Jan 22 2006
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Sen. Buttars drags Utah back to the dark ages
Ever play whack-a-mole, where the little mole pops up out of a hole, you whack it down, and it pops up in another hole?
Welcome to the reality-based community dealing with the fantasy of creationism.
Just four months ago, I wrote in this blog about the Utah school system’s Board of Education unanimously supporting a position statement reaffirming their commitment to teaching evolution in high school science classes.
But poof, that’s now gone. Utah Senator Chris Buttars (R-West Jordan) proposed a bill regulating the discussion of the origin of life in the classroom — students must consider opposing "scientific" viewpoints when learning about evolution (never mind that there are no scientific oppositions to it). The bill passed one hurdle, and is expected to pass the second as well. When it does, students in Utah get to join the increasingly less-exclusive list of other students around the United States getting screwed out of their education.
If this sounds harsh, then let me show you this quotation in an article about this in the Deseret (Utah) News:
Sen. Parley Hellewell, R-Orem, who supports the legislation, told senators, “It’s important we stand up and fight for what we believe.”
When will these guys understand that it’s not about what is believed, but what is known to be true and factual, or, in the case of creationism, what is known to be untrue and nonfactual.
I’ll be even clearer: belief does not belong in the classroom. It doesn’t. Belief is religion, no matter how you slice it. What belongs in the classroom is evidence-based reasoning. That’s why we have a First Amendment, and why Judge Jones ruled against the creationists on Dover.
A Senator from Salt Lake tried to help… but I’m glad he failed. He said
“If we are actually going to do those things, we should do it not with just one theory in the biology classroom. We should do it with all theories in the classroom,” [Senator Scott] McCoy [D-Salt Lake] said. “The fact it does target one particular theory points to the fact this debate is really about something much different than is being represented.”
He’s certainly right in that last point. But as for his idea about applying the bill to all science classes, I think he’s misguided. In a scientific setting, with proper discussion, questioning scientific theories is fine. Science is all about questioning what is known, and science classes should certainly include that. But it has to be a scientific debate, and not a religious one. I think that encouraging this at a state level is only going to make it easier for the anti-science brigade to open that door wider. It’s like dipping a cut finger into a septic tank.
This is so simple. Science thrives on questioning its premises based on observations, reason, and evidence. But creationists take this simple truth and twist it to their advantage politically, and they are subverting the law to force their faith on others.
“We’re trying to protect our kids,” Buttars said.
No he’s not. He’s trying to legislate the teaching of his particular belief. He might think he’s trying to protect them, but protecting them is the last thing he’s doing. Teaching them science, teaching them to think critically for themselves, teaching them what healthy skepticism is… that’s protecting them. If you do that, when they’re older they’ll be able to tell snake oil from real medicine. What Senator Buttars wants children to do is swallow whatever is given to them. That’s not science, that’s not healthy, and it’s certainly not protecting them.
You can’t legislate science. But in Utah, you can legislate fantasy.
We’re trying to protect our kids
Have you ever noticed that, in the last 100 years or so, every time you hear “It’s for the children”, some bastion of common sense or personal freedom is being stomped under a jackboot of oppression.
Nobody ever says, “We should require that all students have a full credit course in comparative philosophy before they graduate high school, after all, it’s for the children.”
There we go. Back in a downward spiral toward teaching beliefs in school instead of facts. When will they get the clue that ID is not science?
The children were being forced to evolve and we had to stop it.
Standing up for what one believes is one thing, imposing one’s religion on others is another, and in violation of the very first amendment. Separation of church and state should be defended and fought for by our government officials.
Phil, have you considered joining the scienceblogs.com community? A couple of my favourite bloggers (and Panda’s Thumb contributors) have recently moved there and seem to be liking it.
I only ask since you would appear to fit right in with your mix of highly informative science and pro-science posts (like this one).
Disclaimer: I have nothing whatsoever to do with scienceblogs.com other than being an interested reader
Yeah,
I feel your pain.
But my own brother is “one of them” and I can’t seem to break through. But it’s not just him. I work with lots of people who share his beliefs.
I just know that I’m tired, and I see the Republicans as the ones benifitting the most from my fatigue.
You’re right, you beat down one, another pops up. In my case, and I’ll bet I”m not alone, it’s more like two or three!
I don’t want to be a downer but programmers who work for me are pro ID. They feel it’s being “open minded” to teach both. (That’s right “open minded”!!!!)
I’ve tried to talk to them but they just don’t seem to “hear”. I’m just the bitter old guy who doesn’t “get it”. Go figure.
It makes me want to blow my brains out. (In fact, that sounds rather pleasant!)
I’m sorry, but I said I was tired.
rod
I feel your pain, as well. And I am not about to willingly stick my cut finger in a septic tank (where DID you come up with that vision?)
The problem is, I think this WILL go all the way to the supreme court. It’s going to take a bunch more state legtislatures being intolerably stupid (i.e. more so than usual) before it happens, though.
All rational people gird your loins and prepare to fight. This is going to happen again and again.
sounds like he wants to be re-elected, so he’s taking the position “of the people.” it’s easier that way.
BLEH.
“Ever notice how people who believe in creationism tend to look really unevolved? … ‘I buh-leeve God created me in one day!’ Yeah, it looks like He rushed it.”
– Bill Hicks
It’s cruel and hurtful, but, sometimes. . . it’s what I need to hear. And the “Dinosaurs in the Bible” sketch from Arizona Bay is just magnificent.
Phil,
I love your work with Bad Astronomy and setting people right on what’s wrong with common conceptions of space science. And I agree that Creationism/Intelligent Design is not science and hasn’t shown itself to be. But honestly, your tirades against it are getting a little old.
It seems, from reading this last rant, that your emotions about the subject are really running rampant. You preach rational thought, yet you seem to be going over the deep end when reporting/replying to these events in Utah.
For example, you say “students in Utah [will get] screwed out of their education” if this legislation passes, yet there doesn’t appear to be anything in the bill that would prevent the teaching of evolution at all. In fact, by the text of the bill (which I haven’t read, but only inferred from the article you linked to), if ID were shown to be unscientific, it wouldn’t be included in the curriculum. If ID were included anyway, then there’s the chance for debate, and ID should easily be shown to be bunk. How does a chance for scientific debate and questioning what is known (or taught to you as fact) equate to “getting screwed” out of their education?
You also say “What belongs in the classroom is evidence-based reasoning. That’s why we have a First Amendment.” I don’t disagree that evidence-based reasoning belongs in (and out of) a classroom, but that’s not why we have the First Amendment. The First Amendment reads “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” The part concerning religion wasn’t written to “separate church and state” (which is a modern interpretation of this amendment), but to guarantee that there would be no state religion. The Founders saw what the countries of Europe had done to and with religion–the Pilgrims came here to get away from the Church of England’s ban on their practice of religion, after all–and wanted to make sure Americans could worship as they chose. There’s nothing in the amendment, nor the Constitution, that bans faith or belief in a classroom.
You conclude that “[Senator Buttars is] trying to legislate the teaching of his particular belief. … What Senator Buttars wants children to do is swallow whatever is given to them.” But your conclusion is based on what? The article you link to doesn’t mention what his particular belief is, and it certainly doesn’t say that he’s trying to indoctrinate them into any religion.
You wrote “Science thrives on questioning its premises based on observations, reason, and evidence. But creationists take this simple truth and twist it to their advantage politically, and they are subverting the law to force their faith on others.” I ask, how are they forcing faith on anyone? Where is the evidence for it? I don’t know of any legislation or school board decisions that outright bans the teaching of evolution or evolutionary concepts. And if creationists are indeed “twisting the truth”, won’t that guarantee their eventual downfall? Truth is truth, something that science reveals, and any bending of it is a falsehood contrary to nature and evidence, and will ultimately be discarded. Look at the fate of pre-Copernican astronomy. No matter how much the church wanted the Earth to be the center of creation, it just isn’t so.
“Subverting the law” is a charged statement and also inaccuate–in all of these recent cases either school boards have been acting within their legal power, or legislation has been proposed or passed in accordance with state and federal principles. I imagine (so I may be wrong) that many creationist/ID supporters feel that these same legal steps have persecuted their faith, so I don’t think it’s fair to call a belief-inspired utilization of those same steps “subversion”.
