Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

Setanta wrote:

Again, my apology for having misjudged you.

Apology accepted. Good, no hard feelings then Smile

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parados wrote:

The problem I see with vouchers and the free market is you lose accountability. The free market works fine when you can buy a product and if it doesn't work as promised you can take it back, demand your money back and go buy a different product.

You lose accountability to the government's education bureaucracy and gain accountability to parents. I would argue that this is a net improvement, and most certainly not a total loss of accountability. While parents under a voucher system cannot get their money back, they can move their child to another school on fairly short notice -- one year at most. That has the same effect as voting with your feet by leaving a school district, but is much easier to do. It would be very unusual if this competitive pressure did not improve performance, especially in metropolitan areas were schools are located closely to each other.

parados wrote:

I can think of no product used universally where a free market has created a base level that all recieve. In the case of schools, you can't get back the 2 years of a child's life where they failed to learn because their school was designed to make money for investors and nothing else.

I can think of lots of examples where a free market created a base level if people pay for it. And the government would still pay for that base lavel. As to the 2 years lost of a child's life, I am pretty sure I have lost 2 years in Germany's public school system, as have many others, and we can't get them back either. (In my case, it had nothing to do with religion vs. science, but with the fact that almost all schools separate age gropus in their classes. Because jumping a class is fairly traumatic socially, gifted children in mainstream schools are faced with the alternative of either becoming social outcasts or intellectual outcasts. (The word "intellectual" is too pompous here, but you know what I mean.)

parados wrote:

Bad parents are the problem with the present public schools and will continue to be if we go to a voucher system. Imagine a school that gives a 5% kickback on the voucher to the parent of the student enrolled. How many parents would be happy to take the money, for whatever reason, and not be overly concerned about the education or incapable of telling the quality?

I see your point, but the public school system has its own sources of corruption too. On a gut level, I would think that private corruption is easier to monitor by the government than public corruption. (Have you read Richard Feynman's chapter on selecting school books for his local school board? It's in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman.) But when someone with been-there, done-that experience tells me otherwise, as Setanta just did, I am willing to take a second look.

Setanta wrote:

There is an underlying assumption that "the free market" (a mythic creature) can be trusted to provide that quality and product diversity predictably. In fact, the history of capitalism in action strongly suggests that, as i pointed out in other words before, a structure of bureaucracy for oversight at least as large as that which currently administers the public system would be required.

As a general proposition about the history of capitalism, this is almost certainly false. If it was true, we would have seen much more success with efforts to do away with the free market altogether and replace it all with a public system. You could be right about your narrower claim about the school system, which is what I think you had in mind anyway. I'm still Googleing around on this one.

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Thomas, there never has been a free market as such. The Romans were no dopes to inscribe caveat emptor over the entrance to the Forum. People have been "selling a pig in a poke" for far longer than they have been offering high quality smoked hams.

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Setanta wrote:

Thomas, there never has been a free market as such. The Romans were no dopes to inscribe caveat emptor over the entrance to the Forum. People have been "selling a pig in a poke" for far longer than they have been offering high quality smoked hams.

I see. If your point was that markets need some government intervention to have a frame in which they work, I agree. I am not an anarchist, though I have many regrets about that.

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I am dedicated to the rule of law, and the concept of a social contract. I'm actually physically large enough to do quite well by "the law of the jungle," but i've believed in "enlightened self-interest" from an early age, and consider anarchy to be rather a self-indulgent exercise, and a foolish one. The true anarchist eventually condemns him- or herself to misery and poverty, if not actually to death.

All of which, of course, is a product of my never humble opinion.

I happen to have one large, U.S. Standard shitload of anectdotes of capitalist exploitation, and how naturally it has always seemed to come to people, but it's not germane here.

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Setanta wrote:

I am dedicated to the rule of law, and the concept of a social contract. I'm actually physically large enough to do quite well by "the law of the jungle," but i've believed in "enlightened self-interest" from an early age, and consider anarchy to be rather a self-indulgent exercise, and a foolish one. The true anarchist eventually condemns him- or herself to misery and poverty, if not actually to death.

