Ever play whack-a-mole, where the little mole pops up out of a hole, you whack it down, and it pops up in another hole?
Welcome to the reality-based community dealing with the fantasy of creationism.
Just four months ago, I wrote in this blog about the Utah school system’s Board of Education unanimously supporting a position statement reaffirming their commitment to teaching evolution in high school science classes.
But poof, that’s now gone. Utah Senator Chris Buttars (R-West Jordan) proposed a bill regulating the discussion of the origin of life in the classroom — students must consider opposing "scientific" viewpoints when learning about evolution (never mind that there are no scientific oppositions to it). The bill passed one hurdle, and is expected to pass the second as well. When it does, students in Utah get to join the increasingly less-exclusive list of other students around the United States getting screwed out of their education.
If this sounds harsh, then let me show you this quotation in an article about this in the Deseret (Utah) News:
Sen. Parley Hellewell, R-Orem, who supports the legislation, told senators, “It’s important we stand up and fight for what we believe.”
When will these guys understand that it’s not about what is believed, but what is known to be true and factual, or, in the case of creationism, what is known to be untrue and nonfactual.
I’ll be even clearer: belief does not belong in the classroom. It doesn’t. Belief is religion, no matter how you slice it. What belongs in the classroom is evidence-based reasoning. That’s why we have a First Amendment, and why Judge Jones ruled against the creationists on Dover.
A Senator from Salt Lake tried to help… but I’m glad he failed. He said
“If we are actually going to do those things, we should do it not with just one theory in the biology classroom. We should do it with all theories in the classroom,” [Senator Scott] McCoy [D-Salt Lake] said. “The fact it does target one particular theory points to the fact this debate is really about something much different than is being represented.”
He’s certainly right in that last point. But as for his idea about applying the bill to all science classes, I think he’s misguided. In a scientific setting, with proper discussion, questioning scientific theories is fine. Science is all about questioning what is known, and science classes should certainly include that. But it has to be a scientific debate, and not a religious one. I think that encouraging this at a state level is only going to make it easier for the anti-science brigade to open that door wider. It’s like dipping a cut finger into a septic tank.
This is so simple. Science thrives on questioning its premises based on observations, reason, and evidence. But creationists take this simple truth and twist it to their advantage politically, and they are subverting the law to force their faith on others.
“We’re trying to protect our kids,” Buttars said.
No he’s not. He’s trying to legislate the teaching of his particular belief. He might think he’s trying to protect them, but protecting them is the last thing he’s doing. Teaching them science, teaching them to think critically for themselves, teaching them what healthy skepticism is… that’s protecting them. If you do that, when they’re older they’ll be able to tell snake oil from real medicine. What Senator Buttars wants children to do is swallow whatever is given to them. That’s not science, that’s not healthy, and it’s certainly not protecting them.
You can’t legislate science. But in Utah, you can legislate fantasy.
January 22nd, 2006 at 6:17 pm
We’re trying to protect our kids
Have you ever noticed that, in the last 100 years or so, every time you hear “It’s for the children”, some bastion of common sense or personal freedom is being stomped under a jackboot of oppression.
Nobody ever says, “We should require that all students have a full credit course in comparative philosophy before they graduate high school, after all, it’s for the children.”
January 22nd, 2006 at 7:21 pm
There we go. Back in a downward spiral toward teaching beliefs in school instead of facts. When will they get the clue that ID is not science?
January 22nd, 2006 at 8:47 pm
The children were being forced to evolve and we had to stop it.
January 22nd, 2006 at 8:50 pm
Standing up for what one believes is one thing, imposing one’s religion on others is another, and in violation of the very first amendment. Separation of church and state should be defended and fought for by our government officials.
January 22nd, 2006 at 9:45 pm
Phil, have you considered joining the scienceblogs.com community? A couple of my favourite bloggers (and Panda’s Thumb contributors) have recently moved there and seem to be liking it.
I only ask since you would appear to fit right in with your mix of highly informative science and pro-science posts (like this one).
Disclaimer: I have nothing whatsoever to do with scienceblogs.com other than being an interested reader
January 22nd, 2006 at 10:14 pm
Yeah,
I feel your pain.
But my own brother is “one of them” and I can’t seem to break through. But it’s not just him. I work with lots of people who share his beliefs.
I just know that I’m tired, and I see the Republicans as the ones benifitting the most from my fatigue.
You’re right, you beat down one, another pops up. In my case, and I’ll bet I”m not alone, it’s more like two or three!
I don’t want to be a downer but programmers who work for me are pro ID. They feel it’s being “open minded” to teach both. (That’s right “open minded”!!!!)
I’ve tried to talk to them but they just don’t seem to “hear”. I’m just the bitter old guy who doesn’t “get it”. Go figure.
It makes me want to blow my brains out. (In fact, that sounds rather pleasant!)
I’m sorry, but I said I was tired.
rod
January 22nd, 2006 at 10:59 pm
I feel your pain, as well. And I am not about to willingly stick my cut finger in a septic tank (where DID you come up with that vision?)
The problem is, I think this WILL go all the way to the supreme court. It’s going to take a bunch more state legtislatures being intolerably stupid (i.e. more so than usual) before it happens, though.
All rational people gird your loins and prepare to fight. This is going to happen again and again.
January 22nd, 2006 at 11:04 pm
sounds like he wants to be re-elected, so he’s taking the position “of the people.” it’s easier that way.
BLEH.
January 22nd, 2006 at 11:42 pm
“Ever notice how people who believe in creationism tend to look really unevolved? … ‘I buh-leeve God created me in one day!’ Yeah, it looks like He rushed it.”
– Bill Hicks
It’s cruel and hurtful, but, sometimes. . . it’s what I need to hear. And the “Dinosaurs in the Bible” sketch from Arizona Bay is just magnificent.
January 23rd, 2006 at 1:00 am
Phil,
I love your work with Bad Astronomy and setting people right on what’s wrong with common conceptions of space science. And I agree that Creationism/Intelligent Design is not science and hasn’t shown itself to be. But honestly, your tirades against it are getting a little old.
It seems, from reading this last rant, that your emotions about the subject are really running rampant. You preach rational thought, yet you seem to be going over the deep end when reporting/replying to these events in Utah.
For example, you say “students in Utah [will get] screwed out of their education” if this legislation passes, yet there doesn’t appear to be anything in the bill that would prevent the teaching of evolution at all. In fact, by the text of the bill (which I haven’t read, but only inferred from the article you linked to), if ID were shown to be unscientific, it wouldn’t be included in the curriculum. If ID were included anyway, then there’s the chance for debate, and ID should easily be shown to be bunk. How does a chance for scientific debate and questioning what is known (or taught to you as fact) equate to “getting screwed” out of their education?
You also say “What belongs in the classroom is evidence-based reasoning. That’s why we have a First Amendment.” I don’t disagree that evidence-based reasoning belongs in (and out of) a classroom, but that’s not why we have the First Amendment. The First Amendment reads “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” The part concerning religion wasn’t written to “separate church and state” (which is a modern interpretation of this amendment), but to guarantee that there would be no state religion. The Founders saw what the countries of Europe had done to and with religion–the Pilgrims came here to get away from the Church of England’s ban on their practice of religion, after all–and wanted to make sure Americans could worship as they chose. There’s nothing in the amendment, nor the Constitution, that bans faith or belief in a classroom.
You conclude that “[Senator Buttars is] trying to legislate the teaching of his particular belief. … What Senator Buttars wants children to do is swallow whatever is given to them.” But your conclusion is based on what? The article you link to doesn’t mention what his particular belief is, and it certainly doesn’t say that he’s trying to indoctrinate them into any religion.
You wrote “Science thrives on questioning its premises based on observations, reason, and evidence. But creationists take this simple truth and twist it to their advantage politically, and they are subverting the law to force their faith on others.” I ask, how are they forcing faith on anyone? Where is the evidence for it? I don’t know of any legislation or school board decisions that outright bans the teaching of evolution or evolutionary concepts. And if creationists are indeed “twisting the truth”, won’t that guarantee their eventual downfall? Truth is truth, something that science reveals, and any bending of it is a falsehood contrary to nature and evidence, and will ultimately be discarded. Look at the fate of pre-Copernican astronomy. No matter how much the church wanted the Earth to be the center of creation, it just isn’t so.
“Subverting the law” is a charged statement and also inaccuate–in all of these recent cases either school boards have been acting within their legal power, or legislation has been proposed or passed in accordance with state and federal principles. I imagine (so I may be wrong) that many creationist/ID supporters feel that these same legal steps have persecuted their faith, so I don’t think it’s fair to call a belief-inspired utilization of those same steps “subversion”.
So it seems to me that instead of taking a rational view of these events, you’re approaching it from an emotional standpoint. That’s well and good and your right (it’s your blog after all), but it’s a little hypocritical when you’ve been a critic and skeptic of emotional/non-rational beliefs and “sciences”. If you truly believe science will win out over illogic, then use science to prove your point. Debate and debunk the matter with scientific principles, not emotionally-charged rhetoric. You’ve used those principles in debunking the moon hoax, astrology, planet X, the face on Mars, and many other topics. Apply your skills in a similar manner to ID, then drop it. Scence will win, regardless of legislation to the contrary, and all your blog entries frothing about ID aren’t going to change that.
Phil Brady
January 23rd, 2006 at 1:47 am
It’s amazing the way arguing gets confused with logic by dumb people. And mormons really hate to teach scientific reasoning. Apply it to the church and it ruins the spell.
January 23rd, 2006 at 3:03 am
What I find most disconcerting is the persistent nature of these legislative attempts to dumb down the curricula. Despite their epic defeat in Pennsylvania, the ID proponents appear unfazed. Shortly after Jones’ decision had been handed down, we witnessed the introduction of anti-evolution legislation in Indiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Utah.
Phil Brady may be weary of these rants, but I’m certainly not. Expressing concern at religio-political attempts to supplant science is perfectly understandable, and there’s nothing wrong with passionately voicing opinions — particularly when the quality of children’s education is at stake on multiple fronts.
January 23rd, 2006 at 3:18 am
I take it the Senator is Probably a Republican.
I don’t know if this guy is up for re-election this year but he will within the
next 6 years.
Time to send this one back to Utah?
January 23rd, 2006 at 3:29 am
Well, if the new bill forces the mention of “other scientific theories” as well, then there is no problem. ID is not science, as has been shown time and over again, even by judges. So, if one school considers mentioning ID or other Crap Science in class, they will no be able to use that new bill to legitimate their actions.
January 23rd, 2006 at 4:15 am
Phil Brady said…If you truly believe science will win out over illogic, then use science to prove your point. Debate and debunk the matter with scientific principles, not emotionally-charged rhetoric.
Well, for one thing, “belief” has NO PLACE in a scientific investigation.
For another, just how does one “debate the matter with scientiic principles”, when ID is completely lacking in those “principles?
There is nothing to debate…the IDers would “like” to make it a debate, but they bring nothing to “debate” to the table.
January 23rd, 2006 at 4:38 am
Hmmm… 99.9% of every species that has ever lived is extinct. Could they please explain how this is INTELLIGENT design ?
Idiots
All of them
January 23rd, 2006 at 6:09 am
That should read…
“IDiots
All of them”
Well, I guess IDiots will never go away…call it survival instinct or whatever. Maybe they have a deep-rooted fear of the unknown…and invoking god comforts them – and this is what drives them. They apply the law of equality and arrive at the conclusion that those who do not believe in ID are going on the wrong path and have taken it upon themselves to correct those non-believers who have chosen science over god or ID.
January 23rd, 2006 at 6:28 am
Great Article !!! Both Scientific American and Sky and Telescope have recently had editorials about NOT teaching inteligent design. Intelligent Design is the truly scary part of the religious right – they cannot separate fact from fiction. If the bible says it, its an absolute fact and thats it……..
January 23rd, 2006 at 6:40 am
ID is an the concept of religion. Period. ID has been debunked over and over again, yet the YECs (Young Earth Creationists) keep trying to find ways to sneak their doctrine into schools as fact. Now their battle cry is “teach the contraversy”…when the only contraversy is in the social forum and not the scientific one.
Want to try to convince people that the universe is 6000 yers old and that humanity is the sole reason for the universes’ existence? Come up with evidence. It’s that simple. Has the ID crowd even tried? Nope. Just the same garbage repackaged over and over again.
How many times is it going to take before creationism goes the way of the Norse gods?
January 23rd, 2006 at 8:05 am
Maybe it’s because our history education in America sucks, too. The overall agenda of the interest groups really pushing ID seems to be to put science under religious control because they feel it conflicts with their beliefs. (Hello, Discovery Institute.) They seem to have forgotten that the last time science was put under the purview of the church, we had a lovely period called the Dark Ages.
Then again, I guess that when you’re the one getting to burn heretics at the stake, life doesn’t seem so bad.
What bothers me the most is that the media is accepting and pushing the idea that there’s some sort of controversy within the scientific community to begin with, and there’s not. I guess either it sells more newspapers, or they lack the basic understanding of science that lets you know that while they might call ID a theory in common parlance, it sure as hell isn’t in the scientific understanding of the word.
I regularly get my rant on about how I want to grab the IDiots by the lapels and shake them until their teeth rattle out of their heads. (Like yesterday: http://katsudon.livejournal.com/498519.html) I have two friends (well, they may not be my friends any more at this point) that are IDiots, and after a long debate with one, I finally realized that no matter what you say, they don’t listen.
(Summary: Word, man. Word.)
January 23rd, 2006 at 8:12 am
Protect the children from what? Critical thinking skills? Common sense? Reason? How about protecting them from the knowledge that all life on Earth is related and connected, thereby possibly instilling a drive to learn about ecology and to conserve and protect Earth’s living things? Or maybe they want to protect their kids from a solid grounding in biology so they can continue to throw away their money on useless “dietary supplements” like shark cartilage to prevent cancer, or colloidal silver to cure a cold. I honestly can’t understand where these people are coming from, but it concerns me.
January 23rd, 2006 at 8:16 am
Katzu said: “I want to grab the IDiots by the lapels and shake them until their teeth rattle out of their heads.”
Hey, violence will not solve the problem. But if you do go down this path, please donate all lose teeth to a spray can paint manufacturer. Better dental care (a science) means that they have fewer teeth available to use as stirrers in spray paint cans.
January 23rd, 2006 at 8:40 am
Phil Brady wrote “The First Amendment reads “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.†The part concerning religion wasn’t written to “separate church and state†(which is a modern interpretation of this amendment), but to guarantee that there would be no state religion.”
Says who? Just about every supreme court case that has dealt with this issue since it was challenged has disagreed. The first amendment MUST guarantee that the government remains nuetral to all religions. By the same token, in order for this to occur, the religious organizations MUST be limited in their ability to influnce government. It’s the only way for the First Amendment to have any real, practical meaning. Your proverbial one way wall of separation has been used as a bad anology for years by religious apologists trying to increase their influence on government. If that argument is followed, it renders the first amendment, to paraphrase the Mcreary case “superfluous and unmeaning”. It’s like the old argument that it says “freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion.” You can’t have freedom OF religion (islam for instance) without freedom FROM religion (xianity).
Cheers.
January 23rd, 2006 at 8:45 am
marsha: And mormons really hate to teach scientific reasoning. Apply it to the church and it ruins the spell.
Please, let’s not paint the whole church with Senator Buttars’ colors. The LDS Church as a whole has not come out in favor of the teaching of “Intelligent Design” in schools, and certainly not all members share Senator Buttars’ opinions. There are some Mormons who understand the evidence behind the theory of evolution and see “scientific creationism” and “the Intelligent Design theory” as the utter nonsense they are, thank you very much.
January 23rd, 2006 at 9:24 am
So much to say on this topic…
But let me start here. Over the weekend, in search of a little entertainment, I attended a couple sessions of an “Answers in Genesis” conference. What a frightening, yet enlightening experience that was. I missed some of the better topics, but I picked up on a few things. First, they deny that radiometric dating even works (I can’t tell you why, missed that session). With that out of the way, they take to opportunity to poke fun at “confused” scientists who think some rocks at Mt. St. Helens are millions of years old, and some are a few hundred thousand years old… but, uh, shouldn’t all rocks be the same age? I’d just like to suggest that next time, they don’t use a volcano as their example, because there are going to be rocks in the area from multiple eruptions, meaning they should have different ages.
They’d have to come up with a much better explanation to convert me, but they are preaching to mostly like-minded people. I’d guess that very few of the audience members got a decent science education, so they don’t understand how well science works. I say that with the exception of one person who I know to be a grade school science teacher. I also know that she touts creation to her first grade class. But then again, I live in Kansas, so I guess that’s par for the course.
The reason that ID and creation get so much support is because their followers blindly ignore the fact that science works. The speaker actually made a point to discuss how to defeat science. He wants to attack the base that all scientific enterprises stand on (deny all scientists of their five senses, I suppose). Destroy the foundation of science and all of our silly theories go away. We still need to fight to keep non-scientific ideas from entering science classes, but maybe more attention needs to be given to strengthening standards in the areas that creationists attack. Let’s teach more chemistry. Show students how well we know how elements interact, how they decay, and how we can accurately date fossils and rocks. Teach more physics. Teach more about waves, light, Doppler shift, radar. Prove to our kids that it works here on Earth so that they can’t deny that it works in space. I learned some of these things in high school, but only because I chose to take extra science courses… so we need to make extra science courses required. The Answers in Genesis speaker thinks that scientists have smartly attacked the foundation of creation for some time. I often get pretty emotional about this too, but I’ve just come to the realization that that doesn’t work well enough, so let’s reinforce our foundation instead.
January 23rd, 2006 at 9:58 am
Phil Brady says:
the Pilgrims came here to get away from the Church of England’s ban on their practice of religion, after all
Actually, they didn’t. They went to the Netherlands to escape religious persecution. They came here to get away from what they considered loose moral standards there (yeah, Amsterdam, y’know–some things never change)–their kids were growing up and being heavily influenced by the local environment.
I wish I had the same kind of faith you do in the self-evidence of truth. In my experience it’s WAY too easy for people to deny the truth of anything, so long as they want badly enough not to accept it.
January 23rd, 2006 at 10:05 am
Phil Brady said:
“The part concerning religion wasn’t written to “separate church and state†(which is a modern interpretation of this amendment), but to guarantee that there would be no state religion.”
Wall of “separation between church and state” is what Thomas Jefferson said!!! How can you say it was a modern argument?
“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God; that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship; that the legislative powers of the government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and State.”
-Thomas Jefferson, 1801
“Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person’s life, freedom of religion affects every individual. State churches that use government power to support themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of the church tends to make the clergy unresponsive to the people and leads to corruption within religion. Erecting the “wall of separation between church and state,” therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society.”
-Thomas Jefferson, 1808
January 23rd, 2006 at 10:24 am
Perhaps I am an incurable optomist, but I I took Senator McCoy’s remark as being sarcasm.
January 23rd, 2006 at 10:28 am
I also might add that the Puritans were not interested in religious freedom. They believe in freedom for THEIR religion, but were perfectly happy to exile and even hang people whose religious beliefs differed from theirs (Quakers, especially). Not only did the Puritans have an official state religion, but if was illegal to openly have other beliefs.
January 23rd, 2006 at 10:39 am
From the (mostly online) articles I’ve read, one of the big ID claims is that the theory of evolution as it stands cannot account for all observable phenomena. One of the big ones, although not the only, is the concept of irreducible complexity– that is, a functioning biological mechanism that is too complex to have evolved as a whole unit, but any of the potential partial evolutionary chains that could lead to the whole unit would not have evolved on their own as those bits would serve no functional purpose on their own, and would have been bred out of the organism before the evolution of the full mechanism was completed. These same articles either 1) ignore that claim entirely and go for the political/religious attack on the beliefs of the poor ignorants who are trying to push religion as science, or 2) offer up very thin counterarguments to the claims.
If the ID-ers initial claim of evolution not being able to account for all observable phenomena is false, it should be fairly easy to prove that, and there wouldn’t be a need to make the politcal/religious attacks. However, if that claim is correct, then the proper approach would be to study the theory of evolution and find ways that evolution does explain those phenomena, or can explain them within the confines of actual scientific thought and proper application of the scientific method. The ID theory would then have no ground to stand on, and would fall by the wayside. Wouldn’t that be a far more sound approach to take than to simply attempt to discredit the ID-ers as creationists?
While I’m in the camp that evolution is the correct science, it bothers me that I don’t see much in the way of scientific argument on the subject instead of playing the religion card. It sometimes makes me wonder if evolution is a solid as is claimed, if they can’t fight the ID/evolution battle on the grounds of science, but have to resort to polticking instead.
Course, conversely, I’m all for teaching creationism in schools– for the historical perspective. Until Darwin did his research, creationism was THE theory for how everything came to exist. We still teach the historical perspective of the Ptolemaic universe and pre-Galilean and pre-Copernican conceptions of the heavens, or how many believed the Earth was flat before Columbus sailed to America. It helps students understand the differences between science and philosophy/religion, and it also shows how we got where we were. Teaching it as a historical concept in the science classrooms, like those other things I mentioned, makes perfect sense to me. Course, that’s not currently allowed either, as I understand the laws on the matter.
Phil, whether you do it, or whether someone else does, I have to agree with Phil Brady on that one count– I’d love to read a very thorough scientific approach to debunking ID.
January 23rd, 2006 at 10:48 am
Justin– on the radiometric dating argument, I’ve heard this one before, so I can give you a brief rundown. It runs more or less like this:
Carbon-14 dating is based on comparing how much C14 is in a given living item, and comparing those levels to a dead one. The radioactive decay of C14 is a constant, and it’s relatively simple math to determine age based on the comparison. However, objects that have been submerged in water tend to lose C14 at a more rapid rate, mostly as all the carbon isotopes dissolve into the water– for instance, if you were to carbon date the remains of sailors on a sunken ship, they would appear older than the remains of someone from the same time period who was buried on land. As I understand it, this is taken into account when carbon dating occurs for those types of items. The argument that your “Answers in Genesis” group makes is that since there was a worldwide Flood (Noah, et al), anything older than that epoch would appear significantly older than it actually is, due to the water deterioration that occurred during the Flood, and that scientists dating anything older than 5000 years or so are getting it wrong as a result.
January 23rd, 2006 at 11:11 am
Creationists love to harp on the error ranges and difficulty of calibrating C14 dates as if that somehow invalidates all dating of anything that goes back farther than written history.
The thing is, C14 dating is useless for anything more than 60-70,000 years old, as by then there isn’t enough C14 remaining to get a good handle on. In terms of geological or evolutionary time, that’s a mere eyeblink.
There are a variety of dating methods with a much longer reach. Some of them are even inherently error-detecting. A search on TalkOrigins should turn up lots of information on these; their articles on isochron dating are particularly interesting.
Simply put, when a creationist starts frothing off about C14 dating, they’re spouting irrelevancies.
January 23rd, 2006 at 11:21 am
To Justin and Julie: Justin, it should be noted that Carbon-14 dating is hardly the only radioactive dating technique available to date things. Google “radiometric dating” and search for it on Wikipedia if you’d like to know more.
In my experience, people arguing for creationism tend to leave that out.
Also be sure to check out the Talk Origins Archive. While that website kinda of annoys me (it seems it claims to be balanced, but sometimes I don’t think it is), it has some good information refuting common creationist arguments against evolution/old Earth/etc.
January 23rd, 2006 at 11:22 am
I haven’t read all of the comments here because I just don’t have the time (Ugh… gotta love crabby kids), but I have a sick feeling in my stomach (no, not because of the kids – this time). I feel sick because this is all over the place. Everywhere we look. I can’t even keep up with which state is now teaching the Bible in school and which ones are teaching creationism anymore!
