Posted on 09/22/2005 8:25:42 PM PDT by Crackingham
A court case that begins Monday in Pennsylvania will be the first to determine whether it is legal to teach a controversial idea called intelligent design in public schools. Intelligent design, often referred to as ID, has been touted in recent years by a small group of proponents as an alternative to Darwin's theory of evolution. ID proponents say evolution is flawed. ID asserts that a supernatural being intervened at some point in the creation of life on Earth.
Scientists counter that evolution is a well-supported theory and that ID is not a verifiable theory at all and therefore has no place in a science curriculum. The case is called Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District. Prominent scientists Thursday called a teleconference with reporters to say that intelligent design distorts science and would bring religion into science classrooms.
"The reason this trial is so important is the Dover disclaimer brings religion straight into science classrooms," said Alan Leshner, the CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and executive publisher of the journal Science. "It distorts scientific standards and teaching objectives established by not only state of Pennsylvania but also leading scientific organizations of the United States."
"This will be first legal challenge to intelligent design and we'll see if they've been able to mask the creationist underpinnings of intelligent design well enough so that the courts might allow this into public school," said Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), which co-hosted the teleconference.
AAAS is the world's largest general science society and the NCSE is a nonprofit organization committed to helping ensure that evolution remains a part of public school curriculums.
The suit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of concerned parents after Dover school board officials voted 6-3 last October to require that 9th graders be read a short statement about intelligent design before biology lessons on evolution. Students were also referred to an intelligent design textbook to learn more information about the controversial idea. The Dover school district earlier this month attempted to prevent the lawsuit from going forward, but a federal judge ruled last week that the trial would proceed as scheduled. The lawsuit argues that intelligent design is an inherently religious argument and a violation of the First Amendment that forbids state-sponsored schools from funding religious activities.
"Although it may not require a literal reading of Genesis, [ID] is creationism because it requires that an intelligent designer started or created and intervened in a natural process," Leshner said. "ID is trying to drag science into the supernatural and redefine what science is and isn't."
Fortunately, this isn't a scientific dispute. It's an attempt to establish religion. We have plenty of jurisprudence on that issue.
Then I gather you disagree with Prof. Mayr? Ha! That puts us in the same camp, RWP! :^)
jennyp raised this issue of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts the other day using H2O as an example. Obviously neither hydrogen nor oxygen alone have the properties of water. Water is the result of their chemical bonding. Further, water is still water though it may be in any one of three states -- gaseous, liquid, or solid -- at any particular time, as determined by environmental conditions. Thus water itself is a part of (and its behavior determined by) a greater systemic whole which is greater than the sum of its parts, and which seems to place phenomena (all the parts) together in their mutual relations.
My problem -- and maybe you can help me with this -- is that the chemical laws do not seem up to the job of describing the "greater systemic whole," though they do an excellent job of describing the physical relations obtaining among its parts. IOW, if one says that physico-chemical laws alone specify everything that goes on in the natural world, wouldn't this be tantamount to saying that the whole is completely reducible to the behavior of its parts?
But this would be to say that the whole is not greater than the sum of its parts....
Does this make any sense at all? Do you see my problem?
Thanks so much for writing, Professor!
And so does biology, dispite the best efforts of biochemistry to sponge it up.
This is one of those situations where the inability to state your opponent's case really shows.
Dear God, dictionaries and the grammar texts do not define Shakespeare, but nevertheless, Shakespeare is still just words.
And so does epistemology. It is truly hard to hide from answering the question, how you know, what you know.
It is one of the most persistant question that both science and philosophy tries to answer.
DK
You can't be serious, js1138! Shakespeare "just words?" Oh my, but you are completely missing the main point about Shakespeare if you think that.
I don't think so. I was arguing that biology is indeed autonomous, because even if we can reduce life to the motions of elementary particles, that on its own doesn't give us a very meaningful 'big picture'. There are the trees, and then there is the forest.
IOW, if one says that physico-chemical laws alone specify everything that goes on in the natural world, wouldn't this be tantamount to saying that the whole is completely reducible to the behavior of its parts?
Not at all. Even if we can describe the properties of water with complete accuracy from quantum mechanics, using an oxygen nucleus, two hydrogen nuclei and 10 electrons, when we've computed all of the molecular interactions and the properties, there will be some large scale properties - e.g. wetness - that aren't easily deducible from the small scale properties. They're there, but they have to be deduced from the raw output. Call them emergent properties, or whatever. So, while our mechanics gives us the ability to predict the behavior of water with exactness, it doesn't give us much useful insight. We still have to look at all of the detailed trajectories of the particles, and say - aha, wetness!
