Texas, c’mon! I mean, really.
According to sources found by Greg Laden, it looks like the Texas Board of Education may get a creationist majority on March 4.
Perfect. Florida barely squeaks by from securing their reputation as a haven for anti-reality goofiness, and so Texas stands ready to pick up the baton.
Any Texans here? Get out the vote! Make sure people like stealth creationist Barney Maddox are relegated to the trashbin of history.
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Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
Contact me: The Bad Astronomer "at" gmail "dot" com
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February 25th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
I’m a science teacher in Texas. I sure hope we can evolve past this dark attack on science. My sister lives in Florida. The creation thing is still an issue there. How can we stop this stuff for good?
fos
February 25th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Like a hideously gangrenous limb we may be forced to sever Texas from the rest of the Union to prevent the infection from spreading.
February 25th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Wouldn’t it be simpler to just give Texas back to Mexico?
Wait, that wouldn’t be fair to the Mexicans. We take it away when it’s all new and shiny and then give it back when it’s all broken. That’s just bad manners.
Perhaps if we put a bow on it and throw in a Walmart gift card?
-OEJ
February 25th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
fos:
“I’m a science teacher in Texas. I sure hope we can evolve past this dark attack on science. My sister lives in Florida. The creation thing is still an issue there. How can we stop this stuff for good?”
We can give volumes of evidence showing that natural selection plus billions of years equal a powerful force easily able to account for all of the variety of life and then compare that to the zero evidence given by the ID crowd.
…Oh, wait. We’ve already done that. Over and over. And over and over and over.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
It just never ends, does it? *sigh*
February 25th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Texas wanted to form their own republic at one point, right? Maybe it will soon be time to forcefully encourage them to put that idea back on the table…heh.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Texas will soon return to Mexico. What we violently took from them by war will return to them by a quiet & growing occupation. Let the Mexican government deal with the issue.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Oooo! Stealth creationists… of Doom! I like.
We take it away when it’s all new and shiny and then give it back when it’s all broken.
Uh, Texas took *itself* away from Mexico when it declared independence in 1836. It existed as the Republic Of Texas for almost 10 years before joining the USA. I’ve always theorized that’s what lies behind the rather insulated attitudes you find there. They were their own little mini country for a while.
Honestly, what are they teaching you kids these days?
They can have Southern California back after I retire and move away because the place is almost completely ruined anyway.
Perhaps if we put a bow on it and throw in a Walmart gift card?
If you give them Texas you’re already giving them, like 214,000 WalMarts.
We can give volumes of evidence showing that natural selection plus billions of years equal a powerful force easily able to account for all of the variety of life and then compare that to the zero evidence given by the ID crowd. …Oh, wait. We’ve already done that. Over and over. And over and over and over.
All they care about it their *one* volume. You know… the one that gets thumped a lot. Anything else is the work of the Dark Side.
No, not Microsoft. Satan.
Texas wanted to form their own republic at one point, right?
They did. See comments above.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Wait.
Before you give Texas back, can we at least get the Supercomputer out of Austin?
February 25th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
As a science teacher in California, I have had to deal with this issue off and on for the past 20 years. Luckily for us, the last time they created State Science Education Standards, Evolution was spelled out in no uncertain terms. In fact, Evolution and the geology supporting it are two of the seven standards covered in 7th grade.
Here’s the link to the California Standards in question.
http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/scgrade7.asp
February 25th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Texas will soon return to Mexico. What we violently took from them by war will return to them by a quiet & growing occupation.
Texas declared its own independence, and for some good reasons, too, such as forcible disarmament, expulsion of legal landowners and suppression of dissidents. “We” didn’t *take* anything. They joined the USA *10* years later. In fact, Texas is the only state to enter under a treaty rather than violent annexation.
For Cliff’s sake, you people can’t complain about education in Texas if you don’t even have basic historical facts correct.
And now you have me, a Californian, defending Texas. I hate you all!
February 25th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
I used to make bumper stickers that were styled like the “Free Tibet” stickers but instead they said “Free Texas”
My slogan was “Texas is the only state in the Union that was at one time it’s own separate autonomous republic, and with our help it can be again.”
Maybe it’s time to dust off those old photoshop files and start the campaign again.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
I’ll be voting on March 4th. Is there a list compiled somewhere of incompetant creationists that we should be voting against?
February 25th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
In fact, Texas is the only state to enter under a treaty rather than violent annexation.
You mean, other than Alaska.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Maybe it’s time to dust off those old photoshop files and start the campaign again.
Can you start a Free California movement as well?
Many of us out here would love to secede, but for the opposite reason.
Yes, we’re full of ourselves.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Texas, it’s now in your hands. Do you want the ultra conservative redneck stereotypes to continue on forever or you guys actually EVOLVED now? Yea. Evolved. HAVE YOU?
February 25th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
You mean, other than Alaska.
Argh! Only former Mexican state was what I meant. Damn your pedantry interfering with my pedantry!
February 25th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Unbelievable, yet not really.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Ok, I love that EVOLUTIONARY SCIENCE is decried as ‘fairy tales’.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Texas, it’s now in your hands. Do you want the ultra conservative redneck stereotypes to continue on forever or you guys actually EVOLVED now? Yea. Evolved. HAVE YOU?
I’m suddenly curious to see how the primaries go there.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
The only way to fix things is to stay active in the appropriate organizations and be respectful. You have to win peoples minds. Saying things like get rid of Texas, name calling, religion bashing and the like will never help. You have to win peoples hearts and minds. Antagonizing others may feel good but won’t help. The opposite.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
What are you so scared of?? The God is suddenly going to part the Heavens ala Monty Python and completely ruin your little world? Get a grip. There’s plenty of room for all of us. Just take one of your favorite Carl Sagan books off your shelf and do some reading. You will calm down eventually….
February 25th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
What are you so scared of?? Is God is suddenly going to part the Heavens ala Monty Python and completely ruin your little world? Get a grip. There’s plenty of room for all of us. Just take one of your favorite Carl Sagan books off your shelf and do some reading. You will calm down eventually….
February 25th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
@Ron: …It’s just pretty hard when convos goes like that:
“Evolution’s the truth. Creationism isn’t. That’s all.”
“YOU JUST DISSED MY LORD AND ADAM AND EVE.”
…yea.
February 25th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Creation vs. Evolution. Even if the existance of other Intelligent beings is proven isn’t it true that both (cre. & evo. theories) can still stand? I’m not voicing any opinion.
February 25th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Michelle, You’re right, it is hard but if you want to prevail, you have to keep at it. Its easy for people to stop listening or ignore you if they are being insulted or attacked.
February 25th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
With the anti-evolutionists, no amount of evidence will deter them from their ignorance. Kind of like liberals with history. What ever is convenient is all that counts.
February 25th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
===
Creation vs. Evolution. Even if the existance of other Intelligent beings is proven isn’t it true that both (cre. & evo. theories) can still stand? I’m not voicing any opinion.
===
They are as incompatible as Wrong and Right. Creation is not science, it cannot be science (pre-assuming the outcome is circular reasoning), it never will be science, it has no predictive, useful or technological value. It is purely blind rhetoric with no value. Evolution, on the other hand, is real science making real predictions, real genetics and real medicines.
February 25th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Creationism starts with a premise and rejects any evidence which contradicts that premise. Creationism, therefore, is NOT science and can never be science.
That said, I do find it troubling that despite much effort, no life has ever been created in the laboratory based on current theory. I suspect there is something fundamentally flawed in what we now think to be the conditions that created life. That does NOT mean I support creationism in ANY way! Neither do I see any evidence for ID.
But I do suspect there is something we are not getting. What that is, I cannot imagine.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
It is SOOO! depressing that the state that contains the Johnson Space Center and the people that are supposed to take us back to the moon, is being beat back to the dark ages by these creationist types. Next thing you know, they will be saying we can’t get to Mars because “God” doesn’t permit it!
February 25th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
I am tired of writing letters and receiving inane responses from these religious zealots. Fighting this is much like banging my head into a brick wall. Backing up and getting a faster start is only going to damage my skull. I say that we wait and when these IDiots try to devolve the science education system then we present them with their own version of the Dover trial. I will contribute to that effort as much as I can. It’s now time to lay back and wait for them to present a chance for a legal attack. Shouldn’t take very long.
BTW, Barney Maddox is not in my district so I can’t vote against him.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Ron is right. When you’re talking to the Creationists on school boards it’s one thing, but when you’re talking to laypeople, it’s another. Ordinary people don’t like having their state dissed, especially when Texas is so large, has four different climates, and there are more progressive cities like Austin and Houston. Upon reflection I realize that people outside of the cities were more open to you when you propped up what’s good first, then made your argument. Even though “Don’t Mess With Texas” was an anti-littering slogan, it reflects a diehard attitude with some people. (:
PS Of course, some people just will never be open-minded.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Daffy:
“That said, I do find it troubling that despite much effort, no life
has ever been created in the laboratory based on current theory.”
