Should scientists debate creationists?

[Meadmaker]

Perhaps not a debate, but a public campaign designed to explain to people what science is and how it benefits society could have a positive effect?

I see public debate doing no more than polarising the two sides here.

I think that's a good point. A staged head to head, time limited debate might not be so good, but getting the word out other ways is important.

 

[pgwenthold]

I'll say it again: Scientists are not opposed to debating creationists. In fact, there is a standing invitation to do so. All that has to happen is for a creationist to show up at at scientific conference with something to say, and scientists will debate them all they want.

IOW, scientists are willing to have a scientific debate. The stupid dog and pony shows involving Duane Gish are a different story.

 

[Meadmaker]

Maybe I am just getting paranoid as I get older, but it seems to me religious faith in our country has been growing quite a bit in strength.

Personally, I think you are getting paranoid, but you're in good company. There's a lot of that going around.

I think it seems that religious faith is growing in strength because the religious are more visible. However, in my opinion, it is precisely because religious faith is losing ground that they are more visible. In the not too distant past, what today stands out as religious extremism was mainstream societal belief. It was so pervasive, you didn't notice it.

I can tell you that no book with the title "The God Delusion" could have made the bestseller list in 1960. "The Passion of the Christ" was a cult hit (pun intended) a couple of years ago, but "The Ten Commandments" and "Ben Hur" were blockbuster oscar winners a few decades ago.

I can remember school prayer, despite the fact that I went to a public school after the Supreme Court outlawed school prayer. (Kansas, 1967) Today, if you try to sing a Christmas Carol at the concert just prior to Winter Holiday break, you might have to hire a lawyer first.

They're fighting back, and they have to because they are losing battle after battle.

 

[quixotecoyote]

To use the dice analogy just make it so that if you role a 6 you then roll again and if it is not a "6" it goes in the box. If you roll a 6 and the next roll is a 6 it doesn't go in the box. Now any given 6 "phenotype only has a probability (not a guarantee) of being selected". The end result is of course the same.

That works too, but I think mine is better because it doesn't change whether 6 is beneficial or not.

 

[Beth]

Your right, I'm not aware of it it in any states curriculum. I would argue that it should be. The evidence is all important in an education about evolution. What scientist or anybody else 'believes' is of no value to anyone.

I thought I covered this earlier, but I suppose it might have been in a different thread. To understand the overwhelming weight of all the evidence in favor of evolution requires a great deal of background knowledge. For example, to understand the validity of carbon-14 dating - a key methodology in establishing the age of various fossils - you need to understand physics, chemistry, biology and calculus. It isn't really possible to work all the necessary details into a K-12 education. So even when evidence is provided, a lot of what is taught about evolution at those levels requires acceptance of what scientists believe to be true -i.e. carbon-14 dating works and shows these fossils are this old, etc.

I did have doubts about what you intended to convey. I qualified my characterization with "seem to" for this reason. I would like to hear you articulate what it was you were trying to get across.
Specifically (from my impression);
1) Why would the possibility of something being taught undermining their religious faith (or any other belief skeptic or not) have any bearing on whether it should be taught?

Because undermining someone's religious faith can be traumatic, even for adults. I don't think it should be done to a child without the knowledge and consent of their parents. That's a value judgement on my part. You may disagree, but I think any reasonably compassionate society should take such beliefs into consideration when developing curriculum guidelines that would be used for all children in the society.

2) You seem to indicate that, "they just need to have an elementary understanding of what scientists feel is the best explanation we can currently devise without invoking a creator". Italics mine. My position was that if all they need to know is that evolution is the best explanation "without invoking a creator" why bother teaching evolution at all?

The 'without invoking a creator' is simply part and parcel of all science; it's not specific to evolution. That's just where it tends to pop up and disturb people.

From my perspective the evidence is the theory of evolution. Whether or not it it has ramifications about our concept of a creator is totally irrelevant from my POV. I don't see how limiting evolution education to what scientist "feel" gives any education at all to make choices. All it does is provide a choice of belief with nothing more than personal preference as a basis for that belief.

See above. To truly comprehend the totality of evidence for evolution requires university level study in many different fields. It's not possible or reasonable to expect everyone who graduates from high school to have that depth of understanding. Instead, and what is done in numerous other areas, is to simply summarize what scientists have learned and cover the most important theories they have developed. For example, we all learn that the earth circles the sun in grade school. But how many people graduate from high school truly understanding the evidence - the actual observations and the mathematical model that best fits those observations - that support that statement?

