Battle Against Scientific Illiteracy
This is a satisfying rant about the state of affairs in public science education - probably most of you have read it already, but if not . . . .
NY Times Article |
Re: Battle Against Scientific Illiteracy
When it comes to the age of things, the ignorance, and/or intellectual dishonesty/lack of rigor, and/or denial, of the young earth creationists is readily discernable, and their young-earth POV is obviously and laughably erroneous to anyone with merely a superficial understanding of geology and cosmology. So it’s hard for me to get too upset over a Kansas school board chairman/veterinarian who also happens to believe that God created the universe 6,500 years ago. (He apparently “compartmentalizes,†as they say.)
Additionally, what many of these folk are actually fighting is the blatant atheism that many neo-Darwinian proponents, e.g. Dawkins, insist biological evolution mandates. So, IMO, it’s pretty much a bullshit debate. Besides, I’d guess that the veterinarian/school board chairman referred to in the article probably has the highest regard for the importance of basic math and science, which is really where so many American kids are failing, and which is really the scientific/mathematical “illiteracy†that we need to be concerned about; not whether they’ve bought into the Dawkins neo-Darwinian view of a directionless evolution. I’d say there’s lots of ignorance, and/or disingenuousness, and/or agendas on both sides of this issue. A blatant example on the pro Darwinian side is in the article itself when the author, regarding what he says is a “remarkable misunderstanding of the nature of the scientific method,†and that we use “evidence from the past in formulating hypotheses,†asserts that, “This is how we distinguish theories that work, like evolution or gravitation.†But lumping “evolution†and “gravitation†into so-called “theories that work†is a disingenuous, misleading non sequitur—“evolution†and “gravity†are different things. The reality is simply that the available evidence indicates that life, like everything else in the universe, evolved over time—“evolution,†essentially, is simply a fact, and the actual question/issue is by what mechanisms life evolves. E.g., selection pressures imposed by the environment appear to be a factor. Gravity, OTOH, is a basic force of nature, and Newton’s laws of motion and gravity and Einstein’s general relativity are superb theories of gravity that provide equations that make (extraordinarily accurate) predictions, and that are obviously falsifiable. |
Re: Battle Against Scientific Illiteracy
Quote:
Second, when the author compared gravitation to evolution, he was referring to the sense in which evolution is a flat fact, just like gravity. Many of the school board members who oppose evolution in the classroom actually believe that evolution (regardless of the mechanism) didn't/doesn't happen at all. Such a position is just as ludicrous as believing the world to be flat, or that there is no gravity. |
Re: Battle Against Scientific Illiteracy
Actually Carey, you have “encountered a biology teacher who is as hostile toward religion as religious zealots are toward evolution†and "feels compelled to teach 'atheism'"— Mr. Selfish Gene himself, Richard Dawkins, the highly credentialed Oxford zoologist and one of your most famous Darwinian gurus and spokesmen—recall his teachings:
Quote:
|
Re: Battle Against Scientific Illiteracy
1) Richard Dawkins's primary contributions to the field, such as 'Selfish Gene', made few reference to religion, which were not in a negative light. Granted, Dawkins has spoken quite aggressively against religion in other contexts, but to assume that his views are concordant with those of all (or even most) other evolutionary biologists, or with the everyday teachers in real science classrooms, is deeply inaccurate. In fact, many evolutionists resent his behavior - not necessarily because they embrace religion themselves, but because the evolution and religion don't usually belong in the same conversation, and certainly not in the same classroom.
