Posted on 09/30/2005 7:45:00 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
The Campaign to Defend the Constitution, a group organized to promote the teaching of evolution, sent letters Thursday to all 50 governors, urging them to ensure that science classes teach material based on established science.
The letters were signed by more than 100 scientists and clergy of various faiths, the group said.
Although Gov. Ed Rendell had not received the letters as of Thursday afternoon, spokeswoman Kate Philips said he is committed to the idea of teaching evolution in science classes.
Rendell "believes that (intelligent design) is more than appropriate to be taught in religion classes, but has no room in science classes in public schools," Philips said. "But this is in the court's hands now, and other than his opinion, he has no influence."
But a spokeswoman for DefCon, the group's nickname for itself, said the group hopes that after governors receive the letter, they will make a public announcement opposing the teaching of intelligent design.
"It would be nice if (Rendell) took a stance and said, whether it's in the Dover district or any other Pennsylvania district, 'We need to protect the teaching of science in our science classrooms,'" Jessica Smith said.
The group named Dover its top "Island of Ignorance" in the country. It has targeted areas in the country where it says evolution is being challenged at the state level or in public school science classrooms. They include Cobb County, Ga.; Kansas; Blount County, Tenn.; Ohio; Grantsburg, Wisc.; Alabama; Utah; South Carolina; and Florida.
Advocates of intelligent design say life is so complex that it is likely the result of deliberate design by some unidentified creator, not random evolutionary mutation and adaptation.
Critics say it is essentially creationism and violates the separation of church and state when it becomes part of a public school curriculum.
"We can do better when we let science do its job, and ask religion to do its job," former ACLU executive director Ira Glasser said Thursday, "and if there's a need for conversation, please, let's not do it in the classrooms of our children."
That's my opinion too. Above ground, however ...
Sorry, Vade; I can't help myself!
All blatant lies. I think you know the evidence supporting evolution is out there, you are just choosing to ignore it. Thousands of examples of transitional fossils have been found. Many intermediate stages between humans and apelike ancestors have been found that have been well-verified.
The problem is that evolutionists have made their predictions and are working to find evidence to support it and aren't very critical of evidence they find.
No. Not how science works. Nothing is more scrutinizing of new data than the peer review system and the people who work to referee journal submissions.
I have provided many good examples of predictions made by evolutionary theory. You still have have not provided any examples of specific physical examples that ID helps you find.
It's not for little reason that creationists or IDers can't get their ideas into peer-reviewed journals. It's because there is no science there at all. That is why they circumvent the appropriate avenue for debate, which is scientific conferences and paper submission and go straight for the political arena.
Like I said, I'm all for biology teachers being able to talk about ID in school. I'm just telling you that based on their knowledge, educated science teachers would shoot holes through the "theory" of intelligent design, and rightfully so; nothing could stop them from doing so. If someone wishes to ignore the facts supporting evolution or ignore the fact that ID is shoddy science, they are free to do so; they have no business telling biology teachers what to teach, however. If you want to change science, make a submission to a refereed journal. (No promise you'll succeed, though. That's life.)
I bow, blushing. Just a childhood interest (Think Roy Chapman Andrews's All About Dinosaurs, etc.) rekindled in debates with creationists.
The reason ID has so many interested is that many are ignorant of science (willingly or otherwise). Some others are blinded by superstitious nonsense coupled with a dread that they will some day die and their consciousness will cease. Others are merely stupid or insane.
Why would the Designer want to hold anyone to account?
I believe that even for the period after Darwin, this list is fundamentally dishonest. I think AIG has included any scientist who professes belief in God on their list, including scientists who don't doubt evolution.
What do the beliefs of Darwin regarding human racial differences have to do with the modern theory of evolution? We have a lot of information that was unavailable to Darwin (eg. DNA sequencing) that shows that there is no significant difference between different races of humans, so these ideas of Darwin's have been debunked by modern science. The falsity of Darwin's ideas about race, however, don't detract from the mountainous evidence favoring his idea of speciation via the mechanism of variation and natural selection.
I believe that narby's concern is the same as mine. Contrary to what you might think by observing the behavior of people on sites like FR and DU, the vast majority of the voting public are neither committed conservatives nor committed liberals, but rather hold to some mushy centrist-type beliefs. If the liberals do succeed as painting conservatives as anti-science theocratic luddites, due to the vehemence with which they fight for the teaching of creationism, then many people who are in this mushy center will be turned off by conservatives and will vote in greater numbers for liberals. Considering that literal Biblical interpretation and belief in creationism are NOT central tenets to the conservative movement, it would seem logical that we should abandon this fight and concentrate on things that are central to our common beliefs, such as lower taxes, smaller government, abolishment of Roe v. Wade, etc.
I think I've finally figured out this one. Two organisms are of the same "kind" if one could not have evolved into the other. We know that they can't evolve into each other because they are not of the same "kind." </ circular reasoning creationist mode off>
Well that certainly accounts for the fact that there are far more extinct species than there are living ones.
And just how do you know that?
LOL! No, you actually just proved, in action, the truth of that which I had previously posted.
When you jump to name calling, you lose all pretense of objectivity.
Actually, calling something by its true name is the first step in achieving objectivity. Which is why ID must be called what it is, religion; and evolution called what it is, science.
