The sci is falling, the sci is falling

Chicken Little has a sigh attack

'Donald Kennedy in Science 12/16/05, in an editorial about science education, warned about terrible consequences if science educators don’t help students think critically about things like intelligent design:
"Second, the future of the world is at stake! That’s not melodrama.''

Quotes and comments;

1. Yes it is Mr. Kennedy. Exclamation points are always melodrama. Your little song and dance is as phoney as a TV soap opera. There are more scientists every day, and their numbers are increasing rapidly. (Think of china alone.) The idea the world is in danger from a lack of scientists is just another silly bit of Darwinian melodrama. Just one more bit of slander; just one more bit of play acting.

2. How it helps 'science' to insist students accept the fallacies of Materialism I don't know. (Materialism is utterly bankrupt as a philosophical view; it's been refuted by almost every philosopher down through the centuries. It's recent resuscitation is a reactionary event; more political than philosophical. But if an atheist is honest he must be a materialist, and so he must adopt an utterly fallacious world view... and simply pretend that it makes sense, pretend that he can build an integrated view of things based on it's absurdities and impossibilities.)

3. "In addition to full-time scientists, we need educated citizens who can think critically about the science and technology choices so prominent in contemporary political life."

- Kennedy tells us he wants citizens who can think critically. I find that to be a farce. If this is what he wants why does he demand people just accept whatever he says? (To accept whatever the educational elite says about evolution.) That makes no sense. Perhaps Kennedy should take a course in logic.

- and who are these 'citizens' who must think critically? That makes no sense in terms of materialism, as thoughts are just chemical reactions and man has no freedom in any event. Maybe Kennedy can tell us how chemicals can not only 'think' but think 'critically'.

- if man is just an animal why should he behave rationally or properly or in the way the pc elite think he (or it) should? Evolutionary theory can't provide a foundation for any of the things Mr. Kennedy wants. He's playing the game of ignoring (and defying) his premises when he argues. In other words he has to deny evolutionary theory when he makes his plea and his argument. He can't argue from evolutionary premises; but must borrow concepts and terminology from theism.

4. "If the electorate distrusts science and doesn’t understand how scientists explore and interrogate the natural world, how will they vote on issues ranging from stem cell research and global climate change to the teaching of intelligent design in our schools?"

- It's not 'science' the electorate distrusts it's scientists.

5. It's utterly pathetic the way creationists (or even mere critics of evolutionary theory) are now being blamed for every other problem on the planet. (Have these people no integrity at all? And where are all the editors who are supposed to keep writers honest and fair?)

Notes;
1. Evolutionists are being disingenuous when they speak about the need for critical thinking in their students.
- do the schools teach critical thinking? teach logic? For the most part no. So much for the great desire to have students engage in critical thinking :=)
- does forbidding any criticism of evolutionary theory sound like a concern for critical thinking?
- Educators like Sloan Wilson (see my post 'The art of manipulating students') have been busy devising programs for forcing students to accept evolutionary teachings. A great many papers have been written recently on how you can deceive and manipulate students into getting them to accept evolutionary doctrine. Does that sound like a concern for critical thinking?
3. All this hysteria reminds me of Jonathan Swift;
"I hope no reader imagines me so weak to stand up in the defence of real Christianity, such as used in primitive times (if we may believe the authors of those ages) to have an influence upon men's belief and actions. To offer at the restoring of that, would indeed be a wild project: it would be to dig up foundations; to destroy at one blow all the wit, and half the learning of the kingdom; to break the entire frame and constitution of things; to ruin trade, extinguish arts and sciences, with the professors of them; in short, to turn our courts, exchanges, and shops into deserts..." ('On Abolishing Christianity')