Dawn of the Dark Ages Part 2

[dr_mabeuse]

From Yahoo News

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050516/ap_on_sc/kansas_evolution

Kansas Debate Challenges Science Itself

By JOHN HANNA, Associated Press Writer Mon May 16, 6:33 PM ET

TOPEKA, Kan. - The Kansas school board's hearings on evolution weren't limited to how the theory should be taught in public schools. The board is considering redefining science itself. Advocates of "intelligent design" are pushing the board to reject a definition limiting science to natural explanations for what's observed in the world.

Instead, they want to define it as "a systematic method of continuing investigation," without specifying what kind of answer is being sought. The definition would appear in the introduction to the state's science standards.

The proposed definition has outraged many scientists, who are frustrated that students could be discussing supernatural explanations for natural phenomena in their science classes.

"It's a completely unscientific way of looking at the world," said Keith Miller, a Kansas State University geologist.

The conservative state Board of Education plans to consider the proposed changes by August. It is expected to approve at least part of a proposal from advocates of intelligent design, which holds that the natural world is so complex and well-ordered that an intelligent cause is the best way to explain it.

State and national science groups boycotted last week's public hearings, claiming they were rigged against evolution.

Stephen Meyer, a senior fellow at the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, which supports intelligent design, said changing the schools' definition of science would avoid freezing out questions about how life arose and developed on Earth.

The current definition is "not innocuous," Meyer said. "It's not neutral. It's actually taking sides."

Last year, the board asked a committee of educators to draft recommendations for updating the standards, then accepted two rival proposals.

One, backed by a majority of those educators, continues an evolution-friendly tone from the current standards. Those standards would define science as "a human activity of systematically seeking natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us." That's close to the current definition.

The other proposal is backed by intelligent design advocates and is similar to language in Ohio's standards. It defines science as "a systematic method of continuing investigation" using observation, experiment, measurement, theory building, testing of ideas and logical argument to lead to better explanations of natural phenomena.

The Kansas board deleted most references to evolution from the science standards in 1999, but elections the next year resulted in a less conservative board, which led to the current, evolution-friendly standards. Conservatives recaptured the board's majority in 2004.

Jonathan Wells, a Discovery Institute senior fellow, said the dispute won't be settled in public hearings like the ones in Kansas.

"I think it will be resolved in the scientific community," he said. "I think (intelligent design), in 10 years, will be a very respectable science program."

Evolution defenders scoff at the notion.

"In order to live in this science-dominated world, you have to be able to discriminate between science and non-science," said Alan Leshner of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "They want to rewrite the rules of science."
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By this definition, spiritualism, astrology, UFO's, all become science in Kansas.

 

[Remec]

By this definition, spiritualism, astrology, UFO's, all become science in Kansas.

Toto: "Bark, bark!"
Dorothy: "Gee, Toto, I guess we're still in Kansas, after all."

<g>

 

[neonlyte]

By this definition, spiritualism, astrology, UFO's, all become science in Kansas.

That sounds great... we might finally get some answers.

Why the urge to keep tinkering with education policy?

We did it in the UK from 60's onwards. I attended a 'high school' designed to make me a technician, an appitude for technical drawing was discovered in me and became an architect when I was really much happier in my second career as a baker.

In the late 80's UK education policy abandoned 'competition' - in everything - no winners or losers (even on the athletics track) and everyone passed exams (well 95%). In the 90's everyone was entitled to a 'university education' so the secondary higher education institutes that trained builders and plumbers and car mechanics became universities and awarded degrees. Bloody hard to get a man with a degree to lay a few bricks.

Intelligent design as an education policy sounds to me like an oxymoron.

 

[rgraham666]

Some people like the dark.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Why the urge to keep tinkering with education policy?

This isn't really tinkering with policy, but rather with content. They want to redefine "science" so it includes the biblical version of the creation. They want to see Genesis given the same status as Darwin.

