Is a materialistic approach to teaching the origin of life inherently atheistic and therefore religious?
| August 30, 2006 | Posted by William Dembski under Darwinism, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Religion, Science |
[There's] a new 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation that approaches the issue of teaching origin-of-life theories in public schools from a new angle . . .
Few are aware that the courts have ruled atheism is a religion for the purposes of the First Amendment in 2005 and thought about its implications on the teaching of origin-of-life theories in public schools. In brief, evolution becomes both a religious and scientifc theory (using the court’s definition of scientific theory), and abiogenesis becomes purely a religious theory. That being the case, these atheist origin-of-life theories should be treated the same as any other origin-of-life theory. Anything less is unconstitutional. Visit the website at http://originoflifefairness.org for much more information and the links/facts to back it up.
The mainstream media wants to keep this knowledge quiet. If you agree the public needs to know about this issue, your help would be greatly appreciated telling the public about this website. . . .
Sincerely,
Randel Huey
CEO/Founder “Origin of Life Fairness in Public Schools, Inc.”
Jacksonville, Florida
102 Responses to Is a materialistic approach to teaching the origin of life inherently atheistic and therefore religious?
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mike1962: “NDE does not rise to the level of, say, gravity, or quantum mechanics, which have loads of empirical evidence that can be reproduced by anyone regardless of their philosophy.”
You are looking less and less like a scientist. Gravity? That is precisely what physicists have never managed to work into the standard model. And thus they have resorted to string theory. Do you really think there is more empirical evidence for string-theoretic accounts of gravity than for neo-Darwinian evolution? String theory isn’t testable. Even if we leave string theory out of the picture, gravity is not well understood.
But you will accuse me again of responding to what you write instead of what you think I should know you meant to write, so I’ll observe also that it is inappropriate to compare the empirical support for neo-Darwinian theory to that of quantum mechanics. The reason is that the study of past life forms on earth is an historical science. The appropriate comparisons are to, say, geology and astrophysics. Do you think neo-Darwinism has less supporting evidence than continental drift? than Big Bang / expansion model?
“You, and the 70% of NAS, can hold onto a materialistic philosophy all you want”
The correct figure is 72%, and it is the percentage of self-identifying atheists in the National Academy of Sciences. According to the Wiki article on atheism, “Although some atheists tend toward skepticism, and toward secular philosophies such as humanism, naturalism and materialism, there is no single system of philosophy which all atheists share…” Do you recall that when Bill Dembski was involved in the Dover trial, he pointed out to the judge that the plaintiffs’ experts were secular humanists (definitely not materialists)? Golly, gee.
The NAS has a membership of about 2,000. That is a tiny fraction of the number of scientists in the U.S. In a survey of American professors last year, the greatest level of disbelief in God was among physicists and biologists — 41%, which is of course much lower than the level in the NAS. See
http://www.washtimes.com/natio.....-9143r.htm
You have no basis for calling me a materialist, and in fact I am not one. I am a follower of Jesus who adopts methodological naturalism out of pragmatism (it has a history of working well) while doing science. That has no impact on my life otherwise. In my opinion, only a fool would try to get TRUTH from science, even if methodological naturalism were dropped.
Tom: “You can disagree all you want, but to make a difference in science you are going to have to persuade.â€Â
Mike: “If [NDE] was in the same league as the hard empirical sciences, you wouldn’t need to persuade.”
Teaching is a form of persuasion. If teachers and professors were not highly successful in persuading students of the scientific validity of neo-Darwinian theory, this blog would not exist.
Neo-Darwinism is the unifying framework of contemporary biology. It is a scientific paradigm. If you have never read Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, you should at least read the Wiki article on it. You IDists, as the challengers to the established paradigm, are definitely the ones who have to persuade other scientists.
The so-called hard sciences are no less “materialistic” than biology. Why do you condone materialism in them but not biology? Are you bringing to the table an unstated commitment to some religion or philosophy that says life is inherently different from the rest of nature?
“Maybe you don’t care to convince us. That’s fine. But folks like me are rather tired of the political and educational fall out from an ideology such as NDE. And we vote. You are right to be nervous about it, if you make you living by supporting such an ideology.”
You indeed worry me more than anyone else I have encountered at UD. You know less science than most. You do not reason as well as most. You do not write as well as most. You slur when you’re frustrated. And you evidently believe that the American Way is for a majority that disagrees with an intellectual enterprise to use its power to squelch that enterprise. Did you know that “the people” used political power in another country to suppress genetics? Opposition to genetics was called Lysenkoism, and it was instituted in the Soviet Union. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
P.S.
