Whom to Pit: Bush or the Press? (Re: Bush's support for teaching Intelligent Design)

The BBQ Pit
41

Oh, as to the OP:

I’d pit 'em both. The popular news media is attrociously inadequate comes to reporting anything of substantive use on the subject of science, the claims of scientists, or the practice of science. They’re probably the single biggest source of misunderstanding, and I’d like to bury any number of chief editors up to their necks in a tide zone on the Galapagos islands, and make them swear to hire competant scientists as senior membors of their editorial staff to review any and all such articles. Either that, or I watch the tide come under a lovely sunset, and let the gulls drown out their screams.

However, there’s a particularly deep, hot, fiery corner of the pit in which I’d slowly baste Bush in a reeking broth of anaerobic thermophillic sulfur-reducing methanogens for his chronic religiomania, and the way in which he serially and wantonly defecates on the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

42

What do you mean by dead-ends? Species that haven’t evolved significantly over however many million years? Are you saying such an observation is compatible with Intelligent Design but not with Evolution via Natural Selection?

With regard to falsifiability: the claim that a specific organism demonstrates irreducible complexity could certainly be falsified, but this doesn’t falsify Intelligent Design as a whole, because ID proponents can just say: OK, maybe that one evolved, but there are other organisms that couldn’t possibly have evolved via mutation and natural selection. You acknowledge that ID as a whole can’t be falsified, but say the same is true for Darwinian Evolution. How so? Wouldn’t proof of any organism being irreducibly complex falsify the claim that all life arose via Darwinian Evolution?

43

in what way does Greek gods slinging evolution particles at each other through a hidden dimension explain how violins, violi, and celli should be voiced?

44

(I need an editor, too. Sorry: I posted in hastily in something of a pique, without proofreading, per usual with such subjects.)

45

Y’know, it is with a sense of sincere and deep discouragement, nay, abject depression that I observe these philosophers could use a pit thread of their own.

46

Also, even if intelligent design were a legitimate scientific theory, I think it’s undeniable that there’s an overwhelming disparity between the amount of evidence in support of evolution and the amount of evidence in support of intelligent design. And yet people want to essentially give them equal time? Even though I don’t think ID is science, and I think teaching it gives students a false impression of what science is, I’d still almost be willing to allow them to teach ID if they spent time on each “theory” in proportion to the evidence to support it. In other words, several weeks pouring over the evidence that supports evolution, and then maybe 20 minutes discussing the ID objections to it. And that’s being more than generous.

47

That is one harsh article. It doesn’t, of course, mention that Einstein himself thought that the cosmological constant was the greatest mistake he had ever made.

48

Pit them both, I’d say.

ID is not science, and it would be highly irresponsible, and furthermore unconstitutional, to teach it in the classroom. Concepts of ID stem from adherents of religion trying to justify themselves; there is no mainstream science backing of any sort for ID, and for good reason. ID is about promoting monotheistic religion, backed by people try to push a monotheistic agenda, and not science.

Along the way, I’m pitting Liberal for his typically egregious brand of debate non-helpfulness.

49

I fail to see how you’d fill 20 minutes with “goddidit.”

50

Um, why, exactly?

String theory isn’t comparable to Intelligent Design, because it isn’t setting up a hypothesis with no real experimental support in opposition to a falsifiable theory with boatloads of empirical support. Instead, it’s proposing a hypothesis where no confirmed theory exists, and then trying to find a way to turn it into a falsifiable theory. Should they stop working on string theory until it’s experimentally testable (even though it may be that theoretical developments are necessary to make it experimentally testable)?

Plus, no one is suggesting string theory be taught to children as a scientific theory, at a time when they are still learning what science is and what it is not.

51

Here is an excellent link for rebutting that particular canard.

52

ID does not make any scientific objections to evolution. Scientifically speaking, there simply isn’t any controversy and evolution as a theory does not have any problems or holes. There are no valid critiques. There is nothing to teach as an alternative that wouldn’t either be pure religion or outright lying (and teaching “Irreducible complexity” would be lying.)

53

Maeglin,

This could turn into a major hijack, so, I say, if you wish to persue it, I’ll gladly participate in another thread. It pains me too much to see the highest echelons of the academy involved in such nonsense to do much more than be bitter about it. I’ll say this, and no more:

That article wasn’t nearly harsh enough. As for the cosmological constant, Einstein indeed made a mistake, because at the time he fudged the constant to force the universe to fit a preconceived and evidentially-shakey notion of how it ought to behave. His theory, as it was, predicted another picture entirely, and evidence demonstrated he was doing fine before he succumbed to prejudice.

As it stands presently (and Einstein couldn’t really have known), his fix for the perceived problem, while lacking a good rationale at the time, was a logical necessity, for no less than the fact there was no good reason to exclude a cosmological constant. In an almost eerie fashion, physicists have shown that relativistic quantum field theory necessitates a cosmological constant by predicting that even a vacuum has energy. It reminds me of something Murray Gell-Mann said: “Whatever isn’t forbidden is required!” The trouble is, without some mechanism that exactly cancels out this vacuum energy, current quantum theory is off by a minimum value of about 10[sup]60[/sup]. IOW, present quantum theory predicts the universe would blow every point in space apart to infinite extent almost instantaneously after a Big Bang, and not even atoms would have time to coalesce. That’s about the biggest predictive failure scientists have ever worked so hard to produce. Worse, it’s almost certain now (based on excellent astronomical observation) that there is a cosmological constant, having a magnitude (especially compared to the predicted value) of relatively-close-to-but-not-quite zero. There is no good explanation for this. Either there should be zero net vacuum energy, current theory tells us, or an amount so fantastically, absurdly huge that prediction bears absolutely no resemblance to the universe we observe. It’s the worst problem of “fine-tuning” in physics.

I’d say the greatest source of Hope for folks at places like the Discovery Institute that scientists will be forced by sheer weight of reason to consider the idea that the universe was created, yea, designed for humanity to inhabit.

Thus far, String Theorists have apparently painted themselves into a corner such that the only good “prediction” of the universe’s properties they can come up with requires a pernicious form of the anthropic principle, but soften the theistic or deistic potential of this revelation by “predicting” the existence of, at least, 10[sup]500[/500] vacua, one of which we inhabit, none of the others which might even, in principle, be subject to evidential scrutiny. They call this picture “The Landscape”. I call this “pernicious” because, as I alluded to two sentences ago, getting the evidence of extra dimensions String Theory absolutely relies upon could require energies quite simply unattainable by mortals. Some String theorists, in the face of this, are even starting to claim that at least some scientific theories (maybe only theirs) needn’t be falsifiable. I didn’t make that up. I see such madness not so much as a problem of philosphy as one of definition; i.e. if something isn’t falsifiable, how in the Hell can you call it science? Perhaps inadvertantly, IMO, they’re doing the Discovery Institute’s dirty work for them.

54

Maybe I’m misunderstanding you. Can you give an example of what you’re talking about?

55

It is unclear how that contradicts what I said.

Not only does it not cause anything, it does not determine anything either.

56

I suppose so. It is reasonable to assume that the muses are playing their harps as the gods frolick. :slight_smile:

57

No. Both sides review the same data, but interpret it differently. Whenever an hypothesis is proved false, however, it is encumbent on the other side to concede that particular point. Dead-end describes an organ or organism for which there is no ancestral organ or organism.

Yes it would. But it has already been discovered that natural selection is not the only mechanism of evolution. Genetic drift is one other.

58

Loopydude,

I am in fact very interested in this stuff, though I hardly boast strong credentials. I am aware of the enormous fine-tuning problem and of the astronomical evidence from the 90s that points to a tiny but nonzero cosmological constant (L).

It seemed to me that some of the biggest guns in string theory did not weigh in very heavily in the NYT article. Witten himself just expressed caution in the face of irrational exuberance.

It is my understanding that the anthropic principle was only one of string theory’s possible answers to the fine-tuning problem? I also thought I understood that when more is learned about the actual specification of the manifolds that lie about the curled-up dimensions, we will be able to generate testable hypotheses that won’t require a particle accelerator as long as the earth’s orbit around the sun.

Clearly I need to do some more reading.

59

Both sides refer to the exact same evidence. Their differences are matters of interpretation. My problem with dogmatism in science is that it smacks of religion and politics. What is the difference between forbidding Galileo from questioning the status quo and preventing any other student from doing so?

60

Gah. If you care to make an argument, then do so. But linking me to a page of links is slothfully Neanderthal. Here is my rebuttal to your rebuttal.