Another commenter at Dembski's blog tries to answer my post about engineers and evolution. Here is the statement he quotes from me:
Of what possible relevance is engineering to evolutionary biology? The average engineer likely doesn't know the difference between a species and a speculum. Why would anyone think that they speak with any more authority on evolutionary biology than they do on art history or the art of the zone defense?... An engineer has no more legitimate authority to speak on evolutionary biology than a certified mechanic or a culinary school graduate.
And GilDodgen replies:
In other words, one may not critique the claims of evolutionary biology without being an evolutionary biologist, or at least without undergoing special training.
No, that isn't what I said. What he's missing is the word "authority". I didn't say that only evolutionary biologists can speak intelligently on the subject of evolution. How could I say that? I am not a biologist and I speak intelligently on the subject. But no one puts out lists of freelance writers who dissent from Darwin, because no one would consider freelance writers an authority on the subject. My point is not that an engineer can't speak intelligently about evolution, it's that they have no claim to being an authority on the subject (any more than I do) and such lists are compiled solely as appeals to authority.
An engineer or a physicist or a mathematician may understand evolution quite well; or they may not. The fact that they are engineers or physicists or mathematicians, however, has no bearing on whether they do or not (just like a chef or a mechanic may well understand evolution and be able to make good arguments about it, but not because of their credentials either). But the DI's list is not an argument, it's just a list of alleged authorities whose opinions on the subject are suposedly established by their credentials - and their credentials, their training, has no more to do with evolution than culinary school or cosmetology school for that matter. As an appeal to authority, which is all such a list is, their credentials are no more a sign that they understand evolution than the color of their hair or the cut of their jib.
He then makes the following absurd statement:
This is not the case, for the simple reason that evolutionary theory is such a soft "science" that any reasonably intelligent person can very easily and readily grasp all the salient points and implications of the evidence.
This statement could only be made by someone who clearly doesn't grasp the issue at all. Oh, I know everyone and their brother thinks they understand evolution, but that doesn't mean they do. In order to understand just the three or four most basic lines of evidence for evolution - say, the fossil record, molecular sequence homologies, endogenous retroviruses and anatomical phylogenetics - would require understanding several distinct fields of science at least reasonably well.
If you don't know the successional order of appearance of plant and animal species in the fossil record, you can't possibly understand the evidence for evolution. If you don't know the difference between allopatric, sympatric and parapatric speciation, you can't possibly understand how new species split off from old ones. If you don't understand concepts like gene duplication and cooption, you can't possibly understand how mutations can result in the formation of new traits. If you don't have at least a basic knowledge of genetics, you can't understand how a virus can insert itself into the genome and become fixed. None of these things are impossible to understand for a layman; I understand them all quite well. But it takes some real study and effort to understand them. Contrary to popular opinion, you can't just read a few creationist pamphlets and understand evolution.
In fact, I'd love to do an experiment. I'd love to take a whole bunch of anti-evolution types who think they understand evolution and have them all take the final exam for a basic undergrad intro to biology course. I'd be willing to bet that a huge portion of the folks who think they understand evolutionary biology well enough to claim it's completely false and all the biologists in the world are wrong, would fail even a basic undergrad biology exam. Heck, I'd bet a large portion of them couldn't even pass an AP biology exam for high schoolers.
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I don't seem to remember intro to bio to have been that hard of a class, I didn't buy the book and only attended four of the classes and still got a B+ on the final. But it would still be an interesting experiment.
Indeed, an excellent idea. About 3 years ago I dreamt up the idea of cutting evolution opponents off at the knees by pulling out a Bio 101 final exam and suggesting that since the opponent knew less than a freshman who's taken this first, single, class, maybe they should be a little less confident they know better than the experts.
Problem is, I swore off arguing with Creationists and other idiots about 5 years ago, for simple cost/benefit reasons. Won't work, you can't argue rationally against a person suffering the mild insanity of religion, but a cool idea nontheless.
