I went to the woods...

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Well...I'm off to my Biotech test. Who knew there were so many drugs? Ah well. AMDG.

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

In response to 'No Evolution For Us' over at Corante.

The difficulty with the issue is that hijackers have claimed the facts on the issue in hopes for more religious firing power. On its own, creation science is able to come up with some good questions that can be examined scientifically. And I have never heard one deny natural selection. However, this comes from people who actually study the science of the issue.

The problem with the teaching situation is that it relies largely on presentation of material. Unfortunately, there are many naturalistic science teachers out there who enjoy this opportunity to demonstrate the ignorance of smalltown, simple, religious folk as there are religious (ie creationist) teachers looking to teach kids about the evils of evolution. And I would like to add that I think this relates to the public arena as much as it does the scholastic one. Just as Dawkins loves to meld his science with his worldview when denouncing the dangers of religion (see his article in Prospect magazine), there are religious fanatics who pounce onto small details and statistics that can be hurled at their enemies. In the fray, honest truth-seekers on both sides of the aisle become defensive and hostile. Even well-meaning people get lost in poor language. Differentiating between evolution and evolutionism has never really taken the forefront it needs (similarly to differentiating creation science from creationism).

Biology classes should not merely be presenting evolution or creation science. They should be presenting the evidence as well as the efforts being made to come to the best understanding of that evidence (ie if the evidence is for or against an understanding of the way evolution works, it should be presented as such). But as such, we must stray away from oversimplifications when teaching this to younger kids, for a misunderstanding at this level does nothing but hurt any future possibility. This opportunity has been missed for the last generation. We need to make it real for the next one.

Also, I should mention that every biology text I've seen since entering high school (earlier texts used it in more of a chronological format) have used evolution in the introduction or continuation of the first section. Now that is, of course, must not be construed as a categorical statement...just a comment.

Monday, September 12, 2005

Free food in Atlanta, anyone?

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Maybe Lenin was onto something when he said "Imperialism is the higest form of capitalism" (I have not checked this reference, but am assuming that the Wikipedia site was correct). Perhaps, though, the predicate could be more adeptly applied to cultural imperialism. I would imagine that the end result of capitalism would be a culture more broadly uniform in its ability to respond to a particular market. After all, the companies are looking to broaden their market share. Would not marketing in a way that allows you access to influence everyone be superior to more limited approaches? Also note that I'm not saying that they are using the same strategy, but that in their desire to reach new people, the dissemination of those products, and what they represent, would most likely result in a smoothed world culture (not homogenized).

However, many see capitalism through a merely western lens, whereas this merely labels and seeks to systematize a type of interaction is rooted more in any tit-for-tat relationship. As such, as opportunities to interact abound, so the culture (the way we reach people) becomes an integral part of the capitalistic outlook. The end result being 'cultural imperialism' via the current financial leader.

Thursday, August 25, 2005

I think that faith is what inevitably emerges from life when we've thought about something to either our wit's end or to the point that necessity (time) takes over. As God has perfect knowledge (omniscient), he would not have any such faith. Faith would be a fundamental expression of our humanity's imperfection. But yet, how much more does it mean that we present this imperfection to God as sacrifice.

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

How should the government judge teachers' abilities. Oftentimes, this is a blackhole of political positions and arguments as teachers yearn for stability and congressman yearn for votes. How can one judge a teacher's ability in the classroom? Since this 'ability' is often described as a vague and ambiguous thing (and whatever argument specifies this supposedly unspecifiable is met with a mere glance at "teaching to the test"), this is normally the end of any cogent attempt to better public education. However, if this argument was allowed to proceed and gain momentum, would it not destroy most of the professions that are commonly held to?

After all, are the 'ratings' the best way of judging the artistic quality of a television show? The most academic answer would of course be no, but there is still an understanding that the show is there for the purpose of making money and entertaining. Obviously, this is not an argument that leads all actors to band together and refuse to be fired from a show just because the audience doesn't like them.

However, when it comes to public teaching, this is often ignored. Teachers will readily admit that their purpose is to educate students, but if they are subsequently judged on said standard (note that I'm not arguing toward any particular standard here), this will be said to be an unjustifiable attack on their ability. After all, some students just don't want to learn, they will often say.

But so what? Why are these ideas left to stand when the same principles can not rightly be applied elsewhere in the working enviornment? It's because the government is controlling education. Since the federal government has set themselves up as the sole deciders of all that is just and fair, for them to be overly harsh on some particular group (particularly in an area so sensitive as education) would seem roughly hypocritical and would be a self destructive act.

This, which is nothing more than one more article pointing towards the inefficiencies of the government when compared to businesses, is a powerful problem in any debate regarding the viable future of any public service in an uncertain future. Until the educational system realizes that it is a business, we will have to continue waddling in this tendentious muck of confusion.

Monday, June 13, 2005

Dawkins rebut to Paley's watchmaker is quite common assumption to propose:

"All appearances to the contrary, the only watchmaker in nature is the blind forces of physics, albeit deployed in a very special way... it is the blind watchmaker."(1)

However, I would still state that it is assuming this conclusion. If naturalism is the case, then everything is brought about with these "blind forces", including anything that we make. As such, there is no way to differentiate in such a world between that which is made blindly and that which is made by a "watchmaker". The difficulty is the same with monotheism, for anything that is is made by God (thus the perceived difficulties in the "problem with evil"... and I say "perceived" for a reason), though theism has already brought arguments to why this makes sense. On the other hand, naturalists (in the religious sense) like to act like they aren't making any assumptions that would impede their own ability to analyze a topic.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that both groups are assuming the supposed "result" of their discussion. Montheism is able to escape this difficulty because it relies on faith. For naturalism, though, they're just stuck.