Remember — evolution does not, in any way, shape, of form, even attempt to say how life started. (I sure hope I’m right on that, after all that emphasis.
)
And, as I understand it, the amino acids which form the basis of life have been created in the labs under conditions duplicating the early Earth (as we currently understand it). Perhaps we just didn’t wait long enough after that step?
Not to mention the moral implications of creating “life”.
February 25th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
[...] Birth Pangs wrote an interesting post today on Texas: poised on doominationHere’s a quick excerptI mean, really.According to sources found by Greg Laden, it looks like the Texas Board of Education may get a creationist majority on March 4… [...]
February 25th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
> Creation vs. Evolution. Even if the existance of other Intelligent beings
> is proven isn’t it true that both (cre. & evo. theories) can still stand?
> I’m not voicing any opinion.
Not sure how ‘existence of other intelligent beings’ is relevant to this thread, but two alternate theories can still stand if both explain the available facts, in equally useful ways.
As creationism doesn’t generally explain the available facts, and certainly doesn’t do so in a useful way (useful would imply the ability to make predictions) it really isn’t capable of standing, regardless of the truth of evolutionary theory.
February 25th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
@Daffy : I think they actually did create life recently I think, or they are well on their way. Good old Craig Venter has been at it again. From what I understand they started with just a set of chemicals and are creating DNA strands.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycoplasma_laboratorium
http://www.jcvi.org/cms/research/projects/synthetic-bacterial-genome/press-release/
So is there something fundamentally flawed in the way we think life began here on earth? Nope – just came down to good old chance again.
February 25th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
“it looks like the Texas Board of Education may get a creationist majority on March 4″
Being from Houston I thought I would clarify a few issues as well as refute the many posts which appear to be maligning my state. First of all, there is no such thing as the “Texas Board of Education” as the initial post specified. As y’all are probably aware, the school districts are independent as in ISD (Independent School District). What was being talked about in the linked URLs was a school district up in the Dallas/Fort Worth area where apparently a creationist is running for the board. There is a TEA (Texas Education Agency) which is state-wide but this was not the organization being mentioned in the articles. So this is hardly a state-wide issue even if the creationist should gain a seat on the board. Classrooms throughout the state will NOT all of a sudden start teaching creationism.
I did a little digging and managed to find a link to what we call TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills) which is the official basis of the public school curriculum. I was interested to see what it had to say about high school biology. Here is what I found:
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/rules/tac/chapter112/ch112c.html
.
.
.
“Students in Biology study a variety of topics that include: structures and functions of cells and viruses; growth and development of organisms; cells, tissues, and organs; nucleic acids and genetics; biological EVOLUTION; taxonomy; metabolism and energy transfers in living organisms; living systems; homeostasis; ecosystems; and plants and the environment.
.
.
.
(7) Science concepts. The student knows the theory of biological EVOLUTION. The student is expected to:
(A) identify evidence of change in species using fossils, DNA sequences, anatomical similarities, physiological similarities, and embryology; and
(B) illustrate the results of NATURAL SELECTION in speciation, diversity, phylogeny, adaptation, behavior, and extinction.”
.
.
.
So currently, evolution, natural selection, etc., etc. is written into the statewide curriculum for high-school students. It would take a concerted effort by creationists to overturn this. One creationist getting a seat on one school board is not nearly enough force to accomplish this. So please don’t flush Texas down the toilet just yet.
“Wouldn’t it be simpler to just give Texas back to Mexico? Wait, that wouldn’t be fair to the Mexicans. We take it away when it’s all new and shiny and then give it back when it’s all broken. That’s just bad manners.”
Given the numerous Spanish-language adds for both Dona Hillary and Don Barack (Si, podemos!) currently airing on both radio and television I’m not sure that it hasn’t already been given back to Mejico. It seems that way sometimes. BTW, California was also its own republic briefly in 1846 before being annexed by Uncle Sam. But California didn’t last by itself for longer than a month. Their great love of high tax rates drove them right into the arms of Uncle Sam culminating all these years later with the highpoint of California culture – electing an Austrian bodybuilder as governor. Props to you!, California.
February 25th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
“Good old Craig Venter has been at it again. From what I understand they started with just a set of chemicals and are creating DNA strands.”
The Craig Venter project is called the Minimum Genome project. It is NOT the creation of life from scratch. Rather, he takes a bacterium and proceeds to remove genes from its DNA, one by one. Once the thing dies he knows that he has gone too far and he puts the gene back. That way he can come up with what are truly the essential genes without which the organism cannot live. This is far different than building life from scratch since the genes were already there at the beginning of the experiment.
February 25th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
@ Tom Marking
What about the SBOE – http://www.tea.state.tx.us/sboe/
State Board of Education – which is what the original news article referred
to.
And Craig Venter’s Project :
A team of 17 researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) has created the largest man-made DNA structure by synthesizing and assembling the 582,970 base pair genome of a bacterium, Mycoplasma genitalium JCVI-1.0. This work, published online today in the journal Science by Dan Gibson, Ph.D., et al, is the second of three key steps toward the team’s goal of creating a fully synthetic organism. In the next step, which is ongoing at the JCVI, the team will attempt to create a living bacterial cell based entirely on the synthetically made genome.
The team achieved this technical feat by chemically making DNA fragments in the lab and developing new methods for the assembly and reproduction of the DNA segments. After several years of work perfecting chemical assembly, the team found they could use homologous recombination (a process that cells use to repair damage to their chromosomes) in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae to rapidly build the entire bacterial chromosome from large subassemblies.
I dont know about you but, that says starting from scratch and assembling synthetic DNA to me.
February 25th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Spankermatic (cool handle), thanks for the links! Far too in depth for me to comment on at this point. But very, very fascinating reading and much appreciated!
February 25th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
@ Daffy
No worries. If you search around the ole interweb for Venter, there’s a lot of info on him. He’s quite a controversial figure, and is doing work that many find is wandering into an ethical grey area.
February 25th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
“What about the SBOE – http://www.tea.state.tx.us/sboe/
State Board of Education – which is what the original news article referred to.”
O.K. My bad on that one. I thought it was a local school board. This is more serious than I had thought. I hope the guy has some opposition. When I checked my sample ballot there were two districts 6 and 7 for State Board of Education. Both of them had only one person listed so that’s not much of a choice.
February 25th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
A bit of Texas history:
The Texans, who were citizens of Mexico did leave rule by Mexico on their own. Fearing the attacks of Mexico, they invited Americans to come and settle there. They practically gave land away in an attempt to make Texas much harder to take back. Many Americans moved there and took up arms with the Texans to defend the territory from Mexican rule. When Mexico was defeated, the Americans kept coming. Spanish speaking Texans became a minority quickly, and their land was taken as they were run off and often killed. Eventually they were included into America, with some fighting about the free/slave state status.
While we did not “steal” it from Mexico, we did steal the land from Spanish speakers, a little bit at a time.
The best way to handle creationist is to make our local schools actually teach evolution properly. Darwin spent a great deal of time backing up his ideas with evidence and argument. Students need to have these facts and arguments shown to them. There should also be a policy on how to deal with angry parents that are angry that their children are actually learning stuff they themselves have no clue about. Yep, we need to teach parents too. Most schools just gloss over the subject quickly hoping the teacher will not be lynched by parents. This is not a good policy, it is surrender. I think truth should matter. It is sad, but evolution is not the only subject glossed over by schools. Our culture as a whole does not value truth.
February 25th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Ah – the good old voting technique of “you can choose any candidate you like as long as its this one” – time to get out the petition clipboards methinks.
February 25th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Re Tom Marking
“electing an Austrian bodybuilder as governor. Props to you!, California.”
Coming from a state that elected a closet gay as governor, that’s rather fine.
February 25th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
As a Texan, I also support secession, but only if you help put me in power. Mwahaha.
February 25th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
“You mean, other than Alaska.
Argh! Only former Mexican state was what I meant. Damn your pedantry interfering with my pedantry!
”
Don’t forget the Louisiana Purchase: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_Purchase).
Yes, I know it wasn’t a Mexican state, but it goes to show that much of the enormous land acquisition by the young USA was peaceful and legal, at least as far as European nations claiming North American territory were concerned.