Those who don't live in the USA (and a lot of us who do) are invariably stunned at how pervasive conservative evangelical Christianity is here. There are a lot of very powerful people--our president seems to be one of them--who have no trouble with the idea of establishing a Christian theocracy here, and this Kansas fiasco is the latest skirmish in that war.

 

[rgraham666]

If they're going to insist on Genesis in the science classroom, they'll have to allow all the other Creation myths as well.

'Equal Time' and all that.

And there is no way they can demonstrate, scientifically, even under their own 'definition', that Genesis is a 'truer' explanation than any other.

 

[Guest]

 

[Guest]

 

[dr_mabeuse]

ooo..

BUT do not dismiss just because you can't grasp.

at one time we did not grasp electrons.
at one time we did not grasp gravity.

That's what evolutionists say. Where would our understanding of electricty and gravity be today if we'd just said, "It's God's will" and let it go at that?

We don't yet grasp how certain complex organ or enzyme systems evolved, but that doesn't mean we have to roll over and say our ignorance proves Divine Intervention.

There are a lot of problems in evolution theory, and a hell of a lot we don't understand, but that still doesn't elevate Intelligent Design Theory to the status of a science. For one thing, every scientific theory must be (a) testable by experiment, and (b) disprovable. Intelligent Design can neither be tested nor disproved, and so is not legitimate science. It's a religious belief.

 

[lil_elvis]

Well, if you can't outlaw stupidity, you might as well codify it.

 

[BlackShanglan]

There are a lot of problems in evolution theory, and a hell of a lot we don't understand, but that still doesn't elevate Intelligent Design Theory to the status of a science. For one thing, every scientific theory must be (a) testable by experiment, and (b) disprovable. Intelligent Design can neither be tested nor disproved, and so is not legitimate science. It's a religious belief.

But does that make it incorrect? I'm not overjoyed at the thought of them re-working the scientific curriculum, but I think that there's a difference between something being scientifically unprovable and being incorrect or nonexistant. I think that that is the qualm of those behind such revisions - they fear that (and to be fair, this is a very common skeptic tack) once we've defined science as not only the only thing provable, but the only thing relevant, then God will be scrap-heaped along with fairies and pookas because nothing that's not empirically provable in a double-blind test matters. I do understand their concern there, and that concern is to some extent supported by many of the skeptic "big guns." Michael Shermer comes to mind; he puts forth a cogent defense of evolution in scientific terms, but he also has a tendency to regard religion as a sort of sad derangement of weak minds.

I take Rhino's point. I hope that this doesn't hopelessly sink me in everyone's opinion, but my own point of view is quite similar - that there are rules and processes in the universe, and that they are themselves the work of guiding, ordering being. Like Rhino, I certainly accept that evolution occurs - although I think that there are still issues with some of the mechanics - but don't see this as exclusive of a God who created life and the mechanisms by which it perpetuates itself.

Here, however, is what I see as the key issue:

That's what evolutionists say. Where would our understanding of electricty and gravity be today if we'd just said, "It's God's will" and let it go at that?

We don't yet grasp how certain complex organ or enzyme systems evolved, but that doesn't mean we have to roll over and say our ignorance proves Divine Intervention.

I do agree with Dr. M. on this, and I think that this is the really important issue. Whether one thinks that life came about through pure chance or through divine guidance, one should continue to investigate, test, prove and disprove everything susceptible to investigation. Certainly, I think and hope that there is a God. If there is one, I imagine that that Divine Mover is quite intrigued by our efforts to understand the world around us and that the Great One is pleased by such progress as we make in comprehending the wonders of creation. Believing in a God should never be a reason to cease our careful, thoughtful, and as much as possible objective examination of the world in a scientific fashion. Even if one feels one has the answer as to how the universe was created, or by whom, there is endless ground for investigation into how it works. Our theories as to who created the rules of the physical world need not and should not interfere with our determination to learn those rules.

