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To be a little bit snippy, why isn't Genesis taught in evolutionary biology courses? I mean, Darwin wrote "On the Origins of Species", but Genesis was there be

by mdasen 18y ago

To be a little bit snippy, why isn't Genesis taught in evolutionary biology courses? I mean, Darwin wrote "On the Origins of Species", but Genesis was there before Darwin and wrote about the origins of all life on earth so clearly Darwin should be put in that context. How can someone understand Darwin without knowing creationism? As the anti-intelligent-design folks would say, science is a harsh place for ideas and ideas need to prove themselves over and over and be verifiable. You don't get to be taught just because you wrote about something earlier. There are places where these things should be taught - because they are important to our history and culture. They don't belong in the sciences anymore for varying reasons. Freud wasn't scientific in his studies (meaning things like double-blind, verifiable results). He has influenced a lot, but the field has moved past him. Marx worked under economic assumptions that were held as true by economists of the time that were later proved false (and which greatly affect his outcomes). However, there are some things that have held up over time. Ricardo's Comparative Advantage (from the 17th century I believe) is still taught. The Pythagorean Theorem from over two millenia ago is huge in math. And I believe both Newton and Einstein still hold in their fields. At the same time, as we learned about the universe, Plato/Aristotle went from astronomy (they did write a lot about what was in space) to philosophy - because they were simply wrong. Thinkers who thought the earth was flat might be mentioned in a history course, but not in a science one. And sometimes there is still value there. I'm a religious person myself, but I think it would be stupid to teach it in a history or science class - its ideas just have no place there. Maybe they did at one point in human history, but not today. Likewise, I think a lot of psychology today is going to fall into nothing as we learn more and at that time, the authors of today will cease to be taught in psyc. Science moves forward. It's unforgiving. Once something has been proved false, it can remain, but more in the "history of ideas" way.

DanielBMarkham 18y ago
Er -- philosophy is not science. It's outside of science. So it cannot be wrong. It either is more or less appropriate for various circumstances (just like science, but we won't go there) So Hegel is not wrong. Heck, Freud and Marx weren't even scientific, so they really can't be wrong either. I know what you're saying -- we wouldn't take time in chemistry to go over alchemy -- but there is a difference between a person, a time, and the best way of thinking for that time and the current state of the scientific model. Lots of times we can use heuristics and methods of thinkers who ended up in wrong spots in current problems. Likewise, not being aware of old ad beaten-to-death canards like Marxism means we end up going over the same old ground again. Or looking at it from another angle: wouldn't you want to remember Carl Sagan a thousand years from now? Even if he appeared no smarter than a primitive cave man worshiping the sun? You see, everybody wants to throw away the old guys -- they're so obviously wrong. It's much harder to take the good with the bad. To ignore thinkers from another age because the current scientific belief has changed deprives the current generation of everything else those thinkers had -- their powers of deduction, observation of human nature, the ability to put various disparate pieces together in synthesis, etc. It's throwing the baby out with the bath water. Over and over again we see thinkers trashed and the later parts of what they had turn out to be extremely useful. Plato missed the boat in certain ways, but who the heck could predict forms would turn into OOAD? This is not a boolean question. (to quote another dis-remembered scientist who eventually gave us something useful) In most human affairs, there is a give and take of ideas, a dialectic. But there I go again.
- pg 18y ago
  It's outside of science. So it cannot be wrong. p and ~p
  - DanielBMarkham 18y ago
    "Wrong" does not apply to extra-scientific statements. "Ice Cream is nice" is extra-scientific. It is, strictly speaking, nonsense. "There might be a methodology for association various ice creams with personal tastes, and this methodology might hold up to the scientific method" is the beginning of an area of study for science. Philosophy generates science -- it moves from quasi-true and tenuous connective statements into fields of further study that can be joined with better-defined and more rigorous logic. Hegel made some great observations. Some of which are provable and might involve some creation of a scientific discipline at some time, and some not. Some were along the lines of "ice cream is nice". Since nonsensical statements have no logical evaluation, any formation of predicate logic is non-applicable. Or maybe I missed something. Seemed like you were being flip.
    - IsaacSchlueter 18y ago
      What do you mean by "scientific"? It seems like you mean "propositional". "Ice cream is nice" is not nonsensical. It falls into a category of utterances that actually say something about the speaker rather than the thing indicated. "Nice" is shorthand for "deemed by the speaker to be of high value". It can definitely be true or false. However, due to the clever formulation, if I disagree with you, and say "Ice cream is not nice," I'm not really disagreeing with you, but rather stating something about myself. That's not to say that there's no such thing as nonsense statements. But, to the extent that you're really doing philosophy and not just making word salad, philosophy has no place for nonsense.
      - DanielBMarkham 18y ago
        I'd point out that some of Popper's criticism of what science is and what sciences isn't was based on a response to Marxism, which was wondrously flexible enough to handle any sort of new information without changing its underlying beliefs.
bootload 18y ago
"... How can someone understand Darwin without knowing creationism? ..." Everyone has a right to believe what they want. So just don't expect the science community which bases it's ideas on testable theories to take ideas such as Creationism seriously. I nominate that to understand Darwin we should also look into the Australian Aboriginal "Dreamtime" ~ http://www.dreamscape.com/morgana/miranda.htm http://www.dreamscape.com/morgana/miranda.htm or the Chinese idea of "Yin and Yan" ~ http://www.innovationslearning.co.uk/subjects/re/information/creation/chinese_creation.htm http://www.innovationslearning.co.uk/subjects/re/information... Surely we will fail to understand evolutionary biology without understanding "Eastern Re-incarnation"? ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reincarnation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reincarnation
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]

