New at Reason

Julian Sanchez | February 9, 2005

Ron Bailey searches in vain for intelligence in the arguments for intelligent design.

Comments

|2.9.05 @ 10:18AM|#

Perhaps the concern people have is not that their kid shouldn't learn "x", it's that NO kid should learn "x". I think the basis of public schools is that parents aren't content to merely affect their own children's lives. How unfortunate.

|2.9.05 @ 10:39AM|#

My question for the intelligent design crowd is "how many designers do you think there were?" Multiple intelligent designers would explain things like the platypus.

|2.9.05 @ 10:41AM|#

Is God irreducibly complex?

|2.9.05 @ 10:44AM|#

To people with inferior educations, concepts that are wholly understood by others with superior educations are considered "irreducibly complex." Hell, I think calculus is irreducibly complex. Was Isaac Newton really God incarnate?

MP|2.9.05 @ 10:45AM|#

Although I am no fan of Public schools, I can see no reason why ID should be taught in a secular school system. If parents want their kids exposed to ID, send them to Sunday school.

|2.9.05 @ 10:45AM|#

One could almost say that the window is closing on Intelligent Design.

Mike|2.9.05 @ 10:50AM|#

One could almost say that the window is closing on Intelligent Design.

The window closed 100 years ago. They're just standing outside, pounding, begging to be let back in.

|2.9.05 @ 10:56AM|#

If parents want their kids exposed to ID, send them to Sunday school.

Agreed. Or to a private religious-based school.

|2.9.05 @ 11:01AM|#

2 things always get to me about intelligent design.

(For persepctive, I am a devout Christian who has no problem with evolution AND my faith compels me to believe that God set the whole clockwork in motion)I.

First, the effort is being driven by strict interperationalist (is that a word?) of the Bible, yet ID, by allows for longer stretches of time than the Bible encompasses.

Second, (pinwheeling off the first) is that by focusing on biology, they (seem to) make a distinction between the creation of man and the creation of the universe.

Now this is clearly NOT a tenent of fundamentalist Christianity as the creation of the whole shebang go hand in hand. And it opens the door to other possibilities...such as aliens creating man.

Ultimately...what do they hope to gain by putting forth ID if by muddying the water for evolution they piss in their own swimming pool as well?

|2.9.05 @ 11:25AM|#

madpad, I seem to recall reading an article several years ago (probably in Discover Magazine) in which it was revealed that many ID advocates don't particularly believe their own arguments. They view ID as a wedge to break open the "Darwinist stranglehold" on public education, and thus its introduction into the curriculum is merely a prelude to getting the teaching of full-blown Biblical literalism approved. As for the aliens thing, in recent years rightwing anti-evolutionists have increasingly teamed up with leftwing anti-rationalists. IIRC, Robert T. Pennock's book "Tower of Babel: The Evidence Against the New Creationism" has some descriptions of that. It's pretty much a repeat of the feminist/fundamentalist alliance against pornography.

PintofStout|2.9.05 @ 11:27AM|#

Government compelled and controled schooling is the elephant in the room.

Mike|2.9.05 @ 11:29AM|#

Government compelled and controled schooling is the elephant in the room.

And also explicitly recognized in the article.

PintofStout|2.9.05 @ 11:32AM|#

yeah, I just wanted to use that phrase. ;)

|2.9.05 @ 12:19PM|#

I am confused at the fearful reaction to the theory of intelligent design. It is not inherently religious. There is nothing about the theory of intelligent design that holds that the designer persists or has any effect or power over human civilization. Moreover, it is only out of ideology that one would think one precludes the other. Some of us have simply grown tired of the anthropic/best-of-all-worlds theorems.

It seems Bailey's opposition to teaching the theory is rooted in "We Know What You REALLY Mean." Nancy Hopkins and crew had the same reaction to Harvard President Larry Summers.

|2.9.05 @ 12:19PM|#

"First, the effort is being driven by strict interperationalist (is that a word?) of the Bible, yet ID, by allows for longer stretches of time than the Bible encompasses."

Which brings me to the biggest problem I have with Christian fundies: exactly WHO wrote the Bible? You can't tell me it's God himself, because there are way too many scientific errors in the texts since disproven by modern science. It can only be men, and what men were these? These books were written between 500 BC--100 AD, then were trimmed down and even deleted from the canon by the Imperial Church in the 4th Century.

So, the fundies want to base scientific progress on the writings of a group of itinerant preachers, semiliterate shepherds and the ocassional scholar, then edited by bureaucrats with the title of "bishop". But they still want the rest of us to find the cure for cancer. Unbelievable.

|2.9.05 @ 12:23PM|#

So does this mean flat-earthers should be able to send their kids to schools that teach that the earth is flat? Is it fair to the child to withhold knowledge from them that they might find useful in later life? IOW, do the parents have the right to keep their child ignorant and scientifically illiterate? (Even if you don't believe in evolution, evolutionary theory is a large and influential part of our culture. I don't believe in Christianity, but without understanding Christianity you can't understand a great deal of western history, art and literature).

|2.9.05 @ 12:24PM|#

Intelligent design is flawed.

Evolution: Still questionable, and will remain so until the so-called "precambrian explosion" is explained. This rapid progression in the fossil record is a potential torpedo to the good ship "evolution theory"

Maybe it was the black monolith.

|2.9.05 @ 12:26PM|#

rst, the objection is, I D isn't science. It can't be tested, falsified, or proven. There isn't really an evidence for it, just speculation. Yet its supporters want it to be taught as science.

|2.9.05 @ 12:32PM|#

You can't tell me it's God himself, because there are way too many scientific errors in the texts since disproven by modern science.

Standard retort:

The Bible is not a book of science, but every place it touches on science, it does so infallibly. Hence, if science or anything else contradicts the Bible, that thing is wrong and the Bible remains.

IOW, they don't believe it is possible to contradict the Bible. The Bible cannot be wrong, and hence anything said against it is necessarily wrong.

- Josh

|2.9.05 @ 12:32PM|#

cdunlea - yeah, and unless you can read ancient Greek and Hebrew, you aren't actually reading the Bible. You're reading a translation. It's not a transparent process either, rendering almost 2000 year old Greek into modern English. Hebrew is even further removed. So the idea that you're reading the Literal Word of God is a little off.

(I suppose the answer to that is God inspired the translator . . . etc.)

MC Hawking|2.9.05 @ 12:33PM|#

Fuck The Creationists
Trash Talk
Ah yeah, here we go again!
Damn! This is some funky shit that I be laying down on your ass.
This one goes out to all my homey's working in the field of
evolutionary science.
Check it!

Verse 1
Fuck the damn creationists, those bunch of dumb-ass bitches,
every time I think of them my trigger finger itches.
They want to have their bullshit, taught in public class,
Stephen J. Gould should put his foot right up their ass.
Noah and his ark, Adam and his Eve,
straight up fairy stories even children don't believe.
I'm not saying there's no god, that's not for me to say,
all I'm saying is the Earth was not made in a day.

Chorus
Fuck, fuck, fuck,
fuck the Creationists.

Trash Talk
Break it down.
Ah damn, this is a funky jam!
I'm about ready to kick this bitch back in.
Check it.

Verse 2
Fuck the damn creationists I say it with authority,
because kicking their punk asses be me paramount priority.
Them wack-ass bitches say, "evolution's just a theory",
they best step off, them brainless fools, I'll give them cause to fear me.
The cosmos is expanding every second, every day,
but their minds are shrinking as they close their eyes and pray.
They call their bullshit science like the word could give them cred,
if them bitches be scientists then cap me in the head.

Chorus

Trash Talk
Bass!
Bring that shit in!
Ah yeah, that's right, fuck them all motherfuckers.
Fucking punk ass creationists trying to set scientific thought back 400 years.
Fuck that!
If them superstitious motherfuckers want to have that kind of party,
I'm going to put my dick in the mashed potatoes.
Fucking creationists.
Fuck them.

|2.9.05 @ 12:33PM|#

cd - the bible is held to be the word of God but written by man. Otherwise I think it would have been written in a different person.

do the parents have the right to keep their child ignorant and scientifically illiterate?

In a word, yes.

I don't know what it's about for these fools. But pretending that evolution is your one-stop-shop for any theorizing on our origins is absurd. God might just exist, and there's absolutely nothing you can do to prove otherwise. That doesn't mean he does, or that if so, you even have to follow his rules. But the probability that the earth was designed to achieve some amount of life from lifelessness is nonzero.

Intelligent design is flawed.

How so?

rst, the objection is, I D isn't science. It can't be tested, falsified, or proven.