That describes well why I am not an anarchist myself. Except that my own physiognomy is small and fat, so my commitment to the rule of law is strictly self-serving cowardice.

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Thomas,
One point where I disagree with you as to public vs private vouchers is that public gives a much larger base of consumers that can complain about the product not being good.

A voucher system divides the consumers up into multiple groups and they can perform what most consumers do when faced with a bad product. They switch and the bad product is never faced with having to get better. The parents that don't care will leave their kids in bad schools until the powers that be finally track it down. We all know how slow the govt is to find problems without a vocal public there to spur them on.

Another problem with a free market system is that markets are based on percieved value not quality. Too many will see price as the break point for value instead of a quality education. Why spend $5000 a year to educate a student when you can get a lower paid and less qualified teacher and put more kids in the classroom and teach them for $4000.

There is no easy way for a parent to be a well informed consumer since they don't attend the schools and have to rely on the school itself to tell them how their child is doing.
The following statement from a private schoold has many meanings. "We don't teach your child how to take the test. We teach him to learn. In 3 years he will outperform his peers."

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Thomas said

Quote:

As for creationism vs. evolution, for all practical purposes we have no such controversy to handle. I would have to look up the exact number, but the share of creationists in the German population is some low single digit percentage.

I would imagine that the forced departure of the Baptist and Anabaptist sects among others from your fine land and the fact that most Germans are probably either Lutheran or Catholic has a lot to do with it. With a population and diversity quotient geometrically greater than germany,in the US, even a small minority religionoften contains a few million people.So, our problem could be solved if we were more monolithic. Iguess we will have to go the Courts route instead.

"Free market schools", hmmm. We have the experiment on- going right now. In Pa, what I see is that its actually created an even larger education beaurocracy.After all, besides tending to the public schools and parochial schools are producing, There has to be a new branch of the Commonwealth Dept of Ed that goes forth and assures that the Charter schools are performing within specs in order to prevent the "lost years" effect that parados alluded to. Thats how the student "kiting" scam was discovered
about 2 years ago. If we merely wait until the semiannual testing is completed and verified(weve also found that many schools merely teach for the "tests" and dont really provide any valuable education.)we lose almost an entire school year before any statistical inferences can be made.
Our present regime seems to stand for "less govt in all our activities"( except our morals) but when we compare our successes in such things as med care , to countries with socialized medicine (and longer life spans), we seem to spend a greater percentage of our GDP on services and get appreciably less for them. Im afraid that a "for-profit" ed system will be similarly blessed by waste, corruption, and political favoritism.

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farmerman wrote:

Im afraid that a "for-profit" ed system will be similarly blessed by waste, corruption, and political favoritism.

The for profit educational system will cheery picks the same as does the for profit insurance system It spends more money on a large bureaucracy weeding out liabilities, the sick, and as a result delivers less service. A for profit educational system would do the same weeding out the more costly students, slow learners, culturally/economically disadvantage with the same result.

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Good insight, Acq. Wink

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The velocity of stuff on this thread has been rather fast in the last day or so.

Farmerman,

Glad we have finally connected on some basic points, and have found some areas of broad agreement or at least common understanding. Yes Montgomery County public schools are fairly good. However those in nearby Fairfax and Arlington Counties in northern Virginia are much better. (Washington DC, which has the highest per capita student cost in the region (and the country) is among the very worst in the whole country. As you know there is a great deal of variability in all that, and even in these locales, most parochial schools are far better. I attended Catholic schools until university (Dominican nuns in Michigan and another order in Washington; Jesuits after 6th grade) I have mostly very good memories of this experience - both the Dominicans and the Jesuits were cheerful and demanding. They practised punishment without guilt. the nuns in Washington were evidently more like yours - guilt without punishment. I much preferred the former, and have a rather large repertoire of memorized poems and what were then called "elocution pieces" as a lifelong benefit from schoolboy infractions. My wife and I have four children and we too choose to send them to parochial schools - and I am glad we did.

