Vice reports that some US States are using new academic freedom initiatives, designed to prevent climate indoctrination, to add courses about creationism to mainstream school syllabuses. The question – who has the right to decide what lessons children learn?
CLIMATE DENIAL IN SCHOOLS
A new wave of state bills could allow public schools to teach lies about climate change.
By Emmalina Glinskis on Apr 25, 2017
Legislation proposed across the country since Donald Trump’s election threatens to bring climate change denial into the classroom under the guise of “academic freedom.”
Currently, six states have legislative measures pending or already on the books that would allow anti-science rhetoric, including the rejection of global warming, to seep its way into schools’ curricula. While these types of proposals have become fairly routine in certain states, some of the most recent crop have advanced farther than in the past.
Senate Bill 393 in Oklahoma, for example, would permit teachers to paint established science on both evolution and climate change as “controversial.” The “controversy,” however, doesn’t really exist — more than 97 percent of actively publishing, accredited climate scientists agree that global warming trends over the past century are directly attributable to human activity. And some teachers might already be misleading students.
Since its initial proposal in early February, the bill passed out of the Senate and into the House, where it circumvented the House Education Committee and now heads for a full House vote.
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Read more: https://news.vice.com/story/six-states-trying-to-pass-climate-denial-in-education-legislation
I believe anyone who takes a serious interest in climate science should be able to see that there are serious problems. The models don’t work, the evidence is weak, and the assurances that the science is “settled” are clearly a political construct, not a scientific conclusion.
I also believe that creationism is junk science.
The thought that creationism is being taught in mainstream schools makes me as uncomfortable as the thought that some students are being indoctrinated with climate dogma.
But plenty of people hold different views. Some people believe evolution is bogus, that creationism is a more acceptable explanation for the formation of the Earth. Some of those believers in creationism are parents.
I believe schools which teach climate dogma to students are doing those students a grave disservice.
Many people believe not teaching climate alarmism leaves students unprepared for the choices they urgently will need to make, to avoid the apocalyptic climate dystopia which looms over their future.
Yet other people think exclusively teaching evolution, not teaching creationism, leaves students with an unbalanced view of the evidence.
Some people even think children as young as seven should be comprehensively educated about all the different weird sexual preferences and “genders” prevalent in some parts of today’s world, should be educated about “gender fluidity”. I personally think confusing young children about sexuality in this way is completely insane.
Who has the right to decide what children are taught?
The answer as far as I can see, is no one group has the right to decide what children learn.
Ultimately parents have to decide what is best for their children.
If parents think the best preparation for their children’s future is a course on making voodoo dolls, or the healing power of crystals, do we really have the right to step in and demand they desist?
Freedom means having the freedom to mess up your life. Academic freedom is the freedom to mess up your children’s education.
I don’t like the choices some parents will make. I absolutely loathe the choices some parents make. I think any parent who indoctrinates their children with the idea that the world is about to end in a fiery climate catastrophe needs their head examined. I think parents who teach their kids that there is no point studying palaeontology, because god made everything just the way it is, are crippling their children’s understanding of the world.
But the alternative to having the freedom to mess up your children’s education, is giving the state the authority to mess up your children’s education.
The only sane choice is to take back power from the state, to demand and receive the right to decide what is best for our own children – however outrageous some of those choices may be. Because the only thing worse than watching other parents make bad choices for their children, is being forced to accept whatever lunacy the latest crop of government bureaucrats decide to inflict on your children.
The answer is simple to me, teach philosophy and theology along with science, they need not be exclusive, and would better educate children to recognize empirical based beliefs vs faith based beliefs, not to mention maybe some critical thinking skills.
It’s clear to me that with how many young people are atheists, that science has been misrepresented for some time. It’s created an illusion of grand knowledge that doesn’t actually exist. The universe is peculiar and mysterious, despite the popular reports.
By far the most important consequence of the conceptual revolution brought about in physics by relativity and quantum theory lies not in such details as that meter sticks shorten when they move or that simultaneous position and momentum have no meaning, but in the insight that we had not been using our minds properly and that it is important to find out how to do so.
— Percy W. Bridgman
I am not trying to be offensive in any way. And I greatly appreciate the knowledge and expertise exhibited by many of the people who post on this site.
Nevertheless, I have often thought that there is a great similarity in attitude between the global warming crowd and those who oppose any discussion of creationism. I see name-calling and ad hominem insults of the “creationists are intellectual children who believe anything they are told and never think critically” variety. Please note, not everyone who believes the Bible is stunted intellectually, nor do we all believe whatever we are told. Furthermore, we who believe the Bible have good reason to say that you can’t pick and choose which parts you are going to believe. Either it is the Word of God – or it isn’t.
If you read the history of the Creation Research Society on their website, you will see that the reason it was founded in 1963 was because there was a group of scientists who were having trouble publishing scientific research favourable to the creation viewpoint. Their story sounds a lot like the way the global warming crowd has shut out the publishing of research that doesn’t fit the global warming narrative. And it also sounds like an effective way to achieve a “97% consensus” on the issue of evolution.
If you are intellectually honest, you have to at least allow for the possibility that God exists. To not do so is to state (implicitly or explicitly) that those things you can observe in the physical realm are the ONLY things that exist, and furthermore, that nothing exists that we can’t observe and explain. But aside from being incredibly arrogant, it is also dishonest to suggest that nothing can happen that we cannot explain. We already know that there are things that DO happen that we cannot explain, and it certainly isn’t for lack of trying.
Anyway, that’s my 2 cents worth on the subject. I think that everyone – whether you believe that God created the universe (as I do) or that it spontaneously happened – could use a good dose of humility. After all, if you seriously take the time to listen to the other fellow’s point of view, you might just learn something.
I have only recently delved into this ‘creationism’ controversy and, like Paul Westhaver, am somewhat confused and uncertain about what it is people are attacking. It is necessarily the case that ALL believers in God believe in creationism in some form or another and a fortiori in an Intelligent Designer of the universe. Clearly, some Christian believers interpret the bible in a literalist sense but most don’t and I doubt very much any life sciences or natural sciences scientists who are believers do so. I had always assumed that the attack on ‘Creationism’ or ‘Intelligent Design’ was an attack on the former literalist Christians. However, it would appear that the attack is on all believers who believe A) there is a God who caused the creation of the universe and B) God, in any form whatsoever, shaped or directed that universe as it was created and evolved. Essentially, as I understand it, it is an attack on believers by non-believers who assert that science (particularly evolutionary theory/evidence) has ‘proven’ that there is no need for God to explain how we exist – science explains it perfectly and to insist on God being required is both anti-scientific and irrational.
The 2 most obvious flaws in their supposed ‘scientific’ position are as follows: firstly, there is the great metaphysical question of why things exist rather than don’t exist – but the vast majority of people have no time for philosophical questions of this sort and dismiss it with a wave of the hand and a ‘things just exist – THEY ARE and that’s it’ – for me I cannot accept such hand waving and use reason to try and understand how things can exist rather than not exist. Secondly, their belief in evolutionary theory doing away with the need for God has the most obvious flaw that evolutionary theory applies to LIVING creatures only. Evolutionary theory is completely silent on how we went from inorganic matter to organic matter. Of course, they will probably engage in more hand waving and dismiss this with ‘the universe is very old and vast and according to the laws of probability something somewhere was going to come together and BANG there was the first spark of life!’. Ignorance is bliss. In Cairns-Smith’s excellent ‘7 clues to the origins of life’ he makes the reader know, in no uncertain terms, that explaining how life began is an incredibly difficult thing to do even for the most basic life form imaginable, they haven’t got anywhere near explaining how it happened, and shows for just nucleotides alone that there simply isn’t enough time or universe for them to have had the remotest possibility of having come together by accident. The science of how life began is most certainly not settled and seems to have progressed little beyond theorising.
