[Catalist] Belief in Creationist Pseudoscience in Australia renaissance

[Igor Bray]

Thank you for that list Ray. For what it is worth my experience of
religious ideas is that they are always moving. For example, I know
Christians who will argue that their God is responsible for the evolution
of life. I¹m also sure that there were many Christians who supported
same-sex marriage. There will be others who will support gender equity on
the basis of their religious beliefs. In general, good ideas in time get
absorbed into the culture of the day. Similarly, bad ideas, or those that
have little utility, will eventually die. Religion just slows down this
process.

Science is a moving beast too, but its culture is fundamentally different
to religion. A scientific explanation is necessarily reductionist. It
takes a complicated object and seeks understanding of its individual
components. To a scientist invoking God is an obfuscation because the flow
is from complicated to even more complicated. It is also very
disempowering because it stops investigation.

I note with interest regular attacks on climate-change science. I
regularly hear an attack taking the form of "belief in anthropogenic
climate change is like a religion². I respond with ³true, but there is a
risk that this religion may be right². The problem is that the claim of
anthropogenic climate change is not falsifiable in practice. We cannot
turn off or on our green-house gas emissions at will, while keeping all
other climate parameters constant. Here we rely on computational models
which are based on well-established scientific foundations, and this is
what qualifies this as a science. Unfortunately, the range of parameters
is just so great and the weather behaviour so chaotic that even modern
computation struggles to provide us with important information such as
cyclone paths. Nevertheless, we rely on the fact that computer power keeps
growing and that the models get further refined. They could still all be
wrong, but it is not irrational to be concerned by some of their
predictions. This is more about risk management, rather than blind belief.

With best wishes to all,

Igor

On 1/4/18, 19:31, "Catalist on behalf of Ray Forma"
<catalist-bounces at lists.stawa.net on behalf of rayf at smartchat.net.au>
wrote:

>Brendan,
>
>I feel you are being overly harsh towards those teachers of science who
>need the crutch of supernatural belief to survive their daily lives.
>
>However, I also am concerned that there are teachers who present creation
>science or intelligent design, or both, as legitimate science. Teachers
>who do so are not teachers of science.
>
>I lifted the following directly from Wikipedia, and encourage everyone to
>read the whole article at
><https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_science>. This extract helps me
>with my understanding of the scientific method.
>
>A summary of the objections to creation science by scientists follows:
>
>€ Creation science is not falsifiable: An idea or hypothesis is generally
>not considered to be in the realm of science unless it can be potentially
>disproved with certain experiments, this is the concept of falsifiability
>in science. The act of creation as defined in creation science is not
>falsifiable because no testable bounds can be imposed on the creator. In
>creation science, the creator is defined as limitless, with the capacity
>to create (or not), through fiat alone, infinite universes, not just one,
>and endow each one with its own unique, unimaginable and incomparable
>character. It is impossible to disprove a claim when that claim as
>defined encompasses every conceivable contingency.
>
>€ Creation science violates the principle of parsimony: Parsimony favours
>those explanations that rely on the fewest assumptions. Scientists prefer
>explanations that are consistent with known and supported facts and
>evidence and require the fewest assumptions to fill remaining gaps. Many
>of the alternative claims made in creation science retreat from simpler
>scientific explanations and introduce more complications and conjecture
>into the equation.
>
>€ Creation science is not, and cannot be, empirically or experimentally
>tested: Creationism posits supernatural causes which lie outside the
>realm of methodological naturalism and scientific experiment. Science can
>only test empirical, natural claims.
>
>€ Creation science is not correctable, dynamic, tentative or progressive:
>Creation science adheres to a fixed and unchanging premise or "absolute
>truth," the "word of God," which is not open to change. Any evidence that
>runs contrary to that truth must be disregarded. In science, all claims
>are tentative, they are forever open to challenge, and must be discarded
>or adjusted when the weight of evidence demands it.
>
>Amen [Wiktionary: In many Abrahamic religious texts and creeds: truly,
>verily]
>
>> On 1 Apr 2018, at 07:31, brendan o'brien <oscience2006 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> What bothers me most is that the god bothererz who spout their
>>unverifiable nonsense here in this science email list will also be doing
>>the same in their science classrooms in front of impressionable children
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> B
>> __________________________
>> 
>> Brendan O¹Brien
>> 
>> oscience2006 at gmail.com
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>> __________________________
>
>Regards,
>
>Ray Forma
>Tel +61 (0) 428 596 938
>
>
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