I am seriously curious....
 

If there is anyone here with a deeper understanding on this issue, or some insight I may be missing, please help me answer a few questions. If by chance, ID becomes a standard subject in public schools, How can it possibly be taught without reverting to religious doctrine? And after the first few hours of explanation concerning this hypothesis.....what is left to discuss?

Evolution opponent is in line for schools post

By Cornelia Dean
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Saturday, May 19, 2007

The National Association of State Boards of Education will elect officers in July, and for one office, president-elect, there is only one candidate: a member of the Kansas school board who supported its efforts against the teaching of evolution.

Scientists who have been active in the nation's evolution debate say they want to thwart his candidacy, but it is not clear if they can.

The candidate is Kenneth Willard, a Kansas Republican who voted with the conservative majority in 2005 when the school board changed the state's science standards to allow inclusion of intelligent design, an ideological cousin of creationism. Voters later replaced that majority, but Willard, an insurance executive from Hutchinson, retained his seat.

The group, based in Washington, is a nonprofit organization of state school boards whose Web site says it "works to strengthen state leadership in educational policymaking."

http://www.statesman.com/news/conten...19edboard.html

And people believe that Fundamentalism in the US isn't dangerous...

Essentially, intelligent design is an attempt to disguise the issue. See, teaching a specific religion in a public school is unconstitutional, so the intelligent design proponents simply remove any specific mention of God from the actual discourse. In His place they use an anonymous 'creator' with no elaboration.

Which would all be well and good, except that creation science, well, isn't. Science relies on the idea of falsifiable theories. A theory needs to be able to be disproved in order for it to be valid scientifically and there's simply no way to prove or disprove intelligent design short of the Almighty Himself weighing in on the issue. Therefore, whether it's swaddled in religious trappings or not, intelligent design simply doesn't belong in a science classroom.

In terms of exactly what the syllabus would cover... well, you've got me. The anonymous creator who may or may not be God as He is described in Judeo-Christian dogma created everything and nothing new can be created without His permission. The end.

I swear, mostly you bunch seem alright, but every so often something like this comes along and makes me glad I'm not a US citizen.

here is a paper i wrote last year on the subject
Intelligent design: Creationism, with ‘Sky-Yance’

There is a war going on, the war between two world views, what will be taught in our science classrooms. This war is over the origins, the origins of life, the world, and the universe. Many school districts battle over what should be taught in their science classes, on one side is evolution, on the other is “intelligent design,” so much so that the ACLU has been brought into to sue the state to have “intelligent design” removed from the classroom, because they claim, it is not a science, but religion masquerading as science.


So what is “Intelligent Design?” “Intelligent design” started in the early 1990’s with a resurgence of creationism, also known as neo-creationism. This resurgence believes that the universe and its contents are too complex to have arisen without an intelligent creator. The main driving force behind the “intelligent design” movement is the Discovery Institute, and one of their many facets is Center for Science and Culture. Their website defines “intelligent design” this way: “The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.” Now, they don’t go out and say it, but this ‘intelligent designer’ is a god or a facsimile there of; but god can’t exist within science; it just does not work. Science must be verifiable, and many intelligent designers conveniently forget this, or flat out don’t know. Because there is no way to test the validity of a god, god is based off of faith, and faith cannot be tested by science. It is perfectly acceptable to believe in a god, or a creator, but they cannot exist in the realm of science; this is not to say that there is no god, just that science can not prove or disprove a god. Many real scientists believe in a god, but they realize that it is unverifiable and must be left out of scientific theories.


Dwain Gish senior vice president for the Institute for Creation Research said on Penn & Teller: Bullshit! (14:27):
He goes on to say:
Somehow, he must have thought we would not notice the words ‘theistic supernatural,’ theology and the supernatural is not science. ‘Theistic’ is the belief of god(s) and has no room in science because it has no way of being verified by science, further, supernatural is defined as: “not existing in nature or subject to explanation according to natural laws” and is clearly not science. These people are trying to push their religion into public schools. And they are succeeding, in 2002; Cobb County was pressured into placing warning stickers into their biology text books, stating:
[quoteThis textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origins of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.[/quote]
This stems from the lack of understanding that intelligent designers have for science lexicon.


The biggest rift between real scientist and the supporters of “intelligent design” is the lexicon they use, or in the case of intelligent designers misuse. It is this fundamental misunderstanding of scientific terms, mainly the word “Theory,” that the supporters of “intelligent design” grasp at to contradict evolution. Since it is so misunderstood, here are the definitions of three very misunderstood scientific words: Hypothesis--a hypothesis is an educated guess based upon observation, used to explain an event that has not yet been explained, hypothesizes are later supported or discredited with further experimentation and observation. Theory--a theory is a way to explain a set of related observations or events based on proven hypothesizes and verified by multiple scientist multiple times, and never disproved but it also must be falsifiable, it must make claims that if found to be false at a later date can be used to disprove it self. Scientific Law--a scientific law is beyond a theory, it is a statement of fact, usually mathematical, where it has always been proven true and is simple enough to always hold true(“Theory” Wikipedia). A theory is a way of modeling how the world works, and the theory holds until it is disproved, and at that time it is taken back to hypothesis and verified, until theory status can be re-obtained. Theories are not rigid; they change as new information is learned. We can never know all there is to know, and as such we can never truly explain everything there is to explain, but we can try and that is what a theory is. It is an attempt to explain the universe. When new evidence is uncovered that disproves a theory, the theory is scrapped back to a new hypothesis, tested, and worked back to a theory. Intelligent designers have a fundamental misunderstanding of the word theory, in a scientific context; this is due to their lack of scientific knowledge, and they believe that a theory is just a guess, where it is so much more, some examples of this can be found in the previously mention episode of Penn & Teller: Bullshit! (4:20), “Evolution has not met the test and deserves only to be treated as theory” and “Darwin considered it a theory, it is still a theory, it has never been proven, and never will be.” Both dead wrong, the speakers, who were unnamed in the program, don’t grasp the word theory, a theory will never be proven as fact. Even the theory of gravity, is still, just a theory. Gravity has been shown to be consistent time and time again, it has never been falsified but it can be. Evolution has met the test; it is shown time and time again with asexual microorganisms and can be observed in fast breeding sexual organism. Now that the lexicon is taken care of we can start to explore why “intelligent design” is not a science.


Scientist as a group are not committed to a single hypothesis; they must change their minds as the evidence grows, and revise there theories. As newer and newer fossils are uncovered, the scientific views of the dinosaurs are altered and changed to fit the new evidence, but it always conforms to all the current evidence, and is the best guess as an explanation of the observations. Science is constantly changing in this way, some theories are changed slightly, when new evidence is discovered, others are completely overhauled, such as plate tectonics in the 1950’s. “intelligent design” is just the opposite; it is rigid and unchanging, it is based off of ideas, not facts, or observations, it is not tested, it is not changed when parts are found to be untrue; therefore, it is not a science.


Many people just don’t understand how science works, Chuck Colson makes this very clear in his book, Answers to Your Kids’ Questions, he states:
He misses the point entirely; he forgets that what is beyond the 5 senses is not science, in the realm of science, there is nothing beyond the 5 senses. If something cannot be tested and verified it can’t be science, and that is exactly why “intelligent design” is not science, because it cannot be empirically verified anything. Further, good science is not dependant on the scientist philosophy, it is dependant on that scientist ability to separate their philosophical views from the science and just base their research on empirical observation, wherein theology has no place; because the core beliefs of “intelligent design” can not be empirically verified it doest not belong in science Even the Vatican denounces intelligent design, Reverend George Coyne, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, has said that teaching “intelligent design” along with Evolution in a science class is wrong, like mixing apples and oranges; he went as far as saying “intelligent design isn't science even though it pretends to be.”(Vatican MSNBC) So if even the Vatican thinks “intelligent design” isn’t a science, why is it so prevalent?


Lies, deceit, and faith. “intelligent design” and creationism exist at best in the fringes of science, along the fuzzy edge; they exist by there shear determination to be heard, even though they are not truly a science, by distorting the evidence they stay afloat, and in some cases flat out lie. An example of this can be found on the Institute For Creation Research’s web page, a large proponent of “intelligent design” in a publication called Acts and Facts; we can find gems like “creation is at least as scientific as evolution, and that evolution is at least as religious as creation,”(Dr. Henry Morris III) a blatant lie, creation may in their eye be a science, but evolution is by no means a religion, it is based solely in the realm of science, and even they must know that. Also in this article, they try to dispel a common problem with creationism, the age of the earth according to the decay of radioactive elements, a rate that is constant, and has never shown to be other than constant. We can judge the age of the earth to several billion years, due to this steady rate of decay, but in accordance with their faith, the earth can only be a few thousand years old, so instead of revising their theory to this evidence, they create a theory of why the evidence is wrong.