With regard to evolution itself there are more problems. The American philosopher (sorry – more philosophy!), Thomas Nagel, who is an ardent and convinced atheist, recently wrote a book ‘Mind & Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False’. Nagel’s central thesis is that the current Darwinian theory completely and utterly fails to address ‘consciousness’ and how it evolved. By consciousness he is not even talking about humans’s higher rational powers, but even just the animalistic self-awareness. Of course, such an attack on Darwinism has earned him much stick but he’s brave enough to stick his head above the parapet and point out the (to me anyway) obvious flaw in this materialistic theory that should replace God.
Believing that science has definitively removed the need for a God for any intelligent and educated person is a position based on a profound ignorance of the state of the relevant sciences and a massive dollop of wishful thinking. Remember Pascal’s wager………….
That is something that has bugged me for years.
The number of people who insist that there is no difference between believing that the earth is 4.5 billion years old and that species evolved via evolution, but that the evolution was guided by God, are no different from those who believe that the earth was created 5000 years ago exactly as it is today.
To them, they are all “creationists”.
MarkW, you are conflating different areas of study. While a fair number of people advocating evolution are atheists, and obnoxious about it, atheism has nothing to do with it. I was raised Catholic, and that church has no problem with evolution, as is the case with a large number of other Christian denominations.
What you are into is philosophy, and the nature of “proof”. Philosophy is the remainder category of “subjects that interesting and not really testable”. The issue is teaching religion as science, when it is not. My favorite example of pure philosophy is Bishop Berkeley and his assertion of solipsism. Try testing that.
It absolutely is possible to be a Christian and have no problem with the age of the Earth, the Heliocentric Solar System and evolution.
Of course theistic evolution adherents, ie Old Earth Creationists, differ from Young Earth Creationists. But both groups are creationists and, at best, nonscientific. Neither form of creationism has a scientific basis. Both forms believe in divine intervention in speciation and the development of higher biological categories, for which there is not a shred of actual evidence. Thus, both are faith-based beliefs.
Tom,
The largest Christian denominations accept the reality of evolution, leaving it up to individual believers to decide for themselves where and when, if ever, God intervened in the history of the evolution of life on earth. But there is no scientifically demonstrable need for God at any point in that history.
As I told my fundamentalist students at the historically Baptist university where I taught genetics, you can insert God into the story of life at any point or points you want. it’s just not scientifically necessary to do so. It’s a completely faith-based exercise.
David Middleton April 26, 2017 at 3:42 pm
You bet!
Dobzhansky, the genetic pioneer who famously and truly wrote that “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”, was a devout Orthodox believer.
Collins, who succeeded Watson of DNA fame, an atheist, as director of the Human Genome Project, is a Christian.
Chimp,
“Both are faith based beliefs”
All beliefs, by definition, are faith based. This, is all one can actually know, without some form of faith being involved, it seems clear to me;
At least one self aware conscious entity exists.
Con artists have been busy indoctrinating folks to believe (have faith in ; ) the idea that some special other people (not the reader ; ) know many things in an absolute sense, but it’s just BS as far as I can determine . . cooked up for indoctrinating people into a cult like form of Siants (sounds like science ; ) so as to achieve a passive controlled society.
@Chimp
‘But there is no scientifically demonstrable need for God at any point in that history.’
Clearly you didn’t read my post! How does evolutionary theory scientifically explain how we went from inorganic matter to organic matter? Evolutionary theory is well outside of its ken there! Maybe I am misreading you, but you strike me as precisely the type of person I was talking about. I suggest you read Cairns-Smith’s 7 clues. It might open your eyes.
Eric,
“I think parents who teach their kids that there is no point studying palaeontology, because god made everything just the way it is, are crippling their children’s understanding of the world.”
Well, I’m curious what exactly you think the “point” is in studying paleontology (which I think you misspelled, but who knows, yer a Brit ; ) Now, when I was a little kid, I pretty much learned to read so I could “study” that fossil type stuff, so I get that “point”, though I don’t see why kids wouldn’t find dinosaurs and trilobites and so on fascinating if they didn’t believe in the Evolution origins story. I did, believe that story, so I can’t be sure . .
And, I’m not sure where you get the idea that creationists necessarily believe that God “made everything just the way it is” . . the Book says He created “kinds” of creatures, that reproduce “after their kind”, and that’s what I see here in reality-land . . It also speaks of things changing, including humans, though not in the “total transformation” sort of sense Evolution theory presents it.
If you don’t know the “junk science”, please refrain from teaching it . . I say ; )
John,
There is no scientific definition of “kind”, which is an insurmountable problem for people who try to make the Bible correspond to reality.
For starters, there are way too many kinds, and often of such size and rapid growth rates, that it’s impossible to fit all those on the ark which would have needed saving from the mythical flood. Let alone feed them and clear away their refuse, with so few people.
Besides which, the OT clearly shows that the closest real biological fit for “kind” is “species”, not genus, family or order. It gets literally specific in naming kinds.
http://www.theistic-evolution.com/kind.html
Since ravens are unclean, there would have been only one male and one female on the ark, so it was dumb of Noah to send it out to look for land. I guess Mrs. Raven eventually found her missing mate, since we have ravens today.
Chimp,
“There is no scientific definition of “kind”, which is an insurmountable problem for people who try to make the Bible correspond to reality.”
I think He was doing some basic teaching . . so folks would expect/understand that goats come from goats, seaweed from seaweed . . people from people. That “generic” meaning of kind, so they would not think rats came from dirty rags, flies from rotting meat, goats from naughty people ; ) and the like. It does dove-tail rather nicely with genetic traits being inherited (Mendel) and so on . . and He plays the long game, so to speak ; )
John,
His point is the same as mine. I used his reference just so that I wouldn’t have to say the same thing with the same biblical references.
The point is that arguing, as literalists do, that “kind” means some higher level of taxonomy than “species”, is not justified. Fundamentalists know that it would be impossible to fit all the now known species onto the ark, so fudge by claiming that, for instance, a single pair of baby sauropods could represent that entire suborder of gigantic animals. The irony is that this argument would require astronomically rapid evolution in the past 4500 years, plus massive waves of extinction.
There’s just no way that the creation, flood and other myths in first several books of the Bible can possibly be literally true. To believe they are means that your God is cruel, deceptive and incompetent, a blasphemous creed.
Chimp,
“Fundamentalists know that it would be impossible to fit all the now known species onto the ark”
I don’t see why not . . very big boat . . wouldn’t need one of every species, since the genetic coding for many species could already be in a basic set . . like dogs, cats, horses, etc . . The key would be in the richness of the initial coding within the actual animals HE provided for the Ark.
. . If one cannot break the habit of believing what one has been told (and imagined) many times about the history of living things, then naturally something different will be impossible to accept, regardless of whether or not it actually happened. If you can’t believe God is far more than an old man in the sky ; ) you will prolly keep limiting what He can do to things an old man could do . . But a maker of galaxies? A maker of life? Gonna have to grant some special skills to get the idea related in the Ark story, me thinks ; )
If you want a good laugh …
GENERAL HOSPITAL
(The Homeopathic Version)
Very good gave me a good laugh – I’m a fan of the pair of them.
Warmists love to try to conflate arguments, in their efforts to pin the “anti-science” label on Skeptics/Climate Realists. It is just a ploy on their part. We don’t need to go down that road.
What Does the Oklahoma Bill Actually Say?
