So about the evolution vs. ID thang...
When we left off Enzyme thought I was starting to troll him because I posted this site. Pournelle has a lot of very interesting things to say on the subject, as do his readers- you can go through the links on his front page and find links to a lot of the debates, not to mention interesting things in the mail archives. I think it's well worth a look.

(And no, I'm not trolling you, Enzyme. That ain't my style. *grin*)

Anyway, it's an interesting subject. So let the debate run again!
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Fri 18 Jul 2008, 12:05, 28 replies, latest was 16 years ago)

Right.
Hmm. I fear that I'm not intelligent enough to take this on, but I'll try.

I believe in evolution. This much is true, and I can't even begin to comprehend why others believe in Intelligent Design (but I respect their opinions, of course).

However, I can be swayed by the idea of ID. Or rather, I will be when God Herself descends from the heavens and tells the whole planet that the Dinosaurs were 'a bit of a joke'.
( Devil_In_Tights the *real* DiT!, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 12:18, Reply)

^Oh, absolutely.
I think I worded myself badly. I mean, I respect that they believe in what they believe in, but it in no way should be taught to children as if it is fact.

The fact that it is, even in our schools, is frankly terrifying. What's worse is the time that I was told, by an otherwise sane and intelligent individual, that God invented the Fossil Record to send Evolutionists to hell.

Which was an interesting point...
( Devil_In_Tights the *real* DiT!, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 12:36, Reply)

on most issues
I would say that I can be probably too quick to take a side, but this is an issue where I happily accept that I can't make a decent argument, even to myself, without having read a lot more on the subject.

unfortunately it's one of the many things that I don't have time to do.

My leanings are definitely toward the evolution side of things, and I think the crux of that is that I am a great believer in coincidence, and that things can just happen. Shit happens if you will. At least when talking on the scale that the intelligent design/evolution argument is on.

It might come across simple, but I do fairly often find myself, only for a short time but nonetheless, contemplating something like my hand, or a tree (basic examples) and marvelling that they have come about. I don't consciously think about it the time, but the concept that it must have been created intelligently doesn't cross my mind.

Could I put this across coherently and eloquently with enough weight (scientific or otherwise) to someone? not without feeling unsatisfied with myself.

not sure where I was going with this really, just wanted to get some thoughts down.

edit: to clarify, I don't believe in intelligent design, or that it should be taught in schools, but I can't say why....
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 12:40, Reply)

Yesterday's evolution debate
Is here.

Intellectual meat will follow shortly...
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 12:46, Reply)

I'm trying to think of something clever to say about all of this.
But as I'm sure that there is no God then I'm pretty sure there is no such thing as intelligent design.

Dismissing one kind of dismisses the other.



*Goes back to talking crap*
( girlinthehole, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 12:51, Reply)

@al
You've highlighted my main issue with this whole debate...

I couldn't care less that some members of society want to believe in an intelligent designer. Whether they have a right to hold or express this opinion is irrelevant, they're going to carry on shouting their beliefs either way.

But to insist that a religious view is taught in schools as an alternative to a scientific theory really beggars belief.
( Moey, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 12:54, Reply)

And now I'll toss in a gasoline-soaked thought.
Me, I like the idea of teaching ID in schools. Not because I necessarily believe in it or think it's a valid theory, but because of the debates it would spark. It would cause endless discussions in class and hold the interest of the kids, and would help them to develop critical thinking skills- something that we all could benefit from.

The problem with teaching the Darwin Was Right And Never Doubt That is that it's educational dogma. Teaching kids to believe without questioning is not good at all- they get enough of that from churches. Giving them something to think about and debate would open up their minds to questioning everything- which is a far healthier approach to the world.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Fri 18 Jul 2008, 12:55, Reply)

Ok then Mr Loon.
But then it should be only taught in the critical thinking class and not biology or science.
( girlinthehole, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 13:02, Reply)

TRL
I agree that teaching kids to debate can only be healthy and should be encouraged. But to include something like ID as part of the curriculum, and to present it as an alternate to scientific theory, is what I have an issue with.
( Moey, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 13:04, Reply)

I think it DOES belong there
and I'll tell you why- because science is one area where we really do need critical thinking. Were it not for people being willing to stand up and argue against the mainstream, we wouldn't have such things as airplanes.