“If teachers and professors were not highly successful in persuading students of the scientific validity of neo-Darwinian theory, this blog would not exist.”
I know that teachers are actually not very persuasive at all, with half of American adults believing that God created humans in more or less their present form, and with nearly another third believing that God directed evolution. But you IDists say over and over how effective those teachers are in indoctrinating the poor little students.
avocationist: “Perhaps it is useful to speak of natural causes to mean only matter and energy and their interactions, but that pretty much excludes living things.”
For now, the vast majority of biologists assume that life is reducible to matter, energy, and their interactions, though many (most?) oppose reductionism. I’m not a biologist, so I don’t feel comfortable saying much beyond that.
Tom English
Actually I’ve said on more than one occasion that for every American who doesn’t buy the Darwinian evolutionary narrative there is a science teacher who failed him.
But I don’t really blame science teachers. I blame the fairy tales they try to peddle as science when it comes to evolution. Most people can see right away it’s a narrative not a theory. Still, a good salesman should be able to BS his way through it and indeed they do with the other, less discerning half of the classroom.
Re: 92. So European children are more gullible than American children?
Re: reductionism. There are many different flavors, but the basic stance is that reduction is successful when all talk about As (for any entity) can be entirely translated into talk about Bs. Then A-talk (i.e. biology) has been reduced to B-talk (i.e. physics).
So far, reductionism has been exceedingly difficult — if not impossible — to successfully implement. That’s why reductionism is not highly regarded among biologists or philosophers.
In any event, reductionism should be contrasted with holism or with some version of emergentism. Holism and/or emergentism might be compatible with materialism. One could think that new properties and principles, irreducible to atomic and molecular events, emerge over time without thinking that non-material entities need be posited in order to explain those properties.
Like I keep on saying, there are a lot of options besides materialism/atheism on the one hand and intelligent design on the other.
DaveScot,
“Most people can see right away it’s a narrative not a theory.”
Most people? Would that include the three in ten Americans who do not graduate from high school? How about the rapidly increasing fraction of those who graduate but cannot demonstrate rudimentary science knowledge in testing?
Years ago, I heard about a little boy whose dog had a litter of puppies. One day, the boy asked his mother if he could take a puppy to school for show-and-tell. She agreed, and carried a pup to his classroom later that day. After the boy had made his presentation, a hand went up.
“Yes?” the teacher said.
“Is it a boy puppy or a girl puppy?”
The little boy did not know.
“Does anybody know how to tell?” the teacher asked.
A silence fell over the room. Then another hand went up.
“Yes?” the teacher said.
“We could vote!”
Tom English
Most people? Would that include the three in ten Americans who do not graduate from high school? How about the rapidly increasing fraction of those who graduate but cannot demonstrate rudimentary science knowledge in testing?
High school attendence is mandatory through 10th grade biology which includes sophomore biology. Nice try. Many of those people you mention accept evolution too. Chance worship increases with years of formal education with no stark cutoffs as you seem to be implying. That’s to be expected. A longer period of indoctrination into the dogma means more success at it. Can you spell “peer pressure”? I knew you could.
DaveScot,
I suspect that you overestimate how much students actually absorb from school, for one thing. Teenagers are not known for their scholastic dilligence. For another, evolution is not a big component of public school education, from my limited experience. (Not that n=1 allows any substantial conclusions one way or the other.)
From what I’ve seen in my own experience, and from what I’ve heard about others, most public school science teachers have decided that the best way to avoid offending the delicate sensibilities of their students and their students’ parents is to say as little as possible about “the e-word.” And I never learned anything about abiogenesis through public school, either — it simply wasn’t brought up. I didn’t receive any significant formal training in evolutionary theory until college.
And a final note: even if people say that they accept evolution, that doesn’t mean that they understand it. I’d be willing to bet that if you took ten average people off the street and asked them if they accepted evolution, most of them would say yes — but if you then asked them to explain the theory, you’d get a half-dozen (at least) different responses, all of them incomplete and probably quite a few that are wrong.
mike1962: “NDE does not rise to the level of, say, gravity, or quantum mechanics, which have loads of empirical evidence that can be reproduced by anyone regardless of their philosophy.â€Â
Tom English: “You are looking less and less like a scientist. Gravity? That is precisely what physicists have never managed to work into the standard model.”
I’m talking about what’s taught in schools as essentially fact, Tom. Things like gravity being related to mass, and General Relativity. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity.) Anyone, regardless of philosophical presupposition can verify these things, Tom.