So it seems to me that instead of taking a rational view of these events, you’re approaching it from an emotional standpoint. That’s well and good and your right (it’s your blog after all), but it’s a little hypocritical when you’ve been a critic and skeptic of emotional/non-rational beliefs and “sciences”. If you truly believe science will win out over illogic, then use science to prove your point. Debate and debunk the matter with scientific principles, not emotionally-charged rhetoric. You’ve used those principles in debunking the moon hoax, astrology, planet X, the face on Mars, and many other topics. Apply your skills in a similar manner to ID, then drop it. Scence will win, regardless of legislation to the contrary, and all your blog entries frothing about ID aren’t going to change that.
Phil Brady
It’s amazing the way arguing gets confused with logic by dumb people. And mormons really hate to teach scientific reasoning. Apply it to the church and it ruins the spell.
What I find most disconcerting is the persistent nature of these legislative attempts to dumb down the curricula. Despite their epic defeat in Pennsylvania, the ID proponents appear unfazed. Shortly after Jones’ decision had been handed down, we witnessed the introduction of anti-evolution legislation in Indiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Utah.
Phil Brady may be weary of these rants, but I’m certainly not. Expressing concern at religio-political attempts to supplant science is perfectly understandable, and there’s nothing wrong with passionately voicing opinions — particularly when the quality of children’s education is at stake on multiple fronts.
I take it the Senator is Probably a Republican.
I don’t know if this guy is up for re-election this year but he will within the
next 6 years.
Time to send this one back to Utah?
Well, if the new bill forces the mention of “other scientific theories” as well, then there is no problem. ID is not science, as has been shown time and over again, even by judges. So, if one school considers mentioning ID or other Crap Science in class, they will no be able to use that new bill to legitimate their actions.
Phil Brady said…If you truly believe science will win out over illogic, then use science to prove your point. Debate and debunk the matter with scientific principles, not emotionally-charged rhetoric.
Well, for one thing, “belief” has NO PLACE in a scientific investigation.
For another, just how does one “debate the matter with scientiic principles”, when ID is completely lacking in those “principles?
There is nothing to debate…the IDers would “like” to make it a debate, but they bring nothing to “debate” to the table.
Hmmm… 99.9% of every species that has ever lived is extinct. Could they please explain how this is INTELLIGENT design ?
Idiots
All of them
That should read…
“IDiots
All of them”
Well, I guess IDiots will never go away…call it survival instinct or whatever. Maybe they have a deep-rooted fear of the unknown…and invoking god comforts them - and this is what drives them. They apply the law of equality and arrive at the conclusion that those who do not believe in ID are going on the wrong path and have taken it upon themselves to correct those non-believers who have chosen science over god or ID.
Great Article !!! Both Scientific American and Sky and Telescope have recently had editorials about NOT teaching inteligent design. Intelligent Design is the truly scary part of the religious right - they cannot separate fact from fiction. If the bible says it, its an absolute fact and thats it……..
ID is an the concept of religion. Period. ID has been debunked over and over again, yet the YECs (Young Earth Creationists) keep trying to find ways to sneak their doctrine into schools as fact. Now their battle cry is “teach the contraversy”…when the only contraversy is in the social forum and not the scientific one.
Want to try to convince people that the universe is 6000 yers old and that humanity is the sole reason for the universes’ existence? Come up with evidence. It’s that simple. Has the ID crowd even tried? Nope. Just the same garbage repackaged over and over again.
How many times is it going to take before creationism goes the way of the Norse gods?
Maybe it’s because our history education in America sucks, too. The overall agenda of the interest groups really pushing ID seems to be to put science under religious control because they feel it conflicts with their beliefs. (Hello, Discovery Institute.) They seem to have forgotten that the last time science was put under the purview of the church, we had a lovely period called the Dark Ages.
Then again, I guess that when you’re the one getting to burn heretics at the stake, life doesn’t seem so bad.
What bothers me the most is that the media is accepting and pushing the idea that there’s some sort of controversy within the scientific community to begin with, and there’s not. I guess either it sells more newspapers, or they lack the basic understanding of science that lets you know that while they might call ID a theory in common parlance, it sure as hell isn’t in the scientific understanding of the word.
I regularly get my rant on about how I want to grab the IDiots by the lapels and shake them until their teeth rattle out of their heads. (Like yesterday: http://katsudon.livejournal.com/498519.html) I have two friends (well, they may not be my friends any more at this point) that are IDiots, and after a long debate with one, I finally realized that no matter what you say, they don’t listen.
(Summary: Word, man. Word.)
Protect the children from what? Critical thinking skills? Common sense? Reason? How about protecting them from the knowledge that all life on Earth is related and connected, thereby possibly instilling a drive to learn about ecology and to conserve and protect Earth’s living things? Or maybe they want to protect their kids from a solid grounding in biology so they can continue to throw away their money on useless “dietary supplements” like shark cartilage to prevent cancer, or colloidal silver to cure a cold. I honestly can’t understand where these people are coming from, but it concerns me.
Katzu said: “I want to grab the IDiots by the lapels and shake them until their teeth rattle out of their heads.”
Hey, violence will not solve the problem. But if you do go down this path, please donate all lose teeth to a spray can paint manufacturer. Better dental care (a science) means that they have fewer teeth available to use as stirrers in spray paint cans.
Phil Brady wrote “The First Amendment reads “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.†The part concerning religion wasn’t written to “separate church and state†(which is a modern interpretation of this amendment), but to guarantee that there would be no state religion.”
Says who? Just about every supreme court case that has dealt with this issue since it was challenged has disagreed. The first amendment MUST guarantee that the government remains nuetral to all religions. By the same token, in order for this to occur, the religious organizations MUST be limited in their ability to influnce government. It’s the only way for the First Amendment to have any real, practical meaning. Your proverbial one way wall of separation has been used as a bad anology for years by religious apologists trying to increase their influence on government. If that argument is followed, it renders the first amendment, to paraphrase the Mcreary case “superfluous and unmeaning”. It’s like the old argument that it says “freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion.” You can’t have freedom OF religion (islam for instance) without freedom FROM religion (xianity).
Cheers.
marsha: And mormons really hate to teach scientific reasoning. Apply it to the church and it ruins the spell.
Please, let’s not paint the whole church with Senator Buttars’ colors. The LDS Church as a whole has not come out in favor of the teaching of “Intelligent Design” in schools, and certainly not all members share Senator Buttars’ opinions. There are some Mormons who understand the evidence behind the theory of evolution and see “scientific creationism” and “the Intelligent Design theory” as the utter nonsense they are, thank you very much.
So much to say on this topic…
But let me start here. Over the weekend, in search of a little entertainment, I attended a couple sessions of an “Answers in Genesis” conference. What a frightening, yet enlightening experience that was. I missed some of the better topics, but I picked up on a few things. First, they deny that radiometric dating even works (I can’t tell you why, missed that session). With that out of the way, they take to opportunity to poke fun at “confused” scientists who think some rocks at Mt. St. Helens are millions of years old, and some are a few hundred thousand years old… but, uh, shouldn’t all rocks be the same age? I’d just like to suggest that next time, they don’t use a volcano as their example, because there are going to be rocks in the area from multiple eruptions, meaning they should have different ages.
They’d have to come up with a much better explanation to convert me, but they are preaching to mostly like-minded people. I’d guess that very few of the audience members got a decent science education, so they don’t understand how well science works. I say that with the exception of one person who I know to be a grade school science teacher. I also know that she touts creation to her first grade class. But then again, I live in Kansas, so I guess that’s par for the course.
The reason that ID and creation get so much support is because their followers blindly ignore the fact that science works. The speaker actually made a point to discuss how to defeat science. He wants to attack the base that all scientific enterprises stand on (deny all scientists of their five senses, I suppose). Destroy the foundation of science and all of our silly theories go away. We still need to fight to keep non-scientific ideas from entering science classes, but maybe more attention needs to be given to strengthening standards in the areas that creationists attack. Let’s teach more chemistry. Show students how well we know how elements interact, how they decay, and how we can accurately date fossils and rocks. Teach more physics. Teach more about waves, light, Doppler shift, radar. Prove to our kids that it works here on Earth so that they can’t deny that it works in space. I learned some of these things in high school, but only because I chose to take extra science courses… so we need to make extra science courses required. The Answers in Genesis speaker thinks that scientists have smartly attacked the foundation of creation for some time. I often get pretty emotional about this too, but I’ve just come to the realization that that doesn’t work well enough, so let’s reinforce our foundation instead.
