According to Matthew Taylor in today’s Guardian:
State schools could teach the theory of intelligent design in science lessons, the Church of England’s new head of education has suggested.
Well, where do you start on this?
In my limited understanding of Intelligent Design, it is not “science”. It cannot be considered a science using any definition that I can recognise. “That’s really complex, so someone must have planned it” doesn’t seem wildly scientific to me.
There was brilliant post on Pharyngula that pointed out that astrology is much more scientific than ID. At least you can falsify astrological predictions. (It always gladdens my heart when “real” scientists show knowledge of epistemology.)
Pharyngula has this so spot on that there is basically nothing else to say. You can’t falsify the hypothesis that a big magic man did everything. Hence, it’s not a scientific hypothesis.
But where else could you teach ID? It claims it’s not religion, so RE lessons don’t cut it. At best, it is religion with the interesting bloodthirsty myths taken out and with no discussion of moral values – surely the only two reasons for allowing RE teaching to continue at all. In fact, RE teachers would have good cause for complaint if they found they also had to teach half-understood biology.
So that’s why proponents of ID have to go for the science class if they want their “ideas” to get spread to children.
But wait, is there some reason that I just can’t grasp why the science content of the National Curriculum is a suitable subject for debate in the Church of England? Does the C of E have views on the correct typeface to use in printing motor-bike manuals or the right way to bake a souffle? I guess not. That would be straying into territory that has nothing to do with their area of interest, right?
I imagine that the Flat Earth Society would like some input into geography lessons. Why should the “debate” between evidence-based science and the magic-man hypothesis just take place in biology?
What about maths? How can you teach about prime numbers in Maths without asking who made this miraculous property of numbers not to be divisible? Fractals, for Apollo’s sake? They’re pretty transcendently beautiful. So some giant man with a really good sense of beauty must have made them, right?
We are human beings. Ergo – We don’t really understand anything. As soon as you decide you need to start inferring a Creator every time you come across something you don’t understand, there is nowhere to stop.
Why not take the ID argument to its logical end and say “There’s no need to bother your inferior human heads with all this rational knowledge crap. Just realise that God did everything. You don’t need to understand how anything works. Just grovel before his mightiness and don’t bother trying to learn anything.”
[tags]biology, British-intelligent-design, church-of-England, education, guardian, id, intelligent-design, Bad Science, Science, Philosophy, rants, intelligent-design-in-the-uk, uk[/tags]
The thing that got me about all this was not the ID nonsense – that is simply nonsense, but the way the Church of England think (and manage to get Newspaper time) they can have some say over what gets taught in any class.
Even RE would be pushing it. The national curriculum is supposed to be state mandated, not a particular church.
Even the almost patronising claims it “can” be taught in the “History of Science” is nonsense. ID is not science. It has no place in the “history” of science.
As you say, where do you draw the line? Is every single crackpot “counter theory” going to get equal limelight? If so, we need to keep people in school until they are 90.
You bored?
Engineering = Science + Intelligent Design.
a) ID is not science. Per the above defiition, this is a banality.
b) ID does not exist. That is the same as declaring that engineering doesn’t exist.
c) Science has proven that ID doesn’t exist. Per the above definition, we can easily deduce that scienctists are not trained on ID and not competent to even discuss the matter.
d) Scientists are paid much less than Engineers. Obviously. It is the lack of ID skills which make scientists less employable.
e) Biologists can explain the design of life. Um, biologists can explain anything with their methodology. Orcs and Elves, Romulons and Klingons, evolution explains everything. Welcome to the science of Douglas Adams.
(assuming your post is tongue in cheek)
a) I certainly agree.
b) ID is not something which you can claim “does not exist” In the first place, so I am not sure what you are getting at here. Intelligent Design, in the context that “humans” can intelligently design tools certainly does exist. ID as a “counter claim” to evolution certainly exists but is false.
c) I disagree and your conclusion seems based on the assumption that ID is the thought process behind engineering and little else. ID in the context of a counter to evolutionary theory tries to pass itself off as a science. As for the “not trained” argument, well…
d) I agree..
e) Isn’t it wonderful.
