Yesterdays news...
The following letters were written in to "Metro" in response to a recent article that they printed...
Edward Bozzard from London, E1, writes:
"It comes as little surprise to me that people are so willing to accept such rubbish as Creationism or "intelligent design" as fact (Metro, Tue).
The increased exposure to religion in the media and the demise of critical thinking allows people to feel justified in their beliefs that some higher power rules their lives, and be less inclined to look at the "difficult science" reality of the universe.
Creationism and ID are religious subjects and, if taught, should be taught in religious studies lessons. It is simply incorrect to suggest they are competing scietific theories. There is no science in them, only religious dogma.
To say anything else risks confusing a generation of students and sending our planet further into the arms of the delusional and religious, not to mention undermining the efforts of thousands of hard-working scientists."
I don't know what it was, but I simply had to write a little something...partly as someone grading his letter as an argumentative piece of literature, and partly because I disagree with what he's arguing.
1- "...such rubbish as Creationism or ID..." - nice objective opener, really gives credibility to your argument when you set out, blatantly rejecting the other view point, without then giving testable reasons for your rejection, otherwise it just looks like you're as opinionated and as "dogmatic" as the offending religions.
2- The increased exposure to religion, does not, in and of itself allow people to feel justified in their beliefs... it is in fact their beliefs that does this...
3- "The demise of critical thinking..." also does not allow people to feel justified in their beliefs. In fact it does the opposite. The demise of critical thinking would mean that your average Joe Bloggs walking down the street would not be able to objectively differentiate between the various religious systems, or indeed science. It is in fact critical thinking that initially made the monks of old want to explore the world in which we live. The first scienctists if you will.
Furthermore, it cannot be said that it is a lack of critical thinking that leads people to believe that a higher power rules their life. It is in fact the absence of critical thinking that leads people to believe that they are in control over their life, as this would be the precedent if no-one bothered exploring the claims that religions, or the Bible, makes.
4- "...difficult science..." - I agree that a lot of people cannot be bothered to investigate science to a level that maybe technology today allows. This doesn't infer that they are happier to side with religion. In fact it actually just means that people are happier to keep living in ignorance about the world we live in... maybe a case of, as long as it keeps spinning, I don't care how it does...
5- "Creationism and ID are religious subjects..." - Not technically true... ID (capitals) is simply a theory, which I happen to subscribe to, which investigates science and comes to the conclusion that the mathematical probability of the existance of the world, and indeed our aptitude for studying it, leads the ID-er to believe that the world has been designed... Creationism - created...
id (lower case) is the belief of ID (Upper case) being undertaken by a being, the Bibles account - God, and it is this which should be taught in the religious lessons... but, once again it isn't.
The Big bang is a theory, not a religious principle, however, when faced with the vacuum of morality that is left to "chance theories" should this be taught as well in the religious lessons?
I have in fact been having similar discussions in the blogsite www.exilefromgroggs.blogspot.com re: philosophy and science and have been corrected before... but as I currently understand it, there is an aspect of crossover between science and philosophy, whereby the evidence that science points to seems to a conclusion that must be attended to by the philosopher.
In fact I would go as far as to say I don't regard ID (upper case) as a theory at all... it's merely the conclusion that scientists have come to after they have looked at the evidence themselves... I also would express my disappointment that so many scientist subscribe to the ID conclusion, as it will hereby be referred, without wanting to look into it any further, to maybe questions who or what it was that designed the world, universe etc...
6- "To say anything else..." to say anything less, risks ignorance, which is far worse then knowledge... with knowledge comes responsibility, with ignorance comes irresponsibility, and it's 2nd cousin, extremism.
To ignore the ID conclusion is actually to undermine the study and evidence undertaken by thousands more scientists, whose, in Bozzard's opinion, is less valid then the other scientists that he hasn't yet stated...
There were 2 other letters written, and when I get a mo I will respond to them as well...
Your thoughts as well would be appreciated... feel free to critique the above... otherwise I'll never learn...
Edward Bozzard from London, E1, writes:
"It comes as little surprise to me that people are so willing to accept such rubbish as Creationism or "intelligent design" as fact (Metro, Tue).
The increased exposure to religion in the media and the demise of critical thinking allows people to feel justified in their beliefs that some higher power rules their lives, and be less inclined to look at the "difficult science" reality of the universe.
