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Kansas Challenges Definition of Science
nysus writes "Anti-evolutionists have made classrooms in Kansas a key battleground in America's culture war. Again. The New York Times reports they are proposing to change the definition of science in Kansas: 'instead of "seeking natural explanations for what we observe around us," the new standards would describe it as a "continuing investigation that uses observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena."'" From the article: "In the first of three daylong hearings being referred to here as a direct descendant of the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial in Tennessee, a parade of Ph.D.'s testified Thursday about the flaws they saw in mainstream science's explanation of the origins of life. It was one part biology lesson, one part political theater, and the biggest stage yet for the emerging movement known as intelligent design, which posits that life's complexity cannot be explained without a supernatural creator."
New Kansas Method:
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
As long as its nowhere near a science class.
This makes me so angry, and more than a little sad.
"We're all afraid to change, and willing to fight against it. We don't want to have to admit that there are things we don't or can't understand. We need to be able to say 'This is absolutely true' if we're going to sleep at night."
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
I wonder how many of them were atheists... or biologists for that matter.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
I'm a little confused. I don't see anything wrong with the definition above ! I beleive its more complete and doesn't seem to be pushing any creationism around !
This must be taught in our schools: "Before time began there was no heaven, no earth and no space between. A vast dark ocean washed upon the shores of nothingness and licked the edges of night. A giant cobra floated on the waters. Asleep within its endless coils lay the Lord Vishnu. He was watched over by the mighty serpent. Everything was so peaceful and silent that Vishnu slept undisturbed by dreams or motion. From the depths a humming sound began to tremble, Om. It grew and spread, filling the emptiness and throbbing with energy. The night had ended. Vishnu awoke. As the dawn began to break, from Vishnu's navel grew a magnificent lotus flower. In the middle of the blossom sat Vishnu's servant, Brahma. He awaited the Lord's command. Vishnu spoke to his servant: 'It is time to begin.' Brahma bowed. Vishnu commanded: 'Create the world.' A wind swept up the waters. Vishnu and the serpent vanished. Brahma remained in the lotus flower, floating and tossing on the sea. He lifted up his arms and calmed the wind and the ocean. Then Brahma split the lotus flower into three. He stretched one part into the heavens. He made another part into the earth. With the third part of the flower he created the skies. The earth was bare. Brahma set to work. He created grass, flowers, trees and plants of all kinds. To these he gave feeling. Next he created the animals and the insects to live on the land. He made birds to fly in the air and many fish to swim in the sea. To all these creatures, he gave the senses of touch and smell. He gave them power to see, hear and move. The world was soon bristling with life and the air was filled with the sounds of Brahma's creation."
Laugh all you like - these people are in control of a major nuclear arsenal.
The thing that I have never really understood about the anti-evolution Christian types is why it matters to them if their kids understand what the rest of the world is thinking? Its like the goal is absolute ignorance of everything not in the Bible. Nothing that I read in the Bible supports that viewpoint. Can anyone explain this?
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Maybe I need to check my eyes, but what about that definition even suggests a "supreme being"?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
If everything of any significant complexity was deliberately created, who created the creator?
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
The problem is that the concept of a supernatural being begets far more questions than it answers.
And given that there is no proof of such a being, apart from events and instances attributed to it, it is a matter of faith, and thus not of science.
It is perfectly acceptable for people to believe God uses evolution as a tool. But it is not science.
Hey, I have no problem with people having faith in their religion, or believing things according to faith. But that's all it is - faith.
If you want to teach creationism, do it in religious studies class, not science. Creationism or whatever euphemism you want to use (Intelligent Design) has no scientific basis at all. So by all means, if you want to teach it go ahead, but please don't do it in a science class. If you are willing to consider it as science, then I propose we should teach creation myths of every single culture in science class. I mean seriously... in this day and age it surprises me that people try to push creationism as a science.
Anyway, here is a good site that includes rebuttals to a lot of creationist arguments:
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/cefac.htm
Vivin Suresh Paliath
http://vivin.net
I like
My biggest complaint with Intelligent Design and other creationist arguments is that it doesn't really answer the question of origin. It just moves it.
If we decide a supernatural power created us and everything we see, where did the supernatural power come from? We haven't answered the question of how the universe came to exist.
Who cares what the intent is of the group proposing the change. If the reality is a wording that is clearer and more complete, is that not better?
I have yet to see arguments against the new wording as compared to the old. It seems that if you mention religion some people just fly off the handle and rational thought goes out the window, from otherwise logical folk.
Judge the wording on the merits and don't dismiss it out of hand.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I am very anti-creationist, but I actually like their definition more. It recognizies that there isn't always a "natural" answer to the problems that science faces given the current information. In fact, looking for natural answers can be very unscientific.
For example, the astronomers of yore tried to explain the planet movements with natural answers that were not based on good scientific methods. Same with the people who wrote the Bible. The new definition actually outlines the methods that are essential to science, such as experimentation and theories.
The big issue in U.S. science education is not evolution anyway, it's the lack of competent science teachers. K-12 teaching is simply not an attractive career to most people who have good math and science training, partly because of the low pay.
Find free books.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
... the emerging movement known as intelligent design, which posits that life's complexity cannot be explained without a supernatural creator
Yet for some reason we fall back to this "theory" because we don't understand what's going on? Ridiculous...
Just because we don't fully understand an aspect of nature yet doesn't mean that a natural process is so complex and impossible that a higher power had to make it... it only means that we are flawed and must wait until we fully grasp what is going on.
I'm sick of people filling in the blanks with "god did it!" without thinking "well... maybe we just need to study it more." Before you call me atheist, realize that I am a roman catholic, yet I can easily conceive how our life came to be after the big bang (let's not debate that right now) without any nudge from a higher power.
You are quick to argue that life could not have been created in nature, but forget the fact that God created nature itself.
That's not how it works. You don't prove a negative, you present evidence for a positive. You say there's a god or gods making all this cool stuff, present your case.
