Posted on 10/18/2005 3:56:52 PM PDT by Milltownmalbay
Eleven parents went to court in Pennsylvania last Monday over a new theory of evolution called Intelligent Design that is being taught to their 9th-grade children, according to The New York Times.
This decision came after the Dover school district decided to incorporate the theory, called Intelligent Design into the curriculum of 9th grade biology classes.
Intelligent Design is a theory of evolution that states that life is so complex there must be a designer or some ‘higher intelligence’ behind it.
Parents are defending their actions, claiming that the school is teaching religious creationism under the disguise of Intelligent Design. This, of course, would violate court decisions separating Church and State. Testifying in their defense was Brown University professor Kenneth R. Miller, a biologist who co-authored the high school textbook “Biology”.
Miller harshly criticized Intelligent Design, calling it “inaccurate and downright false in every section.” The professor expanded further, saying, “To my knowledge, every single scientific society that has taken a position on this issue has taken a position against Intelligent Design and in favor of evolution.”
Intelligent Design, while finding support in a few states, is primarily dismissed as an evolutionary theory by mainstream scientists. According to one prominent biologist, intelligent design “is not science, has no support from any major American scientific organization and does not belong in a public school science classroom.”
Yet board members are still maintaining that it is their duty to give the Dover students equal access to all scientific theories and it is not an attempt by the school district to infiltrate their religious beliefs among the students. "The whole thought behind it was to encourage critical thinking," stated board president Sheila Harkins.
Intelligent Design advocate Casey Luskin, from the Discovery Institute, said, outside the courtroom, “No one is pretending that Intelligent Design is a majority position. What we rebutting is their claim that there’s no controversy among scientist.”
A new survey that was just released seems to favor the alternative theory. The poll found that almost two-thirds of Americans are supportive of creationism being taught alongside evolution in public schools.
The non-jury trial, which has been referred to as Scopes II, is being heard under Judge John E. Jones and is expected to take five weeks. The atmosphere in the courtroom was tense and, even though both sides do not see eye to eye, it can be agreed that the trial will probably make its way up to the Supreme Court.
"Please read Miller's book, Finding Darwin's God. He gives a detailed rebuttal of Behe's Darwin's Black Box. In fact, he pretty much rips Behe's lungs out.
Each side seems to rip up the other in their respective books. Being a geologist I got my fill of Darwinism in school. When I read Phillip Johnson's "Darwin on Trial" I now have serious reservations about Darwinism.
Darwinism is not a slam dunk by any means, not even close. To pretend otherwise is to just simply having faith in it.
IE is not derived from religious arguments. It is simply a proposition that the odds against certain necessary life-processes are simply too large to be explained by random events.
Some of the rebuttals against IE argue that the insurmountable odds can be overcome by natural selection in small steps. Say, for instance, we need a sequence of 100 amino acids. The odds against the required sequence are more then the total number of particles in the universe. Random won't work.
But the argument goes that, if a single 'correct' pair in the sequence occurs, that will give the string a functional advantage and be preserved or locked in via natural selection, waiting for the other sequences to occur and complete the string. In this way, the odds are manageable.
But the problem with this argument is that the assertion that any of the 'correct' sequences will result in a functional advantage and therefor be naturally selected is not a valid assumption. It is not valid because it cannot be shown that an incomplete sequence will have any functional advantage without the remaining 'correct' sequences already being in place.
The proposition that these step-wise sequences do in fact get locked-in is, essentially, to propose Intelligent Design or, at least, some as yet unknown mechanism that drives the process toward a particular end.
That's all IE is saying. It's not religion. It's not Creationism. It's just an acknowledgement that *something* is missing because the systems seem to be beating the odds in a directed manner.
Good summary pjd.
I have read summaries of the critiques.
I've read Johnson. Johnson suggests in that book that only a non-scientist, a lawyer such as himself, can give an objective look at the logic and reasoning of Darwinism. This is nonsense. I doubt Johnson has a real understanding of the subject, which is very mathematical (if you read the scientific literature, such as on population genetics, as opposed to popular books).
But worse, I have since learned that Johnson is just plain not honest in his book. Please see http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/johnson.html.
I'm not a pysicist, but I was under the impression that the equivalence principle basically did just that.
That said, if your point is that unfalsifiable mechanisms have a place in scientific theories, then I would disagree with you.
Look, I know that you're a staunch supporter of evolutionary theory, but doesn't it strike your sensibilities as a little odd that you (nor anyone else I posit this question to, for that matter) can not answer a question, that you no doubt would require of a competing theory?
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