The good doctor on the left, the idiot doctor on the right. What are they doing at the Boston Globe?
Sceptical About Evolution?
Here's a great little article covering why this debate has hit the cultural spotlight right now.
Debate over evolution has been a constant thread in American society, before and since the 1925 Tennessee trial that found science teacher John Scopes guilty of violating a state law against teaching evolution. A higher court later overturned the verdict on a technicality without ruling on the merits of the law.
The fact that the debate has returned with such force in 2005 may reflect a time of frightening cultural change when people "look for something that is absolute and certain," said Mark Sisk, the Episcopal bishop of New York.
"I believe that a fair amount of this is an attempt to corner God. And when one does that it approaches idolatry," he added. The Biblical account of creation simply means that "God is the source of everything" and nothing in that conflicts with Darwin, he said.
I quote that bit in particular because I want to note that being religious doesn't equal wanting creationism/Intelligent Design to be taught.
There's also this bit:
John West, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, said the debate has ripened because more credentialed scientists are critical of Darwin's theory. The institute has a list of 400 people with a variety of degrees in and out of academia who it said have signed a "dissent."
It states that they are "skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence of Darwinian theory should be encouraged."
What the institute would like to see, West, said, is a requirement that schools "teach the controversy" -- to note in lessons on evolution that not everyone accepts the theory.
That approach is equally abhorrent to Michael Zimmerman, dean of the College of Letters and Sciences at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh.
He blames the spreading debate in part on "narrow-minded religious leaders repeatedly saying people have to choose between science and religion." What they really want, Zimmerman said, is "to overturn the scientific paradigm that explains the natural world in materialistic terms."
He has gathered nearly 9,000 signatures of U.S. clergy members on a letter posted online urging school boards to keep teaching evolution "as a core component of human knowledge."
You can see the double whammy: It's wrong, but it's also adding to the confusion. And as more people are confused, it allows religion to insert itself into a topic that's been open and shut in the US courts since the Monkey Trials of 1925.
Who'd a thunk we'd live in such times?
In Australia, Where They Make Us Really Stupid
The Sydney Morning Herald ran this article showing just how fucked up people can be:
The view presented by some scientists, and affirmed in your editorial ("A matter of faith", October 22-23), is that intelligent design is plainly not science because it fails the basic requirement to be scientific: it must be testable against observation. I agree with this premise.
But I have a problem. Evolution by natural selection (trial and error) is claimed to be the process by which life as we know it came into existence. However, this claim is not testable against observation nor is it supported by the facts since no-one can test against observation how life actually came into existence.
Based on what can be observed, scientists interpret the evidence by assuming what they think is the case and testing it. Thus their conclusions are interpretations as to what they think may be the how and what concerning the origins of life and the universe. Hence any viewpoint about the origins of life and the universe can only be, at best, a theory.
To assert a theory to be fact is not science - it is a matter of faith.
- Mike Geeves Mount Riverview
The Herald editorial conclusion that teaching intelligent design in science classes would be tantamount to fraud was spot on. Government funding should be withdrawn from any school that includes this totally non-scientific doctrine in its science curriculum.
- John Moyse Newcastle
On the one hand science students are taught the basic law of science that without intelligent input, matter always tends to a state of greater disorder and disorganisation. But in the same science class it is claimed that in the distant past, contrary to this observable law of science, matter somehow became highly organised without any intelligent input. It seems to me that evolution is just as much a matter of faith as intelligent design.
- George Wells Belmont
Albert Einstein once said that in the laws of nature "an intelligence so superior is revealed that in comparison all the significance of human thinking and human arrangements is a completely worthless reflection".
To preclude the teaching of intelligent design theory because it is deemed to be unscientific (which it may well be) is to suggest that science exhausts the boundaries of human knowledge, a proposition that is manifestly absurd.
The question of God, or the infinite, cannot be confined within the boundaries of scientific research and to exclude consideration of these questions is closed minded and arrogant.
- Richard Shankland Pymble
Evolution and intelligent design are two different theories of natural history. Evolutionists first believe in evolution, then seek supporting evidence to fill in the gaps. One hypothesis is that life is incredibly improbable to occur by chance, so it happened once; over time, all species evolved from that.
One could examine DNA and bones of living and dead organisms, looking for commonalities that support a hypothesis of common ancestry. Another hypothesis says there is one designer, not many. One could examine DNA and bones of living and dead organisms, looking for commonalities that support the single designer hypothesis, evidenced by similarities and genetic code reuse. Either way, knowledge is increased. Why are professional evolutionists so against education or research of alternate hypotheses?
True scientific method is independent evaluation of evidence, testing against all hypotheses, not dogmatic assertion that only one theory is worth the effort.
- Nathan Miller Kambah (ACT)
Science is about discovery, and involves uncertainty, but also persistent seeking of truth. Religious belief is about revelation, as revealed and certified by people, usually male power-seekers who love hierarchy and see themselves as shepherds for the poor unenlightened rest of us. I can no longer trust such people who proclaim certainty - the Earth is still flat, isn't it? It used to be. And what an intelligent design, to make the sun revolve around the Earth every day.
- Fred McArdle Brunswick (Vic)
Mike Archer and his group of science experts claim in their letter that intelligent design is philosophy and therefore should not be taught in school science classes ( "Intelligent design is not science: experts", October 21). They may have a point, but what they are not telling us is that evolution is likewise a philosophy. If we are to ban intelligent design from science classes then to be consistent we will have to ban evolution, too.
They claim that evolution can be tested and repeated, but this is mere bluster. The central tenet of evolution, that life arose from non-life sometime in the unimaginable past, can neither be tested nor repeated, but it can be questioned and this is the object of intelligent design arguments. This debate is not about science v religion but rather it is about philosophy v philosophy.
- Ewan McDonald Timmering (Vic)
So intelligent design makes no predictions and cannot be tested. Since when have scientists been able to test evolution? How about the Big Bang theory? All supposition, unrepeatable in experimentation.
Intelligent design requires accepting that man is not in fact the ultimate result of billions of years of random mutation, but is the product of the ordered intention of a being greater than ourselves. Unfortunately, the arrogance of mankind means that this is generally an unacceptable contention.
- Andrew Tiedt St Ives
You don't have to be an expert to know that creationism, by whatever name you try to disguise it, is not science.
- Fred Pilcher Kaleen (ACT)
What scares me is that there are more folks in favor of defending 'ID' than there are lambasting it for the errant stupidity that it is. Kind of explains the rise of the 'Family First' Party and the desire to obfuscate the line between Church and Politics in this country. I don't care about (or for that much care for) people's issues of faith; it's just that they're not germaine to science no matter how much they raise questions.
Let's face it, a lot of the questions they raise are rhetorical and they're not interested in hearing the scientific answers. There are answers to every single one of the questions raised by 'ID' in order to get to its thesis.
Maybe I should insist that they should teach 'Irreducible Stupidity' in sociology classes, covering this growing throng of flat-earth society types.
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