Ron Bailey sheds his fur, walks erect, and strides into the Kansas Intelligent Design hearings.
New at Reason
Comments to "New at Reason":
Brian Marks | May 25, 2005, 11:05am | #
Intelligent design doesn't seem to intelligent.Truly, does evolution really spend much effort in determining the origin of life? Isn't it more interested in explaining why we are where we are and why we are the way we are? I don't see how explaining how things change over millenia is incompatible with religion. Personally, I think I tend toward a simplistic Deist outlook: The Creator started the ball rolling with the big bang and stepped to observe the handiwork.
Henry | May 25, 2005, 11:11am | #
The New Yorker has a very good current article on this latest attempt by the emotionally crippled God squaders to foist their fairy tales on the young:http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050530fa_fact
David | May 25, 2005, 11:20am | #
What they don't understand, however, is that religious belief and evolution are compatible.But not necessarily 100% compatible. One of the two will have to change slightly (it won't be evolution, 6000 years isn't long enough) and therein lies the problem for the creationists. It one of the troubles with fundamentalist belief (all Religions,not just Christianity). One little crack and the whole system falls apart.
Rhywun | May 25, 2005, 11:33am | #
...no less a religious authority than Pope John Paul II declared...The people pushing i.d. aren't likely to recognize HIS authority.
JohnnyClarke | May 25, 2005, 11:42am | #
I believe the creationism aberration is pretty much restricted to the US and is the result of an extremely literal reading of the various protestant versions of the bible. All the plants and animals and Adam and Eve were created exactly as they are right now. That's what the bible says and that's all they will accept. Y'know, the "The bible says it, I believe it, that settles it" bit of simple-minded nonsense.Ron Bailey | May 25, 2005, 11:49am | #
David writes: "One little crack and the whole system falls apart."This view has been around for a long time. For instance, as William Manchester tells us in his superb, "A World Lit Only By Fire," Italian protestant reformer Pietro Martire Vermigli (1500-1562) declared: "If a wrong opinion should obtain regarding the creation as described in Genesis, all promises of Christ fall into nothing, and all the life of our religion would be lost."
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
David | May 25, 2005, 12:02pm | #
Ron,It's the "If's it's wrong about X, What else is it wrong about?" theory or "Everything I learned was a lie" at play.
JohnnyClarke | May 25, 2005, 12:05pm | #
Shouldn't "intelligent design" be applied to astronomy and nuclear physics, as well? God created the sun and the moon and the earth, right? Teachers should be required to discuss how scientists believe the sun is a thermonuclear reactor converting hydrogen to helium and held together by extreme gravitational attraction, while there's another theory that it's a big torch held by angels. And rain is caused by the angels crying, because you are a sinner and are GOING TO BURN IN HELL!!! That should make us the laughing-stock of the world in no time at all.To quote Daniel Dennett, "creationists who oppose [evolution] so bitterly are right about one thing: Darwin's dangerous idea cuts much deeper into the fabric of our most fundamental beliefs than many of its sophisticated apologists have yet admitted, even to themselves."
When a virus/bacterium evolves beyond medicine, does it mean the designer wants people sick and dying? Or is the designer interested in sustaining long-term pharmaceutical research?
David Potts | May 25, 2005, 12:13pm | #
The ID proponents are saying it should be taught as another theory alongside evolution, but ID is far from a scientific theory consisting of a hypothesis which can be tested with verifiable and repeatable results. ID is a hypothesis which can't possibly be tested, it simply IS NOT science.crimethink | May 25, 2005, 12:26pm | #
David Potts,By that standard, the hypothesis that all forms of life on earth have become as they are by random mutation and natural selection, is also not science. How can it be tested with verifiable and repeatable results?
Ammonium | May 25, 2005, 12:29pm | #
Why do dictators rarely (if ever) make it a goal to create conditions for a decentralized market economy to emerge? Two reasons could apply. They may not believe that an economy could function without someone at the wheel, or they might feel that they have very little power over a market economy.Why do religionists rarely argue that God created the conditions for life to evolve? They don't believe that the world can function without someone at the wheel and/or religion is much less powerful if the Creator is not involved in everyday dealings.
crimethink | May 25, 2005, 12:35pm | #
Of course, the theory of evolution has some serious logical problems of its own, the most famous being the question of how wings could have evolved not once, but three times (in insects, birds, and bats).No random mutation could cause fully functional wings to develop. While, in the case of bats at least, mutations could have produced webbing between the toes of rodents, it's unclear how such a proto-wing, without even the muscular support required for flying, could have given its possessor a survival advantage necessary to preserve the trait for further development.
