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To: Coyoteman
Perhaps the answers to his questions are illogical or unsubstantiated. Creationists tend to rely on creationist websites, which are not the best places to find scientific data and arguments. You tend to find apologetics and pretzel science.

If done correctly, teaching ID within science classes would be quite instructive.

IF the examples were carefully chosen, one could use specific features of "intelligent design" as case studies in order to compare and contrast the following:

1) the thought processes and methodology used to come up with different explanations
2) comparing either the predictive value OR the "what questions does this lead TO" value of the different approaches
3) compare and contrast the rules of evidence vs. argument from authority, etc.

If done poorly in one direction, a bunch of students quoting Ann Coulter might get the under-educated science teacher (for the moment) backed into a corner, and defeat the purpose of explaining / demonstrating / allowing "hands on practice" of the power and elegance of empiricism.

If done poorly in the other direction the agnostic / atheist / skeptic trolls would take over, and imbue the impressionable students with a lot of hooey.

As I have stated on other threads, just because something is "unscientific" does not PROVE it false. Empirical practices are great at sifting through things so that you have a high bar to pass before accepting them, and incorporating them into a consistent framework. It therefore reduces "false positives" and has a great error-correcting mechanism--against false positives.

The way in which its error correction is NOT so fantastic, is the mistaken belief that if something is not yet scientifically proven, it "must" be untrue, rather than unverified by a certain methodology. So the risk is there of ignoring something true. The scientists who think about it accept this as part of an acceptable trade-off for minimizing errors. (And they get away with it because the material world DOES operate--at the macroscopic level--according to fixed laws, and is not personal or sentinent. The supernatural, according to many accounts, has claimed all along to be a differnt kind of beast, even before the "god of the gaps" mindset kicked in.)

Cheers!

876 posted on 09/25/2006 11:13:15 PM PDT by grey_whiskers
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To: grey_whiskers

Oh, dear!

Reasonable facts on a CREVO thread?

Won't wonders never cease!

Wise post. Thanks.


913 posted on 09/26/2006 5:47:40 AM PDT by Quix (LET GOD ARISE AND HIS ENEMIES BE SCATTERED. LET ISRAEL CALL ON GOD AS THEIRS! & ISLAM FLUSH ITSELF)
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