Which should be taught in school science classes?

Guy Incognito said:

You're wrong, there are some people who are trying to do real science with ID. Just read the Nagel paper I linked to, he mentions a number of such scientists.

Click to expand...

It mentioned Michael Behe, who is a complete joke in scientific circles. He's never published a single scientific paper on ID, mostly because there's no science involved. Even his son thinks he's a religious wingnut. Try again.

Instead, all I see is closed mindedness towards ID coming from people who purport to represent the scientific method. If you genuinely support science you don't shoot down ideas before they've been tested.

Click to expand...

They've been tested, at least as far as they're capable of being tested. They failed. They were discarded. If anyone manages to actually describe ID in a manner which can be genuinely tested, let us know. We won't hold our breath.

Cephus said:

It mentioned Michael Behe, who is a complete joke in scientific circles. He's never published a single scientific paper on ID, mostly because there's no science involved. Even his son thinks he's a religious wingnut. Try again.



They've been tested, at least as far as they're capable of being tested. They failed. They were discarded. If anyone manages to actually describe ID in a manner which can be genuinely tested, let us know. We won't hold our breath.

Click to expand...

One of my favorite lines from The Social Network was Mark Zuckerberg angrily lashing out at the people suing him for supposedly stealing their idea for Facebook: "Look, if you were going to invent Facebook, you would have invented Facebook."

Likewise, if proponents of Intelligent Design were going to support ID with science, they would have supported ID with science.

Guy Incognito said:

Here is a quick quote from Thomas Nagel that might be enlightening:

Click to expand...

Like I said, it's more philosophy at this point. When you try to build a theory of how the earth began and how we came to be, ID is to me a plausible explanation to what I see as gaping holes in the big bang theory. Namely, I do not see the world that we live in coming about by chance because it's not logical. If I told you that the beautiful Ferrari in my garage (since we're being theoretical... ), with paint on the body and a full tank of fuel, just randomly happened as a result of a hurricane that tore through Italy, none of you would believe me.

The reason I say it philosophical is that there's not likely to be any way to prove or disprove it, ever. I would argue the same is true of the big bang, but I think both should be discussed and used as a way to teach critical thinking and logic. I don't think either of these topics is particularly useful in a grade school science class.

marduc said:

for every transitional fossil found bridging a gap in the "chain" there are two new missing ones that suddenly appear :roll:

Click to expand...

Why is that a problem?

Aunt Spiker said:

Why is that a problem?

Click to expand...

It's not so much a problem as it is a comment about how those clamoring "where are the transitional fossils?" will never be satisfied. You show them one transitional fossil, and they will shrug it off and start pointing to the two new missing ones the find created and asking where they are.

Just look at friday through this thread and his goalpost moving, and his insistence on using qualifying words such as "complete" chain as a prime example of what I was referring to with the comment.

Cephus said:

It mentioned Michael Behe, who is a complete joke in scientific circles. He's never published a single scientific paper on ID, mostly because there's no science involved. Even his son thinks he's a religious wingnut. Try again.

Click to expand...

Oh, I'm sorry, I thought the measure of good science was about repeatability. Apparently, according to Cephus anyway, the measure of good science is what any given scientist's son thinks about his father. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

Cardinal said:

Likewise, if proponents of Intelligent Design were going to support ID with science, they would have supported ID with science.

Click to expand...

I've said it before in this thread, and I'll say it again since apparently nobody bothers to read more than a page back: ID is usually a cover for creationism. But that doesn't mean we should close the door on a hypothesis just because it comes from a proponent of ID. ID can be scientific, it is possible. So, let the science speak for itself, not dogmatic prejudice in the guise of science. What's the problem with that?

FederalRepublic said:

Like I said, it's more philosophy at this point. When you try to build a theory of how the earth began and how we came to be, ID is to me a plausible explanation to what I see as gaping holes in the big bang theory. Namely, I do not see the world that we live in coming about by chance because it's not logical. If I told you that the beautiful Ferrari in my garage (since we're being theoretical... ), with paint on the body and a full tank of fuel, just randomly happened as a result of a hurricane that tore through Italy, none of you would believe me.

The reason I say it philosophical is that there's not likely to be any way to prove or disprove it, ever. I would argue the same is true of the big bang, but I think both should be discussed and used as a way to teach critical thinking and logic. I don't think either of these topics is particularly useful in a grade school science class.

Click to expand...

I agree that there are definitely philosophical versions of ID. But I think those are categorically different from a scientific version of ID theory, which would by definition have to be falsifiable.

Even at the most charitable, ID is emphatically not going to be the type of science they teach in primary or secondary level school, any more than they teach the Steady State Theory or the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Physics, or the Anthropic Principle. These are all too highly theoretical to go in your basic Earth Science textbook, and in many cases (as in both ID, Many Worlds, and the Anthropic Principle) they don't quite qualify as science at all, yet.

Funny, though, I never see anybody get worked up over people supporting the Anthropic Principle. It's patently unscientific (or rather, it is exactly as scientific as ID) and yet people like Carl Sagan supported it and got no flack. Not every idea that gets bandied about by scientists have to be perfectly formed to be given respectful attention. I think the prejudice against ID demostrates the ugly, groupthinking side of the scientific establishment.