Actually, it wasn’t tongue in cheek at all.
The theory of evolution and the existence of technology are mutually exclusive. It is resolvable only through a bipolar disordered view of science. This is more apparent to me when I face a young engineer who thinks he can “do technology” by plugging a genetic algorithm into a CAD system.
The key, of course, is c). Scientists can’t explain the processes of technological design. They have no theory or philosophy of design. When it comes to design, they are just babbling.
e) Evolution can be used effectively by modest intellects to explain complex things that they don’t understand with an amazing lack of effort and a near total absence of data. Einstein’s general theory of relativity, on the other hand, can only explain a hand full of things before becoming mathematically intractable. If we view evolution as being founded on fiction rather than science (after all, Darwin’s only training was as a theologian), then it is quite easy to explain the explanatory powers of evolution!
Ok, but I really do disagree that the theory of evolution and technology are exclusive. Evolutionary theory has, in the past, been used to model how technologies develop which – at first glance at least – seems to imply they can live together.
The mistakes made by the inexperienced engineer do not strike at the underlying value of evolutionary theories, they are simply mistakes.
I am not sure what you mean about scientists explaining (or otherwise) the processes of technological design. Do you mean modelling the inspiration and “Muse” which seem to drive designers or do you mean the technical steps?
I actually agree with you (a bit) on E. However, this is not a bad thing. Newton’s theory of gravitation allows people to explain all manner of things with almost no effort and it is a theory that is rock solid on the scales most people will have to think. General relativity only really comes into play at scales beyond which modest intellects will get interested.
Evolution, founded on fiction or otherwise, has survived the critical tests and requirements of the scientific method. Intelligent design as a way of looking at speciation has not even been able to try.
Evolution is not the same theory which Darwin first presented – it has, as all science does, evolved. Evolution is a bit of a misnomer in itself and often leads people to think it is an almost religious dogma based on the teachings of Darwin. This is not the case. Evolutionary biologists have advanced the science, and the theory, in leaps and bounds. Like all good scientific theories it has branches which seek to explain the as yet unknowns.
I suspect, from having a friend who is heavily into Evolutionary Biology and teaches it, that the modest intellect who uses it to explain complex things is doing it the same justice as when a modest intellect tries to use Newtonian gravity to explain how the universe is shaped.
Looney
(How disrespectful is that as an opener. maybe you should work on your nom de blog a bit?)
My understanding of biology is pretty rudimentary. As is my understanding of what you are trying to say. So I guess I must yield to the modest intellects bit.
So, I’ll try to break down this argument into components that make sense to me.
Engineers are human and therefore intelligent. When they design things, they use their intelligence.
If Intelligent Design means using one’s intelligence to design things – you won’t get much argument from me. Unfortunately, it then looks like everyone in the ID camp has misunderstood the premise of their argument then. It’s not about evolution- it’s about CAD. 🙂
Scientists generally don’t have theories of design (unless they are engineers) I thought that’s what artists did.
If we move on from the Popper side of the traditional A level sociology Popper-Kuhn debate on the nature of “science” to looking at Kuhn’s argument that science uses paradigms to explain things. When a prevailing paradigm is challenged by new ways of thinking, it is replaced by one that works. (A bit like evolution in the realm of ideas.)
Evolution is a theory that seems to work – there’s no evidence to disprove it and lots of evidence that experiments and predictions based on it are proved to work. (Including the Frankenstein style-genetic modification that I might personally object to on philosophical grounds )
There is no reason not to abandon it when an alternative theory provides a better model. ID is so far from this as to be laughable.
