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Help defend science: flunked not expelled
Author: cbit on April 18 2008 Viewed 7008 times. 29 people liked this blog. You can rate it below if you haven't already.
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Apologies, a completely non-music related post.
The creationist/ID friendly pseudo documentary called Expelled will be screening near you soon. In the film, Ben Stein claims that scientists critical of the theory of evolution are being silenced by the powers behind "big science". Through ham fisted montages the film also tries to establish a link between the theory of evolution and Nazism and other genocidal ideologies.
Christian fundamentalists are lobbying hard to promote this film, even offering incentives to school groups to go and see it.
A counter site has been launched by the national center for science education that lists, and refutes, the lies and important omissions of the expelled film.
Publishing hyperlinks to the expelled exposed site, using 'expelled' as the visible link text, will help make the counter site more visible in search engines, and help ensure that people really do hear 'both sides' of the story. If you can, please help out.
Here's a review of the film:
link
Digging this page will help spread the word too (there's a subtle digg link beneath this blog post)
edit: "help defend science" == shorthand for 'help protect people from being robbed of the chance to understand the scientific method, to understand the crucial importance of evidence based reason in evaluating truth claims, to understand the principles or critical thought, to appreciate the enormous weight of evidence in support of evolutionary theory.' | |
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04/21/08
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nagrom
Also, I hope I didn't imply that "Science" is sinister. It's just often so "Science says: ".
"Science" is quoted because it's a reference to this new attitude, stance, ethic, which is hyper-rational in the 'Enlightenment rationality' sense.
04/21/08
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cbit
Yes. I don't know that any of the group you mentioned subscribes to positivism. On the limits of evidence based reason: Here's an excerpt from an online exchange between Sam Harris and Andrew Sullivan which i think captures an outlook that i think this group have in common:
Sam Harris said: "The fact that the underpinnings of our knowledge are in some sense inscrutable (and may remain so), the fact that Hume's worries make sense, the fact that Wittgenstein can say things like "our spade is turned," does not place every spurious claim to knowledge on an equal footing with science. The discomfort induced in mathematics by Godel does not make the doctrine of Mormonism even slightly more plausible."
Incidentally, Harris is a spiritual person ;)
04/21/08
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cbit
"Science" is quoted because it's a reference to this new attitude, stance, ethic, which is hyper-rational in the 'Enlightenment rationality' sense.
I see. Is it fair to say that you're using "Science" here to stand for people who are perhaps overconfident in science?
I've heard this kind of accusation leveled at the group you mentioned quite often. But it's never been substantiated, it's as though critics simply assume that since these scientists and philosophers reject superstitious means of 'knowing', that they automatically have an unrealistic view of the power of science. Until know I haven't gotten the sense that that's true.
04/21/08
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cbit
lol @ spelling mistakes + nonfunctional 'edit'. link here's a link to the Harris Sullivan exchange.
04/21/08
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mlbot
nagrom said: " Cbit, Dawkins, Pinker et al are part of a sort of new-Rational movement that is seeking to replace philosophy and religion with "Science". The media outlets that Spark linked are part of this phenomenon. Whether scientific neo-Rationalists should be involved with ethics (that is, how you live your life) is an open question. _."
I agree with nagrom.
Maybe not 100%, like that is necessarily "their" goal... but they can certainly come across that way and I think its... an ill-advised path.
Again, I am a person who sees no qaulms between science and religion in my own life. Science can explain phenomena we witness, faith explains the leftovers, if you will.
One of the arguments that ID uses over and over, and its a good argument if you fall for it:
How do evolutionists explain the origin of life???
evolution has no answer for that... probably the chemists will have to tackle that one... but it'll be a guess at best.
But still, trying to argue something that you have 0% chance of measuring is a bad platform to argue from, and Dawkin's et al seem to be mounting that platform with books like The God Delusion, etc...
I think its a bad platform because ID people use it as a launching point. "Well, if you can't explain X, then your whole theory must be wrong, (so let us teach the literal interpretation of the Bible, where the Earth is 6000 years old and the center of the Universe in your Science classes)".
Still, I'd like to point out that Dawkins is POP SCIENCE. Minisystem is REAL SCIENCE. Minisystem is studying stuff to gain a better understanding of the world, while Dawkins sells books. Not that I'm biased or anything as to who the cooler person is ;)
04/21/08
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cbit
mlbot said: "But still, trying to argue something that you have 0% chance of measuring is a bad platform to argue from, and Dawkin's et al seem to be mounting that platform with books like The God Delusion, etc."
