Level Playing Field: Merit Matters for Sports & Science

That's a great analogie, man. But I have one question for you. How do you suggest the scientific commnunity teach the public that science is not a "fair" process?

The problem is many people think science is merely a theoretical construct, which is why it is easy for them to think that all ideas are equally valid. This is part of the reason why a few people are able to float the idea that science is a religion, since religion is also a theoretical construct. Consequently, many people don't know the difference between religion and science. They think the two are the same system of thought.

Additionally, people are generally unfamiliar with empirical processes, adding to the challenge of education.

I tried to expand on your analogy a little in my mind with kind of a devil's advocate position, and I thought: "Well, what's wrong with letting the eighth-grade weakling play for a few minutes? It's not exactly like the game really has a real opponent, so where's the harm? It's more important to be fair and nice to everyone, right?"

Fortunately, I am able to argue back at myself and I came to this conclusion: the danger does not come in the inexperienced quarterback losing the game for everyone. In all reality, there's not a game to be won, just a game to be played. The real danger lies in the inexperienced-but-manipulative quarterback tricking the audience into thinking the rules of the game have changed. He'll put on an entertaining show, dance around the field, jump through hoops and juggle the ball, but he'll never score any points. A knowledgable audience would heckle this quarterback until he felt badly enough to go sit back down, but in the science game, the audience-at-large is anything but knowledgable. They are vaguely aware a game is even going on, and therefore they eat up the flashy manipulation; the score be damned. So there it is. If we let those in the bleachers call the shots, the whole team will suffer and the game will be called on account of ignorance. And no one will be the wiser. They'll just sit there staring at the dog-and-pony show taking place on the 50-yard line, oblivious to the game they are missing.

The sad thing is that this is actually a very useful rhetorical tool to wield against school boards, which tend to be more appreciative of the superficialities like sports than they are of significant matters, like academics. Would that we could win them over by appealing to their desire to improve kids' educations...

It's been my observation that the fastest way to get voters to approve special local sales taxes for education is to threaten to cut athletics.

We really live is a messed up society where art and music education get cut before football.

If I may draw inferences from analogy, let me offer the following. In the cases of the football game and science they both apparently have an intelligible point. Because the goal is to win the football game and the goal of science is to acquire knowledge (or at least provide theories and accounts that have explanatory power), anything that disrupts those goals violates the practice's intelligible point. So, it seems clear that football and science have a purpose to them. Now, if I follow your analogy correctly, a scientist who embraces ID--given ID's apparent paucity of proof--violates the intelligible point of science. But he would also lack virtue as an agent; that is, he would be thinking and acting in a way that is inconsistent with the intellectual obligations of a rational agent. But that would mean that rational agents would have an intelligible point, like football games and science. Now, an ID advocate could say that in order for you to make such a judgment you would have to believe that human beings have a proper function. But "proper function" language is design language. So, it seems to me that the power of your analogies comes from smuggling in design language at the level of person that naturalism qua naturalism cannot give you.

Because I am just a philosopher with a law degree and not as smart as you scientists, maybe you can explain what appears to little ol' me to be a conundrum of sorts. (But, hey, what do I know?).

Now, if I follow your analogy correctly, a scientist who embraces ID---given ID's apparent paucity of proof---violates the intelligible point of science.

— Beckwith

What kind of nonsense is that? The sole argument is that science has a proper point and an appropriate set of methods, and that ID violates them. There is no judgment being made on what the function of human beings might be--it seems to me that the only way trying to smuggle in a little invalid baggage here is yourself.

What kind of nonsense is that? The sole argument is that science has a proper point and an appropriate set of methods, and that ID violates them. There is no judgment being made on what the function of human beings might be---it seems to me that the only way trying to smuggle in a little invalid baggage here is yourself.

Francis,

Substitute a board certified brain surgeon for the experienced quarterback and a faith healer for the eighth grade quarterback. If you had a brain tumor, who would you want to operate?

Dr. Beckwith,

Interesting. What parts of the Apostles' Creed, for instance, are known scientifically?

An ID proponent in science is like a rugby player (playing rugby) in an American football game. Independent team sports don't mix well at the game level.

anyone who "believes" religiously what he denies he knows scientifically is violating the intelligible point of theology (if he is claiming to be a creedal Christian in all its metaphysical glory).

... or, as I've often wondered: "how many chickens does it take to cross a light bulb?"

If I may draw inferences from analogy, let me offer the following. In the cases of the football game and science they both apparently have an intelligible point. Because the goal is to win the football game and the goal of science is to acquire knowledge (or at least provide theories and accounts that have explanatory power), anything that disrupts those goals violates the practice's intelligible point.  So, it seems clear that football and science have a purpose to them. 

— Beckwith

66. Consider for example the proceedings that we call "games". I mean board-games, card-games, ball-games, Olympic games, and so on. What is common to them all? -- Don't say: "There must be something common, or they would not be called 'games' "-but look and see whether there is anything common to all. -- For if you look at them you will not see something that is common to all, but similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them at that. To repeat: don't think, but look! -- 

But "proper function" language is design language.  So, it seems to me that the power of your analogies comes from smuggling in design language at the level of person that naturalism qua naturalism cannot give you.

