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."
And athlets are physicists. OK.
This is a very sad thing to see. In every discussion there is a possibility for each side to learn something.
But you are obsessed with winning. It's sad.
ID is considered to be based in the supernatural because of the ID adherents attitudes and the difficulty in determining a natural cause for design in biology.
Really, wow!
That said, GOD created the Heavens and the Earth and all that dwell therein.
I think one of my chuckling friends said it very well as she is a history buff:
>>It was the scientists who were constantly trying to catch up with the engineers, not philosophers trying to catch up with scientists.
As a matter of fact, the philosophers and the scientists were more often than not one and the same. Certainly Newton considered himself a philosopher. There were many prominent scientists, especially in the 20th century, who bemoaned the fact that many prominent scientists were neglecting philosophy, especially ethics.
One of the many reasons philosophy came under attack was because over the middle part of the 20th century the existentialists took over the public face of philosophy, especially at the universities. They taught dispair and meaninglessness, not to mention complete moral relativity. Although I can understand their horror at the first and second world wars, this idea (of meaninglessness) was promoted regardless of consequences, as we are seeing in the 'liberal' elites who have appointed themselves our 'moral' leaders.<<
She invited me to use her words so I feel free to.
DK
PhD is a doctor of what?
DK
"But you are obsessed with winning. It's sad."
You will make my friends chuckle with the comment about winning. I don't cheat and I am HIGHLY competitive.
But of course if you want to be obsessive about losing, it is a sadder state. You keep pushing a bad position, I know where the weaknesses are, but you keep coming. It is called debate and it is a waning skill, rarely taught anymore.
If I were mean, I would go back to your previous posts and pull up the comment on how I was just appealing to emotion, and therefore a TROLL. Of course saying I am one to be pitied and it's sad (passive voice so you don't have to face your own judgement and emotions)is just as appropriate. I would NEVER call you a TROLL for disagreeing with me.
But we were in a debate. This is a forum for debate. I believe what I say, and I think I can prove some of what I say because I have taken the time to learn how I know, what I know.
I try to put humor in the posts because even in the silliest of the FSM threads, they deteriorate far too rapidly into serious, dry name calling, without content.
Didn't you even like the comment about what are you doing in my house?
Come on, IDers would hate the prelude.
Sleep well or at least pleasant dreams the next time you sleep.
Tomorrow is another day to freep and we will all be judged by the great collander.
DK
My own has satisfied myself. If you are unable to perform such a test it is because you will not allow for the possibility.
The intelligent design hypothesis is that "certain features of the universe and life are best explained by intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection.".
I. The "intelligent cause" is not stipulated.
II. There are two types of intelligent cause
B. Creationism refers to “all features” not just “certain features”
C. Creationism has many variations of doctrine concerning the involvement of God in the creating process:
b. Young earth creationism stipulates that God specially created everything – the universe and every species.
c. Old earth creationism recognizes a mix of theistic evolution and special creation.
2) Some Christian doctrine is that Adam was specially created (ensouled) but doesn’t speak to any of the mechanisms other than that.
E. The intelligent design hypothesis does not substitute for the theory of evolution because:
V. Any “intelligent cause” which is determined to be the best explanation for “certain features” will vindicate the hypothesis, for instance:
B. Phenomenon: That molecular machinery chooses to cooperate to the survival of the whole organism.
C. Phenomenon: That collectives of organisms (swarms, etc.) make decisions the component organism cannot, which gives the species a survival advantage.
D. Agent or Phenomenon: That there exists a universal will to live – a life principle, fecundity principle, or evolution of one – which is the primary inception of information (successful communication) in biological systems.
E. Agent: That the complexity of “certain features” cannot be explained by natural mechanisms given the age of the universe.
F. Agent: That order cannot rise of chaos in an unguided physical (as compared to mathematical) system.
> If God has no effect in the world, then there is no phenomenon to describe. And there is nothing for science or man to look at.
Hogwash.
> Until man can explain ALL phenomena (omniscience) God cannot be dismissed.
And by that logic, *no* gods ever imagined can be dismissed. No supernatural critters, no fairies, no elves, no goblins, no gremlins, no Loch Ness Monster, no Bigfoot, no Thoughtful Intelligent Well-Meaning Liberal can ever be dismissed.
All, that typing, and you left out the basics: unless ID explains the origin of not only life as it curretnly is, but also the origin of that putative Intelligent Designer, then it's useless. It's nothign better than "turtles all the way down."
So, for ID to be able to stand, it must posit a God of some type. And thus, by definition ID is Creationism.
And what ignorance you have of faith and miracles with your previous remark.
Ah geez... then we get to the question of how the aliens evolved.
It would not make sense for me to herald the virtues of Kolmogorov complexity in situation A and then turn around and decry Kolmogorov as a complexity measure when the subject changes to situation B. If it cannot be used in B, I should be able to explain why.
Outstanding insight, Alamo-Girl! Thank you!!!
In earlier posts, I think you put your finger on why the mainstream science community bears such antipathy for ID. ID is a "non-reductive" approach to explaining nature that directly opposes the "reductive" approach of methodological materialism. That's the real issue, the main point of dispute.
Thanks for your enormously valuable essay/post, Alamo-Girl. Bookmarked!
Can't say I'm that confident about it. I have no trust in the ability of the judicial system to handle matters related to science.
The reason so many here on FR associate ID with CS is that the ID folks constantly seem to be relying on the bible or the Hebrew version of creation. They forget they are supposed to (wink) keep the two separate for now.
I have been posting Native American creation stories to make this point. The comments I get back most often relate to the deficiencies of these stories in relation to the bible version. In other words, ID (which otherwise could include anything from Erich Von Daniken's space aliens to Old Man Coyote) really is a cover for the biblical version of creation because that's what the proponents are really pushing.
Check out the ID websites and see how many Old Man Coyote stories you find vs. biblical quotations.
Because many here might not see these stories anywhere else, here is another example.
In the beginning, Raven was born out of the darkness. Weak, unknowing of himself or his purpose, he set out to learn more about the area where he was walking. He felt trees, plants, and grass. He thought about such things and soon realized that he was the Raven Father, Creator of All Life. He gathered strength and flew out of the darkness and found new land, called the earth. Raven wanted living things to be on the earth, so he made plants.
One day, Raven was flying overhead and saw a giant peapod, and out came a man who was the first Eskimo. Father Raven fed the man, creating caribou and musk oxen for him to eat. Father Raven did this for many days, all the while teaching the man to respect his fellow creatures. A woman was soon created for the man, and Raven taught the pair to make clothing, build homes, and make a canoe. The two became parents. Other men came from the peapods, and Raven fed and taught them too. When they were ready, Raven made women for these men and they, too, became parents. Soon the earth had many children.
I want to thank you, Coyoteman, for posting the creation myths of other cultures. In all the examples you give, we see the human mind struggling to understand and articulate the human condition, to make intelligible what are in fact universal human experiences.
Within the Western cultural tradition, our "creation myth" is Genesis. So it should come as no surprise that people would cite its language in order to make intelligible certain questions and issues because this is a shared language with other persons of that tradition. But that is not the same thing as saying that ID is religiously motivated.
Unless you want to say that the pursuit of understanding of what constitutes the overall "system" in which discrete events in nature take place is somehow to be equated with religiosity. The "reductive" approach of materialist science looks only at the discrete events themselves, not at the overarching context in which they occur. ID is saying that the meaning of the events cannot be fully grasped without regard to the system in which they occur. It is in this respect that ID is "non-reductive" in its approach.
At least, that is my take on this issue. FWIW.
We are in agreement on this.
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