Geoscientists and educators take on antievolutionists

"George" wrote in message
news:MdS4f.493098$xm3.49493@attbi_s21...
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releas...-gae101705.php





Here's one way to win a debate: Start an argument with folks who aren't
particularly talented debaters. Then keep them on the defensive with
complicated, highly philosophical spurious attacks and baffling red herring
arguments. Finally, before they have finished responding, pull the rug out
from under them with a well-planned political end-run that trumps the whole
debate.
That basically sums up the strategy being employed by the Intelligent
Design (ID) movement as it continues to attack public science education
across the U.S., say scientists and science educators. How to counter these
attacks in the classroom, at school board meetings and on the national
level, is the focus of two expansive sessions with 24 wide-ranging
presentations on Sunday and Monday, 16 and 17 October, at the Geological
Society of America Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City.

Among the first mistakes scientists and educators make is actually arguing
with ID proponents in politically-staged events, says Lee Allison, Senior
Geologist for the Kansas Geological Survey. Not only does that allow the ID
promoters to control the debate, but it pits scientists and educators
against highly trained professional ID debaters, and implicitly lends
credibility to their anti-evolution manifesto.

"Even the best science teachers are not prepared," Allison said. Allison
has been involved in defending science education standards in Kansas, where
the ID movement has concentrated its efforts at the state level. In his GSA
presentation titled, "Evolution in Kansas: It's the Politics, Stupid!",
Allison outlines the case ID proponents recently made to the already
anti-science-leaning Kansas State School Board. He rebuts their arguments,
which a


1) Evolutionary Theory is facing a crisis. (It isn't.)


Eh hum. You're not up on the latest theoretical developments
regarding evolution. My hobby, complexity science, is all
about the brand new abstract form of evolution. And the
new discoveries are absolutely sweeping the academic
community and redefining every discipline that exists.

As we speak.

For example, and this is just a teaser. The 'integral' so to speak
of the complexity sciences is the 'complex adaptive system'.
Have you, or your debater, even heard of complex adaptive matter???


The Los Alamos branch of the Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter

"Founded in 1998 at a Los Alamos workshop....the ICAM
scientific community searches for the organizing concepts
responsible for emergent behavior in soft, hard, and living matter."


Notice they no longer make a distinction between non-living
and living matter. This is a basic tenet of the complexity
sciences. One principle for them ....all.


This very latest and cutting edge physics is being derived from.
...yes...biology...from Darwin. From the complexity sciences I so
relentlessly rant about. In fact the very latest evolutionary theory is in the
process of completely rewriting all our fundamental laws of
the....physical...universe. All of them!


But this crisis is not in refuting the ideas of Darwinian evolution
....not at all...but quite the opposite. The new ideas show the
evolution we all know and love has been drastically limited
in it's scope and application. Limited to only living systems.
The new approach brings a far stronger belief in, and far broader
application, then previously held. Those that truly believe
in Darwin should absolutely /embrace/ what is going on.
That Darwin has been successfully applied to non-living
systems. This changes everything.


2) Science, as is, is inherently Godless (It isn't) and therefore a
religion.


Classical science as it's been taught for centuries certainly does
qualify as it's own kind of religion. This is so because of the
relentless faith that the scientific/objective method as practiced will
someday...somehow come up with all the basic questions
of our existence. This faith is as equally flawed as relying
of divine revelation. Objective science cannot answer
our most basic questions, and the ID crowd sees these
flaws.




3) Science errs in not including supernatural power to explain things. (It
wouldn't be science if it did.)


It's important to properly define supernatural. I take it to mean
that which is beyond the reach of objective methods.
For example, do you believe in the concept of market forces?
This is an ethereal system property that only exists when
the system is intact and operating. As such it's beyond
the scope of reductionist or objective methods since
such methods rely on repeatability and precise quantification.
Which cannot be found in an ever changing operating system.
There is no equation, and there never will be, for a market force.
Yet we know this self tuning optimizing property exists.

And such self tuning emergent forces happen to be the /most important/
and defining property of not only life, but the physical universe as well.
And it is BEYOND objective methods.

Classical science errs by not including the subjective world
in which such fundamental properties reside.


Don't you see what I'm getting at, what is happening with
this debate. This vastly strengthened view of Darwinian
evolution...applying it to the physical universe....means
that geology self organizes to just the right condition
for life. This means that the current objective view
that life and intelligence are more the result of chance
is....WRONG.

Creation is now seen as a seamless and likely process
from the material world to the living.

So the conclusion of classical science that life is exceedingly
rare and a result of incredible luck is WRONG.

The very latest scientific view of evolution shows that
creation is inherent, pervasive and the most likely
final state. In other words that the universe follows
a .....directed....not random path to life and intelligence

The ID people recognize this truth, without knowing the
scientific reasons why. Yet they know the current views
are misguided and very incomplete.

