[Osx-nutters] The separation of church and state.

[Mark Smith]

On 04.12.2007, at 13:14, Chris Gehlker wrote:

> On Dec 4, 2007, at 12:01 AM, Mark Smith wrote:
>
>> On 04.12.2007, at 03:18, Chris Gehlker wrote:
>>>

>>> Wikipedia says:
>>>
	[...]
>>>
>>> The problem I have with that is that it leaves out astronomy, huge
>>> swaths of biology, lots of the human sciences and a lot of physics
>>> since string theory came along.
>>
>> It doesn't. String theory is admittedly beyond the edge of what we  
>> can
>> test, but as long as we continue to recognize that it is an
>> unsubstantiated hypothesis, the rules are not broken.
>
> So creationism isn't breaking the rules as long as it's taught as an
> 'unsubstantiated hypothesis', that we will presumably be able to
> verify  at the rapture?

Not the point, creationism demands belief. Science never, ever, ever  
requires belief. Science demands doubt. Doubt is the anathema of  
religion. (All religious tracts include the castigation of a doubter  
(and sometimes his redemption through acquired faith) and that is no  
accident.)

>> Cataloging information is also a part of science. The quote from
>> Wikipedia does not tell you everything that science is
> Again, that was my point. In trying to exclude creationism the academy
> has thrown out the baby with the bath water and thrown out much that
> clearly *is* science.

Show me one piece of good science in creationism. In fact, it *is*  
currently good science to exclude creationism from all scientific  
discussion, because it does not pass the most basic admission  
criteria. This is a case where the baby can safely be thrown out with  
the bath water. If there is anything robust in there, it will surface  
on its own anyway.


>> , it tells you
>> what makes it different from creationism and other political
>> approaches to philosophical issues.
>
> But it doesn't do it well.

It does it exceptionally well. Maybe it doesn't really "reach" non- 
scientific types, but that is the rub. It is exactly this type of  
person who is open to the suggestions of creationism and will tend be  
"charmed" by religious hocus-pocus anyway. I must admit that short of  
a long course of "indoctrination", I'm not at all sure how to "get to"  
these folks.

And this brings us back to my original point. The thing that requires  
to be protected at all costs is the teaching of good science and by  
that I don't mean learning current theory by rote, but rather learning  
how to be scientific. Once you've learned that, you are set. You won't  
get fucked over easily by charlatans hawking snake oil.


> I think this is because science is partly
> an attitude and partly an epistemology. Science is also about
> simplicity, elegance, and being as mathematical as you can.

Its very hard to describe in a short sentence everything that belongs  
to a good scientific toolkit, even on the purely philosophical level,  
but its always fairly straightforward to test something for its  
scientific robustness. Creationism fails early on a number of  
important counts and is therefore not worthy of consideration for the  
time being.

The popular war raging here is that there are far too many so-called  
scientists who are not prepared to stand up and denounce all things  
non-scientific (such as religion) publicly, because its politically  
unpopular to do so. However you try to bend the rules, it is not  
possible to be a true scientist *and* to truly believe in any  
religious hocus-pocus. Science is having to walk a tightrope in this  
regard, in order to retain sufficient popularity to continue to make  
progress.

Mark.