JS Mill, free speech, and creationism/global warming

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
As a practical matter, allowing intelligent design to be taught in some fashion alongside evolution in schools is probably a winning proposition for evolution supporters, in the long term. By giving intelligent design a place in the curriculum, you take away the cachet it currently has by virtue of being banned by the authorities while allowing students to see for themselves the vast difference in the amount of supporting evidence between evolution and intelligent design. If you properly inform students and let them make up their own minds, it's hard to imagine that most of them won't choose evolution as the more likely scenario...

I considered this. I think it's probably true, but it sidesteps somewhat the issue of principle.

[KrazyHorse]

Kuci, I believe you've fallen into the trap of believing that the average person is as smart as you. Or even comparable.

[Kuciwalker]

It's also possible that no significant material harm would come even if a large number of students ended up believing in creationism.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Kuci, I believe you've fallen into the trap of believing that the average person is as smart as you. Or even comparable.

I could never make that mistake.

[Drake Tungsten]

No, they can't.

What's the point of teaching science in schools at all, then? You have all these grand ideals about how education should work, yet you believe that the common man is too stupid to handle even the basics of coming to rational decisions based on the scientific method. You've got somewhat of a disconnect going there...

[Arrian]

Kuci,

Only if you change the suffrage laws

-Arrian

[Ramo]

Are you going to post anything useful? As I've said, I've made the same goddamned arguments before. I know what they are. I don't see that they necessarily outweight the infallibility argument.

Yes, you keep saying that without addressing what I'm saying. This "infallibility argument" is absurd.

[Kuciwalker]

Current science education sucks anyway; it's all fact memorization until you hit physics, where a few people will realize that science is actually about making predictions.

[Drake Tungsten]

I think it's probably true, but it sidesteps somewhat the issue of principle.

True. I have little interest in filosofy...

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Ramo
Yes, you keep saying that without addressing what I'm saying. This "infallibility argument" is absurd.

Why? If you close off all debate on a subject, you are assuming that you are absolutely correct (that you are infallible). This is obviously false.

[Last Conformist]

Given that American biology teaching, by all account, sucks as is, and a great many teachers would do their very best to favour the cretinist alternative in a teach-the-controversy situation, I have no doubt a great many students would end up chosing creationism.

[KrazyHorse]

Possibly, but combining that with the extreme willingness of people to impose their beliefs on others in a far more odious way than by setting high-school curricula, you have to wonder.

What happens to university biology departments funded by public money in any way?

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Current science education sucks anyway; it's all fact memorization until you hit physics, where a few people will realize that science is actually about making predictions.

I remember back in the day the first thing taught was scientific method. Wherein one learns the difference between hypothesis, theory, and Law. Seem to recall it on or around 3rd grade.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
What happens to university biology departments funded by public money in any way?

University biology departments are concerned with two things, as far as I can tell: preparing people to be doctors and preparing them to be biologists. In either case it's absolutely necessary to teach them the state of the art.

[Arrian]

If you close off all debate on a subject, you are assuming that you are absolutely correct (that you are infallible). This is obviously false.

Debate on the subject is not completely closed off. Therefore, we (or rather the "evolution side") are assuming we are most likely correct.

-Arrian