Not only is it afraid of contrary ideas, but it will not hesitate to use the full force of its authority and (public-funded) resources to prevent some ideas from even being made available to others.

By transforming dissenting ideas into “threats to national security” through deliberately contrived labyrinths of semantics, not only do they impose their view (unopposed), but they use our money to put down anything which could even engage public discussion and opinion.

From issues of Darwin, to George Galloway, the conservative-minded leadership has demonstrated more than a minority effect on what remains of Canadian democracy.

Young earth creationism is the belief that all things in the bible are literally true. Intelligent design is based on Aristotle’s notion that all things have a specific purpose, and thus God intervenes in the development of organisms in the physical world. Theistic Evolution is the idea that despite random mutation, natural selection and laws of inheritance explaining the natural causes of life’s origins and development there is ultimately a purpose to creation given by God. It is the WHY of existence, rather than the HOW. What distinguishes theistic evolution from the intelligent design movement is the recognition that it is not science, but merely a hope and a promise, that simply cannot be verified empirically. Theistic evolution therefore has nothing to say on the mechanics of evolution.

“(1) Toting up the begats gets you to 6000-8000 years, first off, if you take into account the lifespans claimed.”

Um, really? Ussher thought 4004 BC (based on the Hebrew text), and I gather the other date is 1500 years earlier, based on the Septuagint. Have you toted up the begat’s yourself? It’s not true that “this yields only the biblical account of the age of the human race, not the age of the universe,” since, as you know, God created Man on the 6th day. October 28th, to be precise.

(2) Creationists don’t, per se, believe in an omnipotent and omnibenevolent creator, just in a creator. E.g. Zoroastrians believe that the world was created by a bad creator.

(3) No sciences were pioneered by creationists, because the term didn’t exist. Anyway, it’s irrelevant today, because the whole point of science is that it has to be compatible with itself: it develops. I’m sure Stephen Hawking would be a perfectly legitimate creationist if you transported him back to 1650 AD and too away all the things he and we have since learned about reality. The only problem is that he would no longer be Stephen Hawking.

(2) Most creationists believe in a creator because of scripture, yes. However the following points about said creator being omnipotent and omnibenevolent are from Aquinas building on Aristotle. You asked what creationists believe and on what basis. I answered.

(3) The point about seismology and all the other sciences pioneered by creationists was not that these sciences suggest the truth of creationism. Rather, the logical conclusion is that creationism does not preclude one from being a perfectly good sciencist (and hence probably also a perfectly good minister of science) and neither does good science seem to cause problems for those who believe the Bible literally. If anything, the historical record suggests the opposite.

By the same token, as per your examples, geometry does not pose problems for a believer in transmigration of souls, architecture does not give Egyptian polytheists the vapors, and economics is not antithetical to Protestantism. Capische?

People used to do interesting work in the Social Sciences, but now it’s career suicide to do anything that advances actual knowledge or the interests of our society. You will find most empiricists absolutely detest the social “sciences” and don’t think that they should be funded in any way. We shouldn’t give any funding or student loans for arts courses, only for science, engineering, math, and business. When Liberal and Fine Arts want to contribute positiely to society instead of tearing it down, then maybe they should be given support.

I don’t quite follow the “Jesuit seismology” line of argument. By that rationale, the truth of Pythagorean theorem would reflect well on the transmigration of souls; architecture would be an endorsement of Egyptian polytheism; economics would be Protestant; etc. The fact that Thomas and Copernicus were creationists (not that the word existed at the time) has nothing to do with creationism in the modern world. Einstein had long eyebrows.

And as for the Jesuit science, if you google it you will quickly discover that seismology is referred to this way owing to the fact that it was pioneered by Jesuit priests…also creationists.

Actually from talking to my colleagues, I think Wells is probably just ignorant. It seems to be a common misconception that Christianity and creationism require belief in the “young earth” hypothesis and in geocentrism. Wells should probably get out and meet a creationist or two before writing about them; it might open his eyes and his mind a little bit.

Second, his qualifications are not being questioned because of his religious beliefs, they’re being questioned because he doesn’t “believe” in a fundamental principle of modern science.

Question, which I’ve posed elsewhere, but what the heck: If one believed in the virgin birth of Jesus, or that he rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven, I presume that would DQ that person from the post of science minister, using your standard – after all, neither of those things can be accepted using any sort of scientific standard, right?

Goodyear’s remarks (and his subsequent qualifiers on CTV) have done nothing to build confidence that he is competent in this position. Perhaps he needs better deputies and assistants? Perhaps he is dismissing their advice? Who knows?