Phil Brady says:
the Pilgrims came here to get away from the Church of England’s ban on their practice of religion, after all
Actually, they didn’t. They went to the Netherlands to escape religious persecution. They came here to get away from what they considered loose moral standards there (yeah, Amsterdam, y’know–some things never change)–their kids were growing up and being heavily influenced by the local environment.
I wish I had the same kind of faith you do in the self-evidence of truth. In my experience it’s WAY too easy for people to deny the truth of anything, so long as they want badly enough not to accept it.
Phil Brady said:
“The part concerning religion wasn’t written to “separate church and state†(which is a modern interpretation of this amendment), but to guarantee that there would be no state religion.”
Wall of “separation between church and state” is what Thomas Jefferson said!!! How can you say it was a modern argument?
“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God; that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship; that the legislative powers of the government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and State.”
-Thomas Jefferson, 1801
“Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person’s life, freedom of religion affects every individual. State churches that use government power to support themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of the church tends to make the clergy unresponsive to the people and leads to corruption within religion. Erecting the “wall of separation between church and state,” therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society.”
-Thomas Jefferson, 1808
Perhaps I am an incurable optomist, but I I took Senator McCoy’s remark as being sarcasm.
I also might add that the Puritans were not interested in religious freedom. They believe in freedom for THEIR religion, but were perfectly happy to exile and even hang people whose religious beliefs differed from theirs (Quakers, especially). Not only did the Puritans have an official state religion, but if was illegal to openly have other beliefs.
From the (mostly online) articles I’ve read, one of the big ID claims is that the theory of evolution as it stands cannot account for all observable phenomena. One of the big ones, although not the only, is the concept of irreducible complexity– that is, a functioning biological mechanism that is too complex to have evolved as a whole unit, but any of the potential partial evolutionary chains that could lead to the whole unit would not have evolved on their own as those bits would serve no functional purpose on their own, and would have been bred out of the organism before the evolution of the full mechanism was completed. These same articles either 1) ignore that claim entirely and go for the political/religious attack on the beliefs of the poor ignorants who are trying to push religion as science, or 2) offer up very thin counterarguments to the claims.
If the ID-ers initial claim of evolution not being able to account for all observable phenomena is false, it should be fairly easy to prove that, and there wouldn’t be a need to make the politcal/religious attacks. However, if that claim is correct, then the proper approach would be to study the theory of evolution and find ways that evolution does explain those phenomena, or can explain them within the confines of actual scientific thought and proper application of the scientific method. The ID theory would then have no ground to stand on, and would fall by the wayside. Wouldn’t that be a far more sound approach to take than to simply attempt to discredit the ID-ers as creationists?
While I’m in the camp that evolution is the correct science, it bothers me that I don’t see much in the way of scientific argument on the subject instead of playing the religion card. It sometimes makes me wonder if evolution is a solid as is claimed, if they can’t fight the ID/evolution battle on the grounds of science, but have to resort to polticking instead.
Course, conversely, I’m all for teaching creationism in schools– for the historical perspective. Until Darwin did his research, creationism was THE theory for how everything came to exist. We still teach the historical perspective of the Ptolemaic universe and pre-Galilean and pre-Copernican conceptions of the heavens, or how many believed the Earth was flat before Columbus sailed to America. It helps students understand the differences between science and philosophy/religion, and it also shows how we got where we were. Teaching it as a historical concept in the science classrooms, like those other things I mentioned, makes perfect sense to me. Course, that’s not currently allowed either, as I understand the laws on the matter.
Phil, whether you do it, or whether someone else does, I have to agree with Phil Brady on that one count– I’d love to read a very thorough scientific approach to debunking ID.
Justin– on the radiometric dating argument, I’ve heard this one before, so I can give you a brief rundown. It runs more or less like this:
Carbon-14 dating is based on comparing how much C14 is in a given living item, and comparing those levels to a dead one. The radioactive decay of C14 is a constant, and it’s relatively simple math to determine age based on the comparison. However, objects that have been submerged in water tend to lose C14 at a more rapid rate, mostly as all the carbon isotopes dissolve into the water– for instance, if you were to carbon date the remains of sailors on a sunken ship, they would appear older than the remains of someone from the same time period who was buried on land. As I understand it, this is taken into account when carbon dating occurs for those types of items. The argument that your “Answers in Genesis” group makes is that since there was a worldwide Flood (Noah, et al), anything older than that epoch would appear significantly older than it actually is, due to the water deterioration that occurred during the Flood, and that scientists dating anything older than 5000 years or so are getting it wrong as a result.
Creationists love to harp on the error ranges and difficulty of calibrating C14 dates as if that somehow invalidates all dating of anything that goes back farther than written history.
The thing is, C14 dating is useless for anything more than 60-70,000 years old, as by then there isn’t enough C14 remaining to get a good handle on. In terms of geological or evolutionary time, that’s a mere eyeblink.
There are a variety of dating methods with a much longer reach. Some of them are even inherently error-detecting. A search on TalkOrigins should turn up lots of information on these; their articles on isochron dating are particularly interesting.
Simply put, when a creationist starts frothing off about C14 dating, they’re spouting irrelevancies.
To Justin and Julie: Justin, it should be noted that Carbon-14 dating is hardly the only radioactive dating technique available to date things. Google “radiometric dating” and search for it on Wikipedia if you’d like to know more.
In my experience, people arguing for creationism tend to leave that out.
Also be sure to check out the Talk Origins Archive. While that website kinda of annoys me (it seems it claims to be balanced, but sometimes I don’t think it is), it has some good information refuting common creationist arguments against evolution/old Earth/etc.
I haven’t read all of the comments here because I just don’t have the time (Ugh… gotta love crabby kids), but I have a sick feeling in my stomach (no, not because of the kids - this time). I feel sick because this is all over the place. Everywhere we look. I can’t even keep up with which state is now teaching the Bible in school and which ones are teaching creationism anymore!
We’re fighting it here in Ohio and I’m terrified of what kind of education that my children will be subjected to in the future (and a bit more terrified that I’m going to have no other choice than to homeschool them and never have time for myself again).
It’s absolutely sick that our public schools and the elected (ok, and appointed) officials are making this a reality. I’m waiting to wake up from this nightmare, but it’s real and it’s absolutely sad.
It looks like Ktesibios beat me to it.
>Julie Says:
>January 23rd, 2006 at 10:39 am
>While I’m in the camp that evolution is the correct science, it bothers me >that I don’t see much in the way of scientific argument on the subject >instead of playing the religion card. It sometimes makes me wonder if >evolution is a solid as is claimed, if they can’t fight the ID/evolution >battle on the grounds of science, but have to resort to polticking instead.
Julie, the issue is, debating the ID stance in scientific terms only gives weight to the concept that ID has something to do with science. This is really a double edged sword, attacking them for what they are, they are the ones making this religo-political movement, is seen as avoiding the true question, debating their claims on from a scientific standpoint gives credence to calling religious views science. Talkorigins.com has some good science talking down irreducible complexity, but fundamentally that boils down to misunderstanding the true theory of evolution. They are basically saying according to their own mis-interpretation of evolution the flight feather, or the human eye, and various other complex organs could not have evolved by “survival of the fittestâ€. Debunking their argument needs to start with teaching them the true meaning of theory, then teaching them what evolution actually says, then pointing out that their argument is fully accounted for in the 2 billion years of evolving organisms. If they are still paying attention, ‘cause that’s not a fast process, and they are coming from a point they don’t want to believe anything being said, somewhere along that path they will counter with God did it, so we counter with see ID is a religious argument and has no place being taught as science.
Julie - that’s quite a neat argument. How do the YECs account for the dates acquired from the other 15 or so radionuclides from which dates are obtained?
