Evolution vs. Creation/ID: Does This Fight Belong in Schools?
If we stop forcing people to pay into a single pot for "public" education, we can eliminate these disagreements. Parents should educate their children as they see fit. No person has the right to force their views upon the child of another. Most parents want their children taught evolution. Some parents want ID in the curriculum. The only sure way to avoid a violation of someone's right to parent as they see fit is to eliminate involuntary education/educational funding.
Some day I want my kids to learn both, because, as a Creationist, I know that there is no greater enemy to evolutionary dogmatism than exposing it to the light of day (that is to say, the light of rational inquiry). Putting your head in the sand, regardless of your present position, doesn't do any good.
With either evolution or creation, you are ultimately talking about a post hoc, ergo propter hoc (after the fact, therefore because of) argument, which any book on logic will decry as a fallacy. You cannot "prove" things about the past in a conclusive way because you cannot experiment on the past.
You can attempt to replicate the conditions that you believe to have been present, but you are ultimately forced to rest are far too many "givens" for your conclusions to be much more than elaborations on your intial hypothesis.
With that in mind, we are left with a decision that must be made by those who have the authority to make it: what will parents choose to have their children taught? If either side (ID/Creationist OR Evolutionist) attempts to coerce families into surrendering this right, it is tyranny. We do not allow the government to tell us what religion to adhere to, so why do we think that it should be able to dictate a universal position on this issue, which is clearly a matter of religious faith?
Evolutionists must, in the end, choose to believe that speciation was the result of natural processes that we cannot observe. Creationists must choose to believe in their respective explanation of how the many different biological kinds came to be. Both decisions are based on faith, and not on any ironclad argument, either inductive or deductive.
Evolutionary theory is not the result of scientific experimention. It is the result of speculation based on observation. This cannot rightly be considered "science" because it does not follow the scientific method.
Observation
Question
Hypothesis
Prediction
Experiment
Analysis
Conclusion
If it doesn't incorporate those steps, it isn't "scientific" in any meaningful sense. You cannot, solely based on the self-avowed "reasonable" nature of your particular hypothesis, disregard all others.
Example: If I observe bees gathering nectar, and I hypothesize that they are so successful because they are utilizing biologically-based RF transmitters to disseminate the location of particularly fruitful area, this is not an unscientific hypothesis, per se. If I claim this based only on my observation and without experimentation, it is an unscientific claim, because I did not derive it from the scientific method. I can, of course test this hypothesis by, let's say, introducing some sort of RF interference that, given my hypothesis, could disprove my claims. I then have to control for whatever my independent variable is. My final conclusion could, with scientific authority, only say whether the hypothesis is true or false (along with any mitigating factors that were discovered in the process of the experiment) or undetermined (if my experiment failed).
posted by Dick Clark @ Wednesday, September 28, 2005
5 comments
5 Comments:
You are right, I believe in saying that Evolution cannot be considered science based on the scientific method, but then could ID be considered the same? Maybe that is not the point. The step that seems to be missing is the results after the test, because it seems evolution is (I think as most people would argue) still at work. If the Creationist argument is argued, the result would have to be gathered outside this world. (Does this even make any sense? Is it possible to see what I am making a point for?)
You are correct: neither ID nor Evolution are strictly scientific in methodology. That is to say, the broad conclusions drawn cannot be considered the result of scientific induction. Both pre-suppose a particular teleology, and then work from there.
Greetings, Mr. Clark.
I believe you are mistaken on your politics, in part. There is no "right to parent" that extends nearly as much as present social and legal norms allow for. You are right, in my opinion, in your pragmatic stance, that destatization of schools allows for greater fulfillment of the goals of those who use the system, but I believe, in the ethical realm, the rights are not necessarily those of the parents, themselves, but rather, at least in part, and at some levels of maturity, the children themselves. That is to say, the legal system as it stands seems clearly to give parents a right--a "political" right, or a "state-licensed" right--or rather a privilege-- to lord it over their 17-year old 'children'. (Indeed, a point could probably be made indicating that the trend is to make young adults increasingly relieved of the responsibiltiy for their lives, at the same time as making them more useful servants (or slaves) of the system.)
So, while it may be that there is some right to parent those who lack the ability to run away from home (by one, somewhat odd, to my intuition, standard) or lack the ability to reason, by another standard. But it is far less than that privilege granted to parents these days, as junior partners (to use Rothbard's description of labor unions after the state's interventions) of the state--at once privileged and abused (and hence, perhaps more one the fence as natural allies than someone like Rockwell might presuppose--Rockwell often counting on the bourgeoie to be the main bastion of liberty, my analysis here disagreeing with that).
