[Phys-L] Re: NYT article on where intelligent design comes from
From: mshapiro at EXCHANGE.FULLERTON.EDU (Shapiro, Mark)
Date: Tue Aug 23 09:45:21 2005
And none of them are willing to answer the question that begs for an =
answer:
Who designed the designer?
-----Original Message-----
=46rom: Forum for Physics Educators on behalf of John Denker
Sent: Mon 8/22/2005 4:09 PM
To: PHYS-L@LISTS.NAU.EDU
Subject: Re: NYT article on where intelligent design comes from
=20
Hi --
I agree with what Hugh wrote. He saved me the trouble of
writing it.
Jumping off from there, let me throw in my $2e-2.
1) This intelligent-design stuff is very dangerous.
The guys driving this are selfish, smart, cynical, and
well-funded. They mean business.
2) This is not primarily a conflict between religion and
science. The primary force here is politics. The ID
"movement" is being stage-managed by political operatives
for political reasons.
These guys have been creating and exploting religious and
cultural "wedge issues" for decades. They're real good at
it.
They have money, and they want to turn it into political
power. This is one of the ways they do that.
3) This attack is not aimed just against evolution, or
just against biology. It is an attack against science
_per se_, against scientific thought in general, and
against scientists as a group.
The guys driving this are deeply anti-science, and they
are afraid that scientists will rise up and oppose them
in a big way. (If only it were true!) By destroying
the credibility of science and scientists, they advance
their political agenda.
4) Above I carefully spoke of "the guys driving this".
That's true, but not the whole story. We should not assume
that everybody involved signed up for the same reason.
4a) Some are deeply committed to a political agenda,
as described above.
4b) Some are merely mercenaries, who will argue a point
(any point) for a fee.
4c) Some are religous fanatics. They have decided that
dogma is more important than logic or evidence.
4d) Some are sincere, but scared. They are comfortable
with the simplicity and clarity of dogma, and not
comfortable with the complexity of science, ... but
they are not super-commmitted to it.
5) Because of item (4), there is no one single winning
argument. So you should tailor the argument to the
audience. There is virtually no chance of changing any
minds among the people in categories (4a), (4b), or (4c),
so aim for segment (4d). It's like any public debate:
It's not your job to convince the members of the other
debating team; your job is to convince the audience.
6) If/when you are discussing this topic, be alert to the
fact that a common argument in favor of ID is the notorious
_argument from no evidence_ which is discussed at http://www.av8n.com/physics/no-evidence.htm
The _argument from no evidence_ is just a stand-in or a
helper for another fallacy, namely appeal to scripture,
the drawbacks of which are discussed at: http://www.av8n.com/physics/authority.htm
It is important to teach all students (and indeed all
citizens) to recognize fallacious reasoning. Learning
how to _think_ is far more important than any particular
fact about physics or any other discipline.
Don't be afraid to take class time -- quality time --
discussing formal logic, classic fallacies, et cetera.
I don't think this will happen immediately, because as
mentioned above, the guys who are pushing this are not
really fundamentalists. They don't take the bible literally.
They just take literally the parts they can exploit to
advance their political agenda.