Kids, School, and liberal Science?

[Guest 6.8 AR]

I understand well about scientific method. I was referring to the hubris sigmtman talked about when using that scientific method

to the point of arrogance to dispute Christianity when theories become accepted and then, years later may be disproved.

Where it does have to do with religion/Christianity is from the OP's original point. Get back to that and prove global warming as fact.

It is junk science that has been politically motivated from the beginning. and every day something comes out about it to the point

that I don't believe much of anything concerning global warming more than "weather changes", but we knew that all along.

Science has been used as a tool to destroy the credibility of the Bible for a long time and that usually happens by motivation of some kind, doesn't it? Discovery, to be pure, has to be without certain motivations in order to be honest. The OP mentioned a valid point about the use of certain science portrayed as the gospel according to science and his problems with it. This can be very problematic with what is taught in public schools and can steer young minds from actually learning nothing more than eventual propaganda.

"What I found was that science has evidence. Not just philosophical arguments that point to a thing and say, "Whoa, that is so complex, God must have made it". That kind of reasoning holds no explanatory value. The question always remains. If it is so complex that only God could have made it, who made God then? For he must be a complex being and to have such complexity, whence did he?"

Where is a philosophical argument here? Maybe if more scientists studied philosophy, in depth, it would cure this illness.

I realize I'm way over my head in this discussion, but my understanding is that philosophy is the study of reasoning and more absoluteness much more than your example. It is actually a foundation of science when science becomes pure. Or, maybe it's that people with certainmotivations choose to ignore the philosophy in order to get at the desired science. I'm not a scholar in any of this, but I do keep my eyes open and I do read quite a bit. What I've come to notice is a blur in what science is and what politics makes it, often.

Smith's concerns about what is being taught in schools as being fact is something I have concerns with, also.

Edited August 31, 2012 by 6.8 AR

[Smith]

Lester, creation obviously happened. The reason and how is what is in debate. Regardless of what the "Spock's" of the science world want to think, Philosophy is the root of science. The ancients accepted this and led in science for years. The current strain of modern science, as far as Creation goes, was developed out of the Enlightenment thinking that reality, God, and truth are relevant and not subject to intelligent design. This has shaped modern science, where before, everything was based off of a intelligent design understanding with truth and laws of physics and nature being fixed. What I am fundamentally challengin is this new science philosophy not the data itself. The Philosophy in which one approaches the data will shape that data to a preconcieved form. It is very rare for a person to change their personally philosophy withou a significant persoanal experience that will shake them off their original philosophy. For instance the inherent flaw with Spock was that he was so ingrained in absolute logic and science that he refused to account for the intangeables such as instinct, human spirit, intuition, emotions, and human flaws. That is why he could not be captian. He would make the wrong decisions becasue logic and science iotself are inadequate.

All that to say, you can't reject one at the exclusion of the other and then claim to be purely logical and factual. That cuts both ways. What happened in my daughters class was that the teacher was excluding one while claiming absolute truth in the other. I disagree with the premise and philosophy and so I have to be skeptical of the scientific data. Not becasue I distrust the data, but becasue I distrust the philosopies of flawed humans and how they interpret and draw conclusions on the data.

This is not a science debate, this is a philosophical/theological debate. Was it intelligent desgin (God, etc. ) or was it purely random? Is there a God or am I god? If it was ID then the data will be shaped a certain way and the contections will have to be made in a certain sequence. The questions and assnwers have to fit into that model. If it is random then that same data will fit and entirely different mold and the connections will be, for the most part, entirely different as will be the forcasting the conclusions.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

http://tofspot.blogs...and-theory.html

http://tofspot.blogs...rn-science.html

Thanks Smith and 6.8

I make no justification for pushy arrogant scientists/teachers any more than I'll offer justification for pushy arrogant preachers and politicians. If we could discover how to generate electricity out of pushy asshats then not only would we have a virtually unlimited supply of electricity, but we would also have finally found a practical use for them.

Above are links to a couple more Flynn essays. Hadn't read him for a couple years and he seems to fit the discussion. Flynn is closer to your opinions than mine, which is why I suspect you might enjoy the articles.

He makes a point about modern science as compared to ancient moves in that direction. Ancient China had highly developed technology but it was a pragmatic recipe book, backed by no theory. Ancient Greeks had highly developed theory but no data. They considered it dishonorable to do experiments, that it ought to be possible to arrive at the truth via reason alone.

One had facts without theory, and the other had theory without facts.

I am not advocating a spock-like attitude denying all aspects of life except logic and data. As have said before, there are many ways of knowing. Whatever a person wants to believe its their own business and I try not to mock, at least not in a disrespectful way. But the thread title is kids, school and liberal science. If the science classes are not teaching science then that is a problem, but making science classes teach more things that are not science won't improve the situation.

Perhaps poets would agitate that science classes do not properly respect poetry and that science textbooks should be written in iambic pentameter? Perhaps accountants would agitate that science is not cost-conscious and every scientific topic should be taught along with cost breakdowns and profit potential of each fact, law and theory? Musicians might want the lectures presented in song.

Facts are either "fairly good" measurements or they are bad data. Laws can be made in order to do some prediction of how facts will behave depending on parameters. Theories attempt to explain the facts and laws.

If Theory A predicts different facts than Theory B, then we might experimentally select the most salient theory by checking theory against fact. Though new fact might invalidate everything and send people back to the drawing board.

If Theory A and Theory B predict exactly the same result, people usually go for the simplest theory which works. Occams razor.

But IMO some theories are "cheating".They may be simple, and may be correct, but impossible to test. Here is a simple theory of everything, impossible to disprove-- My dog created everything exactly as it is billions of years ago, so that he would have a nice house and yard to live in today. This theory is simple, explains everything perfectly and can't be disproved, so IMO it deserves to be taught in science class!

There are an infinite number of magical theories which could perfectly explain everything. There isn't class-time sufficient to present them all. If you teach an alternate ancient jewish tribal creation myth, then the cherokees will get upset and you have to also teach an ancient cherokee tribal creation myth, then the scandinavians will get upset that the norse gods are slighted and you have to teach the norse tribal creation myths.

Alternately, as a nod toward all magical theories, perhaps begin the evolution section with a disclaimer, "There are an infinite number of magical theories which can't be tested. Possibly one or more may be correct. If you are interested you can persue those alternate theories in your spare time. For the rest of the class we will discuss theories which can currently be tested."

Or as I mentioned earlier, it may be possible to scientifically test certain creation theories. Perhaps there are results which do not depend on magic, which would cause a certain creation theory to better-match reality than evolution. IMO that would be "creation science". Not selecting the facts you like in order to "prove" a few paragraphs found in one of many holy books.

Ain't saying how the universe came to be. Maybe it was created. Creation science just needs to be scientific before it goes into the curriculum.

Similarly, evolution theorists shouldn't ignore problems on their end either. But evolution theories at least can be tested, and don't require magic. That is not to say magic is impossible. Magic is just difficult to test because it perfectly explains everything.

[Smith]

Lester, there lies the problem. Evolution (macro) can NOT be tested. The "evidence" we use now is based on assumptions. especially when it comes to carbon dating that has proven incredibly unreliable and unpredictable. In fact carbon dating only works if it is several millions of years old and so the assumption has t be made that it meets that criteria before dating can be used. Evolution all revolves around time and if the time models are incorrect or proven problematic, which they have, you can't use them. You are back to square one. Example, explain why cosmic dust levels only date the earth to around 10,000 yrs and salinity levels only date the earth to around 10,000 yrs just for two examples. Those two things are fairly independent of each other and are measurably consistent, especially cosmic dust.

I am saying that evolution is just as "magical" logically and scientifically speaking as creationism. The fact that many scientist center on it simply because they reject an ID philosophy does not make it more scientific. It makes it less scientific since it disqualifies a factor that cannot and has not been dis-proven and yet retains plausibility in both the philosophical and scientific fields with much evidence coming from both.

Now centering on which religious take on ID is problematic, but ID is not. In fact ID explains everything (through different models) without contradictions. That cannot be said for evolution. There is also an assumption that we have developed in knowledge past the ancients. Maybe not as much as we would arrogantly like to think.

As you said, why do we teach the most complicated and problematic of the theories? My opinion is because those who push it have a philosophy that will not let them consider anything other than their own errant philosophy. Thus the Global Warming issue i have with the teacher in the first place.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

I think, but I may be wrong, that the pushy teachers/scientists are the ones pushing the global warming agenda

on our kids through the federal guidelines and the teachers unions. I haven't heard of any pushy preachers doing it,

but there are plenty of politicians using it to their own means. I brought up the term philosophy, in my post primarily

because of a poor use of the word, itself, but it is the foundation of science. Too bad so many scientists want to reject

that part and replace the foundation with political thought, instead.

I am not saying that all science is dishonest, either, but when it is utilized to further a political goal, the scientist has

bastardized his profession by leaving out philosophy, which is reason and logic, and the end result is telling our children a

bunch of lies mixed in with partial truths to make it palatable.

I don't usually go out and challenge evolution, but I resent to Hell someone trashing creation, because they don't or

don't want to believe it. The motivation of the nonbeliever is what really angers me. I try not to push my views on others.

I may let them be known, but that's about it. There is usually a claptrap, or a darker side to the argument with these types of discussions that sometimes are more intriguing than the argument, itself. It's usually more political and less philosophical.