Evolution, Science, and Politics

Tonight I saw a film at my university titled Kansas vs. Darwin, with the filmmaker present, Q&A session, dinner, the works. It was very nice. While I've always maintained a certain fascination with Creationism, et al., I wasn't quite aware to how widespread beliefs in Creationism are. After watching the film, I decided to investigate what Gallup had to say:

2004 Gallup Poll on Americans beliefs: link
2007 Gallup Poll, coupled with some healthy Republican bashing, which reveals a similar trend: link


Now, I'm no social scientist, so I wouldn't say that I have the theoretical backing to interpret this data as well as it could be. But the trend is strong, in that Approximately 1/2 of Americans believe that God created man in his present form. This lies in contradistinction to the 1/3 of Americans which reject Evolution as a theory. I think this disparity is explainable in light of creationist beliefs that there is a difference between micro and macro evolution.

The percentage numbers on this are staggering, however. I'm from Kansas, and so from the filter of popular culture, news, as well as some personal experience (organically flavored with personal bias) I knew that there existed quite a few individuals who rejected the theory of evolution. From reading creationist websites, however, I gained the impression that this was a fairly fringe group of individuals due to the nature of the claims, and that I just so happened to be lucky enough to live in a blood-Red state, where bouts of insanity are viewed as acceptable (I'm more joking than serious). Clearly, however, these suppositions are wrong. The shear percentage of individuals refutes my supposition that "Creation Science" is a fringe movement, politically speaking, and the film above stated there was... somewhere around 27 other states going through similar struggles? I can't remember the exact number, but it was greater than Kansas + Texas, the two likely candidates.

From the dinner and the video viewing, it seemed that this widespread belief could be explained on the basis of what possible philosophical implications the theory of evolution entails. There is certainly a movement of persons who believe that the theory of evolution entails materialism, atheism, a loss of moral value, and/or the loss of human dignity and specialness. I am not of this group of individuals.

However, it seems that there is this perception, and it may best be explained by two notions: The notion that Animals are inferior to Humans, and the notion that God created Man in his own image.

If man is an animal, then the inference from evolution is that man is not special. This contradicts our notion that man is a special being with a special purpose above that of the animals. Therefore, evolution must be wrong, because it animalizes man. On the face, outside of arguments for evolution, this is a convincing argument -- one may look at animals in the zoo and conclude that there is a world of difference between us, and because we value ratio-emotional-linguistic expressions that happen to communicate well with us, one may conclude that man is a special sort of creature above the animals. This explains the large number, at least in part.

The second notion: If man was generated by natural processes, then he was not always in the shape that he currently is in, and this contradicts Biblical teaching. If Biblical teaching, supposedly incontrovertible, is wrong in one instance, and The Bible must be taken as a literal whole, and The Bible is the basis for moral beliefs, then the theory of evolution threatens not only the historical myths upon which moral beliefs are found, but the moral beliefs themselves.


It seems to me that, for the regular individual involved, they aren't interested in scientific truth. The individuals involved are interested in a spiritual truth. However, on top of this layer of worry about materialism and the decay of moral values in a Godless society predicated upon natural selection there seems to be a strong political current. The 2007 Gallup Poll suggests that Republicans are catering to this sort of audience. This is pretty much standard fare tactics for the Republican party (promising empty metaphysical maybes to convince rural districts to vote against their economic advantage), so I wouldn't be surprised if a large section of this percentage is explicable in terms of political clout. Something else mentioned at the film was the divisiveness of the topic of evolution, and the fact that those against evolution bond together socially over their non-belief in evolution. It would seem plausible, given the Gallup poll above, that the Republican party is cashing in politically on this movement, which would explain why it is widespread -- it would certainly explain where funding for the institutions which pump out creationist literature come from.

To ask these social bonds to be dissolved is to ask too much. But, simultaneously, to ask people to believe in the strongest scientific conclusions within a Western society isn't asking very much. This hints at another source of the problem: Science Education being horrible, and science education being horrible not just because we live in an anti-intellectual culture that values funding imperialistic ventures for its stockholders (though that doesn't help). There is a disconnect between the scientific communities expectations of scientific literacy, and their willingness to put effort into educating the public on scientific matters. This is natural, given that careers are built on publications and patents (which, coincidentally, happen to be the things which support the Market). But if the scientific community wants the public to be educated, and given that the public funds the scientific community they honestly have a right to know what's going on, they need to change their attitude towards outreach programs and the value of popular science work. If these become worthwhile career enhancers (though that shouldn't be the bottom line in choosing who popularizes and who doesn't) then we're likely to see a rise in scientific literacy.