Yes, evidence is very important. The evidence is what convinces those who study the subject in depth. But most people, particularly children, do not study evolution in depth. Instead, they base their beliefs on who they trust - i.e. their parents, their teachers, their ministers, etc. - rather than on the evidence because relatively few people are willing to put forth the effort required to understand and evaluate the evidence for themselves.

 

[mijopaalmc]

Even though your edit covered some of my concern, it still doesn't actually address the central argument because you are still giving a "6" the ultimate deciding power. Evolution by natural selection simply does not work that way. It is possible for a individual who originally got a "6" to not survive. In fact, every phenotype would have its own probability that it would contribute to the next generation, which would be (experimentally) the number of individuals with that phenotype that survived and reproduced out of the total number of individual capable of reproducing in that generation.

 

[quixotecoyote]

To limit the education of a topic because full understanding requires a university degree would means shutting down elementary and secondary education entirely if this was taken to it's logical conclusion. You couldn't teach kindergarten.

The alphabet: Linguistics, communication theory, etc
Primary colors: Physics of light and wavelengths, biology of the eye, etc
1+1=2: Number theory, set theory, etc

The solution is to teach the information at a basic level and leave the more in-depth for more advanced study.

 

[quixotecoyote]

Even though your edit covered some of my concern, it still doesn't actually address the central argument because you are still giving a "6" the ultimate deciding power. Evolution by natural selection simply does not work that way. It is possible for a individual who originally got a "6" to not survive. In fact, every phenotype would have its own probability that it would contribute to the next generation, which would be (experimentally) the number of individuals with that phenotype that survived and reproduced out of the total number of individual capable of reproducing in that generation.

I think my wan's example covered that aspect, but we can tweak the thought experiment again, but you have to give that this is a simplified abstraction and won't cover all the details.

Roll a number of dice representing the chance mutations.

Separate those which come up 6, representing a beneficial mutation.

Roll a separate die to determine the fate of each die originally rolled. A result higher than three means they survive to breed and go in the box. Three or lower means they die without reproducing.

When you roll for the 6's add +2 to simulate the added benefit.


This is all still beside the point. The fact that the original example didn't include this feature doesn't mean it missed the point. The point was that there are random and deterministic features of evolution. The random original roll, and the environmental selection factors which will result in more 6's being in the box at the end.

 

[Beth]

To limit the education of a topic because full understanding requires a university degree would means shutting down elementary and secondary education entirely if this was taken to it's logical conclusion. You couldn't teach kindergarten.

The alphabet: Linguistics, communication theory, etc
Primary colors: Physics of light and wavelengths, biology of the eye, etc
1+1=2: Number theory, set theory, etc

The solution is to teach the information at a basic level and leave the more in-depth for more advanced study.

Correct. My_wan had asked why not teach them the evidence. The reason is that it isn't really possible to understand and be convinced by the evidence without going into a great deal more depth that is reasonable or appropriate for that age level.

 

[quixotecoyote]

Correct. My_wan had asked why not teach them the evidence. The reason is that it isn't really possible to understand and be convinced by the evidence without going into a great deal more depth that is reasonable or appropriate for that age level.

It's not difficult to teach what the evidence is. To use your example, you don't have to teach the physics, chemistry, biology and calculus of carbon 14 dating. You can just say that carbon dating is a reliable indicator in this case and it provides evidence.

 

[Meadmaker]

It's not difficult to teach what the evidence is. To use your example, you don't have to teach the physics, chemistry, biology and calculus of carbon 14 dating. You can just say that carbon dating is a reliable indicator in this case and it provides evidence.

So, what do you do when a student says, "I heard that carbon dating isn't accurate?"

 

[mijopaalmc]

So, what do you do when a student says, "I heard that carbon dating isn't accurate?"

Or for that matter:

"I heard that evolution is random and has been successfully modeled (shown to occur) as a random process."

 

[Beth]

It's not difficult to teach what the evidence is. To use your example, you don't have to teach the physics, chemistry, biology and calculus of carbon 14 dating. You can just say that carbon dating is a reliable indicator in this case and it provides evidence.

No, it's not difficult to teach what the evidence is. It's difficult to teach why the evidence is to be trusted and why it supports the theory of evolution. At some point, you have to ask the child to have faith that what you are telling them is true and accurate.

 

[articulett]

What????

Did I missed another discussion this is related to?

A process can have both random and non-random attributes. A thought experiment to elucidate:

Take two boxes. Throw 100 dies carelessly into one box and shake it up good. 100% random so far, right? Then go in and remove every die that came up six and put it in the second box, keeping the six up. Is this process random or non-random? This is, in a tiny thought experiment, essentially what's happening in evolution. What do creationists find this so hard to get -- that evolution is non-random results of random processes because selection is anything but random?

