Every party has them, but with his comments on intelligent design, the president not only fed them, he dropped 'em in the water.
Now, of course, the staff is trying to backpedal on what the boss says (and by the way, what other job works like this besides maybe latenight comedy?)
Mr. Marburger said in a telephone interview that "evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology" and "intelligent design is not a scientific concept." Mr. Marburger also said that Mr. Bush's remarks should be interpreted to mean that the president believes that intelligent design should be discussed as part of the "social context" in science classes.
OK, so here's what we are supposed to interpret to mean "discussed as part of the 'social context'."
Recalling his days as Texas governor, Mr. Bush said in the interview, according to a transcript, "I felt like both sides ought to be properly taught." Asked again by a reporter whether he believed that both sides in the debate between evolution and intelligent design should be taught in the schools, Mr. Bush replied that he did, "so people can understand what the debate is about."He feels like both sides ought to be properly taught.
Mr. Marburger urges us not to "over-interpret" the comments to indicate that intelligent design and evolution should be given equal time. Apparently, the gremlins didn't get the memo.
But Mr. Bush's conservative supporters said the president had indicated exactly that in his remarks."It's what I've been pushing, it's what a lot of us have been pushing," said Richard Land, the president of the ethics and religious liberties commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. Dr. Land, who has close ties to the White House, said that evolution "is too often taught as fact," and that "if you're going to teach the Darwinian theory as evolution, teach it as theory. And then teach another theory that has the most support among scientists."and
The Discovery Institute in Seattle, a leader in developing intelligent design, applauded the president's words on Tuesday as a defense of scientists who have been ostracized for advancing the theory."We interpret this as the president using his bully pulpit to support freedom of inquiry and free speech about the issue of biological origins," said Stephen Meyer, the director of the institute's Center for Science and Culture. "It's extremely timely and welcome because so many scientists are experiencing recriminations for breaking with Darwinist orthodoxy."At the White House, intelligent design was the subject of a weekly Bible study class several years ago when Charles W. Colson, the founder and chairman of Prison Fellowship Ministries, spoke to the group. Mr. Colson has also written a book, "The Good Life," in which a chapter on intelligent design features Michael Gerson, an evangelical Christian who is an assistant to the president for policy and strategic planning."It's part of the buzz of the city among Christians," Mr. Colson said in a telephone interview on Tuesday about intelligent design. "It wouldn't surprise me that it got to George Bush. He reads, he picks stuff up, he talks to people. And he's pretty serious about his own Christian beliefs.""Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!" Riiiight.
[UPDATE: Further blog action on the subject here.]
Posted by binky at August 3, 2005 12:11 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Politics
It's like he's a particularly reactiony member of the College of Cardinals in the 19th century. Or maybe the Prime Minister of Malaysia. But no, he's our leader. I fear for the children.
Posted by: Armand at August 3, 2005 12:37 PM | PERMALINKAnother thing that galls me about that statement - though maybe not everyone - is that he couches it as a feeling. Well, we all have feelings but we don't use them as a basis for what to teach in science class. The Light of Reason consistenly harps on Bush for not knowing how to think. It's the intellectual laziness combined with arrogance that it all too common. Feeling is not the same as thinking. Nope, nuh-uh, no way.
And another thing that bugs me (while I'm at it) is the trotting out of pro-intelligent design scientists. This story has a mention of the Discovery Institute:
The Discovery Institute, a conservative think tank in Seattle that's the leading proponent for intelligent design, said it has compiled a list of more than 400 scientists, including 70 biologists, who are skeptical about evolution
Seventy! GOOD GOD ALMIGHTY!!! How many biologists are there in the US? How many graduate each year from our institution alone? Seventy... GOSH! The National Academy of Scientists who reject intelligent design has over 1800 members. Seventy!!!
[goes apoplectic]
Posted by: binky at August 3, 2005 12:59 PM | PERMALINKOh, and apparently the position of the National Academy of Sciences position constitutes fascism. I'd like to see a transcript, but couldn't find one. For a multi-entry discussion of fascicm go here. One of the key elements of fascism, we might recall, is provoking emotional responses rather than encouraging thought. Something of which the National Academy of Sciences is oft-accused [eyeroll].
Posted by: binky at August 3, 2005 01:21 PM | PERMALINKWhy not just ask someone who's won a nobel prize in physics what he thinks? Oh, they already have:
Should intelligent design be taught alongside Darwinian evolution in schools as religious legislators have decided in Pennsylvania and Kansas?
