And we have several hypothesis about abiogenesis, and science class is an ideal place to teach about scientific hypothesis. It’s silly not to discuss valid scientific investigations simply because we don’t have a theory that has achieved universal approval. That’s what science class is all about. But upper level science students are perfectly capable of dealing with unknowns.
But…that’s what Intelligent Design is. In the privacy of their own churches, these people do not believe in ID, nor did they ever teach it, at first. They believe in Creationism. When that didn’t fly in the public schools, “Intelligent Design” was invented – not because these people suddenly had a revelation that Creationism was wrong, but in order to get into public schools. Discussion of ID, dreamed up specifically to get into public school curricula, necessarily involves the presumption that we’re talking about public schools. If we’re just talking about these people’s internal beliefs, Creationism is what they really believe, and would revert to in a heartbeat, if they didn’t think they had to use the ID chicanery to fool us.
Sailboat
In theory there is a clear distinction between the Young Earth creationists who talk about “flood geology” and go tramping around Turkey looking for Noah’s Ark; and the vastly more sophisticated Intelligent Design types like Michael Behe, who have no problem with Big Bang cosmology and a 13 billion year old Universe, common descent and species transforming or splitting into other species, including humans sharing a common ancestor with other apes, and with other living things generally–it’s just that, according to the I.D. camp, [del]God[/del] Someone* had to come along and nudge things at various points.
*It could be space aliens! Just like in 2001: A Space Odyssey!
In practice–sometimes not so much. There was for example the school district in California which tried to offer a “Philosophy of Design” course–all about the strictly scientific Theory of Intelligent Design, natch, and not the obviously religious dogmas of creationism. From the course description (courtesy of Americans United for Separation of Church and State) the class was to
Oops.
There’s also the case of the creationist textbook Of Pandas and People, which was re-packaged as an “intelligent design” textbook after creationism was shot down in the courts as being an obviously religious doctrine ineligible for government support. Later additions of the book simply substituted “intelligent design proponents” for “creationists”, with the vastly amusing transitional fossil “cdesign proponentsists” in one manuscript.
As to the more general question posed in the thread: Just discussing the merits of modern scientific theories versus literal interpretation of Bible stories as accounts of the actual history of the world we live in, I like to think the truth matters, but of course that’s a fairly philosophical argument. If half of Americans believe that the human race sprang full-formed from the brow of Zeus within the last 10,000 years then that indicates to me that a large proportion of my fellow citizens are ignorant of the facts, the same as if they think China is a small-ish country in South America between Argentina and Brazil, but it’s still pretty abstract. In the real world, debates over science vs. creationism or I.D. or whatever it’s being called this month tend to happen a.) on Internet message boards, where, sure, nothing that happens is of Earth-shaking significance and b.) in the context of public education. There are very good reasons for opposing letting the I.D. nose of the creationist camel into the tent of public schools, some of which have already been mentioned; I’d just add that the anti-evolution movement in education is very much part of the broader agenda of the “religious right” in this country, which includes all sorts of items which would have a very real effect on the rights and freedoms of actual human beings (women, gays, and potentially even all dissenters from the religious views of Protestant fundamentalists). I think this agenda of the religious right needs to be opposed at all points.
Or, you know, ID’ers are ignorant savages who will lead mankind into a new dark age of superstition, fear and barbarism.
Doctors prescribe antibiotics. Assuming the doctors know what they’re doing, taking a weaker dose or an insufficient one can leave resistent bacteria behind - it’s probably good to not have Joe Patient try to figure this out for themselves. I was talking about the fad for antibacterial cleaning products.
George Carlin has a bit about how he and his friends used to swim in the Hudson River, which was totally filthy. They never worried about polio - the germs were scared of them. Not good science, but a good point.
Sure, but even when creationism is not taught, the fact that evolution is disreputable to a lot of school boards means that many students don’t even have a few weeks of evolution theory. When I was looking at new bio texts for our district, I could read all they had about evolution in five texts in under half an hour. What was there was great (including an interview with Dawkins) but it was not integrated into the curriculum. That’s the danger - that evolution comes across as something like a kidney, nice section but not really related to anything else. I can’t imagine that a text with the proper treatment of evolution would sell to the many districts which would rather ignore it.
That’s one of the practical results of the push for ID.
I don’t know for sure, but I doubt that Behe says a lot about his belief in evolution and the old earth when he speaks to creationist audience. In the Dover trial it came out that he never really reviewed the book he was listed as a reviewer for. When he writes columns for the Times, then he agrees with the real science, of course. I understand - without his creationist fans he’d be just another second level professor, but Behe has always struck me as somewhat immoral because of this.
I hadn’t thought about the cleaning products. But who is driving that fad-- probably the more affluent, well educated parents, don’t you think?
Don’t you live in CA? I haven’t seen the textbooks, but the curriculum reqt’s look OK (not great, just OK). Anyway, you won’t get any argument from me that we could do a much better job educating kids about science in general.
Just a tangential observation - I enjoy these threads very much, because I know relatively little about the details regarding current “debates” about evolution, and because so many here can so convincingly kick the snot out of arguments for ID.
I was a little troubled just now, however, because I went to find a website where these topics might be more thoroughly discussed. I thought I’d google “evolution facts,” and the overwhelming number of sites that came up as a result were for crazy ass ID- and creationist-oriented websites “debunking” evolution. Stuff like, “If something as complex as we are evolved, how come a watch hasn’t evolved too? I mean compared to us, a watch is simple!”
Anyone know of a website that discusses and demolishes current ID-type challenges to evolution?
TalkOrigin Index of Creationist Claims. Easy to understand smackdowns for just about everything I’ve ever come across.
Talkorigins is always a good place to start, Hentor.
From my conflated religous/scientific point of view, “the more sophisticated Intelligent Design types” are sillier than the YECs.
The YECs simply regard the literal bible as axiomatic.
Scientists believe that the Scientific method is axiomatic.
If a religious person can discard the literal interpretations of the bible and accept science, he’s operating on some form of logic and needs to be consistent. If he believes in an omniscient God then why would God need to intervene in the evolutionary process that He designed in the first place. Was He working out the bugs ?
I remember designing comprehensive computer programs back in the 70s to find solutions for general engineering problems. I wasn’t God, so more often than not after running these programs I’d have to rework them to eliminate the bugs.
What would make more sense from a conflated religous/scientific point of view is that God set the whole creation in motion right from the Big Bang. All the God given laws of the universe including time designed to eventually produce homo sapiens. Now that would really be an intelligent creation.
In Moscow on the Hudson, germs afraid of you!
What’s the Onion’s problem with Kansas? 
This one’s not directly on topic, but even funnier IMO.
No, we should teach science for what it is, our best guess given our observations about our surroundings and make it perfectly clear that our best guess can (and historically has been proven to) be very very wrong at times. That’s exactly what science is, a scientific answer can be totally wrong in reality, but it is correct as far as science goes.
Other theories (religion, matrix, little green men, etc.) about the origins of life and the universe don’t fit in a science class unless the science proves it’s existence. That does not mean that other theories should not be taught, but in different courses.
We should only do this in a very general way, and we can cover it when we teach the scientific method. And we shouldn’t teach that science is a “guess” at all. It’s a rigorous process of making generalized statements of the world based on empirical observations and testing. And scienctific theories have never been supplanted by religious doctrine-- it’s the exact opposite that has happened.
We absolutely should not single out one scientific theory, let’s say Evolution by Natural Selection for example, for that treatment as so many anit-evoltuionists want. Science is a procecss of continuously challenging the prevailing orthodoxy, and when a new theory arises it supplants the old one. No problem at all teaching that.
Well the ‘guess’ part comes from extrapolation from the scientific findings to applying them to reality/existence/ or whatever you want to call how our universe really works. Certain assumptums are made, usually in the case of causality.
I think it’s important to emphasize science could be wrong and is just theory, but very important theory, as even when it’s wrong, it’s usually right enough to use. IMHO children should not be told that science is truth. Doing so limits them.
As for origins of man, it crosses over in many subjects, I’d say keep it our of science except for the scientific theory. But ID, creationism, big bang>evolution, or matrix theory can easially be part of other likes of study and certainly have value - if for nothing else to teach the children to explore their minds and existances and to come to their own conclusion.
Yeah, but that’s not a “guess”. It’s an intelligent inference. Calling it a guess makes it sound like any guess is as good as any other guess, and scientists just reach into a hat to pluck out hypotheses.
Again, this “just a theory” stuff is bullshit, and we shouldn’t teach that. That is exactly what the creationists want. We should rationally explain the difference between a hypothesis and a theory, and teach that science is always looking for a better theory or a more generalized theory. Nothing is sacred, but a theory is never “just a theory” anymore than a hypothesis is “just a guess”. Amth and logic deal with issues of truth. Science deals with issues of fact.
Assuming you meant “out” instead of “our”… why? And what do you mean by “except for the scientific theory”? Do you mean it’s too touchy a subject to go into details about (humans and the other apes share a common ancestor)? If so, I can’t agree with that. Science doesn’t hide controversial stuff in a closet because someone might get his panties in a bunch. The fact that humans evolved from earlier, non-human creatures is as much a scientific fact as anything else in biology.
Sorry poor choice of words on my part. Science should be taught in science class for what it is. Theories about big bang and evolution is what science is up to, so they should be taught. ID, Creationism, Matrix theories have little if any findings in science and there is no reason to teach them in science class and they should not be there.
I use the word guess to emphasize that it could be wrong, we will just have to disagree as to introduce science to children.
Just because that’s what creationist want does not automatically make it wrong? - hey they can be right some of the time too. And why bring this up at all? By stating this it just sounds like your just against it because they’re for it instead of going by the issue itself.
This is exactly my point, it’s a scientific ‘fact’ as in that’s what our observations tell us, but it does not make it a true (absolute) fact, it could be true, but it is not the only possibility.
You, me, and the rest of the scientific community. No scientist would say that “guess” is a good synonym for “hypothesis”. A guess is something you do when you have no way of getting the information you need to figure out what the correct answer is. Hypothesis follow observations in science. First you observe, then you hypothesize, then you test the hypothesis. Only hypotheses that have stood up to rigorous, repeatble testing, and have been able to correctly make predictions are accepted as a “theory”. Just to be clear here, do you know the difference between a hypothesis and a theory as those terms are used by scientists?
But it’s not the only reason. There are better ways to teach that concept, so why use the exact wording that people use when they are trying to subvert science to religion? It sounds like you want to pretend to be objective, but really want to play into the hands of the creationists since you are using their language, not the language of science. No scientists says “oh, it’s just a theory”. They might say, “oh, it’s just a hyothesis at this point” when you’re at that stage of the scientific method, but not at the point where we have a theory.
When we teach about the scientific method, we can teach about the difference betwee truth and facts. But we should not pick out one specific theory in science, like the evolution of humans, and subject that to the “truth vs fact” debate. That makes it seem like that specific theory is somehow less factual than the others. Again, you seem to want to slip these nods to creationism in when teaching about human evolution, but not about anything else.
A guess is a very different thing from a theory or hypothesis. I guess which number comes up on a roulette wheel, or the number of jelly beans in a jar. There are either equal chances of a result, or you don’t have adequate information, and need an answer anyhow. A theory is a conclusion based on all the information available at the time, and the quantity and quality of information is adequate to make a decent conclusion.
What you are missing is why creationism is wrong. It is not that their conclusions are wrong, but their methods are wrong also. It is important to teach why science has reached incorrect conclusions in the past. A theory arrived at considering all the information may be wrong, but it is valid. A conclusion guessed at is invalid whether it is wrong or right. Democritus may have guessed right about atoms (in a general sense) but he in no way did it in a reasonable manner.
When new evidence arrives, theories sometimes change, and a theory based on the old evidence is wrong. That’s a lot different from a wrong guess.
The problem with creationists is that they start by assuming the correctness of a source, and refuse to change their conclusions based on evidence. A sect stating that Darwin wrote absolute truth about evolution would be just as wrong in their methods even if their conclusions turned out to match reality.
Science considers this. Any reading made with an instrument is assumed to be imperfect, and statistics is used to get the actual readings from a mass of imperfect readings (and the probabilty of this being wrong is always given.) We’re not guessing or assuming that things fall down - we’re basing our conclusion on countless experiments. Lots of things nonscientists think scientists assume are actually conclusions from such experiments. Look at causality, and how it gets abandoned if the experimental evidence says it doesn’t work.
It’s true that nothing is certain, but that doesn’t mean that anything or everything is assumed.
The difference is simple…
At the end of the lesson for ID… every question is answered with a conclusive “It is/was God’s Will that made it such, end of discussion”
At the end of a lesson in Evolution/Science, every question is answered with “This is how we believe it came to pass… feel free to challenge these assertions with new evidence to the contrary, this is how you go about finding new evidence”