Oh it's from his silly thread about what the evidence is for evolution being non-random. He had multiple quotes and peer reviewed sources and multiple people on this forum tell him pretty much tell him what you are telling him--but he's determined that scientists are actually saying evolution is random-- which is the old creationist canard to insert the tornado in the junkyard analogy. I'm pretty sure he's a creationist and/or a religious apologetic--I put him on ignore (remember how he derailed the thread about the creationist tour guide?). Pay him no mind. He's in his own world.

 

[articulett]

The die roll is representing the random mutation.

The requirement of '6's is what is representing the environment.

In the environment of the thought requirement the dice with 6's survive to reproduce. The other's don't. You could parallel this to reindeer with thicker fur, moths with appropriate wing color, Africans with malaria immunity or any other selection pressure. In the example it is abstracted to a '6'.

Thus it is random as far a which dice have the 'mutation' but deterministic in the sense of the environment determining the 'selection'.


eta:Upon a reread I think I understand your objection better. Your problem is that individuals without the beneficial mutations also reproduce and this thought experiment doesn't cover it. That's true, but it's also beyond the scope of the principle being demonstrated.

If you absolutely won't accept the illustration without that mechanic involved, put all the '6's into the second box immediately and reroll the remainder for a '6' before failing them. This would represent the advantage of a the beneficial mutation over the others while still retaining the overall point.

He can't and won't accept it... he has a whole thread of similarly great explanations and his conclusion is the same, "evolution is random"... "there is no evidence for evolution being non-random". He cannot and will not compute anything else. To him random means "anything related to probability"... and anything with any randomness is random to him. He thinks Dawkins et. al. are wrong to call natural selection non-random. Really. Your explanations are great-- he cannot comprehend. He denies being "an intelligent design proponent" but his reasoning is almost identical to Behe's.

This is why you can't really debate creationists. There are some things they cannot grasp no matter how well worded. The Dover trial illustrates this in spades.

 

[JoeEllison]

No, it's not difficult to teach what the evidence is. It's difficult to teach why the evidence is to be trusted and why it supports the theory of evolution. At some point, you have to ask the child to have faith that what you are telling them is true and accurate.

Well, you're asking them to have faith in EVERYTHING, then. Why should evolution be singled out, except to cater to the creationists? It is a dishonest and/or misleading position to take.

 

[quixotecoyote]

So, what do you do when a student says, "I heard that carbon dating isn't accurate?"

If you wish to see me after school, I'd be happy to make an appointment to explain carbon dating to you, but for now accept that is the scientific consensus that it is accurate.

Or for that matter:

"I heard that evolution is random and has been successfully modeled (shown to occur) as a random process."

This one should be explained similarly to the way I explained it to you.

No, it's not difficult to teach what the evidence is. It's difficult to teach why the evidence is to be trusted and why it supports the theory of evolution. At some point, you have to ask the child to have faith that what you are telling them is true and accurate.

That's true of anything and thus irrelevant.

 

[my_wan]

I thought I covered this earlier, but I suppose it might have been in a different thread. To understand the overwhelming weight of all the evidence in favor of evolution requires a great deal of background knowledge. For example, to understand the validity of carbon-14 dating - a key methodology in establishing the age of various fossils - you need to understand physics, chemistry, biology and calculus. It isn't really possible to work all the necessary details into a K-12 education. So even when evidence is provided, a lot of what is taught about evolution at those levels requires acceptance of what scientists believe to be true -i.e. carbon-14 dating works and shows these fossils are this old, etc.

I must disagree strongly here. It takes only remedial if any math to understand a half life. Looking at pictures of layered sedimentation is not rocket science either. You don't even have to do the calculations to understand how a half life can be used to date these layers. DNA is obviously the most difficult yet every grade school kid knows that we catch criminals and prove who the real parents are all the time. Likewise we can show in a similar manner that mice and men had the same parents in the distant past. Not that those parents were anything like mice or men. Now by comparing the rate of genetic variations we have an entirely independent method of checking the fossil record for accuracy. They completely agree not only in our ancestral parentage with other species but also on when the splits occurred. We also have computer programs that use genetic algorithms to solve problems through artificial evolution.

Because undermining someone's religious faith can be traumatic, even for adults. I don't think it should be done to a child without the knowledge and consent of their parents. That's a value judgement on my part. You may disagree, but I think any reasonably compassionate society should take such beliefs into consideration when developing curriculum guidelines that would be used for all children in the society.