I would encourage anyone who is sincerely interested in this topic to actually look at the Oklahoma bill, rather than speaking out of turn or relying on shrill press stories.
It states that “Teachers shall be permitted to help students understand, analyze, critique and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in the course being taught.”
In addition, it specifically states that it is only related to “the teaching of scientific information and shall not be construed to promote any religious or non-religious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs or non-beliefs or promote discrimination for or against religion or non-religion.”
Anyone who claims the bill proposes to add classes on “creationism” in the school is simply telling a falsehood. It does not. It specifically prohibits it.
The bill is basic common sense. It is too bad that it is even needed, but the principles outlined in it should be non-controversial for anyone interested in objective science.
Of course, if someone is concerned about protecting their “consensus” science and circling the wagons, a bill that proposes teaching science in an “objective manner” might seem threatening.
Most kids, people in general, do not know how to evaluate sources of “information” to determine if research is trustworthy or not. I say start with some very basic learning in evaluation of research. Don’t quote me what percent fall into a given category when your sample size is 6 and your original sample was not random nor structured properly to be representative of the universe you are attempting to describe. High school kids have no idea and neither do their parents, many with so called college degrees.
To get back to the original topic, I’m just curious about HOW one would teach creationism in school. After saying “God did it”, what else can you say? You can’t describe why he did it, exactly when, or how. You can’t describe the tools he used or the application of physics. There’s nothing left to do but offer endless critiques of alternate theories, which isn’t really teaching creationism, it’s just saying, “my baseless theory is better than your incomplete theory”. Enter the flying spaghetti monster.
Hoyt, even assuming your assessment true, it is following the red herring set out in the opening post. The fact is that teaching “creationism” in the school (whatever that is), is not on the table in the Oklahoma bill. It isn’t a risk. It isn’t happening.
What we have here is just handwringing and spin by those who are afraid to have their theory objectively and critically evaluated, whether climate change, evolution, or some other theory.
Climatereflections,
I’ve read what you’ve posted regarding the wording of the Oklahoma bill and I think what people are worried about is not really a “red herring”. While people may try to deny it, Intelligent design is nothing more than creationism theory with God being implied but not mentioned. It was formulated to fit within the Oklahoma bill’s guidelines as a teachable science based theory of the origin of the universe and life. Although, the only science-like thing in it involves the concept of irreducible complexity which argues that science knows of no way for life to begin, therefore (God, but we won’t mention that). Intelligent design exists only as a means of arguing against the Big Bang, or scientific theories about the beginnings of life, it doesn’t argue for any alternative theory. It just leaves it up to the student to fill in the blank with God, Aliens, Robots, or whatever.
Hoyt, your description of intelligent design is seriously flawed, although I see you’ve parroted the usual anti-intelligent design talking points from the web. Furthermore, intelligent design is not proposed to be taught under the law either.
Setting that aside, is it your position that a scientific theory presented in school — climate change, evolution, whatever — should *not* be taught objectively and that teachers and students should *not* be allowed to examine the strengths and weaknesses of the theory?
Or it is just certain theories that are off limits and should not be subjected to scrutiny? You know, the ones that you happen to believe and don’t want anyone questioning.
Sorry for being a bit snarky, but this protection-of-the-consensus seems pretty self-serving. It is part of the problem we are currently experiencing with climate change claims.
—–
Let’s ask the question in a more practical way:
When presenting a theory like climate change or evolution to students, do you think it would be appropriate for the teacher to help the students understand the primary assumptions underlying the theory, areas where there are important open questions about the theory, areas in which there is ongoing debate in the scientific literature about the theory? Or should teachers be required to just present the consensus and pretend these important open issues don’t exist?
Climate,
It’s important to use the proper terms. Catastrophic man-made climate change is not a theory. It’s an hypothesis, which has repeatedly been shown false. It could be “taught” in school, but properly everything wrong with the falsified conjecture would be shown, as well as what its proponents say. It contains elements of science, so could be taught in a science class. Learning where it fails would be instructive. It’s a scientific hypothesis because it makes predictions (or at least projections) which can be shown false. And have been.
Creationism in either its biblical or phony ID form however OTOH is not science. It’s not a scientific hypothesis because it either can’t make testable predictions, or, if it tries to, they’re readily shown false. Saying “God did it” and leaving it at that is the antithesis of science. ID tries to get around this, but comes down to the same thing. Intelligent Design requires a designer, although he, she or it must be intensely stupid. But substituting an unnamed designer for God doesn’t magically turn creationism into science. As Hoyt says, students will naturally fill in the blank with “God”.
The scientist who hatched ID clearly did so to get around court rulings against teaching creationism in public school biology classes, as shown in the Dover trial. He cooked up the antiscientific idea of “irreducible complexity” to try to make his scheme sound more science-y. This is worse than CACA.
If you think some actual scientific evidence exists in favor of ID, please, by all means, trot it on out. Thanks.
Oops! Failed to apply those terms to evolution. The theory of evolution was originally a theory composed of hypotheses, each of which made testable predictions. As with the heliocentric theory, what was originally hypotheses based upon insights came to be shown factual as objective reality.
Today we can observe the earth going around the sun and turning on its axis, as Copernicus could not. Similarly, we can observe the evolution of new species, as Darwin could not, except possibly in those domestic animals that are arguably different species from their wild ancestors, thanks to artificial selection.
Chimp, Catastrophic man-made climate change is not a hypothesis, it’s a strawman. There is no “catastropic” in the scientific literature, and it is not a part of AGW.
CAGW is deliberate snark, but have you ever read the predictions of the climate change advocates? Sea rise in meters, and ten or more degrees temperature rise. Seems like “catastrophic” to me.
So. all the papers trying to show dire effects from “global warming” are what, politics as usual?
Climatereflections, to answer your question I would first point out that I’m not trying to get personal, but calling what I wrote “talking points from the web” is baseless since my knowledge comes from listening to interviews with Dr. Stephen Meyer, and others, and your comment does nothing to disprove anything I wrote.
You say ID is not proposed to be taught, but your comments seem to suggest that you think it should be. As far as teachers being objective, I would love that in every subject, but science and it’s missing pieces must be weighted objectively. I wouldn’t want intelligent design being given equal weight to evolution as nothing more than different theories but equally plausible. This is where the “flying spaghetti monster” origin idea came from. The argument goes, there is just as much evidence the FSM created the world as there is for any other intelligent designer, so that must be taught too in order for the students to weigh the evidence for each theory. You see how ridiculous it gets. Why not let schools teach facts and evidence, and yes even the missing pieces, and let churches teach faith based theories with no physical evidence? I just wanted to answer your question, I won’t reply further to avoid any animosity.
Chimp……all I ask is that you show me one or more papers that demonstrate “catastrophe.” Chimp, the papers don’t “show dire effects.” Scientific papers don’t place a judgement on their conclusions. The effects they speak of are neither “dire” nor are they “beneficial.” Science doesn’t deal with that. Tom, for some folks, several meters of sea level rise would be good, especially if it makes their property beachfront. I also would think the people living in Ontario would think a ten degree rise in temps would be “nice.” Again, science doesn’t evaluate it’s conclusions, they just lay them out for you to ponder.
You are being deliberately dense. Hansen testified before Congress, so dismissing his dire claims is a silly “mother may I” game.
I have showed you not only recent papers, but Hansen’s book. How much more proof of the claim of catastrophic consequences do you want?
Really, Michael? No “catastrophe” in CAGW? You think the skeptics made up that “catastrophic” bit, as a straw man?