In that sense, neither is evolution. Structural similarities, skeletal or molecular, do not imply a relationship. Evolution answers the human needs to fill the spaces between those similarities. Many desperately want it to be science, but at the end of the day it is of no greater mathematical certainty than the belief that earth is as designed.

|2.9.05 @ 12:48PM|#

should have said, many desperately want it to be fact as opposed to theory.

|2.9.05 @ 12:49PM|#

rst,

Evolution is science; and very good science at that. It is falsifiable.

I.D. (so far) isn't much in the way of science. Indeed, its a good illustration of those with an ideological position way ahead of what the empirical evidence supports.

|2.9.05 @ 12:51PM|#

rst,

You do understand what a "theory" is, right?

|2.9.05 @ 12:53PM|#

rst,

Let's cut to the chase: a theory is a fully substantiated description or analysis of some aspect or portion of the natural world. Evolution is this, I.D. is not. Until I.D. is this, it should be viewed in a skeptical, incredulous manner.

|2.9.05 @ 12:56PM|#

rst,

BTW, anyone who doesn't realize that I.D. is the creation of creationists simply isn't paying attention. Anyone remotely familiar with institutions like the Discovery Institute, Michael Behe, etc. knows this.

tomwright|2.9.05 @ 12:57PM|#

"...and eventually those made fitter in the struggle for life by better education will win."

Until the ignorant majority, being sore losers, with bible/koran/ching/bhagavad/manifesto/etc. in one hand, torches in the other and badges of authority on their chests, banners emblazoned with the effigies of their savior/messiah/prophet/fuehrer/chairman, march down the street to our schools and homes, haul us and our children out to the pyre and burn us for heresy.

Happens all the time.


Tom

|2.9.05 @ 1:03PM|#

Is Evolution valid? In the philosophical sense, no one knows. In the scientific sense the answer is largely, yes. It provides an intellectual framework for explaining many things which, before it, relied on supernatural explanations. It provides a framework for understanding the diversity of species, for extinction, and for biological change. It dovetails well with aspects of geology, chemistry and physics. It's a good working theory, and like all scientific theories it is not perfect. There are phenomena which it struggles to explain. Some scientists have proposed modifications to it; maybe some of those modifications will lead to a truer theory of species.

So, are the alternatives to Evolution, such as Intelligent Design, wrong? In the philosophical sense again, no one knows. In the scientific sense of truth, one major problem of Intelligent Design is that it violates the rules of the game. By invoking a supernatural influence it is by definition outside the game of science. Why is this so bad? Because once this rule is broken, any of the rules can be broken. When something cannot be explained by a natural process it allows the default explanation that the cause is a supernatural process. It ends the debate; it ends the experiment; it ends the game. It does not promote the growth of knowledge.

|2.9.05 @ 1:06PM|#

cd - the bible is held to be the word of God but written by man. Otherwise I think it would have been written in a different person.

So if it's the word of God, why does it contradict itself? Why is it an unholy abomination to eat swine in the 7th century BC, but OK in the 1st century AD? Did God change his mind? Well, He must have, since veterinary scientific improvement in that span of time was nil and the pig was still a dirty, diseased animal.

Issues like that--the idea that the Law of God from Mt Sinai can be abrogated by God, his Son or his representatives--does not imply a perfect, onmipotent God. So unless you are willing to concede that God is making it up as He goes along, you have to throw out the infallibility of the Bible.

Besides, even the Orthodox Jews do not make that claim, and their scholarship with the Bible is longer than anyone else's.

|2.9.05 @ 1:07PM|#

Slainte',

Its also important to note that many of the things that Darwin claimed have been falsified; if it hadn't been, that's pretty strong evidence that it isn't science.

|2.9.05 @ 1:09PM|#

ALL HAIL THE GOD OF THE GAPS!!!

And I do believe that the purpose of public schools is many-fold. It gives us a public arena to decide what eachothers children can learn, subsidized daycare, union fostering environments, anti-competitive state monopoly, and an increadibly volitile forum for endless political debate and lobying. Hooray!

|2.9.05 @ 1:12PM|#

Until the ignorant majority, being sore losers, with bible/koran/ching/bhagavad/manifesto/etc. in one hand, torches in the other and badges of authority on their chests, banners emblazoned with the effigies of their savior/messiah/prophet/fuehrer/chairman, march down the street to our schools and homes, haul us and our children out to the pyre and burn us for heresy.

Survival of the fittest!

|2.9.05 @ 1:13PM|#

yeah, and unless you can read ancient Greek and Hebrew, you aren't actually reading the Bible. You're reading a translation. It's not a transparent process either, rendering almost 2000 year old Greek into modern English. Hebrew is even further removed. So the idea that you're reading the Literal Word of God is a little off.

In fairness, the Bible is the most studied book in human history by an unbelieveable margin. Its original languages have been the subject of intense scrutiny for hundreds of years. Today there are about 100 different translations of the Bible into English, many reflecting state-of-the-art scholarship, corrections of errors of older translations, and continuing interfaith dialogue between Christians and Jews.

I think it's safe to say that someone reading the Bible in English can have good confidence that they're getting the meaning of the original text.

- Josh

|2.9.05 @ 1:13PM|#

But pretending that evolution is your one-stop-shop for any theorizing on our origins is absurd. God might just exist, and there's absolutely nothing you can do to prove otherwise.

Evolution has absolutely zero to say about the existence of God. Most evolutionists believe in God.

Structural similarities, skeletal or molecular, do not imply a relationship. Evolution answers the human needs to fill the spaces between those similarities.

Evolution is an observed mechanism that explains those similarities better than any other theory. In short, we know evolution occurred with the same certainty that we know the earth revolves around the sun. For the best collection and explanation of the overwhelming evidence demonstrating the reality of evolution, I recommend going to http://www.talkorigins.org.

|2.9.05 @ 1:14PM|#

snake,

I think you mean the "cambrian explosion." Anyway, I am afraid that you've been lead down the wrong path. Its a myth perpetrated largely by creationists that there was an "explosion" in the cambrian period. There are in fact many, many forms of complex life that appeared in the pre-cambrian, and the appearance of most of the major forms of animals on earth did not occur until hundreds of millions of years later.

|2.9.05 @ 1:17PM|#

Les,

Someone doesn't know much about genetics it seems. :)

|2.9.05 @ 1:18PM|#

"'It can't be tested, falsified, or proven.'
In that sense, neither is evolution [a science]."

The studies of nuclear and mitochondrial DNA are used to support the "Out of Africa" theory for the evolution of humanity and the spread of human beings around the globe. This is a section of Evolution theory which can be tested via DNA. These tests lend credence to Evolution, just as a test of a dropped apple leads credence to a theory of gravity.

By the way, in my previous post I should have said:
When something cannot be explained by a KNOWN natural process it allows the default explanation that the cause is a supernatural process.

|2.9.05 @ 1:23PM|#

I think it's safe to say that someone reading the Bible in English can have good confidence that they're getting the meaning of the original text.

I doubt it. If people were really getting the meaning they wouldn't be studying it intently for centuries.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go intensely study some altar boys.

|2.9.05 @ 1:24PM|#

Let's boil this down a bit.

We're talking about the curriculum of 9th and 10th grade biology classes. These are 14-16 year olds, not children. How much say should parents still have in their education? Where would you draw the line between education and abuse?

Here's the other bit: some people today think the Enlightenment was a lousy idea. They prefer to go back to a time when their personal religious beliefs were believed to be a reliable source of knowledge about the world and the products of science were regarded as mere opinions. It is not unforeseeable that they could drive us back to that point.

|2.9.05 @ 1:27PM|#

Rikurzhen,

Given the paucity of evidence available for I.D., teaching it in public schools as some sort of alternative can be analogized to teaching the version of history advocated by holocaust-deniers.

|2.9.05 @ 1:28PM|#

"Why is it an unholy abomination to eat swine in the 7th century BC, but OK in the 1st century AD? Did God change his mind?"

Because many of the rules were more about maintaining the identity of the religious group than the morality of the act itself. The injunction against boiling a young goat in its mother's milk, for example, is not about the best way to prepare goats, but about avoiding the religious and cultural practices of some other culture that existed along with the Hebrews.

Jusaism was an exclusive religion for the Hebrews in the Old Testament - the existance of other gods is remarked on. The teachings of the New Testament, on the other hand, are held to be universal teachings, and thus, rules designed to maintain religious practice as the particular niche of an exclusive group were counterproductive.

|2.9.05 @ 1:44PM|#

Evolution is just a theory, but at least it follows and can be justified by applying the scientific method. Education isn't and should never be indoctrination. ID is indoctrination.

|2.9.05 @ 1:46PM|#

So if it's the word of God, why does it contradict itself?

Two answers. One, because it was written by man, and it is beyond the ability of the human mind to grasp true objectivity. There is also the notion that what appears to be a contradiction to us is not to God, i.e., "for my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts".

"Why is it an unholy abomination to eat swine in the 7th century BC, but OK in the 1st century AD? Did God change his mind?"

