New book on Evolution and Creationism by the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine

From the NAS website;

How did life evolve on Earth? The answer to this question can help us understand our past and prepare for our future. Although evolution provides credible and reliable answers, polls show that many people turn away from science, seeking other explanations with which they are more comfortable.
In the book Science, Evolution, and Creationism, a group of experts assembled by the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine explain the fundamental methods of science, document the overwhelming evidence in support of biological evolution, and evaluate the alternative perspectives offered by advocates of various kinds of creationism, including "intelligent design." The book explores the many fascinating inquiries being pursued that put the science of evolution to work in preventing and treating human disease, developing new agricultural products, and fostering industrial innovations. The book also presents the scientific and legal reasons for not teaching creationist ideas in public school science classes.
Mindful of school board battles and recent court decisions, Science, Evolution, and Creationism shows that science and religion should be viewed as different ways of understanding the world rather than as frameworks that are in conflict with each other and that the evidence for evolution can be fully compatible with religious faith. For educators, students, teachers, community leaders, legislators, policy makers, and parents who seek to understand the basis of evolutionary science, this publication will be an essential resource.

This book is free in PDF form and available for download here.

Meeting Prof. McIntosh, free speech and the nature of "truth" in science as opposed to "Truth in Science".

Intro

Today I used up a precious half day from my meagre annual holiday allowance to go and see Andrew C. McIntosh DSc FIMA CMath FEI CEng DInstP MIGEM FRAeS professor of Thermodynamics and Combustion Theory from Leeds University who was giving a talk called "God is Real. Hasn't science disproved him?" sorry "Him?", at York University Christian Union.

This was the first chance I have ever had to see someone locally espouse creationist views and perhaps even making some scientific claims I could look into.

I would like to be absolutely clear in this piece from the outset and confirm that I don't believe in god. Having said that I do believe that kids in the UK school system should be taught about a range of religions, they play a huge role in the world today after all. I also believe in freedom of speech and so I would defend Prof. McIntosh's rights to hold and espouse his views. Yes I mean it.

If the UK government was ousted by a junta which outlawed all religion and curtailed free speech then I would be a member of the underground resistance, struggling alongside Prof. McIntosh and Prof. Dawkins - yes I have read Dawkins' views on freedom of speech so I am confident this would be the case. If this surprises you then perhaps you have listened to people telling you what Dawkins thinks rather than reading Dawkins for yourself.

However in my dangerous, romantic and entirely theoretical armed struggle, I would perhaps go further than many religious folk in the fight for freedom. After all I include in my definiton of free speech the right to tell jokes and be disrespetful. "Motoons and Islam" and "Jerry Springer Opera and Christianity" are two examples of situations where my stand for free speech would put me in direct opposition to some people of faith.

Anyway, why do have I such an interest in McIntosh as to give up part of my annual leave to go and listen to him?

Well the thing is, I care about my kids education.

Prof. McIntosh is the chap who signed the letter from "Truth In Science" sent to all UK schools and colleges with some extremely professionally produced creationist DVD's. If this material was used in science classes then at best the kids would be confused and waste some time in class working out the logical fallacies and distortions it contained or at worst these would not have been picked up and crucial exam marks would have been lost, perhaps the difference between one grade and the next. His letter did in fact claimed the materials were part of the curriculum and suitable for use in science classes when actually they are neither. The letter also included other distortions of fact. McIntosh is a Director of "Truth in Science".

So, I care about my kid's education and Prof. McIntosh effectively tried to sabotage my sons Biology studies, and this is what got me interested in the whole creationism issue.

I have blogged about this issue often both here and in my personal blog Cogita Tute.

I subscribe to many science based organisations on the web, I am a forum member at Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (although more of a lurker than a poster) and a member of the British Centre for Science Education which is a single issue, voluntary, membership based organisation which has built up quite a comprehensive database of information on this issue and the main creationist proponents and activities here in the UK.

The BCSE site is here.

I was recently asked to join the committee at the BCSE and was very pleased to accept and to do my bit. I try to spread the word about the threat to science teaching as this is quite literally, in the creationists own words, the thin end of the wedge. The infamous "wedge document" was discussed here.

Their ultimate intention is to replace science with religion. This threatens scientific research and ultimately jeopardises the many ways in which the UK benefits from a strong science education system. Benefits ranging from industrial and economic advantage in the world and the rewards that each of us reap in terms of medical care and technological development.

So now the scene is set, you know my motives, and the reasons why I decided to go and see him for myself.

His talk was to a Christian Union group at the University of York, so in my view he can talk about whatever he wants. Of course, this means I can also talk about it here and I can point out for you where he was making statements which were untrue, there were several, so you can see for yourself.

I will try to draw some personal conclusions about why he says what he says and if he actually believes these claims or not, and I will try to comment on the nature of "truth" in science as well as the nature of "Truth in Science".

In this post I will cover both his talk ( I took detailed notes ), and the chat I had with him afterwards which was very nearly, very informative.

Here are my notes on his talk.

- - -

The Talk

There were 41 people in the audience including myself, most were student aged with a couple of older blokes near the front not far from me and one other "slightly more mature than a student" looking chap in the middle of the audience. It turned out at the end that the questions would come from these older folks with just one question from a student.

The lecture hall holds up to about two hundred, but despite this and the small size of the turnout, the student who introduced McIntosh started by saying how good it was to see so many people here today. I wonder how many they usually get?

The talk was then introduced as "About the question of whether or not Christianity and Science can coexist." Strangely enough this wasn't covered.

McIntosh started with a joke about the blackboard being full of polar co-ordinates calculations and that being his home territory in his day job i.e. a Professor of Thermodynamics.

Next he laid out the structure for the talk;

• Science & God
• Science Today
• Interpreting the Evidence
• 4 questions.

Just a quick note about my notes. I made them as he spoke and so they are not always word for word quotes. He would often chat around a sentence and say it again a few different ways, and so in cases like these I will just give you the essence of what he said. If I am quoting him directly I will say so. If I am quoting from one of his slides I will preface the sentence with, you guessed it, "slide";

• Science must be testable. I am not a biologist, but so must be evolutionary theory[testable].
• Science can only operate in the physical word but God is essentially non-physical. God is also all powerful and able to interact with the physical world.
• I believe in the bible, that is the pre-supposition I bring to the evidence. We all have some kind of presupposition and that is mine.
• It is reasonable to be a scientist and believe in god.

I agree with the first and last points. With regard to the second part of the third point it is worth bearing in mind that science spends an awful lot of time making sure that results are free of bias.

• Scientific Theory - because it has to be testable and because it only relates to the physical world science has boundaries beyond which no definitive claim can be made.

OK - but that's rather turning things around a little. Science is a way of testing claims. Put it this way - can science prove god does not exist? No. It doesn't claim to either - even Dawkins does not make this claim.

• Slide; "In the study of origins, it is not the realm of science to discount the possibility of the Outsider revealing himself"
• I don't see enough humility in science today.

Well actually, science can include or exclude anything it likes that makes claims on the physical word, it can do this because it just follows the evidence wherever it may lead. Lets hope we see some today.

He will return to this theme later on. I think this may give us some clues about a possible future tactic for the creationists, i.e. "our explanation also explains the evidence therefore it should be taught in science classes". I will return to this later.

We then had some Venn diagrams with the "whole of creation" equalling the "physical world" in science today and then his suggestion that the physical world should just be a subset of the "whole of creation".

• Slide; "Science today is built on atheistic humanism - it is this underlying philosophy which will attempt to evade God"
• Today I strongly contest the claim that science makes which is there is no design in the universe at the very beginning.

He should try claiming that to the many scientists who are people of faith and see what reaction he gets. There are several in the BCSE for instance, or alternatively he should try telling that to the many moderate people of faith out there who support science as a way of exploring god's universe.

He needs to create this false idea that "science is atheist" because that is how he explains the fact that science rejects his claims. The only alternative for him would be to admit that science rejects his claims because they are nonsense.

Next he turned to the "evidence" bit of his talk.

• Really this is all about the Theory of Evolution. I contend that all living organisms descend from basic kinds which were created a few thousand years ago with all the genetic information for all the variations seen in the past and today.

The "kinds" bit is straight out of genesis.

Next he surprised me by plugging a selection of creationist books including Genesis of Today, Hallmarks of Design and Darwins Black Box rather than talking about any evidence.

• I want to clarify that when I talk about the evidence against evolution I mean macro evolution and not variations within a kind.
• This is Young Earth Creationism. I lean towards it and I am open about that.
• Slide; "Creationism is open to the Outsider" but "Evolution means that man decides the rules"

So he wants the "rules" to be set by his interpretation of the bible instead of by society. Very clear, but not a lot to do with evolution which he just said this was all about.

• Slide; "Creationism = In the beginning . . ." but "Evolution means that everything happened by chance"
• I want to be fair and explain that that is not strictly what evolutionist claim. Natural selection on random mutations is well understood and accepted.