My question is about the motive of the journalist. Has every such Minister been asked that question, or only those who might be good targets to get “tripped up”? It sounds to me like Mr. Goodyear was being set up, based on possible religious views. How come nobody in this blog sees a possible infringement of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms here?

And which of the many evolutionary theories is Mr. Goodyear supposed to adhere to? If he did side with one, would all the “experts” of the other camps want him expelled anyway? Darwin himself believed in a Creator behind it all (as he implies multiple times in “On the Origin of Species”–which I’ve read cover to cover), but spoke about “possible” processes to explain diversity of life. Since genetics has been discovered (after Darwin’s publication), much of what he taught has been proven to have no mechanical method. So if a Minister of Science believed in Darwinism, should he be ousted?

This can all become nothing different from a “witch hunt”. So let’s stop panicking, and let’s let the man do his job. And if he does it in a way that represents Canadians well (even if he holds different personal views), then he should be left alone. If his personal views end up affecting his proper functioning in the job, then we can deal with it at that time. Anything before that is a form of prejudice, and I don’t want to see Canadians base their judgments on that approach. The character attacks coming out in many blog comments are close to or already crossing that line. Ben Stein is right!

Also, what exactly is the “Jesuit science of seismology”?

Peter

Before a non-scientist starts making sweeping statements about how modern physics is incompatible with creationism, he ought to consider (a) what creationists actually believe, and (b) that modern physics (and astronomy, and chemistry, and biology, and the Jesuit science of seismology, etc.) was largely developed by creationists. Treating the worst version of your opponent’s argument as the only version is weak, as well as either ignorant or intellectually dishonest.

1. Four of the six Steacie winners were born in other countries: USA, Sri Lanka, Egypt, and Denmark. Ditto for one of the three Herzberg Prize nominees: UK.

2. We did discuss funding for basic research with the PM. Although he was a bit surprised by our concern on this topic (perhaps he wasn’t aware of the scope of concerns felt by rank-and-file scientists), he did seem to be interested in what we had to say. Perhaps progress will be made.

Andrew

Of course, this would also include the freedom to hold the idea that someone who doesn’t believe in evolution is not qualified to be Minister for Science and Technology.

Puhleaze.

the others have demonstrable capacity to weigh information and make credible decisions

Who gets to judge whether decisions have been credible? Oh, yeah, that would be you. I get it.

2. You clearly were suggesting that they didn’t produce useful knowledge when you said: “what you think were the top 10 advances in social science over the past generation, and the redounding global benefits thereof.” That is why you are back-pedaling right now.

3. I don’t think anybody is arguing that the social sciences are more important than the hard sciences. The SSHRC (Social sciences and humanities research council) has a budget of 312 million dollars (according to their website). The NSERC (National Science and Engineering Research Council) budget is 1.034 billion dollars. In addition there are other funds that fund research, primarily of the hard science type, for instance, Advantage Canada, subsidies to Bombardier, most military research, etc. The balance already reflects your preferences quite strongly.

4. So because we had a recession, all economics is useless? By your wonderful logic, physics is useless because we don’t have flying cars yet. Many economists warned against sub-prime lending and derivatives in general (how do you have a commodity with no basis on which to valuate it). Insofar as there is a gap in our knowledge, that is hardly a reason to fund economics LESS. The big picture is that the 20th century has seen the most rapid economic and productivity growth in human history. Part of that is attributable to a better understanding of how to make the economy grow.

The scary thing is that I’m not sure some of these aren’t already in place….

I’ll agree on the strong system being important, but who the minister is and what they believe is far more important than you allow for. Just think of the elation among career foreign service people when Bush et al (Condi, Cheney etc) finally left.

And don’t tell me, you’re in economics? That’s the thing, everyone thinks their chosen/preferred field is the most important, and more deserving of funding, but what about the other 95% of the social sciences? As I said elsewhere, for the umpteenth time, I’m not saying the social sciences aren’t important, and don’t produce knowledge that is useful. I’m commenting on the argument that social sciences/humanities need more government funding, which I seem to think means less for other academic disciplines (or at least an opportunity cost). It’s on the relative importance of the social sciences, which I tend to think is much exaggerated by social scientists and their biggest fans, despite all the wonderful work economists have been doing lately.

Certainly lifesite thinks Harper is no friend to them, and I recall reading an article by Harper’s ex-girlfriend expressing surprise at the notion he was a fundy.

This outcry is shrill culture war crap from people that want a science minister to be like them. Bush was similarly attacked for “destroying science” over the stem cell research issue. Yet government funding of research and development did not go down, and productivity growth (the best measure of scientific output being translated into economic reality) was the highest ever. If the Harper Tories start proposing teaching creationism (which they can’t because of federalism), or taking away funding from scientists that believe in evolution, then your argument might be something other than, essentially, intolerance. Until that happens, you sir, are a jerk.

