Incremental evolution is testable, repeatable, and demonstrable in the fossil record. Quantum evolution is not. You can posit that the 100 or so mutations necesary to change a leg into a wing could have “randomly” happened simulataneously in at least two members of the same species at that same time, in the same place and that they managed to successfully mate and raise their young and thereby send their newly evolved species to the next level. But you can’t demonstrate your imaginings with the fossil record. You can’t explain the mechanics of how it happened. You can’t test it or repeat it. And when you crank up your supercomputer and run the numbers under probablity theory, you can’t pass the probability laugh test. So be a little humble about calling your random mutation creation myth science.
We shouldn’t privilege the creation myths of Christians or any other certified religious group, or pretend their claims are science. Nor should we privilege the creation myths of the pure rationalist/materialists, who can’t come close to making their case scientifically, or pretend their claims are science. They should all be introduced to students as the philosophical theories they are. Is that so scary?
“Is that so scary?”
Yes.
Because scientists CAN run those numbers through. And what they don’t know now, they will in a few decades. Science is not static. It’s feedback, adjusting theories, more feedback from testing, more adjusting.
THAT’s science. THAT’s the methodology.
ID does not have that. It only poopoo’s the scientific theories and offers nothing testable in return.
Eh, I don’t support teaching I.D. in public schools, but I really don’t think it matters much. *Certainly* not w.r.t. the rather dubious issue of global economic competitiveness.
School kids need to learn reading/english and math. Optionally, a foreign lingo would be nice, but the need for that is way overrated if you are a native English speaker. They’ll learn the rest of what matters in college — what you pick up prior to that really doesn’t matter. And if they don’t go to college, their intellectual contributions won’t matter anyway (they’ll just need to be able to read a manual and do arithmatic – hence, English and Math again).
I wish I could say a good foundation of civics, history, and economics would make them better citizens and voters, but I truly don’t think that really matters, either. Look how stupid people who have taken these classes continue to be.
As usual, the discussions generate a lot more heat than light, with a significant dearth of fact.
1) ALL retrospective theories- whether Darwinism or God’s Magic Wand, are unprovable in the scientific sense. They can be subject only to rules of evidence- which can be supported, only in an evidentiary fashion, by scientific experiments. To say that Darwinism has somehow been proven using the scientific method is palpably false- and Dawkins recognizes and admits that, as does Lewontin. The Miller-Urey experiments didn’t prove anything, they provided evolutionary theorists with one building block of evidence (that, incidentally, turned out later to be inapplicable due to the faulty assumptions about atmospheric ammonia and oxygen content).
2) Intelligent Design should not be taught in schools- it is not necessary, and too closely resembles a belief system because of the treatment of “miracles”.
3) But- show me where the ID theorists- not fundy suburban matrons or televangelists- have proposed teaching ID in K-12. I want a specific cite, and not a re-phrasing by an AP “reporter”.
4) What has not happened- and what confirms the multiple macroevolution theories as junk science in the manner that they are currently taught- is any kind of systemic treatment of the problem, taking into account the totally non-religious, totally scientific objections. Those objections originate with such well known religious nuts and ignorant non-scientists as miolecular biologist Francis Crick, astronomer Frederick Hoyle, Stephen J. Gould (writing about Dawkins and natural selection), Richard Dawkins (writing about Gould and pounctuated equilibria) chaos theorist Stewart Kauffman, etc.
Leave all religious stuff completely out of it. And, in fact restrict the debate, if you like, to only agnostics as are those people listed above. Give all their arguments- for and against. Debate it. Reach conclusions if you can support them.
But what we do right now has a name- it is called propaganda, and every person who points that out is hysterically branded as a religious nut by those who know they can’t afford to debate this on true systemic scientific grounds.
The fact is, we don’t need to reach a conclusion about origins- the world will go on no matter if we believe that life came here from another galaxy (Crick’s conclusion in his book about transpermia). We can all believe what we want to.
But, as Moynihan famously said, we can all have our opinions, but we can’t all have our own facts; and Michael Crichton pointed out, in the context of the other major “scientific” myth (that global warming is a disaster that we can fix by signing on to Kyoto and will destroy Life As We Know It If We Don’t), we need to worry about science, because it has been hijacked by True Believers- and they aren’t the ones you traditionally think of.
AlanC writes: “You are indulging in a good example of a post hoc fallacy. Stratification does NOT prove causation aka evolution. That a trilobyte preceded a dinosaur does not prove that the dinosaur descended from the trilobyte.”
Er, hypothesized descent is not ‘causation’, just ancestry. The fossil record is simply EVIDENCE (not ‘proof’) that trilobytes preceded dinosaurs. Someone above noted that hypotheses of relationships among species depend upon classification, and so they do; evolutionary biologists are constantly re-evaluating and revising both classifications and ancestral relationships, as new evidence comes in.
If we can see, for example, in the fossil record, many steps in the descent of whales from four-footed land animals, is that not pretty good evidence that whales actually descended from those animals, and that the intermediate steps are not sui generis?
Too much above to comment on. What (M.) Simon says is right on!
Re science in the schools: The large majority of American HS students get little out of it, even when well-taught, because they are slugs. But it is not valueless. My daughter benefited enormously from an AP class in biology in HS (she is now a graduate student in evolutionary and ecological biology, specializing in bugs).
Agree with whoever pointed out that the quasi-philosophical arguments among cosmologists and popular biologists like Dawson are worth bringing up in science classes–because they are great fun!–and in that context the Argument from Design might also be mentioned. But these discussions, while fascinating, inhabit the margins of hard science, which ought to be the focus.
/Mr Lynn
Mr. Lynn,
Re: the quality of science education in public HS, the value your daugher gained from an AP biology course is neither “standard” nor required. She had to extend beyond any requirement her school placed on her in order to take the course.
From the College Board’s website:
Whether or not US HS students are generally “slugs” is another matter. HS in the US does not, as a matter of course, impart anything more than introductory level science exposure. To do so for some portion of their students they must reach into AP territory. One of the measures of a “good” HS is, in fact, their emphasis on Advanced Placement courses. This is, of course, a large part of the reason we have such robust participation in the the Math Is Hard and Science Is For Geeks clubs.
BTW, all credit to your daughter for refusing to be a “slug”.
BTW2, since I’ve been “bashing” on the quality of US HS, it is only fair to point out that there are, in fact, quality public HS in the US. These are just some examples.
Roger, I’m glad to see you taking on this issue. We Americans are tolerant people, so we’re inclined to say “what’s the harm?” and accede to angry mobs trying to introduce crazy ideas like ID into the school curriculum. We’ve done this sort of misplaced tolerance thing about a thousand times, and the result is a dysfunctional education system where kids seem to spend more time undergoing therapy than learning science and the liberal arts.
I think we have to call a spade a spade: ID isn’t an alternative scientific theory, or an alternative philosophy of science, it’s a piece of bad theology masquerading as science. I’ve studied its origins at the Discovery Institute and come away convinced that it’s more than anything an attempt to circumvent court decisions banning creationism by dressing creationism up in pseudo-scientific language.
Science attempts to uncover laws of nature than can be used to make predictions. Pursuing this path, we’ve learned that genes mutate randomly, and that successful mutations survive, especially when environmental changes make previous adaptations less successful. This is a valuable discovery that has practical applications in the understanding of disease, the breeding of plants and animals, and in the search for previously unknown life forms. ID destroys the rules, asserting that each life form was produced by divine whim so there’s no sense in trying to understand genetics, variation, selection, or mutation; in fact, it ultimately condemns biological science as an act of hubris, an affront to god. We don’t need anti-scientific interests directing science education in the USA.
It’s interesting to note that ID is very popular among Islamists – I don’t have the reference handy, but there was a poll that indicated overwhelming support for it among fundamentalist Muslim, even more than among fundy Christians.
That being the case, we should understand that if we teach ID in our science classes, the terrorists will have won.
“Intelligent Design” is a threat to our economy —>
Amen, I mean, right-on brother Roger.
A little context for the discussion: scroll down to the bottom of this link to see some very interesting graphs that suggest what’s at stake in this debate http://instapundit.com/archives/025289.php
ID, or creationism, or magic or whatever you want to call it, is an extraordinary diversion and waste of time. Some day historians describing the eclipse of the US by the Asian powers will cite this idiotic movement in their narrative of how the technology superpower lost its way.
Knuck,
I don’t think I’m going the least bit out on a limb to say that the impact of HS biology on our “economy” is so small as to be impossible to even measure. We are not educating our scientists in our high-schools and mention of notions of ID will not send our future scientists off on wild-goose chases for the Hand of God through science. The vast majority of our HS students will spend as little of their future thinking about ID as they do about natural selection. Those prone to spending their time exploring science will do so.
Agree with the above, but it fails to address the impact on our youth of what the ID controversy implies about their parents’ attitudes toward scientists and also high school science teachers.