I knew it wouldn't take long for someone to claim that natural evolution cannot be tested. The test happens every time an observation is made in the natural world and the results confirm to the hypothesis of natural evolution. It happens when we literally observe natural selection in labortory conditions. It happens when we examine DNA and protein sequences from different species. It happens all the time. But by contrast, when is an intelligent designer ever (possibly) identified in nature? "Fossil rabbits in the precambrian" maybe.
Doc | May 25, 2005, 12:42pm | #
These lunks are worse than that: they wanted to change the very definition of science itself to ensure that teachers always include that any given observable phenomeon had to have a 'natural cause'.Gravitational theory? It's angels holding us down!
Addition? How about mystial Jesus numbers growing like loaves and fishes.
Hey crimethink...lots of cases of convergent evolution easily explained by form following function. But you're perfectly allowed to believe that Jebus sent down angels to paste wings onto critters.
Phil | May 25, 2005, 12:53pm | #
While, in the case of bats at least, mutations could have produced webbing between the toes of rodents, it's unclear how such a proto-wing, without even the muscular support required for flying, could have given its possessor a survival advantage necessary to preserve the trait for further developmentAnd yet, even today, we have rodents without a fully-functional wings, and yet carry a winglike membrane between shoulder and rib cage that offers an advantage in that they can reach high food sources between trees without ever exposing themselves to ground-based predators. We call them "flying squirrels."
Seriously, do you think these kinds of questions have not been investigated and addressed? They're the first tool in the creationist toolbox, and quite often the most easily dismissed.
See also here.
Jim Walsh | May 25, 2005, 1:09pm | #
"We have the purpose of preventing bigots and ignoramuses from controlling the education of the United States, and you know it, and that is all."Couldna said it better myself...
It's fairly standard practice for the advocates of creationism and ID (creationism lite) to immediately engage their opponents in arguments wherein the viability of evolution is argued rather than the actual theory that they are advancing. They always lose those arguments but they always seem to succeed in making the argument about something other than what they want to teach the kids.
Rikurzhen | May 25, 2005, 1:21pm | #
Everything starts out unclear, until we figure it out. That's why scientists get up in the morning.But the consistent pattern in biology over the last 100+ years is that the natural evolution explanation has been the best one. That's a record of success that places evolution with gravity among the "certainties" in science.
Mike | May 25, 2005, 1:28pm | #
Seriously, do you think these kinds of questions have not been investigated and addressed?And not only have they been addressed by evolutionary theory, they were addressed a few hundred years earlier:
"In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." -- Desiderius Erasmus
crimethink: you aren't allowed to talk abt science anymore. ever. go to your room.
thoreau | May 25, 2005, 1:48pm | #
Here's the bottom line on evolution:It is most certainly true that evolution can't always be tested in the same manner as, say, quantum electrodynamics. If quantum electrodynamics is the standard to which all of science is held then science is in trouble.
But there's these bones in the ground that paint a clear picture of descent with modification over a few billion years. There's this thing called DNA that provides a clear mechanism. And there are plenty of unambiguous examples of evolution over short time scales (e.g. antibiotic resistance in bacteria, pesticide resistance in insects).
Really, it's not all that big of an extrapolation. Especially since that extrapolation is constantly being tested by digging up new fossils and comparing species that apparently diverged from common ancestors at known points in the past.
Now, ironically, I have to confess a certain sympathy for ID. Not because I'm Catholic. As a Catholic I'm just as inclined to tell the fundies to stop taking literally a bad English translation of a document written in figurative language.
Rather, it's because I'm a physicist, and we physicists have 2 traits:
1) We like to think we're smarter than biologists. (And they're nice enough to just stay in their labs and do their wonderful work rather than come over to the physics building and rub our noses in our own ignorance.)
2) At least a few of the ID theorists are trying to do more than point to gaps in evolution. A few of them are trying (not succeeding, just trying) to find fundamental reasons why those gaps are unbridgeable. And physicists have sympathy for fundamental limits: Relativity, quantum mechanics, and thermodynamics all include statements of fundamental limits.
The problem is that every living system in existence was indisputably produced by natural mechanisms. There's no denying that every single person alive today was formed in a womb by cells growing naturally. So clearly it is possible to assemble an organism of immense complexity by natural processes.
The only question is whether the DNA instruction set could have arisen by a series of natural steps. And while that's a non-trivial question, it's harder to apply fundamental laws to rule out every single possible pathway. You have to ask which intermediate forms might have existed and whether those forms would have been able to survive. But there's a very real danger that you'll fail to consider physically plausible intermediates.
So the whole undertaking cannot be as rigorous as, say, conservation laws in physics. And it's easy to mistake lack of imagination for a fundamental limit in nature.