Have you not seen all those maps of Florida (etc.) under water? Here’s a brand new one:
http://www.businessinsider.com/what-earth-would-look-like-if-ice-melted-world-map-animation-2017-4
It’s propaganda, but it wasn’t made by climate skeptics. It is propaganda from the Climate-Industrial Complex, a/k/a “Big Green.”
From the caption:
“Many of the effects of climate change are irreversible. Sea levels have been rising at a greater rate year after year, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates they could rise by another meter or more by the end of this century.”
Reality:
1. Antarctica averages more than 40 degrees below zero. A couple of degrees of global warming obviously won’t melt it.
2. Sea-level rise has not been accelerating (“rising at a greater rate year after year”). That’s just a lie. Sea-level rise hasn’t significantly accelerated since the 1920s or before, anywhere in the world.
E.g., sea-level at Delfzijl, Netherlands hasn’t accelerated since the 19th century:
http://sealevel.info/MSL_graph.php?id=150-001&c_date=1900/1-2019/12&boxcar=1&boxwidth=3&boxrepeat=2&thick
http://sealevel.info/150-001_Delfzijl_Netherlands_vs_CO2_2015-12.png
Hoyt, thanks for your kind comment. I apologize for assuming you had taken your talking points from the web. If you have listened to Meyer, then all I can say is you might want to go back and listen a little more carefully, as your description of intelligent design in the prior comment was seriously flawed.
Regardless, I have not proposed that intelligent design be taught in school, nor does the Oklahoma bill. I personally wouldn’t have a problem with it, given that it is based on scientific principles and the same uniformitarian approach to historical science and inference to the best explanation that Charles relied upon in The Origin. But again, the Oklahoma bill does not propose that any new or alternative theories be taught. It doesn’t even propose any change in curriculum.
Personally, I would love for students to learn more about evolution — a lot more. The underlying assumptions, the various shifting and inconsistent definitions, the difference between observation and inference, which claims that are supported by evidence and which are conjecture. There is so much that students could learn, including learning how to critically analyze and assess the strengths and weaknesses of various claims, without ever bringing up anything about intelligent design or “creationism” (whatever that is).
I’m glad to hear that you agree teachers should be able to teach the science objectively, including the missing pieces. That is all the Oklahoma bill is trying to do — make sure teachers don’t get in trouble for objectively analyzing theories and asking hard questions.
I applaud the success of the theory of evolution. It is a little foggy – “the survival of the fittest”, the definition of the fittest absent, so the fittest is one that survives in a changing environment, thus changing the environment. And then comes molecular biology, showing how closely related archaea, bacteria, fungi, plants, animals, and viruses are. It is nice to have a general framework that could account for all the variety. As noted in this thread, evolution does not explain the origin of life. Only the variety of life – that’s enough for me.
Actually, in biology “fitness” is not at all a vague concept. It’s not only defined but precisely measured.
The phrase “survival of the fittest” was coined by a philosopher, not a scientist. Fitness in natural selection is based not upon survival rates per se, but upon reproductive success.
This is an interesting claim. Can you share with us how fitness is defined and precisely measured?
Making sure, of course, that such definition is not dependent on the concept of survival . . .
It’s not a claim. It’s a fact. I wish that people would take a course in biology before presuming to comment upon the discipline. It’s elementary.
http://www.biology-online.org/dictionary/Fitness
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitness_(biology)
http://study.com/academy/lesson/biological-fitness-definition-lesson-quiz.html
Thank you Chimp, for taking time to reply.
“It’s not a claim. It’s a fact. I wish that people would take a course in biology before presuming to comment upon the discipline. It’s elementary.”
I wish people wouldn’t presume that others don’t know enough to comment. 🙂 I have plenty of knowledge to comment on this topic. And to spot the flaws and nuances that other people often gloss over. Let’s see just what is elementary.
I was hoping you would provide a definition in your own words, but fine. You have cited three websites with various definitions (somewhat underscoring Curious George’s point, I might add, but let’s let that slide). Let’s take the lesson you cited on biological fitness. How do they define fitness:
Fitness “means the ability to survive to reproductive age, find a mate, and produce offspring.”
Those who understand the topic, as you and I do, know this definition isn’t quite complete, of course, as the simple production of offspring is not helpful unless those offspring, in turn, survive to reproductive age, find a mate, and produce offspring, and on to the next generation. An organism that produces a ton of offspring, which don’t survive to reproductive age (and so on) isn’t fit.
This is otherwise known as “reproductive success,” as you mentioned.
So now we come back full circle. You have stated that “fitness is not based on survival rates per so, but upon reproductive success.” And yet, when we examine what is meant by reproductive success it means precisely that: being able to survive long enough to find a mate reproduce, and for those offspring to, in turn, survive.
You will find, if you analyze this issue in more depth that it is indeed extremely difficult to divorce the concept of fitness from survival. The second is inherent in the former. Which is why I asked the question I did and gave you the hint I did about the anticipated circularity. Sure enough, the definitions you pointed me to circle right back to survival.
We can throw lots of fancy terms at the wall — reproductive success, differential survival, and so on — but in practice It is very difficult to avoid this tautology, as even some prominent evolutionists have acknowledged. Some have even been so bold as to applaud this circularity, proclaiming that the tautology makes it self-evidently true.
Perhaps. But unfortunately it also robs it of any explanatory power.
The Big Bang … first there was nothing, then it exploded.
I know you’re being jocular, but the correct formulation would be, “First there was everything packed in a tiny volume, then it began expanding.”
Chimp, if everything was packed into a tiny volume, then wouldn’t it have, essentially, infinite gravity? In which case, how the heck would it expand?
Monna,
It’s technically wrong to say tiny volume. A singularity actually has no volume. But it’s asking a bit much for people 3000 years ago to grasp that concept. It still is today.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/science-questions/gravity-big-bang.htm
Gravity has yet to be unified with the other, much more powerful observed “forces”, but we’re getting closer.
The ranting here is fun, but like what an astrophysicist from Caltech once said, he was looking for a religion, looked at many, only Christianity had a story of the beginning that did not bother him, yes the time line was wrong but the story was a pretty good description of how we came to be. As my historic geology prof said after giving a brief description of the “scientific” versus the biblical story, that’s all we will say about this here, now let’s study historic geology and we did and he was excellent. The other thing I like to point out – there was a big event in that 5000-6000 year ago window that had and has a huge impact today. This event also likely influenced the biblical story. What was that? Writing was developed!
No doubt you’ve noticed that the oil industry relies on real geology rather than so-called biblical “flood geology”.
I have to disagree with your astrophysicist. All three Abrahamic religions share the Genesis creation myths, which are based upon ancient Mesopotamian stories. Genesis actually gets almost nothing even close to right. Same for other creation stories elsewhere in the OT.
In its first, “Six Day” story of Genesis 1, the earth and day and night are made before the sun. Saying “Let there be light” is not the same as the Big Bang. There were already waters for the creator spirit to move over before the light. To be accurate, the story would have to have said that before God started the expansion, everything was concentrated into a space smaller than the smallest mustard seed, or some such language comprehensible to people of 3000 years ago.
The order of appearance of plants and animals is also wrong in both of the two creation myths in Genesis, which are irreconcilably contradictory. The two stories are wrong in different ways. The second, “Adam and Eve” story in Genesis 2, however really blows it by having man made first, then plants, then animals, then woman. In reality, animals evolved before green plants, then people (both sexes at the same time) evolved from one line of animals.
