Posted on 06/23/2007 12:21:46 PM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Pro-Darwin Biology Professor Laments Academia's "Intolerance" and Supports Teaching Intelligent Design
Charles Darwin famously said, "A fair result can be obtained only by fully balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question." According to a recent article by J. Scott Turner, a pro-Darwin biology professor at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York, modern Neo-Darwinists are failing to heed Darwin's advice. (We blogged about a similar article by Turner in The Chronicle of Higher Education in January, 2007.) Turner is up front with his skepticism of intelligent design (ID), which will hopefully allow his criticisms to strike a chord with other Darwinists.
Turner starts by observing that the real threat to education today is not ID itself, but the attitude of scientists towards ID: "Unlike most of my colleagues, however, I don't see ID as a threat to biology, public education or the ideals of the republic. To the contrary, what worries me more is the way that many of my colleagues have responded to the challenge." He describes the "modern academy" as "a tedious intellectual monoculture where conformity and not contention is the norm." Turner explains that the "[r]eflexive hostility to ID is largely cut from that cloth: some ID critics are not so much worried about a hurtful climate as they are about a climate in which people are free to disagree with them." He then recounts and laments the hostility faced by Richard Sternberg at the Smithsonian:
It would be comforting if one could dismiss such incidents as the actions of a misguided few. But the intolerance that gave rise to the Sternberg debacle is all too common: you can see it in its unfiltered glory by taking a look at Web sites like pandasthumb.org or recursed.blogspot.com [Jeffry Shallit's blog] and following a few of the threads on ID. The attitudes on display there, which at the extreme verge on antireligious hysteria, can hardly be squared with the relatively innocuous (even if wrong-headed) ideas that sit at ID's core.
(J. Scott Turner, Signs of Design, The Christian Century, June 12, 2007.)
Turner on the Kitzmiller v. Dover Case
Turner sees the Kitzmiller v. Dover case as the dangerous real-world expression of the intolerance common in the academy: "My blood chills ... when these essentially harmless hypocrisies are joined with the all-American tradition of litigiousness, for it is in the hand of courts and lawyers that real damage to cherished academic ideas is likely to be done." He laments the fact that "courts are where many of my colleagues seem determined to go with the ID issue” and predicts, “I believe we will ultimately come to regret this."
Turner justifies his reasonable foresight by explaining that Kitzmiller only provided a pyrrhic victory for the pro-Darwin lobby:
Although there was general jubilation at the ruling, I think the joy will be short-lived, for we have affirmed the principle that a federal judge, not scientists or teachers, can dictate what is and what is not science, and what may or may not be taught in the classroom. Forgive me if I do not feel more free.
(J. Scott Turner, Signs of Design, The Christian Century, June 12, 2007.)
Turner on Education
Turner explains, quite accurately, that ID remains popular not because of some vast conspiracy or religious fanaticism, but because it deals with an evidentiary fact that resonates with many people, and Darwinian scientists do not respond to ID's arguments effectively:
[I]ntelligent design … is one of multiple emerging critiques of materialism in science and evolution. Unfortunately, many scientists fail to see this, preferring the gross caricature that ID is simply "stealth creationism." But this strategy fails to meet the challenge. Rather than simply lament that so many people take ID seriously, scientists would do better to ask why so many take it seriously. The answer would be hard for us to bear: ID is not popular because the stupid or ignorant like it, but because neo-Darwinism's principled banishment of purpose seems less defensible each passing day.
(J. Scott Turner, Signs of Design, The Christian Century, June 12, 2007.)
Turner asks, “What, then, is the harm in allowing teachers to deal with the subject as each sees fit?” ID can't be taught, he explains, because most scientists believe that "normal standards of tolerance and academic freedom should not apply in the case of ID." He says that the mere suggestion that ID could be taught brings out "all manner of evasions and prevarications that are quite out of character for otherwise balanced, intelligent and reasonable people."
As we noted earlier, hopefully Turner’s criticisms will strike a chord with Darwinists who might otherwise close their ears to the argument for academic freedom for ID-proponents. Given the intolerance towards ID-sympathy that Turner describes, let us also hope that the chord is heard but the strummer is not harmed.
No.
Good, peer-reviewed, well-tested, tried-and-true science is "real", or at least as close to "real" as can be found.
Poorly rendered apologetic scripts that lack logical consistency and don't even get basic technical details right are not "real science".
To paraphrase Churchill, science is the worst way of doing things, except for every other way of doing things. Science may not be able to clearly, lucidly define "what time is", but then again, neither can anyone else. Science can't answer everything, but everything that can be explained definitively, here and now, can be explained by science.
