Evolution Discussion

By Brian Ulrich -
A conservative friend of mine and I have been discussing how evolution, intelligent design, and the like fit into a hypothetical school's biology curriculum. His initial post is here, my response here, and his response here. The thing that leaps out in all this is that we are having a discussion rather than calling each other names like anti-religious leftwinger and rightwing theocrat. If people can discuss this stuff, what can't they discuss if only they focus on solutions rather than winning a zero-sum game?

Comments

Razib Khan said…
this is razib....

* i am sympathetic to 'libertarian boilerplate.' nevertheless, i know that as a matter of policy we aren't going to abolish public schools...so, moving on.

* you two are dancing around the important issue, "what is science?" well, you probably know well enough that reading carnap, popper, going on about falsification, induction, deductive hypotheses, etc. in the end is basically a way to triangulate what science is, science is in the end experienced & practiced, not defined.

* but, who experiences and defines science? scientists.

* so i think one must say scientists in the end define what science is, all due respect to philosophers of science.

* science is a method more than a set of particular facts.

* so the problem with intelligent design is more methodological than the particulars of the facts.

* many scientists are theists and personally accept some aspect of the intelligent design model.

* nonetheless, many of the same scientists will reject that this is a ***scientific hypothesis***

* the proof is in the pudding. i invite readers of this blog to read origins & design, the ID movement's flagship publication. i would offer that there really isn't much of a standard scientific program there, that it is more philosophical, theological, and metascientific.

* to conclude, the problem is that local people do not determine science. they can pretend that they determine science, and most students will not be hurt by this, but a minority who are going into scientific professions might be confused by the mispresentation of the state of affairs. ID is simply not part of the debate in the real world.
2:20 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A fair solution to Jerusalem

By Aziz P. -
I remember reading one of the books by Tom Clancy in which Jack Ryan was credited with coming up with a solution for Middle East peace which was pointedly never actually detailed in the novel. It was just a way to give his character some foreign policy cred, but ended up like that mysterious suitcase in Pulp Fiction. I couldn't help but be reminded of that, though, when I read former New York mayor Ed Koch's innovative solution to resolving the status of Jerusalem . Instead of putting the hot-button issue of Jerusalem last on the agenda, the issue should be addressed first. If the Jerusalem question is solved, everything else should fall into place more easily. I believe there is a way to keep Jerusalem unified. I am talking not only of the old walled city, which is a very small part of the city of Jerusalem, but the whole city, east, west, north and south. [...] My suggestion is to situate the new Palestinian capital in that part of East Jerusalem that is occupied overwhelming...
Read more

Conservatism's shari'a, liberalism's ijtihad

By Aziz P. -
An interesting meta-debate by intellectual conservatives over conservatism's future is playing out. It started with David Frum's Waterloo essay, which led to his political excommunication. Julian Sanchez observed that this represented an epistemic closing of the conservative mind , a thesis that was validated by the retribution visited upon Jim Manzi for daring to suggest that conservatives will achieve more persuasion by using honest, strong arguments instead of weak, emotional ones. All of this has led John Quiggin at Crooked Timber to argue most wisely that as conservatism implodes, liberalism needs to find its own rationale that is more than just "not conservatism". Quiggin has a list of priorities for the liberal movement to address, and closes with the general plea, ...the left has to stand for something more than keeping the existing order afloat with incremental improvements. We need to offer the hope of a better world as an alternative to the angry tribali...
Read more