Nigga changed his mind. It's in Acts. A hungry and imprisoned (?) Paul (??) is presented with a cornucopia of unclean food that Paul initially rejects. God replies, "Call no thing unclean that I have blessed," or something of the sort.

a theory is a fully substantiated description or analysis

And what, pray tell, "substantiated" Darwin's work?

Thanks for the heads up on what a "theory" is, Gary. I was thinking I'd be sitting here with my hand up the whole afternoon.

How much say should parents still have in their education?

Most, if not all, of it.

|2.9.05 @ 1:58PM|#

The evolution/ID debate aside, the question isn't how much say parents should have over their child's education, but why the state should have any say whatsoever.

|2.9.05 @ 1:59PM|#

Translating the Bible is like translating poetry. I can sorta be done, but it's always approximations. Which is difficult if you're implying that the text you're reading is the literal truth. I mean you get something like this:

En arche en ho logos, kai ho logos en pros ton theon, kai theos en ho logos.

In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.

That's a good literal translation but . . . what the hell does that mean? Translating "logos" to "word" and "arche" to "beginning" misses a bunch of philosophical implications those words have to people familiar with say, Plato. There's a lot of Greek philosophy in early Christianity, where some of the more interesting doctrines come from, like the Trinity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logos

|2.9.05 @ 2:05PM|#

evolution is just a theory, you say?

evolution is a theory AND a fact. the fact of evolution is inferred by observation of biological phenomena. the evolutionary theory provides a mechanistic framework of cause-and-effect that explains how the observed phenomena came to be.

gravity also is a theory and a fact. if I drop a book, it falls because of its attraction to the planet. the fact is, gravity exists. gravitational theory explains how gravity works. Newtonian gravitational theory was supplanted by Einsteinian gravitational theory.

since we still haven't been able to confirm the existance of the "messenger particle" responsible for the gravitational field, the graviton, maybe we should just leave the explanation at "an intelligent being we can't call God for legal reasons created gravity"

RST, what substantiated Darwin's work was observation and experimental testing. evolution is testable by both observation of predicted phenomena and experimentation.

|2.9.05 @ 2:13PM|#

RST,

If Paul had known a little more about Judaism he would have eaten not because g-d blessed the food but because Jews are not required to follow the law of kashrut if it means they will starve or otherwise injure themselves. As the Shulhan Arukh observes, "preservation of life overrides all other considerations." Similarly, it would be sinful to impair one's health by fasting while seriously ill, or to wait until the conclusion of Shabbas or festivals to drive a sick or injured party to the hospital. According to the Shulhan Arukh, "One who is zealous (and eagerly violates the Sabbath in such a case) is praiseworthy." (The prohibitions against murder, sexual immorality, and idolatry are, under normal circumstances, the only exceptions.)

I don't practice anymore, but let's be honest about one thing - the early Christians were very bad Jews.

|2.9.05 @ 2:18PM|#

Back on the merry-go-round.

I settle it for everybody. I created the universe, and it wasn't a particularly intelligent design, even I'll say.

MP|2.9.05 @ 2:19PM|#

Sorry, but Gravity is not a fact, and neither is evolution. Gravity is a theory backed up by significant observational evidence, but it is still a theory.

If you want truly hard "facts", you are better off becoming a mathematician and investing your time developing proofs.

ID is a theory with zero observational evidence. It is sheer speculation. That's what makes it bogus.

|2.9.05 @ 2:33PM|#

There is also the notion that what appears to be a contradiction to us is not to God, i.e., "for my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts".

So when God says that He wants everyone to go to Heaven and then He says that he made some to go to Hell, or when He says that he's only angry for a brief time and then He says that he's angry forever, or when He says He dwells in darkness then says He dwells in light, or when He says to fear Him and then not to fear Him, or when He says He never lies and then says sometimes He does, or when He says He loves everyone and then says He hates some people, or when He says He sees everything and then says somethings He can't see, or when He claims to be merciful and then warns that He's not, or when He says that He's unchanging and unable to repent and then says He repented for His evil thoughts, or when He says He respects people and then says He respects no one, or when He said He doesn't tempt people and then says He does, or when He says He doesn't get tired and then says He does, those are contradictions to us but not to Him? Does He control a morphing definition of the word "contradiction?" I'm just trying to understand.

|2.9.05 @ 2:36PM|#

En arche en ho logos, kai ho logos en pros ton theon, kai theos en ho logos.

What's more, you're not quoting the original text, you're quoting the septuagint.

evolution is a theory AND a fact.

There is no such thing. A fact is proven; a theory is unproven. Most of the physical aspects of the universe you take for granted are theories.

evolution is testable by both observation of predicted phenomena and experimentation.


Evolution has been observed as an existing process, insofar as the presence of common features serve to "prove" a link between organisms. It provides insight into our biology, but not our origins, nor does it indicate any causality in either direction.

gravity also is a theory and a fact.

Gravity is not a fact, it's theory: Fg = G(m1m2/r^2)

|2.9.05 @ 2:36PM|#

Hello Earth,

I want all you people to be out by the end of the month. I've got a buyer that's interested in the property.

God

|2.9.05 @ 2:43PM|#

First off, biologist, Evolution, although you may believe in it strongly, is still a theory, as MP said.

Now to pick you all to pieces:

yeah, and unless you can read ancient Greek and Hebrew, you aren't actually reading the Bible. You're reading a translation. It's not a transparent process either, rendering almost 2000 year old Greek into modern English. Hebrew is even further removed. So the idea that you're reading the Literal Word of God is a little off.

Well, the process of translating the bible (at least the Greek part of it - NT) is pretty transparent. There are standard idioms in the Bible even as there are in any modern language. These idioms - although argued on the best literal translation - still have a clear meaning. It's the broad words, such as "love", "law", "knowledge" -- i.e. words that are encompassing ideas - that are vague and debatable.

So the idea that you're reading the Literal Word of God is a little off.

It's more than a little off. That isn't the Literal Word of God. The bible was written by a collection of different human authors, of many different personal origins and backgrounds.

In fairness, the Bible is the most studied book in human history by an unbelieveable margin. Its original languages have been the subject of intense scrutiny for hundreds of years. Today there are about 100 different translations of the Bible into English, many reflecting state-of-the-art scholarship, corrections of errors of older translations, and continuing interfaith dialogue between Christians and Jews.

I think it's safe to say that someone reading the Bible in English can have good confidence that they're getting the meaning of the original text.


You, also, are wrong. Not because of your first paragraph, but because of your conclusion. The fact still remains that the people who are translating the original languages can AND DO distort and edit the original context and syntax, and "interpret" the original words in the manner they feel best. Based on most people, the translations almost always coincidentally agree with their own personal religious and social agenda, even if the differences are slight. If you are not translating the bible in it's original language, you *really aren't* reading the biblical texts, and you *really don't* know what you *are* reading, except for the translation by it's common name (King James version, etc.), and you have no ability to decipher which is correct just by comparing English translations.


I thought that rap by MC "Peepants" Hawking was hilarious, which isn't usually true of the stupid song lyrics that are frequently posted...

|2.9.05 @ 2:44PM|#

Ha, ha, ha. An argument over what "theory" means.

If it's a theory that you ignore at peril to your life - like gravity - you might as well call it a fact.

If it's a theory that you ignore at peril to your mortal soul - like Christianity - you might as well call it religion.

If it's a theory that you came up with to reinforce faith in your religion - like intelligent design - you might as well call it propaganda.

Incidentally, I thought trying to "prove" Christianity correct was blasphemy. Christians really managed to screw up my former religion.

|2.9.05 @ 2:45PM|#

Excellent article from Bailey.
But there's a more fundamental objection to be raised about this "irreducible complexity" shite ie is it even science to posit a "designer" who mitigates any and all difficult problems thrown up by bio-chemistry or molecular biology ? Apparently, it's just OK with these creationists to claim divine intervention because they don't have the chops or the motivation to come up with a solution to scientific problems. Heck, why not just apply it to all scientific disciplines ?

|2.9.05 @ 2:50PM|#

Does He control a morphing definition of the word "contradiction?"

Actually, we defined contradiction.

I'm just trying to understand.

Aren't we all? Human civilization has been trying to understand for thousands of years, and a long line of folks far smarter than I have had little luck. I doubt I will be able to shed any further light on the subject. However.

He wants everyone to go to Heaven and then He says that he made some to go to Hell

This phenomenon has many parallels in our own world that no one would find hypocritical. We can want a thing for a person, but accept that s/he can only attain it of their own accord, and if they fail, then they alone will face the consequences. This is the right forum for such a philosophy, no? I think it is the implied finality of the subject that makes you cringe at this. Don't worry, hell as a place only emerged from post-crucifixion Jewish mythology revolving around some odd relationship between Golgotha and Gehenna.

