I have a theory, too. My theory is that creationists are people who did not do well at science in school and want the answer to every question on the science test to be, “You know, God.”
I sure wish more people understood the meaning of theory in science, but at least Piers Sellers does a good job of explaining the concept. I try to hammer into my students (as my teachers hammered into me) the primacy of evidence — observation and measurement — but evidence always has to be for or against something, and that something is theory. You can’t have a theory without evidence, and you can’t have evidence without a theory to give it meaning. So I’m always happy to see another explanation of this core concept of science.Fundamentally, a theory in science is not just a whim or an opinion; it is a logical construct of how we think something works, generally agreed upon by scientists and always in agreement with the available observations. A good example is Isaac Newton’s theory of gravitation, which says that every physical object in the universe exerts a gravity force field around itself, with the strength of that field depending on its mass. The theory—one simple equation—does a superb job of explaining our observations of how planets orbit around the sun, and was more than good enough to make the calculations we needed to send spacecraft to the moon and elsewhere. Einstein improved on Newton’s theory when it comes to large-scale astronomical phenomena, but, for everyday engineering use, Newton’s physics works perfectly well, even though it is more than three hundred years old.One danger of the public misunderstanding of this idea is that they do equate theory and opinion; they tear down successful theories with rhetoric and ignorance, and they also elevate nonsense by labeling it, without comprehension, a theory. And I could piss in the snow and call it a book, too.But theories are abstract, after all, so it’s easy for people to get tricked into thinking that because something is based on theory, it could very likely be wrong or is debatable in the same way that a social issue is debatable. This is incorrect. Almost all the accepted theories that we use in the physical and biological sciences are not open to different interpretations depending on someone’s opinion, internal beliefs, gut feelings, or lobbying. In the science world, two and two make four. To change or modify a theory, as Einstein’s theories modified Newton’s, takes tremendous effort and a huge weight of experimental evidence.This is something that should be explained to everyone visiting Answers in Genesis and their horrible dishonest “museum” and “ark park”. The central argument Ken Ham always makes is a demolition of the whole concept of theory — he claims that any alternative explanation, no matter how much it ignores the evidence, is a theory, and all theories are equal, and therefore, his bizarre, highly subjective and ideologically driven interpretation of the words of his holy book are just as much deserving of the title of “theory” as the hard-earned, constantly tested, well-supported by evidence theory of evolution.And that’s dangerous. Ken Ham uses the degradation of theory to peddle nonsense to the rubes and make money and promote his narrow religion, but as the article explains, it’s also being used to corrupt decision-making about climate that endangers every human being on the planet.
Divine Irony:
If you worry the Creation Museum and its new Noah’s Ark theme park will cause outsiders to think Kentuckians are a bunch of anti-science rubes, at least take comfort in this: Lexington was home to perhaps America’s greatest evolutionary biologist.Sept. 25 marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Thomas Hunt Morgan, who won a Nobel Prize in 1933 for pioneering research that is the foundation of much modern biology and genetics.But aside from the University of Kentucky’s biology department, almost nobody here seems interested in marking the sesquicentennial of Kentucky’s greatest scientist.Morgan, who died in 1945, remains world-famous. But he has always been overshadowed in Lexington by his uncle, Confederate Gen. John Hunt Morgan, a controversial cavalry raider whose statue has stood on the old courthouse lawn since 1911.SNIPGarland Allen, who wrote the 1979 biography Thomas Hunt Morgan: The Man and His Science, will speak at UK on Oct. 13. Cassone said the university also is trying to arrange a Lexington screening of The Fly Room, a 2014 movie about the genetics research with fruit flies in Morgan’s lab at Columbia University in New York.The celebration will begin Oct. 1 with an open house featuring the work of biology graduate students at UK’s new Academic Science Building, which is now under construction and will replace the Thomas Hunt Morgan Biological Sciences Building.SNIPMorgan isn’t UK’s only contribution to refuting the pseudo-science of creationism. Nearly a century ago, as now, creationism was enjoying a wave of popularity among Christians who found science incompatible with their narrow interpretation of Scripture.One result was a bill introduced in the Kentucky General Assembly in 1922 that would have outlawed teaching the evolution of man in public schools and universities. The bill was vigorously opposed by UK President Frank McVey and Arthur McQuiston Miller, dean of the College of Arts & Sciences and UK’s first football coach.The bill was narrowly defeated, but similar legislation passed in Tennessee and several other states. The Tennessee law became famous in 1925, when the American Civil Liberties Union enlisted one of Miller’s former UK students, John T. Scopes, a high school teacher in Dayton, Tenn., to challenge the law in court.The “Scopes monkey trial” became a national sensation that played a big role in turning public opinion away from anti-science for decades. Scopes was found guilty, but his conviction was overturned two years later. The Tennessee law remained on the books until 1967, but was widely ignored.While Scopes remains a household name, few people remember he was a UK graduate. It seems to me that a good thing to put in front of UK’s new Academic Science Building would be an historical marker honoring the roles Scopes, Miller and McVey played in defending academic freedom.