Julie, you also said:
“However, if that claim is correct, then the proper approach would be to study the theory of evolution and find ways that evolution does explain those phenomena, or can explain them …”
Evolutionary explanations for irreducibly complex structures have been proposed. Many times (e.g. go and have a read of some of the articles at the Talk Origins archive, here http://www.talkorigins.org/). Very often, the potential evolutionary path to a structure that is supposedly irreducibly complex is relatively trivial to work out, but immensely laborious to demonstrate. Institutions that fund research simply have better things to do with their money (such as fund research that would help find a cure for a disease, or that will help us to better understand the intricate mechanisms of living things).
Phil Brady, I think I at least can understand Phil (the BA)’s frustration with ID proponents. They trot out the same tired arguments, arguments that have been refuted many times, yet never accept any counter-argument. ID proponents generally do not propose any theory to replace evolution. They pick structures or mechanisms without an obvious, simple evolutionary explanation and say “evidence of design!”. Yet so many of these things do have evolutionary explanations. The explanations may be complex, or subtle, yet they exist. On the other hand, ID proponents have never specified how we could conclusively recognise a designed structure, and Michael Behe’s own definition of irreducible complexity allows the observer to choose the “parts” and the “system” in any way they wish.
For example, he latches onto the bacterial flagellum as an example of IC. He defines the system as three parts - a motor, rotor and paddle. He then says that without any one of these three things, it fails to work. Yet, if one chooses a different definition of the parts (e.g. the individual proteins), there are plenty of examples where you can remove a part and the whole still works.
At its heart, the “scientific” ID argument is an argument from incredulity. More fundamentally, it is a political strategy to give evangelical christian organisations control over what is taught as science in schools.
That’s confusing. Five others posted while I was composing my post. I was referring to Julie’s explanation of how YECs explain 14C dates.
I don’t remember where i first heard this, but creationism and intelligent design both state pretty much the same thing: that a planet covered with water over three quarters of its surface was intentionally created primarily for the use of human beings… who have no gills, flippers, or fins.
Good Grief Charile Brown!
Just the facts is what you want. Then lets toss out everything that relates to classic fiction, Shakespere, Philosophy and on and on. Did not early science start with a dream? With not a fact in sight? Well?
Why not ease off on you myopic view and quit straining the tempers of your readers?
[…] Here is Phil’s post, and here is the original article. We’re becoming a nation of ignorant, channel surfing, couch potatos, so ignorant of science that we treat scientific theories like “That’s, like, just your opinion man!”. We’re going to be passed by another country, probably China, before I die, and it’s depressing to be watching the death spiral. […]
Trebob, that doesn’t sound very intelligent to me …
Julie, sorry, I’m going to take you to task for this one, too:
“We still teach the historical perspective of the Ptolemaic universe and pre-Galilean and pre-Copernican conceptions of the heavens, or how many believed the Earth was flat before Columbus sailed to America.”
Actually, it was known that the Earth was round in about 200 BC, and its diameter was measured to an accuracy of about 10%, which I think isn’t bad. Everyone else thought the Earth was bigger than Columbus did - which is why he was the only one to try to sail west to Indonesia. He really thought he had found the East Indies when he found the West Indies.
The YECionists arguments against radiometric dating go beyond C14 as well. They are actually a great example of how they argue.
It boils down to something along the lines of “ x is what scientists call their evidence for b. Here is an example of where it doesn’t work. Therefore radiometric dating is just a bunch of hogwash and hand waving.â€
Funny thing is there are places like ICR that spend huge amounts of time trying to shoot down radiometric dating by pointing out exceptions or mis-interpreting data, then use the same concepts in a flawed study to “prove†a 6000 year old earth.
Well, not all of us that believe in Intelligent Design are drooling ignoramuses. It rather amuses me when I see rants such as these: the intolerance drips from each word. I’d be the last person to try to impose my beliefs on anyone and I share the concern of the anti-theists in this regard: it is clear that ID is not science and should not be taught as such.
But this discussion magnifies the real problem: public education.
Public education in the form which it exists today must be ended if we are ever to have rationality to return to how we educate our children. We all have our worldviews and the desire to have our children taught consistently with those worldviews. Scientists are no different.
Yet when you examine the materialist mindset of the “scientist†you find dogma just as surely as you might in any other corner of human existence. I leave it as an exercise for the materialist to identify their own dogma though I am happy to help if assistance is needed. And please spare me the profuse denials that scientists are different and have no presuppositions—it just makes you look stupid.
What we need in America is public funding of education and not publicly operated schools. This architecture would allow us to back away from these silly pointless arguments and give parents the liberty to raise their kids as they see fit. But in the mean time, I’m sure the struggle will continue with both extreme perspectives making public displays of idiocy for the consumption of the masses.
It would all be quite entertaining if the price were not so high.
The Disenfranchised Curmudgeon
>Eric Ingram says:
>To Justin and Julie: Justin, it should be noted that Carbon-14 dating is hardly the only radioactive dating technique available to date things. Google “radiometric dating†and search for it on Wikipedia if you’d like to know more.
Right, C-14 can only be used on things that were once alive, I believe. Other isotopes are used for things like rocks. So I guess the next question is- do these other elements also dissolve in water?
If ID is somehow correct, the least intelligent thing about the design (aside from all the undrinkable water for us land creatures, trebob… and the human appendix) is the fact that it works in such a way that it deceives so many of us into thinking that the Earth has been here 5 billion years and the Universe 14 billion. “Deceitful Design” has a nice ring to it. Someone start printing the pamphlets.
The wack-a-mole game continues.
It’s a real shame to read news like this. I can’t believe people would be so, well, arrogant to allow this.
I hope this does not happen in my state (Florida). If it has, well, I’d feel worse.
It’d also be insult to injury, given this is where many great science missions get their start.
Nigel:
First, about the other radioactive isotopes used for testing, I’ve never heard an argument (although apparently Hugh Jass has) from anyone supporting that stance that mentions anything other can Carbon-14. Ignore the evidence if it doesn’t support your argument I guess.
As to Columbus– the scientific community and the well-educated were aware that the Earth was round, but the common people (peasantry, mainly) still believed the Earth was flat, and the Catholic church at the time did nothing to teach the correct science. Which is why I said ‘many believed’, not that everyone did, or even that most did. But Columbus would hardly have had to worry about mutiny if some of the sailors weren’t afraid they’d fall off the edge of the world by sailing so far out. =)
Once Creationism is allowed in a science class, there will be less time spent on the teaching of science and more time devoted to the comparisons of both; and since class time - in high school, at least - is so very limited today that many of the increasingly complex scientific discoveries and the science behind them have less and less exposure to students, there must of necessity be a sort of triage perfomed on what science must be taught in order to provide the most basic understanding of scientific principles. In most public high schools LESS than one hour per day per five day week during a school year which averages 185 days nationwide is devoted to any one particlular discipline. That is almost 155 hours per science class per year - not much time in which to rigorously cover the complexities of a body of knowledge. Most students do not take “upper level,” i.e. college prep courses, and many high school districts, in order to accomodate the plethora of electives demanded by parents, students and sometimes state boards of education, have reduced the “hard” courses like math, science, history and so on to a bare minimum of “seat time” for those not college bound. The solution for those bound for education beyond high school is literally hours of after school coursework - homework - assigned by teachers who feel the pressures of that lack of class time to teach what they and their school board and the state thinks is important. As for the rest of the student population; they must fend for themselves in an environment which is increasingly one in which only a summarization of the important data is presented. And that is the state of high school courses; reduce the above by a factor of two and it will represent the state of hard courses in junior high schools, or grades 6 through 9.
As for the notion that taxpayers ought to be allowed to select which school they send their children to - the “voucher” proposal by any name is a direct assault on the notion of what ” public education” means, what it was set up to provide: a PUBLIC schooling for everyone. The flaws in public education will not be addressed by stretching the already limited funds, and the taxable pupil base upon which schools depend, by giving those taxpayers who want to send their children to private schools via a “voucher program” or any other “parental choice” plan permission to do so. Having taxpayers fund schools is the simplest and most democratic way to provide schooling for everyone. Those folks who want their kids home schooled or privately tutored have the right to do so now, but they are still responsible to the commonweal of their community and nation via their school taxes. There is fifty plus years of examples of how some folks have resisted the Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka ruling by the Supreme Court in schemes designed to bypass this “education for all” ruling, and just as many examples during that time of tortured attempts by states and communities to overcome the unequal education which the law attempted to address. As long as there are some folks who BELIEVE that they don’t have a responsibility to educate EVERY child in this country, then there will continue to be attempts at undermining all public education by various schemes of one kind or another.
