A science class is about teaching what man has learned through science; therefore, I don't believe that creationism should be taught there, any more than drama, history or pottery. It has nothing to do with it being "right" or not. If you want the religious perspective on the origins of the universe, you go to a place where they teach religion, not a science class.

Even though I believe that God created the universe, I don't pretend to say how. I don't view science and religion as being in conflict.

I agree with Kitoba that care must be taken when speaking to a non-scientific audience about science, and a public school science class definitely qualifies. It's important for students of science to understand that science always operates within the framework of human knowledge, and as such will inherit whatever faults may exist in that knowledge. My experience is that it is currently too easy for the student to confuse scientific knowledge with truth, and it's very, very important that they understand the distinction. I don't say this simply because it leaves room for religion. I say it because science itself needs people who are willing to challenge its current models, for it is only in doing so that some of the greatest scientific advances are made.

The funny thing is, I actually believe that it would be harmful to religion if we were able to prove the existence of God, for it would totally eliminate the need for faith.

CCC - I know, and I'm pretty sure Waffle knows, that kitoba isn't arguing creationism. But around here a lot of people - people in legislatures, school boards, and court houses - are. And as Waffle mentioned, "It's just a theory!" is their rallying cry. My daughter goes to a public school in Texas. I don't see how a few people trusting scientists a little bit too much could possibly be worse than giving even more ammunition to these people

It's possible, I'll admit. But this is what I've seen over the course of two threads. In the first thread, kitoba advanced the idea of science as faith. This is a common creationist tactic. He also referred to the Theory of Evolution as Darwinism. This is creationist terminology. Then he wanted to argue specifics of evolution while giving the impression he did not understand the actual Theory well enough to employ correct terminology. And yes, I did study all this back in college. I was offered a slot in grad school in physical anthropology, as it happened. Roads not take. But yes, my Creationist hackles were raised.

This thread dropped the statement to [some] people approach science as a faith and a discussion about the difference between what has been labeled as surety and what has been labeled empiricism. kitoba's last statement was a request that scientists should not be so cavalier when it comes to stating scientific results as truth (not fact, but truth).

Today, CERN edged just a tad bit closer to claiming Higgs discovery. The noise last summer was the discovery of a 1.26 GeV particle that interacts weakly via certain decay chains, only the newspapers and science reporters claimed Higgs, the scientists involved only observed it was consistent with certain Higgs models.

In the last week, two school boards have come to national attention for trying to wedge religious education into public schools over the idea that science lacks surety in the Theory of Evolution and therefore the Southern Baptist interpretation of Genesis should be taught as a viable alternative.

Two weeks ago a state supreme court justice discussing such a program in another school district stated he was unclear as to why this was an issue because the Theory of Evolution is only a theory.

kitoba's request has practical implications on national debate. And the implications are damaging to the long term education of students and to the understanding of the world around us. Yes, he has an epistemological point. But it is a point that is best suited to college level science and philosophy classes, not one suitable for play in the newspapers. Certainly not if we can't expect someone as allegedly educated as a state supreme court justice to not understand the distinction between observation, scientific theory and educated guess.

I've laid out the damage the position has and is causing in terms of education and public understanding. I stand by my assessment. I may have a hair trigger on this. But honestly, after watching this played out at the local and national level for decades, I think I've earned my hair trigger.

So. Kitoba's arguments are matching a pattern that you have seen in creationists, and this is triggering your hair trigger. Fair enough; though I do raise the point that this is circumstantial evidence only.

I'm way, way, way away from anywhere where the creationism debate is going to affect any schools. Despite this, I've heard enough of them that I can easily see why you're so hair-triggered. When facing off against a genuine creationist, that hair trigger is not unreasonable; especially when facing off against one who actually has the power to affect school syllabi in any way. (I'm not sure that it's a helpful tactic, because losing your temper may allow a skilled debater to take advantage; but that's just a question of style). When facing off against a genuine creationist.

But let me find a few quotes from Kitoba specifically...

