posted
"Yes, I would think it should be taught fairly in schools as a theory that is supported by many yet rejected by the vast majority of scientists."
Would you also explain how it has zero backing evidence and doesn't meet teh criteria for a scientific hypothesis based on an inability to make predictions, that it can't be falsified, and relies for its very existence on working from the conclusion rather then the evidence?
If not, then you aren't treating it fairly.
" I'm inclined to think the best way to fight mistaken beliefs is to treat that belief fairly and educate people about the evidence for and against that belief."
This can be true. But 1) You'd have to take time away from other, real, scientific theories, in order to do this and 2) High schoolers think that if you can have a debate about it, then both sides are equally legitimate.
So, what month are you cutting from the high school biology curriculum in order to go through the actual science enough so that your students understand not only why ID isn't a scientific theory, but why all the objections to evolutionary theory upon which the support for ID rests are false objections?
" And I'm inclined to think attacking and silencing debate on a belief is a good way to ensure people continue to defy us and believe it"
We're not trying to silence debate. We're trying to keep you from redefining science in order to get your religious beliefs in public school classrooms. There's a huge difference.
When ID is a legitimate scientific theory, stronger then evolution, we'll put it into high school classrooms. But there's no reason to put a non-viable scientific theory into high school classrooms when we can't get all the REAL science into the classroom that belongs there, due to time constraints.
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quote: If I support unpopular views often, it's in a large part because the popular views tend to already be well-explained and fairly represented by plenty of other people, better than I could explain them.
Yeah, which amounts to -- like I said -- paying Devil's Advocate. Because your concern in all these arguments is never to actually make any sense, or to even necessarily be right, but to argue the unpopular opinion because you feel sorry for it.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Tresopax, you're effectively asking the scientific community to prove a negative. It's up to the ID people to come up with evidence for it (of which there is none that follows the scientific method). There is a basic difference between the kind of evidence supporting evolution and the kind of evidence supporting ID. Evolution has been fine tuned and tested by intelligent, competent people following an established method for centuries. ID's core premise can't even be tested by that same method--which is a clear and persistant reason not to teach it alongside well established theories. Not to mention the other smaller inconsistancies with ID.
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quote:Yeah, which amounts to -- like I said -- paying Devil's Advocate. Because your concern in all these arguments is never to actually make any sense, or to even necessarily be right, but to argue the unpopular opinion because you feel sorry for it.
I guessed that's what you mean by Devil's Advocate - but that's not what I'm doing, so stop using that ad hominem. I make these arguments because I believe they ARE right, and not appreciated as right, often because of knee-jerk reactions, assumptions, and broad generalizations that should not be made. In this case, I think the mistaken assumption is that religion and science can never mix.
quote:Would you also explain how it has zero backing evidence and doesn't meet teh criteria for a scientific hypothesis based on an inability to make predictions, that it can't be falsified, and relies for its very existence on working from the conclusion rather then the evidence?
I would explain that opponents argue all of the above. I would also explain that supporters dispute all of the above. I'd add that within the scientific community, opponents make up the vast majority.
quote:1) You'd have to take time away from other, real, scientific theories, in order to do this and 2) High schoolers think that if you can have a debate about it, then both sides are equally legitimate
(1) I remember spending two class periods in high school biology coloring pictures of various animals to create a timeline of evolution - this is what I think is generally called "busy work". That would be more than enough time to introduce this topic. And remember, in a high school course we only need to prepare them enough to make informed decisions on the issue; the goal is not to spend a month making them experts. (2) This was not true of the debates we had in high school. When we debated Euthanasia in government class, students on either side tended to think their view was the only legitimate view, and that the opposite view was totally wrong. And really, if students think that both side of any debate are equally valid, that is a far more serious problem than having students that think ID is scientific.
quote:We're not trying to silence debate. We're trying to keep you from redefining science in order to get your religious beliefs in public school classrooms.
But, in doing so, you are still redefining science. You teach students that it is something that silences unpopular theories.... Because whether or not silencing the ID supporters is your goal, outlawing discussion of ID in science class will be viewed as just that, especially by students who are now not being taught any reason why ID should be silenced and will now hear about ID only from their church's perspective.
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" And really, if students think that both side of any debate are equally valid, that is a far more serious problem than having students that think ID is scientific."
Not valid... legitimate. THere's a different between right and wrong, and being a legitimate opinion.
" You teach students that it is something that silences unpopular theories..."
If you approach it right, you teach them that science doesn't deal with metaphysics. Sadly, you want students to think that a legitimate scientific opinion is one which is a metaphysical statement.
