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i wasn't wrong when i suggested that...
Nov. 7th, 2004 12:05 am...schools would increasingly introduce creationism into biology classes as if it was science???
here's the latest.
i'm all for teaching that there are different interpretations of evolution, that there are debates as to how convergent evolution works, that there are gaps in the fossil record (easily explained) that mean that there are holes in the chain of events we can confirm to trace one species to another, and especially that the nature of science itself is to BE a self-correcting mechanism for approaching the correct answer to a question by eliminating the alternatives that don't fit ALL of the evidence.
New evidence is discovered and things are sometimes thrown out, but far more often just modified. Newton is not wrong just because Einstein came up with what he did. The researchers of bio-chemists and psychiatrists today may have proved that most of Freud's techniques were misguided, but Freud's fundemental truths that human behaviour and psychology is affected by chemicals and by experiences and is greatly influenced by our childhood upbringings, rather than by "demons" we have no control over, have never been disproved.
these debates within the biological community in no way suggest that evolution is wrong, NOR do they suggest in any way that "creationism" (or its latest fad form, "intelligent design") is a *science*. It lends no hypothosis that can be tested; it has no basis for making any prediction of the future.
creationism is based entirely on faith. That's not a bad thing in and of itself, but it is not *science*, nor does it belong in ANY secular, government-paid-for classroom (outside of an explicit religion class that the student *voluntarily* takes). One aspect of the intelligent design hypothesis, that evolution is the outward appearance of the mechanisms by which God created the species that exist today, is a very attractive one, one which I *believe* in as a matter of my faith.
but belief is NOT science, and my belief is based entirely on my personal philosophy. it is utterly untestable, inherently unprovable, and does not belong in a classroom.
here's the latest.
i'm all for teaching that there are different interpretations of evolution, that there are debates as to how convergent evolution works, that there are gaps in the fossil record (easily explained) that mean that there are holes in the chain of events we can confirm to trace one species to another, and especially that the nature of science itself is to BE a self-correcting mechanism for approaching the correct answer to a question by eliminating the alternatives that don't fit ALL of the evidence.
New evidence is discovered and things are sometimes thrown out, but far more often just modified. Newton is not wrong just because Einstein came up with what he did. The researchers of bio-chemists and psychiatrists today may have proved that most of Freud's techniques were misguided, but Freud's fundemental truths that human behaviour and psychology is affected by chemicals and by experiences and is greatly influenced by our childhood upbringings, rather than by "demons" we have no control over, have never been disproved.
these debates within the biological community in no way suggest that evolution is wrong, NOR do they suggest in any way that "creationism" (or its latest fad form, "intelligent design") is a *science*. It lends no hypothosis that can be tested; it has no basis for making any prediction of the future.
creationism is based entirely on faith. That's not a bad thing in and of itself, but it is not *science*, nor does it belong in ANY secular, government-paid-for classroom (outside of an explicit religion class that the student *voluntarily* takes). One aspect of the intelligent design hypothesis, that evolution is the outward appearance of the mechanisms by which God created the species that exist today, is a very attractive one, one which I *believe* in as a matter of my faith.
but belief is NOT science, and my belief is based entirely on my personal philosophy. it is utterly untestable, inherently unprovable, and does not belong in a classroom.