This is getting to be a ubiquitous and persistent problem in science, because our computers are now so powerful that calculating things is fast, but analyzing what we just calculated is slow, as slow as anything else that requires human insight. And a lot of scientists are lazy, and just want to run the calculations, without sitting down later to figure out what it was they just calculated.
So all those people who worry that someone one some day might be able to run BettyBoopSim 5.0 and get output that exactly matches your own behavior have missed a very big point. All they will have done is, in effect, cloned you. Even though they can predict your every action, they won't understand you, or anything that motivates you.
It is the reductionist view. Break things down and you can understand them.
I loved Hamlet.
Reductionism does not convey the information Hamlet conveys.
Philosophical examination would add to understanding. But science has ignored philosophy for decades...
LOL
DK
Shakespeare's words have fairy dust sprinkled on them.
Running Wolf: I agree. Unfortunately that is where everything seems to end up.
Right Wing Professor: Fortunately, this isn't a scientific dispute. It's an attempt to establish religion. We have plenty of jurisprudence on that issue.
This may be a prime opportunity for the United States Supreme Court to show its judicial philosophy under the leading of Chief Justice Roberts (and whoever replaces O'Connor).
In so very many ways this has become a "hot button" because of prior rulings which have been woefully inconsistent wrt the First Amendment. The Supremes may have this case, possibly the 7th ruling that "atheism is a religion" and the Newdow's "under God" ruling all hitting them in rapid succession.
I believe it is a good thing if it will result in clarity between (a) the Establishment clause and (b) Freedom of Religion in the First Amendment:
Of course, I strongly agree with Scalia and Thomas that the decisions concerning the Establishment clause (such as Lemon) have resulted in a hostility towards theistic religions - and thus infringes on the Freedom of religion.
IMHO, the key domino in what will no doubt be a chain of decisions could/should be a review of the 7th decision that “atheism is a religion” which was based on many prior decisions of the Supremes. If it is indeed a “religion” then it cannot be given preference, i.e. be established as the state religion.
I believe whatever the court decides will clarify Lemon and have a domino effect on both the atheist legal initiatives as well as the theistic legal initiatives over the years – from the public display of religious symbols to public education in science, religious references and prayers of students, publicly speaking “under God” in the pledge of allegiance and so on.
IOW, the problem is not science but rather that the USSC itself has been inconsistent for decades and it will catch up with them.
I have had more amusing and informative discussions with eliza.
Lemon needs no clarification, it needs placement in the circular file. Scalia and others have killed it on numerous occasions.
Interesting. Why do you say that? :-)
There is a huge paper trail behind the ID movement demonstrating its motives. This kind of paper trail has scuttled previous efforts to change the teaching of Biology.
I suspect that the judge will find the current effort will have a religious motive, and that this will be a finding of fact.
RWP, you claim that the boundary which makes chemistry autonomous is this:
Physics/math deals with the physical and phenomenal whole - with universals such as physical laws, constants, geometry, mathematical structures and fields. Nothing determined by chemistry can exceed the "whole" of physics/math.
It is that whole into which the "whole" of "matter in all its motions" fits. Matter, for instance, is not yet even established in physics! Ordinary matter, some 5% of the critical density of the universe awaits the yet not found or made Higgs boson/field. And the Standard Model cannot explain dark matter (25%) or dark energy (70%)- thus the physicists even now pursue supersymmetry and extra dimensionality!
So if self-organizing complexity results in emergent properties which calls for new language to describe the autonomous entity (such as a car, water, betty boop) - the entity along with all its properites is nevertheless contained within the "whole" of physics/math.
But physics/math isn't the whole of "all that there is". The overarching principles into which physics/math fits are the subject of philosophy and theology.
Case in point: there is no physical causality in the void from which there is a beginning, e.g. of real space and real time.
It is like a concentric ring structure.
From the inner ring, betty boop is defined by the material contents of a set of space/time coordinates. From the ring of physics, she is defined by her intersection with the universals. But that's not all there is to betty boop! She is also a fractal of what lies "beyond" the "whole" of physics/math.
Indeed, Scalia et al have attacked Lemon many times. And strangely most of the court seems to agree that Lemon is flawed.
Nevertheless, Lemon was cited (as I recall) in the two (conflicting) Ten Commandments majority decisions this last session.
Ahh yes, the FAIRY dust is information. But Fairies and elves don't exist.
You don't understand Shakespeare.
It is because you don't understand your philosophy.
DK
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