In the meantime, here's The God FAQ
Trolling is a art,
Undoubtedly someone will notice that this comment might equally well apply to those who "worship" Darwinism. That would be true. The key difference is, of course, that Darwinism can be understood and is continually being updated to reflect what we observe. Therein lies the key difference: we can update Darwinism to make it more correct. It's awful hard to update received wisdom.
Thankfully, Kansas and Ohio are leading the charge against the atheistic forces of E-Ville that seek to make critical thinkers out of our population. I'm sure that they will also "balance" their curricula to include classes that critically analyze received wisdom.
But as Sagan said himself, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of abscence".
And there is no proof that a higher power
Objects in the blog are closer then they ap
Too bad I can't use my mod points on the posted stories. The entire posting reeks of -1, Flamebait.
Beyond that, several elements of the human design simply don't support the hypothesis that a conscious entity engineered us. Evolutionary theory explains several useless features left over from our human ancestors (like the appendix and tailbone) and several glaring weaknesses in our anatomy. Tell me, what intelligent designer would design us so that we used the same tube for both respiration and eating, thus creating a potential choking hazard? That's pure idiocy, not intelligence. Humans like to think we're the cock of the walk and that our bodies are oh-so-perfect, but from an engineering perspective, that viewpoint doesn't hold water. Yes, Kristen Kreuk is a marvelous specimen of beauty, but she can still choke to death because of traits inherited from her evolutionary ancestors.
That's the flaw of intelligent design. It seeks to combine poetic (and frankly egotistical) views of the human body with a scientific view of the universe. Sorry, it just doesn't work that way. Science is based on observed facts and natural mechanisms to explain those facts. To introduce supernatural or undefined mechanisms into an explanation is blatantly unscientific.
It's a little frustrating to realize, but I guess the cost of maintaining an intelligent, civilized society is a constant battle against ignorance. It is important that ordinary people speak out against attempts to change the science curriculum through political processes that are not subject to oversight (ie. inserting their own agendas into science curriculums without checks or balances).
I heard an excellent talk about the strategies of anti-evolutionists from the director of the center for science education recently. Two of her major points were that: (1)creationists seek to circumvent the usual curriculum review process and insert themselves directly into school board decisions politically, because they have come to realize that on careful examination, their ideas are untenable; and (2) the fundamental misunderstanding about the words behind the debate.
More specifically, in order for an idea to become incorporated in to a scientific education curriculum, it first must be proposed, examined by scientists, published, reviewed, tested for flaws and counterexamples, and then it becomes accepted as a theory (which by the way, means an idea that ties together consistently all aspects of the evidence, NOT just a "theory", or guess). Creationists, or intelligent design advocates, simply come up with an idea, and go right to the school board. Where are the checks and balances? The testing? The oversight?
And secondly, about the language. Normal people commonly feel that at the top of the hierarchy of importance are Facts. To them, facts are facts, immutable. You can't debate fact, as in "evolution is not a fact, so it doesn't occur." Observations are next, things that you see with your own eyes. And Theories? Theories are at the bottom of the scale, almost comparable to hopeful guesses. This is in part the fault of the language, that "theory" has come to mean "I, crackpot, have a theory about that."
But in fact, in science, Theory is at the top of the scale -- an idea that has consistently shown to uphold all the observations, and has been tested. At the bottom is just the opposite from what is commonly believed -- facts. Facts are things that you see every day, and carry no unifying meaning in themselves.
If we are to succeed in educating the population about the process of science, and *especially* why it is valuable to us a country, we need to get involved in the debate about the language and politics. Other countries, who don't have the luxury to squander valuable resources, are beginning to capture and exploit the wonders of science much more than we are -- and it is showing.
In it's ill-considered fight against science.
Which is a shame.
There are things that science will never be able to teach us, that desperately need to be taught. Things religion could, if it chose to stop wasting time arguing over whether speciation will occur given no outside (read: supernatural) influences.
Science will never present us with a peer-reviewed study proving once and for all that you should be good to your fellow man, and treat him like a brother. Particle accelerator runs will never hint that we all have it within us to put an end to petty bickering, violence, and even earth-shattering wars.
Will the next economic theory show once and for all, that there is so much more to be gained if every child went to bed without hunger? That great things could happen if we ignored greed and lived lives unblinded by mindless pursuit of wealth?
Every time a biblethumper gets pissy about "larnin' evomoluzhun in ar skools" they've missed their mark so completely, I don't know whether to chuckle or cry.
That would be The Handmaid's tale and it's by Margaret Atwood (a fellow Canadian, by the way), not Alice Walker.
>And given that there is no proof of such a being, apart from events and instances attributed to it, it is a matter of faith, and thus not of science.
In the most absolute sense, nothing is proveable and everything relies on faith. How do I know that birds can fly? Because I see them flying? How can I believe what I am seeing is real? (Brains-in-the-jar, optical illusions, effects of various recreational drugs)
I talked to an ex-science teacher and his whole argument came down to "Occam's Razor". But how is this different from having your whole argument coming down to believing that "A God exists"? They both something that you are guiding your life on, either of which you really can't prove is correct/true/THE TRUTH.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
If there is a "supernatural" explanation, then there is, by definition no possible way to explain it beyond, "hey, it's supernatural".
And my argument stems from the basic definition of the word.
Current
"seeking natural explanations for what we observe around us,"
Proposed
continuing investigation that uses observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena
Yup overly complicated. Science is simply coming up with an explanation for what we see around us. It has nothing to do with testing our stories. If enough people believe the story being told, it is science.
Therefore, Genesis is science.
Good enough for me.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Therefore: god exists
QED!
XML causes global warming.
The way we're going, we may soon see a knowledge divide that makes the digital divide irrelevant. Evolution and other "controversial" science is just the beginning.
Adults from different regions will be separated by a giant chasm between their intellect as most are taught by a progressive, science-friendly system (or as much as the education system can be) while the remainder are led to believe in nonscience "theories" that do much more to please religious leaders and believers than to satisfy an iota of truth.
