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Biology expert testifies. Professor: Intelligent design is creationism.
York Dispatch ^ | 9/27/05 | Christina Kauffman

Posted on 09/27/2005 9:10:31 AM PDT by Crackingham

Dover Area School District's federal trial began yesterday in Harrisburg with talk ranging from divine intervention and the Boston Red Sox to aliens and bacterial flagellum. After about 10 months of waiting, the court case against the district and its board opened in Middle District Judge John E. Jones III's courtroom with statements from lawyers and several hours of expert testimony from biologist and Brown University professor Kenneth Miller.

On one side of the aisle, several plaintiffs packed themselves in wooden benches behind a row of attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union, Pepper Hamilton LLC and Americans United for Separation of Church and State. On the other side of the aisle, nine school board members, only three of whom were on the board when it voted 6-3 to include a statement on intelligent design in biology classes, piled in behind lawyers from the Thomas More Law Center. Assistant superintendent Michael Baksa and superintendent Richard Nilsen shared a bench with Michael Behe, a Lehigh University professor expected to take the stand in defense of intelligent design.

SNIP

Miller, whose resume is several pages long and includes a stint as a professor at Harvard University, was the first witness called for the parents. Miller co-wrote the Prentice Hall textbook "Biology" with professor Joe Levine. The book is used by 35 percent of the high school students in the United States, Miller said. His were some of the thousands of biology books in which school officials in Cobb County, Ga., ordered stickers to be placed, warning that evolution is only a theory, "not a fact." Miller also testified in a lawsuit filed by Cobb County parents, and a judge later ordered that the stickers be removed.

Yesterday, the scientist's testimony was at times dominated by scientific terminology, though he jokingly told ACLU attorney Witold Walczak he would do his best to explain things in the layman's terms he uses with his mother.

Miller said intelligent design supporters think an intelligent designer must have been involved in the creation of life because science can't yet prove how everything evolved. He said the intelligent design idea that birds were created with beaks, feathers and wings and fish were born with fins is a creationist argument.

Intelligent design supporters often cite "irreducible complexity" in their research, he said. "Irreducible complexity" means that a living thing can't be reduced by any part or it won't work at all. So those living things could not have evolved in the way Darwin suggested; they had to be created with all of their existing parts, Miller said.

Intelligent design proponents often cite the bacterial flagellum, a bacterium with a tail that propels it, Miller said. Behe and his colleagues claim bacterial flagellum had to be created with all of its parts because it couldn't function if any of them were taken away, Miller testified. But scientists have proved that the bacterial flagellum can be reduced to a smaller being, a little organism that operates in a manner similar to a syringe, Miller said.

One of the biggest problems with the scientific viability of intelligent design is there is no way to experiment with the presence of a supernatural being because science only deals with the natural world and theories that are testable, Miller said.

Some people might suspect divine intervention last year when the Boston Red Sox came back to win the World Series after losing three games in a row to the New York Yankees in the playoffs. It may have been, but that's not science, he said. And intelligent design proponents haven't named the "intelligent being" behind their supposition, Miller said. They have suggested, among other things, that it could be aliens, he said. He said there is no evidence to prove intelligent design, so its proponents just try to poke holes in the theory of evolution.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Extended News; Government; News/Current Events; Philosophy; US: Pennsylvania
KEYWORDS: anothercrevothread; crevorepublic; enoughalready; lawsuit; makeitstop; scienceeducation; yourmomisanape
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To: Diamond
Well, if challenging the authenticity of the source didn't work

I have yet to obtain the book in question. Inter-library loan is slow.

And you might still have the "out-of-date" (1940) riposte at your disposal, too:

Well, that's certainly true. I would tend to be skeptical of Soviet propaganda issued in 1940, as it doesn't reflect Stalin's postwar persecution of Darwinian biologists.

Nevertheless, sometimes a statement or admission from a hostile witness is the most valuable because the source cannot be accused of bias in my favor.

No, just in Stalin's favor. Whether or not the story was actually printed, I don't think anybody actually believes that the story is true. Stalin didn't read much of anything, and it is almost inconceivable that he read Darwin.

Darwin popularized and shaped in his own way prior evolutionary theories.

