USA Today just ran a story about the release of a major report by the National Academy of Sciences lamenting the poor state of science education in America. Given how serious the problems referenced in the report are, it's encouraging that the newspaper devoted significant space to the issue.
However, USA Today seems completely oblivious to the fact that some of its own reporting has exacerbated the very problem the report discusses. Indeed, one of the problems with science literacy today is that far too many people find it all but impossible to differentiate between science and pseudoscience. Unfortunately, it appears that USA Today falls into the group unable, or unwilling, to distinguish between the two.
About two months ago, the paper ran a story about Rachel Held Evans' new memoir, Evolving in Monkey Town. Evans grew up in Dayton, Tennessee, the home of the Scopes Trial in 1925, and her book discusses her personal transformation from someone who was taught that she had to choose between religion and science to a person who recognized that there was no need to make such a choice. "I learned you don't have to choose between loving and following Jesus and believing in evolution."
The article noted that "Evans is part of a movement of mostly Protestant writers and scientists trying to reconcile faith and science, 85 years after the trial ended." So far so good! But the article went on to claim, "Instead of choosing sides, some prefer the middle ground of intelligent design ... "
It is a huge error to offer intelligent design as a middle ground between religion and science since intelligent design has absolutely nothing to do with science. As many scientists, religious leaders, theologians and teachers have noted, intelligent design is nothing more than creationism dressed up to look like science. And, as they've noted, the costume is so ill-fitting that it isn't fooling anybody, except perhaps some at USA Today.
The hallmark of a scientific idea is the ability to express its essence in a manner that makes it falsifiable. If it is impossible to conceive of data that could prove an idea to be false, that idea falls outside the bounds of science. Intelligent design fails this simple test and thus while it might stimulate some interesting religious discussions, it has no place within any science classroom or laboratory.
The National Academy of Sciences has stated in no uncertain terms what it thinks of intelligent design: "Intelligent design is not a scientific concept because it cannot be empirically tested."
The United Methodist Church is equally unequivocal in its rejection of intelligent design. At their 2008 General Conference, United Methodists overwhelmingly passed a resolution "opposing the introduction of any faith-based theories such as Creationism or Intelligent Design into the science curriculum of our public schools."
Even intelligent design's main proponent, Michael Behe, was forced to testify under oath at the 2005 Dover "intelligent design" trial that its scientific underpinnings were nonexistent. Consider the answer Behe provided to this question about the scientific allies of intelligent design posed by ACLU attorney Eric Rothschild: "But you are clear, under your definition, the definition that sweeps in intelligent design, astrology is also a scientific theory, correct?" Behe's answer? "Yes, that's correct." Intelligent design and astrology are seen to have similar scientific stature by its foremost supporter.
The U.S. legal system has also weighed in on the issue. Federal District Judge John E. Jones III, after noting the inability of Behe and others to defend the scientific merits of intelligent design in the Dover case, came to as clear a decision as is possible in any legal case: "We find that ID is not science and cannot be adjudged a valid, accepted scientific theory as it has failed to publish in peer-reviewed journals, engage in research and testing, and gain acceptance in the scientific community. ID, as noted, is grounded in theology, not science."
It's particularly ironic that USA Today opted to confuse religion with science in this manner in this article since the position they've staked out, that intelligent design is a "middle ground" between the two, runs counter to the beliefs of Rachel Held Evans, the person whose book prompted the article in the first place. As she explained to me, "I certainly do not advocate an intelligent design position."
Bob Smietana, the author of the article, acknowledged to me that he believed that it would be illegal to teach intelligent design as science in public schools but he justified the article's wording by asserting that "there's more science in it than in 6 day creationism." Actually, Smietana has it backwards! Six-day creationism makes an explicit, falsifiable prediction, that the universe was created in six days, and scientific data have conclusively demonstrated that this is a false proposition. Intelligent design, on the other hand, makes absolutely no predictions -- which is what removes it from the realm of science.
The import of this issue goes far beyond the evolution/creation controversy. The point that should not be missed is that there are grave consequences for society when we conflate and confuse science with pseudoscience. When we do that we cannot possibly produce a scientifically literate citizenry. And, as the National Academy of Sciences report demonstrated, we are already paying a stiff price for our scientific ignorance.
According to the report, K-12 math and science education in the United States ranks 48th internationally and China has now replaced the U.S. as the world's leading exporter of high-end technology. The report demonstrated how these facts can have huge effects on the nation's economy. For example, if U.S. students matched the scientific acumen of students in Finland, the report estimated that our economy would grow by between 9 and 16 percent.
Over the years, I've liked to point to the continuum that ranges from science through nonscience to nonsense. It's critical to educate people about the best way to place ideas in their appropriate place on this continuum, and it's essential that media outlets do so in their news reports. USA Today failed to do this in its coverage of Evans' book, and thus it failed its readers. Intelligent design is a purely religious concept and passing it off as anything else is confusing at best and intentionally misleading at worst.
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John Farrell: Bad Faith (in Science): Darwin as All-Purpose Boogey Man?
The preamble to it specified that both fields are driven by a common desire to discover the truths about the Universe and our place in it. Einstein felt that religion contributed the drive, and science contributed the methods. Hence without the method, Religion could discover naught (blind) and without the drive, Science would not progress at the same rate (lame).