Is there any way to conduct your experiment?
As an online exam, even if they only read the exam, they would wonder about some of the terms and questions. If the answer key was available somewhere, as links where they looked up the answers, the anti-evolution types would be forced to learn something about evolutionary theory. If the answer key referenced papers from the literature all the better.
What would the analogous ID test look like?
Weird coming from Dembski's blog; he claims authority on "information theory," but hasn't displayed any. Information theory, of course, is the purview of electrical engineers.
I've got a ready-made exam. I just had my third test of the semester in BIO-100 (Great Experiments in Biology a.k.a. Intro to Bio for non-Bio majors). My professor said that we could send him questions that he might put on the test. This was the result. Some of the questions are repeated and a couple of the answers are incorrect (the correct answers are bolded, so it's not like we could send the link to DaveScot and see what he scores), but it's a good starting point.
http://tinyurl.com/le3w6
Link goes to a .pdf. Tell me if you can't see it and I'll put it on my own webspace.
Tell me if you can't see it and I'll put it on my own webspace.
Forbidden access.....
Of course, by this standard the vast majority of people who believe that evolution occurs are also unqualified to have any opinion on the matter, so you do have a little bit of a conundrum here. (Heck, with respect to some of the modern material Darwin was clearly unqualified to write. Good thing we had Wallace...)
You have a good point with respect to people specifically claiming to have found errors or impossibilities in evolutionary theory, but this reads a little bit like an assertion of priestly authority.
http://tinyurl.com/zbb5v
Try this link.
Just Googled "evolutionary biology final exam" and found this about half-way down:
http://biomed.brown.edu/Courses/BIO48/final.s96
If you've taken evolutionary biology (for majors), it might be interesting to take it now. I've taught evolutionary biology for years and am currently writing a textbook on the subject, and I would be hard pressed to earn a perfect score on this one without cracking a book (we all emphasize different subjects, depending on our biases, and some of the questions on this exam are about subjects I don't emphasize). My guess is that somebody like DaveScott or Bill "Elmer Gantry" Dembski would be hard-pressed to pass it with a "mercy D-".
Interesting: this one (http://tinyurl.com/zbb5v) would be too easy for the majors evolutionary biology course here at Cornell. You have to ask questions in various formats, not just multiple guess, and require people to write out definitions and do some calculations, interpret some graphs, manipulate some data, etc. etc.
That said, it's still probably way over the head of the savants at Uncommon Dessert...
Just started the test but I like this
Lengthy answers will be selected against
LOL
Well of course the one I gave is easy. It's the most basic Bio course offered. Having said that, I was amazed at how much more there was to cover than I had in grade school. In my New Jersey public schools (Livingston district schools make private schools look like garbage dumps), we got primed on genetics in eighth grade (we did simple Mendelian stuff and Punnett squares), but we didn't go into evolution in depth like we're starting to do in my college Bio course.
I've taken them both and I think test 2 is closer to the mark than test 1. Test 2 should be broader and simplified, the definitions should represent more commonly used terms in evolutionary theory. I really liked question 3. I also really like questions with data, but the link to the paper should be available. I really see no problem with the test, yes it's quantitative, yes you have to think about numbers, yes you have to scratch on some paper. But you aren't being graded and you're being given all the background material in the form of papers and links to general and specific references and there is no time limit.
Yes I'm biased toward the unguided, unprovoked, unmanaged, unplanned, natural, materialistic, mechanisms (uuuunmm).
Paul wrote:
There's no conundrum at all. Most people who believe that evolution occurs also have no business presenting themselves or being presented as authorities on the subject. I would never present myself as an authority on evolution, nor would I allow someone else to present me that way without a big disclaimer that I have no formal training in it at all. Those lists of "scientists" are presented solely as an appeal to authority; there is no other possible reason to have them listed. But appealing to the authority of an engineer or a doctor on evolution is no different from appealing to the authority of a cab driver or a guitar player - their professions simply have nothing to do with the subject, so they are no more likely to understand the issue than anyone else without formal training.
