Great news. Hopefully religion as a whole is banned in the near future.

Yeah I know this would be awesome! right?!

We should ban religion... the religious are so intolerant....right

This is key to me. The Ken Hams of the world are getting better at couching their arguments in the language of the scientific method, but that's just PR.

At its core, isn't science using some method to find out truths about the natural world? If you have to ignore large swaths of data (in some cases, the overwhelming majority of the data) because it contradicts your desired conclusions, then you're not doing science.

Does that work the other way around? And Lo, there was a hypothesis, and the hypothesis was good. And the hypothesis begat an attempt to test, observe and find evidence, and there was evidence. And the hypothesis begat a theory...

Or the ten commandments of science:

Thou shalt be Consistent (internally & externally)
Thou shalt be Parsimonious (sparing in proposed entities, explanations)
Thou shalt be Useful (describes & explains observed phenomena)
Thou shalt be Empirically Testable & Falsifiable
Thou shalt be Based upon Controlled, Repeated Experiments
Thou shalt be Correctable & Dynamic (changes are made with new data)
Thou shalt be Progressive (achieves all that previous theories have and more)
Thou shalt be Tentative (admits that it might not be correct, does not assert certainty)
Thou shalt not covert thy neighbour's results
Thou shalt assume that there will be further commandments.

The frustrating and sad part of this to me is that "The Ken Hams" don't have to be that convincing. All they have to do is create the appearance of controversy which allows Christians to not have to change their views.

Ham knows he is not going to convince actual biologists or geologists about Creation. "Creation Science" is a defensive movement that allows Christian fundamentalist theology to somehow survive in the modern world.

ps. MB IMHO your above post is in poor taste

Just as a reminder, this is all framed under uke's conjecture and analysis:

My primary point is one that is not uncommon around here, which is that we need to be particularly careful about things like "science" or "critical thinking" as being processes, and not results. It is often the case that posters present a desire for something like "science" as a collection of facts that people must agree with as opposed to a "scientific thought process."

tame_deuces asked the following question:

And it is sufficient to note that, in fact, Ken Ham goes around presenting his research and the research of others all over the place. So trying to use this as the "BUT THIS ISN'T SCIENCE!" isn't successful.

I believe the hedging in the last part of your statement is appropriate:

If you hinge the quality of scientific thought on the conclusions (that they believe in some fundamental way the answers to questions about "scientific facts" as understood in a contemporary manner), then you've reduced science to something different than what it is often described to be.

.

I think "possible" is the operative word, but also the one that blunts uke's points. Sure it's possible to teach creationism and mumble the words "scientific method" somewhere in the lectures. I just don't see the value when so much of creationism doesn't follow the methods on which the class claims to be based. Creationism says the earth orbits the sun, but that doesn't mean it's valuable in a science class.

My point is that presenting research is also science. This in the context of a science class which is what this debate is about. I don't know if this has dawned on people yet, but education and presentation of research are big parts of science.

Arbitrary mentions of research in a context does of course not automatically make those contexts science. By that logic it would be science to go the toilet if you happened to mention plate tectonics to the guy in the next stall.

Science isn't science until we have a CONFERENCE!

He can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that *IS* his point. The content of beliefs isn't the thing we really want to teach, but rather the practice.

Eh?

I find it difficult to engage in a debate on what constitutes science with someone unable to screech into sarcasm after only 2 posts.

Regardless, the logic of your sarcasm is incorrect. That something is part of science does not mean that you can not do science without it. For example experimentation is part of science, but we can do science without it.

If you want debate the process of science, you really should not be making such basic errors of reasoning.

A science education will teach both method and findings. Findings and results constitute the majority parts.

Wut? Why?

It's quite simple, really. You don't have to engage. But lest you forget, you're the one who went to the toilet.

But aren't you using that as a fundamental part of your argument?

Your rhetorical question suggests that the absence of a particular element is missing, hence science is not being done.

Yes, of course. Science education is primarily about the recitation of and replication of known results. This is why all science tests are written the way they are.

Again you commit a very basic error of reasoning. That results and findings are the majority scope of almost every science education does not imply that the scope of these educations are recitation and replication. Indeed the scope of a scientific education at the college level is usually application and analysis.

For a poster usually so quick to point errors in reasoning, you really ought to put in more effort.

Which is undoubtedly true. Science is not being done if creationism is being taught as fact. You seem to have overlooked the original hypothetical.

I never said that it was the entire scope. I merely repeated what you said. You said:

And I merely repeated it back to you. So if you find error in that statement, then the error is yours.

Why put in more effort than is needed?

Huh? You are not making a lick of sense. Recital and replication are your words and your words only.

Oh yes, of course. You define science to be "not this thing" and declare yourself to have made an argument.

Uke: "Here's a conjecture: I think you can teach scientific reasoning in the context of creati..."
t_d: "That's not science. Presenting results is of central importance! "
AW: "Ken Ham presents results all the time."
t_d: "That's not what I said. The major scope is presenting findings and results."
AW: "Okay, so the major scope of science is getting people to reproduce facts and results."
t_d: "That's stupid. I didn't say that that was *everything* to science education. Don't forget the hypothetical."
AW: "Uhhhh... sure. Anyway, I agree with uke taht you can teach scientific reasoning in the context of creatio..."
t_d: "THAT'S NOT SCIENCE!"

I'm pretty sure you're the one who has forgotten the bounds of the hypothetical situation at hand.

Did you actually bother to read it before you made this post?

Right... Because "teaching findings and results" is substantially different than "teaching recitation and replication of known results," especially when you consider the methods that are applied to test students, and those tests are the standards by which the successful "teaching of findings and results" is measured.

Yes, that is substantially different. Which should be completely needless to point out.

I'm not as much concerned about whether creation science is or is not "real" science (the demarcation problem between science and pseudoscience is a much-discussed problem in philosophy of science, but none of the proposed answers are in my opinion very convincing). Even if it ends up being classified as science, it would still be bad or failed science and so still shouldn't be taught in intro science courses.

Obviously it is not generally necessary to make laws banning teacher from teaching bad science, but there are good reasons for an exception in this case--that so many people accept creation-science or ID for non-scientific reasons.