Meet Your Neighbors - USM Forum -- Message Board

Date: Aug 23, 2005

RE: Meet Your Neighbors

Date: Aug 23, 2005

Outvoted wrote:

Scientist wrote: the public are "fair minded" and don't understand that all opinions are not respected in science. Then I guess it would be impossible for Larry King to put together a panel on this topic that scientists would respect.

Probably not. Maybe a panel of scientist answering questions about science would help. Or a panel explaining and correcting each incorrect statement of the I.D. folks. But the subject of the I.D. folks isn't science so the issues get into philosophy very quickly. The scientists would need to educate the public about the methods of science before they could understand what the point is.

Why doesn't anyone question why this isn't discussed in college science class before high school? That is a clue of what the agenda is.

Date: Aug 23, 2005

Scientist wrote:

That is a clue of what the agenda is.

If the four non- scientist panel members advocated teaching religion in the public schools, whether taught in a science class or anywhere else within the public school curriculum, then Larry King's staff did a poor job in assembling a panel. A panel constituted in that manner would very likely have an adenda and the main issues would be obscured. There are many articulate scholars who subscribe to creationism in the Biblical sense but who vehemently oppose teaching it in the public schools.

Date: Aug 23, 2005

Scientist wrote:

USM Sympathizer wrote: FWIW, the current issue of The New Republic carries a very long and extremely interesting article on intelligent design; the issue can be viewed (and downloaded) here: http://www.tnr.com/ Thanks USM Sympathizer. I checked the link but couldn't find the article. Can you please help direct me.

It isn't a link per se, but over on the left hand side of the page is a copy of the front cover of the August 22 and 29 double issue; it is yellow in color and shows a drawing based on Blake's image of God. If you click on that cover, apparently you can download the whole issue as a PDF file. I am reading the article right now in the actual magazine, and it is quite thorough and impressive. The main link is www.tnr.com

Hope you can access the article; it's very much worth reading.

Date: Aug 23, 2005

Sorry! Even though it plainly says "download this issue," when you click on the cover I described you are merely taken to a page that allows you to subscribe to the magazine in order to download the issue. (This is deceptive advertising, IMHO.) That's a shame, because the article is one of the best I have read in a long time: very clear, and extremely comprehensive. Since you cannot access it, I will simply say that it makes mincemeat of intelligent design.

Date: Aug 23, 2005

USM Sympathizer wrote:

mincemeat

I understand that term, but does Scientist?

Date: Aug 23, 2005

I watched the Larry King late night rebroadcast. The scientist sat there most of the time like she was in a fog. When she did speak it was largely argumentative. I think the discussion was over her head. The topic also seemed to be over the head of one of the other presenters. Larry King, as usual, was probing and appeared to be unbiased. Nobody said that religion should be taught in the public schools. For the most part the entire program was spent rehashing a non issue and I think the presenters knew that.

Date: Aug 24, 2005

Lost in this debate is the fact that there is nothing in our world that can, in reality, be separated from anything else. Religion, science, politics, business, literature, art, music, medicine, law, etc., etc., etc., are all intertwined in our society and (in many instances) to attempt to discuss one of these without discussing some of the others is pretty futile.

I understand that scientists wish to keep the debate on a purely scientific level, and that would be OK for a science classroom. However, Larry King Live is not a science classroom. It is a microcosm of our society where all of the aforementioned topics arise and are discussed, sometimes simultaneously.

Date: Aug 24, 2005

Disk Q wrote:

there is nothing in our world that can, in reality, be separated from anything else.

Buddhism forever!

Date: Aug 24, 2005

C.L.--'Intelligent design' just isn't scientific

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050824/OPINION/508240311/1009

Date: Aug 24, 2005

Cookbook wrote:

mincemeat I understand that term, but does Scientist?

Yes, it's an old scientific term meaning to "grind into small pieces". If this is done to an argument, then the argument can't "stand".

Date: Aug 24, 2005

Reporter wrote:

C.L.--'Intelligent design' just isn't scientific http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050824/OPINION/508240311/1009

Letters like this say keep saying the same old, same old, same old, as if the writer is not absolutely sure about the matter and is trying to convince himself.

Date: Aug 24, 2005

Outvoted wrote:

Scientist wrote: That is a clue of what the agenda is. If the four non- scientist panel members advocated teaching religion in the public schools, whether taught in a science class or anywhere else within the public school curriculum, then Larry King's staff did a poor job in assembling a panel. A panel constituted in that manner would very likely have an adenda and the main issues would be obscured. There are many articulate scholars who subscribe to creationism in the Biblical sense but who vehemently oppose teaching it in the public schools.

Outvoted, The panel (I forgot all the names) had the professor (Depak?) who a book on "consciousness" and a fundamentalist preacher with Larry King. Connected by satellite was a congressman, a "scientist" from the Discovery Institute and a regular scientist or science teacher. So it was 4 to 1, not counting Larry King.