I think it's very unfortunate that this kind of discussion has come up. People are misusing the term intelligent design to think that everything is frozen by that one act of creation and that there's no evolution, no changes. It's totally illogical in my view. Intelligent design, as one sees it from a scientific point of view, seems to be quite real. This is a very special universe: it's remarkable that it came out just this way. If the laws of physics weren't just the way they are, we couldn't be here at all. The sun couldn't be there, the laws of gravity and nuclear laws and magnetic theory, quantum mechanics, and so on have to be just the way they are for us to be here.
--UC Berkely Professor Charles Townes
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2005/06/17_townes.shtml
"This is a very special universe: it's remarkable that it came out just this way."
Indeed it is. Yet recognizing that does not require belief in a deity. Might help, but it isn't required.
And lest we get distracted into useless debates about flat-earth theories, it was a politics post. Gremlins. Can't get 'em back to their cute and fuzzy pre-election state, 'cause they've been fed and watered and they're out!
Posted by: binky at August 3, 2005 07:07 PM | PERMALINKRiiiight.... Actually, you mocked the four hundred scientists (you mentioned seventy in your post, but this of course was obviously just the number of biologists, as anyone who scored ninety something percentile on the GRE could have told you...) as being a bunch of grad students, so it actually IS relevant that at least one nobel prize winning scientist believes in intelligent design. And just exactly what are you so afraid of that you would make taboo the advancing of an alternative theory on human origin? If this alternative is ridiculous, then why are you so afraid that it will be offered to students? If it's so ridiculous, then your national academy of scientists can surely provide evidence of what came before what came before the big bang, since their view is so informed as to be accepted without question. And if they can't provide such evidence, what makes you so sure they know quite so much as they would have us believe?
And as far as the gremlins-election comment, was that the election where a majority of voters supported a President who talks about God all the time?
Just exactly what are you so afraid of that you would make taboo the advancing of an alternative theory on human origin? If this alternative is ridiculous, then why are you so afraid that it will be offered to students?
i know you asked this of binky, but let me take a whack at it: i'm not afraid that a teacher will offer a scientific account of theoretical weaknesses in the grain of darwinism, which i have come to believe are relevant on many levels.
but saying "god" did it is not science, it's not a theory in any post-enlightenment, scientific method sense of the word, and whether or not it is ridiculous, it is, in virtue of the abovestated infirmities, wholly inappropriate as a subject for science class, the goal of which is as much to teach students to learn how to think rationally as it is to confer any particular facts or theories about the natural world.
if teachers want to teach the sum of michael behe's fascinating argument in favor of intelligent design set forth in darwin's black box in AP biology, i'm all for it. that book provides a robust account of gaps in the explanatory fabric of darwinism, and couches it all in terms of the scientific method.
but forcing teachers to introduce evolution by saying it's "just a theory" and then holding up a bunch of conclusory hokum as an alternative "theory" reflects ignorance of the english language, and obliviousness to the value of science education.
and in reality, it's the latter version that's going to happen. and that's why, while i find myself rather agnostic on darwinism's account of the origins of life (its role in development and "the origin of species," however, is about as irrefutable as theories ever get; behe's unabashed acknowledgment of this simple fact is part of why i made it past page 10 of his book), i wouldn't have creationism masquerading as the intelligent design theoretical critique of darwinism bring history and religion into the science classroom.
read behe, and then come back and tell me whether bush and the others in this debate are talking about "intelligent design" or have simply bowdlerized a previously meaningful word into a co-opted and corrupted synonym for creationism.
creationism belongs in the same classroom as any other mythological account. not because it is or isn't true -- who am i to say zeus didn't have his little bestial afternoon delight with leda? -- but because it cannot be gainfully examined using the relatively limited toolset available to science properly understood.
Posted by: joshua at August 4, 2005 10:45 AM | PERMALINKMorris - You write "was that the election where a majority of voters supported a President who talks about God all the time". You should know perfectly well that just b/c 51% of the people preferred him over a couple of other guys on one day last year doesn't convey a thing about whether or not they want "intelligent design" taught in science classes. And even if they did, it's debateable whether or not what's popular should be the measure of what's taught in science class. Oh, and btw this morning I heard Rick Santorum say that he didn't think it belonged in science class, and since he has more say over government policy than we (or organizations of scientists) do ... well, maybe you should give his office a call and tell him to stop being anti-religious.
