In Which Bill O’Reilly is a Douchebag

Apparently Bill O’Reilly thinks teaching science is science classes is fascism. Wait. What?

Dawkins makes some great points in this interview, but people not already on team Dawkins probably wouldn’t come away with any changed opinions.

The problem is a mismatch of styles. O’Reilly fights dirty. In pub-brawl terms O’Reilly’s the guy wielding a smashed bottle and ready to kick his opponent in the nuts.

Dawkins’ refined and rational debating style just doesn’t fit. There’s no reasoning with someone like that.

We need to get street fighting debaters like Christopher Hitchens or PZ Myers in there to smack O’Reilly down.

Opinions still wouldn’t be changed, but they’d do him over a treat.

Separating Science and Religion

Once again our friend Stan over at Atheism Analyzed is indulging in his usual nonsense about the intellectual jurisdictions of science and religion.

In short, science adopts a voluntary (“functional”) materialism because it cannot empirically address or measure non-material issues. So any output from science has no bearing – by definition – on the non-material realm.

So let me get this straight: scientists should stay out of religion because science is only concerned with material things?

But this is a fantastic idea! In fact, let’s go one better. Let’s have a complete separation of duties between science and religion!

I can see it now. Science will concern itself only with the material world (that should be easy . . . it’s what it does anyway) and religion will concern itself only with the non-material world.

Both sides will solemnly promise not to encroach on the other’s turf.

Of course that completely does away with the idea of an interventionist God. Such interventions are necessarily material and therefore only in the realm of science.

But that’s ok.

And religions would no longer be able to claim that God works in people’s lives in any material way. Or heals the sick. Or answers prayer.

Still, that sounds workable.

It also does away with all these silly debates about Creation vs Evolution. Evolution wins by default because it’s a material issue, and hence outside the realm of religious enquiry!

Wow. I could really get used to this. Excellent idea, Stan!

Scientists call for Evolution to be taught in Sunday Schools

This is a short satirical article I wrote in a moment of whimsy. However, it’s been brought to my attention that the jovial nature of the piece is not necessarily clear. I’m choosing to take that as a compliment.

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In what is shaping up to be a major theological controversy, priests and ministers have hit back at the suggestion that they should include alternative ideas of species origin in their Sunday School classes.

For many years churches have taught only a traditional view of “Creation”, that the Earth and all humans, plants and animals were brought into existence over the course of 6 days some 6,000 years ago by a being referred to only as “God”.

This position has been challenged recently by the emergence of “Evolution”, a theory which maintains that the Universe and even the Earth are much older, and that humans and animals evolved over millions of years from simpler organisms.

Father Ralph McCluggage of Our Sacred Lady Church said:

“For years we’ve been happily teaching the biblical story of Creation to our children. They grow up with a clear understanding that the world began with a naked couple frolicking in a garden, a tree with fruit they weren’t supposed to eat and an evil snake. This story has everything they need to know: the origins of the universe, where all the plants and animals came from and why women shouldn’t be trusted.

This idea that we evolved over millions of years may be supported by mountains of physical evidence, but the fact remains that it says nothing about it in the Book of Genesis.”

After initial attempts failed to have Evolutionary theory taught alongside biblical Creation, scientists have taken a different tack and are now encouraging churches to “teach the controversy”.

Dr Miles Plankton of the University of Melbourne:

“It’s important to recognise that the idea that God created us in 6 days is only a theory. Evolution is another theory. What’s wrong with kids learning that there are different ideas about how the world began?”

But even this watered-down approach has been met with resistance. Father Ralph had this to say:

“This attempt to force Evolution into our curriculum is nothing more than a veiled attempt to introduce atheism into Sunday School classes.

Now I don’t care what these scientists teach in their science classes. That’s their business. But our Sunday School classes are for teaching the basis of our faith.

All this Evolution stuff may be rational and evidence-based, but the fact remains that it’s simply not religion.”

Evolution is Just a Theory

One of the most common attacks on evolution, particularly by proponents of Intelligent Design, goes something like this:

“Evolution is just a theory. Intelligent design is another theory. Why can’t they both be taught in science classes?”

It sounds reasonable, but there’s a tricky sleight-of-hand in this argument.

When something like evolution is described as a scientific theory, it means something different from the usual everyday meaning of the word “theory”.

In scientific terms, a theory is the highest level of understanding.

For example, it’s a theory that the Earth revolves around the sun. It’s a theory that substances are made up of atoms.

