The other day I was thinking how awesome it would be if everything revolved around me. Seriously, if I were the center of the universe, then all problems – worldly and otherworldly – would take a back seat to my own. When I moved, I would move the universe. When I shake, I would shake the universe. Each time I would fart, a new brown nebula would be born.

Early humans had a similar desire – to not only matter, but to be VERY IMPORTANT. Indeed, some went so far as to codify our self importance into our religious beliefs. For example, it was a matter of Christian faith for over a thousand years that the Earth stood at the center of God’s universe. We had that special place, because we we mattered to god. Earth was His creation and therefore VERY IMPORTANT, and being His children, we were also VERY IMPORTANT.

But then some uppity know-it-alls had to mess up that pretty picture. They used mathematics, and careful measurement and upset a common assumption that had been in place long before the world was declared round. And that, according to an astounding flyer I recently received in the mail, is where western society began to break down.

Yes, I just got a serious-looking pamphlet about the Geocentric Bible, which claims that scientists have been wrong for 400 years, and that the Earth is really still at the center of the universe. By still, I mean “continues to be” although you could take that to mean “motionless” and that would, um, still be correct.

The change from the geocentric theory to the heliocentric theory damaged our viewpoint of the Bible. Genesis 1:1 is literal, and so is Psalm 50:1 “the Lord … Called the earth from the rising of the sun”. Both the earth and the sun are in the same sentence and it is the sun that is moving around a stationary earth

I think there’s some truth in that quote, but not what the purveyors of the Geocentric Bible claim. By adopting the heliocentric view, our view of the bible changed – and whether this is “damage” remains to be seen. Rather than interpreting the bible literally, most people interpret it allegorically, or thematically. Indeed, the bible is literary work that has profound scope and scale, and interesting characters that lived in ancient times. It may be the source of your faith – but it is clearly not 100% factually accurate.

One of the subjects that the bible fails us is in astronomy, since, if biblical claims of geocentrism were accurate, not only would our understanding of the universe be false, any sort of space program based on such faulty understanding would be impossible. That would mean – no weather or communication satellites, no moon landings, no probes to mars or the other planets. Nothing. All of these technological feats are only made possible in a universe in which planetary bodies move in predictable elliptical orbits, and gravity works as we think it does, and the planets and asteroids are where we expect them to be when our space probes get there. Since our universe has a successful space program, then our universe is incompatible with a literal interpretation of every verse in the ancient text of the Bible. Maybe we need to reconsider the veracity of the text rather than our lying eyes.

The earth has not rotated since the day of creation nor will it rotate until midway through the tribulation period.
The firmament carries the sun around the earth faster than the moon because the moon is closer to the earth, the center of the universe. “If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness” (Job 31:26). The sun never walks, but runs; “…the sun. Which…rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race” (Psalm 19:4,5).

Another small issue with the geocentric theory is that it posits that the entire “firmament” of the universe revolves around the earth once per day. In this quote, from the Geocentric Bible Foundation, we see that celestial objects closer to the earth move more slowly than those that are farther away (the moon walks while the sun runs). What about objects that are farther away than the sun? Since we know that many stars and galaxies are at least 12 billion light years from the earth, they would have to travel at least 74 billion light years per day (assuming a circular orbit around the earth with a radius 12Bly). To accomplish this, these object would have to be traveling just north of 856000 light years per second. That’s around 20 trillion times the speed of light, which according to the known laws of physics, is about 20 trillion times impossible. Somebody’s wrong by … well … an astonishingly colossal margin.

Could it be that the theory that has distant galaxies whizzing about at 20 trillion times the speed of light be wrong? Is that possible? It certainly conflicts with direct observation and established physical principles – of this universe. Yeah – that could the problem right there. Modern physics allows for the possibility of alternate realities – different universes that are similar to our own, yet differ in some critical way. For example, in another universe, this blog has quite a fan base. It’s also possible, that is some corner of the multiverse, there is a universe in which the sun and stars rotate around a stationary Earth. Yes – quite possibly in some other universe. In ours, however, those galaxies don’t revolve around little, old, but still VERY IMPORTANT, us.

So I ask how dumb dead matter and dumb dead light arrived at the system called vision without the input of intelligence.[sic] My answer (and the answer of most people) is: They didn’t. Darwinian evolutionists do not like that answer. But they cannot disprove it …” [emphasis added]

Another recent letter claimed that:

First of all, the last time I checked, evolution was still listed as a theory. Certain people in the scientific community seem to think that it has been proven as a fact.

