Can We Agree To Disagree? No!

It's only been recently that I've heard people actually use the expression "We can agree to disagree!".  Before that people disagreeing didn't require any sort of statement because what was usually happening was two people arguing about something inconsequential and couldn't find a way to end the argument, so without stating it, they would simply drop it.  The key for me was that it was always something inconsequential, like two fans of different sports teams or an opinion of a movie or restaurant.  Both parties recognized not only were they never going to agree, but whatever they were arguing about was really nothing important.

According to Wikipedia the phrase actually has a long history, much longer than I had realized, dating back the to 1770:

"There are many doctrines of a less essential nature ... In these we may think and let think; we may 'agree to disagree.' But, meantime, let us hold fast the essentials"

Note the phrase 'less essential nature', in other words 'inconsequential.  The problem is that when I hear the phrase being used, it's not an inconsequential argument.  As I said previously the argument would end without having to declare agreeing to disagree.  But nowadays when I hear it, it's taken on a very different connotation for me.

There is an example in this blog, you might remember a commenter named 'Rory'. He responded to one of my posts: "Intelligent Design, Sh** or get off the Pot!", in it he claimed  . . . well, here is his comment:

"Actually, an increasingly large percentage of today's scientists believe in an intelligent designer of the universe and life, and this is now an established one way trend. To understand this turn of events, including perspectives of many leading scientists, see Intelligent Design vs. Evolution — The Miracle of Intelligent Design."

The link is to a webpage of his own which didn't do a very good job of making his case that 'an increasingly large percentage of today's scientists believe . . .'.  I didn't respond in a comment, but drafted a separate post: "In response to a comment".  In my response I went searching for independent confirmation of Rory's claim:

• I visited the Discovery 'Institute' (D'I') to see if they showed a significant increase in signatories to their anti-evolution petition -- which they did not.
• I also checked out the Biologics 'Institute' (D'I' private pseudo-lab) to see if they were publishing anything supporting Intelligent Design -- which they had not!
• I searched on Pub Med to see if there was an increase in the number of Intelligent Design-friendly papers being posted and used for further research -- and found none.
• I also hit several secular and non-secular universities to see if ID appeared in their curriculum -- which it has not.
• Finally I reviewed Rory's link and found it to be mostly quote-mines and showed a severe lack of scholarship and hardly any research at all.

Bottom line, Rory had absolutely nothing to support his claim and I said so in my response post. Of course he had to respond and before repeating some of the same stuff over and over again, he started his long-winded response with:

"Thanks for your comments and rebuttal. We can agree to disagree."

So, can we really 'agree to disagree'?  At the time I said 'Yes, we can', but the more I hear the phrase, the more I realize that we cannot.  I see two reasons, the first is that 'agreeing to disagree' is a tacit agreement that the arguments being made are equivalent.  My second issue is that such arguments are not about inconsequential things.

Arguments such as the one with foolish Rory was about Science and scientific methodology.  Rory was in it to praise his version of a deity.  Since that is something not addressed by science or any rational scientific methodology, Rory was doing nothing but preaching and using lies and distorting other people's words (quote-mines) to do so.  How can anyone agree to disagree when faced with such disreputable tactics?

Arguments concerning Evolution, Vaccinations, and Climate-change are not inconsequential!  These are important areas that should not be trivialized because of one's religious beliefs.  Belief in a deity is not going to save children from getting preventable diseases, it's not going to develop cures and new medical techniques, and it's certainly not going to change how humans have impacted our environment!  That's why most Christians have no issue with those areas at all!

So I have come to the conclusion that when someone says "We can agree to disagree" really means they have lost the argument and are looking for way out without having to actually concede.  In recent conversations, the people who uttered that ridiculous phrase seem to be trying to equate their complete lack of factual support with the opposition's facts and evidence.  But, it doesn't work that way.

My example of Rory should how little factual support he had for his arguments, so he tried the 'agree to disagree' BS.  No, I do not agree to disagree, particular when your arguments are based on lies and distortions.  Bring the evidence that supports your arguments and then we can discuss.  If you have no evidence, don't expect me to let you off the hook by agreeing to disagree.