A Smooth Fossil Transition: Pelycodus I was browsing around and happened to come across another example of smooth evolutionary transition.

Alright Guy. If ID is a scientific theory, why not explain it? Make sure that your theory fits current observations, IE the fossil record. Include some testable predictions along with supporting evidence. Obviously, I don't expect real scientific detail, but a general outline would be nice.

rathi said:

Alright Guy. If ID is a scientific theory, why not explain it? Make sure that your theory fits current observations, IE the fossil record. Include some testable predictions along with supporting evidence. Obviously, I don't expect real scientific detail, but a general outline would be nice.

Click to expand...

One of the claims discussed in the Nagel paper is that the evolution of life is too complex to have occurred by random chance. I don't know anything about high-level statistics, but I'm sure it is possible to devise a way to falsify that theory.

There are plenty of people out there trying it. It's similar to the anthropic principle in this regard. You can look at things like fine tuning to see if the universe is the way we would expect it to appear by chance or somehow specifically geared towards life.

That's the thing, I don't have the expertise or inclination to do this sort of leg work. I'm not a proponent of ID. Let some proponent of ID do it.

Guy Incognito said:

One of the claims discussed in the Nagel paper is that the evolution of life is too complex to have occurred by random chance. I don't know anything about high-level statistics, but I'm sure it is possible to devise a way to falsify that theory.

There are plenty of people out there trying it. It's similar to the anthropic principle in this regard. You can look at things like fine tuning to see if the universe is the way we would expect it to appear by chance or somehow specifically geared towards life.

That's the thing, I don't have the expertise or inclination to do this sort of leg work. I'm not a proponent of ID. Let some proponent of ID do it.

Click to expand...

On the fine tuning argument, it assumes the universe is fine tuned to us, and not the other way around, that being that we are fine tuned to our universe.

As far as the aspect of what are the odds of life occurring in our universe or our planet, or our universe being precisely tuned, we have no way of evaluating the odds.. our sample size is 1.

regarding the odds of complex life occurring at random: natural selection acting on random processes is what drives the complexity, not the random events themselves, this is NOT any more random than rolling 50 dice and picking out the 6's and then rerolling the rest, in short order you have 50 die with all 6's.. what are the odds of that happening at random? pretty darn slim, but the results and the 50 dice showing all 6's did not happen randomly, they were selected.

Here we have random mutation coupled with selection with just a few variables and can see the resulting complexity (and as a bonus we also see how quickly a beneficial mutation takes over - this is punctuated equilibrium):

Guy Incognito said:

...I never see anybody get worked up over people supporting the Anthropic Principle. It's patently unscientific (or rather, it is exactly as scientific as ID) and yet people like Carl Sagan supported it and got no flack...

Click to expand...

Sagan supported the Anthropic principle? Really?

You guys are arguing about something that shouldn't even be debated. Kids come out of school knowing nothing about how to think for themselves. All that they've learned is a list of facts, a small proportion of which will be useful to them in the future. The emphasis should not be on facts; we should be emphasizing how to actually do science. How to think as a scientist thinks, how to form questions, how to discover the answer to those questions, etc. I really think that, for example, in science, kids should learn the technology of the field. Teach them how to use microscopes, how to find information online, etc. Sure, you should teach the generally accepted scientific theories of the time, but I also think that they should learn how ideas were developed and disproved and that nothing in science is final and certain.

Either way, everyone in this thread is arguing about something that doesn't even matter in the long run. Only teaching kids facts teaches them nothing. Teach them to think and they'll keep that for the rest of their lives and it will be much more valuable than some facts that might change in 30 years anyway.

Manc Skipper said:

Sagan supported the Anthropic principle? Really?

Click to expand...

I believe so, yes, Sagan talks about it in a book called "Intelligent Life in the Universe," which I think addressed a "weak" version of the anthropic principle.

marduc said:

regarding the odds of complex life occurring at random: natural selection acting on random processes is what drives the complexity, not the random events themselves, this is NOT any more random than rolling 50 dice and picking out the 6's and then rerolling the rest, in short order you have 50 die with all 6's.. what are the odds of that happening at random? pretty darn slim, but the results and the 50 dice showing all 6's did not happen randomly, they were selected.

Click to expand...

You're ill-advised to argue against anything I'd say about ID. I'm the ultimate straw man, because I'm not an ID proponent. In fact I share your view about the fine tuning argument. I've never found it very persuasive. Of course the universe is fine tuned for our existence, I mean, we're here, aren't we? But that doesn't logically imply any connection between the tuning of the universe and the existence of life apart from the former providing the framework for the latter.

But we are addressing the very limited question of whether or not ID theory can be considered science. You're proving that it is by making an attempt at falsifying it.

One of the claims discussed in the Nagel paper is that the evolution of life is too complex to have occurred by random chance. I don't know anything about high-level statistics, but I'm sure it is possible to devise a way to falsify that theory.

Click to expand...

