Tuesday, January 25, 2005

Hardy har har

There's no fool like one who thinks he's clever. Glenn Reynolds really blows it here.

Yeah, I know what he's referring to. And perhaps the law professor would like to explain to this engineer exactly what it is that is scientifically impeachable about the stickers some zealot sued to have removed from biology textbooks in Georgia. Never mind what you think their goals are or anything else.

This is what the stickers said:It's not pettifoggery to say that science deals with "observations" and "theories", not "facts". Science is about critically considering theories. Creationism is not mentioned, and the only problem with creationism scientifically is not that it is not true (beats me - I'm agnostic), but that there is no means to test it scientifically. And if you don't know the difference between not testable and not true, you don't understand science, and maybe the concepts presented in that sticker are worthy of more attention in science classes.

(Incidentally, it's not just fundamental Christians who believe in creation. IMO if Muslims made an issue of it the school board would roll right over and put the stickers back, and issue a condemnation of "the Zionist entity" as a bonus).

That which is beyond criticism is dogma. The irony here is that once you treat science as if it yields anything more than theories, you've turned it into a religion.

And IMO for some people that's the whole idea.

No comments: