1326 Bush and Darwin
The left wing thought police are all over this one. But here's a sensible thought on the matter:"There are those who believe that when someone has expressed his own thesis that it is only fitting that those who disagree with his thesis should be allowed to express their disagreement and objections to it. Indeed, there are some scientists who have even gone so far as to make a point of making the strongest possible case against the very theories that they have taken enormous pains to devise.
The outstanding example of this attitude was Charles Darwin. In his great book, The Origin of Species, he went to enormous trouble to set out all the arguments he could muster against his own theory. And, to his dying day, he continued to be heroically willing to entertain objections to his own carefully thought out position.
Would Darwin have objected to President Bush's seemingly paradoxical comment that both sides in the evolution debate "should be properly taught"? Well that might depend on whether he was permitted to hear the president's justification of his position, namely that both sides should be taught "so people can understand what the debate is about," and the president's further statement: "You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, and the answer is 'yes.'" "
Read the whole article here.
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2 comments:
The author makes an incredible error. He asserts that facts are the result of agreement, that state capitols and the results of multiplication are "truths by convention". He says that, "where there is a political controversy, there can be no scientific certainty. Or, to put the matter another way, so long as men dispute with each other about the answer to a question, that question cannot be considered settled."
That is ridiculous. You might as well claim that Gospel is not truth unless and until everyone agrees it's truth. Indeed, I would make that claim long before I made a similar one regarding simple matters of fact.
State capitols and numerical results are defined as such and easily tested. It is not possible to assert that 6x6=35 and have any chance of being right. To facts proven in science, there are no two answers - there is no democracy to the truth.
Evolution is such a complex thing that it cannot be proven outright. But its foundation is in numerous disciplines whose assertions can be broken down into provable parts. Evolution is a theory that fits the biological record (fossil and living) to those facts. Intelligent design is a theory that conflates the same record with Scripture, a worthy exercise to be sure, but since Scripture is not provable as fact, the resulting theory is not science. Intelligent design, in other words, is an attempt at reconciliation between faith in Scripture and scientific observation.
It should be available in schools, as a means of helping understand modern society's struggle to merge the faithful and the rational. But not in science class.
Wow, Hip, I didn't know comments would hold so much. I hope you cc'd him. But what about his thesis that evolution fundies do a disservice to Darwin in squashing dissent?
Actually, I know the answer.
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