Regardless, most high school students I know are just learning about covariant derivatives. Fortunately, they can spot a disillusioned philospher with an axe to grind from a mile away.

http://www.komen.org/intradoc-cgi/idc_cgi_isapi.dll?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=299

Nothing seems more clear in light of the false controversy over ID than this: The meaning of words like “science”, and “theory”, matters. A lot. Perverting such meaning is destructive to the progress we’ve made as a species from our superstitious past.

The rest of what I think, you know. Hope doesn’t cut it if testability is ultimately optional.

Obviously the issue of pots calling kettles black is too far off topic. Won’t happen again.

If all you really want to do is to say bad things about string theory, we’ve heard it all before. Go read the old threads or something.

Forced teaching of any sort is, of course, improper, but that’s not what’s really wrong with ID. What’s really wrong with ID is it cannot be falsified, even in principle. You can’t falsify an assertion like “there is a designer, and he/she/it is responsible for whatever some other theory can’t explain”. That’s precisely the sort of thing science isn’t, and that’s why calling ID “science” is wrong. That’s why teaching ID as “science” is wrong. It’s wrong to teach it as science whether there’s a coercive theocratic motive behind that or not. It’s wrong because science is an empirical discipline, and incredulously repeating “goddidit” isn’t.

Now take, say, this value of the cosmological constant that has everyone so bowled over. Just as ID “theorists” look at complex biological systems and say “I just can’t believe it’s an accident!”, it appears they take great delight in pointing out that some of the constants of nature have the appearance of “fine tuning”. Because it looks fine-tuned for life, they assert the completely unfalsifiable existence of a creator who did the fine-tuning, and claim one must entertain this notion if one is to be an honest scientist.

The apparent flip side of claiming the appearance of fine-tuning implies an inscrutable designer, is to claim ours is but one of many universes, or vacua, or whataver you want to call that “space”, and that we darn well better believe it’s an accident, given there’s 10^500 (or some other monstrously big number) other options.

Trouble is, we very well can’t actually probe these other universes any more than we can see the designer, except in our heads, now can we?

Maybe the LHC will spit out some SUSY, maybe we’ll see a string in the CMB, maybe the inverse square law fails at whatever distance is just smaller than what hasn’t been probed yet. Or not.

It’s becoming less and less clear, from an empirical standpoint, why Calabi-Yau manifolds are any more connected to observable reality than the Flying Spaghetti Monster, given that there’s presently an argument in the quantum gravity field about whether falsifiablility is a valid criterion for fundamental physics. Seems they’ve reached this philosophical juncture because ST might just yield an astoundingly diverse multiverse, and hence testing predictions goes out the window. Instead you explore the Landscape. On paper. Some hope this isn’t really what they’re stuck with, but will keep insisting strings is the way to go because, hey, you got a better idea?

So what’s rubbish? Where’s the theory (being conventionally defined as something tested and predictive)? Where’s the science (being the process by which one tests theories using empirical evidence)? What’s the real distinction from philosophical exercises like modal realism? If the LHC finds no SUSY, will people stop working on ST? Will it really take galaxy-sized accelerators to answer the crucial questions with evidence?

The possible answers to some of those questions are just as disturbing, to me, as anything any ID proponent wants to foist upon us as scientific.

Q: Have string theorists attempted to force teachers to promote their ideas in science classes?
A. No!

Q: Does it therefore follow that anyone who tries to equate string theorists with ID proponents is talking complete rubbish?
A: Yes!

Indeed! Scientists also need to begin to be characters of substance in the media, more so than forensic sleuths and less so than Bill Nye the Science Guy. We all need to have science spread out past the PBS and Discovery Networks into mainstream broadcast realms and quality films. And contrary to some others opinions, a script featuring a string theorist as the lead working class hero in a fine drama would be just fine with me.