Compelling Explanations

It’s so frustrating to me that this stupid trial distracts Professor Behe from concentrating on his main area of work – turning lead into gold. I invested too much into this project to see the inevitable break-through delayed once again, dammit.

I forgot to say, props to Pharyngula for that link.

I don’t think there’s any chance of finding any ID defenders among the usual suspects here, so it’s probably going to be pretty boring. But maybe this could get a few people riled up:

http://www.reason.com/hod/ww121304.shtml

The basic argument here is that forcing Darwin on Evangelicals in Biology class is analogous to forcing pork on Muslim students in the lunchroom.

His proposed solution – instead of parents suing eachother over the contents of textbooks, we ought to be thinking about school choice that allows parents to select consistent with their values.

Fine with me, I’d like to see more school choice. The trouble is that many of these people won’t be satisfied even by that, because they want their kids to be ignorant but not to have to suffer the consequences of their ignorance. Witness the recent news story about a ridiculous lawsuit against one of the U. of California campuses claiming that its refusal to accept bogus “biology” credits from some Bible academy constitutes religious discrimination. The people behind the creationist movement are aiming for a lot more than simply allowing kids to escape from science education. Google “wedge document” for the details.

Except it’s not, because sitting in a science class learning about the theory of evolution does not contravene God’s law (or does it?). Or to put it another way, just because your hear something doesn’t mean you have to believe it. Moreover, the whole analogy is flawed, because sound science is objective.

Of course sound science is objective. But ‘unclean’ animals are also objectively safe to eat. The question of whether or not the theory of evolution is sound science or not is really not the issue in the Reason piece — the issue is whether or not having their children taught the theory of evolution (and the Big Bang and that the universe is billions of years old) offends some of the most valued, deeply held religious beliefs of these parents — and clearly it does. Their children are being taught in science class that what they’ve been taught in Sunday school is flat-out wrong. Are the beliefs objectively nonsensical? Yes they surely are — but so are most religious beliefs.

What are you proposing as an alternative? That we treat with respect only those religious beliefs that have firm scientific foundations? That’s not going to leave much, is it?

Slocum, what is generally proposed is that science classes teach the current state of the sciences, to the level at which the students are presumed to be capable of understanding. If they, or their parents, have religious objects, that is, at most, grounds for exempting a student from that class – and if their academic career suffers later, tough.

Their children are being taught in science class that what they’ve been taught in Sunday school is flat-out wrong.

I don’t think so. In science class they are being taught scientific facts and theories and the Sunday school is not mentioned there at all. It’s up to the Sunday school to re-interpret facts and to contest scientific theories, if that’s what they want to do.

For example, it wouldn’t be offensive to tell Muslims that ‘unclean’ animals are objectively (as far as we know) safe to eat – you’re not forcing them to eat it, you just telling them that science has no evidence of unclean animals being harmful. And then their Sunday school will explain to them why they shouldn’t do it. Everybody is happy.

Again, tough.

If you [qua generic 2nd-person believer in biblical creationism] happen to have a belief system that’s incompatible with modern science, and your belief in that system is so vulnerable to criticism that you can’t even contemplate the idea that your children might hear of a view that contradicts that belief system, who cares?

It’s just pathetic.

There’s nothing principled or admirable about being unable to tolerate the presentation of views that contradict one’s religious beliefs. It smacks of cowardice.

For example, it wouldn’t be offensive to tell Muslims that ‘unclean’ animals are objectively (as far as we know) safe to eat – you’re not forcing them to eat it, you just telling them that science has no evidence of unclean animals being harmful. And then their Sunday school will explain to them why they shouldn’t do it. Everybody is happy.

“you’re not forcing them to eat it”? But teaching evolution to evangelicals as objective fact IS THE EQUIVALENT OF FORCING THEM TO EAT IT. You are forcing them to study and master a body of knowledge that their religious community considers blasphemy of the worst kind — that humans are the result of a long line of random accidents that were preserved because they proved advantageous rather than the special creation of a loving God. There is virtually nothing these folks find more offensive than that.

I’m really kind of mystified by arguments claiming that evangelicals “shouldn’t be offended”. What status do non-believers have to decide what believers find offensive?

“I’m really kind of mystified by arguments claiming that evangelicals “shouldn’t be offended”. What status do non-believers have to decide what believers find offensive?”

I’m not saying they shouldn’t be offended. I’m saying being so offended by the very presence of a countervailing viewpoint is kind of pathetic. I’m making a value judgement.

For example, and this is true, my parents (were) atheist hippy anarchist vegans (yes, don’t laugh). I went to an ordinary Scottish state school i.e. one with Protestant religious education and regular church services. At school I was taught many things that conflicted with my parents’ political, ethical and religious beliefs.

