Frist backs 'intelligent design' teaching

AP ^ | 8/19/5 | ROSE FRENCH

[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.

[Moral Hazard]

"Dear Professor. God created science."

I guess it must be posted again:

All things dull and ugly,
All creatures short and squat,
All things rude and nasty,
The Lord God made the lot.
Each little snake that poisons,
Each little wasp that stings,
He made their brutish venom,
He made their horrid wings.
All things sick and cancerous,
All evil great and small,
All things foul and dangerous,
The Lord God made them all.
Each nasty little hornet,
Each beastly little squid,
Who made the spiky urchin,
Who made the sharks, He did.
All things scabbed and ulcerous,
All pox both great and small,
Putrid, foul and gangrenous,
The Lord God made them all.
AMEN.

-Monty Python

[malakhi]

What does it hurt that people believe in ID?

Doesn't bother me at all that people believe in ID. It just isn't science, and should be taught in science classes.

[GraniteStateConservative]

It's funny because Frist paints himself as the GOP's science expert and between this and diagnosing Schiavo using a very old video clip, it gives a curious impression of the GOP as a party of reason.

[Avenger]

I think both ID and astrlogy should be taught in science classes as examples of non-falsifiable and thus non-scientific theories.

[Right Wing Professor]

And probably no more of them, than if I had instead picked up cudgels against astrology.

Actually, if you argued with Berlinski, you could take on both creationism and astrology at the same itme!

[GraniteStateConservative]

Either he doesn't know better (unlikely)...

He didn't get his MD from a cereal box offer, right?

[JohnnyZ]

There are pro-life Libertarians

There are pro-life Socialists.

But you are clearly opposed to social conservatism -- you know, those "fundamentalists" who dare bring their religious beliefs into the public square. Run away, RWP, run away!

[malakhi]

Works for me and miles better than what is taught in schools today. The complete absenence of faith in school is baffling when one considers the influence of faith on science, history, literature, law, and even the #1 school subject self-estem / self-centerness.

Which faith would you have taught?

[GraniteStateConservative]

Either he doesn't know better (unlikely)...

If he starts prescribing leeches or drilled holes in the head, we'll be in real trouble.

[malakhi]

those "fundamentalists" who dare bring their religious beliefs into the public square.

That's not the problem.

The problem is with those who want to bring something which isn't science into science classes.

[NJ_gent]

"What does it hurt that people believe in ID?"

I don't have a problem with someone believing in ID. I don't even have a problem with someone who believes the Earth is only 6,000 years old. I do have a major problem when someone wants to push their beliefs on other peoples' children in a public school science class. Science class is for science; not religious beliefs.

"They can't have a logical discussion because they think that a belief in ID takes their intellect into question."

It's less about that than it is about the type of discussion each side wants to have. IDers want others to believe without seeing via argument of negation ("it can't be that way!"), whereas ToEers want others to understand and accept observable phenomenon via evidentiary argument ("it's this way because A, B, and C, then D, then E, and finally, F!"). The two sides aren't even having the same argument at times.

"They always have to have a human answer to situations, as if they are the ones with the only plausible answers."

Actually, the life of a scientist is one of perpetual self-doubt. When you come up with a hypothesis to explain something, you're supposed to do everything you can to prove that you're wrong. Then, if you can't prove you're wrong, you're supposed to have all the people whose respect you seek attempt to prove you wrong. If anyone succeeds, you were wrong from the get-go. If your hypothesis stands up to the test of peer review, then you finally get a little bit of self confidence that you might actually be close to something. Not exactly the exciting thing some would like.

"Something gets labeled as "scientific" and to them that is the end of the story."

That's just the beginning. Peer review is long and brutal. It is, however, highly effective at destroying wrong answers.

"Questioning it otherwise would lead to knowledge from a higher source (scary to them) and to them they are the only source."

You can question it all you want, but you need to be prepared to play ball on their level. If you're going to question, you need to be prepared to meet their responses. Thus far, IDers have done nothing more than jump up and down about how science hasn't explained everything yet. That's put forth as evidence that science has no answers. Science has answered the vast majority of the questions that led to the development of the ancient mythologies of man. It continues to march forward in its quest to explain everything in the physical, natural world. Outside that natural world? That's the domain of philosphy and religion. Good science cannot and will not even attempt to cross that line.

[GraniteStateConservative]

Why are you so threatened by classroom discussions of the great Flying Spaghetti Monster's role in creation?

[Right Wing Professor]

But you are clearly opposed to social conservatism -- you know, those "fundamentalists" who dare bring their religious beliefs into the public square.

Don't care if they bring their beliefs to the public square, or any other public forum. I object when they try to force their beliefs down my throat.

Run away, RWP, run away!

You should be so lucky. I'm going to be front and center, warning people about theocrats like you. If this country is going to return to the glory days of witch trials that your lot specialized in the last time you were in charge, it'll be over my cold, dead corpse.

[Vive ut Vivas]

"Evol-Doers", I like that. Almost as much "Evilution".

The irony with your "blind belief" comment is how accurately it represents your crowd and how little it has to do with science. Science has no stake in any kind of blind belief one way or the other.

[keithtoo]

Professors, just like other educated persons, can be very bold withn their disciplines, but very fearful to venture even a slight bit from orthodoxy. Life is much easier when one goes along.

Anyone can be made to go with the pack and be strongly dissuaded from going against the pack, especially over time.

There may be more un-believers and certainly more questioners around you than you know.

[NJ_gent]

"Works for me and miles better than what is taught in schools today. The complete absenence of faith in school is baffling when one considers the influence of faith on science, history, literature, law, and even the #1 school subject self-estem / self-centerness."

If you want a religion class in public schools, be prepared for that class to give every major and minor religion from the past 5,000 years equal time. Be prepared for the Scientologists, Moonies, and Raelians to demand their seat at the religious public education table. Children will be taught of Allah and Odin right along with being taught about Jesus, and none will be given any more respect than any other. I'm not saying it's right; I'm saying it's how it'll be.

[Avenger]

RWP,

What is your field? It is nice to know there are a few conservative professors out there.

[NJ_gent]

That is absolutely hilarious. :-)

[JohnnyZ]

The problem is with those who want to bring something which isn't science into science classes.

Students should be taught the prevailing theory and exposed to alternate theories that have some currency. In science, history, et al.

I took a "science meets religion" class in college and we had Michael Behe and Michael? Ruse come to speak on opposing sides of the ID/evo issue. Behe pretty much showed himself to be a fool, and Ruse was right behind him. The biology department wrote a letter to the school paper complaining that anyone was questioning current evolutionary theory.

I heard no good defense of current evolutionary theory, and Behe pretty much focused on himself. No real engagement on the relevant issues at all.

[MississippiMan]

Why are you folks so threatened by a discussion of the possibility of intelligent design?

Because they're the willfully blind scoffers explicitly predicted a couple thousand years ago in II Peter, Chapter 3. Check it out and see if it sounds familiar.

MM