So, I’m taking Philosophy of Science this quarter. It’s a class I enjoy immensely but of which have the disturbing precognition to know, I will not be getting an “A” in. I neglected to take an online exam today. I was only fooling myself into thinking I could graduate with a 4.0 gpa when I know I am 3.0 student. I really like the class anyway. It’s one of my favorites and maybe the teacher will let me make it up.
As you may have guessed from the title of the class, it has given me the capacity of scientist qua philosopher and I have always had a deep desire to be this person. Ok, I don’t think that highly of myself, a 3.0 student after all. I’m going to ramble on anyway.
If any of you ever read the news, or go to church, you will have heard about the controversy in Kansas over the whether Intelligent Design (henceforth id) or Evolution will be taught in high-school science classrooms. If by some impossible chance you have not heard of this hit next blog. Now, I know I am not going to say anything new here, but since the topic is education, and blogging is public media, I am going to take the opportunity to educate the public. For another insightful and intelligent abstraction of the enormous topic please visit the Doldrums.
Here is the question; should id be taught as an alternative to evolution in science classrooms? I will add my vote to the NO camp and let me explain why. First, id is not science and neither is any theory of the origin of life. It is in the realm of philosophy. Second, evolution is science. I believe it should be taught in the science classrooms. Why is one science and other not? Because science is based on empirical data. There is a plethora of data available to support the theory of evolution. There is no data available about the origin of life. To qualify as a scientific theory it must be testable and repeatable. Any theory on the origin of life is not testable or repeatable so it does not qualify.
Ok, having said that and I don’t know if I said it well, I do think there is a place for id in schools. Id should be taught in philosophy. The fact that this is such a huge issue really does say something about the quality of our education system. I don’t know if philosophy is a required class for public high-school students but it should be. I am a graduate student and I am only in my second philosophy class. I think every high-school educated person should have a philosophy class in which they teach the following; philosophy of science, critical thinking, and ethics.
Pope John Paul II once said (1996), invoking an earlier Pope Louis XIII (1893), “Truth cannot contradict truth.” Though they were over 100 years apart and had vastly different understandings of truth, they shared a similar dilemma, the apparent contradiction between the Scriptures and scientific theories. I always liked John Paul, I’m not familiar with Louis, but I have a lot of respect for their steadfastness in their beliefs. Their conclusions were the same then and now, either our interpretation of the Bible was incorrect or of the scientific data. They called for open discussion and acknowledgment of “hostile arguments” so mistakes in understanding could corrected. And if no mistakes were found, then judgment should be suspended until such time as these discrepancies could be reconciled. John Paul recognized that evolution is more than just a “serious hypothesis, worthy of investigation and in-depth study” and acknowledge it as a theory. But he also recognized that it was at heart, a philosophical question.
Science is a great and powerful tool for the acquisition of truth, but it has limits. Science can not tell us why things happen only that they do. It can’t assign value to things and it has little to say about relationships.
It is a cold machine that requires the human capacity to ponder. I am a scientist in training but I think of it as only one tool in the toolbox which guides our lives. In our search for truth and wellbeing, science is a tool for observation, but there are also feelings, beliefs and logic. When choosing what to believe in or when making life decisions one should consider all the tools and use the ones that are right for the task.
I want to keep going with analogies but I know I’ve lost some of you already. Sorry, it’s kind of long and wandering. I might have more to say on this later.
21 October 2005
The science and philosophy of Kansas
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4 comments:
it is bryant's wander world...
Truth cannot contradict truth.
I think that may be an oversimplification.
Learning math in elementary school one starts with natural numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on. One learns to add, and then subtract... and suddenly one's understanding must be expanded to include zero and negative numbers. Next comes multiplication, which is easy enough with integers, and then division, which requires learning about fractions. More advanced math requires more numbers to deal with -- square roots, pi, and e are irrational numbers; imaginary numbers add even more fun to the mix. In first grade, we knew numbers started at one, and the very next one was two. That was truth. Later we learned better, that we were missing part of the picture; after going through the cycle a few times we figured out that there was always something more we didn't know. Human knowledge of science has been expanding along similar lines; scientists once thought atoms were indivisible, and even though we now know better, it's still a useful abstraction when dealing with chemistry.
At the end of the day, I think the Popes are right; two opposing viewpoints cannot simultaneously be true, but sometimes we don't know enough to know if evidence and theories pointing in opposite directions cannot both be correct. In everything we do we should accept that there is something we don't know, and be willing to live with the uncertainty, while continually working towards a resolution.
Nice post Bryant. I agree, high school students should be exposed to philosophy, especially to the parts of philosophy that deal with reason (critical thinking).
I believe humans in general are not born with perfect reaoning skills, and without proper instuction or practice, we continue to make mistakes in our reasoning.
Here is a quote from William Graham Sumner's book, "Folkways"
"Criticism is the examination and test of propositions of any kind which are offered for acceptance, in order to find out whether they correspond to reality or not. The critical faculty is a product of education and training. It is a mental habit and power. It is a prime condition of human welfare that men and women should be trained in it. It is our only guarantee against delusion, deception, superstition, and misapprehension of ourselves and our earthly circumstances. Education is good just so far as it produces well-developed critical faculty. ...A teacher of any subject who insists on accuracy and a rational control of all processes and methods, and who holds everything open to unlimited verification and revision is cultivating that method as a habit in the pupils. Men educated in it cannot be stampeded...They are slow to believe. They can hold things as possible or probable in all degrees, without certainty and without pain. They can wait for evidence and weigh evidence...They can resist appeals to their dearest prejudices...Education in the critical faculty is the only education of which it can be truly said that it makes good citizens (pp. 632, 633)."
Thanks for the comments.
Hi Ted. I didn't know you read my blog. I agree with you and I think that is basically what the Popes were trying to say. The truth is something that might be beyond our ability to understand. If science is leading us to truth and religion is also leading us to truth, then if there is conflict we must continue in our pursuit of the truth because we haven't found it yet. Ideally, there will be a consensus between the two because, "truth cannot contradict truth."
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