Kitzmiller v Dover, Ten Years Later: Dennis Venema and Ted Davis in Conversation (Part 1)

[glipsnort (Steve Schaffner)]

@Eddie

How closely did you follow the legal arguments in the Dover trial, the NCSE coverage of the trial, etc.? The kind of restrictions I’m talking about were thought to be implied by a large number of commentators at the time. It was commonly said, e.g., that ID was not constitutional to teach in science class, but could be taught in philosophy class. (Like, how many American high schools have philosophy as a subject?) So the science teachers were supposed to zip their lips

I followed them pretty closely. Your response here is, well, unresponsive. You offer neither a legal argument that the Dover decision should have had the consequences you imply, nor any evidence that in fact those consequences occurred. Your comment conflates the teaching of ID as a science with a presentation of different views about the limits of science. The former is unconstitutional, while the latter has never been the subject of a court ruling, to my knowledge.

@Eddie

When you consider that the only actual thing about ID “taught” at Dover was (I paraphrase): “There is a view called ID which differs from Darwinism and if you wish to know more about it, you can read about ID in a book which will not be taught in class but can be found in the library”

Or you could try a more accurate paraphrase: “There is something uniquely wrong about evolution as a scientific theory. We’re not going to tell you what the problems are, but if you want to know more, there’s a thinly disguised creationist book in the library you can read. But don’t ask your science teachers, because we’ve forbidden them from answering questions on the subject. Oh, and parents, if you want to know why we’re doing this, it’s because scientists are lying to you about evolution to support atheism.”

[glipsnort (Steve Schaffner)]

@Eddie

If the ruling had been: teachers can of course talk about ID, as its existence is already known, and pretending that it doesn’t exist will do no more good than pretending to students that drugs and sex don’t exist; teachers can therefore, if in their professional judgment it would benefit the class, explain to the class briefly what ID is supposed to be; they can name Behe, Dembski, etc. as ID proponents, and they can explain that most biologists do not accept ID, and therefore it is not taught on the curriculum – that would be one thing.

The court was ruling on an actual policy, not making proclamations about what other, very different policies would be constitutional. Is that even in the purview of a court at this level?

[beaglelady]

@Eddie

As you have done more than once in the past, you resort to sarcasm, rather than addressing the serious issue of pedagogy that I’ve raised. Do you support the climate of fear that causes teachers to be afraid to even mention ID in class? That causes them to shut down on honest student questions?

I think you are blowing this out of proportion.

[beaglelady]

@Eddie

I have not heard of a single case in the country where ID has been discussed in a biology class since the Dover trial. Maybe it has been. But I have read nothing about it. And I’ve been following the subject intensely for about 10 years now, reading thousands of blog posts and columns, articles in magazines and books, listening to podcasts and radio interviews, etc. As far as I know, teachers are inhibited and are staying away not just from endorsing ID but even from talking about it. I’m inviting you or anyone else, who has first-hand knowledge of what high school science teachers are doing, to correct me.

Have you talked about this with the National Association of Biology Teachers?

[dcscccc]

hi prof venema.

@DennisVenema

What we observe in the human and chimpanzee genomes, if indeed we share a common ancestor, predicts that either a chromosome fusion or splitting event

i dont think so. the id model also predict this because its unlikely that human will loss so many genes. so the simple scenario is that a fusion event occurred in the human lineage.

@DennisVenema

We also know now that this fusion was not unique to humans - other hominins had the same fusion as we do, so the event is deep in our past (at least 800,000 years ago). So, we weren’t “human” when this happened to our lineage.

i guess you refer to the homo genus. but the homo genus was fully human. so this fusion is indeed unique to human lineage.

[dcscccc]

hi dr davis.

@TedDavis

If in fact most geologists concluded that the earth is flat, it’s likely that I would believe them–provided that I understood the facts and why they believed they led them to that conclusion.

great. so you prefer evidence rather than the consensus opinion. so we both agree that what count is the evidence and not the consensus opinion.

@TedDavis

What exactly is “the id model” that you refer to here?

actually this model is a well developed now. id model is about the best scientific conclusion about how nature appear. it have predictions that can be test. like any scientific field. so i dont see any reason why not to teach id in schools more then evolution.

[beaglelady]

@Eddie

Stop answering questions with questions! Do you personally know of cases where science teachers have been able to talk about ID in their classes without worrying about possible lawsuits launched by the NCSE? Have you read of any such cases? If you have, give me the names of the teachers involved. Tell me where I can learn exactly what they said about ID in their classes.

Stop telling me what to do. I don’t know what individual teachers say about ID in their classrooms, if they say anything at all. It would be hard to fairly say anything unless a survey is conducted. Why would I give you individual names and exactly what they said? How could I? I don’t have spies and don’t bug classrooms. You sound like you’d like to mow some people down.

Do you have a problem with checking the National Association of Biology Teachers?

[Patrick]

@Eddie

And you think that maybe the NABT knows of some cases where ID has been discussed calmly and intelligently in science class, without anyone threatening legal action and without teachers fearing any?

If NABT knows of any case where ID is or has been discussed in science class, I hope that the would tell me so that I can refer it to the lawyers at the Freedom From Religion Foundation so that a lawsuit can be prepared. ID doesn’t belong in public schools and we (scientific truth seekers) have to remain vigilant so that it doesn’t try to sneak in the side door again anywhere.

[TedDavis (Dr. Ted Davis)]

@dcscccc

great. so you prefer evidence rather than the consensus opinion. so we both agree that what count is the evidence and not the consensus opinion.

I think you may have missed my earlier point. Evidence alone is not sufficient. Scientific knowledge is determined not by observations and experiments, but by the outcome of debates about how to interpret observations and experiments. Those debates might, or might not, produce a consensus or something close to it. Consensus science goes into the textbooks. Sometimes current debates also go into textbooks, but not very often.

[TedDavis (Dr. Ted Davis)]

@dcscccc

actually this model is a well developed now. id model is about the best scientific conclusion about how nature appear. it have predictions that can be test. like any scientific field.

Elaboration would be most welcome, dcscccc. I’ve already indicated that I do not know what such an alternative would look like, but since you think there is one, what exactly does it look like?

Scientific creationism does offer an alternative to evolution; it simply happens to be wrong on many key points. Unlike ID, creationism provides a specific chronological story of how and when the earth and living things came into existence. It’s specific about how various forms came into existence: supernatural creation in many cases, very rapid “microevolution” or adaptation in many other cases. It’s specific about when the earth, the sun, the moon, the stars, the dinosaurs, and humans all first came into existence. Mainstream science does likewise: the Big Bang produced the universe about 13.8 BY ago, the Earth was formed from starstuff about 4.54 BY ago, the dinosaurs disappeared about 65 MY ago, etc.

ID needs to provide a similar narrative, or it’s not going to fly as an “alternative” to the standard story. The most ID can presently do, is to state objections to certain points in the standard story. You have to go positive, not merely negative, to constitute and alternative theory. Where’s the beef?

[beaglelady]

How do you have so much in-depth knowledge about high school teachers in the USA? Do you speak with many high school biology teachers? Do you attend conferences or reads their journals? Do you ask them about ID? Are you mad at them mostly because the ID side lost?

And what is a speckled moth? Do you mean peppered moth?

[beaglelady]

@Patrick

I should think it would be fine to mention ID or creationism, if only to explain why it isn’t science and doesn’t belong in the science classroom. After all, spontaneous generation and earlier ideas about all kinds of stuff are discussed in biology textbooks.