OK he cedes part of evolution theory and fits it into his "kinds" idea from Genesis. He accepts natural selection but implies it can only work within these "kinds". He gives no reasons or evidence why we might see this is true, other than the fact it is in the bible.

• Slide; "Molecules to Men"
• I don't accept this.

No logical reasons or evidence to back this up were given.

• Ancient quotes about god from Faraday from the nineteenth century.
• Quote; Chandrawickramasinghe from 1982 on the argument from improbability.
• Quote; Watson in Nature in 1929.
• Quote; Phillip Johnson in Darwin on trial in 1991.

Note to self - where is the evidence? Science doesn't work by authority it works by evidence. Some of Einstein's ideas are rejected by science because they don't fit the evidence. He is just listing authority figures, and they are not even all scientist authority figures, Phillip Johnson is a Lawyer.

• He next claims that the ID proponents were not claiming that just because something looks design it was.

Excuse me - that is exactly what they were arguing. Later on in this very lecture he will do precisely this himself.

• But it is wrong to dismiss that things could have been designed.

Well that depends - science can quite easily dismiss that if you have no evidence, in fact that is what science does - dismiss things that have no evidence to support them. Where is the evidence. Science dismissed Astrology as an alternative explanation of psychology, flat earth geology and feng shui. These all claim to be alternative explanations that explain the phenomenon we see around us but they are rejected because they have no supporting evidence. Exactly the same rules apply to his claims of design - show us your evidence. Another point that rather undermines this whole question anyway is the fact that the Theory of Evolution produces design, so he needs to show a difference between "god design" and "the Theory of Evolution design" as well as the evidence to support this claim.

He next got slightly confused ( and I was able to clarify this for him later ) and claimed that it was the EU who had passed a resolution "to not allow it [creationism] to be discussed". ( actually it was the Council of Europe )

This is not true. Government guidelines tell teachers not to teach it and give them guidelines on how to discuss it if it crops up. It is part of the national Curriculum for RE. I challenged him about this after the talk.

• Slide; Picture of Mount Rushmore - and the argument from design i.e. it looks designed so it is.
• Codes and order come from intelligence.

This is his key claim and he gave no evidence to back it up other than a picture of Mount Rushmore. Just assertions. Nothing else. Despite the fact he claimed not five minutes before that ID proponents don't do this.

Next comes one of the more extreme claims from his whole speech;

• It is people on the creationist side of the debate who want to look at the whole evidence, it is others who do not.

Still no evidence yet.

• I am not afraid of natural selection - you can change a breed by artificial selection as well but you will never get a Great Dane from a Pekinese.

No reasons were given for this limit on evolution. Just more assertions.

• We won't have time to cover this in detail but I would just say from my own discipline; "Thermodynamically you can't make new machines that are not there already. It is impossible."

No reasons given. No supporting evidence. He did refer to his clash with Dawkins on NI radio several months ago where Dawkins called him to account for this.

• Next we will turn to the evidence. Now there are evolutionary explanations for this but I want you to be exposed to the evidence.
• Birds have a different muscle system for operating their wings. They have a pulley system which allows two muscles to be used to lift their humerus bones.

No other comment or claim that it could not have evolved. How exactly is this evidence?

• Birds Breathing; we have a end flow mass exchange system whereas the birds have a contra-flow mass exchange system where the air never stops.

Now here he did specifically claim that birds lungs are not evolvable. He said this was because any system part way between the two would stop the bird from breathing. At last a clear evidential claim in support of his case. This is also a new claim to me, I look forward to delving into this to see what I can learn.

But only a few minutes on the net reveal several published papers about this and even a layman's explanation of how this could happen. Can McIntosh really not know about any of this? Is he truly ignorant of such simple answers to his claims to "impossible"? Or does he know? He offered me his card afterwards and so I will write and ask him about this.

My brief research turned up this answer to his claims that birds lungs can't possibly evolve; it is a possible evolutionary pathway:

• Initially birds evolve to breathe by expanding/contracting the air sacs rather than the lungs: this is beneficial because it frees the cycle of breathing from the beat pattern of the winds.
• Valves evolve at the front of the lung allowing air out but not in, meaning that air now follows a more circular path with less mixing with used air. This is directly beneficial in terms of oxygen requirements.
• More valves evolve at the back of the lung to keep the air more efficently in the lungs during their contraction phase.
• This system resembles the modern one, we have respiration drawing air into the posterior air sacs and then pushing them through the lungs. However the air is not yet being cleared from the lungs so some efficency is lost in mixing.
• The development of anterior air sacs helps by pulling the used air out as the fresh air comes in, their placement naturally allows the used air to be blown out through the forward valve as the sacs contract but mixing will still occur as some will go back the way it came albeit at a reduced level
• We're now almost there; the final stage is to add more valves to the system to prevent the re-entry of used air into the posterior sacs from the lung and the re-entry of used air from the anterior sacs to the lung. Both these adaptations have immediate benefits in terms of reducing mixing. And the system now naturally switches to the two-stage, unidirectional breathing pattern of modern birds.

This is of course pure speculation, but so is his claim that bird lungs can't evolve. I can't believe he is not even aware of the explanations and he does not mention that the Theory of Evolution has an explanation, he just states that it is impossible.

• Next up trilobite fossils. Supposedly 4-500 million years old. Eyes are made of calcite.
• In the Cambrian these creatures suddenly evolved.
• The eyes produce double images unless they are curved at a particular angle to correct this.
• Can you believe that they have exactly that shape?

Well yes that's what the Theory of Evolution would predict as well. No mention of this.

Therefore this is totally consistent with design. I know this is not proof it was designed, but it is consistent with the proposal.

Yes I agree, but as covered elsewhere the problem with this claim is that anything and everything is consistent with an omnipotent God. It can explain everything. It is not testable, and so it is not science.

Slide; The Geological column and the claim that complex compound eyes appeared from nowhere.

About 40 minutes had gone by now and his talk was supposed to last 45 mins with 15mins for questions so I only got a brief glimpse of a slide entitled; The Cell - A Miniature City.

• Old earth or young earth is not the key point here and we don't have time to cover it, the key point is that the oldest fossils are very complicated.
• Overall I find that evolution is not the most satisfying argument.
• People often talk of God of the Gaps arguments but creation is exactly the opposite. The Theory of Evolution is trying to fit into the gaps in our knowledge.
• The reason that the arguments are raging about evolution is because the science says that evolution is wrong.

Breathtaking unsupported assertion. This ignores huge swathes of evidence which support evolution. Huge swathes of independent evidence all of which support evolution and any one of which might not and would therefore show it to be false. Here are some to start you off if you are interested.

• DNA - a code in every creature
• Slide; Purpose . . .action . . .code . . .signal
• DNA has a million times more information density than a computer
• If I put a frog or a hippo in a blender could I rebuild it? No!

I think that this is funny. Here he makes a claim that has nothing to do with evolution in the first place. But this isn't the funniest thing. The funniest thing is that most of the audience loved this bit. It's not even wrong enough to count as a proper logical fallacy! It's nothing to do with the Theory of Evolution at all. It's simply a non-sequitur

As the faithful chuckled I took the opportunity to look around the room. I could see the two chaps in front of me shaking their heads and the mature-ish chap in the middle of the crowd was looking a bit red in the face. When the gentle chuckling had subsided McIntosh turned to more philosophical subjects;

• There are three fundamental quantities in the universe;
• Matter
• Energy - the materialist reductionist is at fault for limiting us to just these two
• Information is the third one.
• The definition of information eludes their definitions.

My ears perked up here - scientists and mathematicians have been challenging creationists to define information in some sensible way for several years now - perhaps I would get a scoop.

Here you go;

• Information does not equal matter or energy

No it isn't a definition is it - sorry.

- - -

Next he pulls out the bible.

OK now for the Christian Creationist position.
John 1.1 "In the beginning . . ."

- - -

Q&A

At the end of the talk he was asked several questions which I will quickly cover off;

11,000 Christian ministers in the US have signed a letter supporting evolution and basically saying that your position is one of "embracing ignorance and passing it on to out kids"?

• He often hears that people of all kinds of philosophies of life, but the point is that they all exclude design as a possible explanation. Oh and by the way the ID folks do good science.

Next was a query asking for clarification about his previous claims about the second Law of Thermodynamics.

• Information is always linked to machinery and no new information is ever created by evolution. No experiment has ever shown this at all.

This is just nonsense.

Next was a comment that Dembski had admitted an ulterior motive for wanting to push his arguments. In this religious context how do you distinguish one god from another or even from an alien designer?

• That's another debate altogether - waves bible about.
• It all comes from this - waves bible about.
• I believe that people have an innate tendency to do wrong. Only Jesus can save.

Next was Dawkins own ultimate 747 argument - how much more unlikely is a god to arise from nothing.

• Different rules apply to god. No scientific explanation is required for Him.

No explanation was given as to why this might be so.

