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."
> what ignorance you have of faith and miracles
This constitutes proof?
that would be me, and yes I do not want any "Will of Allah" or similar mindsets running nukes. If you believe in ongoing miracles, I would like more information, such as under what circumstances you might expect intevention to save the day.
I'm a scientist. I've been a scientist for over a quarter century. IMO, js1138 has an excellent understanding of what science is and what we do.
You, on the other hand....
I don't know what I came here to prove or disprove, other than your assertion of "Oh, wait... [hardly] anyone with a basic scientific education *does* buy into it" was in my experience incorrect. I won't defend nor attack either evolution or ID, because both rely on faith to some extent and the conversations never go anywhere.
Wolf
I didn't ever operate in the hopes of a miracle. All I'm saying is, based on the current evidence presented to me, that the idea of an intelligent something making things, more or less, the way they are currently are a much simpler and easier explanation than the complex system that often stretches current accepted scientific laws. I won't say evolution doesn't exist, because we have seen evolution on small scales, both in labs and the field. But I still question the whole grand scale, from Big Bang on, to have occurred without some driving force besides nature. This is my opinion, not fact, which means given more data it could be changed. The original comment was reflecting that several other people I know have a similar opinion, and was never intended to be a challenge for or against evolution or ID.
What a fanstastic "outline," A-G!!! You've really "boiled down" the elements of ID to its essentials. After all this time (and all your patience), I don't understand why so many people continue to associate ID with theistic Creationism here at FR. And also beyond FR, of course. ID has no religious elements to it, no "spirituality," at all -- that I can detect anyway.Gee, betty, ya think maybe it's because of the Discovery Institute's own words???
The DI formed the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture in November, 1996. The press release explained how the center came to be and its purpose:
Major grants help establish Center for Renewal of Science and CultureFor over a century, Western science has been influenced by the idea that God is either dead or irrelevant. Two foundations recently awarded Discovery Institute nearly a million dollars in grants to examine and confront this materialistic bias in science, law, and the humanities. The grants will be used to establish the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture at Discovery, which will award research fellowships to scholars, hold conferences, and disseminate research findings among opinionmakers and the general public.
...
The new Center grew out of last summer's "Death of Materialism" conference that Discovery organized and which has gathered increased attention since the four keynote addresses were published by the Intercollegiate Review earlier this year.
"The conference pointed the way," Discovery President Bruce Chapman says, "and helped us mobilize support to attack the scientific argument for the 20th century's ideology of materialism and the host of social 'isms' that attend it."...
From November 1996 through the end of 1998, here's the text you'd find when you came to the CRSC homepage:
Life After MaterialismFor more than a century, science attempted to explain all human behaviour as the subrational product of unbending chemical, genetic, or environmental forces. The spiritual side of human nature was ignored, if not denied outright.
This rigid scientific materialism infected all other areas of human knowledge, laying the foundations for much of modern psychology, sociology, economics, and political science. Yet today new developments in biology, physics, and artificial intelligence are raising serious doubts about scientific materialism and re-opening the case for the supernatural.
Hmmm... "re-opening the case for the supernatural." They aim to "confront the idea that God is dead." Interesting. Can you detect any religious motivation in those bold words? Anything?
But wait, that's just the cliff-notes version. Click on "About the Center", and you get the full, blistering indictment, which was later lifted whole to become the Introduction to the infamous Wedge Document:
THE proposition that human beings are created in the image of God is one of the bedrock principles on which Western civilization was built. Its influence can be detected in most, if not all, of the West's greatest achievements, including representative democracy, human rights, free enterprise, and progress in the arts and sciences.Yet a little over a century ago, this cardinal idea came under wholesale attack by intellectuals drawing on the discoveries of modern science. Debunking the traditional conceptions of both God and man, thinkers such as Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud portrayed human beings not as eternal and accountable beings, but as animals or machines ... This materialistic conception of reality eventually infected virtually every area of our culture, from politics and economics to literature and music.
The cultural consequences of this triumph of materialism were devastating. ...
Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture seeks nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its damning cultural legacies. Bringing together leading scholars from the natural sciences and those from the humanities and social sciences, the Center explores how new developments in biology, physics and cognitive science raise serious doubts about scientific materialism and have re-opened the case for the supernatural.