That's why, despite my tiny sympathy for ID, I still think their endeavor is doomed.
alkurta | May 25, 2005, 1:55pm | #
Here's one for you, crimethink.Darwin's theory came out about 100 years before DNA was discovered.
Upon the discovery, an evolutionist would predict that closely related species should share a significant amount of DNA. Distantly related species should share significantly less.
Once the testing was done, uess what species shares the most DNA with humans?
Anyone? Anyone??
That's right Chimpanzees coming in with 99.8% shared DNA with humans.
Now, are ID advocates making any kind of predictions or doing any kind of testing?
Jim Walsh | May 25, 2005, 1:56pm | #
The creationists have an simple strategy: they have about half a dozen basic "arguments," among them the "Blind Watchmaker" argument, the "What Good Is Half An Eye" argument, the "It's Just A Theory" argument, the "Second Law Of Thermodynamics" argument and a couple of others. By the time you get around to debunking all of the arguments (and they're all easily debunkable), they just start all over again with slightly re-worded versions of the same arguments. Such is the state of discourse in twenty-first century America.crimethink | May 25, 2005, 1:57pm | #
Heh, yet another example of how y'all jump on the ad hominem bandwagon at the slightest questioning of the groupthink. Would it surprise you to find that I believe evolution has probably occurred?All my original post did was point out that evolution is not a testable, repeatable hypothesis. Rikhurzen correctly counters that experiments have confirmed the theory of natural selection in the laboratory, but I wasn't talking about natural selection, I was talking about evolution. Just because natural selection happens doesn't mean it's all that's necessary to explain how every form of life got to be what it is today.
I myself believe evolution has probably occurred, since as Rikhurzen notes it looks like the best explanation available. But that doesn't mean there aren't tough questions and inconsistencies that the theory has yet to explain fully.
thoreau | May 25, 2005, 1:59pm | #
crimethink-Absolutely there are open questions.
But, as another poster pointed out, we should ask how well evolution has fared in answering questions and compare with how well ID has fared in answering questions when we decide what to teach in schools.
(And yes, I know, public schools shouldn't exist, yadda yadda yadda.)
thoreau | May 25, 2005, 2:02pm | #
BTW, this is one thread where I'm glad that Gunnels isn't around. He'd take me to the woodshed for even having the tiniest, tiniest sympathy for ID.My only fear is that a certain Roman will show up and start talking about how religion kept rampant individualism in check until the decline of the west or something like that.
Akira MacKenzie | May 25, 2005, 2:05pm | #
"Seriously, do you think these kinds of questions have not been investigated and addressed?"Scientists have and the evidence points to evolution, not creationism. (No, I don't distinguish ID from Creationism. It's all the same thing.) However, the creationists work contrary to the scientific method. They create a theory that supports a conclusion they reached before hand. (Ii.e. God "created" the universe.) Science doesn't work that way.
But, you've made the extraordinary claim, crimethink, so it's up to you to supply the extraordinary evidence. What's the evidence to support creationism, intelligent design, or whatever euphemism you want to use for your religious bullshit? Don't give us the "evolution has problems" cop-out. Give us testable, unbiased, peer-reviewed, evidence to support the ID claim.
thoreua, I'm a biologist, and I too have "sympathy" for the non-supernatural aspects of ID. They made a good try around 1998 with information theory and irreducible complexity; but were completely refuting in the following months. That was more or less the end of ID as science. So the proper analogy there should be: should we waste time teaching cold fusion in physics class?
crimethink | May 25, 2005, 2:09pm | #
xray,Yes, I'm sorry, the revealed wisdom of Science must never be questioned, for It cannot err. I apologize to all the Darwinian fundamentalists I might have offended with my blasphemous questions.
kmw | May 25, 2005, 2:10pm | #
It's scary that this is still a heated controversy after 20 years amazing scientific discoveries, and court defeats by creationists.One of these days, they just might take over enough government offices to ban anything but biblical teaching. If science is by law whatever you want to believe it is, America's march to third-world status will hasten.
Remember that the Moorish culture of 1500 years ago was a high point of science for Muslims. They were as advanced scientifically as any other culture on earth. You'd never know it by looking at Islamic based cultures today.
Akira MacKenzie | May 25, 2005, 2:10pm | #
Whoops, I thought the quotation was from crimethink, not Phil. Sorry Phil. However, my challenge still stands.thoreau | May 25, 2005, 2:14pm | #
Rikurzhen-I have not followed ID carefully enough. I thought that irreducible complexity was a noble effort, and I wouldn't be surprised if somebody made a noble effort with information theory. I'm also not surprised that they were shot down. If no new noble efforts have arisen since then, then I guess they are now just a bunch of dead-enders.
