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Royal Society "Creationist" Resigns
Chris_Keene writes in to let us know that the Prof. Michael Reiss, who recently caused a storm with comments about teaching creationism in schools, has resigned from his post as director of education at the Royal Society in the UK. This news coincides with word out of the Anglican church that it is ready to apologize to Charles Darwin, 150 years after it poured scorn on his theory of evolution by natural selection. "The Church of England will concede in a statement that it was over-defensive and over-emotional in dismissing Darwin's ideas. It will call 'anti-evolutionary fervor' an 'indictment' on the Church."
More than anything, this is an indictment on the scientists who pressured the good doctor out of his posting. He was bullied out for a misquote.
Unfortunately, rather than engage in a reasonable debate over the unreasonable subject, he rationally decided to avoid the controversy completely by leaving.
No matter what, the Royal Society is the loser here. Once they realized they were debating a misquote, the reasonable approach would have been to end the matter. Instead, they let the issue fester until a good man stepped down with a now-tarnished reputation.
John
Whether he was right or wrong, as I understamd it, A scientist should be able to state his ideas without fear of reprisals such as that.
Its the scientific version of the Church vs Galileo.
Pressuring someone to resign because they mention the word "creationism" in a not entirely disparaging context, despite being misquoted, sounds like "religious convictions or belief higher than their science" to me. Unless their science involves propaganda and gut feeling rather than logic an facts. So who isn't worthy of a post here?
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Other way around.
Creationists exist because a clever human engineered a story ("In the beginning...") that could propagate from believer to believer in spite of of evidence to the contrary.
Evolutionists exist because "evolution through natural selection" is the theory that has survived a repeated process of that has rendered (thus far) all competing theories extinct.
If a memetic equivalent of an asteroid strikes (say, a sequence of DNA from a 200-year-old Galapagos Tortoise, that, when translated from base-4 to base-2 and divided into 8-bit bytes, produces ASCII for "This being copyright God, Inc., 4004 BC, and limited license is hereby given to this being to go forth and multiply", and said sequence is discovered before the invention of self-propagating genetically-engineered Galapagos-Tortoise-specific retroviruses), we evolutionists will be happy to reconsider our views. The creationists, not so much.
anyone who puts religious convictions or beliefs higher than their science, are not worthy of any scientific post. royal society did the right thing.
Please RTFA. By your standard, the royal society did not do the right thing, because the professor did not advocate, putting his, "religious convictions or beliefs higher" than science. He clearly stated in his original article that creationism or intelligent design where not scientific viewpoints and should not be taught as such. He was misquoted.
1.) This man didn't put religious belief higher than science. He just said it should be taught in school rather than ignored, but still taught in a way that promotes the theory of evolution as a science, and creationism as a religious belief not founded on logic and empirical evidence. He didn't want to waste hours on end talking about creationism--he just wanted to explain WHY its not science. Nor did he want to profess it was right.
This is why philosophy should be taught (again) at the high school level. Creationism, intelligent design, etc., are important topics for any introduction to philosophy class. And when they are taught in a philosophy class, they actually promote critical thinking. On the other hand, when they are taught as an alternative in a science class, they only promote closed thinking.
You make this great point when you say:.
To suggest otherwise is just the sort of thing IDers want. . .
The effective firing of this man also plays into the hands of the "IDers". They can now decry the persecution of this individual (you know they will) and get good millage out of the argument because they would not have be totally wrong in this case. The Royal Society should not have caved in this way.
Why the hell did he quit? He was misquoted, taken out of context and made an example of... What in the shitting hell did he say to make this happen? I've read the articles and he has his head screwed on straight so for crying out loud, why hasn't this man been supported?
ARGH!
Do we have to deal with athiest fundies now?
Yeesh!
But he didn't do that!
He just said that science teachers should be free to discuss creationism, i.e. why it isn't science.
The creationists couldn't have asked for a better outcome. They have always claimed that scientists "believe" in evolution as if it is was a religious faith, and that they won't tolerate criticism of their ideas or other beliefs. Scientists always said that was nonsense... and yet, now we have an example of a man who has been persecuted for speaking out of turn.