Posted by: Armand at August 4, 2005 10:48 AM | PERMALINKMorris,
If "Intelligent Design" is a theory, much like evolution, then please explain to me the reproducable experiment that could be used to falsify it.
Posted by: baltar at August 4, 2005 11:13 AM | PERMALINK"Actually, you mocked the four hundred scientists (you mentioned seventy in your post, but this of course was obviously just the number of biologists, as anyone who scored ninety something percentile on the GRE could have told you...) as being a bunch of grad students, so it actually IS relevant that at least one nobel prize winning scientist believes in intelligent design."
No mocking. That's not what I said at all. Morris is making things up again, how novel. I was illustrating the concept of percentages, you know, math.
So, because I feel indulgent today*... Clearly you should stop bringing up the 90 something. I can show you my "dick" too, but it's not going to help your limited comprehension skills. But since you are fond of bringing it up, shall we discuss your math score too? You don't seem to grasp statistics at all. I did not mock them as grad students. I was actually referring to undergraduates. Someone with a BS in biology is a biologist, and can teach (with a 1 yr teaching certificate) high school biology. Now, if Podunk U. biology program turns out 70 BS biologists a year (a guess-timate), imagine how many biologists there are in the whole country, as we churn out thousands per year, and they have a professional lifespan of oh say 40 years. That's a very large pool. Now, let's perform the same exercise in proportions with "scientists" in general. Who are scientists? Shall we arbitrarily exclude social scientists, even though we don't know that the 330 does? So then we have physicists, chemists, biologists, geologists, psychologists (I know, it's debatable but they self-identify, so), doctors, what? Every program at every university turning out thousands of new ones every year. That you can find 70 biologists and 330 other "scientists" who self-identify as pro-intelligent design is not such a surprise. The president found a doctor who thinks you should treat PMS by praying. I could probably find as many who believe UFOs have landed in Roswell (not necessarily the same subset). That doesn't make them a significant proportion of the discipline. One (of how many?) Nobel Prize winner. Smaller pool, same principle.
And wrong again on the gremlins. But you can work that out for yourself by reading the post.
*Note, "feel" being different than "think." I don't think you will listen but I feel like taking the time to point out the error of your reading comprehension.
Posted by: binky at August 4, 2005 11:15 AM | PERMALINKThankyou Binky,
You were belittling them, not mocking them, and you continue to belittle them in your latest comment. I'm quite unsure how the posters of this blog would have such a decision made. Binky, you suggest that the 400 scientists in favor of teaching intelligent design are not a large number out of the vast number of total scientists. Perhaps you do not realize that your critique of the credentials of these 400 applies equally to the credentials of the 1800 members of the National Academy of Scientists who you offer in support of your idea that the view of scientists should be a basis for making this decision. And did you not realize that all the 400 on this list are skeptical of evolution, as opposed to the 1800 members of the National Academy of Scientists who (to use Armand's idea that voters in the Presidential election may have voted for Bush without regard to his religious/spiritual views) may be members without regard to their Academy's view on evolution.
Baltar,
The lack of an experiment to test a theory does not prevent a theory from being valid, it only prevents our testing whether it is valid at this point. It is true that theories become modified by hypotheses tested through experiments, but just because someone in ancient times might not have found a way to measure solar winds by no means suggests the lack of their existence or the futility of gathering evidence in support of such a theory. For all the harping about not teaching children there's a God, why is it you treat those who've decided what is printed in textbooks for college research design classes as deities when it comes to what is true and how to seek truth? You would call absurd those in medieval times who accepted as blindly what they were taught by religious leaders.
Morris, it's not my fault that you refuse to understand math. I'd ask you to explain to me how statistics are belittling, but you're more invested in your emotional position than facts about the numbers.
But for the other readers distracted by your attempts at diversion, that the group can find seventy biologists (and who knows how they define them) out of what, a million or more, and 330 other scientists (again, defined who knows how) out of millions (again, guessing on the total), is not convincing evidence that the scientific community accepts intelligent design. It's evidence that a tiny fraction of the community are outliers at best.
