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1 posted on 09/06/2005 5:11:42 AM PDT by billorites
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To: billorites
'Intelligent design' in classrooms would have disastrous consequences

What's this we've got now, guys?

2 posted on 09/06/2005 5:18:01 AM PDT by Tax-chick (How often lofty talk is used to deny others the same rights one claims for oneself. ~ Sowell)
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To: billorites
Right, Intelligent design would be a disaster in the classroom but the F word, as we learned last week, has been deemed an absolutely indispensable learning tool in UK classrooms. Let's face it England is doomed.
3 posted on 09/06/2005 5:20:14 AM PDT by hflynn ( Soros wouldn't make any sense even if he spelled his name backwards)
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To: PatrickHenry

Ping


5 posted on 09/06/2005 5:23:11 AM PDT by doc30 (Democrats are to morals what and Etch-A-Sketch is to Art.)
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To: billorites

This is a very well written arguement that illustrates the scientific fallacy of ID in a very logical manner. It also highlights that controversies in the sciences do not disqualify current theories and understandings, but merely show that there are always new things for science to learn. It is important, for the sake of science as a whole, to keep ID out of science classes.


6 posted on 09/06/2005 5:25:48 AM PDT by doc30 (Democrats are to morals what and Etch-A-Sketch is to Art.)
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To: billorites
Similarly, in a class on 20th-century European history, who would demand equal time for the theory that the Holocaust never happened?

Discuss what, exactly? This author ascribes to ID supporters the numero uno lash of antisemitism .... denying the Holocaust.

But, as usual, I'm not surprised. For if Darwinian Evolutionary science was so compelling, so convincing, just why on earth would such a lame attempt at tarring ID supporters be attempted?

Oh....I forgot: b/c evolution itself has turned out to be a faith system itself which its practicioners relentlessly deny. It is said all cults have the same thing in common: one person, usually a man, writes a set of 'documents'. Then, followers ooze out of the woodwork, and proclaim the person 'the answer'. And then the cultists start acting really weird. This article sounds alot like that...

7 posted on 09/06/2005 5:27:32 AM PDT by gobucks (http://oncampus.richmond.edu/academics/classics/students/Ribeiro/Laocoon.htm)
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To: billorites
"Without needing to make a single good point in any argument, it (the ID thesis) would have won the right for a form of supernaturalism to be recognised as an authentic part of science."

Well, silly string theory, with its 7 of its 11 dimensions by definition being UNTESTABLE ... I guess that is NOT supernatural ... because it IS accepted as science? Wow.

9 posted on 09/06/2005 5:32:48 AM PDT by gobucks (http://oncampus.richmond.edu/academics/classics/students/Ribeiro/Laocoon.htm)
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To: billorites

Running scared, huh?


12 posted on 09/06/2005 6:07:08 AM PDT by Shery (S. H. in APOland)
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To: billorites

There was NO 'Intelligent design' in these public schools.


http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1478230/posts


13 posted on 09/06/2005 6:12:02 AM PDT by Just mythoughts
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To: PatrickHenry

Worthy of a ping? I think it's a pretty good explanation of why ID shouldn't be taught as science.


14 posted on 09/06/2005 6:12:19 AM PDT by stremba
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To: billorites
In all cases there is a hidden (actually they scarcely even bother to hide it) "default" assumption that if Theory A has some difficulty in explaining Phenomenon X, we must automatically prefer Theory B without even asking whether Theory B (creationism in this case) is any better at explaining it.

Of course theory A (Neo Darwin Orthodoxy) has no difficulty explaining anything, it is the most confirmed theory every formulated in the history of science. I learned this in public skrewl.

16 posted on 09/06/2005 6:13:30 AM PDT by Rippin
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To: billorites
There is much controversy about these claims, largely because it is hard to reconstruct the evolutionary forces that acted on our ancestors, and it is unethical to do genetic experiments on modern humans.

This guy is exactly right, the experiments must be done on those pre-modern 'christian' types.

18 posted on 09/06/2005 6:17:15 AM PDT by Rippin
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To: billorites
This article raises an excellent point -- an argument should not be treated as having "two sides" when one of them is based on science and the other is based on baloney.

If this principle were applied to economics education, we'd have a fighting chance of getting the country straightened out....

36 posted on 09/06/2005 6:54:10 AM PDT by steve-b (A desire not to butt into other people's business is eighty percent of all human wisdom)
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To: billorites
Perhaps we should just accept the popular demand that we teach ID as well as evolution in science classes. It would, after all, take only about 10 minutes to exhaust the case for ID, then we could get back to teaching real science and genuine controversy.

This corresponds to my view.

48 posted on 09/06/2005 7:00:53 AM PDT by headsonpikes (The Liberal Party of Canada are not b*stards - b*stards have mothers!)
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To: billorites
What is wrong with the apparently sweet reasonableness of "it is only fair to teach both sides"? The answer is simple. This is not a scientific controversy at all.

That's the long and short of it, right there.

60 posted on 09/06/2005 7:15:28 AM PDT by Physicist
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To: billorites
At first hearing, everything about the phrase "both sides" warms the hearts of educators like ourselves.