Look at the parent who says something like "I know what's best for my child!"  In many cases that's true, but when it comes to vaccinations and medical treatment, is the opinion of a parent the same as a trained medical professional?  It's not even close!  Yet groups, like the Discovery 'Institute' (New Discovery Institute Key Word: "Intuition") keep trying to sell folks that their intuition is as good as scientific methodology!  Show me one scientific breakthrough that is based on intuition or even opinion?  Intuition and opinions do not keep buildings standing, that's called engineering and it's based on sound scientific principles.

So if you ever say to me 'We can agree to disagree' and we are talking about something more important than the NY Giants chances for the Superbowl, you can forget it -- because we cannot agree to disagree and we never shall!

Give Teachers in Texas a Fighting Change to Actually Teach Science!

My very first blog post, just over a decade ago, concerned the Great State of Texas (is Texas stepping backwards?), it was about the questionable action of firing your science curriculum head just before a science curriculum review because she did her job.  Over the years I have posted quite a bit about Texas, things like:

• The openly Creationist head of the State School Board
• Texas Governor wanting to teach Evolution and Creationism
• The Institute for Creation Research moving to Texas and trying to get permission to award Master degrees in Science (they failed).
• Two members of the Discovery Institute asked to 'help' develop science curricula by the head of the school board.
• Finally getting rid on that one avowed creationist and appointing another in his place.

Just to name a few posts.  Creationism advocates have been constantly working on turning Texas into a theocracy by any means possible.  A few years back they won a semi-victory -- they didn't win outright and get their dream of tossing Evolution completely out of the state, they did get to introduce wishy-washy terms that follow the DI's whole 'strengths and weaknesses' marketing campaign.

Well, the latest news is more positive.  The Texas School Board has a chance to remove that whole strengths and weaknesses wording from their standards.  Guess who doesn't like that idea?  The Discovery Institute (DI), of course.  Sarah Chaffee's turn to complain.  I'm sure little davey 'klingy' klinghoffer will follow-up like he usually does.  Sarah's post: "Texas Ed Board Pressured to Make It Harder for Teachers and Students to Evaluate Evolution Evidence".  I will say one thing for Sarah, when she toes the company line, she really toes that line.  Here is part of her opening:

"Amid much media and Darwin lobby pressure, the biology committee presented draft streamlined science standards in the fall. These streamlined standards removed good language from the 2009 standards that protected examination of evidence both for and against major origins issues — the fossil record and abrupt appearance, the origins of life, and the complexity of the cell."

So, according to Sarah, it's the media and Darwin lobby that apply pressure to change the science standards.  I guess the actions of the people who actually teach and work in biology doesn't matter, it's all the media's and lobbyists.  So . . . Creationists aren't being represented in the press and Creationist groups, like the Discovery Institute, aren't lobbying?  I think Sarah is doing a bit of cherry-picking here, don't you?

Here is where I think she gets a bit off track:

"The proposed change is a bad idea. Learning how to evaluate scientific explanations is a key skill needed by future scientists and citizens alike; and students are certainly capable of evaluating scientific claims under the guidance of a teacher. "

Teachers receive an education in 'Education', which includes something called Bloom's Taxonomy, which is a set of hierarchical models used to classify educational learning objectives into levels of complexity and specificity.  These models are used in everything from lesson planning to building tests and setting evaluation criteria.  In the Cognitive Domain (knowledge-based) there are 6 levels, briefly stated these are:

• Remembering:  involves recognizing or remembering facts, terms, basic concepts, or answers without necessarily understanding what they mean. An example might be to name three common varieties of apple.
• Comprehending: involves demonstrating understanding of facts and ideas by organizing, comparing, translating, interpreting, giving descriptions, and stating the main ideas.  An example - compare the identifying characteristics of a Golden Delicious apple with a Granny Smith apple.
• Applying: involves using acquired knowledge—solving problems in new situations by applying acquired knowledge, facts, techniques and rules. Learners should be able to use prior knowledge to solve problems, identify connections and relationships and how they apply in new situations.  As in would apples prevent scurvy, a disease caused by a deficiency in vitamin C?
• Analyzing: involves examining and breaking information into component parts, determining how the parts relate to one another, identifying motives or causes, and making inferences and find evidence to support generalizations. An example - list four ways of serving foods made with apples and explain which ones have the highest health benefits. Provide references to support your statements.
• Synthesizing: involves building a structure or pattern from diverse elements; it also refers to the act of putting parts together to form a whole. An example - convert an "unhealthy" recipe for apple pie to a "healthy" recipe by replacing your choice of ingredients. Explain the health benefits of using the ingredients you chose vs. the original ones.
• Evaluating: involves presenting and defending opinions by making judgments about information, validity of ideas, or quality of work based on a set of criteria. An example - which kinds of apples are best for baking a pie, and why?