No he didn't. Darwin was far more than a popularizer, he created what we think of as the Theory of Evolution, minus the underlying genetics. While previous thinkers had understood that there was no fixity of the species, Darwin explained why and how that is. Darwin's understanding of the world is vastly and fundamentally different from Lamarck's or Lysenko's and it is beyond dishonest to lump them all together as "evolutionists." If Lysenko is an evolutionist, so is every ID supporter.

661 posted on 09/29/2005 9:04:52 AM PDT by Alter Kaker (Whatever tears one may shed, in the end one always blows one’s nose.-Heine)
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To: TonyRo76; Dimensio; Thatcherite

I agree that humans are born utterly selfish and unconcerned with matters such as empathy, consequence, self-control, and conscience.

Humans are not born with "better angels of their natures".

It is the job of the parents, and -in a healthy society- of those other adults with whom the child interacts, to raise children above their innate base nature.

The process of positive and negative reinforcement as behavioral modification functions reliably with human children, as it does in the housebreaking of all social animals.

There is no inherent requirement for a skypixie uber-parent in this process.


662 posted on 09/29/2005 9:40:12 AM PDT by King Prout (19sep05 - I want at least 2 Saiga-12 shotguns. If you have leads, let me know)
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To: Dimensio

you left out the "null-hypothesis" step.


663 posted on 09/29/2005 9:46:17 AM PDT by King Prout (19sep05 - I want at least 2 Saiga-12 shotguns. If you have leads, let me know)
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To: Alter Kaker
Stalin didn't read much of anything, and it is almost inconceivable that he read Darwin.

Even during the 5 years he spent at the The Tiflis Theological Seminary?

Despite the efforts of the Seminary's administrators, he and his classmates read a steady diet of anti-establishment literature, ranging from the romantic novels of Victor Hugo to the works of Charles Jean Marie Letourneau, a long-winded Frenchman who attempted to analyze all of world history through the lens of his own radical politics. Stalin would not read the Communist classics until later in life, but he did read Kvali, the weekly organ of Georgia's Marxist movement, and revolutionary politics had enough appeal for him that by 1896 or '97 he began to refer to himself as a Marxist. His circle of friends shared his convictions, and by 1898 he was sufficiently committed to the "Idea" that he offered his services to Noe Zhordania, leader of Georgia's Marxists, as a professional revolutionary. Zhordania suggested that he complete his education first, but Stalin had lost interest in the Seminary. He was expelled in May of 1899, for failing to take his examinations, and prepared to enter the political world...
link

...it is beyond dishonest to lump them all together as "evolutionists."

Charles Darwin's grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, was one of the leading intellectuals of eighteenth century England, a man with a remarkable array of interests and pursuits. Erasmus Darwin was a respected physician, a well known poet, philosopher, botanist, and naturalist.

As a naturalist, he formulated one of the first formal theories on evolution in Zoonomia, or, The Laws of Organic Life (1794-1796). He also presented his evolutionary ideas in verse, in particular in the posthumously published poem The Temple of Nature. Although he did not come up with natural selection, he did discuss ideas that his grandson elaborated on sixty years later, such as how life evolved from a single common ancestor, forming "one living filament". He wrestled with the question of how one species could evolve into another. Although some of his ideas on how evolution might occur are quite close to those of Lamarck, Erasmus Darwin also talked about how competition and sexual selection could cause changes in species: "The final course of this contest among males seems to be, that the strongest and most active animal should propogate the species which should thus be improved". Erasmus Darwin arrived at his conclusions through an "integrative" approach: he used his observations of domesticated animals, the behaviour of wildlife, and he integrated his vast knowledge of many different fields, such as paleontology, biogeography, systematics, embryology, and comparative anatomy. This "integrative" approach is the very foundation upon which the U.C. Museum of Paleontology and the recently formed Integrative Biology Department at the University of California at Berkeley are built.

In addition to Erasmus Darwin's contributions to the future of biological studies, he was also a leader in an intellectual community that contributed to the emergence of the industrial era. Among his intellectual peers were James Watt, Matthew Boulton, Joseph Priestly, and Josiah Wedgwood. It is probably no coincidence that Charles Darwin, the grandson of such a progressive thinker, produced some of the most important work in the history of biological and social thought.
link

Are they dishonest at Berkeley, too, about what constitutes an evolutionist? Of course these evolutionists were not Darwinists. Nobody disputes that.