I suspect that that is what makes Dr. M nervous, and me as well. I know that not everyone who believes in a God believes that God encourages investigation beyond the Bible. Certainly, this is frightening to those of us who believe in science and reason; we don't like the idea of seeing them supplanted with nothing but religion. However, I think it's fair to observe that things can look equally scary from the opposite perspective. They fear that God will be replaced with nothing but reason and science, and to them that is an equally frightening prospect. The counterbalance to the fundamentalists does exist; it's in the James Randis and Michael Shermers of the world, who at times do great service to science and the skeptic cause, but who are also quite vocal in their derision of religion and those who follow it. They look forward not only to the advance of science, but often to the fall of religion as a tired old canard whose destruction is an intimate part of the advance of reason. That leaves the fundamentalists as frightened as we at times may be of them. That's not to say that they are right; only that there is intolerance on both sides, and that their actions may smack more of fear of destruction than a desire for global domination.

Shanglan

 

[R. Richard]

But does that make it incorrect? I'm not overjoyed at the thought of them re-working the scientific curriculum, but I think that there's a difference between something being scientifically unprovable and being incorrect or nonexistant. I think that that is the qualm of those behind such revisions - they fear that (and to be fair, this is a very common skeptic tack) once we've defined science as not only the only thing provable, but the only thing relevant, then God will be scrap-heaped along with fairies and pookas because nothing that's not empirically provable in a double-blind test matters. I do understand their concern there, and that concern is to some extent supported by many of the skeptic "big guns." Michael Shermer comes to mind; he puts forth a cogent defense of evolution in scientific terms, but he also has a tendency to regard religion as a sort of sad derangement of weak minds.

I take Rhino's point. I hope that this doesn't hopelessly sink me in everyone's opinion, but my own point of view is quite similar - that there are rules and processes in the universe, and that they are themselves the work of guiding, ordering being. Like Rhino, I certainly accept that evolution occurs - although I think that there are still issues with some of the mechanics - but don't see this as exclusive of a God who created life and the mechanisms by which it perpetuates itself.

BlackShanglan:
You cite "a God." Hindus believe that there are Gods, plural. If you can teach what your God has done, why can they not have equal time to teach what their Gods have done? Wait! Muhammed in the back wants to know if your God is named Allah? Wazzat? Sven over there wants to discuss Odin. Now Standing Bear wants to discuss the Great Spirit. Uh-oh, Goldstein wants to discuss this Jesus myth.

What a mess!

 

[Liar]

There are a lot of problems in evolution theory, and a hell of a lot we don't understand, but that still doesn't elevate Intelligent Design Theory to the status of a science. For one thing, every scientific theory must be (a) testable by experiment, and (b) disprovable. Intelligent Design can neither be tested nor disproved, and so is not legitimate science. It's a religious belief.

Exactly. To the protestant church I grew up with, the idea of intelligent design as it should be taught comes naturally. It's a belief that does not contradict hard scientific facts, and doesn't feel it has to compete with it. To them, faith is faith and science is science. In fact, it encourages more legitimate science under the premises that it is our duty to find out as much about God's creation as possible.

In a way, I think an attempt to treat religious belief as science is a blow against religion. It diminishes the act of having faith, and it acknowledges a fear of being "proven wrong" on something as unproveable as mysterious ways. Sad really.

#L

 

[R. Richard]

Let me try to explain something.

In the Pacific ocean there are many volcanic islands. It is accepted by everyone who has ever studied the genesis of said islands that they were created by molten lava erupting from the sea bottom (the big island of Hawaii is still spewing lava from time to time). With the possible exception of bacteria, there was no life on the molten lava.

After a few million years, there is now life on many of the islands that erupted from the sea floor. One of the forms of life on said volcanic islands is flightless birds. There is not a type of flightless bird, there are many different types of flightless bird, varying from island to island. In at least the vast majority of the cases, said flightless birds are not swimming birds. Thus we are left with the puzzle of how the bird got to the volcanic islands in the first place.

