'Consensus Science'? Please!!
Published August 30, 2005
Two last points; both important:
- As Steven Levitt, author of "Freakonomics," tells us, if you want to understand why people are motivated to take certain action, take a close look at the underlying system of rewards. For a huge number of scientists, their research in this field is all funded by large government and private donor grants. We are talking, very likely, tens of billions spent over the past 100+ years for evolutionary research. To see Darwinian Evolution discredited might well mean the loss of jobs and tenure for tens or hundreds of thousands of researchers all over the world. And I'm not exaggerating here. Evolution is THE dominant theory on the origins of life, for it to topple would be devastating to the academic community. With that kind of positive and negative incentive, why would evolutionary scientists WANT to level the playing field? That and the fact that many scientists in this discipline area are either agnostic or athiest in their belief system. To allow a scientific theory to grow which could lend support to an intelligence of any kind beyond our own would be similarly disquieting.
- Darwinian Evolutionists have been dishonest in the way they define the term "science." To someone in this camp, science can only be used to explain the blind, materialistic forces we can see and measure in the universe. But science cannot be used to identify and/or measure any kind of intelligence. In redefining science this way, they can then claim that anything at all that tries to disprove evolution is "unscientific." But here's the problem with this argument... We have several sciences which exist right now which DO have the ability to detect and scientifically measure intelligent interactions in the natural world. Forensics is one, right? If someone is found lying dead in a pool of blood in their house, what happens? The crime scene investigators are called, of course. They dust for prints, they look for DNA other than that of the victim, they look for "suspicious" marks in the room or on the deceased person's body, and likely a dozen other things. Why do they do all that? So that they can determine the time of death? No, because they want to know if the person died accidentally, through natural causes, or was murdered. If the body has, for example, 50 stab wounds, with nothing in the room which could have "accidentally" caused the wounds, then the complexity of the injuries leads to the logical and straightforward conclusion that the person was murdered. In the same way, if life on Earth is SO complex that its appearance and growth is statistically impossible, and if the fossil record shows us no conclusive transition forms, — much less the millions of forms which we should already have found both living and dead — and if we see in that same record events such as the Cambrian Explosion, where thousands of new species appeared in a relatively short period of time, then we may have evidence of intelligent design. Certainly, as we look down to the cellular, then genetic levels today, we do NOT have strong evidence of Darwinian Evolution.
- 'Consensus Science'? Please!!
- Published: August 30, 2005
- Type: Opinion
- Section: Culture
- Writer: David Flanagan
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Comments
"At the very least, lets teach the controversy. Darwinian Evolution is a theory, and MUST be taught as such. If you want to REALLY confuse kids, try teaching philosophy or religion in the science classroom. That is what proponents of evolution want. They don't want sound, reasoned debate and a realistic look at the science, they want dogmatism."
What a bunch of crap! I just spent the week preparing 8th graders for my State's standard Science test. You want to know what the first thing we reviewed was? The SCIENTIFIC METHOD! It's really simple, try and keep up if you can!
1. Identify your problem
2. Research
3. Form a hypothesis
4. Develop procedures to test your hypothesis
5. Analyze the data
6. Draw concludions
7. Repeat ad nauseum!
The real "controversy" the ID proponents are asking us to teach is, "do we throw out the SCIENTIFIC METHOD or not?!"
Next we reviewed electromagnetism. I explained to them that lightning was, "the handy work of ZEUS, casting bolts of electricity down upon us hapless mortals!" Guess what, they told ME that this was not a scientific argument because there was no use of the SCIENTIFIC METHOD! Then we got down to some good old fashioned scientific dogmatism-we conducted actual experiments in class. I had students generating electricity and turning electric current into magnets in no time. Zeus never showed up though. Intelligent Designers-they just aren't emperical when you need 'em!
Once you start teaching evolution in church, then get back to me about ID in schools.
I know of few churches that discuss evolution or creation in the context of the current debate and of those that do, it seems they are split 50/50 on it. The Christian community is not as monolithic as some evolutionists think it is. But then again, neither is the scientific community. You Yanks sure do make this so black & white when oftentimes things are a bit more complicated...I wonder if it is a direct result of having a two party system...but that's another topic.
JR,
A consensus generally means a majority, doesn't mean there can't be significant disagreement, and it's obvious that disagreement is on the increase in recent years.
well there's this and I think it's relevant:
Proof of the theory
consensus
NOUN: The quality or condition of being in complete agreement or harmony: unanimity, unanimousness.






David Flanagan: I won't argue on the point that Darwinism is the consensus science of our age when it comes to origin of life theories.
and
How can it be "true" and "right" if so many in their own discipline disagree?
Um...
never mind.