Cordially,

664 posted on 09/29/2005 9:49:12 AM PDT by Diamond (Qui liberatio scelestus trucido inculpatus.)
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To: Thatcherite
I've come across stuff like this before where the "original" didn't actually exist, just all the "copies" on creationist websites.

stand-alone-complex... neat effect, that. not exactly rare, either. not sure what it says about humans, but I suspect it isn't complimentary

665 posted on 09/29/2005 9:53:02 AM PDT by King Prout (19sep05 - I want at least 2 Saiga-12 shotguns. If you have leads, let me know)
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To: untrained skeptic; Dimensio

one disproves a theory by:
1. making predictions of what one expects to see in a given scenario, based on the theory
2. making predictions of what one DOES NOT expect to see in a given scenario, based on the theory.

If one subsequently observes the UNEXPECTED result in the given scenario, the theory is falsified.

one way the ToE would be falsified would be if saltation from one high-order taxa to another was observed, either directly or in the fossil record.

one way relativity would be falsified would be if matter was observed to accelerate from below C to beyond C.

As ID has so far NEVER defined the limits and nature of the designer or its/their powers, IDiots remain free to "move the goalposts" at whim. ID is thus not falsifiable on those grounds alone.

That wasn't a particularly difficult walk, was it?


666 posted on 09/29/2005 10:01:27 AM PDT by King Prout (19sep05 - I want at least 2 Saiga-12 shotguns. If you have leads, let me know)
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To: untrained skeptic
Sure, there's evidence that supports the theory of evolution. The problem is that any evidence that contradicts evolution can be explained away by the theory of evolution.

Well, no. Perhaps someone on this thread has mentioned the Precambrian rabbit fossil. Perhaps someone has pointed out that the frequent creationist request for a "fish giving birth to reptile" would actually be disproof of evolution.

Find a critter that didn't seem to evolve? Well, then there must have been two seperat evolutionary paths that branched farther back in history. One branch may have evolved faster than the other. I mean, after all, this is all just random chance. You can't expect an orderly progression without a design.

The theory of evolution says that evolution happens, not that it must happen, or that when it happens it will do so in an "orderly" manner -- whatever that is -- or that creatures living under vastly different conditions and pressures must evolve at the same rate. It is only after the fact that we can see a progression, and it is usually in small steps. Which is exactly what we would expect to find.

If there is an orderly progression is would be evidence of a possible design.

The problem is that there's nothing that couldn't be construed as evidence of design.

Evolution doesn't preclude a design. An inteligent design may very well include evolution. Neither can explain away the other completely no mater how much evidence you gather. That's one of the reasons why they are theories.

ID is not a scientific theory for a variety of reasons I've already pointed out. You've countered with objections to evolution and not with tests for or predictions of ID.

G: "Further, evolution is not a "leap of faith." It is the best explanation we have that takes in all the known facts. When a better explanation comes along, that new explanation will become the operative theory. There is no faith involved."

Any time you choose to believe in an unproven theory you are making a leap of faith. If you accept it as a theory, rather than fact, it does not require a leap of faith. This is true if we're talking about evolution or ID.

Here we go again. All scientific theories are unproven. I don't understand your point about accepting a theory as a theory as opposed to a fact -- theories are theories and facts are facts by definition -- but no matter what the statement means, it doesn't make ID a scientific theory. There has been no scientifically accepted instance of ID that doesn't involve natural causes (You can make an argument that there's intelligent design in automobiles, but any "intelligence" involved comes from humans. There is no evidence -- surprise! -- of supernatural intervention).

G: "Again, evolution isn't about origins and it doesn't pretend to be."

I would have to argue that people try to make it explain everything, but the origins are where the theory breaks down.

Well, you don't have to argue that. Let me try to explain this. Origins are outside the theory of evolution. That means that the theory of evolution has nothing to do with or say about origins. This cannot be a point where the theory "breaks down," because the point isn't addressed by the theory. You might as well object to the theory of gravitation because it doesn't offer an explanation for the way mass has color.