And actually, I didn't critique their credentials at all. You are the one hung up on credentials. I was extremely inclusive of my definition of a biologist (not that you read it). That doesn't change the fact that the ones in question are a tiny fraction of the field, who reject the very foundation of their own discipline by embracing a so-called theory with non-falsifiable hypotheses. Might be philosophy, but it's not science.
"And did you not realize that all the 400 on this list are skeptical of evolution, as opposed to the 1800 members of the National Academy." This makes no sense at all. The two numbers were presented as a comparison: 1800 against, 400 for. The Academy has taken a public stance representing its collective view. Collective, you know, as in members.
Going back to the professor (and good heavens, a professor from Berzerkly? Must be a godless commie) above: "If the laws of physics weren't just the way they are, we couldn't be here at all. The sun couldn't be there, the laws of gravity and nuclear laws and magnetic theory, quantum mechanics, and so on have to be just the way they are for us to be here." It makes the universe a marvel. None of this requires belief in a deity engaged in intelligent design.
Wishing hard doesn't make it true Morris.
Posted by: binky at August 5, 2005 12:32 AM | PERMALINKMorris,
I'm sorry if I was unclear above. My mistake. What I meant was, please design for me any form of experiment (possible or not, technologically possible or not) that allows the possibility that intelligent design might not work.
The ancient scientist who believed in "solar winds" might not have been able to test his theories, but he could imagine experiments that could test the theory. That's what I'm asking you to do with experimental design.
What is Intelligent Design's falsifiable hypothesis?
Posted by: baltar at August 5, 2005 12:39 AM | PERMALINK"with regard to the rift between ideality (legitimately examining darwinism and acknowledging its theoretical weaknesses) and reality (any excuse to proselytize) i identified, supra, majikthise offers this interesting post."
In the vein of a related discussion that Binky and I had the other day, I checked on the "biology" program of Bob Jones University, which gives this caveat in the program description:
"While most secular biologists are committed to evolution as the basic principle of biology, Bob Jones University trains Christian biologists who see the living world indelibly marked with the fingerprints of a God of limitless wisdom and power." (http://www.bju.edu/academics/cas/undergrad/divns/biology.html)
By the numbers, 70 "Biologists" are probably graduated from this program every one to two years. While this, of course, fits right in with binky's statistical approach to the issue, I would personally be interested in seeing their credentials - I'd wager that there are not too many Nobel Prize winners among them and that most were trained in similar "creation science" programs.
Binky,
Let me explain more simply, so that I may follow your example and be both more condescending and more clear. The National Academy of Sciences is a professional organization, and like other professional organizations, many of its members wanted to become members because of benefits from networking and prestige, or interest in hundreds of areas of study. The question is: if the NAS supports teaching evolution sans intelligent design, was this even a vote by the membership (and how many voted for versus against?) or was it a decision of their 17 executive members or was it a decision of a single committee assigned to study this question? If you argue this 1800 number as supporting teaching evolution without intelligent design, where's your evidence that all 1800 supported this decision?
Baltar,
In demanding a falsifiable hypothesis, you are embracing a very limited vision of how to find truth. If it is your argument that this type of truth seeking is the only one that is scientific, then what is it that leads you to confer on those scientists who agree with this proposition a godlike status, they are not be questioned when it comes to determining what it is that makes something truth? If as you believe this the only way scientists can approach truth as their field defines it, then shouldn't we at least expose students to the possibility that there are other ways of finding and determining truth, including spiritual ways, in other classes if not science classes. For if the only ways of finding truth taught in schools are scientific ways, then we are not exposing students to a multitude of viewpoints but imposing on them one particular perspective by suggesting it be taught and other perspectives not be taught in school.
Morris,
It's nice to know we both agree that "intelligent design" shouldn't be taught in high school science classes. I knew we could agree on something if we worked at it long enough.
You write:
If as you believe this the only way scientists can approach truth as their field defines it, then shouldn't we at least expose students to the possibility that there are other ways of finding and determining truth, including spiritual ways, in other classes if not science classes.
This was precisely my point, and I'm glad you said it better than I. I have no idea if "science" is the best/correct/only way of finding "the truth" (whatever that is). "Science", however, has brought us to the industrial/technological state we're in today. Hence, society decided a long time ago to teach science (biology, chemisty, physics) in school so students would learn the basics of the processes and materials that surround them. In science classes, and by the methodology of science, intelligent design fails to be legitimate: it has, by definition, no falsifiable hypothesis. Thus, it isn't science, and shouldn't be in science classes.