Science is taught as being very cut and dried, as a series of absolutes. It isn't. Six hundred years ago it was accepted as 100% FACT that the earth was flat. Less time ago that that it was accepted as 100% FACT that machines that were heavier than air couldn't fly. A hundred and fifty years ago it was accepted as 100% FACT that there was phlogiston and luminous ether.

Science class is one place where debate is truly needed. Without debate among scientists discoveries would stop.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Fri 18 Jul 2008, 13:10, Reply)

@TRL
But then you would be giving it credence when it clearly has non.

I have no problem with it's discussion in schools but as part of Religion as said by others, because that is what it is about and not science.

Edit - I think Al is putting it much more eloquently than I can.
( girlinthehole, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 13:15, Reply)

I agree that debate is important in science
But challenging scientific theory and introducing religious beliefs to the scientific arena really aren't the same thing.

Science (to be grossly simple about it) is about being able to prove or disprove a theory, by gathering evidence either to support your claim or to discredit that of another. Religion is based on whether you have faith in something that couldn't ever be proven as fact.
( Moey, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 13:18, Reply)

@TRL
it wasn't taken as 100% fact in the middle-ages that the earth was flat:

The modern belief that especially medieval Christianity believed in a flat earth has been referred to as The Myth of the Flat Earth. In 1945, it was listed by the Historical Association (of Britain) as the second of 20 in a pamphlet on common errors in history. Recent scholarship[3] has argued that "with extraordinary [sic] few exceptions no educated person in the history of Western Civilization from the third century B.C. onward believed that the earth was flat" and that the prevailing view was of a spherical earth.

Jeffrey Russell states that the modern view that people of the Middle Ages believed that the Earth was flat is said to have entered the popular imagination in the 19th century, thanks largely to the publication of Washington Irving's fantasy The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus in 1828. Although these writers reject the idea of a flat earth, others such as the Flat Earth Society accept or promote the hypothesis.
( Boss Keloid Got your mother's maiden name tattooed on my arm, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 13:24, Reply)

I'm so evo
Anyway, it's an interesting subject.

It certainly is.

So let the debate run again!

No, not here. You either except all works derived via the scientific method or you don't. ID is bollocks, evolution is the accepted truth from the greater scientific community. Not to discourage debate by scientists themselves, that's fine, but asking QOTWers for their opinions on a subject that isn't opinion based is risking looking like the readers' letters page of The Sun or The Daily Mail: uninformed bollocks (except without the racism).
( djtrialprice, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 14:03, Reply)

Church of the flying spaghetti monster
I love the story about this. Don't know how to do links but's it's someone's response to them teaching ID in science lessons in the US.

If they insist on teaching ID in schools then this should also be there. I choose to believe that the world was made by a spaghetti monster and my views are equally as scientific!

ID has no place in a science lesson and it makes me sigh and shake my head everytime i hear that there is someone teaching it as such.
(The Ginger Penguin la la la la la la, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 14:14, Reply)

Sorry for the delay- work is keeping me busy today.
I'd like to toss out a few relevant snippets from Pournelle, as he's a lot more eloquent than I am (and I'm kinda swamped at the moment):

I weary of the Intelligent Design in Schools argument, because apparently there is a small number of apparently intelligent and articulate people who simply do not understand what they are saying. No, they say, we don't want central control of curricula in all the public schools through the nation. But the Intelligent Design advocates are so stupid, their arguments so vapid, that we simply cannot afford to allow them to be presented in the hundred or so school districts that would mandate ID to be taught along with Darwinism, lest America lose her soul.

If that sounds like a very unfair summary of what the "keep the ID people out of our schools!" people are saying, I fear it is an accurate one, and after a dozen exchanges of email I find that I cannot get across the real point: that central control of curricula is a cure far worse than the disease; that if anything is a contest for the soul of America it is the central control of what is taught in the public schools.

Let's look at one example of what amounted to central control of curriculum: Freudianism. The psychoanalytical theories of Sigmund Freud were once the "consensus" view of most of the US intellectual establishment. They had heavy duty social implications, and justified really drastic changes in society. Adorno and Frenkel-Brunswick and others produced theories about "the authoritarian personality" and various theories of the proper relationship between children and parents, men and women, citizens and societies.

And the whole theory was and is nonsense. The clinical effectiveness of the very expensive Freudian analysis was no greater than that of far cheaper techniques including not only Carl Rogers and his permissiveness but also L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics. Freud postulated all kinds of structures like Ego, and Id, and Super-Ego that not only have no discoverable neurological counterparts but contradict much of what is known about brain structure. His interpretation of dreams ended up with Immanuel Velikovsky writing a book about Freud's dreams. Velikovsky also had a theory of cosmology that had about as much evidence in hard data as Freud's theories of human behavior. One can argue that this is hardly coincidence: Freud didn't teach his disciples to pay attention to data (he knew that people often lied to their therapists as well as to themselves). Freud did not explicitly reject the scientific method, but he may as well have.

Indeed, Hubbard's Dianetics paid at least as much attention to evidence as Freud did. Of course both Freud and Hubbard made up many of their cases: think of the cases as illustrative scenarios because most of them had no basis in fact. Hubbard built Dianetics as a synthesis of Jung's variant of Freud and the General Semantics theories of Alfred Count Korzybski. Incidentally, Korzybski's book Science and Sanity is worth reading to this day, although it should not be taken as holy writ; and Wendell Johnson and Sam Hayakawa, both followers of Korzybski, wrote valuable books as well. Hubbard of course did not encourage the use of scientific method to test his theories of the human psyche, but he did insist that Dianetics was a science: "The modern science of mental health." It was pretty popular too, and Dianetics practitioners could truthfully report that they got better results than Freudian analysis, and far cheaper, with less expensive training for the practitioners. As a practical matter, Dianetics was more useful than Freud.

Of course Freud had the intellectual cachet and the approval of the intelligentsia, who simultaneously insisted that Freud be taught as truth, while Dianetics had to be suppressed. Much of that suppression came about as accusations of practicing medicine without a license, which caused Hubbard to incorporate Dianetics into Scientology, and to proclaim Scientology as a religion and thus protected by the First Amendment.

Freudianism is not so widely taught as it was when I was a youth, but if a teacher wants to present Freudian theories in school, there will be many to defend his right to do so.

Surely my point is obvious?
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Fri 18 Jul 2008, 15:09, Reply)

@Loon
Has Freudianism really been taught as scientific in schools?
I studied a bit of it at uni but only in the context of psychoanalysis as a branch of philosophy and it was made explicit that Freud had gone back on mnay of his more influential theories towards the end of his life.
I don't see that introducing Hubbard's dianetics into the debate sheds any light at all or furthers the debate in any way. It's incorporation into the scientology religion negates any theoretical cache it may have as far as I can see.
( Boss Keloid Got your mother's maiden name tattooed on my arm, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 15:30, Reply)

@al
Ah, that was far more succint than what I said.
Nicely put, Sir.
( Boss Keloid Got your mother's maiden name tattooed on my arm, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 15:38, Reply)

@al
My point was that because it's so one sided i.e. that one side is so clearly right and the other wrong, what is there to debate?

All I can think of is "What's the ID supporters problem?". Ulterior motive or low intelligence?

*update* and that's a spot on breakdown you just posted too
( djtrialprice, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 15:39, Reply)

It's no longer taught
but at one point it was. In fact, I took a psych course in the early 80s that covered Freud pretty thoroughly and gave him as much credence as anybody.

Pournelle's main thrust seems to be that ID gives us grist for falsifiable hypotheses to lead to a better understanding of evolution. I don't think that anyone really takes ID that seriously- at least, not anyone who has paid attention to the news lately, where a scientist conclusively demonstrated that a culture of bacteria had evolved by keeping a part of the original bacterial colony frozen for a bunch of years. (There are other examples of evidence of evolution occurring now as we watch, but that was the best one I could remember offhand.) But evolution as a whole is not proven- it's still theory, not 100% FACT. So giving kids something to debate against is a good thing, really.

Besides, if it's debated and found lacking, it would be perhaps the thin wedge needed to sow doubts into the minds of the more dogmatic fundamentalists. That in itself is a worthy goal!

EDIT: Yes, I'm just playing devil's advocate. I'm not doing this for the purposes of pissing people off, but for entertaining discussion all around. I'm not supporting or defending ID itself, just debating whether or not it should be taught as a means to get kids to think better.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Fri 18 Jul 2008, 15:45, Reply)

So who says we can't have meatyness on the offtopic board, eh?
From my perspective, Intelligent Design is basically Creationists trying to apply science to God's methods. That is, they're trying to find a more detailed description of the process of creation itself.