One of the reasons for the exceptional academic performance of students from certain cultures– Russian, Chinese, Indian brahmin, Hungarian, jews around the world– is those cultures’ formal and informal attitudes toward teachers and the educated man (what the Russians call the intelligent, or man of learning and culture. In short, they are revered. Teachers are respected authority figures and scientists and intellectuals are viewed as ideal social figures to which every student should aspire. Clearly, such attitudes, originating in the home and reinforced constantly across these cultures, are a major cause of the discipline and diligence that students raised in these cultures exhibit toward the hard subjects.
I believe the creationism/ID movement undermines what little respect exists in our society for scientists and science teachers. Granted, the creationists did not create American anti-intellectualism, and of course the lefty leveller/idiotarians bear plenty of blame as well. But creationism is the final blow of a deeply hostile popular American culture against the very men and women whom we ought, like the the Russians, asians, et al., to be teaching our children to look up to and emulate. It pretty much destroys any hope of getting average children located in insular, ie, untouched by asians, jews, russians et al, districts– to aim high in science classes. (Monmouth County’s another story
To me, that socio-cultural implication is far more destructive than any notion or concept, however misguided.
It does seem odd, in a thread wherein there are repeated protests and an avowed interest in science, that no one has provided an empirical reference to a specific ID research paper, argument, theory or finding. To the contrary, after dozens of posts with repeated harrumphs about the dignity of science, instead of specific empirical references and rational discourse, rank dismissiveness and caricaturizations are used in a manner which sounds more like a dismissive sermonette and moralizing harangue than a concern with science per se.
While I haven’t educated myself on the subject of intelligent design in any thorough-going sense, I have read second hand accounts and representations of ID in various media. These sources (to the extent they have been honest representations) have indicated 1) ID is not synonymous with creationism, 2) ID is oriented toward and based upon the scientific method, 3) aspects of ID are testable and 4) ID is consistent with much of evolutionary biology and literally all of the fossil record. That’s from memory, but that’s what I recall.
I would oppose any ID initiatives which are synonymous with creationism (understood in the deus ex machina sense); however I would favor science qua science, regardless as to where the impetus for that refinement of science originates and subsequently leads to. I don’t fear science qua science.
If people are going to argue in favor of science, they might consider more empirically/rationally based forms of argumentation. Since the tone has been against ID, empirical references, links, to ID research papers and the like would seem to be warranted.
This InstaPundit reference, privided by thibaud, whom I normally enjoy reading and agree with, is particularly odd, as an example. Not only does nothing in the interview (an intriguing one, well worth the read) so much as allude to ID, the time spans in the graphs at the end of the piece pertain to the quarter-of-a-century between 1975 and 2000, a time where a thorough-going and wide variety of Leftist interests has been manifest in the school systems, but certainly not ID or anything which is remotely related to ID – very much to the contrary.
Michael: economic strength depends in large measure on the number and quality of our science and engineering grads, which depends in part on Americans’ cultural attitudes toward scientific inquiry and scientists and science teachers generally.
I believe that one very significant (though unremarked upon) effect of the ID-taught-as- science movement is to diminish respect for scientists and science careers among lesser-educated Americans who live in areas that do not have excellent schools and large numbers of asians, jews, Russians etc.
To the extent that occurs, ID will harm our nation’s ability to correct the disturbing and widening gap in number of science grads between the asians and the US. I believe that the potential odds of this occurring, and the potential harm it can cause should it occur, are significant. This alarms me.
sincerely,
thibaud
See Jerry Coyne’s gutting of ID as a warmed-over version of creationism: http://www.tnr.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20050822&s=coyne082205
In case you can’t get beyond the firewall, Coyne, a U Chicago professor of evolutionary biology, exposes the clear connection between creationism and “ID” as follows:
Intelligent design is simply the third attempt of creationists to proselytize our children at the expense of good science and clear thinking. Having failed to ban evolution from schools, and later to get equal classroom time for scientific creationism, they have made a few adjustments designed to sneak Christian cosmogony past the First Amendment. And these adjustments have given ID a popularity never enjoyed by earlier forms of creationism. Even the president of the United States has lent a sympathetic ear…. Articles by IDers, or about their “theory,” regularly appear in mainstream publications such as The New York Times.
Why have the new image and the new approach been more successful? For a start, IDers have duped many people by further removing God from the picture, or at least hiding him behind the frame. No longer do creationists mention a deity, or even a creator, but simply a neutral-sounding “intelligent designer,” as if it were not the same thing. This designer could in principle be Brahma, or the Taoist P’an Ku, or even a space alien; but ID creationists, as will be evident to anybody who attends to all that they say, mean only one entity: the biblical God. Their problem is that invoking this deity in science classes in public schools is unconstitutional. So IDers never refer openly to God, and people unfamiliar with the history of their creationist doctrine might believe that there is a real scientific theory afoot. They use imposing new terms such as “irreducible complexity,” which make their arguments seem more sophisticated than those of earlier creationists.
All of [creationism/ID's] proponents, save Johnson, are senior fellows at the Center for Science and Culture (CSC), a division of the Discovery Institute, which is a conservative think tank in Seattle…. The CSC is the nerve center of the intelligentdesign movement. Its origins are demonstrably religious: as described by the Discovery Institute, the CSC was designed explicitly “to defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural, and political legacies” and “to replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.”
Let us examine one of their most influential volumes, the textbook called Of Pandas and People. This is the book recommended by the Dover school district as a “reference book” for students interested in learning about intelligent design.
Of Pandas and People is a textbook designed as an antidote to the evolution segment of high school biology classes. It was first published in 1989. By repackaging and updating a subset of traditional young-earth creationist arguments while avoiding taking a stand on any issues that might divide creationists (such as the age of the Earth), it marked the beginning of the modern intelligentdesign movement. By presenting the case for ID, it is supposedly designed to give students a “balanced perspective” on evolution….
Pandas carefully avoids mentioning God (except under aliases such as “intelligent designer,” “master intellect,” and so on); but a little digging reveals the book’s deep religious roots. One of its authors, Percival Davis, wrote explicitly about his religious beliefs in his book A Case for Creation, co-authored with Wayne Frair: “Truth as God sees it is revealed in the pages of Scripture, and that revelation is therefore more certainly true than any human rationalism. For the creationist, revealed truth controls his view of the universe to at least as great a degree as anything that has been advanced using the scientific method.” Its other author, Dean Kenyon, has written approvingly of scientific creationism.
Pandas is published by the Haughton Publishing Company of Dallas, a publisher of agricultural books, but the copyright is held by the Foundation for Thought and Ethics (FTE) in Richardson, Texas. Although the FTE website scrupulously avoids mentioning religion, its articles of incorporation note with stark clarity that its “primary purpose is both religious and educational, which includes, but is not limited to, proclaiming, preaching, teaching, promoting, broadcasting, disseminating, and otherwise making known the Christian gospel and understanding of the Bible and the light it sheds on the academic and social issues of our day.” In a fund-raising letter for the proposed third edition of Pandas, Jon Buell, president of the FTE, is equally frank about his goals:
We will energetically continue to publish and propel these strategic tools in the battle for the minds and hearts of the young…. Yes, most young Americans are exposed to numerous gospel presentations. But the fog of the alien world view deadens their responses. This is why we have to inundate them with a rational, defensible, wellargued Judeo-Christian world view. FTE’s carefully-researched books do just that.
Charles Thaxton, the “academic editor” of Pandas, is the director of curriculum research for FTE and a fellow of the CSC. In a proto-ID book on the origin of life, Thaxton argued that “Special Creation by a Creator beyond the cosmos is a plausible view of origin science.”
Given Pandas’ pedigree and the affiliations of its authors, it is not surprising that the book is nothing more than disguised creationism. What is surprising is the transparency of this disguise. Despite the efforts of IDers to come up with new anti-Darwinian arguments, Pandas turns out to be nothing more than recycled scientific creationism, with most of the old arguments buffed up and proffered as new….
Pandas’ discussion of the Earth’s age is a prime example of the book’s creationist roots, and of its anti-scientific attitude. If the Earth were young–say, the 6,000 to 10,000 years old posited by “young earth” biblical creationists–then evolution would be false. Life simply could not have originated, evolved, and diversified in such a short time. But we now know from several independent and mutually corroborating lines of evidence that the Earth is 4.6 billion years old. All geologists agree on this.
So what is Pandas’ stance on this critical issue? The book merely notes that design proponents “are divided on the issue of the earth’s age. Some take the view that the earth’s history can be compressed into a framework of thousands of years, while others adhere to the standard old earth chronology.” Well, what’s the truth? This equivocation is an attempt to paper over a strong disagreement between young-earth creationists and old-earth creationists, both of whom have marched under the banner of ID. It is typical of creationists to exploit disagreements between evolutionists as proof that neo-Darwinism is dead while at the same time hiding their own disagreements from the public.
Mr. Simon, I disagree with your premise that teaching intelligent design may somehow be responsible for our economic decline.
Not surprisingly, I also disagree with several commenters’ broader point that the dilution of the principles of science and our inability to transmit them effectively to the next generation presages the downfall of our country.
Consider this: the entire span of the historical record of this country is no more than two-and-a-quarter centuries.
For a substantial early portion of this time period, there was no such thing as a unified American ideal. We were groups of people who at best identified themselves with the states to which they belonged, and far more commonly with their immediate neighbors or kingroup. Our system of education during this time was heterodox and varied widely in scope and quality.