— Beckwith

I always found it a little weird that an adaptive trait has no "proper function" in the first organism in which it appears, although the same trait has a "proper function" in its offspring.

One of the hazards of definitions, I guess.

This is plain false, not to mention intentionally misleading. As a philosopher you ought to know that "proper function" language was devised by Ruth Garrett Millikan in her 1984 book Language, Thought and Other Biological Categories as a way of clarifying the notion of an etiological - that is, evolutionary - function; one in which the current functional role is determined by natural seleciton for it in the past.

Saint Thomas as a child constantly asked the monks, his teachers, "What is God?" Arriving at maturity, the whole force of his magnificent intelligence was applied to the furnishing of an answer to the question of his childhood. Seeing from the beginning of his student days that intelligence and being were two correlative terms, one existing for and being defined in terms of the other, he bent his will to the proper function of intelligence, which is, as be phrases it himself, to express intelligently to itself (or, in a bolder phrase, to become intentionaliter) all that is. In virtue of the complete domination he enjoyed over the movements of his senses, as the reward of his angelic purity, his reason worked in perfect serenity. (emphasis added)

ACCORDING to established popular usage, which the Philosopher considers should be our guide in the naming of things, they are called 'wise' who put things in their right* order and control them well. Now, in all things that are to be controlled and put in order to an end, the measure of control and order must be taken from the end in view; and the proper end of everything is something good.

So using "proper function" as a term is referring, in fact, to evolutionary accounts of function (the other major notion of "function" derives from the homeostatic role it plays, and is referred to as a "Cummins" function after its author). In short, "proper function" is just a natural account of function.

Francis, are you trying to prove that God exists or that evolution is a fantasy? I can never quite tell.

I really do want to be on the Internet at or very close to the the moment when either or both of these great analytical feats are presented in logically unassailable fashion for the first time. What a great story that will to tell my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren!!! The day the human race truly turned a corner for the first time!!!!! Heavens, my brow gets sweaty and heart flutters just contemplating the profoundness of it all.

Agreed, GWW. Maybe eventually my kids will be able to study under the great Dembski, who by then I'm sure will hold the Philip Johnson chair of ID Theory at Caltech.

Francis, are you trying to prove that God exists or that evolution is a fantasy? I can never quite tell.

Heavens, my brow gets sweaty and heart flutters just contemplating the profoundness of it all.

False dilemma. Neither is my goal. I'm like evolution, I have no goal. And why should I have one anyways. Am I supposed to?

Sounds like you may have stumbled upon a porn site.

GWW and Francis,
But will you both still like each other in the morning?

But that would mean that rational agents would have an intelligible point, like football games and science.  Now, an ID advocate could say that in order for you to make such a judgment you would have to believe that human beings have a proper function.  But "proper function" language is design language.  So, it seems to me that the power of your analogies comes from smuggling in design language at the level of person that naturalism qua naturalism cannot give you.

— Beckwith

Dr. Beckwith,

Still waiting on some indication of what items in the Apostles' Creed are known scientifically. F'rinstance, how about a citation for the research publication describing the location and characteristics of "hell"?

It seems to me that your assertion concerning being a creedal Christian is wrong if there is any item in whatever creed you specify that doesn't have a corresponding body of scientific knowledge backing it up.

I think they use a more restrictive standard for what constitutes incompatibility with science, Wesley. By defining 'knows scientifically' as a sufficiently small set of things limited to perhaps only measurements, a set much more limited than practicing scientists would usually say, you can declare no conflict between science and religion, since of course religions seldom say things like "the value on the voltmeter at that point should be 3.4 +/.2".

I can't speak to the point that Reed raises, except to say that anyone who "believes" religiously what he denies he knows scientifically is violating the intelligible point of theology (if he is claiming to be a creedal Christian in all its metaphysical glory).

— Dr. Beckwith

I think they use a more restrictive standard for what constitutes incompatibility with science, Wesley. By defining 'knows scientifically' as a sufficiently small set of things limited to perhaps only measurements, a set much more limited than practicing scientists would usually say, you can declare no conflict between science and religion, since of course religions seldom say things like "the value on the voltmeter at that point should be 3.4 +/.2".

— steve

Dr. Beckwith raises an interesting distinction I never focused on: "creedal" christians (presumably distinct from "noncreedal" christians).

The church I grew up in (anglican) would definitely fall into the "creedal" camp. Are there denominations that explicitly identify themselves as noncreedal? Or is that another way of saying "free-lance" christian?

Dr. Beckwith says there is a problem if a Christian who adheres to a creed denies that any of the items of the creed are "known scientifically".

Steve,

If that's what he was saying, he chose a poor way to express it.

Here's a good example of religious people having problems getting their religious 'knowledge' aligned with scientific knowledge.

http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/104-08122004-346938.html

Apparently wheat can supernaturally transform into deity flesh, but rice can't.

Gluten: It's magically religious!