february 02, 2003
carefully orchestrated visceral reactions
Phillip Karlsson's random thoughts, musings, and mindless pabulum.
February 02, 2003
There'a a fun argument going back and forth about Prof. Michael Dini at Texas Tech who's criteria for writing letters of recommendation includes a scientific answer to the question "How do you think the human species originated?"

CalPundit has a good list of links of other comments about this here. He also includes a somewhat in depth explanation of possible scientific answers, or not, to the question. What he misses is the larger picture. Dini ays this criteria is for those applying to "graduate or professional school in the biomedical sciences". If someone showed up, and argued creationism as a valid scientific answer, it would demonstrate a lack of knowledge of the processes of science. Science is about generating testable hypotheses, an then testing them. A hypothesis that a super-natural all-powerful did something about 6000 years ago, isn't testable. Creationists arguments come down to refuting evolution because this all powerful being could have planted all the evidence we see of evolution.

The advantage of testable hypotheses, is that a corollary of being testable is that it can be used to make predictions about the world around us, and therefby further our knowledge of science. If a student doesn't understand that, they have no business going to graduate school to study science in any field.

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