While many think “God” is used as a reason “for” things, the reality is most often whenever “God” is brought up it basically equates with “I don’t want to have to think about this problem any further”, that being because they find the conclusions being drawn uncomfortable (as a friend put it to me – “I hate when you go all philosophical on us, it doesn’t give me warm, fuzzy feelings…”), they lack the ability or what have you being the real underlying reasons. The actual statement “’cause of God” is really just a way to shut down the conversation, not a way to agree to anything (one could say it is a way to agree not to agree though…).

At any rate, as I stated above, such is immaterial. This should all be rather clear to one who has learned the scientific method and been taught to use reason and logic as precious tools which are required to gain understanding of our natural surroundings even more so than for one who has simply never had to confront the problem.

Thomas, I understand you point of view. I originally went to school to become a math teacher, until I learned how little “teaching” actually takes place. It’s this reason that I believe schools need to welcome objectivity and provoke critical thinking over parroting. Critical thinking is a learned activity and really only takes place on the collegiate level today. Schools don’t do enough to provoke thought on the tough questions because they’re all so focused on getting their parrots to pass state and federal exams… it’s quite sad.

Nullis, I don’t disagree, but I’m only referring to those things that science simply cannot explain, such as a person mysteriously recovering from a known fatal disease and the like. There’s likely a reason, but since science has yet to explain that specific case, people are going to think whatever they want: be it something that reinforces their religion or scientific curiosity. It depends on one’s own personal biases in that case: religion or skepticism.

“Well, if science simply cannot explain something when some alternative explanation seems to fit, who is right then?”

If there’s an alternative theory that seems to fit, then science would have already picked it. It wouldn’t be sat there saying it can’t explain this. Of course, “seems to fit” depends on how closely you look, and how broadly. Does it fit with everything else we know? Does it fit in extreme cases, or at the microscopic level, or when the forces and pressures at each and every point are required to balance, or effects have to propagate over distance and through other materials and in the face of background randomness?

Few people consider the matter that deeply, which is why shallow explanations often satisfy them. If science is rejecting what appears to fit, then you have to ask what its reason is. If science can give an example of how it doesn’t fit – then you gain a deeper understanding. If science gives its explanation, but on closer examination the lack of fit is insubstantial, then maybe science has to try again. But nothing is gained by simply asserting that science has reason to reject an explanation without saying what that reason is.

So, for example, when I was at university, a fellow physics student mischievously brought up the subject of dowsing, saying it really did work. OK, I said, here’s the programme – first we prove that we can dowse; then we prove that we can dowse in a double-blind experiment; then we measure the range at which we can detect something; then we try to determine if we can block the effect by putting different materials in the way, can you interfere with the signal? What properties of substances can we detect? Do the influences have different strengths? How precisely located is the effect? Is it waves or particles, or diffusive, or what? Are there interference patterns, scattering, or refraction? Does it travel in straight lines? Does it travel preferentially in particular directions? And so on – all scientist’s questions.

And as you think of each one, you can start to see ways in which things don’t quite fit. For example, dowsers pick up the signal when they’re right on top of something, but standing a foot to the side they’re almost exactly as close to the influencing object as they were, but suddenly don’t pick up anything. So the influence has to ‘beam’ straight up. So it’s presumably influenced by gravity somehow, but how can that work? Does it have mass? Is it subject to forces? If the object being detected is accelerating (say in an underground tunnel), can the force still go straight up? Can you detect something in an upstairs room directly above you? You see, the explanation is nowhere near as complete as you might think.

Sadly, we didn’t get past step two. We could both dowse, but the effect disappeared completely when we did it double-blind. (Incidentally, can you say why the first step was necessary?) But it proved an entertaining exercise to come up with the right sort of questions, and quite frankly, it doesn’t much matter whether the effect is real or not when it comes to learning about and understanding science.

