Posted on 04/20/2008 8:49:48 AM PDT by Soliton
“Intelligent Design” is of no scientific value in determining the origins of life in the universe. A designer would have to be supernatural (i.e. not subject to the laws of physics) or natural and subject to those laws. If the designer is natural in origin, then it would have to have been designed by another designer –again supernatural or natural. Ultimately come to an original designer that either evolved from a lower state of matter, or was created by a supernatural being. You will note that this is back to where we started. Science does not deal with supernatural phenomena by definition. Scientifically, the only answer is evolution. ID, however, is really about the cosmology of the Book of Genesis anyway, but if that is admitted, it can’t be taught in school. And there’s the rub.
The term “Intelligent Design” was adopted by the Discovery Institute, the originator of the ID movement, and a non-profit company that was incorporated specifically to get the story of Genesis taught in public schools (as specifically stated in the incorporation documents). To that end a Creationist textbook was published called Of Pandas and People.
In 1987, The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that teaching creationism in public schools violated the separation of church and state in Edwards vs. Aquilard.
In a similar later case, Kitzmiller vs. The Dover Area School District involving the school’s acquisition of Of Pandas and People, it was proven in court that the publishers and the people who financed the purchase lied in depositions when they stated that Intelligent Design wasn’t just another term for Creationism. They did this by showing that dozens of passages in the pre-1987 Edwards vs. Aquilard copies of the book used “Creation”, while later versions substituted “Intelligent Design” in its place.
The entire Intelligent Design movement is a dishonest, legalistic Trojan horse specifically intended to teach creationism in public school even though it is against the law.
Complete transcripts of Kitzmiller vs. Dover can be found here:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dover/kitzmiller_v_dover.html
You’re proposing that we go back to the days of Newton, when the Church held the authority to pass judgement on scientific theory, and you think it’s a stupid question to ask how you’re going to make that work today. That sounds like a plan. We’ll just declare all the hard questions to be “stupid” and then we won’t have to think about them.
That’s a non-responsive reply that displays your failure to understand the plain words of the 1st Amendment.
The 1st Amendment restricts the Congress from passing certain laws. It does not restrict the people.
People keep responding to my post without apparently reading it. ID denies it is religion. My post was about ID. My problem with ID is exactly that they disguise their religion as science to circumvent the law as proven in open court. I did not pass judgement on the merits of the ruling itself, just that it is the law of the land. Please note that whenever you defend religion when I criticize ID, you are supporting me and calling Ben Stein a liar.
Your problem isn’t with me, but the legal system. I do not believe that the SCOTUS is always right, but it is the law of the land. If you want to teach your religion in public schools, use civil disobedience. It worked for Ghandi. Just don’t attack science. You owe scientific method too much.
Very true. But God isn't defined in this case except as the cause of everything. To say the cause of everything is the cause of everything isn't science. I could say "The eternal beast Booftaloo created everything from his fingernail clippings" and its just as valid as ID or Creationism without scientific evidence.
God doesn't "jump in" to these debates. He gets put there by other people who claim to speak for Him.
You’re trying to play both sides of the question, but you’re not slippery enough to pull it off. In #3, you said, “ID isn’t a theory. It is religion. I cited the SCOTUS case. It shouldn’rt taught in school only because it is illegal to do so.”
By your own words, you are an enemy of the Republic, agreeing that religion ought to be forbidden in public schools in direct opposition to the 1st Amendment. You believe religion should not be taught in public schools.
That sounds right to you, because it threatens YOUR religion, evolution.
Who’s version of Christianity would you have the school teach?
I think we must follow the data and logic wherever it may lead.
Fear of some imaginary bogeyman should not prevent intellectual inquiry and research.
* Predictions (reasoning including logical deduction[20] from the hypothesis or theory)* Experiments[21] (tests of all of the above)
Any examples?
No, my problem is with anyone who is an enemy of the Republic. That’s you, and those like you, who believe the Constitution forbids religion being taught in public school.
I think you don’t have an answer and don’t want to consider the unintended conquences of what you’re asking for. Failing to consider unintended consequences is one thing. Outright refusal to is another. It’s the measure of a zealot, and a stands as a warning.
Examples of what?
Until 1963, what had been taught in public schools for more than 150 years was for the most part generic Christianity. In more than 150 years, we never had even the first hint of a theocracy being formed anywhere.
What’s wrong with that?
You could say that of course, but people would think you're crazy.
If however you said it has been revealed by God in our Holy Documents that we were created in his image, the truth of which which was passed down from the ancients over 3000 years ago, that would be another matter entirely.
What is ‘generic Christianity’?
Does it speak as to the age of the Earth? Does it blame every problem humans have on ‘The Fall’?
I didn't see this until I got the second reply. Sorry.
The theory of evolution is really many theories. Darwin's original book (on evolution) was "On the Origin of Species". It was concerned with how one species arose from another. It does not deal with the origin of life. Mainstream evolutionist restrict themselves in the same way and have come up with overwhelming evidence that some form of natural selection and sexual selection drives speciation.
The origin of life on Earth is being approached from two directions. If you consider that all matter on earth is made of protons, neutrons and electrons, then everything is just the same stuff but arranged differently. In other words, life is just another arrangement of nonlife. Scientist on the chemical side of the life/nonlife border have created molecules that resemble viruses. Viruses are like a tiny genome without a cell to reproduce it. On the Biology side of the devide, geneticists have created new organisms (my favorite being a tomato that can survive freezing temperatures by splicing a gene from an arctic fish.) Evolution theory has demonstrated that complex organisms have evolved from simple one cell organisms, including us.
The space left for creationism is the very narrow one between viruses and single cell organisms. That space will close in the next decade.
That's another way to put ...I guess.
How old to you believe the Earth to be?
It would be a lot easier if he would. Then we wouldn’t get some many different answers to the same questions.
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