Sandwalk: As It Turns Out, Not all Conservatives Are Smart ....

Sunday, September 09, 2007

As It Turns Out, Not all Conservatives Are Smart ....

In an earlier posting I commented on how pleased I was that some of John Tory's supporters realized that teaching creationism is wrong [see John Tory Tries to Clarify]. I'm still pleased with the majority of conservative commentators but, naturally, there are some who still don't get it.

One of them is Matthew at ThePolitic.com, a widely read Canadian political blog. Mathew reveals that some Canadians are IDiots [Warren Kinsella’s Documentary Sequel]. Matthew really crams his foot in his mouth all the way up to his kneecap but I won't bore you with all the details. Instead, let me just mention one or two of the most obvious examples of stupidity.

5) Creation science is a real scientific theory — if you want to challenge it, please don’t insult us by just offering a fancy and long-winded “nuh-huh”. I find it funny that Wikipedia attempts this too, but I’ve seen this movie before; it’s called the Consensus on Climate Change (and we all know how that one will end!).

Where do these IDiots come up with stuff like this? Creation science is not a real scientific theory by any stretch of the imagination. If Matthew is talking about Biblical Creationism then that fairytale has been disproved by science. If he's talking about any other version of "Creation science" than it's either; (a) also disproved, or (b) vacuous.

The fact that Matthew is so confused about this means that it's extremely important that we teach evolution in school. It's pretty clear that Matthew skipped all the science classes when he was in school. Probably because they required more than 6th grade mathematics.

6) Someone still has to address for me how teaching an alternative view on the origin of species will forever ruin students’ lives and deny them jobs, houses and weekends up at the cottage. They’re not your kids so what do you care what they learn if it doesn’t affect you?

Look at it this way Matthew. We have basically two choices in the classroom. We can teach children things that are correct or we can teach them lies. Call me old-fashioned, but I think it's better to teach the truth. It makes for better citizens in the long run.

I actually think we should address Creationism in school. Traditionally we use astrology as the example of something that masquerades as science. It's a way of teaching what science really is and it provides a good lesson on how to think. Creationism would be another good example. We should make sure that all children learn why Creationism is not science.

9) Ala the Flintstones comment, blindly believing in evolution is like believing Star Trek is a documentary about the future. Reality is though that we’re not eliminating all wars, humanity isn’t evolving past its character flaws and evil tendencies and no matter how much some in our society might like it, we’re not going to grow beyond religious faith. Even the television series outlived this optimistic faith in the human will by DS9. Evolution might be wonderful science fiction with things spontaneously mutating everywhere, but we shouldn’t be confusing it with a scientific principle. Maybe we should also be keeping it in it’s proper place too — media class!

No comment, other than to point out there's a reason why we call them IDiots.

[Photo Credit: The photograph shows a typical Boston Red Sox fan celebrating something that got them all excited (Red Sox Connection). (I think their team just lost another game against Toronto.)]

[Hat Tip: Canadian Cynic]

1 comment :

Torbjörn Larsson said...: Traditionally we use astrology as the example of something that masquerades as science. It's a way of teaching what science really is and it provides a good lesson on how to think. Creationism would be another good example.

I would like to strengthen that. Traditionally it is supposed that anti- and pseudosciences would lose influence, and that is probably true outside socio-political movements. On the other hand the phenomena will always remain and must be fought for social reasons. To me it makes more sense to take current examples than old.

Also, it is happening. For example, look at PZ's latest lecture plan, week 1-8.; Monday, September 10, 2007 8:20:00 AM

Quotations

The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me to be so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows.Charles Darwin (c1880)

Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views given in this volume, I by no means expect to convince experienced naturalists whose minds are stocked with a multitude of facts all viewed, during a long course of years, from a point of view directly opposite to mine. It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as "plan of creation," "unity of design," etc., and to think that we give an explanation when we only restate a fact. Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of a certain number of facts will certainly reject the theory.

Charles Darwin (1859)

Science reveals where religion conceals. Where religion purports to explain, it actually resorts to tautology. To assert that "God did it" is no more than an admission of ignorance dressed deceitfully as an explanation...

Peter Atkins

Quotations

The world is not inhabited exclusively by fools, and when a subject arouses intense interest, as this one has, something other than semantics is usually at stake. Stephen Jay Gould (1982)
I have championed contingency, and will continue to do so, because its large realm and legitimate claims have been so poorly attended by evolutionary scientists who cannot discern the beat of this different drummer while their brains and ears remain tuned to only the sounds of general theory. Stephen Jay Gould (2002) p.1339
The essence of Darwinism lies in its claim that natural selection creates the fit. Variation is ubiquitous and random in direction. It supplies raw material only. Natural selection directs the course of evolutionary change. Stephen Jay Gould (1977)
Rudyard Kipling asked how the leopard got its spots, the rhino its wrinkled skin. He called his answers "just-so stories." When evolutionists try to explain form and behavior, they also tell just-so stories—and the agent is natural selection. Virtuosity in invention replaces testability as the criterion for acceptance. Stephen Jay Gould (1980)
Since 'change of gene frequencies in populations' is the 'official' definition of evolution, randomness has transgressed Darwin's border and asserted itself as an agent of evolutionary change. Stephen Jay Gould (1983) p.335
The first commandment for all versions of NOMA might be summarized by stating: "Thou shalt not mix the magisteria by claiming that God directly ordains important events in the history of nature by special interference knowable only through revelation and not accessible to science." In common parlance, we refer to such special interference as "miracle"—operationally defined as a unique and temporary suspension of natural law to reorder the facts of nature by divine fiat. Stephen Jay Gould (1999) p.84

Quotations

My own view is that conclusions about the evolution of human behavior should be based on research at least as rigorous as that used in studying nonhuman animals. And if you read the animal behavior journals, you'll see that this requirement sets the bar pretty high, so that many assertions about evolutionary psychology sink without a trace.

Jerry Coyne
Why Evolution Is True

I once made the remark that two things disappeared in 1990: one was communism, the other was biochemistry and that only one of them should be allowed to come back.

Sydney Brenner
TIBS Dec. 2000

It is naïve to think that if a species' environment changes the species must adapt or else become extinct.... Just as a changed environment need not set in motion selection for new adaptations, new adaptations may evolve in an unchanging environment if new mutations arise that are superior to any pre-existing variations

Douglas Futuyma

One of the most frightening things in the Western world, and in this country in particular, is the number of people who believe in things that are scientifically false. If someone tells me that the earth is less than 10,000 years old, in my opinion he should see a psychiatrist.

Francis Crick

There will be no difficulty in computers being adapted to biology. There will be luddites. But they will be buried.

Sydney Brenner

An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: 'I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one.' I can't help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist

Richard Dawkins

Another curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understand it. I mean philosophers, social scientists, and so on. While in fact very few people understand it, actually as it stands, even as it stood when Darwin expressed it, and even less as we now may be able to understand it in biology.

Jacques Monod

The false view of evolution as a process of global optimizing has been applied literally by engineers who, taken in by a mistaken metaphor, have attempted to find globally optimal solutions to design problems by writing programs that model evolution by natural selection.

Richard Lewontin

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Sunday, September 09, 2007

As It Turns Out, Not all Conservatives Are Smart ....

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