Posted on 04/10/2005 3:53:04 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
A pro-evolution group has organized what appears to be a successful boycott of Kansas hearings on intelligent design.
Alexa Posny, a deputy commissioner with the state department of education, told the Kansas City Star that only one person has agreed to testify on the pro-evolution side for the hearings scheduled for May.
"We have contacted scientists from all over the world," Posny said. "There isn't anywhere else we can go."
Harry McDonald, head of Kansas Citizens for Science, charged that the hearings, called by a conservative majority on the state board of education, have a pre-ordained outcome.He said that testifying would only make intelligent design appear legitimate.
"Intelligent design is not going to get its forum, at least not one in which they can say that scientists participated," he said.
Backers of intelligent design, the claim that a supreme being guided evolution, say it is a theory with scientific backing. Opponents believe it is an attempt to smuggle religion into public education.
So sorry!
Where does that phrase come from, anyway?
Pervert!
;-)
And if they DID debate, Hoagland, et al., would trumpet THAT fact as evidence that NASA was "running scared" and he'd "cornered them" and had no choice but to try to salvage their "cover-up" by debating him.
IOW, the question of participating in one of these sham debates is essentially a lose-lose proposition for the established position; to participate lends an air of legitimacy to that which does not deserve it, and to NOT participate provides the opposition with an opportunity to "spin" it for their own benefit.
"All condors eat carrion.
Some sharks eat carrion.
Therefore some condors are sharks."
The point being, one cannot move from a "some" statement to a conclusion that depends on the initial "all" statement. At least not logically.
But there is one undeniable benefit to staying away. Without the element of "controversy" there's very little media coverage. If there's no controversy (which only the science side can create by showing up) then it's not news, and the creationists are reduced to babbling among themselves.
An insightful observation....
Here's a challenge to those evolutionists....
Calculate the probability that one species can evolve from say...bacteria (not to mention where the bacteria came from). Now extend that to all the species on earth. What's the probability? Now add to that that all the species are interdependent. What's the answer now?
Scientists and mathematicians go at it...
100%
What's the point? Individual tutoring is great, but it's not a realistic goal for the student body at large.
And, just because home-schooling gets some things right (such as teaching spelling), that doesn't mean it doesn't screw up other things (such as failing to teach evolution)
Money and wealth is not the problem and never has been so your socialist dogmatic answer would be more useful over on DU!
So, are you going to claim that home-schoolers dempographically represent the student body as a whole?
"No matter whether scientists debate or not, I doubt anyone's mind will be changed. Evolution vs. creationism is a stalemate"
The stale mate has to do with Tautology. The creationists use Rationalistic deductive reasoning(Let's start with a given...God created and work logically and deductively from from there). The evolutionists use a materialistic methodology and inductive reasoning.( There is no God,there are no absolutes other than constants that are measured, seen , tasted, tested,; from those we apply to other phenomena being studied in order form valid testable hypotheses regarding origins, make-up, compositions of said phenomena).
Modern science in the view of some must always view the tautologous in the negative. Modern scientific inquiry has further degraded so that those scientists holding a view of God are made to be objects of scorn and derision and their work inpugned despite evidence of rigourous methodology in their work. Yet by holding Tautology(arguements that can neither be proven or falsified in the material sense such as God exists) in the negative...they have violated scientific logic and reasoning.
You see the the modern scientific method tries to induce knowledge from what is measured, observed, tested felt, ect using objective standards, this knowledge may change if conditions change causing observable changes in the objects of that knowledge. It can not speak positively of tautologous religion but neither CAN IT SPEAK NEGATIVELY OF RELIGION. This is the logical flaw that many "so called science purists" have fallen into!
To do so, is to violate REASON. If one is true to Reason, one is honest about the ALL the data regarding a phenonmena even if the data points away from ones premise or hypotheses or THEORY regarding that data. Reason has limits, in that it can't "scan the horizon" for data that may "prove one right" in the Future. Reason only deals with the "here and now". Personal Bias in the end decides what is true and false and then moral behavior or immoral behaviour flows from there. Hence comments from the so called "science purists" who first decide that Religious folks can't be scientists because they believe in God, which is a tautologous premise, there-fore FALSE therebye allowing personal bias to color their scientific methodology...there-fore creationism and Intelligent design is false based on a flawed tautologous premise. These "science purists" have decided that while no tautology can be proven true or false, that we must view all theory and suppositions having some basis in tautology AUTOMATICALLY FALSE.(thank God some of the "science purists" weren't around when the Zero was incorporated into our number scheme) These "purists" then go onto to violate REASON and Science by making personal attacks and to ruin careers if possible in their MORAL BIASes against God and Christ!
Ironically, many of these so-called anti religious "science purists" are more like science commentators or social science activists who seek to apply the scientific method and so-called social darwinist evolutionary principles to government and politics. Many are not that well schooled in science(IE journalists) or are 2.5GPA science types who couldn't get a grant studying Tsetse fly defecation!
They do realize that by having nobody support evolution at the hearings, this will become a self-fulfilling prophecy and evolution will be downgraded in the state standards, correct?
The board majority has tried to get them to testify and support evolution, but if they don't, the only people being heard will be the intelligent design folks.
And, the intelligent design folks will therefore win this rather easily.
I have yet to figure out why it is such a big deal to let students decide which theory sounds more plausible to them. Shouldn't true education explore all possibilities? Why are so many scientists against giving intelligent design some plausibility? After all, scientists can't ever "prove" there was no intelligent design any more than they can every prove evolution. A true scientist would want to look at more than one premise.
What a great link! Thanks!
"Would you also like fries with that?"
Not exactly. You stated, as fact, that home schooled children who are not taught about the ToE rank higher in test scores than public school children. I'm just asking you to back up your assertions with some evidence. Apparently you are unable to do so, which isn't exactly a surprise.
They didn't show up because they're scared.
Wouldn't you think the scientists would want to show up just to make fools of the creationists? Wonder why they won't?
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