The greatest threat to science isn't the creationists, but the armies of Dawkinsbots who defend "science" with fundamentalist fervour. If you're going to fight creationism, you have to stick to the facts, otherwise you're as irrational as they are.
>north
You're an immobile computer, remember?
That's exactly what he was saying.
If you approach someone with a holier-than-thou attitude or mock them, they get pissed off and the discussion becomes a personal conflict. If you insult (not "state something that conflicts with", but actually insult) something that they regard as part of their culture, it becomes a political conflict.
Once that happens, none of the logic you throw at someone is going to make a bit of difference.
If you want to fight someone, insult them. If you want to convince someone, educate them.
Evolution is not put forth as an explanation for the origins of matter or life. It is put forth as an explanation for how life, once begun, spread, adapted, and led to more complex organisms. What views are you interested in seeing "Evolutionists" reconsider? I have trouble with some of the scientist friends of mine, as they tend to work off of a predefined "operational model" which is required for the scope of their study. But they often forget that outside of this scope they need to reconsider their operational model. Most of them will concede that point after a brief discussion. But my religious friends never do the same. Science calls for constant reconsideration of premises, assumptions, theories, explanations, etc. Science is the business of proving or trying to prove yourself wrong.
It doesn't tackle those subjects yet you always see those lumped into evolutionary discussions.
You're absolutely right; people act as if it's creationism vs evolution, but it's actually creationism vs the whole of science. If creationism is right we've got geological science wrong, the science of star and planet formation wrong, the speed of light wrong, radioactive decay rates, the universe's rate of expansion, the doppler shift's effect on light, the cause of the background x-ray radiation, etc, etc.
If it was just creationism vs evolution creationists wouldn't be so hypocritical when they accept the parts of science which they think fit.
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He just showed them why it is not such a good idea to put a religious person at the head of a science organisation
Because people will attack him irrationally? That doesn't make sense.
he could have given up his religious position too, that would have been much more convincing
How would that have been more convincing? People thought he was asking to teach creationism in school, which he wasn't, and they were refusing to believe the truth even when the option for evidence was out there. Why would his stepping down from his position as a priest have been any more effective? Because scientists are taking an irrational stance towards religious people?
The point of the matter is that this is a classic example of intolerance because of his beliefs, not his performance. He was put at the head of the science organization for a reason, so presumably he was a good scientist. Why do his religious beliefs and practices suddenly matter if not because of an irrational bias against religion?
umm no.
the theory of evolution makes no claims on the origin of life.
the big bang is more of an attempt at that, sure, and it too supported by much evidence. like all things in science, evolution and big bang are the best we have right now given what we know, can observe and test against. that's infinitely more useful than what creationists have(nothing), and it certainly isn't a religion as you attempt to claim.
science follows theories best supported by evidence. if evidence contradicts the theory it must be adapted.
there is no reason to expect science will ever know how everything originated with high certainty. we may simply not have access to information needed to study and test with.
feel free to provide your arguments for why evolutionists should change their views. so far you have parroted typical creationist nonsense, typically fed by total ignorance of the theories you are arguing against.
Richard Dawkins is an atheist who believes that science and faith are fundamentally incompatible, so it makes sense that he'd think that. But that is not a consensus view among scientists. Plenty of other people think that science is compatible with religion and spirituality because they address different concerns.
Unless the Royal Society is now taking positions on the acceptability of religion, there should be no consideration given, pro or con, to the religious beliefs or affiliations of its officers.
You are correct that it would have been convincing if renouncing and denouncing religion altogether were his aim. Clearly, that is not the case. Nor does the tone of his resignation suggest any disrespect for the theory, practice, or establishment of science. I am quite confident that this man retains both a respect for the scientific method and also his religious faith. He resigned to avoid the appearance of impropriety within the scientific community. Most probably, his church does not feel as though his involvement in science tarnished his faith. On the other hand, this incident has caused the scientific community to question his credentials as a scientist. He resigned from the community that was at odds with what he had said.
Virtue finds and chooses the mean.
Aristotle, Ethica Nichomachea
They can now decry the persecution of this individual (you know they will) and get good millage out of the argument because they would not have be totally wrong in this case.
That's an excellent point.
