Sarah Palin and Evolution

Apparently Sarah Palin, the ex-governor of Alaska, previous vice presidential candidate, and future presidential hopeful doesn’t believe in evolution. She thinks that creationism should be taught along side evolution in science classes. Here’s the thing about creationism for those of you who don’t follow it: it’s faith, not science. The strongest forms 0f creationists believe that evolution is false, basically because it doesn’t fit in with their world view which was indoctrinated into most of them in childhood. The weakest forms accept evolution by pulling the standard “god of the gaps” routine by stating that while god didn’t create us as we are, He create the initial forms of life and guided the process of evolution. How and why? Who knows, god works in sometimes mysterious ways.

Why isn’t creationism/intelligent design (which are the same thing) science? The key attribute here is that creationism isn’t falsifiable. There is no experiment that can be performed, ever, that would falsify creationism. Evolution, on the other hand, has made hundreds and hundreds of predictions that have all been tested and verified. Those with repeatable results that didn’t fit the current theory were used to change the current theory. This is impossible with creationism, hence creationism is not science.

I’ve gotten sidetracked, but thought it was important to at least get any readers who don’t know about the creationism debate the rough brief, which can easily be verified. The point of this post is Sarah Palin’s belief in creationism, not creationism.

It’s quite clear by Palin’s statements that she doesn’t understand the process of evolution. She says that she, “didn’t believe in the theory that human beings — thinking, loving beings — originated from fish that sprouted legs and crawled out of the sea” or from “monkeys who eventually swung down from the trees.” Well Sarah, neither do people who believe in evolution. The large changes are actually the result of millions of years of small incremental changes. This points out the fundamental problem, evolution literacy, and science literacy in general, is too poor in this country.

We need a public education system that does a better job of teaching science, or even more so of teaching critical thinking. A better system of expounding the value of reason and skepticism. That imbues our children with pride in the idea that their minds can be changed with scientific evidence. This is important because the more accurately we base our decisions on reality the more likely those decisions will be fruitful. This is as true at an individual level as it is at a public policy level.

This post is very rant-like, but I get going on these things.

Word Moment: Commensurable

com·men·su·ra·ble

adj.

1. Measurable by a common standard.
2. Commensurate; proportionate.
3. Mathematics Exactly divisible by the same unit an integral number of times. Used of two quantities.

Word Moment: Propitiate

pro·pi·ti·ate

To conciliate (an offended power); appease: propitiate the gods with a sacrifice

Electoral Bias

Over at The Monkey Cage Andrew Gellman discusses a very interesting paper which analyzed precinct voting data in reference to methods of electoral districting. The basic idea is that due mainly to the tendency for Democrats to prefer urban living and Republicans to prefer suburban or rural living, any districting which is based on creating compact, contiguous districts creates a bias in the Republican’s favor. This isn’t the same thing as gerrymandering because the districting is based on arbitrary rules and any bias isn’t intentional, but it does raise important questions about how states should divide their acreage for electoral purposes.

Shit like this makes me wanna be a political scientist.

America’s Decline

In this Newsweek article, Fareed Zakaria explores the status of America as the world’s premier innovator. He takes to task the idea that somehow our culture is the predominant reason that we’ve held the status we’ve held. I’ve always felt that it was more likely that the state of the world at large, our geographical separation from Europe (especially during WWII), and our once dominant educational system had larger impacts than simply our culture and I think that Zakaria agrees here.

The first key idea here for me is that the US government used to spend significantly more money on basic research and development (as a percentage of GDP). In fact, Zakaria states that “the government’s share of overall R&D spending remains near its all-time low.”

The second key idea is about education in the US. Zakaria uses the example of California which “builds prisons, but not college campuses” anymore. Anyone who knows me well has probably heard me talk about how important I think education is and I would definitely stand for education reform and increased financing.

The overall growth in innovation from countries like China and India are on the grand scale wonderful things that we should not try and inhibit. Instead we should should try and compete in progress.

Word Moment: Rapine

rap·ine n.

Forcible seizure of another’s property; plunder.

Politifact

The more I check into Politifact the more I realize how awesome of a service it is. They won the Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of the 2008 election for “probing reporters and the power of the World Wide Web to examine more than 750 political claims, separating rhetoric from truth to enlighten voters.” What a great idea.

They take the words of pundits, politicians, and special interest groups to task and tell you on a spectrum from ‘pants on fire’ to ‘true’ how accurate those statements are. The best part is that every rating has a short article written specifically about the statement and covers the reasons that Politifact gave the rating it did. Awesome.

Another cool feature is the Obameter, a current review of all of the promises President Obama made during the 2008 campaign. Every promise is rated as either kept, compromised, broken, stalled, in the works, or unrated for promises that haven’t even gotten off the starting line. A valuable resource for keeping track at how the Obama administration is matching up to the promises that got him elected.

On a side note, a quick check on Glenn Beck’s file shows that he’s never been rated as ‘true’ or ‘mostly true’, having his highest rating as ‘false’ with ‘pants on fire’ tied for second with ‘barely true’. This guy has millions of viewers.

Word Moment: Meretricious

mer·e·tri·cious adj.

1.a. Attracting attention in a vulgar manner: meretricious ornamentation. See Synonyms at gaudy¹.b. Plausible but false or insincere; specious: a meretricious argument.2. Of or relating to prostitutes or prostitution: meretricious relationships.

Word Moment: Certiorari

cer·ti·o·rar·i

n. A writ from a higher court to a lower one requesting a transcript of the proceedings of a case for review.

Word Moment: Extirpate

ex·tir·pate tr.v.

1. To pull up by the roots.
2. To destroy totally; exterminate. See Synonyms at abolish.
3. To remove by surgery.