We’re fighting it here in Ohio and I’m terrified of what kind of education that my children will be subjected to in the future (and a bit more terrified that I’m going to have no other choice than to homeschool them and never have time for myself again).
It’s absolutely sick that our public schools and the elected (ok, and appointed) officials are making this a reality. I’m waiting to wake up from this nightmare, but it’s real and it’s absolutely sad.
January 23rd, 2006 at 11:23 am
It looks like Ktesibios beat me to it.
January 23rd, 2006 at 11:39 am
>Julie Says:
>January 23rd, 2006 at 10:39 am
>While I’m in the camp that evolution is the correct science, it bothers me >that I don’t see much in the way of scientific argument on the subject >instead of playing the religion card. It sometimes makes me wonder if >evolution is a solid as is claimed, if they can’t fight the ID/evolution >battle on the grounds of science, but have to resort to polticking instead.
Julie, the issue is, debating the ID stance in scientific terms only gives weight to the concept that ID has something to do with science. This is really a double edged sword, attacking them for what they are, they are the ones making this religo-political movement, is seen as avoiding the true question, debating their claims on from a scientific standpoint gives credence to calling religious views science. Talkorigins.com has some good science talking down irreducible complexity, but fundamentally that boils down to misunderstanding the true theory of evolution. They are basically saying according to their own mis-interpretation of evolution the flight feather, or the human eye, and various other complex organs could not have evolved by “survival of the fittestâ€. Debunking their argument needs to start with teaching them the true meaning of theory, then teaching them what evolution actually says, then pointing out that their argument is fully accounted for in the 2 billion years of evolving organisms. If they are still paying attention, ‘cause that’s not a fast process, and they are coming from a point they don’t want to believe anything being said, somewhere along that path they will counter with God did it, so we counter with see ID is a religious argument and has no place being taught as science.
January 23rd, 2006 at 11:40 am
Julie – that’s quite a neat argument. How do the YECs account for the dates acquired from the other 15 or so radionuclides from which dates are obtained?
Julie, you also said:
“However, if that claim is correct, then the proper approach would be to study the theory of evolution and find ways that evolution does explain those phenomena, or can explain them …”
Evolutionary explanations for irreducibly complex structures have been proposed. Many times (e.g. go and have a read of some of the articles at the Talk Origins archive, here http://www.talkorigins.org/). Very often, the potential evolutionary path to a structure that is supposedly irreducibly complex is relatively trivial to work out, but immensely laborious to demonstrate. Institutions that fund research simply have better things to do with their money (such as fund research that would help find a cure for a disease, or that will help us to better understand the intricate mechanisms of living things).
Phil Brady, I think I at least can understand Phil (the BA)’s frustration with ID proponents. They trot out the same tired arguments, arguments that have been refuted many times, yet never accept any counter-argument. ID proponents generally do not propose any theory to replace evolution. They pick structures or mechanisms without an obvious, simple evolutionary explanation and say “evidence of design!”. Yet so many of these things do have evolutionary explanations. The explanations may be complex, or subtle, yet they exist. On the other hand, ID proponents have never specified how we could conclusively recognise a designed structure, and Michael Behe’s own definition of irreducible complexity allows the observer to choose the “parts” and the “system” in any way they wish.
For example, he latches onto the bacterial flagellum as an example of IC. He defines the system as three parts – a motor, rotor and paddle. He then says that without any one of these three things, it fails to work. Yet, if one chooses a different definition of the parts (e.g. the individual proteins), there are plenty of examples where you can remove a part and the whole still works.
At its heart, the “scientific” ID argument is an argument from incredulity. More fundamentally, it is a political strategy to give evangelical christian organisations control over what is taught as science in schools.
January 23rd, 2006 at 11:42 am
That’s confusing. Five others posted while I was composing my post. I was referring to Julie’s explanation of how YECs explain 14C dates.
January 23rd, 2006 at 11:47 am
I don’t remember where i first heard this, but creationism and intelligent design both state pretty much the same thing: that a planet covered with water over three quarters of its surface was intentionally created primarily for the use of human beings… who have no gills, flippers, or fins.
January 23rd, 2006 at 11:57 am
Good Grief Charile Brown!
Just the facts is what you want. Then lets toss out everything that relates to classic fiction, Shakespere, Philosophy and on and on. Did not early science start with a dream? With not a fact in sight? Well?
Why not ease off on you myopic view and quit straining the tempers of your readers?
January 23rd, 2006 at 12:02 pm
[...] Here is Phil’s post, and here is the original article. We’re becoming a nation of ignorant, channel surfing, couch potatos, so ignorant of science that we treat scientific theories like “That’s, like, just your opinion man!”. We’re going to be passed by another country, probably China, before I die, and it’s depressing to be watching the death spiral. [...]
January 23rd, 2006 at 12:03 pm
Trebob, that doesn’t sound very intelligent to me …
Julie, sorry, I’m going to take you to task for this one, too:
“We still teach the historical perspective of the Ptolemaic universe and pre-Galilean and pre-Copernican conceptions of the heavens, or how many believed the Earth was flat before Columbus sailed to America.”
Actually, it was known that the Earth was round in about 200 BC, and its diameter was measured to an accuracy of about 10%, which I think isn’t bad. Everyone else thought the Earth was bigger than Columbus did – which is why he was the only one to try to sail west to Indonesia. He really thought he had found the East Indies when he found the West Indies.
January 23rd, 2006 at 12:26 pm
The YECionists arguments against radiometric dating go beyond C14 as well. They are actually a great example of how they argue.
It boils down to something along the lines of “ x is what scientists call their evidence for b. Here is an example of where it doesn’t work. Therefore radiometric dating is just a bunch of hogwash and hand waving.â€
Funny thing is there are places like ICR that spend huge amounts of time trying to shoot down radiometric dating by pointing out exceptions or mis-interpreting data, then use the same concepts in a flawed study to “prove†a 6000 year old earth.
January 23rd, 2006 at 12:31 pm
Well, not all of us that believe in Intelligent Design are drooling ignoramuses. It rather amuses me when I see rants such as these: the intolerance drips from each word. I’d be the last person to try to impose my beliefs on anyone and I share the concern of the anti-theists in this regard: it is clear that ID is not science and should not be taught as such.
But this discussion magnifies the real problem: public education.
Public education in the form which it exists today must be ended if we are ever to have rationality to return to how we educate our children. We all have our worldviews and the desire to have our children taught consistently with those worldviews. Scientists are no different.
Yet when you examine the materialist mindset of the “scientist†you find dogma just as surely as you might in any other corner of human existence. I leave it as an exercise for the materialist to identify their own dogma though I am happy to help if assistance is needed. And please spare me the profuse denials that scientists are different and have no presuppositions—it just makes you look stupid.
What we need in America is public funding of education and not publicly operated schools. This architecture would allow us to back away from these silly pointless arguments and give parents the liberty to raise their kids as they see fit. But in the mean time, I’m sure the struggle will continue with both extreme perspectives making public displays of idiocy for the consumption of the masses.
It would all be quite entertaining if the price were not so high.
The Disenfranchised Curmudgeon
January 23rd, 2006 at 12:31 pm
>Eric Ingram says:
>To Justin and Julie: Justin, it should be noted that Carbon-14 dating is hardly the only radioactive dating technique available to date things. Google “radiometric dating†and search for it on Wikipedia if you’d like to know more.
Right, C-14 can only be used on things that were once alive, I believe. Other isotopes are used for things like rocks. So I guess the next question is- do these other elements also dissolve in water?
If ID is somehow correct, the least intelligent thing about the design (aside from all the undrinkable water for us land creatures, trebob… and the human appendix) is the fact that it works in such a way that it deceives so many of us into thinking that the Earth has been here 5 billion years and the Universe 14 billion. “Deceitful Design” has a nice ring to it. Someone start printing the pamphlets.
January 23rd, 2006 at 12:41 pm
The wack-a-mole game continues.
It’s a real shame to read news like this. I can’t believe people would be so, well, arrogant to allow this.
I hope this does not happen in my state (Florida). If it has, well, I’d feel worse.
It’d also be insult to injury, given this is where many great science missions get their start.
January 23rd, 2006 at 1:29 pm
Nigel:
First, about the other radioactive isotopes used for testing, I’ve never heard an argument (although apparently Hugh Jass has) from anyone supporting that stance that mentions anything other can Carbon-14. Ignore the evidence if it doesn’t support your argument I guess.
As to Columbus– the scientific community and the well-educated were aware that the Earth was round, but the common people (peasantry, mainly) still believed the Earth was flat, and the Catholic church at the time did nothing to teach the correct science. Which is why I said ‘many believed’, not that everyone did, or even that most did. But Columbus would hardly have had to worry about mutiny if some of the sailors weren’t afraid they’d fall off the edge of the world by sailing so far out. =)
January 23rd, 2006 at 1:56 pm
Once Creationism is allowed in a science class, there will be less time spent on the teaching of science and more time devoted to the comparisons of both; and since class time – in high school, at least – is so very limited today that many of the increasingly complex scientific discoveries and the science behind them have less and less exposure to students, there must of necessity be a sort of triage perfomed on what science must be taught in order to provide the most basic understanding of scientific principles. In most public high schools LESS than one hour per day per five day week during a school year which averages 185 days nationwide is devoted to any one particlular discipline. That is almost 155 hours per science class per year – not much time in which to rigorously cover the complexities of a body of knowledge. Most students do not take “upper level,” i.e. college prep courses, and many high school districts, in order to accomodate the plethora of electives demanded by parents, students and sometimes state boards of education, have reduced the “hard” courses like math, science, history and so on to a bare minimum of “seat time” for those not college bound. The solution for those bound for education beyond high school is literally hours of after school coursework – homework – assigned by teachers who feel the pressures of that lack of class time to teach what they and their school board and the state thinks is important. As for the rest of the student population; they must fend for themselves in an environment which is increasingly one in which only a summarization of the important data is presented. And that is the state of high school courses; reduce the above by a factor of two and it will represent the state of hard courses in junior high schools, or grades 6 through 9.
As for the notion that taxpayers ought to be allowed to select which school they send their children to – the “voucher” proposal by any name is a direct assault on the notion of what ” public education” means, what it was set up to provide: a PUBLIC schooling for everyone. The flaws in public education will not be addressed by stretching the already limited funds, and the taxable pupil base upon which schools depend, by giving those taxpayers who want to send their children to private schools via a “voucher program” or any other “parental choice” plan permission to do so. Having taxpayers fund schools is the simplest and most democratic way to provide schooling for everyone. Those folks who want their kids home schooled or privately tutored have the right to do so now, but they are still responsible to the commonweal of their community and nation via their school taxes. There is fifty plus years of examples of how some folks have resisted the Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka ruling by the Supreme Court in schemes designed to bypass this “education for all” ruling, and just as many examples during that time of tortured attempts by states and communities to overcome the unequal education which the law attempted to address. As long as there are some folks who BELIEVE that they don’t have a responsibility to educate EVERY child in this country, then there will continue to be attempts at undermining all public education by various schemes of one kind or another.
January 23rd, 2006 at 2:16 pm
Will,
I see your anti-voucher poppy-cock and raise you facts.
Sadly, it is a busy day for me here at work today so my reply must be brief.
A responsible voucher program does nothing but enhance the voucher exercising family’s contribution to the commonweal. This argument is a straw-man from the educational establishment. Most voucher proposals leave thirty to fifty percent of the educational dollars for the individual students in the public education system and thus INCREASE the amount of money available to students remaining in the public system on a per capita basis.
On the other side, I consider the present system a violation of my Constitutionally protected right to free exercise of religion and the separately identified rights of parents to raise their kids in a manner consistent with their own beliefs. At the risk of stating the obvious, the violation comes into play by the seizing of my tax dollars for the purposes of education and then compulsory attendance at a state school in the event that the balance of my income is not sufficient to pay for a private education. I am happy to elaborate further here if anyone wants to discuss it. I have also written about it in the past.
In short, it is a very long leap to assuming that I wish to “undermine†public education because I in fact support efforts to save it from its current path of destruction. While I certainly think it is in the best interests to change how we operate, it is my most fervent wish that every kid gets the education they deserve and not some watered down half baked bunch of junk that results from the inability of the secularist/materialist and fundamentalist-theistic crowds to share a sandbox.
The Disenfranchised Curmudgeon
January 23rd, 2006 at 2:30 pm
The Disenfranchised Curmudgeon says:
>…it is my most fervent wish that every kid gets the education they deserve and not some watered down half baked bunch of junk that results from the inability of the secularist/materialist and fundamentalist-theistic crowds to share a sandbox.
Exactly. If fundamentalist groups would stop trying to shovel all the sand out of the great sandbox of science, the whole world would be a better place. Every child deserves a good education in what science is and how we learn about our world by practicing it. As far I can tell, there’s just one group to blame for the watered-down junk that is passing for science education today.
January 23rd, 2006 at 3:01 pm
Why bother?
People! Get used to it! THEY’RE GOING TO WIN. They have the Courts, the Senate, the House, MSNBC, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, The 700 Club, Rush, Sean, Anne C, G. Gordon Liddey and Grover Norquist on their side. They can stop, destroy and warp any attempt we make to point out that what they’re saying is wrong and they will.
Face it, Americans like stupidity. Certainty on all issues, discourse reduced to a common denominator so common it’s vaguely esoteric is the Wave of the Future. We like our issues and politicians dumb and sincere. If this isn’t true, how come Chimpy got elected President TWICE??
Mark my words: 50 years from now America will be a an economically shattered 3rd World Country run by multinational corps run by reactionary rich white guys and various Asian/European allies whose only exports will be military hardware and desperate cannon fodder troops merced out to whoever pays enough. Does anyone (including you Phil, and I like your work a lot) really believe that there’s a real grassroot opposition to these clowns that’ll mobilize the yahoos long enough to get them to look up from American Idol and Fox News long enough to truly understand how they’ve been exploited? They’ve been dumbing us down since Grampa Reagan was being senile in office and they’ve gotten SO MUCH BETTER at it since January of 2001.
Everyone: you want a future? Move to Eurpope and pretend you’re from Canada or New Zealand. That way no one will laugh at you too much for being an American…
Sorry. Wish I had better news. But the truth is that this country has sold itself out and in a little while our resale value is gonna plummet like there’s no tommorow.
Sad, really. This was a great place to live not so long ago…
January 23rd, 2006 at 3:07 pm
Julie said:
>If the ID-ers initial claim of evolution not being able to account for all observable phenomena is false, it should be fairly easy to prove that …
Not really.
The following paragraphs from the judge’s ruling in the Dover, Pa., case show the problem:
“In fact, on cross-examination, Professor (Michael) Behe was questioned concerning his 1996 claim that science would never find an evolutionary explanation for the immune system. He was presented with fifty-eight peer-reviewed publications, nine books, and several immunology textbook chapters about the evolution of the immune system; however, he simply insisted that this was still not sufficient evidence of evolution, and that it was not ‘good enough.’
“We find that such evidence demonstrates that the ID argument is dependent upon setting a scientifically unreasonable burden of proof for the theory of evolution.”
Now, while Behe apparently is motivated by reasons other than religion (he admits the validity of evolution up to a point), those who are motivated by religion take the same approach, and there is a broad campaign to discredit and dismiss science and scientists.
ID leaders (national and local) construct and disseminate pre-packaged arguments against the evidence put forth by scientists. Knowing that their primary audience both (a) wants very much to be on “God’s side” and (b) is pretty much in the dark regarding anything scientific, they don’t have much trouble getting that audience to believe any argument that might sound plausible to non-experts.
Coupled with this, they have inundated the religious public in a campaign to discredit scientists and science itself. There is a conspiracy afoot, they say, no dissent from the evolution orthodoxy is allowed. Scientists must accept evolution to get a degree, to be published, to advance their careers. The powerful atheistic science establishment enforces it, they say. Therefore, no argument put forth by scientists can be believed. They lie, you know, or are themselves deluded.
There are other tactics, but in the end, if all else fails, the power of the “God did it” rebuttal is infinite. There is no evidence that can be put forward that contradicts the idea that God could have arranged things in just that way — if not for some halfway logical-sounding reason, then because he wanted to confound unbelievers or had a mysterious reason of his own.
Once you’ve accepted the existence of a god who “can do anything,” there is no logical reason to think he hasn’t done everything.
This sort of thinking, of course, is fatal to the scientific principle that by observing the way the universe works, we can figure out how things happened in the past, what might happen in the future, and what we can do to improve the human condition. That’s why science must always reject god as an explanation (separate from any natural process that a theistic person might judge to have been the method by which their god accomplished his purposes), unless it has absolutely been proven that all possible natural explanations are impossible. That point has never been reached.
January 23rd, 2006 at 3:07 pm
“your tirades against it are getting a little old.”
I love it when Phil bashes the ID crowd. He knows they are after cosmology and astronomy next and is supporting evolution taught as science as the first line of defense. The fact that the analysis of light from stars indicates that the universe is older than 6,000 years is prima facie enough to condem all who worship the stars (aka as astronomers) to death on the rack!
Phil is jut trying to save his own skin as he is one of those who lead young people into the arms of the devil by explaining heretic ideas such as the big bang and star evolution.
January 23rd, 2006 at 3:10 pm
January 23rd, 2006 at 3:11 pm
>Tony Plank Says:
>January 23rd, 2006 at 2:16 pm
:SNIP:
>At the risk of stating the obvious, the violation comes into play by the
>seizing of my tax dollars for the purposes of education and then
>compulsory attendance at a state school in the event that the balance of my income is not sufficient to pay for a private education.
:SNIP:
Isn’t this the biggest problem with government, constantly collecting tax dollars for services I don’t use or want. Great Idea the only people who should pay taxes toward public education are those with school aged kids in public schools!!!
January 23rd, 2006 at 3:16 pm
“that a planet covered with water over three quarters of its surface was intentionally created primarily for the use of human beings… who have no gills, flippers, or fins. ”
You’re fogetting Kevin Costner in the blockbuster “WaterWorld”
You have to wait a bit longer for the Apocolypse before you get gills.
January 23rd, 2006 at 3:17 pm
I’m disappointed. I was hoping that Utah (where I live) was going to be smart. Nope. I am a mormon and evolution does not bother me. In fact I think it is rather amazing to see how life has changed over the 3.5 billion years its been on the earth. Evolution is the ONLY scientific theory out there. I do not want ID taught. It is not science.
I just hope science and common sense win out.
January 23rd, 2006 at 3:17 pm
Justin,
Yes. Just like the radical right, you too are completely unaware of your own role in the problem. There is plenty of shoveling from both sides. And the most ardent on both sides are completely certain that it is completely the other side’s “faultâ€.
If everyone would put their biases aside for a while, there are solutions. But as longs as hot heads like you and Pat Robertson drive the discussion, nothing will change.
Anthony,
Actually, I am an Anthony too, so there are two things I like about you. I liked your post very much. I call them the mass stupids-mostly for shock value, but it is an accurate label. I’m usually more civil.
Americans are embracing stupidity with a fervor that is really hard to fathom. We let media define everything and are content to get all our “knowledge†from media outlets. We are so far gone that we have media that is dedicated to reporting on the media, and even larger scale media dedicated to “entertainment newsâ€. A very sad state of affairs indeed.
Still, I take umbrage at the suggestion that believing in a created order is automatic grounds for being branded stupid. There is a lot of intellectual ground out there and it is sad to see otherwise intelligent people jump to conclusions. We all learned about that error in logic class.
January 23rd, 2006 at 3:31 pm
Julie said:
“First, about the other radioactive isotopes used for testing, I’ve never heard an argument (although apparently Hugh Jass has) from anyone supporting that stance that mentions anything other can Carbon-14. Ignore the evidence if it doesn’t support your argument I guess.”
John Woodmorappe wrote a book called Mythology of Modern Dating Methods where he took 500 separate studies that, he believed, demonstrated that dating methods are inaccurate. These studies covered almost all dating methods, I believe, not just C14.
Brent Dalrymple wrote a great rebuttal to this book that you can find on Talk Origins:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dalrymple/how_old_earth.html
January 23rd, 2006 at 3:55 pm
On the thoeory of creationism or higher will, vs the theory of evolution, both should be taught. We can’t be so closed minded as to say that evolution is the only possible way for us to be here. I think you should stick to your creed and stay with astronomy.
I have read many books on both sides of the arguement, so maybe they both have their place in teaching people to have an open mind. I usually agree with most of your blogs but think that you missed the boat here.
thanks for the food for though.
January 23rd, 2006 at 4:03 pm
Yet when you examine the materialist mindset of the “scientist†you find dogma just as surely as you might in any other corner of human existence. I leave it as an exercise for the materialist to identify their own dogma though I am happy to help if assistance is needed.
Please provide such assistance. Tell me where the dogma is in logic, observation, hypothesizing, making a prediction, testing the prediction, observing the results, and starting the process over with a refined hypothesis.
There’s no dogma there that I can see. Your dogma claim, is an easily discountable opinion that science is just another religion, and that’s simply not true because science requires no faith.
January 23rd, 2006 at 4:07 pm
Dave, you must be missing the point(s). The whole problem with ID is that it is not science, so it has no place in a science classroom. Also, if another point of view is going to be taught, then shouldn’t ALL points of view be taught, to be fair (including FSM)?
Don’t worry, we have an open mind. But no theory has come close to replacing the very successful evolution (where do you guys think medicine comes from? Evolution theories or ID theories?).
January 23rd, 2006 at 4:14 pm
At the risk of inciting a flame war (which I hope doesn’t happen), Anthony Fichera, I think your findings are slightly off. While some of the commentators and non elected officials have more diverse agendas, there is actually very little difference between democrat and republican leadership on a political scale. Those political scientists (if you’ll pardon me the use of the term for a social science– I know some disapprove of it, although I personally find it apt) whose business it is to study such things found a very small difference between Bush and Kerry, based on their records, their speeches, etc. In fact, Kerry is actually more traditionally conservative than Blair, and significantly more so than Pope Benedict– at least from a social programs/economic regulation perspective.
The US is stuck in a moderately right-winged rut on socio-economic issues and just barely right of center on moral legislation. Has been for years, although the trend has been moving more to the left very, very slowly over time. If you’re interested in a reasonably accurate online discussion of this, I recommend http://www.politicalcompass.org/ — It’s pretty layman in its usage, and not entirely accurate, but it does a decent job for being reasonably understandable. Some of the more esoteric political science texts I’ve read make my brain hurt just trying to decipher the sentences.
January 23rd, 2006 at 4:36 pm
Tony Plank-
First, I take offense to being labeled a hot head.
Second, I don’t see how my desire to have science teachers teach only science to America’s children makes me part of the problem. Let me know what I can do to be part of the solution. I try not to do any shoveling. I have never tried to force a Sunday School teacher to teach about the Big Bang. I merely get offended when people try to tell me that science is all wrong.
I wholeheartedly agree that there is plenty of intellectual ground between the two extremes in this debate and I’ll admit that I occupy a place somewhere in between the extremes. I believe that, without a doubt, science gives us accurate information on how the world works, where it came from, and where it’s going. It is for this reason that I believe in a 13.7 billion year old Universe of which we are just one small part. But I also believe that there are areas science can’t explain. For example, science will never look beyond the moment of the Big Bang and tell us how or why the handful of cosmological and physical constants that govern the operation of the entire Universe are set just the way they are. These numbers allow for galaxies to form, stars to shine, and life to thrive. If we lived in a Universe with different initial conditions, we would not be here.
