jtm@syteka.UUCP (12/19/84)
Creationists are filling a need of the semi-literate of this country
and the world. The teaching of rigorous analytic techniques and
adherence to honesty as an integral, and inseparable, partt of the
scientific method has been put on the shelf in our elementary and
high schools, and worst of all in our universities and colleges.
The emphasis is now on training programs which will earn the degree
candidate some big bucks at the expense of learning about the
process of learning itself, the prime goal of the now-maligned
liberal arts curriculums. Professors are motivated not by furthering
their respective fields of knowledge but by the need to publish
something, anything, better yet something that will make them a
star. White lies are accepted as a way of holding academic
confusion at bay for awhile. What do you say to a student who
asks "what does all this mean"? You can say "no one knows, just
bang away at it for ever" or you can say "oh, it means X". So
to the befuddled mind that has gotten far too little training
in constructive thought processes, the solution is: find a label
with some ring of truth to it and hang on tight. Get a bunch of
these people together and you have a consensus that passes for
truth, at least among them. Before long you have several such
groups in a shouting match with each other over whose label
best describes the thing they all want explained. And the
search for truth is trampled underfoot.
Who are the Creationists arguing with? That is, who are the
Evolutionists? It appears we have a case of those for/those
against. If your not a Creationist, your an Evolutionist.
But evolution is simply a term for the scientific communities
current set of theories on the history of life as we know it.
(Poorly worded but to the point.) The goal of science is to
further understanding, NOT to settle on an ultimate set of
theories. Are the Creationists aiming their scimitars at the
writings of Darwin or Mendel? Or at the institutions, private
and publicly funded, which have encouraged and aided study
which has led to the current body of works reflecting our
understanding of what has gone on in the last ten billion
years? Oh, excuse me, I guess that could be ten thousand years,
couldn't it? I've never seen a published scientist say how
old the universe is, just how old he/she is currently assuming
it is for purposes of formulating a model from which to build
and test further hypotheses. But if I'm in a corner, what the
hell: the universe is ten billion years old and life has been
gradually and uniformly progressing as static from a gigantic
washer/dryer complex in an adjacent galaxy has caused subtle
changes in electricity that cause evolution. There. Prove
there's no washer/dryer complex in some adjacent galaxy. While
you're doing that, I'll publish this theory. Might make a
few bucks and my mom'll think I'm still a good little boy.
"There can be no image of the world by which one may understand
it. Such an image would of necessity be the world itself."
Lao-Tsu, pre-Commie Chinese proto-evolutionist/creationist.
Jim McCrae - {hplabs,decvax}!sytek!jtmhammond@petrus.UUCP (12/21/84)
> ...? I've never seen a published scientist say how > old the universe is, just how old he/she is currently assuming > it is for purposes of formulating a model from which to build > and test further hypotheses. ... > > Jim McCrae - {hplabs,decvax}!sytek!jtm If you've never seen a published scientist say how old the universe is you've never read Carl Sagan. His articles in popular literature I've seen are statements of facts without any hint that they are simply his "current assumptions." For example, a recent Parade magazine article ( Sorry, I recylced my papers, so don't have the exact date) about the origin of whatever. I stopped reading it after the first paragraph because it was obvious that he was going to tell you the truth according to Sagan. I suppose that somewhere down in the article there might have been a disclaimer, but it wasn't apparent in the lead paragraph. I'm sure you would cry "foul" if I wrote an article describing the origin of the earth according to creation science and only at the end put in a disclaimer about the article being theory not fact, particularly if I weasel worded it to say something like best supported theory. NOTE: I am playing devil's advocate, not planning to write such an article. The point is that the popular press, which is what the public reads, is not the TRANSACTIONS ON ... . This is what the majority of creationists are reacting to, most of them (at least in my church) haven't read any scientific journals (but neither has the rest of the general public). So, they react to Sagan's statements that "this is the way it was" with their view of the way it was. Rich Hammond decvax!bellcore!hammond
hammond@petrus.UUCP (12/21/84)
> Creationists are filling a need of the semi-literate of this country > and the world. The teaching of rigorous analytic techniques and > adherence to honesty as an integral, and inseparable, partt of the > scientific method has been put on the shelf in our elementary and > high schools, and worst of all in our universities and colleges. My original followup focused on the statement about the scientist never saying anything without qualifying it as "current theory." In general I agree that the problem is the lack of understanding of how to think through a problem, compounded by lack of time/resources. The average person simply doesn't have the time to read up on all the scientific literature and earn a living. At best, they keep marginally informed about things outside their field. To do so, they trust the writings of scientists. If someone, claiming to be a scientist, tells them something, they have no reason not to believe him/her until/unless they find out the truth is otherwise. A similar situation pertains to my car. I trust the mechanic to find and fix the problems until I have evidence that he can't. That evidence is not always immediately obvious. I submit the same thing is happening with creationism, that the pseudo-scientific publications of the creationists are accepted for lack of a reason not to and that if you move in creationist circles you might never find the opposing views/information presented. I propose that we abandon teaching evolution and creation science in the public schools and concentrate on teaching how to think. One can take an engineering view of biology and study the way things function without needing evolution. Eventually, when we teach enough students to think and with the invevitable reductions in the average work week and increase in information availability we will reach a point where many more people will have the time and ability to study the issues. Then evolution vs creationism might be better debated. Rich Hammond [decvax, ihnp4] bellcore!hammond