Dr. Hess, paging Dr. Hess...

That type of selective application and study of scientific theories was fairly prevalent when the world was flat too.

But I'm sure if you try hard enough to insult me or anyone with those beliefs it will change people's opinions.

Paul, you're an incredibly patient and reasonable guy, but you have to understand the real, true definition of "theory" as it applies to the scientific method. It's a way more stringent set of criteria than the common street usage of "theory" would suggest.

SVreX wrote: That type of selective application and study of scientific theories was fairly prevalent when the world was flat too. But I'm sure if you try hard enough to insult me or anyone with those beliefs it will change people's opinions.

It wasn't an insult, I'm trying to demonstrate the meaning of "theory" as applied by the scientific community. There's no testable hypothesis for the "theory" of intelligent design, which by definition relies on an intelligent creator. How can you test for God within the boundaries of the Scientific Method?

And regarding the "flat earth theory", that's also incorrect since it was never proven by the Scientific Method. However, it was posited by religous leaders of the day and...wait a minute...see any parallels with intelligent design?

I said nothing about either intelligent design or religion. Not really a fan of either being taught in public schools.

I simply think that educational systems should be allowed to study theories, even if they are nothing more than sociological quirks.

Flat earth theory was not a Christian concoction, and is not in the Bible. It was upheld by the political and scientific communities for centuries. But if we repeat it enough times...

Limiting the course of study to only the one held by popular political opinion is fairly limiting and is darned close to brainwashing.

The ignorance in this thread gave me a headache.

Extremist religions are about control and power. The priests/imans/rabbis/clerics/whatever need to control and influence thoughts or else they become relics, consiged to the trash bin of history.

As it has been said before, most people of any stripe want to live a comfortable life free from the influence of that sort of people so that they can believe what they want, practice their beliefsin a way that makes them comfortable and live a life that makes them happy.

It's good that we live in a place that lets most people do just that, no matter how zany their ideas are. The way we can continue to have that wonderful freedom is to not value one belief above another, unless that belief is "Life and let live."

I'm not actually advocating the study of any particular school of thought.

I am simply opposed to the censoring of particular schools of thought. Especially when paid for by tax dollars.

Book burning is just as bad when it is books that the majority are opposed to. In fact, worse. Our Constitution was created to protect the rights and ideas of the minorities, even if they are not popular.

The only reason to exclude particular thinking is to promote fear.

We teach mythology, don't we?

fifty wrote: And regarding the "flat earth theory", that's also incorrect since it was never proven by the Scientific Method. However, it was posited by religous leaders of the day and...wait a minute...see any parallels with intelligent design?

To jump in and take this on a tangent: Scientific Method is not about testing to prove theories. The goal is never to prove a theory or hypothesis. You are trying to either disprove or support a hypothesis.

The big key to whether or not a hypothesis or theory is scientific is not whether or not it can be proven. It is whether or not it can be disproved.

By that yard stick, the Flat Earth theory is actually a valid scientific theory. It is just wrong. I could come up with experiments to prove that the Earth is not flat. Similarly the theory that the Earth is the center of the universe is also scientifically valid. You could test and determine that it is not. And it isn't. Being wrong does not mean that a hypothesis is scientifically valid or not.

Intelligent design is not a scientific theory because no one can design any tests or experiments that can demonstrate that there is no intelligent designer. It is possible that they are even correct and that there is a divine force that guides the development of life. But until someone can design an experiment that is capable of disproving that assertion, it is not scientific.

"Scientific" does not mean "Correct". "Incorrect" does not mean "Unscientific".

That's a good distinction.

Can an experiment be designed that could disprove Darwinian evolution?

A Darwinian example of a scientific hypothesis might be: animal species can evolve over time.

What Salanis is saying is that science tests the "null hypothesis", that is there is no relationship, or no effect .

So, the "null hypothesis" would be : animal species cannot evolve over time Which we know (from fossil records, as an example) is very unlikely.