Acquiring land occupied for generations by Indians is a different story…
February 25th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Sorry, for the long and somewhat pretentious post (complete with footnotes!), but my thoughts in this instance were not expressible in a pithy couple of paragraphs. If anyone does want to take the trouble to read this, then I should make it clear that although I’m discussing religion, I’ve tried not to turn it into one of my normal gambits for baiting Christians and bringing out the trolls. Believe it or not, but I do feel guilty about helping to derail some threads of late. This post (mostly) stays on topic and is an attempt to answer Fos’s Q about what can be done.
I make no especial claims that the following arguments are right. I’m not a philosopher of science or a tactician. Everybody seems to be a self proclaimed expert on how the process of science should be described, or what the proper scientific method should look like. I really don’t know if anyone’s got it totally right, but one of the purposes of comments sections like these is to hash out a lot of different arguments in the hope that something in the chaos might be of some use to somebody. If anyone has criticism then don’t assume I’ll be offended.
(I’m also making a living doing science in the ‘Doomed’ state of TX, so this topic is of some importance to me- well until that big cat finally swallows our whole state.)
———————————————————————————
Fos: The only way to completely stop creationism is to stop its root cause: religion. There is nowhere on Earth where a majority Christian/Muslim* population doesn’t at some point try to bring their religion into the classroom**.
Of course, we can’t shut down the churches- nor should we try in a free society. The best we can do is to convince the religious that there are very sound reasons why religiously motivated arguments have no place in the science class or in the laboratory.
I’ve been doing some thinking about this problem in the last few days. I think there’s a fundamental principle (secularism) which is just as important as the BA’s post about the difference between faith and science. (The argument’s not original- I stole most of it from sources as diverse as Daniel Dennet and Barack Obama, but it goes back to at least as far as Tom Paine. That which is good about what follows is not original, that which is original is wrong.)
I accept that some people have profound religious experiences and are proud of their faith. However, a Christian or Muslim has to realize that they cannot use these experiences in order to make scientific arguments, for the simple reason that their ‘faith’ is not amenable to independent verification.
That doesn’t mean that they’re wrong. For all I know, God really is speaking to someone who prays every night, but it would be unfair to ask me to trust an argument based on such experiences, because I cannot reproduce their religious experiences for myself. (Interestingly, in cases where independent checks are possible, it’s so far always been the case that prayer and spiritual healing are found not to work.)
The scientific process requires that results and conclusions must be both verifiable and are repeatable. For this reason alone it seems to me that religious based arguments cannot ever be admitted into science.
Note that this is slightly different from the BA’s post of a few days ago in which he defended the view that science is only concerned with naturalistic phenomena and depends on doubt, not faith to work. Even if you hold the view that the fundamental axiomatic foundations used by a particular field are a matter of belief, you must admit that at the very least, science gives results which can be verified by others. Also, its predictions, even when based on incorrect assumptions can be repeated by other groups, as long as they agree to also use the same assumptions. This includes the ‘prime’ assumption the BA referred to, that the universe obeys natural laws. It may be philosophically possible that we live in a universe where a supernatural God performs sneaky miracles, but since we all accept, that for whatever reasons, such phenomena have never been verified or reproduced, we are resigned to limiting arguments used in scientific articles to the domain of natural law only.
As the BA noted, it’s also worth taking into consideration that the scientific process in which faith and miracles are excluded seems to work pretty well if judged by its results. We can’t prove that science is the best way of getting these results, but we haven’t yet found another system which delivers anything like its rewards.
———————————————————————
I think the same principles should hold true in the political arena. We should try and bring about a change in society whereby we agree to frown heavily on politicians who make moral decisions based on their religious experiences. For instance, if you believe that ‘life begins at conception’ then you’ll need to defend your argument in a way that someone who has never been to your church can understand it.
In my opinion, to be consistent, we also need to dispense with appeal to the Flag- i.e. patriotism. An argument cannot stand or fall on patriotism alone, because patriotism, like religion is a subjective feeling which is not amenable to verification. We don’t all have ‘faith’ in the mystical worship of our respective country’s patriotic iconography. I can’t tell you with any certainty whether a particular act is patriotic or not. All I can judge is whether it serves the best interest of the population at large or ultimately, the world as a whole.
As I understand it, true secularism is more than forbidding the state to establish a particular religion. It is a principle in which we expect that all religious belief should be kept out of any public decision making process whatsoever. That includes even apparently benign beliefs from ‘moderate’ Christians, such as the importance of faith or the sanctity of life, or the God given right to freedom. However well meaning those beliefs are, we ultimately should agree as a society to avoid using them as a basis to legislate morality.
A fair criticism is the religionist who asks how any morality can be defended without recourse to religion or emotion-based arguments. We all know that murder is wrong, but it’s not trivial to explain why it should be so. The founders of the US constitution held certain truths to be ’self-evident’ and maybe it’s difficult to do much better. As a broad principle, the ‘golden-rule’ works in most cases, but I accept there are many situations in which complex trade-offs are involved. Many laws restrict the freedom of a few in order for the benefit of the majority, but we also recognize that even a small minority has a right in some cases to inconvenience the majority.
——————————————————————————-
Texas is ‘doomed’ in part because enough of its voters do not accept that a secular society is worth holding on to. The answer is not to convert them to atheism or to hope that we can realistically convince them that the Bible is in error. What we can all do is to discuss the importance of secularist principles in defending the freedom we have to all of our ‘beliefs’, be they Muslim, Christian, atheist or Jewish.
None of this means that I’ve gone soft! I’m still of the view that three out of the four categories in the above list are ludicrously wrong and that the world would be a better place if more people joined my group. However, I don’t see that it’s practical or even ethical to attempt proselytization of others through outreach. Some of the thinkers in my group do a great job of making the case for our shared philosophy, but it is always people’s choice whether to enter into a dialogue with them- the experts don’t go out knocking on doors or picketing churches.
Conversely, I think that we do have a duty to essentially restrict our science teaching to the naturalistic view of the universe even if it might offend some members of a classroom. If children want to learn about science, then we should do them the honor of teaching them what science actually says about the age of the universe and evolution and not some dumbed down version in which we try not to avoid giving offense to their private religious views. Some teachers and some states are failing them by watering down coverage of the more sensitive topics, or pretending that a controversy exists where it doesn’t.
——————————————————————————–
I accept that my suggestions are not very practical. I have little idea how to bring about such a large change in attitudes, and even if it were somehow achieved, one might suspect that Texas would be one of the last states to change their way of thinking. I’m afraid that TX really is ‘doomed’, because of inertia as much as anything else.
Perhaps Obama would help tip things in the right direction. I watched his famous speech on religious tolerance and in parts he sort of had it right, but then he ruined things when he claimed that government needs people of faith in order to work effectively, whereas I believe that even innocent sounding expressions of faith should be discouraged in politics.
It would also be great to have someone like the Mythbusters use television to generate discussion about why the scientific method is best for answering some problems and why religious explanations don’t fit the bill.
To an extent, the Mythbusters, Randi, the BA et al already do a great job in tackling astrology, urban legends, misconceptions etc. But I’m most encouraged by the BA’s willingness to also tackle issues which involve clashes between religion, politics and science. For instance, the BA is able to Blog about the topic of faith and how it relates (or doesn’t) to science, without turning it into an advertisement for atheism or claiming that all religion is wrong.
That’s not to diss people who do promote atheism. Nor am I claiming that outright venom is not justified against religion’s pernicious effects on our society. (OK, so my atheism slipped out, but this particular argument isn’t about my views on religion.)
There’s a void, which needs to be filled in our debates and the BA seems to be one of the few people doing this job. We need more people who are not afraid to tackle religious intrusion into the public sphere, and yet are credibly independent when it comes to which religious belief (including none at all) is correct. People who will stand up for secularism as a principle, without completely alienating the thinking religious.
I’m pleased to state that I don’t know what the BA’s religious views are (if any) even though I’ve been reading his words for years. Even if he did ‘come-out’ as an atheist, Muslim, or Buddhist, it wouldn’t make much difference to me, because I respect the secular and scientific nature of his arguments. I suspect that many religious readers feel the same way, but I also know that he often attracts criticism for a perceived bashing of religion (which I think is unfounded).
I’m concerned that I’ve been making secularism sound wishy-washy, when it’s doesn’t have to be. Secularism does not mean that you can’t have fiery opinions or that you have to find an inoffensive middle road in which you try not to offend anyone but end up pleasing no-one. (Barack makes this mistake.)
I think it’s possible for a good secularist to be just as powerful as the most stalwart atheist or the most Bible pounding preacher, and I think the BAblog is a pretty good place to look at how it can be done.
(Of course, this is only my take on one aspect of the BA’s writings. I don’t for a second presume that he goes along with everything in this argument.)
——————————————————————————-
I’m certainly not a secularist by nature, except for my (possibly failed) attempts in this one post. I’m much more inclined to butt heads with the religious. I sometimes feel a little too outspoken on this Blog’s comments pages, but also too moderate by the standards of the crowd on the equally good Pharyngula site.