The knowledge divide will be noticable in geographic quantities as large swarms of the populace have been completely left behind. People from Kansas will have no hope of competing in any meaningful way with people from California, for instance. There will be a third vs. first world mentality and it will be what tears us apart.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
But as Sagan said himself, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of abscence".
/doesn't/ exist, now is there? :)
And there is no proof that a higher power
Absolutely correct.
Likewise, there is no proof that Santa Claus doesn't exist, or that there aren't teapots orbiting Mars ("but we'd see them!".. "Not if they're invisible teapots", etc)
What we can do, however, is assess the liklihood of these things being true based on the best evidence we have avaliable - and on that basis, it seems extremely unlikely there is a Santa or a God or Mars-orbiting teapots.
Note that this does not involve or require faith - a common point of confusion with believers. I do not have "faith" that the sun will rise tomorrow, for example. I simply know that there's a high enough probability that it will, based on past experience that I'd be extremely surprised if it didn't.
Faith, on the other hand, makes assertions such as "there are teapots floating around Mars" without any prior evidence to suggest that is the case.
Wow, that was unnecessarily long winded...
Curiosity was framed. Ignorance killed the cat.
It may seem odd, but to my mind the new definition is actually a step forward for evolution:
Old
"seeking natural explanations for what we observe around us,"
"Seeking explanations" says nothing about how probably or sensible they have to be, or how you go about the seeking. "I threw yarrow stalks ito the air, and they indicated the universe was sneezed into being by the Great Green Arkleseizure" is covered under this definition. Hey, I'm seeking, and "natural" is a terribly wishy-washy cop-out word.
New
"continuing investigation that uses observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena"
This more or less explicitely lays out the Scientific Method (thus neatly ruling out faith-based beliefs). Note also that it specifies "observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building..." - to my mind, this means that any approach which excludes one of more of these isn't Science. Were this not the case, it would be "... logical argument or theory building".
In addition, the new definition of science contains the word "hypothesis". To be a hypothesis an idea must be falsifiable - otherwise it's "just" a theory.
Creationism and Intelligent design moves ultimate responsibility for the creation of the universe completely outside of human ken, and as such is impossible to falsify (just like you can't prove the door behind you exists without directly or indirectly observing it. Given this, ID or creationism can't ever advance hypotheses, and so are unavoidably excluded from "Science", by this definition.
Of course, this definition will doubtless be abused by creationist fuckwits who don't understand the precise meaning of "hypothesis", but for anyone who properly understands the language they're speaking, it's pretty cut-and-dried, no?
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
Next time you microwave something, or wear clothing with synthetic fibers, or use TV or radio, ask yourself: "Would a slavish devotion to the literal interpretation of the bible have eventually resulted in the creation of the products I'm using? If anyone with new/different/progressive ideas and ideals were burned at the stake, would society grow and improve?" Then consider the answer you give yourself in light of the fact that fundamentalists posit that the ONLY valid point of view is the one that elevates the allegorical parable of the bible to absolutely infallible fact, and any/all other views as worthy of persecution and destruction.
If religion were allowed to run wild we'd be a world of zealots disconnected from our physical reality. At least when science has no agenda other than discovery of truth. Whereas religion *should* be about the discovery of truth but instead has devolved into an organization bent on the dissemination of faith, over and above the meaning or truth of the object of that faith. It's ceased to be about the truth and has come to be about group think and suppression of dissent. The church(es) have placed the wielding of political influence over and above the spiritual well being of their believers, and over and above the total well being of humanity as a whole.
Science works by positing an explanation (an hypothesis), then doing all sorts of tests to try to prove that explanation wrong.
... and the it's-ghosts crowd slinks off.
For instance, I could say "All objects fall." I drop rocks, a computer, my girlfriend, and a 1982 Dodge Dart off of a cliff: they all fall.
Then I drop a duck, and it flies off. So I revise my guess: "All inert objects fall."
I drop pencils, a bow-tie, and a plate of lasagna off the cliff; they all fall. Then I try a bag full of helium; it doesn't fall. Oops, need a new theory...
This is how science progresses: make assumptions, assume that they're right until something shows otherwise, and then methodically try to prove them wrong. Some of our assumptions last a very long time, and we call those "laws": conservation of energy is a good example.
However, there's another unspoken law of science that's emerged: "All things have natural explanations." Whenever scientists encounter a new phenomenon, they assume that it has a natural explanation (i.e. one susceptible to analysis) and then go about finding it.
It turns out that every phenomenon we've looked at has a natural explanation. There are of course some things that don't have explanations yet, but those things that we do have explanations for are *all* natural.
People have said "It's ghosts!" about many things in nature, and the scientists have said "Huh. We don't know what causes this."
Then fifty years later we say "Oh, look, someone showed that it's an electrical discharge in the ionosphere!"
This has been repeated time and time again, and it's never been ghosts.
You ask this question innocently but only because you are not a religious fundamentalists. To the taliban (afghan or american) it's heresy to even ask the question. You must accept the words in the bible/koran literally.
;)
You know, I'm as atheistic and completely non-religious as the next slashdotter, but it's attitudes like this that help destroy any hope of rational discourse between the two sides of this argument.
Comparing religious Americans to the Afghan Taliban just doesn't fly. Get back to me when mainstream American christians applaud murder in their god's name.
Yeah, I know there have been American christian terrorists like Eric Rudolph, but they're hardly accepted by mainstream christians. When Ashcroft was AG he wanted Rudolph put to death for killing gays and abortionists, hardly the attitude he'd have if he believed Rudolph was doing god's work.
Seriously, if you're going to compare religious people to the Taliban, you might as well go all the way and compare them to Nazis so we can invoke Godwin's law on your ass..
All movements for social change begin as missions, evolve into businesses, and end up as rackets.
There's more than one loophole. The one that jumps out at me is the removal of the phrase "natural explanation", which precludes supernatural explanations like intelligent design or creationism.
It is perfectly acceptable for people to believe God uses evolution as a tool. But it is not science.
I agree. I hate it when people read texts as being what it probably what it wasn't indended to be. Religious texts were probably never intended to be the final word on science, and science texts should not be used as a final word on religion.
