Reason and Religion

Home - Profile - Archives - Friends

The Absence of Reason

Posted on 7/23/2006 at 1:23 AM - 0 Comments - Post Comment - Link

The promise of Stem Cell research, in particular Embryonic Stem Cell research to solve many intractable diseases and conditions that plague our modern world to new possibilities like regrowth of nerve fibre for back injury patients to regrowth of the whole missing leg or arm.  This is what the anti-science US President George W Bush opposed last week, maintaining his loyalty to the anti-science religious fundamentalist right that holds sway in Washington andTexas these days.


Living as I do in Australia I see from time to time faint echoes here in the antipodes of the insanity that pervades US society.  Fortunately cooler heads prevail and it remains a faint echoe.  It is as if the same club is represented in the evolution vs creation debate as the anti-stem cell push in Washington.  Fortunately for us, the Republican Party is not monolithic, for we have the much maligned Governor of California funding a program as a stop gap measure until the Legislature comes to it's senses.


The conflict between science and religion is an arificial construction of this group that has gone all the way up to the Whitehouse. Let's hope th e US survives such an onslaught.  It's technological superiority and nuclear supremouse is increasingly being eroded by world events, so why allow a bad start in these new sciences and applications coming from biology?

Syriana a Review

Posted on 3/13/2006 at 12:32 AM - 0 Comments - Post Comment - Link

Rarely does Hollywood come up with some serious commentary on US Foreign Policy and the forces that seek to influence and exploit it.  Although a disjointed affair, the implication of the Oil Industry and how the Department of State viewed things in the Middle East as opposed to the Intelligence Agents in the countries themselves.  Idealists seeking to promote democracy make choices that put them on the opposite side to State and the "National interest, and how that follows closely to the OIL Industries interests.

We are learning that a fully liberal democracy in other countries (Think South America) does not follow that the resulting government will be interested in supporting the US when it considers it's own position in the World.

China figured prominently in the background as a looming threat to this teleplay.  How much it tracks real life will be upto individual assesment, in my opinion, I think it tracked well.  It has always been about the OIL, and the US is determined to meet it's needs first, and being the US it can.

Creationism And Science Part Two

Posted on 2/20/2006 at 12:15 AM in Religion and Science - 0 Comments - Post Comment - Link

The ID debate in schools issue seems to be far from over.  The court case on the Dover, Pennsylvania vs some concerned parents is over, and one would think the protagonists, the Discovery Institute, and various Evolutionists would be reviewing their position and planning the next step.  Since the nature of the science defendants in this case and others is reactionary, they simply will adn are crowing about their win, however the opposition Creationists are on the assault.

In Utah, State Bill SB96 is being considered by the State Legislator, despite the Court decision in Pennsylvania, and the Ohio State Board of Education has tossed out an ammendment to the curricullum asking for critical analysis of the Evolution Theory, and incidentally only thehe evolution theory.

Critical Analysis is something science already teaches it's students about their assumptions when preparing experiments and conducting them.  Perhaps the creationists should have attended science classes instead of football when in High School.

I commend an speech by President Shirley M. Tilghman of Princeton University the George Romanes Lecture, presented at Oxford University entitled Strange Bedfellows: Science, Politics and Religion December 1, 2005. It gives a worrysome look at the state of Science and Politics in the US today.  One where unwise manned scientific expeditions (to Mars), and science class being usurped by some religious statement that completely misrepresents amd misunderstands the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection as first powerfully explained by Charles Darwin.

I can't imagine what science and biology will be like if ID (Intelligent Design) is given equally valid a position with current accepted theories without having to go through the rigourous proccesses that a scientist has to to simply get published let alone appear in a text book.

Support you science teacher and science in general encourage analytical thinking as a first order in all the seniour high school subjects.  Maybe learning how to research a topic will assist a diluting of the intelligent design lobby in political circles and also the religious circles, Tilgman's speech covers that well.

ALP Renews

Posted on 10/9/2005 at 7:17 PM - 0 Comments - Post Comment - Link

I have just received an invitation from the Union Community Alliance as a group within the Australian Labor Party. I think there is an effort to replace the old union dominated structure of the party to include the likes of me that are not members of a union, just ordinary members trying to bring about change.

I have seen change occur from deep within the membership when it comes to government activities (Victoria has a Labor Party Government under Steve Bracks) and would be interested in the changes occurring within the Labor Party as well.

Of course it may be related to the rise of the conservatives to power in Canberra and the inability of Labor to unseat them. It remains to be seen how things develop, but I will be interested.

A Breed Apart, or Creationism Has A Problem

Posted on 9/27/2005 at 10:41 AM - 0 Comments - Post Comment - Link

School Districts lead debate on Evolution vs Intelligent Design in the Science Curriculum in the USA



Does Intelligent Design qualify to be included in the High School Science Curriculum?

Is Evolution by Natural selection just a theory, or a fundamental part of science?

Should Intelligent Design be taught in High School Science?

These sort of questions and others apply equally to the Dover Pennsylvania School Board, Topeka Kansas and our Educational institutions here in Victoria. The only difference is, it is not an issue in this part of the world.

