Comments:

1. I am actually a scientist, and have little patience for over-the-top in-your-face creationism / intelligent design. But I also find myself frustrated with people who believe that evolution "explains the facts". It doesn't. It's a theory that has a lot of plausible hindsight explanations, but in terms of forward predictions (what new life forms will gradually develop over time) it has nothing to its credit. Belief in evolution is just that: belief. You happen to like the way it explains things that we see around us, and you are willing to accept (usually on faith, because few understand the intimate details of things like carbon-14 age dating and isotope chronology) the scientific foundations of the theory.

   I don't see why it makes sense to hammer one faith-based system (creationism) with another (evolution). You can choose to believe anything you want, and most of choose to believe what we were taught in science class in high school. But others choose a different system of understanding. Why is one better than another?

   And anyone who believes that science isn't political (or social) should sit in on some of the NSF funding panel debates. All scientific disciplines have their own cults of what is politically acceptable, and what kinds of views are career-ending.

   Anyone who stifles debate ... "there shouldn't be a debate" ... really isn't very secure in their own belief system.

   Comment by SeanTVar at 15:10 (Central), August 28, 2005

2. One other thing that I should mention - creation and "intelligent design" advocates are not going to stop at biology. Physics and geology are likely the next steps - the Big Bang (creation of the universe) and all geological data suggesting that the earth is older than 6,000 years old are all thorns in the side of religious fanatics. Biology is just the first front in a war against science.

   We can't allow this kind of crap to be taught in our schools - it's weakening our education system, and therefore our country. Already the U.S. is nearly last in all measures of public education among industrialized countries. Our only saving grace is our university system, and already the Chinese and Indians are finding that it's more effective to send their students to universities in other countries (Germany, England, Australia), and the first wave of American-educated students are now being set up as professors in brand-new state-of-the-art universities in China and India. Start learning Mandarin.

   Comment by D.L. at 14:03 (Central), August 29, 2005

3. I'm not sure exactly what you mean when you say "evolution doesn't explain the facts."

   Evolution does not explain epigenetic inheritance, a fact observed in plants and animals. It also does not explain the remarkable natural adaptations that occur in certain species, the Sphex wasp for example.

   If you're going to claim that evolution is "faith-based" then you ultimately have to claim that all science is "faith-based" because that's what science is - finding the theory that gives plausible hindsight explanations.

   Right. I do believe that all science is "faith-based" in the same sense that Thomas Kuhn describes in "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions". We scientists do NOT, most definitely do NOT, abandon scientific theories in favor of better ones when new facts and new rational arguments are put in front of us. Instead, as Kuhn correctly notes, there is a decidedly irrational (almost religious?) stubborness to let go of the increasingly discredited theory. Rather than concede that "phlogiston" didn't exist, for example, in the light of mounting evidence that the theory of combustion was wrong, scientists invoked the rather silly (in hindsight) argument that phlogiston had negative mass.

   Science builds progressively on the work of others, and so it is very difficult to just let go of a theory that has been in vogue for several generations.

   Finally (I hope), I would like to point out that there are other pieces of the science curriculum for which we have no theory, no testable hypotheses, and yet they get taught anyway. Gravity is a good example. We observe the fact of it, and can make predictions about what will happen under the force of gravity, but we have no explanation of WHY it is there, what causes it. Still, we are quite happy to teach gravity to our kids in a purely phenomenological way.

   I can place my trust in these experts ...

   Is there really that much difference between the "trust" that you are willing to place in your experts and the "faith" that others place in those they choose to believe? I really don't believe that anyone ever checks the scientific literature and reviews all the papers and confirms that the scientific truths of others are acceptable. We just accept it as true without checking.

   The reason, by the way, that I think that it might be okay to let creation/ID be taught, alongside evolution, is actually a belief that it would be a great vehicle for discussing the differences in types of belief and types of explanation. I think science, and scientists, would actually be better off if it was clearer to students in school that there are different ways of understanding and explaining the world, science being one particularly powerful (but not infallible) way of doing it.

   What I am opposed to is the insistence, by some, that creation/ID be in the curriculum but that there be no room for critiquing it, for juxtaposing it with alternate explanations.

   Comment by SeanTVar at 13:28 (Central), September 8, 2005

4. Evolution does not explain epigenetic inheritance, a fact observed in plants and animals.

   I'm not sure why you say evolution should explain epigenetic inheritance. Evolution is a theory to explain speciation. Epigenetic inheritance is an interesting phenomenon, but is not mutually exclusive from evolution. In fact, it can serve as an additional source of biological variation - in Arabidopsis thaliana, clarkkent is an epigenetic variant of the SUPERMAN gene, caused by extensive methylation of the gene. This recessive allele can be transmitted meiotically to progeny, which is unusual and runs counter to Mendelian inheritance, but it is not counter to evolution. Is it somewhat Lamarckian? Perhaps, but evolution is not Darwinism.

   With respect to the Sphex wasps, you'll have to elaborate. To my knowledge there is nothing about the digger wasps and their unusual behaviour that runs counter to evolution.

   Science builds progressively on the work of others, and so it is very difficult to just let go of a theory that has been in vogue for several generations.

   Of course it is. But even in your example, the old theory was eventually let go. Experiments must always be repeated and independently confirmed, and even then sometimes a small modification of a theory is enough to explain new facts. Invariably, when new data continues to disprove an old theory, the old theory is discarded in favor of the new one. That is science.

   I'm not sure what you mean about gravity. There most certainly are testable hypotheses and theories about it. The Cavendish experiment is a very simple, but very effective laboratory experiment to verify gravity's effects. In fact there are groups currently running highly refined versions of this experiment in order to investigate string theory.

   I would in fact say that if there was something being taught in a science class that had no testable hypotheses and theories that it should be removed. You can always drill deeper with any phenomenon and find a question that hasn't been answered (to use your example, what is the quantum basis for gravity?), but that doesn't mean the experiments done previously aren't science.

   Is there really that much difference between the "trust" that you are willing to place in your experts and the "faith" that others place in those they choose to believe?

   Of course there is. When I hear about new developments in fields outside my own, I am capable of understanding enough about a paper to determine whether I trust their experimental method or not. They may have, in turn, based their experiments on previous work done by others that they trust. My trust forms a web between individuals that can be backtracked directly to repeated experiments and testable hypotheses. Religious faith cannot.

   I am not opposed to teaching creation/ID, so long as it is not done in a science classroom. Teach it in religious studies along with all the other creation myths.

   Comment by Dennis at 14:31 (Central), September 8, 2005