I’d imagine this situation is common in all kinds of ways and across all kinds of ideological spectra. Many people will have religious, ethical and political beliefs that conflict with the orthodoxy currently being taught in state schools. However, most of them see to it that they educate their children about their own views and persuade them of the rightness of their cause without making a huge fuss about it, or demanding special treatment, or the right to withdraw their kids from this class or that class and so on.

No-one is saying they have to think that evolution is right, or that they can’t teach their kids that this viewpoint is totally wrong. But being so offended by it that they won’t even let them hear it? I’m qute happy to make a value-judgement: that’s pathetic.

Slocum, Do you really see no significant difference between forcing someone to eat pork and teaching them about evolution?

I think science is getting a bum rap here too. Science is always open to disagreement. If creationists are too lazy or disrespectful to explain why everyone else is wrong about evolution, I don’t see why they deserve special understanding.

Would one of the proper philosophers provide attribution to the original proponents of everybody’s arguments?

BTW, if you tell a Muslim that haram meat is not poisonous, they’ll say, “Of course it isn’t, it’s forbidden me by Islam.”

Of course. Interesting that the author of the Reason piece doesn’t produce evidence of any Muslims actually making this argument.

“If creationists are too lazy or disrespectful to explain why everyone else is wrong about evolution, I don’t see why they deserve special understanding.”

Actually, it’s stronger than that. They deserve our scorn.

Matt: I’m not saying they shouldn’t be offended. I’m saying being so offended by the very presence of a countervailing viewpoint is kind of pathetic.

Well, I agree it’s pathetic. I think that belief in miracles and magic, in general, are pathetic. But in the fundamentalist worldview, blasphemy matters. They believe the devil is continually trying to lead people off the narrow path with tempting alternatives to the true faith.

“Jack: Slocum, Do you really see no significant difference between forcing someone to eat pork and teaching them about evolution?”

I’m saying that this is a reasonable approximation of the way fundamentalist parents feel about teaching evolution to their children. You don’t think they feel that strongly about it? Why not?

“contradictory ben: Learning current scientific thinking only involves blasphemy if one also believes or is taught that the scientific process is a higher source of truth than, say, revelation, scripture, or religious tradition. Wouldn’t most Christian fundamentalists reject that idea?”

Interestingly, the fundamentalists (unlike, say, those segments of the pomo left who bought Sokal’s hoax) haven’t rejected objective truth or scientific ways of understanding the world–which is why you’ll see them make arguments like, ‘Evolution can’t be replicated in the lab in controlled experiments’ and why they’ll accept ‘micro evolution’ but not ‘macro evolution’ and why they are so keen to try to establish ID experts as ‘real scientists’. If they generally believed science was all BS, they wouldn’t be so much trouble (at least in some respects).

Interestingly, the fundamentalists (unlike, say, those segments of the pomo left who bought Sokal’s hoax) haven’t rejected objective truth or scientific ways of understanding the world…

But the IDiot crowd, with its specious attacks on “methodological naturalism”, IS doing exactly that. I believe Phillip Johnson has even specifically cited pomo relativism as having been useful in prepareing the ground for his “wedge strategy”.

An ID curriculum cannot be taught in a classroom with any integrity. Why not? Because its core arguments rely on factually false statements: “The flagellum couldn’t have evolved. Mutations never add information or benefits. There are no transitional fossils.” It’s dangerous to imagine, as the popular press does, that ID is simply an alternative sort of episteimology, interpreting agreed-upon facts in a non-naturalistic way. That’s not how it works; it aggressively distorts or ignores facts. How could this ever be worked into a science classroom? It’s not “teachers being sensitive to student’s sensibilities.” It’s “teachers lying to students on behalf of their religious leaders.”

We don’t send students to school to comfort them, to strengthen their faiths, or to reassure them that everything they think they know is right. We send students to school to teach them about the complicated world they’re about to enter. That happens to be a world in which there’s no evidence against evolution, and no scientific evidence of any deities.

We all know that where one finds oneself at birth is about as random as it gets, yet we continually fuss about the unfairness of it all, that is, especially if one pops into the light of the world in … say, on Elm Street in New Haven. So why not circumvent natural randomness with Intelligent Randomness, at birth each baby will be tattooed on the rear end with ‘specialness code’ of 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5. Then throughout life, this code will be part and parcel of your Social Security number or Drivers License or Credit Card, and anytime you swipe any sort of transaction, you will be given full treatment if “1” or your transaction will be lost or fouled up if your specialness is “5”. No matter if your father is George Herbert Walker, if your butt is stamped “5” … then IR will treat you as such.

abb1 writes:

suppose you believe that difference between races is purely superficial and suppose the science class at your child’s school teaches Murray’s ‘bell curve’ theory or something. There are all kinds of science; quite often politics determine what science is acceptable.

