Comments on: The Kansas School Board is right

By: Natalie Angier’s God Problem | Cosmic Variance

Natalie Angier’s God Problem | Cosmic Variance — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 19:30:21 +0000

[...] Natalie Angier is the Pulitzer-Prize-winning science writer for the New York Times, author of Woman: An Intimate Geography and most recently The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science. In a new piece at Edge, she points a finger at the hypocrisy of many scientists who wail and gnash their teeth at superstitious craziness like creationism or astrology, but invent elaborate rationalizations about non-overlapping magisteria when it comes to things like the virgin birth or life after death. A somewhat lengthy excerpt, as I can’t help myself: In the course of reporting a book on the scientific canon and pestering hundreds of researchers at the nation’s great universities about what they see as the essential vitamins and minerals of literacy in their particular disciplines, I have been hammered into a kind of twinkle-eyed cartoon coma by one recurring message. Whether they are biologists, geologists, physicists, chemists, astronomers, or engineers, virtually all my sources topped their list of what they wish people understood about science with a plug for Darwin’s dandy idea. Would you please tell the public, they implored, that evolution is for real? Would you please explain that the evidence for it is overwhelming and that an appreciation of evolution serves as the bedrock of our understanding of all life on this planet? … [...]

By: Tony

Tony — Sun, 20 Nov 2005 17:51:51 +0000

For me the question comes down to this: why does ID belong in a -science- classroom?

Maybe ID belongs in art class, or drafting class. Or political science. It certainly doesn’t arise from the scientific tradition, not as practiced now or as practiced in Hellenic Greece.

Once ID gets in the door, what’s to stop the invention of a dozen other “theories” that can pushed through the door with “science” written on it?

This is about mindshare, not education. I feel sorry for the teachers now compelled to study ID, because they’re required to teach it, without extra compensation. And I feel sorry for the kids, who’ll lose already scarce hours they need to help them stay competitive in a highly competitive, real world.

By: Count Iblis

Count Iblis — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 13:28:21 +0000

Sean: ” Much of the discussion is about how we would ever know that something was “really” supernatural, and we simply hadn’t yet discerned the underlying patterns. Absolutely right. Since naturalistic explanations tend to be simpler, the urge to keep looking for them is a perfectly sensible one. But maybe, provisionally, we can’t think of any, and some good supernatural theory is placed before us. No problem with that; science doesn’t pretend to be in possession of the ultimate immutable truth, we just do the best with the information we have at the time.”

Yes, and this does happen in practise. Although humans are not supernatural, one can say that stone tools are an example of intelligent design. Archeologist know how to see the difference between rocks that look like stone tools and real stone tools.

By: Torbjorn Larsson

Torbjorn Larsson — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 13:11:39 +0000

Boaz, you are welcome. The Talk Origins website seems to be useful, not least for recognising questions on evolution that science has already answered.

By: Boaz

Boaz — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 23:37:01 +0000

Torbjorn- thanks for the link to ID statement that “survival of the fittest” is a tautology. Though, just because they say it doesn’t mean its not true or interesting. But I would agree that its a somewhat extreme interpretation of the phrase, and your statement that fitness means you’re more likely to survive is a more substantive useful principle. I haven’t really read much of what the ID crowd has to say, but I have argued with someone who claims to doubt Darwin. Bringing out this distinction of whether “Darwinism” is a hypothesis, or a useful framework by which to generate other hypotheses, I found to be a productive way to get at what the real disagreement was.
RBH wrote:

With respect to naive falsificationism (and the “ism” is purposeful), I’ll say only that Popper is abused almost as badly as Kuhn, and was a much more subtle thinker than rote invocations of “falsifiability” as a demarcation criterion imply.

Yeah, I admit I’ve been influenced by Kuhn and other sympathetic views (e.g. Holton’s Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought). I’ll have to read some Popper so I can more readily abuse him as well. But seriously, I have been meaning to read him and get beyond the sound bites to his real perspective.
Cheers,
Boaz

By: mbecker

mbecker — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 19:50:53 +0000

again i am not entirely familar with the precise school board debate, but how does the new definition further the cause of ID? maybe that is their intended goal but how does this further the goal?

By: spyder

spyder — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 17:30:49 +0000

I can’t wait for Sean’s piece on “falsibility” mostly because in principle i agree with his premise. Also my comment was not intended to hierarchically order or to ask for all inclusive statements/posts. I was reflecting on the public perception of the work of scientists in these matters. It seems the public, and public officials, have some very misguided (okay, seriously flawed and wrong) understandings of how science works, and/or how the universe works. As an example i read the following story today.

The strange case of supernatural water
Florida tested ‘Celestial Drops’ to see if they warded off citrus canker

By David Park Musella
Skeptical Inquirer
Updated: 3:08 p.m. ET Nov. 15, 2005

Florida’s citrus crop contributes billions of dollars to the state’s economy, so when that industry is threatened, anything that might help is considered. Back in 2001, when citrus canker was blighting the crop and threatening to reduce that vital source of revenue, an interesting â€” if not quite scientific â€” alternative was considered.

Katherine Harris, then Florida’s secretary of state â€” and now a member of the U.S. House of Representatives â€” ordered a study in which, according to an article by Jim Stratton in the Orlando Sentinel, “researchers worked with a rabbi and a cardiologist to test ‘Celestial Drops,’ promoted as a canker inhibitor because of its ‘improved fractal design,’ ‘infinite levels of order,’ and ‘high energy and low entropy.’”

The study determined that the product tested was, basically, water that had apparently been blessed according to the principles of Kabbalic mysticism, “chang[ing] its molecular structure and imbu[ing] it with supernatural healing powers.”

By: RBH

RBH — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 17:19:30 +0000

Sean wrote “RBH (and, to a lesser extent, spyder)â€” I understand that there is a political/social context as well as an epistemological one. That doesn’t mean that I have to comment on the former every time I comment on the latter.”

My remarks were stimulated by the title of the original entry, which put Sean’s piece squarely in the socio-political context, invoking all the connotations associated with it. I was tempted to write a Panda’s Thumb entry titled “With Friends Like This …”.

With respect to naive falsificationism (and the “ism” is purposeful), I’ll say only that Popper is abused almost as badly as Kuhn, and was a much more subtle thinker than rote invocations of “falsifiability” as a demarcation criterion imply.

By: Torbjorn Larsson

Torbjorn Larsson — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 16:43:46 +0000

“Until proponents of ID start a serious discussion of the properties and characteristics of the designer and how they will do experiments to choose between competing theories then they are not doing science”

I agree; and this is presumably what the Dover process will find.

Boaz, the claim that “survival of the fittest” is tautological is creationist claim CA500. See http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA500.html for responses and references.

I used to respond that it is really a culling, ie some expected to be “fittest” will die. A better response may be that it is not about survival but about reproductive success, which is quantifiable.

By: Count Iblis

Count Iblis — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 13:50:10 +0000

Nick: ”…they are not doing science and have no business inflicting this nonsense on our school kids.”

I agree, but I think that instead of focussing on ID one should improve science education for children. We don’t tell children about many important facts about how the world works. You can’t teach quantum mechanics to children in primary school, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t tell them that everything consists of atoms, that the human body is ultimately an extremely complicated machine.

Children are told about God but almost nothing about science. This leads to a distorted view about the physical world which is difficult to correct in secondary education.