Our ascendancy as a world power began less than a century ago. It would be a generous historian who would claim that the US has been a world leader for a hundred years or more.
Even during this past century, we have hardly been agnostic about our teaching of scientific principles. In 1925 (less than 80 years ago), our fine friends in Tennessee were amusing (or infuriating) us with the delightful Scopes monkey trial.
I would posit that it has only been four or five decades during which the now-recognizable principles of modern science have held reign in our classrooms. Even during this time, many challenges to this reign have been mounted. ID is only the newest of these.
If ID (or future mutations of creationism) enters the classroom, it won’t return us to 1950′s America. It will only add to the confusing collection of half-baked ideas which have forever permeated every educational system that has ever existed in this country.
While some of us may be ashamed as Americans if certain communities within the US choose to add ID to their curriculum, it will not matter one bit to the country as a whole.
And we hardly have to consider ourselves less of a people than those of Japan, Korea, and China. Their creation myths (and they are numerous, manifold, racist, and wholly inconsistent with each other) are equally mockable. That their people who do science simply ignore those myths is what gives them the ability to do science.
How is that any different from us? Any practicing scientist, or teacher of science, simply ignores prevailing myths and teaches the discipline at hand.
To turn to the broader point that all of this argument presages the downfall of this country, let’s be forthright. No country for which we have a have a historical record has outlived its time on the world stage. Not a single one. It doesn’t matter if it was Mesopotamia, Athens, or London. We will not be any different. Our downfall will be our downfall, and will be caused by a storm of broad historical confluences–not by any single issue or event, such as a controversy over what is taught in the science classrooms of some of our backwater public schools.
When I started grad school in physics, my partner in TA’ing intro physics for engineering and science students was a twenty year old Russian Berkeley grad who had learned at age 12-13 the material we were teaching “elite” college freshman. Does this give you an idea how infantile our education system is?
This has direct economic consequences: high tech innovation does not come from MBA’s, the bible, or “the Donald”. My Indian, Thai, Sri Lankan, Taiwanese, Russian, classmates were not stupid or lazy. They can productize an idea as well as any U. S. engineer–that’s why so many work here. Free up some capital and the politics in a country like India and the U. S. will be a footnote in twenty years.
Debating ID/evolution debate is like debating whether high school kids should read “Ullysses” when the kids need remedial reading, much less a nuanced critical basis to evaluate complex books.
I’d say go ahead and teach ID in school. Schools already do a terrible job teaching evolution, might as well let them screw up ID as well.
How do they screw up evolution teaching, you ask? Well, as Exhibit A, let me offer Mr. Lynn’s assertion that fossils are stratified oldest to youngest. “Errant nonsense”, as Charles Darwin might have said. Fossils are “dated” strictly by the presence of surrounding fossils. Their “depth”, or the Fossil types “above” or “below” them have no relevance. This is why you find “300myo” fish fossils on top of Pennsylvania mountains, and why the term “inverted strata” was coined. And why Louis Leakey goes to Africa, and claims to find “2 million year old human ancestor” bones “lying on the surface for us to pick up”. Mr. Lynn needs an evolution-refresher.
Another evolutionary assertion above (“Clear evidence of whale evolution”) also shows the weakness of current evolutionary education. Current “whale evolution” evidence consists of a handful of ambiguous skull fragments in Asia, a pile of whale bones in Africa, an order-of-magnitude leap in size w/o fossil intermediary, and a final “just-so” homology argument involving a grasping bone interpreted as a “leg remnant”. Claptrap.
As far as “Intelligent Design Is a Threat to Our Economy” – this assumes that teaching ID in some way hurts a child’s critical thinking abilities. That’s ridiculous, not to put too fine a point on it. I fail to see how pointing out that all living organisms are made of amino-acids that use right-handed chiralty, and that probability statistics argues against such an arrangement occurring as part of a random process, somehow harms my critical thinking ability, or turns me into a believer of superstitious claptrap.
When you factor in the historical precedent that private, religious school students, trained in facilities that teach (gasp!) creationism, regularly and consistently out-perform their public school peers in both math and science, its pretty clear where the “claptrap” is coming from, here.
Weakly argued, Mr. Simon. Rhetoric-rich, fact-free.
Thibaud,
I suspect you are in violent agreement with me. So, if you’d be so kind, allow me to attempt to restate the case I have failed so miserably to make.
I don’t care the slightest hoot about ID being taught in our schools, in science classes or otherwise. There a two basic reasons for that and I’ll get to them, each in turn, momentarily.
But first I’d like to “draw” a couple lines. The first is a line representing the mean intelligence of all students in the US public education system. Use HS students if you’d like, that’s probably better.
It is my opinion, but I believe it is a relatively safe opinion to hold, that nobody on the “lower” side of that mean is in any danger of becoming a scientist – they do not have the intellectual tools. In fact, some large portion of the population above the mean line does not have the requisite intellectual tools.
Which leads me to the second line I’d like to “draw”. I don’t pretend to know precisely where this line belongs. But let’s draw it somewhere and I’ll pick that somewhere to be the mean of the “upper” half of our population that I so neatly divided with the first line.
Which is to say that there is a percentile line above which lies our potential pool of future “scientists” and below which “science” will forever be, at best, some relatively harmless muddle of mediocrity, populism, theocracy, rejectionism, fiction, and whatever else. I place that line, probably too generously, at the 75th percentile.
If your or anyone has some serious disagreement with the placement of this line, please let me know. I’m not particularly interested, however, in whether it should be moved to the 80th, or 85th, or 90th percentile. I’d be surprised to learn if there are participants here at Roger’s Place who believe it should be lowered by any significant degree. But I digress.
Now, back to my two reasons for not caring in the slightest about ID. I’ll even start by conceding the point that it is a terrible thing, junk science, the creationist pig with some lipstick slathered on it – pick how bad you bad you believe it is.
My first reason for not caring about it I tried to articulate above using the tempest in a teapot tritism. Well, that was a poor choice. Let me try another tritism.
This time I’ll use the ol’ nails in the coffin lid analogy. It only requires a handful of nails to nail the coffin lid shut. But we’ve got a big ol’ five gallon pail full to the brim with nails and a legions of educators dilligently hammering home nails. There’s already way too many nails in the lid. It doesn’t matter if ID is brand new nail or a rusty old one that somebody tried to buff up. It doesn’t matter who tossed it the pail or whether anyone is trying to hammer it home. The lid is already long nailed down tighter than… well never mind.
Just for the heck of it, let me identify some of the other nails already hammered home: “whole language”, “fuzzy math” (I believe Our Catherine has identified this as “Constructivist Math”), various questionably “educational methodologies”, tolerance for disruptiveness, gender politics, racial politics, and on and on and on.
We’re teaching precious little “science” now and far too much “junk” of all sorts.
Which brings me to the point of trying to state my case for the second reason I don’t care about ID.
Above I linked to just a small sample of “good” HS’s. Follow the link if you choose.
Schools such as the ones my link in a previous post points out compete for and receive national level awards. These are awards such as Schools of Distinction, Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence, , and various other state and corporate awards.
And therein lies the problem. These are extraordinary schools. They deserve their awards for somehow managing to swim upstream against the torrents of junk that are continuing to ruin the vast majority of our standard level public schools.
But they should not be the least bit extraordinary. That level of education, frequently science education, should be par for our students above the 75th percentile.
Which brings me, at long last, to actually stating what my second reason for not giving a flying F at a rolling donut about ID.
If our “best and brightest”, the youngsters actually capable of doing “science” at some point in their futures, were getting the educational foundation we should be giving them they would be, in their schools, talking about issues like ID. They are fully capable of, and need to be exposed to, seperating the wheat from the chaffe. Quality science education should, and often does, expose students to the “philosophy”, “ethics”, and controversies of “science”. The caliber of students who can do “science” is fully capable of dealing with ID and a ton of other “junk” thrown at them.
I’ve been exposed to these students. They are bright and if they are encouraged to do so they look at the world with a sophistication generally commensurate with their intellectual capabilities. They will discuss and argue with one another. They will have more deeply formed opinions about the controversies of the day than most adults do.
Unfortunately the current condition of our public educational establishment is peeling these kids off by the droves and refusing to give them a chance to learn or think. We’ve created an educational quagmire and pitching kids into it like there’s not tomorrow to worry about.
And the rest? They’re never gonna be scientists. They’re never going to impact the “scientific” portion of the economy. They’re going to do other things and have other impacts. The fact that we can’t seem to teach most of them to make change for a ten dollar bill is another part of the discussion.
You don’t seem to support trackbacks, so see http://donsingleton.blogspot.com/2005/09/intelligent-design-is-threat-to-our.html for my response, both to this post, and several of the comments.
You don’t seem to support trackbacks, so see http://donsingleton.blogspot.com/2005/09/intelligent-design-is-threat-to-our.html for my response, both to this post, and several of the comments.