Evolution says they flew to the islands (probably caught in a storm). Once they got to the island, they could not fly back home, it was too far. There was no benefit to flying on a small island where there were already too many birds for the food supply. Thus, the birds evolved to lose the very large chest muscles that powered their wings, because the chest muscles were too expensive to feed with limited food. As the chest muscles got too small to sustain flight, the wings atrophied. All of the data fits under evolution.

Please explain how the many different flightless birds got on the islands without using creationism. The ball is in your court.

 

[BlackShanglan]

BlackShanglan:
You cite "a God." Hindus believe that there are Gods, plural. If you can teach what your God has done, why can they not have equal time to teach what their Gods have done? Wait! Muhammed in the back wants to know if your God is named Allah? Wazzat? Sven over there wants to discuss Odin. Now Standing Bear wants to discuss the Great Spirit. Uh-oh, Goldstein wants to discuss this Jesus myth.

What a mess!

Oh, entirely agreed. Hence I go with Liar's post right under yours. I'm not arguing that we teach religion in the science classroom - only that this attempt to retrench the definition of science is the reaction of group who feel that they are under attack. I'm not arguing that their reaction is the right one - only trying to offer a perspective on what drives them. I do believe that it's best to be clear on the difference between science and religion and to devote science classes to teaching science. I only intend to suggest that it's also best for science to know where its limits are, and to avoid suggesting that it and religion are inherently at odds on all matters.

Shanglan

 

[shereads]

If they had hanged that trouble-making Scopes, this wouldn't be an issue.

 

[BlackShanglan]

In the Pacific ocean there are many volcanic islands. It is accepted by everyone who has ever studied the genesis of said islands that they were created by molten lava erupting from the sea bottom (the big island of Hawaii is still spewing lava from time to time). With the possible exception of bacteria, there was no life on the molten lava.

After a few million years, there is now life on many of the islands that erupted from the sea floor. One of the forms of life on said volcanic islands is flightless birds. There is not a type of flightless bird, there are many different types of flightless bird, varying from island to island. In at least the vast majority of the cases, said flightless birds are not swimming birds. Thus we are left with the puzzle of how the bird got to the volcanic islands in the first place.

Evolution says they flew to the islands (probably caught in a storm). Once they got to the island, they could not fly back home, it was too far. There was no benefit to flying on a small island where there were already too many birds for the food supply. Thus, the birds evolved to lose the very large chest muscles that powered their wings, because the chest muscles were too expensive to feed with limited food. As the chest muscles got too small to sustain flight, the wings atrophied. All of the data fits under evolution.

Please explain how the many different flightless birds got on the islands without using creationism. The ball is in your court.

One (or more) species of flying or swimming bird arrived on the island in sufficient numbers to breed and found an enrivonment that was desirable because it was unexploited by other birds. That initial species or small set of species (just leaving open the possibility of different ones arriving at different times) then evolved through diversification and specialization into the broader range of species we see now.

This is the "Darwin's finches" example given an extra few million years. The species begin as one, but gradually develop sets of behaviors and physical variations (often spurring each other) that break them into more and more divergent forms. Eventually those differences are substantial enough to result in seperate speciation. Once interbreeding is no long possible (or even once it is no longer common), the differences accelerate without genetic exchange to drive the seperate groups toward a physical median.

Basically, it's like man starting with the basic "dog" model (sort of wolfish wild dog thing) and gradually producing breeds by selecting for different physical and tempermental differences and only allowing those animals to breed with each other. From that single basic model, we end up with animals as different as the Chihuahua and the Saint Bernard - and those, mind you, are still actually the same species capable of interbreeding. Dog breeds do change a lot faster because humans intervene more consistantly and totally then evolution; evolution is slower because "weaker" animals still can survive to breed and possessors of advantageous variations can still die, and because many different characteristics can produce a survival advantage. But that variety of possible advantages drives speciation.

