The Design Paradigm

Midterm papers and problem sets take precedence, so I’m officially giving up on writing those two long posts– on our summer and on our upcoming semester. Suffice it to say we had a wonderful time in the Evolution & Design class. We managed to cover a great deal of ground and consider many issues; and I think demonstrated unequivocally that a course on intelligent design is fully in line with what the University– and Cornell in particular– is about, and need not equal indoctrination from one side or other.

Things are busy now as we go into round one of prelims, but we’re stealing little bits of time to think and read about intelligent design, and every so often to talk about it. We meet every week for discussions– 7 pm Wednesdays, at the Music Room in Willard Straight Hall– and so far have looked at irreducible complexity and specified complexity. This Wednesday we’re going to be discussing testability again, especially as it applies to this debate.

There’ll be a student debate soon as well, but details of that are still to be determined.

This morning there was a pretty decent article by Nadia Chernyak in the Cornell Sun about the new intelligent design class offered here this summer.

. . .MacNeill first came up with the theme for the seminar when brainstorming with Prof. Will Provine, ecology and evironmental biology, for topics for this summer’s seminar class. MacNeill says that the idea was inspired by the Kitzmiller v. Dover case, in which the Dover Area School District in Dover, Pa. was sued for requiring the teaching of intelligent design in high school science classes.

"Given the Dover case, [Provine and I] thought it’d be interesting to teach [this year’s seminar] on Intelligent Design," MacNeill said.

(more…)

Over on Nobel Intent John Timmer  blogs the recent NYAS conference on "Teaching Evolution and the Nature of Science", and describes a talk given by Glenn Branch (of the NSCE). Branch had some funny comments on the oh so very insidious IDEA Clubs :)  But by far the most interesting part of his talk was focused on the place of apparently requisite self-censorship in biology departments. (Drumrolls please) Timmer concludes his description:

Branch’s final topic was how to handle a situation where a biology department winds up with a creationist as a graduate student. This was both of general interest, as creationists tend to use their degrees as rhetorical weapons, and of personal interest, as I was part of the Berkeley class that produced the noted Discovery Institute fellow Jon Wells. Unfortunately, his conclusion was that there are no easy answers. He did, however, note that graduate departments exist to serve the scientific community by providing qualified individuals to perform research and teaching services. There is no ethical requirement for graduate faculty to be complicit in the training of someone who is ultimately going to actively harm the field.

Our friends at Telic Thoughts ponder over the questions of which standard and criteria are used to define a creationist. Although their points are valid, what’s frightening is this discrimination against creationists, however defined. Whatever happened to our first amendment? Or, as in the Indian caste system, must we leave our "caste" at the doorstep of our laboratories and put the veil on again once we enter the security of our homes? Whatever happened to bringing different viewpoints to a field? Whatever happened to diversity of thought in science? Were religious scientists, philosophers, mathematicians  not scientists, philosophers, mathematicians simply because they were religious? Should they have been banned by the "foreguards of science"? Isn’t this blunt discrimination against religious people (creationists)? Mind you, I’m not of that faith either - but exactly what is the point of this ignorant statement? Correct me if I am wrong, but don’t universities abide by the Civil Rights Act? Where are the ACLU defenders - where are they now, are they standing by silently over this infrigment of our first amendment?

We will make an attempt to get back to regualar IDEA’ish discussions here soon (it looks as if there has been too much in the way of "news" these days!), but Allen wrote a bit of commentary on the background to this summer’s class that seemed worth linking to.

And for those who have asked– yes, I expect both this blog and the Evolution List will be regularly updated this summer. 

We’ve  gotten a few concerned looks from friends in the wider ID community over our endorsement of Cornell’s new course on intelligent design, BioEE 467, given that the professor is an evolution proponent who has made slightly intemperate remarks on ID in the past.   As a clarification–yes, we know all that.  We also know that MacNeill works hard to ensure fairness, and we do not believe he will let his personal views stifle free thought and inquiry.

And yes, a class can be badly skewed, and yes, there are plenty of potential pitfalls.  But a bit of earnest debate never hurt anything, and I trust that, as people all intent on the same real goal– a "search for truth" so to speak, through science– we can hold each other accountable.   

More for your reading amusement than anything else (not to get accurate information), where we’re being talked about:

Telic Thoughts (good comment thread)

Darwinian Fundamentalism

Uncommon Descent (well…..)

WorldNetDaily

Syracuse Post Standard

Associated Press

And Allen MacNeill on his own blog, in an endeavor to stifle the media misinformation frenzy.
 

