While the recent Texas evolution fight made a loser out of both Creationists and Evolutionists, thankfully science came out the winner.
A Victory for Science (Part 1)
A Victory for Science (Part 2)
Recently, the state of Texas underwent a periodic review of it's biology curriculum textbook. At primary issue was a debate over how evolution should be taught. The results were mixed. For the last part of this three-part blog, I'm going to look at the real winner of this battle of wits: science.
The entire point of science, as I see it, is to make the most accurate generalizations about the universe. In order to do this, it tries to be objective as it can, demanding rigor through repeatable experimentation, falsifiability, and open disclosure of methods, along with debate of conclusions in peer-reviewed journals. Subjectivity can produce accuracy, but not consistently, and it's much more difficult to dislodge subjective falsehoods than objectively-created ones.
As such, in order to avoid the pitfalls of subjectivity, science has to constantly be critical and skeptical. It has to be constantly on the lookout for doctrine and dogma. Otherwise, people could make up their own worldviews using some data generated by the scientific method and then call their worldview "science", and that everyone else is a subjective moron for not believing in it. It is these worldviews, no matter the data that is in them, that becomes dogmatic.
Tragically, huge swaths of what the theory of evolution has created is, in fact, worldview. Long ago, people like Huxley made up their own religion using some real science that Darwin had done. This worldview hijacked the objective system of science to create a subjective ideology, and then branded anyone who didn't believe in evolution to not believe in science. Refusal to believe in ANY subjective system, no matter who came up with the data does NOT mean that you disbelieve in objective systems, like science.
But tragically, this hasn't been apparent to so many scientists over time. As such, many believe that in order to believe in the objective system of science, you need to believe in the subjective parts that snuck in.
Thankfully, however, at least in the state of Texas, this tragedy is under siege. Now high schoolers are being taught that they need to approach theories critically and conclusions with skepticism. They are learning that real science involves real debate, not simply accepting what more senior scientists, or a simple majority of the science community says is so. They are learning that disagreeing with conclusions does not mean that you are an unscientific heretic to rational thought and reasonable disposition.
Not only will students have a more mature understanding of how the scientific process works, but it also emphasizes the power that real science has. As mentioned before, students who are able to critically handle data and debate conclusions are less likely to fall for non-science like creationism while they're busy disbelieving non-science like evolutionism. As well, it embeds the principle that conclusions from authority should be questioned and tested, whether the truth comes from the lips of high-ranking priests, or high-ranking scientists. Noocracy averted, democracy is still safe for the future.
Hopefully these kinds of people will go on to enter scientific professions so that they can help clean out future subjective messes, and the scientific body will be better off for it. If we are forced to have non-scientific groups propounding real science to clean out the non-science from scientific groups, then so be it. Texas definitely made the right call.
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Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
A Victory for Science (Part 2)
While the recent Texas evolution fight made a loser out of both Creationists and Evolutionists, thankfully science came out the winner.
A Victory for Science (Part 1)
Recently, the state of Texas underwent a periodic review of it's biology curriculum textbook. At primary issue was a debate over how evolution should be taught. The results were mixed. For the second part of this three-part blog, I'm going to look at one of the losers to this battle of wits: creationists.
Creationists just plain old don't like a lot of the conclusions that the theory of evolution implies. I don't know of any who disbelieve in the science of genetics, but I also don't know any that believe that non-life begets life, and that organisms in one kingdom, given enough time, can turn into organisms that belong to another kingdom. The thing is, for hardcore creationists, it's NOT a simple matter of being skeptical of a scientific theory, it is the purposeful rejection of an ideology because it is in conflict with theirs. It's not that evolution untenably corroborates disassociated data, it's that if you believe in it, you go to hell.
While it would be easy to claim that creationism has somehow won in this whole affair, the ultimate result is the opposite. The current Texas decision has set a precedent that will ultimately HURT the creationist standpoint.
This is because the tactic that creationists have used is a tactic of "don't just believe what you're told, or what's popular". Of course, Christianity isn't well-known for it's skeptical disbelief in that which cannot be empirically verified. No, the real point of this type of argument is two-fold. The first is that it presents a legitimate window through which one can scientifically doubt the "scientific" principles of evolution. With their foot in the door, creationism is allowed to wedge it's own "science" in: intelligent design.
Intelligent design is not science. It is an ideologically-driven train wreck between philosophy and data (just like evolution). It makes sense to create a new pseudo-science that has positive ramifications on your ideology to counter a pseudo-science that has negative ramifications. The problem, of course, is the method that creationists are using to get their blend of garbage to replace the existing blend.