>There is a lot of intellectual ground out there and it is sad to see otherwise intelligent people jump to conclusions.
Ah yes, so why assume that I’m a hot head from the far left and jump to the conclusion that I’m not somebody who finds comfort in a communion with God and the idea that he created a Universe perfectly suited for us to enjoy and explore? Just because some bacteria and a few dinosaurs beat us to the scene doesn’t mean that He takes any less pleasure out of seeing us gain an understanding and appreciation for the world around us, and it does not mean he can’t have a very real presence in our lives.
Why is it that I, as a college educated scientist, am comfortable taking some middle ground, but so many people fighting against evolution cannot? My guess is because the scientifically illiterate masses have never been taught to collect all the evidence they can before drawing a conclusion. As a result, they ignore every bit of evidence for our origins except the few words at the beginning of Genesis, even though so much more has been carefully unearthed. Now that’s a profound error in logic.
January 23rd, 2006 at 4:38 pm
Dave Says:
On the thoeory of creationism or higher will, vs the theory of evolution, both should be taught.
I disagree. Politics, religion, liberal arts topics, etc. are filled with issues where there’s lots of room for arguement about the same sets of facts. But science fits into the other category that includes math, geography, etc. We don’t teach 2+2=5 in mathematics because it’s wrong and there’s no way it can be right. Similarly there’s only one Earth taught in geography. That’s not repressive dogma; it’s just that these disciplines cover topics that have topics so firmly proven.
January 23rd, 2006 at 4:55 pm
2 + 2 = 5 for large values of 2.
January 23rd, 2006 at 5:14 pm
Tom D: Just the facts is what you want. Then lets toss out everything that relates to classic fiction, Shakespere, Philosophy and on and on.
But classic fiction is taught as fiction. Shakespeare isn’t taught in history class. There’s an important difference there. I don’t think anyone here would have a problem with teaching about creationist beliefs in a religion class, or a History of Science class, or a similar context, but teaching them as if they were a viable scientific alternative to evolution is a different matter entirely. That’s like teaching Shakespeare as if all his plays were documents accurately portraying historical fact.
Julie: As to Columbus– the scientific community and the well-educated were aware that the Earth was round, but the common people (peasantry, mainly) still believed the Earth was flat
That’s a widespread myth, but in fact by Columbus’s time pretty much everyone, the common people included, knew the Earth was round. There were a few eccentrics who claimed the world was flat, but they composed a very small minority (and heck, there are still similar eccentrics today). Columbus’s sailors weren’t afraid they’d fall off the edge of the Earth; they were afraid they wouldn’t find land in time before they ran out of supplies. (And their fears were well founded; they wouldn’t have made it to Asia the way they were going before running out of supplies! But fortunately for them, they hit another continent on the way…)
January 23rd, 2006 at 6:11 pm
An important consideration in teaching ID/Creationism is the matter of what qualifies to be taught in public school science, and where the proper place for scientific debates is. As others have stated, time in public school is extremely limited. Additionally, few students at that level have the background knowledge, experience with scientific analys, understanding of the scientific method, time, and inclination to fully understand the merits of competing theories, or a theory and competing hypotheses or conjectures. As such, the science topics that are taught must be ones that meet a very high standard. They must be extremely well-supported by a massive number of experiments and thorough peer-reviewed journal articles that support predictions the theory made before the experiments were conducted. They must have adequately overcome the major objections that scientists have raised against them. They must be central theories used every day by tons of scientists in many wide-ranging fields. They must be well-established and accepted as the best explanation by the vast majority of scientists in applicable fields. There is precious little time for debate, and few students could truly understand the merits of opposing perspective well enough to make a truly informed decision even if there was enough time. So only the very best theories get to be taught. Evolution meets all of these criteria, perhaps better than any other scientific theory. It certainly meets the criteria better than any scientific theory taught in any significant way to public schoolers. ID and Creationist do not. In fact, they do not meet ANY of these criteria. They have no experiments supporting them (at least none that support them but not evolution). They have negligable support in the scientific community, especially among those in biology-related fields. They are not used by any scientists to make any new predictions or explanations.
Now I would certainly not argue that debate is wrong. Debate is the key to science, and I welcome scientific debates in a scientific setting on the issue. But these debates need to be with scientists, people who have the background, experience, training, and expertise to truly understand the issues being discussed. If the ID/Creationist crowd truly has anything to offer than they should offer it there. That is where all real science is presented. That is where all real scientific debate takes places. Only those theories that can weather the gauntlet that all scientific theories must pass through deserve to be taught in public school classrooms. Being taught in public school is not a right all scientific or scientific-sounding claims automatically are given it is a privelage that only the very best scientific theories can earn. If ID/Creationist really has something to offer science, let it earn its place in science classrooms the same way everything else taught in science classroom has. But it must prove itself worthy.
January 23rd, 2006 at 6:28 pm
Alun Clewe: “Columbus’s sailors weren’t afraid they’d fall off the edge of the Earth; they were afraid they wouldn’t find land in time before they ran out of supplies. (And their fears were well founded; they wouldn’t have made it to Asia the way they were going before running out of supplies! But fortunately for them, they hit another continent on the way…) ”
Columbus didn’t prove the world was round. He proved that it doesn’t matter how wrong you are if you’re lucky…
January 23rd, 2006 at 6:54 pm
“Only those theories that can weather the gauntlet that all scientific theories must pass through deserve to be taught in public school classrooms.”
Therin lies the problem with debating creationists. Every time their arguments are subjected to scrutiny, they claim that they are being unfairly targeted by a non-existent “science Inquisition”. What they don’t understand is that ALL scientific theories are put under tough scrutiny. Test and confirm, verify, test and confirm. If a hypothesis fails to stand up to testing, then it is simply wrong and dropped.
The ToE has been tested over and over again fir the last century and a half. It remains a valid scientific theory not because of some bizarre “dogma”, but because it has survived rigorous testing. The ID crowd has yet to do any kind of testing that stands up to examination, nor made any predictions about what we might find in nature that can be tested at all.
If we listen to the IDers, we might as well toss out the Theory of Gravity and bring in the “Theory of Intelligent Falling.”
January 23rd, 2006 at 7:21 pm
Ihave found a new religion! I am a Pastfarian! Thank you, Eric!
Now, to aquire the full pirate garb….Ramen.
JC
January 23rd, 2006 at 10:11 pm
In a message earlier today, Julie mentions that one thing IDers claim is that evolution can’t account for ‘irreducible complexity’.
I remember reading a Scientific American short article several months ago where a group of computer programmers wrote an ‘Evolution’ program. When they let it run, ‘irreducible complexity’ appeared spontaniously. When word of this got out, some IDers complained about errors in the program. So, the group released the source code and let them go through it and look for errors. The net result was that the group got a large number of very good, thorough, Beta Testers for free as the IDers did everything they could to find out where the errors were… without success I might add.
Vega E. Altair
January 23rd, 2006 at 10:42 pm
Mike– I toyed with the idea of joining scienceblogs — they don’t have an astronomy blog — but I have other plans for this blog, and joining a consortium may not work out too well for me. FWIW, Bad Astronomy is like a brand, and joining a community blog would dilute that, I think.
Thanks for the positive encouragement though!
January 23rd, 2006 at 10:49 pm
Kevin from NYC, you said: “Phil is jut trying to save his own skin as he is one of those who lead young people into the arms of the devil by explaining heretic ideas such as the big bang and star evolution.”
No, I’m not trying to save my own skin. Far from it; I’d move to Australia and be done with it if that were true. I’m one of many, many scientists trying to save the ability of Americans to think.
January 23rd, 2006 at 11:10 pm
I sense just a hint of sarcasm in Kevin’s post.
January 24th, 2006 at 12:19 am
Anthony,
You mean they think they are going to win:)?
What,did you say you didn’t drink your coffee?
Wake up man, don’t you know the Bush folks are so scared they are already talking about Impeachment hearings…and this is from their own party!
January 24th, 2006 at 12:43 am
Phil,
Thanks for the insight and righteous indignation.
I’m a new reader, and this post inspired me to write a small devotional to Chris Buttars on my blog under Dear Mr. Fantasy.
This and the links from my post may give you additional insight into the rising firestorm within the Mormon community. Fortunately, not all Momons or Utahns think like Chris Buttars.
January 24th, 2006 at 1:56 am
There *may* be a solution to this ID problem. Say an IDer falls sick…the doctors simply tell him to sit and pray to be healed. Let no one help him till the IDer accepts the authority of science or things start getting out of hand. Perhaps this sounds cruel, but its the only way…but even this may fail since after the IDer is cured s/he will simply say that god made the doctor treat her/him.
January 24th, 2006 at 4:11 am
Rohit Says: Perhaps this sounds cruel, but its the only way…
It’s evolution…
January 24th, 2006 at 4:43 am
I still find no conclusive proof from science that life wasn’t created. The fact that evolution exists is no doubt a proven fact and fossil records show evolution. I Do not agree that creationism is a science nor should be taught in schools as a science. No one knows, including religion, anything about creation, only that it happened. Humans are different than any animal on the planet. There is a reason for that and to understand the reason, which you would have to believe in god to even attempt to understand, would leave no doubt that god created evething we have and left us with our agency to belive and do as we please. Just because a person doen’t buy into evolution totatlly doen’t mean he won’t accept a doctor remedy because science created it. The truth of it all is that science is continually discovering the process of creation, which can be tested and proven, not the reason for creation which can’t be tested or proven. Hence the two differing sides to the whole problem. The best solution is tolerence from both sides and meet somewhere in the middle. Let science teach science and let religion teach relgion. Not teaching creationism in school is not going to ruin our children. They will be able to still believe and learn science without any problem, I have for better than 30 years.
January 24th, 2006 at 6:39 am
Geeze, I’m way at the bottom of this challenging blog!
SNOWFLAKES! That’s one answer to spontaneous complexity.
However, if you really, really want a great scientific book about complexity, please read: INTO THE COOL—Energy Flow, Thermodynamics, and Life by Eric D. Schneider and Dorion Sagan.
Regarding Behe’s “irreducible complexity”, from page 121:
‘This phrase “irreducible complexityâ€, used by Michael Behe and others to argue against the possibility of life’s natural origin, seems to us to be at best ignorant and at worst a willful distortion. Compexity forms spontaneously from a mere thermal gradient applied across a fliud. LIfe formed in a great thermal gradient of near-star space…’.
Or, use this from page 117: “Convection cells, far simpler than life, point up nature’s tendency to form discontinuities, to produce chaos through complexity. In destroying previous complexity, previous unlikelihood, new complexity, newly improbable structures are created. Be’nard cells are a striking reminder that complex systems do not come from nowhere, but from preexisting gradients. Their complexity does not arise from within but from their context…. The fact that a complex system can come into being, cycling matter and perpetuating itself until the anomalous situation is rectified, suggests that the simple-looking gradient in fact represents intrinsic complexity.â€
January 24th, 2006 at 7:11 am
Evolving Squid,
Thanks for your response. Sorry I have been away so long!
There are always presuppositions. One thing the materialist does is rejects any claims of an supernatural explanations whatsoever. This is a very reasonable thing to do, but it is a matter of faith. The materialist also has faith in the material. Faith that the universe is real and knowable. These two presuppositions lead to a faith in reason itself as the only basis to discern truth.
Don’t misunderstand…I’m not saying it isn’t an internally consistent worldview. I am only arguing with the notion that there is no faith.
January 24th, 2006 at 7:12 am
Rad,
I didn’t want to bring this out, again, but there is absolutely no verifiable, testable, independent evidence for any god, whatsoever, anywhere.
“God” is a creation of our species. And wishful thinking of most people!
And to remind you and everyone: we are all specially created by our biological parents as a biologically multi-celluar, organic and material beings just as they were by theirs, and theirs by theirs until there were just single-celled common ancestors of all life abiotically from biochemicals “created” in stars that have gone red giant, and nova, and supernova….
And, it’s totally arrogant to “believe” that we Homo sapiens are different than the other millions of other species on this planet Earth! Historically, we haven’t proved it true. What other species developed nuclear weapons exploding two on it’s own species that was already defeated and surrenduring?????
January 24th, 2006 at 7:14 am
If you want to worship a god, the closest one we all got is the star we named “Sun”, a spectral class G, yellow-white dwarf star average distance of 93 million miles that gives us light, heat, and life.
January 24th, 2006 at 7:20 am
(let me just say right now that while I am a Christian, I am NOT a proponent of YEC or ID- I’ve gotten too good of a science education to fall for their claptrap)
Not to beat a dead horse or anything, but these IDers and YECs seem to forget that the creation story in Genesis is just that- a story. Divinely inspired, but still a story- Moses (as Genesis is generally attributed to) interpreted visions from God in a way that was understandable to the people of his time. The “night came, and morning followed” parts- the “days” of creation- could simply have been God’s way of showing that time passed- centuries, millennia, eons, whatever. If God were to show someone of the BA’s scientific caliber the same visions, the story would still have the same basic elements, but would be explained in a more modern fashion, using modern scientific terms.
January 24th, 2006 at 8:42 am
Wait a second, I think this is going a bit off topic here, I’m not stating that we need to teach religion in science class but we are teaching belief. We believe that evolution the big bang (which now may change) etc. happened. We have no proof. If we teach what is scientifically accepted as fact then at one time the belief that the world was flat was accepted, that the earth was the center of the universe was accepted and in our own time that nothing travels faster than the speed of light. What about Quarks??
What I’m saying is leave the door opened to other possibilities, a simple statment that Evolution is a THEORY, as is Intelligent Design both are not mutually exclusive and there should be space for both.
Don’s shut you mind off by accepting the THEORY of anything until it’s a proven FACT, and even then check it once in a while the facts may change………..
January 24th, 2006 at 8:59 am
Justin,
You are correct. I took a big leap and I apologize.
Here is what I was reacting to (or better, over-reacting to):
“As far I can tell, there’s just one group to blame for the watered-down junk that is passing for science education today.â€
From the best I can tell, this is our area of disagreement. I think there are a lot more culprits than just the radical right whackos. I think trying to teach anything without reference to a specific worldview is plain fantasy by those of the materialistic realm.
So, what I would seek for my children is not a change in the science curriculum, but a change in how it is presented. I can not envision this being done effectively in a secular setting any more than others can envision an appropriate education for their children in a religious school.
I totally agree with you when you said, †My guess is because the scientifically illiterate masses have never been taught to collect all the evidence they can before drawing a conclusion. As a result, they ignore every bit of evidence for our origins except the few words at the beginning of Genesis, even though so much more has been carefully unearthed. Now that’s a profound error in logic.â€
I for one do not believe in refusing to use the faculty of reason which God gave us. This is the same ignorance that gave us Galileo’s imprisonment. The process of coming to a fuller understanding of his creation is a fascinating one for me.
Thanks for the reply…and again, my sincere mea culpa for being too abrasive.
January 24th, 2006 at 9:25 am
Dave, the issue here is very simple. There is no such thing as “proven fact”. It is a myth, a construct of the human mind that does not and cannot exist in the real world. In order for something to be absolutely proven without any doubt, we must have absolute and total knowledge regarding absolutely every aspect of the universe, something humans are literally incapable of having. Science recognizes this. Science recognizes that all we can hope for is a better and better approximation of the truth. That is why science uses the term “theory”, the know nothing can ever be proven.
So demanding that evolution must be a “proven fact” before we can accept it is an absurd and impossible burden to place on evolution. If you applied the same criteria, we would also have to completely abandon ALL other science, as well as all history and pretty much everything else besides literature and math. In fact, it is impossible to even prove your own existance or the existance of the universe. What we teach are those things that, through countless experiments, have shown they are extremely close to how the universe really works. Evolution is nearly as close to being absolute truth as we can hope for, but it will never be considered proven because nothing can ever be considered proven.
So what, then, do we use to judge competing ideas? Two things: evidence, the Occam’s razor. We make a hypothesis that explains the evidence we collected. We then collect more evidence, unrelated to the original evidence but is predicted to be a certain way by the hypothesis. We then check whether the evidence matches the prediction. If it doesn’t, we abandon the hypothesis and find a better one. If it does, we test again, and again, and again. After we have tested it hundreds, more often thousands, of times and the hypothesis has past them all (even though it might have failed them), and none of the competing hypotheses explain the data as well, then it might graduate to becoming a theory. This is what happened to evolution. ID/Creationism has not passed any tests. Its propents try very hard not to make predictions that, if shown to be wrong, could falsify their hypothesis. They occasionally do, and every single such prediction they have made has turned out to be wrong.
“Those who cavalierly reject the Theory of Evolution as not being adequately supported by facts, seem to forget that their own theory is supported by no facts at all.”
-Herbert Spencer
But what if two hypotheses explain the data equally well? Then we involve Occam’s razor. Occam’s razor is the idea that “You shouldn’t multiply pluralities unnecessarily”. In other words, the hypothesis that requires the fewest unsupported assumptions or axioms is superior. Evolution only requires the assumption that the law of cause and effect applies. ID/Creationism requires that the law of cause and effect apply, but that there is a supernatural hyperintelligent entity who violates natural law at will and in a manner that no human can understand, predict, or reliably detect and who set the universe in such a way that has the appearance that it was not created by a supernatural entity and is much younger than it appears (if you include YECs). Now naturally if the evidence supports on theory over another, but the theory that is supported requires more assumptions, than the better-supported theory is superior. But ID/Creationism does not explain the data any better than evolution, in many cases it explains it worse, and requires a whole mess of unfounded assumptions that evolution does not, but still requires all the same assumptions evolution does. So evolution is clearly the superior hypothesis, and barring a massive amount of evidence showing otherwise it will continue to be the superior hypothesis.
The belief that the Earth is flat and that the Earth is the center of the Universe are bad examples. These are religious ideas, like ID/Creationism, and like ID/Creationism they were shown to be wrong by science.
And, I might add, Quarks do NOT travel faster than the speed of light. I do not know where you got that. Also, nothing says no object can travel faster than the speed of light, special relativity say nothing can accelerate to the speed of light. It does not prohibit things that are always travelling the speed of light (luxons), and says that objects are possible that travel faster than the speed and cannot accelerate down to the speed of light (tachyons), although there is no evidence that tachyons exist so they remain a mathematical peculiarity.
January 24th, 2006 at 9:26 am
Dave: We believe that evolution the big bang (which now may change) etc. happened. We have no proof.
Er…have you read any of the posts above? Yes, we most certainly do have proof! The theory of evolution has produced countless predictions which have been borne out; it’s got an enormous weight of evidence behind it. Which is why it’s accepted as a well-established scientific theory and “Intelligent Design”–which has absolutely no such evidence behind it–isn’t.
If we teach what is scientifically accepted as fact then at one time the belief that the world was flat was accepted, that the earth was the center of the universe was accepted and in our own time that nothing travels faster than the speed of light. What about Quarks??
Dragging in the beliefs of past centuries–that the Earth was the center of the universe, and so forth and so on–is a tired and very poor argument. These beliefs predated the scientific method; there was never any real evidence behind them, but at the time that wasn’t a concern. Nowadays, scientists understand the importance of accumulating evidence and testing hypotheses, and today’s theories are on much firmer ground. That’s not to say they aren’t subject to some revision, but they’re not at all comparable to the old ideas you name. And when a well-establishedtheory is revised, it’s not thrown out completely and shown to have been completely wrong; it’s generally simply shown that it doesn’t hold in all cases. Once a theory has passed the rigorous testing necessary to have been accepted by the scientific community, it’s a pretty safe bet it’s not going to be completely overturned, even if some details do get refined, or it gets fit into a larger, previously unknown framework. (Case in point: Newtonian mechanics. While this has been superseded by relativity, it’s not because the Newtonian version was all wrong; it’s because it was an approximation that didn’t hold under certain extreme conditions of very high velocity. Newtonian mechanics are still a perfectly adequate and well used theory at everyday length and velocity scales.)
As for quarks…well, what about them? You seem to be implying they travel faster than the speed of light. Um, no, they don’t… Though even if something were discovered that did travel faster than the speed of light, it wouldn’t demolish current-day physics. It would just show that there are certain special cases that current theories don’t account for, just as Newtonian mechanics didn’t account for the high velocities covered by relativity.
Don’s shut you mind off by accepting the THEORY of anything until it’s a proven FACT…
Again, have you read any of the posts above? The whole “evolution is a THEORY not a FACT” business is pure obfuscation. A “theory” in scientific parlance is a concept which has been rigorously tested and been shown to match the evidence and make reliable predictions. In otherwords, in scientific terms, a “theory” is a proven fact, or at least as much a proven fact as anything can be. Evolution has been rigorously tested; it has made numerous successful predictions; it has a huge body of accumulated evidence behind it. ID…hasn’t. At all. ID is not a theory in the same sense as evolution; it’s just an untested, pretty much untestable, and thoroughly unscientific idea.
January 24th, 2006 at 9:34 am
Tony Plank,
You are muddying the water: Faith is what religious people resort to when they are asked to justify their religious beliefs. The “materialist,” as you put it, does not need faith, just the belief that certain statements are true based on a reasonable amount of evidence. If new evidence is presented, ideally the materialist will adjust his belief accordingly.
Faith does not have this feedback mechanism. In that, it is closely related to dogma.
January 24th, 2006 at 9:51 am
PK,
Materialist is not an offensive or judgmental term. It is my poor attempt to use a broad philosophical term for the notion that only that which is material matters.
Amusing, I think, that you use the word “believe†in explaining how a materialist does not have faith. I think you meant “rational understandingâ€. Freudian slip no doubt. I for one do not care for the word “faith†because it implies something totally irrational.
Hey, I’m really not trying to poke at this one too hard. My wife is a scientist so I’m sure we can all get along. OK, hopefully we can get along a little better than THAT.
January 24th, 2006 at 10:05 am
I’m just going to copy and paste and explanation of Theory that I wrote in anther forum since a couple of the people posting in this forum do not understand the difference between the common use of the word theory and the use of the word in science:
… a Scientific Theory is actually a model of how something works and is continuously refined. If “Science” had named this the “Model of Evolution”, people would not be confusing a “scientific theory” (A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena) with a “math theory” (A set of theorems that constitute a systematic view of a branch of mathematics) or the common use of theory (An assumption based on limited information or knowledge; a conjecture). (All three definitions were taken from the online version of The American Heritage Dictionary). To argue the first definition is the same as either the second or third is a game of semantics often used by those speaking on behalf of ID.
…
In short, a “scientific theory” is not proven since it is a model… it never has to be proven. It is only refined as new data is collected, studied, and understood.
January 24th, 2006 at 10:28 am
I’m sorry that you all have such closed minds, I see and understand what you believe and think you have the right to believe so. Why is it so difficult for you to see and understand what I believe may be so…
I’ll let someone else much more intelligent than me speak.
Please see the quotes below…
Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them.
–Albert Einstein
Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
–Albert Einstein
I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.
–Albert Einstein
I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details.
–Albert Einstein
January 24th, 2006 at 10:34 am
I’m sorry that you all have such closed minds, I see and understand what you believe and think you have the right to believe so. Why is it so difficult for you to see and understand what I believe may be so…
There are matters of belief, and there are matters of fact. Much of what you said–such as that there is no proof behind evolution–is simply factually inaccurate. There’s nothing closed-minded about pointing this out.
January 24th, 2006 at 10:37 am
“I’m sorry that you all have such closed minds”
I must be reading different posts than you are… I see nothing but “open mindedness” on these forums… good people trying to help educate those who don’t understand how science encourages open-mindedness and the search for truth. If you look close enough, you will find, like our follow-scientist Albert Einstein, we all stand in awe of what our studies show us of the workings of our universe.
