Posted on 03/01/2004 1:02:07 PM PST by Mr. Silverback
Almost 150 years ago, Charles Darwin knew something that the scientific establishment seems to have forgotten -- something that is being endangered today in the state of Ohio.
In Ohio, high school science students are at risk of being told that they are not allowed to discuss questions and problems that scientists themselves openly debate. While most people understand that science is supposed to consider all of the evidence, these students, and their teachers, may be prevented from even looking at the evidence -- evidence already freely available in top science publications.
In late 2002, the Ohio Board of Education adopted science education standards that said students should know "how scientists investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory." The standards did not say that schools should teach intelligent design. They mandate something much milder. According to the standards, students should know that "scientists may disagree about explanations . . . and interpretations of data" -- including the biological evidence used to support evolutionary theory. If that sounds like basic intellectual freedom, that's because it is.
The Ohio Department of Education has responded by implementing this policy through the development of an innovative curriculum that allows students to evaluate both the strengths and the weaknesses of Darwinian evolution.
And that has the American scientific establishment up in arms. Some groups are pressuring the Ohio Board to reverse its decision. The president of the National Academy of Sciences has denounced the "Critical Analysis" lesson -- even though it does nothing more than report criticisms of evolutionary theory that are readily available in scientific literature.
Hard as it may be to believe, prominent scientists want to censor what high school students can read and discuss. It's a story that is upside-down, and it's outrageous. Organizations like the National Academy of Sciences and others that are supposed to advance science are doing their best to suppress scientific information and stop discussion.
Debates about whether natural selection can generate fundamentally new forms of life, or whether the fossil record supports Darwin's picture of the history of life, would be off-limits. It's a bizarre case of scientists against "critical analysis."
And the irony of all of this is that this was not Charles Darwin's approach. He stated his belief in the ORIGIN OF SPECIES: "A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question." Darwin knew that objective science demands free and open inquiry, and while I disagree with Darwin on many things, on this he was absolutely right. And I say what's good enough for scientists themselves, as they debate how we got here, is good enough for high school students.
Contact us here at BreakPoint (1-877-322-5527) to learn more about this issue and about an intelligent design conference we're co-hosting this June.
The Ohio decision is the leading edge of a wedge breaking open the Darwinist stranglehold on science education in this country. The students in Ohio -- and every other state -- deserve intellectual freedom, and they deserve it now.
Next time, kid, try head-first.
When one looks at the moon with a telescope, are they performing an experiment.
You certainly can be. When Galileo observed mountains on the moon, he was experimentally testing the (widely accepted) hypothesis that the moon was a perfect sphere. It all depends on what you do with the observation.
I just read several hundreds of posts to see how the spat that's going on now started, and I see it, but I still can't really identify the exact point where the line was crossed. All I know is that the line has been crossed.
Please don't continue down this path.
Quoting the Admin...
Observation becomes experimentation when it is used to support or reject a theory or conjecture. I could spend a lifetime counting grains of sand in my backyard without experimenting. Or I could post pretty pictures of sunsets and claim they prove design.
In the absense of a unifying paradigm, neither observation nor laboratory tinkering qualifies as experiment.
The unmet task for creationism and ID is to come up with a unifying paradigm that can be supported or challenged by experiment.
But I thought (and the definitions state) a component of experimentation is repeatability - observing the same thing by looking at it twice does not seem to fulfill the repeatability requirement. I can find no definition of experiment that allows for mere observation. Galileo was gathering data to support a hypothesis - I don't believe what he was doing can be considered an experiment.
Galileo did preform experiments like that one on the Tower of Pisa - but I don't believe observing the moon is considered an experiment.
Can you provide any supporting evidence for the claim observation is experimentation - I am not trying to be snotty - If I am wrong about this position I would like to see the supporting evidence so I can change my position. Js1138, what you say sounds reasonable but I have seen nothing in literature to support this position. I also had the concept of controls and repeatability drilled into my head, when I was in school, as the keys to experimentation.
...nevermore
Why not?
You might also look with a different telescope, from a different point on the earth, etc.
What is essential is that the conditions of observation must be defined and executed in a way that ensures the results are relevant to supporting or falsifying some hypothesis. Astronomy has been mentioned as an observational science. In astronomy, the tools of observation are constantly being refined, but the objects being observed cannot be brought into the laboratory and cannot be manipulated. But that is not the central requirement of science. What is essential is that predictions can be made and confirmed.
Chemistry seems to be the quintessential laboratory science. Nearly everything in chemistry lends itself to laboratory work.
I find it interesting that few people argue that laboratory chemistry doesn't mirror the real chemistry found in the wild. I don't see people arguing that phenomena found in the chemistry laboratory are somehow unnatural and do not describe phenomena found in the real world. Unless, of course, we are talking about the molecular biology laboratory, in which case, experiments cannot possibly shed light on the outside world.
Get a lawyer, gentlemen, you have a really good case against whatever teacher gave you a passing grade in reading comprehension.
The entire first paragraph of the Rennie excerpt I provided describes how non-living materials could have laid "the foundation for cellular biochemistry." He does this in response to the "nonsense" that evolution can't explain origins, then he goes on to explain how the basic building blocks of the cell could have arisen from non-living matter.
The guy is trying to have it both ways.
Are you certain of that definition?
I just read the excerpt again. He does not say that evolution covers the origins of life.
Of course it does! Why do you think repeatability is required?
After Lowell observed canals on Mars, was there really no point in trying to observe them again?
It's an extremely useful and descriptive connotation.
Or just stay inside, like ovaries.
It has been tested. To repeat my usual example: If a pseudogene is found in a cow, and the same pseudogene is found in a whale, then if it is not also found in hippos, the theory of evolution has been disproved. No such pseudogene has ever been found.
The same thing happens if one is found in chimps and orangutans, but not gorillas and people. Or dogs and cats but not bears. etc etc.
Standard biology would also be dealt a crippling blow if, say, plesiosaur or whale bones were found in the Burgess Shale. Or rabbit fossils were found in any Mesozoic stratum. etc etc.
If any one of thousands of fossil digs or DNA or protein sequencings had turned out differently, we would have facts contradicting the predictions of evolution. None ever has.
What would be the equivalent for ID or creationism?
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