Will,
I see your anti-voucher poppy-cock and raise you facts.
Sadly, it is a busy day for me here at work today so my reply must be brief.
A responsible voucher program does nothing but enhance the voucher exercising family’s contribution to the commonweal. This argument is a straw-man from the educational establishment. Most voucher proposals leave thirty to fifty percent of the educational dollars for the individual students in the public education system and thus INCREASE the amount of money available to students remaining in the public system on a per capita basis.
On the other side, I consider the present system a violation of my Constitutionally protected right to free exercise of religion and the separately identified rights of parents to raise their kids in a manner consistent with their own beliefs. At the risk of stating the obvious, the violation comes into play by the seizing of my tax dollars for the purposes of education and then compulsory attendance at a state school in the event that the balance of my income is not sufficient to pay for a private education. I am happy to elaborate further here if anyone wants to discuss it. I have also written about it in the past.
In short, it is a very long leap to assuming that I wish to “undermine†public education because I in fact support efforts to save it from its current path of destruction. While I certainly think it is in the best interests to change how we operate, it is my most fervent wish that every kid gets the education they deserve and not some watered down half baked bunch of junk that results from the inability of the secularist/materialist and fundamentalist-theistic crowds to share a sandbox.
The Disenfranchised Curmudgeon
The Disenfranchised Curmudgeon says:
>…it is my most fervent wish that every kid gets the education they deserve and not some watered down half baked bunch of junk that results from the inability of the secularist/materialist and fundamentalist-theistic crowds to share a sandbox.
Exactly. If fundamentalist groups would stop trying to shovel all the sand out of the great sandbox of science, the whole world would be a better place. Every child deserves a good education in what science is and how we learn about our world by practicing it. As far I can tell, there’s just one group to blame for the watered-down junk that is passing for science education today.
Why bother?
People! Get used to it! THEY’RE GOING TO WIN. They have the Courts, the Senate, the House, MSNBC, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, The 700 Club, Rush, Sean, Anne C, G. Gordon Liddey and Grover Norquist on their side. They can stop, destroy and warp any attempt we make to point out that what they’re saying is wrong and they will.
Face it, Americans like stupidity. Certainty on all issues, discourse reduced to a common denominator so common it’s vaguely esoteric is the Wave of the Future. We like our issues and politicians dumb and sincere. If this isn’t true, how come Chimpy got elected President TWICE??
Mark my words: 50 years from now America will be a an economically shattered 3rd World Country run by multinational corps run by reactionary rich white guys and various Asian/European allies whose only exports will be military hardware and desperate cannon fodder troops merced out to whoever pays enough. Does anyone (including you Phil, and I like your work a lot) really believe that there’s a real grassroot opposition to these clowns that’ll mobilize the yahoos long enough to get them to look up from American Idol and Fox News long enough to truly understand how they’ve been exploited? They’ve been dumbing us down since Grampa Reagan was being senile in office and they’ve gotten SO MUCH BETTER at it since January of 2001.
Everyone: you want a future? Move to Eurpope and pretend you’re from Canada or New Zealand. That way no one will laugh at you too much for being an American…
Sorry. Wish I had better news. But the truth is that this country has sold itself out and in a little while our resale value is gonna plummet like there’s no tommorow.
Sad, really. This was a great place to live not so long ago…
Julie said:
>If the ID-ers initial claim of evolution not being able to account for all observable phenomena is false, it should be fairly easy to prove that …
Not really.
The following paragraphs from the judge’s ruling in the Dover, Pa., case show the problem:
“In fact, on cross-examination, Professor (Michael) Behe was questioned concerning his 1996 claim that science would never find an evolutionary explanation for the immune system. He was presented with fifty-eight peer-reviewed publications, nine books, and several immunology textbook chapters about the evolution of the immune system; however, he simply insisted that this was still not sufficient evidence of evolution, and that it was not ‘good enough.’
“We find that such evidence demonstrates that the ID argument is dependent upon setting a scientifically unreasonable burden of proof for the theory of evolution.”
Now, while Behe apparently is motivated by reasons other than religion (he admits the validity of evolution up to a point), those who are motivated by religion take the same approach, and there is a broad campaign to discredit and dismiss science and scientists.
ID leaders (national and local) construct and disseminate pre-packaged arguments against the evidence put forth by scientists. Knowing that their primary audience both (a) wants very much to be on “God’s side” and (b) is pretty much in the dark regarding anything scientific, they don’t have much trouble getting that audience to believe any argument that might sound plausible to non-experts.
Coupled with this, they have inundated the religious public in a campaign to discredit scientists and science itself. There is a conspiracy afoot, they say, no dissent from the evolution orthodoxy is allowed. Scientists must accept evolution to get a degree, to be published, to advance their careers. The powerful atheistic science establishment enforces it, they say. Therefore, no argument put forth by scientists can be believed. They lie, you know, or are themselves deluded.
There are other tactics, but in the end, if all else fails, the power of the “God did it” rebuttal is infinite. There is no evidence that can be put forward that contradicts the idea that God could have arranged things in just that way — if not for some halfway logical-sounding reason, then because he wanted to confound unbelievers or had a mysterious reason of his own.
Once you’ve accepted the existence of a god who “can do anything,” there is no logical reason to think he hasn’t done everything.
This sort of thinking, of course, is fatal to the scientific principle that by observing the way the universe works, we can figure out how things happened in the past, what might happen in the future, and what we can do to improve the human condition. That’s why science must always reject god as an explanation (separate from any natural process that a theistic person might judge to have been the method by which their god accomplished his purposes), unless it has absolutely been proven that all possible natural explanations are impossible. That point has never been reached.
“your tirades against it are getting a little old.”
I love it when Phil bashes the ID crowd. He knows they are after cosmology and astronomy next and is supporting evolution taught as science as the first line of defense. The fact that the analysis of light from stars indicates that the universe is older than 6,000 years is prima facie enough to condem all who worship the stars (aka as astronomers) to death on the rack!
Phil is jut trying to save his own skin as he is one of those who lead young people into the arms of the devil by explaining heretic ideas such as the big bang and star evolution.
>Tony Plank Says:
>January 23rd, 2006 at 2:16 pm
:SNIP:
>At the risk of stating the obvious, the violation comes into play by the
>seizing of my tax dollars for the purposes of education and then
>compulsory attendance at a state school in the event that the balance of my income is not sufficient to pay for a private education.
:SNIP:
Isn’t this the biggest problem with government, constantly collecting tax dollars for services I don’t use or want. Great Idea the only people who should pay taxes toward public education are those with school aged kids in public schools!!!
“that a planet covered with water over three quarters of its surface was intentionally created primarily for the use of human beings… who have no gills, flippers, or fins. ”
You’re fogetting Kevin Costner in the blockbuster “WaterWorld”
You have to wait a bit longer for the Apocolypse before you get gills.
I’m disappointed. I was hoping that Utah (where I live) was going to be smart. Nope. I am a mormon and evolution does not bother me. In fact I think it is rather amazing to see how life has changed over the 3.5 billion years its been on the earth. Evolution is the ONLY scientific theory out there. I do not want ID taught. It is not science.
I just hope science and common sense win out.
Justin,
Yes. Just like the radical right, you too are completely unaware of your own role in the problem. There is plenty of shoveling from both sides. And the most ardent on both sides are completely certain that it is completely the other side’s “faultâ€.
If everyone would put their biases aside for a while, there are solutions. But as longs as hot heads like you and Pat Robertson drive the discussion, nothing will change.
Anthony,
Actually, I am an Anthony too, so there are two things I like about you. I liked your post very much. I call them the mass stupids-mostly for shock value, but it is an accurate label. I’m usually more civil.
Americans are embracing stupidity with a fervor that is really hard to fathom. We let media define everything and are content to get all our “knowledge†from media outlets. We are so far gone that we have media that is dedicated to reporting on the media, and even larger scale media dedicated to “entertainment newsâ€. A very sad state of affairs indeed.
