Posted on 02/10/2005 6:39:50 PM PST by gobucks
PHILADELPHIA - Evangelical Christians, buoyed by the re-election of President Bush, are turning American schools into a battleground over whether evolution explains the origins of life or whether nature was designed by an all-powerful force.
In at least 18 states, campaigns have begun to make public schools teach “intelligent design” — a theory that nature is so complex it could only have been created by design — alongside Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.
“It’s pretty clear that there is a religious movement behind intelligent design,” said Steve Case, chairman of the Science Standards Committee, a group of educators that advises the Kansas Board of Education. The board will decide later this year whether to include intelligent design in biology classes.
Some scientists who espouse the theory say intelligent design does not question that evolution occurred, but how it occurred: They believe more was at play than random mutation and natural selection. The theory, they insist, does not support the religious concept of a creator.
Those who advocate giving it equal treatment in schools have a different interpretation.
*snip*
The poll found greater support for teaching creationism among Republican voters — 71 percent of Bush voters favored teaching creationism alongside evolution.
*snip*
John West, (located) at the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, which pioneered intelligent design research, said the theory was too complex to teach at high schools and was better-suited to a college setting.
“There is a concern that intelligent design has been hijacked by people who don’t really know what it says,” he said. “We don’t think it should be a political football.”
*snip*
“Intelligent design is a religious doctrine,” said Wayne Carley, executive director of the National Association of Biology Teachers. “There is no research to support it, and it is clearly religious in that it posits a higher being.”
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
A scientist is not afraid to subject his work to peer review. I thought you said you were a scientist. I guess not.
On a side note, may I ask if your moniker refers to hunting or bourbon? I have interest in both.
A valid model represents some subset of reality it wishes to study. If a model has factors not in that reality, it is not valid. Your quote has this 180o off.
I still see no alternative proposal.
I have given anti-IDers and anti-creationists the benefit of every doubt. The magnitude of the numbers are just too great. I have been more than fair in giving spontaneous generation of life a chance. More fair than I have been to the creationist and ID desired result. Consider:
I have assumed that amino acids existed from the instant the planet formed, and in enough quantities to prevent starving or steady state equilibrium. Surely, C, H, O, N, and P had to first work out efficient molecular arrangements, and this took some time.
I have assumed that enough energy to facilitate the necessary reactions was continuously present throughout the local densities where the molecules would form. Surely there would be moments of insufficient solar, geothermal, and electric (lightning / plasma) energy and moments where large amounts of these same energies would be destructive.
I assumed a geometric curve for genetic efficiencies of scale. Nothing in empiric data suggest anything more ambitious than linear or maybe quadratic curves.
I assumed that the chemical assembly of the molecule was all that was required for life. We have no understanding of where or how the “spark of life” enters the process. So this crucial aspect of ID and creationism is simply ignored to give randomness the greatest chance of success.
All this generosity to the opponents of ID and creationism in making the calculation, and your very professional and scientifically rigorous assessment: garbage, ludicrous, et al.
LOL. Barricade yourself with Huxley’s monkeys if you wish. The rest of us will continue to seek the truth.
Definitely not an English major ...
One can construct a linear curve with a steeper slope than a "geometric" curve. Your statement makes no sense. The fact that you won't release your solution makes it very suspect. Perhaps you don't have a "solution" ...
Hunting.
Which is more probable. The spontaneous generation of life OR the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing, everlasting God?
LOL. You've just destroyed the validity of modeling entirely. Go back to that model of a tornado I posted earlier. Are real tornadoes contained within glass jars? No? Obviously, by your logic, this model is invalid.
Get real. The model is not the thing itself. So long as it accurately reflects the aspect of the real thing we are studying, no amount of handwaving by you will make it invalid.
I still see no alternative proposal.
Nobody is required to provide one in order to demonstrate the absurdity of your calculations. They fall apart all by themselves, on their own merits - or lack thereof - regardless of whether alternatives exist or what the merits of such alternatives might be.
I have given anti-IDers and anti-creationists the benefit of every doubt. The magnitude of the numbers are just too great.
The magnitude of the numbers you invented with no basis in reality? Convenient, that.
The rest of us will continue to seek the truth.
Obviously not. It is increasingly apparent that you are simply inventing this schema as a means of propping up a predetermined conclusion, that this is not a search for truth at all, but is instead a search for a rationalization.
Not the biggest bird ever, but the way he came in on that jake mounting the hen...
Moments that make getting up at 3 and setting up before 5 all worth it.
Perpetual motion is possible. All I have to do is have an experimenter spin a flywheel with instructions to his progeny to do the same.
Come on General...Modern Physics may have problems with the laws of thermodynamics...now you too?
Sure a little stoichiometry never hurt anyone.
Is this an attempt to wear me down with sustained silliness? You can invent a crappy model, therefore all models are crappy? Is that really your argument?
perpetual motion, n. - The hypothetical continuous operation of an isolated mechanical device or other closed system without a sustaining energy source.
If'n yer always givin' it a push, it ain't operatin' "without a sustaining energy source", right? Therefore, your model does not reflect the critical aspect of the thing you're supposed to be studying, now does it?
What model. He has refused several requests to reveal it.
Well, the model that's currently based on junk numbers, anyway ;)
All the parameters and assumptions are posted. The rest is statistical mechanics...calculate capabilities, determine probability of success within these capabilities. There is nothing tricky here, just simple probability and statistics...
Previous posts have been answered the same. There is no secret model. This is stubby pencil work I think any concerned party can do for himself.
As for your question, not sure what you are trying to get to here. I think tangents pursuing the number of photons in a Watt are irrelevant.
The sustained silliness my dear General is with your logically flawed assertion that intelligent interdiction in your cited experiment somehow proves there is no intelligent interdiction in reality.
Game, set, match.
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