They also helpfully explained themselves further in their "What is Materialism?" FAQ. See especially question #4:
This question particularly gives a big hint as to why the millions of dollars have been pumped into the Discovery Institute's ID crusade to keep everyone believing in God despite learning about a particular biological theory in school. These guys are postmodernists of the right. They believe that the real world gives us no objective criteria by which to judge something as "good" or "bad". So any moral dispute comes down to whichever interest group is most ruthless in pursuit of their own goals. Hobbes' war of all against all.#4. Materialism, Naturalism, Darwinism, all these isms, what do they have to do with me and my life?
Materialism is a powerful philosophy of life today because it sets the boundaries for what is right and wrong in society. It explains the ''rules'' that govern our civilization. It goes to the very intellectual roots of society, the very foundation that our social and cultural institutions are built upon.
Indeed, if materialism is right -- as most intellectuals propose -- then ''God'' is merely a figment of our imagination. Therefore, God didn't create man; man created God. Doestoyevsky once said that ''if God is dead then all things are lawful. '' Might makes right. The State is the ultimate enforcer of rules.
Let's look at how materialism has infected the legal system, welfare and popular culture.
And of course they're correct, IF THE NATURAL WORLD INDEED CONTAINS NO OBJECTIVE TRUTH. Do you agree with the Discovery Institute that the natural world contains no objective truth, and that the only way to "renew" the culture is to get enough intellectual people to revisit "the case for the supernatural"?
> I came here to prove or disprove, other than your assertion of "Oh, wait... [hardly] anyone with a basic scientific education *does* buy into it" was in my experience incorrect.
Anecdotal evidence of a few people you know who go against the trend does not disprove the trend, anymore than that "But nobody I know voted for Nixon!" line proved that Nixon stole the election.
So, there is some small percentqage of people who should know better and who nevertheless choose superstition to explain the natural world. Doesn't change the fact that they rank as "hardly anyone."
Thanks. I suspect that there's a snake lurking in the woodpile. Philosophers would love the power to veto scientific ideas on formal grounds. You see attempts at this on these threads.
I can't argue against the idea that nature is fined tuned to produce evolution. It doesn't satisfy my curiosity about the way things work, but there's nothing inherently wrong or stupid about it.
Yes, it is Randian.
An Eskimo tale: http://www.worldandi.com/public/1998/cljul98.htm
Okay, so where did you get your sample to make such a bold statement?
In the mean time, dear sister, what a truly splendiferous post!! You've really caught the true spirit of ID! Wonderful!
> 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.<<
Are you accepting them as phenomena? If so, they cannot be dismissed, until you know what the explanation is for them. That is assuming you wish to turn the light of scientific exploration on them. You dismissed them as supernatural without any such exploration. There is some good science trying to unravel the mysteries of hallucinations, dreams etc.
That is why at the beginning of this thread I asked the basic question: Is there any phenomena that is supernatural? There are only two types of phenonmena, the explained, and the unexplained. Supernatural is part of the unexplained, and I pose that you cannot call it supernatural until the explanation is known. A tough standard, I know.
Calling a phenomena supernatural is just a way of saying I don't want to look at it, but I want to shut down the discussion anyway.
DK
...no Thoughtful Intelligent Well-Meaning Liberal can ever be dismissed. I cannot dismiss my father.
Ahhhhh, it is refreshing to know the good Professor does not believe epistemology is important to his work. It shows.
DK
You've read some of my work?
Is any of it here on these boards? Do your arguments here, your writings here, speak for those of the Scientific community?
Wolf
Ahhhhh, it is refreshing to know the good Professor does not believe epistemology is important to his work. It shows.
You've read some of my work?<<
Your comment:
>>I'm a scientist. I've been a scientist for over a quarter century. IMO, js1138 has an excellent understanding of what science is and what we do.
You, on the other hand....<<
Keep up with the discussion, man. You just said JS1138 was correct in saying science does not take measure from epistemology. But don't trust my words.
>>To: Dark Knight
Scientists have successfully ignored epistomology and most other isms for centuries. Too busy solving actual problems.
Do you wish to argue that biology is not making progress or acquiring knowledge? You certainly welcome to set up a competetive shop. There are hundreds of well funded religious colleges.
I know some of them are teaching creationism, but I don't see any massive research output.
51 posted on 09/23/2005 8:21:19 AM PDT by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.) <<
I'll forgive you if the dog ate your homework, but don't let it happen again young man.
Of course if you agree that JS1138 is correct, philosophy is not terribly important to scientists. That's why most are Doctors of...Philosophy.
DK
Gods this is funny. Want to play some more? It's a bad position. Even your superior mind (Khan from Startrek comes to mind) won't win this one. Remember some of the other posts I am arguing that scientists use things like logic and reasoning.
Please recant logic and reasoning Professor...please.
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