Ayatollahs in the classroom [Evolution and Creationism]

Berkshire Eagle (Mass.) ^ | 22 January 2005 | Staff

[PatrickHenry]

A movement to drag the teaching of science in the United States back into the Dark Ages continues to gain momentum. So far, it's a handful of judges -- "activist judges" in the view of their critics -- who are preventing the spread of Saudi-style religious dogma into more and more of America's public-school classrooms.

The ruling this month in Georgia by Federal District Judge Clarence Cooper ordering the Cobb County School Board to remove stickers it had inserted in biology textbooks questioning Darwin's theory of evolution is being appealed by the suburban Atlanta district. Similar legal battles pitting evolution against biblical creationism are erupting across the country. Judges are conscientiously observing the constitutionally required separation of church and state, and specifically a 1987 Supreme Court ruling forbidding the teaching of creationism, a religious belief, in public schools. But seekers of scientific truth have to be unnerved by a November 2004 CBS News poll in which nearly two-thirds of Americans favored teaching creationism, the notion that God created heaven and earth in six days, alongside evolution in schools.

If this style of "science" ever took hold in U.S. schools, it is safe to say that as a nation we could well be headed for Third World status, along with everything that dire label implies. Much of the Arab world is stuck in a miasma of imam-enforced repression and non-thought. Could it happen here? Our Constitution protects creativity and dissent, but no civilization has lasted forever, and our current national leaders seem happy with the present trends.

It is the creationists, of course, who forecast doom if U.S. schools follow a secularist path. Science, however, by its nature, relies on evidence, and all the fossil and other evidence points toward an evolved human species over millions of years on a planet tens of millions of years old [ooops!] in a universe over two billion years in existence [ooops again!].

Some creationists are promoting an idea they call "intelligent design" as an alternative to Darwinism, eliminating the randomness and survival-of-the-fittest of Darwinian thought. But, again, no evidence exists to support any theory of evolution except Charles Darwin's. Science classes can only teach the scientific method or they become meaningless.

Many creationists say that teaching Darwin is tantamount to teaching atheism, but most science teachers, believers as well as non-believers, scoff at that. The Rev. Warren Eschbach, a professor at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg, Pa., believes that "science is figuring out what God has already done" and the book of Genesis was never "meant to be a science textbook for the 21st century." Rev. Eschbach is the father of Robert Eschbach, one of the science teachers in Dover, Pa., who refused to teach a school-board-mandated statement to biology students criticizing the theory of evolution and promoting intelligent design. Last week, the school district gathered students together and the statement was read to them by an assistant superintendent.

Similar pro-creationist initiatives are underway in Texas, Wisconsin and South Carolina. And a newly elected creationist majority on the state board of education in Kansas plans to rewrite the entire state's science curriculum this spring. This means the state's public-school science teachers will have to choose between being scientists or ayatollahs -- or perhaps abandoning their students and fleeing Kansas, like academic truth-seekers in China in the 1980s or Tehran today.

[WildTurkey]

Good. I was using that as a hypothetical example. By "you" I meant any person. I cannot say God did not speak to you either.

But at least one of the Three of us is in error.

[WildTurkey]

It will hurt them to misrepresent science as being equivalent to dogma which does not allow for any revision in its findings or challenges to its premises.

This is what I really detest about you creationists. You deliberately distort the situation inorder to make you argument seem credible. Geez. That is NOT what is being taught and you know it. The kids are taught the scientific method which you totally ignore and substitute "alarmist" language into the discussion. Get real.

[unlearner]

"This is what I really detest about you creationists. You deliberately distort the situation in order to make you [sic] argument seem credible. Geez. That is NOT what is being taught and you know it. The kids are taught the scientific method which you totally ignore and substitute 'alarmist' language into the discussion. Get real."

Wrong. I am not being an alarmist. A judge just ruled that it is unconstitutional for legislators to require textbooks explaining evolution to include a sticker that informs students that evolution is ONLY a theory and that there are other views of the origins of life. A judge ruled that the sticker MUST not be included

This is outrageous. There is nothing scientific about this kind of dogmatism.

This same kind of PC science is systematically silencing dissenting views across many professions, not just regarding evolution, but regarding other scientific inquiry as well. Things like the social impact of homosexuality or whether homosexuality is learned or can be unlearned, or whether there is a global warming crisis, or whether an embryo is a human life.