It bothers me when people try to reconcile them, or assume that both are contradictory. I see them as very likely being orthogonal. I don't believe that the creation accounts should be taken as literal fact.
In fact, the Hebrew/Christian story of Genesis has TWO (or more?) accounts of creation, if you took both literally, then they contradict, so I figure at least one must be non-literal. I don't see how either of them necessarily has to be literal accounts of physical reality. There are many other places where statements can't be taken literally, only meant to show parallels in aiding understanding the spiritual world.
You wrote: "I'd rather put my faith in the evidence we do have in a Creator, than putting my faith in a still mysterious _something_ that caused the universe to do the whole big *foom* thing."
So what you're saying is given that you don't know how the universe was created, you'd rather pretend to know, than acknowledge you don't know?
Personally I find that ridiculous. If you don't know the answer to a question (e.g. "how did the universe come to be") then you just say that: "I don't know". You don't make up some random nonsense and claim it to be the truth.
Ok, I can agree with that first part. We don't know. We can look at the evidence we have and see where it points us. Which immediately discounts 95% of the responses to this article thus far, because they all start out with the presupposition that they know exactly what happened, and proceed to ridicule those who espouse an alternative explanation.
The second... well, the two sentences have a disconnect. Religion isn't bad. In fact, a true religion has a lot in common with science - it's a continual proofing to make sure the belief holds. A follower of a religion should also be able to explain to others not only what they believe, but why they believe it - a study called "apologetics."
A few problems:
1) Kansas isn't in the south, or even in the South.
2) The South isn't landlocked.
3) Bush is from Texas. That's more West than South.
4) There are idiots and conservatives everywhere.
5) As others have pointed out, you got both the title and the author of The Handmaid's Tale wrong.
Painting all Southerners with the "ignorant, theocratic redneck" brush is as accurate and useful as painting all Northerners with the "rude asshole" brush or painting all West Coasties with the "flaky New Age neo-mystic" brush. It's just not that simple.
If you continue to perpetuate the myth that living in the South automatically and without significant exception indicates that that person is uneducated, superstitious/religious, or inherently unintelligent, then you are showing even less capability for logical, rational thought than those dipshits in Kansas about whom this story was written.
Your comment isn't being modded insightful (as of this writing) for the simple reason that it ISN'T insightful. It's wrong-headed, factually incorrect, and blames the wrong people for the wrong things.
The people you're mad at are the religiously conservative, and they're everywhere. We in the South simply have a larger infestation of them than you appear to, wherever it is you live.
Ce n'est pas un vrai mouvement de robot!
I don't understand what you mean by "in fairness" to these folks.
The theory of evolution is not "contradicted" by the fossil record, the theory does not predict a rate of evolution, it simply defines a general mechanism by which the characteristics of a species of organism can change in each generation through natural selection. The actual mechanisms by which this occurs are not all understood in detail.
It is certainly likely that the rate of evolution is determined by the environment and the interaction of the local flora and fauna. In steady-state evolution does not really occur as there is no drive to change. When the environment is dynamic or changed through events such as ice-ages, meteor strikes, volcanic eruptions, new species evolving or moving in to area etc. stronger selection occurs (evolve or die) and therefore more rapid evolution occurs. One would guess that the bigger the change, the more rapidly evolution may occur as the selection environment is more harsh than usual.
The theories can only tell you so much, what you really need is experimental evidence. Given that we cant do long experiments we can only rely on the fossil record. And the transient events you refer to provide some evidence for punctuated evolution. Rather than contradicting the theory, the data helps to flesh it out.
If creationism can be accurately described as a "continuing investigation that uses observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena" then it is science.
If creationism doesn't meet that definition (hint: it doesn't) then that definition can't be used to claim that creationism is science.
Personally, I think that's a pretty good definition to use, although I'd replace "adequate" with "accurate".
Look, the ID advocates have already pretty much stopped trying to hawk their pseudo-scientific argument from incredulity directly. Unfortunately, they've forgotten to tell some of the morons on these school boards, who still seem convinced that the ID movement has something positive to offer.
I certainly don't want my kids taught veiled theology, or taught that any old assertion is somehow the equivalent of emperical theories. I want them taught science.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
If you think letting religion run society is a good thing, consider comparing the Middle East to Europe.
. pdf
Round about 1200, Arab civilization was leading Europe in practically *every* category of art and science.
Then, for various reasons, Europe went through the Renaissance, where pre-Christian achievements were admired again, the Reformation, where the grip of the Catholic church over secular power was broken, and the Enlightenment, where rational inquiry was finally lifted above theology and scripture. The culmination for all of this was the devleopment of modern science, the Industrial Revolution and the Information Revolution.
The result of which is that you, sitting in Kansas, as the heir to all of this SECULAR ACHIEVEMENT, can type on a cheap computer and communicate with anyone anywhere in the world, in one of the richest countries on Earth, in the most prosperous society the world has ever known. In the achievement of which, religion sought to obstruct EVERY step along the way.
While, back in the Middle East, they've still got their dominant religion, and even got the chance in Iran and Afghanistan to have true rule by religious principles. The result of which is that the *entire* region http://www.worldbank.org/data/wdi2001/pdfs/tab1_1
of the Middle East and North Africa, with 290 million people, has an economy about the size of SPAIN, with 39 million people.
Yeah, I'd say that secularism is a good thing.
The attitude from the pro-evolution side so far has been "we don't want to discuss it, and we can't believe you want to hold a debate about it"
There is a reason that scientists take that stance, it's because there is overwhelming evidence all around us that evolution happens and that it is one of the dominant forces in nature. Go read Darwin, Dawkins, or any of the other brilliant men who have described evolution and debunked the various attempts to claim that it is somehow inadequate to explain our universe.
It is a shame that so many people want to belittle the wonder of the universe. Though I am an athiest, I don't see how an understanding and acknowledgement of evolution in any way conflicts with the idea that there is some supreme being. All it does is call into question the Bible as a historically accurate document that carries the authority of God.