That isn't a scientific theory. That statement is like looking at a guy who won the lottery and saying "the odds of winning are too small for it to be random chance, he must have cheated with a time machine". It is an absurdly hypocritical statement as it claims a low-probability event can't happen while simultaneously promoting a event that isn't even possible as the solution. Aliens putting life on earth is theoretically possible, but the complexity argument fails as the aliens themselves would have to be created by chance.

Guy Incognito said:

But we are addressing the very limited question of whether or not ID theory can be considered science. You're proving that it is by making an attempt at falsifying it.

Click to expand...

Umm no, when they make a claim that life is too complex to be caused through evolution and natural selection, that is arguing against the science and challenging that which is falsifiable.

When they add "it must be a designer" then it gets into the realm of not falsifiable, but when you show that their initial premise is false, that means their conclusion is not even valid - regardless of whether it is falsifiable or not.

I did this with the "what are the odds" argument as well, I challenged a false premise addressing that which is falsifiable - that evolution is random - and thus invalidated any attempts to draw a conclusion (inferred or not) based on a false premise

phattonez said:

Am I missing sarcasm?

Click to expand...

No. just another example of what the real world is like, and why bright students get failing grades if they ignore PSAT, strict majority rules.

In other words, originality in schools is forbidden, and should be, because bright kids with imagination are misfits, don't fit in with the other 99 percent. No, it's not a conspiracy. It's just the way things are.

What about you, would you rather be a lone genius or the life of the party. No, you can't be both...

ricksfolly

ricksfolly said:

No. just another example of what the real world is like, and why bright students get failing grades if they ignore PSAT, strict majority rules.

In other words, originality in schools is forbidden, and should be, because bright kids with imagination are misfits, don't fit in with the other 99 percent. No, it's not a conspiracy. It's just the way things are.

What about you, would you rather be a lone genius or the life of the party. No, you can't be both...

ricksfolly

Click to expand...

Lone geniuses give us progress. Breeding people who only falls in with the crowd? What does that get us?

phattonez said:

Lone geniuses give us progress. Breeding people who only falls in with the crowd? What does that get us?

Click to expand...

Geniuses are probably a kind of mutation one kid in a million is born with. That means the other 999,999 kids will always be part of the non-genius consensus crowd, no matter what or how they're bred or taught.

ricksfolly

ricksfolly said:

No. just another example of what the real world is like, and why bright students get failing grades if they ignore PSAT, strict majority rules.

In other words, originality in schools is forbidden, and should be, because bright kids with imagination are misfits, don't fit in with the other 99 percent. No, it's not a conspiracy. It's just the way things are.

What about you, would you rather be a lone genius or the life of the party. No, you can't be both...

ricksfolly

Click to expand...

Actually, I think society should find better ways to handle the lone geniuses. In fact, they don't have to be "lone geniuses", not in this day and age. We have plenty of technology and understanding about social/emotional development, even now, to ensure that students who are smart in ways that don't show on tests or who just don't fit in with the average teens, can still learn and contribute to society and better themselves. We should make more schools for those people who don't learn well in traditional ways or find ways to make sure that those teens can get to the schools that teach "outside the box", in ways that are suited for their learning style. We should be trying to better our society by making it possible for all students to better themselves and get a good education, not just the ones that are easiest to teach or best at taking tests.

And people don't have to fit in with the 99% of society to actually be able to be in society. I have met plenty of people who really didn't fit in, in fact, I could kinda fall in that area myself. That doesn't mean they can't or don't contribute to society. Many find ways, in adulthood, to simply live on the outskirts of society, where they still contribute but they stay in their own world the rest of the time. With the advancement of the internet, many of those guys/girls can not only live their lives the way they want in more desirable ways, but they can also interact with and even meet up with others that are like them.

ricksfolly said:

Geniuses are probably a kind of mutation one kid in a million is born with. That means the other 999,999 kids will always be part of the non-genius consensus crowd, no matter what or how they're bred or taught.

ricksfolly

Click to expand...

So suppress them and make everyone else a sheep while we're at it?

rathi said:

That isn't a scientific theory. That statement is like looking at a guy who won the lottery and saying "the odds of winning are too small for it to be random chance, he must have cheated with a time machine".

Click to expand...

That sure sounds like a falsifiable theory to me.

rathi said:

It is an absurdly hypocritical statement as it claims a low-probability event can't happen while simultaneously promoting a event that isn't even possible as the solution.

Click to expand...

What is hypocritical about it? Why is impossible about the solution?

rathi said:

Aliens putting life on earth is theoretically possible, but the complexity argument fails as the aliens themselves would have to be created by chance.

Click to expand...

Why?

marduc said:

I did this with the "what are the odds" argument as well, I challenged a false premise addressing that which is falsifiable - that evolution is random - and thus invalidated any attempts to draw a conclusion (inferred or not) based on a false premise

Click to expand...

I think you're getting logic mixed up with science. Negation of a premise will make a conclusion invalid, this is a rule of logic. But the negation of a theory doesn't mean the theory ceases to be science. The fact that you have attempted to show a premise upon which the theory rests to be false, you have also proven that the theory itself is science. Thank you for making my point for me.