It’s clear where my beliefs lie with regards to religion, and I don’t make any attempt to hide them. However, from a tactical perspective, it’s not people like me who are going to make any headway in TX. It’s going to be people like the BA who are experienced at making arguments which don’t require a religion-optomy in order to swallow them. (That’s not to say that some of his arguments wouldn’t naturally push people away from some aspects of religion.)
As we are aware, most university professors in science depts or science teachers in high schools already have experience defending science against religious intrusion whilst remaining outwardly impartial on the atheism vs religion debate. They’re the ones who are already on the front lines and who most need our support.
How about this for a good rallying cry: ‘Let science teachers do their job.’ Even Texans would find it hard to argue with that.
(Again, I’m sorry for taking up so much scrolling time on this page! I’m consoled by the fact that most sensible people won’t have had the energy or inclination to read anything but by name and so not too much time has been wasted.)
———————————————————————–
Footnotes
* Jewish Americans are excluded from this sentence because they by and large haven’t shown a strong social tendency in this country to change the science curriculum. They also get a free pass from me because I work in physics, which owes a large part of its success to the work of (ethnically) Jewish intellectuals over the past century. Christians and Muslims also did a bit of the work I know, but I consider them to be a second order perturbation.
** I accept that many Christians manage somehow to ‘believe’ in both the Bible and evolution, though I will never understand how they do it. We’ve had that debate before, and I’ve little interest in reopening it today. For purposes of this discussion I will allow that it is possible for a self-described Christian to be knowledgeable about evolutionary theory.
February 25th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Good grief! I wouldn’t bother reading any of that long preceding post. I did, and that guy’s a nut!
February 25th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Re Tom Marking
“electing an Austrian bodybuilder as governor. Props to you!, California.”
I’m from a state that elected a wrestler/body-builder/action figure to be governor. http://www.prisonplanet.com/images/july2005/010705ventura.jpg
Remember that a third-rate actor, Ronald Reagan, had his Alzheimer’s-addled finger on the US nuclear arsenal trigger for eight years.
US politics don’t require global awareness, knowledge of distant cultural memes or thoughtful appreciation of the enormous contributions to world culture from cultures far, far older and wiser than the young, arrogant USA. US politics only require an enemy – any enemy – to blame for US troubles.
That sounds a bit like history repeating itself, ya?
February 25th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
So if Texas can’t leave the union would it be OK to get kicked out? I mean it would be tough having to give up paying all the US government taxes but in return it would provide a secure southern boarder for the US. At least the Red River and Sabine have water in them – most of the time.
As a low tax, energy exporting country with good infrastructure and a good labour force we would even offer to take the part of the US military left in Texas and add it to the Texas National Guard.
We would even use the federal gasoline tax to fix the roads instead of using it to pay farmers to make ethanol.
Since the US supports the formation of the independent country of Kosovo out of Serbia, a little thing like getting rid of Texas shouldn’t even cause a ripple. Besides, without the stumbling block of Texas, the left and right coast of the US wouldn’t have any trouble electing a real liberal person as president.
Come on; throw us in the briar patch, Brer Fox.
Beside, these creationists sneak onto school boards all the time, get found out by the community and get kicked off after a couple of years. Every now and then a burr under your saddle is what it takes to get the horse to buck.
February 25th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
@ Christian X Burnham :
Wow. Easy tiger – leave some web page for the rest of us.
February 25th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
Christian, that was an excellent post. Very well-written and thought out. Maybe you have a second calling after physics. (-;
February 25th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Not to mention the moral implications of creating “life”.
I always see this and I always ask: what moral implications?
Still waiting for and answer I can accept as rational.
highpoint of California culture – electing an Austrian bodybuilder as governor. Props to you!, California.
Thanks. You see, what we voted for was an intelligent and successful businessman who had the force of will to stand up to a legislature so utterly STUPID that some of us wonder if it’s under the sway of a hostile alien hive mind.
It’s the hive mind that loves high taxes, and they are hopelessly gerrymandered into power. A workable solution has not yet presented itself.
Arnold started out great, but now it seems he has also been infected by the Collective, and has veered hard to the Left in the past year.
This state in completely ungovernable, and probably needs to be split in two.
But, please, do continure to traffic in stereotypes and childish simplifications.
February 25th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
It’s so tiring when someone makes fun of a non politician getting elected.
People, the “citizen politician” was part and parcel of the Founding Father’s original vision.
It’s the *career* politicians who are the *PROBLEM*.
February 25th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
“Not to mention the moral implications of creating life”.
@Quiet_Desperation
I agree – I don’t see anything morally against creating life. But there are other considerations such as safety and environmental concerns that should be addressed. I personally applaud all the efforts to understand and replicate the processes that go into creating a new organism – we just need to make sure it doesn’t escape from the lab and go on a rampage trying to “find” itself. Like Frankenstein. Or The Island.
February 25th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
Tom Marking said:
“But California didn’t last by itself for longer than a month. Their great love of high tax rates drove them right into the arms of Uncle Sam culminating all these years later with the highpoint of California culture – electing an Austrian bodybuilder as governor. Props to you!, California.”
And Texas elected the current presidential idiot, and we all know how well that is working out, so I think you have us trumped!
February 25th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
You think that’s bad? Feel my shame:
“Lawmaker wants Confederate flag license plate”
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/state/orl-bk-confederate022508,0,3841558.story
February 25th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Evolution lays out it’s theory which immediately to even the most casual observer calls into question how life could possibly have come into existence, and then when asked, they say, “… well, we don’t suppose to deal with how life originally formed …”. How cute.
The fact isn’t that evolution doesn’t want to or shouldn’t have to deal with the origin of life, it’s that it cannot.
Even if evolution is true, there still must be at least one miracle somewhere to explain how everything, or anything, came into existence at all. Don’t go crying when people ask you the logical question that you’ll never be able to answer, for the evo crowd is the one bringing the question up, not the creationists. We just voice the question.
February 25th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
Spankermatic: Yeah, I should give commenting on teh internets a rest for a few days. Writing long rants is getting to be too much of a perfect displacement activity for avoiding real work.
I’m going to get back to playing Weboggle (team name Zoolander), which is an even more effective procrastination technique and is safer too, as it doesn’t further my continuing descent into a fully blown blogee obsessive ranter. (The anagramatic similarity between Blogging and Boggling is not lost on me.)
Unfortunately, my new Boggle addiction does mean that I’ve had to memorize practically every single three letter word combination in the English language in order to consistently make the top 20 scorers. But until the DSM IV catches up with the pathologically obsessive need to play word games, I think I’ve got an odds on chance of still claiming sanity next time I get my driver’s license renewed.
(And Melusine, thanks for the praise, but I’m afraid there will be a 20 question exam this time next week.)
February 26th, 2008 at 12:22 am
Brent: evolutionary theory also can’t explain the formation of supernovae. That doesn’t make it wrong about what it does explain, okay?
Kepler’s laws of planetary motion couldn’t explain the force behind the patterns he elucidated (i.e. Newtonian gravity). That didn’t make his laws any less useful for predicting where Mars would appear next week.
(To be fair, there are biologists who think evolution will be an important factor in deriving a consistent theory of abiogenesis. But in any case, the fact that we don’t have a theory NOW doesn’t mean we never will.)
February 26th, 2008 at 1:32 am
Brian: When a theory directly calls into question and cannot explain something that contradicts the theory, then no, it is not okay to not be able to explain it.
Evolution directly calls into question the origin of life. It is not okay to sidestep that question.
February 26th, 2008 at 2:52 am
Ah but Brent, evolution may cause us to wonder what started everything, but as Brian says – it does not attempt to explain it.
Evolution explains how life has changed over time from the beginning till now – it does not say what started it, or how, but yes – it does beg the question. That it begs a questions about something else, does not invalidate evolution or contradict it.
If it all started with a gamma ray striking a pile of primordial ooze, or whether it was Dr Frankenstein and a handy lightning bolt – that does not change how things evolved from that point on.
And whether or not you believe it, or you make proclamations about how you don’t like it – it still goes ahead. Evolution is a natural process – it is not something that requires belief to work. Unlike Religion.
Its like breathing – if the church suddenly outlawed that, or claimed it did not agree with how it worked, would you stop? I get the impression that the more zealous believers probably would.
February 26th, 2008 at 4:46 am
Perhaps if this winds up in the Texas court system, the justices will remember to check out the Pennsylvania decision by U.S. District Judge John E. Jones on December 20, 2005, and use it as a legal precedent.
February 26th, 2008 at 6:07 am
Spankermatic writes:
[[So is there something fundamentally flawed in the way we think life began here on earth? Nope - just came down to good old chance again.]]