Enter Accelerated decay ‘theory.’ It is quoted because this is the laymen’s lexicon for theory not the scientific lexicon; this ‘theory’ does not deserve scientific recognition because it is so badly postulated and full of gaping holes, that even a high schools level of scientific knowledge can debunk. The theory states that the speed at which radioactive isotopes have been decaying has decreased over time, at the earliest, the rates being around a billion times faster than there current rates (Vardiman 333). They, then, come to the ‘logical’ conclusion that the radiological dating of rocks is wrong because the speed of decay has slowed down, making rocks appear much older than they really are, on the order of magnitude of thousands of years old rather than billions, unfortunately, this ‘theory’ originated without any form of real research, or fact finding of any kind, it was just made up. If decay sped up a billion times, the world would not be a happy place. Let us delve quickly into radioactive decay. We are all aware of Einstein’s famous equation, E=mc2, and radioactive decay; as matter decays it releases energy, in the form of light and heat, mostly heat. The energy contained within matter is equal to the mass times the speed of light squared. Let’s take for example a small amount of nuclear material, 1 kg of uranium. Now, normally the half life of uranium is about 4.5 billion years during that time half of it, will transform into lead, the mass lost in this decay is converted to energy, this can be calculated by comparing the start and end weight of the material, uranium has an atomic weight of 238 amu , where lead has an atomic weight of 207 amu, since half is converted, effectively half of the uranium becomes lead, lead weighs approximately 14% less than uranium, since half is converted that is about is 7%, the mass being lost over the 4.5 billion years. Since matter cannot be created or destroyed, it is converted to energy, using Einstein’s equation properly, 1 kg of any material breaks down into 89,875,517,873,681,764 joules (E=MC2 Wikipedia). The 7% lost of that mass is 6,291,286,251,157,723 joules over 4.5 billion years. According to the theory, this would happen 1 billion times faster, so over the course of 4.5 years, that energy would be released, or 6,291,286,251,157,723 joules, converting from years to seconds, this boils down to 44,332,306 joules per second, crunching the numbers further, and to better understand the vast amount of energy being release so quickly it would be the equivalent of setting off a ton of TNT every five seconds, nearly all in the form of heat. In other words, the amount of energy being released all over the earth would literally boil the oceans, and melt the earth, and soon vaporize it. To finally put things in perspective, this one kg of uranium is a sphere 2.25 cm in radius, This little amount of uranium causes huge problems with this ‘theory’ so much so that it become a mute point, this explanation has a gaping hole; it cannot contend with the amount of energy being released by all the decaying elements.


There are many other examples of intelligent designers and creationist getting the science wrong due to the intelligent designers and creationists misunderstanding of science. This is due to the ‘cherry picking’ approach that some intelligent designers and creationist take to finding holes with evolution; they scan the scientific literature and find small points that in their eyes go against evolution, and, then they claim to have defeated evolution, never really understanding what they really read. One that is often cited as definitive proof that evolution does not work is the second law of thermal dynamics. The second law of thermal dynamics, is quite broad and complex, these creationists are only focusing on one small part of it, the part that says the total entropy of a closed system increases over time (Second law), i.e., a closed system gets more disorganized over time (Entropy), i.e. evolution is order, so evolution can’t take place due to this increasing disorder. In their minds, the earth is a closed system. And, thus, it cannot become more organized over time. This is wrong on two fronts; it is a complete misunderstanding of the second law of thermal dynamics, on multiple levels. First, the earth is not a closed system; there is this giant ball of burning gas in the sky called the sun; this sun gives energy into the earth, and as such, the earth is not a closed system. Furthermore, the second law of thermal dynamics states that the overall entropy of a closed system increases, but small subsections of this closed system can increase and decrease in entropy, as long as the total entropy increases in other words, if you have a large closed system, the total entropy of this system will increase overtime, but may decrease in some sections of this system.


What is the big deal then? Those that believe in creationism are trying to pass this creationism off as science, in public schools. This is in effect teaching religion in a public school, not just religion, but a specific religion. Since our schools are run by the state, they are subject to the rules of the state, which are not allowed to endorse a specific religion. Creationism was already removed from the schools for this reason; all “intelligent design” is, is just a repackaging of creation, with pseudo science. The most damning evidence has to be put forth by Barbara Forrest, a professor of Philosophy at South East Louisiana University, she testified in a court case involving the teaching of “intelligent design” in schools that the proposed science textbook, Of Pandas and People, was nothing more than a previous revision from 1987 that’s only real change was that all references to creation were replaced with intelligent design. (Martha). "Of Pandas and People” is a textbook pushed by the supporters of “intelligent design” as a science textbook that gives equal time to both sides, but this textbook is lacking. Kenneth R. Miller, a biology professor at brown university wrote “Of Pandas and People a Brief Critique” describing how Of Pandas and People misrepresents science, is badly outdated and ignores important parts of teaching natural history (Miller). The book completely ignores the age of the earth, neither mentioning the scientific view point or the creationist viewpoint, the age is simply omitted. Next, the book seriously misrepresents fossil records. Such as the transitional fossils between land mammals and whales, this gives credence to Barbara Forrest, the 3 transitional fossils omitted were discovered after 1986, to late to be enter into the original printing of Of Pandas and People in 1987 but should have been included in the recent printing, unless they really did just replace creation with intelligent design, with out actually updating anything. Miller writes:

Clearly, “intelligent design” is not a science, it is a strategy, to destroy science from the inside, by corrupting science in the classroom, and they can push their views onto impressionable kids. The creationists fight so hard to make “intelligent design” look like a science, but it isn’t. They use pseudo science, bad science and bold face lies to make it sound credible. “Intelligent design” is not based in science, it is rigid, they don’t keep reexamining the evidence and revising there theories as new evidence is available, they stick with their original theory and try to make the new evidence fit it, with bogus science like with the Accelerated decay ‘theory’ or just plain ignore it. They fight so hard, because they feel there way of life is in danger, they equate the moral decay in our country to the teaching of evolution and other non god centric views. In their eyes, with out a belief in a god, there is no source of morals. They ask “where is god’s place, if everything has a natural cause?” That is a difficult question, with an answer that can take many years of soul searching to find, but finding gods place is not with in the realm of science, that is religions roll, “intelligent design” is nothing more than a repackaging of creationism, theology is not science; it needs to stay out of the science classrooms.

Works Cited
Center for Science and Culture. Top Questions. 19 Nov. 2005. <http://www.discovery.org/csc/topQuestions.php>.
Colson, Chuck. Answers to Your Kids’ Questions. Wheaton Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 2000.
“Creationism.” Penn & Teller: Bullshit!. Host Penn Jillette and Teller. Dir. Star Price. Show Time. 14 March 2003.
Dr. Henry Morris III. “Radio Log” Acts & Facts Oct 2005. 29 Nov. 2005 <http://www.icr.org/pdf/af/af0510.pdf>.
Entropy. 19 Nov. 2005. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy >.
E=mc². 29 Nov. 2005. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E%3Dmc2>.
Miller, Kenneth R. “Of Pandas and People A Brief Critique.” Kansas Citizens for Science. 9 Dec. 2005 <http://www.kcfs.org/pandas.html>.
Raffaele, Martha. “Witness: 'Design' Replaced 'Creation'” Abcnews. 5 Oct. 2005 29 Nov 2005 <http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1187731>.
Second Law of Thermodynamics. 4 Dec. 2005. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_...thermodynamics >.
Theory. 19 Nov. 2005. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory>.
Vardiman, Larry, ed., Andrew A. Snelling, ed., Eugene F. Chaffin, ed. Radioisotopes And The Age Of The Earth: A Young-Earth Creationist Research Initiative. El Cajon California: Institute for Creation Research. 2000.
“Vatican Astronomer Joins Evolution Debate.” MSNBC. 6:12 p.m. ET 18 Nov. 2005 MSNBC. 29 Nov 2005 < http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10101394/>.

...............Beautiful..........*snif*.................Thank you

Damn, now that's a mighty-fine write up on the subject.

It always bothers me that, of all people, teachers at these schools just sit back and allow this crap (sorry, but no word fits better) to be pushed onto impressionable children. It's brain washing, pure and simple, and if these people don't understand that, then they've lost all facets of thought and reasoning. They're changing their religion from something beautiful and spiritual into something ugly and manipulative.

This is so depressing. :sad:

The problem is that the theory of evolution itself remains, as yet, unproven. In fact, there is some evidence that may disprove it, although the nature of that evidence is in itself relatively circumstantial at best (or at worst, fallacious).

I don't see anything unscientific about saying, "we don't know why" or even "we can't prove why". Science is about asking questions, not about disproving answers. If God did create the Universe and set it up a certain way, is there anything unscientific about analyzing that Universe to see how and why it works?

I don't see how "it just happens" is a valid scientific answer. Scientific discourse should open itself to many theories in an effort to prove any of them better than another. And in the absence of genuine evidence, we have only to keep asking the questions again of future generations and never stop looking for the answers. I don't think its fair to shut someone up just because you don't like the reprecussions of the questions they are asking, or because you have no means of answering them.

"Where did we begin?" and "Why do we exist?" are some of the key fundamental questions of science. You don't currently have any way of proving or disproving something, so the domain of science is the one area where proposing and analysing these issues is most relevant and appropriate. The only thing unscientific is the very assumption (hypothesis?) that it can't be proven or disproven at all.

i will direct you to my paper, it explains the difference between a theory and a fact. a theory will never be proven true, that is the nature of a theory, it is the best way to describe the world as we experience it. gravity, earth revolving around the sun, all theories, but we trust in them until they are shown to be false, then the theories are adjusted to fit the new information. this is how science works, but disproving theories, and rewriting them to match the new evidence.

Ok, Taltos, I see what you're saying, but you can't necessarily "prove" a scientific theory. The only thing above a scientific theory is a scientific law, and these are usually presented mathematically. You can't prove the theory of evolution mathematically, because we aren't dealing with energy or motion or some otherwise measurable variable.

Take, for example, the Theory of Gravity and the Law of Gravity. The Law of Gravity is a mathematical proof, while the Theory of Gravity is an attempt explain what exactly gravity is and where it originates from. The fact that it's a theory doesn't hurt its existence because, here we are, held onto our planet, which revolves around the sun, which is one of billions of solar systems revolving around a super-massive black hole.

That being said, you can't "dis-prove" a theory either. If you can find contradictory information, then the theory is amended; the theory of evolution has been amended many times for just that reason, but always in the face of verifiable fact and observations.

The term "theory" doesn't hold the same meaning in science as it does colloquially. A scientific theory is as close to fact as you can get when describing complex (as in, not obvious or quick) natural phenomena. Evolution is a fact, and this can be seen in both microorganisms and complex organisms (for example, the Kaibab Squirrel). However, there is still scientific debate as to some of the mechanics of evolution; and then you have your gaps in the fossil record (however, you can't really hold these gaps as proof against evolution, for obvious reasons).