Moreover, it is a lie to call a scared, ignorant, brainwashed man "brave," or "learned" or "thoughtful," simply because you agree with the superstitions he espouses and prefers. (In fact, it is, in some sense, inhumane to pretend that he is not scared, ignorant and brainwashed, because it strips from him one of the avenues from which he might effectuate the change he needs.)
Similarly, it is a lie to call the result of countless hours of researching, theorizing, thinking, working, investigating, postulating, and debating which has occurred on the science of evolution -- and the literally millions of data points which confirm the theory -- "wrong," "incorrect" or a "lie," simply because you think it conflicts with the superstitions you espouse and prefer.
Why would the gigantic unfeeling machine intelligences of Epsilon Eridani 5 care what I think?
Good summary in #409
Sigh. Time for the Facts/Laws/Theories post again. Don't know who posted it originally:
From an NSF abstract:
“As with all scientific knowledge, a theory can be refined or even replaced by an alternative theory in light of new and compelling evidence. The geocentric theory that the sun revolves around the earth was replaced by the heliocentric theory of the earth's rotation on its axis and revolution around the sun. However, ideas are not referred to as "theories" in science unless they are supported by bodies of evidence that make their subsequent abandonment very unlikely. When a theory is supported by as much evidence as evolution, it is held with a very high degree of confidence.
In science, the word "hypothesis" conveys the tentativeness inherent in the common use of the word "theory.' A hypothesis is a testable statement about the natural world. Through experiment and observation, hypotheses can be supported or rejected. At the earliest level of understanding, hypotheses can be used to construct more complex inferences and explanations. Like "theory," the word "fact" has a different meaning in science than it does in common usage. A scientific fact is an observation that has been confirmed over and over. However, observations are gathered by our senses, which can never be trusted entirely. Observations also can change with better technologies or with better ways of looking at data. For example, it was held as a scientific fact for many years that human cells have 24 pairs of chromosomes, until improved techniques of microscopy revealed that they actually have 23. Ironically, facts in science often are more susceptible to change than theories, which is one reason why the word "fact" is not much used in science.
Finally, "laws" in science are typically descriptions of how the physical world behaves under certain circumstances. For example, the laws of motion describe how objects move when subjected to certain forces. These laws can be very useful in supporting hypotheses and theories, but like all elements of science they can be altered with new information and observations.
Those who oppose the teaching of evolution often say that evolution should be taught as a "theory, not as a fact." This statement confuses the common use of these words with the scientific use. In science, theories do not turn into facts through the accumulation of evidence. Rather, theories are the end points of science. They are understandings that develop from extensive observation, experimentation, and creative reflection. They incorporate a large body of scientific facts, laws, tested hypotheses, and logical inferences. In this sense, evolution is one of the strongest and most useful scientific theories we have. Here is another nice page of what a theory is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory
"In common usage a theory is often viewed as little more than a guess or a hypothesis. But in science and generally in academic usage, a theory is much more than that. A theory is an established paradigm that explains all or many of the data we have and offers valid predictions that can be tested. In science, a theory can never be proven true, because we can never assume we know all there is to know. Instead, theories remain standing until they are disproven, at which point they are thrown out altogether or modified slightly.
Theories start out with empirical observations such as “sometimes water turns into ice.” At some point, there is a need or curiosity to find out why this is, which leads to a theoretical/scientific phase. In scientific theories, this then leads to research, in combination with auxiliary and other hypotheses (see scientific method), which may then eventually lead to a theory. Some scientific theories (such as the theory of gravity) are so widely accepted that they are often seen as laws. This, however, rests on a mistaken assumption of what theories and laws are. Theories and laws are not rungs in a ladder of truth, but different sets of data. A law is a general statement based on observations."
For Laws:
"A well-known example is that of Newton's law of gravity: while it describes the world accurately for most pertinent observations, such as of the movements of astronomical objects in the solar system, it was found to be inaccurate when applied to extremely large masses or velocities. Einstein's theory of general relativity, however, accurately handles gravitational interactions at those extreme conditions, in addition to the range covered by Newton's law. Newton's formula for gravity is still used in most circumstances, as an easier-to-calculate approximation of gravitational law. A similar relationship exists between Maxwell's equations and the theory of quantum electrodynamics; there are several such cases. This suggests the (unanswered) question of whether there are any ultimately true physical laws, or whether they are all just cases where our sensory and rational apparatus have generated mathematically simple approximations, valid within the range of normal human experience, to unobtainable true formulas."
Most evolutionists don't consider evolution to be undirected. They simply seek to describe what happened without reference to whether or not the process was directed. The actual theory of evolution, as opposed to the personal beliefs of some evolutionary biologists, doesn't say that the process is not directed. It doesn't say that the process IS directed either. It makes no statement either way because such statements are not testable. If you want to believe that evolution was directed, then that's fine. If you want to teach that the idea of directed evolution is a valid scientific hypothesis, however, I will argue with you.
Because I assume that God isn't dead set on deceiving us. We have observed the bones and other fossilized remains of many more creatures that no longer exist than we have observed creatures that do currently exist. Of course, ANY idea involving an omnipotent God is not falsifiable (and hence unscientific) since God certainly could have made it look like there really were a whole lot of extinct species when there actually aren't. However, are you really denying that species go extinct?
There is perhaps one more thing - though this may be spitting in the wind...
there actually is a difference between speaking truthfully and name calling.
best to you, ampu
I took the liberty of further refining the accuracy of your post, in the true spirit of the scientific method.
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