You can't just pick and choose what facts you like the best, and unless you're willing to put in the years, even decades of hard work necessary to comprehend the finer details involved in scientific work, you have little choice but to defer to the consensus of others - and the organized body of scientific work provides the most reliable consensus available. Yes, details change, the way leaves fall from a tree, but new branches grow out that eventually become solid pillars of reliability.
To think that one can rely on mystical experiences, divine revelation, and intuition to knock down mountains of cumulative knowledge that took centuries for hundreds of thousands of brilliant men and women spending millions of hours to build is nothing more than arrogance of the highest extent.
Well, that's too bad because your mistake is in there. That's why I asked you to read it.
"Again, a heliocentric model is the only inertial system containing the earth, sun and planets."
Ahh, you're getting closer to admitting your mistake. That's good.
"Then, the question still stands, which you keep dodging: How does one determine the "Real" coordinate system? If that question can't be answered, the jury has no option but to include that there's no reason to believe such a thing exists."
Haven't been dodging it at all. As I have said over and over and over and over, you have to go outside the universe and look back to answer it. And, if the question can't be answered; that applies equally to heliocentric models.
"No, but celestial mechanics on the scale of the galaxy certainly accounts for these things. At that point a heliocentric system is worthless, too - you get the idea."
Ooh, you're almost there. If you can just open your mind up a wee bit more. :-)
To denigrate those of Science is an insult to the memory and work of so many inquiring minds. Having an inquiring mind is a gift from God for the rest of us who haven’t the equipment (mental and physical). Many of those previous Scientists were god-fearing because of their wisdom, not because of a failing in them.
Then you've really missed out on a lot, Coyoteman. BTW, how do you know that life is "short?"
Daubert decision?
I agree, although I think we all need to be empathic to all those who are going through a ‘crisis of faith’, irrespective of the specifics of that faith. God is, in my opinion, much, much, much too complex to be defined in any book or scripture, and painting God into a corner can sometimes, in my opinion, contribute to the crises of faith experienced by those who don’t identify with the specific ‘God’ description as defined by others. They therefore feel estranged from God, or doubt God’s existence, or become more agnostic and decide the issue is too complex for them to come to any meaningful answer. In this manner, those who are adamant that they ascribe to the one and only true definition of God actually contribute to the crises of faith of others.
I do, however, believe that there are absolutes. One of them, in my faith, is that God is love, and that God abhors hate. Another is that God wants us to voluntarily give of ourselves to others and be as selfless as we can be (emphasis on voluntary, so that it comes from our own mind and heart). Another is simply that God wants us to live by the Golden Rule. These things define God as forgiving, loving, understanding, and charitable.
You make an outstanding point regarding the ‘picking and choosing’ of what God is, and what God wants, based on what some would call God’s word. God’s words to us are evident every day of our lives, in the smile of a child, the beauty of a sunrise or a sunset, the sincerity of a true friend, the sacrifices people make to strangers, etc. etc. etc. Those daily ‘words’ are much, much, much more powerful than a collection of written words that represent only a selected translated portion of those works that are the basis of current ‘scripture’.
Further, in my opinion, if God were to tell us exactly how the universe was created, we could never understand. That’s why, to some extent, God did give us allegory. It’s what we could understand. Think of the most arcane and difficult to understand astrophysical mathematics, and think about how indecipherable it would be to the untrained person. The complexity of God is so very, very, very much more than anything any of the most brilliant but human scientists, engineers, etc. could understand, so how is God going to put into words, in any human language, all the specifics of what God is and what God thinks?
Sorry for the long response. To be honest, I really think that these kinds of interactions are what we should be spending more time on as human beings. The more we share views and think about things, the more we will all know and understand.
Ok. I never claimed the sun was the center of the universe. It's clearly not. In fact, on the scale of the whole universe, according to GR, there is no center.
The earth isn't any sort of special reference system, at all, though, unless you're on earth. It's not the 'center' of anything, in any sort of physical sense.
Calling the Coriolis force and centrifugal forces on earth real, though? That's ridiculous - these forces appear in any rotating reference system. We can see the Coriolis effect on Jupiter from here. From Jupiter, one could observe the Coriolis effect on a rotating earth. The earth is just as relative a coordinate system as any other, in a physical sense.
Haven't been dodging it at all. As I have said over and over and over and over, you have to go outside the universe and look back to answer it.