The main issues a going on in Dover Pennsylvania and Topeka Kansas, where the school boards are elected with conservative Christians of the Republican Party trying to introduce religious claims to Biological and Paleontology subjects in the Secondary Schools which are covered in say year 9- 12 equivalent. Creationists are serious and make claims that the Intelligence Design ideas should replace the Evolution Theory that is widely covered in those subjects in the Science fields from first year undergraduates to Phd.'s and professorial employment in the great fields of Science and medical areas. They do this without any theory being reviewed tested by its peers, nontheless it is being touted as a replacement. This is breaking all the rules of science developed over the last 250 years, they have been told again and again, without a dent in their program

In October 2004 the Dover School Board voted to require school science teachers to teach alternatives to Evolution, including Intelligent Design.1 This started a case where politics and religion were put together with science on the side lines. Arkansas, Florida and Kansas joined the group as the wedge was being applied through out the US. What is the wedge2? It is a policy document of the Discovery Institute with the purpose to bring a creationist view of biology and geology into those subjects as a legitimate alternative theory. The only problem with their plans is intelligent people, science teachers, science practitioners, science apologists, rationalists, etc. So how does such a program want to succeed? It is simple, rely on the ignorance of the general public, and the loyalty of conservative Christians to compel the State School Boards to change the curriculum to include Intelligent Design. Where this group has a majority, it is likely it will pass.

The only problem is that Intelligent Design3, or ID is not a scientific theory, it is a statistical criticism of a scientific theory, which means it shouldn't be in a science class, but where it belongs, in the undergraduate philosophy of science subjects or a theology class, which in the US can not occur in a State School because their constitution forbids the State from making any laws with regard to religion. Therefore legal concerns occur, parents opposed to such actions and concerned citizens, all join the party. This is what happened in Dover Pennsylvania and Topeka Kansas.

The Kansas case was made more interesting because the science community refused to be part of the debate, so it was left to legal arguments, the science community felt it was not required to defend science in a forum dominated by christian conservatives with a clear agenda to introduce Intelligent Design to it's Schools and replace Evolution. The evidence was high farse from all accounts, with no science being disgust it must have been earie to here the oposition to the School Board explaining why it is unconstitional for such a obvious religious subject to be introduced to the curriculum without it going to the Supreme Court, and then everyone else saying how marvelous for our children to hear how some unspecified intelligent being allowed some of the adaptations and speciation to occur, and that an unpublished, uncritiqued by peers of the subject, and simply not science. That's how Daniel Ortega described the going on in better words than me in his article Scopes Snoops.4 Next week, I propose to introduce the discussion of magic in our physics classes and how it explains lightning and storms after a rain dance and why it should be used as an alternative to another theory.

Some of the big wigs of Intelliget Design were rolled out to defend the philosphy, Michael Behe attended a dedication meeting of a Dover Area High School to make

“five points why intelligent design — the concept that life is too complex to have been evolved solely through natural selection and must have been created by an intelligent designer — was a better explanation for the biological world’s existence.” 5

There is no reason why a belief in Intelligent Design can't be taught, but the maths is far beyond High School and should be taught in some undergraduate subject like philosapy of science, or theology and science. Meanwhile the creationists can teach their children in Sunday School, which will not impose their religious beliefs on anyone except the willing. That is not the plan.

From our perspective in the antipdies this subject is probably a small news subject, but in the US it is larger and covered by the media in the smaller cities where it is happening and as a subject in the Conservative Christian Areas and the debate between Evolution and Creationism that raise its head every now and again in the larger media in the US and as a curiosity here.

The papers I use are the ones available on the York Daily Review6, the talk.origins7 ,discussion and various other areas on the World Wide Web. It has been an education about the US and the conservative Christians Creationists. The rise of Biblical Literalist within the conservative branches of the Republican Party since George W Bush became president, indeed they assisted in his victory and worked hard on the campains, educateds any organisation how to go about gaining change in their society.

In Dover today, the witnesses for the plaintifs have withdrawn8, which leaves the court to decide on the non specialised events of lawyers and teachers, school board and parents. Since the science specialists boycoted the proceedings of this trial, the outcome will in all probability be in favour of the defendeds. However, in the State Capita, Harrisburg, legisaltors have proposed changes to the States Public School Code inorder to effect the introduction of Intelligent Design into the Science Curricullum9. It is not over yet, and probably, judging by the determination of the Creationist camp, will continue, at least as long as there is a Republican majority and President.

2Discovery Institute (internal document) http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/2437/wedge.html

3Intelligent Design was rescently made famous by WilliamA. Dembski, The Design Revolution, Answering the Toughest Questions about intelligent Design, Inter Varsity Press, 2004, ISBN 1844740145.

5Joseph Maldonado, Dover hosts speaker on evolution, Professor defends intelligent design, York Daily Record, Sunday 24th April 2005, http://ydr.com/story/doverbiology/66404/

6York Daily Record, York Pennsylvania, Dover Biology, http://ydr.com/news/doverbiology/, and The Pitch http://www.pitch.com/about/index.html Kansas City, MO

7Talk.Origins website http://www.talkorigins.org/ for the news:talk.origins

8Experts won't back Dover, June 19th 2005, http://ydr.com/story/doverbiology/74477/

9State Studies Intelligent Design, June 21 2005, http://ydr.com/story/doverbiology/74642/