Posted on 12/14/2004 7:14:55 AM PST by wkdaysoff
HARRISBURG, Pa. — The state American Civil Liberties Union (search) plans to file a federal lawsuit Tuesday against a Pennsylvania school district that is requiring students to learn about alternatives to the theory of evolution (search).
The ACLU said its lawsuit will be the first to challenge whether public schools should teach "intelligent design," which holds that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by some higher power....
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Not quite right. Actually theories CAN be disproved. That is the main thing that is required of an idea for it to be regarded as scientific. There must be a way to falsify it. Therefore, scientific laws can also be disproved. You are correct that neither can ever be proven. The way it works is that both laws and theories make predictions. Scientists test these predictions and when they are found to be true, that lends credence to the law or theory. If the prediction is false, the theory or law is modified or abandoned. Theories never become laws. They are different TYPES of ideas. A law describes a regularity observed in nature. For example the law of gravity tells us that between any two massive bodies, there is an attractive force, and it gives a formula for calculating this force. This is a description of a regularity observed in nature. A theory will give an explanation of observations. A theory of gravity, such as Einstein's general theory of relativity, will explain why there is an attractive force between two bodies and why the force has the value it has. Notice that Einstein's theory shows that the law of gravity isn't quite correct. This shows that it is not necessarily true that laws are supported by more evidence than theories, or that laws are somehow proven whereas theories are not.
If something extant resists falsifiability, does it not exist?
Okay...so what?
It still generates testable hypotheses.
Why is this so freakin' hard? Some scientists believe every living thing including molecular machines evolved from a single cell. Other scientists are less credulous and ask tough questions. Practicing skepticism is also science. Why can't classrooms teach that some scientists believe in evolution and here's why... and other scientists doubt the existing theory can account for much of our experience and here's why?...
Why is that so freakin' impossible in this country?
Has this thread been bumped to "chat" yet? ;)
Everyone notice the join dates on most of these Creationists?
I would like to see you produce just one idea linked to ID that isn't routinely explored by mainstream science.
Mainstream science doesn't assume things are irreducibe because it is too busy reducing them. The assumption that something could not have occurred by the accumulation of natural events is not merely wrong. It is anti-science in the worst possible way -- it argues that it is sinful to look for natural causes.
The only way to conduct science is to assume natural causes and look for them. That is what it means to do science.
Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) - http://www.alliancedefensefund.org
Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) - http://www.thomasmore.org
American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) - http://www.aclj.org
The Rutherford Institute - http://www.rutherford.org/
Stop the ACLU Coalition - http://www.stoptheaclu.org
Here are a few examples of how two of those organizations are fighting back:
ADF Contacts Over 3,600 School Districts Over Attempts To Censor Christmas
ADF: 700 lawyers ready to fight ACLU lawsuits
ADF: Pentagons' Warning About Boyscouts Is Absurd
Thomas More Law Center: Town of Palm Beach Pays $50,000 In Attorney Fees Apologizes To Women In Nativity Lawsuit
Additional information:
The ACLU must be destroyed: Joseph Farah supports Boy Scouts, urges Americans to fight back
Citizens mobilized to stop ACLU (seeks to consign group to 'ash heap of history')
ACLU fulfilling communist agenda
Darwin provided no explanation of how such a being arose. Attempts to fill the gap have fallen short in the face of new discoveries in information theory and biology. So now the ID group wants a chance at bat. What's wrong with that?
These efforts by the ACLU underscore for everyone that Darwinism is a protected, state-supported religion that must suppress heresy. If it were really science, and the evidence for it were so overwhelming as we are supposed to believe, there should be no problem with an open discussion on the merits. Especially in school! But this is just what we shall never see--without a fight, that is.
I would guess the join dates would coincide with someone's decision that their previous banning might be forgotten by now.
Then why use the courts to promote it? Use the "tons of data" to prove it. After all, fewer and fewer believe in evolution every year so the "tons of data" must be thoroughly convincing.
Easy answer: the people who in the 60's and 70's asked you and me to be "open-minded" have taken control over culture, courts and public discourse, and now demand that the views of the Right (which in their minds include the 'Religious Crowd') are not to be heard.
According to the Left:
1. Thou shalt not speak of God
2. Thou shalt not speak of anything remotely religious
3. If it has ANYTHING to do with a Public Place, a Government function, Public Education, or the like You'd better DA__ well make sure you don't violate rules 1 and 2.
You're excused, but your statement is false. Read any comparative anatomy textbok for just a small collection of the data that support evolutionary theory.
Darwin's theory of evolution does not address the origins of life, but rather: speciation.
No numbers, prof. Reasoning by analogy not quantity. Besides, Post Hoc ergo Prompter Hoc.
You are the one advocating this theory, and therefore have the burden of proof. "Doesn't this look as if..." is not proof. Proof is measurement, analysis, prediction, experiment, etc., as you well know.
Why do you feel the need to compete with the campus intellectuals? What will you gain? Faith in God, in Christ, is not an intellectual endeavor, it is a article of faith.
In the end, whether science backs you up or not, don't you still believe?
...Creationism...has no place in a rigourous environment of learning...
By that logic the concept that cultural diversity, so beloved by the schools, is on its face beneficial to society cannot be backed by hard data, and should have no place whatsoever in the environment of learning...it simply comes down to a matter of which untestable theories finds favor with the secularists so as to pass muster and thus proceed into the curriculum...
First of all there is no such thing today as "Darwinism". Let's get that straight. The modern theory of evolution is not the same as Darwin's theory, and nobody looks at Darwin as an infallible source. Call it evolution, not Darwinism. Second of all, evolution doesn't inherently assume that there is no higher power. Evolution makes the procedural assumption (the same one made in all science) that supernatural phenomena are not necessary to explain observed data. This is called procedural materialism and it is an essential part of science, since there is no way to test a supernatural phenomenon. ID (or creationism which is what it really is) is perfectly compatible with evolution. Evolution assumes that at one time, life began. It starts with the first simple life form and explains how that simple single-celled developed to form the wide variety of organisms seen today. Nowhere in the theory is there a statement that "God doesn't exist." Evolution is neutral with respect to God because science can't say anything one way or another about the existence of God.
That teaching a plethora of long-discarded alternatives to accepted scientific theories is not a valid pedagogical method. Public schools teach badly enough as it is, without throwing in a whole lot more politically or religiously motivated nonsense. We don't teach 'alternatives to gravity'.
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