Scientific American is the bomb.

[Dinner]

I'm reminded of a fellow I served in the Army with in Iraq. He worked for Civil Affairs and was an intelligent and fun loving guy but when it came to religion he was an absolute fundimentalist. He had all of these fundimentalist videos which he'd share with anyone and everyone in which it was claimed the world is 6,000 years old and the grand canyon was created by Noah's flood. I came up with tons fo examples and showed him peer reviewed articles which directly debunked the fundimentalist's claims of a 6k year old Earth but he would have none of it. He claimed science was a religion and was no more valid then his religion.

What got me the most is when he'd claim radioactive dating was "a lie created to deny god". I went over the details of K-Ar dating and how the crystal structure, the shape of the elements, and there respective charges made it highly likely any of the daughter particles found in the crystal were the result of radioactive decay and since we know the half life of the molecules involved we can get a pretty good estimate on age. He claimed that since a person hadn't been watching the radioactive decay for all 20 million years that no one could possibly know the decay rate of the radioactive particles.

You simply cannot reason a person out of a position they did not originally reason themselves into.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by DanS
Besides, your and Boris' posts work on the underlying assumption that science would come out worse for the wear in a full airing of all views on the subject. In my experience, science does just fine as a positive argument. Scientists need to make sure that good affirmative arguments are made and to be honest about the the strength of the varying facts available. They need not worry about losing this argument.

Science classes should rely on facts, yes. And that's how they are supposed to work. Teaching ID wouldn't be airing any facts, it would be airing beliefs of a small segment that are not substantiated by facts.

I'll say it again--the only way to get views into school science classes should be to have said views vetted in peer-reviewed journals and then accepted as mainstream scientific thought. All other science has to go through this process, why should Creationism or ID get a special pass? Giving it such is circumventing the process and lending undue weight to the claims made by the proponents.

[Az]

It is completely possibly to reconcile irreconcilable beliefs.

per definition.

[chequita guevara]

That was deliberate. Obviously, logically someone shouldn't hold irreconcilable beliefs, and yet they do.

[DanS]

To be clear at the outset, having an article peer reviewed is only a screen that balances the need to publish early and often versus the need for minimal accuracy. It's not the gold standard by any means and should not be seen as conferring legitimacy beyond a minimal level.

Much more rigorous (and less rigorous) methods of doing scientific studies exist and are acceptable for various purposes.

[Dracon II]

If they start teaching creationism alongside evolution... does that mean we could use it as a precedent to teach Marxism in economics classes?

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Dracon II
If they start teaching creationism alongside evolution... does that mean we could use it as a precedent to teach Marxism in economics classes?

Equal parts fairy tale.

[Az]

Obviously, logically someone shouldn't hold irreconcilable beliefs, and yet they do.

Given enough time, the cognitive dissonance would be solved one way or the other.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Dracon II
If they start teaching creationism alongside evolution... does that mean we could use it as a precedent to teach Marxism in economics classes?

The two are not comparable.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
That was deliberate. Obviously, logically someone shouldn't hold irreconcilable beliefs, and yet they do.

Normally the incident occurrs when someone suspends their disbelief until further evidence is in.

[Lul Thyme]

Originally posted by Patroklos

I think the word your looking for is clergy. Most people know as much about the proof of scientific facts that they swear by as religious people do about their god.

You are all operating on faith.

Talk for yourself buddy...

[Drake Tungsten]

Do you live in a red state?

I did.

Basically the forces of darkness have massed and are continuing their assualt on all things scientific and/or educational.

Oh lord, we've lost Oerdin too...

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Patroklos
If we are going by peer review, I am afraid science is very far behind religion. By like the 10s of billions.

Most people aren't theologians, so you're wrong.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Ramo

Efficacy of developmental BMD systems is not a "science question".

A lot of "physics" that I see in most Physics Departments is really cutting-edge engineering (nanotech for instance). Reason why is that plenty of scientists are perfectly competent in doing engineering crap. That's why NASA picked Feynman to investigate the Challenger explosion. Hell, the American Physical Society has done its own studies on the viability of boost-phase ABM systems (they concluded that the proposals are still useless crap). So it's not exactly a big deal when SciAm veers into fancy engineering.

Frankly, a lot of pop-science coverage is crap. And I'd much rather have SciAm cover interesting engineering than inanities like a totally qualitative explanation for string theory. Anyways, pop-science mags are certainly a better place for covering the efficacy of ABM systems than newspapers where people without any technical training are making technical judgements about ABM systems.

It wasn't even interesting engineering though. It was "they didn't work - are we wasting money?" I don't care about policy when I'm reading SciAm, I want SCIENCE.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
We had a Bible as literature class in my highschool, which included, maong other things, modern retellings of the story. Jesus Christ Superstar was supposed to have been taught, but the year I was finally going to be allowed to take it, the teacher decided to cut it out, because it was blasphemous.

We studied the Bible in my English class last year too. So what? It's important historical literature.

(We also read the Ramayana and a nomber of other works.)