God's ahead in Kansas

[lindagarrette]

LG- I admit I was gently poking fun at you, but it consistently appears (as in this case) that you are oblivious to your bias. Can you not see anything in your earlier statement that is just a litte bit broader than the second law of thermodynamics?

I am well informed, if that's what you call being biased. I am a scientist and my entire viewpoint is scientific. I do not consider metaphysical things or events to have any consequence.

[lindagarrette]

I didn't particularly see anything in her statement that had anything to do with Newton's second law. IIRC, Newton's Second Law states,

 

"The acceleration of an object as produced by a net force is directly proportional to the magnitude of the net force, in the same direction as the net force, and inversely proportional to the mass of the object."

 

Could you enlighten us?

Yes.

Since entropy gives information about the evolution of an isolated system with time, it is said to give us the direction of "time's arrow." If snapshots of a system at two different times shows one state which is more disordered, then it could be implied that this state came later in time. For an isolated system, the natural course of events takes the system to a more disordered (higher entropy) state.

[Smokinjoe9]

And it is for the same reason that men of the past conceived explainations for things by inventing gods.

 

At one time mankind did not understand why the bright light in the sky rose and fell everyday. To explain what he did not understand he invented the Sun God. Later on man figured out what the sun was and why it rose and fell in the sky each day.

 

Mankind did not understand fire. He invented the Fire God to explain it. We now know via the scientific method exactly what fire is and how it works.

 

At one time man believed that all of the Heavens revolved about the Earth and that some God had made our universe this way. Galileo used science again to show man that there was a real scientific reason for the way things were and that the universe did not rotate about Earth. We all know he was charged and punished for blasphemt as a result.

 

Now man wants to claim that because we do not know or understand the origin of life it must be the result of yet another God. He wants to say that because life is so irreducibly complex that we don't understand it all then it must be because of some god. This is not any more scientific than man's creation of the Sun God to explain the Sun or man's invention of the Fire God to explain fire. Any such claims as these do not belong in the science class. These claims are pure leaps of faith and that is philosophy, not science.

Sorry I kept the whole quote but it is needed to make the point...

If we are to use the continuing way humans have learned you could say science is just the next thing in line following inventing god, the earth is flat, or the earth is the center of the universe. Don't get freaked, I am just saying water flows downhill, or does it??

[bumab]

Not freaked at all- I think you are onto a good point. It's pretty silly to assume we're at the pinnacle of understanding, and the scientific method is the be all and end all for discovery. Not because it doesn't make sense, or isn't logical, but simply because any investigation of history will show you that humans ALWAYS think they are at the pinnacle of knowledge, yet never really are. This is not to say people think they know everything, rather, I'm saying its silly to think that we've discovered the final and penultimate way of knowing.

 

It's really a different thread topic: What will come after "science." (in the sense that our ways of knowing have changed so much over time, what will it change into next?)

[Queso]

ahh there are so many things to wonder about!

[Buffy]

Okay, Salon.com is home to bleeding heart, Godless Evolutionists, but this excerpt from this weeks article on this topic was priceless and telling:

[Kathy] Martin and her creationist colleagues are ready to override a report recently issued by scientists and educators on Kansas' curriculum committee...but Martin had trouble even articulating just what she dislikes about the current standards. Martin, you see, has not really read the curriculum committee's report, nor does she think such scrutiny is necessary. "Please don't feel bad that you haven't read the whole thing," Martin told a creationist "witness" at the hearings on the science curriculum, "because I haven't read it myself." Audience members groaned. To clarify, Martin later explained: "I'm not a word-for-word reader in this kind of technical information." So it went at Kansas' evolution hearings, which concluded Thursday, a Board of Education event where a concrete understanding of all that pesky technical information involved in science was apparently considered unnecessary to reach a verdict on evolution.

To clarify an earlier comment I had in this thread, this event did have an organized boycott by the scientific community because it was being set up by the majority on the board as a "trial" on Evolution.