Quotes like these from well-meaning (and likely reasonably well educated) people highlight the importance of improving science education. In every expressed opinion in favor of intelligent design, the authors demonstrate a clear and fundamental misunderstanding of science and what the words “Theory” and “Fact” mean within a scientific context.

There have also been a number of recent “pro-science” letters and opinion pieces. While well-meaning, these too have missed the mark with respect to the key misconceptions about science that lay people clearly demonstrate in their “pro intelligent design” tirades. Recently, the most cogent discussion to appear locally concerning some of the problems with the intelligent design movement appear in Dr. Albert Gapud’s piece (Don’t be distracted by intelligent design, May 25). To his credit, Dr. Gapud recounted the famous Dover trial (Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District et al.), but I don’t think he went quite far enough.

In the Kitzmiller opinion, the court concluded that it was unconstitutional to require teaching intelligent design in the public schools, saying:

The proper application of both the endorsement and Lemon tests to the facts of this case makes it abundantly clear that the Board’s ID [Intelligent Design] Policy violates the Establishment Clause [of the US Constitution]. In making this determination, we have addressed the seminal question of whether ID is science. We have concluded that it is not, and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents.

To be sure, Darwin’s theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions.

The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy. It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy.

While this court decision makes it equally difficult for fundamentalist Christians as well as radical Moslems to impose their religious ideals upon our children within public schools, citing it doesn’t do anything to educate the many ID supporters who mistakenly contend that scientists “believe” in evolution, or that ID stands as a viable scientific alternative to Evolution, or that science is or should be democratic. Let’s examine each of these misconceptions.

First, scientists don’t believe in evolution, certainly not the way that religious people have faith in God. This gets back to those words I mentioned earlier, “Fact” and “Theory”, and what they mean in a scientific context. To the lay person, facts are irrefutable truths that can be proven. The situation in science is similar, with the exception that in science, facts are simply data. They are the pieces of information that are collected through careful observation and measurement. For example, it is a fact the half-life of Carbon-14 isotope is 5,730 (plus or minus 40) years. It’s also a fact that many species that existed in earlier times are now extinct. Given enough facts (or data), scientists will attempt to organize them into a conceptual framework that describes them, and explains how they came about. These conceptual frameworks are known as theories.

Theories in science are as good as science gets. Interestingly, theories are also incapable of being “proven” in any way (google : falsifiability for the roots of this). What sets a scientific theory apart from a non-scientific explanation of things (like ID) is that real scientific theories (like Darwin’s Theory of Evolution) are capable of being proven wrong.

Since Evolution makes testable predictions, and is capable of being proven wrong, you would think this is something that should cause creationists and other “evolution deniers” to rejoice. Science provides this very elegant mechanism to get rid of bad scientific theories. Instead, however, we only hear wailing and gnashing of teeth, since creationists don’t use the only vehicle by which Evolution could be properly rejected: amass a body of independently verifiable facts that refute evolution and provide a compelling, falsifiable alternative theory. Rather than searching for a scientific alternative for Evolution fundamentalist Christians (as well as fundamentalist Muslims) use political and religious arguments and stunts that waste your taxes in their attempts to refute the Theory of Evolution.

This brings us to the second point, that ID is not a viable alternative to Evolution. There are several reasons for this, but I’ll mention just two. First, as we have seen, ID isn’t really a scientific theory since it makes no testable predictions and is therefore not capable of being proven wrong. The second main reason that ID can’t possibly replace Evolution is that it simply has no explanatory power. This is due to the fact that the central claim of ID is that we cannot know how the diversity of life came about, because the development of species on Earth was the result of an intelligent designer (but not God, someone else) that worked in some mysterious ways (but not God’s way) to bring it all about.

Theory construction in science requires that your alternative to an existing theory must account for all (or at least a large proportion of) the data that supports the theory it’s intended to replace. The classic example in Physics occurred when Quantum Mechanics replaced Classical Newtonian Mechanics. Quantum Mechanics explains everything that Isaac Newton did, but it also explains phenomena that Newton could never have considered, like what happens to matter at subatomic scales. ID doesn’t even come close to explaining anything that Evolution explains without the need to appeal to supernatural intervention. Indeed, where ID absolutely needs to provide an alternative to the mechanism of natural selection, it instead offers an empty box labelled “a miracle happened here.” It’s your prerogative to believe in miracles. Just don’t teach your special brand of miracles as science in biology classes on the Federal dime.