I fully support and encourage the teaching of intelligent design, Christianity (it's morals and parables are the foundation of many of our laws and political ideals), Judaism (ditto), and the other major belief systems in schools. It's a very complex world, that is coming closer and closer together (globalization, technology) every year. Students should learn the differences between them and others, and be forced to confront their beliefs in order to understand them better (not to convert them away, but to educate them).
I'm glad we agree.
Posted by: baltar at August 7, 2005 01:57 PM | PERMALINKagain, being careful to honor the distinctions between ID properly understood and creation science (what most of the evangelicals mean when they allude to ID these days), i submit this arguably falsifiable hypothesis to which behe, as a tenured scientist cum ID advocate, might subscribe (based on my relatively poorly informed reading of darwin's black box):
natural and sexual selection are theories fundamentally incapable of accounting for the irreducible complexity of the building blocks of carbon-based life.
i do think this discussion is fundamentally misinformed when participated in by people who haven't taken the time to learn the terms of the robust wing of the debate, which specifically addresses itself to the readily describable (in non-spiritual terms) flaws at the heart of darwinism.
which doesn't change my objection to the teaching of creation science in the classroom, but also underwrites my willingness to entertain the possibility of the disciplined and rigorous teaching of any robustly scientific (in the post-enlightenment mode) critiques of darwinism itself.
Posted by: joshua at August 7, 2005 02:48 PM | PERMALINKJoshua, your comment got me to thinking about the problems of ignorance (not as in "Jane you ignorant slut!" but simply "lack of knowledge") and of conflation, often deliberate, that happens in discussions. Speciation, evolution, origin... these are not the same things. I wonder how many Darwin haters have even read his work, or at least a biography (there is an excellent two volume work by Janet Browne).
I suppose to understand the hatred of Darwin specifically, and biologic science more generally, we have to understand why knowledge is seen as so dangerous to (some elements of) Christianity at this historical moment. This isn't the first time a religious institution has sought to destroy knowledge, particularly knowledge associated with its main cultural competitors. (I know, always politics with me) Hatred of Darwin and in reaction against evolution is an emotional response. Rage is not going to undo the 98% shared DNA of humans and some of the higher primates, but it may attempt to suppress knowledge. Is religion so delicate that it needs to be protected from science? Judging by the debate raging in this country (and here), the answer is yes. There have always been sects that effectively put their fingers in their ears and sung "la la la I can't hear you science." At this moment, however, there is no attack to which religion is responding (in social, scientific, and cultural terms, we are dealing with a widely accepted status quo on the teaching of evolution, reflected in my other post). Rather it is religion that is on the offensive. Really, I keep coming back to "why is science so scary?" For those who hold that position, is it a real fear (I might die in a car accident on the way to the office) or not (the monsters under my bed are going to eat me). Science hasn't killed religion yet. It's not on some new offensive (as I said before, scientists have not recently decided to enter churches and alter the teachings, there hasn't been some new effort to disprove god). Why now? And why science? Why not philosophy, which since long before the advent of theories of evoution (and no, Darwin was not the only 19th C theorist of evolution, he had several prominent contemporaries). [Wait, strike that, hardly anyone reads philosophy and of those few that do probably even fewer understand it...no threat there.]
Ultimately, as I've been beating my head against the wall saying over and over again, we are looking at a social and political question, not a scientific one. There is no scientific validity to intelligent design, no reason to discuss it in science class, no justification for offering it as an alternative theory for evolution. What we are really arguing about it the role of religion in politics. Our founders - many of them religious themselves and cognizant of the dangers of religion and politics in the mother (father?)land - created a system that deliberately restricted the role of religion in politics. I'm tired of hearing about "oh but they were men of god" and "oh their idea had a christian foundation." Great. So what? The Constitution does not enshine an explicitly Christian nation, and in fact sets out that the state should have no role in establishing or promoting an official state religion. That's not atheism, that's secularism.
Posted by: binky at August 7, 2005 06:22 PM | PERMALINKThere is no scientific validity to intelligent design, no reason to discuss it in science class, no justification for offering it as an alternative theory for evolution.
Binky, with due respect (and plenty is due), this is precisely what I was endeavoring to reject in my prior posts here. I simply cannot subscribe to this proposition, which in itself either reflects a willingness to share the evangelicals' conflation of ID with creation science or a true ignorance of what credentialed, tenured, Enlightenment-informed scientists mean when the refer to intelligent design.