The actual order of “creation” differs completely from both stories. In Genesis 1, the order is, on the third day, plants. Wrong! Then He made the sun and the moon on Day Four. On the fifth day, first sea creatures (right for the animal sequence) and flying animals (wrong!), and has whales way out of place, too. On the Sixth Day, God told the earth to bring forth land creatures, such as cattle, creeping things and beasts. Again out of order, if creeping things are lizards and snakes. Plus, the flying creatures should have come in here. Finally, Man in God’s image. So this story is closer to correct than the second story, but still wrong, ludicrously so in putting plants before the sun.
Evolution, as in “the earth and waters brought forth”, can be read into the first myth, however, much more easily than can modern astronomy, geology, meteorology or any other science be interpreted out of the Bible. Myths and legends are what pre-scientific people had in lieu of science, which began around 600 BC in Greece, and with astronomical observations in various regions before that.
Again, you are not reading it it Hebrew. Also the idea that the Old Testament if borrowed is wrong, Judaism has only one God all the others had multiple gods. Again your worldview blinds you.
Mike,
Nothing blinds me. I read Greek better than Hebrew, but know the latter well enough for biblical exegesis. Aramaic, Akkadian or Sumerian, not so much. But the biblical myths are clearly borrowed from Mesopotamian originals. The OT authors just recast them with their chief tribal god Yahweh in place of Marduk, the Babylonian and Assyrian chief and storm god. This is not in the least a controversial conclusion in biblical scholarship. Indeed, it’s considered a fact, so obvious are the parallels.
I’d urge you to read the Mesopotamian originals, or at least the Canaanite Ugaritic texts from which so much of the OT derives.
Monotheism evolved slowly among the Hebrew tribes. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” has the same connotations in Hebrew as in English. The OT is filled with condemnations of the polytheistic backsliding of the people, for which transgressions the prophets blame the various calamities which befell them, such as the Assyrians’ carrying away into parts unknown 10.5 of the 12 tribes from the northern kingdom of Israel, and the Babylonian captivity of the remaining 1.5 tribe in Judea.
Well I studied paleontology as a student of geology and the evidence for evolution is an order of magnitude plus stronger than even the perceived evidence for CAGW by proponents. The evolution of the horse and of the ‘keyhole brachiopod’ are two especially convincing cases (there are thousands of others). However, if the choices were not to teach creationism and to let climateers have their way with the minds of our children, I would without hesitation endorse teaching both sides of both arguments. Creationism ultimately does no harm. The CAGW stuff, used as a weapon by neomarxsbrothers and Champagne sloshulists who want wipe out democracy and western civilization is something different. Let all sides of all controversies be aired in the classroom. They will be excellent exercises for students.
Incidentally, although I can’t see the current visualization of creationism as a realistic notion, were I to have been asked to debate the matter on the side creationists, I would suggest that a clever creator, especially one who operates in ‘mysterious ways’ could be expected to have created evolution to help the species adapt to all manner of events, cosmic based disasters, ice ages bolide collisions stresses that the All Wise Maker would know would be coming to visit earth. Now you paleontologists, refute that!!!
Should parents have the right to do whatever they want to their children? Most people think not. Most people think there should be some limits to the “ownership” of their children. Parents should be prevented from doing things to their children that are harmful to those children purely for the parents’ satisfaction.
Should they then be allowed to provide biased and false education, which is purely to satisfy the parents’ prejudice, but which will be harmful to the children because they are being taught lies and will therefore have limited choices?
There is no simple answer. Some may say the parents should be able to do what they want. Most reject that argument. So it really comes down to what level of freedom you allow the parents and what level of harm to the children you tolerate.
Maybe you say that education is on the side of the line that should be allowed, but that line is arbitrary. Argubly providing a biased and false education is one of the most harmful things you can do to a child.
So, seaice, we should teach both sides of controversial topics. Have I got you right? Teach creationism giving their best arguments and evolution the same. I would love to have CAGW stuff and non crisis climate science stuff. This would be a wonderful experience for the students. Bright high school students could probably make a contribution. University students presently don’t have this luxury in this politicized ‘climate’ (think Berkley violence and firebombing to stop a Conservative speaker from addressing a group that had invited him). The CAGW adherents do not want to debate. After losing those they did do early on, they won’t do it any more. They have taken the tack to blather about the theory being “physics based” with half the physics unidentified and so far not one correct prediction to crow about. I used to worry that by chance they might make one and plunge the world into an economic and cultural dark age. There is a way to do a fair job of prediction but not if you insist on dragging the 300% too high climate sensitivity figure along. You’d have a decent prediction, but it wouldn’t be very alarming. When one day, both sides can be taught and debated, I would hope I could be in the audience to see it.
“So, seaice, we should teach both sides of controversial topics. Have I got you right?”
No, Gary, you have not got me right.
In this comment I was not really arguing for or against, but discusing the underlying issues. We may say that parents should be allowed to teach their children what they want, but that ignores the fact that poor and biased education will be harmful to the child.
We cannt simply take it as a give that parents should be allowed to teach what they want, unless we take it as given that parents should be allowed to harm their children in certain ways.
Individuals need to consider what level of harm is resonable to allow parents and where to draw the line, and what action should be taken (if any). I can understand that many think that choice of what to teach is on one side of the line, but we should also recognise that it is also reasoable to think it on the other side – whichever side you are on.
Personally I think public education of science should be science based, which rules out creationism and anti AGW, although is does allow anti CAGW. Creationism can be taught at home and in RE lessons but ot in science. For people who do not send ther children to public school it is complex, and I have no ready general answer.
seaice1 writes “So it really comes down to what level of freedom you allow the parents”
Who exactly is doing the “allowing” and how did it come to that?
The human is so complex, that evolution by chance alone would be astronomical.
Like say equivalent to a tornado running through a car junkyard of parts only. Then, leaving in it’s wake a tornado built car that runs perfectly.
Ray,
Humans are no more complex than other large mammals. Our brains have more interconnections than most, but other mammals have sensory and mental powers which we lack. Chimps have superior spatial memory, which no human can match.
We weren’t assembled out of random parts in a single moment. We evolved by numerous steps from unicellular organisms over four billion years, along with every other living thing on the planet, whether complex or simple.
Four billion years ago, single-celled organisms without nuclei, ie prokaryotes, arose. Between two and three billion years ago, unicells with nuclei and other organelles such as mitochondria, ie eukaryotes, evolved. Around a billion years ago, multicellular animals evolved from colonial unicellular eukaryotes called choanocytes, as shown both by their similarity to sponges and by their close genetic match to animals.
From amorphous sponges evolved animals with radial and bilateral symmetry in the Ediacaran, the last period of the Precambrian. Before 500 million years ago, in the Cambrian Period, the first chordates evolved from their bilaterian ancestors. From among the chordates arose vertebrates, which then evolved jaws and bony skeletons during the Ordovician and Silurian Periods. From lobe-fins, a group of bony fish, evolved tetrapods, ie land vertebrates, in the Devonian.
In the Carboniferous, adapting to life on land led to the evolution of amniotes, tetrapods laying shelled eggs, which don’t need water or at least a very moist environment, to reproduce, as do amphibians. From early amniotes evolved synapsids, which have a single hole in their skulls behind the eye socket. Diapsids, with two such openings, evolved into reptiles, including birds. Synapsids became ever more mammal-like during the Permian, which period they dominated on land.
After the Mother of All Mass Extinction Events at the Permian/Triassic boundary, diapsids, such as dinosaurs and crocodilian relatives, gradually replaced synapsids as the predominant land animals, for good evolutionary reasons. But in the Triassic too arose proto-mammals, followed by true mammals in the Jurassic. Placental mammals evolved in the Cretaceous, final period of the Mesozoic Era.