Incidentally, I DO think Protestants would benefit from a theological conversion to the Catholic (ca. John Paul II) viewpoint: the creation story is not literal, and indeed God works in many mysterious ways. When we see consistent regularities – laws – in the world of nature it should affirm, rather than dis-confirm our faith.

Firstly, it is difficult to identify specific improvements stemming from the social sciences because “discoveries” are usually somewhat hotly contended, and not tangible. Nonetheless one can find some excellent candidates (primarily from economics). Generally, it takes more effort to produce a discovery, but the impact of such discoveries is far greater than any old widget. Over the course of this century the social sciences have enabled decision-makers (public and private) to make better predictions, better analysis of data, and ultimately better decisions.

-Rational expectations and the de-bunking of the Philips curve: In the 1960′s it was widely believed that inflation and unemployment have a strict relationship with one another. Governments can promote full employment while accepting some fixed level of inflation. However, this was incorrect. The issue was that prior to the 1960′s long-run inflation was close to zero, whereas in the 60′s it was persistent. People’s expectations changed and accounted for the persistent inflation, breaking down the Philips curve relationship – now low unemployment caused ACCELERATING inflation. This discovery enabled governments to eliminate inflation in the early 80′s, obtaining price stability that we still enjoy to this day.

-Keynesian macroeconomics: Keynes debunked a lot of things, among them Say’s law (the idea that supply creates its own demand). We are better off because of Keynes in the same sense that it is generally not optimal to starve one day and gorge the next – government action in smoothing the business cycle has prevented another Great Depression.

-Arrow’s impossibility theorem: This one is from political science – Arrow proved that given at least 2 people and three preferences, it is impossible to design a social welfare function for that population. This is relevant to a lot of things, among them, design of electoral systems. There is no socially optimal electoral system (try telling that to the fair vote folks).

-Collective action theory: Mancur Olson’s landmark book largely came out with the conclusion that collective action problems are worst in instances where there are many players, but less bad when there are a few major players. This is conceptual but has had a lot of applicability to other fields.

-New institutional economics: building on Coase, these guys helped shift the debate from functionalist and naive assumptions about how actors operate within organizations to more cynical and realistic ones. In other words, assume workers don’t do what they are told, but rather, maximize utility (sometimes by shirking their duties) within an organization.

-Extensions of game theory/rational choice theory: experiments and such have yielded a number of discoveries related to game theory that are useful to know (and have real world applications). Among them: people are more likely to “defect” in a game with a fixed endpoint; reciprocity is generally the most optimal strategy; communication between groups, perfect information, and the ability to make rules improves outcomes; people value what they have more than gains, etc. We are much better at modeling how actors will behave, given certain assumptions than was historically the case.

-Duverger’s law: first-past-the-post systems will result in two-party systems (although regionalism complicates this somewhat). This is a useful fact to know when establishing constitutions in new democracies.

-Countless advances in statistical theory: These are too many to list, and many are fairly recent. Social network analysis, time series techniques, hierarchical modeling, seemingly unrelated regression, two-stage least squares regression, and so on. Political science, though the poor stepchild of the social sciences has produced some of these too. We tend to have very different data issues from the other social sciences (particularly in international relations), so we are in a good position to push the frontier of knowledge out further (though in Canada there is too little emphasis on methods in political science).

-Countless advances in case study techniques: how do you analyze situations where you just have a few cases, or where you want to find the underlying causal mechanisms? This is a problem also of relevance to many actors in many fields, and we know a lot more about how to construct good case studies than we did a hundred years ago.

-Economic growth theory: this one is still evolving, and probably always will still evolve, but nonetheless we have a much better sense of the kind of policies that will ensure a growing economy than we did 100 years ago. Solow’s growth theory emphasized increases in labour and capital. Others brought in human and social capital, as well as innovation. Guys like Barro, North and Weingast are in the process of bringing institutions into the story as well.

There are countless other areas where the field is still debating matters, but once resolved, will provide considerable benefits to mankind. In my own field, international relations, for instance: Are democracies less likely to go to war with each other? Are shared national assemblies or greater decentralization most likely to prevent civil wars in ethnically fractured countries. How can we provide global public goods in the absence of a hegemon? Of course other people work in policy fields and answer more practical questions, like say, what kind of flood policy is most likely to benefit Montana.

So Olaf, please don’t mistake your poor understanding of the achievements of the literature, with a general failing of the field.

good point ;-)