From December 2005



May, 2008



From 2009:



Later in the same thread:



These do not appear to be the statements of someone about to start arguing for creationism.

The prior is like 'put bias here', which means it's the opposite of hidden for anyone who knows what they're doing.
Most usefully, you can communicate arguments, and the way they shift the probabilities is the same across any set of priors.



The one Eliezer used most prominently was to select an interpretation of quantum mechanics. There's a 'sequence' devoted entirely to this application.

In my opinion "Creation Science" is not only bad science, it's also bad religion. I have no interest in promoting it. But extremism breeds extremism. The Dawkinsian-style take on evolution has doubtlessly built the careers of many a "Creation scientist."

Statements like the below, in my opinion, are part of the problem, not part of the solution.



I don't find this attitude true to the ethic or the ethics of science. Science must stand or fall on its own true merits, not on its pretended ones --the same is true of religion. When you start promoting blind trust in a discipline whose entire foundation is built on a healthy skepticism, you've gone too far. That's not fighting the fundamentalists, that's becoming them.



I would like to believe you have been responding to the substance of my arguments, and not to your incorrect assumption that I am what is commonly called a "creationist." You do seem to have ascribed a number of claims to me that I wasn't conscious of making.


Link, please.

There is unfortunatly no definte answer to how much trust should be given to scientists.

There are cases, where some unscientific people, who have some practice, know what the right thing to do is, even if their explaination of why is lacking, while more scientific people are not as good at doing practical things, though they afterwards have good hypotheses why things went wrong. There taking the unscientific knowledge into accountis a very good thing.

And then there are snake oil sailsmen, who present themselfs to be such practicans, to prey on the unwary. In that case driving them out of town with pichforks is the best thing you can do.

Kitoba seems to think about the former situation, waffle about the latter.

That's an odd take on it. Extremism breeds extremism: people like Dawkins have explicitly said their "militancy" – which I will note seems to involve little more than writing angry books and maybe signs, unlike most things described by that term – were a reaction to the push by creationists (and various socially conservative religious movements). I'm not sure what started them in the first place, but for the most part I get the impression they are reacting to evolution as established science either way, and would be just as happy to fight with religious people who firmly believe in it.


You haven't been, but I suspect part of the reason waffle is mistaking your agenda is because it's really hard to tell what it is.

What I understand of your minimal claim, that people who want absolute certainty and incorrectly try to find it in science exist, is something I don't have much reason to doubt or care about – there are people who look for certainty in horoscopes or voices, so probably. Your original posts and thread title seemed to be more about science often gets treated as a faith, and you originally implied that some of the comments here might reflect that. But now it seems like any more general claims, like how people on the whole aren't actually satisfied with very high confidence facts, are things you've backed away from. So I, at least, really can't tell what you're hoping to get across or discuss.

This is an old fight. The oldest skirmish was in 1860 when Thomas Huxley squared off against Bishop Wilberforce in a no-argument barred cage match. Both sides initially claimed victory, but public and historical opinion sided with Huxley. The debate simmered quietly before the next big fight in Tennessee. Scopes lost but the verdict was voided by the Supreme Court, who quietly brushed the whole matter under the rug. Things subsided for a bit, with overt religious instruction (in the local flavor of choice) gradually moved out of government mandated education and into Sunday school, where it belonged.

In 1990, encouraged by successes of the conservative evangelical Moral Majority movement in the eighties, things came roaring back. This time, there was a new strategy, the wedge strategy, consciously developed to enshrine one particular denomination's religious beliefs in the classroom, over the objections both of the scientific community and anyone who did not adhere to this particular variant of Christianity. It is here that the pejorative 'Darwinism' gained popularity as a way to miscategorize the Theory of Evolution* and the return of the 'only a theory' attack. Central to this variant of Creationism was the concept of Irreducible Complexity. Irreducible complexity is a rhetorical argument relying on the public's unfamiliarity with certain life forms and the nature of the fossil record to be successful. The technique works best as a gish gallop, where the presenter presents so much incorrect information so quickly a proper response would exhaust the respondent's time.