He says He dwells in darkness then says He dwells in light

I think you're referring to Isaiah, "the people who have walked in darkness have seen a great light"? Or do you mean the lines about "hiding the face" of the almighty from a people? I'm not sure what you mean.

then not to fear Him

When does God say not to fear Him?

He says He never lies and then says sometimes He does

Ibid, where does God say he lies?

He loves everyone and then says He hates some people

The caveat here is to be careful of the translation; the line for us between love and hate is not the same as the nouns used in Hebrew. At no point however is God depicted as feeling the opposite of what we would call paternal love. At best he will "spit out" the "lukewarm," or put the "goats" on his "left", but hatred as an emotion is never attributed to God.

He can't see...warns that He's not [merciful]...unable to repent...repented for His evil thoughts...respects people...doesn't tempt people and then says He does...or when He says He doesn't get tired and then says He does

Ok, for these you're going to have to quote some verse.

|2.9.05 @ 2:55PM|#

There is no such thing. A fact is proven; a theory is unproven.

According to Mirriam-Webster, along with being a hypothesis, a theory is:

1 : the analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another
2 : abstract thought : SPECULATION
3 : the general or abstract principles of a body of fact, a science, or an art
4 a : a belief, policy, or procedure proposed or followed as the basis of action b : an ideal or hypothetical set of facts, principles, or circumstances -- often used in the phrase in theory
5 : a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena

But Stephen J. Gould put it best:

In the American vernacular, "theory" often means "imperfect fact"--part of a hierarchy of confidence running downhill from fact to theory to hypothesis to guess. Thus the power of the creationist argument: evolution is "only" a theory and intense debate now rages about many aspects of the theory. If evolution is worse than a fact, and scientists can't even make up their minds about the theory, then what confidence can we have in it?

Well evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.

Moreover, "fact" doesn't mean "absolute certainty"; there ain't no such animal in an exciting and complex world. The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us falsely for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional consent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.

Evolutionists have been very clear about this distinction of fact and theory from the very beginning, if only because we have always acknowledged how far we are from completely understanding the mechanisms (theory) by which evolution (fact) occurred. Darwin continually emphasized the difference between his two great and separate accomplishments: establishing the fact of evolution, and proposing a theory--natural selection--to explain the mechanism of evolution.

|2.9.05 @ 2:59PM|#

Oh! Help us, ye Household Gods!
And let not bane and bale, O Marmor, assail more folk!
Be full satisfied, fierce Mars, Leap the threshold! Halt! Beat the ground!
By turns address all the Half-Gods.
Oh! Help us, Marmor!
Bound, Bound, and Bound again!

Now that's religion.

QFMC cos. V

Phil|2.9.05 @ 3:11PM|#

Most evolutionists believe in God.

No, they don't.

|2.9.05 @ 3:17PM|#

Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do

Good point.


And what, pray tell, "substantiated" Darwin's work?

Apart from copius science experiments, it was a big fucking tome called "On the Origin of the Species". And - AND - the research and scientific papers of other scientists of his era and thereafter.

|2.9.05 @ 3:21PM|#

Suddenly, Doug Fletcher, being descended from protozoa and apes doesn't seem so bad.

;-)

|2.9.05 @ 3:27PM|#

Phil,
49% of Americans believe in evolution in some shape or another, 10% in the completely naturalistic sense. Only 5% of Americans don't believe in God. So, assuming 100% of atheists believe in evolution, which as Rand demonstrates isn't true, a majority of people that believe in a completely naturalistic evolution process don't believe in God. In all other cases a majority of people that believe in evolution believe in God.

|2.9.05 @ 3:28PM|#

rst,

If you don't know what substantiates evolution then you don't need to be having this conversation.

smacky,

Stating that it is "just a theory" illustrates your ignorance with regard to what theories are.

__________________________

God(s) don't exist. Why people continue to argue what essentially are the superstitions of ignorant goat herders and the like I can't say.

|2.9.05 @ 3:32PM|#

When does God say not to fear Him?

2 Tim.1:7
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

1 Jn.4:18
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

Ibid, where does God say he lies?

1 Kg.22:23
"Now, therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee."
2 Chr.18:22
"Now therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of these thy prophets."
Jer.20:7
"And if a prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet."
2 Th.2:11
"For this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie."

At no point however is God depicted as feeling the opposite of what we would call paternal love.

Lev.20:23
And ye shall not walk in the manners of the nation, which I cast out before you: for they committed all these things, and therefore I abhorred them.
Ps.5:5
The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity.
Ps.11:5
The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth.
Pr.6:16-19
These six things doth the LORD hate ... A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.
Mal.1:3
And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.
Rom.9:13
As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.

not merciful

Jer.13:14
"I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy."
Ezek.7:4, 9
"And mine eye shall not spare thee, neither will I have pity."
Ex.34:6-7
"The Lord God ... visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation."
1 Sam.15:2-3
"Now go an smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not, but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling."

does not repent

Num.23:19
"God is not a man that he should lie; neither the son of a man that he should repent."
1 Sam.15:29
"The Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent."

repents

Jer.15:6
"I [God] am weary of repenting."
Jer.18:8
"I [God] will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them."
Ex.32:14
"And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people."

respects people

Ps.138:6
"Though the Lord be high, yet hath he respect for the lowly."
Ex.2:25
"And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them."

doesn't respect people

Dt.10:17
"For the Lord your God ... regardeth not persons."
2 Chr.19:7
"For there is no iniquity with the Lord our God, nor respect of persons."
Acts 10:34
"God is no respecter of persons."
Rom.2:11
"For there is no respect of persons with God."

doesn't tempt
Jas.1:13
"Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man."

tempts
Gen.22:1
"God did tempt Abraham."
2 Sam.24:1
"And again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go number Israel and Judah."
Mt.6:13
"And lead us not into temptation."

doesn't get tired

Is.40:28
"Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is he weary?"

gets tired

Ex.31:17
"For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed."

Is.1:14
"I am weary to bear them."

Is.43:24
"Thou has wearied me with thine iniquities."

Jer.15:6
"I am weary with repenting."

|2.9.05 @ 3:32PM|#

Gary Glitter,

I believe you misquoted me. I never said "just a theory" at all. I said "still a theory", which is true. I think you may have misconstrued the tone of my statement. I understand the complexities behind creating a theory, and no, I'm not ignorant. And not coincidentally, I'm not an ID'er or a Creationist, either.

MP|2.9.05 @ 3:36PM|#

I hereby nominate Les's 3:32 post as the H&R comment of the day.

|2.9.05 @ 3:41PM|#

Les's collection of Biblical quotes reads like a modern-day coffee table book of anecdotal observations of various people's impressions of God. A "Chicken Soup For the Archaic Soul", if you will.

|2.9.05 @ 3:41PM|#

Weary indeed!

|2.9.05 @ 3:41PM|#

Several things:

First, rst, I seem to recall you once criticizing people who live their lives according to the dictates of a primitive "desert God". So what do you think about people who base their notion of the universe on the Book of Genesis?

Second, obviously all schools should be private, as Ron Bailey pointed out. Until that day comes, I see nothing wrong with at least insisting that the most obvious bullshit be kept out of the tax-funded schools.

Third, on a related note, the reason that I gave above for keeping ID out of schools is the same reason that Christians should oppose vouchers for private schools: Once they start accepting the cash, it will only be a matter of time before the gov't forces Christian fundamentalist schools to teach evolution. If they want to be able to teach creationism, they should reject the public funds.

Fourth, it strikes me that ID shows just how desperate the creationists really are. The God of the Gaps has shrunk from being "He Who Brought the Flood and Confounded the Geologists" to "He Who Has Occasionally Tinkered With the Details of Some Chemical Reactions Over the Past Billion Years." What's ironic is that the very molecular machinery that Behe points to as proof of design is currently the subject of intense inquiry by scientists in fields ranging from evolutionary biology to cell biology to physics and even materials science. They may not have solved every riddle posed by Behe (yet), but it's ironic that he'd pronounce these riddles unsolvable just when so much work is being done.

If in 15 years they are no closer to solving the riddles than they are right now, then I might give ID a closer look. (A sustained lack of data should always force a good scientist to look at crazy alternatives, if for no other reason than to remember what his core assumptions are.) But this is hardly the time to pronounce that molecular motors (e.g. flagella) are the unbridgeable gap in science.


Finally, despite all the talk in this thread about facts vs. theory, practicing scientists don't think about the philosophical points nearly as much as you might suppose. The categories that we work with are:

1) Data: Data is whatever we directly know from measurements, observations, and certain calculations (although those calculations are rarely regarded with the same esteem as experimental data). Data is never wrong, it's just that sometimes it doesn't mean what we think it means.