For all,

There are several topics overlaid on the discussions in this thread, ranging from the objections of some Christian fundamentalists to the teaching of evolutionary theory in Biology, to the objections of others to what they call "creation myths" - apparently embracing any possibility whatever that a God or creator played any role in the existence of the observable universe. There is a very wide range of possibilities between these points, and ,for reasons I have outlined previously, I find both extremes equally absurd.

Separate, but entwined issues are the question of the degree of government vs, parental control that one wishes for the education of children, and the amount of free economic choice one wants in the educational marketplace. Some want a high degree of governmental control and strict application of tax revenues for public schools, leaving those who choose not to use them to pay the additional costs alone, and have their private schools subject to strict government control of curriculum and standards.. Others value greater parental and community control and wish to see voucher programs and like measures to insert free choice and market forces into the educational system. There are, as well many points in between.

All of these are distinct issues but they have come together in various, not always obvious, ways in these discussions of 'intelligent design in the schools'.

When I contemplate the origins of the universe - the limitations of current models; the fact that the observable universe seems to be rather finely tuned, not only for cosmological stability, but also, given the particular values of the known universal physical constants, for the evolution or development of life I am inclined to view a Kierkegaardian 'leap to faith' as a smaller jump than one to materialistic atheism. (Pascal's bet also comes to mind here.)

With respect to government involvement in public education, my views are very close to those ably expressed here by Thomas. I value parental and local control generally more than government control for reasons both of principle and effectiveness. (I have great faith in the power of bureaucracy and closed systems of experts to screw up just about anything.) I also favor voucher programs that give parents the right to apply the government funds for education to the schools they choose. (I wouldn't object at all to minimum performance and achievement standards applied by government as a condition of qualification.)

Setanta,

My impression of Thomas is that he is generally very restrained and polite in his discussions here - also very careful to acknowledge the limitations of his knowledge and even his own occasional errors. There may well be some irony or implied rebuke in some of his remarks - or, more likely, things he stops short of saying. However, can that possibly be any worse than the rather angry and pointed criticisms, rebukes, and invective that you hurl at those you imagine have offended you? You are a smart guy and posess a remarkable store of knowledge and understanding that can add greatly to the experience of these threads - and have done so many times. Moreover you often display a fine sense of irony and humor. I can detect no necessity or reason for these outbursts of hostility and invective directed at those who take issue with your opinions and analysis.

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Well, I started my last post a few hours ago and then interrupted it to go to the gym. Aftrer the workout I completed and submitted it without checking for recent posts. Now I see that Setanta and Thomas have worked out the spat and my rebuke is still there twisting in the wind.

Another example that good intentions are not sufficient for good works. I do enjoy reading posts from both of the fighters in this dispute and am glad to see the issues are resolved.

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When you get astride your high horse, georgeob1, to you use an oversized mounting block, or a step-ladder?

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Catholic Schools have an important advantage, georgeob1

Catholic schools have the right to expel---public education labors under "no child left behind "(NCLB is actually no more than 3% left behind).

As to what you are requesting for the (public) schools really is able to produce what "Melinda Gates" needs and Thomas Friedman is saying is needed.

I've been an engineering manager (I preferred being a problem solving engineer) and in process of becoming a secondary M/S teacher (talk about a pay cut), so I have a good idea what is needed in industry and what is going on in the schools. (teaching to the achievement test---see NCLP, isn't it!

What are needed are problem solving skills, not grammar, not math, not history per se, those will follow as the problems grow more complex and the presentations become progressively formal. And problemsolving uses all skills, organizational, mathematical, verbal and historical (no reason to reinvent the apple).

As for problems with the school systems--consider yours. I'll bet apples to hot dogs that it falls into one of two types---a huge bureaucracy saddled with process, or very small system with three grade schools, two middle schools, and a high school. In the former it is an overhead nightmare and the latter is very small, but largely redundant and VERY political. To top it all off their job depends on test results that saddles them with ridiculous requirement (see no expulsion and the documented 3% of NCLB that additionally wastes 10 days from the middle of a 180 day year) and one of the best unions available (IMO this is a small gripe when you consider what a good teacher is paid).