"And remember, in a high school course we only need to prepare them enough to make informed decisions on the issue; the goal is not to spend a month making them experts."
Of course. But on THIS issue, if you spend enough only giving them the basics, then they'll walk away with the view that ID is a legitimate scientific theory. Its not. Even according to Michael Behe, it is only as legitimate as astrology. And what you REALLY need to be teaching in high school is scientific method. If kids come away from high school thinking ID is a valid scientific hypothesis, then you've failed in that mission.
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[whispers]paul, logic won't work. that's why all i'm going to do from now on is janx him.[/whispers]
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No, Tres, you are the one redefining science, as something that deals with arguments of what could be, not what is derivable from evidence. And science does silence theories, not because they are unpopular, but because they are damn well wrong.
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quote: In this case, I think the mistaken assumption is that religion and science can never mix.
Which is why you're arguing past everyone here, because NO ONE ELSE on the thread is making that claim.
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Umm...I hate to be devil's advocate, but it seems like religion and science are allowed to come pretty close together, but never reallybe in the same room.
If you have a nuclear physicist who also believes that the universe is 6,000 years old (for religious reasons), you only trust her as a nuclear scientist insofar as her ridiculous belief in a Ultra-Young Earth is left out of all discussions of focusing those high-powered gamma-ray beams at the plutonium seed, correct?
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I think it's just a "leave it home" issue when the religious beliefs contradict scientific evidence. There are many religious beliefs that either do not intersect with scientific issues at all, or are perfectly in line with them. I imagine those can be found fairly frequently peacefully co-existing with science.
Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
Still don't understand why this is even an argument. I really, really don't.
Stick a sidebar in the biology textbook that describes challenges to the theory of evolution. Mention the notable opposing theories, put them in context by explaining that evolution is accepted by more scientists (and why) but that there are many people who believe differently.
Look what's happened. Opposing theories have been given air time. ID-believing parents may educate their children on their preferred theories, and children who believe in ID aren't frozen out entirely in class. The discussion of the theory of evolution has actually been strengthened because this allows discussion of scientific theories vs hypotheses. And children are given context for their education by having the realities of real life acknowledged: a lot of people believe in something like ID.
A good teacher should use this controversy to teach scientific method, how opposing theories are invaluable in science, and how what they teach relates to events in the real world.
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But the Dover board pointed the students towards the "Panda's Thumb" book (title?), as if it was somehow good science. They weren't looking to strengthen science by emplying ID as some failed "Straw Man" argument. They were proposing it (promoting ID) as if it were a valid scientific theory, worthy of equal time.
Actually, anybody here read "The Panda's Thumb"?
Posts: 1862 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote:Not valid... legitimate. THere's a different between right and wrong, and being a legitimate opinion.
If not legitimate doesn't mean wrong or invalid, then what are you using it to mean?
quote:And what you REALLY need to be teaching in high school is scientific method. If kids come away from high school thinking ID is a valid scientific hypothesis, then you've failed in that mission.
I disagree. I think kids coming home believing that a theory is being silenced by the scientific community is a far larger failure to teach them the scientific method. At the same time, if you are student and you come home thinking scientists used the scientific method to support ID, why would that harm your understanding of the scientific method? All it potentially means is that you think the scientific method can be used in one particular case where it (for reasons the student apparently doesn't understand) can't - it doesn't change how you think of the scientific method.
On that note, I think this whole debate is mostly irrelevant to actual students in anything but a symbolic sense. Students are not so uninformed that they don't already know about ID and Creationism from outside school. They are going to be well aware that some people don't believe evolution, long before they enter high school biology - and they will be well aware that someone can hold such a position. And they are going to also be well aware that those that do so are mostly on the religious extremes. Forcing teachers to read a statement about the "holes" in evolution and refering them to alternative textbooks, as proposed by ID supporters, is not going to alter student views. Banning such discussion is not going to alter anything either, except insofar as students hear about the ban, and come to conclude they are being kept from something... sort of like how they tend to end up well aware they are being kept from hearing about contraceptives in abstinence-only schools. In my view the only possible change that would really help them better understand this issue better and the scientific method in general is to actually INFORM them about the issue (the supposed purpose of schools.) If the needs of political symbolism prevents teachers from informing their students about this debate, however, I am willing to bet people will continue to be largely ignorant about it, and will believe whatever their church says.
And I doubt churches will teach this issue in a way completely accurate to science.
quote:Which is why you're arguing past everyone here, because NO ONE ELSE on the thread is making that claim.