- - -

Chat

After the talk I approached him and said hello. I asked him what the future plans were for Truth in Science. He said they had plenty of plans but after the furore with the DVD's he couldn't say anything, even to a supporter like me.

I hastily explained that I was not a supporter of his ideas or the actions of TiS.

I pointed out to him that it was the Council of Europe and not the European union he had presumably meant to refer to earlier. He didn't say "oh yes", or "thanks". He just claimed that he had meant them and had in fact actually said them anyway.

I pointed out that no one has banned free speech as he had suggested but that the subject had been ruled out of the science curriculum and guidance notes to discuss creationism, if it should crop up, had been issued. He denied saying that.

I quoted from my notes and even showed them to him. No that isn't what he said. By this time about 6 of his "followers" had gathered around and where all watching the exchange so I turned to them and asked if anyone was doing biology, genetics or any of the life sciences? No.

I asked if they had heard of endogenous retroviruses. Blank looks - no.

I asked him why all the trilobites where low down in the geological column. He said he didn't know.

He claimed that science has no idea how a fish fossilises becasue a dead fish floats you see.

This just took my breath away. We were now joined by about six student supporters of his who were hanging on his every word and laughed at my stupidity at not knowing that dead fish float. You see the only way a fish could possibly have fossilised was if it was killed during Noah's flood, he explained.

Of the dozens of possible holes in this assertion I could of course only reply with one so I went with this;

"Why can't they be fossilised from non-noah floods then?" I asked.

He never answered but said that this question showed that I now accepted that it must take a cataclysm to form fossils.

His audience sniggered.

I tried a couple more times to explain that even if we accept his premise that only floods fossilise fish (which I don't) that even then this doesn't support his conclusion i.e. that it was Noah's flood that created all the fish fossils.

Eventually I just gave up.

Again a few minutes on the web can suggest the following papers which demonstrate how fish are fossilised and why this is not "catastrophe dependent".

• Briggs, D. E. G. (1995): Experimental Taphonomy. Palaios. vol. 10, pp. 539-550.
• Briggs, D. E. K. and Crowther, P. R. (1993): Paleobiology: A Synthesis. Oxford Blackwell Scientific Publications, New York.
• Briggs D. E. G. and Kear, A. J. (1993): Fossilization of Soft Tissue in the Laboratory. Science vol. 259, pp. 1439-1442
• Briggs D. E .G., Keara, J. A., Martill, D. M., and Wilby, P. R. (1993): Phosphatization of soft-tissue in experiments and fossils. Journal of Geological Society vol. 150, pp. 1035-1038.
• Dunn, K. A., et al. (1997): Enhancement of Leaf Fossilization Potential by Bacterial Biofilms. Geology, vol. 25, no. 12, pp. 119-1222.
• Holiday, V. T. (1997) Paleoindian Geoarchaeology of the Southern High Plains. University of Texas Press, Austin. Texas.
• Maisey, John G. (1991) Fossil forensics. In J. G. Maisey, ed., Santana fossils; an illustrated atlas. T.F.H. Publ.. Neptune City, New Jersey.
• Seilacher, A., W.-E. Reif, F. Westphal (1985) Sedimentological, ecological and temporal patterns of fossil Lagerstatten. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, vol. B311, pp. 5-24.
• Trewin, N. H., and Davidson, R. G. (1995) An Early Devonian lake and its associated biota in the Midland Valley of Scotland. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh: Earth Sciences. vol. 86, Part 4, pp. 233-246.
• Weeks, L. G. (1953) Environment and Mode of Origin and Facies Relationships of Carbonate Concretions in Shales. Journal of Sedimentary Petrology, vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 162-173.
• Weigelt J. (1989) Recent Vertebrate Carcasses and Their Paleobiological Implications. University of Chicago Press. Chicago, Illinois.
• Wilby, P. R., et al. (1996) "Role of Microbial Mats in the Fossilization of Soft Tissues." Geology, vol. 24, pp. 787-790.

Anyway, by this time he had given me a card and asked me for my email address - so I gave it to him.

Round about now a young chap chimed in with the claim that carbon dating is all wrong and that a tree fossilised through layers millions of years apart proved this. McIntosh himself corrected the chap that Carbon dating is only good for much shorter time periods anyway, before I could do this myself.

I asked where and when this tree was found - he didn't know.

McIntosh asked what I did for a living. I replied that I worked in a Bank and confirmed that I was just a curious member of the public when it came to science.

I asked if anyone wanted to continue this debate over the net and to swap email addresses?

Before anyone could answer he asked me who I was representing - I said myself.

He asked if I was a member of any group or organisation so I said yes the BCSE - a mirror of the NCSE in the US.

He went quiet for a moment so I again asked if anyone wanted to swap email addresses again.

He interrupted me to say that my attendance at his talk was unfair and dishonest and I should have declared myself at the outset. I pointed out it was a public talk and he had made no such request for declarations.

He said it was not right to demand people's email addresses and to write to him instead. He asked me to commit to reading John and I agreed.

I left.

- - -

Summary

McIntosh mapped out his position quite clearly;

Everything in the bible is true.

The earth is only a few thousand years old with everything created in the seven days of genesis. Noah's flood etc. all happened.

He gave no evidence which either was not explained by the Theory of Evolution or which could not be explained by it.

ID seems to be dead - not a bacterial flagellum in sight.

His case seems to be that because the god did it argument can explain everything it therefore has equal right to be in science classes.

This is despite his own inclusion of testability in the definition of science. Of course this is something which the "god did it" idea fails miserably at.

- - -

Personal conclusions

His presentation was far too long for the time he gave himself and he ended up skipping about and only asked us one of the four questions he said he would leave us with at the end.

He tells a lot of fibs. He seems used to doing this to audiences who know no better. He is not daft and can twist and turn an argument - an awful lot - look at his claims about fossil fish and how he turned a question from me into a point for him.

His claims about Noah's Flood being the only thing which could possibly create fish fossils and the fact that birds lungs could not possibly have evolved are two examples of his fibs. The thing is that I find it hard to believe he does not know the answers are actually out there.

I found answers to both these points with very little effort.

Whilst only he really knows his own motives, on balance I think he is lying, and not simply ignorant of the truth. I think that he thinks he is doing it in the service of god.

Make your own mind up but I wouldn't trust him as far as I can throw him.

His faithful are not interested in learning or debate - they just know they are right - and are happy in their ignorance as evidenced by big cheesy smiles all round.

His arguments about dead fish floating, and frogs in a blender are laughable until you realise they are swallowed hook, line and sinker by believers.

I think I gathered some clues which might show where creationism is going next in its quest to infiltrate our science classes. A few times during his talk he repeated his comment that the creationist explanation i.e. "god did it" explains all the evidence just like the Theory of Evolution does and so deserves to be taught along side it in science classes.

Creationism Hits Bolton

From here.

God should have a place in science teaching - head

A LEADING Bolton teacher says Creationism has a place in science and should be taught alongside evolution.

Philip Williamson, head of Canon Slade Church of England school, believes the theory, which suggests humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe were created by God, would be a useful topic for discussion in science lessons.

He said the theory of evolution as put forward by Charles Darwin was not fact and was instead a model which best explained the current scientific evidence.

Have a look at the full article and the comments - they are both worth a read.

My own thoughts are as follows;

In science facts are established by measurement, observation and independent verification, not by written authority (e.g. genesis).

When a scientist has an explanation or model which they think explains a range of facts and also predicts the results from some future experiments, measurements or observations, then this explanation is called a hypothesis.

If this hypothesis is shown to be true by many other scientists agreeing with the explanations it gives for the current facts and also when new facts come in which the hypothesis had predicted, then and only then will the hypothesis be "promoted" to the status of "theory".

This is very different from the everyday use of the word which can suggest that a theory is a bit of a guess.

Philip Williamson's comment about evolution not being a fact is therefore stretching the truth by a couple of dictionary definitions. This is not the kind of behaviour you expect from a head master.

What do his science teachers think of his comments? What about the parents of his pupils?

There is a comment underneath the article from someone claiming to be an ex-pupil which, regardless of whether or not this particular claim is true, does voice an opinion which reflects my own view and the official national curriculum position;

As an old Canon Slade pupil, I feel I can add some context to this.

Creationism (or intelligent design) was taught at Canon Slade as far back as 1993 when I was there. However, it was taught in Religious Studies (which was compulsory at the school to GCSE) and was taught exceptionally well, with pupils encouraged to debate the arguments for and against. It should be noted that these lessons also taught about Judaism, Islam and Atheism.

What should never happen is that Science lessons are devalued with religious debate. Wile you can argue for intelligent design, you can not argue against scientific evidence with regard to the age on the planet and the age of fossils. What started it all (the big bang) can be happily debated, but facts can not be ignored.

