The Human Question

[Sketch of a longer post:] Really, I mean bifocal. Science as we know it is always doing the following two things together (or at least when it is functioning well): looking at nature in terms of analogies with human agency and in terms of what can be quantified. To do just one of these two is to depart from science and, well, to embarrass oneself (and I can't do either of the two, which is even more embarrassing). 1st way of looking at nature: Mathematical p.o.v. nature as placeable within Cartesian coordinates and describable according to quantitative laws of nature. Such descriptions take atom like wholes for granted and ignore final or formal causality. Or rather you might say that they reduce formal = pythagorean shape whatever lawful description can be used, etc. Temptation is to look at material substrate as ultimately being this intert monistic stuff (sorta like pure extension of Descartes) The treat material universe monistically monistic stuff or atom. Replace ...

I am not on the ID bandwagon, but when someone like RD says that the teaching of it is harmful to the education of children, I am tempted to change the subject just a little and point out that RD does at least as much damage with his announcing that science undermines belief in God. For doing so makes science into something that it is not. It makes science look like a threat to theism when it is not, and that certainly does not motivate parents to promote the study of science. When talking about what science teaches us, he should stick to the sorts of facts that can be established through research in scientific journals.