Sure, mankind can be an ID.
Posted on 08/18/2005 7:39:37 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
On August 1, 2005, a group of reporters from Texas met with President Bush in the Roosevelt room for a roundtable interview. The President’s remarks suggest that he believes that both intelligent design and evolution should be taught so that “people are exposed to different schools of thought.” There have been so many articles since his remarks that it’s useful to read the relevant portion of published interview:
“Q: I wanted to ask you about the -- what seems to be a growing debate over evolution versus intelligent design. What are your personal views on that, and do you think both should be taught in public schools?The reporter got it right: there is an ongoing debate over intelligent design vs. evolution, at least in the media and in politics. There is not a debate in the greater scientific community about the validity of evolution. Further, the vast majority of scientists do not consider intelligent design as a viable alternative to evolution.THE PRESIDENT: I think -- as I said, harking back to my days as my governor -- both you and Herman are doing a fine job of dragging me back to the past. (Laughter.) Then, I said that, first of all, that decision should be made to local school districts, but I felt like both sides ought to be properly taught.
Q: Both sides should be properly taught?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, people -- so people can understand what the debate is about.
Q: So the answer accepts the validity of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution?
THE PRESIDENT: I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought, and I'm not suggesting -- you're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, and the answer is yes.”
(Transcript released by the White House and published on August 2, 2005 at WashingtonPost.com)
Dr. John Marburger III, Presidential Science Advisor, tried to dispel the impact of the President’s comments. On Aug. 2, The New York Times quoted a telephone interview with Marburger in which he said, “evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology” and “intelligent design is not a scientific concept.” Certainly, no one doubts where Marburger stands. One might question whether the President takes Marbuger’s scientific advice seriously, or is simply more concerned about pleasing a portion of the electorate.
Marburger also spoke with Dr. Marvin Cohen, President of the American Physical Society, and recipient of the National Medal of Science from President Bush in 2002. In an Aug. 4 release, Cohen explains that the APS is “…happy that the President’s recent comments on the theory of intelligent design have been clarified. As Presidential Science Advisor John Marburger has explained, President Bush does not regard intelligent design as science. If such things are to be taught in the public schools, they belong in a course on comparative religion, which is a particularly appropriate subject for our children given the present state of the world.” It would be better to hear this directly from the President. Likely, the intelligent design advocates will ignore Marburger’s explanation. Like the fabled little Dutch boy, Marburger, stuck his finger in the dike in hopes of saving the day.
Unlike the brave boy, Marburger did not prevent the flood of print and electronic coverage that ensued. From August 2 to the present, Google-News tracked more than 1,800 articles, commentaries, and letters to the editor on intelligent design. That’s about 120 per day since the President’s remarks.
In the days following the interview, major educational and scientific organizations issued statements that criticized the President for considering intelligent design as a viable alternative to evolution, for confusing religion with science, and for advocating that intelligent design be taught in schools.
“President Bush, in advocating that the concept of ‘intelligent design’ be taught alongside the theory of evolution, puts America’s schoolchildren at risk,” says Fred Spilhaus, Executive Director of the American Geophysical Union. “Americans will need basic understanding of science in order to participate effectively in the 21 st century world. It is essential that students on every level learn what science is and how scientific knowledge progresses.” (AGU, Aug. 2, 2005) AGU is a scientific society comprising 43,000 Earth and space scientists.
Likewise, the American Institute of Biological Sciences criticized the President: “Intelligent design is not a scientific theory and must not be taught in science classes,” said AIBS president Dr. Marvalee Wake. “If we want our students to be able to compete in the global economy, if we want to attract the next generation into the sciences, we must make sure that we are teaching them science. We simply cannot begin to introduce non-scientific concepts into the science curriculum.” (AIBS, Aug. 5, 2005) The American Institute of Biological Sciences was established as a national umbrella organization for the biological sciences in 1947 by 11 scientific societies as part of the National Academy of Sciences. An independent non-profit organization since 1954, it has grown to represent more than 80 professional societies and organizations with a combined membership exceeding 240,000 scientists and educators. (AIBS website)
Science educators are equally dismayed. “The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), the world’s largest organization of science educators, is stunned and disappointed that President Bush is endorsing the teaching of intelligent design – effectively opening the door for nonscientific ideas to be taught in the nation’s K-12 science classrooms. We stand with the nation’s leading scientific organizations and scientists, including Dr. John Marburger, the president’s top science advisor, in stating that intelligent design is not science. Intelligent design has no place in the science classroom, said Gerry Wheeler, NSTA Executive Director.” (NSTA, Aug. 3, 2005) NSTA has 55,000 members who teach science in elementary, middle and high schools as well as college and universities.
The American Federation of Teachers, which represents 1.3 million pre-K through 12 th grade teachers, was even harsher. “President Bush’s misinformed comments on ‘intelligent design’ signal a huge step backward for science education in the United States. The president’s endorsement of such a discredited, nonscientific view is akin to suggesting that students be taught the ‘alternative theory’ that the earth is flat or that the sun revolves around the earth. Intelligent design does not belong in the science classroom because it is not science.” (AFT, Aug. 4, 2005)
There is a problem here. Obviously, scientists and educators understand that intelligent design has no place in the classroom. Intelligent design is, simply, one of several varieties of creationism that offer religious explanations for the origin and current condition of the natural world. As such, it does not merit being taught alongside evolution as a “school of thought.” There’s significant legal precedent from US Supreme Court that creationism - in any clothing - does not belong in the American classrooms. Teaching creationism is in violation of the separation of church and state, and has been ruled illegal by the US Supreme Court in several cases. It’s unfortunate that the President apparently does not understand that science is not equivalent to a belief system but is description of how the natural world works. Creationism, including intelligent design, is a religious point of view, not science.
At a time when industrial, academic, and business leaders are calling for more American students to train in engineering, mathematics, science and technology, we need to teach science in science classrooms. Let’s teach the scientific ideas that are supported by overwhelming evidence such as gravitation, relativity, quantum mechanics, and evolution. Creationist ideas/beliefs, such as intelligent design, don’t belong in science classrooms. In our haste to leave no child behind, let’s not leave science behind either.
Sure, mankind can be an ID.
I refer you to my post #154. It seems that the ring species examples make a good case that once the species become so disparate, they may not interbreed - this would seem to represent some limit as to how much a species can change.
Sorry. :-(
In that case, it's all been decided. I'm going to quit this stuff and start playing computer games...
But you're a tool. You can't do unproductive things. You must do tool things. The Intelligent Designer will be very disappointed in the tool he/she/it created if you play computer games.
No worries.
It gets back to my hypothesis that tribalism and sexual selection are very likely how modern man evolved, rather than natural selction.
Evolution has some big holes in it, and as they're filled, the debate about intelligence in evolution will take on a lot more meaning.
Evolution's gaps aren't likely to be filled by IDers. But it will take someone who is prepared to think outside of the box and is skeptical of natural selection dogma.
Sure, mankind can be an ID.
There is no room for a "can be" here. By your statements Man IS an ID. Right? (note the "an" part)
And when you see a crystal? Or a bubble?
That's incorrect. ID literally explains, to the complete exclusion of all other theories, such physical evidence as some animals (e.g. laboratory pigs gene-spliced to produce human hormones) and some things (e.g. Artificial Intelligence, computer viri, self-replicating machines, etc.).
That's no mere premise. That's the real world. That's science.
A phenomenon analyzed by Darwin in the 1870s. It makes no difference why populations stop interbreeding. Once they do, they have satisfied the definition of species. Species has always been a fuzzy term in biology, for the very reason you have mentioned. Darwin referred to species as strong varieties.
But I think your original question concerned whether the process could be observed. It can.
That you posted it? Or that it's true? Or both?
While your methodology may have been inadvertently mistaken, your conclusion was spot on. You have nothing to apologize for.
Now hmmm...what would make me doubt both of your statements above?!
It's been a really rough and/or tough day. I am up to my a$$ in alligators and if they keep biting I will be singing soprano.
All of which has nothing to do with the question of everything else, which is the question we are discussing. We have lots of priors for man designing things, but no priors for other entities designing things and certainly not for anything complicated like animal physiology at the molecular level. Conflating the null prior case and the non-null prior case is nonsense; one allows a rational hypothesis to be made, while the other does not (see: Kolmogorov's Razor).
The problem of origin of a pattern is generally undecideable (the set of possible origins is frequently infinite), and always undecideable for humans in this universe. Lacking any priors, the odds of something being 'designed' by a designer you would recognize as such is approximately zero.
"They are not the same thing. "Function" is descriptive, telling what a particular thing does. "Purpose" introduces a teleological element which is not present in the bare observation of the thing being studied. Science deals with 'function'. 'Purpose' is properly the subject of philosophy and religion."
Needless to say, I don't agree that "purpose" necassarily implies a teleological element. Apparently, neither do the cardiologists who whose papers come up when you Google "purpose of the heart".
But whatever...It doesn't really matter.
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