Any modern school (C of E or not), should see the value in debating religious beliefs and faiths, but the teachings of such should also be debated in the wider context of social and scientific development at the time. I consider myself a Christian, as a guide to living a life balanced with those around me. However, in this modern age, we need to all accept that while the Bible is an important historic document, written when peoples' understanding was much more simple, as a way of conveying a message, the literal belief in it (or any other historic religious writings) word for word is dangerous and can only further divide society and feed intolerance of other beliefs.

Well said.

- - -

Anyone local to this story who can shed any more light or who requires assistance, please get in touch.

TiS News Blog - ID and the C of E

This from the TiS "News Blog";

The Church of England’s new head of education has made comments supportive of teaching intelligent design (ID) in schools.

They don't mention that she does not advocate it being taught as science as does TiS. This really is breathtakingly selective quoting even for TiS - surely they must come clean about this at some point?

In an interview in the Times Educational Supplement last week, Mrs Jan Ainsworth said of ID: "While it is not something I would subscribe to, it is a recognition that there are different ways of looking at the evidence…you could do it in history of science."The only problem of course is that ID has only been around since the late 1980's. It is the lastest evolution of creationism whihc first mutated into Creation Science and then ID in an attempt by the creationists to circumvent US law preventiing religion being taught in state schools.

On Friday a spokesman told the Daily Mail that Mrs Ainsworth was "simply representing the fact that some schools currently discuss intelligent design" and that "she does not propose to prevent them from doing so".

Yesterday, on the BBC Radio 4 'Sunday' programme Mrs Ainsworth was asked if she was “lending credibility” to Truth in Science. She replied:

I think it depends on what you think education’s for. I do think some people have a view in their minds that if children are told something they will automatically believe it. It depends very much how the material is used in the classroom. And if it is to explore and allow children to develop the capacities to explore different ways of finding out things, different ways of deciding which view is right then I don’t see any problem because you’re helping them develop critical methods, rational methods, which is after all the point of education.

A full transcript of the interview can be found here.

The Church of England is responsible for 4690 schools. Mrs Ainsworth told the Times Educational Supplement that she did not know how many of these were currently teaching ID.

It should be noted that Mrs Ainsworth’s views differ from the position of Truth in Science, as she sees the place of ID to be primarily in the religious education. In the science classroom, she considers its place to be in the history of science, because it is “pre-scientific”.

At last TiS mention this key fact - that she doesn't want it taught as science. I wonder how many people stop reading before they get this far? Mrs Ainsworth comments seem to have the underlying assumption that ID and creationism are the same thing. TiS also deny this vehemently.

In contrast, TiS holds that the place of ID is in the science classroom, as a logical inference from scientific data. Mrs Ainsworth is mistaken in seeing ID as “pre-scientific” as it was widely held by the leading thinkers of the scientific revolution, and is the view of many scientists today.So no agreement there then.

Well not a completely logical position for TiS to take either when you think about it for a moment. On the one had ID is based upon modern research and books published in the last decade or so and has nothing to do with creationism. On the other hand the view of an intelligent designer held by some leading thinkers in the scientific revolution was in fact creationism and not ID. TiS could well end up in a right TiSsy, they are spinning around so quickly ;-)

Mrs Ainsworth’s views on the place of ID in schools are not dissimilar to those of the well-known science populariser Richard Dawkins. On 14 December 2006 in an interview shown on 'Dragon’s Eye', a BBC television programme on Welsh politics, Professor Dawkins said: “confine intelligent design to either the RE class or history of science.”

Despite this, Jan Ainsworth’s views have been criticised by the liberal think-tank Ekklesia (speaking to the TES), and the National Secular Society (speaking to the Guardian).

I wish the interviewer had asked her about her views on teaching Astrology in schools.

Toying with the Truth in Science - part 8

At last we are on to the final learning outcome in the teachers manual which accompanied the DVDs sent to every UK High School and College by the Creationist group Truth In Science in September 2006.

This part is called "The Design Inference".

I will resist the temptation to analyse the very real religious and philosophical debates which cover this topic and instead stick to the main point here i.e. are the TiS claims true?, does the material fit with the curriculum?, and will this material help our kids to pass their exams?

The first learning point is;

Know that all scientists agree that there is an appearance of design in the world, but many attribute this to evolution.

There are two problems with this rather bald statement;

First of all it is a master of understatement to use the word "many" in this context. I have previously covered this subject in my post regarding the homepage of TiS where they make the claim that Intelligent Design is a genuine scientific controversy and not just some fringe claim which is unsupported by evidence. You can re-read these details here.

Secondly we see the phrase "attribute this to evolution". This gives no indication of how the Theory of Evolution can and does explain the appearance of design in the world. This is part of an overall pattern to deliberately leave students ignorant of the details of evolution so that TiS can argue against it. This is a logical fallacy/debating tactic called "strawman" which I covered in more detail in my last post. The last thing this tactic can ever achieve, of course, is to assist students in passing their exams. Then again we have seen that this is not high on the TiS agenda.

Evolution through natrual selection explains a process of UNintelligent design, which operates with no forethought, planning or even general direction of "progress". The process of evolution is supported by many lines of evidence which have been and still are being independently verified around the world. It is a fairly simple process with many hidden subtleties which is counterintuitive and requires carfeul thought and reflection to understand fully.

The head of science of my own son's High School, who kindly supplied me with my copy of the TiS materials, said;

"It is difficult enough to teach evolution to the children, without this nonsense material, which appears to be designed to confuse them."

The next learning outcomes are as follows;

Consider how we all regularly make inferences to intelligent design in detecting man-made objects.

Understand that we recognise design in objects if they are complex and fit a recognisable (specified) pattern.

None of this stuff is in the syllabus and our kids will not be tested on it.

Besides that major point lets list the logical fallacies and errors here;

Non-sequitur - The fact that people do something doesn't make it true.
Argument from popularity - we all do this often - still doesn't make it true.

What about many other examples of spontaneous or emergent complexity?
Snowflakes, ice crystals on a window, the Giants Causeway, the patterns of light on Oil on water, rainbows, the Rings of Saturn, fractals etc.

Know that Dr William Dembski provided a mathematical framework for detecting design,

Wikipedia's biography of Dembski is interesting. We can see that he is a mathematician after all but that he hasn't published very many papers on his subject. The subject mentioned above was not one of his papers. In fact he put it out in a book. There has been some controversy regarding the book at a recent ID trial in the USA when claims where made that the book was "peer reviewed" a process of error checking and proof reading involved in scientific papers of all kinds and designed to make sure work is accurate, original and significant before it is published. The trial judge ruled that,

"the intelligent design movement has yet to have an article published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal"

If you want to see more about this trial you can see the full ruling and selected extracts on another blog of mine here.

Dembski himself has said,

"I'm not and never have been in the business of offering a strict mathematical proof for the inability of material mechanisms to generate specified complexity."

The next learning outcome is;

Understand that information is both complex and specified.

No I don't understand this either - I have been back and watched the film again and it is still goobledegook. This material is aimed at kids remember - clear as mud - but sounds impressive doesn't it?

Know that DNA stores more information and transmits it more efficiently than anything else in the known universe.

Again we are being led by the nose into the argument from personal incredulity. Wow - it must be god then.

Understand that there is no known process to explain the origin of information.

Yet more pseudoscientific claptrap. They never actually say how you can measure information do they, or precisely what they mean by information? They have been challenged on this quite a bit since this claim was first made but we still don't know what it is they are claiming here.

Oh, and by the way - none of this stuff about information theory would earn you a single mark in a GCSE biology exam - because it is not in the syllabus and is not tested.

OK are you ready for the big finish - this is what TiS have been leading up to all this time. Brace yourself;

Recognise that the inference of design makes sense of the word as a rational and comprehensible product of an intelligent mind.

Whisper from stage left;

Don't mention the G*D word!

We have come a long way and seen an awful lot of vacuous statements from TiS to get this far.

Just think to yourself and tell me what the scientific theory of Intelligent Design says actually happened.

As far as I can make out it is this;

"Sometime, somewhere, somebody, designed something intelligently in someway for some reason." A perfectly valid philosophy for life i.e. a religion.

But not something which will help any students to pass their biology exams.


Truth In Science want every school and college in the UK to teach Intelligent Design in science classes, now.

They want this now despite the fact that ID is not included in the syllabus and exams.

If ID were to be taught in science classes this would of course mean that our kids would get fewer marks, lower grades and maybe even fail in their exams as a direct result of learning material and answers which don't match those set by the exam boards.

Why on earth wouldn't TiS lobby for the inclusion of it in the syllabus and exam papers before teaching it? That way the kids don't suffer.

Why send the material out now and run the risk that kids grades will suffer? At the very least this shows a completely irresponsible attitude to the children themselves.

TiS claim that 50 odd schools and colleges are using this material already.

I will next move on to looking some of he material TiS have on their web site and recommended for use in classes.

Corrections and comment welcomed.

Toying with the Truth in Science - part 7

We have made good progress and are now up to learning outcomes part 5 of 6 in the Teachers Manual and DVDs sent to every UK High School and College by the creationist group Truth In Science in September 2006.

