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Court Case Threatens to 'Drag Science into the Supernatural'
LiveScience.com ^ | 9/22/05 | Ker Than

Posted on 09/22/2005 8:25:42 PM PDT by Crackingham

A court case that begins Monday in Pennsylvania will be the first to determine whether it is legal to teach a controversial idea called intelligent design in public schools. Intelligent design, often referred to as ID, has been touted in recent years by a small group of proponents as an alternative to Darwin's theory of evolution. ID proponents say evolution is flawed. ID asserts that a supernatural being intervened at some point in the creation of life on Earth.

Scientists counter that evolution is a well-supported theory and that ID is not a verifiable theory at all and therefore has no place in a science curriculum. The case is called Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District. Prominent scientists Thursday called a teleconference with reporters to say that intelligent design distorts science and would bring religion into science classrooms.

"The reason this trial is so important is the Dover disclaimer brings religion straight into science classrooms," said Alan Leshner, the CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and executive publisher of the journal Science. "It distorts scientific standards and teaching objectives established by not only state of Pennsylvania but also leading scientific organizations of the United States."

"This will be first legal challenge to intelligent design and we'll see if they've been able to mask the creationist underpinnings of intelligent design well enough so that the courts might allow this into public school," said Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), which co-hosted the teleconference.

AAAS is the world's largest general science society and the NCSE is a nonprofit organization committed to helping ensure that evolution remains a part of public school curriculums.

The suit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of concerned parents after Dover school board officials voted 6-3 last October to require that 9th graders be read a short statement about intelligent design before biology lessons on evolution. Students were also referred to an intelligent design textbook to learn more information about the controversial idea. The Dover school district earlier this month attempted to prevent the lawsuit from going forward, but a federal judge ruled last week that the trial would proceed as scheduled. The lawsuit argues that intelligent design is an inherently religious argument and a violation of the First Amendment that forbids state-sponsored schools from funding religious activities.

"Although it may not require a literal reading of Genesis, [ID] is creationism because it requires that an intelligent designer started or created and intervened in a natural process," Leshner said. "ID is trying to drag science into the supernatural and redefine what science is and isn't."


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Extended News; Government; News/Current Events; Philosophy; US: Pennsylvania
KEYWORDS: anothercrevothread; crevorepublic; enoughalready; lawsuit; scienceeducation
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To: Alamo-Girl

Thanks, dear sister, for your very kind and gracious words. :^)


101 posted on 09/23/2005 11:45:10 AM PDT by betty boop (Nature loves to hide. -- Heraclitus)
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To: betty boop

That is correct in that scientists have arbitrarily separated consciousness from phenomena so they may do their lab work in a narrower and more controllable environment. It was not necessary to do so; it was a judgement--oddly the very thing that consciousness does.


102 posted on 09/23/2005 11:49:34 AM PDT by RightWhale (We in heep dip trubble)
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To: RightWhale; betty boop
Continuity is a comforting way to approach the world. How can something as well-known and so controversial as consciousness just suddenly appear in the universe?
Synergy. Why is water wet at room temperature & flame-quenching when oxygen & hydrogen have none of those properties? Where did water's qualities "come from"?
103 posted on 09/23/2005 11:52:33 AM PDT by jennyp (WHAT I'M READING NOW: Seeing What's Next by Christensen, et.al.)
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To: Alamo-Girl

Well stated. :)


104 posted on 09/23/2005 11:58:03 AM PDT by agrace (Where were you when I founded the earth? Tell me if you know so much. Job 38:4)
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To: jennyp

James used the perception of music as one example. How can two or more frequencies combine to produce a sound completely different, with different qualities of timbre and pitch, that neither single frequency has in that quality, that are not the sum of the original qualities?


105 posted on 09/23/2005 12:00:01 PM PDT by RightWhale (We in heep dip trubble)
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To: jennyp

You are very happy to accept the Rights mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, but you are hesitant to accept where those Rights come from.
The facts concerning our Rights are not to be cherry-picked. You either believe what was written or you don't.

"...endowed by their Creator..."


106 posted on 09/23/2005 12:07:59 PM PDT by Stark_GOP
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To: Junior
And what evidence do you have for that statement?

The Theory and/or Law of Gravity would be one example where supernatural power could be explanatory. Science has yet to explain its origin or cause. Science feels compelled to attribute it solely to natural causes, but even then it seems unable to determine its cause.

As long as science constrains itself to natural causes it will be constrained by its own biases. As it stands, all science can do is observe and quantify gravity here and there while remaining mystified as to how it carries on so consistently from age to age in our world.

That is because gravity is not natural. It is a supernatural force in play under the guiding hand of a supernatural being. Science applies the tag "natural" to the supernatural on a regular basis. Just as it plays around with the word "species" without the capacity to define it (but rather relishes the wiggle room), science plays around with the word "natural" without the ability to define it (unless it necessarily entails the absence of supernatural involvement).

Science will forever be constrained to serving the Creator and His creation. It will always lack in explanatory power. Too bad so many who pretend to be scientists throw unnecessary constraints on the pursuit of knowledge, but that is the nature of the temporary world in which we live.

107 posted on 09/23/2005 12:10:32 PM PDT by Fester Chugabrew
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To: Fester Chugabrew
The Theory and/or Law of Gravity would be one example where supernatural power could be explanatory. Science has yet to explain its origin or cause. Science feels compelled to attribute it solely to natural causes, but even then it seems unable to determine its cause.