 

The key technique that is now being used is to try to redefine the scientific method to allow anything that involves "a systematic method of continuing investigation,'' without any reference to hypothesis and experimental methods. The point is to be able to label any conjecture whatsoever as "scientific" that can be discussed within the context of science, and the scope goes far beyond Evolution. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[Biochemist]

...The key technique that is now being used is to try to redefine the scientific method to allow anything that involves "a systematic method of continuing investigation,'' without any reference to hypothesis and experimental methods. The point is to be able to label any conjecture whatsoever as "scientific" that can be discussed within the context of science...

I am a little confused here, Buff. Maybe you can clarify. There is a lot more to science than the scientific method. Much of science is descriptive, and that portion of science is important as well (I think most of macrobiology is descriptive). The scientific method is a process for verification or refutation of hypotheses, a subset of science overall. Are you saying that the IDers are trying to redefine the scientific method, or that they ar trying to incorporate their (currently) descriptive ID elements into the science curriculum?

[Buffy]

Are you saying that the IDers are trying to redefine the scientific method, or that they ar trying to incorporate their (currently) descriptive ID elements into the science curriculum?

Yep, trying to redefine the scientific method. They can't really go very far with descriptive methods, and the only thing I ever hear as "evidence" is irreducible complexity, without any theoretical underpinning for it. If they can just get rid of that pesky requirement to have a falsifiable hypothesis, it will be easy to call it "science."

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[Biochemist]

If they can just get rid of that pesky requirement to have a falsifiable hypothesis, it will be easy to call it "science."

I think ID is science, it is just not experimental science (at least not yet). I think of paleontology as science as well, and it is mostly descriptive (not all, but most). I don't mind people looking at the existing data set and overlaying a different interpretation of it. Einstein did it, and it panned out. I do mind folks suggesting that have "proved" something when they have not. I am not sure the IDers have gone that far.

[Buffy]

I think ID is science, it is just not experimental science (at least not yet). I think of paleontology as science as well, and it is mostly descriptive.

I strongly disagree with your thesis that "descriptive" sciences do not use the scientific method. They may not rely on "direct observation" or "repeatable" experiments, but they DO posit falsifiable hypotheses. ID most clearly does not with the possible exception of irreducible complexity (slain elsewhere).

I do mind folks suggesting that have "proved" something when they have not. I am not sure the IDers have gone that far.

I'd agree that the ID'ers who come out of scientific backgrounds often couch their terms, but enough of them are even more antagonistic and abusive of Evolutionists as Richard Dawkins is of them (and I agree with his views even though I think he can be a horse's a** about them). The point is that they not trying to merely say they should be heard, but that the scientific method is biased against them and needs to be changed so that their view that Evolution is just as weak as ID is claimed to be by the scientific community is a reasonable statement. This is just as egregious in my view as saying that their view has been proven when it has not.

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[MortenS]

Can't be. The process of evolution could only take place after mitochondrial DNA existed. There was an earlier form of life.

 

eh, this is not entirely correct. Many forms of life (and some forms of non-life) do not have mitochondrial DNA and evolve just fine (Archaea, Bacteria and viruses). Bacteria have a DNA somewhat similar to mitochondrial DNA

 

Personally, I would be more inclined to say that evolution started when a functional self-replicating molecule (whether it was DNA, RNA or some precursor to those) occured on the scene, and started to replicate with copying errors. Those molecules with copying errors that lead to more efficient and faster replication would increase in frequency, and dominate over molecules not as fast or efficient.

 

All the components necessary for the natural selection algorithm is present in a self-replicating molecule with copying errors. So for me, abiogenesis is the chemical process up to the first self-replicating molecule(s) where the natural selection algorithm could start to run, and evolution is everything that happened later.

[Biochemist]

....I'd agree that the ID'ers who come out of scientific backgrounds...

And the IDers that don't??????? How can you actually describe a set of populist non-scientists as IDers?????? We are ONLY discussing the portion of the discussion that has merit. Part of it undeniably does. We are NOT discussing the hundreds of credible holes in the list of things we we group under evolution. We do NOT use the inane argument of non-scientific evolution proponents. Ergo, we can't use the inane argument of non-scientific ID proponents.