We are now seeing more and more logical fallacies in these "learning outcomes", if you are interested in the subject of logical reasoning and trying to think clearly in general then I have a couple of pages on the web which may interest you;

The Guide to Thinking Straight gives you an introduction to basic logical arguments and also covers the most common fallacies you are likely to encounter.
Think Critical gives you general rules for how to evaluate evidence critically.

If you don't want to dig into critical thinking skills then don't worry because I will lay everything out for you anyway.


This section of the learning outcomes is entitled "The Language of Life"

Truth In Science start with;

Know that when mainstream scientists rejected the idea that chance alone caused the formation of the first protein, it was suggested that the properties of amino acids might make the process inevitable.

This particular logical fallacy is known as "strawman". To do this you give a simplified, incomplete or false description of whatever you are arguing against. This enables you to make a perfectly consistent and logical sounding case that it is wrong by arguing against the strawman and not arguing against the genuine article.

In this case TiS tell a straight lie - that scientists thought that life started by complete random chance. They then follow it up by describing vague hand waving by scientists claiming to explain things with the phrase "its inevitable", which of course explains nothing. The clever(ish) bit here is that they have made the strawman so very weak indeed, that they don't even need to give the counter argument. They simply leave students thinking that the phrase "it's inevitable" doesn't really explain anything. More seeds of doubt and confusion sown!

Also, let me just point out yet again, that the subject of the origin of life from lifeless materials (abiogenesis) is not in the curriculum anyway - so this is wasting the students time on a subject which they will not get tested on.

Know that Dr Dean Kenyon is a scientist who suggested this in a book "Biochemical Predestination".

Know that after 5 years he began to doubt the theory.

Understand that Kenyon could not explain how proteins could replicate without DNA, not the origins of DNA.

Here we have a rich mix of logical fallacies including the following;

Argument from Authority - if Kenyon says this then it must be true - isn't evidence more important - who is Kenyon anyway?
Argument from Ignorance - if science can't explain something then it can never be explained by science, ever. Why on earth not?
Non-sequitur - "it doesn't follow" - Remember that the Theory of Evolution does not cover the origin of life. So taking one argument about the origin of life (which is riddled with fallacies anyway) can't lead you to a conclusion about a different subject - it just doesn't follow. Also the fact that one scientist (Kenyon) can't explain something doesn't mean that no one else ever will this doesn't follow either.

Abiogenesis isn't on the curriculum and has nothing to do with evolution but if you are interested in learning a little more about it there is a basic summary here.

Understand the basic structure of the DNA molecule.

Understand how proteins are produced from DNA by a process of transcription, translation and folding.

Wow - we are back in the GCSE Biology curriculum at last. But not for long I fear.

Understand how over the course of many years Kenyon realised that the only way to explain the origin of life and the cell is by involving design from an intelligent source.

All together now . . .

Argument from Authority - what evidence backs this claim up?
Argument from Ignorance - the fact that we don't know something doesn't prove anything
Non-sequitur - it has nothing to do with evolution anyway.

Finally Kenyon himself is committing the argument from personal incredulity fallacy. This is when you state that because you can't explain something it must therefore be unexplainable. I could show you a card trick you can't explain but that doesn't mean I have supernatural powers does it.

He follows this up with the conclusion it must be god (sorry - an intelligent designer - snigger).

Once again our kids are no nearer passing their exams, probably even further away from a pass than when they started thanks to the seeds of doubt and confusion we have seen sown and finally perhaps slightly closer to the clutches of a religious group who want them to believe that every single word in the Bible is literally true.

Feedback and corrections appreciated.

Toying with the Truth in Science - part 6

I recently spotted a group called "Science Just Science" (SjS) - now listed in the links on the left of the page.

SjS have done an analysis of much of the Truth In Science materials. I recommend you pop over and have a look at their site.

I will be continuing to work through the TiS materials myself but I will be drawing on the SjS material for inspiration and will provide direct links to the relevant articles there for you as well. They have kindly agreed to allow me to do this and even allowed the use some of their work if appropriate - thank you Science Just Science.

The SjS analysis of the teachers manual can be found here.

SjS have an approach which gives you many more links to background materials and suggestions for further reading, whereas I try to keep things fairly self contained in each posting although I do of course link to other materials as well. So whichever style you prefer you do at least now have a choice.

Anyway back to the Teachers manual sent with DVDs to all UK Schools and Colleges in Sept 2006 by the creationist group Truth In Science (TiS). I have covered the letter which accompanied this material in a previous post. The letter claims that the materials is not just OK for use in schools but will help children pass their exams. This claim gets even harder to accept when we see the title for section 4 of the "learning outcomes" which is entitled "How did life begin?" and we realise that this whole topic is not part of the curriculum.

Looking through my son's GCSE revision guide I did manage to find an "exam style" question and answer as follows;

1) How long ago do we believe that life began on Earth? (1 mark)
2) What are two different theories about how life first began on earth? (4 marks)

Let's look at the actual textbook answers and then compare them to the TiS material and you can judge for yourself how many marks your kids would get if your school was using the TiS DVDs.

AQA Science GCSE Biology give the following answers;

1) 3500 million years ago.
2) It arrived from another planet, possibly by meteorites, or there was a particular mix of chemicals on Earth; lightning provided the energy to create life from this mix.


Whereas TiS say the following;

Understand that Darwin concentrated on how new forms and structures arise in living organisms, and only briefly described how life might have originated in the first place.

Recognise Oparin's theory of chemical evolution.

Understand that proteins are a major component of all cells and carry out many essential processes.

Understand that proteins are made up of precise sequences of amino acids , and this determines a complex 3D structure which is essential to their function.

Recognise that a protein sequence is analogous to a sentence.

Understand that the chance of a simple protein of 100 amino acids forming in a chemical soup is vanishingly small.

Know that the simplest cells contain 600 different proteins of over 100 amino acids in length.

Recognise that mainstream scientists no longer believe that chance alone could have caused the formation of the first functional protein.

There is a very rich vein of rubbish in this but nothing which actually gives you any answers which might help you to pass the exam. Passing the exam is supposed to be the point.

Lets dive into their list of points and see how many mistakes, irrelevancies and misconceptions it contains - hold your nose.

The first point about Darwin is very true, the origin of life is a whole field in itself called abiogenesis and is not part of evolutionary theory at all. However, he way in which TiS present this fact appears to use it to attempt to cast doubt on Darwin's work. The fact that Darwin did not propose a detailed theory on the origin of life has no bearing on the accuracy of his theory.

The second point is rather odd - I can't find any reference to this at all in the revision guide for GCSE Biology - so whilst he did exist and did some ground breaking work in abiogenesis, I can't see how knowledge and understanding of Oparin would help anyone pass their exam - see here for more details.

The next two comments would seem to be harmless. This is unusual - perhaps they are merely prepare the ground for something more tasty?

The odds of a 100 amino acid protein forming from random combinations of amino acids is vanishingly small.

Ah! Now we see it. "Wow, how can the silly scientists pretend this isn't true?"

Well, scientists do not claim that this is how the first proteins were formed. This is a good example of the dishonest creationist tactic of producing very large numbers to impress people, when these numbers have no real bearing on the arguments. In addition to this always remember that this entire topic is not even in the curriculum.

. . . contains 600 different proteins . . .

"And you need how many? - Well - No chance at all then - Silly scientists!"

First of all you need to understand that scientists do not claim that the first living beings resembled even the simplest of modern cells. They use the idea of a protocell as an example of a system that preceeded modern cells. As remember that abiogenesis is a different subject from evolution and is not even in the curriculum.

And this next learning point rivals the classic "Have you stopped beating your wife?" question;

Scientists no longer believe that the first proteins were formed by chance.

In addition to the fact that no one has ever said that it was chance alone, this comment also harps back to the incomplete and vague descriptions of evolution theory we have already seen from TiS talking about "blind chance" and "random processes" etc. High school kids who have been taught the basic facts about evolution can explain that random variation plus natural selection is the key here. Missing out a major part of the theory and then making statements to prove it couldn't work is a favourite tactic of TiS.

As always, suggestions and corrections always gratefully accepted.

Toying with the Truth in Science - part 5

This post continues my look at the teachers manual sent with DVDs to every UK school and college by the Creationist group Truth In Science.

Part 3 of the Learning outcomes is called; "Molecules and Mousetraps"

Understand the concept of "irreducible complexity" - that some machines are made up of many parts, all of which are necessary for function

Recognise the bacterial flagellum as an example of an irreducibly complex system

Understand that irreducibly complex structure cannot evolve by slight, successive, advantageous variations, because at certain points in their evolution they will lose function altogether

At the risk of repeating my earlier posts a little lets just pause for a moment to recognise that the entire set of "learning points" I will cover in this post share one thing in common. What they share is that neither your kids nor my kids will get asked any questions on them at all in their GCSE exams. Which does rather beg the question of why they are here at all. But we already know the answer to that don't we, so lets stick to showing you why this is a pile of bunk.