All your other points, particularly regarding the failure to discriminate in public dialog between political questions, theological questions, and scientific questions, I accept. But with respect to ID I think you're guilty of the very impulse you villify.
There is a scientific wing of ID that has little to do with any particular body of religious teachings -- one that says evolutionary theory is scientifically flawed when it comes to explaining the instantiation of the complex systems on which all life as we know it has evolved and ehich examines those flaws in scientific terms, and concludes that something more abrupt, more stark had to happen (though certainly it need not involve a white-bearded deity, idyllic garden, turtles upon turtles upon turtles, or a seven-day orgy of creation), something textbook evolutionary theory simply fails to account for.
This may be science that upon examination you opt to reject, but it is science. It is no accession to any particular set of theological beliefs to permit, indeed to encourage, the consideration of flaws in such a dominant theory, which is more or less by definition a working model that dwells beneath the Damoclean sword of falsification.
It is in this crucial, insidious conflation that those who defend Darwin at the point of a sword rather than the point of a pencil or a pipet become every bit as dogmatic and unscientific as those who would throw up their hands and embrace one creation myth or another. It becomes a shirts v. skins game registering only the loudest voice, not the most convincing argument, because there simply is no argument there to be found.
It frustrates me that the people who claim to venerate science don't, themselves, know the difference between the zealots who would impose orthodoxy and the critical thinkers who opt to address and elucidate the damaging effect modern scientific discoveries have had on the descriptive adequacy of evolutionary theory.
The evangelicals (who are as reckless in swinging around the term intelligent design as the secularists are in sharing the bowdlerization) are strawmen; there's a real argument to be had, that absolutely belongs in the classroom, that is not so easily dismissed.
If you haven't read Behe's DBB, I'd be happy to lend you my copy. It's a worthy read. And in case I continue to fail to articulate my position with sufficient clarity to make this obvious, y'all know I am the very model of a secular humanist. I just don't think my SH commitments preclude me encouraging young scientists to interrogate with every breath such monolithic theoretical constructs as they can find. The real "intelligent design" theoretical framework (and it is one) manifests the laudable and familiar Oedipal nature of science, as each new generation endeavors to murder its antecedents with their own instruments.
Posted by: joshua at August 7, 2005 10:12 PM | PERMALINKA propos, Brian, a Calvinist far more capable of interesting debate than any Republican in the public eye, pointed me to this article:
Darwin would have welcomed . . . debate because he was keenly aware that the problems he had raised were not capable of being resolved into trivial facts to be memorized like the names of the state capitals or the rules of the multiplication tables. He knew that his theory probed the ultimate questions, and that such ultimate questions could never be given a definitive solution to be taught by rote, and to be memorized by parrots.What an insult to Darwin's intellectual genius to think that his theory is as obvious as two plus two equal four, or as innocuous as the facts contained in an almanac! Anyone who thinks Darwin's theory is obvious clearly hasn't a clue about its brilliance or its originality.
So this time Bush got it right, and the critics that are pouncing on his statement are getting it mostly wrong. There is no harm in teaching children to discuss and debate the ultimate questions -- indeed, the greatest danger is that we may raise a generation that is never challenged to think about such questions at all. If an open-ended debate about evolution stirs up the kids, then, for heaven's sake, let the stirring begin.
Joshua, perhaps I was not clear. Arguing that something "abrupt, more stark had to happen" and designing scientific experiments to test these conjectures is not what the current political movement to place intelligent design in science class intends. It is a thinly veiled attempt to insert christian views of creation into the teaching of science. We're kidding ourselves if we think the ID movement is going to get the basic teachings of the Popul Vuh on the books. As such, it has no place, etc. And even supposing something "abrupt, more stark" that does not mean that that particular something was the christian god.
As I suggested somewhere above, there is a long (at least in modern conception) coexistence of science and religion (if we blot out that whole galileo copernicus business). I have no figures, but I would imagine that a substantial proportion of the scientific community we have been discussing so hotly "has faith" of one kind or another, though of course, there is a proportion who do not. These are not the people behind the political movement to place ID in schools. That argument is coming from a largely socio-political (religious) base. Again, as such, it has no place on the science curriculum.
