Science and Scripture - 'Intelligent design' theory definitely belongs in biology class

LAT ^ | September 28, 2005 | Crispin Sartwell

[Tailgunner Joe]

I DON'T BELIEVE that the universe was intelligently designed. I don't think that "intelligent design" is a scientific theory: It appeals to the supernatural and cannot be empirically tested. I think its proponents have religious motivations for trying to insert it into the curriculum.

But I also believe it should be taught in high school biology classes.

The federal court case that began this week originated in York County, Pa., where my kids go to the public schools. The school board of the Dover district mandated that a four-paragraph statement be read in high school biology classes, setting out intelligent design as an alternative to evolution for explaining the current configuration of organisms. Several Dover parents brought suit to prevent that statement from being read.

The issue is symptomatic of the continuing divisions in American culture, as severe now as when the Scopes Monkey Trial was raging in 1925. It tracks fairly closely the conflict between red states and blue states, the religious and the secular, Republicans and Democrats, and so on.

And though Pennsylvania is nominally blue, this county in the middle-south of the state is rock-ribbed red and Christian to the hilt.

To understand what the Dover school board was trying to accomplish, consider how you would feel if your children, in the course of a compulsory education, were taught doctrines that contradicted your most cherished beliefs — that blandly invalidated your worldview without discussion. Think about being heavily taxed to destroy your own belief system. That's how the people in this community feel.

[metmom]

Not in the public school system. No way they're gonna teach religion.

[Mylo]

And I'd say that there is always the

Wile E. Coyote test of Gravity.

He can test Gravity for you.

Wile E. Coyote "SUPRA-Genius!"

[RightWingAtheist]

I just had to ping you guys after I did a search on the author. It turns out that he's Feyrabend-style anarchist philosopher who is the major spokesman for "epistemic minimalism".

[Mylo]

I'm afraid your going to have to translate that for me.

Damn it JIM, I'm a Biologist not an "epistemic minimalist".

[RightWingAtheist]

Here's Wikipedia on epistemic realism

[A. Pole]

[GSlob:] It belongs not in a biology class but in a theology class

The question is to whom the schools belong? To the people or to the cast of scientists who follow the religion of science/reason/progress in Hegelian fashion? The logical and full implementation of this scientific theocracy was Soviet Union.

I believe that God could have created the world using evolution and the laws of nature appointed by Him. (And He even could have change the past if it pleased Him. He is the Boss.)

But if the Fundamentalist Protestants want to put their literal ideas into schools in the districts they are in majority WHO has right to deny them their right.

There is no science nor Hegel nor Marxism in the Constitution.

[Mylo]

Yeah, sounds about as stupid as "post modernism" where everyone has an equally valid viewpoint. Claptrap. An ignorant viewpoint is worth exactly what you wouldn't pay for it. An experts opinion is usually worth the quantity that he does get paid for it.

Belief is most certainly not sufficient for knowledge.

[SolarisRocks]

Should Muslims be allowed to teach their views on creation in school districts where they have 50% +1 students?

[A. Pole]

Should Muslims be allowed to teach their views on creation in school districts where they have 50% +1 students?

A good question. Who is to make decisions? "We the people"? Or qualified minority with the scientific credentials?

One model is a representative republic where people as a whole decide what they want in schools or even whether they want schools.

Another model is that the ultimate authority is the science as interpreted by trained/certified hierarchy or party. This is the Soviet model.

In the first model Muslim society can have Koran in schools. In the second model the politically correct version of evolution is mandatory (it might be Lysenko).

[GSlob]

"For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain."
Since every self-respecting jihadi baboon would agree with the second half of your statement, I started having doubts on your behalf...

[GSlob]

"There is absolutely NO PROOF for Evolution, so what is that doing in the schools?"
The best proof of evolution are the creationists, for they have not evolved.

[A. Pole]

Yeah, sounds about as stupid as "post modernism" where everyone has an equally valid viewpoint. Claptrap. An ignorant viewpoint is worth exactly what you wouldn't pay for it. An experts opinion is usually worth the quantity that he does get paid for it.

There is a fundamental question - does the society have right to have wrong scientific views and teach them in schools?

If not then we will have scientocracy where the scientists rule. This will be a form of bureaucratic aristocracy resembling the Soviet model.

Is the Science the Supreme Law of the land?

[RightWingAtheist]

In other words: the perfect philosophy for creationists!

[WriteOn]

Does evolution speak to where DNA came from?

[RightWingAtheist]

Most definitely, empathetically, no. But watch the liberals start to squirm when you ask them this.

[Sun]

ID has not been disproved.

SAYING something is science does not make it science.

[GSlob]

"Not in the public school system. No way they're gonna teach religion."
A class I was talking about [history of culture and of religion] is impossible at dumbed-down level of contemporary US public schools even if all the official strictures disappeared by a magic wand. To teach it seriously would require a type of a student who used to make it to the high school [public high school!] in the United States about 100 years ago - IQ 110+ and a rather serious culture background. Nowadays most of such students "get demagnetized" along the way. It might be possible at the college level, though.

[Sun]

Scientists have recently discovered digital codes in DNA molecules soooooooo complex that man canot figure it out - even them there scientists.

[Mylo]

Science isn't morality and it isn't law.

Nobody's forcing you to accept evolutionary theory. If you don't want the latest antibiotics because you don't think selective pressure will result bacterial resistance to the old antibiotics, nobody is forcing you to buy them.

Nobody is forcing you to accept the principle of Electromagnetism. If you think it all happens by magic that is fine, so long as you pay your electricity bill on time.

And Scientific theories aren't so much about being "right" or "wrong" but about being useful and useless.

If Bohr's model of the atom is complete bunk and absolutely "wrong" it doesn't change the fact that it is a highly useful theory that allows one to better observe and predict the universe and explain phenomena.

And ID "theory" may be absolutely 100% right but it is still absolutely 100% useless for the purpose of observing and predicting the universe, although it does have a crude simplicity in its explanations of phenomena.

I personally do believe that the laws of the universe themselves were designed, but that God needn't be mucking with his creation all the time; however I recognize that my feelings about the symmetry of the universe are ABSOLUTLY NOT scientific observations.

[Sun]

"The best proof of evolution are the creationists, for they have not evolved."

Well of course not, my silly, there is no evolution. :)