Re: Geoscientists and educators take on antievolutionists-long

don findlay wrote:

Jo Schaper wrote:

It is hard to
claim science is being corrupted on a shoestring budget. On the other
hand, having expensive toys breeds the need for more expensive toys.



That's what makes it technology: being "used by our machinery", ..doing
it for no other reason than because we can. "Have thing, can do".  The
other sort of science (done in the mind) is probably better termed
metaphysics.  Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't.

Einstein was a metaphysician? A lot of physics are complex ideas that their proponents then test through mathematics, and finally, by predicting the real world.


But there's no room for the irrational in science, .. although there's
plenty for ethics and morality, ...and 'religion' (especially that
old-time stuff) doesn't have copyright on either.

I don't think people as a species are advanced enough to abandon irrationality. In fact, I'm not sure that will ever happen, even if we have millions of years of evolution to go. It also depends what one means by 'irrational' vs 'insight'.


If you did let ID be taught in schools, how do you see it ending up?
What would they do for a 'higher degree'? (Theology?) In other words,
what difference would it make?
There are many classes one can take in the US, which have no majors. ID is *NOT SCIENCE*. It is philosophy. Why do people major in philosophy? Dunno, but some people do, presumably to answer the question: What are people, what it my (our) place in the universe? That is one of the questions addressed by cosmology and religion as well, albeit with very diverse answers. (BTW, everyone has a set of assumptions they operate from when they get up in the morning. That's philosophy--not just those big books of big words.)

> What is there to teach about it anyhow? 
 I mean that can't be said in a sentence?  You know it's all seen as a
bit of a joke beyond the boundaries of your continent there.

There is a difference between teaching about a belief system and its tenets and evangelizing it. I'm more concerned that outright suppression will cause their movement to grow under "persecution". A person can be extremely knowledgeable about the worlds religions, and personally be an agnostic or atheist. It's always good to know what 'the other guy' is thinking--and why. That has survival value.


> I really don't get what it's all about, other than giving more teachers 
more jobs, and poking holes in hubristic assumptions of 'science'
(which is no bad thing.)  And the Establishment protecting its patch
(which is).

What it is about is people's search for meaning, in an increasingly random and meaningless world, where daily routine in bombarded with ever new types of media, and thousands of previously unknown possibilities have opened up. The world has always been random--but it's only been the last 50 years where people had instant access to every burp around the planet. Not all people find change exhilarating, you know, and many are intolerant of anyone different than they are, which why they try to convert others to some common ground. I don't agree with them, but we seem to be outnumbered.

Look at the difference between 'learning geology' and 'becoming a geologist' and you'll see what I mean. One case is about knowledge and the other is about identity. People need both.

There is a famous quote in which Margaret Fuller, a wildly popular preacher, announced that she 'accepted the universe.' Another person quipped, "She damn well better." If we could get the 'live for Heaven tomorrow' crowd to accept that some intelligence (ANY intelligence) acts in this Universe, maybe they'd agree to take better care of it. It's a Pascal's gamble, of course. Philosophy, not science.




.

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