Science's true ID?

[adderslj]

Idle thought on the whole "Intelligent Design" debacle*.

Has it occured to any of the people that are frothing at the mouth about the moves to push ID into science that the main fault here lies with the way that science has been taught? At school, you get taught that science is fact. Once you move to post-school level, you discover that science is, on the whole, what we think might be true, but chances are something else will come along in a few decades and make us look at it in a whole different way again.

By taking an absolutist stance on science, which is, by its very nature, incorrect, you open the doors for certain folks to say "well, if you're teaching this idea of truth, you should teach the alternative as well." Now the correct answer to that is not "You're mad!" but "actually, we're not teaching a truth, we're teaching the latest thinking from a particualr world view we call 'science". Your alternative truth is actually the latest thinking from a particular world view we call 'theology', which you'll find right down the hall, buster."

Rather too many people seem to be letting the IDers define the battle ground. Sun Tzu, folks.


*You know, you take a bunch of religious people who the mainstream of religious thought in their native country think are 'nutters'**, stick 'em on a boat and let them found a country, and this is what happens. It's all us Brits to blame you know, for not properly dealing with our religious nutjobs***.

**Technical term, clearly.

***See **

Comments

[wtimmins.livejournal.com]

While nice in theory, the problem is kids have to be taught in stages.

It's somewhat like history; you don't just plop kids down and start outlining the constellation of gray areas and countless threads that make up history, you start with simple declaratives.

I suspect science becomes a punching bag when it simply goes through the same 'teaching of nuance' all the other subjects get into.

I mean, heck, the same thing happens in religious study; down the road, things aren't as simple and clearcut as when you were a kid.

[adders.livejournal.com]

You're missing the point...

Of course kids need to be taught in stages. The issue here is that of "look at this simple thing, now here's why it happens" instead of "look at this simple, this is why we believe it happens".

This breaks the cycle of "Ha! We lied! This is really why it happens!" and then "Ha! We lied again! This is why it really, really happens" that goes on through science education. It becomes "here's a more complex idea of what it might be happening" and "here's an even more complex idea".

The point is that science is a process of open minded questioning and research. The first isn't teaching that, or even opening the possibility - it's the path to getting credentials not an education, to cramming facts, not learning mindsets,

[5eh.livejournal.com]

I'd have to agree with Adam on this one. I was really pissed in high school when I realized all of it was (in my naivete) all complete bullshit and that NONE of it was REALLY REAL^tm, which just led to me having even less faith in humanity and the education system.

Kind of like how I feel about the fluffy nature of the "lamb of God" thing that seems to be drilled into people. I'd say 90% of Christians in the U.S. don't even realize that "Lamb of God" means sacrificial lamb of God, not squishy happy everyone hug the cuoOOote little baa baa.

[innocent-man.livejournal.com]

I agree. You guys should've straightened out the Puritans while you still had 'em. :)

And the other problem here, and the main one, IMO, is this:

Science is supported by objective fact. It might be taught, at the school level, as "truth," but on the research and development level, it's in flux.

Religion is not supported by objective fact. You can't test God's existence, and therefore no "theory" involving God or any other supernatural being belongs in a science classroom.

[adders.livejournal.com]

But it's important not to make this a dichotomy. Science and theology are only two ways of looking at the world - there are others. Philosophy. Morality. And so on.

The science versus religion debate is essentially a bogus one. They're two different things, ones that are not necessarily incompatible.

Simply put, science attempts to answer "how?" and theology "why?". Whole different things going on there.

[adders.livejournal.com]

It might be taught, at the school level, as "truth," but on the research and development level, it's in flux.

This is, essentially, wrong, incidentally. Things taught at school level as truth are often provably wrong by later data. About 70% of what I was taught as truth at school was immediately debunked in my first three months of my physics degree (quite possibly the other 30% was dealt with later in the course, but I dropped out at that point). They work as simplistic abstractions, but they are not truth. And the flux at pure research level can create paradigm shifts which overturns the "truth" taught at school level.

[innocent-man.livejournal.com]

Well, that's what I mean. What we're (well, what I, anyway) was taught in high school science classes was taught as fairly objective stuff. While I probably knew at some level that scientific work was always being tested and retested, and so nothing's ever really finalized, no teacher said that to me until I took Biology in college and my prof told the class that the phrase "having something down to a science" was a bit of a fallacious statement.

[innocent-man.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. The two aren't incompatible because they're two completely different views of the world. That's why I don't want them taught in the same class (and I don't want religion taught as "truth" in any case, particularly not in a public school).

[adders.livejournal.com]

Sure - and I was explicity arguing that they shouldn't be taught in the same class. I just grow concerned when I see people letting those rather wacky literalist Christians define the battleground and tersm of the dabte by playing off a misconception of what science is.

Those ID guys look really, really strange from a British Chrstian point of view, for what it's worth. We just don't get British Biblical literalists - the idea that the Bible is what you might call artisitic truth rather than literal truth is too deeply ingrained.