Data reflects what we actually did in the measurement, which may not be what we think we did. In my optical experiments, I might think I'm measuring light from a layer near the surface of my sample, only to find out later that I was measuring light from the interior. But the data is still right in the sense that it is in fact what was observed.

2) Controversial hypotheses: Things that don't yet have strong support because there is not yet conclusive experimental data from independent sources doing different variations on the experiment.

3) Established theories: Ideas that have been confirmed by many independent investigators doing different variations on the same experiment. That doesn't mean that the idea is actually correct in all cases, but for now it seems to correctly describe, predict, and/or explain what happens within a certain range of phenomena, and until new data comes out to debunk it we'll accept it and work with it.

Note that the physics community accords high esteem to those who test even the most widely accepted theories. Physical Review Letters frequently publishes articles by people testing basic concepts learned in the first 2 years of undergraduate physics. Nobody seriously doubts the validity of these concepts (well, the inverse square law might have some exceptions...), but if somebody can think of an innovative test and execute it carefully, PRL will publish it.

The breakdown of categories that I describe may or may not accurately describe the conclusions of the more philosophical types, and no doubt many of the people in this thread could take me to task for a lack of understanding of the philosophical basis of my field. But it seems to work pretty well, so we run with it.

|2.9.05 @ 3:46PM|#

thoreau,

Excellent remarks.

What's interesting is that if you review much of the claims in The Panda's Thumb (one of the seminal ID texts), that its claims about certain "gaps" in understanding have largely been filled since its last publication (mid-1990s I believe).

|2.9.05 @ 3:54PM|#

I think Stephen J. Gould wrote The Panda's Thumb, a collection of his essays in Natural History magazine. I only point it out because it's probably the only time in my life I'll actually be able to correct Gary.

clarityiniowa|2.9.05 @ 3:55PM|#

Is God irreducibly complex?

Ah, therein lies the rub. Religionists think that ascribing everything to God is a final explanation, and we need not question further. When confronted with the next level of infinite regression, namely, "Who created God?" they simply explain that He was always there. The semantic gymnastics inherent in these ideas � a single being existing without any universe to exist IN, so he has to create it; the idea of supernatural vs. natural (Isn't anything that exists natural by definition?) � are quicksand for anyone who attempts to think.

|2.9.05 @ 3:57PM|#

thoreau,
"If in 15 years they are no closer to solving the riddles than they are right now, then I might give ID a closer look. (A sustained lack of data should always force a good scientist to look at crazy alternatives, if for no other reason than to remember what his core assumptions are."

It is certainly a good idea to examine ones first principles if they don't work. That's just good old-fashioned science. But what would looking at ID do ? It basically says that God helped things along.

|2.9.05 @ 4:06PM|#

Les,

I meant Of Panda's and People. Bonk.

The Panda's Thumb is also an excellent ID debunking blog.

|2.9.05 @ 4:07PM|#

SM-

If I were working in the field of molecular biophysics, and I found myself unable to figure out a pathway by which a particular biochemical mechanism came about, I'd probably re-read Behe's critique to remind myself where the core problems are. It might remind me that the aspects I was working on were not the real stumbling block. Or maybe a flaw in his argument would turn out to generate the germ of a good idea. "Wait, he overlooked this thing. And that is exactly what I need to work on..."

When in doubt, examine a crazy idea, because it might mix things up in your mind and let you start over fresh. That doesn't mean you accept the crazy hypothesis. It's just a more extreme version of my favorite tactic of biking home when I can't get any further in a calculation. Half the time I fix the problem while biking home.

FWIW, I came away with a much better understanding of radioactive decay after I tried to debunk arguments about whether or not decay rates could be variable (something that creationists sometimes bring up to argue against radioactive dating). I looked at what the implications would be if decay rates varied over time in a certain way, and came away understanding what the core assumptions of radioactive decay theory really are.

|2.9.05 @ 4:46PM|#

thoreau,

I do the same thing. I call it being "poor in spirit"; by NOT trying to find something you've tried hard to find, you find it.

|2.9.05 @ 5:03PM|#

ID vs. evolution is a deeply uninteresting argument. To paraphrase Asimov, those who refuse, on religious grounds, to accept that evolution is the best explanatory model for the facts we have are not intellectually interesting, and can be dismissed.

On the other hand, the final bit of the article is very, very interesting:

"...and eventually those made fitter in the struggle for life by better education will win."

This raises the horrible specter of children-as-property again.

It's my right as a person to, for instance, believe in the Great Turtle A'Tuin. It's also my right to pound nails into my head. If I did the latter to my child, I would be (rightly) arrested for child abuse. If I taught my child the former, it would just be me determining my child's education.

Is it an unqualified right to fail to arm your children with actual knowledge? Is this more or less destructive than, for instance, foot-binding? Foot-binding will leave the child unable to walk. Brain-binding will leave the child unable to think. Isn't that just as abusive?

I ask because I know someone who is a smart kid, intellectually curious, clever and a good problem-solver. And he's been fully indoctrinated as a born-again Christian, so that large swaths of scientific knowledge are simply forbidden territory for him. Is this child abuse, to lock entire fields of knowledge away from him, without his informed consent?

|2.9.05 @ 5:07PM|#

isildur, you make a very good point about how indoctrinating a kid with BS could be construed as child abuse.

And if I could think of a way to write that notion into law and enforce it without creating a plethora of slippery slopes, cans of worms, and other problems I'd be all in favor of putting into law.

But that "if" is a big one, and similar "ifs" are the reason I generally support libertarian policies. Regulation always sounds great, until you find out what the side effects are.

|2.9.05 @ 5:09PM|#

Is this child abuse, to lock entire fields of knowledge away from him, without his informed consent?


isildur,

I hold that it isn't, because if the child's really so smart, he will come to that knowledge himself. He doesn't need the government or anyone else telling his parents what to teach him. Anyone who believes everything his parents teach him is probably a fool, anyway.

|2.9.05 @ 5:33PM|#

isildur's point is the interesting one. i'll repeat a part of my post from above:

We're talking about the curriculum of 9th and 10th grade biology classes. These are 14-16 year olds, not children. How much say should parents still have in their education?

|2.9.05 @ 5:39PM|#

This is dangerously close to a slippery slope of the dabate brushed over yesterday. The obvious seems to be to give the child more discretion to determine their own education. But where does child empowerment end? That gets very tricky and highly suspicious to a lot of people. Of course IMHO many of our woes stem from being dreadfully afraid of our children.

Wont someone think of the children (and what they may choose to do of our own perceptions of reality)?

|2.9.05 @ 5:45PM|#

isildur's point is the interesting one. i'll repeat a part of my post from above:

We're talking about the curriculum of 9th and 10th grade biology classes. These are 14-16 year olds, not children. How much say should parents still have in their education?


And how much say should anyone else (e.g. government and society) have? Are you suggesting that someone should impose rules on when a parent can no longer "parent" i.e. guide their children morally/ideologically/technically? Don't misunderstand me, I'm not even religious, but I think if there's already a legal age limit (18 yrs.) when a child becomes an official "adult citizen", and there are already laws that state parents are legally responsible for the "child" (I say "child" based on the law) up until his/her 18th birthday, then it's only right that parents can tell their kid whatever kvatch they want, regardless of age. And they can tell their kid whatever kvatch they want after his 18th birthday, too, because we live in a free country. But neither before or after the 18th birthday is that child being "abused". There's no crime being committed except ignorance.
As an aside, I am really sick of the word "abused" being misused and overextended. Enough with the metaphors.

|2.9.05 @ 5:46PM|#

I find it bizarre that libertarians are arguing that information should be excluded from the curriculum of public schools because such persons do not like the information. That is incredibly paternalistic. Are you somehow afraid of exposing people to knowledge? Are you afraid that someone might choose for themselves to believe in creation or intelligent design instead of evolution? Why do you care? Let the information be presented and allow individuals to determine for themselves what they want to believe.

It's not like evolutionary theory is an unassailable proposition. The theory is rife with holes, and defenders conveniently utilize the same means of removing issues out of observable science when they can't scientifically demonstrate them that creationists do.

|2.9.05 @ 5:47PM|#

Sorry, the unwritten corollary of my point is:

the current debate is about whether parents or the state should have the power to lord over the education of teenagers -- it's not clear to me that one has any more right to do so than the other

|2.9.05 @ 5:49PM|#

I guess my primary stumbling block in discussions about education where the libertarian position reduces to 'private schools, you send your kid to Freako-Baptist Elementary, I'll send mine to Reason High' is 'informed consent'.

Ok, I'm not supposed to initiate the use of force against other people. There's a special-case exception for children, though; I sort of own my children, in that I consent in their place. They have to do what I say, and the compulsion I'm allowed to use is, really, physical force.

And yet I can't imagine anyone except the freakiest anarchist arguing that I should be allowed to kill my child for disobedience. I probably can't even beat my child. So I can initiate physical force against my child enough to spank him, or send him to his room, or make him sit in the corner, but some controlling principle sets a limit on how much physical force I can use.