This kind of foolishness is not harmless. It teaches our children to accept things, not on the basis of their own critical thinking, but simply on the word of someone in authority. Theocracies and Kingdoms work well when people never question, just obey. Democracies don't. If we want a good government that works for all of us, instead of just those who have power and money, we have to constantly question the motives of those we have put in positions of authority.
The first place to start, as George Orwell would tell you, is by questioning people who want to change the definition of words in the language for political purposes. (I recommend the novel 1984 by George Orwell, to anyone who doesn't understand that comment.)
-All that is gold does not glitter - Tolkien
www.ra
Astute observation.
/KROCKER
If one has taken a class in logic or classical argument, you may recall that if you start with false premises you can indeed logically reach false 'true' conclusions. Logical deduction itself itself is *NOT* sufficient to prove a phenomenon real. You actually have to prove your premises are real. By definition you cannot prove something supernatural. Supernatural things (being outside the realm of the natural) cannot be observed, tested, measured, or proved to exist.
Their supernatural creator might as well be *FAIRY GOD PARENTS*
The problem with the majority of Christians in this country is that they worship the Bible instead of God. Instead of asking themselves "What would a kind and compassionate God think of homosexuality (for example)" they point to the Bible and say "look- it says here that that is wrong!"
:)
The Bible is just a book and it was written by human beings. It was written by people capable of making mistakes. It was written by people who may have witnessed events that they were incapable of comprehending. It was changed over time and translated. In other words- the Bible should be treated as a guide and not as the word of God because it isn't (maybe it was a long time ago but it isn't today).
Another thing that really ticks me off is that these people claim that the universe was created by an all powerful omniscient being- and then they claim to know what he/she/it is thinking. The arrogance is mind boggling. Folks- stop it. God wouldn't like- trust me I know what he is thinking
-sirket (an agnostic atheist)
How could anyone think this new definition is clearer? It has three times as many syllables.
It's not "more complete" either. Adding a roll-call of methodologies (measurement, hypothesis testing, etc) only begs the question of what has been left out. Like peer review, parsimony (aka Occam's razor), mathematical modeling...
The phrase "more adequate explanations" is the real zinger. Who decides what's adequate? How is "more adequate" clearer than "natural"?
These ID guys are America's shame. I once tried engaging some of them (William Dembski, Michael Behe, Philip Johnson) in email discussions. None of them would go beyond one or two emails once they figured out I wasn't on their team. They have an extreme agenda and everything they say/do/propose should, IMO, be regarded with extreme suspicion.
"You know, I'm as atheistic and completely non-religious as the next slashdotter, but it's attitudes like this that help destroy any hope of rational discourse between the two sides of this argument."
I submit that it's not possible to have a rational discussion with religious fundemantalists.
"Comparing religious Americans to the Afghan Taliban just doesn't fly. Get back to me when mainstream American christians applaud murder in their god's name."
They do this all the time. For example whenever an abortion doctor gets killed.
"Seriously, if you're going to compare religious people to the Taliban"
The taliban wanted a nation run under the rules of the koran. The christian right wants the exact same thing. The taliban turned schools into madrasas that based their teachings on a radical political agenda based purely on the koran the christian right wants the same thing.
If the foo shits you gotta wear it.
evil is as evil does
Personally, I don't really see the creationists as being too much worse than that particular demographic of atheists who worship Darwin as God. *Excessive*, irrational veneration ...
Thanks for providing us with a poignant example of excessive, irrational, statements. Speculating that there is any significant faction of people on this planet who, in any way, "worship Darwin as God" is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard.
If there's one thing that really annoys me, it's an intellectually deficient side's desperate attempt to compare the end of a cigarette to the surface of the sun and claim they both put out the same amount of heat and therefore negate each others' significance or severity. Intelligence insulting hogwash!
However, another group who I think desperately need to get lives are those who are frantically seeking life on Mars, purely/primarily because they hope they can use such proof to discredit creationism altogether.
Huh? Are you kidding me? Are you wearing tin-foil underwear?
I believe the best way that evolutionary advocates can win this particular battle is simply by not fighting it.
Unbelievable. You advocate not standing up for what you believe in, and this will somehow make everything rosy? Have you not studied even a sliver of history of any civilization in the world?
In the most absolute sense, nothing is proveable and everything relies on faith.
That's metaphysics, and is thus unprovable. You can't prove your axioms (by definition), but you can test them to see if they are reliably useful.
How do I know that birds can fly? Because I see them flying?
Yes, and the fact that every well-reasoned test you can come up with shows that birds do, in fact, fly. That's science.
I talked to an ex-science teacher and his whole argument came down to "Occam's Razor". But how is this different from having your whole argument coming down to believing that "A God exists"? They both something that you are guiding your life on, either of which you really can't prove is correct/true/THE TRUTH.
One of them (science) reliably describes and predicts the real world. The other (faith) does not. *That's* the difference, and it's a very crucial one. If you're sick, do you want a hospital, or a priest? If you are hungry, do you pray for manna, or do you seek food? If you want to fly to the Moon, do you start the Apollo program, or do you give up because scriptures say you can't get there?
It all comes down to your axioms. Which axiom is more reliable for describing the universe: a holy book, voices in your head, mere speculation, or science?
There has been lots of hypothesis testing. One thing evolution predicted was animals with similar traits would have common dna fingerprints - a hypothesis that was given way before we could analyse DNA.
There's been lots of hypotheses like that which should it is indeed falsiable.
Over a long time, in an environment with light, development of the eye becomes almost assured.
So much, in fact, that the idea was hit upon several times during evolution - we don't have one type of eyes on this planet, but well over a dozen. That's a crazy designer if you ask me ("now the insects, I think I'll give them completely different eyes, just for fun").
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Evolution is easily falsifiable. Just find a dead human inside a tyrannosaurus and the Theory of Evolution will have been falsified since the theory says this can't happen. As to hypothesis testing, Evolution provides many specific hypotheses that can be tested. Most of the biology journals are full of such tests. Indeed, much of modern biology simply would not exist without the Theory of Evolution.