When you refuse to consider the origins, you're refusing to look at one of the main problems with the theory of evolution. Evolution doesn't explain how things got started. Nothing really does explain the origins, buecause even if you say God created the universe, where did God come from?

Origins are outside the theory of evolution (I think I've heard that somewhere before). Therefore, origins cannot be a problem for the theory of evolution, because the theory of evolution isn't about origins.

I'm really stretching trying to find a way to put this so that it will sink in.

The beginning of the universe is also outside the theory of evolution. God is outside the theory of evolution. The theory of evolution has nothing to say one way or the other about God. I know a lot of creationists want to put the theory of evolution in opposition to God, but it's their own invention. I also know that Mr. Dawkins likes to use evolution as a club to beat the religious, but he's as wrong as anyone else using the theory of evolution in that manner.

However it's a valid theory to question if some intillegent being may have created the universe, and then it brings into question how much of what we see as evolution is random chance and natural selection as opposed to a design that includes a degree of random chance and natrual selection.

The origin of the universe is outside the theory of evolution. Any supernatural event is also outside the theory of evolution, but for another reason: the supernatural is outside of what science can study. There is also no supernatural component to gravitational theory, color theory, string theory, or any other scientific theory you'd care to name.

These are theories. There aren't hard and fast answers. We need to teach students theories, and we need to teach them as theories.

The teachers unions and groups like the ACLU are trying to keep the theory of ID out of schools and only teach one possible theory. When you only teach one possible theory and exclude all other theories and not being credible, you're in effect teaching that theory as fact, and not teaching students to think for themselves.

When it's science, it will be in science class, and no one who knows anything about science will object. Until then, it doesn't matter who does or does not like it, if it's not science, it shouldn't be taught as part of science.

"There are still simply questions that are better answered by divine intervention than by evolution.

G: Not in science."

Why? Because you define science to exclude the supernatural? That's funny since science evolved from the study of things though to be supernatural.

I don't define science that way, science defines science that way. It doesn't matter how science first arose, there are things science simply cannot study. That someone would propose a force that cannot be detected or tested for can never be part of science. How would science, for instance, test for the theory that there's an angel on your shoulder?

But let's take another look at history. Medieval scholars told us that roses are red becauseGod wanted to remind us of the blood Jesus shed for man. What's the scientific test for that? Should it be in science class, too? It's as much a theory as id. How about N-rays?

G: "Intelligent design isn't a theory because we can't test for it. That's not the same as "prove" it. It also predicts nothing ... like I say in the next sentence you quoted."

You can't come up with a test for evolution that can't be explained away by different paths of evolution that branched at an earlier point in time that may have evolved at different rates. That's the nature of explaining something through random chance over a nearly infinite period of time.

See above re: Precambrian rabbit fossil.

It's no more disprovable than ID. It's just more accepted by those who CHOOSE not to consider as a valid theory.

This is just wrong.

G: "We disagree on whether the people in question understand science, and we further disagree on whether the people who are touting id do."

Too much of a generalization about the people touting ID. I don't question that there are some people pushing ID for blind religious reasons. There are also people pushing evolution because of their opposition to religion.

True, but beside the point. A scientific theory stands or falls on its own merits, not because of the character or motives of the people behind it.

G: "I suspect that scientists have a much better grasp of what we don't understand than most of us do."

My father has a PHD in Physics and I grew up in an environment very supportive of education and learning to think critically. I've got a BS and a MS degree. Those degrees mean I've got more background information and know more rules to apply to subjects than some other people.

I've taught classes while getting my masters degree.

Here's what I learned. Facts are nice, but they don't really amount to knowledge until you're able to question them and understand how they all fit together. You can't do that by excluding ideas because preconceived notions such as calling things not science because they involve something you don't understand.

You're right about facts and their relationship to science. Propose the test for divine intervention, and if it can be repeated, it will be part of science. Until then, it's useless to rail about "preconceived notions," because the particular one you're objecting to is what makes science science.

It's just as important to realize what you don't know as what you do know.