It is against my beliefs to coerce anyone to follow them. But presenting information is not coercion. Further, participation in a web forum like this one is only possible where the laws of society regard freedom as an inherent, God-given right.

And I am all for teaching the scientific method since faith rather than dogma is essential to using it.

[VadeRetro]

Feel free to correct my misunderstanding of your views.

Your version describes consequences but leaves out meat and mechanism. Here's my own attempt to capture the essentials of classical Darwinism:

The life we see on Earth is the result of common descent diversifying through variation and natural selection.

The keywords, at any rate, are common descent (which you got), and "variation and natural selection" (the mechanism of diversification, which you omitted.)

But you did far better than most of your brethren do, mostly because it's important for strawmanning purposes to not get it so they don't. Miss the basics, and you're free to misunderstand higher-level properties of evolution, things like:

• Populations evolve. One particular dinosaur does not suddenly one day lay an egg and hatch out a bird.
• Ancestor species are allowed to stay around even if somewhere a descendant species is evolving away from them. The world is a big place and there can be room for both.
• Evolutionary changes are gradual, even in latter-day theories like punctuated equilibrium. A fruit fly will not become a mouse in one experimenter's lifetime.

Your definition of science, "a systematic investigation of nature", is inadequate.

I was defining science, I wasn't writing a description of the scientific method.

For every hypothesis, there must be one or more axioms which are ASSUMED to be true.

You're just wiggling back toward hard facts being anything you want them to be because you want to ASSUME true what science keeps finding is untrue. The Earth is not young, sorry. Species do not appear to be separately created in discrete events, sorry.

OK. Maybe you have discussed evolution with 8,000 creationists, and found they were all lacking in a basic understanding of science. So, maybe it was fair to assume the next one you talk to will be the same. Just don't get stuck in that rut, or you'll be as guilty of dogmatism as the ones you are debating.

Try samping 8,000 in a row from a population, getting the same resulte 8,000 times, and not expecting the next one is another one.

I despise evolution being categorized with a true science like physics.

I'm sure you do, but you have a religious horror of evolution. You could have truncated the sentence after three words and it would still have been true. That colors your judgment on the matter.

Let's get down to brass tax.

Those would be tacks. (I know, I know! I'm as bad as anyone.)

What I really want to ask is, "How do you think a person can KNOW anything?"

By not chucking the accumulated efforts of science out the window, but rather learning some of it. If you look about you, we're not huddling in smoke-filled caves roasting bison cuts on a stick. Science converges upon an increasingly accurate description of nature and it works. To keep it up, though, to keep pushing the envelope, we have to accurately digest what the previous generation is trying to hand off to us.

[WildTurkey]

Wrong. I am not being an alarmist.

Then let's look at your statement. While technically true, it implies that that is what we are doing since that is your premis for change and for the sticker. At least admit that what you wrote is NOT what is being represented to the students.

It will hurt them to misrepresent science as being equivalent to dogma which does not allow for any revision in its findings or challenges to its premises.

A judge just ruled that it is unconstitutional for legislators to require textbooks explaining evolution to include a sticker that informs students that evolution is ONLY a theory

Students are taught what a theory is and that evolution is a theory. No need for a sticker to repeat that.

and that there are other views of the origins of life.

There you go again!

[unlearner]

Thanks for correcting the misuse of "tax". "Tacks" does make a lot more sense. Usually I have the reverse problem - mispronouncing words that I have only seen in print.

" You're just wiggling back toward hard facts being anything you want them to be because you want to ASSUME..."

Not really. I am trying to establish a principle. Regardless of our position, we must make ASSUMPTIONS before we begin, as you described, "a systematic investigation of nature". That is why your definition is incomplete even without getting into the method of inquiry. I suppose we could presume "investigation" to broadly include hypothesis, observation, testing, deduction and induction. So I will not press this point any further.

Regarding how anyone can KNOW anything, you responded, "By not chucking the accumulated efforts of science out the window, but rather learning some of it."

You are being too specific to the issue of evolution. I am asking more generally about ANYTHING. For example, how do we KNOW what happened on 9/11? One person in this forum, on your side of the evolution debate, claims he KNOWS what happened scientifically.

But I submit that since we did not directly observe the events in question, we KNOW what happened historically. We can test our assumptions of HOW the events unfolded by using science. But it would be ridiculous to assume we could recreate all the details of the events using scientific testing alone. We know about the details of a particular cell phone call because it was recorded on tape. But details that were not recorded become nothing more than educated guesswork.

