Nearly Half of Americans Accept Astrology As Science

How bad is the science education in this country?  UPI is running a story about the acceptance of astrology in the United States.  It is depressing:

According to a new survey by the National Science Foundation, nearly half of all Americans say astrology, the study of celestial bodies' purported influence on human behavior and worldly events, is either "very scientific" or "sort of scientific."

By contrast, 92 percent of the Chinese public think horoscopes are a bunch of baloney.

What's more alarming, researchers show in the 2014 Science and Engineering Indicators study, is that American attitudes about science are moving in the wrong direction. Skepticism of astrology hit an all-time high in 2004, when 66 percent of Americans said astrology was total nonsense. But each year, fewer and fewer respondents have dismissed the connections between star alignment and personality as bunk.

This, once again, calls into sharp focus why we have to have good, grounded science education. While it is quite true that many people will accept something because they simply want to, despite the evidence, a good many people simply don't know better. They also don't have a good grasp on what science is and how it operates. One of the principle sections of my Anthropology 110 class opening lecture is how science is practiced and how to distinguish between hypothesis and theory. I am continually amazed at how many people get those questions wrong.

On the other hand, as far as the Discovery Institute is concerned, astrology really is science.

Representative Bloom Pushes Forward

Two days ago, I posted a story on Pennsylvania state senator Stephen Bloom's ill-advised to push a bill that would "...allow students in public elementary and secondary schools to question or critique "the scientific strengths and weaknesses of existing scientific theories.""  Today the Carlisle Sentinel has a bit more on the story.  Dave Marcheskie writes:

Bloom, R-199, has begun seeking co-sponsors of legislation that would require Pennsylvania's public schools to allow debate on scientific theories.

Bloom says his proposal, dubbed "academic freedom," would open up the classroom atmosphere so that a student or teacher could express doubts or concerns they might have about existing theories.

Students and teachers could debate current teachings on biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming and human cloning, among other issues.

Andy Hoover, legislative director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, said teachers are not qualified to go beyond the state-approved curriculum.

"Certainly, a biology teacher is in no place to discuss religious theory," Hoover said.

As it stands, Bloom's proposal would require a school to assist a teacher when addressing such "controversies" in science classrooms.

Here is the problem: before reasoned debate can occur, there has to be an understanding of what is being debated. Very few kids in high school will have the necessary background to debate the merits of evolution or cloning cogently. These are things you learn about in little more than cursory fashion in high school and then pursue in college if interested.  It is clear from his understanding of science that Rep. Bloom did not pursue them.  He has no idea what a scientific theory actually is, and he has a very great distrust of the academy. 

This is all straight out of the Discovery Institute's playbook: promote "academic freedom" legislation with the ultimate goal of pursuing a post-modern view of science in which it can be redefined to include disciplines that, using modern definitions, aren't science.  When asked whether or not astrology should be considered a science, Michael Behe, senior fellow at the DI, admitted that, well yes, it would.  If you can redefine the scientific enterprise to include things like astrology, for which there are no testable scientific hypotheses, then you can redefine it to include anything, including, obviously, Intelligent Design.  The only reason science works as well as it does is that, through its framework, it fosters testable questions which, in turn, generate theory.  Rep. Bloom does not understand this.

Gordon Glover on Alien Intervention

There is a guest post over at Science and the Sacred by Gordon Glover. It dates back to the beginning of the month and I meant to post about it then but it got away from me. Gordon is, as usual, very thoughtful in the essay as he tackles the logic of Intelligent Design, using the same tactics one of the professors on my dissertation committee used: posit something perfectly harmless and then blow it full of holes. He writes:

On the surface, Intelligent Design seems to be a perfectly reasonable approach to studying complexity. In our everyday experience, there is certainly nothing controversial about attributing the purposeful arrangement of components to an intelligent agent.

This is often the idea that sucks most people into the acceptance of intelligent design. It is the argument that William Paley made in the 1820s—that so many things in nature showed the unmistakable signs of having been designed. This is the idea that Charles Darwin reverse-engineered once Charles Lyell provided him with all the time in the world, and Thomas Malthus provided him with a biological imperative.

Gordon uses the creation of Stonehenge to illustrate the problem of admitting ID into the arena of science. Problems in explaining how the stones got where they are abound and easy solutions are not forthcoming. That does not stop modern archaeologists from using the best available science to solve the problem. So where does ID enter?

But mainstream archaeology is content to treat these knowledge gaps in our understanding of the past as simply that, and NOT as proof that primitive man had some outside help. Besides, who or what else could possibly have intervened during the building of these ancient structures?

Oh, ye narrow-minded expert! Hath not thou considered the alien? Why bias your investigation of archaeological complexity towards earth-bound engineers?

Enter the alien enthusiasts. Not the dispassionate ones who merely concede the possibility of life outside of our solar system (a viewpoint that many scientists would share), but the hardcore fanatics. You know who I'm talking about. The ones who spend their summer vacations dressed up as aliens in Roswell, New Mexico. The true believer wants the world to acknowledge not just the probability of extra-terrestrial life, but that intelligent beings from outer space have physically visited earth and made contact with mankind. So they search out the mysteries of the ancient world looking for opportunities to preach their UFO gospel. There might not be any credible evidence of UFO visitations to planet Earth, but if there are questions that mainstream archaeology can't sufficiently answer, you can guarantee that alien believers will plug E.T. into these gaps. Does this strategy sound familiar?

Why, yes it does. It is the primary strategy that is used by those promoting Intelligent Design. This is the same strategy that allows a scientist like Michael Behe, one of the primary supporters of teaching Intelligent Design, to sit in front of a judge and say that under his definition of science, astrology would qualify. Just because we don't know why something happened, does not mean that we can posit an explanation that cannot be hypothetically tested and call it science.

----------------
Now playing: Kansas - Icarus (Borne on the Wings of Steel)
via FoxyTunes

Intelligent Alien Intervention Institute

Gordon Glover has a new video on Youtube that is a complete howl. It takes on the "academic freedom" legislation to point out that, given that we should be open to teaching "the controversy," anything can be thought of as science. In this case, it is alien technology. This eerily reflects the testimony of Michael Behe during the Dover/Kitzmiller trial, in which he stated that, under his definition of science, astrology would be included.




The best part is the picture of Seattle in the background, which is where the headquarters of the Discovery Institute is located.


----------------
Now playing: David Lanz - Song for Monet
via FoxyTunes