Posted on 09/29/2005 6:22:55 PM PDT by wallcrawlr
A group of Nobel Prize winners should have done more homework before criticizing proposed science standards in Kansas, advocates of the guidelines said in a letter Thursday.
Intelligent design advocates pushing new standards, which would expose students to more criticism of evolution, say the laureates' complaints are an attempt to suppress debate on the issue.
The letter was signed by Bill Harris, a professor of medicine at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and Greg Lassey, a former middle school science teacher, who helped draft the disputed language.
"We all want good standards," the letter said. "However, demeaning rhetoric that does not address specifics but serves only to belittle and misrepresent the changes is not helpful."
Earlier this month, 38 laureates, including prominent chemists, physicists and medical experts, asked the State Board of Education to reject the proposed standards.
The laureates, led by Holocaust survivor and author Elie Wiesel, said evolution is the foundation of biology and that it has been bolstered by DNA studies.
Many scientists see intelligent design as another form of creationism, which the Supreme Court has banned from public schools.
Intelligent design theorists believe the complexity of the natural world cannot be explained except by attributing creation to some higher intelligence.
The Kansas board expects to vote this year on the standards, which will be used to develop tests for students but would allow local boards to decide how science is taught.
Evolutionists are the flat earthers of the 21st century, and as the flat earthers have been the scientific laughing stock for many centuries, they are soon to be replaced by evolutionists.
How can anyone observe the human Pie-Hole and believe that it evolved? It's irreducibly complex.
I'll take that as a yes.
It was either "yes", or it was "3.1416". Might of been "no". I'm just not sure anymore.
It's late. It's been fun. I'm off to bed. I sleep on my back in order to maximize exposure to cosmic rays in the hope that I'll snag that "golden bb" that mutates my future offspring in a good way. I know the odds are really really small. But, hey, you'll never win the lottery if you never buy a ticket. Right?
Night \-)
Nope. ID says the laws of physics are insufficient to govern the world.
Proof:
ID uses the laws of physics to make some calculation. The ID guy swears his logic is OK and his math likewise. The output of his calculation says, "the result of the calculation can't explain the observaitons."
There are then 2 remaining possibilities, because he swears his model is good:
1) The model is missing some knowledge and understanding(of physics)
2) The model is right, the physics are 100% correct, that's all the physics there is, and there's an intelligent force
Take your choice:
Now the scientist always takes choice #1, because that's all science can work with is the observable laws of physics. The scientist concludes that something is wrong in his model, knowledge, and/or understanding. The scientist then continues to work on the problem. That is science.
The IDer goes for #2, which necessaririly says the laws of physics can not account for the phenominon. Notice that he must declare he knows absolutely that his knowledge and understanding is perfect and that's why he was able to create the perfect model which demonstrates the laws of physics are in fact incomplete. That is what Behe is going to have to say.
Now Behe maybe doesn't realize it, but he's put himself in a position where he claims perfection in a world of the imperfect. I doubt the judge is going to see divine intervention here consisting of talent on loan from God. He's going to see a con artist in action.
He's really going to get zotted when after claiming ability and perfection above all other scientists in the field of biology that result in his model being perfect; then goes dumb and w/o a clue about who the designer might be. I'd quiz him on how he knows the designer is intelligent, instead of arbitrary, or half assed. I'd have him comment on some examples.
The only way the judge could decide in favor of Behe's con that ID is science, is if he simply goes political, like the rats, and joins the chorus of hand waiving clowns.
Well, now you see what kind of trouble happens when evolution is allowed to run around totally unsupervised.
Night /-)
You don't know how it happened and don't know much about physics, chemistry, or biology at all either. Other folks that are scientists and know and understand these things don't know how it happened. They are working on it. They are scientists though and they work with what they can observe and note are the laws of physics. That's science.
ID is not science at all. It rejects science and the observable laws of physics as incomplete outright, because they are simply short of answers at the present time. That's how ID works. Wherever knowledge and understanding is short, the ID con man steps in with the BS to spread. That's ID. Notice it's ABITRARY also, not intelligent.
It is very much reducible, that's the point. Evolution proceeds hierarchically - once something works (be it external forms like teeth or general skeleton plan of mammals, or biochemical cholineesterase cycle in nerve transmission)- it is carried on in successive forms as a large unitary building block with only relatively minor modifications [i.e. no longer is randomized] - that's why the same anticholineesteratics are working against both cockroaches and humans. And it is not a result of external intelligence application, but merely the shortest natural pathway of evolution. Otherwise it would take forever.
hrmn...
so, using your line of thinking, the Giants' Causeway was *obviously* carved by invisible giants who left no evidence of ever having existed, and it was just stupid for people to have developed the science of geology and to have applied that science to the study of basaltic cleavage lines, eventually theorizing (but not "proving" in a sense that Creationists demand science MUST do) that the Causeway formed through natural and unintelligent processes.