It goes like this: we start with an idea. In the case of evolution it was: “animals evolve over time”.

In the beginning, that was just an idea. The next step was to form a testable hypothesis.

Using gaps in the known fossil record we could predict what must lie in between. If the idea was right, we’d find animal fossils that matched the predictions.

And we did. (Of course this is a greatly over-simplified description of both the hypothesis and the evidence. There’s a lot more to it than just that.)

The hypothesis must also be falsifiable: it must be possible to find fossils that will prove the hypothesis wrong. This is possible, but it hasn’t been done.

So after 150 years the hypothesis has been well and truly confirmed by the weight of evidence. Then, and only then, is the hypothesis elevated to the high status of “scientific theory”.

Yes, evolution is a theory. And it carries all the evidence required to be called that.

The problem with Intelligent Design?

It’s not even a theory.

There is no evidence. There is no falsifiable hypothesis. There isn’t even a testable hypothesis.

In fact, when you get right down to it, Intelligent Design is nothing more than an idea.

Joyful Symmetry

I received some very cool gifts this Christmas.

My lovely wife got me Death From The Skies, the new book by the Bad Astronomer Phil Plait. And my friend Shannon got me Of Pandas and People, the Intelligent Design textbook at the centre of the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial.

I’ll be providing reviews of these separately once I’ve finished them. A preview: I liked one more than the other. I’ll let you guess which.

The prize for nerdiest gift goes to my sister, who made a donation to the charity Common Hope, and thereby got the right to name a mathematical symmetry group. Which she named after me.

A symmetry group is the collection of operations on a shape that preserve its symmetry: like reflections and rotations.

For example a square has symmetry under 90° rotation, and vertical and horizontal reflection:

(The darkened wedge is just to show the new position of the square after each movement).

Of course once you get beyond simple geometric shapes like squares and triangles it all starts getting a bit complicated. And all the simple ones have names already.

So my symmetry group corresponds to the elliptic curve described by the formula:

y² + 769xy + 773y = x³ + 787x .

Truly.

It’s called the Matthew Kippen Group.

I was toying with the idea of putting a picture of the curve here, but it’s tricky rendering a 2-dimensional picture of a 3-dimensional object embedded in a 4-dimensional space.

If anyone out there does know how to do this, please let me know. I'd be most interested.

Until then, you’ll just have to use your imagination. I’m sure it’s very pretty.

Atheism and Me - Part 1

It's hard to define atheism.

The simple statement "atheists don't believe in God" is problematic. For a start, it's loaded with the assumption that there is a God for atheists not to believe in.

And so what is atheism? Is atheism the belief that there are no Gods?

Or is atheism just disbelief in all the Gods currently worshipped in our culture?

Or is atheism, as the name implies, simply the rejection of theism as a worthwhile practice?

The short answer is that atheism means different things to different people. Atheism, unlike a religion, is not a single set of ideas shared by a group of people.

Every atheist is different.

So when I say I am an atheist, what do I mean?

Well, it's pretty simple. I believe there are no Gods.

This is a simple statement, but it carries with it a few corollaries:

I believe the Universe came into being through completely natural processes; processes that can be understood if we study them for long enough.

I believe that every religion is just a conflation of the politics, personality and culture from which it grew, and should be understood in those terms.

But most importantly, I believe that we're on our own out here.

There's no supernatural deity calling the shots. The deferral to a God who refuses to show Himself is just a waste of our time.

We're in charge, and it's up to us to make our own way in the Universe.

Why Intelligent Design is Not Science

Intelligent Design is the theory that life as we know it is too complex to have come about by random chance, and therefore implies the presence of a Designer.

Not surprisingly, it's a theory heavily promoted by groups with a religious agenda, who will then go on to say that the Designer is the God they happen to worship.

Attempts were made a few years ago to introduce Intelligent Design theory into science classes in the USA, to be taught alongside Evolution and Natural Selection as an explanation for the origins of life.

In late 2005 the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial found, quite rightly, that Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory, and therefore should not be taught in science classes.

But why, you may ask, is it not a scientific theory? It's a statement about our origins. Surely it's just as valid to say that it was God as to say that it was Evolution?

No, it isn't. And here's the difference:

A fundamental principal of the scientific investigation of nature is that nature is assumed to be a closed system.

That is, the only influences on the system that are to be considered are those that come from within the system itself.

Any supernatural influences, such as Intelligent Design's hypothesised Designer, are outside the system and hence outside the realms of science.

