Of course; the children should be taught how to evaluate theories and their presentation with intellectual rigor.
As for the specific example, I’ll bet some-one has a list of structures in cellular organisms that starts with something like a cillium and increases in complexity to the multi-component flagellum.
If not, some high-school biology teacher should develop one. The important lesson in that show was not that ID is re-dressed Creationism, but that lots of people, including people on school boards and children, find the arguments compelling.
One problem is that most high-school compulsory science curricula leave out some thing very important: certain structures and configurations in molecules are thermodynamically more stable.
“The existence of the same structural molecule in so many disparate organisms is evidence of a grand design, and, therefore, Intelligent Design.”
“The existence of the same structural molecule in so many disparate organisms is evidence of a common ancestor, and therefore, evolution.”
No, it is evidence that the bond angles between the atoms and internal electronic forces favor that structure at that pH and that ionic concentration, and, therefore, thermodynamics.
We simplify science to the degree that we actually misrepresent basic concepts to the kids.
But, before I get the t-shirts & bumper stickers made up, what about basic, functional mathematics?
Math is a science, and, I think, 2+2=4 qualifies as truth. How do I reply to that argument?
By asking why your correspondent thinks that math is science.
Generally, science is the investigation of the physical world. Mathematics is a discipline that explores concepts of relationships.
There is a bit of confusion when people use the word “science” (meaning “knowledge”) to describe math, but it is clearly not a physical science.
(One can also get into a philosophical debate over whether 2+2=4 is a truth or something else, but I am staying out of that discussion.)
“Had Mr. Kellener received that money in 1981, like the Democrats wanted, it would only be worth $4.24 today because of inflation,” Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, Jr. said during an official announcement of the economic policy’s success at a press conference Monday. “Instead, Kellener has a solid $10 to spend right here and now. The system works, and our current president intends to keep making it work.”
And if you start knocking Nessie, where is it going to end? Next it’ll be the Sasquatch, the Charleston Mothman, and the Jersey Devil, and pretty soon you’ll be doubting even established cryptozoology finds like Reticulians, La bête du Gévaudan, and the Skunk Ape.
I agree, however, the problem with this (and the problem actually exists as a symptom of the stupidity of the audience) is that it opens the way for lunatics to say “Aha! you’re not sure! Therefore, it’s equally likely that I’m right”
I don’t think you know what the word “theory” means in science. It does not mean “unproven” and it doesn’t mean the truth can’t be known. Would you have a problem teaching the existence of the atom as settled fact? ow about gravity? Those are “just theories” too. Evolution is a directly observed phenomenon. Natural Selection – as an explanation – for the phenomenon and common descent as a necessary inference, represent the “theory” part of the ToE and both of those things are confirmed, proven facts. There is no reason whatever not to teach evolution as known fact unless you want to make the same epistemological equivocations about every other facet of scientific education from astronomy to the germ theory of disease.
DtC hit it on the head…evolution is both fact (observable) and theory (possible reasons why the observable phenomena happens). We can and should be teaching it that way in the schools. Along with at least the rudiments of the scientific method (I think they should use Demon Haunted World as part of the curriculum).
Teach ID in science class??? Um…hell no. As another poster up thread said, you could teach it as part of a philosophy class, sure. But science? It’s not science, why the hell should it be taught there (well, maybe as an example of something that is doesn’t use the scientific method and is psudo-science yet still widely believed).
I find it hard to believe that someone could watch the Nova program on the Dover School District lawsuit and come out of it thinking that “irreducible complexity” is a legitimate idea. Its quite thoroughly debunked in the program, including the flagellum example – it is not irreducable - if you take out one protein you get a different structure which is also functional and also found in nature.
Also within the program it is shown that “intelligent Design” is a “theory that describes the world” in the same way Astrology is – in fact, one of the proponents admitted that on the witness stand.
I suspect the OP did not actually watch the program.
I am new here and do not know the FD, but I thought the question sincere, and a good reminder of the kind of challenges there are to science.
Valgard, I’m reading the thread you linked, but I have trouble with arguments such as 2+2=4 only by definition. If I have two things, and get two more things, I have four things; the only definitions involved are ‘two’, ‘four’, ‘plus’, and ‘equal’. However, I have grasped the point that basic mathematics are analagous to the alphabet, rather than science.
On its own, the question is sincere. But the OP claims to have been inspired in support of ID by watching this particular program, when in fact it methodically debunks the claims.
I too am a bit baffled by the conclusion of the OP. There’s an element of nature that ID proponents claim is irreducably complex. It’s since been shown how this element could evolve. Therefore, we should teach ID?
Feels like there should be a
“2. ???
3. Profit”
in there.
I hesitate to speak for the Dutchman, but I got the impression that this was his first exposure to the general argument of “irreducible complexity” and thought it might be compelling to some. I did not get the impression he was a proponent of ID.
(I did wonder that he seemed to have missed the model of the ‘stinger’ in the plague virus.)
Since you feel the need to challenge my integrity, may I suggest that I quite often doze off for brief periods when I watch tv or I may have been channel switching during NFL football program commercials.
But , as I think about it, I never dozed off when I was in science class, and if this ID misinformation is a serious problem for America then I suggest it should be addressed head on in science class with the facts. This issue did not exist when I went to school.
I don’t think a teleivision program is very helpful when one wants to get to the nuts and bolts of the truth, Colour me unimpressed with seeing a mouse trap on a neck tie.
So, based on snippets of a television show, you wish to add Intelligent Design to the already complicated science program our children have to go through, even after it has been pointed out that the program actually came out against it?
ID is only a “serious problem” for people who don’t understand science. There is no need to teach crackpot hypothesis like ID in a science class. First, there are too many of them, and second, there is nothing substantive to teach about ID. It’s a baseless criticism of evolution, and makes not positive assertions itself. We don’t know anything about this alleged designer, how “he” works, or when “he” works. If they proposed that the designer was a giant spider living on Jupiter, at least that would be something you could test.
This was an excellent show and they did an excellent job getting at the nuts and bolts. Maybe you should consider watching it again.