And scientists aren't content with saying "it just happens." I can see where this misconception arises in regards to the Big Bang Theory, but there are other theories (though thy're mostly mathematical), specifically involving String Theory and M Theory and so on, but no scientist will ever answer a question with "it just happens", and we're always looking to explain these things.

No one is shutting off intelligent design, but in scientific terms, it is not a theory on par with evolution, because it has no evidence for it. As soon as some shows up, then there will be some credence, but until then, it's a hypothesis and nothing more. Law > Theory > hypothesis > observation. That's the way things work., and they've been working fine so far, free from ideological obstruction, so we can't just start letting religious stories into the science books.

EDIT: I'm not sure how effective my post was in clearing up the misconceptions about "theory" so I'll add the following:

In common usage, the word theory has the same meaning as the scientific meaning of a hypothesis. For example, if a plane randomly explodes during flight, the television news reporters might say something to the effect of: "One theory is that the a spark set off inside the fuel compartment caused the explosion; another is that there was a bomb; another theory is that there was an explosive mechanical failure." This use of "theory" is analogous to the scientific meaning of hypothesis.

Once the actual cause of the explosion is found, then the news might say "it's verified that a mechanical failure caused the explosion because of so-and-so," or "it's proved that a mechanical failure caused the failure because of so-and-so," then this use of "verified" or "proved" is analogous to the scientific meaning of "theory".

I hope that helped.*

*This illustration was taken from "Physical Geology: Earth Revealed" by Carlson, Plummer and McGeary.

The debate isn't really about whether evolution has been proven or disproven, but more whether or not it can be proven or disproven. Again, the number one key factor in determining whether or not a theory is valid scientifically is it's falsifiability. A scientific theory should be able to be proven false; evolution as a theory is falsifiable. Indeed, every time you hear about a study of genetics and speciation, this is an attempt to disprove evolution. So far, all of the evidence fits the theory, along with observed supporting evidence in the natural world.

Contrast this with creation science. The hypothesis forwarded by intelligent design is that the observed natural world is too complex to have come about by chance and that therefore it must have been created by some intelligent higher power. What makes this invalid as a scientific theory is that it is not falsifiable. I can design an experiment to prove speciation and evolution; I can't design an experiment to prove whether or not God exists. The very nature of religion is that it is faith-based and that no evidence is required or provided. That's fine at Sunday mass and you're entitled to believe in whichever God you want. However, none of that has any place whatsoever in the science classroom. It's not science.

You've made an incorrect assumption here, so allow me to clear it up. Science is not about asking questions. Science is about finding answers. Asking why or when or how is a necessary component. We need to know which answer we're finding. However, you will never, ever, ever find a scientist of any description who is content to say 'we don't know why.' The closest you'll come to that is one who may say 'we don't know why yet, but we're working on it.'

Science is the pursuit of knowledge. Intelligent design is the assertion of a belief. You're welcome to believe whatever makes you happy, but please don't get your beliefs mixed up in my knowledge.

I like that... very nice.

tec,

i can only imagine that the 2 week subsection of the bio class reserved for evolution would basically be slaughtered into a fiasco on par with a show and tell shell game. i think it would basically hamstring the effective teaching of the theory of evolution, which is of course the point. at this point, i can only guess that the best the religious people pushing this agenda can really hope for is a stalemate.

Possible, but my real question comes down to just how you could build a lesson plan in the first place on ID. Seems to me that once you discuss the premis, you are done, as there really isn't anything solid to study unless you delve into religion. It has been a continuous struggle in this country to keep Religion out of the lives of those who dont require it, and I hate to think we are heading backwards as a society.

One has only to look at the Middle East to see what would likely result from a religion based society.

my first comment here was to just be, the one question that gets posed from an Intelligent Design lecture, kid raises his hand and asks,"Who's designed it?"

as far as tec's last comment, that's a bit unfair and overgeneralizing, since if you look at Chinese History quite religious beliefs they had many scientific discoveries. Look at Islamic history and you'd find things as well from mathematics to engineering. Indonesia which has the highest Muslim population in the world, doesn't look anything like the Middle East societies.

It is very true that science was forwarded quite extensively in countries that were primarily religious....but this was long ago, and the world is a very different place now. Much of the current science growth will inevitably continue to make a need for "Godly" explanations seem juvenile, and quite possible attach a new stigma to those who do not wish to accept what becomes obvious to society in general.
Indonesia is not a religious state, and in fact is based on the opposite of this. While every country certainly holds within its citizenry multiple faith based populations, the true theocracy instills dogma within the peoples, and makes state descision based partially, if not wholly on religious principle(see Iran). Thus people hate and die, due to disagreement over manmade words of God.
I say manmade, because logically I cannot make any other conclusion based on the multitude of books the entity has authored, and the likelyhood of it causing such confusion and death on purpose, or as an experiment on its trained monkeys. While indeed science must be considered manmade as well, it does not claim otherwise in any way, and so can be honest and critical of its own content, allowing for some measure of truth to be found as a result.

I simply cant see ID going anywhere in a science class....except out the window after a few hours of theological discussion.

so your statement corrected is "religion based government" and not society.

Actually, yes....that would be a better fit. And as this thread is dealing with public schools, and local government control of what is tought in a science class it makes more sense to phrase it so. My apology for the confusion.

Dilbert, that was absolutely amazing. You'd make an excellent writer or journalist (if you're not already).

thanks, I've thought of it before... i think I'll think about it a bit more...

personally, i would imagine that the folk who should be most offended by and opposed to this "creation science" or "intelligent design" nonsense would be christians who are not evangelical protestants/fundamentalist protestants--who do not subscribe to the ludicrous position that the bible must be "interpreted literally"--because that minority position gets fobbed off as representative of "christian" thinking in general--but the catholics dont have this problem, the methodists dont have it, the unitarians dont have it, on and on and on.

this nonsense is about protecting a space for ONE type of christianity.
it's internal structure is the exact mirror of the logic of that ONE type of christianty----a collective fear of change and/or fear of history can be read off the idea that the bible is literally true in its king james version---and with that, there are so many problems that it is hard to know where to even start.

so id/creation "science" is not even an accurate reflection of christianity as a whole--i mean this is the same tradition that enabled a work like whitehead's "process and reality"--which is entirely antithetical to such nonsense.

so this matter is entirely about the political domination of a particular type of christianity in particular parts of the country. nothing else. one index of domination is the ability to impose a particular frame of reference as if it were THE frame of reference. there is nothing substantive at issue in the arguments themselves--they are simply indexical.

maybe later i'll come back to this...

Most Christians I know believe in evolution. When I was a Christian, I believed in evolution. According to: http://people-press.org/reports/disp...3?ReportID=254
Humans and other living things have evolved over time:
All - 40%
White Evangelicals - 20%
White Mainline - 60%
White Catholic - 61%
Secular - 71%
...which is shocking for several reasons. I'm shocked that only 40% of those polled believe in Evolution. This speaks in volumes about the strength of misinformation and weakness of information, and makes clear that efforts to teach science are not successful. I suppose white Evangelicals were bound to be low, but I wasn't expecting less than 35%. I have to wonder why more Evangelical leaders can't consider that evolution was explained in Genesis. I'm kinda proud of Catholics, who have emerged as the liberal front of Christianity. Finally, I don't understand why 71% of SECULAR people don't believe in evolution. According to the source cited above, 14%, higher than any other group polled, marked 'don't know'. I wonder if they mean that they honestly don't know or they don't care.

I wonder how Spore will effect these levels when the current generation of kids becomes adults....

The TFP politics thread will certainly continue to whither and die, if threads with topics like this one and this one ("Does the government really have the right..") are started and maintainted in "Tilted Philosphy", instead of where the rules/guidelines clearly describe where they should be.... especially if everyone participates without objection.....so....

will, 71% is likely higher than the number of people who know who the president is (well, maybe not the current administration, but on average), higher than the people who know the capital of their state, etc. that's just a guess...no references, just based on my recollection of such things.

i guess i'm just saying i'm not surprised by the figure. it's dissapointing to be sure, but not unexpected.

host: huh? is this something on the evangelical take on the bush administration, or just ringing the bell? i have to say that's a little non-sequitur, no?

I placed this within the Philosophy section for very good reason Host, it is a discussion of human understanding concerning science. Had this been meant to debate a particular political stance, or indeed a discussion of government policy on this issue, perhaps you would have a point worth more than the 3 minutes it has taken me to post this reply.

As it is....I believe I am perfectly capable of designating what I place on the politics board, and what might be better off in a philisophical discussion.

And personally, I dont see the death of TFPolitics coming anytime soon....its a hearty beast.

I guess I was misled by the article in the OP....it seemed to be about a candidate for an election....no gray area, since it had to do with a political agenda on an national educational board that attempts to influence public education policy....

Where an article is placed on the board sometimes has more to do with the type of responses the poster wants to see than with a dogmatic formula applied to the original post. That's why you sometimes see politically related material in GD. The thing is that an entirely different set of people respond there, and a different discussion ensues.

Part of giving the board the freedom to evolve is that we only step in and move things that seem way off base, or if we determine the move would be appropriate in communication with the poster. It's definitely an inexact procedure...

I'd like to know the intelligent designer who created my tail bone, appendix, tonsils and foreskin.

...and made hair grow out of moles...
All those you mention have or have had a purpose. But intelligent design will never explain why we walk upright with spines not truly designed for that or why we lost the opposing thumbs on our feet, an evolutionary process that, personally, I think is a shame...