In that case, I would suggest the following:

(1) You explain to your child why the science she is being taught is wrong. If you can’t do this, find someone who can.

(2) Armed with this knowledge, allow your child to attend class in order to know the “scientific” arguments — all the better to defeat them. Scientific thinking didn’t stop being racist and sexist because people wished it away; it became more progressive as subinterns and their more privileged supporters engaged in the scientific process. The education of subinterns like women played a crucial role in bringing them into the scientific fold.

Sometimes proponents of ID look like they’re trying to do something like this, but usually they seem to be distorting existing scientific thinking while generating little new research of their own.

So if I have slocum’s argument correctly, the simple fact that some people find certain things offensive, no matter how specious their offense is, warrants a reorganization of society so as to lessen the degree those people are irrationally offended. All from a libertarian source, of course.

Slocum, either you’re very naive or woefully uniformed. Go read the famous Wedge Document , or some of the rantings of Phillip Johnson, and report back on what you find.
Whatever some of the sheep may think, the ringleaders want a radical transformation of society and thought, not simply to be left alone.

The basic argument here is that forcing Darwin on Evangelicals in Biology class is analogous to forcing pork on Muslim students in the lunchroom.

No. It isn’t analogous at all. It is perfectly possible to have a healthy diet without eating pork. It is not possible to understand biology without understanding evolution.

If people don’t want to their kids to learn evolutionary theory, then tell them not to take biology. What the fundamentalists want is to have biology without evolution. That’s like wanting a healthy diet without protein.

Religious fundamentalists are welcome to send their children to private religious schools, if they think that what is taught in public schools is so pernicious. That’s how it’s been for well over a century in the USA. Why the big beef now?

As for the argument that they have to “pay twice”, what BS. My wife and I don’t have any kids, don’t plan on having any, and yet we still pay into the public school system. Should we whine for a refund?

No. We all pay for public schools, because if didn’t, our modern society would crumble, due to lack of an educated workforce.

So fundies can render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, which in this case are taxes that support schools, and then if they want they can send their kids to private schools.

Or they could, just maybe, shut the hell up, and quit trying to turn the clock back to 1200 A.D. But that only happens in my dreams.

So fundies can render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, which in this case are taxes that support schools, and then if they want they can send their kids to private schools.

Or they could, just maybe, shut the hell up, and quit trying to turn the clock back to 1200 A.D. But that only happens in my dreams.

Well, if we stick with that approach, they’re never going to give up. Did it ever occur to you that, politically, they could actually win? It’s pretty clear that in the U.S. right now, the majority would vote for ID along with evolution in the interests of ‘fairness’. Have you considered, in a few years, the possibility of having to live with, “if ‘hard core evolutionists’ want to send their kids to schools where ID is not taught, they can send their kids to private schools (or shut the hell up)”?

Is a Supreme Court willing to rule that ID does violate the separation of church & state beyond your imagination? Because it isn’t beyond mine.

“It’s pretty clear that in the U.S. right now, the majority would vote for ID along with evolution in the interests of ‘fairness’.”

Could you give a cite for this? The couple of statistics I have seen on people who wanted ID in schools have seemed outrageously high to me but I don’t think anything like a majority. But I do not reckon I’ve seen all the polls.

Well, there’s this:

http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=254

Scroll down a ways to the sections on evolution and education. Pretty depressing. On the positive side (I guess you could say its the positive side), at least a majority seem to want evolution AND ID taught rather than just ID ;)

“Um, yeah, actually. I’ve not seen any evidence of a desire to impose ID teaching on those who don’t share their beliefs – only a desire not to have the teaching of evolution imposed on their own kids.”

Are you paying any attention at all then? The big problem here, the locus on debate, is that ID supporters want ID to become a mandatory part of science curriculums. Were they just asking to allow their children to be exempted, there would be little problem. Though they did that as well, successfully, with sex education, and were not satisfied either, and prefered to move on to actively promote mandatory abstinence-only education.

And since you evidently want proof of the most basic fundamentals of the argument at hand (not that demanding proof is ordinarily a bad thing), I present to you, from the article which this thread is discussing:

“Prof. Michael J. Behe, a biochemist at Lehigh University, is the first expert witness for the school board of Dover, Pa., which is requiring students to hear a statement about intelligent design in biology class.” (emphasis mine).

And you will, much less speciously, surely demand proof of my second claim, which I am happy to provide:

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/health/articles/051017/17sex.htm

And yes, currently the federal government of the United States actuvely supports their efforts in this case:

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/state/050920funding.shtml

Are you paying any attention at all then? The big problem here, the locus on debate, is that ID supporters want ID to become a mandatory part of science curriculums. Were they just asking to allow their children to be exempted, there would be little problem.