Actually, I have been thinking of contacting a few people who research educational physchology about doing such an experiment. After I graduate, of course.
From the test:
Gee, I wonder....
Ed Brayton | April 5, 2006 11:17 PM
Those lists of "scientists" are presented solely as an appeal to authority; there is no other possible reason to have them listed.
Actually, it's worse than that. It is an appeal to "credentiality," where the credentials of the persons listed more likely than not have nothing to do with whether they are "authorities" in the fields for which they are being appealed to.
Sounds like the same talking-points dlamming recycled earlier. Heard from him recently?
Ed, sometimes when you haven't addressed the IDiots like DaveScot in a while, I wish you would just to shut them up. Then when you do I see it really does no good, and I feel bad that you wasted you time.
Ain't that the truth. A person could read everything Dawkins ever wrote and get a degree in evolutionary psychology and they still wouldn't necessarily understand evolution. I kind of enjoy not understanding it-- it means there's always something more out there to learn.
From personal experience (teaching introductory biology and related courses at the college level for 7 years), I can safely say that biology is seen as 'soft' and an easy course by many, yet reality often strikes hard.
The failure rate for introductory biology is typically about 10-15%, with more half of any given class being in the D-low C range, with only a handful of As. I often would hear students boasting of having taken AP bio in high school, and how they are going to get into medical school and the like, only to fail the first exam. And the number of students telling their friends that they took BI 101 to get an easy A only to do poorly or even fail the course is pretty large.
Sure, those with an aptitude for it can take the course and do very well, even without studying. But such folk are, at least in my experience, the exception. Nonetheless,there seems to be a widespread belief that biology is 'easy' despite the fact that those espousing this belief are often the least well informed. That sentiment is clearly demonstrated by reading any anti-evolution website, especially those maintained by engineers, computer programmers, etc.
I just want to say that I have my degree in Computer Engineering, and we're not all as idiotic as the DI would like you to think.
I just want to say that I have my degree in Computer Engineering, and we're not all as idiotic as the DI would like you to think.
It's been my experience that many people not only don't understand the basics of evolutionary theory but have no idea how it has been applied and impacts their everyday life. When presented with results, people I spoken with generally change their tune. Perhaps introductory (nonmajors) level courses could include basic theory and application while upper level and majors courses concentrate on theory and the big unpronounceable words.
"You have a good point with respect to people specifically claiming to have found errors or impossibilities in evolutionary theory, but this reads a little bit like an assertion of priestly authority."
Posted by: paul
No, it's assertion of authority of training, education and practice. I don't see how anybody could mistake that assertion with one of 'priestly' authority.
What would you think of somebody dismissing an engineering degree+work experience as 'priestly authority'?
slpage: I chalk it up to the lack of math involved in Bio. College freshmen have been playing with BORING numbers for four years. The last thing they want is more physics or chemistry.
Sorry for the repeat. I managed to drop this in the wrong thread before.
OK, I've put the Intro to Biology test pointed to by "FishyFred" into a version you can link people to here.
I'm a bit uncomfortable with it. Here's what I've put as a sort of disclaimer at the top:
Welcome These test questions were collected from students in an introductory biology course. There are some problems with these questions, as there are repetitions and some of the questions were provided with incorrect answers. Also, the position of answers in the lists is not well randomized. Simply by choosing the usual 'right answer' position known to the most adept multiple-choice test-takers every time, you can score about ten points above chance expectation. The source was provided by FishyFred at Dispatches from the Culture Wars. If you don't do well on these questions, I suggest taking up gardening or basket-weaving.
In looking at it some more (verifying that I transcribed all the answers just as they were on the PDF), there's a fair number of just plain dubious questions on this thing. Someone answering is actually taking a fair bit on the test as recognizing student misconceptions and trying to match what answers they would give.