As the irreducible complexity argument and its faults grew too well known, Creationists introduced a new argument, Intelligent Design. Couched in language made to appear 'sciency' and supported by think tanks willing to flood classrooms with alleged textbooks at any provocation. The concept got its start in the eighties, but it isn't until the Discovery Institute began pushing it that it started showing up, a wooden horse outside the school yard gates, throughout the nineties and the start of this century.

Things came to a head in 2005, when the Dover school district attempted to require Intelligent Design in biology classrooms. The issue eventually went to court. Among other revelations from the trial was the original text of the the alleged textbook Of Pandas and People wherein the early text had undergone a search and replace, changing every instance of "Creationism" with "Intelligent Design". The judge's decision was comprehensive and devastating.

Despite this, the pressure to replace science with some variant of Biblical literalism just keeps coming. And it is, ironically enough, mutating.

I present this little history lesson to support what LeoChopper wrote. Dawkins, for all his faults, is a reaction, not a cause, for what has been happening.

____

* The Theory of Evolution extends Darwin's original ideas, adding three entirely separate mechanisms of evolution as well as an understanding of the roll of DNA and some other neat tricks. Calling the Theory of Evolution 'Darwinism' is akin to calling modern physics 'Newtonianism'.

This statement "I've always viewed the creation versus evolution debate --with apologies to both sides --as an obsolete vision of religion battling it out with an obsolete vision of science." Places equally weight on Creationism and Evolution which is just plain wrong and, while Kitoba has been making other statements which correct this balance, remarks like this will stick in mind.

It's dangerous to go alone. Take this.

You have my sword.
And my bow.
And my ax.

I'm not sure of the relevance of those in this particular line of inquiry - the point was a case study in applying Bayesian analysis, not learning QM.

Plus, I already own my own copy of QED, which I think I understood quite adequately, thank you very much.

Drache, I had been under the impression that Bayesian analysis was a technique applied within science. But it's clear that EY is promoting it as a system of thought superior to, occasionally in conflict with, and capable of superseding science (sample article title: "Science or Bayes"). As such, I'm not sure how directly relevant it is to this thread, since EY isn't even claiming to be practicing science.

I'm tempted to call EY the devotee of a cult of Rationality, but it would take more effort than I want to put into it to support that claim. Suffice it to say, I suspect there may be a reason Bayesianism --EY's term, not mine --hasn't as yet supplanted science.



No one is claiming Dawkins' started the fight. But he's certainly stoked the flame. The fact that the foremost living popularizer of evolution has worked to tie it --needlessly --to a increasingly militant atheism has done the idea itself no favors, and it's certainly galvanized the opposition in many quarters.

I think this thread itself is an example of how damaging it is to polarize the debate in that manner from either side. You're a veteran, apparently, of many battles with fundamentalists. So you turn around, and in a conversation with me, a progressive Christian who, as it happens, is a fan of science, and all but excommunicate me from the scientific community for crimes against science I haven't personally committed. It's no wonder people feel this is a war that can only have one winner.



As someone committed to reconciling science and faith, I'm interested in what keeps them at odds. I wanted to explore the idea that part of the tension is that science is serving, however inappropriately, the function of a faith for a significantly non-zero number of people.

I don't see that as certain either. The place Dawkins has definitely attracted opposition is theists who believe in evolution. As for the creationists, I think things like the growth of fundamentalism, attacks on gay marriage, and so on show people of that sort were already galvanizing themselves. I see no reason to suppose they wouldn't be just as willing to battle someone more like Gould or Morris, as waffle's history suggests. It's not an important point, but it seems like you are allowing a lot of blame on him simply because his other goals are so repellent to yours.


Well, if that's your interest, I think the discussion has shown something larger. You came in expecting people to need faith to move past very high confidence to philosophical certainty, but found that instead of using science for that, many of the people here are just fine without that move. Let me suggest the tension has more to do with this common difference than whatever non-zero people you find who do take science as faith.