2nd KU class denies status of science to design theory

Intelligent design — already the planned subject of a controversial Kansas University seminar this spring — will make its way into a second KU classroom in the fall, this time labeled as a “pseudoscience.”

In addition to intelligent design, the class Archaeological Myths and Realities will cover such topics as UFOs, crop circles, extrasensory perception and the ancient pyramids.

John Hoopes, associate professor of anthropology, said the course focused on critical thinking and taught how to differentiate science and “pseudoscience.” Intelligent design belongs in the second category, he said, because it cannot be tested and proven false.

“I think this is very important for students to be articulate about — they need to be able to define and recognize pseudoscience,” Hoopes said.

News of the new class provided fresh fuel to conservatives already angered that KU planned to offer a religious studies class this spring on intelligent design as “mythology.”

“The two areas that KU is trying to box this issue into are completely inappropriate,” said Brian Sandefur, a mechanical engineer in Lawrence who has been a vocal proponent of intelligent design.

Intelligent design is the idea that life is too complex to have evolved without a “designer,” presumably a god or other supernatural being. That concept is at the heart of Kansas’ new public school science standards — greatly ridiculed by the mainstream science community but lauded by religious conservatives — that critique the theory of evolution.

Hoopes said his class would be a version of another course, titled Fantastic Archaeology, which he helped develop as a graduate student at Harvard University.

The course will look at the myths people have created to explain mysterious occurrences, such as crop circles, which some speculate were caused by extraterrestrials.

The course will explore how myth can be created to negative effects, as in the case of the “myth of the moundbuilders.” In early American history, some people believed the earthen mounds found primarily in the area of the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys were the works of an ancient civilization destroyed by American Indians. The myth contributed to the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which relocated American Indians east of the Mississippi to lands in the west, Hoopes said.

“It was that popular explanation that then became a cause for genocide,” Hoopes said.

“What I’m trying to do is deal with pseudoscience regardless of where it’s coming from,” he said.

But Sandefur said intelligent design was rooted in chemistry and molecular biology, not religion, and it should be discussed in science courses.

Hoopes said he hoped his class stirs controversy. He said students liked to discuss topics that are current and relevant to their lives.

“Controversy makes people think,” he said. “The more controversy, the stronger the course is.”

OK "the doctrine of Christ spread throughout the civilized world. That is, it is highly probable we would not be free, or even alive, to be in this debate except God had sent us a savior to alter the course of history about 2000 years ago.

So, does he meddle? The Bible says he does. History says he does. Even scientists say he does (except for the closed-minded). But there is one way to be certain: if prophecy comes true, he meddles."
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Thus the new Church of the Constant Cosmic Meddler.

Some of us think that there is an objective reality out there. It fits with our intelligent observations--leaves fall randomly from trees. Tremendous understandings come from seeing all mammals as having similar body shapes and internal organization. Poor "design" is apparent. And surely there is little unique in homo sapiens body structures or fetal development.

Myths are what they are. Myths. Fun stories for kids, like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, but when we grow up, "we put aside childish things".

>>>Our Constitution is secular--it never mentions a god or Christian doctrines. It specifically mentions "no religious test." This is NOT anti-religious. Please consider...<<<

If you diligently study Constitutional history you will quickly conclude that the only reason Christ was not mentioned in the Constitution is because it would have been considered redundant. Practically everyone of political significance in those days was Christian. For example, the purpose of "no religious test for public office" was explained by Oliver Ellsworth, a Connecticut delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, in this manner:

"A test in favor of any one denomination of Christians would be to the last degree absurd in the United States. If it were in favor of Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Baptists, or Quakers, it would incapacitate more than three-fourths of the American citizens for any public office and thus degrade them from the rank of freemen."

Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, in his 1833 Commentaries on the Constitution, concurred with:

"The real object of the [first] amendment was, not to countenance, much less to advance Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment, which should give to an hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government . . ."