What always bugs me is the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics argument, because they always completely butcher it. What's funny is that I know a physicist who was raised in a fundamentalist family. He remains a fundamentalist (don't ask me why, I don't know). He once made the 2nd Law argument to me. Now, what's weird is that his work is in phase transitions. He supposedly knows statistical mechanics backwards and forwards. Me, I solve Maxwell's equations. Stat mech is not something that I work with regularly.
He totally could have put the 2nd law argument into a fancy outfit that would have been difficult for me to refute. (Which is not to say it would have been right, but there are plenty of wrong ideas that I am not qualified to refute.) But he just made the most ludicrous one he could come up with.
Which told me everything I need to know about "creation scientists." They aren't interested in supporting creationism with science. They know it can't be done. They just want to sow doubt, and when that doesn't work they'll just fall back on faith.
Morat | May 25, 2005, 2:16pm | #
Heh, yet another example of how y'all jump on the ad hominem bandwagon at the slightest questioning of the groupthink. Would it surprise you to find that I believe evolution has probably occurred?Given the rather ridiculously sophomoric nature of the questions you asked, yes.
It's been my experience that people who ask questions like "How can a fully-formed wing evolve? DUH!? and "If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys? DUH" tend to be Creationists.
Why? Because anyone who paid two minutes worth of attention in High School biology would know the answer to such basic questions.
I think you'll find that criticism works better when you've demonstrated a better grasp of the topic. Your very question showed your grasp of the topic was minimal, which severely undercuts your ability to criticize it.
All my original post did was point out that evolution is not a testable, repeatable hypothesis. Rikhurzen correctly counters that experiments have confirmed the theory of natural selection in the laboratory, but I wasn't talking about natural selection, I was talking about evolution. Just because natural selection happens doesn't mean it's all that's necessary to explain how every form of life got to be what it is today.
It's not. If you knew anything about evolution, you'd know that there are a variety of other mechanisms besides natural selection -- things like genetic drift.
To me, the best evidence of evolution happens to lie in the nested heirchies. It's really hard to ignore that cladistics, the fossil record, DNA analysis, and -- most especially -- retroviral insertions -- all create the same evolutionary tree.
You might handwave away some of that, but I'd LOVE to hear how every primate in existance managed to get the EXACT SAME retroviral insertion in the EXACT SAME place in their DNA. Ditto for pretty much every grouping you can imagine.
crimethink: nice strawman. nothing you said questions the "revealed wisdom" cuz it has been discredited countless times. when you pull out tired old creationist half-truths and distortions, you only discredit yourself.
crimethink | May 25, 2005, 2:18pm | #
However, the creationists work contrary to the scientific method. They create a theory that supports a conclusion they reached before hand. (Ii.e. God "created" the universe.) Science doesn't work that way.Actually, science can work that way. The scientific method doesn't restrict how a hypothesis may be formed. It can come from common sense, religion, or what your Rice Krispies are saying to you; the only restriction is that it must be testable, and that you must be ready to abandon it if it fails the test.
Of course, since neither ID nor natural-selection-explains-everything is conducive to experiment, neither really conforms to the scientific method anyway.
But, you've made the extraordinary claim, crimethink, so it's up to you to supply the extraordinary evidence.
I've made no extraordinary claims. I never stated that I thought ID was correct, but it's psychologically revealing that y'all seem to think I did.
crimethink | May 25, 2005, 2:21pm | #
xray,Ok, if I'm just making a buffoon of myself, why the hurt reaction on your part?
Akira MacKenzie | May 25, 2005, 2:21pm | #
What they don't understand, however, is that religious belief and evolution are compatible.In 1996 no less a religious authority than Pope John Paul II declared, "New knowledge has led to the recognition in the theory of evolution of more than a hypothesis."
Leaving aside the questionable "science-and-religion-are-compatible" meme,* I don't think the late pontiff's temporary brush with rationality is going to have much influence on fundementalists who largely think that the RCC is in league with Satan.
*They're not. Science is based on facts. Religion is based on mythology.
thoreau | May 25, 2005, 2:23pm | #
OK:1) There's nothing wrong with starting with a theory and then testing it. It's done all the time. It doesn't matter whether the idea comes before or after the evidence. What matters is that the evidence supports the idea, and that the scientist isn't sweeping contrary evidence under the rug.
2) Crimethink: Sure, some evolution supporters can be a little dogmatic. But why should that keep us from beating up on a theory (ID) that has no successes of its own, and depends entirely on holes in our current knowledge? If any theory deserves such a beating, it would be ID.
