Posted on 09/28/2005 3:28:36 AM PDT by Crackingham
It's unfortunate that intelligent design is standing trial in Pennsylvania. Scientific theories require decades, sometimes centuries, to develop, to withstand scrutiny before they are accepted as legitimate. Trying to force acceptance -- or denial -- quickly is an end-run around the scientific method and the spirit of free inquiry. Whatever the lower courts decide about whether intelligent design can be mentioned in public schools, the controversy will probably reach the Supreme Court, which will be asked to determine what is scientific and what is not.
Clearly, the Dover Area School District, by forcing the issue with its requirement that teachers read a four-paragraph "statement" identifying intelligent design as an alternative theory to Darwinian evolution, has done neither science nor students any favors. Intelligent design is a proposition in a state of infancy, and has not earned a place in public school curriculums. A wide range of alternative propositions are never taught precisely because there is no structure to challenge prevailing opinion. That doesn't mean the alternatives are wrong; but students should learn first the best explanation, given what is known. Despite its many flaws, Darwinian evolution remains the standard.
It's no surprise that 11 Dover parents, with the assistance of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is ever eager to advance atheism as secular theology, sued the school district on the grounds that intelligent design is "a 21st century version of creationism." In 1987, the Supreme Court ruled that teaching creationism in public schools violates the Constitution's establishment clause, separating church and state. Both critics and proponents with no advanced scientific degree, who have so eagerly judged the supernatural premises of intelligent design, only demonstrate their political or religious biases.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Thanks, I'll look it up.
A school board suffering from premature education. Strong stuff coming from the Washington Times.
What the trial is going to reveal is that ID has no research programs or proposals. It's a gut feeling without evidence or plans to acquire evidence.
That's an interesting observation, because I've come to the opposite conclusion: that religious belief is, in some sense, a voluntary, somewhat benign form of insanity.
"Voluntary," because it takes a bit of actual work not to examine the true nature of things and feel okay in one's ignorance. (For example, evolution is not a "random" process, yet that is the caricature put forth my many who don't want to believe it.)
"Benign," because it does provide solace for the believer against facing the reality of his own mortality. (Notwithstanding the damages done by the search for this solace.)
And "insanity," because it is a belief based on little to nothing concrete, and relies on the unspoken assumption that the strength of a person's desires, fears and subjective beliefs are evidence that the religion the particular person accepts is true. And also because, as these threads can show you, it is impervious to reason and evidence. (Consider how many people literally believe Genesis [complete with its talking snakes and magic fruit trees] notwithstanding the physical impossibility of it having happened.)
So the school district need only prove that ID is not creationism to win the case? If that's true then I think the ACLU has badly miscalculated.
[i]Yea, please explain how the beginning of the world began. Was it the "Big Bang Theory"? That sure sounds scientific![/i]
Evolution has nothing whatsoever to do with the Big Bang - that would be the field of cosmology. Demanding that evolutionary biology account for the Big Bang is as illogical as demanding that geology explain why people get cancer.
js1138, do you know whether ID actually refutes macroevolution? If not, it would seem odd given the perception that ID is an "alternative" theory. And its particularly ironic that some Creationists are cozying up to ID, given that one of their central criticisms of the TOE is macroevolution.
Looks good to me.
Three of the leading lights in the ID movement -- Behe, Dembski and Denton -- have accepted the historic fact of evolution, along with the age of the earth as understood by mainstream geology.
Denton wrote a book some years ago asserting that evolution was impossible. He's written a new book asserting that the design of nature's physical constants guarantees evolution.
The fourth leg of the ID chair -- the Discovery Institute -- has opted out of this trial, saying ID is not ready for the classroom. An opinion shared by mainstream science.
I have no opinion on ID's ultimate standing, but it isn't science yet. Science is about what you can study and acquire evidence for. No one has figured out how to support ID with evidence.
Evolution doesn't cover this. You might try brushing up on cosmology.
BS. Not true for hard sciences, which all are about producing results.
Funny, with all the Anti ID effort out there, you'd think the obviousness of Darwinism would be enough for people to say, well, yes, right, the 'evidence' is just overwhelming.
Maybe it's got something to do with the relentless pro ID propaganda. And since ID has utterly failed in the scientifc arena it's proponents try to sneak in the back door of politics. A doomed effort, the government doesn't decide what science is. Only in the Soviet Union they did that, see Lamarckianism.
You just called every religious person insane. God has no beginning and wasn't created.
The reason why the Discovery Institute doesn't like this case is because it forces them to present ID as a positive scientific theory. This works against their rhetorical strategy of negative argumentation. They want to criticize Darwinian explanations as incomplete. But they don't want to be forced to offer their own alternative explanation.
Exactly when, where, and how did the Intelligent Designer create the "irreducibly complex" mechanisms of life? The Discovery Institute has no scientifically testable answer to that question.
It's an infant that can never grow, given that a far better explanation of the observed data already exists. Anyway, it's not so much an infant as an ancient geezer in a new disguise, trying to sneak back in where he was fired for incompetence long decades past.
That's odd, because the same people will argue that nothing can come from nothing.
It's kind of like putting stickers in science textbooks saying the earth might be flat because there are holes in physics. There's a gap between relativity and quantum theory.
Thanks for responding.
Actually no. That's sort of a mis-statement of what issues the case will look at. The actual inquiry will be whether the actions of the Dover School Board in implementing their "intelligent design policy" were done with (1) a religious purpose, that (2) advances religion, possibly resulting in (3) government entanglement with religion.
Whether other people's version of ID is religious in nature is ultimately irrelevant to what the Dover Board believed.
Thanks for the clarification.
There are more pressing questions to answer. Such as:
How did the beginning of the world end?
After the beginning of the world ended, what began?
When is the beginning of the end of the world? Or, more precisely, when does the end of the world begin?
Furthermore, when have we reached the middle of the end of the world? Will we know when we have reached the end of the end of the world? How will we distinguish the end of the end of the world from the beginning of the end? If we aren't at the beginning of the end, are we closer to the end of the end?
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