JS Mill, free speech, and creationism/global warming

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Not at all. The decision here -- similar to what happened with Newtonian physics, for example -- has been, "Evolutionary biology is the best explanation we've got, so we're going with it until enough abberrant date shows up to cause us to rethink it."

The problem is that we're also using it to combat the not-insignificant minority who believe in creationism. In fact, many people explicitly think of evolution education as a way to dispel the myth. We are using the state to wipe out opposing ideas.

Codswallop. Show me where science is being taught that way. You went to one of the best science high schools in the country, and are now at one of the best science universities. Do those schools really have an anti-religion agenda?

Plenty of ministers counsel parents to keep their children out of schools that teach evolution; I have yet to hear of a science teacher counseling parents to keep their kids out of church.

[Kuciwalker]

Codswallop. Show me where science is being taught that way. You went to one of the best science high schools in the country, and are now at one of the best science universities. Do those schools really have an anti-religion agenda?

Science is taught so that people know science. We have decided that evolution is science and creationism is not. I think we are correct in that choice, but - the result is that we are "deciding the question for all mankind."

[KrazyHorse]

You have to be kidding me...

[Kuciwalker]

The problem is that the creationists see that the schools are essentially a weapon on the side of evolution, and decided they need to try and get it for themselves. Hence the push to have intelligent design in biology textbooks.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Codswallop. Show me where science is being taught that way. You went to one of the best science high schools in the country, and are now at one of the best science universities. Do those schools really have an anti-religion agenda?

Science is taught so that people know science. We have decided that evolution is science and creationism is not. I think we are correct in that choice, but - the result is that we are "deciding the question for all mankind."

Right. We've also decided that elephants are mammals and turtles are not. Why? Because "mammal" has a relatively transparent defenition, and elephants fit that definition while turtles do not. If the Holy Church of the Mammalian Turtle objects to that, that's its perogative, but it doesn't change anything.

Science also has a relatively transparent definition (and set of practices). Evolutionary biology fits into it; creationism does not.

And, in spite of how clear-cut that is, scientists are still willing to debate it -- and none of them are agitating to require ministers say, at the end of services each Sunday, "responsible religious worship requires us to acknowledge that there may be no God, and that everything I've said is just superstitious nonsense."

[Nostromo]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


First of all im not sure A is true, at least not for modern analytic philosophy. I think you could open up a lot of articles on modern phil problems and read them with no technical prep. I took Phil of mind as a freshman in college. POTM took Phil of mind summer BEFORE last (at 13 - granted it was at nerd camp) of course you will probably use that as evidence its a lesser field than physics, which just shows your opinion isnt falsifiable, but then Popper is dead, or so Im told.

You verify its conclusions BY THINKING, as with math, or logic or many other subjects.

No useful service - sayeth the cosmologist. At least phil is cheap, by comparison. Of course you can find phil useful, but then youve got to integrate it with empirical disciplines. Like Law, or psychology, or even science.

Analytic philosophy is somewhat old hat. Things have changed a lot since, say, Quine. Now we have what we call naturalistic philosophy, where philosophers study physics, biology, psychology, artificial intelligence because they think it can shed some light on philosophical issues. My PhD thesis, for example, is half cognitive psychology and half philosophy.

[Kuciwalker]

I agree that evolution is obviously scientific and creationism is obviously not; I agree that evolution is far better behaved rhetorically than creationism. My problem is that, having decided these facts, we decide the debate on them ought to be over. I'm aware there is still a debate going on, but creationism is being denied - maybe rightly - critical fora.

Right. We've also decided that elephants are mammals and turtles are not. Why? Because "mammal" has a relatively transparent defenition, and elephants fit that definition while turtles do not. If the Holy Church of the Mammalian Turtle objects to that, that's its perogative, but it doesn't change anything.

I don't really like these objections because they're only good objections when no one is opposed. I don't think they're sufficient.



We've been talking about creationism exclusively, but if you look at the thread title it includes global warming. That topic is vastly more debatable, and yet even there I hear news stories all the time accusing one side of trying to silence the other (political officers overseeing the bureaucrats, scientific journals refusing to accept anything critical of global warming). I think these accusations are overblown, but what worries me is the attitude from some on each side along the lines of "well, look, there's nothing wrong with that anyway - the other side is unscientific/funded by Big Oil/whatever."

And the schools are definately involved in this one; any high-school level "earth science" class will be of the memorize random facts, learn no useful tools variety. A teacher of such a class will usually have his or her opinion and it will strongly color the class, as will the standard curriculum. Since this is an issue that has real political consequences (other than just "will the right research be funded?"), it's all the worse if we use the schools to push our own agenda.