Still, I take umbrage at the suggestion that believing in a created order is automatic grounds for being branded stupid. There is a lot of intellectual ground out there and it is sad to see otherwise intelligent people jump to conclusions. We all learned about that error in logic class.
Julie said:
“First, about the other radioactive isotopes used for testing, I’ve never heard an argument (although apparently Hugh Jass has) from anyone supporting that stance that mentions anything other can Carbon-14. Ignore the evidence if it doesn’t support your argument I guess.”
John Woodmorappe wrote a book called Mythology of Modern Dating Methods where he took 500 separate studies that, he believed, demonstrated that dating methods are inaccurate. These studies covered almost all dating methods, I believe, not just C14.
Brent Dalrymple wrote a great rebuttal to this book that you can find on Talk Origins:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dalrymple/how_old_earth.html
On the thoeory of creationism or higher will, vs the theory of evolution, both should be taught. We can’t be so closed minded as to say that evolution is the only possible way for us to be here. I think you should stick to your creed and stay with astronomy.
I have read many books on both sides of the arguement, so maybe they both have their place in teaching people to have an open mind. I usually agree with most of your blogs but think that you missed the boat here.
thanks for the food for though.
Yet when you examine the materialist mindset of the “scientist†you find dogma just as surely as you might in any other corner of human existence. I leave it as an exercise for the materialist to identify their own dogma though I am happy to help if assistance is needed.
Please provide such assistance. Tell me where the dogma is in logic, observation, hypothesizing, making a prediction, testing the prediction, observing the results, and starting the process over with a refined hypothesis.
There’s no dogma there that I can see. Your dogma claim, is an easily discountable opinion that science is just another religion, and that’s simply not true because science requires no faith.
Dave, you must be missing the point(s). The whole problem with ID is that it is not science, so it has no place in a science classroom. Also, if another point of view is going to be taught, then shouldn’t ALL points of view be taught, to be fair (including FSM)?
Don’t worry, we have an open mind. But no theory has come close to replacing the very successful evolution (where do you guys think medicine comes from? Evolution theories or ID theories?).
At the risk of inciting a flame war (which I hope doesn’t happen), Anthony Fichera, I think your findings are slightly off. While some of the commentators and non elected officials have more diverse agendas, there is actually very little difference between democrat and republican leadership on a political scale. Those political scientists (if you’ll pardon me the use of the term for a social science– I know some disapprove of it, although I personally find it apt) whose business it is to study such things found a very small difference between Bush and Kerry, based on their records, their speeches, etc. In fact, Kerry is actually more traditionally conservative than Blair, and significantly more so than Pope Benedict– at least from a social programs/economic regulation perspective.
The US is stuck in a moderately right-winged rut on socio-economic issues and just barely right of center on moral legislation. Has been for years, although the trend has been moving more to the left very, very slowly over time. If you’re interested in a reasonably accurate online discussion of this, I recommend http://www.politicalcompass.org/ — It’s pretty layman in its usage, and not entirely accurate, but it does a decent job for being reasonably understandable. Some of the more esoteric political science texts I’ve read make my brain hurt just trying to decipher the sentences.
Tony Plank-
First, I take offense to being labeled a hot head.
Second, I don’t see how my desire to have science teachers teach only science to America’s children makes me part of the problem. Let me know what I can do to be part of the solution. I try not to do any shoveling. I have never tried to force a Sunday School teacher to teach about the Big Bang. I merely get offended when people try to tell me that science is all wrong.
I wholeheartedly agree that there is plenty of intellectual ground between the two extremes in this debate and I’ll admit that I occupy a place somewhere in between the extremes. I believe that, without a doubt, science gives us accurate information on how the world works, where it came from, and where it’s going. It is for this reason that I believe in a 13.7 billion year old Universe of which we are just one small part. But I also believe that there are areas science can’t explain. For example, science will never look beyond the moment of the Big Bang and tell us how or why the handful of cosmological and physical constants that govern the operation of the entire Universe are set just the way they are. These numbers allow for galaxies to form, stars to shine, and life to thrive. If we lived in a Universe with different initial conditions, we would not be here.
>There is a lot of intellectual ground out there and it is sad to see otherwise intelligent people jump to conclusions.
Ah yes, so why assume that I’m a hot head from the far left and jump to the conclusion that I’m not somebody who finds comfort in a communion with God and the idea that he created a Universe perfectly suited for us to enjoy and explore? Just because some bacteria and a few dinosaurs beat us to the scene doesn’t mean that He takes any less pleasure out of seeing us gain an understanding and appreciation for the world around us, and it does not mean he can’t have a very real presence in our lives.
Why is it that I, as a college educated scientist, am comfortable taking some middle ground, but so many people fighting against evolution cannot? My guess is because the scientifically illiterate masses have never been taught to collect all the evidence they can before drawing a conclusion. As a result, they ignore every bit of evidence for our origins except the few words at the beginning of Genesis, even though so much more has been carefully unearthed. Now that’s a profound error in logic.
Dave Says:
On the thoeory of creationism or higher will, vs the theory of evolution, both should be taught.
I disagree. Politics, religion, liberal arts topics, etc. are filled with issues where there’s lots of room for arguement about the same sets of facts. But science fits into the other category that includes math, geography, etc. We don’t teach 2+2=5 in mathematics because it’s wrong and there’s no way it can be right. Similarly there’s only one Earth taught in geography. That’s not repressive dogma; it’s just that these disciplines cover topics that have topics so firmly proven.
2 + 2 = 5 for large values of 2.
Tom D: Just the facts is what you want. Then lets toss out everything that relates to classic fiction, Shakespere, Philosophy and on and on.
But classic fiction is taught as fiction. Shakespeare isn’t taught in history class. There’s an important difference there. I don’t think anyone here would have a problem with teaching about creationist beliefs in a religion class, or a History of Science class, or a similar context, but teaching them as if they were a viable scientific alternative to evolution is a different matter entirely. That’s like teaching Shakespeare as if all his plays were documents accurately portraying historical fact.
Julie: As to Columbus– the scientific community and the well-educated were aware that the Earth was round, but the common people (peasantry, mainly) still believed the Earth was flat
That’s a widespread myth, but in fact by Columbus’s time pretty much everyone, the common people included, knew the Earth was round. There were a few eccentrics who claimed the world was flat, but they composed a very small minority (and heck, there are still similar eccentrics today). Columbus’s sailors weren’t afraid they’d fall off the edge of the Earth; they were afraid they wouldn’t find land in time before they ran out of supplies. (And their fears were well founded; they wouldn’t have made it to Asia the way they were going before running out of supplies! But fortunately for them, they hit another continent on the way…)
An important consideration in teaching ID/Creationism is the matter of what qualifies to be taught in public school science, and where the proper place for scientific debates is. As others have stated, time in public school is extremely limited. Additionally, few students at that level have the background knowledge, experience with scientific analys, understanding of the scientific method, time, and inclination to fully understand the merits of competing theories, or a theory and competing hypotheses or conjectures. As such, the science topics that are taught must be ones that meet a very high standard. They must be extremely well-supported by a massive number of experiments and thorough peer-reviewed journal articles that support predictions the theory made before the experiments were conducted. They must have adequately overcome the major objections that scientists have raised against them. They must be central theories used every day by tons of scientists in many wide-ranging fields. They must be well-established and accepted as the best explanation by the vast majority of scientists in applicable fields. There is precious little time for debate, and few students could truly understand the merits of opposing perspective well enough to make a truly informed decision even if there was enough time. So only the very best theories get to be taught. Evolution meets all of these criteria, perhaps better than any other scientific theory. It certainly meets the criteria better than any scientific theory taught in any significant way to public schoolers. ID and Creationist do not. In fact, they do not meet ANY of these criteria. They have no experiments supporting them (at least none that support them but not evolution). They have negligable support in the scientific community, especially among those in biology-related fields. They are not used by any scientists to make any new predictions or explanations.