Personally I would say that such attitudes is what creates adults that are so prone to being traumatized. Is not coming to realize that the adults are unwilling to tell you the truth for whatever reason a major source of trauma itself? I have a brother in his 30s that still talks about the trauma of realizing adults were like this when he was 9 years old. I think you are perpetuating the very same thing you claim to be sensitive to. Internationally the correlations in between suicide and homicide rates and low acceptance of evolution suggest some legitimacy to this.

The 'without invoking a creator' is simply part and parcel of all science; it's not specific to evolution. That's just where it tends to pop up and disturb people.

It is not "invoking a creator" per se that science avoids. It is using "unobservables" that science avoids wherever possible. A creator at least to this point is an "unobservables". If God descends and proclaims, "Behold, I AM" then it would be as acceptable as any other observable.

See above. To truly comprehend the totality of evidence for evolution requires university level study in many different fields. It's not possible or reasonable to expect everyone who graduates from high school to have that depth of understanding. Instead, and what is done in numerous other areas, is to simply summarize what scientists have learned and cover the most important theories they have developed. For example, we all learn that the earth circles the sun in grade school. But how many people graduate from high school truly understanding the evidence - the actual observations and the mathematical model that best fits those observations - that support that statement?

At 8 years old I understood how planets remained in orbit and the Earth was not the center of it all. No math necessary. Throw a rock and watch it curve toward the ground. Throw it fast enough and the Earths curvature gives way as fast as the rock drops. Remove the air so the rock never slows down and you have an orbit. Recognize that which object orbits which is in direct proportion the the mass ratios and conservation laws become obvious. About this same time I discovered Galilean Relativity on my own when I sneakily dropped rocks from the back window of the car while it was moving. You seem to operate under the assumption that you must first have complete understanding and mathematical skills to see the obvious. I had plenty of teachers that thought like this. I even had math teachers that would label me a trouble maker because I would ask why certain math steps worked. Only later did I realize that the teacher didn't know there were reasons.

Yes, evidence is very important. The evidence is what convinces those who study the subject in depth. But most people, particularly children, do not study evolution in depth. Instead, they base their beliefs on who they trust - i.e. their parents, their teachers, their ministers, etc. - rather than on the evidence because relatively few people are willing to put forth the effort required to understand and evaluate the evidence for themselves.

Very rarely does understanding how the evidence obtained require having the skills to obtain and prove it yourself. A large portion of the evidence only requires understanding how to ask the questions. Not on any detailed evaluation of the answers.

This difference in perspective strikes at the heart of my difficulties growing up. In my school days I can't count the number of times I received a paddling and stood in the corner because I had a question about why something worked the way it did or tried to explain about something I already knew. Leaving to get proof from the library only got me in more trouble and an absolute refusal to even look at the evidence. Forgive me at my abject horror at your suggestion that we pander our way around the truth to protect the innocent from "trauma". I would be banned if I expressed what I am feeling right now.

 

[Meadmaker]

If you wish to see me after school, I'd be happy to make an appointment to explain carbon dating to you, but for now accept that is the scientific consensus that it is accurate.

Good answer.

 

[my_wan]

Even though your edit covered some of my concern, it still doesn't actually address the central argument because you are still giving a "6" the ultimate deciding power.

Yes in reality some other non 6s would survive. There are many species and much variation within those species after all.

Evolution by natural selection simply does not work that way.

It is nature that decides how evolution works. Not theories. Yet you seem to be of the opinion that evolution does not work at all so what do you base the claim it don't work that way on? The dice are far too simplistic yet it does essentially work that way.

It is possible for a individual who originally got a "6" to not survive.

That's exactly why I used to dice to decide if the 6 died or not so that some 6s died. Nature may kill a better fit organism while allowing a less fit one to survive. Yet out of thousands or millions of deaths the more fit will suffer fewer deaths than the less fit. Some species even increase their survival odds (fitness) not by being stronger but by being more cooperative. I may be far weaker than some but I might survive because my cooperation inspired others to help me while someone far more fit could die because nobody wants to help the ruthless. Of course many ruthless members will survive, just not as many compared to the cooperative members. That's all it takes to insure that cooperation to be more dominate. The fact that some ruthless behavior can exist and survive doesn't make that trait equal in the population, just less pronounced. Physical traits can likewise lose and gain prominance in the same manner. A single generation is never enough to remove a bad physical trait for the same reason you appear to be saying evolution doesn't work. Also what is a good trait in one environment may be a bad one in another and visa versa.

In fact, every phenotype would have its own probability that it would contribute to the next generation, which would be (experimentally) the number of individuals with that phenotype that survived and reproduced out of the total number of individual capable of reproducing in that generation.

Not sure what the argument here was. It doesn't appear to be false but I suspect it was meant to mean something that I can't discern from the words.