"oh no, not this crap again!"
Posted on 09/01/2005 6:36:09 PM PDT by wagglebee
Some commentators have compared the current argument over whether "intelligent design" merits mention in high school classes on evolution to the famous Scopes "monkey trial" in Tennessee in 1925. They seem to feel that it's the same old dispute, dolled up in new clothes. They miss the delicious irony that it is, instead, the exact reverse of the Scopes trial.
In Scopes, the central issue was whether the theory of evolution could be put forward in the public schools of Tennessee (the school system subscribed to the belief that human beings were created directly by God). Today, the central issue is whether "intelligent design" may be mentioned in science courses in the public schools of Kansas, Pennsylvania and other states as a modification of the theory of evolution, which today reigns there as the exclusive explanation of the development of species, including our own. The supporters of evolution are as determined to ban all references of intelligent design as Tennessee's schools were determined to ban all references to the theory of evolution.
Webster's New World Dictionary defines evolution as "the theory, now generally accepted, that all species of plants and animals developed from earlier forms by hereditary transmission of slight variations in successive generations." Evolutionists would agree that, for strict accuracy, the word "accidental" should be inserted before the word "variations." I see this as so important that I suggest we substitute the term "accidentalism" for the word "evolution." For that is what is at issue in the current debate: whether those slight variations are in fact totally accidental (in which case there is no need to posit the existence of a God, or anything else, to bring them about) or whether they are the product of intelligent design on the part of a pre-existing designer. The whole controversy thus becomes, as I see it, a subset of the larger dispute between those who believe in a God and those who prefer a strictly materialistic, and atheistic, explanation of the universe.
Thanks to the Supreme Court's wildly imaginative interpretation of the First Amendment, atheism has become the default conviction of American society. Because of the supposed "wall" between church and state, no serious reference to a God may intrude upon the public square. In public schools, children may – indeed, must – be taught the accidentalist theory of humanity's origins; any notion that God played a part in the process is strictly prohibited.
But the concept of intelligent design presents a new problem, because it doesn't depend upon the existence of a God, in the ordinary sense of that word, but only suggests that certain steps in the development of species are too complex to have been accidental, but require the pre-existence of some sort of intelligent designer. This modest argument has won the support of some thoroughly respectable scientists.
It has also won the undying enmity of many others, because they recognize the threat it poses to their own unstated but passionate atheism. They have flatly denied that there are any steps in the development of species too complex to be explained as sheer accidents – though there are numerous instances of steps they cannot ("yet") explain. They have pointed to the failure of intelligent-design proponents to publish their arguments in "respectable peer-reviewed scientific publications" – while fighting doggedly to keep them from being published there.
And, of course, they are battling furiously to keep any mention of intelligent design out of the hearing of the millions of students whom they are systematically drilling in the supposedly unchallengeable theory of accidentalism.
Why, I ask, should reasonable people be so afraid of an intuitively appealing suggestion that a scientific theory may need modifying? They reply that the suggestion itself is not "scientific," and thus has no place in a class on science. Let it be studied, if at all, in courses on religion.
And let their response be included in courses on logic, as a stellar example of intellectual dishonesty.
And this is because the atheistic left wants government to be a god.
Creation ping.
It's already in science classes so you're a little late with your complaint.
Welcome troll, based on your posts from the past few days, I would say your time here will be fairly short.
Is it truly necessary to presume that earth funcitons as a closed system?
Even more specifically, the atheistic Left wants to 'play/be' the top god. . .and they want the rest of us. . .to be/play the 'first children'. . .Adam and Eve.
They will set the rules. . .and we, the designated children, will follow their rules. . .or else.
These Lefties really imagine they can and should. . .recreate the 'Garden of Eden' for the world-at-large. Overlooking, of course; the idea that it did not work for the 'first couple'; and it will not work for the rest of us.
(But then, they do imagine, they are bigger and better 'creators'.)
Accidentalism. That really does describe the anti-Creation point of view. :-)
They have been teaching evolution for 70 years and there isn't any proof of it.
If a superior being did actually create the universe, then it is science.
Evolution has not been proven either.
Intelligent design is a trojan horse for creationism. There is no evidence supporting it, it cannot be proven. It is not science and does not belong in science classes.
Couldn't have said it better meself! And to welcome you to these theads, here's another creation story:
Maori created the first man, Mwuetsi, who became the moon. Maori gave him a ngona horn filled with ngona oil and told him he would live at the bottom of the waters. Mwuetsi objected and said he wished to live on the land. Maori reluctantly agreed, but said Mwuetsi would give up immortality if he did. After a while Mwuetsi complained of loneliness, so Maori sent him a woman, Massassi (the morning star), to keep him company for two years. Each night they slept on opposite sides of a campfire, until one night Mwuetsi jumped over the flame and touched Massassi with a finger he had moistened with the ngona oil. In the moning Massassi was huge, and soon gave birth to plants and trees until the whole earth was covered by them. At the end of two years Maori took Massassi away. Mwuetsi wept for eight years, at which time Maori sent him another woman, Morongo (the evening star), saying that she could stay for two years. On the first night Mwuetsi touched her with his oiled finger, but she said she was different than Massassi, and that they would have to oil their loins and have intercourse. This they did, this night, and every night thereafter. Every morning Morongo gave birth to the animals of creation. Then she gave birth to human boys and girls, who became full-grown by that very same evening. Maori voiced his displeasure with a fierce storm, and told Mwuetsi he was hastening his death with all this procreation. Morongo, ever the temptress, instructed Mwuetsi to build a door to their habitat so that Maori could not see what they were doing. He did this, and again they slept together. Now in the morning Morongo gave birth to violent animals; snakes, scorpions, lions, etc. One night Morongo told Mwuetsi to have intercourse with his daughters, which he did, thereby fathering the human race.
"What's next?" - well, the first direction to be addressed would probably be [it is already being addressed right now through genetic engineering, but timidly and ignorantly] a radical enhancement of natural resistance to diseases, traumas and aging. Beyond that - other enhancements. Imagine everyone with creative capacity at least 50% of Michelangelo's, and later more than that.
And so the ad-Hominem starts...
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