The congressman was a christian, but against teaching this in high school. The I.D. people are afraid of the backlash and only state, " all facts should be presented to students, both evidence for and against evolution. Then, if the teacher wants, they should be allowed to discuss alternative theories. However, nothing should be mandated."

The problem is there is no evidence against evolution, otherwise it would be falsified. There are no competing theories.

My question is: It what other discipline does the public determine curriculum in spite of the professors/experts recommendations?

Date: Aug 24, 2005

Scientist wrote:

The problem is there is no evidence against evolution, otherwise it would be falsified. There are no competing theories.

Therein lie the problems. The theory is not falsifiable and there are no competing theories.

Date: Aug 24, 2005

Disk Q wrote:

Lost in this debate is the fact that there is nothing in our world that can, in reality, be separated from anything else. Religion, science, politics, business, literature, art, music, medicine, law, etc., etc., etc., are all intertwined in our society and (in many instances) to attempt to discuss one of these without discussing some of the others is pretty futile. I understand that scientists wish to keep the debate on a purely scientific level, and that would be OK for a science classroom. However, Larry King Live is not a science classroom. It is a microcosm of our society where all of the aforementioned topics arise and are discussed, sometimes simultaneously.

I find this interesting, Disk Q. However I must respectfully disagree with this in part. I don't think science (based on objective evidence and precise logical arguments using mathematics) has any connection to religion (dogma based on faith). These are two different methods of thought. One is as old as Man and the other is relatively new.

The problem, I believe, is the average public doesn't realize the scientist isn't using 'regular English language" but a very precise, objectively defined language. The words seem the same on the surface, but they are not. This is made very clear, for example, when each side uses the word "Theory".

But I would be extremely interested in hearing how you think science and religion are related. I'm sorry if I may have misunderstood your point.

Finally, don't you think the debate should be kept "strictly on a scientific level" if we are discussing what should be taught in a science class? Are we going to ask the public what to teach in medical schools too? Why not? Where is the difference?

For me the debate is very technical because there is no debate over this in science. The debate occurs in public only because people confuse and conflate very technical issues.

Date: Aug 24, 2005

Scientist wrote: The problem is there is no evidence against evolution, otherwise it would be falsified.

Science 101 wrote: There are no competing theories. Therein lie the problems. The theory is not falsifiable and there are no competing theories.

Science 101, you must have misunderstood what I said. Evolution is very falsifiable. It has made many predictions of the fossil record, comparative anatomy, genetic sequences, geographical distribution of species, etc., and these predictions have been verified many times over. It could have failed many times. If, as the person suggested, there is evidence against it, then that would mean it failed in a prediction.

In addition, there is no other theory that can make these kinds of predictions.

Date: Aug 24, 2005

Scientist wrote:

The debate occurs in public only because people confuse and conflate very technical issues.

Like accreditation, this evolution debate is very technical stuff!

Date: Aug 24, 2005

Scientsit wrote:

It has made many predictions of the fossil record, comparative anatomy, genetic sequences, geographical distribution of species, etc., and these predictions have been verified many times over.

Based on observation and measurement. You'd think a study as old as evolution would have outgrown the observational level and reached the level of experimention by now.

Date: Aug 24, 2005

Science 101 wrote:

You'd think a study as old as evolution would have outgrown the observational level and reached the level of experimention by now.

Who said that it hadn't? Good grief, the basic biology text books are full of current molecular support from experimentation that furthers our understanding of evolution. We're talking high school and college intro courses - not cutting edge research!

Date: Aug 24, 2005

Science 101 wrote:

Based on observation and measurement. You'd think a study as old as evolution would have outgrown the observational level and reached the level of experimention by now.

The Theory of Evolution is only about 160 years old. What do you mean by "reached the level of experimentation by now"? It has. I don't understand you comment.

Are you implying that scientist haven't observed new species evolve? I think they have.

Question: Do you think geologist don't know how mountains form because no one has observed a mountain evolve?

Date: Aug 24, 2005

Part of the issue is that much of the current (frankly, past 5 decades) research is molecular and we are not doing a very good job preparing students to understand the biochemical basis of heredity. Heck, wasn't it Jack Hanbury who recently said in a letter to the editor that organic molecules could not be manufactured from inorganic materials? In public school education, we are moving some of the basics (cells, ecology) down to the lower grades but I'm not sure that we're doing enough to follow up on that move by teaching more molecular biology in the higher grades.

Date: Aug 24, 2005

i generally only skim this thread, but another list i'm on had a contribution from someone on the issue of intelligent design. The following is a comment he made that made me chuckle:

If the "designer" were "intelligent," we'd have been born with teeth that don't rot, with glands that don't become hyper and hypo, with brains that don't fossilize during our lifetimes, with muscles that don't atrophy, and with motivational systems that increase the probability of our survival, not of our destruction.

