Evolution is no longer a dirty word in Georgia. But this case wasn't about teaching creationism, and even with the word, religious forces are weakening an understanding of science with a politically-correct approach to fact.
While I was not thrilled about the original decision by the Georgia schools (initiated by Superintendent Kathy Cox) to avoid using the word evolution in teaching of biology, I could understand the rationale behind it. It did not appear to be an attempt to rewrite the natural history of life on this planet, but rather an attempt to avoid contraversy by not using one of the most loaded words in the current debate between science and religion. While this policy may be ill-advised, Superintendent Cox was accused by the religious right for not introducing teaching of creationism, by the old right for intruding into people's lives, and by the left for attempting to make all children in GA stupid and poor. She was even criticized by Former President Carter for embarrassing the state.
The issue of evolution vs. creationism is a thorny one, filled with bias and dishonesty. So, in the spirit of full disclosure, here's my position. Religious education belongs in the church, in the home, and in the individual's mind. Any form of religious education or endorsement by government, schools, or institutions is wrong. Religion has survived for thousands of years without government support (and even with government oppression) and it doesn't need help now.
Many people have a black and white position like the one above or like the opposite of the one above. Which I suppose explains the attacks on Ms. Cox. But I applaud her, no matter what I think of the policy for making some attempt to inject compromise and reason into a process that is mostly about getting one over on the other guy.
However, in the announcement of the recent decision to scrap this policy, I'm troubled by the characterization of evolution. Here's a short excerpt of the CNN article below.
The vast majority of scientists believe the theory of evolution -- which states that all living life forms evolved from earlier, more primitive life forms -- is the basis for the teaching of biology.
Some religious beliefs do not accept that view.
A new section of the proposed curriculum addresses possible controversy.
"Perhaps science courses can acknowledge the disagreement and concentrate on frankly presenting the scientific view," reads part of an overview section of the draft. "Even if students eventually choose not to believe the scientific story, they should be well informed about what the story is."
In an attempt to be PC, evolution is continually referred to as a "belief". The rhetoric commonly heard from the creationists is that evolution is "just a theory", and that "they believe in evolution and we believe in God." But belief is not a fair characterization for how scientists view evolution. A theory requires experimentation, and experimentation requires predictability, repeatability, and falsifiability. This is far from "having a belief" but instead represents years of study and experimentation. It also represents the fact that the theory can predict the behavior of the natural world, and continues to do so effectively. The fact that there are some holes or things that can't be predicted only further validates the process as being only interested in what it can prove, and not making claims it cannot back up.
This process does not hinge upon belief. You don't have to believe in evolution to watch it occur. The furthest you could go is in saying that scientists believe in the scientific process to be an effective way to arrive at the truth. But even this is a belief that has been validated by experience. There are many holes and things left undiscovered. But, the next time you want to ponder the ignorant belief in science, then pick up the phone and call your doctor about the results of your MRI, so you know if its safe for you to fly to Antarctica. But before you get into your car, don't forget to get online and laser print your boarding pass. Then figure out how to do it all in 1500, by faith alone.
Hallelujah! Praise Darwin! Can I get an Amen?!
I think there is a difference between what you described in the second to last paragraph above, and evolution. Evolution, as I remember it being taught to me, is the theory that all life, matter, and everything else came from building blocks that came from the rapidly expanding universe (big bang). However, the definition you used above I thought was actually called "natural selection." Natural selection is a way in which we can observe a creature's adaptation to their environment. With a few skeletons that have been frozen in time, we can even theorize that dinosaurs might have eventually adapted enough to become birds over a period of time.
I don't see what laser printers have to do with whether you believe that some crazy god created the universe, or whether a couple of molecules decided to mate for some inexplicable reason.
It seems to me like the ability of the human mind to use science as a tool to discover the way electricity works has little to do with how everything started in the first place. Of course, this attitude depends completely on the division between evolution and adaptation/natural selection.
I guess I think that using everything we know now, and then tracing that back by using a few theories doesn't have a whole lot more validity than some yahoo who thinks everything they see was created by some higher intelligence.
*sigh* I don't know what that looks like or even if it makes sense. At least it's something to think about and discuss outside of Emily.
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My argument is not that the Creation did not happen. Nor is it that God does not exist. The argument is that science has presented a rational and verifiable case for how that and life on earth took place, that has not been disproven despite many attempts.
Evolution
( http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/e1/evolutio.asp ) has nothing to do with the Big Bang, except insofar as cosmology tells us that that's how our planet came to be, and how the conditions for life and evolution occurred. Natural selection is one of the mechanisms by which evolution occurs, but there are many others. Evolution does not require the Creation to have not happened. However, Creationism (distinct from the Creation) requires evolution to be false, despite the evidence in its favor. Science does not make claims about the spiritual or the realms of belief. However, the realms of belief are happy to make claims about the physical world.
The point of mentioning all our inventions is that it is necessary for science to "work" for these things to happen. Certainly tracing a few theories back has much more validity than "some yahoo". Why? Because those theories are repeatable, verifiable, falsifiable, all tests that the yahoo can not pass. If you don't believe in the utility of those conditions above (and the others that make up the scientific method) then you might as well say you don't believe in laser printers.
Of course, science does not make claims about the Creation (or creation) of the universe. (Although occassionally scientists will, but this is philosophy, not science.) That is outside of its realm, as this is not testable, repeatable, etc. There are no scientific claims about whether it was God, random process, or cosmic muffin that created the universe, it only reports on what has been observed.