Now back to topic (I hate a complete threadjack)--Teaching ID in a science classroom should be used as a problem to solve. Consider ID as a scientific hypothesis and ask the class to design an experiment. Have them make or find an observation (experiment is preferred) and see if their hypothesis would predict or explain their observations/results and present their results to their peers. .

Interesting top thread subject though, but I consider the irreducibly complex argument very weak because it still hinges strongly on a religion copout.

Rap

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Setanta wrote:

When you get astride your high horse, georgeob1, to you use an oversized mounting block, or a step-ladder?

Generally I use a ladder to reach the top of the mounting block - then just a moderate step to the horse. However, I sit upon it lightly --

How do you mount yours?

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Acquiunk and rap, like Erasmus and Charles , have presented a side benefit of the parochial school systems,ie expulsion as an aid to improving performance stats as much as the use of "demographic loading" is the way that health insurance providers penalize those that need the service most. Set already made the point that I reinforced in that the State ed depts. (In Pa at least) have grown substantially to , in their perspective, adequately administer to all the new Charter Schools that have popped up in the Commonwealth since , I believe, about 1999.georgeob said

Quote:

There are several topics overlaid on the discussions in this thread, ranging from the objections of some Christian fundamentalists to the teaching of evolutionary theory in Biology, to the objections of others to what they call "creation myths" - apparently embracing any possibility whatever that a God or creator played any role in the existence of the observable universe. There is a very wide range of possibilities between these points, and ,for reasons I have outlined previously, I find both extremes equally absurd.

In a dispassionate , data driven manner, surely you must see that all the predictive models of the generation of species and higher taxa are adequately explained by a "nat selection" or even a punctuated equilibrium basis, while no ID or Creationist model fits the available data.
In fact, none is adequately addressed at all, by a Creationist or ID model.

We can predict going forward past the 3.8 Billion year horizon via Nat selection, we cannot do anything with ID or Creation because it simply has no available data save the invocation of a "miracle".
The fact that life on earth follows and is "shuffled about" by periodic extinctions, after which new species arise, does not follow the genesis or ID model.

The fact that geographic isolation through geologic processes results in entirely new taxa for the separate geographic areas does not support the Creationist nor the ID model.(Even Darwin, when he collected his birds, had no idea that his finches were of the same genus, they were that different. He actually had to rely upon his manservant MrSyms Covington's collection because Covington kept his bird specimens catalogued based upon which island they came from while Darwin, who believed in Lyells Creationist teaching, did not. Darwin never realized he screwed up until he returned from his trip and John Gould, the noted taxonomist told him that all his different variable beaked birds with different morphologies were finches )

The fact that we can trace these morph changes in clades through geo time is counter to the Creationist model. ID is silent on "ongoing creation episodes"
Geochemical models of the earths environment clearly show the increase of that toxic "contaminant" gas , Oxygen being coincident with the appearance of most of the fossil phyla in a billion year period (plus or minus 15 years) does not fit the creation gospel.Other climatological conditions, including supersaturation of O2 in the Carboniferous left other predicive tools available that support a natural selection mode , whereas Creationists talk of a "water vapor" cloud that coincides with this period (cept they want it at about 5500 years bp).

The fact that Nat selection can be used "playing forward" whereas Creationist and ID thinking cannot, is one of the less "absurd " features of the present scientifically derived models of the earths history.

DONT even get me going about plate tectonics and how species can be traced by their "ring" evolution about continental breakups.
My, and most ofthe approaches that will be taken in the various ID /naturalistic cases, will involve, once again, the appeal to the scientific method and its necessity to define what is , or is not, real science to present to the kids and students of science. We can predict and use these models based upon discoveries in the various sciences . (Like in Mine hydrology, we often dont have a complete pumping test to determine the size of a reservoir, but we can jump in at a number of points during ongoing pumping and measure head/pressure changes and drawdowns,from these we can develop good enough models to estimate basin sizes. All that time we were never there at the beginning,we just "play it forward "with our data that can be measured).
The use of data based analogyis a powerful tool to use wih our legislators and lawyers,and one that, ID has shown no real ability to counter. In fact, most IDers only wish to argue "origins of life" while stipulating to all the other scientific data. It then boils down to your desire to have room "left" for a Creator Intelligence. A devestating follow up to that is simply, who would that Creator Intelligence be? and how do we keep it purely scientific so as not to invoke the boundaries of amendment 1?