Finally, there’s this mistaken notion that we should teach ID because it offers a counterpoint to Evolution, as if these were two great political parties engaged in some sort democratic contest for truth. Central to this mistake is the idea that it’s somehow unfair to present only one side of a story. In this case, the side of scientists who provisionally accept Evolution is presented without any sort of rebuttal by the other side. There are a couple of problems with this way of thinking about science. First of all, it is common to present competing theories in the classroom, but with respect to Evolution, there simply isn’t any scientific competition, and there hasn’t been any for almost 150 years. There are some details that scientists argue over, but there aren’t any viable alternatives waiting in the wings. Also, this argument is also typically raised by Evolution deniers who have political rather than scientific motives, and who foist the false dichotomy of Evolution versus ID upon us in an attempt to get more fundamentalist Christianity in our public schools. Science progresses by replacing old theories that fail to account for the facts with newer ones that do. In this sense, science itself uses a sort of Natural Selection to weed out bad theories to make room for better ones.

Someday, a scientist or team of scientists may come up with an alternative to Evolution. That alternative, however, won’t be any form of ID, no matter what you call the God-Designer. It will instead be some other similarly naturalistic framework that will also cause much consternation among those who want to teach about Allah, or Yahweh, or Jesus in our public science classes. Until that alternative shows up, however, we should be teaching Evolution in publicly funded science classes, and leave religious instruction to our children’s parents and clergy.

Nobody should be required to take a neutral stance on stupidity. Indeed – here at SmugBaldy, we’re vehemently anti-stupid, so this is the sort of thing that really irks me. I had previously written a short piece about how creationists were trying to worm their way into the hall of power in Texas, and expand the role of the Judeo-Christian creation story in science classes. Here’s a bit more about how politically charged things are becoming for science education in Texas.

Teaching Evolution shouldn’t be controversial, because of the vast scientific consensus that Evolution indeed occurred, and is still occurring. Idolatrous biblical lieralists, however, are keen to point out that they don’t believe the facts of Evolution, but have instead engaged in some nifty mental gymnastics to shoehorn the geological, biological, and paleontological data into the narrow confines of their Holy Writ.

So given the controversy manufactured by evangelicals, as well as the admission last May by three of the GOP candidates that they didn’t believe in Evolution, I wondered where the remaining candidates stood regarding Evolution. It turns out that I wasn’t alone, and since the Physics Today Blog started looking at the candidate’s positions on Evolution and other science-related issues, I thought I could summarize here.

On the Democratic side, there are just two candidates that fall into the “no quibbling” category. Those are Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama. There’s no definitive statement from Dennis Kucinich. And John Edwards is something of a quibbler – wanting to believe that evolution is real, but that it’s perfectly consistent with his Southern Baptist version of Christianity.

On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee, the former Baptist Minister who raised his hand in last May’s debate to deny Evolution, later refined his denial, saying, “If you want to believe that you and your family came from apes, I’ll accept that….I believe there was a creative process.” Here, Huckabee mistakenly equates Evolution with misplaced faith, as if an evolutionary biologist’s acceptance of the results of her studies were akin to testifying at Sunday service or speaking in tongues.

Interestingly, Ron Paul, the more libertarian GOP candidate has a somewhat convoluted anti-evolution position:

“Well, at first I thought it was a very inappropriate question, you know, for the presidency to be decided on a scientific matter, and I think it’s a theory, a theory of evolution, and I don’t accept it, you know, as a theory, but I think [ it probably doesn't bother me. It's not the most important issue for me to make the difference in my life to understand the exact origin. I think ] the creator that I know created us, everyone of us, and created the universe, and the precise time and manner, I just don’t think we’re at the point where anybody has absolute proof on either side.

Also on the GOP side we have Giuliani taking a reasonably pro-evolution stand, while John McCain and Mitt Romney are apparently in John Edwards’ “quibbler” camp.

McCain said:

“I believe in evolution,” Sen. John McCain said. “But I also believe, when I hike the Grand Canyon and see it at sunset, that the hand of God is there also.”

While Slick Mitt has a bit of a loopy view of the relationship between science and religion:

“True science and true religion are on exactly the same page,” he said. “they may come from different angles, but they reach the same conclusion. I’ve never found a conflict between the science of evolution and the belief that God created the universe. He uses scientific tools to do his work.”