Well the first learning does itself give the full description of the concept of Irreducible Complexity itself. Irreducible complexity is an attempt to come up with an argument to prove that certain things could not possibly have evolved. Irreducible Complexity is not an accepted scientific term or concept which TiS just happen to be using in this particular case to argue a particular point. Irreducible Complexity (IC) is in fact a concoction of the Intelligent Deisgn/Creationism movement in the US.

Unfortunately IC can be a little tricky to get your head around. I have had IC used by creationists against me in discussions in a way that the developers of IC themselves did not intend. This is a fairly simple error to make for anyone unfamiliar with the ToE. In fact I have had to point this error out to several creationists. The error is illustrated by example as follows; Can an eye operate without the lens? Obviously not, er hang on there a moment, there are plenty of examples of eyes out there in the natural word which don't have lenses.

OK but alright we do kind of know what they mean don't we? Why am I being so picky with this. Let's carry on and see where we get to.

Can I operate without my heart? - No. What about my heart without one of the valves? - No. Ah now we have got the hang of it. Take an organism and slice a bit off and see it still works/lives - easy peasy - we can prove Darwin wrong in our sleep;-)

So its starting to sound a bit odd now isn't it. The reason for this and the reason why this is an error is because this is not how evolution suggests things actually do evolve - i.e. one whole part at a time - that would be a bit daft wouldn't it. There goes a creature with no eyes and wow looks it's kids have got eyes! No, that's not what evolution is at all.

The people who came up with IC in the first place did at least understand this and they did in fact intend IC to be used in just a few specific cases and not with this broad brush approach. Unfortunately most creationists know very little about evolution (many equate it with evil and so want nothing to do with it) and so readily fall into the error I have described and start asking where the first eye came from or how did a monkey give birth to a human etc. In fact I have had to point out this basic error to otherwise highly educated creationists with degree level qualifications.

So now that we have clarified the actual nature of the argument itself lets have a look at the logic and evidence and see how it stacks up.

The ToE states that nature always works with whatever is at hand but not always in the way described in the learning point i.e. with very gradual changes. Evolution can also work though the following evolutionary mechanisms; deletion of parts, addition of multiple parts; for example, duplication of much or all of a system, change of function, and the addition of a second function to a part.

(BTW if you are interested, there are some very interesting examples of organisms which appear to have evolved in this way - this is possible because certain genes appear to act to control whole suites of other genes and this means that a single mutation in a gene in a centipede which controlled all the other genes which in turn controlled the development of a body segment and pair of legs, could make an extra segment and pair of legs in one fell swoop of variation - anyway back to the point)

Given enough time this can be shown to lead to some pretty amazing changes in both the form and structure of part of an organism and the use or function of the form or structure. For one such example consider the swim bladder in fish, and lungs in animals. (BTW its interesting to note that we now think that this happened the opposite way around to that suggested by Darwin himself - there are after all, no sacred cows in science) There are many more amazing such examples.

Next we see that TiS pick out just one of these aspects of evolution. They mentioned it but do not explain it very well;

Understand that Darwinian scientists dispute this, and that the theory of co-option (Borrowing parts from other machines) is a possible solution to the problem of irreducible complexity.

So, they even grant that this could explain away their own proof, but hang on - doesn't that mean it isnt a proof after all? I mean if that is a way to explain it away then what exactly does their proof prove?

Well once again I think that TiS are being subtle and clever here. The onus is placed upon the reader/student to think for themselves whether or not co-option does explain IC away. Of course the don't give the poor thinker anywhere near a clear picture of either concepts so it is very likely that the vast majority will be left doubting very much if co-option (whatever it is exactly) can explain away IC - after all IC seemed so sensible and easy to grasp didn't it? Well before I asked you to think about it a little bit anyway.

Next they try to finish the student off with more confirmation that Co-option (whatever it is) can't explain IC;

Recognise that the needle-nose cellular pump has some similarities to the bacterial flagellum, but that it only contains 10 of the 40 protein components of the flagellum.

Wow - only 10 out of 40 - no chance.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, the evolution of the flagellum is now mapped out pretty thoroughly and yes it seems to work just fine without any miracles as far we can tell.

The full details are here.

The Creationists are presumably now looking around for the next thing to claim as Irreducibly Complex, they have after all been doing this quite a while and there are a long list of similar claims of IC subsequently shown to be false.

This page shows a bit more on this subject if you are interested.

Lets also remember the more general point that you can't use ignorance to prove something. i.e. if we can't currently explain the evolution of a particular structure this does not prove that we never will or that it was therefore designed. This simple bit of common sense actually leaves the whole IC issue dead in the water before they come up with the next IC claim anyway, if you stop to think about it for a moment.

The final learning outcomes for our kids from this section according to TiS is;

Recognise that the process by which cells assemble the flagellum is precise and complex, and has not been explained in Darwinian terms.

Well we just did didn't we.

Once again, none of this is in the syllabus and so it won't help the students pass their exams. But then we have seen by now that getting the kids through the exams is not what TiS are aiming for.

Further input on this topic from Tony Jackson in a comment on the Learning Lessons 1 entry;

Why should ‘irreducible complexity’ be taught at GCSE? Surely a science syllabus – especially at this elementary level – should reflect established (ie well-supported by the evidence) scientific theories and basic facts. Irreducible complexity fails in both of these criteria.

1)Many of the specific examples of ‘irreducible complexity’ that Michael Behe uses in his book are just plain wrong.

2)Even if there are examples in biology where some structure fits Behe’s definition, there are several well-known evolutionary mechanisms that can in principle account for their origin.

Behe wrote his book over ten years ago. That’s a very long time ago in today’s fast-paced science. It’s instructive to check up and see how the scientific community has reacted to the concept of ‘irreducible complexity’. To do this, there are a number of publicly accessible databases of the published scientific literature. Such literature searches are essential and routine tools that active scientists use all the time to follow what’s hot and to keep up with the latest discoveries. PubMed is one I use a lot. If you go there and type “irreducible complexity” you will get a grand total of er...seven papers that mention the phrase. But it’s worse than that because on closer inspection three of these papers are clearly irrelevant to Behe’s meaning and the remaining four papers are all critical of Behe.

Think about that. Even after more than ten years, it seems that there are simply no papers in the primary scientific literature that use the concept of ‘irreducible complexity’ to make predictions, to discover new insights into nature and to test hypotheses.

Contrast this state of affairs with a phenomenon called “RNA interference” (or RNAi), which was discovered at about the same time Behe wrote his book. Now on PubMed, I got 9371 hits for “RNA interference” and 8666 hits for “RNAi”.

That’s the difference between a genuine scientific discovery and an utterly bogus claim.

The next section in the TiS teachers manual is "How did life begin?" which has nothing to do with the theory of Evolution at all.

Any questions or corrections please let me know.

Toying with the Truth in Science - part 4

Continuing from my last post here is part two of the teachers manual section entitled learning outcomes;

"What Darwin Didn't Know" is a bit of an odd title, don't you think? I can find no reference to any such thing in my sons Revision Guide or the National Curriculum.

Of course we have already spotted the Truth In Science agenda here, they set things up in part 1 to give a watered down and incomplete version of Darwin's Theory and now it looks like they are going to put more doubts in our kids minds about that.

The first learning outcome is;

Understand that in Darwin's lifetime scientists did not appreciate the complexity of living cells.

Well this is of course true, but also completely irrelevant to the KS4 science curriculum, or passing the exams.

Know that since the 1950s our knowledge of cells has exploded, and that they contain a huge variety of miniature machine.

Perhaps they think this is a "history of science" exam? Again this is off topic, interesting but irrelevant, and at best it could possibly distract kids from passing their exam.

Recognise that the bacterial flagellum is driven by a highly efficient miniature motor, with a complex structure.

We seem to be wandering further and further away from any kind of question which may possibly appear in a GCSE science exam. "Flagellum" is not even mentioned in my son's revision guide. Why introduce such an esoteric topic?

Understand that Darwin's theory relies on accumulating complexity by slight, successive, advantageous variations.

At last a summary of part of evolution. This should be the main topic of study. We finally get a quick mention. Not exactly laid out bit by bit with examples to help the students though. No explanation of how this happens step by step. "accumulating complexity" is not language which is really aimed at kids of 15 I think, almost as if they were trying to make it sound more complicated than it really is.

Know that Dr Michael Behe is an example of a scientist who questions whether Darwin's theory can account for the complexity of the cell.

Understand the process which Behe went through as a scientist in changing his ideas.

So this is the reason for the careful build up and the introduction of a topic which does not even appear in the state curriculum or the exams the kids will take.

Dr Behe published a book on "irreducible complexity" in 1996 called "Darwin's Black Box".

A very good resource regarding Behe can be found here.