Despite the education I've attained, I've often found people who are able to figure out things that elude me and explain them to me that have very little formal education. Sometimes what we think we know can be a barrier to learning. Excluding theories such as ID because they aren't considered Science is a barrier to learning that serves no useful purpose.

What's the scientific test for id? What does the theory predict we'll find if it's true?

I'm not arguing education levels.

Teaching ID as a theory merely exposes students to the fact that we don't know all the facts and that there are different theories out there that might explain things. The possibility that there may be some intelligent entity that has had a hand in our world becomming what it is isn't some new concept that no one considers a possibility. So why exclude it and teach only one theory?

We can expose students to our lack of omniscience by stating that "we don't know everything." I remember hearing it often in science classes. As theories were introduced and explained, their limits were also pointed out. But there is no reason to teach a non-theory as a theory, or say in every biology class that a group of people who can't formulate a scientific theory and appear not to understand what science is have made enough noise that we're now required to tell you that they don't like certain aspects of a scientific theory they don't really seem to understand and therefore things might have happened some other way we can't determine.

And where would it stop? The Flat Earth Society is still out there. All they'd have to do is start making enough noise.

667 posted on 09/29/2005 10:06:09 AM PDT by Gumlegs
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To: balrog666; PatrickHenry

neener neener neeeee-nerrrrr!


668 posted on 09/29/2005 10:33:16 AM PDT by King Prout (19sep05 - I want at least 2 Saiga-12 shotguns. If you have leads, let me know)
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To: Diamond
Given your overly broad definition of what it means to be an "evolutionist," creationists are evolutionists, since Man changed following the Fall. Everything depends on context, and it is only in the context of their opposition to the prevailing view of a fixity of species that it is possible to call Erasmus Darwin or Lamarck or any of their ilk "evolutionists."

Given contemporary contexts it would be improper to use that label to describe their beliefs.

669 posted on 09/29/2005 10:34:06 AM PDT by Alter Kaker (Whatever tears one may shed, in the end one always blows one’s nose.-Heine)
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To: Dimensio; TonyRo76
rape and pillage part, tie my shoes part.

Dimensio: Why would I want to do any such thing?

Well.., why would you? Yes you.

And no.... sigh..., its not TonyRo76 giving the answer for you, so you can attack him on that

Just basic rationality and honesty course 101.. with dash of integrity.

Wolf
670 posted on 09/29/2005 10:41:45 AM PDT by RunningWolf (U.S. Army Veteran.....75-78)
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To: King Prout

Somehow, it suits you.


671 posted on 09/29/2005 10:43:00 AM PDT by PatrickHenry (Disclaimer -- this information may be legally false in Kansas.)
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To: Gumlegs
We can expose students to our lack of omniscience by stating that "we don't know everything." I remember hearing it often in science classes. As theories were introduced and explained, their limits were also pointed out. But there is no reason to teach a non-theory as a theory, or say in every biology class that a group of people who can't formulate a scientific theory and appear not to understand what science is have made enough noise that we're now required to tell you that they don't like certain aspects of a scientific theory they don't really seem to understand and therefore things might have happened some other way we can't determine.

Hot-key that one.

672 posted on 09/29/2005 11:00:26 AM PDT by balrog666 (A myth by any other name is still inane.)
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To: King Prout

Say it ain't so, Joe!

673 posted on 09/29/2005 11:03:08 AM PDT by balrog666 (A myth by any other name is still inane.)
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To: balrog666

sorry - it wasn't on purpose, I swear.


674 posted on 09/29/2005 11:15:46 AM PDT by King Prout (19sep05 - I want at least 2 Saiga-12 shotguns. If you have leads, let me know)
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To: balrog666

Long sentence fan, eh?


675 posted on 09/29/2005 11:24:44 AM PDT by Gumlegs
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To: Alter Kaker
Given your overly broad definition of what it means to be an "evolutionist," creationists are evolutionists, since Man changed following the Fall.

Devolution might be a better term for it.

Everything depends on context, and it is only in the context of their opposition to the prevailing view of a fixity of species that it is possible to call Erasmus Darwin or Lamarck or any of their ilk "evolutionists."...Given contemporary contexts it would be improper to use that label to describe their beliefs.

