Scientists who study the matter. What is science and what is not is decided not by the results but by how those results are obtained. Just because scientific theories are constantly adjusted to take into account new knowledge says nothing about the scientific nature of those theories. The problem with ID is that it does not use scientific methods. Ergo, it's not scientific. The question isn't over whether it's correct or wrong.Originally Posted by Lewkowski
Hope is the denial of reality
Describe for me your understanding of "scientific methods" - and I'll see if I come up with any example that doesn't fit but its still regarded as scientific work. Sound fair?
Why is evolution being taught this way?
The study's authors believe that many high-school teachers do not have a deep enough scientific education to properly teach their subject. "You can take very little science and get a degree and be teaching in high school," says Steven Newton, the Programs and Policy Director at the National Center for Science Education, as quoted by LiveScience. And "the quality of what [students learn] is so dependent on the teacher you get" that it's a crapshoot as to whether students learn what they should." Another factor may be that teachers don't count on support from school administrators, and don't want to wade into a teaching controversy by themselves. Thus, Newton says, "it would be beneficial for there to be more support from the administration, so [teachers] don't feel out there all alone."
How can schools put the focus on science?
Berkman and Plutzer recommend training teachers before they step into a classroom. But Randy Moore, an evolution expert at the University of Minnesota, says the extra training won't help — many teachers will "simply reject" the scientific consensus. In the meantime, says Chris Dawson at ZDNet, we should stop talking about Creationism as an equal argument to evolution. You can "believe what you want," but "teaching Creationism in our public schools not only violates the U.S. Constitution, but infringes on a student's right to learn objective, research-based, state-of-the-art science."
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Here's a simplified version: http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_gui...leId-8579.html
Great to know that you think yourself a better judge of the scientific method than people who actually employ that method for a living.
Hope is the denial of reality
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelli...fining_science
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
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Hypothesis, experimentation, and analysis
Next, a hypothesis is formed, meaning that the scientist proposes a possible solution to the question, realizing that the answer could be incorrect. The scientist tests the hypothesis through experiments that include experimental and control groups. Data from the experiments is collected, recorded, and analyzed.
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Clarify this for me. Does this mean a hypothesis must be falsifiable in order for it to be a theory? Since the key component is testing something, if impossible to test are you saying its not science?
If something isn't falsifiable, then it's not a hypothesis. Anything that is inherently untestable is by definition not scientific.
Hope is the denial of reality
The test doesn't have to experimental in the traditional sense, although such tests can be more persuasive. The tests are of a hypothesis's ability to explain known observations and to predict future observations.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
I technically live in "the South" and Creationism was never taught in my school. To be fair, evolution was barely touched, more of a footnote in biology class.
Hope is the denial of reality
So because we are not able to test the macro evolution of mammals into humans...
We are able to test evolution. It is science.
We're not able to test ID. It is not science.
We are able to test some evolution.
We are not able to test evolution of mammals to human.
Also some of the theoretical quantum stuff isn't really testable (at least not with current technology). Is it part of science? Sure is.
Mammals never evolved into humans. Humans are mammals.
Do you dispute the existence of biology or genetics? No matter how much breeding is replicated, its not possible to replicate the birth of someone with your fingerprints: Does that mean genetics doesn't exist? Or you don't?
You exist. We can test genetics, we can test evolution. Humans are just one of many things to evolved, there is nothing in science to say we're a special case that should be viewed any different to the many, many testable species to have evolved.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Stop reading ID websites. The whole macro thing is a bogeyman. You get lots of micro changes, and at some point, the new organism becomes significantly different from those before it.
Hope is the denial of reality
What test can we run to confirm this? Its not like we can sit and watch monkeys for a few million years and see if a human pops out eventually.
We can and do watch other organisms do that...
Hope is the denial of reality
That's where you're wrong. We can and have done it with other species. The science is the same.
You're missing the very point you accidentally make. Good theoretical physics makes very specific falsifiable predictions that are testable (through experiment or observation) in principle. Physicists can often even specify the conditions under which their predictions may convincingly be confirmed or falsified.
There are ideas in physics that unfortunately don't make testable predictions (although they are very specific?), and those ideas are not regarded as being science in the same sense as the rest of the body of physics is.
Last edited by Aimless; 11-12-2012 at 12:00 AM.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
For those interested in a wonderful and kinda timeless online summary:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
But we can't test it for humans. I'd still say it's science though but with your rigid definition it wouldn't be.
It would be considering we have a fossil record and also a few possible answers to the question of "why would things be different for humans?"
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Hope is the denial of reality
The span of the test doesn't mean its not something we can't watch, record, and learn from. This is why some things are theories. This is why we have the theory of gravity but at the same time Newton's law. Not because certain concepts don't follow the scientific method of understanding, but because we as humans, don't kid ourselves into thinking we have the complete and full picture about all things.
We do run tests for evolution, we've already had a thread where we watched how 44,000 generations of an organism evolved under controlled scenarios. In fact the monkey response was the same response that DBZ middle schooler gave the CC back then. Step up your game.
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
You can prove organisms can evolve. You can't prove humans evolved that way. Its not falsifiable there is no test to say yes this happened or no it didn't. And yet evolution is considered science, my point is that something does not need to be falsifiable in order to be science. A lot of science is prediction based on other events that are based on observation. The testing component is critical to much of science but don't kid yourself and think it applies to the entire body of work.
You're confusing something being falsifiable with something being directly observable. We might not see humans evolve, but we can hypothesize that for the theory of evolution to work a certain way with humans, it must work a similar way with other organisms. If we found that other organisms did not evolve in a manner prescribed by evolution, that would falsify the hypothesis that humans evolved from other lifeforms. Or do you also have a problem with astronomy?
Hope is the denial of reality
Loki, didn't you once employ a line of reasoning very similar to Lewk's to try to prove that Humans were alone in the universe?
Yeah, there's no major difference between using data from millions of organisms to say something about one and using data from one entity to say something about millions.
Hope is the denial of reality
Wow, this spambot just made OG and GGT obsolete.
Hope is the denial of reality
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