Creationism and ID are religious subjects and, if taught, should be taught in religious studies lessons. It is simply incorrect to suggest they are competing scietific theories. There is no science in them, only religious dogma.
To say anything else risks confusing a generation of students and sending our planet further into the arms of the delusional and religious, not to mention undermining the efforts of thousands of hard-working scientists."
I don't know what it was, but I simply had to write a little something...partly as someone grading his letter as an argumentative piece of literature, and partly because I disagree with what he's arguing.
1- "...such rubbish as Creationism or ID..." - nice objective opener, really gives credibility to your argument when you set out, blatantly rejecting the other view point, without then giving testable reasons for your rejection, otherwise it just looks like you're as opinionated and as "dogmatic" as the offending religions.
2- The increased exposure to religion, does not, in and of itself allow people to feel justified in their beliefs... it is in fact their beliefs that does this...
3- "The demise of critical thinking..." also does not allow people to feel justified in their beliefs. In fact it does the opposite. The demise of critical thinking would mean that your average Joe Bloggs walking down the street would not be able to objectively differentiate between the various religious systems, or indeed science. It is in fact critical thinking that initially made the monks of old want to explore the world in which we live. The first scienctists if you will.
Furthermore, it cannot be said that it is a lack of critical thinking that leads people to believe that a higher power rules their life. It is in fact the absence of critical thinking that leads people to believe that they are in control over their life, as this would be the precedent if no-one bothered exploring the claims that religions, or the Bible, makes.
4- "...difficult science..." - I agree that a lot of people cannot be bothered to investigate science to a level that maybe technology today allows. This doesn't infer that they are happier to side with religion. In fact it actually just means that people are happier to keep living in ignorance about the world we live in... maybe a case of, as long as it keeps spinning, I don't care how it does...
5- "Creationism and ID are religious subjects..." - Not technically true... ID (capitals) is simply a theory, which I happen to subscribe to, which investigates science and comes to the conclusion that the mathematical probability of the existance of the world, and indeed our aptitude for studying it, leads the ID-er to believe that the world has been designed... Creationism - created...
id (lower case) is the belief of ID (Upper case) being undertaken by a being, the Bibles account - God, and it is this which should be taught in the religious lessons... but, once again it isn't.
The Big bang is a theory, not a religious principle, however, when faced with the vacuum of morality that is left to "chance theories" should this be taught as well in the religious lessons?
I have in fact been having similar discussions in the blogsite www.exilefromgroggs.blogspot.com re: philosophy and science and have been corrected before... but as I currently understand it, there is an aspect of crossover between science and philosophy, whereby the evidence that science points to seems to a conclusion that must be attended to by the philosopher.
In fact I would go as far as to say I don't regard ID (upper case) as a theory at all... it's merely the conclusion that scientists have come to after they have looked at the evidence themselves... I also would express my disappointment that so many scientist subscribe to the ID conclusion, as it will hereby be referred, without wanting to look into it any further, to maybe questions who or what it was that designed the world, universe etc...
6- "To say anything else..." to say anything less, risks ignorance, which is far worse then knowledge... with knowledge comes responsibility, with ignorance comes irresponsibility, and it's 2nd cousin, extremism.
To ignore the ID conclusion is actually to undermine the study and evidence undertaken by thousands more scientists, whose, in Bozzard's opinion, is less valid then the other scientists that he hasn't yet stated...
There were 2 other letters written, and when I get a mo I will respond to them as well...
Your thoughts as well would be appreciated... feel free to critique the above... otherwise I'll never learn...
posted by mrjohnfernandez at 10:29 am
8 Comments:
Regards your point 1, I'd note that "it's not arrogance if you're right" (or at least if you have good reason to believe your case is overwhelming). This is particularly pertinent in the context of newspaper letter sections where there really is not time to go into any sort of detail.
As a result, it's generally considered acceptable to be horribly opinionated from the word "go" in this context. Not to mention it makes for more interesting (albeit rhetoric-heavy) letters - always a factor in a commercial publication.
Obviously this doesn't apply as strongly to the blogosphere, where there's actually time and space to argue for your PoV, and where it is therefore considered polite to do so :)
Looking at the article itself, the bit that strikes me personally as being dodgy is:
To say anything else risks confusing a generation of students and sending our planet further into the arms of the delusional and religious, not to mention undermining the efforts of thousands of hard-working scientists."