Actually, if you go by random chance, it’s easy to demonstrate that life is nearly impossible to create. The process of abiogenesis was almost certainly not sheer random chance. Some reactions are more favored than others. Chemical law isn’t random; it’s highly deterministic.
February 26th, 2008 at 6:15 am
CXB writes:
[[We should try and bring about a change in society whereby we agree to frown heavily on politicians who make moral decisions based on their religious experiences.]]
They told William Wilberforce that by trying to eliminate the slave trade, on the basis of what his Christian morality told him was right, he was bringing religion into the public sphere where it didn’t belong. You could also apply the same reasoning to M.K. King, Jr. Or Dorothy Day. Or Cesar Chavez.
[[ For purposes of this discussion I will allow that it is possible for a self-described Christian to be knowledgeable about evolutionary theory.]]
Damn good of you! Especially since a devout Anglican was one of the co-discoverers of evolution by natural selection — Alfred Russel Wallace. Some present-day biologists who are religious believers would include Theodosius Dobzhansky (eastern Orthodox), Francisco Ayala (Roman Catholic), and Ken Miller (evangelical). Jane Goodall, of course, is a theist, though non-denominational.
February 26th, 2008 at 6:19 am
Brent writes:
[[Evolution directly calls into question the origin of life. It is not okay to sidestep that question.]]
Sorry, but you’re wrong. Evolutionary biology does not deal with the origin of life at all. It simply tells you what happens to life once it is there. The original form or forms of life can have been created in a flash of light by divine special creation, and evolutionary biology would still tell us what happened to their descendants.
February 26th, 2008 at 6:20 am
Above — I meant M.L. King, Jr., of course, not M.K. Hit the wrong key.
February 26th, 2008 at 7:40 am
No, evolution does more than simply cause us to wonder about what started life; we did that well enough before evolution came along. Nothing comes from nothing; something comes from something, as you’ve pointed out.
This is more serious than begging a question. Evolution demands something continually behind it. Either evolution is the miracle itself – life just always was (sounds like something familiar) – or there is another miracle we need to find.
Again, it’s not that evolution shouldn’t explain the origin of life and therefore doesn’t, it’s that it can’t and then excuses it’s responsibility to do so.
February 26th, 2008 at 7:54 am
Sorry. My previous post was in reply to Spankermatic.
February 26th, 2008 at 8:06 am
QD: “People, the “citizen politician” was part and parcel of the Founding Father’s original vision.”
As long as he was a land owning, non-female, white guy.
February 26th, 2008 at 8:59 am
Brent writes:
[[Again, it’s not that evolution shouldn’t explain the origin of life and therefore doesn’t, it’s that it can’t and then excuses it’s responsibility to do so.]]
Listen carefully. Evolutionary biology has no responsibility to explain the origin of life. It presupposes that life is already there in order to work. Your accusation is like saying Newtonian dynamics can’t explain the origin of gravity and then excuses its responsibility to do so. It doesn’t have such a responsibility. The responsibility in question exists solely in your mind. All a scientific theory has to do is explain the phenomena it covers economically. In this case, evolutionary biology explains the diversity and history of life. That’s all it does, and all it has to do.
February 26th, 2008 at 9:23 am
Re Barton Paul Levenson
Prof. Ken Miller is a Roman Catholic. I suspect that Mr. Levenson is thinking of Dr. Francis Collins who is an evangelical.
February 26th, 2008 at 9:31 am
Christian X Burnham wrote:
“Texas is ‘doomed’ in part because enough of its voters do not accept that a secular society is worth holding on to. The answer is not to convert them to atheism or to hope that we can realistically convince them that the Bible is in error.
.
.
.
However, from a tactical perspective, it’s not people like me who are going to make any headway in TX. It’s going to be people like the BA who are experienced at making arguments which don’t require a religion-optomy in order to swallow them.”
If we’re so doomed then why do we have a state curriculum that specifically mentions that the theory of evolution and natural selection should be taught as part of high school biology? And if you and BA are so concerned with Texas then may I suggest you get your asses on a plane down here right away so that you can campaign against Mr. Maddox.
February 26th, 2008 at 9:39 am
There is no “responsibility” in science. A scientific theory is specifically set up to explain a certain subset of observations and phenomena. It may, by luck, also explain other phenomena, but that is not its “responsibility”. It’s only responsibility is to explain that subset of phenomena it was originally formulated to explain. Evolution was formulated to explain the diversity of life on Earth and how organisms change over time. It was not formulated to explain the origin of life. It takes the existence of life as a given and works from there. This is not excusing responsibility, we already know life exists.
Life is based on very complicated chemistry. Is the theory of evolution excusing its responsibility by not explaining how chemistry works? Of course not, there are other theories that explain chemistry. Chemistry happens, we know that because we can observe it. So evolution can take that chemistry works as a given and then works from there. Evolution requires one or more large sources of energy. On Earth these are primarily the sun and hydrothermal vents. Does evolution need to explain how the sun works, or explain how hydrothermal vents work? No, these can be observed to work. Life on this planet requires water and its specific chemical and physical properties. Does evolution need to explain water and all of its myriad properties? Of course not, there are several fields of science and engineering dealing with this.
To give another analogy, look at the the current theory of solar system formation. It was formulated to explain one thing: how solar systems form. It does not need to explain how the universe first came into existence. There is another theory, the big bang, which explains that. The theory of solar system formation starts with clouds of gas and dust, which (like life) scientists know exist because they can observe them, and then works from there. How those clouds came into existence does not matter, we know they are there because we can observe them so explaining why they are there, why the universe exists at all, can be left to other theories.
Similarly, the current theory of solar system formation (last I heard) is based on a supernova destabilizing the cloud of gas and dust and causing it to begin to collapse in on itself. Does the theory of solar system formation need to explain how supernovas happen? No, these can also be observed to happen, so their existence can be taken as a given and we can once again work from there. Another theory deals with how supernova happen. The theory of solar system formation is not excusing its responsibility by not explaining how supernova work.
February 26th, 2008 at 9:44 am
TM:
http://www.caller.com/news/2008/feb/26/teaching-of-evolution-may-be-affected/
……………………………….
Lupe A. Gonzalez
Age: 64
February 26th, 2008 at 9:49 am
To say that Texas is somehow “doomed” is to presuppose the outcome of the March 4th primary which hasn’t happened yet. Cheer up. There’s still hope.
February 26th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Also:
http://www.star-telegram.com/state_news/story/491641.html
Religious right may gain sway over State Board of Education
BY R.A. DYER
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER
February 26th, 2008 at 10:00 am
@Brent,
For over 150 yrs. we have known, through the fossil record, the outline of life’s changes. Evolution by natural selection, explains this very well. No other theory has even come close. Evolution has been shown to explain why we need a new flu vaccine every year, why pesticides quit working in time and many other natural phenomenon.
Evolution does NOT state that change is random, nor does it state that life came from nothing. These are “strawmen” used by those who do not understand the theory, or refuse to accept the theory. I am short on time, but the answers to why these “ideas” are wrong can be explained by many others. Cause and effect is not “random” or “nothing”.
Please visit talk.origins.org for more answers. Not understanding those whom you see as enemies, or the evidence will only weaken your arguments.
February 26th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Okay, I think we’re all forgeting a major point here, my apologies if I missed it while trying to read through the previous posts. The goverment is based on the idea of SEPERATION OF CHURCH and STATE.
Therefore I don’t think creationisim has a place in public schools. Sure you can say a devine or intelegent designer instead of god, but come on we all know what you really mean. So will the kids you’re teaching it to, they’re not as stupid as you think. So if you want your children to be taught creationisim, then send them to a private school that is run by your respective religon, or teach them about it at home yourself.
February 26th, 2008 at 11:24 am
@bliznoon 25 Feb 2008 at 1:00 pm
Yes, and it does not matter. For god fearing people there is only one truth and that is that the universe is a directed make-believe place where nothing is what it seems. Anything that points in another direction than a certain version of an invisible wizard at the controls, who showed himself to some primitive lunatics in a middle east desert thousands of years ago and dictated a book with all answers, and who talks to billions of people in private, simultaneously since then, is simply a dangerous delusion.
I grew up with no openly religious people around. To me it looked that religion was something of the past, old make believe. It took me quite some time to adjust to the undeniable fact that there are many people who seriously believe in the most absurd stories. Perhaps the most absurd thing is that although these people don’t have a slightest clue about science and technology and simply cannot argue without inconsistencies and flaws in their own logic, they insist that their vision is right and those of scientists and critics are horribly wrong. Just because it should be that way. Case closed.