If, in your example, the birds land and live on the island for a few million years, they'll find many ways that they could get food. If they had sharp, pointy beaks, they could nip insects out of small spaces. If they had short, strong, powerful beaks, they could crack nuts and eat seeds. If they had sharp, curved, tearing beaks, they could eat fish, small animals, or each other. As genetic mutation throws up different forms, different advantages will develop within the same basic population of birds. Those advantages may also gradually become associated with behaviors, either through learning or instinct. The bird with the sharper, more hooked beak eventually gets mad at another bird and bites it; then it finds out that that tastes good, and it tries it again. If it works, it teaches its offspring the same behavior. While it's busy doing that, other birds are trying out other behaviors. Sometimes the behavior matches the physical mutation, and it helps to reinforce it. Sometimes the behavior doesn't fit the mutation - the guy with the thinner pointy beak is still trying to eat nuts - and that's not an advantage. Either the behavior changes, or the mutation is deselected - the bird doesn't survive as well. The thing to remember is that when you've got millions of years and billions of birds, there's plenty of time for trial and error. Eventually you get a sort of "critical" mass of animals with similar physical and behavioral modifications - say, lots of sharp-beaked birds that like to try to eat other birds - and that population divides from the larger group of all birds of the original species. They begin to live and mate mostly amongst themselves, and then they refine that variation more quickly because now they are mostly swapping around genes for the same kind of beak. Eventually, they become more and more distinct from the original species until interbreeding stops and humans would classify them as a seperate species.

That happens a few dozen times on your island, and there you have it.

Shanglan

 

[Guest]

 

[elfin_odalisque]

At the risk of getting you all on my case - please don't - can I point out that we are approaching this like the Kansas pointy-headed bunch.

Religion and science are like oil and water, chalk and cheese. Although a Christian, I fully accept the Old Testament is written mythically to get a point across. The writers never expected it to be taken as history. It was just following in the Greek and Roman styles of portraying morality.

Over several millenia, through observations and analysis, we have reached the stage where we have to make a decision between the 'evidence of our own eyes' and the uninformed but spiritual writings of a former era.

There isn't a problem if people keep an open mind.

 

[R. Richard]

One (or more) species of flying or swimming bird arrived on the island in sufficient numbers to breed and found an enrivonment that was desirable because it was unexploited by other birds. That initial species or small set of species (just leaving open the possibility of different ones arriving at different times) then evolved through diversification and specialization into the broader range of species we see now.

I agree. And, that is exactly what Darwin had to say!

 

[Guest]

 

[R. Richard]

At the risk of getting you all on my case - please don't - can I point out that we are approaching this like the Kansas pointy-headed bunch.

Religion and science are like oil and water, chalk and cheese. Although a Christian, I fully accept the Old Testament is written mythically to get a point across. The writers never expected it to be taken as history. It was just following in the Greek and Roman styles of portraying morality.

Over several millenia, through observations and analysis, we have reached the stage where we have to make a decision between the 'evidence of our own eyes' and the uninformed but spiritual writings of a former era.

There isn't a problem if people keep an open mind.

I do not wish to get on your case. In fact, you have identified the key point here.

Scientists like facts. They gather data and try to make sense of the data. If you can prove current science wrong it is not only not a problem, that is what science is about. A current wrong theory is changed to a new theory that at least seems to be supported by the facts.

The problem is with religion. Religion says, in effect, "I don't have to think about this or prove anything, it is just my religious belief." This sort of thing is acceptable if the religious people do not try to force their beliefs on others. However, teaching religious beliefs almost certainly involves forcing said beliefs on others [there is a grade involved here]. Throughout history we have examples such as the church trying to force acceptance of the belief that the sun revolved about the earth. Galileo did not have to accept the church's belief, however, they would kill him if he did not.

 

[Guest]

 

[Kassiana]

There's at least one Chinese creation story in which the Earth was formed out of the body of a dead God. Human beings came from the vermin crawling on his body.

Shoots down all those human-centric "Oh, God OBVIOUSLY created the world for US" theories. I rather like that.

 

[Guest]