Yes, I agree that context determines meaning. As far as I can tell the term evolution has about 5 or 6 proper usages, depending on the context. It can mean anything from simple change over time to populations adapting to changing environments to organisms being related through common ancestry to "Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind.". The latter sense is its most popular sense, Evolution with a big "E". Which of these is inconsistent with the view of Erasmus Darwin or Lamarck or the dialectical materialism of Stalin or Lysenko?

Cordially,

676 posted on 09/29/2005 12:06:06 PM PDT by Diamond (Qui liberatio scelestus trucido inculpatus.)
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To: Diamond
That is simply not true.

You are simply wrong. I assumed we would all understand that I meant the "Theory of Evolution" as initally proposed by Darwin by "Evolution". Excuse me for assuming too much thinking on your part. At any rate, it really doesn't matter who proposed it or when, because there will always have been atheists before that point. How do you explain that?

I don't believe in gods either and I'm not an atheist.

Huh. I had assumed you were Christian which I assumed meant that you believed in a god. I guess we've all been doing too much assuming today.

But ontologically speaking, either the universe is eternal or it isn't.

Sure. But that doesn't mean from your perspective that either you're right or the atheists are right. Thankfully, Jack Chick's version of the world is not representative of reality. You realize how many other religions there are out there, right?

What choice other than some materialist explantion does a good atheist have to try to account for the existence of the universe?

"Some materialist explanation"? By definition, an atheist would only accept "some materialistic explanation". Darwin's TOE is not the only materialistic explanation that could ever be proposed. You could have thought that the universe had "some materialistic explanation" long before Darwin. You just wouldn't have known the mechanism.
677 posted on 09/29/2005 12:22:42 PM PDT by Vive ut Vivas (Deity in training.)
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To: Diamond

And further, the theory of evolution is not proposing to explain the existence of the universe. Stop trying to make it into something that it isn't. Evolution isn't supposed to be your "religion" and the basis of your entire worldview. It's projection on your part to assume that we draw moral implications from scientific theories. What was it RightWingProfessor said, that the theory of gravity means the purpose of life is to fall? Does that sound ridiculous to you? Drawing conclusions about our worldviews based on some simple theory about the change in allele frequencies over time is silly. I don't wake up thinking about the philosophical implications of evolution any more than I do the implications of electrodynamics.


678 posted on 09/29/2005 12:30:46 PM PDT by Vive ut Vivas (Deity in training.)
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To: Vive ut Vivas

"That's because evolution is the only viable theory right now."

I think your're giving the theory of evolution too much credit. It's a very good theory as long as you don't try and extrapolate too much from it. Just like any theory it gets on more shaky ground when you try to read too much into it. If evolution is merely being used as a possible explaination how living things have change over a period of time, it does pretty well. However, when you start asking questions about how the process started, or you start questioning if it makes sense that random chance produced the resutls we have over the number of generations involved, the evidence becomes less convincing.

It's not contradicted, it's just that you start to see how many unanswered questions there are. You also need to look at the fact that the nature of the theory makes it adapatable to the evidence that is discovered. A combination of random chance and natural selection can explain almost anything if you just keep going back farther in time and suggest that the different pieces of evidence don't contradict each other, but are different paths of evolution.

Intelligent design is similar in it's weaknesses. You can use it to explain anything, because you can always say that just must be the way it was designed. It also becomes less convincing when you try to use it to explain too many things. However, when dealing with specifics where other theories fail to be compelling, it is a more convincing theory.

"And again, stop getting caught up in terminology. What does it even mean for something in science to be a "fact"? It's not even relevant."

You're misinterpreting my argument. My issue is that it's being taught in schools as fact by the purposful exclusion of any other theories. I agree that there are few things in science that can truely be counted on as "facts", but that's not how science is being taught in schools.

"me: It's a purposful representation of it as more than a thoery because the liberals in our education system don't want to let students consider that there may be a God.

you: "More than a theory"? This statement is meaningless! And furthermore, science doesn't even have anything to do with God!"

The adgenda of the people trying to influence the ciriculim in our public schools also has little to do with science. That's the whole point.

You're also making a mistake when you say that science has nothing to do with God. You were better off when you said science was agnostic. Science does not assume or preclude the existence of God. However, if God did create the universe, then everything we are studying throuh science is God's creation. That's something that science has been unable to prove or disprove.