Therefore, the null hypothesis is discarded, and there appears (important word) to be some effect (or relationship)

Then we get to test how confident we are that a relationship exists ( with significance testing, confidence intervals etc). Which leads to another point of Salanis', ie. there is always a chance (however tiny) that there is no effect. And that's the basic difference between "theory" and "fact"

Facts will always occur, theories can accurately model a situation/ set of behaviors etc and can accurately predict a future situation / set of behaviors.

Question for SVRex: is gravity fact, or a theory?

SVreX wrote: That's a good distinction. Can an experiment be designed that could disprove Darwinian evolution?

A single experiment that disproves the whole theory? Almost certainly not. A theory is a collection of hypotheses. The Theory of Evolution and Natural Selection is a pretty big one. One experiment that disproves all of the hypotheses in that at once would be pretty extreme.

You could certainly develop experiments that disprove important hypotheses to the Theory of Evolution and Natural Selection. For example: "Natural selection says that when environments change, the population within that environment should change with it by natural selection of traits favorable to the new environment. So if we find a place where the environment changes due to some factor or other, we should expect to see the population change." Then you find a place, say where a volcano explodes, or a dam breaks flooding a region, or something. If the population doesn't change, you have not supported your hypothesis. Repeated several times, it is disproved.

Evolution and Natural Selection is the dominant theory because it has been tested and supported so many times in so many different ways.

I can not think of a comparable way to test any of the core assertions behind Intelligent Design.

It's also possible to design a scientific test that you are not capable of running.

A classic example was with Einstein's Relativity theory. I forget exactly what hypothesis it was, I believe that light is bent by gravity. Technology did not exist to test that hypothesis. He stated however that if a large astronomical body were to move in the way of a particular light source, that the path of the light would be altered in a certain pattern.

There was no way for him to actually test it, but he designed the experiment. The situation he described ended up occurring later and it supported his hypothesis.

An important distinction is that it did not prove his hypothesis. Just like the Neutrino experiments did not prove that they travel faster than light. Both experiments just supported their respective hypotheses.

fifty wrote: Question for SVRex: is gravity fact, or a theory?

I'm not playing.

As I said, I care not about what is taught, I only find it frustrating when certain ideas are censured.

It is also frustrating asking pretty straight forward honest questions and all of a sudden people seem to think they can assume what my position is and label me as a wacko.

Learning is about exploration. Denying the ability to explore and learn is really quite frightening.

I am not a scientist and make no such claim, but I've read some very legitimate scientific perspectives that uphold very different (non-religious) views. Some people seem to have a problem with that.

SVreX wrote: There are at least as many power hungry liberal political extremists as there are conservative political extremists. Environmentalism or racial divisiveness are just as exploited by liberal politicos as terrorism is by conservative.

As much as it might surprise you, I agree. For every issue, there is someone out there looking to exploit it for some sort of gain.

SVreX wrote:

fifty wrote: Question for SVRex: is gravity fact, or a theory?

I'm not playing. As I said, I care not about what is taught, I only find it frustrating when certain ideas are censured. It is also frustrating asking pretty straight forward honest questions and all of a sudden people seem to think they can assume what my position is and label me as a wacko. Learning is about exploration. Denying the ability to explore and learn is really quite frightening. I am not a scientist and make no such claim, but I've read some very legitimate scientific perspectives that uphold very different (non-religious) views. Some people seem to have a problem with that.

Can you accept that certain ideas do not deserve to be taught?

(Not calling anything out, but your desire for "openness" surely has limits, no?)

SVreX wrote: Learning is about exploration. Denying the ability to explore and learn is really quite frightening.

All well and good, but certain things shouldn't be explored in science classes. Namely, faith, which is the opposite of science.

I would not be opposed to a sort of theological survey course offered in schools. Gods 101, if you will.

Osterkraut wrote:

SVreX wrote: Learning is about exploration. Denying the ability to explore and learn is really quite frightening.

All well and good, but certain things shouldn't be explored in science classes. Namely, faith, which is the opposite of science. I would not be opposed to a sort of theological survey course offered in schools. Gods 101, if you will.

I would not say that faith is the opposite of science. They seek answers to different questions in different ways. It is only fairly recently that people have come to view the two as in opposition. Darwin was Christian. When he came up with his theory, he did not see it as being in any way contradictory to his faith. The religious leaders of the time did not feel so either.

I don't think we need to ignore or discourage faiths in science classes, but in a limited amount of time, the instruction should be focused on science. You wouldn't spend time going over Algebra in History class, not because algebra is bad, but because that's not what the class is. I see no problem with mentioning intelligent design in terms like I did earlier ("It's not necessarily wrong... but this is why it isn't science."). Many people believe in some level of intelligent design, and that's fine. They should not be told they are wrong or stupid in science classes. It could actually serve as a great opportunity to explain to the class what makes a concept scientific or not, and what a Theory is in scientific terms.

Salanis wrote:

Osterkraut wrote:

SVreX wrote: Learning is about exploration. Denying the ability to explore and learn is really quite frightening.

All well and good, but certain things shouldn't be explored in science classes. Namely, faith, which is the opposite of science. I would not be opposed to a sort of theological survey course offered in schools. Gods 101, if you will.

I would not say that faith is the opposite of science. They seek answers to different questions in different ways. It is only fairly recently that people have come to view the two as in opposition. Darwin was Christian. When he came up with his theory, he did not see it as being in any way contradictory to his faith. The religious leaders of the time did not feel so either. I don't think we need to ignore or discourage faiths in science classes, but in a limited amount of time, the instruction should be focused on science. You wouldn't spend time going over Algebra in History class, not because algebra is bad, but because that's not what the class is. I see no problem with mentioning intelligent design in terms like I did earlier ("It's not necessarily wrong... but this is why it isn't science."). Many people believe in some level of intelligent design, and that's fine. They should not be told they are wrong or stupid in science classes. It could actually serve as a great opportunity to explain to the class what makes a concept scientific or not, and what a Theory is in scientific terms.

I always thought Darwin was uncomfortable with his theory, as what it meant to his faith. I don't remember where I read that, though.

Joey

SVreX wrote:

fifty wrote: Question for SVRex: is gravity fact, or a theory?

I'm not playing. As I said, I care not about what is taught, I only find it frustrating when certain ideas are censured. It is also frustrating asking pretty straight forward honest questions and all of a sudden people seem to think they can assume what my position is and label me as a wacko. Learning is about exploration. Denying the ability to explore and learn is really quite frightening. I am not a scientist and make no such claim, but I've read some very legitimate scientific perspectives that uphold very different (non-religious) views. Some people seem to have a problem with that.

What are some of these other theories. I genuinely would like to research them.

Joey

fifty wrote: Question for SVRex: is gravity fact, or a theory?

I hate to be That Guy, but this question is not really valid. Why?

Gravity definitely exists, the proof is all around us. So its existence is a fact.

There are theories as to how gravity works. That's an attempt to explain an observable phenomenon.

The same holds true of light. It obviously exists and there are theories as to what its true makeup is.

Religious teachings of any sort generally say that there is a god or gods who direct the everyday workings of our world. This to me says that a religious faith is a theory which attempts to explain the physical world (and human nature too, but that's another discussion entirely) in terms of supreme beings running the show. That's sorta hard for me to swallow.

Salanis wrote:

Osterkraut wrote:

SVreX wrote: Learning is about exploration. Denying the ability to explore and learn is really quite frightening.

All well and good, but certain things shouldn't be explored in science classes. Namely, faith, which is the opposite of science. I would not be opposed to a sort of theological survey course offered in schools. Gods 101, if you will.

I would not say that faith is the opposite of science. They seek answers to different questions in different ways. It is only fairly recently that people have come to view the two as in opposition. Darwin was Christian. When he came up with his theory, he did not see it as being in any way contradictory to his faith. The religious leaders of the time did not feel so either.

Faith/believing IS the opposite of science. Faith, (n) Confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof:

Bam. Not saying science and faith can't coexist, they can until science refutes faith's claims, then well you must abandon one.

"If You're Brown, You're Goin Down

Especially if your country is full of brown people. Oh, we like that, don't we? That's our hobby now. But it's also our new job in the world: bombing brown people. Iraq, Panama, Grenada, Libya. You got some brown people in your country? Tell 'em to watch the berkeley out, or we'll goddamn bomb them!

Well, who were the last white people you can remember that we bombed? In fact, can you remember any white people we ever bombed? The Germans! That's it! Those are the only ones. And that was only because they were tryin' to cut in on our action. They wanted to dominate the world.

BullE36 M3! That's our job. That's our berkeleyin' job.

But the Germans are ancient history. These days, we only bomb brown people. And not because they're cutting in our action; we do it because they're brown. Even those Serbs we bombed in Yugoslavia aren't really white, are they? Naaah! They're sort of down near the swarthy end of the white spectrum. Just brown enough to bomb. I'm still waiting for the day we bomb the English. People who really deserve it."

George Carlin

I ain't agreein' I'm just sayin'

SVreX wrote: As I said, I care not about what is taught, I only find it frustrating when certain ideas are censured. It is also frustrating asking pretty straight forward honest questions and all of a sudden people seem to think they can assume what my position is and label me as a wacko.

I haven't seen you be labeled as a wacko here. However, you should care DEEPLY about what is taught. As stated above, some ideas do not deserve to be taught.

Ideas should not be censured, but that does not automatically mean they should be given the same weight as all other ideas. Not all ideas are equally valid. We teach mythology, and that's great - but we don't teach it in science class. When I was in school, I got taught a large unit about a whole variety of creation myths - in history / social studies, as an analysis of differing cultures. It was a perfectly valid, interesting, and informative lesson and I am better for having experienced it. But it had no place in science class. In science, in the same year, I was taught about genetics, evolution, and natural selection. That's because those items are the current best level of scientific understanding of that part of life.

You ask if an experiment can be designed to "disprove" evolution. Certainly it can, and it's been in effect since the mid 1800s! All that has to happen is that a fossil needs to show up that does not fit the continuum of evidence in favor of evolution. Let's say a kangaroo fossil - heck, even any kind of semi-modern mammal fossil at all - shows up in a strata of rock that indicates it must be from the Devonian period, about 400 million years ago. The entire theory would have to be fundamentally rethought, the errors identified, and the theory corrected to account for this newly observed data point.

That's how science works. There have been paleontologists in the field for several hundred years, diligently trying to disprove the theory of evolution. So far, nothing has contradicted it, but only supported it.

Instead of a 400-MY-old mystery kangaroo, what we have found is a huge amount of evidence indicating that a branch of the sauropsids (proto-"dinosaurs") eased away from the main line and became synapsids. Eventually the synapsids became more and more distinct from the sauropsids, who dominated for a while and then died back significantly. The synapsids themselves further separated into several lines, including placentals and marsupials, both forms of true mammals. No evidence yet found contradicts this interpretation. When/if something DOES appear that contradicts it, the theory will have to be corrected.

Now, the driving force behind evolution is a subsidiary question - natural selection, or intelligent design? So far no observed phenomena contradicts natural selection as that force. Again, when and if something DOES appear that can be shown to contradict it, the theory will require correction.

But simply stating that something else could be driving evolution does not constitute disproof of natural selection as the best available theoretical model.

Intelligent Design as presented is fraught with dozens of logical fallacies and incorrect assertions which disprove themselves. Hundreds of examples show that "intelligence" is heavily lacking in the "design" of almost all living bodies.

Why else would the light-sensitive cells of your retina be on the OUTSIDE of your eye, with the nerves running across the focal surface to the fovea, and then out through the fovea to the brain (incidentally creating a hardware blind spot, which the brain has to make up for in software)? That's like having all the patch cables connect at the front and run across the face of your new widescreen to get to the cable box, DVD player, and amp. Surely an intelligent designer would have put the cells at the focal plane, with the optic nerves running directly to the brain out of the way, with connectors and patch cables behind, just your TV?

In reply to Duke:

I assume this is an example against intelligent design? There are a million of 'em.

Duke wrote: I assume this is an example against intelligent design? There are a million of 'em.

Or that if there is a God, it probably doesn't want us to take everything so darned seriously.