Oh for fuck's sake

[sharplittleteeth]

The controversial theory of "intelligent design" has won the qualified backing of Education Minister Brendan Nelson, who says it should be taught in schools alongside evolution if that is the wish of parents.

Right. And then we can teach students about the Tooth Fairy and the moon being made out of cheese.

Because a century of rigourous-researched scientific evidence has exactly the same weight as the wishes of parents.

"Do I think that parents and schools should have the opportunity — if they wish to — for students also to be exposed to this and to be taught about it? Yes I think that's fine," he said. "As far as I'm concerned, students can be taught and should be taught the basic science in terms of the evolution of man, but if schools also want to present students with intelligent design, I don't have any difficulty with that. It's about choice, reasonable choice."

No, you fuckwit. It's about SCIENCE.

I know John Howard's shenanigans with Non-Core Promises and the Children Overboard incident have eroded any understanding of such fundamental concepts as "truth" in the Liberal party. But that doesn't mean you have infect the minds of future generations with your rubbish.

Comments

[morgan303.livejournal.com]

Just to be a little Devil's Advocatey (and before I start let's state that I absolutely agree with you and everyone that this creationist rubbish is complete and utter screaming bollocks), but science's answers to the questions of our creation as we know it are little more than myths as well. And it would be nice if kids were taught to keep open minds in all directions about our Genesis. What different cultures have believed, what science believes now (and upon what evidence) and what it used to believe before it proved itself wrong by asking different questions and inventing different machines by which to test them out. Science is only ever as evolved as the culture in which it exists, because it's limited by the questions human scientists can ask of it. Hence the heavily gendered "proofs" that come out each month in "NewScientist", for example. It's not the Be All and End All, because we can't prove or dosprove things like Love, God, and How The World Got Here In The First Place. It's all a Myth. It's all probably going to change, at least subtly in the next century or so. And it'd be nice if we did our children the favour of giving them open enough minds (and the possibility of a conceptual Frontier) to be able to question that.
The dominant Scientific paradigm is robbing us and our children of a sense of Wonder, that we all really need in order to interact respectfully with both the planet and each other. I don't suggest for a minute that we fill that gap with Christianity, but, let's fill it with questions, at least, or Mystery?
Hippie Rant over.:)

[trayce.livejournal.com]

Thankyou, you've said everything I've wanted to on these subjects in recent times :)

[sharplittlteeth.livejournal.com]

Just to be a little Devil's Advocatey ..., but science's answers to the questions of our creation as we know it are little more than myths as well.

Disagree strongly.

Evolution is one of the most successful theories we have. Biology doesn't make sense without it.

True, we still haven't worked out exactly how life got started. There are lots of hypothesis, but none have been proved. (Sidenote: the lack of a proven scientific theory on the origins of life is NOT proof that some Creator did it. There's no proof for that either, and it raises all sorts of difficult questions.)

And it would be nice if kids were taught to keep open minds in all directions about our Genesis.

An open mind is only a virtue if it critically analyzes the ideas it opens itself to. The way to critically analyze ideas is to compare them against the evidence.

Science is only ever as evolved as the culture in which it exists, because it's limited by the questions human scientists can ask of it.

But so is every human endeavor. Including critiques of science. Humans are imperfect.

The difference is, science has a built-in mechanism to compensate: do your ideas match the evidence?


It's not the Be All and End All, because we can't prove or disprove things like Love, God, and How The World Got Here In The First Place.

Can't we?

And even if we can't, can you not see value in trying to prove or disprove such things? Surely in trying to prove or disprove them we would gain a greater understanding of them, rather than just giving up and spouting nonsense.

And it'd be nice if we did our children the favour of giving them open enough minds (and the possibility of a conceptual Frontier) to be able to question that.

But *how* do they question that, if we don't give them the analytical tools?

That's what I object to in this whole Intelligent Design nonsense - the ID advocates try to are trying to pass off their hand-waving fantasy as being as equally valid as evolutionary theory.

How can we tell if they're wrong or right? We compare the theories against the evidence.

And look - ID strikes out, while evolution hits a home run.

The dominant Scientific paradigm is robbing us and our children of a sense of Wonder

Really?

The scientific paradigm has killed your sense of wonder?

Light is the fastest thing in existence - 299,792,458 metres per second. Yet the Universe is so vast it takes light 150 billion years to cross it. And you feel no awe at that?