Some Possible phil-o-sci Problems I want to solve

How do you properly disseminate scientific information?

Problem 1: The expert, and consensus. Consensus can be achieved amongst the respected scientific community on controversial (whether that controverys be manufactured or no) issues. The obvious topics here are evolution and global warming. However, the problem isn't with the scientific community achieving consensus. The problem is disseminating that consensus, and determining when one can claim scientific consensus such that it is acceptable to use this term in popular discourse. I take it at face value in this blog post that both evolution and global warming are issues upon which consensus is reached. The problem here isn't with the science; it's with our vision of the expert. A society unequipped with the rational equipment to distinguish between good and bad scientific claims -- and not in an immediate way. The research can take time -- is exactly the sort of society one would expect to see if it that society relied upon the image of the expert. The problem of the expert isn't that experts shouldn't speak; quite the contrary. The problem is that theatrical devices can achieve the image of the expert without the substantial mental effort necessary to become an expert. Additionally, the problem of the expert lies in the fact that experts will disagree, yet we lowly types not in the public sphere still need to be able to distinguish which expert is the better expert. This is particularly relevant in issues of basic scientific theory which happen to apply to political issues; because one can find a person with credentials who is willing to adopt a viewpoint, and use their expert status to back it up, we have a culture wherein we can easily select for the expert that happens to make us feel comfortable with our viewpoint. This is confirmation bias at work.

I state the problem of the expert because it is my opinion that this is a more basic question in the philosophy of science than the problem of demarcation. All solutions for demarcation have, at present, only excluded things which most individuals who have chosen rationality already excluded for basic, philosophic reasons. The problem of demarcation is, itself, a problem. If, instead, the philosophy of science concentrated on generating thought-technology for the lay man to integrate scientific knowledge, and to do so without excluding the majority of viewpoints already held dear, then the problem of demarcation would be swept away as an interesting question, in the same way that the problem of being is an interesting question in metaphysics. The problem of consensus is something of an ejaculatory beginning to a question I have that may or may not produce anything -- it may just be an intellectual curiosity. But it seems that one should at least have an idea when consensus is obtained if one wishes to integrate scientific knowledge into a population that, itself, does not practice science, and may not be interested in science enough to be educated in science.

Problem 2: What to integrate? As I'm heavily influenced by Dewey in my educational philosophy, I am interested in teaching methods to knowledge. In the context of science the problem with this is that science doesn't have a method, or rather that the method itself is also constantly evolving and changing with what is judged good by those practicing science, and is better learned by doing science than by formalization, but simultaneously one needs to "catch-up" with the facts before this process can begin. This is a necessity for the progress of science, but it does leave one contemplating the educational question in a quandary: What do you teach the public? Just the facts? But the facts change. The method? Again, so does this. That which is relevant to policy decisions? But here we run into the problem of the expert, and setting ourselves up as experts, which appears, in a theatrical sense, exactly like any expert. (Relevant side note: this highlights just how important Aesthetics are, or can be)

Problem 3: Alienation. While the wonders of science are wonderful to those in the in, the wonders of science appear mechanistic and destructive to a large fraction of the population. And this isn't totally unfounded -- the scientific community should never play apologist to the atom bomb, for example. I think it is in the problem of alienation that one is best able to explain the reaction against evolution, for example. Our cultural understanding of spatio-temporal explanations fall on the logical side of the divide, while our values fall on the extra-scientific side. And, what's more, the scientific community doesn't actually question itself on questions of the ethical impact of disseminating scientific knowledge. Scientific knowledge needs be known -- the end. While I'm sympathetic to the need to disseminate knowledge, we also need to question How it is disseminated, and in what way it ought to be disseminated. Several viewpoints which seem to be working great for a large section of the population on their quest towards happiness (the real point of life) run counter to scientific knowledge. As Bertrand Russell said in What I Believe, you need knowledge in addition to love. The problem of alienation arises through our pursuit of the first and our negligence of the second. An answer to this question of alienation is the active integration of scientific viewpoints with existing, followed, and practiced philosophies that seem to work and don't run counter to being able to participate within this rational process. The ethic of this type of work should be -- if a worldview can be justified, then it should be justified. As I've become accustomed to a virtue-theory ethic, this can be justified by our cultural value of pluralism.

Teaching Experience, 3

This is an experience I've noticed over my tutoring that happens with most students, in general.

If you ever ask someone, "Does that make sense?" they will always, always, always answer "Uh-huh" (or "Yes", or another general colloquial affirmation). I could say "the delta G favors dissociation" to someone memorizing the solubility rules, and they'll only start to nod their heads, look a little confused, but they will answer "Yes" with at least a .99 probability -- I haven't tested that, but I hypothesize that it would happen.