Now I would certainly not argue that debate is wrong. Debate is the key to science, and I welcome scientific debates in a scientific setting on the issue. But these debates need to be with scientists, people who have the background, experience, training, and expertise to truly understand the issues being discussed. If the ID/Creationist crowd truly has anything to offer than they should offer it there. That is where all real science is presented. That is where all real scientific debate takes places. Only those theories that can weather the gauntlet that all scientific theories must pass through deserve to be taught in public school classrooms. Being taught in public school is not a right all scientific or scientific-sounding claims automatically are given it is a privelage that only the very best scientific theories can earn. If ID/Creationist really has something to offer science, let it earn its place in science classrooms the same way everything else taught in science classroom has. But it must prove itself worthy.
Alun Clewe: “Columbus’s sailors weren’t afraid they’d fall off the edge of the Earth; they were afraid they wouldn’t find land in time before they ran out of supplies. (And their fears were well founded; they wouldn’t have made it to Asia the way they were going before running out of supplies! But fortunately for them, they hit another continent on the way…) ”
Columbus didn’t prove the world was round. He proved that it doesn’t matter how wrong you are if you’re lucky…
“Only those theories that can weather the gauntlet that all scientific theories must pass through deserve to be taught in public school classrooms.”
Therin lies the problem with debating creationists. Every time their arguments are subjected to scrutiny, they claim that they are being unfairly targeted by a non-existent “science Inquisition”. What they don’t understand is that ALL scientific theories are put under tough scrutiny. Test and confirm, verify, test and confirm. If a hypothesis fails to stand up to testing, then it is simply wrong and dropped.
The ToE has been tested over and over again fir the last century and a half. It remains a valid scientific theory not because of some bizarre “dogma”, but because it has survived rigorous testing. The ID crowd has yet to do any kind of testing that stands up to examination, nor made any predictions about what we might find in nature that can be tested at all.
If we listen to the IDers, we might as well toss out the Theory of Gravity and bring in the “Theory of Intelligent Falling.”
Ihave found a new religion! I am a Pastfarian! Thank you, Eric!
Now, to aquire the full pirate garb….Ramen.
JC
In a message earlier today, Julie mentions that one thing IDers claim is that evolution can’t account for ‘irreducible complexity’.
I remember reading a Scientific American short article several months ago where a group of computer programmers wrote an ‘Evolution’ program. When they let it run, ‘irreducible complexity’ appeared spontaniously. When word of this got out, some IDers complained about errors in the program. So, the group released the source code and let them go through it and look for errors. The net result was that the group got a large number of very good, thorough, Beta Testers for free as the IDers did everything they could to find out where the errors were… without success I might add.
Vega E. Altair
Mike– I toyed with the idea of joining scienceblogs — they don’t have an astronomy blog — but I have other plans for this blog, and joining a consortium may not work out too well for me. FWIW, Bad Astronomy is like a brand, and joining a community blog would dilute that, I think.
Thanks for the positive encouragement though!
Kevin from NYC, you said: “Phil is jut trying to save his own skin as he is one of those who lead young people into the arms of the devil by explaining heretic ideas such as the big bang and star evolution.”
No, I’m not trying to save my own skin. Far from it; I’d move to Australia and be done with it if that were true. I’m one of many, many scientists trying to save the ability of Americans to think.
I sense just a hint of sarcasm in Kevin’s post.
Anthony,
You mean they think they are going to win:)?
What,did you say you didn’t drink your coffee?
Wake up man, don’t you know the Bush folks are so scared they are already talking about Impeachment hearings…and this is from their own party!
Phil,
Thanks for the insight and righteous indignation.
I’m a new reader, and this post inspired me to write a small devotional to Chris Buttars on my blog under Dear Mr. Fantasy.
This and the links from my post may give you additional insight into the rising firestorm within the Mormon community. Fortunately, not all Momons or Utahns think like Chris Buttars.
There *may* be a solution to this ID problem. Say an IDer falls sick…the doctors simply tell him to sit and pray to be healed. Let no one help him till the IDer accepts the authority of science or things start getting out of hand. Perhaps this sounds cruel, but its the only way…but even this may fail since after the IDer is cured s/he will simply say that god made the doctor treat her/him.
Rohit Says: Perhaps this sounds cruel, but its the only way…
It’s evolution…
I still find no conclusive proof from science that life wasn’t created. The fact that evolution exists is no doubt a proven fact and fossil records show evolution. I Do not agree that creationism is a science nor should be taught in schools as a science. No one knows, including religion, anything about creation, only that it happened. Humans are different than any animal on the planet. There is a reason for that and to understand the reason, which you would have to believe in god to even attempt to understand, would leave no doubt that god created evething we have and left us with our agency to belive and do as we please. Just because a person doen’t buy into evolution totatlly doen’t mean he won’t accept a doctor remedy because science created it. The truth of it all is that science is continually discovering the process of creation, which can be tested and proven, not the reason for creation which can’t be tested or proven. Hence the two differing sides to the whole problem. The best solution is tolerence from both sides and meet somewhere in the middle. Let science teach science and let religion teach relgion. Not teaching creationism in school is not going to ruin our children. They will be able to still believe and learn science without any problem, I have for better than 30 years.
Geeze, I’m way at the bottom of this challenging blog!
SNOWFLAKES! That’s one answer to spontaneous complexity.
However, if you really, really want a great scientific book about complexity, please read: INTO THE COOL—Energy Flow, Thermodynamics, and Life by Eric D. Schneider and Dorion Sagan.
Regarding Behe’s “irreducible complexity”, from page 121:
‘This phrase “irreducible complexityâ€, used by Michael Behe and others to argue against the possibility of life’s natural origin, seems to us to be at best ignorant and at worst a willful distortion. Compexity forms spontaneously from a mere thermal gradient applied across a fliud. LIfe formed in a great thermal gradient of near-star space…’.
Or, use this from page 117: “Convection cells, far simpler than life, point up nature’s tendency to form discontinuities, to produce chaos through complexity. In destroying previous complexity, previous unlikelihood, new complexity, newly improbable structures are created. Be’nard cells are a striking reminder that complex systems do not come from nowhere, but from preexisting gradients. Their complexity does not arise from within but from their context…. The fact that a complex system can come into being, cycling matter and perpetuating itself until the anomalous situation is rectified, suggests that the simple-looking gradient in fact represents intrinsic complexity.â€
Evolving Squid,
Thanks for your response. Sorry I have been away so long!
There are always presuppositions. One thing the materialist does is rejects any claims of an supernatural explanations whatsoever. This is a very reasonable thing to do, but it is a matter of faith. The materialist also has faith in the material. Faith that the universe is real and knowable. These two presuppositions lead to a faith in reason itself as the only basis to discern truth.
Don’t misunderstand…I’m not saying it isn’t an internally consistent worldview. I am only arguing with the notion that there is no faith.
Rad,
I didn’t want to bring this out, again, but there is absolutely no verifiable, testable, independent evidence for any god, whatsoever, anywhere.
“God” is a creation of our species. And wishful thinking of most people!
And to remind you and everyone: we are all specially created by our biological parents as a biologically multi-celluar, organic and material beings just as they were by theirs, and theirs by theirs until there were just single-celled common ancestors of all life abiotically from biochemicals “created” in stars that have gone red giant, and nova, and supernova….
And, it’s totally arrogant to “believe” that we Homo sapiens are different than the other millions of other species on this planet Earth! Historically, we haven’t proved it true. What other species developed nuclear weapons exploding two on it’s own species that was already defeated and surrenduring?????
If you want to worship a god, the closest one we all got is the star we named “Sun”, a spectral class G, yellow-white dwarf star average distance of 93 million miles that gives us light, heat, and life.
(let me just say right now that while I am a Christian, I am NOT a proponent of YEC or ID- I’ve gotten too good of a science education to fall for their claptrap)
Not to beat a dead horse or anything, but these IDers and YECs seem to forget that the creation story in Genesis is just that- a story. Divinely inspired, but still a story- Moses (as Genesis is generally attributed to) interpreted visions from God in a way that was understandable to the people of his time. The “night came, and morning followed” parts- the “days” of creation- could simply have been God’s way of showing that time passed- centuries, millennia, eons, whatever. If God were to show someone of the BA’s scientific caliber the same visions, the story would still have the same basic elements, but would be explained in a more modern fashion, using modern scientific terms.