I'm a believer in evolution. I'm willing to accept that the human body - even though it looks like a remarkable piece of biological engineering, came about purely by chance (with the help of survival of the fittest). Over the course of billions of years, errors made when copying DNA have on occasion lead to improvements. These improvements have cascaded to create fully functional biological machines of great sophistication (although I do believe that lifeforms are more than biological machines - see here for more thoughts on the subject).

While we can use the fossil record and radiocarbon dating (or whatever other dating method is used) to measure the rate of evolution, it's only a rough guide and does not measure mutation-rates in depth (especially the useless mutations). One experiment that could be done is to build a self-contained colony of one species of rapidly multiplying animals that's large enough to avoid problems associated with inbreeding and expose them to increased levels of radiation. The rate of mutations (both useless and useful) could be measured over the course of several generations. If we have a record of how much radiation the Earth's surface was exposed to over the course of Earth's history, we could compare that with the increased radiation of the experiments to see if the rates of mutation match the rates of appearance and disappearance of species in the fossil-record. Personally, I don't approve this experiment because of the animal cruelty involved, although a very small number of lucky animals would have evolved into superior species. However, if we wait a couple of years, the science of Genetics might have advanced enough to be able to simulate this all on a computer, but if those religious zealots escalate their conflict, we may not have a couple of years to wait.

And finally, would a creator really want to create one of these?

As for religion, I believe it's just philosophy stapled to a culture. Some religions have similar philosophies but have appeared different because of the local culture that their believers were exposed to. For example, if you abstract Christianity, Judaism and Islam and strip away their culture, you end up with something similar. I also believe that although science and religion are two separate topics (the former being based on reasoning and proof and the latter being based on faith), faith in science is sort of like a religion. Unless you know everything there is to know about each and every branch of science, you just have to have faith that scientists aren't trying to pull a fast one on you. Atheists may really have a religion that's basically faith in science without them knowing it. One thing that they hope for is that the secret of biological immortality will be discovered before they die. There's no set timetable for innovations in biology - they just hope this one Holy Grail will be reached before they die.

@The Ginger Penguin
Here's a link for Flying Spaghetti Monster.
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 15:48, Reply)

I still think
that the world is really just God's version of an Erector Set, an amusing toy to play with where he can set up conflicts and get goofy with life forms while he sits back and laughs. God's just a big kid with the coolest toy EVAH to play with. We're his version of Saturday morning cartoons, complete with idiots, explosions and falling anvils.

But that's just my view...
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Fri 18 Jul 2008, 16:02, Reply)

The problem with Creationism is
Who created the Creator?

We start getting into Infinite God Recursion.
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 16:04, Reply)

^ ^
We needen't hunt down every single fossilised species that ever existed - in fact, new living species are still discovered from time to time so you can immagine how hard it would be to discover the dead ones too.

The experiment I proposed would be an alternative means of giving a more solid backing to evolution, and would also enable us to observe useful mutations taking place and measure the rate of useful mutations to see if it matches up with what we know of fossil record.
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 16:18, Reply)

Gah. That's what I get
for looking for the article I was trying to remember about the evolved bacteria- I got sucked into Sensible Erection and found LOADS of good stuff for here.

24 myths and misconceptions about evolution.

An ID/EVO debate.

The New Yorker has a go at ID.

God and Evolution.

And now I REALLY have to get back to work...
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Fri 18 Jul 2008, 16:41, Reply)

Coming to this late
But I also agree that ID should not be taught in schools as part of science. I think it has its place in religious studies, but that the classes should be structured to allow equal discussion of all discourses.

I went to catholic primary and secondary school and was taught intelligent design and creationism as if they were the only options. It was only when I started watching David Attenborough shows (aged around 7 or 8) that I started to question these theories. Due to the teaching style at my school, this was not encouraged as it wasn't part of the syllabus so any questions I had were generally met with a blank wall and I was classed as a troublemaker for questioning things.

This makes me sad. My (rambling) point is teach all the theories and let people make their own minds up what they want to believe in.
( fuck shit up the best you never had, Sat 19 Jul 2008, 13:08, Reply)