I wouldn't say that I suddenly get the pass on this one, either. If I'm struggling with a concept, I'll often just blurt the first thing that comes to mind to see if it sticks and see if I'm anywhere near the right track. If someone asks if I understand, I'll say "Yes", wait a minute, and then ask a question directly related to what I was just told. Sometimes the answer will be the exact same thing that they just said.

So this got me to thinking about a general possible maxim for teaching: Never ask your students if they understand. Always assume that they do not understand. When they look bored, then that is the point at which they understand.

This isn't always necessary, as sometimes an individual's body language will let you know whether or not they understand the concept. But some people, including myself, are tricky at hiding it... in the hopes that they don't embarrass themselves (at least, that's my personal motivation), and in the hopes that something later will make it all click together.

I am going to start testing this tomorrow.

EDIT: The phrase is a habit. I totally fail.

Undergraduate Research

While it may be a pain in the ass for the professor involved, I have to say that I'm happy that this class is a required part of my undergraduate degree. Especially when put in contrast to the upper-level science courses I am currently taking, which half the time cease to have a lab component complementing the theory -- not that theoretical classes are bad unto themselves, as there's a lot of material out there from which one has to play catch-up with. But I've been forced to learn about a subject I've never had a class in by way of teaching myself from current literature. I haven't done a single experiment, I've only given myself a beginning background in an area. And the ability to utilize things like scifinder or pubmed or the ACS website, and teach yourself (with a little help from my advisor, I must admit) about a topic... I can't help but think these are invaluable skills for work that I hope to be doing in the future. And they aren't skills I ever used in a class room setting, because their you're more concerned with problem solving, memorization, and finding answers in your text-book index.

Additionally, there's an emotional satisfaction to it all -- becoming familiar with an area in order to do original research. But I wouldn't argue that is prime reason for including things in curriculum.

Teaching Experience, 2

Alright, so teaching is much much more complicated than tutoring, granted, but it's where I get my practice in the craft at this point in time. And as it's easier, it's a good place to practice, because I get to directly see results. It probably also helps that the people I tutor come willingly and are paying for their classes. So, it's like baby-teaching. Nevertheless, it's a good field to practice and develop my teaching skills, so I'm still labeling it "Teaching Experience"

Today, we covered Unit Conversions and basic chemical nomenclature. Nomenclature is hard to teach because there aren't any real patterns to pick out, and there is quite a bit of data to memorize. As such, you just have to memorize by use, so the best way to teach it is to do it. In a tutoring session, that seems difficult, but upon reflection now, I think naming drills may have been the ideal solution. Must pocket this idea for the future.

Unit Conversions are fairly simple, but they still stump a lot of people. So, like most people, I use the picket-fence method, AKA Dimensional Analysis -- However, I've found in teaching that the use of big unfamiliar words gets in the way of the concept, so it's usually better to introduce the concept first, and then the big unfamiliar word attached to that concept. There isn't a real reason I can think of why, other than the big unfamiliar word sounds scary, so those who are low on confidence (like those who like to go to tutoring sessions) will often shoot themselves down before the concept is introduced. Further, something else that I've found great for tutoring is to start doing the work on the board, but only write what is stated by the students. That way they have to do the thinking, and you're not stuck there giving another lecture that the students have already heard. It's a bit silly to do that in a tutoring session, especially when the lecture didn't get through to them. Sometimes I throw hints in there, or to make things easier I'll explain a single step and do it so they don't become frustrated, but overall I find letting students do the work teaches them better than doing it for them.

Also,I love having more than one student at tutoring. I haven't experienced this until recently, as I'm only recently in a position where we have open tutoring. But today, when one student understood the problem and the other didn't, the first student jumped right in to answer the other students question: So the first student was reviewing the material while the second student was having it explained in a way that maybe is a little simpler than I'm explaining it -- I'm used to dimensional analysis, as well as Chemistry in general, so the terms I'm used to working in may in fact be above the head of those taking Freshman Chemistry. In fact, not just may, but ARE. That is one of the great difficulties in teaching -- you become proficient in a subject, but it becomes difficult to explain the subject because in becoming proficient you generally forget some of the simple steps in between that you used to have to take consciously in order to solve problems. Or you just assimilate simple terms into more complex terms in order to store a greater amount of information. Then you have to unpack all that knowledge, and lead people along step by step from the beginning while not intimidating them, entertaining them, and being there friend while still maintaining a position of authority and respecting their values and way of thinking but modifying it in such a way that they become better thinkers and learn the actual subject matter.

Fascinating. Difficult. Rewarding. Undervalued.