Does he really think there's a veterinary school on the planet that will accept a student who thinks biology comes down to goddunit?
No; he doesn't really care about his daughter. He just wants an excuse for a judge to declare jeebus rulz and science droolz.
Unfortunately, the likelihood of Father Freakazoid finding a repug-appointed judge who will agree with him is dangerously high.
TPM:
Kenneth Smith's lawsuit says that education officials are violating the Constitution and infringing the civil rights of his daughter by "propagating" the "religion" of evolution, according to the Charleston Daily Mail.
“Their actions during the 2014-2015 school year affects my child’s future directly through the state grading system to enter college and the ability to earn economic security and a good job in her chosen veterinarian medical field of work, by being taught a faith base (evolutionary ideology) that just doesn’t exist and has no math to back it,” the lawsuit reportedly said.
How, in the face of so much striking confirmation and massive scientific evidence, could so many Americans disbelieve in evolution?
Daniel Dennett (via whats-out-there)
It is simple: they have been solemnly told that the theory of evolution is false (or at least unproven) by people they trust more than they trust scientists.
We host the child-abusing Creation Museum and are giving tax credits to the Flintstones Truther Park. I'm surprised we got a grade as high as D.
Seriously. This map suggests that unless you live in California, a smattering of states out East, or a small handfull of other states sprinkled across the country, you're looking at a very grave problem when it comes to scientific illiteracy in your community's youth (and, presumably, its population in general). Come to think of it, this map should really concern you, no matter where you live.Some have called this diagram, recently published in a report by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a grim portrait of state science standards in the U.S. But this goes well beyond grim. This is downright bleak.Scientific American's Anna Kuchment explains the concept of science standards:Standards are the foundation upon which educators build curricula, write textbooks and train teachers– they often take the form of a list of facts and skills that students must master at each grade level. Each state is free to formulate its own standards, and numerous studies have found that high standards are a first step on the road to high student achievement.That last bit should be a point of major concern for every person in the country, because as the report notes, a shocking majority of the states' standards are in fact "mediocre to awful." We're talking about purple, green, and grey states, here [click for a bigger version of the map]. States like Tennessee, where, according to the report, "half the biology course options in high school do not entail evolution."
This is why you need teacher's unions and tenure. When people like this take over school boards (and this isn't the first time) they will happily fire anyone who teaches evolution and refuses to teach the kids that the US "voluntarily ended slavery."
Yeah, suck it, freakazoids.
But that was a little odd — I’ve read a translation of Hitler’s evil little book, and I didn’t see anything about evolutionary biology in there — there was a lot of “Nature” and “Creator” and “God” sprinkled throughout, though. So I had to go look, and yes, I found that quote in this translation (pdf). It’s in chapter XI, Race and People, and it’s full of anthropomorphization of natural processes and what I would call clearly anti-evolutionary sentiment.
SNIPThat’s an idea that would fit right in at the Creation “Museum”, but not in any biology text.
Yeah, sorry, Christians, but Hitler was expressing Christian and Creationist ideas in Mein Kampf. You’re free to claim that he was corrupting and distorting Christian ideals (although I could argue with that, too), but to claim he was using evolutionary biology to advance his racist ideas is simply ludicrous.
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