Primates evolved in the Paleocene Epoch of the Paleogene Period of the Cenozoic Era, after the mass extinction in which non-avian dinosaurs and many other groups were wiped out. In the Eocene Epoch, the ancestors of tarsiers, monkeys and apes evolved from prosimian primates. Among many other shared, derived genetic traits, these primates all lack the ability to make vitamin C. In the same epoch, tarsiers and New World monkeys diverged from the ape and Old World monkey group. During the Oligocene Epoch, OW monkeys split off from the line leading to apes, which lack tails, sung through trees by brachiating and share many other derived traits.
In the Miocene Epoch of the Neogene Period, lesser apes diverged from great apes, then Asian great apes (ancestors of orangutans) split from African great apes and then these diverged into the gorilla and human-chimp branches. In the Pliocene, upright walking apes, ie australopithecines, split from the chimp-bonobo line. In the Pleistocene, genus Homo evolved from genus Australopithecus. H. habilis evolved into H. erectus-grade humans, which evolved into H. heidelbergensis, which evolved into H. sapiens, including its Neanderthal, Denisovan and Anatomically Modern subspecies. We, the AMHs are the only subspecies left, although bits and pieces of of our extinct kin remain in our genomes.
Every possible line of evidence supports these evolutionary events.
You seem to forget that there are very few, if any, intermediate fossils. The fossil record is replete with organisms that seem to come out of nowhere, remain stable for millions of years and then go extinct, FYI, you seem to equate “creationism” with those who believe in a young earth, which I also reject. And evolution is all well and good but in the end there is no pathway (given the atmosphere of the early earth carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and water vapor) to go from non-life to life. Chirality is even a bigger problem. I submit, it is your worldview that restricts your beliefs. Your religion is scienceism, and even if God visited you in the flesh,I have no doubt you would not believe in His existence. Even your high priest was not sure…“But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?
[To William Graham 3 July 1881]”
― Charles Darwin
“Humans are no more complex than other large mammals. Our brains have more interconnections than most, but other mammals have sensory and mental powers which we lack. Chimps have superior spatial memory, which no human can match.”
Only if you ignore the complexity of rational human thought. That is something that you do without question. Apparently, for you, evolution is the evolution of the body alone. You will account for the evolution of the brain, I guess, but you will do so with reference to the brain’s most important function, rational thought.
Ray,
I wrote a long reply, but as with so many of my comments, it failed to post.
Short version is that humans are no more complex than other large mammals. Our brains have more interconnections than most, but other mammals have sensory and mental powers which we lack. Chimps have superior spatial memory, which no human can match.
We weren’t assembled out of random parts in a single moment. We evolved by numerous steps from unicellular organisms over four billion years, along with every other living thing on the planet, whether complex or simple.
Chimp,
You are making my point for me. Not just humans, but any animals – large or small – isn’t just complex, but extremely so. Even the workings of a single cell alone is quite complex.
We have messed with evolution on an accelerated timescale. We have changed the genetics of fruit flies, but have not been able to improve one. Most changes have been useless and a devolved fly: i.e. third wing. Often life seems to devolve rather than evolve. So much for survival of the fittest.
We can mess with genetics to change a cell, but can we create a cell out of dust?
A scientist was chatting with God:
Scientist: “You’re not so great, I can create a man too with a little time.”
God: Ok your on, and I will give you a full year.
The scientist leaves, and as he walks away, reaches down for a handful of dirt.
God: Oh no, no, no. That is my dirt. You have to use your own.
“Improvement” is not what evolution is about. It results in part form the differential reproductive success of individuals within a population, but there is no teleological end state.
We could make better fruit flies if we wanted to. They are studied not to improve fruit fly function, but to find out how genetics works.
“Devolve” likewise assumes some ideal end or starting state. There is no goal.
We mess with genetics to change cells every day. That’s what genetic engineering does. So of course we can do that.
We have not yet created a cell out of “dust”, which in terms of science would be making one out of the chemical elements of which cells are composed, starting from scratch. But we’re getting surprisingly (for those who don’t follow the work) close. Most of the essential components, the complex chemical compound constituents of cells, self-assemble. The engineering challenge which remains is putting those components together to form replicating protocells.
The most important outstanding problem, IMO, has to do with the phosphate backbone of RNA. So far, only fairly short strands of RNA self-assemble and don’t last long. But a couple of exciting discoveries have been made to get around this problem. No miracles are needed. Just more lab work, experiments and biomolecular engineering.
Roy Denio writes “The human is so complex, that evolution by chance alone would be astronomical.”
Or inevitable. As William Briggs repeatedly explains, there is no such thing as chance. Where life is possible it is probably inevitable.
“Like say equivalent to a tornado running through a car junkyard of parts only. Then, leaving in it’s wake a tornado built car that runs perfectly.”
Indeed. Or monkeys typing out Shakespeare. Give it long enough and it will happen provided the odds are greater than zero, however slight it might be.
If you ARE that life, your odds of existing is “1”.
You are using an old argument that depends on equivocation on the term “random”. The meaning in evolutionary biology is undirected, that is, that favorable mutations do no appear at a higher rate. What the argument ignores is selection, that the unfavorable mutations die out, and the favorable mutations survive and leave more descendants.
Oh, dear. Anthony chopped the astrology thread short yesterday – and opened a whole shipping container worth of creationism worms today…
Nice to know that you, too, are human, Anthony! Good thing server space is cheap these days.
Our host was wise to cut short that developing thread. IMO squelching creationist comments would also be advisable, since Warmunistas seldom fail to point out instances of creationist snake oil being peddled here and on other skeptical sites.
Sadly, the charge by the Carbonari that many skeptics are also creationists is valid. Almost their only supportable accusation against us.
Let the children decide. Let’s teach them that climate may be warming but that there is good reason to question that view. Let’s teach them evolution and that there are other views on the subject. Let’s not indoctrinate them with one view to the exclusion of everything else. That’s close to brainwashing. If we show them all there is to see, plus what the evidence is, then in time they can make up their own mind. Wouldn’t that be best? The problem with science the past 30-40 years is that itself has become a religious battleground. Scientific American and National Geographic didn’t always wade into the battle of metaphysics as they do now. But now that science itself has become the religion, with its own set of priests and relics and close-mindedness, it’s hardly better than wild religion.
There are no scientifically defensible views against the fact of evolution, anymore than there are against the germ theory of disease or heliocentric theory of astronomy. Anti-vaccination activists might question the germ theory, but really have very little more going for them than do creationists.
Really! Your worldview blinds you. Read “More than a Theory: Reveling a Testable Model for Creation,” by Hugh Ross, if you dare. I am waiting for someone to cite Hawkins about the theory of gravity creating the universe. Like Dr. John Lennox, professor of mathematics at Oxford University, “nonsense spoken by scientists, is still nonsense.
Shame I did not read this first. I would have realized that you are a complete fanatic. You will accept no questioning of the theory of evolution. That is clear.
That’s exactly the sort of close-mindedness I mean. This obsessive close mindedness didn’t always pollute science.
It’s not close mindedness to demand that science to be taught in science classes, rather than religion. For students to understand science, they need to study it, not theology.
If you imagine that you can demonstrate creation of species scientifically, please, by all means, have at it. You’ll be the first.