[QUOTEPossible, but my real question comes down to just how you could build a lesson plan in the first place on ID. Seems to me that once you discuss the premis, you are done, as there really isn't anything solid to study unless you delve into religion. [/QUOTE]

This is what fascinates me about this topic. I disagree with the gross assumption that intelligent design cannot be proven or disproven. I believe that to be a terribly unscientific statement.

The top quoted section is really more on the topic I am interested in. How would you go about trying to apply the scientific method to intelligent design, if we start out with the premise that there are people who want to do this. If it truly cannot be proven, the science classrooms and thinktanks of the world seem the most apt places to reveal this, and I don't see why, as a hypothesis, it should not be submitted, evaluated, and analyzed under scientific scrutiny and skepticism. To "work on it", rather than outright dismissing it because you find it offensive to your beliefs.

I'm interested in what that curriculum would look like. What kind of tests would be done? What kind of questions would arrise? What form of evidence would be put forth, and what criteria for critically evaluating that evidence?

I imagine it might look like this:
http://www.encyclopediaofstupid.com/...rningLabel.jpg

But that's just the thing; what evidence is there for intelligent design? A book. A very old book, filled with fiction, and stories about people walking on water and seas parting and giants and global floods...Things which don't happen. I don't mean to pick on your religion, honestly, I don't, but we're talking about science here. If religious texts didn't include this one particular story, there would be no proponents for intelligent design, because it comes solely from one place: A religious text.

Hypotheses should be presented, but only when they hold true value and true scientific ground, which is not the case with intelligent design.

They'll present the pseudoscience they've been giving all along:
-people are too complex to be an 'accident'
-the earth is too perfectly designed for people

the same uninformed garbage we've been getting all along.

OK.....lets just evaluate the hypothesis, right here and now:


Premis; Life was created by an intelligent force.

Investigation/test; Define the force, and prove it is indeed responsible.

Result; Inconclusive

Synopsis- As we could not define the force, it was unavailable for evaluation of its capabilities leading to a lack of pertinent Data on this hypothesis.

Intelligent Design remains a hypothesis.

This has nothing to do with my beliefs. The reason that ID gets dismissed out of hand by pretty much every respectable scientific institute is because it's not something that the scientific method can be applied to.

Evolution can be falsified. All it would take to discredit the evolutionary theory is a single fossil out of place; one modern creature in the cretaceous period and the whole thing is junk. Further, tests can be devised to test the specific aspects of evolution, such as mutation, speciation or gene flow. Empirical evidence suggests these underlying principles, but any one of them may be supported or discredited by quantitative testing.

For the record, I have absolutely no objection to your beliefs. I may not agree with them, but I don't take issue with the fact that you do. What I do object to is calling a faith based opinion science. Intelligent design is not falsifiable. This is not an assumption, it is a fact. There is no evidence supporting intelligent design that cannot be explained by an existing theory, which means that there's nothing to test. Furthermore, intelligent design violates the principle of parsimony. While this is more of a guideline and not actual law (hence it's called the principle of parsimony and not the law of parsimony), it's used frequently because it does contain a grain of truth.

I don't know what else to say. If you can refute me, if you can think of a way to test intelligent design in a scientific fashion, feel free to let me know.

EDIT -

Being generally of a friendlier disposition than willravel, I will take a moment to point out that both of these supporting claims are opinions and not facts. If they were facts than there'd be no room to disagree, which I do. I don't think that humans are too complex to have come about by accident at all; the very fact that I can argue that points makes it a hypothesis at best, and it's very poor scientific practice to attempt to support one hypothesis with another hypothesis. Further, I'd argue that the second point really supports evolution more than it does intelligent design. If the earth is too well tailored for us, then wouldn't it hold that it's more likely that we've adapted ourselves to be well tailored to the earth?

yep...not do do a tfp pile on, but seriously - that's the problem. you can't put forth a hypothesis which inherently isn't testable. at the most you could hope for an inductive proof, but that proof would simply say what science always says: there is more going on that we know of. there will always be more going on than we know. its the leap from 'there is more going on than we currently know' to 'therefore, an intelligent designer must have created the universe.'

as is pointed out, that requires going back and proving the existence of an intelligent designer. that is squarely beyond the purview of scientific study, until someone manages to find 'heaven' on a little scopey thingy and quantify it. it is, by definition, beyond measurement, beyond quantification, and that's putting it nicely.

personally, i'm not a reductionist / only physical phenomena have merit kind of guy. but in a question of science, i am. because that's what science is. if you want to do philosophy, i think that's great. do it in a comparative philosophy class and then ask these types of questions.

evolution doesn't disprove religion or even the intelligent design concept, because it can't. ask a deist. all it does is lay out a probable scenario wherein more complicated structure may arise, in this case biological structures. asking science to disprove strictly theological constructs is like asking a deaf person to evaluate an opera, blindfolded and without any neato mosquito aids. just can't happen. therefore, to foist the intelligent design hypothesis on a science classroom is simply to muddy the water, achieve stalemate, retard scientific education, and thus attempt to hold together a world view which partially comes under attack when, as roach hath stated, you strictly interpret ancient scientific theory inside ancient holy texts as literal scientific work.

thus, will's lesson plan. i mean, afterall, who else could this masked intelligent designer be?

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y29...e_davidson.jpg

That kid creeped me out. I think they were trying to make Ra feminine to seem alien, but it just came of like Queer Eye for the Straight Pyramid (not that there's anything wrong with being gay, it was just kinda distracting).

i have yet to see any evidence that supports intelligent design, non nada zip zero zilch, if you have some to show us, please do so.

one more thing, the reason IT is dismissed out of hand by scientific institution is because it is not science, part of IT is a supernatural being.

supernatural + science = error.

I was looking up this Willard guy, and there seems to be two things that I found interesting that I would like to include in the discussion:

According to CNN.COM in their 2005 article, Willard didn't introduce an Intelligent Design curriculum, nor was the support of Intelligent Design necessarily his goal. He suggested that recent evidence which contradicts the theory of evolution should be taught to students.

They cited their goal as "academic freedom."

The second half of the article is, of course, much more contentious and to the point of this thread. It talks about how the "scientific standards" have been changed so that matters outside of empirical provable evidence can be discussed.

It seems like the goal wasn't made to introduce a curriculum about intelligent design, but rather to allow a teacher to say, "Or maybe God did it; we just don't know." without losing his job.


The second point I wanted to introduce was a more personal one and may be outside the scope of this discussion (and, if so, just ignore it): Why is including religious ideas within high schools seeing as wrong to begin with? I mean, in U.S. secondary education institutions, taking courses in comparative religions and philosophy actually fill vital humanities and general education requirements. Why is it so terrible for the basis of these courses to be taught as part of the high-school curriculum, even if it just a three paragraph section at the end of chapter 4?

Why isn't Taltos's reply on here?

Anyways, in response: We've already been over this. If this "evidence" were really contradictory to the theory of evolution, it would be incorporated into the theory IF the evidence is verified. The theory would be amended if this evidence was really contradictory. However, that isn't the case, and I haven't heard of a single piece of information which contradicts the theory of evolution, so once again, I ask, where or what is this evidence?

As for your second point, a [bold]comparative[/bold] religion class is fine in my book. It's akin to a history or philosophy class. Teaching IT, however, which 1) isn't a scientific theory and 2) is only part of fundamental Christianity, is completely backwards. Why should IT be taken seriously and not the beliefs of other religions? How would you feel if your child was being taught that we are all made from mud? In fact, lets take it a step forwards. What if school teachers were seriously trying to teach children that the earth is in fact riding on the back of a huge turtle? We can't cater to any religious belief, not when were' talking about science. THAT'S why you cant *teach* it to children. I don't want anything religious being taught to my children unless they specifically choose to take a comparative religious class.

Pretty much explains it perfectly. Some people would prefer not to lie to children, or allow others to do so. Much as I prefer to explain Santa Clause is a mythical persona based on a real man, I do the same with the Gods (A myth based on simply not knowing so many things). This allows my Kids to experience the world without blinders, but does not hiinder them from practicing religion should they decide to do so. By inappropriately teaching religious belief in a scientific studies environment we would create nothing but confusion, and make it that much harder to help our children learn.

i am deeply concerned about all of you posting in this thread.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y29...er_assault.gif

You super birthday powers of Piggyness have no effect on me, I am immu....imm...

God Created Life, God is Great, God is Good, let us thank him for this Food

:)


On a more serious note, arguments by ID supporters tend to be 99% attacks on evolution, from various directions. So we can ask: can you analyze these attacks profitably within a science course, say a high school biology class in a public school?

Well let's look at some of them. The most fundamental attack is the Argument by Design, which has been around for centuries. This is a big subject, take a look here:

http://www.iep.utm.edu/d/design.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleological_argument

This isn't all theology, there is some important biology here: Darwin wrote his book Origin of Species partly as a rejoinder to the argument from design, as did Dawkins his book Blind Watchmaker. So you could spend considerable time in a science course describing exactly how natural selection can produce highly adapted "designed" structures like Darwin and Dawkins did. This would be a scientific rebuttal of the ID argument from design. And it would be a very interesting course. It is perhaps a little ironic that Darwin himself did a damn nice job of demolishing ID already way back in 1859 (see for example Organs of Extreme Perfection in Chapter 6).

Other attacks are various. There is really nothing in science that ID supporters or creationists aren't willing to distort, misinterpret, or lie about apparently so that you'll think ID is the only alternative left standing. There is tons of stuff. Check it out here (scroll down to Biology):

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html

You could try to address all these arguments in a biology class I suppose, and it would still be a biology class, not theology. It would take more than one term unless the students are already pretty knowledgeable.

It would be exasperatingly inefficient way to teach biology though, because you're spending most of the time talking about other people's ignorance of the subject rather than the subject itself.

And of course it wouldn't matter how many of these claims you debunk, you still can't kill ID because it's not falsifiable. So what's the point? Many of the points still argued today were originally demolished by Darwin over a century ago, yet they still live on like zombies.