Morat | May 25, 2005, 2:29pm | #
Of course, since neither ID nor natural-selection-explains-everything is conducive to experiment, neither really conforms to the scientific method anywaySays a man with the genius objection of "How can a fully-formed wing evolve?" which ranks right up there with objecting to algebra because "X isn't a number! You can't 5 to a letter! That's crazy talk!".
Natural selection is perfectly testable -- Darwin's finches did the original work on that baby. Over the century and a half we've added a number of other evolutionary mechanisms (I mentioned drift, for one) which eradicates your idiotic little "NS explains all" strawman.
Evolution's been tested to death, dear boy. Every new fossil dug out of the ground is a test for evolution. Every DNA strand sequenced is a test. Evolution is tested so often and so continiously that I find it hard to imagine anyone could be so ignorant as to think it never happens.
You might as well claim Bernoulli's Principle is 'never tested' while standing on the runway at Dulles.
Akira MacKenzie | May 25, 2005, 2:36pm | #
"You might as well claim Bernoulli's Principle is 'never tested' while standing on the runway at Dulles."
I'd like to see that, actually. :)
crimethink | May 25, 2005, 2:42pm | #
Morat,None of the pages linked to here, and none that I've found in my admittedly limited exploration, have explained how not only a fully-functional wing but the changes in muscle and bone structure necessary for flight, could all have evolved independently of each other, when none by itself (with the possible exception of the proto-wings found in flying squirrels) gives a significant survival advantage.
If algebra was as difficult for you as this is, I feel for you.
crimethink | May 25, 2005, 2:44pm | #
And just to cut off a possible you-stupid-theist "argument", flying squirrels don't fly, they glide.crimethink: i am not hurt. i am merely pointing out that you have forfeited the right to ever use a scientific argument to make any point. if you ever make an appeal to "science" i will simply cut and paste: "that doesn't mean there aren't tough questions and inconsistencies that the theory has yet to explain fully." and i will always be right.
Morat | May 25, 2005, 2:58pm | #
None of the pages linked to here, and none that I've found in my admittedly limited exploration, have explained how not only a fully-functional wing but the changes in muscle and bone structure necessary for flight, could all have evolved independently of each other, when none by itself (with the possible exception of the proto-wings found in flying squirrels) gives a significant survival advantage.Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize it was my turn to force-feed you knowledge. My bad. I should have realized that your ignorance was MY problem to solve. See, I just tend to MOCK people who think that personal ignorance constitutes an argument.
However, since you asked so NICELY, here you go: The Evolution of Flight.
I would also suggest talking a look at this, which might clear up that ignorance problem you got going.
Phil | May 25, 2005, 3:14pm | #
None of the pages linked to here . . . have explained how not only a fully-functional wing but the changes in muscle and bone structure necessary for flight, could all have evolved independently of each other, when none by itself . . . gives a significant survival advantage.You're under a serious misimpression here, which might be what's hindering you. To find it, start with the phrase "significant survival advantage," as well as each of its component words, particularly "significant" and "survival."
Since you were the one who brought up the Amazing Tri-Partite Evolution of the Wing! In Animals, Birds and Insects!!!, you might want to look into the fact that insects don't have a bone structure to worry about mutating.
mediageek | May 25, 2005, 3:17pm | #
Ok, I'm gonna be all simplistic here, but here's a copy of the four basic steps of the scientific method:1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.
2. Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation.
3. Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations.
4. Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters and properly performed experiments.
(Taken from here:
Introduction to the Scientific Method
Now, I'm a layman whose knowledge of science topics is limited to The Discovery Channel and the copies of Nature magazine in my dentist's waiting room, so you'll excuse me for asking "dumb guy" questions. However, could someone please tell me how one can use the scientific method to support I.D.?
Above and beyond that, how could one use I.D. to learn more about the workings of biology? Could I.D. theory be used to develop vaccines, hormone therapy or a cure for baldness?
SPD | May 25, 2005, 3:20pm | #
The difference in approach to these two "theories" (and I use the word loosely to incorporate intelligent design, which can't be tested through scientific means) is that ID moves from the "beginning of time" (6,000 years ago?) to the present, whereas evolution works from the present to the past (how did we get where we are now?). Evolution claims ignorance and strives for explanations; ID claims an explanation and then scrambles to support it.ID, anchoring itself in faith, starts with an answer before the question is even asked and leaves itself no rational way out should its basis for existence falter. I think it's a poor way of teaching impressionable minds how to deal with complex problems in a logical manner.
(On a side note, why should one try to prove scientifically that "God" made the universe? Faith exists only in the absence of proof, and vice versa. Even if you could prove beyond a shadow of doubt that a sentient, omnipotent deity was behind it all -- removing any need to actually believe in G-- --, it does nothing to invalidate the theory that all life evolved and will continue to do so.)