Supernatural = Not Science. QED.

There are two important points about this:

1. This is not the same as saying that there is no Designer. It merely means that the hypothesis that there is a Designer is not a scientific one. Christians are welcome to postulate a Designer all they like on their own time and in their own churches.

2. This definition of scientific investigation was not made up by atheistic scientists in an attempt to prove the non-existence of God.

This basis for scientific research actually dates back to the late 17th century and the very earliest days of the Enlightenment. It was put in place by people like Sir Isaac Newton, a man known as much for his piety as his science.

Separating the investigation of the natural from the supernatural was seen simply as the most efficient way to advance knowledge.

And history has clearly shown this to be the right approach. From that very point we have seen an explosion in our understanding of the world.

Passing Intelligent Design off as science is just a throwback to pre-Enlightenment thinking.

It's a throwback to a time when religious leaders controlled the state, when the masses of the world lived in fear and poverty and repression, and knowledge was restricted to that which would not offend the reigning dogma.

I don't think we want to go back there.

ID Goes South

Here was me thinking that all this Creation v. Evolution nonsense was restricted to the religious wingnuts in the US.

But no . . . Christian group "Focus on the Family" has been active in New Zealand, sending CDs and books promoting Intelligent Design theory to schools.

Bring it on, I say. The NZ chapter obviously missed the memo saying that this turned into an embarrassing failure for their compadres in the US a few years ago.

It'll be interesting to see if our local Christian lobby group "Family First" decide to get in on the act. Part of me hopes they do. It's hella fun watching people like that get debated into the ground.

Ah, it's nice having tangible facts and evidence on your side.

Manufacturing Controversy

Recently the Religion vs. Science debate has popped up again in the US.

After being roundly defeated in the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial in 2005, Creationists have regrouped and are again trying to make it okay to teach Intelligent Design in science classes.

The passing of Louisiana senate bill SB 733 is going to make this possible, although not to teach ID directly. That's now clearly and legally understood to be unconstitutional.

The idea now is to "teach the controversy". That is, to promote ID as an alternative to evolutionary theory based on (acknowledged) weaknesses in evolutionary theory. This "controversy" has been manufactured by the proponents of ID.

The implication is that those evil scientists are trying to banish religion from our lives and claim, by teaching evolution, that there's no God.

But that's the thing. Science has precisely nothing to say about the existence of God, for or against.

To quote myself from a comment in an earlier post:

The point is that science is only concerned with examining and interpreting what can be observed and measured.

In that sense, the existence or non-existence of God is simply not a scientific question. It can't be, because there's no objective evidence to examine or measure or test.

From the scientific side there is no controversy, because Intelligent Design is not science. It's religious instruction posing as science. If the proponents of ID were a little more honest, they'd be upfront about that.

But the rejection of ID in science classes is not a rejection of religion, because science has nothing to say about religion.

The rejection of ID in science classes is just a rejection of bad science teaching.

When Creationists Attack

In an awesome blow to science education in the US, the Louisiana House of Representatives has approved senate bill SB 733.

Have a read. Looks innocuous enough? There's lots of talk about critical thinking and objective discussion and all that good stuff.

Don't believe a word of it.

This is nothing more than a cynical and underhanded stealth attack on science education.

The sole purpose of this document is to allow Creationism to be taught as scientific theory in public schools.

Of course there's no mention of Creationism, or even its modern equivalent Intelligent Design.

But note that the bill makes specific mention of

" . . . evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning."

That seems like a rather specific list.

And then, the kicker is in this paragraph:

"A teacher shall teach the material presented in the standard textbook supplied by the school system and thereafter may use supplemental textbooks and other instructional materials to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review scientific theories in an objective manner, as permitted by the city, parish, or other local public school board"

What?

So if the school board is stacked with creationists, as is often the case in the US, then The Book of Genesis will be taught right alongside the standard science textbook.

And guess which one will be given more weight.

This is a science class. Surely we should be teaching science. And therefore listening to scientists. Only.

This stuff isn't a matter of opinion. It isn't a matter of theology.

It's open to debate, of course. But debate on rational, logical and scientific grounds. Not some manufactured debate of Religion vs Science designed solely to make the local ministers look like heroes to their parish.

I'm deeply disturbed by this.

Expelled: A Preview

A new film called Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is being previewed in the States. This is a propaganda film promoting Intelligent Design theory (a.k.a. Creationism) and claiming that a number of teachers and academics have been fired from US colleges for teaching Intelligent Design.

