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To: GovernmentShrinker
They are thinking small. They are not thinking about designing worlds.

So you think it would be a good use of educational resources to teach courses in designing worlds?

254 posted on 10/24/2005 10:32:04 AM PDT by laredo44 (Liberty is not the problem)
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To: laredo44

Not whole courses, but including the basic concept of "intelligent design" in a scientific way, rather than in a thinly-veiled "Bible is literally true" way, would be beneficial. The proposals for including any version of "intelligent design" in high school science curricula have only been to give it a little coverage within regular courses, not to offer entire courses on just that concept.

Whole courses devoted "designing worlds" concepts might be appropriate for graduate level science students, but certainly not for high schoolers or undergrads. The example I offered, of designing single celled organisms which could survive and evolve on Mars, is something that serious grad student biologists could reasonably undertake. Thinking through all the factors that would need to be considered -- availability of certain chemical elements, temperature ranges on different parts of the planet, chemical compounds which would be produced by the organisms and how those would change the Martian environment, radiation levels, etc. -- in determining what features the designed organism would need in order to thrive, and where on the planet they should be placed, could certainly fill up a worthwhile course at that level.


255 posted on 10/24/2005 12:46:49 PM PDT by GovernmentShrinker
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