Tom English: “And thus they have resorted to string theory.”
Say what? Some physicists are certainly playing with string theory, although there are notable exception, such as Roger Penrose (no slouch), who think it’s the wrong direction.
But you miss the point entirely, Tom. String theory, which so far being utterly unverified empirically, is not taught to children as fact.
“Do you really think there is more empirical evidence for string-theoretic accounts of gravity than for neo-Darwinian evolution?”
String theory has no empircal evidence thus far. NDE has no empircal evidence that leads to the conclusion that it is alone responsible for the complexity and variety of life on this planet.
Tom English: “String theory isn’t testable.”
You don’t seem to be keeping up with the forefront, Tom. These guys want to test it: See http://www.physorg.com/news10295.html
Tom English: “Even if we leave string theory out of the picture, gravity is not well understood.”
Depends on what you mean by “well.” There are a lot of things about it that are well understood. And the point is, what is taught about it to school kids is verifiable by anyone regardless of their commitment to methodological materialism.
Tom English: “But you will accuse me again of responding to what you write instead of what you think I should know you meant to write, so I’ll observe also that it is inappropriate to compare the empirical support for neo-Darwinian theory to that of quantum mechanics.”
There is no eimpircal suppose for NDE for the claim that it alone is responsible for all the complexity and veriety of life on this planet. Only someone with a commitment to methodological materialism would conclude that. How could they not? But that conclusion is merely a presumption masquerading as a conclusion.
Tom English: “The reason is that the study of past life forms on earth is an historical science. The appropriate comparisons are to, say, geology and astrophysics. Do you think neo-Darwinism has less supporting evidence than continental drift? than Big Bang / expansion model?
mike1962: “You, and the 70% of NAS, can hold onto a materialistic philosophy all you wantâ€Â
Tom English: “The correct figure is 72% and it is the percentage of self-identifying atheists in the National Academy of Sciences. According to the Wiki article on atheism, “Although some atheists tend toward skepticism, and toward secular philosophies such as humanism, naturalism and materialism, there is no single system of philosophy which all atheists share…â€Â
Well, Tom, they share one thing: atheism!
They reject any notion of an intelligent designer involved in the development of life on this planet. And any “conclusions” based on evidence will necessarily yield an anti-ID result. This should be obvious, Tom. (I don’t care, one way or the other what they think, Tom. But I do care about what’s taught to school kids as fact.)
Tom English: “The NAS has a membership of about 2,000. That is a tiny fraction of the number of scientists in the U.S. In a survey of American professors last year, the greatest level of disbelief in God was among physicists and biologists  41%, which is of course much lower than the level in the NAS. See
http://www.washtimes.com/natio.....-9143r.htm”
That’s good to know, Tom. Thanks.
Tom English: “You have no basis for calling me a materialist, and in fact I am not one. I am a follower of Jesus who adopts methodological naturalism out of pragmatism…”
“Pragmatism” : 1. Philosophy A movement consisting of varying but associated theories, originally developed by Charles S. Peirce and William James and distinguished by the doctrine that the meaning of an idea or a proposition lies in its observable practical consequences. 2. A practical, matter-of-fact way of approaching or assessing situations or of solving problems.
So then, Tom, how is your “scientific” approach to life on this planet “pragamatic?” I consider myself pragmatic. As I understand it, pragmatism is essentially linked to practical results. If something works, adopt it. The more you can understand why it works, better still. However, NDE makes claims that are are unveriafiable. Such claims do not “work” in any practical sense. They yield not practical effects. To take the position that all the evidence points to life being the produce of a blind process is not a pragmatic conclusion with practical results. It is merely a restating of the premise, which is a commitment to materialism. If you start out with materialism and do not allow intelligence to be smuggled in along the way, *of course* the “conclusion” will always have to be that a blind process is the source of life. How this is “pragmatic” I cannot guess.
Tom English: “(it has a history of working well) while doing science.”
Certainly, in the hard sciences. If something works, why then, it works. That’s the kind of science I can live with. But one need not commit to a methodological materialism for the stuff that “works well.”
Tom English: “That has no impact on my life otherwise. In my opinion, only a fool would try to get TRUTH from science, even if methodological naturalism were dropped.”
As for your commitment to Jesus, this is a sidebar question, but I’ve always been puzzled by people like. Are you telling me you don’t accept the claims of NDE regarding evolution being “blind”, but only accept it as the best that materialist science can do? Or do you actually believe the claims of NDE about evolution being blind and try to harmonize that with your beliefs about Jesus creating the world?