It might be worthwhile to give students a related term project though within a normal biology class, like requiring them to use their biological learning to debunk some of these claims. That would be reasonable, but probably not what the ID supporters want :)

Tec, I thought I remembered reading that you were of the Druid faith.

There was a time....yes. I have tried on many suits over my life, mostly as a means to understanding. In truth I have found nothing in any of them to give me a faith in God. Instead I have taken a bit from each, and come to make up my own direction for faith in a higher power.......The universal existance of us all, and the ability to recognize and accept that life just.....IS.


That way I dont need to hate anyone

i think that would an interesting section raveneye...but the proponents of ID would go apeshit if you had a 3 week mini section in a highschool bio class explaining how the ID concept is superfluous, although certainly possible.

equal time to all theories! present both sides of the 'debate'!!!

pretty soon you'd be weighing people against ducks...

That's really fallicious reasoning and outside the scope of the topic, isn't it? I mean, the topic is about whether or not ID should even be mentioned in a classroom, whether you can have a paragraph about it in a book, or whether we should blacklist the information, regalating it to a form of mysticism akin to the moon landing.

On another level, perhaps more importantly, it's an argument about whether or not a devout religious person should be allowed to hold a position of scientific authority, regardless of his academic achievements or prior record.

And on yet another level, it's about the absurdity of the election system in the Kansas education system. (Surely this was changed by now...?)

It's not really a topic about ID, and it's certainly not a topic as to whether or ID is better than mainstream evolution theory.

Honestly, I think we've talked way more about it here than anyone would have thought to put in the science books or course lectures.

My first reaction to this was "Absolutely not." Not in the topic of a real science, to which the devout religious person might be biased towards because it defies their faith, not their scientific authority. Proponents of ID have very little scientific authority, if any at all. They're the ones keeping this debate from being closed, for no other reason than it defies their faith. I see no evidence for ID, nor do I believe there will ever be, and not because of my lack of religion, but because it's science, not faith. Mind you, I'm speaking strictly within the confines of evolutionary biology, and in no way am I implying that religious peoples aren't intelligent, but in this case, there's bias, a variable which shouldn't play into scientific realms.

Wait, what?

The original post and the topic as I've understood it so far isn't just about intelligent design in schools. It's about intelligent design in science class. Religion is not science and does not belong there. Nobody's advocating censorship here, just recognizing what the appropriate time and place is.

And on the second point, which I don't see as relevant to the current discussion but will address anyway, what does one have to do with the other? Albert Einstein firmly believed in God, claiming the He doesn't play dice. Stephen Hawking as well has expressed a faith in God. Many scientists hold to specific religious beliefs, which is fine so long as it doesn't affect their work.

would you want a section of holocausts deniers in your history class? how about the guys who don't think we landed on the moon? history belongs in the history classroom, and science belongs in the science classroom.

ID doesn't really stand for intelligent design, it stands for irreconcilable deism. All tenured members of the biology departments at the nation's 50 top-rated universities agree 100% that life on Earth developed from single-cell organisms through evolution. The Vatican accepts evolution. Most protestant denominations accept evolution.

This is a simple matter of theism bleeding over into areas where it probably doesn't belong, at least in the for it's taking. Most Christians believe that evolution is scientific fact and that god is responsible for natural law (in other words, evolution was god's idea). A few misguided Christians have incorrectly assumed or been misled into believing that the Bible is somehow against evolution.

I'm saying that not only does ID have no place in the classroom, I'm saying it has no place ANYWHERE. Creationism should be taught in church and evolution in classrooms, and their bastard love child ID belongs in a historical blooper reel.

I don't see what the big deal about teaching ID in school is. Simply because you're being taught it doesn't mean that you have to believe it. Quite simple, isn't it?

well, i'd say the fact that a school is supposed to teach 'facts' while educating our children, in line with accepted knowledge in the field of study germane to the classroom, and that ID has no factual basis is a rather good reason not to teach it. shall we make a list of things we could teach our children about that they don't have to actually believe in? do you want all that taught as well?

If you were a science teacher, would you teach the children you're responsible for about how Pangaea was once habited by Hobbits and orcs as scientific fact, backable by fossil records and dna testing?

Science is for science class. Religion is for bible school or church. I can respect each of those as being important and separate, or they can be combined without negating one another necessarily. My dad, a pastor, believes in both god and evolution. I respect that. ID is for IDiots. Only a fool can look at carbon dating and say, "Oh...that's god testing us. The Earth is clearly 6000 years old."

should we teach that the holocausts never happened to please the holocaust deniers? the only thing that belongs in our schools is the truth, if there was serious debate that the holocaust did not happen, it would be given time in the history classes, just like ID, there is no serious debate of it's authenticity, thus it is not taught.

Just a quick interlude, and merely for the sake of accuracy, I'll add that neither Einstein nor Hawking is a theist. Einstein was an atheist, and his references to "God" were merely a way to generalize the workings of the universe ("[God] doesn't play dice," referring to his doubts on quantum physics and the fabric of the universe).

Hawking...No one's sure about. From what I've heard, and the things he says, and what his ex-wife says about him, it's implied that he's an agnostic, leaning slightly towards atheism.

I might concede Einstein - I was admittedly short on time when I posted that and used his references to God in his writing as a basis for the premise that he held to a religion. Hawking has publicly claimed an affiliation with Christianity (not specifying a denomination) and also stated that he doesn't see any irreconcilable contradictions between his work and religious faith. He may have changed his mind on that in recent years (I haven't read any of his writings more recent than mid-nineties, and I should imagine that a scientists belief structure would be more fluid than most due to the nature of their work and the necessary thought processes that go into it), but as of what I last heard he was a marginal deist.

And all of that is really beside the point, which is that there's absolutely nothing that prevents a scientist from having a deistic worldview. The fact that most of them don't is simply a by-product of the hyper-rational thinking required to succeed in any scientific field.

That depends on what you mean. ID is a religious viewpoint, and scientifically unsound. It may have a relevant place in some sort of comparative religion or social studies class, but by the standards of science if falls way short.

Then should we devote equal time to alchemy in regards to chemistry? How about magic as an "alternative theory" to physics? Should we devote any class time to Holocaust denial in history?

ok wait: what's with this assumption that different disciplines operate without contact with each other? you cannot seriously believe that history operates without reference to politics, philosophy, literature, visual culture, etc., or that the sciences operate without reference to philosophy, sociology, politics, etc..

you think you can define where history starts and stops? go for it: i'd be interested--certainly more interested in that than in the question of under what possible circumstances id can be taken seriously.

as for revisionist asswipes: i have had a couple in courses that i have taught--i dont really care if they are present or not in principle--fact is that their positions are so easily demolished that it is not really much fun to have them around--it's not like they bring an interesting perspective into play, really, and this because the center of such revisionist horseshit is generally racism and that the people who adhere to these indefensible positions are almost inevitably simple racist fucktards, they generally act as though their positions are not falsifiable--this because these folk treat their racism operates as an a priori, you see: a matter of faith, a cherished object the contemplation of which they enjoy--and so it gets transposed as an axiom which they will use to dismiss anything and everything that would cause their positions to the troubled. so evidence--clear, uncontroverable, unavoidable evidence that their position is not worth the breath they expend to say it--is dismissed--and the way they typically dismiss it is to avoid the evidence altogether and instead to impute some fatuous category like "jew-lover" to the source of that evidence.

the problem with the last few posts is in the making of a parallel between id/"creationism" and revisionist views of the holocaust. in the latter case, the evidentiary situation is obvious. these positions are simply false. there is no room for speculation about them. they are simply false. in the former, the question at hand is much more complicated and the arguments to be made are themselves more open-ended. because there *are* interesting questions that can emerge through debates on this--like what exactly a scientific theory is, what the relation between a macro-scale scientific theory and history is, what conceptions of causation underpin id assumptions regarding evolution (and it is here that the id/"creationist" position is so weak as to not hold up under scrutiny AT ALL...the notion of biological systems that opponents of evolutionary theory use is a simple tranposing of a superficial notion of mechanical causation onto biological systems---the complication in this is that many of the proponents of evolution do the same thing...but evolution can be understood as obvious if you adopt a complex dynamic systems model for thinking biological systems...but this same position creates all kinds of trouble for not only people who are committed to id but also for folk who adhere to any worldview rooted in a determinist ontology...)

and--again--taltos' argument above that to oppose id/"creationism" is to oppose christianity--or relgiious committments in general---is simply idiotic.
it presupposes that the fundamentalist/evangelical protestant verbal tick of referring to themselves as "christians" as if the term only applied to them was somehow true. it isnt. and because it isnt, his entire argument falls in. it requires no further discussion. it doesnt hold any water.

I must have missed that when reading his posts. He said that? Wow, what an ass.

Well... they sort of score a point here, although it's an odd one. At high school, level, yes, the different disciplines are seperated, and the emphasis is on the distribution of solid facts underlying the basic concepts and terminology of each discipline. I hate this.

The general understanding seems to be that the basic high school structure, as they are, are required in higher studies and to a certain extent this may be true, but I've found that most college instructors at the freshman level have to train their students to "unlearn" a lot of high-school habits. High schools are designed to produce workers for the occupational professions, not to encourage thinkers and leaders.

Furthermore, studying the humanities (philosophy, humanities, visual culture, etc.), while seeing as critically vital in most public colleges and universities, tends to be severaly downplayed in high schools, unless you are fortunate and skilled enough to find yourself in the honors and AP classes.

I, myself, have been involved in setting up classrooms for children in participation with my college and local orphanages where the emphasis is on a more "academic" setting, delving deeply into inter-disciplinary issues, analyzing current events from different perspectives, and focussing on reasoning and debate rather than rote memorization. I've found that many of these 10-year olds hold their own in these discussions better than many college students, and attack complex issues enthusiastically.