January 24th, 2006 at 10:48 am
Ooh, I can post Albert Einstein quotes too!
“The grand aim of all science is to cover the greatest number of empirical facts by logical deduction from the smallest number of hypotheses or axioms.”
“Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.”
“Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place is determined by laws of nature, and therefore this holds for the action of people. For this reason, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that events could be influenced by a prayer, i.e. by a wish addressed to a Supernatural Being.”
“The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge.”
“If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.”
“I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it.”
“It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”
January 24th, 2006 at 11:02 am
While I’m at it, here’s Isaac Asimov:
“To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today. ”
“Creationists make it sound as though a ‘theory’ is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.”
“There is no belief, however foolish, that will not gather its faithful adherents who will defend it to the death.”
“Where any answer is possible, all answers are meaningless.”
And Carl Sagan:
“I meet many people offended by evolution, who passionately prefer to be the personal handicraft of God than to arise by blind physical and chemical forces over aeons from slime. They also tend to be less than assiduous in exposing themselves to the evidence. Evidence has little to do with it: what they wish to be true, they believe is true.… The clearest evidence of our evolution can be found in our genes. But evolution is still being fought, ironically by those whose own DNA proclaims it—in the schools, in the courts, in textbook publishing houses, and on the question of just how much pain we can inflict on other animals without crossing some ethical threshold”
“I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience. And in addition, to whatever measure this term has any meaning, science has the additional virtue, and it is not an inconsiderable one, of being true.”
“In science it often happens that scientists say, ‘You know that’s a really good argument; my position is mistaken,’ and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.”
And Arthur C. Clarke:
“I would defend the liberty of consenting adult creationists to practice whatever intellectual perversions they like in the privacy of their own homes; but it is also necessary to protect the young and innocent.”
“I am a little disappointed that Randi doesn’t deal with one of my pet hates – Creationism, perhaps one of the most pernicious of the intellectual perversions now afflicting the American public. Though I am the last person to advocate laws against blasphemy, surely nothing could be more antireligious than to deny the evidence so clearly written in the rocks for all who have eyes to see! Can anyone really believe that God is responsible for a cruel and pointless hoax, by forging billions of years of prehistory? It is indeed a national tragedy that millions of children have been prevented from appreciating the awesome scale – in time as well as space – of our wonderful universe, owing to the cowardice of politicians and school boards.”
And Stephen Hawking:
“We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.”
“We shouldn’t be surprised that conditions in the universe are suitable for life, but this is not evidence that the universe was designed to allow for life.”
“We could call order by the name of God, but it would be an impersonal God. There’s not much personal about the laws of physics.”
“The Steady State theory was what Karl Popper would call a good scientific theory: it made definite predictions, which could be tested by observation, and possibly falsified. Unfortunately for the theory, they were falsified”
“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”
January 24th, 2006 at 11:14 am
Black Cat, I can’t top that lot.
It looks as though more or less everything I felt the need to say has been said.
January 24th, 2006 at 11:24 am
Tony: when I say that “I believe that I left the light on” I am not making a theological statement. This is a perfectly good scientific use of the concept of belief. It is faith that is problematic, because if I “have faith” that I left the light on (if there is such a thing), I will still have that faith even if inspection tells me that the light is in fact off.
Faith has no place in science, but belief does. For example, we all believe that quantum mechanics is a very close approximation to the way nature behaves.
January 24th, 2006 at 11:35 am
Ah now it’s my turn to apologize…
I jumped to an assumption… Which we all know is not a good thing.
I think we are all saying the same things…
1. Evolution is a Theory only. it’s based on the best know facts of today.
2. There are other possibilities.
3. Fanaticism: excessive intolerance of opposing views and or fanatics should not be in charge of education or government ,but that is a different topic.
4.The above goes for Scientific areas as well as Religious areas, well basically all areas of life.
I was not stating that a Theory has to be proven before it can be taught, but that as we really can’t be sure since we did not observe it, and have no direct evidence to evolution, it should be taught.
Oh and I did read an article is Scientific American that said recent discoveries show that Quarks do in fact travel faster than the speed of light. I agree this does not throw out Physics but it shows we don’t have a complete understanding of our own world, much less the universe.
My issue with teaching ONLY Evolution is that as it is taught exclusively it becomes a defacto fact. Just as in the middle ages religious belief dominated science, this is the counter swing the lack of belief is dominating today. In my opinion neither is good.
As we discussed above there are other possibilities.
they do deserve at least a mention. When I was in school I was taught Evolution and at the end of one of the Lectures the professor said there are other ideas on this subject some do not fall into the scientific realm, but there is a chance that they are correct. Not much in his opinion but he felt that a true scientist would not ignore the possibility that there were other ideas.
My personal belief is that Evolution and Intelligent Design are not mutually exclusive, as it has been said there was a Bang but what was there before it. What or Who caused it to happen.
I believe We may have evolved but what started or created Life?
Again, mea culpa for jumping to a conclusion…
Thank you all for this mental exercise it has helped clear out some of the cobwebs…
January 24th, 2006 at 11:47 am
“1. Evolution is a Theory only. it’s based on the best know facts of today.”
I fear we do have a disagreement here. Evolution is an observed fact. The Theory of Evolution is the theory that best models that fact. ID isn’t even a Theory, so it has no place in the classroom. There is no observable evidence to the validity of ID… and lack of evidence is not evidence. That is, trying to disprove the Theory of Evolution in no way validates the idea of ID. In short, there are no other competing theories that can be presented in the classroom at present.
“I believe We may have evolved but what started or created Life?”
Indeed, the Theory of Evolution does not cover the origin of life, nor is it meant to. So, when a school board votes to include “other theories in addition to evolution explaining the origin of life,” they are misinterpreting what the Theory of Evolution covers to begin with.
January 24th, 2006 at 11:54 am
Sorry, let me amend the above… ID has no place in the “science” classroom, though I personally have no objection to it being taught in courses clearly labeled as philosophical or religious.
January 24th, 2006 at 12:01 pm
I can understand the fierce desire to fight creationism, but there are other ways of dealing with this “controversy” than pure heels-dug-in resistance, in the event that doesn’t end up working.
If teachers and educators are forced to address ID in the classroom, its entirely possible to fight it by addressing it for what it is. As I read this, ID supporters are only demanding that ID be given airtime, which I agree is a waste of time better spent on real science. But if you are forced to spend it, perhaps a better way to address it is through curricula that completely destroy it for the sham it is through the very teaching they ask for. Submit material to the NEA and see if they can’t assist in adopting a counter-ID stance and pull an end run on the legislature through the teacher’s unions.
As a last resort, the best thing you can do is just keep the truth out there, in the face of the world, and easy to get a hold of. Religious belief is an incredible force, despite its glaring fallacies, its a very serious salve for a hurting culture looking for easy answers and absolution. Believe me, you may just have to accept the fact that for the forseeable future, you’re screwed when it comes to beating this down. The United States survived for more than a century from its birth under the spell of creationism, I believe it will survive if we have to cope with that ignorance yet again. If we’re going to be faced with a return to the Dark Ages, the best we can do is keep the truth enlightened and growing until the rest of the nation can handle it again.
Social forces are like a pendulum, and the forces that govern scientific tolerance have had a good long run, but given a tradition bound society like America, you can only run so far before the pendulum reverses course. Its not the end of the world, but it does mean you’ll be out of vogue for a while, whether you’re right or wrong about the science you support.
I think I should also mention that even when you eventually have the pendulum working your way again, you will never completely be rid of this issue. How many years ago was YEC’s credibility shattered, yet still people believe? Geocentrism? Steady state universe? These are less public, but no less persistant, issues that still haunt real science, despite some very thorough and complete debunking.
I just don’t see a pretty way out of this mess, other than to let the train roll on till it derails, then be there to pick up the pieces and say “I told you so” when its all over.
January 24th, 2006 at 12:13 pm
Chet, I should make myself clear about proof. You won’t be able to scientifically prove an existance of God,or lack of existance. We are very different than other species on this planet. You still haven’t proven that the start of all, including the big bang, wasn’t orchestrated by a supreme being. Even the experiments you conduct in science are manipulated by inteligent design, you being the intelligent designer. I’m not saying again that religion needs to be taught in science class. The God I belive in would have to use the very laws of the universe science has proven exists to create all that is here. He understands gravity, antural selection, evolution, ect.. better than any one. I don’t think it arrogant at all to think we are different than other species but rather humbling to think we are responsable for our choices.
As for being creations of our biological parents, duh, who said we weren’t. Also part of the creaters plan for our existance. Look at the difference in homo sapiens and the rest of the animal kingdom even in creating and caring for offspring. There are similarities but even that is unique to homo sapiens. I wonder why that is? Its because we are different. God is not the creation of most people as you say, Rather everyone is the creation of God, not directly as you are trying to say but he started it and we continue the process. Same with all life on this planet 93 million miles away from a life giving ball of gas, situated perfectly in the life zone. You still don’t have the answers to how and why all began.
January 24th, 2006 at 12:24 pm
“You still don’t have the answers to how and why all began.”
Once again, why and how it all began is not a consideration in the Theory of Evolution… just change in organisms. You are posting this question is quite the wrong forum.
Also, each specie cares in its offspring in different ways. This isn’t unique to humans. Even individual species in the same family, such as avians, care for their offspring in different ways from each other, even though there is a lot of overlap. Sure we are different. Every creature and every life form is different when you come right down to it.
January 24th, 2006 at 12:24 pm
For PK and Tony
Faith is a belief in something. When that belief turns to knowledge you no longer use faith. If you have Faith that you left a light on (terrible example) an then by observation find the light to in fact be off you have now gained knowledge of that and no longer use faith. Its a similar process in science with experiments, you believe something to be true then prove that you theory is fact and it becomes knowledge of truth and no longer a “belief”.
January 24th, 2006 at 12:27 pm
I see from an earlier post now that you have already admitted that the theory of evolution does not include creation, so appologies… I must be misunderstanding your latest post.
January 24th, 2006 at 12:50 pm
“I sense just a hint of sarcasm in Kevin’s post”
errr just a bit. Phil you’re the best! But running to Australia is not a solution. THe creationists are at work there as well. I feel that you are heeding the warning:
“When they came for the evolutionary biologists, I did nothing because I was not a biologist. When they came for the geologists I did nothing because I was not a geologist. When they came for the astronomers I was alone because they had already de-funded everyone else.”
when you (rightly) expose the flaws of ID. Keep up the good work.
“My issue with teaching ONLY Evolution is that as it is taught exclusively it becomes a defacto fact.”
well it is a fact that creatures of many types and ages have been found, and that characteristic features of some older types are preserved in younger types. It is a fact that all reproduction, except for cloning, introduce the possibility of mutation and change. and it is a further fact that we find some animals appearing at an older time and disappearing at a younger time.
The scientific explanation for all of this is the theory of evolution. There is no other theory.
There are other beliefs about how animals and plants came to exist on the earth, in their present forms and past forms, but there is no other scientific explaination other than evolution.
That is why only evolution is taught in science class. and that’s a fact.
January 24th, 2006 at 12:53 pm
I think at the core most of us are saying the same things. Evolution truly exists. God is for religion and philosophy but not for science. althought there are different opinions it seems to conclude the same here. now if the rest of the country would get on track we could put this whole debate behind and get on with learning.
I know evolution says life starts from a common ancestor, plants and animals alike, this is where science and religion really differ, that before that common ancestor what was there. I just want to be clear that I both believe that science is on the right track and that it doesn’t interfer with my religious beliefs, or that we should include religion in science classes. Maybe nothing more than mentioning that “there are many different ideas about life origins out there and we’re here to learn about science, check into a philosophy or relgion class for discussions about other origin ideas” disclaimer to satisfy the masses could end the debate.
January 24th, 2006 at 2:37 pm
It think science and “faith” can co-exist. I’m also a fairly well educated person and my wife of twenty-two years is a molecular biologist and a Sunday School teacher in a theologically conservative Christian Church. So you can see that reconciling these matters is of significant importance to me and my family.
This is where we find ourselves. God gave us reason and intends for us to use it. As time has marched on, we continue to learn more about our universe and as we learn more, our thinking on God’s revelation grows with that learning. Few now deny that the Earth orbits the Sun, but educated and faithful men of another age felt passionately about the Earth being the proper Biblical center of the universe. We came to understand that maybe the perceived clarity on the point was an error and we learned how to reconcile the new learning with our faith without stretching or twisting faith or reason.
I believe that faith will be completely reconciled with reason when God restores Creation to its as-created Goodness. Our inability to perform that reconciliation now reflects our limitations as men. As our knowledge continues to accumulate, we will perhaps reconcile more of this gap than what we have managed thus far.
I for one have a real difficulty understanding people who are so certain that they understand even the act of creation when we do not even have a firm handle on our own human ability to create. How can any of us be so certain that we understand what creation means as applied to an infinite God? Clearly, God spoke to us at times in abstract ways such as when he “spoke†creation into existence. But “speaking†is itself anthropomorphism not to mention a physical phenomenon of a created universe: God is doing his best to help us grasp his enormity.
Our weak ability to grasp the act and fact of creation is nowhere more evident than in the discussion of the old Earth v. young Earth arguments. It is pretty apparent to me that the God who created time and the other dimensions could probably handle creating a universe that not only appears old, but actually is old. I’m not saying that is what I believe, but rather pointing to the possibility. Christians could spend a lot of time being troubled over such things in a spiritual sense, but I find that effort somewhat lacking in utility.
Similarly, I think such a God as this might create men through evolution, or that he might not. If one really opens their mind to the best of our limited ability as to what such a God might be, it is enormously humbling. I may know that I am created in God’s image, but does that mean God has lungs and a poor sense of humor? I think not. I think we are the best facsimile he could fit into four dimensions much like the artist who tries to render three dimensional perspective on a two dimensional canvas. I am strongly influenced in this regard by the engaging book Flatland.
I am not troubled at our inability to understand how God’s truth is hard at times to reconcile with our experience using our limited minds. Instead, it is better to spend our energy trying to more fully understand God and better understanding his creation.
My faith is that God will sort it out in his time-not mine.
January 24th, 2006 at 3:09 pm
Thank you Tony…….
January 24th, 2006 at 3:22 pm
“I believe that faith will be completely reconciled with reason when God restores Creation to its as-created Goodness”
err yea Tony. sure..whatever…
“I think we are the best facsimile he could fit into four dimensions much ”
so he/she/it was limited in his ability? doesn’t sound like the christian god I’ve heard of. A better explaination is that he created us flawed so he could punish us. and then “SAVE” us. sort of a sado-m thing with a god complex.
“Clearly, God spoke to us at times in abstract ways such as when he “spoke†creation into existence.”
ehh yea “clearly” crystal clear… maybe the big bang was a burp. THat’s it my god burped and created the universe. and he’s paying special attention to me right now and I know that he loves me in a very personal way.
and, in fact, he loves me more than anyone else and he told me so.
January 24th, 2006 at 4:01 pm
Tony Plank says:
One thing the materialist does is rejects any claims of an supernatural explanations whatsoever. This is a very reasonable thing to do, but it is a matter of faith.
That is not correct. It is NOT a matter of faith. A materialist does not reject claims of supernatural explanations. A materialist merely demands proof of a supernatural explanation. Faith is required to support a supernatural explanation, but a materialist has no such faith.
If Bob makes a hypothesis that says “God made the traffic light turn red as Evolving Squid approached the intersection”, I would ask for evidence of this. That the light turned red, or that I was approaching the intersection is NOT evidence that God did it. What evidence can be provided that a supernatural critter had any influence at all on the situation? I can produce evidence of a totally natural (well man-made) explanation for why the light turned red – evidence that I can test, and verify. So which explanation is logical? The one that requires faith in some unverifiable magic, or the one that can be demonstrated with cold, hard evidence?
It’s not the supernatural explanation that’s being rejected for being supernatural, it’s being rejected because there is no evidence that it is correct. Supernatural explanations make no testable predications, aren’t subject to verification. To me, that makes them no more valid than the Jeane Dixon horoscope in the daily tabloid.
I assure you, when the God Squad starts producing verifiable evidence and reproducible results regarding the existence of supernatural critters, science will get on their side… but not before.
And that’s not dogma, it’s logic and common sense.
January 24th, 2006 at 4:15 pm
You won’t be able to scientifically prove an existance of God,
Actually, it would be very easy to scientifically prove the existence of God.
All one has to do is have the prospective God show up and do something that would be utterly impossible – say, rebuild the world trade centre and restore life to all those who died, and put bin Laden’s head on the top of the antenna tower, in under 1 second on the clock.
Too gruesome? How about give the Earth a nice set of rings like Saturn and an extra moon to brighten the sky at night (apologies to astronomers) in the blink of an eye?
If a being could do that, I’d call them God.
There’s lots of things a God could do to demonstrate their general omnipotence in a scientific way. Of course, most religions get around this fact by warning that you should not test God, or God whups you like a red-headed stepchild.
January 24th, 2006 at 4:21 pm
RAD,
Faith is a belief in something without any evidence to support that belief. Knowledge is more than a set of true (or more accurately: likely) statements; it is a framework that provides an explanation for a class of facts, and it allows you to make testable predictions. So knowledge is much more powerful than mere belief. Note also that truth is the strongest qualifier of them all, and generally not applicable to anything other than mathematics.
I admit the example of faith in having the light on is rather bad, but I didn’t want to weaken the point that belief is not in itself an unscientific state of mind. I guess I failed…
January 24th, 2006 at 4:48 pm
Just a couple of definitions from the online version of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. I thought that I would include these since there has been some discussion as to Faith vs. Belief. This semantic confusion seems similar to that between the “common” use of “theory” and “scientific theory”.
Belief:
1 : a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing
2 : something believed; especially : a tenet or body of tenets held by a group
3 : conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence
Faith:
1 a : allegiance to duty or a person : LOYALTY b (1) : fidelity to one’s promises (2) : sincerity of intentions
2 a (1) : belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2) : belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b (1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2) : complete trust
3 : something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially : a system of religious beliefs
Faith is apparently a form of intense belief that doesn’t require any proof while mere belief in itself may require proof. Faith is belief, but belief is not always faith. There are a couple of posts here invoking what appears to be Faith (2) and then basing completely unsupported statements based upon that faith, and still others saying that science also falls under Faith (2) when Belief (3) is closer to the mark.
I would even argue that scientific theory is even stronger than Belief (3) because it is supported by scientific method which requires a scientist(s):
1) making an observation of the world/universe around them
2) proposing a question that has a simple, concrete answer when can be tested by experiment
3) writing a hypothesis which is a tentative, testable answer to the question
4) coming up with a prediction using deductive reasoning of a specific case based upon the general premises that can be answered through experimentation
5) and testing and possibly having to fall back to an earlier step, such as 2)
Only hypothesis that can be supported (not proved… no such thing in scientific theory) and reproduced by other scientists can gain the honorable distinction of becoming a scientific theory. This isn’t only a belief “supported by evidence,” but supported by re-testing and refining and exploration of other specific predictions that can be based on the general premises of this model.
This is why you will see scientists get a little peeved when a valid “scientific theory” is dismissed as “just a theory.” By the time we reach the level of scientific theory it is by far more than “just a theory.”
January 24th, 2006 at 4:50 pm
Chris says:
Not to beat a dead horse or anything, but these IDers and YECs seem to forget that the creation story in Genesis is just that- a story. Divinely inspired, but still a story- Moses (as Genesis is generally attributed to) interpreted visions from God in a way that was understandable to the people of his time. The “night came, and morning followed†parts- the “days†of creation- could simply have been God’s way of showing that time passed- centuries, millennia, eons, whatever. If God were to show someone of the BA’s scientific caliber the same visions, the story would still have the same basic elements, but would be explained in a more modern fashion, using modern scientific terms.
The same theory I concocted a while ago. I also decided that if the Bible is an accurate depiction of God, then we should compare the New Testament to the Old. In the New Testament, Jesus uses parables- similes in short story form- to help people understand the way God thinks. So why not give Moses the vision of creation in the form of a similar parable? Why trouble the member of a non-scientific race with the details of other planets, other galaxies, little protons and electrons, etc., etc? We can all be hippocrites at time, but I’d just like to say that the closed-mindedness inherent in not allowing humanity’s worldview to stray from the millenia-old words in the Bible is the most troubling thing of all.
January 24th, 2006 at 4:53 pm
The last sentence above should be
“We can all be hypocrites at times, but I’d just like to say that the closed-mindedness inherent in not allowing humanity’s worldview to stray from the millennia-old words in the Bible is the most troubling thing of all.”
I slipped up while spell-checking! Google toolbar usually doesn’t let me down…
January 24th, 2006 at 5:01 pm
I’ll also add that I’d rather change the way religion is practiced (see also “Rise of Christianity” and “Protestant Reformation”) than mess with how we do science.
January 24th, 2006 at 5:20 pm
Well said, Justin.
Tony, I liked your last post. You’ve gotten bashed on it because the post has gotten a little heated; try not to let that get to you.
And thanks L. Fuller for the refresher on scientific theories vs. “theory” in common usage. It seems a reminder was needed.
January 24th, 2006 at 6:16 pm
Leon,
I did not read anything that “bashed” Tony and his post. I replied in all sincerity, as I feel the squid did.
Tony says things such as “Yet when you examine the materialist mindset of the “scientist†you find dogma just as surely as you might in any other corner of human existence.” as if they had some basis in fact. He preaches about his knowledge and understanding of his god as if that makes any sense in a rational world. And he equates knowledge of specific physical facts and logical explainations as dogma, equal to his own mystical musings.
That’s ok, no name-calling or bad feelings. Just a bit of point counter-point. There’s no point in trying to change someone’s mind about the diety. Many people have made alot of money off of the god business so who’s to say its a bad career move.
January 24th, 2006 at 6:30 pm
I do not believe I was bashing anyone… in my mind, I was simply countering Tony’s argument that science is just another religion – an argument that I think logic shows to be patently untrue, and that belief in theories based on observable evidence requires faith, which is also patently untrue. His counterpoints are interesting, even if I’ve seen them before in other places, and even if they’ve been refuted before.
Just because I don’t agree with Tony, doesn’t mean I wish him ill. We disagree, that is all. I don’t expect to change him, only to give him pause… which is also my estimation of his expectations for me.
January 24th, 2006 at 6:32 pm
Mr. Curmudgeon:
Crusty,old and male you may be, but you’re surely a reactionary in disguise.
Would that we all could pick and choose the recipients of our taxes: I would unfund the execution chamber of the state where I live; I would reduce the nation’s bloated military budget; I would eliminate the ability of congress to attach “riders” to any funding bill willy-nilly by cutting off the pork which trots along for so many pet congressional projects of which I didn’t approve, and conversely, I would spend more on space exploration and science and the arts, etc. Let me reiterate: It is my belief that the bedrock of democracy is a free and universal education. No strings attached; no qualifications about eligibility; no waivers for those who think they’ve been disenfranchised. Everybody pays – the childless couples, the aged who still pay taxes, the State’s Rights advocates, the home schoolers, the Jeffersonian Republicans – everyone. Now, please note I said “belief.” I use that word in relation to Horace Mann’s view of what education and democracy are about: that, “In a democratic society education should be free and universal, nonsectarian, democratic in method and reliant on well-trained professional AND well paid – my addition – teachers.” (1). I am also a believer in John Dewey’s ideas about pedagogy and philosophy, i.e., that scientific investigation and it’s experimental method is the best approach to solving social and ethical as well as scientific problems, and that democracy is the best governmental system to give society’s members the opportunity to experience a maximum of experimentation and personal growth – a way to provide the best conditions for the unlimited expansion of experience for all. These are admirable goals, and I strongly believe in them.
