h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hmmm...just interogated my 2, plus any of their friends who happened to be in the house. So in total a sampling of 5 Belfast schools.

One pupil had heard of ID. In a religion class.

One child thought that man had come from bubbles, and that Adam'n'Eve or descended from the apes were both just a load of baloney.

None of them were aware of a petition to include ID in science classes.

Ok, granted it's a small and unrepresentative asmple...but I would be very wary of anything purporting to use this "petition" as concrete evidence.

Our two go to Catholic schools in London - one primary and one secondary. I have interrogated both headteachers and asked for curricula... nothing there on ID. I wonder whether the schools implementing this are actually faith schools? Anyone know?
W

I can see the point in mentioning creationism in either a course on religion (balanced by creation stories from various world religions), or while teaching the history of science.

In the latter case, it should at least be presented honestly - ie that prior to Darwin, many (but by no means all) people actively or passively accepted *some* form of divine creation as an explanation for how humans came to be as they are, but that post-Darwin, though many people still have strict creationist views (as in thinking organisms were created in their present form), such views are increasingly rare the more a person actually understands evolutionary theory, whether that is because being a creationist makes people less likely to get an education in biology, or having an education in biology makes one less likely to keep or develop creationist views.

I'm in two minds about teaching philosophy - if done uninspiringly, (or by someone convinced it's the One True Path to developing thinking skills) it could put people off it for life, and critical thinking doesn't necessarily need any kind of explicit philosophical backup. In almost any scenario where thinking is required, people *could* be encouraged to play devil's advocate against their own ideas, or those of others, or to explain the chain of reasoning that took them from point A to point B.
Whether people *are* in fact so encouraged is a different matter.

Do you think there are ways that it should be encouraged?

Yes - what do we mean by "teaching of ID"

I mean, we all are aware of it and able to discuss it. So we must have been taught about it at some stage...

Good thinking skills certainly *should* be encouraged, and probably always have been, by good teachers and many parents.

Much of what is codified in philosophy is, after all, common sense. If a particular idea leads inexorably to impossible conclusions, the original idea can be seen to be wrong without anyone needing to ever hear the phrase 'Reductio ad Absurdum'.

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Many people still do, that is to say, divine creation *by means of evolution* is accepted by many Christians and Muslims. In other words, it's not as easy to categorise people and some assume, and shouldn't be done without thought...

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And the ones who did not kept *very* quiet about it.

A good analogy is keeping the fact that you have converted from Islam to Christianity *very* quiet.

>>"Many people still do, that is to say, divine creation *by means of evolution* is accepted by many Christians and Muslims. In other words, it's not as easy to categorise people and some assume, and shouldn't be done without thought..."

Who was I categorising?
I said some people still have strict creationist views (as in believing in creation of things in their present form) which some people still do.
I said such views were less common the more people actually understand evolutionary theory (which is also true).
By implication, the reference I made to 'strict creationism' would tend to imply there were other varieties, as would my statement implying a range of opinions even pre-Darwin.

In any case, it's arguable that 'divine creation by evolution' is a bit of a vague or slippery explanation of 'how humans come to be as they are', which was the issue I was talking about. What does it really *mean*?

If we're interested in a particular contemporary aspect of homo sapiens, we could consider it to be due to evolution acting on a previous layout (however the previous layout came to exist), or due to creation of that aspect as it is now.
If people are postulating some kind of creation *followed by* evolution, it'd be interesting to know where they think one ends and the other begins.
If people are actually suggesting a continuing process of divinely-directed-evolution, that could encompass anything from ID at one end of a spectrum though a mist of catch-all vagueness in the middle, all the way to God/YHWH/Allah taking credit for evolution's hard work at the other end, but none of those ideas seem exactly scientific.

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Well, I never did. Not you in particular, but some people do, you must admit.

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In my case, it means that God directed the process, or at least, began it. As to your question below, I wouldn't know where to out the beginning of one and the end of the other...

So, you quote me, make some comment related to what I wrote, then make a comment about people categorising, but that comment *isn't* to do with what I wrote, but to do with some other people?

>>"In my case, it means that God directed the process, or at least, began it."

That's kind of the point - was it just started off, making a few bacteria and leaving them to it, or was it *directed* (in which case, the process changes from 'evolution by natural selection' to 'evolution by [partly super]natural selection', leaving near-infinite wiggle-room about how much supernatural influence there might have been?

If someone has no information to differentiate between those two different scenarios, (initial creation or continuing intervention) upon what information do they base their assertion that one scenario or the other is correct?
It does seem like effectively saying:
"I have no idea what really happened, evolution seems very likely to be a real process, but I can't believe God didn't have a hand in things somewhere along the line, though I don't know where"

It also seems like your just moving into the space not yet occupied by science. Maybe it never will be occupied by science. But this is long standing trend, that as science moves into new areas, religion moves out of them (well, kinda).

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Leaving aside the history between us, where you assume me to be being insulting (because I confess I have been in the past, and I apologise) my comment on the above is "Pretty much"... I do believe God had a hand in it somewhere, even if only as far back as giving the Big Bang a kick-start. God may well have decided once having seen what the process had culminated in here on to take a hand in the history of humans. After all, we here on aren't God's only children, so it's not as if God didn't have anything else to do while waiting! What about s?