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farmerman wrote:

In a dispassionate , data driven manner, surely you must see that all the predictive models of the generation of species and higher taxa are adequately explained by a "nat selection" or even a punctuated equilibrium basis, while no ID or Creationist model fits the available data.
In fact, none is adequately addressed at all, by a Creationist or ID model.

We can predict going forward past the 3.8 Billion year horizon via Nat selection, we cannot do anything with ID or Creation because it simply has no available data save the invocation of a "miracle".
The fact that life on earth follows and is "shuffled about" by periodic extinctions, after which new species arise, does not follow the genesis or ID model.

I wouldn't argue with any of that. Evidently when you refer to "ID" you mean only a literal interpretation of Genesis and the direct creation of human life - from nothing - by God. I have no problem whatever with that. While the evidence of the ascent of species is far from complete, there is every reason to believe the evolutionary model will lead to man. There is no reason to teach biology in any other form. That, however, is very far short of precluding intelligent design and creation of the universe. My objection comes in when that false inference is included in the package - as it already has often been so included on this thread.

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raprap wrote:

Catholic Schools have an important advantage, georgeob1

Catholic schools have the right to expel---public education labors under "no child left behind "(NCLB is actually no more than 3% left behind).

...

I've been an engineering manager (I preferred being a problem solving engineer) and in process of becoming a secondary M/S teacher (talk about a pay cut), so I have a good idea what is needed in industry and what is going on in the schools. (teaching to the achievement test---see NCLP, isn't it!

What are needed are problem solving skills, not grammar, not math, not history per se, those will follow as the problems grow more complex and the presentations become progressively formal. And problemsolving uses all skills, organizational, mathematical, verbal and historical (no reason to reinvent the apple).

Catholic schools do have the right to expell, just as Public schools have the right to classify students and segregate them by achievement levels. The problem is that, apart from select "advanced curricula in some schools, the education establishment resists objective measures of achievement by individual students, classes, schools or teachers. It doesn't begin to use the tools that are available to it - tools that are used to good effect in some other countries. It prefers its "socialization" role to its educational one.

The entry level engineers, chemists, and geologists with whom I find fault all believe they have good problem solving skills. What they lack is a concrete understanding of mathematics, rigorous analysis, and the ability to communicate complex ideas in an unambiguous, logical, and compact way, using correct grammar and vocabulary. Without these tools their problem solving skills - if they truly exist - are nearly worthless. I don't deny the potential effectiveness of this approach in a pedagogical context, but the basic tools must be present before one learns to use them.

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georgeob1 wrote:

The entry level engineers, chemists, and geologists with whom I find fault all believe they have good problem solving skills. What they lack is a concrete understanding of mathematics, rigorous analysis, and the ability to communicate complex ideas in an unambiguous, logical, and compact way, using correct grammar and vocabulary. Without these tools their problem solving skills - if they truly exist - are nearly worthless. I don't deny the potential effectiveness of this approach in a pedagogical context, but the basic tools must be present before one learns to use them.

Perhaps you're being too hard on these entry level folks, George. That's merely a trait of youth, thinking you know it all. I think it was you yourself who mentioned that academia can be a bit divorced from reality.

That's true of course, university tends to deal with the hypothetical, not so much with the practical. So it's not at all surprising that these entry levels should be unskilled in the actual ways of the world. University doesn't normally provide the degree of focus needed for a specific job.

With respect to grammar, most of what you were taught, and what is still being taught by many, is nothing more than a collection of old wives tales. That you've gotten as far as you have, burdened with all these grammatical fairy tales, points up that Raprap may well have a valid point.

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Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

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