Has the current system of public education met those goals? Not yet; there are still folks who don’t believe that education should be universal, that females and minorities should be excluded in part or limited in the scope of their educational experiences. (There aren’t many female astronomers to speak of, and few who aren’t white males, a fact which must be related to historical atttitudes about women’s and minoritie’s mental abilities, at the least.) And there are still schools in the U.S. which are barely providing even the most minimal of educational opportunity to their pupils. So, how does a democracy fix a broken institution upon which it relies so heavily for an educated electorate?
It tries to provide the best possible universal environment for educational experiences to all of it’s citizens. When that goal isn’t achieved, then alternative methods of providing that educational environment in those communities where education is sub-par must be found. One of those alternatives, when taxpayer’s dollars aren’t providing the needed appropriate schooling in a community, is parental choice. So far, the choice which parents may exercise is limited to a number of factors, none of which excuses them from their obligation to pay general education taxes.
Early on, the Blaine Amendment laws were enacted in many states across the U.S., said laws the result of and named after the Republican Speaker of the House James. G. Blaine and his attempt to pass a Constitutional amendment in 1875 which was to prohibit any governmental support for sectarian schools – a reaction to the anti-Catholic sentiments prevalent during the 19th and early 20th. centuries. The Blaine Amendment failed, but the sentiment survived in the 37 or so states where similar amendments were added to state constitutions. it is these laws which the voucher proponents want overturned. It is these laws which bring into play the Jeffersonian “wall of separation between church and state” and the related Creationism/ID vs Evolution battles.
Over the years, the Supreme Court has upheld public funding of sectarian and private schools under strictly limited conditions. In Mueller vs Allen (6/29/83) the Court upheld tax deductions for sectarian schools. In Zelman vs Simmons
(6/27/02), the Court upheld the use of public money for tuition aid to low income parents to enroll their children in a private school of their choice, regardless of the religious affiliation of the school. This ruling was based upon a school district’s miserable treatment of pupils over a number of years, and the resulting takeover of the district by the state.(2) In my state, public funds can be used at private schools which can better meet the needs of at-risk or special needs kids when the public schools can’t meet those needs; and my state supports home schooling. So there is already a limited amount of choice available to parents who qualify, and the Court has held that parents must be given the choice of where to send their children.
So, where does the problem with vouchers lie, if there are already parental options for schooing kids which don’t rely solely with the public schools, and limited tax relief which applies to many of those options? And the answer to that question is chiefly the reason so much “poppycock” is generated around vouchers and what they are and aren’t about, because the hidden agenda of those who support “choice” is about whether or not public tax dollars should be used to support parochial, sectarian education, and the concomitant withdrawl of support – via taxes – to the public schools (as Curmudgeon has so stated). None of the arguments relating to “choice” is without explicit or implicit inclusion of this “tax burden argument” as supposedly suffered by those who believe they are being unfairly put upon because they have to pay taxes to a public school which they percieve is offering a “watered down half baked bunch of junk.” And this is why vouchers and those who espouse them are a threat to universal education. And I will say no more on this topic.
Will. M.
My sources: (1) Encyclopaedia Britannica ‘05 DVD. (2) A variety of websites, including the education department website of the current administration. Please use search words to access the various topics, since to include all the relevant “facts” would surely extend this essay far too longer than it now is.
January 24th, 2006 at 11:37 pm
I think one key point is: yes, there may well be scientific alternatives to Evolution. But given that the Evolution model fits so well with the facts, any alternative will necessarily look almost identical to Evolution anyway. So while you could say that the current “Theory of Evolution” could be proved wrong, inevitably it will be updated so that it better fits the facts, and the result will be the same Theory, only more refined.
It’d take something fundamentally weird in the universe to come up with something that gives the appearance of Evolution while in fact being completely different. And until someone can prove that such a fundamentally weird effect does exist, then it must be considered to be improbable.
January 25th, 2006 at 2:37 am
Disclaimer: The following is not meant to attack anybody’s sentiments, it is just a *thought experiment.*
Regarding “proof of god”, I wonder how many would believe if god him/her/itself materialised and claimed to be one – now here’s the catch: Since god is all-powerful, above anyone’s whims, he/she/it might well choose to materialise in plain human form. Now when this “godly” person claims to be god how many will believe him/her? Scientists will not – that’s more or less guaranteed. But what is important is – will those who claim to have “faith” believe? I have been having this little “thought experiment”:
God comes in the form of a human and claims to these IDists that he/she is god. Now what will the immediate response of these IDists be? Most probably that of disbelief – they would say god is supposed to be so-and-so…god is supposed to do so-and-so….god is supposed to do miracles. Now our god asks if he/she/it is subject to the whims of the IDist…”I am god and I choose to appear in whatever form I wish. I choose to appear as a mortal human with no special powers – you question that? You question my authority?. If you have faith take what I say as the ultimate word for that’s what you have been asking everyone else to do.”
What do you think the IDists will do…?
January 25th, 2006 at 3:26 am
PK
I see what you were trying to do and apologies for the weak argument comment. It seems that belief is fundimental to science. Its when the religionous meaning of belief creeps in that things get heated. Science and Religion are both after the same end, truth. IDers get hot when science tells them their without common sense, idiots, or whatever for believing in God the same way scientist get hot when god is brought into science. Maybe the best solution is to leave both sides out completely, don’t teach there isn’t a God and don’t teach there is a God in science classes. Leave the how it all started out of the picture completely until it can be answered scientifically and let other more appropriate classes debate that issue.
January 25th, 2006 at 4:22 am
RAD,
I agree that God should be left out of the classroom altogether, except perhaps in specialized religion/philosophy classes (although I think you can’t get around God in history class, with all the religious wars etc.). And then, even these classes may become vehicles for proselytizing teachers. When it comes to science class, it should include a reasonably up-to-date version of current scientific thought. That means evolution and the Big Bang is in, and creationism in all its forms is out.
Science inevitably makes statements that “trespass” on religious ground, and more often than not contradicts religious beliefs. But science has primacy over religion. That means that the religious worldview is more and more restricted to general statements about morality. Right now we’re at the point where the Bible is best interpreted as a collection of symbolic stories (and many religious scientist are perfectly happy with this).
In short: Nothing is a no-go area for science!
January 25th, 2006 at 7:21 am
“I still find no conclusive proof from science that life wasn’t created.”
This is part of the backwards-ness of the Creationist movement. The onus is not on science to get proof that life wasn’t created by a suparnatural agent–it’s on the creationist to provied evidence that it was. Thus far, the creationists have provided a great deal of hot air and hand waving, but nothing that even vaguely qualifies as real evidence.
Behe (a leading pseudoscientist among the creationists), in the Dover trial, stated that his biggest problem with the ToE was that it would somehow lead to a breakdown of morality…as though the ToE had anything whatsoever to do with morality, philosiphy, or anything else that he was worried about.
January 25th, 2006 at 9:41 am
First let me say I do not feel bashed. I have had far more serious altercations in the past and successfully weathered the storm. You want to see bashing, try doing this on a college campus with a bunch of intellectuals like I did back in my younger years.
Here is the problem I have with the materialist Evolving Squid. I totally understand that from the materialist viewpoint, you demand objective proof. I respect that-I truly do. What I add to the equation is my own personal experience and encounter with a God who is there and who is knowable. You reject this because you can not see it and measure it. And, of course, you have not experienced this for yourself.
The problem comes in when the materialist jumps to the conclusion that I’m an idiot. I have no problem with those who assume some form of self-delusion. This is a rational thing for someone to think about someone who believes in a personal God. But the out of hand rejection is not tolerant to say the least.
And there is the dogma: if you can not see it, touch it and measure it, then it is not real. Anyone who disagrees is just a moron. I have encountered this more times than I can count. For those whom calling me an idiot some how validates their own worldview, I am happy I am here to provide that service for them.
And again, I have to point out you must have some sort of faith in your own reasoning to assert the scientific method in the first place.
The Disenfranchised Curmudgeon
January 25th, 2006 at 9:46 am
Will M,
What a shame you do not have enough courage to stand toe to toe and debate. First you make a most worthy post that would be a joy to systematically dismantle and then you unnecessarily cheapen it by saying, â€And this is why vouchers and those who espouse them are a threat to universal education. And I will say no more on this topic.â€
I have written much and argued long and hard about vouchers. I see scores of problems in your post and am tempted to respond substantively. But frankly, that is a lot of work and I will save my efforts for someone who has an interest in a discussion rather than someone only interested in issuing a diatribe.
The Disenfranchised Curmudgeon
January 25th, 2006 at 9:55 am
Kevin, Squid,
Sorry about that. Tony posted a conciliatory message and you two both responded kinda strongly. Not that what you said wasn’t accurate, just I was trying to prevent ruffled feathers on his part. Maybe I went too far that direction and mischaracterized your posts.
January 25th, 2006 at 10:37 am
On leaving God out of the classroom.
As was pointed out, this is simply impossible. History, Literature and Art are impossible to discuss without reference to religious beliefs.
But more fundamentally, the secularist idea that you can simply leave all that stuff out and just teach facts is fundamentally flawed. The process of leveling all ideas and treating them equal cheapens each and every one of them. It implicitly teaches that it doesn’t matter whether you believe this or that, it is all equal.
No matter what your worldview, this approach does not fly if you take what you believe seriously.
The Disenfranchised Curmudgeon
January 25th, 2006 at 10:39 am
Leon
Anyone who has read the heated debate on my blogsite would not worry about ruffling my feathers. A disenfranchised Christian homebrewing astronomy nut attracts lightening from every direction. I’m used to serious abuse.
The Disenfranchised Curmudgeon
January 25th, 2006 at 10:53 am
Tony Plank says “But more fundamentally, the secularist idea that you can simply leave all that stuff out and just teach facts is fundamentally flawed. The process of leveling all ideas and treating them equal cheapens each and every one of them. It implicitly teaches that it doesn’t matter whether you believe this or that, it is all equal.”
Hmm… I would agree with the second part; it is very much what the ID’ers propose, putting evolution and creationism on an equal level when they are clearly not. But I don’t see the problem in keeping religion out of the science classroom. We can tell “amusing” stories about Galilei and the church, but we don’t have to: the science is independent of anyone’s religious belief.
January 25th, 2006 at 11:06 am
Say, Tony, I think a distinction needs to be made on the topic of materialism. There’s really two types, philosophical and methodological. Philosophical materialism rejects the existence of anything supernatural, which is what you’re describing above.
Methodological materialism (I think “physical materialism” would be a better term) says only that the natural world is best explained through natural phenomena, and that supernatural explanations should be excluded from natural occurrences. That’s the form of materialism that science requires. It doesn’t reject the supernatural altogether, just in the natural realm. Many many scientists, who by definition are physical materialists, reject philosophical materialism.
January 25th, 2006 at 11:42 am
Tony Plank Says:
Anyone who has read the heated debate on my blogsite would not worry about ruffling my feathers. A disenfranchised Christian homebrewing astronomy nut attracts lightening from every direction. I’m used to serious abuse.
Homebrewing? Now you’re talking!
January 25th, 2006 at 11:52 am
Leon,
Well, given this discussion went philosophical on us, I think you are correct…a useful distinction.
Homebrewing…astronomy…apologetics. That is living life to its fullest, is it not?
The Disenfranchised Curmudgeon
January 25th, 2006 at 12:09 pm
Homebrewing? Now you’re talking!
I think we can all do with one after this is over!
You got me thinking there, Tony, with your comment that “you must have some sort of faith in your own reasoning to assert the scientific method in the first place.” If you mean faith in the sense of “belief in something for which there is no proof,” then (surprise) I disagree:
1. I do not need to have much confidence in my own abilities for reasoning to assert the scientific method. For science to work, it is sufficient that the clever ones of the species have the ability to reason. This in itself does not refute your point (but it goes some way in explaining why dogs don’t have a scientific endeavour worth mentioning).
2. However, the essence of the scientific method is that it is testable. We can test the hypotheses that we obtained via reasoning. Hence our well-founded belief that the scientific method works.
3. Nevertheless, the fact that the universe behaves in logical (mathematical) way is truly amazing!
So the scientific method works, and since it is ultimately based on logical reasoning, we can claim that reasoning itself works. As to why it works, feel free to invoke anything you like, but don’t call it science.
January 25th, 2006 at 12:28 pm
Tony Plank said:
And again, I have to point out you must have some sort of faith in your own reasoning to assert the scientific method in the first place.
No, I do not have faith in my reasoning. In fact, quite the opposite, I recognize that in an instant, my current reasoning could be proven wrong by new evidence. Should that happen, I am prepared to reevaluate my reasoning and adopt a new position that fits all the available evidence. That is the approach I take in my life.
If I had faith, I could safely ignore new evidence and continue on my merry (and incorrect) line of reasoning, because my faith would be sufficient to overcome any discrepancies.
That is the difference between the scientific method and faith-based methods.
January 25th, 2006 at 12:29 pm
PK I agree,
The bible is at best very incomplete as it covers several thousand years in a few hundred pages. Not to mention it has been handed down through the ranks of men who changed and reinterpreted it to death. Just think that with the bible alone there are how many different religions? My biggest point to make about science and religion together is that neither one can experimentally prove the existance or non exsitance of a God or supreme being or whatever you want to call it. I fscience wants to keep trying I say go for it because eventually it may happen you can prove, but for now and the forseable future, it isn’t going to happen. I also agree to a point that science has primacy over religion but not concerning the exsitance of God. Religion is impossible to completely extract from school and politics because you will always have someone with convictions on both sides of the coin. the real issue is in science classes to keep Creation, intelligent design, divine design, and other religions(as thats what they really are not science) out. But to keep that on a level playing field atheism needs to be included and left for other classes. Sticking to evolution by teaching it as it really is, change over time, should keep both sides happy. You can’t expect to teach that there is no god or creator(atheism) in science and not give equal time to there is a god or creator(but please not religious nutjobs who destroy not only science but religion also, creationist). Its hypocritical to say you don’t want creation in any form taught because it has no scientific basis, which it doesn’t, and then teach that a creator doesn’t exist without the same guidlines of proof. You don’t have that proof and most likely never will. I would just like to see the whole thing come to an end but I know even as I type that it won’t.
January 25th, 2006 at 12:57 pm
I have never taught that a Creator doesn’t exist in a science course… I don’t believe that is the issue.
January 25th, 2006 at 1:04 pm
I guess I should also add that the Creator has never come up in any of my science courses in which I was a student unless another student brought it up, in which case the professor usually responded that whether or not a Creator exists is not relevant to the science involved.
January 25th, 2006 at 3:07 pm
Standing up for what one believes is one thing, imposing one’s religion on others is another, and in violation of the very first amendment. Separation of church and state should be defended and fought for by our government officials.
Sadly, there are politicians that have bought into another ludicrous idea – one that was advocated by one Mr. Rushdoony, which stipulates that the separation of church and state is a myth created by, and perpetuated by _____ (fill in your favorite demon)____.
There are politicians at state levels; and some at the federal level who don’t accept church/state separation, certainly not the way the Supreme Court has defined it. For example, they would gladly “restore prayer” in school and still feel confident that the First Amendment was not being violated.
I think what might need to happen with these myopic religionists is that their tree needs to be allowed to bear fruit. Most are entirely clueless what the implications and ramifications for their ideas would be … that our schools would become a religious warzone as parents from different faiths would want equal time. You think there isn’t enough time in a school day today, wait until it’s being dedicated to “equal time for all beliefs.”
Of course, should such an outcome occur, you can bet the response from the fundamentalist Christians would be: “But, America is a Christian nation; so of course, the prayer children pray to should be the God of that faith. And besides, non-believers and adherents of other faiths, can simply refuse to participate.”
January 25th, 2006 at 3:12 pm
I feel your pain. But my own brother is “one of them†and I can’t seem to break through. But it’s not just him. I work with lots of people who share his beliefs. … I’ll bet Iâ€m not alone, it’s more like two or three!
I envy you. My entire immediate family (2 bros, 2 sis — and all their children) are fundamentalist Christians. We maintain peace by agreeing not to talk about politicis or religion. But, I secretly hope that one day some spark will go off in their head that makes them have their first doubt, which would lead to their own pursuit of vouching for the truth of their ideas.
I have heard of stories of people “losing their faith” after 30 years, so I hold out hope that at least some will come to their senses. OTOH, if they are perfectly happy with their lives; and do not wish to impose their religion on the rest of society, let it be. Sure, I wish they were more curious. But, it seems that not every person on earth as the insatiable curious and desire to know, that inspires most scientists and those who appreciate science.
January 25th, 2006 at 3:42 pm
Isn’t Buttars the name of a character on South Park? When did he become a Utah State Senator?
January 25th, 2006 at 3:54 pm
When he changed the spelling of his name!
I made the same connection myself, and thought the association with a very lame (the boys’ description, not mine) character was highly appropriate.
January 25th, 2006 at 4:36 pm
You think there isn’t enough time in a school day today, wait until it’s being dedicated to “equal time for all beliefs.â€
That might be the one strength of ID- despite being a Christian invention, it really shouldn’t rule out creation stories from other religions, as long as the creation happened because a supreme being said so. If this issue came up while they’re ruining some State’s science standards, IDer’s could just respond that ID is not “deity-specific.”
However, the point about specifically mentioning atheism if any kind of ID or creationism makes it into the classroom is a valid one. Then it would start eating up the limited class time.
Hmm, just seems easier to keep any mention of religion, and professing the complete lack thereof, out of science classrooms altogether.
January 25th, 2006 at 10:46 pm
I posted the following in the thread about Journalistic Integrity, but I think perhaps it should be included here.
——
You are correct that there are many everyday, ordinary people who do not accept Evolution, and believe in direct divine creation. Most of these people are not idiots, whatever we Evolution supporters would like to believe. They try to evaluate for themselves the various information they have accummulated from different sources, filtered through their own perspective and belief system. We all do that – we can’t escape it. However, much of the information is being distorted and reinterpreted and misrepresented, which makes that evaluation suspect – garbage in, garbage out, as it were.
Our religious viewpoints are usually built up during our childhood, and frame the way we look at the world and how we evaluate the data we gather later. It is a scientifically demonstrated fact that the way people perceive and interpret information is shaped by their expectations and by their mental frameworks. You may have heard of the term “congnative dissonanceâ€. This is the effect where information does not match your mental framework and expectations, and your mind tries to retain the existing framework rather than change it to match the new information.
When people typically begin to learn about science, and especially Evolution, it is being placed into a mindset and a framework that is already built along religious beliefs. When those religious beliefs are constructed with a very literalist bent about the Biblical stories, and they are strongly reinforced by a family and community (i.e. church, social network) that strongly adheres to the same belief system, the scientific information creates cognative dissonance for the believer. It is easier and more comfortable (and not entirely conscious) to reject the new information in favor of the old, regardless of the implications. It is only when the implications are so staggeringly at odds with the rest of one’s experiences that the break can be made and the new information replace the old. This is why revelations can be so shocking.
So these everyday people are already at a disadvantage when it comes to assimilating Evolution. Their mindset is structured to “see the world†in a particular way, and science is presenting that the world is fundamentally different. That in itself is a big leap to make, but there is another factor that makes the situation worse. In trying to evaluate the new information, especially when it is uncomfortable and creating cognative dissonance, one obtains more information on the topic from a variety of sources. But people find sources that they are comfortable with, sources that fit into their worldview. And the problem is that these sources may not be accurate. In fact, the simple truth is that many of the major Evolution critics deliberately misrepresent and misquote and distort the information in order to support their agenda.
The person trying to evaluate this information often isn’t able to fully evaluate the various claims. Much of the details are buried in technical journals and conference notes and the like. So most people are operating on summaries of information compiled by proponents of each side. Given their existing lack of in-depth information on which to build and their comfort for sources that match their pre-existing framework, the natural conclusion is to accept the information at face value, and then make judgements about the relative worth of the different positions from that information. But if the information is distorted, the judgment isn’t valid.
These misconceptions and invalid arguments are spread among the community of congnative dissonance, people with a similar worldview at odds with the information from Evolution. The counter arguments and claims and rebuttals are spread around as much by the common people as by the deliberate disinformation agents. And even after the flaws in the arguments are shown, the rebuttals made to the rebuttals, the misquotes shown to be out of context, they continue to spread and be repeated and reused, because the community of believers spreads their information in larger circles than they spread the responses. And even when believers see the responses and the counter-arguments and the proof of the misquotes, they still have difficulty accepting the final result, because of their original cognative dissonance.
To be fair, the same factors are at work in everyone, related to every issue. That is why two intelligent people can debate a topic indefinitely, fundamentally unable to reach an agreement. Their perceptions are different, their perspectives are different, their worldviews are different, so their evaluations are filtered differently, so even if they’re using logic and reasoning they’re still reaching different conclusions.
One could also point out how similar factors are playing a role in the Evolutionist argument’s side. We find sources that we like, we share the same examples and arguments and repeat them frequently, we have difficulty accepting information at odds with our worldviews. However, Evolutionists are not deliberately distorting the arguments and misquoting their opponents. And most Evolutionists are willing to point out to each other when we are wrong. Also, we don’t have the same cognative dissonance problem on this topic, because either our religious framework was not overly reliant upon the literal interpretation, or we’ve already suffered our cognative dissonance and associated revelation, or our worldview was not constructed on the same religious framework to begin with.
In fact, that’s probably part of why Evolutionists feel Creationists are stupid. If we’ve already been through the cognative dissonance break and found our way through to accept Evolution, we see how we ourselves were not thinking clearly, were missing and misinterpreting information. And so we think, “How could I have been so stupid?â€, which means anyone else who still thinks that way gets the same appellation.
——
To some extent, I understand the response. There is legitimate frustration over not seeing how someone could be so misinformed. Also, I can understand using shame as a tactic. If everyone thinks you’re a fool for believing X, then it becomes more difficult to publicly declare you believe X. But I think that is ultimately counterproductive. The factors pushing ID and the religious issues in the common mindset will not be won over by making people upset over their beliefs. It just turns them into deaf ears and irritated opponents.
I would prefer to see less people posting here describing ID believers with derogatory labels. It just detracts from the environment for all of us.
January 26th, 2006 at 6:21 am
Justin,
A very good and agreeable essay!
For others of interest:
I know that I put this out sometimes that I am an Atheist because there isn’t any god anywhere except in an individual’s creative imaginations but that does not prevent me from still researching the history of religions and the history of the Christian “Holy Bible” to “know” about it factually and historically.
Not to get into it, again and again, I’d urge reading some books that I’ve read in the past month and taken lots of notes on:
“Excavating Jesus–Beneath the Stones, Behind the Texts” by John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan L. Reed, the revised and updated paperback. (If you want to kno about the historical Jesus)
“Jesus–A Revolutionary Biography” by John D. Crossan (Again, of Jesus and his time)
“Jesus-the Apocalyptic Prophet for a New Millennium” by Bart D. Ehram
My effort in this commentary is that our knowledge is improving and much more objective and all you have to do is read the historical and archaeological research being published. Make an effort, read these recomendations and expand your knowledge base.
January 26th, 2006 at 6:40 am
What we need in America is public funding of education and not publicly operated schools. This architecture would allow us to back away from these silly pointless arguments and give parents the liberty to raise their kids as they see fit. But in the mean time, I’m sure the struggle will continue with both extreme perspectives making public displays of idiocy for the consumption of the masses.
Yeah, what America needs is more individualism … more isolationism … more reasons to make us feel different and unable to live with each other. All the while, the global community gets larger. IMO, such an idea is a myopic pipe dream; and perhaps could be attributed as a reaction to globalism itself.