Math and Science: Dehumanizing?

An interesting article reviewing Harper's magazine (I tried to get to the original article, but no such luck without money, and I just so happen to be a student) article "Dehumanizing: When math and science rule the school" -- link to CJR, I got this via Symmetry Mag.



I have no problem with liberal arts studies -- in fact, I encourage them and enjoy them myself. The problem I have with the above is: In what way are the sciences dehumanizing? If the point is more to speak up in favor of a liberal arts education, I would be in full support. But it strikes me as particularly silly to claim that math and science are dehumanizing, setting them up as some sort of Human anti-Human dichotomous interaction where one or the other wins out, and we have to set out to find the mean between them. Was I always as interested in math and science as I currently am? Far from. But I was also a 19 year old wanna-be artist. I would expect someone in the humanities, whose grown up a bit, to realize that the conflict between the two isn't intrinsic to the subjects, but a skewing of national culture values being directed towards the things that have "Practical" value or economic returns, which is something that scientists also have to deal with.

Teaching Experience, 1

Let it be known that I want to be a teacher. It isn't what I want to do when I first graduate, but it is what I want to become in the end. So, I try to explain things to people as well as keep up on my philosophy of teaching. The other week I had a good teaching experience, and have recently read Whitehead's "Aims of Education", which has me thinking about teaching in general. The experience went like so:

My brother visited me. He has recently graduated from High School and is currently working some low income jobs before he goes to college. In conversation he made a comment where he felt uncertain about evolution. I asked what, and specifically he thought that random mutation was an odd concept. Particularly, he found it difficult to believe that random mutation could create viable species over time, because he found the idea of "Random" to be arbitrary, and he thought that if a species mutates that it would be more likely to die. I explained what "Random mutation" actually meant -- not that it just happens, that there are explanations for the mutations, but the causes are out of anyone's control and therefore are labeled "random" -- and that he was completely correct in his assumption that a mutation is more than likely kill an animal. It was only in the rare cases where a mutation actually helped a species pass on its genetic code and survive better than its peers that the mutation is passed on. I also noted that there was more to speciation than random mutation, such as sexual selection or dramatic geographic separation, etc. Later we visited my campus' museum of rocks, and the museum of stuffed birds. We saw fossil records of now extinct species, and stuffed animals of species still alive. Later we visited our towns' zoo. Once we reached the zoo, my brother would comment about certain features of an animal, how these features helped that animal survive, and essentially out-compete other animals in certain ways.

So, in an afternoon, he had the groundwork of a theory given to him, and then he was able to make deductions from that theory about actual animals that he experienced. I'm sure Rousseau would be proud right now, but I'm a little uncertain about Dewey (of whom I am a large admirer of). My brother obviously learned something, and started applying that knowledge to what he saw in the everyday world. Which is awesome, and for a passing incident where I hadn't really prepared anything of the sort and we were just hanging out, very awesome from my perspective, as he's grasped the foundations accepted by the scientific community. These are all important. However, as teaching should be about process, what I taught him was not the process of science. He learned how to make logical conclusions from a given framework of knowledge. Which is, in fact, a fantastic skill, and of great use in the scientific method. However, there was no induction that occurred -- we didn't have a large sampling of animals from which we induced the hypothesis of natural selection, but rather, we walked amongst the animals looking for positive confirmation of a generally accepted hypothesis. This is all well and good, but it's not scientific, and it's not teaching the scientific method, but rather the analytic method.

But then there's the practical side of things: Most places have access to zoos. But do they have access to wildlands that easily show speciation? We could substitute in photographs, but that would certainly not be what Whitehead would agree to, as he's seems to be more of a mixture of a Romantic/Utilitarian educator. I don't know if I agree with him entirely, but I certainly saw something awesome occur while we visited the zoo -- the application of accepted theory, and the acceptance of accepted theory. It wasn't the whole method of science, but analytics is certainly an important part of science. Perhaps the scientific method, as a whole, could be spread out amongst the various sciences? Leave the Null-Hypothesis to the physical sciences, as physical objects are in easy supply to any school budget?

Knowing your Audience

One ought to "Know Your Audience", as they say in all general composition classes. But doing this is harder than it sounds. It is a difficulty I've run into in tutoring, TA'ing, attempting to understand popularization with this blog, and just general explanation of science in conversation. I do not think this is as hard with fiction as it is with non-fiction, in particular, with science. There's a certain amount of distinction that comes with scientific understanding, but simultaneously, so long as we're not talking about the popularly held HARD sciences, or a specialization of the harder sciences, I've come across the notion that it ought to be "Common Sense for Common People" -- at least in my attempted explanations of chemistry.

