Posted on 12/20/2005 7:54:38 AM PST by snarks_when_bored
Fox News alert a few minutes ago says the Dover School Board lost their bid to have Intelligent Design introduced into high school biology classes. The federal judge ruled that their case was based on the premise that Darwin's Theory of Evolution was incompatible with religion, and that this premise is false.
Smogger, you don't really have a free will.
It is prone to sin.
It is not until Christ that you are truly free.
"Individual animals don't evolve, species do."
And specifically, it's populations within a species that evolve, not the entire species.
"Judge Jones found that the Dover board violated the Establishment Clause because it acted from religious motives. That should have been the end to the case," said West. "Instead, Judge Jones got on his soapbox to offer his own views of science, religion, and evolution. He makes it clear that he wants his place in history as the judge who issued a definitive decision about intelligent design. This is an activist judge who has delusions of grandeur."I was actually expecting the DI spin machine to take the tack of praising this decision, since their pose for the last couple years has been that they don't want ID to be taught, just their idiosyncratic list of "problems with evolution". But instead we get this bitterness. Interesting.
Bwuahahaha. They can move to Iran.
Wow. I can actually correspond with someone who knows the extent of human ability in all places at the present moment. That said, how difficult is it for humans to test for the presence of organized matter that behaves according to predictable laws? How unreasonable is it for humans to deduce from the presence of organized matter and predictable laws that intelligence and design might somehow be involved with them?
Certainly in a real school, that is to say, one that actually seeks to teach, all legitimate areas of inquiry would be addressed.
Please do not be confused that I advocate teaching that ID is a fact, or teaching it in any particular class is the only way to address the important subject. Only that to deny it actually is a legitimate question by ignoring it while teaching that other theories are fact, is inconsistent with an acceptable school.
Government schools are not designed to further legitimate inquiry, it is unfortunately no longer the mission.
If you thought I meant anything else, you surely misread my intent. I have a practice of saying precisely what I mean.
I propose a corollary of the Babelfish arguement to show how bad it would be if Behe's arguement for intelligent design were true:
The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing." "But," says Behe, "the Bacterial flagellum is a dead giveaway, isn´t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don´t. QED." "Oh dear," says God, "I hadn´t thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. "Oh, that was easy," says Behe, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.
After all, if you had proof, why would you need faith?
"Wow. I can actually correspond with someone who knows the extent of human ability in all places at the present moment."
You are rightly filled with awe. :)
"That said, how difficult is it for humans to test for the presence of organized matter that behaves according to predictable laws?"
Already done. That's not evidence for a God.
"How unreasonable is it for humans to deduce from the presence of organized matter and predictable laws that intelligence and design might somehow be involved with them?"
Very unreasonable.
"So this opens the door to newer technology, etc, coming out that changes these estimates yet again."
Yes, but you have to understand something about these techniques, and how they interacted with hypotheses about the Earth's age.
The old estimate for the age of the Earth was what is politely known as a "SWAG" (Scientific Wild-A$$-Guess). Essentially, the natural philosophers who assembled the geologic column (all of whom were creationists, BTW) estimated how long it would take for certain features to form, based on an assumption that the continents pretty much came into being in their present-day positions.
There was a maverick named Wegener who looked at a map of Africa and South America, and concluded that the two continents fit together neatly. He hypothesized that the continents were actually in motion. Well, his hypothesis had some serious flaws. The most serious flaw was a byproduct of the flawed assessment of the Earth's age, which dictated an extremely rapid rate of movement--something that would be detected even by the relatively primitive geodetic instruments of his day.
In the 1940s and 1950s, new technologies appeared that revolutionized our understanding of geophysics. Three are particularly important. The first was sonar. This showed us undersea features that we had no idea even existed prior to using sonar for depth-finding and the like. The second was radioisotope dating, which showed us that the Earth was many times older than we thought. The third was the magentometer, which allowed us to view the magnetic alignment of the seafloor.
When all these were taken together, Wegener's hypothesis of continental drift suddenly looked a LOT more tenable. The results from all of the observations made possible by the new technologies pointed to a much older Earth--and they pointed consistently across multiple disciplines (geology, chemistry, physics, biology, botany, and so on) to an age of about 4-5 gigayears.
For a new technology to revise the age of the Earth drastically in one direction or another, there are two things that must happen:
1. The new technology must actually show an age well outside the 4-5 gigayear range;
and
2. There must be a hypothesis to explain why the other ranges given to date are so far off from the new technology's estimate; in order to become a theory, the hypothesis must make predictions that can be successfully tested against observation.
I understand what you are saying, but many scientists have a militant anti-Christian attitude.
This is a problem that needs to be fixed.
I understand science must assume there is no God since he is outside of science. But, outright mocking those who DO believe....some of which is on this very thread....is not what a scientist should do.
The ID'ers will be happy with nothing less than the complete replacement of objective science with their own brand of subjective religion. They are an embarrassing offshoot of the conservative Republican movement, and the sane among us should point this out at every given opportunity.
My Taliban analogy only stings because it comes so close to the truth. Sorry, but I will not stand by and watch this great country be dragged back into the 12th century by a bunch of religious fanatics.
The people responsible for the mess should shoulder the costs involved.
You raise a very interesting point; the taxpayers of Dover ought not be stuck with the cost of this debacle, but as I understand it, generally, individuals acting in their capacity as government officials are not personally liable for the consequences of their actions...... EXCEPT, in some states, it is my understanding that if a government official exceeds his authority and commits an act under the color of his office, but which is, in fact, not appropriate to his office, he CAN be held PERSONALLY liable.
I'm neither an attorney, nor do I play one on TV, nor do I know if such a law exists in Pennsylvania, or if it is applicable to this case. But it's food for thought....
But ID was never religion anyway, was it?. So no harm, no foul.
Begging your pardon, but what data for ID?!
There isn't any test data. It's a hypothesis. It's not testable, it makes no predictions, and it's not falsifiable. The only way it could be compared to "other theories" is to redefine the word, since ID hasn't met the basic standards.
Where exactly is Separation of Church and State in the Constitution? I've looked. Can't seem to find it. Please enlighten me!
"I'm neither an attorney, nor do I play one on TV"
And you probably didn't stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night. :)
One thing that might be a lever for going after the school board is the perjury angle. Perjury is prima facie evidence of bad faith; one might argue that, by engaging in what amounts to fraud, the school board violated their oaths of office and thus were not acting as government officials.
Ask whoever made that contention. Certainly it was not I.
Please explain how.
Why address that question to me?
The question has to do with the meaning of "scientific theory" vs plain old vanilla theory.
One poster keeps talking about it and tossing insults toward anyone who asks him to explain his terms. Never of course doing so.
I merely tried to help the lad with a dictionary definition. It unfortunately didn't help.
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