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Review Summary: An Important, Regrettably Necessary, Defense of Evolutionary Biology & The Scientific Method |
Date: 2007-06-03 |
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Details: "Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences" represents the National Academy of Sciences' official position regarding the teaching of evolution in science classrooms. It is a terse, yet quite important, document which should be read by teachers, education officials and parents interested in saving excellent science education from devious advocates of Intelligent Design and other flavors of creationism who claim to seek "balance in the classroom" but actually would prefer a science curriculum which emphasized irrational supernational, not rational empirical means of understanding the physical universe. The authors offer an elegant review of what is known to be scientifically true with respect to evolution, beginning with the origins of the universe to Darwin's Theory of Evolution via Natural Selection, and reviewing the ample evidence - from molecular biology to systematic biology, ecology and paleobiology - which does support it. They also emphasize the importance of using the scientific method for rigorous scientific research and explain why Intelligent Design and other flavors of creationism are really religiously-oriented (and motivated) ideas which have no place either in genuine scientific research or science education. I wish that the National Academy of Sciences didn't deem it necessary to issue this publication, but as long as there are still substantial - and financially well-supported - advocates of Intelligent Design (and other varieties of "scientific" creationism) eager to inject their own parochial religious and moral values into the science classrooms of the United States, then this is one publication which deserves as wide a readership as possible. |
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Review Summary: Religion is just a theory |
Date: 2007-03-27 |
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Details: There has been too much written on evolution science versus religion.
The whole thing can be explained in one paragraph. Here goes:
Biological evolution is a complete science composed of theory,
computational work, and experiment. Religion is just a theory.
And a rather poorly developed and inconsistent one at that.
Extraordinary beliefs require extraordinary evidence. In the
case of religion what little evidence there is is mostly in the
negative. |
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Review Summary: important concessions by the NAS |
Date: 2007-01-17 |
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Details: In 1987 the Supreme Court ruled that creationism is a religious belief and not science, and therefore it could not be taught in public schools that are required to be religiously neutral. Nevertheless, in a recent article in the New York Times ("Opting Out in the Debate on Evolution," June 21, 2005), current controversies in Kansas and Pennsylvania indicate that the issue refuses to go away. In the Kansas case, the school board decided to "teach the controversy," whereas the point of the article was that since mainstream science is so convinced of the overwhelming evidence for evolution that they don't even acknowledge a controversy, scientists refused to participate when asked to testify.
The present booklet, along with its longer companion book Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science (1998), presents the best efforts of the National Academy of Sciences to give an overview of mainstream science's views about evolution in general and "creation science" (and intelligent design) in particular. Negatively, the booklet argues that creation science is not a science because it cannot claim empirical evidence and is not testable. It should therefore not be taught in science classes, although, presumably, it might be taught in a comparative religions or similar humanities class. Positively, the booklet summarizes the evidence for evolution in three areas--the origins of the universe, earth, and life itself; biological evolution as evidenced in the five areas of paleontology, comparative anatomy, biogeography, embryology, and molecular biology; and then human evolution. At the end of each of these sections very brief considerations of creationism's views on these subjects are summarized and dismissed.
This report makes several important caveats, concessions or qualifications regarding the scientific enterprise. First, it acknowledges that science is not the only way of knowing. A worldview without broader knowledge beyond science would be deeply impoverished. Second, it affirms that many scientists are deeply religious and "hold that God created the universe and the various processes driving physical and biological evolution," a simple statement of fact that often goes unnoticed. Third, it reminds the reader that many religious people see no conflict with evolution. In fact, the report concedes that theistic evolution "is not in disagreement with scientific explanations of evolution." That would imply, for example, that science need not be materialistic or atheistic, even though its purview is the merely material. Fourth, for its part, because its scope is so very narrow, science "cannot comment on the role that supernatural forces might play in human affairs." That is, it must remain agnostic about areas outside of its empirical method. Fifth, the report seems to embrace a view similar to Stephen Gould's "non-overlapping magisteria," when it advocates that "science and religion occupy two separate realms." Thus, questions of morality, aesthetics, philosophy, politics, economics, social policy, and the like "extend beyond science's realm." In practice this is hardly ever true; scientists can and do comment on these issues, and when they do the mantle of prestige and authority that often attaches itself to science accompanies their opinions that, strictly speaking, lie outside of the scientific method. Do scientists really remain silent on the social, medical, economic, or moral implications of stem cell research, for example, or whether or when we might use the nuclear weapons science created? Finally, in several places the report notes that in science no truth is ever final, in the sense that scientific conclusions always remain open to correction and revision.[...] |
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Review Summary: Is Evolution religion? |
Date: 2006-12-17 |
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Details: As one reviewer claimed, This book can be used by
science teachers and public school administrators who find themselves (sigh) having to refute the attempts of religious right to teach religion in a science class. Science class should be about scientific methods and principles, not faith and religion, and it should include be based on our use of the scientific method, not a sacred text. (Religion belongs in religion class, not science class.)
This claim (and this book) reveals a basic misunderstanding of religion. RELIGION in its Constitutional context, is defined as any physically unverifiable 'belief' accepted as answering any (or all) of the three classic philosophical questions of all time.....1) Where did life come from? 2) What is life's purpose, if any? and 3) What is life's ultimate destiny. Given this definition, evolution is religion as is creationism because they both try to answer these 3 questions. In fact, science alone cannot answer any of these questions. It can only use science fact to extrapolate backward and forward in trying to answer these questions. That science tries to answer questions 1 and 3 is obvious and, in my reading, I find that science often tries to answer question 2 as well. Looking at it another way, all persons believe in a creator. Some people believe that the creator is an intelligent being, others believe that time, mutations, natural selection and chance are the creator. We are, accordingly to this view, all winners of the mutational lottery. Science can help us answer these questions but cannot prove by science alone these 3 questions. Keep this in mind as you read this book.
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Review Summary: Well balanced primer for the curious... |
Date: 2006-11-03 |
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Details: As someone interested in the creationist/evolution debate, this short but well-articulated book is one that I would recommend to anyone with a similar interest. The NAS not only oversees a plethora of scientific investigation but is a body well respected for it's thoroughness and objectivity in the vast realm we call scientific inquiry. 'Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences' brings together the thoughts and evidence of leading researchers debating one of society's most polarizing topics.
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out of 13 Reviews