Fortunately, this has been changing over the last several years and seems to change more and more. While I encourage this change, and my current stance in this topic isn't so much in favor of ID as it is against censorcism in classrooms, I don't particularly think ID should be the excuse to implement the changes in high school structures, so the current structure does have to be considered for purposes of deciding the classroom curriculum.

i was bouncing off the implication of this (the second part in particular)
i was working from memory, which sometimes fails me i guess.
i mischaracterized your position.
mea culpa.

taltos, i'd guess he was referring to this part, but i don't want to put words in roach's mouth.

regardless, i like the cut of your jib. education reform, perhaps, would be a topic for another thread? i guess tec can specify that a bit in context of this thread. i certainly don't want ID used a sacrificial lamb in order to get cross-disciplinary studies into highschools. as i said earlier, i'd love to see some sort of intro to philo class offered in high schools as a part of the gifted or ap courses...

edit: i see that roach beat me to it. mea culpas all the way around.

seems this thread could use a change of direction at this point, and would neatly tie into education reform if prodded. I see problems however in attempting to create yet another unfunded mandate, all the while expecting overwhelmed teachers to meet regency testing standards. Eating a huge dinner while sitting on a broken chair might be a bad Idea.

seriously...i completely agree tec...i'm somewhat amazed that anyone still goes into teaching public schools anymore...all the bs they have to put up with in some of these areas. i don't think it would be possible in the general class settings, and that's unfortunate. i think it would have to be a unit that was taught within a framework where the kids were already sort of outside the general class settings...its been so long since i was in highschool, i don't even know if the gifted programs get to do all the cool stuff we did back in the day because of the no child left behind stuff..and then you've got the poor school districts. whole different problem.

This is the problem with using words like "ID" and "education reform". They're great for communicating a plethora of ideas and for identifying large groups of people, but they are absolutely terrible for any reasonably practical debate.

I don't think anyone here (except for the mentioning of introducing an Honors/AP Philosophy course) has mentioned "creating yet another unfunded mandate" in our discussion about "education reform". What we've been discussing is censorship and whether or not there should be restrictions about what can cannot be taught by teachers and textbooks in regards to evolution and the scientific views of the origin of, well, everything.

If you read the article that was the original subject of this topic, it talks about ideas that we haven't even discussed yet, and doesn't make mention to ideas that we have.

1) The article under question does not call for a new course curriculum to teach ID.
2) The article under question does not call for a mandate requiring the instructors to teach ID.
3) What it does do is expand the restrictions on what can be taught, allowing material that could not previously be introduced in a science class.
4) People are upset that an unpopular candidate was allowed to become a supreme authority in science education "by default".
5) People are upset that a person is allowed this esteemed position of scientific educational authority even though he is a creationist. (Or IDist, a makeshift term that I find particularly amusing.)

There's also a potential #6 not related to the article but relavent to the discussion, "6) The current situation can cause instructors backlash and trouble for instructors if they mention ID in the classrooms, or make public known that they personally are in favor of the ID ideology." Since I'm the only one to mention this though and no one else cares to discuss it, it's not really on topic.

Much of the contraversy in the discussion comes from people insisting that #3 above will "open the door" to #1 and #2 above, in terminology that vaguely reminds me of the red scare and how we should not "open the door" to hostile communist ideas).

#5 also strikes me as a bad position to hold, because the implication is that he won't (or can't) 'do his job' but will instead abuse his position to put forward his own personal agenda. Proponents of this view tend to suggest that allowing for #3 is just the first demonstration that proves #5 correct, though I disagree.

There also seems to be a side issue here, unrelated to the article but important to the discussion, as to whether or not scientific classrooms should teach controversial topics that have not been adopted as mainstreams facts. I am unsure enough in my position that I have refrained from discussing this, the question being largely irrelevent to my case (since I don't hold to the position that ONLY facts can be mentioned in a highschool science class, or to the position that highschool children are too young/ignorant/whatever to make value/fact decisions on their own if all alternative viewpoints are presented and weighted in an academic environment). (I'm working on the premise that highschool is an academic environment, which I may not actually agree with, but don't want to discuss it on this thread.)

This is a summary of the topic as I understand it as it relates to educational reform, intelligent design, and the original article posted (along with my opinion on these issues). So it's not really about whether or not we should have educational reform. It's more of "this thing has happened, and how should we react?" It's more of a question of setting values and agendas for future practical decisions rather than deciding if we have funding for new mandates, or what kind of mandates we should have.

taltos, my suggestion would be the following; if you want to take on educational censorship, work on getting the joy of sex or the kama sutra taught in health class. the problem with ID isn't simply some censorship issue; it's not at all like refusing to teach kids about something like, i don't know...birth control in sex ed, and instead telling them only about abstinence. we know that birth control / condoms work and do what they are supposed to do. on the other hand THERE IS NOTHING TO SUPPORT THE FUNDAMENTAL DEITY PRINCIPLE UNDERPINNING INTELLIGENT DESIGN IN A SCIENTIFIC SENSE. therefore, to teach it like it's science is WRONG in a scientific setting.

thus, if educational censorship is your beef; i'd suggest picking something that can be rationally defended on the ground where it will be taught, and frankly i'd pick something which doesn't appear to be a sneaky way to violate a core principle of our secular society. in my opinion, it would be as though i had a strong celtic family history ( i do ) and my grandfather was a little nuts (he was) and that he claimed to be able to dowse for water. now, if science class was talking about geology and the difficulty of finding clean water in new mexico, should i be able to get with my dowsing buddies and force that dowsing be given equal time with ways of finding water accepted by the us geological survey, or taught as though they were just alternate 'theories' of water finding? hey kids! make your own choices!

of course not! there's no proof to it other than the fact that i believe in it. which doesn't make it scientifically valid. that's pretty much the reason the scientific method was formulated; so you couldn't state things as 'facts,' without going through a tedious process to make sure you weren't concluding things based on personal bias. this ID shit is just a way to try to get rid of that whole pesky research and verify thing, because for some whackos that's just become inconvenient.

taltos: i do not see the basis for your censorship claim in the first place. so far as i can tell, the term "censorship" used in this context is a rhetorical device that functions to wedge the question over over over into a territory that it does no occupy. most of the debate at this point is really over whether you are going to be allowed, in the context of the thread, to shift the question in this direction. if you are not allowed to make that shift, it is because the arguments that you are presenting do not really make the case that there is any censorship. they are simple assertions. to demonstrate them, you make basically 2 moves.
1. you define censorship in a very vague way.
2. you work via analogy (x is like y).
3. the analogies are to do most of the work of defining censorship as you are using the term, and the situations within which it functions.
4. you go back to arguing that id is no better or worse than any other type of theory and so to not teach it is a form of censorship.
5. then the move is "and i oppose censorship. dont you?"

you can see all these if you unpack stuff like this:

so an interesting possibility for applying your logic would be: protestant fundamentalist schools should be required to teach thje work of alister crowley. they should take crowley's work seriously and give it the status of a "controversial topic that has not been adopted as mainstream facts." to not teach crowley is censorship. i oppose censorship. dont you?

as an explanatory theory of human evolution, id is worthless.
sure you can play the game of locating logical parallels in scientific method that rely on the application of notions understood as axiomatic, and say that these axioms amount to matters of faith--and in a way the parallel is correct--but it does not follow that therefore all types of axioms are equivalent.
if the defense of id moves through some (mis)reading of contemporary philosophy of science, it seems that something got erased along the way. what can function as axiomatic does so not because it is transcendently true (nothing is, least of all a signifiers given content by a dubious metaphysics) but because communities of agents accept them as legitimate as a function of their professional training, modes of thinking and operation, etc. intelligent design IS NOT accepted by any of the legitimate scientific communities that are concerned with either interrogation of biological systems (legitimate here in the sociological sense). period.

what the defenders of id do, then, is a kind of public-relations endrun: having no hope of getting their shabby theory accepted as legitimate science, they issue what amount to press releases that work the types of claims embedded in statements like that quoted above. that should end the debate.

but it doesnt, and explaining why it doesnt is NOT an epistemological matter, NOT a matter of the nature of scientific method as over against its intellgient design correlate/parody--it is a POLITICAL question pure and simple. the POLITICAL issue is whether fundamentalist protestants have adequate cultural power in particular areas to reshape the terms of legitimate (in the sociological sense) debate such that (a) their presentation of the scientific community and the dominant theories concerning the development of biological systems can be confused with fact and (b) within that to displace the question of id as scientific theory onto grounds parallel to those which you have outlined.

so at issue here is NOT anything about the transcendent value of scientific method and its definition, but rather the extent (and limits) of the cultural power of ONE (rather crude and uninteresting) version of christianity. the limits of the purchase of claims for id are the limits of the ability of that community to control the terms of debate.

variant:

in responses to your posts, you have been treated to a range of definitions of scientific method and a series of confessions of faith in that method. outside a context where the PARTICULAR version of christianity controls the debate, it ends there.

there is nothing you can say to these arguments, simply because what you are running into hierarchy of disciplines (reflected in the hierarchies of statements about them) particular to a different socio-cultural context. in that context, id looses. it will loose every time.

that is looses is NOT censorship: that it looses reflects the simple fact that id has not been and cannot be presented as a series of arguments that people find compelling outside of a very particular frame of reference. id is therefore NOT a legitimate scientific theory that is being suppressed unjustly-----it is not a legitimate scientific theory at all. the explanation for this is sociological first, then theoretical (the relation between these is circular).
but that's all there is to it.
the debate is over.

there are a host of conceptual problems that attend the philosophical underpinnings of darwin--most of these follow from the historical situation darwin occupied and the extent to which he simply inverted dominant conceptions of history and biology in his own work. so the claim would be that darwin did not go far enough simply because of when he was writing and the fact that he is a product of his historical circumstances--just as anyone else is. so pushing through these problems would push evolutionary theory entirely outside the purview where id would have shit to say about ANYTHING--because the formal symmetries between certain aspects of evolutionary theory and the crap that is id would disappear

(e.g. the assumption that all of evolution followed from a single moment....why single, why not multiple? why does it not make sense that there were any number of origins, any number of trajectories?)

but the fact is that this is not a theoretical discussion, and so to go into them would amount to a threadjack.

