Tennessee - Git cherself a gud ejemication!

[Mitch Cronin]

http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/04/bill-allowing-teachers-to-challenge.html

[boestar]

YUP... If we gat a divorce are we still brother and sister????

[Don Hudson]

"There has been a widespread pattern of discrimination against educators who would challenge evolution in the classroom," Casey Luskin, a policy analyst for the pro-intelligent design Discovery Institute, in Seattle, Washington, told ScienceInsider. "Schools censor from students the evidence against evolution. This protects the rights of teachers to teach in an objective way." The Discovery Institute supports the bill and others like it in other states.

The word "discrimination" also means the ability to understand fine points and subtleties as well as the underlying assumptions of a point of view or an argument. In that sense, the argument for "Intelligent Design" has not been sufficiently discriminating.

The next question is, What constitutes "evidence"? This isn't something that one can make up the rules-of-evidence for then satisfy those rules by circular argumentation, (which is all ID's "evidence" can possibly amount to). Evidence doesn't have to be scientific, but it must be inspectable and apparent to skeptics and adherents alike.

No such "evidence" exists for "ID". Belief is not evidence, nor is faith, simply because of the vast numbers and kinds of counter-examples which profess precisely the opposite views and on the same basis. Those that profess ID can't have it both ways.

On the other hand there is plenty of evidence for the algorithms of evolution. I follow Daniel Dennett in saying "algorithms" because evolution is neither anticipatory, or does it remember; it simply "is", and both "success", (survival, flourishing) and "failure", (absence of success, flourishing), have no intrinsic value, direction, anticipated outcome, memory of "what worked or didn't work" - evolution has no "necessity", nor can we pronounce on whether we, or any other species is both "inevitable" or "deserving". We just "are".

That doesn't preclude faith and belief, but neither faith nor belief can set aside the above notions. Faith and belief, and the fact of evolution can co-exist but the former cannot be "employed as arguments" for or against the latter.

In fact, I think faith, especially in community and not just by oneself, has a serious place for human beings, but not because we are the singular, inevitable result of a unique, narrowly-determined process and progression of perfections towards which evolution marched. Evolution hasn't "marched" anywhere. As the latest winner of the Templeton Prize (Globe and Mail, April 7, 2011, pg A3), British Physicist Dr. Martin Rees says, he may describe himself as an "atheist", (I don't know what that really means), but he leaves room for faith, though not the "organized" kind but in the sense of "place" which his work conveys. Some here may recall that he wrote, "Just Six Numbers", which discusses how precariously balanced are the relationships between universal constants which are congenial to life as evolved here. Our little place in the universe is neither at the center nor at the edges - it just "is" and instead we enframe our location by referencing our natural home, both psychologically and of course physically, but, as Dr. Rees says, multiple universes may exist, a notion which quantum physics posits and some forms of analytical philosophy in which the notion of "possible worlds" is examined, (see David Lewis and especially Alvin Plantinga).

But I'll bet the Discovery Institute hasn't discovered any of these guys yet, and the Tennessee Board of "Education" will find them too difficult to comprehend against the easy stuff they continue to preach...

Don

[boestar]

On the other hand there is plenty of evidence for the algorithms of evolution. I follow Daniel Dennett in saying "algorithms" because evolution is neither anticipatory, or does it remember; it simply "is", and both "success", (survival, flourishing) and "failure", (absence of success, flourishing), have no intrinsic value, direction, anticipated outcome, memory of "what worked or didn't work" - evolution has no "necessity", nor can we pronounce on whether we, or any other species is both "inevitable" or "deserving". We just "are".

NOW...

Can this not be construed as an argument for ID? There has been successes and failures. Ecosystems that flourished and those that did not throughout history. Was that ID at work? One thing failed so we start again. Were those first two amino acids placed next to each other on this pitre dish called earth by some Deity to start things on the road to evolution. Could the two theories not be intertwined so as the "Experiment" that is earth was set in motion then left to its own devices?

I am not a believer in ID Per se and consider myself scientific in nature but you could look at it this way. I do believe we evolved from Chimps and other species evolved from other animials there is evidence to prove that. But WHAT IF it was set in motion then left alone. The world is a wonderous place....keep wondering.

[Don Hudson]

NOW...

Can this not be construed as an argument for ID? There has been successes and failures. Ecosystems that flourished and those that did not throughout history. Was that ID at work? One thing failed so we start again. Were those first two amino acids placed next to each other on this pitre dish called earth by some Deity to start things on the road to evolution. Could the two theories not be intertwined so as the "Experiment" that is earth was set in motion then left to its own devices?

I am not a believer in ID Per se and consider myself scientific in nature but you could look at it this way. I do believe we evolved from Chimps and other species evolved from other animials there is evidence to prove that. But WHAT IF it was set in motion then left alone. The world is a wonderous place....keep wondering.

Hi boestar;

Many thanks for your reply...I do appreciate it.

I think that what you describe in your first two sentences are notions from evolution, but I don't think you can use a skyhook to then get to the idea that this is "ID at work". You have to find a way across the gap that everyone can understand and accept no matter what their beliefs are; Faith closes many, many gaps but not this one. Kierkegaard called this "the Leap of Faith" and the gap always troubled him.

Whether "ID", or "Bob", one can put any name to such processes one wishes, but until one can build the theory (of life, of evolution, of existence) with cranes and not skyhooks, "ID" can't and doesn't work, except of course through faith, and faith, while many things, is not connected to or descriptive of either the algorithmns of life or the generation of life.

Don

edited for grammar and spelling

[boestar]

Don:

I absolutely agree and was playing a sor of devils advocate that the argument could be made by those of faith that evolution was in fact part of the grand design. The two need not be mutually exclusive.

Boestar

[Don Hudson]

Don:

I absolutely agree and was playing a sor of devils advocate that the argument could be made by those of faith that evolution was in fact part of the grand design. The two need not be mutually exclusive.

Boestar

No they don't, but the argument is often couched in the techniques of debate, where "winning" rather than discussing requires portraying the argument as "either/or", which is just another way of alienating whatever the actualty is, from the discussion about such actuality.

What is the meaning of words, (and language, for that matter), 'underneath' the words? What do the words "stand for"? When we attempt to answer such a question, do we really know what we're talking about? Interestingly, the question goes right back to Plato, who thought that reality was made up of "ideals", (essentials) and that words and thoughts were a rough approximation of those ideals which existed "solidly", and "forever".

But anyone who has ever engaged in an argument with someone knows that the meaning of words is always already and forever, "on the move". "That's not what I meant!" is heard as often as, "you twisted my words!"

How does that happen if there is a solid, platonic reality "out there" to which our words point?

One's 'god' is another's heresy. We are alternatively the blessed or the infidels in each other's religions. Where is the grounding for the language we use to describe both circumstances? And if it is accessible and inspectable, why do we disagree so vehemently on important and trivial matters alike?

There is a very long history of this kind of thought; these ideas are by no means novel or new, but they have serious, deep consequences for our society and, I would venture, for our very survival, if we fail to understand how we construct our reality through language and in that same instant, language constructs us. That's where the nice little turn-of-phrase, "I'll see it when I believe it" partly comes from.

Don