This strengthened view, in fact, provides one with an enormous
appreciation and reverence for our reality. This new view of
evolution is in the process of merging science and religion
into one consistent view.

It's long overdue.

Just because the ID people don't understand these new ideas
doesn't mean they are wrong for questioning present dogma.
They have perfectly good intuitive reasons for creating this
debate.

A truly educated and thorough debate on this subject would
and should end with both sides coming to the very same
conclusions.

That the universe is full of life and intelligence. That there is
more to our creation than our philosophies can know.
That this vastly strengthened view of evolution means
that this universe must evolve Gods.

A God would be that which is as far above us as we
are above animals. Naturally evolved yet still God-like.
There can be no doubt anymore that this universe is
not only capable of evolving Gods, but that it's
mathematically inevitable.

Not only is life and intelligence the most likely probable
state, so it God. Why do you think I'm so certain those
spheres on Mars are the result of life? Such an intractable
anomaly, from simply a probabilistic view, is extremely
unlikely to be the result of non living processes.

The truth is that life, for such mysteries, is the most likely explanation.
By far. Since we now know that geology and life have the
VERY SAME organizing causes.

And it's random interaction that provides this universal
creative process. Your weak view of evolution sees
randomness as an obstacle.

That's completely wrong, randomness is the /source/ of creation
and the belief in God. Not the other way around.




Jonathan

s





If this is the case, why are school boards scattered throughout the country
accepting the ID arguments? One reason is that for years many scientists
thought they could stay out of the unpleasant fray, says paleontologist
Carol Tang of the California Academy of Sciences.

"If we liked debate, we would have been lawyers," said Tang, who helped
organize one of the GSA sessions. In her own GSA presentation, she points
out how the ID debate is no longer just something biologists have to
contend with, and that scientists in an ever widening range of fields rely
on the principles of evolutionary theory. Geoscientists, for instance, have
long used fossils to measure the age of rocks - a vital tool in oil
exploration. The new fields of geobiology and astrobiology depend on the
principles of evolution observed on Earth to search for and define life
elsewhere in the universe. "Geologists think this is something we don't
have to deal with," said Tang. But that is increasingly not so, she said.

So how does a scientist or teacher defend evolution against trained
attackers? "Don't," suggests geoscientist Donald Wise from the University
of Massachusetts. Instead, go after the deep flaws in ID. Take the human
body, for instance, he says in his GSA presentation. It's a great argument
against ID. Anyone who has ever had back pain or clogged sinuses can
testify to this. Our evolutionarily recent upright posture explains our
terrible back problems better than ID, and our squished, very poorly
"designed" sinuses don't function at all well and are easily explained by
the evolutionarily rapid enlargement of our brains.

Wise's advice to scientists and educators is to: 1) get off the defensive;
2) focus on the ample weak points of Intelligent Design; 3) keep it simple;
4) accentuate it with humor; and 5) stick to irrefutable facts close to
evolution and relevant to voters.

Convincing voters is vital because the ID movement is not, as many people
think, a local grassroots movement. It's a well-funded national movement
that uses a full range of local, state, and national strategies to supplant
science and have nonexistent "evidence against evolution" taught in the
classroom, says Eugenie Scott, Director of the National Center for Science
Education. Scott focuses on the three strategic levels that science is
being attacked in her GSA presentation "Multiple Levels of
Antievolutionism."

WHEN AND WHERE

* Evolution in Kansas: It's the Politics, Stupid! (Lee Allison)
Monday, 17 October, 11:45 a.m. - Noon, Salt Palace Convention Center,
Ballroom J
View abstract:
http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2005AM/fin...ract_93894.htm

* Not Just for Biologists Anymo The Evolution Controversy Impacts
Geoscience and Space Science Education (Carol Tang)
Sunday, 16 October, 8:15 - 8:30 a.m., Salt Palace Convention Center
Ballrooms AC
View abstract:
http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2005AM/fin...ract_97555.htm

* Intelligent (Incompetent?) Design Versus Evolution: New Tactics for
Science (?) (Donald Wise)
Monday, 17 October, 11:30 - 11:45 a.m., Salt Palace Convention Center,
Ballroom J
View abstract:
http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2005AM/fin...ract_92960.htm

* Multiple Levels of Antievolutionism (Eugenie Scott)
Monday, 17 October, 8:45 - 9:00 a.m., Salt Palace Convention Center,
Ballroom J
View abstract:
http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2005AM/fin...ract_96289.htm


###
View all session abstracts:
http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2005AM/fin...sion_16171.htm
http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2005AM/fin...sion_16049.htm

Additional resources:

* Hot Topics panel: Kansas, Intelligent Design, and the National Attack on
Science
Wednesday, 19 October, 12:15 - 1:15 p.m., Salt Palace Convention Center 250
A/B

* Separate GSA Tip Sheet, 05-41, Antievolutionism Addressed by Top
Geoscientists and Educators, dated 14 October 2005