Ok, so given that physical child abuse is out, why isn't mental child abuse? Some is, of course; there are degrees of psychological torture that are unacceptable. But 'sit in the corner' really is torture by boredom, isn't it? Can I belittle my child, call him an idiot? Can I spend years convincing my child of his worthlessness, so that he never becomes a functioning adult? Clearly, just as with physical abuse, there's a line somewhere for mental abuse. A little is ok, because that's discipline (and if you think you can manage a child without the 'torture' of Time-Outs, you're nuts). A lot is not ok.

I'm not claiming to be a philosopher here; I'm just a historian. But it seems to me that if there's a line of legal intervention to be drawn for physical abuse, and a line to be drawn for mental abuse, there's a huge overlooked hole: what about educational abuse? Why is it OK to teach your kids any old thing that you like?

I can imagine an extreme case where I never teach a child to speak. Or I consistently teach him incorrect meanings for words. Or I keep him illiterate so he can't challenge my authority. I can imagine teaching a child deeply incorrect things about the world, so that he can't function in society. I could, in the style of a recent movie, teach my children nothing about the outside world, so that they're totally unfit to live outside my little kingdom. I can educate someone as a remorseless killer; I can train a child to strap explosives to his back and run into a crowded cafe.

Why is that OK?

'Private schools' and 'nobody should tell a parent how to raise their child' sidestep the issue entirely. Clearly, we do tell parents how to raise their children, because we don't flinch from serious legal action when it turns out parents are physically or mentally abusing their charges. Clearly, children are not the exclusive property of their parents.

So where's the line we draw in the field of education? And if there's no line, why not? -- the burden of proof that there should be no line in this particular case, when there obviously are lines in other cases, is wholly on the person arguing against the line.

Phil|2.9.05 @ 5:51PM|#

Mo, I was taking "evolutionists," in context, to mean people who work professionally in a scientific field dealing with evolution. On that basis, I am correct -- an ever-lessening number of people in the hard scientists claim to believe in a deity, with biologists and anthroplogists having the lowest percentage, and astronomers having the highest, but all of them well south of 50%. I don't have a cite handy, but if you need one I'll find it.

CodeMonkeySteve|2.9.05 @ 5:59PM|#

Multiple intelligent designers would explain things like the platypus.

I think a more likely hypothesis would be multiple stupid designers. I can easily believe in a universe created by committee.

And in a sense, that's all natural selection is -- evolution by committee, except that no one gets fired, just dead.

|2.9.05 @ 6:12PM|#

I find it bizarre that libertarians are arguing that information should be excluded from the curriculum of public schools because such persons do not like the information.

Actually, they're arguing that certain information be excluded from science class. There's plenty of room for ID theory in a comparative religion class, where it belongs.

It's not like evolutionary theory is an unassailable proposition. The theory is rife with holes...

Why not give us a few examples of these "holes?"

|2.9.05 @ 6:14PM|#

glad to see some discussion on the actual point of Bailey's article, rather than the evolution/ ID tangent, but I just have to say a few more things:

smacky: I said evolution was a theory.

rst: if all that is gravity is embodied by the theory defined by the equation you stated and not a fact, then how did things stay in place on the planet, and how did the planets stay in orbit around the sun before anyone worked out the theory/ equation?

thanks, Les for straightening out fact vs. theory vs. hypothesis, and Thoreau for his excellent comments

Brian: did you hear about all the "holes" in evolutionary theory from evolutionary biologists, or ID/ creationist people? what are the holes?

Phil: I don't know about anyone else, but I would like to see a cite supporting your assertion

|2.9.05 @ 6:15PM|#

Phil,

"Evolutionists" was a poor choice of words on my part. But the fact is that most people who accept evolution also believe in God.

|2.9.05 @ 6:17PM|#

what about educational abuse? Why is it OK to teach your kids any old thing that you like?

So, isildur, your arguement is essentially that because we have all these other restrictions, why not add more terminology and more restrictions? There is no such thing as "educational abuse" because people are allowed to believe whatever the fuck they want to believe. "Mental" and "Physical" are the two main realms of the world; that is why we have laws against physical and mental abuse. "Educational" is a subset of "mental". You are also sneakily drawing parallels between teaching a child creationism/ID and teaching them how to murder, which is against the law and therefore aiding and abetting "physical abuse". Asking why parents are allowed to teach their children whatever they want is like asking why the sky is blue. It's just a fact of nature. It's like asking why babies grab for the breast. To address your question, it's because there is no way everyone in the USA(at this epoch), much less this discussion thread, could ever agree upon a single set of rules to govern the rearing of children. It's the same reason why none of us have the exact same DNA/genes. We're "individual".
I really hope you're playing devil's advocate, btw.

|2.9.05 @ 6:26PM|#

Smacky,

I'm not, and you've sidestepped the argument.

"Asking why parents are allowed to teach their children whatever they want is like asking why the sky is blue. It's just a fact of nature."

That makes zero sense. Let me rephrase, to try to make my point again:

"Asking why parents are allowed to [beat their children] is like asking why the sky is blue. It's just a fact of nature."

Parents do not, in any reasonable person's worldview, have full license to the persons of their children. There are legal limits to what a parent can do to their child.

But the libertarian position on education seems to be '... except in education, where a parent can train their child to be non-functional.'

"So, isildur, your arguement is essentially that because we have all these other restrictions, why not add more terminology and more restrictions?"

I dunno. The sense I get from your argument is that you'd like to see even fewer 'other restrictions.' If you don't agree with me that beating children is objectively wrong and outside the license a parent has over their child, we probably won't reach an agreement about education, either.

"...people are allowed to believe whatever the fuck they want to believe."

Oh really? Is a child raised in the mountains of Afghanistan 'allowed' to believe that people have sent probes to Mars looking for evidence of life?

It's very pat and not at all constructive to claim that children raised to believe one thing have free agency to believe another thing upon turning 18. I don't know to what degree your education shaped you, but when you reach the age of 18, there are limits to your mental flexibility. We had a long thread about this recently -- the term being used was 'future shock', but in a sense, it's 'new information shock'.

The mind is not infinitely flexible. You seem to want to believe that a born-again child, upon reaching 18 and coming upon a copy of The Descent of Man, will throw off the shackles of creationism in one explosion of rationality, and go off to become a railroad tycoon or a steel baron. The more likely scenario is that a child trained to loathe modern science will throw that book away, unread, and proclaim to the world that Darwin was a Satanist.

How 'free' is that child to draw his own conclusions? How much does that child have the ability to 'believe whatever the fuck [he wants] to believe'?

|2.9.05 @ 6:33PM|#

Look, clearly some lines have to be drawn on child abuse. If that means I depart from the libertarian reservation, well, so be it. This is one of those issues where it comes down to details and judgement calls rather than appeals to ironclad principles and rigorous philosophical lines of reasoning.

Anyway, we should be careful in drawing those lines, and draw those lines closer to outright physical abuse and further from teaching their kids some bullshit ideas.

Which is not to say that child abuse law should come down to "What, no broken bones? Then get out of my courtroom!", but we should be careful when drawing those lines. Frankly, saying that it's child abuse to teach creationism goes too far.

|2.9.05 @ 6:36PM|#

Parents, more than most other people, have an inclination to care for their children as a person has a inclination to care for him/herself. But the rights of a parent to determine the future of a child would seem to be more limited than the rights of a person to determine his/her own future. Thus, there seems to be a proper role for government to protect the rights of chlidren (as future adults) to self-determination against their parents desire to determine their childrens' futures.

...I guess that sounds a bit like an anti-abortion argument.

|2.9.05 @ 6:38PM|#

thoreau,

I agree, fundamentally, that 'teaching creationism' is not abuse. But if there is a line somewhere, there's something it's not right to teach a child. There's some teaching that is abuse. (I would submit that sending a child to the Heaven's Gate School of Suicide would qualify.)

That creates a problem for the idea that parents should be allowed to fully control their child's education. And it opens the can of worms of 'Ok, where exactly is that line?'.

|2.9.05 @ 6:50PM|#

The sense I get from your argument is that you'd like to see even fewer 'other restrictions.' If you don't agree with me that beating children is objectively wrong and outside the license a parent has over their child, we probably won't reach an agreement about education, either.

Casting me as an advocate of child abuse isn't much of an arguement, either, isildur. Naturally, I do not agree with beating a child. But teaching them religion (yes, even if teaching them fervent irrationalism and intolerance for others) cannot be against the law, because religions already do exist, and not everyone is ever going to drop their own belief system, practically speaking. That is why I gave you the "sky is blue" answer. The idea of having laws against "educational abuse" is ridiculous, because people naturally learn different ways and think differently.

There are legal limits to what a parent can do to their child.

As a human, yes. You cannot physically or mentally abuse or torture another human. But I can tell you that the moon is cheese, and if I am your working supervisor, and you are my subordinate, am I "teaching" you that? Or just telling you that? Should I be punished for "teaching" you wrong? Are you a mindless idiot who can't decide for yourself? It seems like you are suggesting that children can't think for themselves.


Oh really? Is a child raised in the mountains of Afghanistan 'allowed' to believe that people have sent probes to Mars looking for evidence of life?

Yes. I think you're really discounting the part that rebellion plays in all of this.

It's very pat and not at all constructive to claim that children raised to believe one thing have free agency to believe another thing upon turning 18.

Uh, yeah, it sounds like you are the one who is suggesting that a child is a mindless object before the given age. I'm arguing that children have free agency to believe "another thing" than they are taught before the age of 18, and at any time in their life. So do adults. As I said before, anyone who believes everything they are told by their parents is probably a fool. (Unless of course their parents happen to be right about everthing). If we abided by the suggestion to place restrictions on what people can teach their children, that will dumb down the education system even more than it already is, because it takes as a fact that "children" as defined by law are too stupid to draw their own conclusions about the world, even before the magical 18th year.
And calling me a child abuser because I'm defending people's inborn rights to teach their own children freely isn't constructive, either. Based on your arguements, I could think of a few generalizations to make about you, too. Did I call you a communist?

|2.9.05 @ 6:58PM|#

Which is not to say that child abuse law should come down to "What, no broken bones? Then get out of my courtroom!", but we should be careful when drawing those lines. Frankly, saying that it's child abuse to teach creationism goes too far.

Thanks, thoreau, for saying more gently and succinctly what I was getting at.

|2.9.05 @ 7:19PM|#

To me, a reasonable libertarian view of child rearing and education is one that treats the parent as the agent responsible for protecting a child from starvation, hunger, and other forms of trauma until they reach a certain age. At that age, regardless of cases, the parental obligation ceases immediately in favor of self determination.

You would need to make a very straight line between parental action and physical or profound psychological harm to allege abuse or neglect in this understanding of partenal obligation. Certainly, nearly anything you wanted to teach a child is fine, and anything you want to exclude is fine, as well. Is being Amish abusive?

The tradeoffs of religious teaching are subjective and not apparent to the non-believer. I am a non believer myself, so I think it is important to recognize that there is something that people get out of religious experience and participation that they deem positive.

I think it is flawed reasoning that allows a religious practitioner to partition the world into that zone where scientific skepticism is allowable and that other zone where inquiry is off limits, but if the standard for abuse is instruction in faulty reasoning, God help us all.

|2.9.05 @ 7:26PM|#

Smacky,

If you honestly believe that a child has unlimited ability to 'rebel' against the worldview they're raised with, then I suspect we have no common ground for discussion.

Children are sponges before they mature. A child will believe anything you tell him. Young children are constantly trying to comprehend the world around them, and build models that explain what they're seeing. In the modern Western middle-class world almost all of us here at H&R come from, there's plenty of other influences to prompt us to rebel. What about the kid who's raised on an isolated farm, in relative poverty, and is home-schooled? What other context does he have to allow him to rebel?

Ask yourself this: You know the world is round. Why do you know that? Unless you're one of the few people who's flown at very high altitudes, it's not from direct personal experience of the curvature of the Earth. You know this, just like you know that the Earth revolves around the sun, and the Moon and Earth revolve around each other, because someone told you that. You believed them, because you heard it from a lot of sources, possibly accompanied with a derisive 'Everyone knows that.'

Now ask yourself: Why didn't all ancient people know this? Why did the earliest models of the universe have a flat earth? Why did later round-earth models place the Earth at the center of all revolution? Were these people stupid?

More importantly: Were they free to believe what they wanted to believe? How could they be, without the basic tools we call knowledge?

Asserting that a child who never acquires fundamental knowledge tools is 'free' to believe whatever he likes is a kind of cruel joke on the level of 'That kid in the wheelchair is 'free' to get up and run a mile any time he likes.'

If you lack the capacity, you can't do it. And acquiring that capacity, getting your brain around the tools to actually be able to think about the world around you, is what education is for.

What if that education gives you the wrong tools? What if it gives you bad tools?

To recast in physical terms: What if your parents' religion includes a strict set of dietary laws, and those laws forbid foods which are essential to the health and development of children? Poor nutrition has been positively linked to low test scores over the course of one's whole life -- poor nutrition as a child can make you dumb, and leave you with lasting, permanent health problems. What if the religion demands poor nutrition? What if you grow up with weak bones as a result? Are you still 'free' to become an athlete?

I had a high school physics teacher who talked about the class he taught at the local community college. His example, in this class, involved a rocket being fired into orbit. In all seriousness, one of his students asked, "How does the rocket get through the earth?" Confused, he tried to get her to explain; after some back-and-forth, it turned out that this person believed we all lived on the inside of the Earth's crust, and a rocket would have to 'break through' the shell to get out into space. Not only that, but other people in the class agreed with her.

Well-informed technophiles online like to laugh at these people, but whose fault is it that they believe obvious nonsense? Are they to blame for never being given real, unbroken knowledge tools?

And more importantly, how can it be okay for these people to vote anytime the vote involves space science policy in any way?

(As to calling you a child abuser; you misunderstood my point. "all these other restrictions", in the context of your question, "why not add more terminology and more restrictions?", is a very negative-sounding portrayal of child-abuse laws. I know it's hip to be contemptuous of government regulation, but this is one regulation where I'm 100% behind Big Brother.)

|2.9.05 @ 7:40PM|#

"To me, a reasonable libertarian view of child rearing and education is one that treats the parent as the agent responsible for protecting a child from starvation, hunger, and other forms of trauma until they reach a certain age."

This works up to a point. But I could protect a child from hunger, pain, suffering, etc. by locking that child inside a room in my house. The outside world is dangerous; I can feed the child inside the room. They can have a nice bed, and nice clothes, and food, and the (non-dangerous, pre-screened) books I provide. They can't come out, and no-one can go in. I'll educate them through the door.

This feels like abuse to me, but it's abuse of ommission, not abuse of commission. I am not hurting the child directly, but I am not providing things the child might, arguably, need. In the strictest physical sense of the word 'abuse' I am not abusing the child. But a reasonable observer would call locking a child in a room for their entire childhood 'abusive'. (see Harlow's social-deprivation experiments on rhesus monkeys for why I believe this would be abusive.)

If I can abuse by ommission, what does it mean to omit learning?

Omit food, that's (obviously) abuse.
Omit socialization, that's abuse.
Omit a caring environment, that's abuse.
Omit emotional bonds, that's abuse.
Omit the basic tools to understand the world... that's ok, because parents should be allowed to teach kids whatever they want.

|2.9.05 @ 7:41PM|#

Isildur,

The power of government is not limitless. If a law was passed banning Creationism, there's probably 30 million gun owning parents who would start Civil War II. And then us atheists would be burned at the stake.

I'm as anti-creationism as they come, but using the force of law to achieve something is almost always a bad idea.

MP|2.9.05 @ 7:45PM|#

isildur,

The costs of implementing top-down controls on what is the right information to disseminate is too high, particularly in regards to the power that it confers on the information dispensers. The endpoint of your argument is an authoritarian state. And besides, your argument also leads to other authoritarian controls in child rearing, such as feeding them the right food and making sure they don't listen to music that is too loud.

Yes, that may lead to adults producing children who, as partially products of their environment, turn out to be people you consider ignorant, or rude, or fat slobs, or all of the above. Well, suck it up and welcome to the consequences of a free society.

MP|2.9.05 @ 7:48PM|#

Omit socialization, that's abuse.
No it is not, it is just not optimal.

Omit a caring environment, that's abuse.
No it is not, it is just not optimal.

Omit emotional bonds, that's abuse.
No it is not, it is just not optimal.

|2.9.05 @ 7:48PM|#

kmw,

I agree. I just don't like discussions about education that immediately jump to private schools as the ultimate panacea for all ills, because I think the issue of education is much more complex than can be addressed with such a simple, pat answer. It always feels like dodging the questions, instead of confronting them.

I wouldn't advocate outlawing the teaching of something that some people don't like, in any case. After all, how long would it take for the teachers' union to lobby to outlaw the teaching of capitalism? =P

|2.9.05 @ 7:54PM|#

MP,

So my life-in-a-single-room scenario doesn't seem abusive to you? Why not? What would have to change to make it abusive? I mean, what would I have to remove from the room to make it an abusive scenario?

It's not 'optimal' to foot-bind, either. Is foot-binding abusive?

My problem lies with the people who are raised to be broken. They're punished for the actions of others. It's unjust. They could not have acted otherwise to prevent their crippling, and the person who caused them to be crippled did it with access to the knowledge of the consequences of what they were doing (whether or not they availed themselves of that knowledge).

