Posted on 08/19/2005 1:02:07 PM PDT by SmithL
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Echoing similar comments from President Bush, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said "intelligent design" should be taught in public schools alongside evolution.
Frist, R-Tenn., spoke to a Rotary Club meeting Friday and told reporters afterward that students need to be exposed to different ideas, including intelligent design.
"I think today a pluralistic society should have access to a broad range of fact, of science, including faith," Frist said.
Frist, a doctor who graduated from Harvard Medical School, said exposing children to both evolution and intelligent design "doesn't force any particular theory on anyone. I think in a pluralistic society that is the fairest way to go about education and training people for the future."
The theory of intelligent design says life on earth is too complex to have developed through evolution, implying that a higher power must have had a hand in creation. Nearly all scientists dismiss it as a scientific theory, and critics say it's nothing more than religion masquerading as science.
Bush recently told a group of Texas reporters that intelligent design and evolution should both be taught in schools "so people can understand what the debate is about."
That comment sparked criticism from opponents, including Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean, who called Bush "anti-science."
Frist, who is considering a presidential campaign in 2008, recently angered some conservatives by bucking Bush policy on embryonic stem cell research, voicing his support for expanded research on the subject.
Frist said his decision to endorse stem cell research was "a matter of science," but he said there was no conflict between his position on stem cell research and his position on intelligent design.
"To me, I see no disconnect between that and stem cell research," Frist said. "I base my beliefs on stem cell research both on science and my faith.
Not actually. I read his Screwtape Letters in my youth, but that was about it.
Now, wait about 12 hours. Then look up. See that big round bright thing in the sky. Think that might be an 'external input of energy'?
BTW, in case you are a mole from DarwinCentral, sent to make creationists look stupid (or rather, even stupider), sorry for blowing your cover!
And I agree with him.
I made a slight addition to my definition to account for inputs into an "open" system or subsystem that would stand up to Second Law scrutiny. Unfortunately for evolutionists, the Second Law of Thermodynamics undermines evolution.
Second Law of Thermodynamics (paraphrased)
Without external inputs of energy, any system, on its own, moves from order to disorder. Without external inputs of energy, systems eventually become totally random. Even in a system that has external energy inputs, the energy can not be random to create order, but must be directed in a specialized way to create order rather than disorder.
A snowflake, like an ice cube, give up heat energy to become "organized" but they are not "ordered" because without external inputs, no two are alike. Further, when either of them regain heat energy as inputs, in a "generalized" manner rather than a directed manner, both forms become nothing but totally random puddles of water.
Evolution is the opiate for atheists. It's propositions are absurd and its leaps of faith defy real science and reason.
Your post and the one early about "moving God to the margins" reminded me of it.
One of its points, quickly: Our efforts to conquer nature actually increase nature. More and more of reality becomes "just a force of nature" a pure cause and effect billiard ball universe.
The desire to have and nurture children? That's just "nature." And in this manner what was in the sphere of man's purpose and meaning in life - metaphysics is moved to the sphere of nature - physics. Nature increases.
Lewis's primary point is that the values of the tao, which is what he calls the perennial philosophy (what is Good and True and Beautiful in the largest sense) cannot be known from the natural sciences, from the effort of conquering of nature.
In a purely natural view of humanity, values are not found, they cannot be seen at all, except as to their utility in natural selection. (I.e., honesty, having compassion, etc. do no have inherent value, they are the result of natural forces which no values in this sense.)
Therefore, moving them to the realm of conquered nature means they can be controlled, selected, manipulated, chosen for all future human kind.
In this final conquering of nature, man is both the object of conquest and the subject of it.
Hence, the abolition of man.
Anyway your posts reminded me of this. I think this does occur, but I think it happens in error based on a false view of the reality of the cosmos and man's relationship to it.
Sorry, I have to retype this paragraph to make it coherent:
In a purely natural view of humanity, values are not found, they cannot be seen at all, except as to their utility in natural selection. (I.e., honesty, having compassion, etc. do not have inherent value, they are the result of natural forces which have no values in this sense.)
I disagree. ID uses Creationism to prove science. Why should those of us who believe in ID care whether our ideas are accepted by science? Do we have to prove God's Word? I don't believe we have to since he has proven it already. All we are doing is relating the truth. The BIG problem is that evolutionists try to prove life thru evolution. Those who believe in ID prove it thru the Word of God. They use creation to prove the truth of God's Word. There is no middle ground.
This strikes me as supremely wrongheaded. I can scarcely imagine a frame of mind that puts aside one set of considerations at one time, and them reassumes them at a later time.
Certainly the lore of science has exemplars of its heroes maintaining a scientific frame of mind in a religious context. Galileo became preoccupied with the period of a swinging lamp during a church service, a very "subversive" tale in the context you provide, and one which suggests the ultimate preeminence of the scientific point of view.
I'm gonna agree in part, disagree in part.
The various forms of knowing are better described as concentric circles or spheres. Each larger sphere includes but transcends (includes something new) the others.
As for which point of view is preeminent: It depends on the knowledge being sought – the question being asked from the viewpoint desired – at the time.
Amusing to you, but also deadly serious.
Amusing was right Taxes, (psssssssst, go back and read your response, then think about what you wrote, for just a wee second)
I'll be adding it to the section of The List-O-Links called
We've never needed to devote any effort to that. It would be like the old Aztecs praying every night that the sun will return the next day. No worries. It will.
Good question.
Either way (whether we're talking about praying to Yhwh or talking about praying to a cat) we're talking about that forbidden topic, religion.
(Shhhhh)
The second law can be discreet.
Just like the intelligent scientists at Duke
the end result is the same.
Brings to mind some phrase about the Father sending the sunshine and rain to everyone.
bttt
Sorry, but they, for the most part dismiss a young earth. For there to have been fossils Billions of years old, then Adam and Eve would have to be Billions of years old because there was no death until original sin, was brought into the world, by the guy and all his helpers you see here trying to destroy the faith of the chosen. "Hath God said?"
I don't pretend to understand all the arguments pro and con, God said it and I believe it, I don't have to grasp it as a scientific certitude, to believe it.
Most evolutionists that post here, In their effort to validate their own faith in Evolution, are willing to equate all religions, as equally ignorant. They would even enjoy enlightening the faithful to the point that they would, if they could destroy all faith in God's promises.
Lu 21:33 Heaven and earth shall pass away: but My words shall not pass away.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.