Second point: I must take issue with the claim that the scientific method is the only scientific method. (I know that sounds like a logical contradiciton but only because of the semantic confusion arising from an arrogant title claimed by "the" scientific method. (What kind of fallacy is that called, the one that would confuse two meanings of terms?)) You would, I reckon, admit that the science of economics depends on a different method.
You would, however, probably suggest that while economics can be a deductively approached science, inasmuch as it approches the science from axioms of human existence that are prior to any (psychological) presuppositions--axioms that are true necessarily of all beings which "act" (the question depending of course in turn on what it means to von Mises, in particular, to act--it is distinct from other sciences, like, particularly, the issues in this aspect of biology.
But I would say that assumption needs to be justified, whether or not it is true. Is it not possible that certain things can be assumed of all humans by virtue of something other than that act.-such as the fact that they die and that they are aware that they die? (That might be termed the thesis of Ernest Becker, cultural anthropologist and psychologist and author of THe Denial of Death.) That is to suggest that another science--some aspects of psychology, let's call them the psychodynamic aspects--depend on axioms that may have logical consequences themselves.
Perhaps it may not be absurd to suggest the same may be the case with respect to the issues around the development and genesis of the different species (or as Darwin put it, On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life), as an issue in the philosophy of science.
Or perhaps, alternatively, there is yet a third viable method in science besides teh axiomatic-deductive and the empirical/positivstic one.
THird point, I'm not sure I can agree that evolution takes certain issues on faith. It seems as though it may take as universally true certain propositions, with respect to living creatures. But I really don't know what I'm taking about with respect to the issues in evolution.
Peace.....
Vardaman,
I do not assume any right on the part of parents to force their children to do anything once the child reaches that age at which he can flee to "greener pastures" outside the confines of his paternal home. I do assume the right of a service consumer to be able to withhold payment for services rendered that are not in keeping with the explicit wishes of the customer.
Although I would agree with Rothbard that parents ought have no legal duty to educate their children, I think they certainly have a moral imperative to do so. Along these lines, the founder of the feast picks the menu. That is to say, so long as the child submits himself to his parents' authority, his rights are not violated by any curriculum choice.
As for your claim of a fallacy of equivocation regarding my definition of science, I am perfectly conscious of the fact that many people wish to assign the label "science" to any discipline in which experimentation is carried out in some sense. I think that a discipline does not meet the bill if you cannot control your variables. I use the word science to mean empirical science. I do not use the term to refer to philosophy,or any of the other (non-empirical science) children of philosophy.
Please understand that I am not attempting to use empirical science to subjugate philosophy; rather, I am doing the reverse. Philosophy is certainly superior to empirical science in terms of the absolutely certain nature of your results. I simply do not like to use to the word "science" for philosophical inquiry, precisely because it is confusing to most people, as it lends some sort of white-coat authority to people who are engaged in thought experimentation, but not scientific experimentation.
Again, I believe that a scientist is defined by his chosen methodology, and, because I reject on epistemological grounds the claims of psychologists, sociologists, and most economists, I refuse to classify them as scientists. They are scientists by pay-stub pronouncement only, not by definition.
Science is an inductive method of inquiry, not deductive. Deductive reasoning is better described as philosophical, not scientific. I would classify praxeology as a branch of philosophy (and ontological in nature, to be more specific). Now, we could enter into an argument about the etymology of the word "science." I would rather not, so let me acknowledge that "science" has been used in the broader sense in the past (see this for more info). Since you are someone who rejects the use of the word "capitalism" due to its colloquial meaning (which is of course at conflict with its etymological/literary meaning), I expect that you can understand my reasoning here.
COMPLETELY UNEXPECTED. A real monkey wrench is about to hit both sides in the ID vs Evolution debate and particularly religion is in for difficult times. For a wholly new interpretation of the teachings of Christ, contained within the first ever religious claim and proof that meets all the criteria of the most rigorous, evidential, testable scientific method, is published and circulating on the web. It is titled The Final Freedoms. An intellectual, religious and political bombshell!
It is described by a single Law and moral principle, offering its own proof, one in which the reality of God confirms and responds to an act of perfect faith, by a direct intervention into the natural world, delivering a correction to human nature, including a change in natural law [biology], consciousness and human ethical perception [proof of the soul], providing new, primary insight and understanding of the human condition!
So while proponents of ID may have got the God part right, if this development demonstrates itself to be what it claims, and the means exist to do so, all religious teaching, tradition and understanding of ID are wholly in error, while the proponents of evolution who have rightly used that conception to beat down the credibility of religious tradition, but who have also used it to deny the potential for God, are in for a very rude shock.
However improbable, what history and theology have presumed to be impossible is now all too achievable. The implications defy imagination! No joke, no hoax and not spam.
Review copies of the manuscript, prior to paper publication, are a free pdf download from a number of sites including: www.energon.uklinux.net and http://thefinalfreedoms.bulldoghome.com
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