The "Theory" of Intelligent Design, on the other hand, is not falsifiable, is not a Theory as most philosophers of science define a Theory, and is not science.
Evolution is based entirely on observation and theory building and has no hypothesis testing beyond showing simple species-specific traits can be passed along.
Sounds like your high school was one of those where teaching Evolution was avoided, something all too common these days since many teachers are terrified of controversy. But instead of remaining ignorant, try reading a book by Richard Dawkins or Steven Jay Gould.
FreeSpeech.org
As a scientist, I'd like to think that if a supernatural explanation fits the evidence better than the alternatives, and enables us to make accurate predictions about future events (and is thus able to be invalidated by those predictions being incorrect), then it would eventually pass into the scientific mainstream.
The Peace of God passeth all understanding, but then again, so does Quantum Field Theory.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
I mostly agree with your sentiments, but:
There is no problem with the majority of Christians in this country. The majority of them are nice folks, and while they beleive some things I think are kooky, they're not too pushy about it.
The problem is with the vocal minority of Christians who think they speak for a lot more people than they do, just because they call themselves Christian.
Quick test for whether they are the problematic kind: Do they insist on refering to themselves only as "Christian" even in contexts where refering to a particular denomination would make more sense? To pick a random example, Lutherans generally have no problem with the fact that what they beleive is slightly different that what Presbyterians (sp?) beleive, even though they are both Christian. Watch out for the ones who know that there own beleifs are the true Christianity.
Anyway, the problem with the problematic kind is the same as the problem with all religious extremists. It's the arrogance. They beleive whatever they want to, but they refuse to admit that. Rather they posit that what they beleive is not what they wish, but what GOD wishes. If they just thought I disagreed with them, that would be one thing. But if I disagree with GOD, that's a different matter! No point in considering what I have to say in that case, heck it would probably be wrong to even listen. And the actions that might be justifiable in forcing ones own opinion on others are rather limited; at least compared to what's reasonable when enacting the will of GOD.
The reason science doesn't concern itself with anything supernatural is because it is impossible, by definition, to observe scientifically what the supernatural is or is not doing. Science's insistance on natural explanations is hard-headed pragmatism, not an a priori declaration of philosophical naturalism.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Very well said. And as someone who just happens to believe in God and has been a hard-core science enthusiest my entire life, I've long ago come to the conclusion that there is no conflict between science and religion. As someone else pointed out here, this is largely an imaginary debate that the over-zealous fundimentalists wish to invent so as to impose their beliefs upon others. The bible isn't a history book, nor is it a science textbook, it's a book about a philosophy of life.
Personally I hate what the fundies are doing. This kind of behavior only serves to bring an unnecessary backlash against the many religious people who strive for peaceful coexistance with all, who don't wear their religion on their sleeve, and who have no desire to impose beliefs upon others.
As for this idiotic notion by the fundies that fossils were put in the ground by God to test our faith... Hello? What kind of misleading, deceptive god do you worship?
Great quote from a fellow /.-er: "Keep your stickers out of my science book; I don't paste crap in your bible." Nuf said.
imho, it appears they are explicitly trying to give equal value to exercises in "logic" as is given to the other criteria.
this is properly called philosophy.
sum.zero
Exactly, then you realize God is just a dumbed down explenation for the complex physical and chemical reactions in the Universe.
You don't know much about evolution, do you? Before you dismiss the entire field you should study it little more.
For example, evolution nicely explains the following:
If you want to see evolution in action, read up on the evolution of the AIDS virus. Just be cause you can't understand it, it does not mean it is wrong.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
Gotta start using preview ;-)
Santa Claus is claimed to live at the North Pole and common lore dispells his existence as nothing more than a story. We can go to the North Pole and we won't find him, we can observe out chimneys and we won't see him.
God is claimed to be all around us and a large segment of current thought dispells his existence as nothing more than a story. We can go to a church and we won't find him, we can observe into the heavens and we won't see him.
OK now that the post looks better I ask again, what is the difference in these two?
"reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert
The term is either "Reverse Evolution" or "Devolution", of which I prefer the latter. Considering the "devolving" state of American democracy these days, we will have apples that fall up. Reversed word meanings have already gotten out of hand. We currently have "compassionate conservative" (also an oxymoron), "neo-conservative" (not new or conservative), "imminent danger" from Iraqi WMD, "fiscal responsibility" ('nuff said), and a SS "crisis" (only in the sense that neo-cons abhor it). Next, no doubt, the Department of Defense will be renamed to the Department of Peace.
Welcome to "1984", which is only 20 years late because RM Nixon lost the 1960 Presidential election, and Goldwater didn't "make the cut" in 1964.
God's cool. God created us. God tried to mollycoddle us in the Garden of Eden. What did we do? Told him to STFU and did our own thing.
Actually, Douglas Adams' take makes more sense to me:
"Your God person puts an apple tree in the middle of a garden and says do what you like guys, oh, but don't eat the apple. Surprise surprise, they eat it and he leaps out from behind a bush shouting `Gotcha'. It wouldn't have made any difference if they hadn't eaten it."
"Why not?"
"Because if you're dealing with somebody who has the sort of mentality which likes leaving hats on the pavement with bricks under them you know perfectly well they won't give up. They'll get you in the end."
Since when did the bible become the [direct] word of God?
The Old Testament, in a few parts, maybe. Moses got the ten commandments directly from God. The [hi]story of that event, along with the words from those commandments, then got passed down by the Jews as the book of Exodus. God didn't write the book, it's not his direct words. His words may be quoted in parts but most of it is just the Jews retelling the [hi]stories of the events.
The book of Psalms isn't even that. It's basically songs made up by various religious folk in honor of their God.
So, for the Old Testament, the Jews themselves see it as true stories about people's interactions with God. As far as I'm aware, no one seriously claims God sat there and directed it to be written, word for word, according to his wishes - they're the words of individuals used to describe the [hi]stories of those who did interact with God.
