Thursday, May 12, 2005
Define This!
Patrick Ross, Chair of the Division of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas squared off against intelligent design activist John Calvert on KPTS, the PBS affiliate in Wichita. Here's a sample:
John Calvert: The very first proposal (in the minority draft, RSR) is to add the word “informed” to the mission statement of Kansas Education. The present proposal that the majority is suggesting Kansas use as a mission statement is to have students make quote “reasoned” decisions about, you know. Science is designed to help them make “reasoned” decisions. And we believe that a “reasoned” decision can be a horrible decision if it is not “informed.”
Host Dan Goter: Alright, is that language such…so prejudicial that it’s…
Patrick Ross: I think at that point we are arguing about semantics. I think the word that we really want to argue about and discuss in terms of these minority standards is the definition of science. There are a number of other things that we could talk about, but one thing that I think is a glaring change is the removal of the word “natural”. The removal of …that science is the search for “natural” explanations and replacing that with some other term like “logical” explanations or some other type of thing.
And I am a practicing scientist. I do research. And I’m sorry, but trial lawyers, veterinarians, and car insurance salesman do not get to determine the definition of science. Regardless of what the board of education will do in June, I will still practice science the way I have always practiced science, the way science has always been practiced.
What I think we should be informing our students is not how creation and intelligent design folks think science ought to be practiced, but the way it really is by the practitioners of that subject. We talk to mathematicians to get math standards. We talk to historians to get history standards. We shouldn’t be talking to lay people to tell us how should science be done.
John Calvert: The very first proposal (in the minority draft, RSR) is to add the word “informed” to the mission statement of Kansas Education. The present proposal that the majority is suggesting Kansas use as a mission statement is to have students make quote “reasoned” decisions about, you know. Science is designed to help them make “reasoned” decisions. And we believe that a “reasoned” decision can be a horrible decision if it is not “informed.”
Host Dan Goter: Alright, is that language such…so prejudicial that it’s…
Patrick Ross: I think at that point we are arguing about semantics. I think the word that we really want to argue about and discuss in terms of these minority standards is the definition of science. There are a number of other things that we could talk about, but one thing that I think is a glaring change is the removal of the word “natural”. The removal of …that science is the search for “natural” explanations and replacing that with some other term like “logical” explanations or some other type of thing.
And I am a practicing scientist. I do research. And I’m sorry, but trial lawyers, veterinarians, and car insurance salesman do not get to determine the definition of science. Regardless of what the board of education will do in June, I will still practice science the way I have always practiced science, the way science has always been practiced.
What I think we should be informing our students is not how creation and intelligent design folks think science ought to be practiced, but the way it really is by the practitioners of that subject. We talk to mathematicians to get math standards. We talk to historians to get history standards. We shouldn’t be talking to lay people to tell us how should science be done.
