I've been asked to serve on the board of the Central California chapter of the Interfaith Alliance, which works on common causes with other interest groups, among them Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
IACC is interested in promoting certain things in the public schools, among them a commitment to the First Amendment, minority rights and an appreciation for religious diversity. My qualifications for this are murky, but I suspect writing letters to the editor, publicly debating creationists, and working to promote free thought on my particular campus are things that might've commended me. That, and I'm halfway decent as a speaker---though you'd never know that from this.
Well, shoot, if I'm not effective, at least they're not paying me.
1/18/2008
A JOB BEHIND THE CURTAIN?
Posted by Scott Hatfield . . . . at 7:06 AM 1 comments
Labels: Behind The Curtain
BARRIER TO UNDER-STAN-DING?
Stan and I have been bouncing back-and-forth, and I suppose a quick gloss of our perorations would be 'examining the philosophical basis of scientific practice.' It's that gray area, one supposes, between epistemology per se and the philosophy of science.
But Stan, we seem to have a problem as far as fostering a dialogue that's easy for others to follow, and that is that I can't seem to link to new specific posts on your blog. It seems as if any links I offer automatically take me to this site, which is Stan's web site, rather than to a specific blog post. What a hassle!
Now, Stan has obviously spent a lot of time organizing the above site to articulate his views, and it would be unreasonable to expect him to alter its entire structure simply to facilitate our discussion, so I am going to suggest that perhaps we should just do all the blogging here. With that in mind, I'm going to post a list of some (not all) of the things that Stan described as First Principles now, and respond (in part) in my next post
1. The Intuitive Principles
These principles, while not provable, are known to be valid intuitively
a. Identity. If it is true, then it is true; if it exists, then it exists.
b. Non-Contradiction. If it is true, then it cannot be false; if it exists, it cannot NOT exist.
c. Excluded Middle.A (singular, unity) concept cannot be somewhat true and somewhat false; a (singular, unity) thing cannot somewhat exist and somewhat not exist.
d. Cause and effect. Every effect has a cause that is both necessary and sufficient.
e. Cogito (Descartes). Because I doubt my own doubt, it is true that I think; because I think (truth), I must exist (fact).
2. The Probabilistic Principles.
These Principles seem to encompass both truth and existence
a. The Immutability of math throughout the universe.
b. The Immutability of physical law throughout the universe
c.The mutability of all levels of verifiability (Godel's laws).
3. The Presuppositional Principles
These principles are declared either as empirical constraints, or as part of a worldview.
a. No form of reality exists that cannot be either observed and measured directly or by the use of instrumentation.
b. No Singularities (temporary violations) exist in the physical laws of the universe.
Posted by Scott Hatfield . . . . at 6:34 AM 4 comments
Labels: Stan-Ding Discussion
1/15/2008
REVIEWING THE FALL SEMESTER (GULP)
"What are they teaching kids these days?" People really have no idea, in general, what exactly is being covered in a high school biology course. Reading the state standards would help, but laypeople will struggle to convert the standards (which are 'wish lists' of understanding) into the sort of factoids deemed essential. Recognizing that vocabulary and concepts are not in themselves an education, I present for your consideration the following handout totalling 2,400 + words given my Biology students which summarizes the highlights of the fall semester:
BIOLOGY’S RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER SCIENCES
Matter comes in units called atoms, which are the smallest pieces of matter that retain unique chemical properties. Atoms appear as elements in the periodic table. There are 92 different naturally-occurring elements listed in that table, and they are arranged on the basis of common properties. Atoms are formed from three kinds of sub-atomic particles: protons, which are massive, positively-charged particles in the atom’s nucleus; neutrons, which are like protons but have no charge, and electrons, which are nearly massless, have a negative charge, and occupy energy levels called shells outside the atom’s nucleus.
The atomic number of a given element is equal to the number of protons. Atoms which have the same number of protons and neutrons in the nucleus tend to be stable, but there are versions of atoms with extra mass in the form of neutrons which are extra-heavy, unstable and likely to fall apart. These extra-heavy atoms, called isotopes, are radioactive, because they radiate energy when they fall apart!