I have a 0% change of measuring anything to do with the existence of invisible unicorns too. This does not mean belief in them is an intellectually responsible stance. And if significant numbers of people imagined they were receiving 'instructions' from unicorns to kill others, to segregate themselves from others, to refuse their children medical treatment, to block scientific research etc etc etc, then it would be time for 'The Unicorn Delusion' to be published. I hope you agree.
04/21/08
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cbit
mlbot said: "Still, I'd like to point out that Dawkins is POP SCIENCE. Minisystem is REAL SCIENCE. Minisystem is studying stuff to gain a better understanding of the world, while Dawkins sells books."
You might as well criticise minisystem's music for not being 'real science' ;) When Dawkins writes science books he's doing so as an educator, trying to help others understand the things science has uncovered.
04/21/08
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cbit
mlbot said: "Minisystem is studying stuff to gain a better understanding of the world, while Dawkins sells books."
This sentence could also end with: while dawkins is helping others gain a better understanding of the world ;)
04/21/08
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mlbot
cbit said: "You might as well criticise minisystem's music for not being 'real science' ;) When Dawkins writes science books he's doing so as an educator, trying to help others understand the things science has uncovered."
The criticism is YOUR point, not mine. I just pointed out the difference.
There is also a difference between Enlightenmonet-era science, which is what is taught in college, versus what Minisystem does. For ervery question Minisystem ansnwers, 2 new ones pop up. So, really, he's generating more questions than answers.
Whereas Enlightenment-era science held the belief that science would eventually have all the answers. And could be taught in books, put into print permanently and unchangedly.
Reading from what people post to this blog, its the latter-type of "Science" that most folks here seem to be exposed to.
But, really, Science isn't in books. The internet has been a great change for science becasue it can change so easily, while tetbooks can't. And, in fact, by the time you finish writing a textbook and publish it, its out of date already.
The opener of Ben Stein's trailer has him "grilling" some scientist, getting him to "admit" that evolution can't explain the origin of life.
And I'd like to impress upon the people reading this blog... big fucking deal. Science doesn't have all the answers. And for every answer it gives you, it poses two more questions... which when answered pose 4 more questions... and when of those, one of those doesn't get answered the qay you expected, so you have to go back and tweak the original answer... well, it changes your definition of Answer.
Maybe ignatius is right and we need to nut up. Still, scientists I think are fairly comfortable saying "we don't know everything, things could be different than we expect" AND saying "evolution is how things work, beyond a reasonable doubt" in the same breath and have no qulams about it, no sense of contradiction. i say the rest of you need to nut up... who cares if its called a Law or a Theory? Who cares if its Right? Its the best answer.
That's not the answer you'll get from medicine, which a lot of folks (Spark, you in particular) confuse/meld with "Science". No one likes to have a doctor say "humm, i dunno. Maybe you'll get better if you take this, or maybe you'll die. We'll just have to find 20 more peopple like you and see for ourselves, won't we?"
04/21/08
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mlbot
cbit said: "
I have a 0% change of measuring anything to do with the existence of invisible unicorns too."
I hope you would never argue with someone over the existence of invisible unicorns from a scientific perspective.
Its very difficult to argue Fortean logic, logically.
04/21/08
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cbit
mlbot said: "There is also a difference between Enlightenmonet-era science, which is what is taught in college, versus what Minisystem does. For ervery question Minisystem ansnwers, 2 new ones pop up. So, really, he's generating more questions than answers.
Whereas Enlightenment-era science held the belief that science would eventually have all the answers. And could be taught in books, put into print permanently and unchangedly."
Yes. A lot of the criticism surrounding Dawkins' output latches onto an alleged overconfidence in science, which probably corresponds to the attitude of enlightenment era scientists. I don't see that though. Even when we realise that science may not deliver all the answers, and may not be able to touch some areas at all (ethics), it's still the only game in town when it comes to assessing factual claims. I think that what gets branded as scientism (whatever that really means) in Dawkins' work, is nothing more than an emphasising of this, imo uncontroversial, point.
Maybe ignatius is right and we need to nut up. Still, scientists I think are fairly comfortable saying "we don't know everything, things could be different than we expect" AND saying "evolution is how things work, beyond a reasonable doubt" in the same breath and have no qulams about it, no sense of contradiction. i say the rest of you need to nut up... who cares if its called a Law or a Theory? Who cares if its Right? Its the best answer. +1
04/21/08
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ryansupak
Didn't read all 15 pages, but Stein has a personal pro-religion ax to grind (and Dawkins has a personal anti-religion ax to grind). (I am extremely well-versed in the rhetoric of both, as well as most of their predecessors.) They also both have some good points, which makes it easy to get confused between sense and disengenuous rhetoric.