You are right. Sorry for my mistake.
Well then, it must be beyond the ability of designers. So much for the "ID" presumption, eh?
(Walked straight into *that* one, didn't you?)
This part of the "ID argument" has always cracked me up. They argue that life is soooooo complicated that it's beyond our ability to fully understand or design, and therefore, it must have been designed. Ooookay -- want to try that one again?
Yet a lot of them seem to think it just happened accidentally.
No, we think it occurred by the operation of processes which are known to be able to produce arbitrary complexity without "design", because a) these processes are capable of performing the task, and b) that's the way the mountains of evidence point.
That takes faith.
No, it takes knowledge, understanding, and evidence.
...Which is a lot more than the ID folks have -- their primary argument (as you've so ably demonstrated) is, "well, *I* can't see how it could happen, and the result is so complex *I* can't grasp it, so it *must* have been manually created (by, um, someone else who *does* understand it, I guess...)".
That's nothing but the standard "fallacy from the argument of incredulity". It's a lame argument of the form, "I can't imagine any other possibility, so the only one I *can* imagine just *has* to be the truth..."
Sorry, not buying it, especially when there are plenty of us who *can* conceive of other possibilities, *and* have a ton of evidence and research validating them.
Well, basically you're wrong.
Alas, it does not appear the School Board was neutral. They on numerous occasions made clear their goal was positively to introduce religion into the classroom. The recent Ten Commandments cases make it clear that the objective of the government action is paramount in deciding whether the actions are constitutionally permissible. This is why the ACLU made such an issue of the discussion of religion in the school board meetings, and why the Thomas More lawyers have been trying (unsuccessfully) to keep that evidence out.
This commentary puts you squarely on the side of the thought crime advocates. The two cases are not analogous, the Ten Commandments case involved action the Dover case according involves only thoughts because the actions of the school board do not reflect the thoughts you have assigned to them.
More to the point, you seem to think that federal judges sticking their noses in where they don't belong will somehow advance your particular agenda. History tells us you are wrong. The history of judicial activism is quite clear, it poisons the well and flames the culture wars.
You can not win a culture war, the numbers are not on your side. You can advance science by muzzling people like Dawkins and explaining that science and religion are not incompatible but if you think you can use the federal courts to accomplish your goal you are sadly mistaken.
Finally, I am simply arguing the facts of this particular case. Nothing in the constitution or the original intent thereof requires neutrality. In fact, US history contemporaneous with the ratification of the first amendment would directly conflict with the notion that government, especially local government, can not advance religion in general. And that was the law until 1940 and Everson.
You look at Dover with glee because the ACLU and some small number of parents have managed to make a federal case out of a short four paragraph statement that in no way, shape or form advances anything. I look at your glee and shake my head at the penchant of people to misuse power when that power can be used to advance an ideology.
The issue is the separation of church and state -- in particular, the teaching of a disguised religious doctrine in a PUBLIC school science class, favorable toward one particular religious viewpoint.
ID is much more about biochemistry; and not so much about physics.
No. Biochem is physics.
I'm analyzing the case on its legal merits. jwalsh07 accuses me of 'glee' at the result, all the while claiming that the case against the school board amounts to 'thoughtcrime'. Bit of a disconnect there. Yes, as a parent of public school kids, I do want my children taught biology and not superstitious nonsense. I'd prefer to handle the issue locally and democratically, as we have successfully done here in Nebraska. Do I approve of a federal lawsuit as a last ditch alternative? Probably; I think the establishment clause is important, and ultimately, since its in the US constitution, there has to be some recourse through the federal courts. And I certainly take glee in theocrats making a pigs ear of the case.
Of course, if we were discussing a different case, say the case of the student who sued his instructor at Texas Tech because the instructor would not write letters of recommendation for creationists, the sides would be reversed. In that case, intrusion of federal judges to protect the religious rights of a state university student would be entirely proper, and I'd be defending his individual right to write recommendations for whatever reasons he wanted.
Yes, it's a culture war, and it's one that neither side is fighting with any particular set of consistent jurisprudential principles. So those of us on our high horses should dismount before we get thrown off and break something :-)
Wiesel? Not suprised. Atheism is the religion of liberal Jews.
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