Alternatively here is the introduction of his page on Wikipedia;

Michael Behe
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Michael J. Behe (born January 18, 1952, in Altoona, Pennsylvania) is an American biochemist and intelligent design advocate. Behe is professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. He is married and has nine children. He advocates the idea that some structures are too complex at the biochemical level to be adequately explained as a result of evolutionary mechanisms. He has termed this concept "irreducible complexity".
Behe's claims about the irreducible complexity of key cellular structures are strongly contested by the scientific community, including his own department, the Department of Biological Sciences, at Lehigh University. Likewise, his claims about intelligent design have been characterized as pseudoscience.
Behe's testimony in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District is extensively cited by the judge in his ruling that intelligent design is not science but essentially religious in nature.

The argument he presents is actually a rehash of William Paley's argument from design which Darwin himself showed to be fallacious over 100 years ago.

An explanation of irreducible complexity and the arguments for and against it will be summarised in my next post which will cover part 3 of the learning outcomes which is called; "Molecules and Mousetraps".

Unfortunately this will contain precisely nothing which would help a chid pass their GCSE exam, but then TiS don't appear to be motivated by this anyway.

- - -

This small blog has been moving steadily up the Google pages in recent weeks. My objective is to be listed as the second entry behind TiS themselves when you Google "truth in science". The idea is to give people the other side of the argument bearing in mind the amount of money they have behind them and the very slick web site TiS are able to fund.

If you feel you could take a page from their web site or one of their download-able resources and analyse it, pointing out the faults and errors please let me know.

I am just one chap trying to do his bit and any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Toying with the Truth in Science - part 3

Having dealt in my last few posts, with the DVDs and letter sent out to all UK Schools and colleges by the creationist group "Truth In Science" in September 2006, I can now turn my attention to the Teachers Manual which accompanied them.

This manual is called "Where does the evidence lead?". I shall aim to show you that the teachers' manual makes no effort to answer this question and that it's use in schools would in fact steer teachers and students in the opposite direction.

The booklet has an introduction which I will not cover simply because it repeats the various lies and distortions I have already discussed in parts 1 and 2 of the Toying with the Truth in Science posts.

The rest of the book is then split into 6 parts which are headed up as "learning outcomes". TiS themselves have tried to tell us that this material is relevant to the KS4 curriculum so lets compare the learning point they make with that.

To help me do this I have pinched my sons GCSE revision guide which is bang up to date and includes a section headed " What are you expected to know?"

Lets look at part 1 of the "teachers manual" titled "Life:The Big Questions";

Understand Darwin's theory of natural selection, and its historical background in the voyage of the Beagle and the publication of The Origin of Species

Well the problem with this is very subtle and in fact the actual sentence itself is fine. The problem is that nowhere in the films or the booklets does TiS actually explain what the theory of natural selection actually is. They only mentions bits and pieces, and never a complete whole. Never do we see the elements of the theory laid out piece by piece so as to be easy to understand and digest. Never presented in a way to help students learn, which is supposed to be what all this is about. Anyone would think TiS wanted the Theory of Evolution to look incomplete and badly thought out! Perish the thought.

Anyone who did not already know and understand the theory would see the gaps immediately, but remember the target audience here is our kids, who don't know the theory yet. So perhaps this DVD and manual has been carefully judged to give just enough information to make students think it has been explained, but nevertheless, to leave them so lacking in understanding that they are unable to defend the ideas it concerns against the simplest and most empty of counter arguments.

Turning to my son's text book we can see the following points; organisms compete for resources and mates, adaptations can help with these struggles, genetic information, variation, ToE is widely accepted (but not by all), ToE states that natural selection acts upon variation, evidence for evolution include fossils.

This is pretty brief and to the point as you might expect. Let's see how much of this is actually in the TiS material.

Understand that variation in beak shape and size of Galapagos finches provides evidence for evolution.

Yes it is, but the students will be left wondering why. The film does not explain why this is so. In my opinion this is deliberately done to further weaken the case for the Theory of Evolution in the minds of the students.

Know that domestic breeding is similar to natural selection.

Again, OK, but we still do not know what natural selection is? That is actually point number one in my son's text book.

Understand that Darwin provided the first plausible theory to explain the appearance of design in the natural world without an intelligent designer.

Well my son's book talks about Lamarck's theory which was the best guess before Darwin came along. In fact the bit of the curriculum which specifically talks about scientific controversies is actually referring to Lamarck's theory. Not, as the letter, teacher's guide and the home page of TiS would all lead you to believe, i.e. Intelligent Design. Intelligent Design has actually been specifically ruled out as unsuitable for coverage in science lessons. My previous posts in this series contain the full details of this.

OK this next one is a real killer.

Recognise that Darwinism is assumed to be true by most scientists.

To assume something means "suppose to be the case, without proof" or "adopt falsely".

This learning outcome is rather well designed to be slipped in under the radar of the unsuspecting. We however, are suspecting TiS quite a bit by now, and we are in a position to ask further questions that the students may not be able to come up with.

If students did think of these questions the teachers' manual leave the teacher in the dark as to what the answers actually are. I will ask;

What evidence is there that most scientists suppose the theory of evolution is true, without proof?

The final learning outcome listed in part 1 is;

Recognise that a growing number of scientists question the true extent of the creative power of natural selection.

I covered the slowly growing list of scientists who have signed a very tepid statement doubting if evolution can account for everything we see alone, which is a sensible scientific position to take, versus a very strong statement signed by PhDs called Steve. This demonstrates just how tiny a minority the "growing number" is in the real world.

So to summarise;

Don't explain evolution properly, make it good and ropey
Ignore the curriculum advice regarding previous theories and controversy and pretend they actually mean your own pet faith
Slip in straight forward lies about the views of most scientists and
Cap it all off with a misleading summary of the scientific controversy, or lack of one.

Look out for an analysis of "Learning Outcomes Part 2 - What Darwin Didn't Know" in my next post.

Toying with the Truth in Science - part 2

In my last post I started to cover the letter sent to all UK schools and colleges in September 2006 along with the DVD materials. In this post we will finish off the detailed analysis of the letter.

The third paragraph starts like this;

Intelligent Design is frequently menioned in news and scientific media, but most current school textbooks do not equip pupils to be informed participants in the discussion.

Well now, is ID frequently mentioned in the press? Yes it is mentioned from time to time there is some discussion, most of it by extremely well respected scientists saying that ID is basically rubbish. Is it mentioned frequently? How long is a piece of string? In any case there is far far less coverage in the UK than in the US. In fact you get far more press space taken up with Astrology, stories about UFO's, psychics and the like but no one seriously suggests that they should be covered by school science text books.

I analyse the odd ID article myself on my own blog from time to time. You really don't need letters after your name to pull the arguments apart and expose the emptiness of the ID claims.

Anyway we are discussing the issue, "Is ID mentioned in the press?", we are discussing it because the TiS letter seems to be implying that something which is being discussed in the press should be covered in school textbooks. They don't say why this should be so.

When you stop to think about it - there is no actual reason why this should be so. The contents of our textbooks depends upon the contents of the curriculum, it does not and should not depend upon the daily press.

What about the scientific media? Well I can only find reference to 9 peer reviewed papers on ID. There are tens of thousands on evolution. Of these 9 ID papers, 8 don't even publish any original research. This should not be a surprise from a "theory of ID" which simply states that sometime, somewhere, somebody intelligent designed something for no apparent reason. The ID papers all have very weak, if any, peer review and the one which does include some research does not actually address design at all.

More details on these papers can be found here.

So is ID a suitable subject for school science text books because it is in the news and scientific media?

No.

By the way, while we are on the subject of scientific controversies, just think for a moment about the many fields where various hypothesis or theories are nowhere near as widely accepted as evolution theory is. Do various groups of scientists who favour minority views in their fields send DVD packs to high schools as part of the scientific debate? No, they do research and publish papers and try to win the debate by providing evidence. That is how science works and the fact that ID proponents don't follow this at all is another reason why this is not science.

Anyway, the letter goes on to say;

In February 2005, Lord Filkin, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the DfES, named Intelligent Design as a theory that could be discussed in schools (Hansard, House of Lords Written Answer 21 Feb 2005). We consider this to be one of the most important scientific issues that students can consider, and we are sending this letter and resource pack to every secondary school and college in the United Kingdom.

Well if that is what the government wants they who am I to argue? Hang on though. They say Lord Filkin said it "could be discussed", what does this mean? I believe in free speech, I think schools and students should be able to discuss anything they like. What exactly would a minister say could not be discussed in UK schools? Let's look carefully at what TiS have done here; they have jumped straight from "could be discussed" to claiming justification for sending out packs of materials for science classes.

If you have read the rest of this blog then you probably know what I am going to discuss next. If you haven't read it then you might anyway be thinking that February 2005 to September 2006 is a long time for nothing else to be said by the government on this subject, and you would be right.

In fact the government has actually said quite a bit more since then, the only thing is, what was said doesn't support the mangled version of reality that TiS are pushing. So guess what? They conveniently chose to ignore these further comments from the Minister for Schools.