"That colors your judgment on the matter."

Yes. It does. That does not make it incorrect.

There are two issues you have not addressed that are the heart of the matter. One, how a person KNOWS anything, philosophically speaking. Two, how that FAITH is a part of theory because we must rely on axioms we ASSUME to be true.

Do you only KNOW something if you personally experience it? Obviously you deny this because, as you pointed out, we learn from the generations before us. But what about today? How much information do you rely on that is provided by others' experiences. Is their experience firsthand, or are they relying on others' experiences also?

ALL scientific theories have axioms. Those axioms must be accepted by FAITH. Do you know what the axioms of evolution are?

A scientific theory can be "true" within the bounds of the theory without being true in the real world. For example, Euclidean geometry is "true" as long as you are discussing points and lines, which are imaginary. These do not correspond directly to reality and are therefore not precisely true. (Though they may be approximately correct.)

Even if the axioms of evolution are correct, the theory itself is not provable the way other scientific theories are. Yes, it may be falsifiable. But that test does not rise to the level which we can apply to a theory like electromagnetism. A big problem with falsifiability is that the theory can simply be modified to fit newly discovered data. For example, if a dinosaur bone fragment was found caught in the throat of a human fossil, and the bone revealed teeth marks that matched the human, evolutionary theory would probably need some adjustments. But be assured, it would not die out. In fact, many evolutionists would insist the finding was a hoax simply because it contradicts their assumptions. Others would begin speculating that maybe a frozen dinosaur had thawed and was eaten many millions of years later.

But a major reason to reject evolution being taught as fact has to do with the process of scientific investigation. Our ability to extrapolate meaning from accumulated data into a model of either past or future events becomes less reliable over time. This is why we can predict weather reasonably well for a few days in advance, but our predictions become less and less accurate as they look further into the future.

But not only does evolution require reliance on axioms which cannot be proved, the extrapolation of historical records far into the past, but we must ASSUME the CAUSE of the supposed historical events.

That animals and humans share similar characteristics is a matter of observation. It is also a fact that we share DNA coding. The question of WHY is the subject of debate.

To conclude that animals and people inherited our DNA from the SAME ancestry is merely hypothetical. This hypothesis has no greater merit on the surface than the idea that the DNA is similar because living things had the same DESIGNER.

Your reply was well-reasoned, but it remains for you to address the two main issues of KNOWLEDGE and FAITH.

[unlearner]

I get your point differentiating between origins of life and origins of species. For Creationists (not necessarily including all ID persuasions) these occurred at the same time. I will try to refrain from making them equivalent for the point of our discussion, since that is a premise you do not accept.

You may need some additional details on the court order I mentioned earlier.

On January 13, a federal judge in Georgia ordered that stickers that had been placed in textbooks stating, "Evolution is a theory, not fact," be removed. He claimed such criticisms of evolution are an endorsement of religion and a violation of separation of church and state.

In light of this ruling can you see why I and many others are concerned about the dogmatism of many evolutionists?

Even if evolution IS true, do you want your scientific theory to be hijacked by leftist, anti-religious tyrants and used as a pretext to undermine parental rights and indoctrinate children to reject their family's faith?

[VadeRetro]

How do we know ANYTHING? It could be that basically everything is an illusion. The idea can't be disproven. Heck! It might be true.

But it isn't useful. It doesn't go anywhere. It doesn't help you with anything. It isn't testable. At least, there is no test which, by failing to support it, casts any doubt upon it. Any failure to unveil the illusion is just the illusion WORKING, you see.

What we actually do is judge knowledge by whether it works. Occam's Razor comes in here. One way to think of it is that most things are what they look like. Until you have reason to suspect otherwise, what looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck is a duck. It might not be a duck, really, but until you hear the clockwork motor grinding or detect something else that doesn't fit, that's the way to go.

Everything in science is reasoned that way. It contains useful, testable ideas selected over others on a basis of the preponderance of evidence. There's a current picture and old discarded stuff is not given equal time, however unfair that may seem.

[WildTurkey]

On January 13, a federal judge in Georgia ordered that stickers that had been placed in textbooks stating, "Evolution is a theory, not fact,"

It seems you have conveniently "misquoted" the sticker ...

[WildTurkey]

In light of this ruling can you see why I and many others are concerned about the dogmatism of many evolutionists?