"There is no harm in teaching children to discuss and debate the ultimate questions -- indeed, the greatest danger is that we may raise a generation that is never challenged to think about such questions at all."
Sure. See my comments on philosophy. It's not biology. The religious, political, social and technological contexts for the state of science are extremely interesting, and important determinants of what is possible in science at any particular historical moment. Have you read Kuhn? All our questions are mediated through frames. The goal of science is to eliminate as many as possible, and at least be aware of those that remain as well as their influence on the questions that are asked.
However the fear of children being "never challenged to think" is also one that could stem equally from the growing influence of religious dogma. Perhaps we should have returned to galileo after all.
[EDIT: not returned to galileo in the literal sense. returned to the discussion of the circumstances, more accurately.]
Posted by: binky at August 8, 2005 10:59 AM | PERMALINKso the zealots who get the greatest airplay get to dictate, whether affirmatively or by opposition, whether our children are spoon-fed 19th century darwinism by teachers who, if we're lucky, earned their undergraduate degrees in biology (rather than education generally), or are actually challenged to think critically about inherited conventional wisdom?!
the article suggested, as an "ultimate question" not the theosophical stuff but the fundamentally scientif questions whether evolution might be wrong (unlikely), or crucially incomplete (entirely possible), in ways that all the kuhn-ian theorizing in the world won't remedy.
i'm talking hard science, and reaching a position in support of a term robustly understood to entail a scientific critique, and i refuse to let the special interest groups rob me of crucial clarity in my selection of words. it's preferable to engage them, make as clear as possible that what they're talking about simply is not "intelligent design" to the extent that term has any interesting content unto itself, then to say, this conversation sucks, i'm taking my ball, going home, and, as so aptly stated in the above article, teaching darwin simpliciter like the multiplication tables which is neither accurate nor conducive to ingraining scientific habits of mind in our children.
hell, high school physics may not deviate much into the mathematics of relativity, but at least the kids being taught newtonian mechanics are made to understand that there was an einstein and that newton was not the end of the story.
i understand you, i think; i just won't let the evangelicals set the terms of the debate. when the evangelicals set the terms, they gain territory, if not outright prevail, every time (q.v., "pro-life"). it's just like with terrorism -- if we stop buying SUV's and hitting the malls on saturday afternoon, the terrorists have won. georgie told me that one.
i'll rail against the most public exponents of intelligent design and point out tirelessly that the phrase they're having so much trouble pronouncing is "creation science," and i'll continue to nod my head in crestfallen acquiescence that my most fearful lefty brethren are no better than their adversaries when they say "darwin or else," and construe every critique as equal. what happened to evaluating things on their own merits. creation science is not only a poor critique, it's barely a scientific critique at all. ID is something else.
if the only way to beat stupid and dogmatic is to become stupid and dogmatic, i'd rather not play than "win." resisting all critiques of darwinism because the loudest one is the most incredible, the least scientific, is joining them rather than beating them. i won't have a part in that.
Posted by: joshua at August 8, 2005 12:28 PM | PERMALINKWell, there's a point at which being stubborn on "I mean something different than those other people when I say X" becomes pointless if no one imagines your definition when they hear the word. My contention is that ID has been framed such that the commonly received meaning is "biblical teaching."
Look, I understand your point about research origins, and there is a lot of uncertainty about vastly distant origins of the universe (for the scientifically minded... the Hubble and other observatories have been taking simultaneous pictures of the distant past. pretty cool...I'll be interested to see what comes out of it) that need to be explored. But I think you are wrong about "research into the origins of the universe" being able to be called thinking about "intelligent design" because the politics have set the debate. I'm not saying it's right, I'm saying it "is."
Posted by: binky at August 8, 2005 01:31 PM | PERMALINKso much for democracy, and the idea that the first amendment should be permissibly interpreted on the premise that the marketplace will separate the wheat from the chaff.
but for the record, as far as i'm concerned a creationist is a creationist is a creationist, and i'll continue to defend intelligent design for the same reason that i continue to be one of the most miserable editors you could possibly have review your writing: because, in a delightfully quaint way, i happen to believe that the meaning of certain words, especially those with especially complex associational meanings and connotations, should be frozen; in that regard, i am and shall remain a prescriptive sonofabitch.
