Want a Science Degree In Creationism? 848
The Bad Astronomer writes "In Texas, a state legislator wants the ironically-named Institute for Creation Research to be able to grant a Masters degree in science. In fact, the bill submitted to the Texas congress would make it legal for any private group calling themselves educational to be able to grant advanced degrees in science. So, now's your chance: that lack of a PhD in Astrology and Alchemy won't hold you back any longer."
The Institute for Creation Research made a similar request to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board last year, but were shot down.
He's just open minded! (Score:2, Informative)
... the guy who proposed this bill:
http://www.votesmart.org/npat.php?can_id=25464 [votesmart.org]
and
http://texasliberal.wordpress.com/2009/02/24/censure-texas-state-representative-leo-berman/ [wordpress.com]
Re:Names Please (Score:5, Informative)
Giggle... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This is not a bad idea (Score:5, Informative)
The ironic thing is the scientific method ultimately brings one back to the same sorts of mysteries that Creationism want to jump straight to. Parallel universes, etc. The "god story" doesn't sound so wierd once you get to the advanced levels of stuff.
I think things like parallel universes are mathematical hypothesis. No scientist AFAIK is stating that they exist as a scientific fact.
And yes it is important to keep an open mind. Unfortunately closing oneself off in either a religious community or a scientific community has generally involved historical atrocities. Josef Mengele is no better than Jimmy Jones, and MKULTRA isn't any better than Sharia Law.
Re:You guys are missing the point (Score:3, Informative)
Try punching "experimental evolution" into Google. That only turns up 25 million hits but here are a few to get you started:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_evolution [wikipedia.org]
http://myxo.css.msu.edu/ecoli/ [msu.edu]
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Bacteriophage_experimental_evolution [citizendium.org]
It looks to me like these people are doing actual work to justify their conclusions. Now you can dispute their methods and conclusions but what they are up to isn't faith in a religious sense. Sticking lots of exclamation points on astounding ignorance doesn't rescue it from that state.
Re:This is not a bad idea (Score:1, Informative)
How much better off would we be if we finally cleared away all the religious baggage of Creationism and brought it inline with real science?
We might be better off but there wouldn't be much left - Creationism is pretty much all religious baggage. All you'd be left with is the remote possibility that some aliens seeded life on earth with some simple bacteria around 4 billion years ago.
Why wouldn't the theory of a Divine Clockmaker be a reasonable field of study?
It might or might not be a reasonable field of study - but it wouldn't be a scientific field of study. At a practical level, a science degree is about studying the scientific consensus.
Even if we ignore the scientific consensus and ask whether Creationism is science, the answer is still "No." There are a whole variety of problems with the basic Young Earth Creationism as a scientific theory - including both logical inconsistencies and inconsistencies with factual observation. A key problem, though, is Occam's razor.
Imagine that you have a clay jar. You could measure its size and its weight and if you came back tomorrow there is a high probability that the jar would have the same measurements. You could even put a few coins in the jar and, assuming you put the jar in a place where no one was going to mess with the jar, you could come back tomorrow and the coins would have a high probability of still being there.
But suppose you put the coins in the jar, put a cap on the jar, shook the jar so the coins bounced up and down and then claimed (without looking in the jar) that all the coins were oriented in the "heads" position. If you shook the jar up again before looking in the jar then you would never actually know what orientation the coins had been in but, if you looked in the jar without shaking, you would have a high probability of being wrong.
When you add details to a (proposed) scientific theory that are not based (possibly indirectly) on factual observation then one of two things happens. If it's fundamentally impossible to ever observe the details then there's no point in including the details. On the other hand, if the details could (eventually) be observed then, the more details you add, the higher you probability of being wrong.
Creationism, depending on the particular flavor, does some combination of both. Creationism makes claims that fundamentally can not be observed and it also makes claims that, not being based on factual observation, are overwhelmingly likely to eventually turn out to be wrong.
Informally, the basic rule of science is "go with what you know" (what you can observe) - and Creationism massively violates that rule.
Re:Names Please (Score:3, Informative)
Except he's not laughing.
Re:You guys are missing the point (Score:3, Informative)
Oh snap! [wikipedia.org]
Re:This is not a bad idea (Score:3, Informative)
the lack of respect most Slashdotters have for other beliefs is disheartening.
The same can be applied to believers of religion. However while Slashdotters would let Religionists live as they want, Fundimentalists of various stripes whether Christian Talibans [ucsd.edu] or Muslim Talibans would force people to live the way they say.
Falcon
Re:This is not a bad idea (Score:2, Informative)
Lots of universities have Political Science departments and programs. But no one protests about this.
Yes, and chances are that students would be getting a Bachelor of Arts degree when taking a major in "Political Science". It certainly is possible to study politics and religion with the scientific method, but that doesn't make Liberalism or Conservationism a science, and neither does it make Creationism a science. What's your point?
Re:non-creationist science (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Working vs. Teaching (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This is not a bad idea (Score:2, Informative)
Are you saying the "scientific community" does not have a common definition of the scientific method?? Because if so, we are screwed, and we are all wasting our time.
Would you agree?
No, not at all (on both points). And I'm starting to get the impression that you are Trolling.
Re:That's Fine With Me (Score:3, Informative)
I mean, real schools offer up degrees in philosophy, pottery, and basket weaving and who knows what.
Sure they do. What's wrong with that? But they don't offer a scientific degree in philosophy. They probably offer a masters of art in pottery or clay working. The question then really is, does anyone offer an M.S. in basket weaving? If so is it validly approached as scientific basket weaving?
Creationism isn't science, it's just religious propaganda. It's fine with me if they want to offer a religious or public relations degree in creationism... just not a science degree.
Re:Creationism... (Score:3, Informative)
I am under the impression that evolution HAS been (mathematically) proven by use of genetic algorithms.
I myself on many occasions have overseen the REAL evolution of simulated organism. There exists a plethora of programs (at varying levels of detail) to experience the wonders of this phenomena yourself. It's truly amazing (at least to me) to watch a completely incompetent agent failing to interact with it's environment turn into an efficient resource gather overnight.
Of course I am assuming that DNA is quite a bit like our "agent definition", in that it basically makes us what we are. Holding that assumption as true, and knowing how DNA behaves in it's environment, I cannot find any reason to not accept evolution as fact.
Basically it boils down to this:
1. I assume we're agents interacting with their environment in life-like ways (eating, reproducing, dying, etc.).
2. I assume a mathematical representation of the agent (DNA) that is susceptible to random changes in its code.
3. I assume these agents are under fitness pressure, because they compete to do things like eat and reproduce.
4. I assume that none of these agents is the perfect eating, reproducing, etc. machine.
5. I assume that from the many random changes in the code, the very nature of randomness dictates that some code changes will make the resulting agent more "fit" (better able to eat and reproduce).
6. Assuming further generations of agents receive portions of code from previous generations (allowing beneficial changes to be propagated) the offspring of more "fit" agents will consume more resources and reproduce more (that being the way "fit" is usually determined in nature), thus spreading the code change further.
Every single one of those assumptions is STRONG and evidence supported. I cannot see a weak link in the chain that would allow evolution *NOT* to happen. Like most non-elementary aspects of physics, it's just another system that HAD to come about simply because of the way the universe is set up, whatwith it's mass and energy and space and particle interaction...
Re:Working vs. Teaching (Score:5, Informative)
By that definition, evolution is not science either. It has never predicted anything and never will.
So tell me, does it hurt to be that stupid? [tufts.edu]
Re:Working vs. Teaching (Score:5, Informative)
I've already discussed this in detail on Slashdot, and have archived the conversation here [dumbscientist.com].
But I'll copy the most relevant part. There are several specific predictions that evolution makes:
That's what falsifiability means. There has to be some type of evidence which could, in principle, prove the theory wrong. I've linked to many many more tests in the conversation that list was taken from.
Re:This is not a bad idea (Score:5, Informative)
Ahem: what you've posted has been rather thoroughly refuted by members of the scientific community:
1) http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html [talkorigins.org]
2) http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/magfields.html [talkorigins.org]
I highly recommend that you peruse talkorigins.org and determine the veracity of your claims before posting. Anyone with a reasonable grounding in the relevant topics (geology, astrophysics) can quite quickly see that the articles you have linked to are not sound science, merely poor arguments presented to appear as science.
Re:Working vs. Teaching (Score:4, Informative)
The Copenhagen interpretation [wikipedia.org] is commonly viewed by physicists as a way to wave all the metaphysical issues raised by quantum mechanics off to the side. As Feynman once said, "Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, "But how can it be like that?" because you will get "down the drain," into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that. [regarding quantum theory]"
It's true that interpretations of quantum mechanics aren't experimentally distinguishable (yet-- I've seen some proposals in this direction that seem interesting). But that's scarcely relevant because no undergraduate or graduate quantum mechanics class spends any significant time worrying about interpretations. Most physicists focus on the predictions, which have been verified to an absurd number of significant figures. Students work problems that give real, experimentally testable answers.
It's also true that popular science books give the impression that quantum physics is mystical, and that physicists spend all their time worrying about Schrodinger's Cat. We don't. I think it's an interesting question, and personally prefer [dumbscientist.com] the Everett-Wheeler interpretation, but it's not the central issue. Be careful not to let the interpretations of the equations obscure your view of the equation itself.
Re:Creationism... (Score:4, Informative)
Religion is the anti-thesis of science because you are not allowed to question in religion.
Speaking from personal experience, this is very nearly completely untrue in Judaism.
When was the last time anybody happened to say, "you know the bible/koran/tora needs updating, let's change a few paragraphs shall we."
Most likely not the most recent example, but see Reform Judaism [wikipedia.org]
Re:Creationism... (Score:4, Informative)
When was the last time this happened in religion?
All the time.
Changes in the dogma of Anglican churches over women priests are a recent example.
The history of the early church was full of debates.
All the founders of religions challenged the dogmas of existing religions. All the reformers of religions challenged existing dogma.
It happens slower than in science because there is rarely any new evidence to consider
Scriptures are not changed, but that would be dishonest. It would be like the police changing witnesses' written statements because of evidence they were mistaken or lying. The correct thing to do in both cases is to present both the statements and the evidence or arguments contradicting them.
Re:Working vs. Teaching (Score:4, Informative)
A rabbit in the Cambrian. A fossilized dinosaur with a human skeleton in its stomach. Things of this nature are quite contrary to evolution's predictions.
Re:PROFIT!!! (Score:3, Informative)
Both were brilliant books that I did end up reading during my high school education. Hell, I think I read Mocking Bird in Grade 8. This is coming from Canada, so the rules are obviously different.
Anyways, Catcher in the Rye was and probably is the book that had the greatest impact on me by reading it. It was about a teenage boy going through a great deal of angst for reasons and results that require spoiling too much, but it dealt with many of the same woes that I was experiencing at the time. Since I read it as a teenager, I think the impact was more significant than if I read it today.
(Looking At the Book) its only about 200 pages, so if you were really eager, you could read it in a day, or maybe a couple flights worth of time killing.