The film says that the scientific establishment is holding dogmatically to its evolutionary theory because it's too frightened, or something, to consider the possibility that it might be wrong. And anyone daring to question the established order is summarily removed from the equation.

But some reviewers have said that the people claiming discrimination in the film have not actually been sacked at all, merely moved to different departments, or refused tenure. I suspect they are simply a bunch of incompetent whingers.

But this is the tack ID activists are taking now: passing themselves off as the next Galileo or Copernicus. They're claiming they are the ones with the radical new ideas being unfairly dismissed simply because they're unpopular.

It's all bollocks of course. Anyone trying to pass a theological argument like Intelligent Design off as science deserves all the ridicule they get. Note to any aspiring Einsteins: radical new theories require either observable empirical evidence to support them or at the very least, a soundly reasoned and testable argument. Preferably both. Intelligent Design has neither.

But back to the film. Even before its release, Expelled has been whipping up a lot of controversy.

A number of the scientists appearing in the film, including science blogger PZ Myers, bestselling atheist Richard Dawkins, and editor of Skeptic magazine Michael Shermer have all claimed that they were misled about the film's content when they agreed to take part.

Apparently it was sold to them as a documentary called Crossroads, which would be looking at the intersection of science and religion and presenting a balanced view of both sides of the Evolution/ID debate.

Last week Myers and Dawkins went along to a premiere of Expelled in Minnesota, and while waiting in line, Myers was asked by security to leave the theatre. Amusingly, they let Dawkins in, apparently not recognising him. Dawkins and Myers discuss the whole thing here.

The film is being promoted by Motive Marketing, the company that was incredibly successful with campaigns for The Passion of the Christ and The Chronicles of Narnia, specifically targeted at Christian groups. Expelled is being promoted in the same sort of way, with private screenings for church groups and cash prizes offered to churches and schools for the largest group bookings.

Because of this, it's almost certain to get some traction in the States and get the commentators talking. And no, I don't think it's a coincidence that this is all happening in a US election year.

Expelled is due for release on April 18. I'm looking forward to seeing it.

Creationism and Science

In an Age article a couple of days ago, one of the government's most senior education advisers was quoted as saying that faith-based schools isolate religious groups and create divisions in society.

While I think there's some merit to this argument, that's not actually what I wanted to talk about. The article also raised the point that in some of these faith-based schools, creationism is being taught alongside evolution in science classes.

This is of real and genuine concern.

I can accept that when a school is funded by a religious group, they can claim the right to teach their theology to the students. When parents sign their kids up to these schools it's understood (or should be) that that's part of the deal.

What I can't accept is that something like science, so integral to our operation as a society, can be watered down for the convenience of a religious elite.

Faith-based schools may teach creationism, by all means. But they must do it only in the context of religious and theological instruction. Not in the science class.

To my mind, a school has two basic functions. The first is to develop a child's social, emotional, analytical and academic skills so that they have the best possible opportunity to succeed in whatever they choose to do. In a faith-based school, religious instruction will form part of this, which is perfectly fine if that's what the parents wish.

The other equally important function is to ensure that, as a society, we pass on from one generation to the next the skills required (to put it crudely) to keep the place running.

These functions are not mutually exclusive. They both go towards ensuring that each generation has a mix of people who will happily be engineers, checkout operators, doctors, cleaners, accountants, small business owners, rock stars, deep-sea diving instructors, etc. etc. Even ministers of religion.

But absolutely fundamental to the running of our society is an understanding of science. Science is what has advanced us from the stone age. Science underpins our agriculture and medicine. Science is essential for our understanding of the environment and the challenges of climate change. Science is what we use to build roads and computers and houses. Science touches every aspect of our lives.

When creationism is taught as if it were science, it devalues science. Being taught that theological dogma is science serves to remove the power of science, which is that it is open to being questioned.

All scientific claims must be backed up by observable evidence, or they will be quickly discarded. History is littered with the relics of scientific theories that were passed over for lack of evidence, or replaced with more plausible and supportable theories. (Here's a fun list to get you started).

In any science class, a student must be able to ask the question "where is the evidence?" with full confidence of receiving a satisfactory answer. Evolutionary theory can provide this. Creationism can not.

To say that creationism is science is to say that science does not require evidence. Such thinking undermines the very foundation of scientific thought.

If it were to become widespread in our society, so reliant on science for its survival, we would soon find ourselves in a very vulnerable position.