Here they are;

Thank you for your letter of 21 March addressed to Ruth Kelly enclosing correspondence from your constituent, Cambridge about the teaching of creationism in the GCSE curriculum. I am replying as the Minister responsible for this area of education.
The science programme of study is statutory and indicates what must be taught, it does not list what should not be taught as such a list would inevitably become prohibitively long. Creationism and intelligent design are not included in either the present science programme of study or the revised science programme of study, to be implemented in September 2006.
The purpose of the science programme of study for key stage 4 is to enable young people to develop their understanding of science as a subject discipline ("how science works"), together with the skills and knowledge to make appropriate decisions about science as it affects their lives now and in the future.
The present science programme of study indicates that pupils should be taught:
that the fossil record is evidence for evolution, (Sc2.3h)
how variation and selection may lead to evolution or to extinction, (Sc2.3j)
how scientific controversies can arise from different ways of interpreting empirical evidence [for example Darwin's theory of evolution]. (Sc1.1b)
The scientific controversy referred to in the programme of study is that arising from Darwin's rejection of existing scientific theories based on the evidence he had collected. An example of such a theory is inheritance of acquired characteristics supported, among others, by the French scientist Lamark and based on the available scientific evidence at the time.
Creationism cannot be used as an example of a scientific controversy as it has no empirical evidence to support it and no underpinning scientific principles or explanations. It belongs in a different realm of knowledge, that of religion.
In Religious Education (RE) lessons pupils could work from unit 9B in the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority/Department for Education and Skills scheme of work for RE, which explores where the universe came from. This unit investigates the ways in which science and religion are often perceived to be in conflict. It asks whether they can aid each other, and so facilitate learning about and from religion.
The use of the word "theory" can mislead those not familiar with science as a domain of knowledge because it is different from the everyday meaning. In science the meaning is much less tentative and indicates a substantial amount of supporting evidence, underpinned by principles and explanations, and accepted by the international scientific community. However, it also signals that all scientific knowledge is considered to be tentative as it can be principle be disproved by new evidence.
Intelligent design is sometimes erroneously advanced as a scientific theory but it has no underpinning scientific principles or explanations supporting it and it is not accepted by the international scientific community.
Jacqui Smith, MP (Minister of State for Schools and 14-19 Learners)

After the issue of the packs came to the government's attention, this written answer was given;

Graham Stringer: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what advice he plans to give to schools on the information pack circulated to all schools by Truth in Science.

Jim Knight : It is up to schools to decide what teaching resources they need to help them deliver the national curriculum for science effectively. Neither intelligent design nor creationism are recognised scientific theories and they are not included in the science curriculum, the Truth in Science information pack is therefore not an appropriate resource to support the science curriculum.

The national curriculum for science clearly sets down that pupils should be taught: how uncertainties in scientific knowledge and scientific ideas change over time; the role of the scientific community in validating these changes; variation within species can lead to evolutionary changes; and, similarities and differences between species can be measured and classified.

From this page in Hansard.


The letter goes on to say;

We consider this to be one of the most important scientific issues that students can consider, and are sending this letter and resource pack to every school and college in the United Kingdom.

Well they don't say why they think it is so important. This is because they struggle to do this without using the G-- word. They genuinely, honestly and completely without reason, equate evolution with some kind of lack of moral fibre and spirituality. Yes I know that sounds odd but I will cover more of this in a later Blog and show you what I mean.

The rest of the letter explains that the second DVD is made of of short extracts of the first one and then asks for feedback.

Ok lets quickly summarise;

In September 2006 a letter with two DVDs was sent to every UK High School by Truth in Science.

We have seen that it has a misleading set up. That it contains downright fibs about the scientific context and finally culminates in a quote from a Government minister taken out of context and used to justify sending to schools something which the Government has explicitly rejected as unsuitable for use in schools.

Now I don't agree with everything the government does from time to time. But I do try to conduct myself openly and honestly. Truth in Science do know about the Government statements which say that their packs are not suitable for school use. They deliberately choose not to mention this on their web site, even now, months later, what else can this be but a deliberate attempt to mislead. Talk about a lack of moral fibre.

These relevant and straightforward facts reveal "Truth in Science" as an organisation which conveniently ignores such facts when they don't suit them. Not a lot of Truth in Truth in Science so far.

If you think that this kind of behaviour is both annoying and duplicitous just wait until we start to look at their "scientific claims".

Toying with the Truth in Science - part 1

In my last post I reviewed the contents of the DVDs sent by TiS, at great expense, to every UK high school and college. This post will cover the letter sent with the DVDs.

The letter is addressed to the Head of Science and is signed by Andy McIntosh.

It starts benignly enough with the following;

New GCSE Specifications emphasise that students must understand how science works, to help them engage with and challenge the science they meet in everyday life. Students need to adopt a critical, questioning frame of mind, understanding how science impacts society and their lives.

Minor quibble - that last bit sounds a bit American to my ears - shouldn't that be ". . .impacts ON society. . .".

The next bit starts to stretch the truth a little;

To help staff at your school teach these topics . . .

Which topics? Ah - critical thinking and questioning - but wait for it . . .

. . . I have pleasure in enclosing free copies of the DVDs Unlocking the Mystery of Life and Where Does the Evidence Lead? These are classroom resources that outline a current scientific controversy over the origin of life and its diversity. They describe evidence for and against Darwin's theory of evolution, and a current alternative theory of Intelligent Design."

Here we go again. This is a variation on the cleverly implied claim on the TiS home page that evolution is a controversial science. Here we also have the conflation of Evolution theory with theories on the Origin of Life. Evolution theory makes no comment on the origin of life at all.

With regard to the diversity of life and evolution I covered this topic in an earlier post and demonstrated why evolution is not controversial at all by any reasonable person's measure of "controversy".

The issue of the origin of life is not scientifically controversial either, but rather interestingly, for almost exactly the opposite reason. Evolution has a ton of evidence from many different fields backing it up and is not controversial in that very, very few scientists don't accept it as fact (all of whom - surprise surprise - think the bible is absolutely and literally true).

Work on the origin of life has so far provided little evidence to back up any of half a dozen semi popular current hypothesis. No one seems to be claiming that they have any evidence that they know how life did actually start. Science so far has gotten no further than establishing when it happened, sometime between 3.9 and 3.5 billion years ago, and the fact that various "building blocks of life" can be easily generated by replicating conditions we think existed on the early earth. So this isn't controversial in the sense that no one has proposed anything at all as proven so there is not anything to disagree with and have a controversy about.

Half an hours web surfing has also failed to turn up any reference to the origin of life in any UK Science National Curricula so this appears to be a complete non-sequitur. (Please let me know if this is wrong - Mark)

Having watched the DVDs I strongly dispute the claim that they make that they show evidence for evolution - they have very little content at all. We do get some pretty shots of the wonderful wildlife of the Galapagos with comments such as; "variations in beak shape and size of the Galapagos finches provides evidence for evolution". We get no overview of the theory itself and the claims it actually makes to help us understand why different beak shape and sizes are good evidence and we get none of the other evidence for evolution which the National Curriculum covers.

In my view the filmmakers are deliberately setting up a particularly weak strawman version of the actual Theory of Evolution (ToE), to better enable them to cast doubt on it later on.

Finally in this paragraph of the letter they mention a "current alternative theory". The evidence we covered in an earlier post shows this be a simple lie - it is not accepted as an alternative in any sense of the word.

They also label Intelligent Design a "theory". In the scientific usage of the word, theory means an explanatory framework or idea which is backed up by lots of facts. In scientific talk, quite contrary to everyday usage, a theory is higher up the hierarchy of truth than a fact because it is in fact based on lots of facts.

In addition for a theory to be accepted as scientific it must be falsifiable; i.e. be capable of being proved false in some way. In other words it must be possible to make some observation or do some kind of experiment where the result proves that the theory is false. Evolution passes this test very easily and could be shown to be false in thousands of ways. E.g. a static fossil record, later forms of life fossilised out of developmental order men with dinosaurs, true chimeras, that is, organisms that combined parts from several different and diverse lineages (such as mermaids and centaurs) and which are not explained by lateral gene transfer, which transfers relatively small amounts of DNA between lineages, or symbiosis, where two whole organisms come together; a mechanism that would prevent mutations from accumulating; observations of organisms being created.

Intelligent Design fails this measure of science because you can always claim that your intelligent designer did it that way for reasons of their own which we don't or can't understand. In other words the idea that "god did it" can not be disproved at all by anything at all.

There was a famous court case in the US where the teaching of Intelligent Design in science classes was challenged. In the US it is against the constitution to teach religion. To defend themselves the ID side simply had to show that their claim that life was intelligently designed was science. After weeks of evidence they were dismissed as liars and pedlars of creationist propaganda.

I did an extensive blog entry on the judgement here if you want to read more about it.

To recap, we have seen misleading statements, outright lies and clever distortions of the truth and I have only covered the first two paragraphs in the letter - there are three more yet to come.

Comments welcome.