Religion is a collective mental disorder. An individual who claims to have an invisible magical friend who knows everything, who talks to him, and who is everywhere he goes gets hospitalized. When we have a group of individuals claiming the same things based on ancient disturbed writings we ought to pay attention and respect and let them give their opinion on matters like education. Way to go. It’s called democracy.
What would happen if we were to abandon science altogether and embrace an invisible wizard? Would we live in harmony into eternity, or would we invent weapons to kick the butts of people who believe in slightly different wizards, just because they are doing the same thing? I bet scenario 2 would be the case. And we would have science kicking in immediately. No technology without science. Ignorant religious people.
February 26th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Last week my 10-year-old brought home a notebook he’d put together at school. It was on the origin of the human species, each page having details on the various hominids and accompanied by a picture he’d drawn. I knew some of the species, but there were a number I’d never heard before – apparently things have been discovered since my BA in Anthropology. Neanderthals were listed as “Homo neanderthalensis”, and there was a mention of an apparent ongoing debate on whether chimpanzees should be in genus Homo instead of Pan.
There was no mention of any “controversy”.
I love my kids’ school!
February 26th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Strap the cdesign proponentists to a large tank of hydrazine, launch the assembly into the wrong orbit, and then shoot it down?
February 26th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
“For over 150 yrs. we have known, through the fossil record, the outline of life’s changes. Evolution by natural selection, explains this very well.”
Despite being named “On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection” by Darwin in 1859, the original book did not actually explain how species originated. That problem was not solved until 1942, 83 years later, when Ernst Mayr published his book “Systematics and the Origin of Species”. So it’s a little disingenuous to claim that the theory has explained everything for 150 years.
Even today there is a lot of data that the theory cannot explain. Take, for example the C-value paradox:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-value_paradox
How is it that amphibians have ten or more times the amount of DNA that humans have? How does the theory of evolution explain that data?
February 26th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Christian, I gather you’ll be voting. Those quotes are…like Florida.
I hope the high turnout next Tuesday will get people to vote for the Board members. Pro-Science ONLY!
February 26th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Quote
“I believe that a compromise to the debate between creationism and evolution is possible and necessary, and I believe that this compromise (in very simple terms) can be attained if our biology textbooks give equal weight and consideration to both theories.”
End
At best it deserves a line or two describing it as a religious, faith based idea that has no evidence in fact or science.
February 27th, 2008 at 2:36 am
So, if evolution stands apart from how life originally formed, as you are all emphatically insisting, then why the need to ridicule creationism?????
You say it doesn’t matter, and yet you emphatically say that creationism cannot be accepted. Hypocrites.
You say that evolution doesn’t raise the question of the origin of life; it’s not the responsibility of evolution to explain it, and yet when someone brings up God (not me, by the way), then you say He/She/It cannot co-exist with Evolution. Lovely.
If God and creation and the origin of life are not something that evolution must deal with, then why does anyone mentioning creationism throw you all into a tizzy? It’s because you like to smugly think that evolution has dealt thoroughly with God. You say it doesn’t matter, but you prove that you know it does!
February 27th, 2008 at 7:06 am
Perhaps because Creationists (there are many varying types) believe some of the following:
That the scientific evidence behind evolution does not exist.
That the planet earth is 6,000 years old.
That dinosaurs co-existed with humanity.
That organisms do not change over time.
Make arguments against evolution based on their misunderstandings of cosmology, information science, geology, logic and any other structured human process for learning.
They base these beliefs on a text of no know veracity, with poor internal consistency.
Because they believe “God did it!” is a legitimate answer to a scientific query.
In short, creationists tend to evoke a response from rationalists, because the creationists unceasingly demand adherence and respect for ideas without the slightest bit supporting evidence.
This message was sent from the the third world, where it seems there are smarter citizens than in the “superpower” of the world.
February 27th, 2008 at 7:29 am
William A. Heiteng writes:
[[Religion is a collective mental disorder. An individual who claims to have an invisible magical friend who knows everything, who talks to him, and who is everywhere he goes gets hospitalized. When we have a group of individuals claiming the same things based on ancient disturbed writings we ought to pay attention and respect and let them give their opinion on matters like education. Way to go. It’s called democracy.]]
So do you recommend locking up and “treating” all the people who pray? You’d need to enormously expand the MH/MR infrastructure.
I’m not convinced of your thesis that all theists are mentally ill. Do theists score any higher than non-theists on most psychiatric intake tests, e.g. the MMPI? I’ve never heard that they do.
[[What would happen if we were to abandon science altogether and embrace an invisible wizard?]]
If by the latter you mean God, consider that modern science developed in Europe when nearly everybody was highly religious, including the scientists. It doesn’t strike me as an either-or thing.
February 27th, 2008 at 7:34 am
Tom Marking writes:
[[Despite being named “On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection” by Darwin in 1859, the original book did not actually explain how species originated. That problem was not solved until 1942, 83 years later, when Ernst Mayr published his book “Systematics and the Origin of Species”. So it’s a little disingenuous to claim that the theory has explained everything for 150 years.]]
Darwin not only explained how species originate, he diagrammed it. The one illustration in the book is of life-forms speciating.
[[Even today there is a lot of data that the theory cannot explain. Take, for example the C-value paradox:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-value_paradox
How is it that amphibians have ten or more times the amount of DNA that humans have? How does the theory of evolution explain that data?]]
Presumably because natural selection has favored having a lot of DNA in amphibians. Why is this a problem? If you think “simpler” species should have less genetic material, you should know there’s no clear correlation. The protozoan Aulacantha has 1,600 chromosomes. A fern has 1,250. A human being has 46.
If I had to make a guess, I’d hypothesize that because amphibians are more sensitive to environmental mutagens — frogs are “the canary in the coal mine” for local environmental contamination — they need more copies of vital genes. I don’t know if anyone has tested this or not. Does anyone on the blog know?
February 27th, 2008 at 7:35 am
Brent writes:
[[when someone brings up God (not me, by the way), then you say He/She/It cannot co-exist with Evolution. ]]
I certainly don’t say that. I think evolution is God’s method of creating biological diversity. The people who say “evolution proves there’s no God” understand neither evolution nor God. Theism and evolution are not rival scientific theories, whatever someone like Richard Dawkins says.
February 27th, 2008 at 10:07 am
“Darwin not only explained how species originate, he diagrammed it. The one illustration in the book is of life-forms speciating.”
Darwin did not have the concept of allopatric speciation which is currently the favored mechanism among evolutionists for how species come to be. This idea did not come about until the 1930’s and 1940’s with the “evolutionary synthesis” led by people such as Ernst Mayr, Julian Huxley, Theodosius Dobzhansky, and many others.
“Presumably because natural selection has favored having a lot of DNA in amphibians. Why is this a problem? If you think “simpler” species should have less genetic material, you should know there’s no clear correlation.”
Why do you presume? Why doesn’t your theory clearly predict that amphibians have more DNA based on such and such environmental influences? And do other species that live in similar environments also have more than the average amount of DNA? Anyone can do hand-waving after the fact.
February 27th, 2008 at 11:11 am
TM: Am I missing something here? What does amphibian DNA have to do with teaching science in the science class?
Brent: Nobody here is likely to disillusion you of your religious speculation on the origin of life. Still, because your ideas are not amenable to independent verification by those who do not share your faith, they have no place in science, much less the classroom.
Melusine: I’m not a US citizen and so won’t be voting. My boss will though. He’s already done more than his fair share by hosting a recent radio program on these issues.
February 27th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
“TM: Am I missing something here? What does amphibian DNA have to do with teaching science in the science class?”
Well, it was brought up as an example of biological data which the theory of evolution did not predict and does not adequately explain. So the theory is not perfect and does not explain everything in its domain. That might be mentioned in biology class from time to time but I doubt it will be.
February 27th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Tom, of course it doesn’t explain everything. Relativity doesn’t explain everything about the universe, either. That’s why scientists continue to do research even when they’ve got a good working theory.
February 27th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
TM: I’m still missing something because I didn’t realize that modern evolutionary theory stood or fell on one aspect of reptilian DNA, which according to your account is not fully understood.
According to the Wikipedia article you linked to, the initial paradox has been largely resolved by the realization that most of the DNA sequence is ‘junk’ DNA, though it still seems unclear why there’s so much of the stuff hanging about. (I be not a biologist, so I’m only passing on my Wikiknowledge.)
Your argument seems exactly like the sort of nitpicking that is common to people who want to undermine the credibility of a scientific field by pointing to a not-fully solved question.
I wasn’t aware that any field had a complete solution to all its problems, and if you can find one, then why are people still doing research in it?
I believe it’s already the case that science teachers routinely point out the more speculative and controversial nature of some topics (e.g. dark-matter, or string theory) if and when they have the need to discuss them. If they were to teach the subject of reptilian DNA, then the ‘C-Value’ topic might be justified in mentioning, but I doubt that this area would be covered in high-school biology.