(First question for literalists: so literal days, huh, buster? So, how were those days defined before God created the sun? Eh? Eh?)

[innocent-man.livejournal.com]

Well, as someone who basically makes up mythology for money, the notion that any religious framework has anything other than symbolic value is kinda niggling to me. I want to see a Red Talons religion crop up in 1000 years.

[adders.livejournal.com]

You couldn't quite bring youself to walk away without a brief anti-religion swipe, could you? :-)

[point5b.livejournal.com]

Heh. I can't see what's wrong with him doing in the comments of a post with a brief anti-American swipe. :)

[adders.livejournal.com]

There was no anti-American swipe at all. One of the great things about the country is that it's far more than something founded by a few religious exiles, that's welcomed people from far more backgrounds and beliefs than that.
It's no more anti-American than having a brief swipe at the Saxons is anti-British.

[point5b.livejournal.com]

How to put this...

The anti-American swipe was snarking that the US was "founded by a few religious exiles" and that this was the cause of the ID flap. I thought it was a non-serious, harmless (if complete) distortion of history to make a humorous remark, but it was still twisting fact in order to cast the US in a bad light.

It isn't remotely a big deal, but I don't see why you wouldn't consider that an anti-American swipe any less than my saying, *thinks*, um, "British culture is just French gone native, which is why they have all the socialists" (or something more coherent) would be a anti-Brit swipe.

[adders.livejournal.com]

You and I have very different understandings of the word "swipe", then, because to me it carries negative connotations, and there was no negative connotation intended in my statement. I wouldn't consider your British/French comment a swipe, because it was a humorous distortion of a basic truth.

Bear in mind that Matt has repeatedly stated that he has significant issues with religion. I have no such issues with the US - but by making the connection between the two statements you implied that I did.

[point5b.livejournal.com]

That's about my understanding of a swipe, to.

Well, if saying with a "tsk, tsk" air that the US is the product of religious nutcases starting a country has no negative connotations (even if meant in the same friendly, humorous way that you might call a friend "you dumb S.O.B."), I'm really not sure how my remark could have implied the connection you suggest.

But I think we may have spent too much time on this point already.

[captaindisdain.livejournal.com]

Well, this is kinda beside the point, I know, but... Frankly, I always get more than a little annoyed and disappointed when I encounter people who do not have issues with religion -- or at least organized religion. I mean, I don't expect everyone to be an atheist, but religious or not, the lack of outrage in people really depresses me.

To pick an easy example, take the Catholic church -- we have the Pope habitually telling people that condoms are not all right. In Africa, the UN estimates that by the year 2025, 10% of the continent's population will be infected with HIV unless something is done, and the guy goes around telling people that condoms are sinful while Vatican officials like to bring up the old "they don't protect against HIV anyway" crap. It's just -- it's such a blatant lie, I can't understand why more people aren't outraged by it. It's not like everyone who's a Catholic believes it -- plenty of well-educated people who know better there -- but far be it from them to actually challenge it. Sure, some people make a stink about it, but most just kind of look uncomfortable, ignore the whole thing and look relieved when somebody changes the subject. I guess saying that the supreme apostolic authority is condemning people to a slow and ugly death is a bigger sin than condemning people to a slow and ugly death...

Goes beyond depressing, really.

[adders.livejournal.com]

Yes, but doesn't the same argument apply in just the same way to organised politics? Or organised business?

[captaindisdain.livejournal.com]

Of course! It absolutely does. But when you're doing business or politics, you are far more often expected to back your claims and actions up with facts and figures, and you are far more vulnerable to censure and a backlash from the public opinion. You can't just say something and expect everyone to go along with it without(*) actually telling them why. When you're dealing with religion, people get fanatical; if you're a Catholic, you're taught from a very early age that you don't get to ask questions.

Not that people don't get fanatical about politics and business, too, but I think there's a huge difference between being a member of political party X and organized religion X -- the former's prevalent mindset probably wasn't hammered into you from early childhood along with promises of an afterlife and threats of going to hell, for example, whereas the latter probably was. It's not the same thing. There are people who're going to defend their company or their political representative to the bitter end regardless of what happens, but at least that's based on some level of conscious thought and grasp of reality instead of a lifetime of conditioning that decrees that not doing so means eternal torment in Hell... I'm simplifying, but you get the idea. I mean, there are plenty of influential people who're willing to make public statements in the media that Bush is a crappy president and he should be kicked out of office, but very few of them are willing to take public potshots at the Pope.

Not that you're wrong. The same lack of willingness to challenge obviously immoral actions and just go with the flow and follow the leader because it's easier and safer is certainly in evidence in many areas of our lives. I find it one of the more depressing human qualities, and one that is instrumental in most of our problems.

(*) For example, you can't invent weapons of mass destruction and go to war because of them and just expect people to shrug and dismiss it -- oh, hell, never mind...