and yeah, morris, i'll take your 90-somethingth percentile out with my eyes closed after a fifth of johnny walker, beeyotch! ;-)
where was i? oh yes . . . for the sake of poetry, and hermeneutics, and for the simple benefits of finding the snakes in the grass, i'll never demand anything less than i do now, and so i'll wander through life in a state of progressive misery, i imagine. after all, in my scant 30 years, i've already watched the language of policy become so degraded as to be virtually unrecognizable.
sometimes i listen to churchill or FDR or kennedy, or even clinton or tony blair, and think, wistfully, it must be nice to have a leader who speaks like he graduated high school with B's. in any case, in law, especially in the courts, there is a great deal of caution aimed at setting the terms of the debate. to give up intelligent design as a term is to allow others to set the terms of the debate. i'd rather be right, on my own terms, and in the minority, than ally myself with another breed of hack to minimize the damage, the premise from which all of my foregoing comments have derived.
otherwise, even winning, what do we win?
Posted by: joshua at August 8, 2005 03:03 PM | PERMALINK"so much for democracy, and the idea that the first amendment should be permissibly interpreted on the premise that the marketplace will separate the wheat from the chaff."
I didn't say you don't have the right to beat your head against the wall, I'm saying it's not going to get you anywhere. :) There are things worth fighting over, and giving into the GOPAC strategy of letting your opposition define you is not what I'm advocating.
Posted by: binky at August 8, 2005 03:16 PM | PERMALINKi go, i'm done -- i'm going to go beat my head against the wall instead of against you now.
Posted by: joshua at August 8, 2005 04:59 PM | PERMALINKFinally found this vaguely related link. here
Posted by: binky at August 9, 2005 01:28 PM | PERMALINKToday I ran across these links that update our discussion about the views of the majority of scientists on intelligent design.
Posted by: binky at October 20, 2005 06:15 PM | PERMALINKHey! This thread! Remember when we talked about those scientists that signed onto the Discovery Institute's anti-evolution list? Turns out I was right, and most of them aren't biologists after all. See PZ Myers, Josh Rosenau, and the NYT.
Posted by: binky at February 21, 2006 09:05 AM | PERMALINKBinky,
If you look at my second comment above, it said that only 70 of them were biologists (now up to 128, just as the list has increased by over a hundred since the last post). But are we to say that biologists know more about Darwinism and the origins of the universe than those who study quantum physics, like the noble prize winner I cited in my first response above? I hear a lot of jocks go into quantum physics if the communications classes are full.
I do find it amusing that these so-called scientists pushing for Darwinism can't see the logical failure of their argument(post hoc ergo propter hoc). They assume that because these people embrace religion, they are not true scientists, when there is no reason not to assume that because they embrace science and see in it God's fingerprints that they've come to religion. What other resolution would there be in this case to the old idea that a scientist who believes in religion must have a split personality? As your article says, "Of the signers who are evangelical Christians, most defend their doubts on scientific grounds but also say that evolution runs against their religious beliefs."
Also, there's no evidence of how many in the reputed NAS group conduct research into what shaped the history of life, although there is evidence that not all the NAS agrees with the position espoused by it.
The whole trouble with this scientific critique is that its based on a theory of knowledge, A theory of knowledge, and yet despite failing to scientifically resolve differences between general relativity and quantum mechanics or prove a grand unified theory, they suggest that we should trust they know what they're talking about when they suppress competing ideas. If you find it so easy to trust people who don't have all the facts, why do you find it so difficult to trust our President when his hypotheses have been disproved about a million times less than the scientific community's.
The President has hypotheses? Do you think he can even spell that word?
Posted by: binky at February 21, 2006 12:11 PM | PERMALINKBinky,
I'm just wondering how Clinton would have spelled it: High (on) pot theses?
better a guy who smoked pot a couple of times than a guy who did coke and got nailed for DUI.
Posted by: moon at February 21, 2006 01:10 PM | PERMALINKMoon,
Are you talking about Ted Kennedy, because I didn't know he smoked dope? And wasn't it vehicular homicide? Oh, that's right, he's a Kennedy.
oh, and i forgot to mention, clinton's indiscretion, if that's even what it was, came in a country with milder drug laws and when he could legitimately chalk it up to youth. what's bush's excuse. pretty sure he was partying down well into his 30's. btw, kennedy's not the hypocritical, moralizing leader of the free world. apples and oranges, buddy. i wasn't defending him anyway.
Posted by: moon at February 21, 2006 08:31 PM | PERMALINK