science

Gender seems to be a hot topic these days. It's something everyone has an opinion on and there are a lot of opinions. Some of the debates range around the question, is gender part of who we are or just something society has put on us? Is gender something that is only in our sex organs?

Despite science findings that show men and women are different beyond the sex organs this debate rages on. One example of the difference is how the part of the brain that processes emotion hooks to the other parts of the brain. They connect to regions that do different things. According to livescience.com:

Do scientists and philosophers look at the world the same way you do? Each of us has a perspective, known as a worldview, that we view the world around us from. We make assumptions based on it, we make decisions based on it, and we view others and events based on it. When we accept something that is interpretive as true from someone we have to take into account their assumptions which flow from their worldview. This begs me to ask, do the leaders, like scientists, share the same worldview as us? And, if not, how does a worldview change alter the theories and truths they tell us?

Scientists make a lot of assumptions to come to the conclusions they do. Stephen Hawking calls some of his assumptions "ideological". In order to come to the conclusions scientists do they have to make assumptions to fill in holes. Some of these assumptions may be perfectly valid but there are some that are piss poor, like uniformitarianism. Let me try to explain why....

Last week, a commenter on my post about errors in our science textbooks brought up embryonic gill slit structures which is described in biology textbooks. It turns out that this is another example of a textbook error. Lets take a look at this error and what embryo experts have to say which can shed some light on this.

We have all been socially conditioned. Our parents did it when they told us to eat our vegetables and clean our rooms. Our friends did it to us when they egged us on to do one more shot at the bar. Then, in conditioned fashion, we would egg them on for the same thing and walk away thinking it was cool. We may not have all been socially conditioned the same way and for the same things but we have all been socially conditioned.

There is one area, I believe, we have been socially conditioned in a way that we often don't admit and can hinder our progress as a people. That area is in the sciences. For most of us we took grade school science and maybe a little college level. There are the exceptions that moved beyond into careers, but they too have been socially conditioned by the time they get there.

Our science textbooks are full of errors. This is something growing up and being a lover of science I never imagined. When there were things that didn't make sense to me or seemed a bit 'out there' I chalked it up to unproven theories. But, when my mom pointed out a study to me last year that showed how rampant these errors were, I was a little bit surprised. Now, I said something about this a couple days in a post and had a comment asking for the proof. Now, it's time put my money where my mouth is and show some cards. So, lets look at some of these errors.

We are all biased when we look at the world around us. No one has clear glasses. Some are rose colored, some are brown, and still others are green. These biases we have affect what we look at and how we think about it. Before we look at something new in an honestly subjective or objective way we need to accept our biases and sometimes drop them.

Our teachers, through life, have biases, too. This affects what they teach and how they teach it. Sometimes they teach something that is not the truth because they believe it so strongly. Still, others teach the truth and people won't even listen to them because of a bias.

Before we can honestly dive into something of controversy, like evolution, creation, Genesis, or God, lets look at some of the biases we have.

Digging into controversial issues brings up a number of soul searching questions. Not about the topic at hand but about how we are going to approach the topic and how we are going to look at the information at hand. This is especially true when we deal with things like creation vs. something else, where no person can show you, or will ever be able to show you, definitive proof that any of the theories posed is the truth. So, who wants to ask some tough questions of ourselves???