This is not meant as an ad hominem attack against crimethink -- I like to think I've moved beyond the days when I'd insult posters -- but rather a call to those who embrace ID to convince the rest of us why we should accept it as a theory on equal footing with evolution (which, to the best of my knowledge, has NEVER dismissed the notion that G--, or anyone else, created our universe in the first place).
kwais | May 25, 2005, 3:43pm | #
I am all about ID. Let the controversy rage. And let the ID guys win in court, that all the people who disagree with it have to pull their kids from public school.Whatever happens to help put an end to public school, is good for me.
And since the most avid supporters of public school are most likely to be liberals, who oppose the ID theory, all the better.
thoreau | May 25, 2005, 3:59pm | #
Whatever happens to help put an end to public school, is good for me.Things have to get worse before they get better?
Sorry, but I don't see any good in making public schools even worse.
PintofStout | May 25, 2005, 5:07pm | #
I like to refer back to Mencken's coverage of the Scope's Trail when these kind of absurdities come up, and it always makes me fell better.Also, I'm just glad I don't live in Kansas. Not because my children will be in school there (don't have any) or fear for the future of the state if their publically-educated residents consist of their future legislators (probably already do based on current evidence), but just so I don't have to be associated with such an affair - even as broadly as my state of reisdence.
crimethink | May 25, 2005, 5:07pm | #
We must save the public schools in order to destroy them.I am a practicing Christian. I do not believe the Bible is literally true in all matters. I believe in a) the divinity of Jesus AND b) evolution AND c) science. And yet my head, it does not explode. A damn mystery, that's what it is.
Why? Because anyone who paid two minutes worth of attention in High School biology would know the answer to such basic questions.
I'm guessing that Morat didn't go to public schools.
If you did, Morat, tell me which one. I'll do my damnedest to get my daughter into it.
I'm guessing that Morat didn't go to public schools.
If you did, Morat, tell me which one. I'll do my damnedest to get my daughter into it.
Morat | May 25, 2005, 5:42pm | #
I'm guessing that Morat didn't go to public schools.I did attend a public school. Rather nice one, for all that the majority of the students were the children of blue-collar workers. (Hey, there's an upside to having large refineries pumping toxic crud out. They have high property values...).
The school district was fairly rich, the per-student spending was fairly high (but not the highest in the state, not even close), and if I remember correctly, Deer Park is up there in the top 2% or so of Texas schools -- which even for Texas isn't bad.
I graduated with 20+ hours of college credit -- all AP exams. It's easier now, with dual-credit classes (they let kids take college classes and give them credit for the high school class too) they worked out with the local community college. A better introduction to college, too.
I do remember my biology teacher having to give some lame "I am required to teach this section. If you have moral, religious, or ethical problems with learning it, please have your parents sign this form and you can spend three weeks learning more about biochem instead. I refuse to discuss or debate the merits of evolution, Creationism, religion, atheism or any of the other assorted controversies during class time. So don't try. If your parents don't sign the slip, you're expected to listen, learn, and prove you understand the material. Do NOT take up class time trying to argue it."
Pissed me off at the time. Of course, I later found out that one of the OTHER biology teachers (not the AP one) introduced the evolution section with "So who here believes in that evolution crap, anyways? Raise your hands". I believe my brother made his class a living hell for that --- he was a nightmare student to teachers he RESPECTED.....
But I had a decent high school overview. Not quite up to Biology 101 standards (if I'd taken the Biology II AP class instead of Chem 2 and Physics 2, I would have) but not bad.
Still, if you're going to send your daughter to a Texas school, I can recommend a few in the Houston area. Deer Park ain't the only decent district down here, but there are several to watch out for.
Eddy | May 25, 2005, 5:55pm | #
As far as evolving flight goes, I like this explanation for bird flight.When talking of bugs, it seems that flight is a trivial adaptaion, especially when one considers the lifecycle of the average insect. It might be a good bet that flight developed seperately in distinct groups of insects. It almost seems like the next logical step for a grasshoper but why butterflys.
Heck, between insects and amphibians, I'm convinced that evolution can, and often does, consist of rapid changes. I'd imagine it took some time for people to realize that catepillars and moths were in fact the same animal.
Shkval | May 25, 2005, 5:58pm | #
When I was going through religious confirmation classes in the 1970s, my teacher answered our question about evolution with the response: "Is it not as great a miracle if God took 6 billion years to create the universe instead of 6 days?"That's always been enough for me
This argument about what is taught in government schools would disappear if there were a complete separation of school and state.
thoreau | May 25, 2005, 6:19pm | #
crimethink-So, what is your point?