If there were an omniscient intelligence behind the inconceivably vast universe, one of the very last things that s/he/it would be afraid of would be the efforts by an insignificant species on a minor planet to understand how the universe works without constantly crediting him or her or it
Cool, I like Popper.
Popper began by looking at Marxism and astrology. His complaint on Marxism was that it could fit any data, due to the malleability of the theory. Thus, he began trying to understand why and how to distinguish this from real science. In Chalmers book, “What is this thing called science?”, the common problem with Marxism and astrology was that they were “vague and multifarious”. Evolution is a synonym for change, thus, Darwin created the most “vague and multifarious” theory in the universe. Like Marxism, evolution evolves to fit any data. Wouldn’t no theory at all be preferable from a science viewpoint?
Anyway, Dawkins lists five major areas where evolution was falsified in The Blind Watchmaker. He proposes some ad hoc fixes (e.g. viruses moving genes at random between branches of the tree of life) which are methods heavily critized by Popper. Thus, I am puzzled (not) as to why non-scientists fight so hard for this theory.
Regarding usage of genetic algorithms with engineering, I have done this and I can assure you that it works. I can also assure you that it does not eliminate one single step of the ID process and the convergence rates and reliability of GA are always worse than my existing optimization methods (ref. Numerical Recipes).
It is interesting that you try to use a Popperian argument against Marxism as an argument against Evolutionary theory. There is a massive difference, but the basic one is Marxism is a political theory and evolution is a scientific theory.
You are falling foul of the false analogy fallacy.
Evolution does not “evolve to fit any data” in any way other than all science does. A theory is put forward and makes testable predictions. The predictions are tested against the evidence and if they match the theory is sound (for now). If they do not match, the theory is reviewed and overhauled where appropriate.
I haven’t read the Blind Watchmaker so I can not comment on that, however I assume you lump all evolutionary biologists as “Non-Scientists” for your claim here.
I assume by this comment that you are not advocating ID per se but simply saying “no theory” would be better than evolution because it has flaws. I assume you think the same about relativity then?
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“I assume by this comment that you are not advocating ID per se but simply saying “no theory†would be better than evolution because it has flaws. I assume you think the same about relativity then?”
My specialty is mechanics. No one claims that an understanding of mechanics requires a belief in how the solar system came into being. I am merely suggesting that evolution be brought in line with the rest of science and we should decouple current experimental fact (micro evolution) from prehistoric speculation (macro evolution). Even Darwinists admit that the sequence of prehistoric evolution is almost entirely unknow, so it is probably impossible to deduce anything helpful from this. I really don’t want creation science in the biology class room any more than Darwinism.
“You are falling foul of the false analogy fallacy.”
Are you implying that evolution – as Darwin understood it – is mathematically precise and specific (per Popper’s requirement)? Or is evolution above Popper?
This isn’t really what I was getting at.
Largely it is. It is a strawman argument to suggest that the development of species during the history of our planet is based on Evolutionary theory alone. Evolutionary theory discusses how species develop and progress. It is supported by evidence.
The fact that it can be reverse engineered to show how species developed from more primitive versions, in line with the DNA evidence, is a bonus.
I am not sure what you mean by “Darwinist” or “Darwinism” but I suspect, now, that you are arguing against the words of a dead person and a theory before it evolved into it’s current form.
Not at all. The false analogy is that evolution as Darwin understood it, is not evolution as it is understood today. If you want to mount a crusade against Darwin, then I suggest you learn to commune with the dead.
“Not at all. The false analogy is that evolution as Darwin understood it, is not evolution as it is understood today. If you want to mount a crusade against Darwin, then I suggest you learn to commune with the dead.”
Yes, you are correct. Every generation, there is a new theory of evolution. That was exactly my point about it being vague and multifarious. My son returned from aceing his AP biology test and reported “any answer is correct, as long as it mentions evolution”. In mechanics, we can start with Newton’s laws and derive something completely erroneous due to mathematical sloppiness. This is inconceivable with evolution, because it is so fluid.