Timmah – your example is standard. Any Russian immigrant family in this country will tell you of their shock at seeing their children being presented with math and science assignments that are typically 3 years behind (in good schools, mind you) what they were doing in ordinary Russian schools. Infantile is exactly the word for it. (nice nick, btw)
Knuck – a fine post, as usual, and a banquet of food for thought. Nice to see you’ve found a math and science school candle in the darkness. We’re aiming to do the same with ours (though that’s a long way off).
I hear you and agree that there are many malign conditions afflicting, let us say, our young patient. Purely as an analogy, let’s say our math-and-science-education patient is lazy, scatterbrained, obese, undisciplined, and gorges himself on junk culture each day.
Now let’s say that a group of libertarian “educationists” comes along with a new theory that allowing teens to surf pornsites provides them with a safe and healthy means of handling their hormonal surges, and provides teens with links to “quality erotica”: tasteful titillation, so to speak, that’s no more harmful than the Playboys I would filch from Mr Porter’s garage when I used to cut his lawn as a lad.
Suppose you argue that we should not be steering our kids toward “erotic” websites at all, to which I respond, Relax, this is a tempest in a teapot, there are far bigger fires to put out than this, and in any case sex is good and boys will be boys etc.
But isn’t it fair to say that such a proposal, however silly or limited in its effects, is not only lunacy but
1) a huge waste of everyone’s time, and
2) to the extent that it absorbs scarce bandwidth and energy, only makes it more difficult to make progress against Johnny’s obesity, laziness, and junk culture habits?
To shift analogies, perhaps creationism/ID is merely a surfeit of broken windows in a violent neighborhood, but broken windows matter.
If the core problem here is the junk culture and anti-scientism that makes even our best children do work that’s far beneath what every ordinary Russian, Indian, Vietnamese, Hungarian kid is required to do, then isn’t it necessary to halt the nonsense, NOW, anywhere and everywhere it appears?
Anyway, enjoyed your post and wish you and yours the best with your interesting school experiment in (?) Monmouth.
thibaud, I believe you have cause and effect backwards in one case. You allege that the push to teach ID will lead to diminished respect for science (and science teachers)–and thus have several negative consequences.
I say that we already have diminished respect for the academy (with science losing the exemption it held onto for so long), mainly because of efforts within the academy itself. This leads to the situation where we see a push to teach ID. We will have the several negative consequences whether ID is pushed or not, because the loss of respect has already occurred.
Now granted, broken windows theory says that cause and effect runs both ways in situations like this. However, fixing “broken windows” does nothing, unless done in the context of the larger effort. As a (very minor) part of a push to fix the academy, opposing ID in science class has a “broken window” role to play. Alone, it is merely playing into the perception that the academy is completely alienated from the public.
If all you do is lock up vandels and ignore burglary, people will not believe you stated motivations for locking up the vandels
(And since you’ve been dinging people for not being polite lately, I’ll note that indiscriminately slamming religion will not help much with the alienation issue, either. Try to be more precise. Hint, the vast majority of religious people in the Bible Belt are not terribly impressed with Televangelists.)
Knucklehead, not sure about your percentile placement in science, but I can tell you that the last information I saw on mathematics education said that over 95% of students were incapable of doing the work required to become high school math teachers. Since not all of the 5% that can do the math wants to do the math, we do not produce enough such teachers to even sustain our current knowledge. I would have probably been a math teacher (and I am capable), if not for the nonsense in the profession. I still might, if they ever clean it up.
Knucklehead and thibaud, there has long been a known correlation between the percentage of people capable of doing the math and those that want to study science. I’m not sure anyone has explained why, though clearly someone needs a certain amount of algebra to do chemistry and of course physics requires some advanced math. However, the correlation seems to be even stronger than that. I speculate that it is related to the parts of the brain that are primarily stimulated only by math and complex music. Perhaps someone learning some minimal competency in math gives an edge when learning science (or learning anything, period).
If you have rot in the rest of the academy, it will spill into science eventually. For too long, scientists have retreated into their classrooms and let the issue lie.
Steven,
I say that we already have diminished respect for the academy (with science losing the exemption it held onto for so long), mainly because of efforts within the academy itself
American anti-intellectualism long predates the 1960s (Richard Hofstadter analyzed it as early as the 1950s), so I don;t buy your attempt to attribute the general phenomenon (as opposed to the right’s more recent, more justified distrust) to the perverted behavior of the New Leftists now entrenched in tenured academic positions.
I did not write of institutionalized science, or what you refer to as “the academy.” (For that matter, I don’t recall trashing Christians of any sort. I quoted Coyne’s presentation of evidence of the disingenuousness of a few, um, Christian academics–not “televangelists”– from the Discovery Institute who masquerade as non-creationists in order to make “ID” more palatable to the general public).
I did write about respect for teachers and people with advanced education in the sciences, most of whom are not academics. The Russian concept of intelligent is applied equally to writers such as Chekhov, engineers, doctors, artists, and anyone who is devoted to principles of intellectual inquiry and high culture defined in the broadest possible sense. Respect for this social ideal is noticeably lacking across much of the nation. It may be the case that the only hope of catching up– how bizarre it feels to type that phrase– with the Asians in output of scientists and technologists, hence in future technology creation, is to import millions of asian, russian, hungarian, israeli etc strivers who do respect the man of learning and culture more than Jayzee or Britney or Bono or Shaq.
“American anti-intellectualism long predates the 1960s (Richard Hofstadter analyzed it as early as the 1950s), so I don’t buy your attempt to attribute the general phenomenon (as opposed to the right’s more recent, more justified distrust) to the perverted behavior of the New Leftists now entrenched in tenured academic positions.”
I never said American anti-intellectualism was solely a recent issue. However, the current fever pitch is, as you say, thanks to the New Leftists. Curiously, this corresponds exactly to the sharp decline of American education. Or put another way, Americans have always been *suspicious* of “book learning”. Leftists have given them just cause to indulge.
The whole basis of this disdain is the distinction between people who are intellectual versus people who pose as intellectual. There are too many of the latter getting a free ride from the former. (Actually, there are flat too many of the posers, lapping at the public trough.) Real intellectual who avoided adopting the snotty attitudes of the posers have always been admired by a substantial cross section of the public–despite the noted anti-intellectual tendencies.
No, I don’t expect you agree that you have been rude to the religious in general. (Note “religous”, not “Christian”). Let us say that your disdain has been clear, unambivalent, and scattershot. You probably will not buy that either.
This goes right at the heart of your speech in New York. Any blogster can come online and state an opinion without an iota of evidence.
Then the feedback loop appears, inuendo, insults are thrown about based upon the readership skill level and obviously the ‘reporters’.
Its an immediate loop back. Not all post or insulting or derogatory in nature, some actually try to answer the issue at hand. It is the immediacy of feedback and the accuracy of your arguments which can be verified, checked, rechecked and proven to be falsified or upheld within a matter of minutes or hours.
Now, to the subject matter at hand. ID vs evoltuion. Question. Is a screen writer and novelist educated enough to comment on “Theories” of a information-rich complex systems from a scientific background with any reliability?
Answer. Only if that writer has a scientific background, degree, or at the very least college level classes(or knowledge) in the subject of evolutionary fields. Furthermore, has the writer actually read any scientific literaturer from the scientist who are proponents of ID? For example, is the opinion based upon one’s presuppositional viewpoint or actual research and logic?
Michael Behe, author of Darwin’s Black Box, is hardly anyone to sneeze at with regards to scientific qualifications to question neo-Darwinist attitudes and analysis of the current state of evolution. He is highly qualified and respected in his field of expertise. He is one of thousands who question the DOGMATIC approach of the current state of scientific inquiry into complex biological processes and the answers currently provided within today’s classroom.
Strawmans and false inuendo abound in these debates. Many used in this comment forum now which do not address the failings of evolution to answer such basic questions as to ‘how’ we got here. ‘How’ did life arise. OR even a simple ‘deduction’ on the ‘evolution of the knee’. I welcome anyone on here to explain scientifically how the human knee evolved. There is no equivalent in the ape or chimp world to the knee of a human being. There is no crossover from the supposed pre-upright man.
Another straw man used by its detractors is that ID says things are to complex to understand. That is blatantly not true. It states that their is design such as evolution cannot reasonably explain by gradual changes over time or by irreducicble complexity. For my example, from what I’ve learned there are at least 16 parts to a knee joint which absolutely must be in place for it to function fully. Take out one part and the whole knee falls apart or is seriously degraded to the point that it breaks down in any further use. Or in the famous case put forward by Michael Behe – the bacterial flagullum. ID states that the information required, for example, like aboslute specific code for a functional computer program required to add and subtract data is required for the entire program to function. Take out one line and it stops adding and subtracting the data altogther, not just partially but in whole. Not only that, but it also states that the program could never work in bits and pieces by itself without the whole mechanism in place to support it at one time. All information must be present at one time for the program, or the bacteria to function. Otherwise it does not exist. Evolutionist in order to get around this obvious knowledge propose all sorts of mechanisms for why such an increase in information might occur. Problem is, from computer simulations, to actual test on fruit flies, they’ve never recreated new information outside the original gene set which could show such a leap of newly created complex functions with new information in the DNA.
Truth is no one knows scientifically without a doubt. There is only speculation – as seen by the ‘scientific’ research for life by SETI. Or, in the case of Gould’s proposal for leaps in the fossil records.