Date: Aug 24, 2005

Biology Teacher wrote:

Part of the issue is that much of the current (frankly, past 5 decades) research is molecular and we are not doing a very good job preparing students to understand the biochemical basis of heredity. Heck, wasn't it Jack Hanbury who recently said in a letter to the editor that organic molecules could not be manufactured from inorganic materials? In public school education, we are moving some of the basics (cells, ecology) down to the lower grades but I'm not sure that we're doing enough to follow up on that move by teaching more molecular biology in the higher grades.

I agree Biology Teacher. I think the problem is the way we teach science. We should have Math every year of H.S. , three years of Physics and two of Chemistry. Then the students will be able to understand the most complicated systems in the universe, the living systems of biology. I hear that is the way it is taught in the rest of the world.

When we teach Biology first, before Chemistry and Physics, all the students can do is memorize because they don't know the laws of science. They then think memorizing is understanding and have no clue about logical reasoning.

Sorry for my rant, but I now feel better.

Date: Aug 24, 2005

stinky cheese man wrote:

i generally only skim this thread, but another list i'm on had a contribution from someone on the issue of intelligent design. The following is a comment he made that made me chuckle: If the "designer" were "intelligent," we'd have been born with teeth that don't rot, with glands that don't become hyper and hypo, with brains that don't fossilize during our lifetimes, with muscles that don't atrophy, and with motivational systems that increase the probability of our survival, not of our destruction.

Thanks, SCM, that's a good one point concentrating on what does "intelligent" means.

Date: Aug 24, 2005

Scientist wrote:

I agree Biology Teacher. I think the problem is the way we teach science. We should have Math every year of H.S. , three years of Physics and two of Chemistry. Then the students will be able to understand the most complicated systems in the universe, the living systems of biology. I hear that is the way it is taught in the rest of the world. When we teach Biology first, before Chemistry and Physics, all the students can do is memorize because they don't know the laws of science. They then think memorizing is understanding and have no clue about logical reasoning. Sorry for my rant, but I now feel better.

I agree with you about math, chemistry, and physics but I take exception to "biology as memorization" because when it is taught well, it is all about understanding complex conceptual material.

Date: Aug 24, 2005

As an example, there is a huge difference between asking students to simply memorize the steps of the light reaction and Calvin cycle in photosynthesis or glycolysis and Kreb's cycle in respiration and expecting them to demonstrate understanding of energy transformation and efficiencies.

Thanks Scientist for the opportunity to return the rant. I care passionately about this stuff and am bothered by the anti-intellectual direction we seem to be heading in as a society. I have appreciated the conversation with you.

Date: Aug 24, 2005

Scientist wrote:

I don't understand you comment. Are you implying that scientist haven't observed new species evolve? I think they have. Question: Do you think geologist don't know how mountains form because no one has observed a mountain evolve?

Scientist, we may have to start at the beginning (no pun intended). Do you understand the difference between an experimental study and a correlational (observational) study as they pertain to cause-effect relationships?

Date: Aug 24, 2005

stinky cheese man wrote:

If the "designer" were "intelligent," we'd have been born with teeth that don't rot

the designer did see to it that we have teeth. It's up to us to take care of them. you're expecting far too much from the designer. he also gave us a brain, you know.

Date: Aug 24, 2005

sugar baby wrote:

stinky cheese man wrote: If the "designer" were "intelligent," we'd have been born with teeth that don't rot the designer did see to it that we have teeth. It's up to us to take care of them. you're expecting far too much from the designer. he also gave us a brain, you know.

Though, obviously, not all brains are alike. The ignorance being supported by the current thief-in-chief of the US with this intelligent design/creationism crap is simply amazing. G-d deliver us from your followers!

Date: Aug 24, 2005

Science 101 wrote:

Therein lie the problems. The theory is not falsifiable and there are no competing theories.

Why don't you try a course in Logic 101? The assertion that there is no evidence against evolution does not mean that the theory is not falsifiable. It means that evolution is not in any danger of being falsified ... right now.

Who knows what will be discovered tomorrow?

The fact that there are no competing scientific theories to explain biogenesis simply tells you that there is currently no need for them. Consult a little tome called The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by T.S. Kuhn some time. When a theory base (Kuhn calls it a "paradigm" but that term has been co-opted by the touchy-feelies) is working adequately to explain (predict or post-dict) the evidence, there generally are no competing theories, because none are needed.

Science doesn't invent theories because somebody wants a new theory. New theories arise because they are needed.

Intelligent design isn't "needed." It doesn't explain something that evolution doesn't already do a more than adequate job explaining. And ID violates Occam's razor, because it requires an utterly untestable assumption -- the existence of a Supreme Cosmic Intelligence (God, by another name).

No, ID isn't "needed." It is "wanted" ... it is wanted by people who have a broader political & social agenda. This is why ID proponents picked a particular area in education (K-12 curriculum) that is known to be vulnerable to local political pressure as their target.