I have no problem with students being told of open questions in evolutionary biology. Hell, I wish every high school science class pointed people to open questions so they'd know that there are frontiers beyond the boring shit taught in high school. It wouldn't hurt if high school physics classes told students more about frontiers (superconductivity, quantum information, biophysics, etc.) so they knew that there is a light at the end of the tunnel of pendulums and wires and geometrical optics.
For that matter, I wouldn't mind if students were taught that scientific theories are only as good as the available evidence in favor of them. I wouldn't mind if skepticism was encouraged and students were taught in the mode of "We know this because of..." rather than "Here's what we know. Accept it." I wouldn't mind if students were reminded that everything we know is incomplete and subject to revision if new evidence is found.
I think most scientists would support putting those things into high school science.
The problem with ID and "teaching the controversy" is that they don't just say "Well, here are things that evolution has not yet explained. These are open questions in need of resolution." They say that everything we think we know may have to be replaced by religious explanations if scientists don't explain every step by which the bacterial flagellum evolved.
If ID proponents are really such big fans of skepticism, then let's put ID into the classroom and subject it to the same scrutiny as evolution. After we point out the open questions in evolution, let's point out the open questions with ID, which include:
1) Some rigorous criterion by which we can conclude that a system didn't evolve naturally. Something other than just a gap in our current knowledge. Preferably some sort of evidence that the gap can NEVER be filled.
2) Once we conclude that natural mechanisms couldn't have given rise to a given feature in a life form, is there any evidence pointing to a particular type of designer? Is there evidence that would enable us to distinguish between intervention by a single deity, intervention by multiple deities, and intervention by extraterrestrials? (i.e. aliens bound by the laws of physics, rather than a deity that transcends the laws of physics)
3) Aside from the alleged gaps in evolution, is there other information that might point to the existence of a designer or designers? It's always good if a phenomenon can be confirmed by multiple tests. Certainly an unfillable gap in the evolutionary record would be suggestive evidence, but something outside biology would make the case stronger. Do we have any firm scientific evidence of whatever entity was doing the design work?
To sum up, it seems to me that evolution has gaps in an otherwise firm record, while ID really has no substance at all.
thoreau | May 25, 2005, 6:25pm | #
This argument about what is taught in government schools would disappear if there were a complete separation of school and state.True, but the debate over evolution would continue. The political stakes would be lower, but let's not pretend that creationists would stop arguing with the rest of us.
And I realize that, in theory, parents would simply send their kids to schools that teach whatever they agree with. But new schools don't just sprout overnight. In communities with mixed or changing demographics, no doubt the private schools would have some rancorous PTA meetings where evolution gets debated. Yes, I konw, they can always send their kids elsewhere, but if a community isn't large enough to support more than a handful of schools, the private school administrators will face a dilemma. They'll probably observe the debates amongst parents as they struggle to make a decision.
Let's not kid ourselves into thinking that these problems would be instantly solved by a new school starting overnight.
SPD | May 25, 2005, 6:26pm | #
"Is it not as great a miracle if God took 6 billion years to create the universe instead of 6 days?"I remember hearing that argument for defending the "six days" version of God creating the world: "Well, to God, one day is like a billion years."
Which reminds me of this story:
Once, a man asked God,
"Oh Lord, what is a million years to you?"
And God replied, "A second."
Then the man asked Him,
"Lord, what is a million dollars to you?"
And God replied, "A penny."
Then the man asked,
"Lord, could you loan me a penny?"
And God said,
"Sure. Just give me a second."
thoreau | May 25, 2005, 6:26pm | #
Short version of my post:Privatizing schools might end the debate, but even in the private sector people still debate over things.
thoreau | May 25, 2005, 6:27pm | #
Argh! Typo in my previous post:Privatizing schools might end the political debate, but even in private associations people still debate over things.
SPD | May 25, 2005, 6:29pm | #
thoreau,Thank you for posting about public-vs-private schools what I was having trouble trying to put into words earlier.
Yours is the superior intellect...
crimethink | May 25, 2005, 8:01pm | #
lol SPD. I hope you won't mind if I use that.thoreau,
I don't really have a point tbh. As I said, I believe evolution has occurred, and I don't see a conflict with Christianity there. I was just playing the devil's advocate and forcing people to make the case for evolution, instead of indulging in yet another round of Christian-bashing.
And again to be honest, I'm not an expert on the subject, so I was interested in what other people thought on the topic of wing-evolution. Of course, it doesn't help that a mere question here invites insults and condemnation, but...
Lurky the Lurker | May 25, 2005, 8:40pm | #
Privatizing schools might end the political debate, but even in private associations people still debate over things.Yes, but there are a couple of nice things about privatizing the system:
1)My money wouldn't be used to support idiot public educators.