Feedback questions appear immediately with all anxiously awaiting to see what your answer is Roger. Will the writer, in this case, you Roger, qualify your comments? I do not question your right to share your opinion on such subjects, but I do question your ability based upon the short piece you threw up for debate and the fact that I do not know your background. Maybe you have a PhD in moleculor biology? Physics? Advanced Engineering Degree?
Evolution is not simply one theory. There are vast differences and arguments within the community itself of ‘HOW’ evolution works. The problem that most scientist have with the “How” part of it, is that many believe none of the theories offered to date have any sound logic and are based upon scientific methodology.
Now, lets lenghten and enlighten the feedback loop by a link to say, a more informed opinion from a scientist on the other side of the issue:
http://www.evolutionnews.org/. Instead of relying on MSN and in this case uninformed BLOG opinions, let go to the core of the debate as seen from the other side reporting on the subject.
I invite Roger and others here to read any number of articles posted by scientist, you know with PhD’s who have authored papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals, have issued patents and received rewards, and stand as professors, leaders and directors at leading universities around the nation and indeed around the world. The list is growing day to day and month to month that do not accept evolution as the panacea proposed by neo-darwinist such as Richard Dawkins – an atheist.
Each person has their bias. An atheistic presuppositional viewpoint is no more reliable than that of a theistic view. Science in and of itself does not point to truth per say on an individual basis for reliability if that person is not willing to follow the evidence. If one is so locked into a doctrine that materialism and reductionism is the only valid viewpoint, then their logic will only lead one way.
It is supposed to be a scientist goal in finding the truth of nature. But then, theistic veiwpoints do not deny this either, but in fact encourage one to seek the truth in all things with knowledge and humility from the Judeo-Christian perspective based upon writings, knowledge and wisdom passed down throught the ages that hold true today. Believing in G_d or in Jesus does not prevent one from having logic or the capability to do scientific research. In fact, prior to Darwin and after him, great scientist with a belief in God contributed wholeheartedly to remarkable scientific breakthroughs in our age and before. I continue to see such smug comments by people who could not wear Isaac Newton’s underwear, let alone step into his shoes. Yet Isaac was a firm believer in God and revelation. In fact, he penned more writing about the Bible than he did on Mathematics and physics.
Whether or not one agree’s with say, even Young Earth Creationist – one cannot deny their logic on matters of controversy surrounding certain aspects of evolution. It is very easy to say evolution is a fact. It is yet another to produce the evidence. Gaps exist which cannot be explained, therefore new theories are developed by leading evolutionist such as Gould who proposed “punctuated equilibrilism”. This is to say, since evolutionist cannot find proof and evidence within the current fossil records, therefore a new theory is required to overcome the lack of any evidence for gradualism. The fact that a leading evolutionist world renown and respected should put forth such a new theory should quiet or at least humble some opinions on here about the state of evolutionary theory.
And certainly one cannot deny their knowledge and abilities in the scientific fields, with nobel prize winners and scientist who in fact before Darwin were responsible for fantastic leaps of knowledge.
The sad truth is, science descriminates now against those who don’t share their absolute doctrine. The inventor of the MRI known today was not invited to share in the revolutionary aspect of his invention as a Nobel Prize winner and it is widely known he is a young earth creationist. For the Nobel Prize committee to award him with such distinction is to award his viewpoint and therefore not allowed by the scientific community at large. Honestly I have questions on both sides of these issues. But how the Nobel Orgainization could not include the original inventor of such technology innovations should be a black eye to all scientist.
So… with that in mind, one should turn a critical eye towards MSM again.
Finally, a critical eye towards sensationalistic headlines worthy of the National Enquirer. Roger if you’re using satire, fine, I can see the humor.
But if the headline is an accurate description of your views, then I’m worried about the future of PJMedia’s supposed walk to legitimacy.
The truth is this opens up much larger questions in the role of our educational system and its lack of open debate, the right of the people and the majority to elect representatives and no taxation without representation.
A judicial decree was made on false logic of a letter from Thomas Jeffereson and has forever now until this day been legitimized on the left as ‘separation of church and state’. Truth is, that statement and its logicall progression through our educational system is not based upon any factual wording in the constition or the first amendment. Paraphrasing, Congress shall ‘make no laws’ respecting the establishment of religion or the free exercise thereof.
Debating ID or the theories of evolution has nothing to do with ‘making laws’ or establishing a religion.
Our schools suffer from any real ability to let children hear other viewpoints. To cut off a child or adult from sharing their views is to deny freedom of speech. We have gone from one extreme to another. Now we should head back to the middle with moderation. Otherwise, how is it one can do reports and research on class projects about Islam, yet deny Christian or Judaistic philosophies?
The problem is not one of pushing religion. The problem is allowing people to discuss openly their beliefs, the facts, share knowledge and openly look at why, where and how these came to be established on a historical basis up to modern times.
It used to be children were taught biblical narratives in school, parables, even ABC’s based upon Biblical words and names.
Today, you can’t mention Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Peter, Paul or Mary without a lawsuit from the ACLU. This is truly a sad situation. Grownups, need to grow up.
Allow free discussion to take place. One of the posters on here earlier made a good point. Education is not aboout blocking out viewpoints, it is about discussing them and making informed opinions and decisions based upon the evidence put forth.
If parents who are religious and pay taxes would like to have their children read the bible in a classroom or their peers in a optional and voluntary classroom environment as a subject of history, then those parents have the rights as ‘tax payors’ to demand their rights of the government to represent their choices. Otherwise, they’re not truly being represented by the government. Having a child read a bible in class or listen to other viewpoints on evolution will hardly bring this nation down economically, nor will it be the equivalent of the ‘establishment’ clause. Instead, it will simply answer to the will of the people, which is what our constitution guarantee’s.
Finally, evolution is hardly a fact and it is hardly falsifiable itself based upon the theories set forth today. Gradually or in Leaps, neo-darwinist get evolution either way without an ounce of evidence or proof.
Variation within Species – yes, MacroEvolution, unproven by any data known to man, No.
“Debating ID/evolution debate is like debating whether high school kids should read “Ullysses” when the kids need remedial reading, much less a nuanced critical basis to evaluate complex books.” timmah!
That may be the most pithy comment in the thread.
If the concern was about the long term implications for our economy the protests would have been loud and clear over the last two or three decades, not against ID, since it has not been included in curricula, but against a variety of primarily Leftist ideological influences, too often posing as science when they are not. The graphs provided at the end of the InstaPundit post and other research as well, point to past and (probable) future economic/demographic concerns, none of them attributable to ID or anything remotely close to it. Yet we have not heard protests or concerns vis-a-vis a variety of predominantly Leftist ideological influences which correlate with the decline in question.
thibaud,
You’ve either missed my point or are attributing to me views which I do not hold. With all respect, your first reply, again referring to the InstaPundit post again, simply repeats what you previously said, it does not redress the questions I raised about that specific reference, i.e., the complete lack of historical correspondence, much less any causation.
Your second post, referencing the Coyne article, is a bit more interesting, but is more limited in scope than you are indicating. I too can point to serious fault lines (e.g., some blatant hoaxes) within the history of evolution’s development which hardly reflect positively on evolution during those episodes. But it would be disingenuous of me to claim those hoaxes (or other more subtle diversions from scientific methodologies) disprove evolution. Indeed, I’m an evolutionist myself, though am not a pure materialist or positivist.
Additionally, I realize I need to educate myself more thoroughly on ID. Still, I chose my words carefully in my previous posts and believe I can adequately defend what was said on firm scientific and philosophical grounds.
(For the sake of transparency and to indicate where I stand, in general, as regards the primary issues involved, I’m a theist and evolutionist and consider philosophers of science such as Michael Polanyi (d. 1976?) to be among the more intriguing thinkers in that area – Polanyi was not an ID proponent per se, though he was a theist and a thorough-going critical thinker from all sides of the problems he tackled.)
Michael_B,
The graphs provided at the end of the InstaPundit post and other research as well, point to past and (probable) future economic/demographic concerns, none of them attributable to ID or anything remotely close to it.
Many of us have decried for decades this country’s infantile approach to primary and secondary educational standards. Creationism/ID is only one symptom, agreed, of the disease, but it is a major symptom nonetheless, and I’m frankly tired of being drawn into this absurd sideshow over non-science that has utterly no place in a science class.
Again, the disease is cultural. It is this nation’s bizarre refusal to accord respect and social status to those in any profession or calling who are devoted to intellectual inquiry and high cultural standards generally.
So long as millions of parents allow their kids to revere Jayzee, Bono, Britney and while viewing math and science as pathetic diversions for losers, nerds and other troglodytes, they will continue to be vastly outperformed by children from cultures that revere learning, teachers and the man of culture.
Well, as already indicated, you seem to be attributing to me views which I do not hold or are not reading more carefully what I’m indicating.
“Again, the disease is cultural. It is this nation’s bizarre refusal to accord respect and social status to those in any profession or calling who are devoted to intellectual inquiry and high cultural standards generally.”