Story also expounded the significance of Christianity in our nation with:

"The promulgation of the great doctrines of religion, the being, and attributes, and providence of one Almighty God; the responsibility to him for all our actions, founded upon moral freedom and accountability; a future state of rewards and punishments; the cultivation of all the personal, social, and benevolent virtues;- these never can be a matter of indifference in any well ordered community. . . ."

and:

"Now, there will probably be found few persons in this, or any other Christian country, who would deliberately contend, that it was unreasonable, or unjust to foster and encourage the Christian religion generally, as a matter of sound policy, as well as of revealed truth. In fact, every American colony, from its foundation down to the revolution, . . . did openly, by the whole course of its laws and institutions, support and sustain, in some form, the Christian religion; and almost invariably gave a peculiar sanction to some of its fundamental doctrines. And this has continued to be the case in some of the states down to the present period, without the slightest suspicion that it was against the principles of public law, or republican liberty."

and:

"Probably at the time of the adoption of the constitution, and of the amendment to it, now under consideration, the general, if not the universal, sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the state, so far as was not incompatible with the private rights of conscience, and the freedom of religious worship. An attempt to level all religions, and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation . . . "

Still a skeptic? How about this statement by our earliest Supreme Court, in Runkel vs. Winemiller of 1796:

"By our form of government, the Christian religion is the established religion, and the sects and denominations of Christians are placed upon the same equal footing."

I tend to put more weight on the statements of those who lived in the days the constitution was adopted, than those of today.

It is also worth mentioning that some of the original 13 states under the Constitution had religious tests for public office. Only the federal government was prohibited from having a religious test.

And it is worth mentioning that the Constitution showed respect for the Christian prohibition against labor on the 7th Day, with:

"If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law." -- Article 1, Section 7, Clause 2.

How you all sound alike! You end up raving "liar, liar" whenever your real arguments lose steam. All anyone has to do with the evo-clique here on FR is follow a few threads--soon the clique will try to gang up on an evo-doubter and do the bad-tempered routine. What you really attract attention to is the fact that you need all those numbers to make your assertions appear stronger...

which immediately poses the question..."Wonder if they're really as many as they seem?" In an online world, that's a real thing to wonder about.

and "They sure sound alike, and deport themselves alike. Wonder if they post alike?" yeah, they sure do. Back months and months, they gather on FR and high-five each other and go drudging for evo-doubters.

"Liar, Liar" is bad form. Makes you look weak, like a dwindling species.

And it's unfalsifiable.

It would be helpful if evolutionists could explain irreducible complexity so we could put this matter to rest

Since I'm talking about Behe, I think Behe's definition is sufficient for the discussion, and it is in particular Behe's definition I have criticized. How various unspecified "evolutionists" define IC is not particulate germane to that criticism.

Behe's definition:

"By irreducibly complex I mean a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning."

Now, one's initial read of that would lead one to believe that if you could remove a part of a system, it wouldn't be IC if it still functioned in some capacity, even if it wasn't in the same capacity as prior to the removal. However, Behe could not mean that, for he also uses this mouse trap illustration as an example of IC:

Which part could be missing and still allow you to catch a mouse? If the wooden base were gone, there would be no platform for attaching the other components. If the hammer were gone, the mouse could dance all night on the platform without becoming pinned to the wooden base. If there were no spring, the hammer and platform would jangle loosely, and again the rodent would be unimpeded. If there were no catch or metal holding bar, then the spring would snap the hammer shut as soon as you let go of it...

He's clearly implying that if the system loses its original functionality (catching mice) with the loss of a part, it is IC. This reading is buttressed in fact by one of his examples of IC in the natural world: swimming systems.

Since Behe uses the argument of swimming systems as one of his cases for IC, and since as a biochemist who has made this feature his star attraction, he is no doubt aware of the bacterial flagellum and type three secretion systems, and since a convincing evolutionary pathway can be made for the evolution of the flagellum from the TTSS, Behe must (in concert with his mouse trap example) be suggesting that any system where removal of a piece cause the original function to cease is IC. He must mean this, otherwise he wouldn't have used an example which quite clearly is "reducibly complex" in the sense that you can remove a part and the structure is still functional albeit in another capacity. Nor would he have used his mousetrap analogy unless he is just guilty of a poor analogy.

The problem is, if you use the more restrictive interpretation of IC, it doesn't map to nature, since in nature structures are found to co opt other structures for different functions.

Of course, it is perfectly legitimate to say no, that's not the reading Behe intended -- he really meant that it's only IC if removal of any part makes it completely nonfunctional. That argument is itself fallacious for another reason that I'll not elaborate on here (it ignores the possibility that the system in its current form was arrived at through a subtractive process and assumes all systems are arrived at through purely additive pathways). However, if you do opt for this reading, you are still left with the mystery of why he used a) a natural-world example that doesn't fit that definition and b) a contrived example (the mousetrap) that went out of its way to suggest that original functionality was the intended reading.

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