Personally, I think people who wish to privately indoctrinate their children; versus teach them how to live with and get along with people of different cultures, faiths, etc., are doing a disservice to their children; and to the human race.
We all occupy the same planet and we have to figure out a way to make the best of it.
Of course, some disagreements are probably irreconcilable — such as the Muslim holy warrior wishing to destroy “infidels,” or the Christian fundamentalist who refuses to care about the Earth or the here-and-now because Jesus will be returning soon. Etc.
January 26th, 2006 at 7:04 am
No scientist can realistically claim that evolution does not take place. I have seen various definitions of ID and not all are ridiculous. In particular those who believe, although cannot prove, that an “intellegence” exists behind everything.
There is no scientific theory that explains our own chemistry and that is why it is not so far fetched to consider an alternate theory, ID. The problem is simple and taught in every organic chemistry course. Many molecules have a handedness, which can be considered either right or left handed. The majority of organic molecules in our bodies also have handedness. It is odd that in nature whenever molecules are made a mixture results that is 50 % right handed and 50 % left handed molecules. There is no inherent advantage to either. What science fails to explain in any way is why all of nature (on this planet anyway) uses only a single handedness of the two! I will admit I have simplified the explanation some, but the basic premise is sound. My more secular colleagues consider this problem “a mysteryâ€. I prefer to consider it as being guided by a creator. Now, this has nothing to do with evolution as we normally think about it. There can be no doubt that evolution takes place. But the origin of life is an entirely different issue. How did molecules come together to form living entities? Scientists speculate that the building blocks formed first, then got together to form more complex systems, and ultimately life. But then there is the problem of the molecules; molecules of both handedness certainly could be used, but only one is. The bottom line is that there is plenty of scientific fact to support evolution of life, but there is really very little known about lifes origin.
January 26th, 2006 at 8:09 am
There are always presuppositions. One thing the materialist does is rejects any claims of an supernatural explanations whatsoever. This is a very reasonable thing to do, but it is a matter of faith. The materialist also has faith in the material. Faith that the universe is real and knowable. These two presuppositions lead to a faith in reason itself as the only basis to discern truth. Don’t misunderstand…I’m not saying it isn’t an internally consistent worldview. I am only arguing with the notion that there is no faith.
To say we all have working assumptions is hardly a revelation.
The nice thing about the scientific process is that it is workable and apply-able for things that impact our environment and our lives — in predictable and controllable ways … once we come to appreciate and harnass the mechanisms involved.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of religion, even if it is another “source” of knowledge. It is certainly not ubiquitous, nor preditable, let alone practical, apply-able or controllable. When a ubiquitous and workable system of acquiring knowledge based on non-material sources is devised, I think there might be more interest in such methodologies.
Until such time, religious experiences will remain personal and anecdotal. And for those who do not accept a religionists say-so about “reality,” does not indicate closed-mindedness. It is merely a practical way to operate that does not send us on unproductive, wild goose chases.
January 26th, 2006 at 8:48 am
The majority of organic molecules in our bodies also have handedness. [. . .] What science fails to explain in any way is why all of nature (on this planet anyway) uses only a single handedness of the two.
I don’t believe that science fails to explain this. Two molecules that differ only in their chirality (handedness) have distinct chemical properties, and indeed, it is believed that either chirality can be used to form life. Yet we see only one chirality. This is something called “spontaneous symmetry breaking,” and is fairly well understood in physics.
As an everyday example, consider a flock of birds sitting on the ground, picking worms, when they are suddenly disturbed by a fire cracker going off in their midst. They will all fly up and collectively fly away in some direction. What direction will that be? The source of their unrest (the fire cracker) does not determine a preferred direction because it’s going off in the middle, and the surroundings can be chosen such that there are no distinguishing features that cause the birds to fly off in one direction.
Yet they do. Somehow, they break the cylindrical symmetry of the initial situation. What is the cause of this? Are they guided by a creator? No: there are tiny fluctuations in the complex dynamics of taking off that cause the birds to go in one particular direction.
It is not unreasonable to assume that something similar happend when nature chose the chirality for life. Because once a chirality is determined, the molecular processes involved make sure that it is preserved as molecules with opposite chirality are often toxic. So if in the primordial soup the right molecules came together either all with one chirality or the other, it would start life, with the corresponding chirality.
January 26th, 2006 at 9:11 am
For all you Brits out there (and a few lucky Europeans): Tonight at 9pm (GMT) on BBC2, Horizon will talk about the threat of ID to evolution theory.
January 26th, 2006 at 9:21 am
Geez, not the chirality argument again. The reaon on Earth only uses left-handed amino acids, and right-handed spiral DNA, is because it CAN only use those sorts of molecules. The basic enzymes and ribozymes used by the body are extremely, extremely specific. So specific that they are only capable of working with chiral molecules (left-handed or right-handed molecules) with one specific orientation. For instance, the ribozomes that synthesize proteins out of amino acids cannot use right-handed amino acids, they are only capable of working with left-handed amino acids. The various enzymes that alter proteins in various ways can only work with left-handed amino acids. The enzymes that synthesize amino acids can only synthesize left-handed amino acids. The enzymes that break down proteins can only break down proteins with left-handed amino acids. The enzymes that break down amino acids can only break down left-handed amino acids. Changing the chirality of a given amino acid in a protein structure would completely alter the protein’s structure, and thus its function, almost certainly rendering it inoperable. As for DNA, the various enzymes that operate on DNA are targetted to DNA molecules with a base right-handed spiral (although this structure is altered in very specific cases and some enzymes target such alterations, it is all based on a molecule that is right-handed in its normal state). If a particular life-form were to spontaneously start synthesizing one or more right-handed amino acids in place of left-handed ones, it would die very quickly because its entire biochemistry would collapse. The samethings would happen if the chirality of any component of DNA were to chang: DNA replication, transcription, translation, regulation, and repair would be impossible, and the life-form would be unable to function at all. Similarly, if the chirality of chiral carbohydrates were to change from right-handed to left-handed the life-form would not be able to metabolize them. Any life-form that changed the chirality of any of its molecules would not be able to survive.
For this reason, the fact that all life-forms on Earth use the same chirality for all chiral molecules is strong evidence FOR common descent, not against it. If each life-form was specially created, or even if there were two just special creations that later evolved into all life, there would be no reason for them to share the same chirality for every single molecule class. The fact that all life-forms share the same chirality for all molecules, and in fact the same basic biochemistry period, is extremely strong evidence that they all evolved from a common ancestor.
There is a mystery in all this. The question is not why all life-forms with a common ancestor share the same chirality, the reasons I listed are well-known to anybody with a basic understanding of biochemistry (I have taken two biochemistry courses and this issue was covered in great detail in both, as well as in the 3 organic chemistry courses I took). The mystery is why only our line survived. As you said, in prebiotic Earth you would expect equal parts of both chiralities. Even if there were only a few starts to life, you would expect at least one to have opposite chirality. So why did only our group survive? I have heard that some think that the two different chiralities are not equal over long period of time. However, although within a certain molecule class we only have one chirality, different classes of molecules have different chiralities. Of course, the same conditions might affect one class differently than another, or the importance of one class might outweight the others. My personal pet conjecture is that our line developed an isomerase enzyme that allowed us to consume both chiralities, and thanks to that we quickly out-competed and consumed the other lines (including other basic biochemistries based on the chirality). Once all sources of other chiral molecules were gone, the enzyme either mutated into something else or was gradually mutated into junk DNA since it no longer confered an advantage. Of course, there is absolutely no evidence for this claim so it just an interesting thought experiment.
I might add, some bacteria DO produce right-handed amino acids (maybe even proteins, I can’t remember). However, these are used purely as toxins and are made using a completely seperate biochemical pathway that is unrelated to the normal amino acid and protein synthesis pathways. For pretty much every rule in biology, you can find an exception if you look hard enough.
January 26th, 2006 at 9:35 am
If the probability of starting life is small enough (i.e., you need many variables to be just right), then it is perfectly conceivable that it happened just once, with a specific chirality signature, and then quickly spread over the globe.
January 26th, 2006 at 10:20 am
TheBlackCat says:
I might add, some bacteria DO produce right-handed amino acids (maybe even proteins, I can’t remember). However, these are used purely as toxins and are made using a completely seperate biochemical pathway that is unrelated to the normal amino acid and protein synthesis pathways.
Hey, why doesn’t Behe use this as an example of irreducible complexity? Oh, right, because it would make the ID/creationist crowd’s eyes glaze over. Another illustration why they have trouble accepting the evidence–detailed explanations take more time & patience than they’re willing to put into it.
January 26th, 2006 at 11:01 am
Underdog Says: “The bottom line is that there is plenty of scientific fact to support evolution of life, but there is really very little known about life’s origin.â€
Dear Underdog,
A book concerning this research: “gen-e-sis: Scientific Quest for Life’s Origin†by Robert M. Hazen.
Another highly recommended book from me that I am now reading: “Into the Cool–Energy Flow, Thermodynamics, and Life†by Eric D. Schneider & Dorion Sagan.
From Chapter 12: Brimestone Beginnings:
“The most common element in the Universe, hydrogen, is the most common in life. That is a clue. The easy synthesis of amino acids (found in meteorites) the building blocks of proteins, is another.†Pg 176
“Under conditions of energy flux, under nonequilibrium conditions, one does not have to wait forever for the main chemical elements of life (carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur) to come together to make a bacterium. The simplest life forms, bacteria, consist of organized collections of organic polymers such as proteins, nucleic acids, membrane lipids, carbohydrates, and metabolites. The simpler subunits of the protein polymers, the amino acids, are relatively easy to make; they form naturally in space, and in many experiments simulating conditions of early earth.†Pg 162
*** pg 174: “The conversion of stardust into organic compounds—the long-chained carbon-hydrogen compounds of life—began in interstellar space. Simple organic compounds such as HCN (cyanide), CH4 (methane), and NH3 (ammonia) are relatively common in space—methane and ammonia ices, for example, exist on the surfaces of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn…. The simple sugar dihydroxyacetone and similar substances, called sugar acids and sugar alcohols, were discovered in the Murchison and Murray meteorites. Glycerol, a sugar alcohol used to build cell walls, was isolated from these meteorites.“
All life is biochemistry.
Have you not read Science News, Science, Nature, Discover, New Scientist, Astronomy, Sky and Telescope, etc, magazines or this website that the molecules and elements of life (bio-organics) are created by stars, found in galactic molecular clouds, asteroids, comets, and meteorites, and life?
Try viewing the Astronomy Picture of the Day website.
Try this website: The Astrochemistry Lab at NASA Ames Research Center http://www.astrochem.org/index.htm
January 26th, 2006 at 11:33 am
The racemic amino acid problem is not as simple as a case of symmetry breaking. The problem lies in the fact that there must be a selection for the one handedness. One can easily see the necessity for this in nucleic acids because of the double helix. However, in the case of proteins the case is far different. Indeed, in many literature examples (Science and Nature for example) it is clear that the incorportation of D-amino acids results in proteins with altered and often better function! The question which has no answer is why in a pool of racemic amino acids would only form homochiral strands when other diastereomeric forms would be better? There is no driving force for this.
Chet qutoes:
“Under conditions of energy flux, under nonequilibrium conditions, one does not have to wait forever for the main chemical elements of life (carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur) to come together to make a bacterium…”
Never done in a lab. Only speculation. Ahtought admittedly a bacterium has been prepared purely synthetically. I guess you could say it was “intellegently designed”, since it was not made at random.
When we find life on other planets with “different DNA” or diasteriomeric proteins I will be a lot more inclinded to buy these arguments. Alternatively, if some one can find premordial conditions and get any self-replicative process, even if it is not homochiral, it would be a very important step.
January 26th, 2006 at 11:35 am
Very good analysis, Chet. The problem isn’t that we don’t know enough about how life could have developed from non-living matter. On the contrary, we know too much. The issue isn’t that we can’t figure out what happened, the problem is picking from a number of different possible scenarios, each of which fit the data equally well. We know exaclty how life COULD have developed, we know a bunch of different ways, we simply don’t have enough information to pick one of those methods over all the others with any certainty. That is often the problem in re-created past biological events. There is uncertainty, we don’t know exactly how a lot of things happened. The ID/Creationist crowd harp on this and make it seem that it is because evolution doesn’t have an explanation for the event. That is often not the case, the problem is that evolution (or in this case abiogenesis, something completely different) has TOO MANY answers, and we don’t have enough information to pick one as being the correct one. The ID/Creationist crowd seldom mentions this, instead portraying it is as being that evolution cannot give any explanation.
January 26th, 2006 at 12:16 pm
TheBlackCat hit the nail right on the head! On the other side of the coin the non ID/Creationist crowd refuses to contemplate the possibilty that there could be more to our existence than what we can physically touch.
The worlds of ID/Creationist and abiogenesis do not have to be mutually exclusive if a “creator” put conditions in place to allow these events to happen.
January 26th, 2006 at 1:04 pm
Underdog Says: ‘Alternatively, if some one can find premordial conditions and get any self-replicative process, even if it is not homochiral, it would be a very important step.†[Thanks for "including" my inputs.]
We have found “premordial conditions” on Saturn’s moon Titan, other moons of Saturn and Jupiter, and the crusts of comets where it’s just way too cold for metabolism. We need to “scoop” out the prebiotic organics returning samples to either Earth or bio-labs on the International Space Station to experiment with them. There are also possiblities under the ice of Eurpoa and Callisto, too.
Life is a biochemical, open system process.
I exist because my biological parents created me through a known biological process–sexual reproduction and my unique personailty is a synaptic bio-chemical-electrical metabolic process of my brain, Underdog!
The origins of life is a scientific problem.
January 26th, 2006 at 2:15 pm
Irishman says
“I would prefer to see less people posting here describing ID believers with derogatory labels. It just detracts from the environment for all of us. ”
No no no it does not detract for me! I would like to see more people posting more derogatory labels for creationists. For every new facade put on 6-day creation beliefs we need at least two new derogatory labels.
January 26th, 2006 at 3:32 pm
For those interested in the Horizon episode A War on Science that just finished: Unfortunately, I missed the first twenty minutes, but from where I came in they sneakily started with the “controversy,” including all the usual suspects (Johnson, Behe, Dembski), and then went into the Dover case. Dawkins was there, of course, but I think his slightly abrasive way of snubbing the ID-ers might have been counterproductive. However, the last twenty minutes was one ID shred-fest including all the big guns: Miller was on form, the leader of the Vatican observatory came out against ID, and finally David Attenborough had the last word, pointing out that a supernatural spirit does not explain anything.
US residents, keep an eye on NOVA (on PBS) and the Discovery Channel; it is bound to be shown on one of them soon.
January 26th, 2006 at 4:42 pm
Chet,
Sorry, no disrespect intended for not “including” your points.
It was my oversight.
Bringing back samples from these moons will likely prove little.
The samples will probably contain the same kinds of compounds found in comets and asteroids. What will not be found is a single peptide, only some racemic amino acids, which should suprise no one. Metabolism is far more advanced than what one might expect to see. Chemists do lots of chemical reactions in liquid ammonia. I would be happy to see some compounds that suggest molecules are polymerizing in a manner which might lead to life.
I certainly do not discount the possibility that extremophiles might even be found in such environments. It is just my guess that we will not find anything living or more complex than very simple amino acids in this solar system (other than on Earth of course). And if I am wrong and life, or even complex organics, are found in the solar sysytem in places other than on Earth, I will be very excited! It will be a great day for science!
January 26th, 2006 at 6:15 pm
>>Irishman says
>>“I would prefer to see less people posting here describing ID believers with derogatory labels. It just detracts from the environment for all of us. â€
Kevin said:
>No no no it does not detract for me! I would like to see more people posting more derogatory labels for creationists. For every new facade put on 6-day creation beliefs we need at least two new derogatory labels.
Kevin, you sound like a mean, nasty person that is a real *joy* to spend time with. Rude behavior doesn’t reflect poorly on the recipient, only the one being rude. Most creationists aren’t Kent Hovind or Behe. They’re regular people with religious convictions and a need to preserve those beliefs, relying on bad information because it fits better with their beliefs and because it comes from sources they trust better, because those sources share their religious beliefs. Name-calling is elementary school playground behavior that only serves to anger, not inform. Grow up.
January 26th, 2006 at 6:32 pm
Underdog Said:
> I have seen various definitions of ID and not all are ridiculous. In particular those who believe, although cannot prove, that an “intellegence†exists behind everything.
Again, I feel I must clarify terminology. A belief in a deity behind the scenes but serving as the actual cause is not ID. ID is not just thinking God is responsible for it. It is this confusion that feeds the conflict, because people think, “I believe in God, therefore I believe in Intelligent Design, so why are those scientists being so anti-christian?”
ID is a specific assertion that naturalistic processes are not sufficient to explain the existence, structure, and form of the universe and in particular life, and that Intelligence is not only necessary but identifiable. ID is not a passive acceptance of God, but an active assertion of proof of god’s involvement. As long as people fail to make that distinction, they will struggle with seeing what the big deal is.
January 26th, 2006 at 8:05 pm
Phil Brady Said:
>For example, you say “students in Utah [will get] screwed out of their education†if this legislation passes, yet there doesn’t appear to be anything in the bill that would prevent the teaching of evolution at all. In fact, by the text of the bill (which I haven’t read, but only inferred from the article you linked to), if ID were shown to be unscientific, it wouldn’t be included in the curriculum. If ID were included anyway, then there’s the chance for debate, and ID should easily be shown to be bunk. How does a chance for scientific debate and questioning what is known (or taught to you as fact) equate to “getting screwed†out of their education?
Sorry, I’m finally getting a chance to get back around to this.
You state that the text of the bill does not prevent teaching Evolution, and only offers that scientific alternatives be presented. This is a clever ploy to weaken the teaching of Evolution by directing school boards to include statements in their curriculum that in effect state that Evolution is not conclusive, and that there are other, equal alternatives. But there are not. By stating that there are, it presents students with an incorrect picture about the state of biological science. In fact, the only alternative to Evolution out there is religious – either overt Creationism or covert ID. So even though he doesn’t mention either by name, by stating that there are alternatives, he is by default declaring them because they are the only other premises available.
And whatever Sen. Buttars claims about his motives, the proof is in his own statements.
“All it’s asking is when you get done teaching your evolution, is (say) there is no consensus, and there are other theories. . . . We’re trying to protect our kids,” Buttars said. “That professor they brought in from the BYU talking about (how) we evolved from chimpanzees, he don’t know that.”
His very casting of the statement gives away his prejudice – “teaching your evolution”. As opposed to who’s evolution? As for consensus, he is just plain wrong. There is a solid scientific concensus on evolution, and to say there isn’t is to either ignore and distort the truth or to equate literalist biblical interpretation with science. What exactly does he think he is protecting the kids from? Obviously if they need protecting there’s something endangering them, what is it? I assume he means protecting them from a faulty education, but his proposal is actually counterproductive if that is his goal, because he is pushing for school boards to be required to weaken their Evolution material. Given that material on Evolution is typically all but non-existent in many American schools, weeded down to “bare essentials” and glossed over to satisfy the public, that is the last thing that should happen to protect the children from a faulty education.
As for ID offering the opportunity for scientific debate and questioning, TheBlackCat addresses the issue pretty well, but the bottom line is that a high school (much less Jr. High or Elementary) science class is not really the place for determining what is and isn’t science. The students at that level are not sophisticated enough and don’t have the in-depth background to understand all the implications and the interrelations of the ideas being discussed. We don’t want them to discuss and debate whether the Bohr atomic model or Quantum Mechanics is a more accurate model of how chemistry actually works. We don’t want them to debate Relativity and whether or not the speed of light is really an upper limit on velocity. We don’t expect them to come up with conclusive proof that the Laws of Conservation are inviolable. We’re too busy trying to get them to understand the concepts and use them and the formulas correctly. Heck, many of these topics aren’t even discussed officially in high school.
There may be some justification for demonstrating science through exploring what is and isn’t science, but the ID topic is too heated and too likely to foster just the kind of religious separation and feelings of attack that the ID supporters are so worried is already happening in science classes. Too many science teachers are already facing an uphill battle trying to reach students who come into their classes ready for a “atheist science vs. christianity” fight, prepped with their Creationist arguments and refusal to accept Evolution on principle, regardless of what Evolution even really says. Putting the science teacher in the role of effectively saying, “science says Intelligent Design (i.e. God) is wrong” is just feeding the fire. If the students were sophisticated enough to grasp the difference between that and the explanation for why ID is not science, they wouldn’t be having the difficulty in the first place, they’d see past the artificial conflict.
>There’s nothing in the [First] amendment, nor the Constitution, that bans faith or belief in a classroom.
Correct. Individuals are allowed their own faith and belief. The issue is not what students believe, the issue is what beliefs the school is allowed to advocate. On that the intent of the Founding Fathers is on record, and the courts have been diligent in faithfully interpreting.
>You conclude that “[Senator Buttars is] trying to legislate the teaching of his particular belief. … What Senator Buttars wants children to do is swallow whatever is given to them.†But your conclusion is based on what? The article you link to doesn’t mention what his particular belief is, and it certainly doesn’t say that he’s trying to indoctrinate them into any religion.
The subtext is there in Buttar’s statements and in a basic knowledge of the situation. I’ve already addressed this above.
>I ask, how are they forcing faith on anyone? Where is the evidence for it?
ID is a religious premise that there is a supernatural agent actively engaging in design of the universe in general and life in specific, and that there is evidence of this agent’s actions. The ideas of the ID proponents have not been officially submitted for scientific review, and the informal scientific review has shown them to be utterly baseless and entirely faulty. Yet ID is being pushed as an equal alternative to Evolution. It is being advocated to be taught in public school science classes as an equivalent science finding. If that is not forcing faith on those children, it is certainly violating the intent of the Founding Fathers when they wrote the First Amendment, and when they advocated for no tax money being used to support any religious organization or activity. Advocating religious belief in the formal setting of the science classroom crosses that boundary.
>I don’t know of any legislation or school board decisions that outright bans the teaching of evolution or evolutionary concepts. And if creationists are indeed “twisting the truthâ€, won’t that guarantee their eventual downfall? Truth is truth, something that science reveals, and any bending of it is a falsehood contrary to nature and evidence, and will ultimately be discarded.
You’re missing the point. Look at Soviet Russia and Lysenkoism. There was a “science theory” pushed through propoganda and influence rather than science. Sure, it was eventually shown to be wrong, but not before setting Russian medical science back decades. Is that really what you’re advocating for America, to let this play out, eventually be shown wrong, but in the meantime America’s role in biological science (and the snowball effects into other sciences) dropping significantly as Europe and Japan roll along, picking up our slack? Sure, science will win out in the end, but what about the damage and delay done in the meantime?
The world could be a very different place today than it is. The Chinese could have discovered and colonized the Americas. They were well on their way, having already sailed to Africa and around the Cape of Good Hope. They had sailing vessels that put Columbus’s vessels to shame – think a fleet with ships 5 times the size of the Nina. Think of the possibilities of that change to world history. What if Democracy was born of a Chinese society? What if their scientific endeavors had continued instead of being cut short by political short-sightedness and cultural xenophobia? But they didn’t, with the death of the emporer the new leaders turned isolationist and burned the sailing fleet. History went a different direction. Am I saying I would rather be Chinese? No. What I’m saying is that advancement and achievement has continually through history been truncated and set back through short-sighted political agendas. ID is a short-sighted political agenda that has the potential to dramatically affect the landscape of U.S. science for the next generation. I would rather not let this opportunity for advancement of humanity slip away because of some people’s religious sensitivities and confusion.
