Bush wants to teach Intelligent Design alongside Evolution
President Bush wants Intelligent Design taught alongside evolution in the classroom. Unfortunately for Mr. Bush, he doesn’t seem to grasp the concept of a theory when the word is used in the context of science. While the word “theory” is interchangable with the word “idea” in normal vocabulary, when it is used to mean a scientific theory, the meaning changes completely:
A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.
An implied element of this definition is falsifiability.
Falsifiability is an important concept in the philosophy of science that amounts to the apparently paradoxical idea that a proposition or theory cannot be scientific if it does not admit consideration of the possibility of its being false.
“Falsifiable” does not mean “false”. For a proposition to be falsifiable, it must be possible in principle to make an observation that would show the proposition to be false, even if that observation has not been made. For example, the proposition “All crows are black” would be falsified by observing one white crow.
Unfortunately, Mr. Bush does not appear to have any grasp of this concept, and as such, he should leave what should be taught in science classes to people who do have a clue. I have no problem with Intelligent Design being taught — in public schools, even — but teaching it as “science” is a discredit to scientists and the scientific method. If Intelligent Design is to be taught, it should be taught in a religion or philosophy class, because Intelligent Design is not falsifiable. No matter how far back one advances scientific understanding, it remains a simple matter for philosophers and theologians to add another layer of abstraction between a Creator and what science can explain. As such, Intelligent Design is not science, it is philosophy.
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Amen. I think a lot of people pushing for ID conveniently forget certain basic tenets of what they’re arguing for/against in order to get their way. In _any_ debate this is a disgusting tactic, no matter the side. Hopefully through articles such as through honest discussion we can get everyone to make decisions based on accurate understandings of the issue, no matter what their final stance may be.
Comment by tentonnun — August 3, 2005 @ 12:35 am
If falsifiability is a required attribute for things tought in science, then evolution would also be banned. The major, original falsifiabilities of Darwin’s theory (missing links and natura non-facit saltum) have been removed with the common acceptance of punctuated equilibrium. The modern Theory of Evolution is most certainly not falsifiable, and most certainly not meet the criteria you have set forth above to be taught in a scince classroom.
Comment by SvdSinner — August 3, 2005 @ 9:39 am
no evolution is very falisfiable. but it has not been proven either correct or false, hence it is a theory.
Comment by bc — August 3, 2005 @ 10:49 am
What’s not falsifiable about ‘Intelligent Design’? If you can show that, indeed, a particular pattern doesn’t exist or was created at random, as opposed to ID’s theory that it was created by some external, non-random force, then you can falsify it.
I understand the non-falsifiability of a ’supernatural’ event, but ID theory doesn’t rest on the ‘creating entity’ being supernatural, just unknown.
That said, I don’t think it’s very scientific either. It relies on probabilities and the concept of things like irreducible complexity, and not on emperical evidence.
As far as Pres. Bush’s comments, I think they’ve been taken out of context. The ‘interviewer’ specifically set the questions up to put Bush into a position he shouldn’t have been in, and Bush pretty much says it should be left up to the local districts. That’s a good answer, just not the one the interviewer wanted. Pres. Bush obviously doesn’t think he’s qualified to say what shouldn’t and should be taught, and he so he suggests leaving it up to the school districts or local governments rather than a federal decision.
That some would rearrange that to him supporting teaching creationism in schools is disingenous, but not suprising.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/02/AR2005080200899.html
Take special note of this part:
THE PRESIDENT: … Then, I said that, first of all, that decision should be made to local school districts, but I felt like both sides ought to be properly taught.
Q Both sides should be properly taught?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, people — so people can understand what the debate is about.
The president is pretty clearly stating it should be left up to other people. He’s not saying teach it as equal to evolution, he’s saying teach enough about it so people understand what’s being debated, which evidently needs to be done because my idea of what ID is and your idea of what ID is differ GREATLY, I think.
In short, you’re wrong. Eat any more random pills off the floor because they must be vitamins lately? ;)
Comment by Vampyre — August 3, 2005 @ 1:07 pm
What I have never understood about this whole argument is why evolution cannot simply be taught as that theory which is accepted by most scientists, without prejudice to whatever religious or philosophical beliefs people have one way or the other. What bugs me about the teaching of evolution is not that it is taught, but that there are truth claims made about it which are just as alien to the scientific method as is Creationism.
Science isn’t about dogmatic statements of what is true or false. It’s about an open-ended, ongoing investigation of phenomena which is always open, by definition, to being proven wrong.
In my view, dogma, too, belongs in the realm of theology.
Comment by Bob Waters — August 4, 2005 @ 3:09 am
When ever I see such a lack of understanding of fundamental science concepts, I know who to blame. Blame us, the science teachers of the world. How many of us let evolution slide when we taught biology 5, 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago.
We didn’t teach the truth (or science) because it might cause controversy. We took the easy way out. After all it was next to the last thing in the biology book, followed by human sexuality or sex ed of any stripe.
Since we did not teach, others felt free to teach their thoughts, wishes, misconstrued beliefs, etc. as science.
Science teachers of old made the mess; will the science teachers now try to fix it or hide from it? We’ll see.
Comment by BioTeacher — August 4, 2005 @ 4:08 pm
[...] Earlier this month, I reported on how President Bush wants to teach “intelligent design” alongside evolution in public schools. Now, four separate scientific societies have come out against Bush’s stance. The American Society of Agronomy (ASA), the Crop Science Society of America (CSSA), the Soil Science Society of America (SSSA), and the American Chemical Society (ACS) have each come out in favor of teaching evolution in classrooms in the US. [...]
Pingback by polyscience.org » Four scientific societies oppose Bush’s intelligent design stance — August 19, 2005 @ 10:30 pm
[...] William Basener, an assistant professor of mathematics has created the first mathematical formula to “accurately model [Easter] island’s monumental societal collapse.” I am skeptical of this claim because no historical records were kept by the islanders regarding what actually happened, so claiming something is accurate when it cannot actually be verified seems a little disingenuous to me. I don’t like things being presented as fact when they are not falsifiable. Nonetheless, this is a press release, so I suppose that such language is to be expected. [...]
Pingback by polyscience.org » Modeling the collapse of the Easter Island culture — September 4, 2005 @ 11:05 pm
[...] In the case of Intelligent Design, there is no controversy, except that which the Discovery Institute — a conservative Christian think-tank — created. And then released into the wild in the form of press releases which could then be picked up by the mainstream media and eventually make its way into the minds of mainstream America. The campaign was largely successful: reporters have been reporting the Intelligent Design case in Dover, PA by telling both sides of the story in an effort to appear fair and balanced, not taking into account that one side of the story (the alleged controversy) is completely made up to begin with. As a result, fringe beliefs are given the same equal time as real scientific theories in the eyes of the public, introducing fear, uncertainty, and doubt into mainstream thought. The responsible thing to do would is to call ID what it is: a creation by a fringe group for the express purpose of bringing creationism back into the classroom under the a-religious guise of “intelligent design.” [...]
Pingback by rianjs.net » “Teaching the controversy” — January 16, 2006 @ 11:00 am