Evolution, Honesty and Objectivity
I'm tired. I am constantly wearied by the repeated claims of evolutionists, some of which are simply patently false, some of which are obviously exaggerations and some of which are simply unsupportable assertions which attempt to define victory for themselves.

The latest case in point is the response to recent educational science standard changes in Kansas. The standards themselves are available for all to see. The major change was the removal of the word 'natural' in one part, i.e. now science is looking for more adequate explanations as opposed to looking for more adequate natural explanations. According to statements in news reports, this brings Kansas' definition of science in line with the definition of dozens of other states. It also encourages teaching the problems and controverseys with evolutionary theory as part of the eductional process.

Yet evolutionists are up in arms and screaming bloody murder. It seems their commitment to philosophical naturalism is fairly extreme.

It is somewhat strange that this news article has a comment from Jack Kreb, a high school math teacher "What this does is open the door for teachers to bring creationist arguments into the classroom and point to the standards and say it's OK". I don't know many creationist arguments that would be brought into his math class, but hey, why not quote the guy. Jack also has an article on Panda's thumb proclaiming doom and gloom.

PZ Meyers, also over at Panda's Thumb, has a post on the Kansas standards. Meyers makes the bold claim that

There is no credible evidence against common descent and chemical evolution; those concepts are being strengthened, year by year. What does this school board think to gain by teaching students lies?

No credible evidence? Wow. Strengthened year by year? Incredible! Chemical evolution of course is talking about how life came from non-life. There is no credible evidence FOR chemical evolution. Indeed, even after decades of research, the only thing that has been found is that there are MORE problems with the idea than originally thought.

My common response to ridiculous claims such as this is to ask what 3 observations/ lines of evidence does the commentator think most strongly supports common descent evolution (CDE). Invariably, the response always includes circular reasoning/begging the question (similarity in DNA implies common ancestry) or non-explanatory observations (I.e. If any observation in a class of observations can be seen to support common descent, then it is not an explanatory line of evidence.) Another common assertion is that CDE is required for many scientific advances and research. These invariably amount to question begging appeals to advances that are based on simple observations which do not require CDE to be true (e.g. It is true that similar physiology is useful for testing medicines on other animals before it is tested on people, but this usefulnes is based on the similarity in DNA, not on whether common descent is true).


ArsTechnica continues with the rubbish with its own article on the ID controversey. Making some flat out incorrect claims such as

In a stunning move, the board literally redefined science to include the investigation and explanation of what is commonly called the metaphysical.

Actually, the investigation of the metaphysical was not mentioned.

While the teaching of Intelligent Design is not mandated, neither is the teaching of Evolution, and vice versa.

Teaching evolutionary theory is required for state assessments for students. The standards do not include intelligent design for these state assessments or mandate it's teaching.

The article then quotes Kenneth Miller who continues with more nonsense

When science is taught as only factual observation (something the standards passed by the Board would encourage), then disagreements among scientists and changing scientific views are seen as weaknesses and failings of scientific knowledge. However, the exact opposite is the case. It is the dynamic, changing, self-correcting nature of science that is its very strength. The less science is seen as a body of established knowledge, the more inherently interesting and exciting it becomes.

If this is the case, then why are Miller and others so opposed to teaching the disagreements? It is also somewhat dubious to call science 'self-correcting' when it can take 40 years to overturn fraudulant research, and the implications of all the science done on the assumption of the fraud's accuracy is never investigated and the fraudulant findings still taught.

The article then later continues to equate creation science with ID. Anybody with any real knowledge of either group should be able to see the vast differences between the two. In fact, the only thing they have in common is they both think that an intelligent designer is responsible for some of the features of life.

Add to this the common exclamations that evolution (CDE) is a fact, ID is religion, anyone who doubts CDE is ignorant, science will collapse if ID is taught and you have the whole gammut of protestations from evolution. All of them have been dealt with, yet it seems that the objective scientists are so wedded to their ideas that they cannot even consider the possibility they are wrong.

I'm tired.
- posted by Alan Grey @ Friday, November 11, 2005