THE INTERIOR OF THE CELL
Cells with a nucleus and membrane-bound organelles are called eukaryotes (‘true nucleus’). These cells contain a network of structures based upon the folding of cell membrane. Eukaryotes can be either single-celled or (as in the case of humans, animals, plants and fungi) multicellular. Organelles of interest include chloroplasts, mitochondria, the nucleus, the ER (endoplasmic reticulum) and the Golgi complex. Chloroplasts (found in plants, protists and some bacteria) capture solar energy and convert it into chemical energy. Mitochondria liberate stored chemical energy for the function of the cell. The nucleus stores the information-carrying chromosomes made of DNA and protein. Proteins are built in ribosomes in the cytoplasm and the surface of the rough ER. Many of these proteins are further modified and ‘packaged’ for transport in the Golgi complex.
CELLULAR ENERGETICS
Most of the life of the cell is spent growing: doing chemical reactions, building structures, and capturing, storing, and releasing the energy needed for all that activity. This period in between acts of cell division is called interphase. During this period, the DNA is replicated, so that there are two copies of each DNA molecule. During mitosis in eukaryotes, the chromosomes of DNA and protein condense, the nucleus dissolves, and the centrioles (tiny barrel-shaped structures) migrate to opposite poles of the cell. There, a network of microtubule fibers will first align the chromosomes, and then pull them apart to opposite poles of the cell. There, a pair of nuclei will form and then the cell divides (cytokinesis), producing two identical daughter cells.
Once it is transcribed, this messenger RNA (mRNA) will be transported outside the nucleus and captured in large enzyme complexes, also made of RNA, called ribosomes. The ribosomes will ‘read’ the mRNA sequence and use it to attach complementary nucleotides of transfer RNA (tRNA). Each tRNA has an amino acid attached to it, so as the chain of tRNA grows, the amino acids are brought close together. As the message is read, the amino acids will break away from the ribosome, forming peptide bonds with each other.
Anyway, that's a thumbnail sketch of the fall. You will begin to appreciate the enormity of the task before me when you understand that this only addresses less than half of the state standards in Biology.
Posted by Scott Hatfield . . . . at 5:30 PM 1 comments
Labels: science education
1/14/2008
EVOLUTIONISTS....AT WAR! (NOT REALLY)
A friend sent me a copy of this article by Steve Connor which appeared in The Independent (UK) entitled 'Evolutionists At War Over Altruism's Origins.' Read it, and you'd think this was somehow an earth-shattering point of disagreement. Not so. As I wrote my friend, I found the article terribly misleading.
Take, for example, the title: ‘Evolutionists At War Over Altruism’s Origins’. That term, and the term Darwinist, is now widely perceived as descriptive of a belief system. It doesn’t help that some of the more prominent evolutionary biologists of the 20th century are also unapologetic atheists, and that the latter is conflated with the former!
Properly speaking, however, those of us who champion evolution don’t ‘believe’ it in the sense of taking a proposition on faith. Scientific models are held provisionally on the basis of their ability to explain phenomena, but they aren’t dogma. In contrast, creationists are the very picture of dogmatic believers, and their insistence in painting real scientists as ‘true believers in Darwin’ is a classic case of projection.
Secondly, the so-called ‘gene selection/group selection’ debate is an ongoing point of contention within evolutionary biology that in its present form can be traced back to Wynne-Edwards’ book Animal Dispersion in Relation to Social Behavior (1962). In a recent article ("Beyond Selfish Genes", pg. 20, Nov./Dec. 2007) in the Skeptical Inquirer, Massimo Pigliucci makes a good case that it may be time to 'lay the selfish gene metaphor to rest, or at least to seriously appreciate its strict limits.'
Pigliucci points out that despite being a popularization of the work of biologists like Hamilton and Williams, The Selfish Gene (1976) came to be seen as a primary source, contributing to a distorted picture of the actual science in the public's perception that Dawkins surely never intended. Dawkins' attempt at a more nuanced, scholarly presentation of his views (The Extended Phenotype, 1982) probably was too little, too late for the general public, contributing early on to his somewhat-undeserved reputation as a militant ultra-Darwinian. Piglucci goes on to point out that much work done since that time has strengthened the case for group-level selection in particular cases, and argues that many biologists have (rather sensibly) have adopted a 'multilevel' view of evolution as a result, rather than view things as a zero-sum war between 'gene selectionists' and 'group selectionists.'