Whilst I would tend to agree with the general thrust of his assessment of creationism and ID, and am happy to discuss that if desired, I can't condone his conflation of them with religion in general. Apart from anything else, many of those hard-working scientists he describes, who are attempting to push forward the boundaries of knowledge in areas like evolutionary biology, are themselves religious.
Oh yeah, and...
id (lower case) is the belief of ID (Upper case) being undertaken by a being
The version I've heard most often is that i.d. (lower case) is a conclusion that's approximately equivalent to theism/deism. ID (upper case) is both a specific set of arguments (CSI, IC, etc) purporting to prove that conclusion, and a political movement based around the promulgation of these arguments.
It is entirely possible to accept i.d. without accepting ID - see, for example, theistic evolutionists, who generally believe that arguments like IC and CSI are counterfactual and that ID is a waste of space as far as science is concerned.
Whilst I would tend to agree with the general thrust of his assessment of creationism and ID, and am happy to discuss that if desired...
Please do discuss...
also explain what IC and CSI are... because I have no idea...
But I would say that ID does not have to be related to a political movement. As I stated, it doesn't draw the conclusion that I wish it would. It can be simply seen as coming to a conclusion that the universe is a remarkable place. Though I agree that some people would choose to accept i.d. and not subscribe to ID, I cannot see any reason why they would not want to.
Perhaps you could give me an example of this?
Please do discuss...
With regard to creationism, it's basically a post-hoc attempt to fit existing facts to a preconceived story (one interpretation of Genesis). That's not how science works.
On a more concrete note, it also fails to put forward any models whatsoever that stand up to even casual examination. For example, there are two creationist models for the geological column (i.e. different fossils at different levels). The first, hydrological sorting, fails to explain why (for example) sea turtles, which sink like rocks when they die, only appear at the top of the column. The second, involving the ability of animals to temporarily escape uphill, fails to explain why mangrove trees were apparently able to run faster than velociraptor.
Neither even attempts to explain why radiological dating methods correspond so well with the layout of the geological column. They also fail to explain things like animal burrows appearing halfway up said column - remember, all this stuff is supposed to have been laid down in one great big muddy catastrophe, so it just wouldn't be solid enough to burrow through. Not to mention the lack of oxygen halfway down a thousand-foot pile of dirt.
So creationism is quite demonstrably wrong, at least when it attempts to make any positive claims at all. What about its successor, ID?
Getting into philosophy of science for a moment, a claim is held to be scientifically useful if (broadly speaking) it provides us with some information as to what we'll see next. In particular, the most useful claims make concrete, testable predictions. Another way to look at it is: the only way to figure out whether an unverifiable claim is right is to have lots and lots of potential ways to prove it wrong (falsifiability).
Does ID match up to these requirements? Not even slightly. ID proponents have made a grand total of one concrete testable hypothesis in the last decade, and it turned out to be inaccurate.
I believe the technical scientific term for this record is: completely pants.
(Note: some ID publications could be considered to have some value to the fields of philosophy or theology, where it's harder to definitively state what constitutes good research. However, when it comes to maths and science, they're rubbish)
also explain what IC and CSI are... because I have no idea...
Irreducible complexity is a term used to describe a system performing a function such that if any part is taken off that system it stops performing that function. Think of a really stripped-down racing car - if you pull the wheels off or take any bits out of the engine, it stops working.
It's been suggested by Behe that such a system could not evolve because until the very last piece was put in place it would be completely useless, and hence would be a complete waste of resources prior to that.
This has two major problems. Firstly, it assumes that evolution always increases complexity. This is, to be blunt, complete bull - given half a chance, evolution will ditch any unnecessary complexity. So it's possible for an irreducibly-complex system to evolve as parts are removed from a larger reducibly-complex system. This is called the "removal of scaffolding" approach, by analogy to the way in which a Roman arch (an IC structure in itself) is constructed.
Secondly, it doesn't cconsider whether any subsystems of the IC system have a different function. For example, in the classic example of the bacterial flagellum, a large chunk of the thing is pretty much identical to another cellular component (a secretion system). Many other chunks of the flagellum perform other functions round the cell. Thus, it's hypothesised that the flagellum was produced by jury-rigging existing components to perform this new task, rather than by evolving it from scratch.
