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From: jtm@syteka.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: How to fill a vacuum
Message-ID: <496@syteka.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 18-Dec-84 21:45:49 EST
Article-I.D.: syteka.496
Posted: Tue Dec 18 21:45:49 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 21-Dec-84 07:46:09 EST
References: ihuxl.1451
Lines: 54

Creationists are filling a need of the semi-literate of this country
and the world. The teaching of rigorous analytic techniques and
adherence to honesty as an integral, and inseparable, partt of the
scientific method has been put on the shelf in our elementary and
high schools, and worst of all in our universities and colleges.
The emphasis is now on training programs which will earn the degree
candidate some big bucks at the expense of learning about the 
process of learning itself, the prime goal of the now-maligned
liberal arts curriculums. Professors are motivated not by furthering
their respective fields of knowledge but by the need to publish
something, anything, better yet something that will make them a
star. White lies are accepted as a way of holding academic
confusion at bay for awhile. What do you say to a student who
asks "what does all this mean"? You can say "no one knows, just
bang away at it for ever" or you can say "oh, it means X". So
to the befuddled mind that has gotten far too little training
in constructive thought processes, the solution is: find a label
with some ring of truth to it and hang on tight. Get a bunch of
these people together and you have a consensus that passes for
truth, at least among them. Before long you have several such
groups in a shouting match with each other over whose label
best describes the thing they all want explained. And the
search for truth is trampled underfoot.

Who are the Creationists arguing with? That is, who are the
Evolutionists? It appears we have a case of those for/those
against. If your not a Creationist, your an Evolutionist.
But evolution is simply a term for the scientific communities
current set of theories on the history of life as we know it.
(Poorly worded but to the point.) The goal of science is to
further understanding, NOT to settle on an ultimate set of 
theories. Are the Creationists aiming their scimitars at the
writings of Darwin or Mendel? Or at the institutions, private
and publicly funded, which have encouraged and aided study
which has led to the current body of works reflecting our
understanding of what has gone on in the last ten billion
years? Oh, excuse me, I guess that could be ten thousand years,
couldn't it? I've never seen a published scientist say how
old the universe is, just how old he/she is currently assuming
it is for purposes of formulating a model from which to build
and test further hypotheses. But if I'm in a corner, what the
hell: the universe is ten billion years old and life has been
gradually and uniformly progressing as static from a gigantic
washer/dryer complex in an adjacent galaxy has caused subtle
changes in electricity that cause evolution. There. Prove
there's no washer/dryer complex in some adjacent galaxy. While
you're doing that, I'll publish this theory. Might make a
few bucks and my mom'll think I'm still a good little boy.

"There can be no image of the world by which one may understand
 it. Such an image would of necessity be the world itself."
Lao-Tsu, pre-Commie Chinese proto-evolutionist/creationist.

Jim McCrae - {hplabs,decvax}!sytek!jtm