Please, if you have time, go back and read the article and related articles. There are only three issues presented in them:

* Kenneth Willard is becoming the president of the State Board of Education by default because there is no one to run against him. (This is due, not to a lack of candidates, but because the laws prohibit new candidates from running after a certain date, even if all the other candidates have dropped out of the race.)

* Kenneth Williard has a history of supporting policy friendly to Intelligent Design. He voted to abolish some of the restrictions preventing some material from being introduced in the classroom. (That definition is summarized from CNN.COM, a link that I posted earlier. The article quoted says that he voted on legislation that included intelligent design in the classroom, which doesn't seem to be true. I think there's a world of difference between saying "we must include intelligent design in the classroom" and "teaching concepts like intelligent design should not be restricted".)

* People want to oppose Kenneth Williard's rise to presidency, although there's no legal prescident for it. He has done nothing wrong or illegal and has been very active within the State Board of Education.


What is this if not a case for censorship?

People want to shut this guy up because they don't believe what he does. They feel someone with his beliefs rising to power and influence, even though there is nothing about this guy's personality, history, or agenda, that suggests he would abuse his position.

Personally, I don't think it's a fair election and that's the only reason I would oppose the issue.

This really isn't a matter of whether or not ID is scientifically valid. People want to make it the issue as a straw man argument because its easier to attack and people can get behind that emotionally easier than they can get behind an effort to reform the legal election system of the state board. It sells more newspapers.

that effectively dovetails with the claim i have been making from my first post in this thread that this is not really a philosophical question at all---it is political and within that sociological (as the first generally devolves into).

further, outside a particular sociological/political context, the question of the validity of id is moot.

so i dont really understand what is being debated here any more.

as for the political question playing out in kansas: if i lived there, i would oppose the guy too. the censorship claim would mean nothing to me--no more than it means anything to me here--because i dont find the arguments that there is censorship to be compelling.

i dont think this result (that i dont find the arguments compelling) follows from your arguments per se, taltos: i think you are working with shaky material and have done the best you can with it. i just dont buy it. it is perfectly reasonable for folk who live in kansas to be horrified by the outcomes of an unfolding of electoral procedures that are in themselves legally proper.
ultimately the problem lay with the fact that folk were asleep at the switch, and willard was not.
so the people of kansas will probably have to live with this result and work through other chanels to limit the damage he might do if he begins using his office to impose id as in the kansas schools as if it were science, when it isnt.
and such dissent/opposition is perfectly legitimate.
to dissent is not to advocate censorship. it is what is usually referred to as an aspect of a healthy democracy. and it'd be nice if there was one in the states.

anyway, you are confusing dissent and calls for censorship.
i am not really interested enough at this point to speculate as to why that might be because of the thread. maybe in another one, we can return to it.
but this thread is finished, so far as i am concerned

no. taltos

you missed the point of the thread, i'm afraid.

this is the OP

this is not about fucked up voting protocols, or whether kenneth miller can be president, or whether he voted to remove "some" restrictions on "some" material from the classroom. (and those are might big fucking 'some's, btw)

its about ID and how it might be taught in a classroom, what that would mean, and whether it makes sense. the article was used to anchor the point of the OP. i'm fine with discussing the election protocols of a school district in wherever the fuck this happened, but that's not the OP. if you concede that ID is invalid scientific concept with no basis in verifiable scientific reality, i guess we can ask tec if he wants to move the thread to focusing on this one guy up in wtfth.

edit goddamn it roach. quit beating me to the punch. and i see you've already full force moved to the second point of discussion, and answered it too. fuck fuck fuckedy fuck fuck fuck. yeah, if some science-dowser wanted to head up my local school board, i'd try to get him out too.

'oh well, he's the guy on a technicality. guess i'll tell johnny to catch up on his snake handlin'. yes son, dinosaurs ARE god's way of testing your faith. i'm so glad you learned that in school today.'

this is no more censorship then making sure holocaust deniers don't get equal time in a history class.

furthermore, schools are paid for by taxes, by the people, we've got this funky thing called separation of church and state, where no religion can be given precedence over any other. since ID is a religious invention, and not based on science, it can't be taught in the schools as science. you are welcome to believe ID, you can teach your kids about it, but public schools must stick to science.

My friends, this is why we can't allow religious teaching to have any weight in science.


I'm a man, and yet I want to cry :shakehead:

EDIT: I just found out that the web site is satire (thank goodness), but the prospect frightens me none-the-less.

yeah that's fake, but this oen is sadly real

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?n...d=385210&rfi=6

Supposed to, but "facts" are relative. I still remember my old social studies book that talked about the "races" and how negroes were sex crazed. My astronomy text book is now hopelessly out of date because the old "fact" of Pluto being a planet is no longer valid. Oh man, don't even get started on the history books, the "facts" contained therein are fodder for war....

So yeah, "facts" really have no bearing here.

I think the better argument would be to keep religion in its own classroom and science in another. Seems reasonable to me. If people want to bring it up or mention it then good, they can have a nice debate in class.

But it is still imformative to mention that Holocaust deniers exist. So you could still feasably mention that an alternative theory called ID exists etc...

Holcaust denial debates are terrific in class and a great learning tool. I can't even count how many times I've experienced Holocaust denial discussions in class from the 8th grade on.

Likewise, ID would bring an interesting element to the debate.

I strongly disagree that religious people should be banned from teaching positions. I find that position to be highly idiotic as there is no basis to make that assertion.

My father is a devout evangelist and a highly respected professor (of science) at elite universities. According to the prevailing logic, he should then be barred from teaching? I disagree.

Here's the best part: My father, the devout religious man, believes in aliens.

I'm sorry, but you just went from 0-100. Some history books are wrong, therefore it's okay to teach something we know is wrong? That's a rather dangerous fallacy. The idea would be to see the problem of mistakes in history books and try to bring FACTS back, not introduce more fiction. Taeching ID is like teaching that Abraham Lincoln was killed by Jesus. It's all sorts of wrong, and it's inappropriate.
Science is mandatory, world religion 101 should be an elective. I'd call that a fair compromise. Anything less is going to piss me off.

Now, I don't think anyone said anything about barring religious peoples from teaching classrooms. As has been said before, it's not the fact that they're religious which should be looked down on. It's when they attempt to teach something which has NO evidence outside of religion. It's been said again and again. The ONLY reason there is any debate is because it's religious, and the evidence against it is ignored in favor of fairy tales, and so you end up with ignorance in the subject (like that Brian Benson, the eighth grader who won 1st place in Dilbert's link above, titled "Creationism Is the Winner!"...Oddly enough, his experiment has NOTHING to do with evolution, but...1st place?!:orly: )

How is it informative to mention that Holocaust deniers exist? Is there any evidence backing up their claims? No, so it has no place in an educational discussion, unless it's to test the subject and have the students use their knowledge to debunk the claims.

It's the exact same case as ID. Exactly the same. There's no evidence, and it has no merit outside of religion, so it should only be invoked for students to use their knowledge to debunk the claims. ID should not be taught along side with evolution. I don't understand how there's still debate over this.

I'd go as far as to say that it's more likely that the holocaust was fake than it is that the Earth was created in 6 days. Like if there was a scale of plausibility.

Facts are never relative, never, those aren't facts, and they are opinion. A fact is, something that is verifiable, falsifiable and quantifiable. Things like, I was born on a Monday. It can be verified, it can be falsified, and it is quantifiable. The blue jays are the best team ever, is not, unless you give qualifications for 'best' that are measurable, 'they had the most home runs than any other team'

As for Pluto, it is a fact that Pluto is a stellar body that orbits our sun, we can quantify it’s weight, it’s distance, etc, but the definition of ‘planet’ is subjective. Like when does a shrub become a bush? For me, it’s around 2 feet tall. But that is subjective.

That’s fine by me, a religions class would be a great place for ID. It is possible that ID is true, however, all the evidence out there say’s it isn’t, but the premise that a supernatural being being able to do this is possible.

Id is a wonderful teaching tool of how science isn’t. it is full of bad science, logical falicies and other wonderful teaching opertunitied, just like the holocaust deniers, when I said equal time, I meant a lecture written by holocaust deniers to be given to the students, not just a they exist.


They should be allowed to teach, as long as they teach science and not let there personal views on the matter disrupt the learning of the students. The poor students that are taught ID are ill prepared to think critically about the world around them, and will be eaten alive when they get to college.


and will, where does the moon landing land in that scale?

My opinion (not verifiable, falsifiable, or quantifiable)? I'd say that the moon landing being faked is more likely than the holocaust being faked, which is more likely than the Earth being created in 6 days.

Where it landed on the scale was faked, though. :thumbsup:

i think you guys are misunderstanding my point.

Holocaust denial is highly relevant and critical to understanding the underlying causes of such events. Why live in a bubble? That is selective teaching. I think exposing or introducing Holocaust denial is a very good tool in the classroom. Like discussing the KKK and how it impacts the Civil Rights movement etc.

With ID, it can go in many directions. It is a historical fact that the theory of ID exists and many people believe in it. Perfect set up to contrast with say, the scientifi method. A great illustration to put them side by side using that model. I find it interesting that people are so afraid of ID. A couple of paragraphs or a lecture or two would be a great class.