by mdasen 18y ago

DanielBMarkham 18y ago

Er -- philosophy is not science. It's outside of science. So it cannot be wrong. It either is more or less appropriate for various circumstances (just like science, but we won't go there) So Hegel is not wrong. Heck, Freud and Marx weren't even scientific, so they really can't be wrong either. I know what you're saying -- we wouldn't take time in chemistry to go over alchemy -- but there is a difference between a person, a time, and the best way of thinking for that time and the current state of the scientific model. Lots of times we can use heuristics and methods of thinkers who ended up in wrong spots in current problems. Likewise, not being aware of old ad beaten-to-death canards like Marxism means we end up going over the same old ground again. Or looking at it from another angle: wouldn't you want to remember Carl Sagan a thousand years from now? Even if he appeared no smarter than a primitive cave man worshiping the sun? You see, everybody wants to throw away the old guys -- they're so obviously wrong. It's much harder to take the good with the bad. To ignore thinkers from another age because the current scientific belief has changed deprives the current generation of everything else those thinkers had -- their powers of deduction, observation of human nature, the ability to put various disparate pieces together in synthesis, etc. It's throwing the baby out with the bath water. Over and over again we see thinkers trashed and the later parts of what they had turn out to be extremely useful. Plato missed the boat in certain ways, but who the heck could predict forms would turn into OOAD? This is not a boolean question. (to quote another dis-remembered scientist who eventually gave us something useful) In most human affairs, there is a give and take of ideas, a dialectic. But there I go again.

pg 18y ago
It's outside of science. So it cannot be wrong. p and ~p
- DanielBMarkham 18y ago
  "Wrong" does not apply to extra-scientific statements. "Ice Cream is nice" is extra-scientific. It is, strictly speaking, nonsense. "There might be a methodology for association various ice creams with personal tastes, and this methodology might hold up to the scientific method" is the beginning of an area of study for science. Philosophy generates science -- it moves from quasi-true and tenuous connective statements into fields of further study that can be joined with better-defined and more rigorous logic. Hegel made some great observations. Some of which are provable and might involve some creation of a scientific discipline at some time, and some not. Some were along the lines of "ice cream is nice". Since nonsensical statements have no logical evaluation, any formation of predicate logic is non-applicable. Or maybe I missed something. Seemed like you were being flip.
  - IsaacSchlueter 18y ago
    What do you mean by "scientific"? It seems like you mean "propositional". "Ice cream is nice" is not nonsensical. It falls into a category of utterances that actually say something about the speaker rather than the thing indicated. "Nice" is shorthand for "deemed by the speaker to be of high value". It can definitely be true or false. However, due to the clever formulation, if I disagree with you, and say "Ice cream is not nice," I'm not really disagreeing with you, but rather stating something about myself. That's not to say that there's no such thing as nonsense statements. But, to the extent that you're really doing philosophy and not just making word salad, philosophy has no place for nonsense.
    - DanielBMarkham 18y ago
      I'd point out that some of Popper's criticism of what science is and what sciences isn't was based on a response to Marxism, which was wondrously flexible enough to handle any sort of new information without changing its underlying beliefs.

bootload 18y ago

"... How can someone understand Darwin without knowing creationism? ..." Everyone has a right to believe what they want. So just don't expect the science community which bases it's ideas on testable theories to take ideas such as Creationism seriously. I nominate that to understand Darwin we should also look into the Australian Aboriginal "Dreamtime" ~ http://www.dreamscape.com/morgana/miranda.htm http://www.dreamscape.com/morgana/miranda.htm or the Chinese idea of "Yin and Yan" ~ http://www.innovationslearning.co.uk/subjects/re/information/creation/chinese_creation.htm http://www.innovationslearning.co.uk/subjects/re/information... Surely we will fail to understand evolutionary biology without understanding "Eastern Re-incarnation"? ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reincarnation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reincarnation

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]