Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the i'm-gonna-cry dept.
Crafter wrote to us with the news that the Kansas State Board of Education is dropping evolution
as a school mandated teaching. I'm speechless-I thought I was living in 1999, not 1799.
As usual, I swoop in and go waaaayyyy off topic (why stop now?). To me this little debacle (which is being blown out of all proportion because vague stories in the press are substantially inflating the scope and impact of this decision) illustrates a fact about life in the whole of these United States (and by no means just in Kansas).
That fact is that, despite widespread belief that we live in the "scientific age," we actually are little better off than we were in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when the formal techniques of modern science began to, if you will forgive the expression, evolve. Back then, a handful of very scholarly men began to apply the rigors of Aristotle's logic to direct observation of the physical world (with the first result being the complete desruction of Aristotle's own ideas about natural systems!). These handfuls of men began to develop rigorous methods for forming hypotheses, constructing experiments, carrying them out, collecting data, and analyzing results. They also made a clear distinction between hypothesis, theory, and fact. The only facts in science are logic and mathematics (and even these are only marginally facts as Godel proved centuries later) and that the data gathered in an experiment were the data gathered in the experiment. Take Galileo's little experiments rolling balls of differing weights down slopes of differing angles and measuring the time it takes the ball to go from one end of the slope to the other. He made literally thousands of observations and derived the first universal "law" in the history of science: All objects accelerate towards the earth at 32 feet per second per second. Even this, which gets labelled "Galileo's Law" is not a "fact." Tomorrow we might observe that things accelerate towards the earth at 29 feet per second per second (it would make a lot of us who are a bit tubby like me rather happy). That we know of no possible cause for such a thing and that we know it has never happened between Galileo's time and ours doesn't mean that it won't happen tomorrow. All scientific "facts" are provisional. Scientists must be prepared to re-examine and possibly refine or reject theories when new evidence is found contrary to theory.
Science is a form philosophy that is characterized by logic, experiment, observation, empiricism, skepticism, and materialism. Science and religion cannot co-exist in a classroom or a laboratory because religion (Judeo-Christian anyways, I'm certainly not an expert in world religions) has spiritualism in its philosophic base. Religion requires one to believe in non-empirical knowledge and science requires one to refuse any non-empirical evidence. Note that this does not mean that person cannot believe in both religion and science. If a religious person merely accepts that his knowledge of, say, Christ's death and Resurrection is non-empirical (but no less true) and therefore non-scientific and accepts that evolution by natual selection is empirical and therefore non-spiritual they can co-exist. This isn't mere semantic argybargy. I think that it is perfectly okay for a profoundly religious person to practice science through the very real fact (there's that word again!) that science inhernetly excludes from consideration an entire source of evidence, an entire way of experiencing the world called "Faith" or "spirit." That means, from this point of view that Science has a blind spot. A person can regard science as the more limited view and view it as a tool for getting behind the nature of life, while keeping their faith at the fore for exploring the meaning of life. If you ask any person of deep faith, I suspect you will find that they consider their non-measurable experience of faith to be more compelling and "real" (whatever that may mean) than any measurable empirical experience they have had. Who are you or I to say they are "wrong?"
Now, this is a problem for the handful of people today versed in the sciences. Most of us are very unscientific and know precious little about science. Even NPR's "Talk of the Nation Science Friday" program continually mistakes technology for science and they could not be more different.
The vast majority of people on the plane with you the next time you fly will have no idea whatsoever what makes the plane fly. Most people do not know how a battery works. Most do not know a proton from a neutron. More to the point, most do not know why science regards things as true. The evidence for evolution is every bit as strong as that for Galileo's Law, and yet many perfectly sensible people reject it utterly. That's because most of us (even scientists) are creatures of habit and predjudice. The reason we are not all scientists is that science is hard and demanding and completely foreign to the way humans make descisions about what is true and false. We use technology and we think "Boy, the wonders of science," but very few of us has even an inkling about the fact that electronics (a technology) required discovering quantum meachnics to come into being. Most people know who John F. Kennedy was, but very few know who Max Planck, Paul Dirac, Enrico Fermi, and Pauli (forgot first name; see?) were.
We accept the products of science in the form of technology in much the same way we accept the eucharist, as a blessings from the priests of science, but with much less appreciation for the mystery. We do not live in a scientific age, but in an age of scientists. An age where the power of the knowledge discovered by science is valued by all, but the value of the knowledge itself and more importantly, how it was obtained is as mysterious as holy communion.
Seen in this light, very few of us should feel as free as we do to make fun of the "hicks" from Kansas. Believe me that average intelligence is Kansas is not significantly different from that in any other state in the union. Ignorance is bliss and America is a very happy country. All of it, not just Kansas.
A hick nerd from Minnesota...
We don't have enough fear of god for our own good!
by
grappler
·
· Score: 4
Still reeling from the absence of the Ten Commandments in public schools, I reached for my news-paper on monday and saw that they are teaching 'evolution' without having pieced together the fossil record from the first genetic material to Polly Shore. (Hey, I can be reasonable)
I demand the right to a solid platform upon which I can support my dignity. How can I feel good about myself if I am reminded that I share common ancestry with ape-brutes? I've been to the zoo, and I decline to write of the horrid, disgusting things I have seen the creatures do.
With our sense of self-worth at stake, supporters of science will talk of 'emprical evidence', 'facts', and 'logic'. Take a moment and reflect on the innocence lost the day our world left it's prominent spot at the center of the universe. And now they would have us force feed this, their evil-ution, to our kids.