We still teach that old scientists who thought the earth was the center of the universe and that the world was flat. Should we remove those examples from the textbooks and lesson plans?

Facts are subjective. And that's a fact. Simply because we are always learning and "evolving". It used to be a fact that Pluto was a planet. Now it is not. No problem, we can adapt. No reason to banish that historical fact from the books or to supress that expression. It used to be a fact that Columbus discovered America, but now it's not.

Lots of professors express their opinion in class. The day after 9/11, my astronomy professor went off on Bush. How is that relevant to astronomy? So what if a teacher wants to express his views (including religion)? My anthropology professor ( a Muslim) dared to tell us that not all Muslims were terrorists, they do not represent Islam and that his God does not approve of what they do . Wow, how dare a man of science express a religious opinion in class!!!

I think you guys are not giving us enough credit. I think people can decide for themselves. I feel there is room for discussion and learning and hearing different viewpoints is conducive to that.

ID isn't a religious opinion. Creationism is a religious opinion. I hope that's clear. ID is nothing but ignorance. If there was an ignorance class in school, ID is what would be taught. In religion class one would learn about creationism. In science class one would learn about evolution.

ID can't be compares to old world science either because they didn't really have the scientific knowledge at their fingertips like we have now. Had ID been introduced 600 years ago, I'd have applauded them for trying to move science towards science and away from religion. The thing is, we already have answers to the questions that ID poses. The answers that ID propose are preposterous.

Were on the same page, I think the holocaust denial should be covered, but from a historical accurate view point, from the view point of that it really did happen and there are people for what ever reason that say it didn't. The same is true with ID, it should be covered from the stand point that people believe it and the reasons it is wrong.

I still disagree with the facts... it is a fact that we once believed that Columbus discovered America, it was never a fact that he did, we only thought he did. it is a fact that Pluto used to fit the description of a planet, but they changed the definition of planet so Pluto no longer fits that definition. so it is a fact that Pluto no longer fits the definition of a planet, however, without defining a planet, you can't say it is a fact that Pluto is or isn't a planet. I could say, it is a fact that Pluto is no longer defined as a planet, or that Pluto used to fit the definition of a planet. Fact, just like Theory is misunderstood by most people. A fact is universal and infallible, it is always true and never false, can never be false. facts are mostly in math, 2+2 = 4, that is a fact. the soda can on my desk contains 12 oz of soda (at the time of me writing this)

Sure thing, I agree with some of what you say and disagree with some of what you say too.

This is an interesting direction we're headed - almost colliding with Art's "fact" thread.

jorge,

never said religious people can't teach (assuming that was directed at me); just said if some hard core guy with a definite agenda to further ID in schools (getting rid of "some" regulations preventing "some" material...) then yeah, i wouldn't want that dude teaching science or heading up the school board.

when i was in high school, i had a guy like that who somehow got to head up the sex ed committee. i was one of three highschool kids they asked to be on the committee. so from day one, the discussion wasn't whether or not what we should teach. it was "why is abstinence-only so awesome" and how would could implement abstincence only education. of course, the idea was shot down before it really got implemented, but the concept of teaching about protection and safe sex was just right out the door.

i don't blame these people for their beliefs. i just don't want them to be implemented. as far as i'm concerned, they can believe that the moon is made of cheese. i just don't want to see anyone try to harvest it.

i dont think that the arguments re. "fact" are the way to go about dismissing id.

uh---facts are universal and infallible?
depends what you have defined as relevant yes?
here's a demonstration---but sadly, i can't find a graphic for this, and it is really good...ugh...-----anyway, on 1+1=2: that the statement is true depends on what you are counting.

josef albers worked out a neat demonstration for the claim 1+1=3 or more. the demonstration (along with albers quite lovely visuals) can be found in edward tufte's "envisioning information" p. 61 or in albers "search versus re-search" pp. 17-18.

the following is not as good, but it uses what i could find online....so maybe you can derive it from this:

you add one black line to another black line on a white surface...

http://www2.cs.uregina.ca/~rbm/cs100..._one_three.gif

if you add the two lines by placing them one across the other, 1+1=4 or more.



so an even apparently self-evident claim (1+1=2) is a function of rules that you bring to bear on the operation, and these rules are frame-contingent.

it is because "facts" are frame contingent that it matters so much which frames are brought into play.

this is not a relativist argument, btw. think about it.

While an interesting tangent, we humans have the ability to reason, and use what common sense we have to place things into a perspective of likelyhood. It is (in my opinion) this ability that has allowed us as a species to progress beyond tool making monkeys in the first place. The sciences are a wonderful example of this tendency to be rational in action, as they place observation and reproduction of results as a prerequisite to reasonable Data.
The above experiment can certainly be true if one decides to set the parameters in such a way to create the results they are hoping for, just as ID can be true under these circumstances. True scientific evaluation of a thing however, requires one to ignore artificial criteria, and focus on the rational explanations that Data point to.

it's not that easy. tec.
the albers demonstration is every bit as rational as any other.
it is not a parlor game, not a joke: within the rules that shape it, the results are true--true in that they are formally correct--they violate no rules. a true statement is simply one that violates none of the relevant rules. it's validity is a direct function of the procedures that enable it.
that's it. it doesnt matter is these statements are intuitively evident or not. it doesnt matter if the results violate "common sense"--which is every bit as rule-bound a space/way of thinking as any other.

'common sense' holds no weight. you cant appeal to it and expect that resolves anything. "common sense" is nothing more or less than a social space within which the rule-bound nature of basic operations (perception for example) are naturalized, collapsed into what appears to be given. if you want to think about the relationship between rules/conventions and outputs, it is the last zone of activity that you would want to appeal to. another way: common sense begs all questions.

the point is that arguments against id cannot appeal to some notion of "fact" as if facts are what they are as they are outside of a series of assumptions. a fact is only what it is--is only "true"---BECAUSE there are procedures that enable the meta-operation of verification. and it is entirely possible that the framework within which these procedures operate can turn out to be wrong--think about classical mechanics, think about euclidian geometry (taken as frameworks that adequately describe the experiential world and its regularities or "laws"...that the descriptive power of these frameworks is not total does not mean that they cease to exist--they are functional within certain, highly circumscribed areas of activity/inquiry...)

just to say what should be obvious: this is in NO WAY an argument for a theory as self-evidently goofy as intelligent design.
i dont feel like repeating myself any more.
suffice it to say that this is why i understand the central problem at issue to be political or sociological.
but now things circular grow.
i may need more coffee before i track the circularity of it again.
i may need more coffee to do it than i am capable of drinking.

http://www2.cs.uregina.ca/~rbm/cs100..._one_three.gif

well no, that is not 1+1=3 that is
1 black line + 1 black line + 1 white line = 2 black lines +1 white line = 3 lines.

1 + 1 + 1 = 2 + 1 = 3

depends how you look at it, doesn't it?
in one way, you're right.
in another, you're not.
depends on the rules.

i wonder if we should split this into another thread?
i dont have time to work out an op at the moment, but if someone else does, i'd be happy to play more later with this.

Depending on how the ID is framed, ID isn't necessarily inconsistent with evolution. The problem is that it isn't science. It isn't necessarily wrong, either. It's just not scientific, and shouldn't be "dignified" with the title of science. It follows that if it is to be taught in public schools, it should be taught in social studies rather than science classes, and be an object of study similar to Zoroastrianism.

Although I think that's the correct position, it's clear to me that that is way too nuanced to work in the real world. So it probably should be left to be taught in churches.

tec, i found your answer.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y29/pigglet/fs7A.gif

piggy, that's ID, not creationism. Creationism is what I posted in post #30. ID is the mistaken application of religious information that negates scientific fact being taught as science. Creationism is just religious information.

ok, how about now? :D

:thumbsup: I couldn't be happier with it.

Thanks for your post Pig. No my post wasn't directed at you, it was more in general. I thought it was pertinent to put that viewpoint out there.

In your example, the "one or the other" strategy in employed. I would advocate both. EX: Teach abstinence AND safe sex practices.

To me that seems reasonable. I don't see it as a zero sum, that is can only be one or the other.

Wow, Roach, awesome post. Very interesting stuff, definitely something to think about. I was trying to allude (in a small way) to what you were talking about. I think the other 'fact" thread is also salient here.

Will, I think I may have confused ID with Creationism. I will look into it more, but I was talking more on an applicable level as opposed to a literal one.

Great cartoon Pig.

By the way, there are plenty of Christians etc that do believe in evolution or similar theories and even some who believe in both.

jorge,

oh,i know...concerning the number of christians who take science very seriously and aren't dogmatic in the sense that i think we're talking about and around here...i'll have to get back to this, as my dog is about to eat the back door trying to make me go throw things for her to fetch..

The way I see it, Creationism is straight religion. It has nothing to do with the big bang or evolution. It's simply the words in the Bible (or Torah, or Qu'ran, etc.) and faith.

Intelligent Design, on the other hand, is the bastard love child between two entirely different species: science and religion. In order to combine the two completely different constructs, they had to make concessions on both sides. A common concession would be that the Earth is only 6000 years old according to the genealogy provided in the Bible, despite the mountain of backable and verifiable evidence to the contrary. ID is bad in that it ignores both of it's sources. ID doesn't work when applied to science because we have proof that it's claims are wrong. It doesn't work with religion because religion is about faith in god, not proving god's existence.

At least that's the way I see it. I may be an atheist, but someone who believes in creationism is simply devoted, and it's making concessions on their beliefs. I respect that deeply, whether I agree with them or not. ID people aren't being true to their beliefs or science. They're a mess.
Most Catholics believe in evolution. Many protestants believe in evolution. ID is simply a loud, stupid minority.

Ok, interesting, thanks Will for the info.

So then, is the debate against evolution,creationism, ID or what exactly? I just looked at the OP and I think we may have deviated a bit from it.