Have these alien's mastered fusion Della?

Della,
It's just that though I understand why many people might honestly feel there must be some divine input, the 'god having a hand in evolution' idea does leave so much hanging - it doesn't necessarily differentiate between essentially natural evolution and an ID-like divinely-directed evolution (or more properly, evolution happening in the gaps between divine intervention).

If evolution is a natural property of life systems, notwithstanding the fact that a triple-O deity could intervene in it if it wished, at one extreme there's some correspondence between saying 'god created us by using evolution' and 'god keeps the sun shining by nuclear fusion'. The latter statement might be considered true on *some* level by some people, but if they knew anything about it, those people would still tend to view nuclear fusion as a basically mechanical process, albeit possibly a result of God fine-tuning various universal constants.

The real issue with evolution is that it is a process that can *appear* to be intelligent and have intentions on a continuing basis, and even people who really don't think it does may still consider it has a kind of 'as-if intentionality', such that anthropomorphising it can be a useful thinking tool.

In that context, taking a position where there is some seriously undefined amount of divine intervention does have the merit of sidestepping various arguments, but by effectively avoiding the question 'Is evolution a truly natural process which has resulted in humans being as they are?'.

However, when it comes to doing biological science, I'd wonder how someone with an undefined amount of god in their ideas of evolution might progress.
Would they take evolution as a default explanation and effectively conduct their science the same way an atheist might, or behave differently? Is the divine explanation more a personal, emotional one rather than one that is necessarily applied to the world outside?

I rather think that's the point. Both hypotheses lead to the world we live in here and now. In that sense, they are indistinguishable, and *that* is why the vast majority of mainstream believers see no conflict between evolution and creationism.

Just my

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

>>"I rather think that's the point. Both hypotheses lead to the world we live in here and now. In that sense, they are indistinguishable, and *that* is why the vast majority of mainstream believers see no conflict between evolution and creationism."

I think a huge number of mainstream believers don't see a conflict because they don't actually look for one, because their creation explanation is so loosely-defined that it'd be difficult for it to conflict with anything, or because they reframe their creation explanation whenever it seems to conflict with science.

If many people believed electricity was the result of some kind of divine magic, it wouldn't necessarily make any huge difference to them or the world, as long as they didn't let their beliefs cause them to act in a way incompatible with scientific ideas about electricity, and as long as they didn't try and get their ideas taught in physics lessons.
If they wanted to keep their ideas on a personal/private level and act *as if* the scientific explanation was correct, there wouldn't even be any reason why they couldn't become a competent electrician or electronic engineer, though one might wonder what their belief meant if they had to essentially ignore it or put it on hold whenever they tried to intellectually engage with which a field their beliefs supposedly related to.

Someone might like to believe there was some kind of occasional divine assistance to gravity, but if they ended up working on orbital mechanics using nothing but Newtonian/relativistic formulas, one might wonder what their belief actually meant, or whether their belief extended at all into the area of science.

and the difference between evolution by random chance (or whatever) and evolution by divine command is ... well there isn't one.

Rationally, *any* hypothesis that fits all available evidence is acceptable. How useful it might turn out to be is a different matter.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

>>" and the difference between evolution by random chance (or whatever) and evolution by divine command is ... well there isn't one

Rationally, *any* hypothesis that fits all available evidence is acceptable. How useful it might turn out to be is a different matter"

The usefulness is the point - unless the creation element is ignored, a theory with some deliberately indeterminate amount of creation isn't actually much more use in biology than an outright recent-creationist theory would be, which is why creation-based theories don't have a place in science.

If people want to believe the moon is made from cheese, that's fine unless they want to do anything where that belief would get in the way of their thinking, or anyone else's education.
If for some reason people want to believe the moon is made at least *partly* from cheese, and yet know there's a whole lot of rock up there, and are quite happy every time an investigation finds nothing but rock, and possibly even tacitly accept that there isn't actually any *evidence* for cheese - that it's just that they have been told there is cheese up there, then I'd just wonder about their real belief in the cheese component.

If the point of a hypothesis on the nature of existence is just to make people feel better internally, then I suppose anything will do.

I can see *why* some believers may feel a need to believe there's an element of creation around, since being [supposed detity]'s creations is possibly one of the strongest religious reasons for obeying [supposed deity]'s rules, and for some people, feeling they (or something pretty much like them) has been created may make them feel more special than they otherwise would.

<>>" and the difference between evolution by random chance (or whatever) and evolution by divine command is ... well there isn't one

Rationally, *any* hypothesis that fits all available evidence is acceptable. How useful it might turn out to be is a different matter">

Unfortunately, there is some 'irrationality' in the creationism hypothesis as part of that hypothesis is the unproven factor that 'God' exists.

Hence, you are trying to prove/show that evolution/creationism was divinely commanded without first proving that God exists. Hence, you have two unknowns in the equation.

Thus, the Divine command hypothesis does not fit all available evidence as the only 'proof' we have of the existence of God IS the fact that we are here. It is a self-referential solution and hence the proof(in a derivation sense) falls apart.

And it is at this point that the 'science' used to prove that ID is correct falls apart and moves away from science to theology and therefore falls on its face.