And not just IDers, but also anyone who wants to paint atheists as being unreasonable - for example, I see that the Daily Mail are already at it: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1056715/Top-scientist-supported-teaching-creationism-schools-hounded-Royal-Society.html .
For non-UK readers - the Daily Mail is a conservative right wing tabloid. Whilst it doesn't seem to support Intelligent Design, it is very pro-Christian, and anti-atheism, and this is just the story it loves: look at the references to being "hounded" after a "campaign" by "militant atheists" / "atheist scientists". And the sad thing is that, for once, I can't fault their story for being misleading - despite the biased phrasing, it's one of the few media outlets to be reporting what actually happened.
Well, that's not what his blog in The Guardian says. He says: "I feel that creationism is best seen by science teachers not as a misconception but as a world view".
Anyone who feels that creationism is not a misconception has no place in the direction of such an important scientific body as the Royal Society. Even if he feels that students who have been raised by creationist parents will not change their point of view easily, that's no reason to tolerate such nonsense in a science class. What next, will he say that one must accept criminal behavior from students that have been raised by criminal parents?
The correct procedure would be, in my opinion, not to accept discussion of creationist nonsense, but to explain why evolution is a scientifically correct theory.
He said some really important things about the way we deal with creationism in the classroom, the media and blogosphere misinterpreted, abused and parroted incorrect versions of his comments, and he's got the guts to step down, not only saving the face of the organisation but shouldering blame more rightly levelled at the media, too. I'm sure I speak for all of us when I wish him luck.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
"Actually science still can't explain where DNA came from"
Abuse of word "actually", requires that following sentence is factually accurate. What you mean is that science still can't explain it to you. Don't assume that knowledge doesn't exist just because you don't possess it personally. "Generalising from self" is a form of inductive reasoning which should only be used when sufficient data for deductive reasoning cannot be easily obtained. You should remember though, that as this form of reasoning does not always yield a correct result, you should always be sure to word such uncertainty into your statements based on it so as to not inaccurately portray the level of research you have carried out which you base the statement upon.
"The big bang was a theological idea used to give scientists a starting point"
The big bang is a mathmatical idea resulting from divisions by zero in the time dimension... or something... it's not purely theological.
"I reject it as an explanation for the source of all matter"
The metric of whether a theory should be considered true or not should not be whether it explains the source of all matter, as explaining the source of all matter is not a prerequisite in explaining unrelated things and even many related things.
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
That is my favorite argument against creationists... basically, that if what they are saying is true, this computer they are using to tell me that wouldn't work. I don't understand how you can follow a belief system that selectively accepts what we have learned from the scientific process; it works for EVERYTHING else, but not evolution?
David Hume is philosophy. Kierkegaard is philosophy. Plato is philosophy.
Religion is not philosophy, it's superstition.
You are welcome on my lawn.
"I don't understand how you can follow a belief system that selectively accepts what we have learned from the scientific process; it works for EVERYTHING else, but not evolution?"
There is still a sizable population of slashdotters who think the scientific process doesn't work when it comes to climate.
IMHO there is too little effort spent teaching the role of skepticisim in science and too much effort spent teaching factoids. I think the good reverend was trying to make a similar point but that was ignored in favour of a good ol' fashion witch burning.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Plenty of other people think that science is compatible with religion and spirituality because they address different concerns.
I'm not sure who these "plenty of other people" are, exactly, but I suspect they're not real scientists if they're comfortable with allowing dogmatic religion to coexist alongside science.
For many folks, religion is a nice story about what happens when we die. And some stuff about not being assholes to each other while we're alive. That's not incompatible with science.
The problem comes in when religious nutbars (a certain vice-presidential candidate comes to mind) push an agenda that is hostile to scientific evidence which contradicts their worldview. And those people have become an increasingly vocal presence in US politics.
Please don't forget that it was only 3 years ago, in 2005, that we had serious Federal (!!) court proceedings to decide whether or not a creationist worldview could be taught alongside scientific theory as an equivalently valid explanation for the existence of life as we know it.
That is scary, scary stuff. Maybe not scary if you believe in that crap, but imagine if a court had ruled that ALL creation "theories" had to be taught alongside evolution. Are you comfortable with the idea of your children being taught that the world came from fragments of a proto-god's egg? Or that we are effectively a supernatural wet spot after an orgy among creator gods? I could go on for a while, or even make up shit on my own. Where do you draw the line?