It’s not teaching science in science classes that is the problem. Teaching scientism by strident atheists is where the problem is. Saying the science has done away with the need for a God as it has perfectly and satisfactorily explained how and why we exist is a rank falsehood. Do we not all agree here that teaching children things we know for sure as false is wrong?
about the relation of science, religion, culture and nature : http://www.davdata.nl/math/mentalclimate.html
There is an easy answer to this one. Simply force schools to use the raw data instead of the “adjusted” data for their experiments. We should have schools teach the scientific method and then apply it to the ice core and other data. They should then study the results of the IPCC models, and the divergences between ground and satellite data. By only selectively teaching topics they hide the truth. Force the kids to be skeptical and the truth becomes apparent. BTW, has anyone ever seen this?
https://youtu.be/Wllc5gSc-N8
Unfortunately, I can’t un-see it. Bill Nye, the pervert guy, who made a career out of educating children. {shudder!}
That guy is held up as a science icon. The absurdity is at a level unreached in human history.
I don’t think the article is entirely correct, just because the state can sometimes get things wrong, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily better to let parents decide what’s good for them.
The state runs schools, therefore the state has the right on what to teach, not parents. If someone wants to teach something (or not) in a state run institution, you have to first convince the state to teach it (or not).
Religion is not allowed except in specially designated classes. Political views are also not allowed, only comparative political analyses in the appropriate classes.
There are many such guidelines, but the bottom line is a teacher, like any public service official, cannot use their position to promote a personal political or religious view in the classroom, or in any state capacity, unless their official position calls for it. If they want to do such, they usually they have to do it outside their official functions, and not using the emblems or other official designations of their position (for example a national parks officer wearing a government uniform to a rally).
Parents can sometimes withdraw children from classes they disagree with, but they can’t enforce what views are taught or not taught.
Science is a tool. It is the application of a process called the Scientific Method to the challenge of learning about the physical world. It is, by far, the most effective known method for investigating the physical world.
Science is a very useful tool, but it is only one tool.
For other sorts of inquiry there are other types of study. If all you know is science, you are like the mechanic who has only a hammer, and thinks everything looks like a nail. You will be very ill-equipped to excel at music (though I once read a fascinating book entitled, The Acoustical Foundations of Music), or interpersonal relationships, or to understand your Creator’s purpose for your life.
Practically speaking, even when seeking to understand the physical world, science is never the only tool in your toolbox. For instance, even the most dedicated scientist, if he witnesses something with his own eyes and ears, will invariably believe it, even though there may be no hope of reproducing it, and he knows that reproducibility is a prerequisite for application of the Scientific Method.
Unfortunately, much of what is taught as “science” is anything but scientific.
Climatologist John Christy, Sept. 20, 2012
For instance, only part of what is taught as “evolution” is recognizable as science. On one hand, microevolution is well demonstrated, But, on the other hand, the theory of spontaneous generation, which was discarded by science as conclusively disproved 150 years ago, is now taught as part of the “science” of evolution. Of course they don’t call it “spontaneous generation,” they call it the “abiotic origin of life,” but the terms are really synonyms.
Science should be based in evidence, and, sometimes it is. For instance, there’s a a great body of evidence refuting young-earth creationism. But there’s no evidence at all for an abiotic origin of life. The abiotic origin of life is taught in “science” classes, as part of “evolution,” in spite of a complete lack of evidence for it. There is no more evidence of an abiotic origin of life than there is of atmospheric CO2 causing accelerated sea-level rise. The supposed abiotic origin of life is taught in so-called science courses because those who teach it are ideologically opposed to the possibility of a supernatural origin of life, just as ideology, rather than scientific evidence, motivates the Party Line that CO2 drives sea-level rise.
http://www.sealevel.info/MSL_graph.php?id=150-021&boxcar=1&boxwidth=3
http://www.sealevel.info/150-021_Harlingen_Netherlands.png
“I don’t think the article is entirely correct, just because the state can sometimes get things wrong, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily better to let parents decide what’s good for them.”
Thing,
True, a single parent deciding what is good is the wrong way. The parents in aggregate deciding what is good is how it should work.
Roy Denio:
single parents or parents in aggregate-that’s much the same thing.
State institutions teach state-accepted knowledge, not parent-accepted. If parents want to take it up with the state, they can do so at other levels, changing or challenging knowledge through publication e.g. at University levels- who generally decide what constitutes acceptable ‘knowledge’. There is a process involved, at a state level since it is a state institution. Other methods have been tried and don’t work as well, (much like democracy).
When I was at school, certain parents wanted to teach creationism in biology (and other classes). Because creationism is not accepted as valid science by the state, this is therefore invalid. To teach creationism in science one would have to have it accepted at a University/state level as science, not at a ‘parent’ level, group or otherwise. Also, it violates separation of church and state. It can be taught in religious classes, not in biology classes, and even in religious classes there is generally a requirement to state it as a religious idea, not science.
The same religious group also wanted to change or modify the teaching of art classes, geology, music classes, and ban certain English texts. (The only subject seem to be left untouched was Maths). You see the point.
Roy Denio says “a single parent deciding what is good is the wrong way. The parents in aggregate deciding what is good is how it should work.”
Why? Why should there be a “should”? If parents in aggregate are wrong, which is often the case, should you be compelled to their wrongness? For me the answer is “no”.
The brilliant mind cannot be trained by an “aggregate” of parenting.
“The Accountant” movie comes to mind. There is no “aggregate” deciding how to raise an autistic child to be brilliant. My own formative years were out in the middle of nowhere with snakes and scorpions for wildlife. I was raised on Rudyard Kipling and Lyman Frank Baum, taught in “phonics”, and could read both by second grade and correctly pronounce (while not perhaps understanding) almost any word that can be written. Imagine my surprise when we moved to the city and I encountered “see spot run” for the first time. Say what? You call that READING?
A fellow at church was able to read “repentance” but he could not read “wine”. He had not been taught “wine” and had no idea whatsoever of the rules for “sounding out” a written word.
Speaking as a Louisiana teacher of more than twenty years, I can say that the idea that “creationism” can be legally taught in public schools is utterly false. What can be taught are scientific (NOT religious) objections to standard evolutionary theory, such as the non-existence of junk DNA, or difficulties building life from non-life via stochastic processes.
Anthony Watts writes: “The only sane choice is to take back power from the state, to demand and receive the right to decide what is best for our own children”
That’s really the best answer, the best defense. Parents house, cloth and feed their children and its their right and privilege to educate them on subjects that have no objective truth.
Creationism is a philosophy I originally scorned. I’m a trained scientists and I’d been indoctrinated myself into believing the idea had no merit until I read a treatment on the Anthropic Principal by an Oxford philosophy professor named Nick Bostrom, who made a compelling case for the “Universe as a Simulation” hypothesis. I spent years tossing it around in the basement of my head and finally decided he had a point; there really was no way to objectively distinguish between Intelligent Design (the “simulation hypothesis”) and anything else. The entire argument was sophism, beetle tracking; no way to tell.
So I’d rather have the government stay completely away from the subject. They don’t know. I don’t know. No one knows.
Stick to reading, writing and arithmetic. Everything else will be fine if they can just manage that.
“Stick to reading, writing and arithmetic. Everything else will be fine if they can just manage that.”
Evidently they can’t. This article is evidence.
“But the alternative to having the freedom to mess up your children’s education, is giving the state the authority to mess up your children’s education.”
Wrong. There should not be a comma after the subject clause.
“The only sane choice is to take back power from the state, to demand and receive the right to decide what is best for our own children – however outrageous some of those choices may be. Because the only thing worse than watching other parents make bad choices for their children…>
Wrong. A “because” clause is always subordinate, and should never be presented as a separate sentence.
“Because the only thing worse than watching other parents make bad choices for their children, is being forced to accept whatever lunacy the latest crop of government bureaucrats decide to inflict on your children.”
Wrong. Yet another comma after the subject clause.
If modern schools cannot teach the basics of grammar, how can we expect them to teach science?
RoHa, you sound like a AGW warmist. The hatred in your worldview is obvious. So sad.