>“Subverting the law†is a charged statement and also inaccuate–in all of these recent cases either school boards have been acting within their legal power, or legislation has been proposed or passed in accordance with state and federal principles.
There is this statement by Judge Jones:
—–
The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy. It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy.
—–
Though I suppose it’s easy to miss in 139 pages. He also said this:
—–
Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board’s decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.
—–
Again, that’s a pretty strong declaration that the Dover School Board used it’s official powers to attempt to enact an unconstituional policy through manipulative and deceptive means. I think that’s what’s meant by “subverting the law”.
January 26th, 2006 at 8:15 pm
I think it is important to make a few distinctions here. I have a specific way of handling the issue:
People who believe in intelligent design (lowercase) are people who believe the universe was ultimately designed by some sort of entity. This would include everyone from deists to YEC’s (young-Earth creationists). A specific group within the intelligent design community are people who subscribe to Intelligent Design (capitalized). These are simply Creationists who are trying to avoid explicitly making a connection with the Christian God. They claim that macroevolution cannot occur, evolution does not explain life on Earth, the universe shows evidence of intelligent design, etc. The distinction is between the lowe-case form intelligent design, which is an extremely broad group with an extremely broad range of beliefs that would include many even borderline religious people, and the uppercase form Intelligent Design, which is a group of religious fundamentalists. So the lower-case form is the name for a very general belief, while the uppercase form is the name for a very specific religious and political movement within the fundamentalist Christian community. The latter is what people refer to when they say ID or IDers, not the former.
A similary distinction can be made between creationists and Creationists. creationists believe that the universe was created. When, where, how, why, and by what varies a great deal between creationists. Once again, this would include deists, YEC’s and pretty much everyone in-between. On the other hand there are the Creationists, which is basically simply young-Earth creationists. This group is a movement within the fundamentalist Christian (and Muslim, to some extent) communities that rejects all of modern science and all of ancient history and claims that, because a literal reading of The Book of Genesis says so, the universe and everything in it was created in six literal days 10,000 years ago, and that there was a worldwide flood that wiped out almost all life except for two of every animal (with some exceptions that the group can’t seem to agree on) and a handful of humans. They claim to be biblical literalists but they reject literal interpretations of such things as statements that the world being flat. Like with intelligent design and Intelligent Design, creationism is an extremely broadly defined, very general belief about the origin of the univers while Creationism is a very specific anti-science fundamentalist movement.
Although the role of capitalization is more a convention that I try to follow, the distinction between the two groups is very central to the issues here. The problem is the Intelligent Design/Creationist community have co-opted the terms. They take a very general belief that is held by every member of a large variety of religions (although not all religions) and co-opt it as the name for a specific movement that is rejected by most religious people who originally would associate themselves with the term. The distinction between the original usage of the term and the co-opted usage by the YEC fundamentalist movement has to be kept in mind. I find the capitalization is a handy method of keeping the two groups distinct as much as we can considering how the movements themselves are trying their best to blur the distinction in the eyes of the public.
January 26th, 2006 at 8:24 pm
“Kevin, you sound like a mean, nasty person that is a real *joy* to spend time with. Rude behavior doesn’t reflect poorly on the recipient, only the one being rude. Most creationists aren’t Kent Hovind or Behe. They’re regular people with religious convictions and a need to preserve those beliefs, relying on bad information because it fits better with their beliefs and because it comes from sources they trust better, because those sources share their religious beliefs. Name-calling is elementary school playground behavior that only serves to anger, not inform. Grow up.”
No not at all I am a very happy person and all my moms love me. I don’t really care if rude people who make unsupported statements are ridiculed for their comments. If they want to believe false information, and resist all attempts to learn otherwise, why should we not have a list of derogatory names available to hurl at them, invectively.
As a member of a class that has been consistently called a terrorist, just like osama, evil, amoral, lacking human kindness, wrong, dead wrong, willfully wrong and stupid, I am not at all ill-disposed to anger the fools who preach ID idiocy
and you will notice that I never once called anyone a name…
January 26th, 2006 at 8:27 pm
Irishman:
“Putting the science teacher in the role of effectively saying, “science says Intelligent Design (i.e. God) is wrong†is just feeding the fire.”
no one asks science teachers to say that. and they don’t. They correctly say that the question creationism or of a diety directing evolution is outside the scope of science.
They NEVER say it is WRONG. Science teachers are careful not to piss off the fundies. They always say that science cannot address ideas outside of “natural” causes.
January 26th, 2006 at 8:28 pm
L Taylor Said:
> It’s like the old argument that it says “freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion.†You can’t have freedom OF religion (islam for instance) without freedom FROM religion (xianity).
I’ve encountered this argument before, and after giving it some consideration, I think that it in part derives from a different use of the word “freedom”.
The people making this argument seem to be using “freedom from religion” to mean some sort of forced anti-religion. They take it to mean that no one is allowed to have any religion. That’s not what it means, and that’s an odd use of the word “freedom”.
When “Freedom of Religion” advocates use the phrase “freedom from religion”, they are using it in the sense of an allowance. Not only is it allowed to have any religion as opposed to a specific religion, but that it is also allowed to have no religion.
True religious neutrality requires “No Religion” to be on the list of options. It has to, or there is advocacy of religiousness over non-religiousness. But true religious neutrality does not require or demand that “No Religion” be the only option. Some religious people seem to think that is what is being advocated. It is not.
January 26th, 2006 at 9:21 pm
Dave Said:
>On the thoeory of creationism or higher will, vs the theory of evolution, both should be taught. We can’t be so closed minded as to say that evolution is the only possible way for us to be here. I think you should stick to your creed and stay with astronomy.
1. Creationism is not equivalent to Theism. Belief in higher will is a religious question, but that is not the full extent of Creationism. Creationism takes that theistic belief and asserts direct creation. The only way that could be seen as an alternative to Evolution is if that is taken literally, as in God said let it happen and *poof* it happened. Theism is a much broader stance that allows God the freedom to create the universe and the Earth and all life as he desires, even by using Evolution. Confusion over this distinction feeds the religion/science conflict.
2. Creationism and Evolution are not equivalent arguments. Creationism is a religiously grounded, religiously driven belief with no evidential support and the only basis in interpretation and translation of ancient stories that were probably only oral tradition for much of their early existence, originated by a scientifically unsophisticated population. Evolution is a comprehensive scientific explanation of the mechanisms and methods of biological diversity. It is strongly supported by evidence and testing, and ties in with geology, astronomy, oceanography, paleontology, archeology, and throughout science.
3. Creationism is an opinion – a religious belief. It is taught – in numerous churches across the country and around the world. Whether it should be taught is an opinion not shared by everyone, certainly not if taking Creationism in its true sense and not the muddied general faith sense you used it. It has no buisiness in science class. I has no business being advocated in any public school class. Creationism and theism in general could be taught about in some sort of comparative religions class, but that would only be informatory, not advocatory, and it would be in a context of many various beliefs being equally discussed. That would be difficult to even-handedly approach at a high-school level, and bound to stir up community protest.
4. Evolution is a blanket term for all the processes involved in the diversity of life. Primarily it is taught as “change of gene frequency in the gene pool” or some equivalent population genetics description. But in the broadest sense, Evolution just means “changing of life forms over time”. Evolutionary theory involves discussion over the mechanisms that cause and drive that change, and how that change is carried out. The fact that change occurs is so proven even Creationists accept it as “microevolution”. To say that we can’t be sure evolution is the only way to get here is to really misunderstand what Evolution is and says.
5. You seem to be using Evolution to mean origins of life. Technically, the origins question is not addressed by current Evolutionary theory. Evolution is primarily concerned at this point in the changing and diversifying of life after it occurred. The origins question is still largely unanswered, though it is being studied scientifically. The results have not yet been fully integrated to Evolution, because they are not very conclusive or even directive at this point. However, when a naturalistic explanation for the origins problem is ever discovered, it will be compared with and integrated with Evolutionary theory, and perhaps Evolution will be modified by those results. That will not make it any less Evolution, nor does it make Evolution false. Merely incomplete, and incompleteness that is currently recognized and admitted by the biological community. Thus the efforts to study the origins problem.
January 26th, 2006 at 9:53 pm
Kevin from NYC Said:
>I don’t really care if rude people who make unsupported statements are ridiculed for their comments. If they want to believe false information, and resist all attempts to learn otherwise, why should we not have a list of derogatory names available to hurl at them, invectively.
Rude people eventually get what they deserve. Becoming a rude person to counter them seems like a counterproductive way to make the point. I have no qualm with criticizing stupid comments, or the mindset that makes them. I just don’t think hurling derogatory names is productive. As good as it may make you feel to vent, it separates you and your viewpoint from people you might be trying to reach, the people who think they agree with what the IDer is advocating because he shares their general religious perspective.
>As a member of a class that has been consistently called a terrorist, just like osama, evil, amoral, lacking human kindness, wrong, dead wrong, willfully wrong and stupid, I am not at all ill-disposed to anger the fools who preach ID idiocy
As a member of that same group, I share your anger at being so classified. But I fail to see how crawling down to their level makes you any better. And again, it’s not the ID advocates that are the audience, but the general theistic public who perceives they, too, might be ID advocates because they share similar religous beliefs. Also, joining in the hurling of invective only escalates the problem, and justifies their behavior. Phil tries to maintain a polite forum here, and efforts by participants to ruin that forum bother me. Maybe you haven’t witnessed a flame-fest, or maybe you enjoy them, but I prefer a discussion of the issues rather than an exchange of name-calling.
>and you will notice that I never once called anyone a name…
Not yet, but you advocated it.
“why should we not have a list of derogatory names available to hurl at them, invectively.”
The only reason to have said list is in order to use it. Furthermore, the hurling of insults only feeds the impression that all Evolution supporters are just christian-haters. If we’re trying to spread information, we shouldn’t be spreading the counter-productive false impression.
>>Irishman
>>“Putting the science teacher in the role of effectively saying, “science says Intelligent Design (i.e. God) is wrong†is just feeding the fire.â€
>no one asks science teachers to say that. and they don’t. They correctly say that the question creationism or of a diety directing evolution is outside the scope of science.
I think you missed my point. I am not saying that is currently the situation. I was pointing out the results of trying to incorporate ID into science classes as a demonstration of what science is not. I am saying that would put science teachers in that position.
January 26th, 2006 at 9:58 pm
TheBlackCat, you correctly perceive the problem with the confusion over terminology. However, I don’t agree with your approach. By using the capitalization rules, you may help keep it straight for yourself, but unless the distinctions are actively pointed out to others, the confusion will remain on their side even if it is not on yours. If the narrow terms are allowed to be used in the broad sense, it makes them useless as a way of separating the distinct elements of their meaning from the broad terms that already have alternate words.
Thus I point out the distinction between Creationism and Theism. The distinction between Intelligent Design and Theism. I use the terms in the narrow sense of what they mean, and explain that to people who misunderstand it in the broad sense. But you are correct, the Creationist and ID movements are actively using the confusion over the terminology to spread their advocacy farther than the ideas would actually merit.
January 26th, 2006 at 10:24 pm
Julie, starting points on Behe and Irreducible Complexity
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe.html
I particularly like this one:
http://udel.edu/~mcdonald/mousetrap.html
It shows an “Irreducibly Complex” system evolving, using one of Behe’s pet examples, the mousetrap. Using this simple model, McDonald demonstrates some of the key methods that small changes can incrementally improve the overall design, and eventually end up with something that doesn’t appear to be able to function without any one of the pieceparts.
Unfortunately I’m having trouble finding the really good critique of “Darwin’s Black Box” by another biochemist. It was very detailed and showed the flaws in Behe’s methodology and research into the topic.
January 27th, 2006 at 6:34 am
It’s like the old argument that it says “freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion.†You can’t have freedom OF religion (islam for instance) without freedom FROM religion (xianity).
Where I come from religion is a private thing. I would never want to infringe on other people’s freedom to gather or practise it. But I also object to overt displays of religion in the public domain. In that respect it is a bit like porn: Keep it to yourself because it can offend others.
January 27th, 2006 at 7:39 am
One thing I’ve never understood about the whole Christians vs Science thing is why it is so concentrated in the United States?
It’s comparatively rare to hear of such a debate in Europe. Even in Canada, where there are plenty of Christian fundamentalists, you don’t see people petitioning government to put ID in science classes, and Canada isn’t even officially disestablished! In fact, despite there being to official separation of church and state, prayer has been gone from Canadian public schools for almost 30 years, and there’s no fights about it. Science classes teach science, and there’s little whining about it. People who want to learn religion go to religious schools or take philosophy classes.
This whole religion vs school thing really seems to be localized to the USA, and perhaps some middle-eastern countries. I really do wonder why that is?
January 27th, 2006 at 7:40 am
I said: In fact, despite there being to official separation of church and state,
When I meant to say: In fact, despite there being NO official separation of church and state,
January 27th, 2006 at 9:48 am
Irish:
“I think you missed my point.” Hmm so I did. well…well it was a good point then and I agree with it!
As for my other point, this thread only had a few “IDiots” in it and no other derogatory labels in it. (that I saw) perhaps you reacted to Tony’s hurt feelings when you wrote:
“I would prefer to see less people posting here describing ID believers with derogatory labels. It just detracts from the environment for all of us.”
but a) there were hardly any labels, and b) you don’t speak for all of us and c) and I, personally, would like to see some new ones.
Not nasty but punny, not hurtful except in the way that the truth hurts.
January 27th, 2006 at 11:23 am
Irishman Says: [January 26th, 2006 at 10:24 pm]
“Unfortunately I’m having trouble finding the really good critique of “Darwin’s Black Box†by another biochemist. It was very detailed and showed the flaws in Behe’s methodology and research into the topic.”
Found it! Go to: http://www.csicop.org/si/2005-11/id.html
Skeptical Inquirer magazine : Nov/Dec 2005
Volume 29, Number 6
Does Irreducible Complexity Imply Intelligent Design?
Michael Behe’s “irreducible complexity,†according to “design theorists,†implies Intelligent Design of biological systems. In fact, such a conclusion lacks a logical foundation. Irreducible complexity can even more reasonably be construed as an argument against Intelligent Design.
MARK PERAKH
January 27th, 2006 at 11:53 am
My final entry on this blog subject, really!
The best book that I have concerning the evolution/creation debate is:
SCIENCE AND EARTH HISTORY–THE Evolution/Creation Controversy by Arthur N. Strahler, Prometheus Books.
Of course, I recommend it for everyone.
Some quotes from the Preface:
“The attempt by fundamentalist Christians to blend science and religion into a coherent view of the universe is what this book examines.”
“Their is nothing more fascinating than a good argument between groups deeply divided on an issue that both consider of vital importance to society.”
“I hope those readers, if there be any, who follow the whole text through from cover to cover [528 pages] will say to me, ‘Thanks for letting me in on how the natural sciences really work.’”
January 28th, 2006 at 6:49 am
Another way to look at the mouse trap example is that someone had to make the changes, they didn’t happen without someone physically making those changes. Even the last part about taking away the piece of wood doen’t really make a good enough point because you effectivly replace the piece of wood with a floor or wherever you attach the pieces. Another point I would like to make is that God has to work within the laws of this universe. If you replace create with assemble it takes the creation down a different path. What if God used life giving elements already present to assemble life on earth, which started the process, and then evolution takes over to help diversify life and spread it across the planet? Since evolution doesn’t cover the origins of life it just makes sense to me that it be used as a creative process or is a big part of the creative process. Make no mistake here that I am not defending ID/Creationist in there attempt to include a non-scientific theory into science, I am just pointing that its very possibly to have a creator even based on known facts. I see flaws in both sides because the origin of life is still up for grabs as to what happened. There is just not enough scientific proof either way as has been pointed out plenty here. No one who believes in a creator can say they know how creation is done, so discarding scientific finds that might not fit you belief is bad. Science does an enormous amount of good towards the finding of truth. As I said before I believe that science is discovering the creative process not disproving a creator.
January 28th, 2006 at 11:27 am
RAD says:
“Another way to look at the mouse trap example is that someone had to make the changes, they didn’t happen without someone physically making those changes.”
A predictable response, but it is simply more ID obfuscating. The IDers make a claim, for instance that a mousetrap is cannot be formed by a series of small, incremental, always beneficial steps as evolution describe. This is their notion of “irreducible complexity”, and is the mousetrap is the standard example they always use. Now someone has shown that the mousetrap itself is not “irreducibly complex” at all. So, of course the response is “but it took a human to plan and execute each of these steps”. That, of course, has absolutely no bearing on the original claim. The IDers claimed that a mousetrap cannot be formed as evolution described, by a series of small, incremental steps, with each step being superior to the purpose. The original statement the IDers made had no reference to who or what caused the steps, simply that there is no possible way for them to occur. It is only when they are shown to be wrong that they add a new requirement (as you did): the steps couldn’t be carried out by a human. The fact that this has no bearing on their original argument is irrelevant. They simply tack on new requirements or conditions whenever their claims are shown to be wrong. This is called “moving the goalposts”, and is one of the things that scientists hate about IDers. It makes them impossible to debate, no matter how good your evidence is or not matter how well you trash their arguments you can never win because they will always tack on new requirements or new conditions or something new that will keep them right and you wrong. They will not admit they are wrong. This is not how sciene works, if you are shown to have made a flawed statement, then the statement is flawed. You don’t keep adding on additional conditions (”I really meant this, but didn’t say it” or “you have to show this, even though it is not really relevant to my original statement”). If you are wrong, you are wrong and move on. But IDers and Creationists will never, ever, ever, under any circumstances allow themselves to be shown wrong.
RAD says:
“Even the last part about taking away the piece of wood doen’t really make a good enough point because you effectivly replace the piece of wood with a floor or wherever you attach the pieces.”
This is completely in line with biological systems. There are plenty of biochemical systems that attach themselves to an existing, fundamental, multi-purpose biochemical systems in order to carry out their function. If you were to take an example, you could use calcium ion inflow triggering the release of neurotransmitters at synapses (naturally, considering my specialty is the nervous system). Calcium ion inflow is a fundamental second messenger used for a wide variety of purposes in just about every cell in the human body. You could consider that to be the floor. In the majority of cases it is used to control gene transcription in some way (we could make an analogy to the floor holding up the walls, the walls vary but they are similar in nature). Now, the nervous system has taken something that is more often used for controlling gene regulation and instead use it to control the release of excretory vesicles containing neurotransmitters. This has nothing at all to do with gene regulation, but makes effective use of the basic voltage-gated ion channel system. You could imagine this as the mousetrap making use of the floor for something different than its normal use (of course, like calcium is used for a variety of purposes besides gene regulation the floor is used to do such things as hold up furniture and ease moving objects around). Now, say a creature evolved so that its synaptic vesicles are triggered by sodium ions instead of calcium ions. You could think of this as the wood. Certainly the calcium channels still exist (like the floor), but now the sodium ions are what actually trigger the synaptic vesicle release. So the floor and wooden block thing is completely in line with biological systems.
RAD says:
“Another point I would like to make is that God has to work within the laws of this universe. ”
He does? Since when? Both the Old and New Testament are full of examples where God does things that completely violate the laws of nature. The claim that “God has to work within the laws of the universe” is completely at odds with all fundamental Christian, Jewish, and Muslim teaching. The point is that the Judeo/Christian/Muslim God is omnipotent, he can do whatever the heck he wants, irrespective of the laws of nature or the laws of the universe.
RAD says: “What if God used life giving elements already present to assemble life on earth, which started the process, and then evolution takes over to help diversify life and spread it across the planet?”
If he did, he would pretty much have had to created a single, extraordinarily simple cell (before life had a chance to seperate into the present Domains). Otherwise it would be completely at odds with what we know about life on this world.
RAD says:
“Since evolution doesn’t cover the origins of life it just makes sense to me that it be used as a creative process or is a big part of the creative process.”
No, it doesn’t work that way. That is called “God of the Gaps”. The idea is that anything that is not yet explainable by science must be the work of God. The problem is that people have tried to use that idea for centuries, but as time went on what we don’t know has gotten smaller and smaller and smaller, and in the end there will likely be nothing substantial left for God (except perhaps for starting the universe). The fact that we do not know something does not mean “Goddidit” is a valid answer. In fact, such an answer is a completely antithetical to science. Once you use that answer then all research and discovery stops. If “Goddidit”, then there is nothing more to learn. Science simply ends (which is, actually, exactly what the leaders of the ID movement want). However, the point in this case is, once again, moot. Evolution may not say how life started, but that is simply because evolution only deals with living systems. It is not like we know nothing about how life started. The field called “abiogenesis”, which deals with that very issue, has been extremely successful at determing many completely plausible mechanisms by which life on Earth may have developed from non-living matter, and we are learning more about it every day. I recall a university, Harvard I think, just set up a massive research laboratory with the sole purpose of researching this issue. We know a great deal about how life could have developed. There are a bunch of very releasistic competing models. None of them involve God. We simply don’t know which one is the correct one yet, but that issue very well be solved as we learn more about early Earth and more about how well various mechanisms work.
RAD says:
“I am just pointing that its very possibly to have a creator even based on known facts.”
Of course it is possible. You can never rule out the involvement of an omnipotent diety, especially one who is intent on hiding his tracks. However, the very fact that you cannot rule it out means it is irrelevant, and in fact counterproductive, to science. Science only deals with testable claims, if something cannot be tested it is not part of science. A omnipotent diety intent on hiding its involvement is the best example we currently know.
RAD says:
“There is just not enough scientific proof either way as has been pointed out plenty here.”
Have you heard nothing that has been said here? THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SCIENTIFIC “PROOF”! IT DOES NOT EXIST!!!!! Please stop using that term, it only demonstrates that you have not been paying the least bit of attention to anybody here.
January 28th, 2006 at 2:31 pm
Blackcat I never said evoultion is flawed, someone else not payng attention? I didn’t move any goal post I just pointed out a the behind the seens working of an individual, which you also admited is plausable. I never said I buy into irreducible complexity. I also don’t think you stop explaining things as “God did it”. I know these are all problems faced with debating IDers, which I’m not. The debate will never end because there will never be nough EVIDENCE(better then proof, sorry about proof I’m still in learning of terms you use but I can catch on I think, I’m trying to correct my terminology) to discount the plausability of a creator.
With your explaination of the wood/floor portion I would say you explained it very and are your right. I just ment to say that the part was replaced with something else, even being different it serve a similar function.
Of coarse God is omnipotent but he is still bound by laws. This is not against all christian views of God either. He has examples outside of nature as we now know it, which you say is changing all the time. My biggest point is that science is discovering the creative process, not ruling out the creator with more evidence. What you seem to be saying is that if there is a God science ends and is no longer needed. I don’t see that to be the case at all. The God I know and believe in wants us to learn everything we can here, knowledge is power, knowledge is what makes God omnipotent. The only reason to hide his tracts is because we are expected to live by faith. I don’t see Creationist expecting science to end either, they want one thing that also won’t come from science, acknowlegement of god doing more than existing and having an active part in the creation of life. If you have to rule out a God so that you can continue exploring science be my guest. It’s all great to me as I love to learn as much as I can.
January 28th, 2006 at 7:43 pm
Rad said:
“I never said evoultion is flawed, someone else not payng attention?”
I never said that you did. I simply said you were using a standard ID/Creationist tactic, and explained how it is used by the IDers/Creationists.
