Philosophy--Feyerabend/Intelligent Design-Evolution help

[howardfinkel]

So I've been busy from following tMg around the whole damn midwest and I have a debate tomorrow in which I have to go against Feyerabend's school of thought. I have to incorporate how his theory fails in the context of the Intelligent Design/Evolution debate. I'm going to try and offer some insight against the idea that every theory should be given equal time in the classroom. But I'm not gonna lie, I haven't researched this that well, and I can't offer much more than a really really general argument against moral relativism.

Any help would be much appreciated!

[dieblucasdie]

Well, you could make it a little less general by arguing against Judeo-Christian privelege, and pointing out that a rejection of method also means admittance of those who have a political axe to grind.

Or you could just demand that surfer dudes be given equal time in physics classrooms.

[Greg Nog]

Based on a cursory glance at this Feyeraband fellow's Wikipedia page, it looks like he's big on criticizing the way science is carried out by modern scienticians.  But Intelligent Design isn't being carried out by modern scienticians; that is, no one's taking Intelligent Design as their starting point and running with it to make new discoveries that benefit humankind.

I don't know, I'd never even heard of the dude before this thread, but my big problem with teaching intelligent design (aside: to minors, mind you, not grown smart adults who ought to be the ones arguing cutting-edge scientific theories) is that nothing practical comes of it in terms of research.

[Good Intentions]

I have trouble seeing how Feyerabend applies to the teaching of science, since science teachers aren't practicing scientists. Best of luck on that part, but you might be stretching there.

I think it's too easy to accuse of Feyerabend of having the wrong response to intelligent design, going: "Feyerabend says that everything goes, but we want to exclude intelligent design from science, so Feyerabend gets it wrong". So if you're going to stand against Feyerabend, I recommend you go "I have this response available, but it doesn't really go deep enough, for these reasons, so here's a mroe sophisticated response". The better response, as far as I see, is to do with Feyerabend's proposed democratisation of science, where he wants scientific researcgh to be accountable to the public. This means that if there is large public support for intelligent design research, then you get intelligent design research. So, in a deeply religious area, like parts of the US, you will have a compulsion to study ID, and in a country like the US as a whole, you will be compelled, by popular appeal, to split your research along 'traditional' and ID lines. Actually, worse, because the majority of religious Americans are either card-carrying Young Earthers or more sympathetic to that than to traditional science. Science would not be seperated from society the way it is now if Feyerabend gets his way, and without that seperation science can not do its own thing like it always has, and will be dragged into doing what the public wants. But what the public, or a large sector thereof, wants is ID, for reasons that have nothing to do with scientific progress, and will lead to that progress degenerating. What you'd end up with is at least two strains of sceince in the US, a technocratic one going on as it always has, and a 'folk science' or 'church science' which tries to tie laboratory results with interpretations of religious texts (like creationist science fairs currently do). This is entirely the wrong response to ID, which is why Feyerabendian anarchism should be abandoned.

[Good Intentions]

To see what a Feyerabendian folk science would be like, it's worthwhile to look at his reading of Lakatos's theory of research programmes, and the Quinean roots to that. You've got a web of belief, like Quine described them, which you can articulate into research programmes with core beliefs and a protective belt of peripheral theories (like Lakatos described). For the traditional or technocrat sciences your hard core (in a Feyerabendian reading, thing Quine would describe as being close to the centre of a web of beliefs) around which your research centres is things like the belief in the pursuit of science for its own sake, while for the church science the hard core contains the belief that the Bible is the inerrent truth of the world. These are irreconcilable and each impedes the other.

[howardfinkel]

In a hurry but damn thanks  I've got to finish up the debate on Monday and this is really helpful.

[Doctor Bob]

I have a debate tomorrow in which I have to go against Feyerabend's school of thought.

Against 'Against Method'?  Isn't that like 'For Method'?

Don't we already have a thread for that?  Light it up, roll it, pass it around.

[/crap weed joke for jeb]

[howardfinkel]

crappy day, weed joke appreciated   

So yeah now I just have to write a 3 page book review of Kuhn's SSR. If only I was interested in this subject.

[C of heartbreak]

The good Doctor isn't ON DRUGS, is he?

[Doctor Bob]

Does sugar count?  'Cause I think I ODed on it this morning- pastries at 11, followed by berry cheesecake at 11:30.

The crash is going to hurt.

EDIT: In my college-going days, a few of us kept a list of The Stoner Library.

CS Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia features, obviously, as did Descartes's Discourse on The Method.  Had I been aware of Feyerabend at the time, well...

EDIT 2: Barry has just arrived over with some left-over biscuits.  It's 6 pm.  Lovely, but how am I supposed to fit into my christmas outfit if I keep eating sweet things in mid-November?

[Andrew_TSKS]

you have a christmas outfit?

does it look like this?

[C of heartbreak]

I think Dr Bob would make an awesome Santa. Even if he was a sugar-snorting Santa. Especially if.