It seems kind of ironic that [some - you don't get to speak for all] Christians would take a book that even those who wrote it don't claim is the direct word of God (simply a recounting of the interactions with God) and then somehow, magically, make it become God's word after the event. That, to me, sounds a lot like narrow minded people trying to make something up to self-justify. And that's not what true Christianity's supposed to be about.
OK, on to the New Testament. A series of gospels written by the people who experienced God's son. Again, they're [hi]stories written by people who were there (if you disregard the evidence that suggests they were retold orally for about three hundred years before actually getting written down) and not the direct word of God.
So, as we have people writing accounts, not God directly writing through them, quite where do they become the direct word of God anymore than a blogger recounting an audience with the Pope is writting the direct word of the Pope? We'd laugh at the blogger making such claims, yet somehow it's OK to make them about the bible?
Then there's the fairly strong evidence that suggests the gospels were fairly selectively edited around 300 A.D. to suit political will at the time. So even if they were God's word, they likely stopped being a direct version at that point anyway.
And all of this is before the translations and retranslations that have happened for the last fifteen hundred years or so. Each and every one of those translations shows the bias of the author. I've got an old bible that belonged to my great grandmother that says, "And I shall call you wo-man because you come from man and you are here to serve man" Strangely that passage isn't in most versions - it's something that got interpretted in as it was translated.
So... Even if you believe the stories the bible is about were real events and not allegories that, over time, people came to believe to be real events... You're taking a book which the original authors never claimed to be the direct word of God and then choosing to believe it is in order to justify, in many cases, petty prejudices that some tiny justification can be found for by interpretting and interpretation of an interpretation in one way.
If you can understand where someone is coming from, maybe we can get past the hate and learn to agree to disagree.
I completely agree. Unfortunately, those who do rabidly believe the bible is the direct word of God use their own belief (which most others don't share) to attempt to justify why their beliefs should become laws, be taught to children etc. Unfortunately, those people have a tendency to then believe, "Well, as [my chosen interpretation] is the direct word of God, it can't be argued. Thus I'm right, you're wrong, there can be no debate." That creates just as big a problem.
When the bible is used to justify people being healthy members of society, doing good etc., I'm all for stepping back and letting them believe it just as thoroughly as they want.
When the bib
here is an entire organization of them: http://www.icr.org/creationscientists/biologicalsc ientists.html
What is notable about creation "scientists" is that they never seem to accomplish anything of note in biology. Hardly any of them have publications in major scientific peer-reviewed journals. None have won any of the major scientific awards. While scientists who use evolution as a research tool are making discoveries not merely in evolution, but in fields as far afield as biochemistry, genetics, pharmacology, and molecular biology, creation "scientists" don't seem to do anything but creation science. The ultimate test of a theory is how useful it is in providing a basis for discovery. Many scientists don't even care about evolutionary issues per se, any more than they care about number theory. They use evolutionary theory for the same reason that they use mathematics--because their experience has shown them that it is an indispensable tool in their own area of study.
The problem is that there really is no simple, concise, and clear way to demonstrate to the average person that creationists are full of bunk. Where a creationist can just say "My grandpappy ain't no monkey!" or "Duane Gish, Ph.D, says that the Grand Canyon could be carved out by the Flood" or "Junkyard + tornado = 747 same odds as creating life randomly" or "They eye doesn't work unless it's whole! Impossible to evolve!", to effectively rebutt such ridiculous statements, you have to go on for paragraphs or pages. The people who buy these statements are the least likely to be interested in a long response, and, frankly, are unlikely to understand it well enough to see how it applies.
And public creationist debaters are good public debaters. They may fail miserably in a formal debate format, but in front of normal crowds, they rule the day. Short, sarcastic comments and pointed questions from a hundred different topics (a creationist has no problem jumping from the Flood Geology to Abiogenesis to Eye evolution to missing links) are winners in this format. The opponent, almost always a scientist in a specific discipline, can usually easily rebutt one of the creationist's topics, but by that point, the creationist will ignore that topic and harp on others the scientist doesn't have specific training in. How's a geologist going to counter points in evolutionary biochemistry?
The crowds are bussed in from local churches and they cheer at everything the creationist says.
In the world of science, the creationists lost big-time, and lost a long time ago. There's absolutely no question.
In the world of the public, the scientists are fighting a losing battle against the Word of God. Short of a revolution in religion in this country, that won't change.
I would argue that its more like saying _+_=2 isn't math.
And you would, once again, be wrong. All interesting math involves unknowns and solving for them. X+Y=2 is most certainly math. Algebra to be specific.
You admit yourself that evolution could be dead wrong, yet we still want to base all our scientific research on it?
No, I don't admit it could be dead wrong. Evolution does happen. That's a fact. It's directly observable in a number of instances, such as when bacteria evolve resistence to novel anti-biotics. There is a lot to learn, and some particular details of our theories are almost certainly wrong, but there isn't any doubt about the basic nature of genetics.
Then ask what would be different in our research if base it on a creator?
It would be intentionally ignoring part of the problem. ID is logically equivalent to simply saying that we were put here by aliens and then refusing to study the origin of the aliens. Or are you proposing that we will engage in a scientific search for God? Attempt to observe and quantify his fundamental nature? Pray tell, how are the ID supporters doing in their scientific study of the nature of God?
The nature of the fundamentalist movement and the neo-cons is exploitation by the powerful of those who accept things on faith without evidence. You are being used for your votes because you can be easily suckered into believeing lies. Because you can be suckered into believing warmongers and capital punishment supporters believe in a "culture of life". Because you can be suckered into believing that claiming part of a scientific theory should be considered beyond investigation somehow makes that theory more scientific.
The fact that people like you have somehow convinced yourselves that you are doing the work of Jesus when you believe the lies of thieves and death-dealers disgusts me. How you believe that God is smiling upon a gluttunous rape of natural resources is beyond me. To believe that corporations (a creation of the State) somehow deserve rights and moral standing equivalent to human beings (a creation of your God, right?) is beyond me.
The parable YOU quoted is quite appropriate. For it is YOU who sees without seeing. You see the sprawl in Olathe. The paving over of nature. The destruction of God's work by man's work. And yet you smile on it. You don't truely see it. A pathetic sheep who believes what he is told no matter how unbelievable it is.