The method, remember, is to question everything. Be critical. Be skeptical. The reason, of course, is that this spirit (the spirit that drives real science) has a tendency to wash away non-science mumbo jumbo. The error, though, is to assume that once people use critical reasoning against evolution, they won't then turn the very same against creationism. There is no way that creationism, as a science, can survive against critical thinking.
At best, it's a wash for creationism. Yes, the kids may not believe in evolution, but they're not going to believe in intelligent design either. But here's the dangerous part: you've taught your kids to be skeptical. It's not going to take long before those same little 9th grade critical thinkers to point their aim at Christianity. Remember, Christianity, at least the parts that attempt to describe history and universal fact, does not hold up well against science. If you don't believe me, just ask the Catholic Church.
In the end, critically thinking teens will start looking at Christianity and coming to conclusions like "Christianity is the belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree..."
Thus critical reasoning destroys the religion of evolution, thus it destroys the religion of Christ. As such, by using this tactic, creationists are ultimately destroying themselves, which is why this recent decision in Texas makes them a loser too.
A Victory for Science (Part 1)
Recently, the state of Texas underwent a periodic review of it's biology curriculum textbook. At primary issue was a debate over how evolution should be taught. The results were mixed. For the second part of this three-part blog, I'm going to look at one of the losers to this battle of wits: creationists.
Creationists just plain old don't like a lot of the conclusions that the theory of evolution implies. I don't know of any who disbelieve in the science of genetics, but I also don't know any that believe that non-life begets life, and that organisms in one kingdom, given enough time, can turn into organisms that belong to another kingdom. The thing is, for hardcore creationists, it's NOT a simple matter of being skeptical of a scientific theory, it is the purposeful rejection of an ideology because it is in conflict with theirs. It's not that evolution untenably corroborates disassociated data, it's that if you believe in it, you go to hell.
While it would be easy to claim that creationism has somehow won in this whole affair, the ultimate result is the opposite. The current Texas decision has set a precedent that will ultimately HURT the creationist standpoint.
This is because the tactic that creationists have used is a tactic of "don't just believe what you're told, or what's popular". Of course, Christianity isn't well-known for it's skeptical disbelief in that which cannot be empirically verified. No, the real point of this type of argument is two-fold. The first is that it presents a legitimate window through which one can scientifically doubt the "scientific" principles of evolution. With their foot in the door, creationism is allowed to wedge it's own "science" in: intelligent design.
Intelligent design is not science. It is an ideologically-driven train wreck between philosophy and data (just like evolution). It makes sense to create a new pseudo-science that has positive ramifications on your ideology to counter a pseudo-science that has negative ramifications. The problem, of course, is the method that creationists are using to get their blend of garbage to replace the existing blend.
The method, remember, is to question everything. Be critical. Be skeptical. The reason, of course, is that this spirit (the spirit that drives real science) has a tendency to wash away non-science mumbo jumbo. The error, though, is to assume that once people use critical reasoning against evolution, they won't then turn the very same against creationism. There is no way that creationism, as a science, can survive against critical thinking.
At best, it's a wash for creationism. Yes, the kids may not believe in evolution, but they're not going to believe in intelligent design either. But here's the dangerous part: you've taught your kids to be skeptical. It's not going to take long before those same little 9th grade critical thinkers to point their aim at Christianity. Remember, Christianity, at least the parts that attempt to describe history and universal fact, does not hold up well against science. If you don't believe me, just ask the Catholic Church.
In the end, critically thinking teens will start looking at Christianity and coming to conclusions like "Christianity is the belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree..."
Thus critical reasoning destroys the religion of evolution, thus it destroys the religion of Christ. As such, by using this tactic, creationists are ultimately destroying themselves, which is why this recent decision in Texas makes them a loser too.
A Victory for Science (Part 1)
While the recent Texas evolution fight made a loser out of both Creationists and Evolutionists, thankfully science came out the winner.
Recently, the state of Texas underwent a periodic review of it's biology curriculum textbook. At primary issue was a debate over how evolution should be taught. The results were mixed. For the first part of this three-part blog, I'm going to look at one of the losers to this battle of wits: evolutionists.
For pro-evolution people (specifically, those who care enough to actually have a vehement opinion on the matter), the result was shocking. To this group, this is nothing short of the state of Texas saying that hard, irrefutable, scientifically-driven, absolute facts of the universe are equal in legitimacy to witchcraft and voodoo. To many in this camp, it is a fundamental debasement of science.
In order to hold this view, you need to have a worldview that tells you that "if the method is good, then the conclusions are good". If you have the proper methodology (say, the scientific method), then the data that you gain from the process is true, and any conclusions that corroborate with are fact. End of story. This is called positivism.
The problem, of course, is that positivists take a warped, inaccurate and, most importantly, limited view of science. Positivism ignores the fact that science has made countless blunders and wildly inaccurate statements over it's long history. Furthermore, it ignores the fact that the data being collected, no matter the methodology, is taken through the lens of human institutions. Which experiments are run in which manner on which hypotheses, and, most importantly, how to subjectively interpret the data into scientific facts is based on human institutions that deal with things like power, money, pride, and all of the other millions of things that make humans subjective. To say that objective truth can be determinately ascertained is flat out silly.
But it's actually more than that. If you take a certain set of data, and, necessarily, introduce human subjectivity to create an ideology, you are doing nothing different than religions do. What you have, in both cases, is not some absolute truth (no matter how much religious figures or positivists would say otherwise), but a primarily faith-based worldview, comprised of a handful of data points and a lot of wishful thinking. In the end, when a positivist looks at evolution: a concept that almost totally defies the ability for the scientific method to even function (ie. science can not prove any given historical event happened), then what the positivist has in evolution is a worldview with a smattering of data and a lot of faith.
As such, what we're seeing here is really people's faith being challenged. As such, it is unsurprising that some evolutionists (like the one linked to above) believe that evolution should not only be taught as absolute truth, but that science classes should prevent students from using critical thinking to examine it. It should be believed, no questions asked.
This is not science. This is religion. It doesn't matter if the particularities of the belief system are different.
But alas, some jerks who have a different religious ideology for how the universe was created and why humans exist have forced the state of Texas to teach children to use objective, skeptical, critical thinking skills on determining the viability of "facts" that are drawn from certain data sets. Unfortunately for evolutionists, they are being beaten by what science actually stands for. Odd that it took another religious group to do what those who have draped themselves in the mantle of science should have been doing this whole time.
Recently, the state of Texas underwent a periodic review of it's biology curriculum textbook. At primary issue was a debate over how evolution should be taught. The results were mixed. For the first part of this three-part blog, I'm going to look at one of the losers to this battle of wits: evolutionists.
For pro-evolution people (specifically, those who care enough to actually have a vehement opinion on the matter), the result was shocking. To this group, this is nothing short of the state of Texas saying that hard, irrefutable, scientifically-driven, absolute facts of the universe are equal in legitimacy to witchcraft and voodoo. To many in this camp, it is a fundamental debasement of science.
In order to hold this view, you need to have a worldview that tells you that "if the method is good, then the conclusions are good". If you have the proper methodology (say, the scientific method), then the data that you gain from the process is true, and any conclusions that corroborate with are fact. End of story. This is called positivism.
The problem, of course, is that positivists take a warped, inaccurate and, most importantly, limited view of science. Positivism ignores the fact that science has made countless blunders and wildly inaccurate statements over it's long history. Furthermore, it ignores the fact that the data being collected, no matter the methodology, is taken through the lens of human institutions. Which experiments are run in which manner on which hypotheses, and, most importantly, how to subjectively interpret the data into scientific facts is based on human institutions that deal with things like power, money, pride, and all of the other millions of things that make humans subjective. To say that objective truth can be determinately ascertained is flat out silly.
But it's actually more than that. If you take a certain set of data, and, necessarily, introduce human subjectivity to create an ideology, you are doing nothing different than religions do. What you have, in both cases, is not some absolute truth (no matter how much religious figures or positivists would say otherwise), but a primarily faith-based worldview, comprised of a handful of data points and a lot of wishful thinking. In the end, when a positivist looks at evolution: a concept that almost totally defies the ability for the scientific method to even function (ie. science can not prove any given historical event happened), then what the positivist has in evolution is a worldview with a smattering of data and a lot of faith.
As such, what we're seeing here is really people's faith being challenged. As such, it is unsurprising that some evolutionists (like the one linked to above) believe that evolution should not only be taught as absolute truth, but that science classes should prevent students from using critical thinking to examine it. It should be believed, no questions asked.
This is not science. This is religion. It doesn't matter if the particularities of the belief system are different.
But alas, some jerks who have a different religious ideology for how the universe was created and why humans exist have forced the state of Texas to teach children to use objective, skeptical, critical thinking skills on determining the viability of "facts" that are drawn from certain data sets. Unfortunately for evolutionists, they are being beaten by what science actually stands for. Odd that it took another religious group to do what those who have draped themselves in the mantle of science should have been doing this whole time.
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