Yes. I remember how upset a lot of religious fanatics were when scientists said the world was not flat ...

[unlearner]

It is not misquoted. It is a partial quote though. Here is exactly what is on the sticker:



"I remember how upset a lot of religious fanatics were when scientists said the world was not flat ..."

You remember that happening? I will assume you mean that you remember reading or hearing that this happened.

Do you realize that it was not only RELIGIOUS people who held that view, it was also RELIGIOUS people who challenged it? Your analogy is not much different than those who try to argue Christianity is evil as evidenced by what Muslims did on 9/11.

That evolutionists feel threatened by this sticker defies all logic and reason. If you cannot even concede the issue of this judge's ruling being wrong, you are even more dogmatic than I would have guessed.

[WildTurkey]

It is not misquoted. It is a partial quote though.

It IS misquoted because it was NOT complete. The rest of the sentence defined the context of the first part FALSELY. But of course you already knew that ...

[WildTurkey]

If you cannot even concede the issue of this judge's ruling being wrong, you are even more dogmatic than I would have guessed.

Concerning the sticker. If you agree that evolution is theory as the first part says, then why put a sticker on a textbook when that is what is already being taught in the textbook.

And you have never agreed that the second part is false. We don't want false information put on the front of our textbooks, do we?

[WildTurkey]

You remember that happening? I will assume you mean that you remember reading or hearing that this happened.

No, I remember! It was in a previous life ...

[WildTurkey]

You and I both know that the sticker was purposely designed by creationists to be the first information on evolution before the kids learned about scientific methods and the differences between a hypothesis, theory and fact. And of course the judge saw this sticker as "religion" intruding upon the classroom since not all spiritual people agree with it.

[ColdSteelTalon]

Actually we are asking the wrong question. The real question that needs to be asked is...

Should the government be involved in public education (at all)???

[Doctor Stochastic]

What they absolutely oppose is natural selection. The alternative is some sort of mechanism that "knows" what kind of change is needed for changing conditions and productes the targeted change.

Their problem is that selection (whether natural or not) doesn't directly create new genetic material. Selection changes the distribution of genetic material. The IDites seem to get mutation and selection confused. The Creationist sub-kind seem to think that "species" or "genus" is some type of property all the members have.

[js1138]

Selection is one of my pet peeves. It should be so intuitive to conservatives and market economists.

[Doctor Stochastic]

That would cause aberations in the light reaching the Earth. This is not seen. A change in speed changes the scattering as light passes through matter.

[unlearner]

"It could be that basically everything is an illusion. The idea can't be disproven. Heck! It might be true. But it isn't useful."

That's a start. How about this. "I think, therefore I am." I KNOW that I exist. I also know that I have experiences and memories. EVEN IF these are an illusion, they exist in some form or another.

Now I have just stated a proof that NOT EVERYTHING is an illusion. I can build knowledge on this using logic.

For example, I can reason that either I came from something else OR I am self-existing. I find the proposition of being self-existing to be highly improbable. Here is where FAITH begins.

We can KNOW other things by observation, induction and deduction within the parameters of the axioms we set. We must make ASSUMPTIONS about what is real. I can KNOW many things, but this knowledge requires that I make some assumptions.

So we arrive at a logical conclusion. Not only does science not contradict FAITH, but FAITH is essential to both logic and science. We BELIEVE what is reasonable to believe.

You are right about parsimony. It makes sense to explore the simplest possibilities before more complex ones, particularly when the simpler ones work.

Evolutionary theory is not simple. Compare physics. Physics is very simple (not always easy, but simple).

In physics we use mathematical models of what we perceive to be reality. Within the reality we define, the conclusions are factual, real, and true. As long as the axioms are true, everything else will be. We can test the conclusions empirically and verify them with a high degree of accuracy. We can also use this knowledge in practical ways - like building trains, for example.

Evolution is not like this. We must make many, many assumptions which are highly subjective. You cannot test it in a controlled environment.

The fact that living things adapt and change over time and through generations could correctly lead us to the conclusion that animals we see today may have ancestors that are very different in appearance and other ways. But it is a big jump logically to conclude that all living things share a common ancestry.

The assumption that similarities in animals / people indicates common ancestry is no more credible or scientific than the assumption that they had the same Designer.

Believing one or the other is merely a matter of preference scientifically. And either one requires what ALL KNOWLEDGE requires - FAITH.