You may wonder whether it makes any difference what the various candidates position is on the Teaching of Evolution. I think it does for the simple reason that we live in a world that is driven by science and technology, and any President that is not a knowledgeable consumer of scientific information or cannot adequately evaluate scientific information when making policy decision is guaranteed to be a bad one. Indeed, MSNBC’s Alan Boyle quotes Science’s editor-in-chief, Donald Kennedy, who said:

“We need to know the candidates’ qualifications for understanding and judging science, and for speaking intelligently about science and technology to the leaders of other nations in planning our collective global future. I don’t need them to describe their faith; that’s their business and not mine. But I do care about their scientific knowledge and how it will inform their leadership.”

I completely agree. I don’t really care if a candidate believes in Noah’s sons riding flying dinosaurs, but I don’t want him or her driving the bus if they can’t speak intelligently and accurately about scientific matters without quibbling.

Guess we’re not rejecting evolution today. Ain’t science grand?

Indeed, OE puts the power in student’s hands”

We believe that today’s students are smarter than for which [sic] they are given credit and that rather than being told what to believe, they have the ability to explore the range of possibilities and figure out what to believe on their own.

Presumably, from all this exploring the range of possibilities and communication of student’s views, some sort of truth will emerge, much as Shakespeare’s works were expected to emerge from having a bunch of monkeys typing on computers. Much like the flawed infinite monkey theory, what you get on Overwhelming Evidence looks a lot like something excreted from a monkey.

Case in point, is this post on Respectful Insolence, about a looney OE post about the Steorn Infinite Energy Machine. Hmm … infinite energy, from nowhere. If that sounds familiar, it should, because the idea of infinite energy has been around forever. Recently, we had a huckster here in Alabama touting his own perpetual energy car. That a ID blogger would fall for an infinite energy scam, claiming that it not only shows that current understanding of thermodynamics is completely wrong, but that it somehow supports the religious “theory” of intelligent design, is enough for Orac at Respectful Insolence to conclude:

However, the stuff posted there is so out there, so idiotic, that I’m still not entirely sure that OE isn’t a huge hoax put on by “materialists” in order to mock ID creationists!

Now, there’s a conspiracy worth theorizing about.

Again, I ask, when did it get to be a good and acceptable thing in this country to be so fucking stupid?

My response:

You know, to me it’s tempting to fall into the trap of calling evolution deniers stupid. But it’ a trap, after all. I think there’s more to it than that – maybe something about finding comfort and safety in religion within a world that offers mostly violence and confusion. Certainly, the notion that magical gods and demons share our reality is nothing new. What I’m constantly in awe of is how seemingly rational people could take these ideas seriously in the 21st century. But that’s another trap, I believe. As a scientist, I reject the idea that the world is populated with magic. To a religious person, accepting this is usually an entrance requirement.

As an aside, I heard an interesting discussion this AM about the newest tactic in the “anti-evolution” crusade: Challenging the theory of Evolution on its scientific merits.

Boy, that made me laugh. The whole point of ANY real scientific theory is that it could be falsified - given the right evidence. Good theories generate testable hypotheses that, if actually tested, could lead to the rejection of the entire theory. Evolution is no different, so I find it interesting that the anti-evolution camp would consider stooping to using the scientific method to discredit a scientific theory.

Of course, rejecting a theory like evolution wouldn’t be easy – since it’s not enough to point out where the predictions it makes are wrong. You have to have to provide a viable, scientifically testable theory to replace it. And just as the case in which Quantum Theory replaced classical mechanics, whatever you come up with as the replacement for Evolution needs to account for all the predictions that can be made under evolution as well as account for it shortcomings. To my knowledge, there’s no viable replacement from the anti-evolution camp. Let’s take “Intelligent Design” for a little walk, shall we:

Scientist Q: Is Intelligent Design a Scientific Theory?

ID Proponent A: Yes.

Scientist Q: What testable predictions or hypotheses does it make?

ID Proponent A: Umm … none. But it explains everything. [Hands begin to wave]

Scientist Q: How’ that?

ID Proponent A: Right here in the process model, in the little box labelled “Insert flashy miracle here”. [Hand waving is blindingly fast]

Scientist Q: What evidence could disprove ID?

ID Proponent A: Well, if God were an idiot, I guess that would do it. But he’s obviously not an idiot.

Scientist Q: What makes you so sure?

ID Proponent A: Ooh – look at this snowflake. How could an idiot come up with something so pretty?

Scientist Q: You want us all to drink that purple cool aid, don’t you.

ID Proponent A: Only uppity know-it-alls like you.