It feels like... like I cut off your leg, and the world shrugs and says to you, 'Them's the breaks. Suck it up and deal.' And I wander off to cut off more legs.

|2.9.05 @ 7:56PM|#

isildur,

I am not painting a negative portrait of existing child abuse laws. I am painting a negative portrait of the stupid idea of "educational abuse" laws. If a parent teaches the child that certain things that are neccessary for growth are bad for their diet, that's one thing. DEPRIVING the child of those things is physical abuse, and those parents should be repremanded, assuming it is true that those things are known to be essential nutrition for proper human growth. I am all for anti-physical-abuse laws.

a child who never acquires fundamental knowledge tools

I am not talking about the rare case of home-schooled, live-in-a-cave children. I am talking about most of America, where formal education is already required by *LAW* in most, if not all, states. Most people HAVE acquired fundamental knowledge tools, by government mandate. If some sicko parent lies to a child within their first 4-5 years (in the rare instance that this happens - although I believe most parents have their children's well-being in mind), there is still time for that child, who is about kindergarden age (when proper schooling typically becomes required), to learn and accept the truth of things as they are outside of the home. From the day I was born to this very day, my parents feed me religious propaganda, even though I renounced formal religion in highschool. I was told crazy stuff from as far as I can remember, and throughout my eight years in religious gradeschool. I was even told crazy things by my teachers. The strange exceptions of out-of-touch people you are using as examples are far-fetched and extremely uncommon.


I had a high school physics teacher who talked about the class he taught at the local community college. Local community college? Not exactly a hut deep in the forest of some forgotten mountain range.

Well-informed technophiles online like to laugh at these people, but whose fault is it that they believe obvious nonsense? Are they to blame for never being given real, unbroken knowledge tools?

This is just another sink-to-the-lowestcommondenominator plea. It's their own damn fault!

Are they to blame for never being given real, unbroken knowledge tools?

YES!! If they're in community college, they have knowledge tools.

And don't make people who have access to the internet out to be "well-informed technofiles". There are plenty of idiots with computers and PDAs.

I'm sorry if my retort is half-assed, but I'm late for a dinner date. I'm abusing my friend temporally. Buh bye.

|2.9.05 @ 8:12PM|#

There's also the first amendment ditty about the free exercise of religion.

|2.9.05 @ 8:22PM|#

Some questions,

1) Does a parent have the right to teach a child, say, "All black people are untrustworthy and you should have nothing to do with them?" Please note, I did not ask whether a parent should teach such a thing, or whether it desirable, but doe they have a right to?

2) If a child has a right to be taught the truth, the facts, real knowledge, then which of the following count as real true knowledge, which your child must be taught, or else you're damaging him/her? Which of the following are falsehoods, which should not be taught to your child, lest you damage him/her?

- Homosexuality is largely or wholly genetically predetermined.

- Homosexuals can become heterosexuals if they really, really try and receive the proper assistance.

- Global warming is real, and due primarily to human activity.

- Global warming is real, but we don't know what the main cause is yet.

- There is no long-term global warming trend.

- Most leading scientists and mathematicians are male because there are more males who have the natural ability to excel at math and science.

- Most leading scientists and mathematicians are male because pervasive social bias discourages women from becoming scientists and mathematicians.

- There was a man named Jesus. He was a preacher in ancient Palestine. After his death, many fantastical legends sprang up about him, and he became the central figure of cult.

- There was a man named Jesus who died for your sins, and rose again from the dead.

- There was no Jesus.

- To eat healthfully, follow the traditional food pyramid that emphasizes whole grains, fresh vegetables and fruits, and de-emphasizes high-fat foods such as meat and dairy products.

- The Atkins diet is better for you than the traditional food pyramid.

2B) Of the items above, how do we decide which are true things that must be taught to your child, and which are false things that should not be taught to your child? Should we put it to a majority vote? Is "truth" the same thing as "what most people believe"? Or should we have this decision made by a committee of experts? How do we decide who is an expert?

3) Difficult as it might be to change one's longheld beliefs, is it really unlikely a child will be unable to change when his/her false beliefs bring him/her smack up against a contradictory reality?

3B) If someone believe in something not just false, but really stupid absurd, but for all practical purposes it doesn't affect his life negatively as he sees it, what's it to you?

3C) Do you still believe everything you were taught as a child? If not, why not? Are you just lucky to be an incredibly strong-minded Ubermench? (sp.)

3D) If someone else believes in something false, as long as they don't have the ability to force you to act as if you believed it also -- (e.g., you are forced to pay for or conform to action that assume the falsehood is actually true), are they violating your rights in any way? Do you have the right to change their mind in self-defense?

|2.9.05 @ 8:32PM|#

Stevo, we can obviously figure out which of those is true simply by consulting Standard Libertoid Dogmas. And when the Dogmas are silent, simply find out which side George Bush takes on any given day and argue accordingly ;)

|2.9.05 @ 8:37PM|#

...eventually those made fitter in the struggle for life by better education will win.

One problem: Religious fundies outbreed secularists by quite a sizeable margin. What's gonna weed 'em out?

|2.9.05 @ 8:41PM|#

I just don't like discussions about education that immediately jump to private schools as the ultimate panacea for all ills, because I think the issue of education is much more complex than can be addressed with such a simple, pat answer.

I agree. It seems to be ignoring the negative rights of children not to be damaged by their parents.

|2.9.05 @ 8:42PM|#

Apostate,

As a former Judaics major I understand your points concerning Christianity, but here's something you overlook: your current religion, as it exists now, was developed ca. 100 CE, not much before that. Prior to that the Tanakh barely existed and the Talmud didn't at all (only the Mishnah, oral Torah, did, for the scholars). So when you state that Christianity screwed up your religion you are mistaken--both have the same roots in the interpretations of the Talmudic school of Hillel and the messianism of the Zealots and the Essenes. It's pretty clear that Y'shua ben Yosef of Nazareth was influenced by both (or at least the Gospel authors think he was).

The clearest indication of this is Paul's refusal to eat trafe. You ascribe it to ignorance of the application of kashrut, but in reality the exemtion you quote did NOT exist in Judaic law until the Diaspora made it a necessity for survival two centuries after Paul's death. Paul was a staunch follower of Hillel, a rabbinic scholar, and by far the most educated of the early Christian leaders in Judea.

|2.9.05 @ 8:46PM|#

Sorry to sidetrack. I just often feel like I can't get anyone to actually seriously explain the status of children in libertarian philosophy. It feels like a massive oversight, given the ridiculous degree to which 'the children' drive modern politics.

All the standard libertarian stock answers seem to suggest that children have the status of property, and I think that's overly simplistic. The question I'm always left with is: What rights do children have? If they don't have a full set of adult rights, when do they get them? Which ones don't they have, and why?

From a personal perspective, I don't care; I'm a rational person, and intend to raise my children to be rational people, and arm them with all the intellectual tools they need to be smart, competent adults. From a philosophical perspective, it bothers me that I can't answer those questions, and can't find anyone who can answer them in a satisfactory way.

|2.9.05 @ 9:11PM|#

isildur,
It's cool. I enjoy reading, and sometimes participating, in these off topic debate. Too often, everyone gets on their standard sides of an issue, be it the WoD, emminent domain, censorship, abortion, file-swapping, etc. and says their usual line and their views and nothing happens. It's the off-the-wall debates like the rights of children, when this place gets really interesting.

Phil|2.9.05 @ 10:22PM|#

biologist, here you go:

The journal Nature conducted a study of scientists in 1998, recreating a study originally conducted in 1914 and 1933. You can find a summary here. Only 7% of respondents to the survey expressed belief in a personal god. It was a relatively small sample size, but make of it what you will.

MP|2.9.05 @ 11:22PM|#

I'm too tired to think this through thoroughly, but my off the cuff response is that children gain a "full set" of rights when they are deemed mature enough to take responsibility for exercising them. For convenience, that is usually set at 18, although this varies by culture and circumstance. Beyond that, there are few natural rights they are born with. The right to be free from being murdered is one of the few absolutes. Beyond that, boundaries are set based on what the society finds acceptable at any given time. What you may call "slave labor", I may call "chores". What you may call "physical abuse", I may call "corporal punishment". What you may call "right to privacy", I may call "right to keep my child out of trouble". Philosophy offers few bright lines regarding these issues, thus leaving it up to the attitudes of the day to draw the appropriate bright lines. The thing to be on guard for is that there is no clear set of right and wrong answers when it comes to proper parenting, and since parenting is a direct entension of the family, considered a core component of society, then any intrusion by the state into this domain must be very carefully considered.

|2.10.05 @ 3:14PM|#

This is horrifically ironic, but it seems easy to say that this is child abuse.