No, it didn't. Educators only want THEIR side of things told. The phrase 'both sides' to them means 'my side'.

88 posted on 09/06/2005 7:40:51 AM PDT by MEGoody (Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.)
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To: billorites
Like most pseudo-intellectual blather, this article never explains how its premise is correct.
96 posted on 09/06/2005 7:48:38 AM PDT by Psycho_Bunny (Every evil which liberals imagine Judaism and Christianity to be, islam is.)
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To: billorites
If ID really were a scientific theory, positive evidence for it, gathered through research, would fill peer-reviewed scientific journals. This doesn't happen. It isn't that editors refuse to publish ID research. There simply isn't any ID research to publish.

Oh, yes! There is no discrimination against ID in the academic journals. Anyone could freely publish if they wanted to:

Researcher claims bias by Smithsonian

By Joyce Howard Price

The Washington Times: Nation/Politics - February 13, 2005

A former editor of a scientific journal has filed a complaint against the Smithsonian Institution, charging that he was discriminated against on the basis of perceived religious and political beliefs because of an article he published that challenged the Darwinian theory of evolution.
    "I was singled out for harassment and threats on the basis that they think I'm a creationist," said Richard Sternberg, who filed the complaint with the federal Office of Special Counsel.
    Smithsonian officials deny the accusations.
    "We at the Smithsonian consider religion a matter of personal faith. The evolutionary theory is a matter of science. The two are not incompatible," said Randall Kremer, a spokesman for the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History.
    Mr. Sternberg, who holds two doctorates in evolutionary biology, says he's been told by the Office of Special Counsel that "they take my complaint seriously and are investigating." The special counsel's office said it cannot discuss the case.
    Mr. Sternberg, 41, is employed at the National Center for Biotechnology Information, a part of the National Institutes of Health. But as part of his duties there, he spends half of his time at the Smithsonian as a research associate.
    From December 2001 until last fall, he also served as managing editor of an independent journal published at the Smithsonian called the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington.
    Mr. Sternberg said his troubles started after the appearance of the August 2004 issue of the journal, which included a peer-reviewed article by Stephen C. Meyer. The article, titled, "The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories," made the case for a theory known as intelligent design, or ID.
    ID contends that the origins of some biological forms are better explained by an unspecified intelligent agent than by natural processes, such as natural selection and genetic mutation, which are hallmarks of Darwinism.
    In his report, Mr. Meyer, a fellow at the Discovery Institute in Seattle, argues that ID is a more likely explanation than evolution for the biodiversity in the Cambrian period about 530 million years ago. He points to the "explosion" of phyla, which "suddenly appeared within a narrow 5- to 10-million-year window of geological time" during that period.
    "To say that the fauna of the Cambrian period appeared in a geologically sudden manner ... implies the absence of clear transitional intermediate forms connecting Cambrian animals with simpler pre-Cambrian forms," Mr. Meyer wrote in his defense of ID.
    The report was "peer-reviewed" by three outside scientists, Mr. Sternberg said, "but employees at the Smithsonian, who had a sharply negative reaction to the report, insinuated that editorial malfeasance occurred on my end. I protested vigorously."
    He says he gave up his post as managing editor of Proceedings in September but continued to be harassed by Smithsonian officials. Mr. Sternberg says he was penalized by the museum's Department of Zoology, which limited his access to research collections and told him his associateship at the museum would not be renewed because no one could be found to sponsor him for another three-year term.
    Because of his shortened tenure, Mr. Sternberg says he will not have time to complete his research on crustaceans.
    He also said one zoology official told him the museum "is not comfortable with religious fundamentalism and with creationism, so you are being treated differently."
    Mr. Sternberg also says he was "called on the carpet" by his bosses at NIH after they were besieged by phone calls and e-mails from Smithsonian staffers, seeking his ouster. He said one Smithsonian official even wanted to know if he is a "right-winger."
    "My lawyer called some people on Capitol Hill," who intervened and saved his job at NIH, Mr. Sternberg said.
    Mr. Kremer, the Smithsonian spokesman, denied that Mr. Sternberg's supervisor at the museum or any other museum officials called NIH to get him fired. He also insists Mr. Sternberg still has access to the collections he needs for research.
    "Research associates are here at our pleasure ... but every effort was made to ensure there was no discrimination, even though he (Mr. Sternberg) published something a lot of people didn't agree with," Mr. Kremer said.

111 posted on 09/06/2005 8:22:22 AM PDT by Petrosius
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To: billorites

Why is this issue important? What is notably 'conservative' about one position?


141 posted on 09/06/2005 9:35:00 AM PDT by HitmanLV
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To: billorites

Alleged protectors of science need to stop lying about ID, when the truth is more than sufficient to exclude it from science classrooms.


159 posted on 09/06/2005 10:41:19 AM PDT by Sloth (Archaeologists test for intelligent design all the time.)
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To: The Ghost of FReepers Past; ohioWfan; Tribune7; Tolkien; GrandEagle; Right in Wisconsin; Dataman; ..
ping


Revelation 4:11Intelligent Design
See my profile for info

172 posted on 09/06/2005 12:46:33 PM PDT by wallcrawlr (http://www.bionicear.com)
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