Posted on 10/09/2007 1:00:30 PM PDT by TheDon
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Showing – not telling – is the point of “Evolution and Creation,” Hofmann's long-running seminar on one of science's hairiest debates: evolution vs. “intelligent design.”
The first theory – which says that all life evolved from a common ancestor – is the scientific equivalent of the Magna Carta, a guiding principle that undergirds mainstream debate about the origins of man.
The second theory, advanced by Christian academics and advocates, argues that life appears to have a purpose for which an intelligent creator – God – is the only possible explanation.
Hofmann makes no bones about where he falls.
“Intelligent design is a very good PR movement but not much else,” he says.
The lanky, shaggy-haired professor in Cal State Fullerton's department of liberal studies teaches the course because, he says, the debate is not going away, and – as an election year approaches – it may even be growing.
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Hofmann's course syllabus refers students to extensive reading lists about multiple viewpoints – from “young” and “old earth” creationists, to “theistic evolution” believers, to intelligent design advocates.
His desk is littered with books about intelligent design, including “Of Pandas and People,” the intelligent-design secondary- school textbook that in 2005 became the focus of nationwide debate and litigation culminating in a U.S. District Court ruling that intelligent design was not a science.
“What's different (from other college classes on creationism) is that I don't present my class as a debunking course,” Hofmann says. “It's intended to give students access to information.”
Such consideration – for a topic that the National Science Teachers Association dismissed as “pseudoscience” in 2005 – has garnered Hofmann positive reviews on blogs and listserves utilized by other “creation science” instructors.
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(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...
Oddly they are not mutually exclusive in the sense of logical proof. Both can equally well be proven even though they are incompatible. In other words this debate can never end although one side or the other might decide to find something else to do for a while such as have a life—evolved or created.
Does it have to be God that is the designer? Plenty of Sci-Fi stories have covered this topic putting intelligent species from other worlds as the creator.
Guillermo Gonzalez & Jay W Richards, The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery
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