There is nothing bizarre about it. It is easily explainable by human nature and the trajectory of behavior (up and down) by the intellectuals and culturalists.
If you want a mechanic, a farmer, a small business owner, etc. to pay for a university while largely letting the university call the shots (i.e. academic freedom), then it is incumbent on the university to see that it is not populated by very many Ward Churchills (who is, I hasten to add, merely a convenient poster child for a much wider problem).
There have always been true anti-intellectuals willing to tear down the university. And not just in the USA, though they find it easier to be heard here. What is not always true is that very many people will listen to them.
And if intellectuals want respect for thinking, they might consider showing a little more respect for those that do the heavy lifting. Being an intellectual in a very free, prosperous country is a privilege, not a right.
Yeshooroon gets to the heart of the controversy, eventually:
It used to be children were taught biblical narratives in school, parables, even ABC’s based upon Biblical words and names.
Today, you can’t mention Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Peter, Paul or Mary without a lawsuit from the ACLU. This is truly a sad situation. Grownups, need to grow up.
Allow free discussion to take place. One of the posters on here earlier made a good point. Education is not aboout blocking out viewpoints, it is about discussing them and making informed opinions and decisions based upon the evidence put forth.
Right, the ID fanatics aren’t interested in anything like a scientific critique of natural selection, they want full-blown relgious instruction in the schools. OK, so what religion should we be teaching in jr. high biology classes? I think we should keep it simple, so some sort of Amazonian cannibalism would be the best place to start. With that as a foundation, we can explain how the Christian communion is symbolic cannibalism, much more groovier. And then let’s go on to Faith Healing and New-Age goddess worship.
Screw genetics, there’s too much math.
Richard Bennett, you too get to the heart of a certain quality.
You continue to use caricatures and weakest-link forms of general dismissiveness while studiously avoiding empirical reference points and rational refutations. So much heat, harangue and hysteria – and all to completely and studiously avoid the need for empirical/rational discourse. Not that a towering eminence should deign or stoop to mere empirical/rational based discussions when you so complete possess the Truth. Extremism in the defense of a presumptive scientism is no vice? Screw rigorous thought, it’s too difficult? Au contraire, this is not primarily about Dover, PA, it’s about science, the philosophy of science and the culture at large as well.
More science, not less; less presumptive ideology and sneering disdain, not more.
You continue to use caricatures and weakest-link forms of general dismissiveness while studiously avoiding empirical reference points and rational refutations.
Indeed I do, and for a very good reason: there are no empirical reference points and rational refutations operating in the service of ID or any other form of propagandized pseudo-science. ID is a mask for creationism, which doctrine says the entire enterprise of science is hubristic folly.
The ID movement can’t even agree on the nature of their critique. Behe accepts common descent, but argues for periodic miracles in the form of “irreducibly complex” organs that are shared among diverse life-forms through mechanisms totally foreign to empirical evidence. Dembski and most of the others reject common descent and argue instead that each species comes into existence fully-formed; they take issue with natural selection on statistical grounds, and make a hash of information theory. And others are more firmly inclined toward old-school creationism.
Which version of ID do you wish to debate, o sage, and what will you offer in its support?
As already noted, am no sage, am just one humble guy who doesn’t mind learning something new. And yourself?
As noted, no one, to this point, has forwarded a single empirically based argument contra the stronger aspects of ID (weakest link arguments and general dismissiveness aside). The following results from a little googling. And to be clear, unlike presumptive ideologues, am open to being refuted, especially so as I’m just beginning the ID learning curve, as long as it’s on the basis of genuinely scientific grounds, not ideological grounds or because a Dawkins says so.
This article on published peer-reviewed research appears to be telling. Excerpts, keeping in mind that biological evolution is not entirely synonymous with Darwinists, the latter having adumbrated ideological content onto the more substantial science of biological evolution:
“The main tactics of the Darwinist response to Darwin Doubters and intelligent design proponents are, first, to misrepresent the opposition’s positions and, second, to try to keep the opposition from speaking for itself. They have managed to get some university professors fired or sidelined [...]
“The best example is the attempt to shut down design theorists who appear in peer-reviewed journals. Of course, it has been a standard and hypocritical assertion by groups like the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) that if ID scientists were “serious” about their science, they would publish in peer-reviewed science journals. The Darwinists say this piously to reporters, then do all they can behind the scenes to prevent publication of peer-reviewed articles that are not reliably Darwinian.
“They have missed with several such articles lately, however, and their all-out effort to punish Dr. Richard Sternberg, the editor of the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, for publishing a paper on intelligent design by Dr. Stephen Meyer, the philosopher of science who heads Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, has backfired in a particularly spectacular way.”
[...]
“When the Meyer article appeared a year ago last month we fully expected an attempt to discredit its findings. Instead, the brunt of the attack was borne by the editor, not Dr. Meyer, even though Dr. Sternberg would seem to be an unimpeachable expert in his field. After all, he has not one but two doctorates in the very field that is appropriate here, evolutionary biology.”
So if this type of thing is a lie or misrepresentation, refute it on the basis of a reasoned argument.
Also, this would seem to be of interest, but refute it as well if it’s a lie or misrepresentation.
Intelligent design is bad science, dishonest politics, and deceitful religion. It’s worth opposing on any of those points.
Michael B, this is old-hat stuff. The so-called “peer-reviewed research” paper published in the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington is highlighted by the Discovery people because it’s the one and only piece on ID to be published in a journal of peer-reviewed research. That’s not to say that it amounts to research itself: the author is a philosopher, not a scientist, and the artice contain no research. Rather, it’s a review of some literature on taxonomy that was published by a zealous editor (since removed) who circumvented the peer-review process and to this day refuses to say who read the paper and what they said. The article you quote is simply some whining about the hard life of the ID’er. I’ve written about him (Richard Sternberg) on my blog.
The second piece you cite has been the object of great ridicule as well; look at the list, and you’ll see most of the signatories are public school teachers. As a lark, the other side has published a list of “Steves”, scientists whose first name is Steven or Stephanie who agree that natural selection is the only valid explanation for speciation. It has some number of signatories in the thousands.
Neither of these cites offers anything like a valid scientific conjecture; they’re both baloney and BS.
The following results from a little googling. And to be clear, unlike presumptive ideologues, am open to being refuted, especially so as I’m just beginning the ID learning curve, as long as it’s on the basis of genuinely scientific grounds, not ideological grounds or because a Dawkins says so.
Enjoy…
http://www.freerepublic.com/~patrickhenry/
Plainly, I didn’t represent either of those cites as scientific conjecture (I am beginning to explore the papers and references at this site however). I’ve already identified myself, overtly and unambiguously, as an evolutionist. I’ve already indicated, overtly, I’d reject any non-scientific application, e.g., emphasizing the phrase ‘science qua science’. I’ve already noted, overtly and unambiguously, I reject the simple identification of ID with creationism (e.g., the latter pertaining to the “flood argument” to explain fossil stratefication). I also, overtly and unambiguously, identified the initial and tentative nature of my inquiries.
Hence, you might consider taking into account what I’ve already said – as opposed to identifying my positions with the simple categories or paradigms you’ve already dismissed. In other words, coupling some comprehension with your admirable reading abilities would be a good place to start. I’ve also represented myself as a theist, that doesn’t mean I’m ready to defend the positions of the three or four or more billion other theists on the planet, I can only defend my own positions. Think Kuhn, think Polanyi, think Popper in terms of those whom I find most intriguing as being able to think outside of the box and try to presume a great deal less about the box you perceive me to be inhabiting.
Michael—
The following results from a little googling. And to be clear, unlike presumptive ideologues, am open to being refuted, especially so as I’m just beginning the ID learning curve, as long as it’s on the basis of genuinely scientific grounds, not ideological grounds or because a Dawkins says so.
Think Kuhn, think Polanyi, think Popper in terms of those whom I find most intriguing as being able to think outside of the box and try to presume a great deal less about the box you perceive me to be inhabiting.
You think Kuhn, Polanyi, and/or Popper and ask yourself what they’d think about what those at the site you’re reading are up to. If you don’t know what they’re up to, you can find out at the links provided in my two comments above.
I’m a deist.
Final post for today.
“The second piece you cite has been the object of great ridicule as well; look at the list, and you’ll see most of the signatories are public school teachers. As a lark, the other side has published a list of “Steves”, scientists whose first name is Steven or Stephanie who agree that natural selection is the only valid explanation for speciation.” Richard Bennett
Yes, the inviolable authority of (and apparently the ubiquitous use of) the smirk, always a reliable scientific tool; I’ll file under “Steven/Stephanie as Smirk” category. Rather more to the point, as to your comment about “public school teachers,” the list is here (pdf). To be clear, they signed onto the following statement: “We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.”.
I’d simply note the list is replete with PhDs and includes job titles such as Director, Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry; Prof. of Bacteriology; Prof. of Microbiology; Prof. of Physics and Astronomy; Paleoanthropologist; Prof. of Chemistry; etc., ad infinitum. So allow me some skepticism when it comes to your characterization – and your categorical dismissiveness – about “public school teachers”.