Thanks for filling in the gaps between statements. Your argument(s) make more sense to me now.
I vote for cosmic muffin. It's more interesting.
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I used to have a pretty canned answer regarding my religion. I would say I believed in science. In the introduction to one of the biology text books we used during my secondary education, the explained the scientific method. I summarize below in brief :
1)Observation leads to theories.
2)These theories provide the basis for experimentation.
3)Experimentation is the testing of a theory.
and finally
4)A scientific "law" was a theory that had no evidence gathered against it.
The law of gravitation, is based on the observation that shit falls and we don't fly off the surface of the earth. This was tested when heavy shit and light shit were allowed to fall together. It was further tested by hanging an incredibly dense mass on wire next to a less dense, smaller mass, and seeing how they react to each other based on distance of seperation. We couldn't and still can't disprove that most things fall on their own. Se we call it a law. Does it mean that we won't ever change it, no. It seems unlikely that we will rework the laws of gravitation this week, but stranger things have happened.
Evolution is a little bit harder to test. Cause and effect in genetics take a lot longer to observe than then the position of a dense sphere in a clean room when measured by a laser. We can work with different models, like the fruit fly, which has a much shorter life span than most of the rest of the animal kindgom, but we still are experimenting.
I do not remember any where in any of my general biology, biochemistry, genetics, or molecular biology coursework that described the "Theory of Evolution" as a law. There is not enough evidence yet to think of promoting it to law status. There are other theories that are even harder to test that explain the same thing - Creation being the most notable. It is pretty hard to set up a Creation experiment in a lab.
This brings me back to where I started. I used to say "I believe in science." I would use this answer when asked what my religion was. I still do believe in science. There is a lot of our universe that science hasn't explained yet. There are other things, like where we came from, that science has taken a stab at explaining but it isn't quite done yet. It takes a bit of faith.
I think we forget to stress the nature of the scientific method at times. That might do quite a bit for smoothing the ruffled feathers of people who don't believe in a particular theory.
There have been quite a few theories over the years that seemed completely outlandish but when there was finally enough evidence collected they proved to be very true. Similarly there have been probably many more that proved to be equally false. This is what science is about though.
To me science is about seeing something, trying to explain it, and then seeing if you are right by testing, and testing again. The peer review of science makes sure we have thought of all the right tests, and that we are really addressing the phenomena we originally observed.
I am not trying to speak out of my nether orifice but it seems to me that religion is less about testing and more about accepting. That is equally fine, but different. Science and religion are two very different approaches to very different things. When there is cross over, as in the case of origin of species, we need to remember that religion is not offereing a scientific solution but a religious belief.
Religious beliefs have gotten humans into all sorts of troubles. Without even touching on zionism and the mess about homelands, or the many crusades, we still have serious issues when it comes to having different beliefs. In the Middle East there is a contraversial group of teachers in Palestine and Israel that are using a new textbook to teach history. This book explains significant events from both perspectives. This makes sense when both sides are still expressing history. It is harder to imaging religion being taught in a science class, or science being taught in a bible (or other religious text) class.
http://www.npr.org/programs/wesun/transcripts/2004/feb/040208.gradstein.html
The hope in the middle east is that peace comes from understanding. What type of understanding will lead to peace in the conflict over origin of man ?
Thanks for your comments Dave. I think you've nailed a lot of the things I was trying to say, as well as mentioning some things I thought of but didn't. The most important one being that science is willing to admit when it's wrong. Its built into the system, and any good theory will have many people doing their best to prove it wrong. That's the process. The fact that science is open about it's willingness to be wrong should not be perceived as a weakness, as calling something a theory should not be perceived as it being highly speculative. Some theories are more speculative than others.
In the case of evolution, you're quite correct that it is not yet a law. There are many reasons for this, the most important (to me) being that we only understand the direction and the general idea, with a lot of holes in the process. In addition there's the complexity of expressing biological systems as simply as we express physical systems. Current math doesn't seem to do a very good job, so it may require new constructs and definitions, or possibly even totally new systems of representation, like Stephen Wolfram's Cellular Automata.
I balk somewhat at the idea of the law of gravity being overthrown. But then, you used the word "reworked" which is appropriate. Something becomes a law I guess when we can't see any way to disprove it, as you said. If there are changes to these things, they come in our expanding our understanding to more applications, and rarely in the current theory being totally reversed. In fact, I can't think of an example of a theory that had been supported consistently by research being reversed. Even the most famous "revolution" in science, Einstein's relativity, didn't really reverse the previous theories, it only modified them (albeit in a very strange way) to fit observations. It's one of the most misunderstood things by non-scientists, I think, that Einstein didn't really revolutionize anything, he just expanded the existing theory to apply to what was being seen in experiment. Even with a complete reworking to understand Quantum gravity, F=GmM/r^2 is still going to apply when you drop your book off a desk.
Still I believe that science will develop the mathematics to more accurately describe biological systems, even to the extent to be able to formulate "laws". Will some things remain mysterious? I'm certain of that.
I'll look up the story.
As far as soothing the touch points, I don't know how that can happen. But recognizing science's dominion over describing physical phenomena and religion's over metaphysical ones is a good start. Stay out of my backyard, and I'll stay out of yours.