A complete mis-interpretation. The article clearly says that Christians/Diests were taking this 'middle-ground' to embracing science as physical truth into their theology - Intelligent Design. Essentially that many who believe in the existence of God are also perfectly willing to admit what they see before them (i.e. the evidence of evolution) and are simply embracing it as 'so that's the way in which He built the world' (myself included). Like Christians embrace photosynthesis, orbital patterns, weather patterns, etc. Like we embrace advances in medicine and planetary science.
Even the author points out later that when asked as to the scientific designation of ID (i.e. testable) mainstream Christian denominations fully admit ID is not scientific theory but a religious belief about God using the forces of nature in an evolutionary manner in the creation of the universe.
IMHO USA Today has been falsely accused for promoting religion as science.
As for young-Earthers, the God-sent-Katrina-and-Haiti's-earthquakers, the Birthers, the Obama-is-Kenyan-born people and all the other wackadoodle reality deniers - science recently discovered that Neanderthal genes were absorbed into Modern Man and is present in large swaths of the world population. Evidence anyone?
Is Dr. Behe an alchemist? Or is this simply an example of quote-mining?
Rather than that, Behe termed it an archaic (antiquated, no longer relevant) definition, stating, " ... let me direct your attention to the archaic definition ... which was in effect when astrology was actually thought to perhaps describe real events ... ."
Rothschild - And I asked you, "Is astrology a theory under that definition?" And you answered, "Is astrology? It could be, yes." Right?
Behe - That's correct.
Q - Not, it used to be, right?
A - Well, that's what I was thinking. I was thinking of astrology when it was first proposed. I'm not thinking of tarot cards and little mind readers and so on that you might see along the highway. I was thinking of it in its historical sense.
Q - I couldn't be a mind reader either. [conceding that Behe meant otherwise]
While not entirely clear in the deposition, Behe clarified his intended meaning during testimony. Yet critics continue to quote mine a single question and answer to further a fabrication.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dover/day11pm.html
PS - "The Wedge" was the exact term, the title, in fact, used for the Center for Science and Culture document introduced in evidence at the Dover, PA school board trial.
"I suppose that nobody will deny that it is a great misfortune if an entire branch of science becomes addicted to a false theory. But this is what has happened in biology: for a long time now people discuss evolutionary problems in a peculiar 'Darwinian' vocabulary - 'adaptation,' 'selection pressure,' 'natural selection,' etc. - thereby believing that they contribute to the explanation of natural events. They do not, and the sooner this is discovered, the sooner we shall be able to make real progress in our understanding of evolution.
I believe that one day the Darwinian MYTH will be ranked the greatest deceit in the history of science." -- Soren Lovtrup, Darwinism, The Refutation of a Myth
This scientist is not a creationist.
Besides, evolution is not falsifiable. Ergo, it is not what it is claimed to be.
"This cannot be done in evolution, taking it in its broad sense, and this is really all I meant when I called it tautologous in the first place. It can, indeed, explain anything. You may be ingenious or not in proposing a mechanism which looks plausible to human beings and mechanisms which are consistent with other mechanisms which you have discovered, but it is still an unfalsifiable theory." Murray Eden, Mathematical Challenges to Interpretation
He also said, after computer calculations showed evolutionary changes occurring as taught by evolutionists was essentially ZERO... "an adequate scientific theory of evolution must await the discovery and elucidation of new natural laws -- physical, phsyicochemical, and biological."
Your test has nothing to do with showing the so-called evolutionary process. Finding a dinosaur remains with a human's does not explain the evolutionary teaching about how dinosaurs came into existence, or the so-called tree of evolution. So, it is still not falsifiable, which disqualifies it from being science, and a real theory.
"Indeed, the nature and the wealth of the corroborating evidence are such that the theory on the reality of evolution turns out to be one of the best substantiated theories in biology, perhaps in the natural sciences."
So Mr. Lovtrup doesn't actually deny that evolution is a fact, he is simply arguing about the mechanism and arguing against the original Darwinian view of evolution.
http://home.planet.nl/~gkorthof/kortho28.htm
What's the point of knowing all the parts of a flower if you don't understand basic scientific concepts? This is also a problem in the teaching of history, understanding histiography trumps knowing the date the Magna Carta was signed.
I couldn't agree more with you about history. Nobody likes history as it is taught in school, even those who are fascinated by the history they read on their own time. History is taught in a way that students will be able to pass standardized tests. I always wanted to question why. Why did we go to war with x, y, z? What led up to it? Not just when and for how long, then move on to the next war's dates.
And Fox News is fair and balanced, Christine O'Donnell and Darwin are both right, astrology and astronomy are no different, and Carl Sagan is just an ordinary alien believer.
I just read an article in the HuffPo Religion section on the relationship between religion and science, and it appeared to be written by someone who understands science. I actually just saw the concept of falsifiability explained... *properly*!
I may have to re-asess my atheism, for I have beheld a miracle...
"you cannot prove evolution ever existed because life forms consist of machine parts that are ordered. "
No it doesn't.
"Objects in nature do not order anything "
Yes they do... all the time.
"If you want to teach science, you have to teach Creation and you cannot be teaching the fantasy of evolution that has no basis. "
Oh, darn, you've totallly got us now!
Well, except the overlapping nested hierarchies of the fossil record and the biogeographical distribution of life on earth, and the overwhelming and irrefutable phylogenetic evidence, and little things like human chromosome 2 relative to chimp chromosome 2a and 2b and the existence of the GULO pseudogene in apes and the pattern of endogenous retroviral insertions and the tiny little detail that WE'VE WATCHED EVOLUTION HAPPEN...
Except for things like that... nope, we've got no evidence of evolution at all, at all. Just a house of cards we're living in, for sure.