I’m not really interested in a dialogue with someone whose ultimate motive is to hinder science teachers from teaching science. If you want a response from me, I’ll need a much clearer statement of your position on the current teaching of evolution in classrooms.
February 27th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
“I’ll need a much clearer statement of your position on the current teaching of evolution in classrooms.”
The following comments are applicable to K through 12 education in the U.S.:
Teaching of science in the schools is PATHETIC in general. Science is taught as a collection of facts. Laboratory work is atrocious – the student must get the expected result in order to get a good grade. Of course this leads to the subliminal message that scientists already have all the answers which is not the message we ought to be sending our young people. Critical thinking and the scientific method are usually not taught at all, or if they are, only lip service is given to them.
Teaching of evolution in the schools is even more PATHETIC. The student is lucky if he/she gets to handle a real fossil, say a trilobite, or something like that. Often times the only material is some book with a picture of a T. rex or a cave man in it. So it could not be much worse even if the creationists were in charge of it. But you’re the professional in the field. What is your opinion of the current teaching of evolution in the schools?
February 27th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
I didn’t go to US schools and I’m not an American.
Your complaints sound like mostly the result of individual poor schools and maybe poor textbooks. See Doc’s comments above for a different experience.
What I still don’t understand are your nitpicking comments on reptile DNA. It seems that in your experience, we’re nowhere near the stage where teachers would need to go into such detail about an oddity regarding the amount of junk DNA in reptiles.
Were you using that as an example of critical thinking? Because it’s not a very good one. Critical thinking isn’t normally taught so that the students can poke holes in very-well established theories, giving them the impression that you shouldn’t trust anything in science.
It’s fine for experts or established scientists to take on big questions from time to time. For instance, occasionally a professor will challenge the orthodoxy of an almost universally held opinion or assumption. Arguably, Einstein, Newton and Darwin are examples of that.
But, we’re beyond the stage in science where it’s possible that a 15 year old kid is suddenly going to throw over a field on the scale of evolutionary theory with her critical thinking skills. The evidence is too solid, and even if there were an even more general principle to which evolution is just a good approximation- I wouldn’t expect a 15 year old to discover what’s so far eluded every biologist on the planet.
So, critical thinking has its place, but children should also be taught that evolution is almost certainly true because of the millions of independent bits of confirming data and the 100’s of 1000’s of papers that have been published using its theories.
Evolution is a mature and tested theory. It’s not going to go away. There might be small changes in the details, but in its broad picture, it is almost certainly correct. Working biologists are about as confident in evolution as physicists are in the existence of electrons. No amount of nitpicking is going to change that.
I’m only a physics postdoc, and again- I don’t pretend to be an expert in the scientific method. I do know that individual scientists can be flawed, but the scientific process as a whole tends to hone in on the right answers. I’m not the right person to argue with about the fine-points of evolution, but I can state with utter certainty that if your goal is to undermine its status as one of our most important theories- you will certainly fail.
Nitpickers are often under the illusion that they’re helping science with their critical thinking. Well, they’re not. It’s because their motivation is almost always the undermining of a solid body of work that has withstood the test of time. A true critical thinker is interested in furthering our knowledge and not in sowing the seeds of doubt and muddying up the waters to make it look like a controversy exists where there is none.
February 27th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
@LiberalDirk
“Because they believe “God did it!” is a legitimate answer to a scientific query.”
It is a legitimate answer if it is true, wouldn’t you agree? The real problem is that, in fact, science has pre-assumed no God and therefore have no hope but to misinterpret data.
Assume with me for a minute that God in fact did create the universe 6,000 years ago and created life as we see it today, i.e. different species as we know them today. How should God have done it? Go ahead and tell God how to do it. Who are you, or we, to tell God how to do anything? It would be silly for us to attempt to council God. So, how is it that you assume the “evidence” that is observed isn’t simply how God did it? How would you know?
You wouldn’t, and you don’t.
You all are so confident in the age of the earth and universe as told you by science, and yet to extrapolate data to arrive at the supposed age you must assume that there was no deliberate act of creation somewhere along the line. If you assumed and believed that there was a definite time in history that the universe were created, you could easily use the very same data, calibrated differently, to point to that.
Before you raise your arms over that point, please remember: Any method whereby we measure something depends on calibration. There must be some standard by which we measure anything. So, when dealing with history before any reliable records how can you presume that dating methods are calibrated to a reliable and accurate standard? You cannot. There must be an assumption, and we all know what that assumption has been …, no G-O-D, or creation.
Yes, I’m saying dating methods are all whacked. When we can get some good dino DNA we assume the miracle is how long it was preserved instead of the more obvious and logical conclusion that dinos didn’t live nearly as long ago as believed, and that dating methods are unreliable at best. Funny how evolutionists readily believe in any miracle that is necessary to keep the fantasy “believable”.
February 27th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
Brent: if you don’t trust the scientific method then at least be consistent and switch off your computer. Also, disconnect your electricity and turn off your clean water.
Unfortunately you’ll no longer be able to post here, but at least you’ll be leading a more Christian life in which you’re not troubled by the fruits of modern science.
I’m quite happy for you to trust your life to God over science, but you should be consistent in your approach, or else people might think you’re picking and choosing. Think of this as an opportunity to prove to God how little you value arrogant science, which consistently shows using multiple independent dating methods that we live in a universe that is billions of years old.
February 28th, 2008 at 12:02 am
I’m for science. I’m against junk science, that’s all.
I don’t have a problem with the hypothesis that we all have a common ancestor; it isn’t an idea, on the very surface, that is unthinkable to come up with. I do have a problem when “evidence” is forced into supporting that and giving it “theory” status, and then trumpeted and beaten into our kids brains with tax money.
Again though, my main point, is that evolutionists say that the origin of life isn’t something they must account for; it doesn’t matter. Yet, they prove over and over and over again that they know it does.
H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-T-E-S
February 28th, 2008 at 9:07 am
There were several interesting things in your post but I’ll take them one at a time:
“Your complaints sound like mostly the result of individual poor schools and maybe poor textbooks. See Doc’s comments above for a different experience.”
http://4brevard.com/choice/international-test-scores.htm
The United States finished behind the following countries in terms of grade 12 science:
Sweden, Netherlands, Iceland, Norway, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, Denmark, Germany, France, Czech Republic, Russia
It finished ahead of these countries: Italy, Hungary, Lithuania, Cyprus, South Africa
For grade 12 mathematics the United States finished behind the following countries:
Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, France, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Austria, Slovenia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Russia, Lithuania, Czech Republic
It finished ahead of these countries: Cyprus, South Africa
Here are some comments from that study:
“Among teachers of high school biology and life sciences classes, approximately 31 percent of them do not have at least a minor in biology. Among high school physical science teachers, over half, 55 percent, do not have at least a minor in any of the physical sciences. Again we might question the focus of the teachers on social re-engineering instead of subject areas.”
“Textbooks U.S. textbooks treat topics with a “mile-wide, inch-deep” approach, Schmidt said. A typical U.S. eighth-grade math textbook deals with about 35 topics. By comparison, a Japanese or German math textbook for that age would have only five or six topics. Comparisons done elsewhere between French and American math books show more innovative approaches to finding, for instance, the volume of a pyramid. Fractions don’t lend themselves to computerization, so they’re relegated to an importance slightly above Roman numerals. Calculators are here to stay, so kids breeze through long division. They concentrate on how to use math rather than how to do math, and with less entanglement in social philosophy.”
So I think my claim that U.S. science education is pathetic is well founded. The U.S. was 3rd from last in mathematics and 6th from last in science. And this despite the fact that the U.S. spends more money per student for public education than any other country in the world. Funny how I never see any topics on this blog talking about this as “dooming” the United States. It’s much easier and a lot more fun to bait the creationists by poking fun at them. Unfortunately that does nothing to fix our education system.
February 28th, 2008 at 9:24 am
“What I still don’t understand are your nitpicking comments on reptile DNA. It seems that in your experience, we’re nowhere near the stage where teachers would need to go into such detail about an oddity regarding the amount of junk DNA in reptiles.
.
.
.
It’s fine for experts or established scientists to take on big questions from time to time. For instance, occasionally a professor will challenge the orthodoxy of an almost universally held opinion or assumption. Arguably, Einstein, Newton and Darwin are examples of that.”
The C-value paradox is not some anomaly concerning reptilian or amphibian DNA. Rather, we see drastically different amounts of DNA in different species even within the same family. DNA is the blueprint for building the organism. Therefore we would expect that if you have a very complicated organism to build, it requires a lot of DNA and if you have a very simple organism to build, it requires a small amount of DNA. But this is not what we actually observe in practice. Hence, the term paradox.