Does a man who is doing his utmost to get into heaven benefit from filling his head with theories? Do we want our teachers questioning all that is good and decent, twisting things around with their fancy words? We must shift our focus back to something which is never used in an evil fashion: religion.
Slashdot Mirror
As usual, I swoop in and go waaaayyyy off topic (why stop now?). To me this little debacle (which is being blown out of all proportion because vague stories in the press are substantially inflating the scope and impact of this decision) illustrates a fact about life in the whole of these United States (and by no means just in Kansas).
That fact is that, despite widespread belief that we live in the "scientific age," we actually are little better off than we were in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when the formal techniques of modern science began to, if you will forgive the expression, evolve. Back then, a handful of very scholarly men began to apply the rigors of Aristotle's logic to direct observation of the physical world (with the first result being the complete desruction of Aristotle's own ideas about natural systems!). These handfuls of men began to develop rigorous methods for forming hypotheses, constructing experiments, carrying them out, collecting data, and analyzing results. They also made a clear distinction between hypothesis, theory, and fact. The only facts in science are logic and mathematics (and even these are only marginally facts as Godel proved centuries later) and that the data gathered in an experiment were the data gathered in the experiment. Take Galileo's little experiments rolling balls of differing weights down slopes of differing angles and measuring the time it takes the ball to go from one end of the slope to the other. He made literally thousands of observations and derived the first universal "law" in the history of science: All objects accelerate towards the earth at 32 feet per second per second. Even this, which gets labelled "Galileo's Law" is not a "fact." Tomorrow we might observe that things accelerate towards the earth at 29 feet per second per second (it would make a lot of us who are a bit tubby like me rather happy). That we know of no possible cause for such a thing and that we know it has never happened between Galileo's time and ours doesn't mean that it won't happen tomorrow. All scientific "facts" are provisional. Scientists must be prepared to re-examine and possibly refine or reject theories when new evidence is found contrary to theory.
Science is a form philosophy that is characterized by logic, experiment, observation, empiricism, skepticism, and materialism. Science and religion cannot co-exist in a classroom or a laboratory because religion (Judeo-Christian anyways, I'm certainly not an expert in world religions) has spiritualism in its philosophic base. Religion requires one to believe in non-empirical knowledge and science requires one to refuse any non-empirical evidence. Note that this does not mean that person cannot believe in both religion and science. If a religious person merely accepts that his knowledge of, say, Christ's death and Resurrection is non-empirical (but no less true) and therefore non-scientific and accepts that evolution by natual selection is empirical and therefore non-spiritual they can co-exist. This isn't mere semantic argybargy. I think that it is perfectly okay for a profoundly religious person to practice science through the very real fact (there's that word again!) that science inhernetly excludes from consideration an entire source of evidence, an entire way of experiencing the world called "Faith" or "spirit." That means, from this point of view that Science has a blind spot. A person can regard science as the more limited view and view it as a tool for getting behind the nature of life, while keeping their faith at the fore for exploring the meaning of life. If you ask any person of deep faith, I suspect you will find that they consider their non-measurable experience of faith to be more compelling and "real" (whatever that may mean) than any measurable empirical experience they have had. Who are you or I to say they are "wrong?"
Now, this is a problem for the handful of people today versed in the sciences. Most of us are very unscientific and know precious little about science. Even NPR's "Talk of the Nation Science Friday" program continually mistakes technology for science and they could not be more different.
The vast majority of people on the plane with you the next time you fly will have no idea whatsoever what makes the plane fly. Most people do not know how a battery works. Most do not know a proton from a neutron. More to the point, most do not know why science regards things as true. The evidence for evolution is every bit as strong as that for Galileo's Law, and yet many perfectly sensible people reject it utterly. That's because most of us (even scientists) are creatures of habit and predjudice. The reason we are not all scientists is that science is hard and demanding and completely foreign to the way humans make descisions about what is true and false. We use technology and we think "Boy, the wonders of science," but very few of us has even an inkling about the fact that electronics (a technology) required discovering quantum meachnics to come into being. Most people know who John F. Kennedy was, but very few know who Max Planck, Paul Dirac, Enrico Fermi, and Pauli (forgot first name; see?) were.
We accept the products of science in the form of technology in much the same way we accept the eucharist, as a blessings from the priests of science, but with much less appreciation for the mystery. We do not live in a scientific age, but in an age of scientists. An age where the power of the knowledge discovered by science is valued by all, but the value of the knowledge itself and more importantly, how it was obtained is as mysterious as holy communion.
Seen in this light, very few of us should feel as free as we do to make fun of the "hicks" from Kansas. Believe me that average intelligence is Kansas is not significantly different from that in any other state in the union. Ignorance is bliss and America is a very happy country. All of it, not just Kansas.
A hick nerd from Minnesota...
Still reeling from the absence of the Ten Commandments in public schools, I reached for my news-paper on monday and saw that they are teaching 'evolution' without having pieced together the fossil record from the first genetic material to Polly Shore. (Hey, I can be reasonable)
I demand the right to a solid platform upon which I can support my dignity. How can I feel good about myself if I am reminded that I share common ancestry with ape-brutes? I've been to the zoo, and I decline to write of the horrid, disgusting things I have seen the creatures do.
With our sense of self-worth at stake, supporters of science will talk of 'emprical evidence', 'facts', and 'logic'. Take a moment and reflect on the innocence lost the day our world left it's prominent spot at the center of the universe. And now they would have us force feed this, their evil-ution, to our kids.
Does a man who is doing his utmost to get into heaven benefit from filling his head with theories? Do we want our teachers questioning all that is good and decent, twisting things around with their fancy words? We must shift our focus back to something which is never used in an evil fashion: religion.
Vidi, Vici, Veni