[magentamom.livejournal.com]

Apparently, I'm a British Christian. Perhaps that explains why I feel so isolated from faith communities here. People tend to look at me like I'm a heathen when I explain that to the ancients "truth" was not "fact" in quite the same way.

Of course, it isn't just science that literalist Christians like to meddle in. History is another favorite. They insist that the founders of the U.S. were fundamentalist Christians who based our law on purely biblical law, which can be shown to be patently abusrd from even the briefest study of writings from the era.

My first question for literalists is whether they believe that humans develop from a sperm and egg and, if so, why they question God's word that He knitted us.

[papillon-enrage.livejournal.com]

(First question for literalists: so literal days, huh, buster? So, how were those days defined before God created the sun? Eh? Eh?)

Yes, it seems quite simple, but there are problems on the other end as well. Mike and I were educated in a fundamentalist, church-run school. It makes as much sense as anything that if the Bible says "a day", that must mean the roughly twenty-four hour period we expect now. God, after all, is God, and arguably if he wanted to create the sun and stars (or the firmament, or land) in a period of time equal to our current day, why not? Once one starts questioning literal translation anywhere, the entire document comes open for reinterpretation. Allegory isn't an option.

On the other hand, I remember distinctly the year I spent in a public school. There we studied evaporation and rain cycles for several weeks before attempting Big Bang Theory. I was only seven, but even then it didn't make sense that a ball of stone would spontaneously generate moisture. The teacher was being simplistic because he didn't want to overwhelm us with the theory. But the net result was that I found science less plausible than theology. If clouds are formed from evaporation, and in the beginning there was no water to evaporate, how did we get oceans/lakes/etc.? Between these two origins, omnipotent God is easier to believe.

I have an odd background: my family are evangelical Christians. Part of the cache of loonies who terrify me with their political agenda. Clearly I am lapsed. But my father is also a physicist. I have trouble understanding how he straddles both worlds; fundamentalism is binary, black or white are your choices.

If you ever wish a "translation" of American moral-majority speak, I'm your gal! I do, however, add the disclaimer that I no longer consider myself religious. I play devil's advocate.

[brusse.livejournal.com]

Weren't the "Mayflower Pilgrims" originally Dutch who fled the Netherlands and came to England first, and then left for the Massachusetts Bay Colony?

[adders.livejournal.com]

Yes, but you're taking a humorous comment too seriously. :-)

[brusse.livejournal.com]

That's bound to happen when I'm bored at the office...

[maliszew.livejournal.com]

Actually, the Pilgrims were English Puritans who fled to the rather more tolerant Netherlands to escape persecution in England. They only left the Netherlands for the New World because they rightly worried that their children would grow up Dutch instead of English.

The irony, of course, is that, if they'd stuck it out a little while longer, their correligionists would have been the ones doing the persecuting in England instead of the reverse.

[(Anonymous)]

"*You know, you take a bunch of religious people who the mainstream of religious thought in their native country think are 'nutters'**, stick 'em on a boat and let them found a country, and this is what happens. It's all us Brits to blame you know, for not properly dealing with our religious nutjobs***."

Religious nutjobbery aside...

You limeys are just upset at us -- and you oughta be -- because we kicked your ass back in 1783, and there were what, 9 of us at the time? Nine hemp-smoking farmers take down the largest and best-assembled fighting force up to that point in history?

I mean, it's not our fault that you all fought in a straight line...in the snow...in BRIGHT RED COATS...

-Black Johann

[adders.livejournal.com]

Uh, no, I really don't care about something that happened nearly 200 years before I was born.

And, uh, you might want to research a little something called "humor" - because that's what I was doing there.

[melindadansky.livejournal.com]

Part of the problem with that is that science is so poorly taught in the United States, most students never get to the "Actually, this is what we can figure out from what we can see" part of science. We don't teach our kids well enough to prepare them for that sort of thinking.

That, and our public schools are interesting in producing citizens who are able to think for themselves or problem-solve.

[adders.livejournal.com]

Have you read Dark Age Ahead (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1400076706/qid=1123857457/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_sbs_1/002-0043563-8091270?v=glance&s=books&n=507846)? Jane Jacobs has some really interesting thoughts in that about the problems with the eductaion system (which apply as much over here as over there), which match what you're saying there.

[melindadansky.livejournal.com]

I haven't read that book, but it is on the "to be read" list.

Strange how we seem to be devolving toward a less intelligent society instead of a more intelligent one. I guess entropy does win in the end.

On the other hand, Wired recently printed a story about studies that show young children scoring better on IQ tests now than in years past; the fact that they're playing video games was cited as the cause.

Apparently, video games teach problem-solving and the ability to process multiple levels of information better than schools.

[5eh.livejournal.com]

Part of the problem with that is that science is so poorly taught in the United States, most students never get to the "Actually, this is what we can figure out from what we can see" part of science. We don't teach our kids well enough to prepare them for that sort of thinking.

Agreed. I know that most of my lack of logic skills aren't because I'm not smart enough, it is because I was never TAUGHT logic. Sadly, I had to become an intuitive thinker.