As you can see High School spends most of it's time working in the first three layers of the taxonomy, which can be explained as 'Remembering, Comprehending, and Using'. Analyzing, Synthesizing, and Evaluating are much more at the upper levels of education, including graduate studies. The committee is concerned that the evaluation of scientific explanations would take too much class time and require too much detailed knowledge on the part of students -- and they are right.

Seriously, look at the level of understanding it would take to Evaluate the validity of ideas based on a set of criteria.  Sarah, and her bosses, don't really want that -- which might explained why they never seem to give us any objective criteria about ID.  Actually many scientists, real working biologists, have examined the validity of ID and dismissed it.  Maybe Sarah and the DI do want high school-ers evaluating them?

While you might not think 'Evaluating' seems too complicated, let's just look at the simply example of which kinds of apples are the best for baking.  If we ask 10 different bakers, we would probably get 10 different answers.  So how do you evaluate such a question?  Let's start with how many variety of apples are there?  My local grocery store has about 12 depending on the season.  According to Wikipedia, there are over 7500 different varieties.

Think of the process we would have to go through to answer the question.  The collection of the apples and other ingredients, the formulation of a standard recipe -- remember apple pies are more than just apples -- then we would have to bake enough pies of the apples -- but if you wanted to do it right it's not just one type of apple per pie, but most often a mix.  So how many possible combinations would we have to test?  We would then have to establish a set of criteria and find a panel to judge the pies according to that criteria.  Think of the knowledge required, skill needed, and sheer amount of time you would have to have at your disposal to perform an actual evaluation, not Sarah's 'evaluation is easy, can be done with a little guidance from a teacher', no real education level Evaluation, with the upper-case 'E'.

Now if you weren't willing to go that route, what are you left with?  The Discovery Institute's favorite methodology, intuition.  Yes, the DI is the organization of Douglas Axe who wrote 'Undeniable', a religious book explaining how intuition is as valid a scientific tool as education, experience, and experimentation.  We've written about Doug, his religious tract, and intuition a number of times, I think the most recent was here.

So let's use the same example for how high school-ers students would 'evaluate' and address the same question.  A DI staffer, maybe even Sarah herself, would get up in front of a carefully selected group of students who already buy into their apple pie concept and describe an apple pie in the loosest possible terms while watching their core student group nod their heads at every word.  No ingredients, no cooking method, no recipe, just describe the most generic apple pie with terms like round, crust, and apples and 'other stuff'.  They wouldn't even identify who baked this phantom apple pie.  Then they would say, "And those are the best apples for pie" and hurriedly walk out of the room to avoid being questioned.  Later in press releases and pontificating to religious groups, they would declare their success at answering a complex question with only their intuition.  Sound familiar?  No actual cooking, no testing, no evaluating, just words with no support at all.  And then they would start to whine and complain because no one takes them seriously!  After all, no one does.

So maybe that's part of the problem.  The DI needs to learn about Bloom's Taxonomy and realize that education isn't the idea of forming an opinion and then only listening to other carefully filtered opinions that validate it.  It's a much more complicated process, at least when you want to do it right.

Well I certainly hope that Texas does the right thing and dumps anything left over from the DI's last visit, especially the additions to their last set of science standards.  I doubt they will get rid of it all, there are simply too many Creationists on the board who think the only education is one that agrees with their narrow religious views, but hopefully the board will water down that religious influence to give science teachers a fighting change to teach actual science, as opposed to the pseudo-science variety.