So, you're saying Einstein was urinating against a zephyr and the planets are kept in their orbits by angels.

Okay...

108 posted on 09/23/2005 12:16:58 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)
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To: js1138
"You forgot the Moonies.

I though Moonies were just Lunatics.

109 posted on 09/23/2005 12:22:11 PM PDT by b_sharp (Science adjusts theories to fit evidence, creationism distorts evidence to fit the Bible.)
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To: Stark_GOP
You are very happy to accept the Rights mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, but you are hesitant to accept where those Rights come from. The facts concerning our Rights are not to be cherry-picked. You either believe what was written or you don't.

"...endowed by their Creator..."

The fact that we have individual rights is the fact. Who or what was the creator is conjecture, and irrelevant to accepting the plain fact before us (that we have individual rights).

By analogy: You're reading this off of a computer monitor. It's a specific type of monitor, connected to your computer by a cable with a specific configuration of pins, communicating via a specific protocol and only that protocol.

Now, in order to be able to use this monitor with your computer, here are some totally irrelevant questions you could ask: Did I purchase this monitor or did someone else? Was it purchased at retail, wholesale, in a big-box store or over the Internet, or was it stolen? Am I using this at home or at work? Was it made in the USA, Taiwan, China, or elsewhere? Are the chips inside TTL, CMOS, or something else? What color is the circuit board? Was a wholly rational design process used to design the circuitry, or were evolutionary algorithms involved?

110 posted on 09/23/2005 12:32:40 PM PDT by jennyp (WHAT I'M READING NOW: Seeing What's Next by Christensen, et.al.)
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To: betty boop
I would like to understand why the speaker thinks a world that contains intelligent beings can have less than an intelligent cause.

Good question -- and I'd love to kick it around when time permits -- can we call this a placemaker for now?

But I should point, I'm a linguist--and we are lousy at metaphysics : )

111 posted on 09/23/2005 12:37:51 PM PDT by SeaLion ("Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man" -- Thomas Paine)
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To: Junior; Alamo-Girl; RightWhale
Indeed, many other animals exhibit some levels of consciousness.

Indeed, Junior. It seems that all forms of living beings possess some form of consciousness, be it simple sentience, awareness, all the way up to self-consciousness. Indeed, consciousness seems to be the hallmark of living beings. So perhaps the question then becomes: Did life "develop gradually?" If it developed, then it must have had a beginning -- Alamo-Girl and I have been referring to this as the inception of "life vs. non-life."

What do you think?

112 posted on 09/23/2005 12:38:11 PM PDT by betty boop (Nature loves to hide. -- Heraclitus)
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To: betty boop
Thank you so much for your excellent post!

Phenomenal, existent reality is that which is studied by the natural sciences. This does not mean, however, that non-phenomenal or non-existent reality is an illusion -- just that the scientific method can gain no traction on such areas of human experience, for they do not fit the scientific method. Yet there would be no scientific method without mind, and there can be no mind without consciousness.

Indeed. And what a impoverished theory results when one presupposes naturalism in applying the scientific method to non-existent reality such as the mind.

I do believe that mathematics may be useful in such areas because it does not require corporeal existents but rather can speak directly to organizing principles, e.g. fractal intelligence.

More importantly, theology and philosophy have much to say about Logos!

113 posted on 09/23/2005 12:45:34 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: betty boop; Junior
Thank you so much for the excellent post and challenge for Junior! I look forward to his reply!
114 posted on 09/23/2005 12:48:04 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: betty boop

The principle of continuity is very useful. If we look for a break-point, we immediately find ourselves in a Looking-Glass world. As that phony remarked, consciousness resides in the cell, in the cell wall in particular. He put a break-point there. It's not a tenable position because we can't say this membrane is alive and that membrane is not. Continuity would allow for consciousness, or the building blocks, if we can imagine consciousness to be made up of sub-structures, to be present in electrons. What are electrons aware of; are they aware of themselves? Take a look in Alice's mirror--you are electrons; you claim to be self-aware.


115 posted on 09/23/2005 12:50:58 PM PDT by RightWhale (We in heep dip trubble)
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To: betty boop

My gut feeling is that, as one goes back further toward the beginnings of life, the boundary between life and non-life grows fuzzier and fuzzier. Looking at the spectrum between self-replicating molecules and the simplest cells, one cannot point to a particular spot along the line and say, "this is the first living thing."


116 posted on 09/23/2005 12:51:50 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)
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To: betty boop
Indeed, Junior. It seems that all forms of living beings possess some form of consciousness...

Only if you engage in circular definitions, or if you define consciousness in a trivial way.

117 posted on 09/23/2005 12:52:02 PM PDT by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
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To: js1138

Trivial placemarker.


118 posted on 09/23/2005 12:58:16 PM PDT by balrog666 (A myth by any other name is still inane.)
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To: RightWhale

I prefer jennyp's analogy. But only because it was my idea originally and it keeps my ego boosted to see it repeated by others.


119 posted on 09/23/2005 1:41:03 PM PDT by Dimensio (http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif <-- required reading before you use your next apostrophe!)
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To: jennyp
The sentence begins, "We hold these truths to be self-evident,...". That means that the Founding Fathers held EVERYTHING in that sentence as indisputably, undeniably, irrevocably true.
You may have a problem with a Creator, but you can't change basic English.
120 posted on 09/23/2005 1:42:35 PM PDT by Stark_GOP
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