2a) Whether or not he was referring to evolution in general, or to evolution by natural selection in particular, is not easy to discern because he used the word "theory". Either way, his message is correct. That evolution occurred is a fact. That the theory of natural selection works is undisputed among people who actually study this subject (and other people who don't study this subject professionally but are willing to honestly address it), both theoretically and empirically. 2b) Think again about gravitation. That gravity exists is indisputable, just like evolution. As to what causes gravitation - we have only theory, albeit very strong and well-supported theory. Guess what? The state of affairs with natural selection is similar: it is a theory regarding what causes adaptive evolution to occur, and it is supported by a massive amount of evidence. I think the NY Times author's comparison is pretty tight. |
Re: Battle Against Scientific Illiteracy
Quote:
The question is not what “causes†gravitation, but more what gravitation is and do we understand it enough so as to predict it’s affect/effect—Newton said it was a “force†(and most of us still think of it that way), and his theory predicted planetary positions/orbits to, I think, maybe 6 or 7 decimal places. However, under Einstein’s general relativity, and his foundational principle of “equivalence,†gravitation is no longer regarded as a “force,†as was Newton’s gravity, but rather gravitation manifests itself as space-time curvature. And using Einstein’s general relativity equations, Hulse and Taylor (received Nobel in 93) were able to predict and affirm the accuracy of the orbits of a double neutron star system to better than a trillionth percent precision (14 decimal places). As Penrose notes, Hulse and Taylor's work "makes Einstein’s general relativity, in this particular sense, the most accurately tested theory known to science." Evolution OTOH, is really nothing more than a term that more or less encapsulates our observations from the available evidence—that life, over time, well, “evolves.†But then everything in the universe “evolves,†so BFD. Of course now you mention “natural selection,†and I suppose that it does seem that various environments do impose selection pressures, similar perhaps in some ways to how various human breeders select for various traits in whatever they happen to be breeding; and it does seem that this so-called natural (unconscious) selection (as opposed to the “artificial conscious selection of human breeders) results in the selection of traits that are the most adaptive, the fittest. And sure enough, we always observe, over the long haul, that the fittest survive and reproduce, and the rest don’t—and we know that the ones that survive are the fittest b/c otherwise they’d not have survived. And although I find the circularity of that “natural selection†somewhat troubling, you, as you’ve noted elsewhere, insist that the “apparent circularity [of natural selection] just isn't important at all.†So I suppose that’s why you naively believe that natural selection is somehow comparable to an actual superb theory, like say gravity as explained by Einstein’s general relativity, which actually is “the most accurately tested theory known to science." Fine. |
Re: Battle Against Scientific Illiteracy
Okay . . . by extension from this last post, I must ask what you think would actually qualify as a theory of evolution on par with Einstein's general relativity. Do you think that there is a set of tractable equations that could be used to predict the composition of earth's biota years from now? No, there isn't. The growth of a simple logistic population in isolation, much less the entire planet's biological composition, can be impossible to predict ten generations in the future.
A problem here seems to be that one needs more basic biology in order to think of the ways in which natural selection is a powerful unifying concept. To take a basic example: how would you explain the existence of vestigial structures, without invoking natural selection as a process that steers populations along the shortest possible route to an adaptive peak? Quote:
|
Re: Battle Against Scientific Illiteracy
Quote:
As I’ve noted previously, Ernst Mayr has acknowledged that, “biology is not the same sort of thing as the physical sciences,†and that the “philosophy of biology has a totally different basis than the theories of physics.†So maybe we won’t see a whole lot coming out of the “philosophy of biology,†that provides the predictive power, understanding, and coherence of the discoveries and theories that come out of the physical sciences, especially if those doing biology are actually convinced that their natural selection is in any substantial way comparable to, say, Einstein’s superb general relativity/theory of gravity. I’d say that Darwinians need to be a bit more modest and circumspect regarding what they think they actually know and what the available science and the evidence actually tells us regarding the origin and evolution of life (and the universe too for that matter), and regarding the limitations and occasional circularity of their various theories/explanations/assumptions; and thereby avoid half-ass notions like “evolutionâ€â€”or natural selection for that matter—being comparable in any substantial way to the superb theory of gravitation; and maybe also avoid making arrogant assumptions and decrees like Mr. Selfish Gene Dawkins’s, “The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose [blah, blah, blah].†|
Re: Battle Against Scientific Illiteracy
This was my question, which you ignored (because you don't have an answer, I suspect - but please, prove me wrong):
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
|
Re: Battle Against Scientific Illiteracy
Quote:
Regarding what "the evidence actually tells us regarding the origin and evolution of life," well, here it is, again: We sapient beings find ourselves in a universe that began about 14 billion years ago, apparently from a singularity, with inexplicably low entropy. Life on Earth seems to have begun around 4 billion years ago, but for most of that time not much seemed to be “evolving†except for single cell stuff and some algae . . . until the “Cambrian Explosion,†a little over ½ billion years ago, when lineages of almost all animals we see today, rather suddenly, appeared . . . and today, somehow, voila, we sapient beings find that we exist. Why the sudden explosion and why we sapient beings? Well, for one thing, only b/c of the extraordinary 'specialness' of the Big Bang and the absurdly low entropy of the universe that we sapient beings find ourselves in, a universe where where such "Cambrian explosions" and sapient beings are even possible, and perhaps even inevitable, depending on one’s views regarding determinism. But beyond that, who Knows? As noted at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/li...2.html— Quote:
|
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 05:39 PM. |
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.
Copyright © 1995-2023 Liviant Internet LLC. All rights reserved.