Wait a second, I think this is going a bit off topic here, I’m not stating that we need to teach religion in science class but we are teaching belief. We believe that evolution the big bang (which now may change) etc. happened. We have no proof. If we teach what is scientifically accepted as fact then at one time the belief that the world was flat was accepted, that the earth was the center of the universe was accepted and in our own time that nothing travels faster than the speed of light. What about Quarks??
What I’m saying is leave the door opened to other possibilities, a simple statment that Evolution is a THEORY, as is Intelligent Design both are not mutually exclusive and there should be space for both.
Don’s shut you mind off by accepting the THEORY of anything until it’s a proven FACT, and even then check it once in a while the facts may change………..
Justin,
You are correct. I took a big leap and I apologize.
Here is what I was reacting to (or better, over-reacting to):
“As far I can tell, there’s just one group to blame for the watered-down junk that is passing for science education today.â€
From the best I can tell, this is our area of disagreement. I think there are a lot more culprits than just the radical right whackos. I think trying to teach anything without reference to a specific worldview is plain fantasy by those of the materialistic realm.
So, what I would seek for my children is not a change in the science curriculum, but a change in how it is presented. I can not envision this being done effectively in a secular setting any more than others can envision an appropriate education for their children in a religious school.
I totally agree with you when you said, †My guess is because the scientifically illiterate masses have never been taught to collect all the evidence they can before drawing a conclusion. As a result, they ignore every bit of evidence for our origins except the few words at the beginning of Genesis, even though so much more has been carefully unearthed. Now that’s a profound error in logic.â€
I for one do not believe in refusing to use the faculty of reason which God gave us. This is the same ignorance that gave us Galileo’s imprisonment. The process of coming to a fuller understanding of his creation is a fascinating one for me.
Thanks for the reply…and again, my sincere mea culpa for being too abrasive.
Dave, the issue here is very simple. There is no such thing as “proven fact”. It is a myth, a construct of the human mind that does not and cannot exist in the real world. In order for something to be absolutely proven without any doubt, we must have absolute and total knowledge regarding absolutely every aspect of the universe, something humans are literally incapable of having. Science recognizes this. Science recognizes that all we can hope for is a better and better approximation of the truth. That is why science uses the term “theory”, the know nothing can ever be proven.
So demanding that evolution must be a “proven fact” before we can accept it is an absurd and impossible burden to place on evolution. If you applied the same criteria, we would also have to completely abandon ALL other science, as well as all history and pretty much everything else besides literature and math. In fact, it is impossible to even prove your own existance or the existance of the universe. What we teach are those things that, through countless experiments, have shown they are extremely close to how the universe really works. Evolution is nearly as close to being absolute truth as we can hope for, but it will never be considered proven because nothing can ever be considered proven.
So what, then, do we use to judge competing ideas? Two things: evidence, the Occam’s razor. We make a hypothesis that explains the evidence we collected. We then collect more evidence, unrelated to the original evidence but is predicted to be a certain way by the hypothesis. We then check whether the evidence matches the prediction. If it doesn’t, we abandon the hypothesis and find a better one. If it does, we test again, and again, and again. After we have tested it hundreds, more often thousands, of times and the hypothesis has past them all (even though it might have failed them), and none of the competing hypotheses explain the data as well, then it might graduate to becoming a theory. This is what happened to evolution. ID/Creationism has not passed any tests. Its propents try very hard not to make predictions that, if shown to be wrong, could falsify their hypothesis. They occasionally do, and every single such prediction they have made has turned out to be wrong.
“Those who cavalierly reject the Theory of Evolution as not being adequately supported by facts, seem to forget that their own theory is supported by no facts at all.”
-Herbert Spencer
But what if two hypotheses explain the data equally well? Then we involve Occam’s razor. Occam’s razor is the idea that “You shouldn’t multiply pluralities unnecessarily”. In other words, the hypothesis that requires the fewest unsupported assumptions or axioms is superior. Evolution only requires the assumption that the law of cause and effect applies. ID/Creationism requires that the law of cause and effect apply, but that there is a supernatural hyperintelligent entity who violates natural law at will and in a manner that no human can understand, predict, or reliably detect and who set the universe in such a way that has the appearance that it was not created by a supernatural entity and is much younger than it appears (if you include YECs). Now naturally if the evidence supports on theory over another, but the theory that is supported requires more assumptions, than the better-supported theory is superior. But ID/Creationism does not explain the data any better than evolution, in many cases it explains it worse, and requires a whole mess of unfounded assumptions that evolution does not, but still requires all the same assumptions evolution does. So evolution is clearly the superior hypothesis, and barring a massive amount of evidence showing otherwise it will continue to be the superior hypothesis.
The belief that the Earth is flat and that the Earth is the center of the Universe are bad examples. These are religious ideas, like ID/Creationism, and like ID/Creationism they were shown to be wrong by science.
And, I might add, Quarks do NOT travel faster than the speed of light. I do not know where you got that. Also, nothing says no object can travel faster than the speed of light, special relativity say nothing can accelerate to the speed of light. It does not prohibit things that are always travelling the speed of light (luxons), and says that objects are possible that travel faster than the speed and cannot accelerate down to the speed of light (tachyons), although there is no evidence that tachyons exist so they remain a mathematical peculiarity.
Dave: We believe that evolution the big bang (which now may change) etc. happened. We have no proof.
Er…have you read any of the posts above? Yes, we most certainly do have proof! The theory of evolution has produced countless predictions which have been borne out; it’s got an enormous weight of evidence behind it. Which is why it’s accepted as a well-established scientific theory and “Intelligent Design”–which has absolutely no such evidence behind it–isn’t.
If we teach what is scientifically accepted as fact then at one time the belief that the world was flat was accepted, that the earth was the center of the universe was accepted and in our own time that nothing travels faster than the speed of light. What about Quarks??
Dragging in the beliefs of past centuries–that the Earth was the center of the universe, and so forth and so on–is a tired and very poor argument. These beliefs predated the scientific method; there was never any real evidence behind them, but at the time that wasn’t a concern. Nowadays, scientists understand the importance of accumulating evidence and testing hypotheses, and today’s theories are on much firmer ground. That’s not to say they aren’t subject to some revision, but they’re not at all comparable to the old ideas you name. And when a well-establishedtheory is revised, it’s not thrown out completely and shown to have been completely wrong; it’s generally simply shown that it doesn’t hold in all cases. Once a theory has passed the rigorous testing necessary to have been accepted by the scientific community, it’s a pretty safe bet it’s not going to be completely overturned, even if some details do get refined, or it gets fit into a larger, previously unknown framework. (Case in point: Newtonian mechanics. While this has been superseded by relativity, it’s not because the Newtonian version was all wrong; it’s because it was an approximation that didn’t hold under certain extreme conditions of very high velocity. Newtonian mechanics are still a perfectly adequate and well used theory at everyday length and velocity scales.)
As for quarks…well, what about them? You seem to be implying they travel faster than the speed of light. Um, no, they don’t… Though even if something were discovered that did travel faster than the speed of light, it wouldn’t demolish current-day physics. It would just show that there are certain special cases that current theories don’t account for, just as Newtonian mechanics didn’t account for the high velocities covered by relativity.
Don’s shut you mind off by accepting the THEORY of anything until it’s a proven FACT…
Again, have you read any of the posts above? The whole “evolution is a THEORY not a FACT” business is pure obfuscation. A “theory” in scientific parlance is a concept which has been rigorously tested and been shown to match the evidence and make reliable predictions. In otherwords, in scientific terms, a “theory” is a proven fact, or at least as much a proven fact as anything can be. Evolution has been rigorously tested; it has made numerous successful predictions; it has a huge body of accumulated evidence behind it. ID…hasn’t. At all. ID is not a theory in the same sense as evolution; it’s just an untested, pretty much untestable, and thoroughly unscientific idea.
Tony Plank,
You are muddying the water: Faith is what religious people resort to when they are asked to justify their religious beliefs. The “materialist,” as you put it, does not need faith, just the belief that certain statements are true based on a reasonable amount of evidence. If new evidence is presented, ideally the materialist will adjust his belief accordingly.
Faith does not have this feedback mechanism. In that, it is closely related to dogma.