O.K. So it’s fine for “experts” to challenge accepted scientific theories but NOT O.K. for us mere mortals. That seems to be what you’re implying. Of course, this is coming from a system which claims to be non-authoritarian. I believe Sagan said something to the effect that arguments from authority in science are worthless and anyone from anywhere can challenge anything in science at anytime.
February 28th, 2008 at 10:06 am
Brent writes:
[[Yes, I’m saying dating methods are all whacked. When we can get some good dino DNA we assume the miracle is how long it was preserved instead of the more obvious and logical conclusion that dinos didn’t live nearly as long ago as believed, and that dating methods are unreliable at best. Funny how evolutionists readily believe in any miracle that is necessary to keep the fantasy “believable”.]]
Brent, radioactive decay is one of the more thoroughly understand areas of modern physics. The chance that there’s some huge systematic error in all the different forms of it (carbon-nitrogen, rubidium-strontium, potassium-argon, uranium-lead, thorium-lead, etc.) is so small it can be justifiably ignored.
And radioactive decay dates are not the only reasons for thinking the Earth and the Universe very old. The geologists of the 18th century — believers in divine special creation to a man — concluded that it had to be very old long before radioactive decay was even known about.
Then there’s starlight. We can see galaxies billions of light-years away. The speed of light is fixed. If we see a galaxy ten billion light-years away, the light took ten billion years to get here. Heck, we can see globular clusters 8,000, 20,000, and 65,000 light-years away. Same argument.
There’s a guy with your first name who, like me, is a born-again Christian, but he’s also a professional geologist — Brent G. Dalrymple. See if you can find his article “Finding the Age of the Earth — By Physics or by Faith?” If it’s not on the web somewhere you can find it in the collection of essays, Is God a Creationist?
February 28th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
TM: Yes. It’s not productive for amateurs to challenge solid theories, which have withstood the test of time. In fact, it’s the best way to come off looking like a crank.
If you want to make a contribution, then work on a simple problem, which you think isn’t well enough understood. That way you stand a chance of increasing our knowledge, rather than look like someone who wants to stir up some false controversy.
People who challenge evolution are at the same level as inventors of perpetual motion machines and are taken about as seriously.
February 28th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
“It’s not productive for amateurs to challenge solid theories, which have withstood the test of time.”
Are you sure you’re a scientist? I hope your expertise in science is better than your expertise in history appears to be. Are you talking about amateurs like:
Albert Einstein, the amateur physicist who worked as a patent clerk and overturned the foundations of physics
Gregor Mendel, the German monk who dabbled with growing pea plants in his spare time and established a new science called genetics
Michael Faraday, the lab assistant and amateur scientist who discovered electrical induction and laid the groundwork for much of our modern electrical industry
Here is a URL with several more:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/orchid/amateurs.html
You don’t have to be paid to know what you’re talking about or to challenge existing scientific theories.
February 28th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
TM: Einstein was an expert in his field. He might not have been a professor at the time of his discoveries, but he intimately understood the technicalities. Also, let’s not forget that Einstein went to the trouble of publishing his theories. He didn’t spend his time arguing with random people on the street (i.e. the historical equivalent of posting to internet boards).
And Einstein didn’t disprove the validity of Newtonian physics. He knew that whatever else his theories did, they must reproduce the results of Newtonian physics on the macro-scale.
None of your examples show an undermining of existing theories. Instead, they led to a broadening of knowledge.
A person who attempts to undermine evolution is not interested in broadening our knowledge. Such people have only destructive intentions and the best they can do is to confuse themselves and others.
I expect that Einstein will eventually be trotted out in any argument, especially if someone doesn’t have a leg to stand on.
So spare me. Make your point without resorting to Einstein, Feynman, Sagan or Newton, etc. etc. These sorts of people were bona-fide geniuses who were smart enough to think the big questions. Without meaning to be insulting- you’re probably not in their league. (Neither am I.)
I’ve said several times now that I’m not an expert on the philosophy of science, so enough with the cheap shots about my competence as a scientist. Perhaps contrary to your belief, we don’t sit around all day discussing abstract philosophical questions about what is and what isn’t science. That sort of thing is fun to write about on blogs, but it doesn’t keep me in cat-food.
February 28th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
@Brent
If “God did it” was a legitimate answer, there would be some supporting evidence. Where is the supporting evidence? Can you point to a single instance where “God did it” is the simplest and most legitimate answer. Can you pray and stop gravity working and say “God did it”
Note; evidence that someone else is wrong, does not make your evidence right. You actually have to provide evidence to back up your claims.
If everything was created in a magic burst of noodliness last Thursday whilst the Flying Spaghetti monster and the Invisible Pink Unicorn did battle mightily… Why does the evidence suggest the universe is much older, and keep in mind that the evidence is supported by multiple sources. Not just a single point.
For you to be right, virtually all of science has to be wrong. Which is more likely do you think?
February 28th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
Barton wrote:
Thanks for that. I’ll look up this info. I have no problem, or fear, looking at what these guys say. I’ve looked a fairly descent amount and am still quite confident that somewhere along the line there always must be a calibration, and that calibration must make assumptions that aren’t verifiable.
And, again, how could we possible know whether God didn’t just “do it that way”? I know that sounds like a cop out that I can fall back to on any point you or anyone could possibly make, but it is nonetheless a fact that if the universe and everything in it was indeed created that God had to do it some way, right? How could we possibly know?
I think it’s funny because the scientists and those who taut the “scientific evidence” yell that God cannot enter into the equation because He/She/It is not possibly scientifically quantifiable. Well, duh! That’s exactly correct, and the very reason why scientists have no standing whatsoever when they attempt to say that the universe wasn’t created in such and such a way. They admit on the one hand they couldn’t know, but on the other that they definitely know. Oh …, I feel the “H” word coming on again.
So, the scientific community thinks they have adequately brushed God aside by saying that He/She/It cannot enter into the discussion, but in so saying they are admitting that they wouldn’t be able to know whether or not God did anything. They unwittingly admit their ignorance, as well as astounding arrogance. Scientists think that there is literally nothing bigger than science. Oh, how wrong.
February 28th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
Of course, “taut” should have been “tout”.
February 29th, 2008 at 9:19 am
Brent: I’m tired by people who think they’re being smart by calling science and scientists arrogant.
Yes, we’re arrogant enough to think that we might have some idea what we’re doing after a few centuries of using the scientific method.
Stop telling scientists how to do their job. Go and annoy car mechanics or computer repair people instead. Why don’t you tell them that they should be putting God into their work. In fact tell me what your job is and I’ll come around to your workplace and tell you that you’re arrogant to think you know how to do your job.
Again, all we want is to let science teachers teach science. Let’s leave the religious instruction to Sunday school shall we?
February 29th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Actually, Christian, you make a good point. Of course, it’s not quite that easy.
I’d love for science to keep marching on, and it will regardless, but the problem as it pertains to this scientific topic is that it does not oblige me the freedom to do the same. Do you now agree that this “theory”, so called, does in fact put God and creation out of the realm of possibility? It does – or attempts to – and by so doing forcibly disrupts my ability to “leave the religious instruction to Sunday school”.
One day a week the kids are taught the truth and then are filled with lies the other six. Who wouldn’t like odds like that in order to get people to think what they want?
I’m all for science when it is real science and it adheres to the true scientific method. Unfortunately, evolution fails miserably here.
March 1st, 2008 at 12:06 am
OK. I’m not interested in a dialogue with someone who wants to stop science teachers from teaching science.
March 1st, 2008 at 1:27 am
Science teachers should teach science; agreed. Evolution isn’t science and never can be, at least until it is limited to true scientific methods, which I might add includes reproducibility.
Okay, here comes the evolutionist to point out that these mutations and such, even just the extremely rare beneficial ones, are “reproducible”, or at least observable, and that given enough time they could have been behind all the varied species. Of course, this is not the same as reproducing what is claimed to have taken place, but heck, it sounds fantastic so we’ll go with it anyway. And next week when we stumble upon a problematic area, we’ll just throw a few more billion years in and be all set, never mind that it contradicts the “very reliable” dating methods; people somehow just don’t even think to ask about, when we “discover” that the earth is older, how that could possibly be since the dates were already established by rock solid dating methods. That even disregards the more obvious problem that the earth just got older for no other reason than that the data couldn’t be squeezed in the “solid” theory.
Assume the model is wrong?
“NO!!! It’s rock solid!!! As are the dating methods!!! We were just a little off on the dates; only a few billion years. It’s not a problem.”
Aye. With work like that nothing ever will be a problem, either.
The only “science” in evolution is science-fiction.