Evolution Discussion
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
* 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.