You can't say that God has nothing to do with science without making an unprovable assumption.

"The fact that it can be disproved."

How? Show me how. It's impossible to prove that it cannot be disproved because it's logically impossible to prove a negative. However, by explaining things through a series of random events going back to the beginning of time you can pretty much explain anything. Evolution is a subset of the theory that there is no design to the universe, it's all random, and you can't prove otherwise theory.

It's narrowed down to a smaller scope to give it more credibility based on observations, but it's still far from being a definate explaination.

"You are completely wrong. The inability to disprove ID is what makes it non-scientific."

At best you're making what amounts to a totally pointless distinction. Are we supposed to stop thinking if our thought process leads us to something we are unable to disprove? Does that somehow remove it from being a possibility?

"Please stop putting your ignorance of the scientific method on display for all to see. The "law of gravity" didn't "starts as a theory". Laws don't start as theories. Theories don't graduate to laws. They are two different concepts."

I've been trying to put this politely, but that doesn't seem to be working, so let me try a little less politely.

Take your textbooks for how to be a scientific luddite that are telling you that theories cannot become "laws" and that things we don't know how to disprove must not beconsidered as possible out the window and start thinking for yourself.

Sir Issac Newton did not turn to page 346 of his physics textbook to discover the law of gravity.

He observed a phenomenon. He formed a hypothesis, which is really more of a guess than a theory. He investigated it and refined it into a more definate theory. He gathered convincing evidence that no one at his time was able to disprove scientifically and from that theory resulted the law of gravitation.

During the process where he was investigating and experimenting, it was a theory.

If that doesn't meet your textbook definition of a theory, then it's quite likely that the theory of evolution doesn't meet the definition either.

All this quibbling about the definition of a theory and your definition of science is a bunch of luddite B.S.

You're placing artificial constructs in the way of learning by excluding things for no reason.

Let's go back to the original issue. Why should Intelligent Design be purposfully excluded from being discussed in schools?

Because we don't want children to question evolution? I thought that evolution was a theory, and that theories should be questioned?

Is it because you feel that it's not a good enough theory? Well, it's about the only competing theory to evolution that I know of, and it's believed to be credible by a huge portion of the human population, so I think you need to come up with a better reason than it can't be disproven, expecially when you literally cannot prove that it cannot be disproven.

Plain and simple. The argument that ID should be excluded doesn't serve to give children a better education. If you want to limit the definition of science, and consider the theories of evolution and ID to be philosophies because thay don't meet your canned definition of a scientific theory, that still doesn't justify excluding ID from school ciriculums.

It really doesn't matter what labels you stick on the ideas. Evolution is an idea about how to explain how life became what it is today. So is ID. Neither is proven, both are widely believed to be credible.

Those arguing against ID being taught as a possible theory in court are doing so on the basis that it's against the 1st ammendment to do so.

The assertion that teaching ID as one possible theory and not the only possible theory is against "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" should be laughable.


679 posted on 09/29/2005 1:07:29 PM PDT by untrained skeptic
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To: Dimensio

"Actually, it kills all established lines of descent regarding mammals. It would throw out the entirety of what we call the theory of evolution today. It is a falsification criteria."

And it wouldn't be the first time that a fossil showed up that contradicted an established theoriy based on the theory of evolution. It wouldn't however contradict the theory of evolution because multiple paths of evolution could result in result in similar lines through natural selection because it's a random process.

That would be like me saying that ID is contradicted because some geneticly engineered organism was created by a scientist, and not God.

It's the fallacy of arguing from the specific to the general. Your example may bring some commonly held beliefs into question, but it does not disprove the theory of evolution.

" No, because unlike you, scientists do not play semantic games."

You're arguing the definition of Science and the definition of a theory to justify not teaching something. Your whole argument is about semantics, not substance.

The issue is about purposfully not exposing students to different concepts and teaching them how to evaluate those concepts. That leaves students with less knowledge and less understanding, not more.

You haven't brought up an issue that isn't about semantics.


680 posted on 09/29/2005 1:22:42 PM PDT by untrained skeptic
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