The bottom line is that science and religion are compatible in the same sense that science and literature are compatible. If we all agreed on that, the world would be a much less crazy place.
A host is a host from coast to coast...
Unless it's down, or slow, or fails to POST!
Further, Confucius is philosophy, Lao Tzu is philosophy. The teachings of Jesus Christ are philosophy, but modern day fundamentalist Christianity has as much to do with the teachings of Jesus as the modern day Republican Party has to do with the ideas of Thomas Jefferson or James Madison.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I think the focus of science class, nay all of school, should be to teach children how to think, not what to think. Facts and such can be picked up from books - proper ways of thinking are much more important to society.
The other problem esp with climate change and evolution is that it has been politicised, and so effectively it doesn't matter any more what the underlying truth is, for most people your belief about it is formed as an extension of your other beliefs which don't have anything to do with the issue.
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
I've never read Confucius or Lao Tzu, but the teachings of Jesus are not philosophy, as the philosophers would have know it, as it contains no reasoning. Its loosely metaphysics.. or perhaps a system of values.
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
The glitch in your argument is that few people outside of Biblical literalists and creationists actually believe that the universe requires a different model if God is present. In fact, many Biblical non-literalists who believe that scripture is comprised of moral and spiritual, but not necessarily historical, Truth believe the exact opposite.
You say that "Evolutionists" are afraid to lose their jobs if the science is debunked... could it also be that Creationists are afraid to lose theirs?
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
And if a student brings up what happens when you mix Mentos and Coca Cola in Modern European History it should be "dealt with as a teaching opportunity"?
Only if the mixing of Mentos and Coca Cola is part of an already enormous and still growing movement which is constantly butting heads with historians.
The fact of the matter is that the Creationism/ID juggernaut is here, and like it or not, it's influencing political, scientific, and religious discourse. Science teachers who ignore it are not doing their students any favours. Right now they have students in their classes who are being taught by their parents and their religious leaders to ignore what their teachers say, because those teachers are godless heathens who "believe" in this Darwinist cult which attacks the foundations of The One True Religion.
These teachers can pretend it's not happening, and their students will learn nothing, or they can address it, and use it as a vehicle to teach the scientific method.
Your Mentos example is silly, as is any talk of the FSM, or other creation myths, simply because Creationism/ID is, unfortunately, a special case. That's reality. Ignoring it won't fix it. Talking about it might.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
Actually.. it's complete nonsense. Mixing evolution with cosmology with abiogenesis is just a distraction, a smokescreen. If you accept change over time adaptations, then you accept evolution. The so called "micro" and "macro" evolution are one and the same, just over different time scales.
You know, that's the thing makes me wonder the most about the whole christian god thing. Essentially we're taught that the guy is a good and loving god, but if you look at what he does, he actually acts like a complete asshole. He'll:
- punish people for something their ancestors did. It's a bit like me kicking you in the nuts because one of your ancestors sold slaves 2000 years ago. But, no, if God does it, it's a good and just thing.
- he plays favourites among his sons, in a major way. See the Abel and Cain episode for the first instance of it. And that was already barely generation 2.
- is an asshole about accepting gifts. Abel and Cain again. I mean, imagine me as a cranky old guy and two grandsons bring me gifts. And I'd go, "WTF? You give me a tie? What am I supposed to with that? Get out of here, you idiot. Get a hint from your brother. He gave me socks. He's my new favourite. In fact, I'll disown you, you little prick." Seriously, if anyone pulled that kind of a stunt, he'd be seen as an antisocial arsehole, and rightfully so. But if God does it? Nah, he's a good and loving guy.
- doesn't even bother sorting evil-doers from good guys before doing a genocide or two in the name of good. See Sodom and Gommorah, plus the Noah incident. (I have trouble believing that everyone killed there was a monster, including some thousands of babies who hadn't done anything wrong yet.)
- if he has to do a miracle, hey, nothing beats a plague or two or killing a few thousand babies to make a point. See, convincing the Pharaoh to let the Jews go. You'd think there would be ways to do flashy stuff that doesn't arbitrarily punish millions of Egyptians peasants and craftsmen who didn't even own slaves, nor have anything to do with the Pharaoh's decision.