So there's no reason to consider an earth-centered reference system as any more "real" than any other, then. Not really any point in any of this.
Then you've really missed out on a lot, Coyoteman. BTW, how do you know that life is "short?"
Are you trying to lure me into a discussion of theology or metaphysics?
I've spent the day dealing with the real world; dust, sun, wind, hard dirt, tractors and other loud noises. I don't think this is a good time to deal with the squishy subjects.
When I read him, RightWhale, I am fully sensible that I am in the immediate presence of great mind and beatific spirit (if I might put it that way).
Aristotle had a description for a man like William James: spoudaios, the mature man, the virtuous man, the man of intellect; and not least of all, the public man.
By the usage of the term "public man," I infer Aristotle had read Heraclitus. The "public man" on Heraclitus' account is the man who lives for something beyond his own mere self. "Private men," in contrast, withdraw into their own "dreamworlds": They are as sleepwalkers in life.
These are the very people that Heraclitus, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle warn us against, so that they should never become "rulers," socially, culturally, or politically.
Thank you ever so much, RightWhale, for acknowledging the sheer excellence of William James.... If you were to ask for my opinion, I'd say: Modern psychology is still playing "catch-up ball," James set the standards so high.
This is an exercise in sheer pointlessness, Coyoteman. I tried; but all I got back in response was "squishy."
If, however, you really do want to seriously engage the problem of how to eradicate the "squishy," you know where to find me.
I won't be holding my breath in the meanwhile. But I'd be ever so glad to see you again, anytime.
Of course. Nobody has the equipment or intellect to understand it all, though. We're all idiots at something - such are the cases when we must defer to the opinion of experts, or in lieu of an unwillingness to do that, maintain some humility about what we don't know.
Many of those previous Scientists were god-fearing because of their wisdom, not because of a failing in them.
Agreed - so long as we can admit the fact that the nature and will of God is not a subject about which we have a scientific level of certainty.
I'm a fan of your posts, C-man, but I wouldn't call theology (or art, philosophy, etc.) 'squishy'. Learning is a fine cuisine - science supplies the raw calories, but you need flavor, too. (Just so you long as one remembers that eating too much tasty food in lieu of good nutrition will kill you.) : )
Fiction must be logical to make sense... Reality need not be logical or make sense..
The hypercube?.. Hmmm... The House of Mirrors again?..
Dimensions and Realms/Kingdoms of Light.. and Dark Energy/matter..
Damn I love fiction.. its got to be so logical and sensical..
Must be why I like Star Trek.. in all its iterations..
I'm a fan of your posts, C-man, but I wouldn't call theology (or art, philosophy, etc.) 'squishy'. Learning is a fine cuisine - science supplies the raw calories, but you need flavor, too. (Just so you long as one remembers that eating too much tasty food in lieu of good nutrition will kill you.) : )
Thanks for the reminder, and the nice compliment. Both are much appreciated.
As regards to your comment, "eating too much tasty food in lieu of good nutrition will kill you" -- I would only suggest that basic science is the "good nutrition" while philosophy and the other topics, about which folks have been arguing for 2500+ years with little agreement on methods, let alone results, are the tasty foods.
Science provides the staples, philosophy and the other of what I call "squishy" subjects are the desert: nice, if you can afford them.
So true.. Its grooovey baby -(persona Austin Powers..
Exactly What IS real?.. said while observing observers observing observation.. hampered by the "observer problem"..
BS only needs to be specious.
Handled correctly it(BS) must also be "warm".. Scientific dung beetles roll it into nice neat little balls.. and roll it up the Hills of Sisyphus.. to the applause of the other beetles..
Very entertaining..
Actually the *squishies*, things like morals, are what gives us a civilized society. Simply compiling facts and data isn’t what life is all about and not even the basics of what life is all about. Those things are just as real as the matter you deal with every day.
Life is about relationships and concepts, things that can’t be reduced to a formula or experiment. Studies have found that babies who are simply provided with nutrition and shelter, but no human companionship, end up dying anyway, even though their basic physical needs are met and there’s no reason for them to die. They were healthy. It’s those squishy things, like family, society, love, nurture, that is essential for the babies survival. In those cases, it is the *squishies* that were critical to the baby’s survival, not something incidental.
There is a lot of reality out there that you are missing if you relegate yourself to merely the physical aspect of the world. Just because it isn’t *scientific* (as used these days) doesn’t mean that it isn’t real or relevant or true.
Science is a useful tool for improving the lot of mankind, but when it becomes an end in itself, instead of a means to an end, that’s when problems come up.
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