Posted on 09/30/2005 3:33:47 PM PDT by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Please prove a link.
I see what you're saying. I agree. What I saw of the basic academic skills of the incoming freshmen when I went back to finish my degree almost 20 years ago was almost beyond belief. Since I was a "non-traditional" student (read: adult-31 years old) I was close in age to my profs and became friends with some of them and boy did I hear a lot. The education system is failing our kids in a serious way. I got a forward from a friend a while ago and it was entitled "Could you have passed the 8th grade ...in 1895?" It's taken from an original test from a school in Kansas. I doubt I could have passed it even after graduating from college because reasoning skills just aren't taught anymore. It wasn't just facts, it was why's. You had to think.
Sorry. I'm just a liberal arts grad. ;-)
So is there anything to the amount of "information" in DNA that makes it miraculous? That seems to be a common assertion. My brilliant nephew asserts that DNA evolved, but if Darwin didn't say it evolved, where's that coming from?
This is not the issue. I do think that theories of evolution (there are few variants and they are evolving) are a decent approximation of what took place (and I do not want to force anyone to accept them)
But the key issue in my eyes is the role of science as the authority. If we put religion or science as the supreme authority than we forgo the the national sovereignty and representative republic.
In first case we will have traditional theocracy in second we will have scientistic bureaucracy similar to the Soviet system.
The question of ultimate authority cannot be escaped. And in this world we are doomed to have imperfect answers/resolutions of this question.
United States existed and did well for generations before evolution became the PC dogma. I do not think that the world will end if in some part of USA the creationism is taught in the schools. The only offense will be to those who cannot stand such "sacrilege" to the religion of science.
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA! Pegged it!
What ID advocates fail to realize that if they force science teachers to mention ID, said teachers will rip so many holes in it that it will resemble swiss cheese.
"There is no science nor Hegel nor Marxism in the Constitution"
I suggest you read Article 1, section 8, line 8. You have not Idea what the Constitution says do you?
Exactly my point! In the Constitution there is the rule by the people, for the people. If the people want to have evolution in the schools so be it! If they want ID, so be it! If they do not want schools so be it!
If you reject it, then you must introduce some higher authority be it religion (as in traditional pre-Enlightment society) or science (as it was in Soviet Union and the Nazi Germany) etc ...
[The Congress shall have Power To] "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"
The Congress represents the people, having the power to promote the Science and Technology, does no mean that Congress, or people, or the local government are subjugated to the science, or to the scientists or to the popular PC interpretation of science.
The position of science is derived from the social/government support. Science is not the Constitution.
This does not make it untrue; the fact that science avoids – and is, by its own admission, unable to deal with – the supernatural does not make the supernatural untrue.
I would be interested to see a response from those of you who do not believe in intelligent design to the question: what if it is true?
In other words, how is denying the supernatural, out of hand, any more an act of faith than accepting it (the supernatural) out of hand?
This is not a rhetorical question, I am genuinely interested in your response.
sorry, no link. I heard it on the radio. You might find it at discovery.org.
Eighty percent of proteins are different between humans and chimpanzees
http://www.bio.psu.edu/People/Faculty/Nei/Lab/2005-glazko-etal.pdf
Conclusions:
(1) Although nucleotide sequence identity between humans and chimpanzees is very high, only 20% of proteins are identical between the two species, and 80% of proteins are different.
(2) Even the 80% protein differences appear to be too small to explain the phenotypic differences. It seems that the phenotypic differences are controlled by a small proportion of genes, either regulatory genes or by major effect genes.
Heck, no. Not all people will believe anything.
For instance, not these 400 scientists who say that the evolution THEORY is deficient:
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=2732&program=News&callingPage=discoMainPage
Science is an evolving and imperfect thing. That some theory is erroneous does not make it any less scientific. And even scientists often have tendency to be subjective, biased and even dishonest.
There is no "ultimate authority" with the force of law in Science. There are observations and theories. If you don't like it you can make some of your own observations and formulate your own theories. Good luck.
The question is subtle. What is the ground for the science as the Constitutional authority? And what is the source of the Constitution and of the human rights? What if the rights or justice enters in the conflict with science? Which is to take precedence?
And evolution is science, not PC dogma.
What do you mean that something "is science"? You appear to have reverent worshipful attitude to it, like to a dogma.
What is politically correct about evolution, it doesn't make anyone feel good, there are winners and losers, and it involves lots and lots of sex sometimes with force and violence against females.
I mean that granting the science the ultimate authority is a form of political correctness. Marxists even if having the wrong scientific views at times they have seen the science as the ultimate authority.
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