Generally, I figure people know what atoms are, and molecules, and that the entire universe is composed of them. However, beyond that and the existence of the periodic table, I grow uncertain about the layman's knowledge, as anything beyond that was what I learned in my college courses. I recall specifically going into an explanation about water, one time, and thought it necessary to go over the shapes of molecules, but this gave insult to the person I was talking to, who thought I was just trying to show off my knowledge, and also who thought I, being the "Science Major of Awesome", was trying to belittle him, who was a "Liberal Arts" major (Though I really, honestly wasn't. I value knowledge as a whole, and find competitive distinction between the two classes of knowledge as trivial and silly)

So, through this experience I realized that one has to assume some knowledge, otherwise people take insult, and then they'll shut you out. But on the other side of what I perceive to be a thin line is assuming too much knowledge. You get blank looks, but no one wants to admit that they're ignorant, which I think is especially reinforced by this notion of "Common Sense"-ness that comes with the basic physical sciences (which I would define as anything not commonly associated with hardness, ie, not quantum mechanics, string theory, space related, or drug related). Everything else, from my anecdotal and probably somewhat off perspective, and I am mostly referring to information I learned in my general chemistry and my Physics I class, is treated as if one should just know this common sense stuff, when in fact there's no way one could know all of this "Common Sense" stuff without taking the time to learn it.

So, where do you err? It would seem talking "above" people would be better, because then at least, if they are so inclined, can look things up they don't understand. This under the assumption that the alternative shuts everyone off to learning, which isn't the best of assumptions -- I'm sure some people are patient with reviewing things they already know. It just seems a difficult problem to surmount in determining which path to lean towards (as, ideally, you'll just find that happy medium on the thin line) when you "Know Your Audience", especially when your audience can have varying amounts of technical knowledge.

Because I try to avoid the "Ivory Tower" feel of science, and encourage people to keep up with scientific progress, I think leaning towards the "Insult your Audience" side is better. However, as I am also often still learning things myself, and an explaining them in order to better understand them, I think I unintentionally lean towards the "Mystify your Audience" approach.

Just What is Chemistry Anyway?

I realize maybe I got a little ahead of myself -- I should start simple, and actually, this is a question with an answer that bugs me.

My first day of freshman chemistry, chemistry was defined as "The study of change". It didn't make much sense to me at the time. I thought chemistry was about elements, beakers, drugs, and explosives. Not that I started studying chemistry for these reasons, that's just what came to mind. So, when defining chemistry, I expected "The study of the elements" or "The study of chemicals" -- but "The study of change"? Not at all.

Now I think I'm beginning to glimpse the reason for this definition. In the first semester, we dealt with chemical reactions like sodium hydroxide with water, which dissolves and heats the water -- a temperature change. We saw liquids combine to form solids -- a phase change. We observed as pink indicator disappeared in a beaker, indicating how acidic our solution was -- a color change. In essence, everything in chemistry can be related back to directly observing changes.

Still, isn't that what all science is about? A block changes position, but its physics. A group of flies change genes, but that's biology. We come up with explanations for change all the time -- so why does chemistry get labeled "The Study of Change"?

It bugs me. I don't think that the description really elucidates what students are about to study, and even after a fair amount of core material, I sit mildly perplexed. So why give a definition like this? I think I'd much prefer something along the lines of "Chemistry is the study of atoms". It's frank, direct, and while a bit boring, honest. While chemistry no longer claims to look at the fundamental pieces of the universe, that does not really matter. We study atoms. We study how they interact with one another, and while that is not the fundamental makings of our world, everything is still made of them, and understanding how they interact is understanding our universe. Just in a different way than, say, the general theory of relativity.

Still, boring definitions are not a great way to start off a class. You want to inspire wonder, awe, and excitement for the things to come, as well as engage minds to start thinking about the subject matter. Saying "Chemistry is the study of atoms" doesn't exactly teach very many people anything new. So, I offer an alternate definition:

Chemistry is the study of how a massive number of minuscule particles interact on the atomic level and what effect that has in our everyday world.

Maybe a bit cloggy, but still better than "We're gonna talk about atoms, which originated from the mind of Democritus, but Aristotle blahblahblah..." Alright, I'm hamming it up, but still: There has to be something that actually describes what we're going to talk about in terms that people can understand, while simultaneously not bringing it down to a level where people don't grow as students. That's the great challenge of teaching: We must become experts in a field, understand it, and then be able to to inspire how we constructed these ideas from the bottom up in a group of individuals with differing minds and perspectives. So, while I won't say my definition is the best, I will say it's gotta be better than "Change" and "Atoms".