Roha asks “If modern schools cannot teach the basics of grammar, how can we expect them to teach science?”
There is no “we”. Grammar is a social convention (of considerable complexity) and thus subject to whims of society. Science is not supposed to be subject to whims of society although new science clearly is as wiggly as language.
Underlying language and grammar may well be some invariant structure that is found everywhere that language is found but one would have to look deep. In American English, adjectives precede the noun being modified, but in Icelandic the first adjective is a suffix. In English, you might have a fast boat. In Icelandic it would be boatfast (as I understand it anyway). Icelandic also has an interesting abiltiy to answer affirmatively negatively phrased questions (whose very existence is itself an oddity):
Do you want to see a movie? Is a simple question with a simple answer.
Don’t you want to see a movie? In English, the simple answer is likely to be misunderstood. If I say “yes”, did I affirm the “don’t” or affirm “see a movie”? But in Icelandic this form has its own form of yes “ju” which negates the “don’t” and affirms the object at the same time.
@Mike Graebner
I know it is fashionable and politically correct to attribute “hate” to other people, but to find it in a collection of grammar notes is exceptionally clever.
Well done.
@Michael 2
Yes, grammar is a social convention, and, as is often the case with conventions, when the convention is flouted, confusion follows.
We do not tolerate the deleterious effects of laziness, carelessness, and ignorance in engineering or medicine, and nor should we tolerate them in our most important means of communication.
So at the end of the day everything came from nothing.
So for me it makes more sense that God made everything from nothing than
believing everything evolved from nothing.
Well, Mark r, everything from something outside of space-time, matter-energy. What that may be is a matter for debate — Simulation? God? — but whatever it is, it is clearly not nothing.
Which is the long way of saying that I agree God is a superior hypothesis to “it just kinda happened.”
If you believe that nothing can come into existence without being created, how did God come into existence?
If you believe “God was not created” then why not “the universe was not created”?
God is external of the universe because the universe was non existent at one point. That is like me asking you what does dark matter consist of? There has been a lot written about the fine-tuning of the universe. It is obvious to anyone who has an open mind that an intellect had something to do with it coming into existence. see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSq4KLjMSlI
“God is external of the universe”
But that doesn’t answer the question of where God came from.
And when you say “the universe was non existent at one point”, do you mean that there was time before the universe came into being? If so, what was God doing in that time? If not, then how does “the universe was non existent at one point” imply that God is in some way external to the universe?
Since I have lectured on Philosophy of Religion for a number of years, I am quite familiar with many versions of the Fine Tuning Argument. I will see whether the video offers anything new.
Might I, in response, suggest a book?
Robin Le Poidevin: Arguing for Atheism, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion Routledge, 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE, UK and 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001, USA, 1996,
It is quite short.
You can also find some good discussion here.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/design/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/teleological-arguments/
https://infidels.org/library/modern/theism/design.html
This material will, perhaps, help you to see that, for some open minds, at least, it is not entirely obvious that an intellect had something to do with the universe coming into existence.
I have a book for you, The Real Face of Atheism” by Ravi Zacharias. I am curious how you determine morality. In your worldview, since you do not believe in an absolute law giver (God), there is no good or evil. I am sure that you are aware that the biggest mass murders of the 20th century were all atheists. There is another book, “I Don’t have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist” by Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek but I have not read that one as yet.
“If you believe that nothing can come into existence without being created, how did God come into existence?”
Category error, like 2 plus 2 equals green. By definition, God never came into existence. That’s what being eternal means.
“By definition, God never came into existence. That’s what being eternal means.”
Fair enough, though Mike did not give that definition. But then we are accepting the principle that something can exist eternally, without coming into existence. Why, then, simply not accept that the universe exists eternally, without coming into existence?
If you want to point to the Big Bang as the universe coming into existence, there are two points to raise.
First, assuming the BB theory is true, the current universe might be part of an eternally existing multiverse, perhaps something in the style of Smolin’s “fecund universe”.
Second, more importantly, is the question of time.
(a) Time started with the BB. But then there never was a moment of time in which the universe did not exist. This means that the universe has always existed.
(b) Time existed before the BB. The BB occurred at a moment in time. But then we come to Augustine’s question of why God created the universe at that moment, and not, say, five minutes earlier. The usual response (Augustine’s)is that God is not a temporal being, and that God created time along with the universe. Alternative views get you into this sort of thing.
http://fas-philosophy.rutgers.edu/zimmerman/GodInsideTime.pdf
It is very difficult to think of something personal existing non-temporally. However, some sort of non-personal,non-temporal “ground of being” (Tillich’s phrase) is easier to imagine. But to call this “God” is deceptive, since it pretends this thing is the same as the personal God that the theistic religions peddle.
Dr. John Polkinghorne, a quantum theorist, has stated the following about the multiverse, “Let us recognize these speculations for what they are. They are not physics, but in the strictest sense, metaphysics.” You might want to read “Who’s Afraid of the Multiverse?” by Jeffrey Zweerink, PH.D. (an astrophysicist, specializing in high energy gamma-ray astrophysics).
Concerning the big bang, at some point there was nothing except the eternal being, God for lack of a better word, and then all of space, time, matter and energy came into being. There was no time before that. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1
I am curious, why would a non-personal, non-temporal being be easier to imagine than a personal God? Maybe that is just your preference? My preference would be a personal, loving God.
All of this is fun and games, and I rather doubt that either of us will convince the other. But thanks anyway. It helps me sharpen my apologetics.
The above quote I took from “God’s Undertaker Has Science buried God?” by John C. Lennox (is Professor of Mathematics (emeritus) at the University of Oxford and Fellow in Mathematics and the Philosophy of Science at Green Templeton College, Oxford). He is a very good and lucid writer. You can also see some of this lectures on youtube.
“I have a book for you, The Real Face of Atheism” by Ravi Zacharias.”
Not impressed. I agree with this reviewer:
https://infidels.org/library/modern/doug_krueger/colossal.html
(I will add that if you want some real apologetics, as distinct from the stuff produced by American evangelists, try Richard Swinburne or Alvin Plantinga. They don’t convince me, but at least they try to make a respectable case, and it is by no means easy to refute them.)
“I am curious how you determine morality. In your worldview, since you do not believe in an absolute law giver (God), there is no good or evil.”
You don’t know what my worldview is. I might be a Buddhist, a Hindu,a Spinozan pantheist, or one of many other possibilities.
As far as morality is concerned, I believe that moral principles are sui generis objective rules, in the same way that the principles of logic and mathematics are objective rules. (Expanding on this will take a pile of essays.)
But if God gives moral laws, how does he choose the laws? Does he choose laws which he knows are good, or are the laws good because he chose them? The Euthyphro dilemma is inescapable.
“I am sure that you are aware that the biggest mass murders of the 20th century were all atheists.”
It was not the only century.
“Let us recognize these speculations for what they are. They are not physics, but in the strictest sense, metaphysics.”
And that applies to ideas of a creator god. There really is no good reason (Fine-tuning arguments notwithstanding) for assuming the existence of such a thing.
A personal non-temporal being is not difficult to imagine if I imagine it as only having the mental state of pure consciousness*, but as soon as I try to imagine beyond that I find I am attributing mental states and processes which take time.
That is not to say that other timeless mental states, or timeless mental “processes” are impossible. I do not think that reality is forced to limit itself to what I – or you – can imagine. But it does raise a difficulty which does not seem to apply to a non-personal “ground of being”.
I might add that I have never held the idea that “science has buried God”. My arguments are philosophical.
(*This state is the only one in which I have experience without experience of time.)