There are moderate voices out there on this matter, but they're hard to hear right now. I think this discussion will cool off in a few years, just like the race discussion did after the early 1990's in the USA. (Now we're actually able to talk about it without throwing chairs.)
***
From what I've seen, it *does* seem preposterously unlikely that all "this" would happen by accident. The odds go far, far beyond what "deep time" and chance would conjure up, even being generous with the size and age of the universe. This understanding is not despite scientific inquiry, but due to it. As more scientific discoveries are made, this fact is not explained away; instead the inadequacy of chance to explain "life, the universe, and everything" becomes more pronounced.
So, I don't think that just because we can't see an old bearded guy in a robe, sitting on a cloud, in a telescope doesn't mean we can't observe things that point at a super-intelligence or "information entry point" of some sort into the universe, as the most reasonable possible conclusion.
***
That being said, I don't think religion has any place in science, and I'm not sure what place religion has in society at all, at least where rules that will apply to everybody (regardless of their beliefs) are concerned. Good old "separation of church and state".
By the same token, there is a predominant culture in the scientific community (and really it extends to lots of people with a high regard for their own intelligence) that has a deep emotional attachment to atheism. It carries with it a fervor that makes it difficult to trust these people when they say they're only interested in what's "rational".
$0.02,
rs
04/21/08
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cbit
rs said: "By the same token, there is a predominant culture in the scientific community (and really it extends to lots of people with a high regard for their own intelligence) that has a deep emotional attachment to atheism."
How do you tell whether someone is deeply attached to the idea of the non-existence of invisible, magic beings, or whether the 'emotional' aspect comes from passionately supporting the principle of not accepting claims on insufficient evidence? I think it's almost always the latter.
[qupte]instead the inadequacy of chance to explain "life, the universe, and everything" becomes more pronounced.[/quote]But if we've learned anything from Darwin, it's that increases in complexity can be cumulative. We already know that nature can throw up self-bootstrapping systems of increasing complexity. And chance is only part of the story.
rs said: "So, I don't think that just because we can't see an old bearded guy in a robe, sitting on a cloud, in a telescope doesn't mean we can't observe things that point at a super-intelligence or "information entry point" of some sort into the universe, as the most reasonable possible conclusion.
"
Well sure we can speculate about that. The problem is that many people want to posit an intelligence, to *explain* the appearance of design, and the trouble here is that by doing that you're left without an explanation of that intelligence, which, from what we see in the world, seems many times more improbable than any of the abiogenesis ideas out there.
04/21/08
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dach
As a scientist, I'm wondering how I can broaden my perceptions somewhat to include an ID point of view as best I can. So far I come up with the following.
ID says Earth is the center of the universe. Well, lets examine the underlying definitions. Science defines the universe to be a big, huge, i dunno, empty space, filled (but mostly empty) with stars and planets and galaxies and stuff like that. And Earth clearly isn't the center of the Universe according to this viewpoint.
From my own point of view (and I assume pretty much everyone elses), Earth is the very definte center of whats happening. Center of the social universe, if you want to call it that. Center of life (as far as we know, and we know billions of years back and wide). It's the most happening place in the Universe, and the word 'center' is extremely accurate given our field of knowledge, and a broader definition of the word 'center' than 'geometric center'. I don't think it's too difficult to see ID as stating a pretty obvious 'truth' (not 'Truth'), and this truth I can accept as by and large a useful definition of the way stuff is. Much like newtonian physics is a useful way to describe the way stuff is, although we know it's not actually like that. We know that approximation is a general way to reduce stuff in science, despite chaos theory.
Now I'm rambling, but I find it useful and entertaining to look at religion as metaphor, and gaining some valuable perspectives from this approach. ID certainly stretches the imagination...
04/21/08
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cbit
dach said: "From my own point of view (and I assume pretty much everyone elses), Earth is the very definte center of whats happening. Center of the social universe,"
If Geocentrists were merely saying that the earth is the *social center* of the universe, they may have a point...
I don't think it's too difficult to see ID as stating a pretty obvious 'truth' (not 'Truth'), and this truth I can accept as by and large a useful definition of the way stuff is.
I'm sorry to be a pedant but this kind of equivocation isn't helpful here. The geocentrists are making a very specific claim, and they're flat out wrong about it. Saying "in a way, geocentrism is correct" is as useful as saying "in a way, 2+2=5".
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