This second approach is known as the "co-option" strategy. It's been known of since Darwin's time, and has been observed in action. For example, recently a bacterium evolved the ability to digest a man-made chemical called pentachlorophenol. The biochemical pathway for doing so is seven steps long, and knocking out any of the genes involved causes the bacterium to die, so it's certainly IC. However, when one looks at the exact enzymes used, it turns out that they all performed other functions within the cell before being co-opted for this new task.
This is a particularly strong example because, of course, PCP didn't exist before the industrial revolution so the new strain of bacterium couldn't have existed until recently. If you have access to an academic library, you can find the relevant paper in the journal Trends in Biochemical Science, vol. 25(6), pages 261-5.
CSI is a bit more complicated and a lot more painful to explain. I made an attempt to give an overview here, along with a summary of why it demonstrably doesn't work for genetic algorithms, but frankly the work of Dembski (the originator of CSI) is a mess. His mathematics was described by prominent mathematician David Wolpert as "written in jello", due to its fatally informal style. This is particularly relevant given that Dembski actually relied on some of Wolpert's theorems as part of his thesis - Wolpert is not just a random commentator here.
It's probably best if you just attempt to read my summary and then tell me which bits are incomprehensible (as opposed to really imcomprehensible :))
Though I agree that some people would choose to accept i.d. and not subscribe to ID, I cannot see any reason why they would not want to.
I guess the question is: why would they bother? They are confident in their belief in God on other grounds. They are confident that the ID arguments are unadulterated tosh. They value good science education. Why would they support the movement that's trying to push these lame arguments into schools?
In fact, some of the most vocal opponents of ID are theists. The classic example here is Ken Miller, who approaches science as a form of devotion to God, and thus perceives ID's unscientific approach as a form of blasphemy. There's also Wes Elsberry, who if I recall correctly feels that ID proponents are poisoning the well for other theists with their inanity. I can probably list a few others, but they're the main ones.
new post
I like lifewish's approach. It seems measured thoughtful well researched. Before commenting on individual items I would like to know a little about lifewish's worldview. I sometimes think that we get bogged down in the detail when we ought to be talking big picture. Can you hlep me to understand where you are coming from lifewish? How do you answer these questions: what is man? what is the purpose of life? why do people bother asking these questions? why is life as it is? what gives us this sense that it should not be like it is? what is death? what happens after death? what is morality?
Can you hlep me to understand where you are coming from lifewish?
Sure, and I'm glad you approve of my approach :)
How do you answer these questions: what is man?
Rather like woman only with different plumbing and hormones.
I honestly can't answer this question any better without getting a clearer idea of what you're after.
what is the purpose of life?
My feeling at present is that the purpose of life isn't something we discover so much as something we create.
why do people bother asking these questions?
Knowledge is power, and the most powerful form of knowledge is self-comprehension.
why is life as it is?
Because, if it were otherwise, we'd still be asking "why is life as it is?"
(Again, I may be able to give a more interesting answer if I get a better idea what you're asking here)
what gives us this sense that it should not be like it is?
Because, if we didn't have that sense, we wouldn't be driven to improve it.
There's actually a more complicated answer in terms of dominance rituals and anthropomorphisation, but I prefer my simpler version :)
what is death?
The absence of life.
what happens after death?
I don't know, but it must be good - no-one seems to want to come back...
I currently don't know of any objectively verifiable evidence of life after death. The afterlife could still exist, but I tend towards the position that it probably doesn't. The final nail in the coffin for me is the fact that people seem so willing to believe in spurious evidence (mediums and so on) for it. That tends to indicate that the propensity for believing in an afterlife is in vast disproportion to the chances of it actually existing.
what is morality?
Enlightened self-interest gone instinctive.
Hope that all helps. I'll happily go into more detail on anything, or provide evidence where I've made statements of fact. Internal consistency is one of my highest values, so if you see any contradictions between my views, or between my views and the evidence, please point them out.
A disclaimer for my previous post: comparatively few of the questions I discussed have any bearing on scientific topics. Science doesn't really care what motivates people, only that said motivation is consistent with the discovery of more accurate models of the world we live in. That's why the scientific method can in general be followed by theists, deists, pantheists, agnostics and atheists without trouble.
I'll happily discuss my philosophy of life, the universe and everything; just be aware that these issues are more or less distinct from the scientific questions. In short: don't discard my reasoning on evolution just because you disagree with my reasoning on God :)
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