The typical human body has 206 bones, 100,000 kilometres of blood vessels, and hundred billion neurons in their brain. Yet the design and construction of all that is encoded in a single microscopic knot of DNA. And that doesn't amaze you?

What about dinosaurs? They do nothing for you?

This is the old Romantic argument: Reason is big mean bully that stole all our Wonderous toys.

Load of bollocks, I say.

If anything, Science is the small child pointing out that the Emperor is wearing no clothes. If your sense of wonder can't survive contact with a bit of scientific truth, then I think you need to question that basis for that wonder.

I'm not an idiot. I'm not going to deny, for example, that humans have spiritual side. Sure you can't measure it with a ruler, but there's still plenty of evidence to support it - every world religion, for example. But I wouldn't mistake our spiritual feelings for proof that God exists.

I am off work really sick with 'flu, so this ain't gonna be that eloquent...:)

[morgan303.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...okay, I think we may have a basic misunderstanding here.
I wasn't meaning to imply that I believe science is bollocks and religion/spirituality is right. Nothing of the kind. I don't believe I said anything of the sort at any point, actually.

Sidenote: the lack of a proven scientific theory on the origins of life is NOT proof that some Creator did it. There's no proof for that either, and it raises all sorts of difficult questions.
Agreed. And I'm not suggesting we have to take "sides" and teach only one or the other. What I would like to see is kids being taught this argument. Or at the very least, being taught that we don't necessarily *have* the answers, but that this is the best we've been able to do so far, the scientific side of our culture is based around it, and my, isn't the ongoing search for truth interesting? Not "This is how it is. Deal." Sure, teach Big Bang Thoery, evolution, whatever. Just don't make it any more Gospel than the Christians have on their side. I'm truly sick of science as the new religion.

Can't we?

And even if we can't, can you not see value in trying to prove or disprove such things?
Damn straight I can. Nowhere in this reply have I suggested that science is wrong, stupid, or pointless, as you believe I have. I'm criticising the current culture surrounding science, not the quest for knowledge via reason itself! In essence, all I was asking for was an addendum to what we're teaching kids, that suggests the possibility that scientific discovery is limited by human culture, intelligence and interpretation. Not "This is Right" but "We think this is right, it's the best we've got, but we're learning new things every day".

evolution hits a home run.
Not always. There's a reasonable amount of criticism of that theory too and a lot that doesn't fit it. Having said that, I'm not well-enough informed about it to start a whole new debate, so apologies for making a oint and running. All I'm saying is that we used to believe God made the world, now we believe this. I'm more on the side of evolution than God, but that doesn't mean I'm swallowing it whole as some divine Truth.

But *how* do they question that, if we don't give them the analytical tools?

But I'm suggesting we do exactly that!

The scientific paradigm has killed your sense of wonder?
Not in the least! Please, read what I've said again. I'm not criticising science. I'm criticising Science, not the quest, but the Statement. Dig? Scientific *culture*, not scientific discovery. There's a difference, if you look closely. Subtle, but there. What refer to when I say that the scientific paradigm is robbing us of a sense of wonder is that it believes absolutely in itself; it makes the division between "provable" and "mumbo-jumbo hippy nonsense". Science often fills me with wonder. But unfortunately, the culture that has grown up around our dependence on science for Truth is in essence also a reductionist culture. I'll be a little better expressed about this in a couple of days I'm sure (I've been *really* ill for the last week), but I didn't just wanna let this die off cause it's interesting. Sure, challenge the "Hippy mumbo-jumbo" with reason, but don't write it off when your limited reason can't make it neatly fit into the hole. There's a *lot* of hand-waving goes on around the evolutionary debate (things like justifying contemporary ideas about gender roles using the evolutionary model, for example. Not the best example, but the best I have at the moment).

Reason is big mean bully that stole all our Wonderous toys.

Load of bollocks, I say.


And I say make sure you actually understand the point being made before you blithely oversimplify it!:)

But I wouldn't mistake our spiritual feelings for proof that God exists.

Actually, and I'm really interested to know this: Why not?

"Your comment of 4425 characters exceeds the character limit of 4300 characters..."

[morgan303.livejournal.com]

To summarise: Science is the New Religion, the opiate for the masses. It gives us Truth, explains the noises out there in the dark, tells us where we come from. At the moment it also happens to be supremely arrogant in its Rightness. That's what I object to. I'm all for the search for truth, be it scientific, spiritual, artistic, whatever. At the point at which it becomes Dogma, it makes me itch.
I think that's the best you're gettin' out of me tonight. I'll try to be smarter later.:)