2)People would have the choice to send their children to a school with curricula that matches their personal outlook regardless of whether it's scientific, dogmatically atheist, Pentecostal, Buddhist, Bah'ai, or whatever. If your kids get a crappy education because they were handling snakes when they should have been learning about peptides, TFB.
thoreau | May 25, 2005, 8:43pm | #
First of all, crimethink, you get the award for Post Number 69 in this thread. I hope that my bestowing this award on your will be mutually satisfying for both of us ;->Second, I'm not a fan of Christian-bashing either. That's why I'm so disgusted with the Biblical literalists who make the rest of us look bad. They invite this sort of ridicule.
Anyway, you don't do any favors for Christianity's public image by coming into an evolution thread and telling everybody to go easy on the creationists. It would be like defending the reputation of libertarianism by insisting that the public stop making fun of blue-skinned druids who want to legalize ferrets.
Far better to stick up for Christianity by pointing to, say, non-kooky things like charitable works. Just as it's better to stick up for libertarians by pointing to mainstream figures who want the government to leave ordinary people alone.
thoreau | May 25, 2005, 8:46pm | #
Lurky-I wasn't suggesting that education shouldn't be privatized. I was just responding to somebody who acted as though the ONLY reason why this topic is debated is that public schools exist.
I'm all in favor of reducing the size of government, but let's not get all utopian and pretend that there will be no controversial matters in Libertopia.
kmw | May 25, 2005, 9:04pm | #
It would be like defending the reputation of libertarianism by insisting that the public stop making fun of blue-skinned druids who want to legalize ferrets.But... blue-skinned druids who want to legalize ferrets are cool ;-)
thoreau | May 25, 2005, 9:30pm | #
Hey, as long as we're talking about science, last night I was telling my students about diffusion of photons and how it affects the appearance of everyday substances, including consumer products. I found myself making the inevitable and popular analogy between diffusion and staggering around drunk.Then I started talking about the difference between isotropic scattering of light (where a scattering particle sends light in all directions evenly) versus anisotropic scattering (where scattering only changes the direction of light by a small amount).
To explain how the directional bias of scattering affects the time spent inside an object, I pointed out that if you are really drunk then your direction of travel fluctuates frequently, so a cop is much more likely to arrest you for public intoxication. OTOH, if you're fairly steady and only wavering slightly, you might get pretty far before the cop picks you up for public intoxication.
Science is fun!
crimethink | May 25, 2005, 9:39pm | #
thoreau,Far better to stick up for Christianity by pointing to, say, non-kooky things like charitable works.
If Christianity's chief "selling point" is charitable works, why bother with it, when there are plenty of nonreligious charitable organizations without all that supernatural baggage? Ultimately, it's the kooky aspects of Christianity that make it worth believing in.
To paraphrase Neils Bohr's (I think) comment about quantum mechanics, if you don't find Christianity kooky, you don't understand it. In my opinion at least.
biologist | May 25, 2005, 9:49pm | #
the best anecdote about God and intelligent design comes from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (I'm going to have to paraphrase)The Babel Fish (an extraordinarily useful creature that lives in one's ear and feeds on external sound waves and excretes sound waves that are compatible with the brain of its host) is seen as the final proof of the NONexistence of God.
The argument goes something like this:
God: I refuse to prove that I exist, because without faith I am nothing
Man: But doesn't the Babel fish undermine that argument? Such an useful creature couldn't have evolved by chance, which proves you exist, and therefore you don't.
God: Oh, dear, I hadn't thought of that.
God vanishes in a puff of logic.
Man: That was easy.
Man goes on to try to prove black is white and gets himself killed at the next traffic crossing.
RIP Douglas Adams
crimethink | May 25, 2005, 9:58pm | #
biologist,Good paraphrase, but I believe it was at a zebra crossing that man met his demise.
And the movie (in this section, and in general) was a major disappointment.
fortyouncer | May 26, 2005, 12:41am | #
Whoa man, I was, like looking for one of those threads about legalizing pot... uh I must have clicked the wrong link.Jim J | May 26, 2005, 4:51pm | #
Ron Bailey is right in concluding "religious belief and evolution are compatible". In fact, Intelligent Design and Evolution are compatible. One is a theory of cause and the other effect. Why not teach both?We evolved after the Big Bang, but before it there was nothing. Furthermore, Evolution is made possible by DNA, an apparatus that could not develop on its own in the time since the Big Bang (12-14 billion years).
Evolution should be taught in our schools, but also the fact that science itself began when the Big Banger set the dice rolling.
Render to Evolution what is Evolution's, and to God what is God's.