Tom: “You can disagree all you want, but to make a difference in science you are going to have to persuade.â€Â
Mike: “If [NDE] was in the same league as the hard empirical sciences, you wouldn’t need to persuade.â€Â
Tom English: “Teaching is a form of persuasion. If teachers and professors were not highly successful in persuading students of the scientific validity of neo-Darwinian theory, this blog would not exist.”
Most public school students are not well trained in logic and philosophy, Tom. Do you really expect most of them to see any logical gaps or evidentiary holes in some presentation made by a teacher whom they are taught to respect? I think it can be demonstrated quite well from history that the reason for NDE’s hold over biology is because of philosophical and political reasons. But I’m not going to do that now.
Tom English: “Neo-Darwinism is the unifying framework of contemporary biology. It is a scientific paradigm. If you have never read Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, you should at least read the Wiki article on it.”
Tom English: “You IDists, ”
I’m not an IDist. I am merely ID friendly.
Tom English: “…as the challengers to the established paradigm, are definitely the ones who have to persuade other scientists.”
I, personally, am not interested in persuading other scientists that ID is valid, only that some of the claims made my NDE are unproven. And I’m interested in persuading those who hold positions of power over education of this fact.
Tom English: “The so-called hard sciences are no less “materialistic†than biology.”
Correct, but they make no untestable claims. And “hard” means “empirical”, Tom. No reason to use “so-called” for that. Empirical is empircal. NDE just isn’t a member of that club.
Tom English: “Why do you condone materialism in them but not biology?”
One need not commit one’s self to a methodological materialism to test the claims of physicists when they tell us that gravity and space are affected by mass. One can be a raving fundamentalist baptist and empirically verify such claims. One cannot be a raving fundamentalist baptist and conclude “pragmatically” that life on this planet is the result of blind events.
Tom English: “Are you bringing to the table an unstated commitment to some religion or philosophy that says life is inherently different from the rest of nature?”
Nope. I’m bringing to the table a commitment to empiricism. All positive claims must be verifiable.
mike1962: “Maybe you don’t care to convince us. That’s fine. But folks like me are rather tired of the political and educational fall out from an ideology such as NDE. And we vote. You are right to be nervous about it, if you make you living by supporting such an ideology.â€Â
Tom English: “You indeed worry me more than anyone else I have encountered at UD. You know less science than most. You do not reason as well as most. You do not write as well as most. You slur when you’re frustrated.”
Thanks, Tom.
Tom English: “And you evidently believe that the American Way is for a majority that disagrees with an intellectual enterprise to use its power to squelch that enterprise.”
That power exists and is exercised by anti-ID zealots constantly. You just happen to be on the majority (for now) side. Time will tell if it will maintain that position.
avocationist: “I am an ID advocate, but for the life of me I just can’t grasp the concept of supernatural.”
No need to, except that whatever a supernature might be, our nature/universe is dependent on it, and not vice versa. Supernature and nature are part of a single system, but with a unidirectional dependency and causality. Consider a virtual world within a computer where the programmer sets up algorithmic “laws.” Assume this virtual world is sophisticated enough to have virtual scientists within in, musing about their environment. The virtual scientists could conceivable detect what the “laws” were that operated normally witin their virtual world. But what happens if I, the programmer/designer on the “outside”, decide to tweak some events within the virtual world? No theory or law could ever be devised by the virtual scientists for my actions, since they are based on no internal laws within the system. To the inside, my outside actions are completely arbitrary and “miraculous.” (Moreover, the virtual scientists would be forever arguing over how life exists, whether the laws of their virtual world came from, and whether or not it was “religious”, and therefore banned from public life, to acknowledge my possible existence.
)
This is my view. Some posit a platonic like world that “transcends” spacetime, and I think this is the supernatural you may have had in mind. But, like you apparently do, think that’s a pretty meaningless idea. But one can have a notion of supernatural if one takes it as simple a dependency issue, as the virtual computer world analogy suggests.
OK seeing that natural causes only exist in nature, natural causes cannot account for the origin of nature. That is why the debate is NOT “super” natural vs. natural but guided, intentional processes vs. unplanned, unguided processes.
Even though the anti-ID position tries to claim immunity from intial causation that alone does not excuse them from the inevitable-> that all scenarios “turtle down” to something beyond nature.
Christians have their trinity and materialists have theirs- Father Time, Mother Nature and the blind watchmaker. And it is obvious that people place a lot of faith in the latter trinity. But that is to be expected. Any framework that relies so heavily on “sheer-dumb-luck” (which is what makes up the anti-ID position) requires more faith than most (if not all) common religions.
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