This whole affair seems to me to have less to do with science than socio-economical cicrucmstances in the affected areas (two small poor counties of PA and GA). I’ll bet it’ll be a cold day in Hell before you see any of this nonsense go on in affluent suburban or even troubled but modern urban districts where the parents understand that their children need to have the best science education avaailable to have any hope of advancing. Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s right, just that perhaps it’s not going to be a trend that will go beyond a few out-of-the-way places.

Who is “anonymous”? I liked your post. I would agree that core statements of evolution are not really “falsifiable”. I see these core tenets as being 1) that all life forms we see today arose from previously existing ones, and so on, as far back as we can consider and 2) the mechanisms for the transition from one life to another are natural mechanisms. However, using these basic tenets as guides, scientists can and do all the time produce specific falsibiable claims. For example “X species descended from Y species” or “the earth’s underwent a great natural disaster X million years ago”, “genetic mutation produced this variation”, etc. are all falsifiable statements that grow out of using the two basic tenets. All sciences rely on various assumptions that are not “falsifiable” in the Popperian sense, and any philosophy of science that says otherwise is itself inaccurate. The basic reason for adopting the two propositions above is that their negations are inherently unscientific, in the sense of cutting off any further investigation.

Well, if we’re talking about natural processes that take long periods of time to take place, then plate tectonics, the big bang etc. are not really falsifiable as well. Certain aspects of evolution are a lot more falsifiable than an “intelligent design” theory. The main point is that science is about natural processes, not intelligently directed activities, so by defintion “intelligent design” isn’t science at all. It is outside science. Of course there are problems with contemporary evolutionary theories, nobody who has ever deeply studied would suggest otherwise, but that is what science is about. Not throwing up your hands and saying “it’s so complex, somebody had to think it up.” I think there are a lot of problems with modern day physics too, but that doesn’t make the theories any less valid. I hope that people on both sides can start to realize that science and religion are usually dealing with two very different areas of investigation, existence, etc. but I think this is a particularly enlightened view not held by the majority.

I’d never thought about the rural angle before. It does make sense that a lot of these iniatives take place is less populated areas for the reasons you state, and these people are way more inclined to not be as critically thinking. I have relatives that teach their kids that the world is 6000 years old after all.

Today on Science Friday with Ira Flato on NPR, they had a dialogue about science and religion. This very anti-religion guy was on named Stephen Weinberg. I was listening for a few minutes when I thought “Hey, this is the guy that won the Nobel Prize with Glashow and Salam, I think.”

I need to post about that book The God Gene, Richard Dawkins’ memes theory and tie it all together. Very interesting how Dawkins invented memes basically to attack religion and theism in general and now there is research that says humans have a gene predisposing some to a belief in God. It all eventually comes full circle I guess.

Yeah, I read that too. Glad to see that they are up on it and can eloquently point out the flaws in the ID argument.

To make hyperlinks, type [a href=”url”]hyperlinked text[/a]

where the brackets are replaced by less thna and greater than. (comments are simply html. that’s all)

another thing about nytimes articles. after the html url, put ?pagewanted=all after it
or just replace the part after the ? with pagewanted=all. that’ll put everyting on the same page and for people that don’t know how to hit next will be able to read the whole article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/23/opinion/23sun1.html?pagewanted=all

Ok, so this discussion ended, like, a year ago, but I’m just now getting back to it.

Anyway, Rog I think you are playing into hands of the ID folks a little bit with your argument that science is about “natural processes”. They have already mounted an assault on this front, with their constant criticism of “naturalism” in science. I think one can avoid this argument entirely (and avoid defining what is “natural”) by defining science instead as research that is conducted according to the scientific method (and associated principles). That sounds redundant, but its not really, because one can define the method independently of any definition of science.

I think most people would agree that if the existence of god could be demonstrated scientifically, it would not be “outside of science”. For instance, that fake prayer/pregnancy study that was in the Journal of Reproductive Medicine a while ago. Of course, no real study has ever shown such a thing, but if one did, even I would be tempted to accept it.

Then again, it is just such a definition of science that ID, like other pseudo-sciences, seeks to exploit. But their claims are easy to refute (technically, at least) on these same grounds. Beating them politically is another matter.

J.p.