I'm aware nobody made that claim, and my arguments are not directed against that claim. I'm just saying I think it is that underlying assumption that leads people, those taught to think about science in a certain way, to write off ID far too quickly.
It's sort of like the religious reasons that often lead people to quickly accept ID, even though the arguments they actually have for ID have nothing to do directly with religion. ID supporters don't normally say the Bible is evidence that ID is right, but I believe the assumption that the Bible is true leads them to be far quicker to accept ID's arguments than evolution's.
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quote:I think kids coming home believing that a theory is being silenced by the scientific community is a far larger failure to teach them the scientific method. At the same time, if you are student and you come home thinking scientists used the scientific method to support ID, why would that harm your understanding of the scientific method?
And if I used the scientific method to prove that giant invisible lobstermen from the moon were living under my bed, how would that harm anyone's understanding of the scientific method?
But to be less flippant, I can use the scientific method to prove that ID is not a scientific theory:
*Define the question: Is ID a scientific theory?
*Gather information and resources: What claims does ID make? What defines a scientific theory? A scientific theory is one that presents testable hypotheses. A scientific theory carries within itself the possibility of it's own "dis-proof"
*Form hypothesis: ID is a scientific theory. It presents testable hypotheses and allows for the possibility of being disproven.
*Perform experiment and collect data: What are the "testable hypotheses" within ID? Answer: none. Is it possible to disprove ID: No, for every possible refutation, the ID proponent will claim, "We don't understand the intelligent designer sufficiently to really know what their limits are. The thing you claim couldn't have been done really could have been done by a designer with sufficient intelligence. Also, a designer of sufficient intelligence could have hidden all evidence of his/her/its actions."
*Analyze data: [tick tick tick tick tick...DING!]
*Interpret data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypotheses: The stated ID hypothesis fails the two primary tests for being a scientific theory. The hypothesis is false. New hypothesis: Proponents of ID must have some other reason than "ID is a scientific theory" as to why they're trying so hard to get it into high school science classes.
*Publish results: Here you are--ID is not a scientific theory.
Let's allow that into class. Let's also use the scientific method to prove that the phrase "God exists" holds no meaning.
Posts: 1862 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
Can anybody tell me any positive arguments in favor of ID? The only arguments that support ID that I've heard so far involve attacking evolution on the basis of the reliability of carbon dating and the fossil record.
EDIT - Also, how does ID's main premise - that life is too complex to have developed on it's own - conflict with evolutionary theory? Assuming you can get over the biblical age of the earth thing, I don't really see the issue.
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quote: At the same time, if you are student and you come home thinking scientists used the scientific method to support ID, why would that harm your understanding of the scientific method? All it potentially means is that you think the scientific method can be used in one particular case where it (for reasons the student apparently doesn't understand) can't - it doesn't change how you think of the scientific method.
Ah, no...it would mean you don't actually understand what the scientific method was, or you would understand why it didn't apply to ID.
I think that the ID discussion should be taught in a sociology class perhaps, using it to understand current culture and the evolution of religious thought. perhaps to prove that science doesn't automatically disprove God or religion....
But to attempt to try and use ID as an actual scientific method for proving (or disproving) anything is not just wrong but plain dangerous.
The ID discussion has been silenced by science for one reason and one reason only....it isn't scientifically provable. Same as many, many other pseudo-scientific theories.
Unless you want to start teaching phrenology in class as well, Tres. It is as scientifically provable as ID is.....
quote:Originally posted by Juxtapose: Can anybody tell me any positive arguments in favor of ID?
Probably not. No one on Hatrack has yet. The closest anyone has come is the concept of "irreducible complexity", but that, in a nutshell, is the idea that when faced with an evolutionary question we can't explain we simply say "God did it" and move on.
quote:The only arguments that support ID that I've heard so far involve attacking evolution on the basis of the reliability of carbon dating and the fossil record.
Here you confuse "support ID" with "raise questions about Evolutionary theory". The latter does not equal the former. Even if you can formulate legitimate scientific questions about the accuracy of the claims of evolutionary theory, the mere exisitence of those questions does not in any way support ID as a scientific theory. If ID is supposed to be a scientific theory, it has to make claims of its own and support them. It can't just sit back and claim all the undiscovered territory as it's own.
quote:EDIT - Also, how does ID's main premise - that life is too complex to have developed on it's own - conflict with evolutionary theory? Assuming you can get over the biblical age of the earth thing, I don't really see the issue.
It isn't as much that the claim "life is too complex to have developed on its own" conflicts with evolutionary theory as it is that the claim itself is non-scientific. Evolutionary theory basically says "Here's evidence of how things were. Here's evidence of how they are now. This is the most likely way we got from there to here." ID says "Nuh-UH! Couldn't have happened that way because you can't show every minute step from free floating hydrogen atom to full-fledged human. All those blank areas are where God must have stepped in."