The thing that bothers me the most about what is happening is that the entire scheme for the propogation of knowledge is being subverted. I would tend to say that until some serious articles on a given new grand theory have pass peer review and been printed in the likes of Science or Nature then the theory has no business showing up in the highschool classroom.
Was quantum mechanics taught in highschool just as it was being initially developed? How about evolution? Was plate techtonics? NO! These topics survived brutal peer review and were accepted as valid explanitory theories by the scientific establishment first. THEN they made their way to the middle and high schools for the teachers to teach.
The argument quickly arrives that the scientific establishment is biased against new theories (Such as ID) and it would never accept them. MALARKY! Each of the above listed theories and others like them were also underdogs with establishment against them. But, they won out over the (at the time) current theories because they were good theories with overwhelming and crushing evidence to support them.
If something like ID really raised any serious questions for scientists involved in research on the origins of life you can bet that they will try to answer them since the scientist that did could be rewarded with immortality like the kind given to Einstein, Darwin, Schroedinger, Heisenberg, and others (not to mention a Nobel Prize).
The injection of unaccepted scientific theories into the school system for spongy minds to consume is just right out. Totally unacceptable.
All your attention are belong to my old internet meme.
This is a victory for the fundamentalists because they aren't only making a change in the definition of science. They are also mandating the teaching of Intelligent Design "theory." The following quote from an LA Times article today explains a lot: Evolution is a great theory, but it is flawed," said Martin, 59, a retired science and elementary school teacher who is presiding over the hearings. "There are alternatives. Children need to hear them.... We can't ignore that our nation is based on Christianity -- not science." Our nation is based on Christianity, not science... I could have sworn that our country was founded on the idea of religious freedom. Weren't many of our founding fathers Deists or Unitarians? My fear is that is just part of an attack by the religious right on the foundations of science itself. If this attack is successful, we may have a generation of children who are scientific illiterates. If this happens, you can kiss American prosperity, and probably American democracy, goodbye.
I've seen loud proclamations of support for retaining the 'true definition of science', much head-scratching about why these fundies don't get it, and even more hand-wringing about where the world (and in particular, Kansas) is going, I've not seen any sign that anyone has understood either the motivation that drives these people or the means that they are using.
I'm not sure if this is because Slashdot readership is mostly American, or because the readership is completely geek. (sorry, couldn't resist that, no flames please).
Full disclosure: I'm an Indian in India, was born a Hindu, and have been mostly atheist/agnostic in my beliefs. However, while I don't believe in God in a flowing white beard (or the hundreds of other varieties in the Hindu pantheon), I also don't believe the universe can be explained by space, time, and a set of classical or probabilistic laws.
First, their motivation:
Imagine (I know it's hard, but try) that you believe passionately in the sacrifice of Christ and that the salvation of everyone lies in accepting him and in being forgiven for their sins. How painful must it be for you to see children in their formative years acquire a world view and emotional make-up which makes it impossible for you to get them to see your way of thinking? And there's no point in saying 'why can't they see evolution as God's way of making creation happen?' The reality is that it doesn't work that way. If the mechanism of creation is itself a few simple principles (variation/natural selection), then is there really a need for a Creator to have set them in motion at the beginning? You could take Him out of the picture, and the simple principles can still be there, and will still work. What makes people believe in a all-powerful, personalized God they can accept as saviour is a clear touchy-feely demonstration of sheer, raw power, and in this department, nothing beats creating the universe in 6 days. Get children to believe that, and you'll never have a shortage of souls getting in line to be saved.
Next, the means :
I hear a lot of people saying : 'what's wrong with their new definition, it seems to make things clearer'. This is nonsense. The old definition is :
seeking natural explanations for what we observe around us.
This is actually a very precise expression of attitude and intent, and this becomes clearer if it's changed slightly to read:
seeking natural explanations for everything we observe around us.
This is a frame of mind, and this is the true spirit of science. Through the ages, there has never been a shortage of explanations:
- Eclipses happen because we anger the Sun God.
- The invisible witch cut off his breathing (a popular explanation in India, not a long time ago, for deaths by tubercolosis)
The key attitude which separates science is that it says : 'I will look for non-supernatural principles and predictable rules for everything. It may be hard, but I'll keep trying. I think I'll find such an explanation if I keep trying'.
Read the new definition again. There a lot of fancy wording about experiments and hypotheses which seems to clarify, but is actually being used to hide the key change to the attitude. It doesn't say that science should try to explain everything anymore. In fact, with the bit about explanations being 'adequate', there's an logical next step: Why doesn't science restrict itself to things it is 'adequate' at, such as planetary motion and momentum conservation, and leave other things, like the creation of life, to other, more 'adequate ' explanations?.
On second thoughts, and at the risk of being flamed, I think the reason Slashdot isn't getting this is not because
What if God was the result of evolution?
This it the problem I have with the whole "intelligent design theory"... it doesn't answer the problem, it just moves it.
OK, you figured out where we came from... great... now, how 'bout that designer?
Not only that... but more questions arise:
- where is the designer now?
- how many others are there?
- do they have enemies?
- if we hook up with the enemies can we kick the designer's ass?
Pandora's Box if you ask me...
--Phillip
Can you say BIRTH TAX
Evolution, or natural selection, is not a 'theory' but an obvious phenomena that we observe around us every day of our lives, on everything from dog appearance to human hereditary conditions to software products. It is equally obvious (to me anyway, your opinion may differ) that the universe, our world, and all life was created by God. If people want to believe, however, that life arose from electric arcs in a primordial soup, that's their choice (given to them by God) and there's no reason to condemn them, punish them, threaten them, or torture them until they 'change' their minds. Faith cannot be instilled with fear, pain, legislation, or peer pressure, although that will never stop unbelievers from forcing other unbelievers to see things 'their' way.
Anyone who is afraid of *anything* that science may discover has no faith, to start with. Science and technology are, themselves, gifts from God that should be used to their fullest.