Re, Richard Sternberg, I’ll withhold judgement in either a positive or negative sense for the time being. Regardless, is the same sense that I don’t dismiss bio-evolutionary processes due to frauds and hoaxes in the history of evolution, I’m similarly not dismissive of scientific hypotheses or conjectures on the basis of any one person or set of persons.
Patrick Tyson,
I read The New Yorker article previously and while it presents some cautions which are fully warranted (within the scope of a broader inquiry), it in fact serves as a sophistical, populist piece, catering to it’s clientele, and then arrogating and broadly dismissing across a much broader scope than is warranted. It’s also replete with subtle and not so subtle ad hominem sniffs in addition to the overly leveraged arrogations.
Re, the second link, perfectly fine, but I didn’t see anything, after a quick skim, which would contradict any of my own interests. For the record I’m entirely on the side of Galileo Galili and also have always taken a firm stand against burning people at the stake – just in case that too needs clarification.
Michael_B—
I read The New Yorker article previously and while it presents some cautions which are fully warranted (within the scope of a broader inquiry), it in fact serves as a sophistical, populist piece, catering to it’s clientele, and then arrogating and broadly dismissing across a much broader scope than is warranted.
How so? And how does that square with:
I’m just beginning the ID learning curve
As to that list…
http://www.skepticreport.com/creationism/doubtdarwin.htm
“How so? And how does that square with: ‘I’m just beginning the ID learning curve’”
Firstly, it squares because analyzing a piece of suasion and rhetoric is substantially and critically different from analyzing scientific hypotheses and claims. Secondly, in terms of “How so?”, I could probably write 1,500+ words or more on the subtle and more blatant rhetorical liberties taken in the piece. Perhaps the most egregious and obvious is one of the final lines in the piece, a nice piece of presumptive rhetoric but little else: “Biologists aren
I also followed your latest link. Firstly, similar to Bennett “public school teacher” dismissiveness, the link supplied hardly dismisses the list in toto. I also followed the link further and found some additional material which I’ll further look into. That info follows:
Info from the court on the Kitzmiller case.
Dembski’s expert witness.
Pennock’s expert witness, for the plaintiff.
Dembski’s rebuttal of Pennock’s and others’ expert witness.
Dembski’s expert witness and rebuttal was not used by the defense for some apparently technical legal reason I don’t fully understand, but it pertains to the scientific and philosophical quality of the basic questions and issues invoked, as does Pennock’s expert witness paper. Dembski’s report also contains a list of peer reviewed material and after skimming it, it appears to be quite substantial and extensive material, not at all worthy of being merely dismissed or sneered at.
I obtained the Kitzmiller court link and Pennock’s expert witness material by link through from the link you provided and obtained Dembski’s expert witness and rebuttal material from a weblog kept by Dembski.
Michael_B—
Do you suspect me of being a crypto-nazi-theist or the like?
You’re reminding me of one of my sisters-in-law. Many years ago the church to which she and my little brother belong encouraged their younger congregants to pair up, get married and start families. It just so happened that I first met her shortly after she and my brother started following that advice. They and many younger congregant friends of my borther met me for breakfast at an area restaurant after their Sunday service. Her first words to me were “Why do you hate Christians?” My response was laughter.
Not too many years later I participated in my brother’s proposal (I lived a couple of blocks from the ocean—sunsets and all that) and in their subsequent wedding. They have two wonderful children and are expecting a third. My wife and I have had the priviledge of looking after them on a couple of occaisions.
Why do I bring this up? I bring it up because I met my sister-in-law shortly after I stopped seriously debating evolution with those who make it a point to want to “argue on the basis of the empirical evidence and with rational and reasoned discourse” and then make statements like this:
…one might be excused from wondering how he knows about the motives of all the biologists he presumes to represent
and
Dembski’s report also contains a list of peer reviewed material and after skimming it, it appears to be quite substantial and extensive material, not at all worthy of being merely dismissed or sneered at.
I’ve seen it all too often. If I’ve misjudged you so be it. Claims to be transparant and persuadable and misunderstood and persecuted are, in my experience, the most often employed debate tactics of the critics of evolution. In me they provoke laughter.
Enjoy your search.
This is not in the least about any feelings of being “persecuted”. Though when you refer to “debating evolution” after I’ve repeatedly identified myself as an evolutionist (though not a pure materialist or physicalist) I have to assume there’s a level of miscomprehension. The crypto-nazi-theist remark was intended to be more tongue-in-cheek, though there also was a more rueful intention.
This is about an honest and thorough-going inquiry only, it actually is that simple – and that complicated. The links provided above reflect precisely that, honest and transparent inquiry in the areas of science and the philosophy of science, the latter consisting largely of ontological investigations and presuppositions.
Anti-intelectualism in America is not what it once used to be. The dot com boom has made engineering geeks a tad more attractive.
As to the evolutioin of the knee.
Do we know how the knee is coded in DNA and how the construction of it (in embryo) differs from the construction of the ape knee?
Until we have that bit of fact I think the question is open. Same for flagellum.
The problem for me with ID re: the open questions – if you accept ID then your work is done. No need to look further.
As to the collapse of the academy – I think it is over rated. In a town of 160,000 with a failing school system according to state metrics, I was able to find a grade school and high school for my #2 son capable of educating him well enough to get into the University of Chicago and pass out of most of his first year classes. #3 son went through the same program and got an excellent education. #1 daughter is going down the same path. We screwed up with #1 son. A learning experience. I am working to develop his talents at home. The internet is a great thing.
To a certain extent this is due to the fact that our very best are self educating.
BTW I am an aerospace engineer (UC alum and Naval Nuclear Power graduate) and would check up on #2 son’s physics and math work. It was not watered down.
Where we fall down is with those not taking Advanced Placement courses.
Does it matter? The internet changes a lot.
The New Yorker article by H. Allen Orr was cited in this thread and has often been cited in other media. As previously noted it very much conflates rhetoric and suasion with more valid scientific interests. Still, the scientific interest is there and should be acknowledged as such, i.e., without sweeping it aside and merely conflating it with the rhetoric and suasion.
Orr’s The New Yorker piece is here.
Dembski’s answer to that piece, here.
Similarly, at more length, Orr had previously written a piece in the Boston Review contra Dembski’s No Free Lunch. That review is here and Dembski’s response to that review is here. In each case it is the scientific concerns which are addressed first and foremost. Orr’s Boston Review piece is over 6,000 words. Subsequent to publishing Orr’s review the Boston Review gave Dembski a 1,000 word reply – quantitatively reflecting the general imbalance typically found in the debate.
These scientifically based exchanges present a contrast with the oft repeated mantras variously expressed in this thread and throughout the history of the ID debate. The simplest and most stultifyingly mundane formulation of this mantra is “ID equals creationism”. This mantra approach is one which insistently demands, by virtue of repetition alone: despite its lack of cogency, repeat it often enough and, voila, it’s close enough for govt work – which is to say the bigotry and prejudice of mere rhetoric is an adequate substitution for a transparently vetted science and intellectually based exchange in general.
One variation on that repetition is supplied by M. Simon above: “… if you accept ID then your work is done. No need to look further.” I.e.: ID, like creationism, is not science. There are other variations along this same line, all of which deny the realities, serve a sweeping dismissiveness and therein promote this particular anti-intellectual initiative. It’s telling that previously in the thread Clayton Cramer’s views on the subject are referenced with approval (with warrant since Cramer is a clear thinker who articulates his positions well, also because he initiated or at least helped to forward the debate against the faux science of Bellesiles. Here’s one of Cramer’s posts on ID:
“Anyone that thinks that the questions that Intelligent Design is raising about evolution are comparable to various Creation myths hasn’t really bothered to read any of the Intelligent Design criticisms. One of my readers, a Ph.D. who teaches in a medical school, made this thoughtful observation about the struggle.
“Unlike the Creationist advocates, who were usually working outside their field of expertise (for example, mechanical engineering Ph.D.s), Intelligent Design advocates such as Professor Michael Behe are working in their area of expertise. Behe is a Professor of Biochemistry at Lehigh University. Scott Minnich is a professor of microbiology at the University of Idaho. To claim that Intelligent Design is at the same level as various Creation myths (including the Genesis account) is simply not accurate.”
Emphasis mine. What is at risk, with the truncated debates, the rank and sweeping dismissiveness, the oft repeated mantras, etc. is in point of fact science qua science. Ideologically based and more subtle prejudices (e.g., investments in a scientism rather than a science per se) aside, that is precisely what is at risk and the decision to avoid informed and transparent debates, on the basis of scientific inquiry, is a strikingly telling artifact of those prejudices, not of substantial scientific inquiry.
Intelligent Design and the Decline of American Education
Intelligent Design is not a theory:
“One requirement of science is that it makes specific predictions, which can be tested in a laboratory.” states geologist Robert Hazen “Another requirement is that it does not rely on supernatural or miraculous processes.”
The primary case that intelligent design promotes is that life and the universe have systems that are so complex that they can only be explained by a creator. The very essence of that theory is completely un-testable. The only test that stands up is if we can not explain complex systems scientifically then they must have been designed by some form of intelligence.
If it was designed by “a creator” a single being or entity; whether that be God, an Alien or the Giant Spaghetti Monster then we are left without testing. The implied protocol for testing is to give up and stop researching because the answers to the question are to difficult to explain.