- has no qualms with punishing billions of people for all eternity, for merely not having heard a particular fairy tale. (The recent "anonymous christian" doctrine of Vatican kinda fixes that, but even there many see it as a heresy.)
- for that matter, if you take it all literally, he seems to care more about whether or not you brown-nose him or his Junior than whether you're a good man and live by the rules. Seriously, we're supposed to believe that essentially a loving and _omnipotent_ God can't possibly forgive you for that original sin, unless you choose Jesus.
- causes a war or two. Way to set the mood and an example, dude. E.g., that promised land wasn't exactly empty. You'd think an _omnipotent_ god could just snap his fingers and create an empty fertile island for his favourites. But, nah, let's make them kill some thousands of philistines instead and take their land. It's more fun that way.
- encourage a little genocide, war crimes, rape, etc, while you're at it. Why not?
- will randomly kick people in the nuts just to see how strong their faith was. Several biblical examples, plus used heavily to explain stuff like the plagues.
- what better way to make a cryptic prophecy than to ask a father to kill his son, then essentially tell him it was just a practical joke at the last moment. Like being on Candid Camera with a cruel twist, I guess. Bonus points if said son is an adult by now. You know, just for that "how the fuck _am_ I going to kill him?" factor on the way there.
You'd think that a sealed document to be opened on date X would do the same job of proving you always meant to have your Junior nailed, no? And you're omnipotent, so you _can_ make a seal that can't be broken. But, nah, let's scare the shit out of Abraham instead. It's more fun.
- playing favourites with some of his children again, for no other merit than being the guys whose ancestor was the random guy chosen for such a cruel prank`
- blame it on free will, or have it blamed in your name, when the world you created and uncertainty about the future create bursts of overpopulation and thus war, famines, and the like. (Bonus points if it results in witch hunts and pogroms, because, hey, if all evil is the result of free wil
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Well, that makes it sound like, "open-mindedness has its place, but the scientific elite will decide under what circumstances it's allowed -- and that will generally be in areas other than science, since science has a Method for determining whether alternatives are good or not, and bad science is not allowed." There's nothing wrong with that as such, but (a) it's not exactly a thorough endorsement of open-mindedness (it's like the Chinese promotion of "freedom" and "democracy", which are fine so long as they don't upset the status quo), and (b) it sounds a lot like a priesthood deciding which ideas are heretical, and I thought people didn't like that kind of thing thanks to the Galileo incident.
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
Apparently, these literalists believe that the bible is 100% literally true. Where do they get this idea? Does the bible say that the bible is 100% literally true? I don't think it does, because it says several times in the bible that it is not completely literally true. For example:
A parable is not literally true, it's a comparison, an allegory. If somebody claims to be taking the bible completely literally, the obvious question to ask them is why they are doing that. If they are also claiming to base their beliefs totally on the bible, they should be able to point out the part of the bible which says that it should all be taken literally. Which they won't be able to, because the bible is chock-full of parables, stories, and symbolic language.
That's where this problem is coming from. Some people have decided that everybody must accept that the bible is completely literally true. And it's not. It's a spiritual book, not a science textbook.
So, kids in the UK are doing so well in physics and biology, and they've got so much excess class time that they should bring up a topic that has absolutely no basis in science? I'm sure the members of the Royal Society are horrified by the lack of comity shown to Mr. Reiss, but he sounds like a bit of a tool to me.
Are you a troll or do you honestly have no idea of what the original gist of Mr. Reiss' remarks were before they were misquoted?
I'll spell it out for you nice and slowly, paraphrasing to make it easier to understand:
"If a pupil says to their science teacher "Evolution is wrong because it's not in the bible", the science teacher should not say "You're wrong. End of discussion. Next subject...". Instead, the science teacher should explain that the whole point of science is to try and explain things on the basis of available evidence rather than just taking someones' word for it (which is essentially what "faith" means) as the final answer to any questions one might have - and if new evidence which breaks your explanation comes to light, you accept that your explanation was wrong and try and alter it (or even completely rewrite it) to fit the newly discovered evidence."