Steve Fuller makes an interesting side-note observation at another blog, that seems more important than he knows. Intelligent Design is conducting an open inquiry into the development of new scientific concepts that detect the effects of intelligent activity. In speaking of William Dembski, Fuller notes:

"…(unlike Newton) he’s exposing his ideas for public inspection and critique, rather than going underground for 10-20 years to work all the bugs out."

ID researchers are not hiding in closets developing hypotheses; it is an open process.

This approach, as is clear to anyone following ID, has certain drawbacks and advantages. Constant public scrutiny of work no doubt results in unnecessary stress, and in a lack of conceptual "breathing room" for the ideas of the theorist. This is a short-term drag on the research side of the concept.

To ID’s advantage, the pedagogical dimensions of the emerging study are being witnessed by a curious public. This allows a channel of information to new scientists, who can collaborate along side of, and with, other ID inquirers. Another positive result is the partial elimination of "retraining" in order to contribute to the dialogue, since many have followed ID’s development from the beginning.

The long-term payoff for the open approach is obviously worth the drawbacks, and will be necessary for further scientific development of Intelligent Design.

Intentions, intentions.  Don’t let anyone have any cause for suspicion that you might have the slightest bit of sympathy for intelligent design or creationism, or you are not allowed to make critical remarks on anything.  To be portrayed as a sympathizer you don’t need to make any actual statements on either subject… if you raise questions on any topic which might possibly be construed as having possible creationist overtones, any subject they’ve ever considered supported their claims, you will be immediately suspect and your arguments are in danger of being perforce invalidated.

 At least, half of the establishement seems to be run that way.

There is an interesting exchange in this month’s Journal of Chemical Education.    Last July Wiliam Howard wrote an article on critical analysis in the chemistry classroom; entitled The Relationship between Balancing Reactions and Reaction Lifetimes: A Consideration of the Potassium–Argon Radiometric Method for Dating Minerals , it described how one might use an analysis of potassium-argon dating, a subject with the potential for generating a fair bit of student interest, to teach critical thinking in science and how to be good chemists. 

Science educators share a common objective: to familiarize students with critical thinking. An instructor may select a topic of current interest from the scientific literature or from the popular media and ask students to write critical essays concerning some aspect of this topic. For instance, students may criticize bond stretch isomerism (1), gallium–gallium triple bonds (2), the nature of carbon compounds in an alleged Martian meteorite found in Antarctica (3), or some other fun and controversial topic. Participation in such projects allows students to practice the scientific method firsthand. The students must gather facts concerning what is known, intelligently criticize published explanations of the facts, create imaginative and alternative explanations, and formulate experiments that could potentially falsify the explanations.  Such an experience is a very important part of a thorough education in science.

This was too much for Karen Bartlett of Eureka University, and she wrote an angry letter in response.  William Howard was trying to create confusion, clutter scientific thinking with red herrings, bring in nonsense criteria and false analogies .  Her scathing review finishes:  "The Journal of Chemical Education should pull this article from its Web site. You goofed."

The reviewers disagree. Richard Fireston, of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, writes:

I may have been naïve about Howard’s intentions, and I agree with her concerns about intelligent design, but this paper must be considered on its merits, not on perceived intentions. The Howard paper should be credited for teaching students to be critical in their analysis of data . . . It is not the job of the Journal of Chemical Education to create a litmus test for what papers might or might not have hidden intelligent design meanings

Reed Howald of Montana State University writes along the same vein:

Karen Bartelt’s letter is not a fair evaluation of the William A. Howard paper. There are educational advantages of getting students involved in the scientific analysis of even controversial topics like the potassium–argon method of dating minerals.

And in Howard’s own response, he clarifies something that has been brought up  here: 

Radiometric dating is a well-established field of science, but this fact should not be used to intimidate someone from asking questions. Scientific knowledge advances only when well-established practices are questioned, and questioning radiometric dating is the responsibility of all professional scientists everywhere.

When teaching chemistry, I introduce my students to a number of theories, such as Atomic Theory, Quantum Theory, Valence Bond Theory, Molecular Orbital Theory, Crystal Field Theory, and more! These theories are well-established and supported by a great deal of experimental evidence. Nevertheless, I encourage my students to question the experimental support and to think of new experiments that could potentially falsify the theories. This activity is extremely important for producing first rate scientists. The students are well aware that these theories are not “controversial”, and that we question these ideas simply as an intellectual exercise.

I guess the crucial question… does the possiblity that something is not perhaps brute fact, that it may perhaps be questioned, have such a great probability of hopelessly confusing  our poor undeveloped brains that we shouldn’t be allowed to entertain the possiblity?  Is an attempt such as Howards to teach "skeptical chemists" too prone to produce students so muddleheaded we can’t think at all?  Is teaching us all science as "fact" really the only way to deal with such issues?  Note that the discussion here was college classes, not highschool.