It is this conclusion that brings me to the “bigger problem” that Intelligent Design is just a symptom of.
Why continuing to push this non-theory on public education is irresponsible:
While this attitude and the answers themselves are unacceptable they do bring attention to the bigger problems in public education.
The problems we are faced with in our schools is the declining quality of education that our children receive today. The entire history of our Country has been built on the foundation that the children had a better life than their parents.
This was reflected in:
The child would have a better education than the parents.
The child would have better health care than the parents.
The child would have a better, safer job than the parents.
The child would have a nicer house than the parents.
etc…
These things are no longer true of this generation coming out of our High Schools today.
The whole concept of “No Child Left Behind” is false and misleading at best. The children are now receiving training to pass a test that measures progress. The bar for that progress was only getting lowered so that the appearance was that children are improving when, in fact, they were not.
Only recently have demands for more stringent testing been met in Texas. The TAKS test has been made more difficult in recent years and as a result we can see where the quality of education was really heading.
According to an article in the Dallas Morning news dated December 15th, 2005:
The Texas Education Agency identified 821 campuses across the state Thursday where students will have the right to leave if their parents are dissatisfied. That’s nearly double the number of campuses last year ? 420.
…
The state’s annual school performance ratings in August showed the number of “academically unacceptable” schools nearly quadrupled this year based on poor TAKS scores. A handful of factors were cited for the lower test scores and lower school ratings, including that students had to get more answers correct and, for the first time, special education students’ test scores were included in overall passing rates.
Large numbers of students had trouble with the science and math sections of the exam even though only a minority of students ? 25 percent in science and 35 percent in math ? were required to pass those sections for their school to be considered academically acceptable.
If what we are seeing is true, then the idea of further decreasing the quality of education, especially in the sciences, is not only irresponsible it is immoral.
According to an article being published in the January 2006 issue of Discover Magazine:
The performance of U.S. students in middle and high schools on international math and science exams is below the average of 38 other countries. Even advanced American math and physics students score near dead last among students in 20 tested countries, the panel reported. Since 1990 the number of bachelor’s degrees in engineering has declined 8 percent; in mathematics, 20 percent. While 32 percent of U.S. students graduate with degrees in science and engineering, the figure in China is 59 percent. Fewer grads means less research.
Science Watch, a review of the Web research tool Essential Science Indicators, found a decline in U.S. representation among the world’s published scientific papers, dropping from 38.5 percent in 1990 to 33.3 percent in 2004. Meanwhile, the Asian-Pacific share increased and “will likely outstrip that of the United States in six or seven years.” Such declines may be reflected in the business of science; the National Academies reported the U.S. share of global high-tech exports fell during the last two decades from 30 to 17 percent, and its share of manufactured goods dropped from +33 billion in 1990 to ?24 billion in 2004.
I believe America is a first rate country with more rights and privileges than just about any country in the world. There is no excuse for us to be ranked 39th in the world for education. As an American the idea that there are 38 other countries with a better quality of education just infuriates me.
What have our government officials been doing that they have fallen down on the job to such a degree?
We can not just blame one political party for this. For our educational system to have become so badly damaged has taken years if not decades of neglect to get to this point. Whether you are a Republican or a Democrat this issue needs to be a top priority in America starting yesterday.
In order to fix the problems we need to focus on the real issues. We need to stop talking about Intelligent Design and focus on what needs to be done to get the best quality of education in the world for our children.
How can we do it?
We need to change our priorities. If our children are truly what is important then we need to put our money where our brains are going to be tomorrow.
- Instead of taxing the citizenry to build bigger and better sports arenas, how about using that money to build bigger and better schools?
- How about increasing teachers salaries so that the income of a teacher is appealing to the most talented people?
- How about tax or financial incentives for retired or semi-retired professionals to come and teach our children?
- How about increasing the financial rewards for students that do well in school and actually paying for them to attend college?
- How about looking at the 38 countries that have us beat in the quality of education to see what they are doing right?
There have to be a few thousand other things we can do to help our children get the best education possible. In my opinion all we have for education these days is excuses.
The other big question that I have is what will happen to our economy in 30 years if American becomes 50th in education worldwide? Who will own America then?
Intelligent Design and the Decline of American Education
Intelligent Design is not a theory:
“One requirement of science is that it makes specific predictions, which can be tested in a laboratory.” states geologist Robert Hazen “Another requirement is that it does not rely on supernatural or miraculous processes.”
The primary case that intelligent design promotes is that life and the universe have systems that are so complex that they can only be explained by a creator. The very essence of that theory is completely un-testable. The only test that stands up is if we can not explain complex systems scientifically then they must have been designed by some form of intelligence.
If it was designed by “a creator” a single being or entity; whether that be God, an Alien or the Giant Spaghetti Monster then we are left without testing. The implied protocol for testing is to give up and stop researching because the answers to the question are to difficult to explain.
It is this conclusion that brings me to the “bigger problem” that Intelligent Design is just a symptom of.
Why continuing to push this non-theory on public education is irresponsible:
While this attitude and the answers themselves are unacceptable they do bring attention to the bigger problems in public education.
The problems we are faced with in our schools is the declining quality of education that our children receive today. The entire history of our Country has been built on the foundation that the children had a better life than their parents.
This was reflected in:
The child would have a better education than the parents.
The child would have better health care than the parents.
The child would have a better, safer job than the parents.
The child would have a nicer house than the parents.
etc…
These things are no longer true of this generation coming out of our High Schools today.
The whole concept of “No Child Left Behind” is false and misleading at best. The children are now receiving training to pass a test that measures progress. The bar for that progress was only getting lowered so that the appearance was that children are improving when, in fact, they were not.
Only recently have demands for more stringent testing been met in Texas. The TAKS test has been made more difficult in recent years and as a result we can see where the quality of education was really heading.
According to an article in the Dallas Morning news dated December 15th, 2005:
The Texas Education Agency identified 821 campuses across the state Thursday where students will have the right to leave if their parents are dissatisfied. That’s nearly double the number of campuses last year ? 420.
…
The state’s annual school performance ratings in August showed the number of “academically unacceptable” schools nearly quadrupled this year based on poor TAKS scores. A handful of factors were cited for the lower test scores and lower school ratings, including that students had to get more answers correct and, for the first time, special education students’ test scores were included in overall passing rates.
Large numbers of students had trouble with the science and math sections of the exam even though only a minority of students ? 25 percent in science and 35 percent in math ? were required to pass those sections for their school to be considered academically acceptable.
If what we are seeing is true, then the idea of further decreasing the quality of education, especially in the sciences, is not only irresponsible it is immoral.
According to an article being published in the January 2006 issue of Discover Magazine:
The performance of U.S. students in middle and high schools on international math and science exams is below the average of 38 other countries. Even advanced American math and physics students score near dead last among students in 20 tested countries, the panel reported. Since 1990 the number of bachelor’s degrees in engineering has declined 8 percent; in mathematics, 20 percent. While 32 percent of U.S. students graduate with degrees in science and engineering, the figure in China is 59 percent. Fewer grads means less research.
Science Watch, a review of the Web research tool Essential Science Indicators, found a decline in U.S. representation among the world’s published scientific papers, dropping from 38.5 percent in 1990 to 33.3 percent in 2004. Meanwhile, the Asian-Pacific share increased and “will likely outstrip that of the United States in six or seven years.” Such declines may be reflected in the business of science; the National Academies reported the U.S. share of global high-tech exports fell during the last two decades from 30 to 17 percent, and its share of manufactured goods dropped from +33 billion in 1990 to ?24 billion in 2004.
I believe America is a first rate country with more rights and privileges than just about any country in the world. There is no excuse for us to be ranked 39th in the world for education. As an American the idea that there are 38 other countries with a better quality of education just infuriates me.
What have our government officials been doing that they have fallen down on the job to such a degree?
We can not just blame one political party for this. For our educational system to have become so badly damaged has taken years if not decades of neglect to get to this point. Whether you are a Republican or a Democrat this issue needs to be a top priority in America starting yesterday.
In order to fix the problems we need to focus on the real issues. We need to stop talking about Intelligent Design and focus on what needs to be done to get the best quality of education in the world for our children.
How can we do it?
We need to change our priorities. If our children are truly what is important then we need to put our money where our brains are going to be tomorrow.
- Instead of taxing the citizenry to build bigger and better sports arenas, how about using that money to build bigger and better schools?
- How about increasing teachers salaries so that the income of a teacher is appealing to the most talented people?
- How about tax or financial incentives for retired or semi-retired professionals to come and teach our children?
- How about increasing the financial rewards for students that do well in school and actually paying for them to attend college?
- How about looking at the 38 countries that have us beat in the quality of education to see what they are doing right?
There have to be a few thousand other things we can do to help our children get the best education possible. In my opinion all we have for education these days is excuses.
The other big question that I have is what will happen to our economy in 30 years if American becomes 50th in education worldwide? Who will own America then?
Great style may be great by some, but to some others, it’s rubbish. Trust us, we’ve encountered our share of varying ideas on our own design work…