Science can study and provide explanations for the paranormal as easily as it can for anything else. There is absolutely no reason why a physics teacher couldn’t use something like dowsing as a classroom example, and still teach genuine science. In this case, science can show that it is an ideomotor effect, and it leads naturally on to the important topics of subconscious bias, placebo effects, suggestion, and the reasons scientists have to use double blind experiments when dealing with certain sorts of experiments. I can’t think of any scientific principle that it is more important for students to understand.

Learn to ask the right questions. Examine it, test it, measure it, extend it, generalise it, see how it relates to everything else. Learn how not to fool yourself. Don’t be satisfied with pat answers and things “seeming to fit”. Whether it turns out to be true or false makes no difference, what matters is the method.
And if you teach people to ask those same questions about everything, then they will be a lot harder to fool on everything else.

That sounds way too much like you expect actual critical thinking skills Chris – as we all know, rote memorization is all that really happens in most of our schools, and is superior to critical analysis anyway (heck, I got told straight out during student teaching that “we don’t have time for that, just teach ‘em the right answer…”). Thus, teaching any more than one theory just confuses everyone as then they have conflicting and even contradictory ideas. As we never actually teach reason (and given some threads in here I doubt some of our educated intellectual types have any faith in reason anyway – “framing” seems to be more important these days), it leaves them in a confused state, unable to ever establish which idea or theory has stronger factual support.

Naturally we will be teaching the *only* “right” theory, of course (a quick look at history shows us there is nothing to worry about in regards to doing this as rarely any “everyone agrees” type theory is ever shown to have been wrong later down the road). It’s rather presumptuous of you to think that others can think enough to sort it out… I mean do you really expect people to use reason & logic to compare theories and determine for themselves if something is reasoned or more like Swiss Cheese and full of B.S.?

A quote that has been making the rounds lately states:
“You are now about to embark upon a course of studies which will occupy you for [four] years. Together, they form a noble adventure. But I’d like to remind you of an important point . . . Nothing that you will learn in the course of your studies will be of the slightest possible use to you in [later] life – save only this – that if you work hard and intelligently, you should be able to detect when a man is talking rot. And that, in my view, is the main, if not the sole, purpose of education.”
- Professor John Alexander Smith, 1914

We obviously don’t believe such is important anymore (“detect when a man is talking rot”). We no longer feel anyone will be able to detect logical B.S., thus we don’t dare teach anything but that which is seen as being “right” (ignoring that such understandings’ have and do change all the time…).

I’m sure some will find my sarcasm troublesome, but one can either trust that logical thought and reasoned argumentation will ultimately prevail, or they can believe it won’t, and thus argue for the need to hide ideas or simply ignore them wholesale (though they might want to take the time to ponder what happens when you choose that path).

The topic under discussion matters little – either we can learn to use reason and logic to build our understandings and encourage its development in others, or we can’t – and if we can’t, one must ask “what’s the point of learning at all?” (for then the whole idea of “educated” becomes a big joke as reason will never lead one to enlightenment anyway and we’ve reduced ourselves to solely a stimulus-response creature).

There really, really, really is no “each side” here. There is only one side to this “debate”. Creationism, wether it be from the Popol Vuh, the Enuma Elish, Edda, Bible or Brihadaranyaka Upanishad or the creation myths of Samoan, Algonquin, Aztec, Aborigine people etc. has no place in biology. It is a subject of theology. Or in a broader sense of mythology, maybe anthropology of religion.

But it is most definitely complete nonsensical to treat these stories as if they are somehow valid science or to posit them as true by default when successful in casting doubt on or creating confusion about some contested detail within evolution science.

I am not against teaching – about – creationism. On the contrary. If time allows for it, I’d be all for providing kids with a whole smörgåsbord of creation myths. The more the better. Rather I am dead set against presenting them or arbitrarily one of them, with the authority of a teacher nonetheless, like they were valid descriptions of nature on equal footing with the theory of evolution. They are not. Creation myths serve a different purpose and consequently have an entirely different value to the systems of thought in which they arose and were developed and are only intelligible within that context. A value which incidentally is destroyed in the process of “fostering objectivity and weeding out personal biases” too.

It’s a spherical bad idea to paraphrase Fritz Zwicky.