Intelligent Design has no Place in the Classroom of Science

You.

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Objectivity.P.S. No more cryptic quips, I promise. See Percy's note below. He's spot on.This message has been edited by Omnivorous, 02-09-2006 09:46 PM

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I agree, PurpleYouko, and that was part of my motivation in the one word replies.Objectivity is usually a red herring in scientific discussions. By any strong definition of the word, there can be no objectivity, no view completely divorced or uninfluenced by the viewer. In that sense, all our perceptions, reasoning processes, and conclusions are necessarily subjective.Yet the concept of objectivity is useful as a methodological ideal, an ideal most closely approached by using standards of replicabe phenomena as evidence.Our religious participants here at EvC sometimes claim the only source of objectivity in our world is necessarily divine. While that stance can have some rhetorical legs in the moral sphere (though its assumptions about the consequences are open to challenge, and the claim itself is based on subjective experience), the claim has no legs at all in scientific matters: even if a divine creator made us all, She certainly did not make us anything but subjective in our perceptions and conclusions.In any event, for the purpose of determining how this world actually works, only science has devised a working model of "objectivity" that yields useful, predictable results.When I hear the impossibility of perfect objectivity being raised in a science discussion, I hear the sound of a mind snapping shut: if the necessity of subjectivity truly, fatally undermines science, we may as well all go home and rub dirt in our wounds.In this context, when I read iano dismiss the extraordinary results of genetic algorithms discussed below because the result is not "useful", I responded briefly "You" because the evidence for exactly that process in our own origin is, in my view, overwhelming, and there is no more evidence for iano's usefulness than there is for the computer-wiretapping o'scope.When he asked how my "random jumble of accidents" of a brain could support that assertion, with similar intent I responded that I heard the sound of a mind snapping shut. My brain is not a random jumble of accidents--it is the product of a random jumble of accidents, but quite structured, thank you, and capable of positing the ideal of objectivity and of devising methodolgies for approaching that ideal, becoming more useful the closer it gets even though it never arrives.Also, given my recent off-topic discussions of my early experiences with Buddhism, it seemed fair to give cryptic, koan-like responses to an interlocutor whose challenges to science originate in his own religiosity. Besides, my more lengthy posts have shown no great efficacy with iano. But I'll keep my word and be oracular no more.The relevance to the topic is simply this: ID has presented no evidence. There is only the purest form of naive subjectivity--arguments from incredulity or from religiosity--motivating attempts to bring it into the science classroom.This message has been edited by Omnivorous, 02-10-2006 11:17 AM

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"Dost thou think because thou art virtuous there shall be no more cakes and ale?"
-Sir Toby Belch, Twelfth Night Save lives! Click here!
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC!
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