Speaking personally, I feel that the article not only makes too much of this disagreement between Dawkins and Wilson, but gives the false impression that either might have a particular research program at stake here. There are no living writers on evolutionary biology that I admire more than either Dawkins or Wilson, but neither of them has published anything ground-breaking on evolutionary theory in the last twenty years.
In fact, in the last two decades, each has increasingly devoted themselves to other topics in their popular writings; in Dawkins’ case, this writing has been underwritten by an endowed chair courtesy of Charles Simonyi which has freed him from the responsibility to earn an living actually doing science. Instead, he has turned to a career as a polemicist on behalf of evolution and (especially of late) atheism. As for Wilson, as he approached retirement he turned much of his attention to promoting conservation and the preservation of his intellectual legacy. I doubt very much that either would regard this point of contention as the be-all and end-all of their interests, past or present, and it is a sign of the shallowness of much print journalism that they would attempt to spin this as some feud of great moment.
Posted by Scott Hatfield . . . . at 12:52 PM 4 comments
Labels: science education
DOWN AND OUT
I'm a Dallas Cowboys fan. I come by it honestly: my grandfather was a fan when they were an expansion team 48 years ago, and I've been a loyalist since the Danny White days.
So, I have a little perspective, and what that means is:
1) This most recent playoff loss hurts, but not worse than a 1-15 season hurts
2) The Giants deserved to win, because they outperformed the Boys on special teams, avoided costly penalties and once they realized that left tackle Flozell Adams wasn't 100 percent, they crowded that side of the field. Not only did quarterback Tony Romo get pressure that he wasn't used to dealing with, this limited the effectiveness of running back Marion Barber, who had been so strong in the first half. And, while we're mentioning it, our receiving corps had its share of drops, including two likely scores. If only, if only...
Posted by Scott Hatfield . . . . at 7:36 AM 3 comments
Labels: personal
1/13/2008
MILLER IN THE PALMETTO STATE
Hey, it's Ken Miller, author of one of the most-used high school textbooks in the country and definitely the most popular high school biology text. It's the one whose adoption helped spark the misconduct that led to the Dover case. It's the one with sticker shock in Cobb County, Georgia. And it's the one that I use in my classroom.
Check out Miller's address to South Carolina's Board of Education, in which he defends his pedagogy. Notice how he manages to be assertive yet good-natured while in the mouth of the cannon. No doubt about it, Dr. Miller's one of my role models.
By the way, don't get too aflutter about this year's kerfuffle in South Carolina. Thanks to people like Ken Miller and the South Carolinians for Science Education, the attempt to 'delist' Miller and Levine failed and South Carolina kids will continue to be able to take advantage of texts that strongly support the teaching of evolution and natural selection.
Posted by Scott Hatfield . . . . at 8:31 PM 1 comments
Labels: science education
THE ROAD TO HECK
Is paved with good intentions, so they say. Well, I had good intentions. PZ Myers had encouraged people to call in to the first Minnesota Atheists radio show, and since I knew that the charming Kristine Harley of Amused Muse was interviewing Richard Dawkins, that sounded fine to me. I knew, from accounts on Kristine's site, that she and and Dr. Dawkins had shared some amusing times together on a cruise in the Galapagos, so I thought that I would mention that.
Now, much of my job (I'm a public school teacher) involves talking for a living, and I don't ordinarily get nervous or tongue-tied. But there I was, on the line with one of the scientific world's most distinctive and eminent voices, and I confess that I was nervous. I should've realized that, given time limits, an obscure anecdote wouldn't have been a good choice, but I barreled ahead and then awkwardly plopped off with a 'I'll take your comments off the air.' You can doubtless revel in my ineptitude by perusing the podcast.
However, if my stumbling isn't sufficient to entice you, you should know that PZ had a nice segment ("A Moment of Science") on whale evolution and that Dr. Dawkins was characteristically trenchant. I think, in particular, that his account of how he was solicited under false pretenses to be interviewed for the upcoming Ben Stein 'documentary' Expelled is required listening. So give the podcast a listen, there's some good stuff there, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
* * * * * *UPDATE * * * * * * * *
I am told the podcast will not be available until sometime Monday. Still, check it out when you can!
Posted by Scott Hatfield . . . . at 7:52 AM 2 comments
Labels: Behind The Curtain, science education