This isn't a scientific claim. It nothing more than a loaded label on our scientific ignorance. It isn't scientific because it offers no testable claim. There is no way to prove something couldn't be done except by a superior intelligence. There is also not way to prove that an intelligence wasn't involved because even if Evolutionary theory one day shows every single step from Big Bang to Human being, ID can still claim the intelligence set up the big bang. Once again acting merely as a label on the parts we don't know.
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posted
Maybe people's anger about how evolution is taught is a symptom of the fact that, in grade school, scientific explanations are taught as if they're absolute truth. There should be some way of implicitly telling kids throughout science classes that what they're learning may not be the whole story. And since evolution is a "hot topic," maybe kids could specifically be taught some things for which evolutionary theory does not have a complete explanation, with the teachers stressing that these gaps don't imply that intelligent design or any other theory is correct.
Of course, maybe science classes already do that and the kids just aren't listening (I'm not sure I would have at that age).
Posts: 781 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by KarlEd: [QUOTE] The closest anyone has come is the concept of "irreducible complexity", but that, in a nutshell, is the idea that when faced with an evolutionary question we can't explain we simply say "God did it" and move on.
I think this is at the heart of the whole religion/science scuffle. I've long believed that religion was a precursor of science. Our early ancestors searched for answers and, lacking sufficient background knowledge, they ascribed all they perceived to a higher power.
We see this religion/science ballet displayed perfectly in this instance. ID supporters will argue that irreducible complexity proves there is a supernatural entity involved while pure scientists will continue to look for natural explanations.
My biggest complaint against ID is that it could lead to a less concerted effort to explain that which hasn't yet been explained, "God did it" as opposed to "How does this work?"
Posts: 2022 | Registered: Mar 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Omega M.: Maybe people's anger about how evolution is taught is a symptom of the fact that, in grade school, scientific explanations are taught as if they're absolute truth. There should be some way of implicitly telling kids throughout science classes that what they're learning may not be the whole story. And since evolution is a "hot topic," maybe kids could specifically be taught some things for which evolutionary theory does not have a complete explanation, with the teachers stressing that these gaps don't imply that intelligent design or any other theory is correct.
Of course, maybe science classes already do that and the kids just aren't listening (I'm not sure I would have at that age).
I specifically remember being taught the Theory of Evolution in school as well as the fact that a theory was a possible explanation for a set of facts. We were never taught that evolution was a fact, just that, given the evidence, it was the best explanation we had at the time.
Posts: 2022 | Registered: Mar 2004
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quote:Ah, no...it would mean you don't actually understand what the scientific method was, or you would understand why it didn't apply to ID.
No, ID supporters don't want to change the way the scientific method is taught, and they don't want to say the scientific method doesn't apply to ID. They want to say the scientific method DOES apply to Intelligent Design. So, teaching this is not going to change the students' understanding of the scientific method or lead them to believe it doesn't apply to ID. At worst it would only lead them to believe the scientific method can be used to support ID when it can't.
quote:Unless you want to start teaching phrenology in class as well, Tres.
Sure. But only if you think phrenology is something students might need to be aware of over their lives, enough so that it would be worth the time. Science class is not a sacred thing - it already includes plenty of theories and science-related issues that are not universally agreed to be strictly testable according to the scientific method. There is no reason to withhold information about any issue that is important enough to teach, and related to science.
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quote:No, ID supporters don't want to change the way the scientific method is taught, and they don't want to say the scientific method doesn't apply to ID. They want to say the scientific method DOES apply to Intelligent Design. So, teaching this is not going to change the students' understanding of the scientific method or lead them to believe it doesn't apply to ID. At worst it would only lead them to believe the scientific method can be used to support ID when it can't.
Sorry, but this conclusion follows ONLY if the ID proponents are correct in their assertion that it wouldn't redefine the scientific method. Early ID theorists might've been able to make this claim. ID as it is currently proposed simply cannot.
quote:Sure. But only if you think phrenology is something students might need to be aware of over their lives, enough so that it would be worth the time. Science class is not a sacred thing - it already includes plenty of theories and science-related issues that are not universally agreed to be strictly testable according to the scientific method. There is no reason to withhold information about any issue that is important enough to teach, and related to science.
Phrenology is taught. It's taught as a historical curiosity and a cautionary tale about how people can be misled. It's a great example of how the scientific method corrects vastly popular conceptions -- even those that sound scientific, but aren't.
I've said many times that ID could be taught as another counter-example and I'd be fine with that. The people who desperately want ID taught in schools want it taught as if it was a viable alternative explanation of the origin and mutation of species. That, it fails to do...every time it is subject to the scientific method -- namely generating a testable hypothesis and then going out to find observational data or conduct experiments to actually test the hypotheses. This was true in Darwin's time and it's still true today, even if the ID people try to dress their pig up in new clothes, it's still the same theory that didn't work then.
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I specifically remember being taught the Theory of Evolution in school as well as the fact that a theory was a possible explanation for a set of facts. We were never taught that evolution was a fact, just that, given the evidence, it was the best explanation we had at the time.
Now that you mention it, I also remember being taught what a theory was. I guess it didn't sink in because so much of the rest of science class (at least the part I was tested on) concerned the details of particular theories without the motivations for them.
Though I don't think the intelligent design advocates have positive evidence for their theory, I still think it's possible in principle for there to be evidence for intelligent design. As I said before, if you see a house in the middle of the woods, the best explanation for it being there is that some people built it, since the chance of the house having come together "at random" is infinitely small in comparison. If we someday can create single-cell organisms out of nonliving materials and establish that the chance of these organisms having come together "at random" is infinitely small in comparison, would that be evidence for intelligent design? Of course, we still couldn't say what created the organisms or how that creator came to be.
Edit: I just searched for "intelligent design" with Google and came upon this essay. Some of it seems wrong, such as its distinction between chance and law and its failure to mention that irreducibly complex structures can be created by structures "piggybacking" on others; but what it says about the probability of the first cell coming into existence "at random" seems interesting.
quote:Originally posted by Omega M.: but what it says about the probability of the first cell coming into existence "at random" seems interesting.
eh. Not really. There are certain lipids that will spontaneously form bubbles.
quote:Within a critical range of concentrations, certain kinds of lipids alone in a test tube of water will self-organize to form a "bilayer". The bilayer is composed of two opposing layers of lipid molecules arranged so that their hydrocarbon tails face one another to form the oily bilayer core, while their electrically charged or polar heads face the watery or "aqueous" solutions on either side of the membrane.
posted
Sigh... nobody says you have to start with cell structures, anyway. Any crystal can self-replicate. Finding chemical compounds that exhibit some, but not all, the characteristics of life is not hard; the only reason our oceans aren't a soup of the things is that modern life, evolved through 2.7 billion years, would eat them. Yum, free nutrients! But that doesn't apply to the early Earth, so primitive half-life and quarter-life can evolve in peace, becoming a little more life-like with each passing aeon.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
Well, yeah, but my point was just that it isn't a situation where you have to have all of the other pieces together to form a cell wall, but that all of those pieces need for there to be a cell wall in the first place before they could work together. A primative cell wall is something that just falls into place under the proper circumstances.
Posts: 218 | Registered: Mar 2005
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My point exactly, Tres...ID ISN'T important enough to teach, not in a science class, not without supporting evidence at least.
If you teach someone that a spoon is a needle, don't be surprised if their sewing sucks. That is about the same as teaching ID in science class. If a student believes that the scientific method proves that ID is valid enough to be taught in class then he will have no true idea of what the SM actually is, or how to properly apply it to problems. His standard of "proof", as needed to support a hypothesis, will be so low that he would be better off learning phrenology, to be honest.
It is not possible to teach ID is a science class and still claim to be teaching science. Not and retain any sort of credibility as a science teacher, anyway. It isn't science, it is religion (although a non-demoninational one ). It has to be accepted on faith alone, as their is no evidence, per the SM, to declare it as a valid working hypothesis.
quote:No, ID supporters don't want to change the way the scientific method is taught, and they don't want to say the scientific method doesn't apply to ID. They want to say the scientific method DOES apply to Intelligent Design.
Which is why in Kansas they decided to change the definition of science. Since ID doesn't meet the criteria for scientific investigation, they just redefined it.
Bob:
quote:I've said many times that ID could be taught as another counter-example and I'd be fine with that.
In fact it is being used as such.
The bigger stink the creationists make over ID, the more the scientific method is discussed - in fora like this, and in science classes as well. Check out the Frayer Model for learning vocabulary. ID can only fit in the "non-examples" category for the term "scientific theory." I really don't have a problem with ID at all, precisely because it opens the topic to discussion. In the end, I predict they'll be sorry they ever brought it up.
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posted
I thought I'd bump this thread to mentions that Judge Jones will be this year's commencement speaker here at Dickinson College. That's all.
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