Rad said:
“I didn’t move any goal post I just pointed out a the behind the seens working of an individual”
That IS moving the goal posts. As I kept saying, the question is whether a mousetrap can develop by discrete steps, each being confering an advantage to the mousetrap. Who or what caused it to take those steps has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the question at hand, it is completely irrelevant. This tactic serves no purpose other than to change the topic of the debate from the issue at hand to another, completely seperate issue. Behe made a very specific claim. That very specific claim has been shown to be utterly wrong. Whether some other, totally unrelated claim is right or wrong has absolutely no bearing on whether the claim we are talking about is right or wrong. That is what “moving the goalposts” is, someone or something has been shown to be wrong but then people tack on additional criteria or conditions in order to drag things out and obfuscate the real issue being debated. No matter what other unrelated issues you may bring up, Behe is still wrong.
RAD says:
“I also don’t think you stop explaining things as “God did itâ€.”
Yes, you do. The claim that God did it means that the issue is settled. Nothing more can be said about it. Nothing more can be learned about it. It was a miracle and that is all there is to it. God can do anything. The moment you start allowing devine miracles, anything is possible. No natural laws can be applied because miracles do not follow natural laws.
To quote Isaac Asimov: “Where any answer is possible, all answers are meaningless.” In addition, “To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today. ”
RAD said:
“I know these are all problems faced with debating IDers, which I’m not.”
If you use standard ID/Creationist flawed argument tactics to support standard ID/Creationist flawed claims, then people familiar with the movement will probably assume you are a standard ID/Creationist. You know the old saying, “if it looks like a duck…”. It would probably be a good idea to learn what they do wrong and not do it yourself. Generally speaking, anything an IDer/Creationist does and anything an IDer/Creationist claims can, 99% of the time, be safely assumed to be hopelessly flawed, probably unethical, and generally something to avoid claiming or doing yourself under any circumstance (but especially around people who know the ID/Creationist movement).
RAD said:
“Of coarse God is omnipotent but he is still bound by laws.”
That is not possible. Something that is omnipotent has no bounds. Something that is omnipotent can do anything, whether it follows natural law or not. That is the what omnipotent means. Anything that is bound by any rules or laws whatsoever has limits on what it can do, and thus is, by definition, not omnipotent. Claiming the Christian God is bound by natural law is to claim His power has limits, and thus to claim that He is not omnipotent. You cannot say something is omnipotent with limits, that is an oxymoron.
RAD says:
“What you seem to be saying is that if there is a God science ends and is no longer needed.”
I am saying nothing of the sort. What I am saying is that if you allow God as an explanation for what happened, then all science ends. God may have been involved in any number of things. But to say that it was a miracle done by God is to give an ultimate answer. Once that answer has been invoked there is no reason for further study, the issue is settled and nothing more can be learned. God may have been involved, but saying it was His doing is not a valid answer to any question in science.
RAD says:
“knowledge is what makes God omnipotent”
No, knowledge makes God omnicient (all knowing). Being able to do anything he wants, irrespecitve of the laws of nature, is what makes God omnipotent. These are two completely different characteristics.
RAD says:
“I don’t see Creationist expecting science to end either…”
Then you aren’t looking very hard. I recommend you do a web search for “wedge document”. This is where the leaders of the ID movement explain that their goal is to completely and utterly destroy science forever. That is what the want, and everything they have been doing has the sole purpose of accomplishing their goal. Sure they may claim they like science and just want to science to be correct, but in reality they hate science and want it gone forever.
RAD said:
“If you have to rule out a God so that you can continue exploring science be my guest. ”
Wow, you sure seem to want to believe that I am an athiest. Well, if it makes you feel better about your own beliefs to just write me off as a Godless athiest feel free. But I am not. I am a Christian. I believe in God. I believe God created the universe. But I am perfectly aware that there is no evidence whatsoever to back up my beliefs. I am perfectly aware that science will never support my beliefs. I am perfeclty aware that the answers science discovers regarding life on Earth and the nature of the universe say nothing about the truthfullness or falsehood of my beliefs. I understand that my beliefs are an act of faith. Faith, by definition, is not supported by any evidence. My faith is my faith for the sole reason that I choose it to be, not because of any outside evidence. I do not believe in God because of the beauty of the universe. I do not believe in God because I see the mark of his work in the world. I do not believe in God because I interpret scientific findings to support my beliefs. I believe because I choose to believe and for no other reason. Faith is faith, science is science, I see no need to try to mix the two. So discount me as an athiest if you want, whatever you choose to believe regarding me has no impact on my faith.
January 28th, 2006 at 8:30 pm
[...] Also see Bad Astronomy’s whack-a-mole post which really inspired my “fantasy” theme. [...]
January 29th, 2006 at 5:16 am
I did the research and see the error of my ways. I don’t see any good coming from the ID/Cretionists movement to either science or religion. At the core they are one more flawed religious movement creating havoc in our world. They don’t understand the true nature of the creator they are trying to enter into science.
No, I don’t think you are an athiest because of earlier postings and postings in other places on this site. Its my fault for not fully explaining myself.
Omniscience and omnipotence are to distinct characteristics but you can’t have omnipotence with omniscience. They go hand in hand. You have to know all before you can do all. All knowing is the characteristic that keeps all powerful in check because he has to do things perfectly or cease to be God.
“I am saying nothing of the sort. What I am saying is that if you allow God as an explanation for what happened, then all science ends. God may have been involved in any number of things. But to say that it was a miracle done by God is to give an ultimate answer. Once that answer has been invoked there is no reason for further study, the issue is settled and nothing more can be learned. God may have been involved, but saying it was His doing is not a valid answer to any question in science”
I understand where you are going with this and agree. For me to say God did this is not the ultimate answer but a realization that he has a hand in all and gives me more reason to marvel at the greatness of his plan for our existance.
Blackcat says:
“My faith is my faith for the sole reason that I choose it to be, not because of any outside evidence. I do not believe in God because of the beauty of the universe. I do not believe in God because I see the mark of his work in the world. I do not believe in God because I interpret scientific findings to support my beliefs. I believe because I choose to believe and for no other reason. Faith is faith, science is science, I see no need to try to mix the two. So discount me as an athiest if you want, whatever you choose to believe regarding me has no impact on my faith.”
I don’t advocate replacing or mixing science and religion. Seeing the mark of God in the world and universe is not a reason to believe but is a reason to further cement your faith in God. The outside evidence is what makes my faith stronger not give me reasons to begin to believe. I came upon this website in the beginning because of the fox special on the moon hoax. Not because I believe we never went to the moon but because I didn’t have the answers to their ridiculous claims. This site has been a wealth of information to me. I am trying to learn and understand as much as I can and I hope you can see that you are getting through and I am maybe coming to a better understanding of the science points of view. Even being religious I am not above being wrong, or admitting such. Science can and does support beliefs if you are willing to look past the science is out to discount a God stance. It is a misconception and again I am after evidence to support or change my thoughts about the scientific community. In short a quest for understanding and more knowledge.
January 29th, 2006 at 10:35 am
RAD says:
“hope you can see that you are getting through and I am maybe coming to a better understanding of the science points of view.”
Indeed, I see a marked change over the course of this dicussion. You definitely seem to have gotten a very good handle on the issues.
January 29th, 2006 at 7:44 pm
You bunch of crybabies…if you can’t have it your way you cry “foul”. You claim separating “church and state” is the best thing. It’s not just separating the issues anymore…Liberals want anything that has to do with God and morals to be dead on the rack. This great nation was founded on the very principles that “offend” so many liberals today. God raised this nation and he will take away his “support” if we continue to head in the same direction. Liberals want only scientificly proven things taught in schools…no “opinion”….well probably 75% of what they teach in history classes is flawed..based on the opinion of what people think happened in the past. Scientist find a small portion of some record somewhere and “they fill in the blanks” with what they “believe
happened. Astronomers are the same. Time and time again…their theories of how the universe was created crumbles in their faces…yet…they continue to teach as if FACT! The big bang and gravitational model no longer hold water…somethings wrong…what is it? I know…let’s congure up an unexplained pile of mularkey and we’ll call it “dark matter”. How does it work?…who cares! Ha! ha! Intelligent design can be taught in schools right beside evolution…then let the students make an “informed decision”. Conservatives are ok with this method…it’s FAIR! Liberals don’t want fair! They know that when given the opportunity to “choose”…they “loose!” Liberals are not happy deep down inside and they don’t want anyone else to be happy. You people sound like a bunch of sick little mynah birds…”it’s not fair..it’s not fair…it’s not fair…it’s not fair…” Here’s the bottom line…liberals are SCARED OF GOD! They should be too. Here is the liberal motto…”Out of sight…out of mind”. Plain and simply though…God doesn’t play that way! One of us is going to be wrong…DEAD WRONG! I know it won’t be those that believe in God!
January 29th, 2006 at 10:19 pm
Marc Stacy says:
“You bunch of crybabies…if you can’t have it your way you cry “foulâ€.”
No, we cry “foul” if people lie, cheat, decieve, intentionally mislead, manipulate, knowingly use erroneous information, knowingly use poor and ultimately unethical argument tactics, manipulate or even outright alter the statements of others in order to change the meaning of the statements, conciously avoid and ignore anything that might contradict their opinions, or otherwise willfully attempt to manipulate the system and trick everyone else into helping them accomplish their goals of destroying our society. When people do that, like the leaders of the ID and Creationists movement do pretty much ever time they open their mouths, then we cry “foul”.
Marc Stacy says:
“You claim separating “church and state†is the best thing.”
Indeed, it has worked very well for our country, as the founding fathers who coined the term “seperation of church and state” explicitly stated that they intended it to.
Marc Stacy says:
“Liberals want anything that has to do with God and morals to be dead on the rack. ”
No, they want to follow the explicit statements the founding fathers, the very people who wrote the amendemnt, made on the issue.
Marc Stacy says:
“This great nation was founded on the very principles that “offend†so many liberals today. ”
On the contrary, our “great nation” was founded by a bunch of deists. Many of them weren’t even Chrisitian, not to mention rabid fundamentalists. Thomas Jefferson was about as a liberal a Christian as you could possibly imagine. Benjamin Frankling, probably the most well-respected man of his time, wasn’t a Christian at all and utterly rejected Christianity. George Washington appeared to share his beliefs. The claim is a common one, but simply does not mesh with the actual beliefs of those who actually formed our country. Religious fundamentalism of the form practiced today is a relatively recent phenomenon, not having arisen until the 20th century.
Marc Stacy says:
“God raised this nation and he will take away his “support†if we continue to head in the same direction. ”
I see, so you have a direct line to God. You alone know exactly what he is thinking, exactly what he is planning, exactly what he intends for us. You alone speak for God. Give me a break. You don’t know what God wants the US to do any more than the rest of us. Plenty of non-Christian countries have been extremely successful, and plenty of devoute Christian countries have fallen. God does not appear to judge countries on whether a small sect of Christians in the country force their beliefs on everyone else, some such countires have prospered and other have failed.
Marc Stacy says:
“Liberals want only scientificly proven things taught in schools”
Any liberal who wants that is an idiot. It is obvious you haven’t actually read any of the other comments here. Which probably means you won’t read mine, either, so I probably shouldn’t be feeding the troll. Anyway, the issue is that “THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS PROOF IN SCIENCE”. Anybody who expects “scientific proof” is expecting something that cannot possibly exist.
Marc Stacy says:
“well probably 75% of what they teach in history classes is flawed..based on the opinion of what people think happened in the past. ”
Oh really? 75%? That is a very large number. It means that 3 our of every 4 things we think we know about history is wrong. Wow, I never knew. I guess all the people who spend their entire lives analyzing every single aspect of every minute historical event are just idiots. 10 years of school and a lifetime of experience and they still can’t hold a candle to you, huh? Wow, not only are you the one person who speaks directly for God but you also know more about history than every single expert in the world. Impressive. It is all irrelevant, though, because we are discussing science, not history. What is and isn’t right about history is entirely irrelevant.
Marc Stacy says:
“Scientist find a small portion of some record somewhere and “they fill in the blanks†with what they “believe happened. ”
No, scientists do not study history. That would be historians. I still fail to see what bearing historians have on science (or Creationism, for that matter). And for someone who seems to be extremely sure about what the founding fathers intended for this country, you seem to have absolutely no faith in the accuracy of our historical records. According to what you are saying pretty much everything you think you know about the founding fathers must be wrong, right? Or is that the one thing our historical records are absolutey perfect regarding?
Marc Stacy says:
“Time and time again…their theories of how the universe was created crumbles in their faces…yet…they continue to teach as if FACT!.”
No, that would be scientists, not historians. You really need to get this straight. Scientists study science. Historians study history. Historians do not study science and scientists do not study history. This is not a complicated issue, just look at the names.
And generally speaking, most theories regarding the origins of the universe that have crumbled were religious ideas that were accepted by mainstream scientists and were ultimately disproven when they actually started using science to analyze the phenomenon instead of blindly depending on religious dogma of the time.
And scientific theories are not facts. Facts are used to build theories. Anybody who tries to teach a theory as a fact is either clueless about science or an idiot.
Marc Stacy says:
“The big bang and gravitational model no longer hold water”
Sure they do. There are few theories better supported by the evidence. In fact, the main theory that is better supported (probably the best supported of any scientific theory) is evolution.
Marc Stacy says:
“I know…let’s congure up an unexplained pile of mularkey and we’ll call it “dark matterâ€.”
Actually, dark matter was discovered due to problems with the rotation rate of galaxies, the big bang was irrelevant and in fact the issue of dark matter would still be with us even if God created the universe in 6 days 10,000 years ago. The issue of the rotation of galaxies would still be with us.
Marc Stacy says:
“How does it work?…who cares! Ha! ha! ”
You do realize massive amounts of resources, both in terms of money, facilities, and human time, are being dedicated to solving this problem, right? Obviously SOMEONE cares because a lot of people are trying very hard and spending a lot of money to figure out how it works.
Marc Stacy says:
“Intelligent design can be taught in schools right beside evolution…then let the students make an “informed decisionâ€.”
No, students CANNOT make an informed decision. They neither have the time, experience, background knowledge, or understanding to make anything close to an informed decision. All they habe to go on is what bit of scientific-sounding gibberish sounds better. The people who CAN make an informed decision, real scientists with a great deal of experience in the field and extensive knowledge of the issues, are the people who should be having the debate. But the IDers do not want to debate real scientists in a scientific setting on the scientific merits of their conjecture (it is NOT a theory). However, IDers refuse to do this. The reason is simple. They know they will lose. They know their claims are wrong. They know their claims will be torn to shreds by people who actually understand what they are saying. So they go out of their way to avoid actually having to present their theory to the scientific community and let the scientific community make the call as to whether it has merit. They know it has no merit. So they are targetting everybody outside of the scientic community, everybody who doesn’t know enough to tell what they are saying is garbage, and hoping to get their support so they can bypass the normal scientific process all other scientific theories have to pass through before being accepted for teaching in public schools.
Marc Stacy says:
“Conservatives are ok with this method…it’s FAIR!”
No, it isn’t. What is fair is for ID to meet the same criteria all other scientific theories pass through. It has to be peer reviewed. It has to be tested and hown correct countless times. It has to be accepted by the vast majority of the scientific community. It has to be used every day by countless scientists around the world. If it can do that, then it deserve a place in public schools. Every other theory taught in public school has had to meet those criteria. What is fair is for ID to follow the same path all other science must follow. But ID does not want fair. Its supporters knows it can never meet the same criteria the rest of science must meet. It knows its only hope is to bypass the rigourous “gauntlet”, as I like to call it. Fair has nothing to do with it. Fair is everything or everyone being treated the same. ID wants the opposite of fair. ID wants to be handed on a silver platter what every other scientific theory must fight tooth and nail for years in order to learn. Special treatment because people like you is not fair. Fair is having to go through the same trials and tribulations everyone else must go through.
And by conservatives, I assume you mean people who have been members of conservative organizations their entire life? By conservative, you mean people who were elected to the US Congress on a republican ticket? By conservative, you mean people who are officially endorsed by President George W. Bush and Tom Ridge? By conservative, you mean people who are devoute members of their church? By conservaite, you mean people who are appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as a federal district court judge? By conservative, you mean Judge Jones, who meets all of these criteria and recently ruled against the ID movement in the Kitzmiller vs. Dover trial?
Perhaps an excerpt from his decision may be in order:
“Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board’s decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.”
Marc Stacy says:
“Liberals are not happy deep down inside and they don’t want anyone else to be happy. ”
On the contrary, I am very happy. What makes me unhappy is when a group of religious fundamentalists get together and hatch a plan to destroy our country’s ability to function in the modern world. What makes me unhappy is when the group gets together and decides to destroy the field I work in. That tends to piss me off just a little.
Marc Stacy says:
“Here’s the bottom line…liberals are SCARED OF GOD! ”
Naturally. Anyone who believes in God but is not scared of him is an idiot.
Marc Stacy says:
“Here is the liberal motto…â€Out of sight…out of mindâ€. ”
I can’t recally ever hearing a liberal use that motto.
Marc Stacy says:
“One of us is going to be wrong…DEAD WRONG! I know it won’t be those that believe in God!”
Despite what you want to believe:
1. There are a great many liberals who believe in God
2. There are a great many scientists who believe in God
3. There are a great many scientists that are conservative
4. There are a great many historians that are conservative
5. Historians and scientists are not the same thing
6. There are a great many conservatives (like Judge Jones) that are not scientists but reject ID
7. There are almost no scientists who accept ID
8. There are almost no conservative scientsits who accept ID
9. There are very few Christians worldwide who accept ID
10. There are very few, if any, major Christian denominations that accept ID
11. There is almost nobody who actually knows what he or she is talking about that accepts ID
12. The founding fathers believed in “seperation of church and state”, and in fact coined the term
13. A number of founding fathers were not Christian, some were vocally anti-Christian, and many, if not most, were Deists of some sort
14. Liberals can be happy
15. Conservaitves can be unhappy
16. ID has not passed any of the criteria that all material taught in science classrooms must pass
17. Expecting everyone to treat you differently than everybody else is not fair
18. Countries with a fundamentalist Christian state religion do not always succeed
19. Countires with no state religion whatsoever do not always fail
20. Christians do not necessarily live
21. Athiests do not necessarily die
22. You are do not speak for God, God is perfectly capable of making up His own mind without your help
January 30th, 2006 at 4:32 am
http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/index.php/First_amendment
Here is an excellent site to understand the first amendment. Although the actual clause” separation of church and state” is not found in the first amendment it has been determind by the supreme court that it is implied in the clause “Government shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion.” plenty of other good links there to inform yourself about the supreme courts findings and interpretations of the first amendment.
January 30th, 2006 at 8:43 am
Marc Stacy says:
“well probably 75% of what they teach in history classes is flawed..based on the opinion of what people think happened in the past. â€
Wow, if history, recorded in comparatively modern times, is 75% flawed, what does that say about the Bible, written 2000-ish years ago based on oral stories, and translated and interpreted to within an inch of its life by hundreds of people over the centuries?
Marc Stacy says:
“Intelligent design can be taught in schools right beside evolution…then let the students make an “informed decisionâ€.”
How about we force Christian churches to teach the Koran and the Baghavad Gita – then students of Christianity can make an “informed decision”? That would be fair wouldn’t it? Of course, those heathen books haven’t passed the standards of Christianity that are required for teaching, but after all, fair is fair and Sunday school students need to be exposed to these things to make a proper decision on what really is true.
Marc Stacy says:
“Here’s the bottom line…liberals are SCARED OF GOD!”
Interesting assertion. By Canadian standards, I’m pretty conservative, but by US standards I’d certainly be a “liberal”. I’m not scared of any gods because I don’t believe there are gods by which I should be frightened.
What I *AM* scared of is religious fundamentalism killing off critical thinking through harassment and coercion, whether that’s Christian fundamentalists in the US or Muslim fundamentalists in the middle-east, or Hindu fundamentalists in India. If critical thinking is set back, we start moving back toward the dark ages, and I can’t imagine how that would be good for anyone… religious or not.
January 30th, 2006 at 9:55 am
Marc Stacy, that was quite a lot of ignorance packed into one post. If you back off from the strict fundamentalist POV and really take a look around, I think you’ll find things are really very different from what you’ve been led to believe.
January 30th, 2006 at 10:40 am
TheBlackCat, I think you rode RAD a little hard. I don’t think he intended to sound so Creationist as you felt he did.
For instance, RAD said,”I also don’t think you stop explaining things as “God did itâ€.” You argued that he is wrong, but I think there are two different interpretations of that remark at work.
RAD does not seem to be taking “God did it” as a statement of how it was done, only the religious assumption behind the scenes. He accepts God did it through Evolution.
The “God did it” response is only an end to the investigatory process when one uses that as the “how”. How did life begin? God did it. How did life diversify? God did it. If used that way, you are correct, it is an end to science, but I don’t think RAD meant it that way.
RAD Said:
>Another way to look at the mouse trap example is that someone had to make the changes, they didn’t happen without someone physically making those changes.
Regardless of whether that’s moving the goal posts, it is irrelevant. Mousetraps aren’t self-replicating – they don’t build new mousetraps. Mice, on the otherhand, build new mice.
The Mousetrap example was an analogy, or model. It isn’t fair to over-extend the analogy.
January 30th, 2006 at 1:12 pm
Fascinating discussion. I consider myself to be a Christian, perhaps more deist than otherwise, and find the ToE to be the most logical answer to how things have changed over the millions of years. (Still have questions about the BEGINNING of life…but that, of course, is a different thing from evolution). Personally, one thing I think will be cool would be, after death, if there is a Heaven and all questions are answered there, that I will finally know all the answers…that for me, would be Heaven.
Loved the mousetrap examples. I had trouble imagining the changes, but found the pictures to be very helpful.
Glad I found this blog. I love things that make me think and help me learn more than I knew before.
January 30th, 2006 at 2:18 pm
Thanks Irishman, I needed a good exercise in explaining myself better and Blackcat did help me think harder about wording comments posted so I have to be thankful for that also. I am certainly outmatched in science knowledge here but I came to learn and thats what I am doing. There are some many misconceptions feeding debates. Its OK to be wrong sometimes and I think people get caught up in that and will continue to argue a flawed point just to argue. I think the biggest part of critical thinking is to be more critical of yourself then you are of others.
Dawn the is plenty of good stuff here.
You may not believe in astrology but it sure was bad luck for me to have TheBlackCat cross my path!!! hehehe
January 30th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
Should have been
Dawn there is plenty of good stuff here
I think a neuron misfired
January 30th, 2006 at 8:24 pm
Irishman said:
“TheBlackCat, I think you rode RAD a little hard. I don’t think he intended to sound so Creationist as you felt he did.”
I would have to agree. Please accept my apologies, RAD.
January 31st, 2006 at 10:11 am
Just got a giggle out of a Google ad that was inserted at the top of this page:
“Darwin’s Folly
Learn the facts evolutionists don’t want you to know about.
http://www.goodnewsmag.ca”
LINK (link fixed by The Bad Astronomer)
Heh.
February 2nd, 2006 at 4:26 am
no harm done
February 2nd, 2006 at 8:26 am
Thanks BA
February 10th, 2006 at 11:46 am
Just a quick follow-up on this thread…
“Evolution bill survives by a vote”
Even though the bill has been watered-down to near meaninglessness, it will still be taken as a moral victory by proponents; a point of encouragement.
What’s most distressing is, and not really surprising, is the lack of enlightenment among a people (Mormons) whom I grew up with and who really have no doctrinal reason to reject science and many doctrines that point to embracing it. It’s simple, ignorant, fanaticism overcoming a rational root. Just another reason why religion is failing us.
March 21st, 2006 at 4:29 pm
Teaching about and debating ID in school is fine… in a theology class.