Yes, yes, of course the IDers are pushing to include ID in standard science curricula because the opt-out option really isn’t an option — that’s the point. If they could send their kids to schools that included ID (or taught only ID or even ‘young earth creationism’) without having to pay out of pocket, they might be satisfied. There’s no real way to know for sure, but I can’t point to any evidence that they’re pushing ID because they want my kids to learn it.

I can’t point to any evidence that they’re pushing ID because they want my kids to learn it.

Then you didn’t bother to look at the “Wedge Document” that Steve Labonne linked to in #39:

Twenty Year Goals
To see intelligent design theory as the dominant perspective in science.
To see design theory application in specific fields, including molecular biology, biochemistry, paleontology, ethics, politics, theology and philosophy in the humanities; to see its influence in the fine arts.
To see design theory permeate our religious, cultural, moral and political life.

“What is fundamentally crazy about the libertarian idea that the best way to accomdate these kinds of conflicts in a heterogeneous society is to offer choices and alternatives rather than engage in fight-to-the-death battles over one-size-fits-all public education?”

Nothing. However, this is not what ID proponents want. I am alright with the discussion of ID in a classroom, though not in a science class. Rather, I would like to see a robust discussion of philosophy and religion, including the distinctions and similarities between relgion and science, in schools. Sadly, that is a pipe dream.

A leading architect of the intelligent-design movement defended his ideas in a federal courtroom on Tuesday and acknowledged that under his definition of a scientific theory, astrology would fit as neatly as intelligent design

Well it would. Astrology is a Popperian science; it makes falsifiable predictions. I’ve been making this joke at the expense of Popperites for years now, though to be honest I am a little bit surprised to see it show up in the public policy arena.

Well, I tried.

“Well, there’s this”

Spooky part is that even among those who believe in evolution a large percentage want BOTH taught.

Slocum’s right. They could win this thing.

“As for the argument that they have to “pay twice”, what BS. My wife and I don’t have any kids, don’t plan on having any, and yet we still pay into the public school system. Should we whine for a refund?”

Yes! As a person with no children I’d like to state that I am officially whining for my refund right now. Gimme gimme gimme!

“What is “fundamentally crazy” is the logical conclusion of your argument: that there is absolutely nothing that we ought to insist on kids being taught”

That’s not the logical conclusion of his argument. The logical conclusion is that a voucher based system can accomodate schools that teach all kinds of stuff. That’s different, yes?

I don’t think the Popperites would have any trouble with saying that astrological assertions are potentially scientific, but false.

Actually the only reason for this dead boring post is to see if putting an unbalanced close-blockquote tag does any good.

Explanatory model my arse. Behe just finished admitting under oath that he has absolutely nothing to say about mechanisms for “design”.
In other words, he can go on making claims (largely false by the way; he’s too ignorant to recognize genuinely open questions) about what evolutionary biologists can’t (currently) explain, while feeling free to offer absolutely NO explanations whatsoever himself. That’s not a theory, scientific or otherwise, it’s pure wanking.

No, apparently not.

There are some out of order close tags on #53. If anyone out there has the power to do so, moving the last &#60/li&#62 back inside the main &#60blockquote&#62 would probably fix it.

Interesting. I give up.

I don’t think the Popperites would have any trouble with saying that astrological assertions are potentially scientific, but false.

That would be the consistent way of dealing with it (although obviously, you wouldn’t be able to make this as an authoritative universally quantified statement about astrological statements, because Popperian epistemology doesn’t really allow for that sort of thing). But in fact, most common-or-garden Popperites, with unfortunate amounts of support from the weakest bits of LoSD, tend to retreat into empirically false statements about astrology, claiming that the vague nonspecific predictions in newspaper columns are all that astrologers ever do.

That’s not the logical conclusion of his argument. The logical conclusion is that a voucher based system can accomodate schools that teach all kinds of stuff. That’s different, yes?

No.

If schools can teach “all kinds of stuff” then there is nothing they absolutely have to teach. Whatever you may want them to teach, there is some “kind of stuff” that differs.

slocum wrote, If fundamentalists were free to send their kids to schools of their choice (without paying twice)…

If that’s “paying twice,” what about people with no kids who have to “pay once”?

The fundamentalists seem pretty willing to attend their churches without bothering the rest of us

Yeah, sure. Aside from wanting to outlaw abortion, prevent passage of laws permitting homosexuals to marry, etc.

slocum wrote, If they could send their kids to schools that included ID (or taught only ID or even ‘young earth creationism’) without having to pay out of pocket, they might be satisfied.

LOL! You’re kidding, right? The Christian Right will be “satisfied” if we merely compromise with them on a handful of issues?

Please (re)read Krugman’s introduction to his The Great Unraveling. The Right in the US is a “revolutionary power,” as Kissinger put it, and it ain’t gonna compromise.