[Biochemist]

...The point is that they not trying to merely say they should be heard, but that the scientific method is biased against them ...

I don't agree with this. They are saying the scientific community is biased against them (it is- I think you are proving it) not that the scientific method is biased against them.

[Fishteacher73]

It seems a bit absurd that there are those trying to push a porrly defined theory for an educational requirement. The evidence for ID is scant at best, and most claims by IDer's are in blatant contadiction to the facts laid out.

 

To imply ID means that there is a specific and determined "destination" for life. This would ignore any organism that has adapted back into a situation it had once adapted out of. This also means that any mass extinction was planned or had knowledge of. This line of reasoning fails to operate in the realm of science. Fortune telling and string pulling gods are not science. If you want to discuss the, do so in a philosophy class or a theology class, not in my biology class. I do not go to churches on sunday and explain the falicy in the ark description. Keep religious tied doctrine out of my class and I'll promise to not impose any science at the pulpit.

[paultrr]

I don't agree with this. They are saying the scientific community is biased against them (it is- I think you are proving it) not that the scientific method is biased against them.

 

The problem as I see it is they have not been able to use the scientific method to really support their case in a fashion that does not start with a faith based asscertion like since human's show in their activity that order implies purposeful design the rest of the universe and its order dictate that there must be design behind it. The reasoning for the two to be equal is not in any fashion a proven case. Nature's design can be shown by the scientific method to have natural causes. Untill they can do that there is no way to consider the idea as scientific. That does not eliminate an individual from seeing that in that fashion. Nor should there be a restriction against someone presenting that view. But by strict definition the initial assumption in their methodology is faith based. Once you inject faith in the equation the concept cannot be considered as scientific. Take the faith element out and one might encounter a whole less bias. What makes the community biased against the ID concept is just that. Like it or not, and everyone keeps saying this science is not designed to disprove or prove God. If one's theory starts with an assumption that God exists or some designer exists and then the rest of the theory trys to prove this, that is not scientific methods at all. Its an attempt to turn assumption into fact when the initial assumption is what one needs to prove in the first place. Show the evidence without that initial assumption and you might actually get some where. But be ready to provide a long chain of evidence that reaches from the past to the present. Do not start with the present. If you cannot do that then we are going to have one of those, "Houston, we have a problem" situations. The funny thing is there are believer's amongst the scientific community that have that same bias when it comes to presenting the ID proposal as science for the same general reasons those of us who do not believe in God or an intelligent designer do. That's because they know where science stops and faith or philosophy begins.

[paultrr]

It seems a bit absurd that there are those trying to push a porrly defined theory for an educational requirement. The evidence for ID is scant at best, and most claims by IDer's are in blatant contadiction to the facts laid out.

 

To imply ID means that there is a specific and determined "destination" for life. This would ignore any organism that has adapted back into a situation it had once adapted out of. This also means that any mass extinction was planned or had knowledge of. This line of reasoning fails to operate in the realm of science. Fortune telling and string pulling gods are not science. If you want to discuss the, do so in a philosophy class or a theology class, not in my biology class. I do not go to churches on sunday and explain the falicy in the ark description. Keep religious tied doctrine out of my class and I'll promise to not impose any science at the pulpit.

 

Personally I wish real science got mentioned more often in the pulpit if people really want the equal time idea applied accross the board in fairness, so to peak.

[rockytriton]

Keep religious tied doctrine out of my class and I'll promise to not impose any science at the pulpit.

 

I couldn't agree with you more on this. There are private schools where they can teach the kids anything the parents want to pay them to teach, but in public schools we need to be more realistic. Teaching theories that people are afraid not to believe is not what we should be using our tax dollars for. Teaching the kids just to believe what they are told and provide no reasoning or proof behind the ideas is not going to help intellectual growth, I hope the fast-food industry is growing well because those are the only jobs these kids will be able to get. :friday: