Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Frist backs 'intelligent design' teaching
AP ^ | 8/19/5 | ROSE FRENCH

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.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 109th; anothercrevothread; crevolist; enoughalready; frist; intelligentdesign; notagain; panderingtoignorance; scienceeducation; senatorfrist
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 341-360361-380381-400 ... 441-443 next last
To: CarolinaGuitarman
I'm pinging Patrick to see this train wreck. We have been missing comic relief like this since boy blue got banned.


361 posted on 08/20/2005 12:20:05 PM PDT by js1138 (Science has it all: the fun of being still, paying attention, writing down numbers...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 356 | View Replies]

To: js1138
I am just curious how you got your ammendment [sic] to the Second Law through the legisature, [sic] and what the vote was.

===============================

Come on now, you'll have to do better than that now ;-)  After all, the great god RAH has spoken...

All hail the silly invectives that evolutionists must use to support their absurd cult.  They are incapable of actual thought or intelligent discourse.

All hail the great god RAH, he has spoken that evolution is the true religion!

All bow down and worship...

362 posted on 08/20/2005 12:24:08 PM PDT by woodb01 (ANTI-DNC Web Portal at ---> http://www.noDNC.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 358 | View Replies]

To: js1138

Awwwww; it appears he ran out of crayons.


363 posted on 08/20/2005 12:32:59 PM PDT by longshadow
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 361 | View Replies]

To: woodb01
And you may laugh all you wish, it would be a bit silly to laugh at the notion that random energy creates order since that is diametrically opposed to the second law of thermodynamics that things tend toward random disorder.

See, your problem is that the second law doesn't say what you apparently think it says. The second law does not distinguish between "random" and "nonrandom" energy. Energy is energy, as someone else has already pointed out. Punch here and then feel free to explain where "random" and "nonrandom" energy are lurking in there.

However, since you seem somewhat reasonable, how about your postulate on exactly how evolution fits into the Second Law?

It's perfectly in accord with it. The earth isn't a closed system, so decreasing entropy is not forbidden by the second law. If you consider the entire universe to ba a closed system, then the second law only says that over time, the total entropy of the entire system will increase, but it doesn't say anything about entropy at some specific place and time - local decreases in entropy are perfectly allowable by the second law. That's how you get quartz crystals and snowflakes and stars and planets and so forth. All it takes is energy, and the second law doesn't care whether it's random or nonrandom, if that even means anything.

364 posted on 08/20/2005 12:36:21 PM PDT by general_re ("Frantic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith, but in doubt." - Reinhold Niebuhr)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 357 | View Replies]

To: general_re
Punch here, sorry.
365 posted on 08/20/2005 12:36:52 PM PDT by general_re ("Frantic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith, but in doubt." - Reinhold Niebuhr)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 364 | View Replies]

To: woodb01

Not only can we not spell or type, we are unable to modify the laws of nature to conform to our fantasies.
That makes your very special, even exceptional.


366 posted on 08/20/2005 12:41:08 PM PDT by js1138 (Science has it all: the fun of being still, paying attention, writing down numbers...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 362 | View Replies]

To: js1138

Man, I STILL can't type.


367 posted on 08/20/2005 12:42:57 PM PDT by js1138 (Science has it all: the fun of being still, paying attention, writing down numbers...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 366 | View Replies]

To: longshadow

I think we'll call this the "Special" Second Law.


368 posted on 08/20/2005 12:45:53 PM PDT by js1138 (Science has it all: the fun of being still, paying attention, writing down numbers...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 363 | View Replies]

To: js1138; Junior
I think we'll call this the "Special" Second Law.

I think the "'Wildly Elliptical' Second Law" sounds more apropo....

;-)

369 posted on 08/20/2005 12:48:33 PM PDT by longshadow
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 368 | View Replies]

To: longshadow

Maybe, but my version can be used by special educators.


370 posted on 08/20/2005 12:52:36 PM PDT by js1138 (Science has it all: the fun of being still, paying attention, writing down numbers...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 369 | View Replies]

To: PatrickHenry
Please don't feed the "RA #125s".....
371 posted on 08/20/2005 12:56:56 PM PDT by longshadow
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 353 | View Replies]

To: general_re
From your link:

Thomson also calculated the age of the earth from its cooling rate and concluded that it was too short to fit with Lyell's theory of gradual geological change or Charles Darwin's theory of the evolution of animals though natural selection.

When Newton published his laws of motion and gravity, Halley used them to predict the return of the famous comet. When the comet arrived on time, it was considered to "prove" the validity of Newton's equations.

So here we have a case where a geologist and and a biologist calculate an age of the earth that is vastly more accurate than anything proposed by physics. This is not a trivial accomplishment. This is a physical prediction based on observed rates of change. It should be mentioned when nitwits charge that evolution is not falsifiable.

372 posted on 08/20/2005 1:08:12 PM PDT by js1138 (Science has it all: the fun of being still, paying attention, writing down numbers...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 365 | View Replies]

To: PatrickHenry
All your trailer park belong to us
 
All your trailer park are belong to us
 

373 posted on 08/20/2005 1:10:47 PM PDT by Junior (Just because the voices in your head tell you to do things doesn't mean you have to listen to them)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 353 | View Replies]

To: RadioAstronomer

You gotta check out this thread. At least this set of 100 posts.


374 posted on 08/20/2005 1:16:52 PM PDT by PatrickHenry (Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. The List-O-Links is at my homepage.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 371 | View Replies]

To: Junior
All your trailer park are belong to us

Thanks for the correction.

375 posted on 08/20/2005 1:20:23 PM PDT by PatrickHenry (Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. The List-O-Links is at my homepage.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 373 | View Replies]

To: woodb01

"All hail the energy god, RAH, all fall down and worship because the evolutionist pronounces that it is so...

(and in a mind-dulled, low monotone, vacuous chant)

Energy is energy. Deal with it. The great god RAH has spoken.

Energy is energy. Deal with it. The great god RAH has spoken.

Energy is energy. Deal with it. The great god RAH has spoken.

Energy is energy. Deal with it. The great god RAH has spoken.

etc., ad infinitum"

Don't stroke out on us now, we still might need a laugh or two on a latter thread.


376 posted on 08/20/2005 1:20:24 PM PDT by CarolinaGuitarman ("There is a grandeur in this view of life...")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 360 | View Replies]

To: taxesareforever
ICR is the exception, as well as Ken Ham. Henry Morris is one of my favorites. But there is a move afoot to try and weld evolution and ID together to make it more acceptable to the Darwinists.

Are you familiar with Chick Missler's ministry? khouse.org

377 posted on 08/20/2005 1:25:56 PM PDT by itsahoot (Reagan promised to abolish the Dept of Education and the 55 mph Limit. Which was least important?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 342 | View Replies]

To: CarolinaGuitarman

Don't stroke out on us now, we still might need a laugh or two on a latter thread.




I've given up, there is no intelligent life here :-)

This thread, and the incredibly intelligent responses to the basic problems with evolution have left me to doubt my own beliefs. Not only is there no evolution, I'm beginning to believe that there is also no intelligent design. Alas, evolutionists are victims of the mind-numbing cult experience disproving in one fell swoop both evolution and intelligent design... (All tongue in cheek of course).

Intelligent discourse with evolutionists is an impossibility.

ANTI-DNC Web Portal at ---> http://www.noDNC.com


378 posted on 08/20/2005 1:45:13 PM PDT by woodb01 (ANTI-DNC Web Portal at ---> http://www.noDNC.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 376 | View Replies]

To: woodb01

"I've given up, there is no intelligent life here :-) "

<<< biting my lip. Won't say it...nope.... :)


379 posted on 08/20/2005 1:48:38 PM PDT by CarolinaGuitarman ("There is a grandeur in this view of life...")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 378 | View Replies]

To: woodb01

We will miss you when you are gone, but not your advertisements for your website. I will personally miss your spell checking. I apparently need it.

Your version of the Second Law has brightened an otherwise miserable day. I have been itching from an outbreak of shingles, and you have helped distract me from it.


380 posted on 08/20/2005 1:50:51 PM PDT by js1138 (Science has it all: the fun of being still, paying attention, writing down numbers...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 378 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 341-360361-380381-400 ... 441-443 next last

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.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson