I wish I had a better memory to record all the ridiculous doublespeak and euphemisms I hear and read every day. "With all due respect" is one of those nonsense phrases that sound like the speaker is giving the subject a fair shake but really isn't -- you probably wouldn't say this to someone you actually respect, even less likely if you respect the idea you're reacting to.
So I've now registered an internal filter -- every time I hear "with all due respect" (or similar variation) I substitute: "you're an asshole." (Sometimes the filter forgets to work because my event notification API is a little buggy, but that's wetware for you.)
A great example with a little setup: This morning on NPR they ran a story about yet another vote by the Kansas Board of Education to water down evolution. Not content with fiddling with definitions of "evolution" and "theory", this time they're changing the definition of "science" by "removing wording that referred to it as a discipline that looks for 'natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us'."
The chairman (Steve Abrams) harrumphed and said, "You keep saying it's supernatural. It is not supernatural. There's no word that is mentioned, and consequently that's not the case."
To which another board member (Sue Gamble) replied: "Mr. Chairman, in all due respect, if it is other logical explanations for natural phenomenon, if they are not natural explanations what other kinds are there?"
Now, run that through the filter -- much clearer, eh?
Posted from cwinters.com; read original
It has only be in the last 30 years or so that people think that religion and science are mutually exclusive. If you look back, you will see a lot of scientist that were religious as well. Evolution doesn't need anyone to water it down, it has so many holes that it is leaking water by itself.
That said, I do not think ID should be taught. What should be taught is that the theory of evolution has problems, explain those problems and let students reason it out for themselves. The problem I have is that evolution is taught as a fact and it isn't.
Re:
Aristotle on 2005-11-10T04:38:36
There are a lot of holes in a lot of science. That doesn’t mean we reject it all as flatly wrong and look for supernatural explanations instead. I wonder why people insist on doing just that where evolution is concerned. Our incomplete understanding hardly invalidates evolution as a whole, any more than it invalidates gravity or relativity. That we can’t explain everything plainly means that we can’t explain everything, not a whiff more – nor any less.
In any case, you might want to consider why christians should abhor ID anyway.
Re:You know...
osfameron on 2005-11-10T10:41:57
If the "theory of evolution" is taught as a theory, then it isn't being taught as a fact. I didn't continue with science much after 16, but even I remember from my scientific education that theories can be disproven and not proven, and that the current theory is only the best possible explanation currently available, and susceptible to modification or wholesale paradigm shift.
Where have you seen evolution taught as a fact, rather than a scientific theory?Evolution as Fact and Theory
naughton on 2005-11-10T15:42:41
...I remember from my scientific education that theories can be disproven and not proven, and that the current theory is only the best possible explanation currently available, and susceptible to modification or wholesale paradigm shift. This is right on.
If the "theory of evolution" is taught as a theory, then it isn't being taught as a fact.
This isn't, but your definition of theory points us back in the right direction. Theories explain one or more facts, so it's correct to refer to many scientific subjects as both fact and theory. The theory of evolution is our best current explanation of the facts of evolution.
The late biologist Stephen Jay Gould explained this with more eloquence and authority:
-- Evolution as Fact and Theory , Stephen Jay Gould, 1981In the American vernacular, "theory" often means "imperfect fact"—part of a hierarchy of confidence running downhill from fact to theory to hypothesis to guess. Thus creationists can (and do) argue: evolution is "only" a theory, and intense debate now rages about many aspects of the theory. If evolution is less than a fact, and scientists can't even make up their minds about the theory, then what confidence can we have in it? Indeed, President Reagan echoed this argument before an evangelical group in Dallas when he said (in what I devoutly hope was campaign rhetoric): "Well, it is a theory. It is a scientific theory only, and it has in recent years been challenged in the world of science—that is, not believed in the scientific community to be as infallible as it once was."
Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from apelike ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other, yet to be discovered.
Moreover, "fact" does not mean "absolute certainty." The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.
Re:Evolution as Fact and Theory
osfameron on 2005-11-10T17:03:15
Aha, yes, useful clarification. I like the definition of a fact as "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent".Re:You know...
sigzero on 2005-11-10T16:15:24
You are right that probably wasn't the right word to use. It isn't taught that way but when you discuss it with people it sure comes across that way that somehow "evolution" is sacrosanct.
However, like I said, ID should not be taught in science class. That much I do agree with.
Re:You know...
chaoticset on 2005-11-21T14:31:16
Precisely -- it should be taught alongside every other BS* that gets taught in, oh, I think it's Social Studies or History or whatever. I don't remember HS very well.:\ * Belief SystemRe:You know...
lachoy on 2005-11-10T12:40:26
I didn't particularly want to get into this because I feel it's been discussed to death and people just wind up shouting at one another from their corners, but...
First, it's certainly not in the last 30 years this has been an issue, or that there's been a tension between religion and science. Just look back at Darwin himself, all the discussion around his work, the Scopes trial in the US -- and that's just around evolution.
I don't believe people who think ID should not be taught believe religion and science are mutually exclusive. That seems like a red herring aimed toward painting the anti-ID folks as anti-religious. What's most annoying is that it grossly simplifies what "religion" is -- basically, if you don't agree with my religion then yours ain't. Even the idea that they are mutually exclusive grossly simplifies both science and religion, as if two ideologies that have a few disagreements cannot coexist.
But ID should not be taught because it's not science. Its fundamental assumption cannot be independently falsified, and to my mind that's core to what "science" is. It has a lot of respected scientists backing it and doing thoughtful research on it, but I don't think it can ever be accepted as a scientific theory nor taught as one.
Re:You know...
sigzero on 2005-11-10T16:12:13
I didn't think we shouted on use.perl?
:) Anyway I agree that ID shouldn't be taught.
Re:You know...
lachoy on 2005-11-10T17:01:28
I count myself among the people shouting even though it happens very rarely, but I do try to keep an open mind. (Being married to someone who thinks differently than you is helpful for that
:-) People often complain that nobody really listens to points of view different than their own, that people on different sides of an issue are just talking past one another. But it takes two to have a conversation and if one person isn't listening the other isn't either... This is not directed at anyone in particular, just a general and therefore probably meaningless statement about the world.
Re:You know...
sigzero on 2005-11-10T18:58:29
I go by the TAO of POOH:
"A little consideration, a little thought for others, makes all the difference."Re:You know...
jmm on 2005-11-11T14:33:37
... which refers back to the other meme in the original posting: "With all due respect"!Re:You know...
chaoticset on 2005-11-21T14:23:25
Maybe that's because it took a long time to figure out.:D Seriously, though -- it's not so much that religion and science are mutually exclusive. It's that they have nothing to do with each other. One is a salad, and one is a steak, and if someone doesn't want either one they're welcome to eat something else. If someone wants a salad and nothing else, fine. If someone wants a steak and nothing else, fine.
If someone wants to walk up to me at a restaurant and tell me that I should be having salad, or petitions the restaurant to only make salad, then that person needs, desperately, to be turned into steaks for the good of everybody who's not being an irritating ass.
Re:Yes But
lachoy on 2005-11-12T03:40:03
This is true, and much better than the passive-agressive "Ummmm, yeab" that so many geeks utilize. I think all blog entries should be surrounded with '<as-I-can-think-of-right-now>' tags....
