Posted on 11/01/2005 6:27:26 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
A president who consults religious lunatics about who should be on the Supreme Court... Judges who want prayer in school and the "ten commandments" in the courtroom… Born-Again fanatics who bomb abortion clinics… bible thumpers who condemn homosexuality as "sin"... and all the other Christian fascists who want a U.S. theocracy….
This is the force behind the assault on evolution going on right now in a courtroom in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Last year, the Dover city school board instituted a policy that requires high school biology teachers to read a statement to students that says Darwin's theory of evolution is "not a fact" and then notes that intelligent design offers an alternative theory for the origin and evolution of life--namely, that life in all of its complexity could not have arisen without the help of an "intelligent hand." Some teachers refused to read the statement, citing the Pennsylvania teacher code of ethics, which says, "I will never knowingly present false information to a student." Eleven parents who brought this case to court contend that the directive amounted to an attempt to inject religion into the curriculum in violation of the First Amendment. Their case has been joined by the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
The school board is being defended pro bono by the Thomas More Law Center, a Christian law firm in Ann Arbor, Mich. The case is being heard without a jury in Harrisburg by U.S. District Judge John Jones III, whom George W. Bush appointed to the bench in 2002.
In 1987, the Supreme Court ruled that public schools could not teach the biblical account of creation instead of evolution, because doing so would violate the constitutional ban on establishment of an official religion. Since then Intelligent Design has been promoted by Christian fundamentalists as the way to get the Bible and creationism into the schools.
"This clever tactical repackaging of creationism does not merit consideration," Witold Walczak, legal director of the Pennsylvania American Civil Liberties Union and a lawyer for the parents, told U.S. District Judge John E. Jones in opening arguments. "Intelligent design admits that it is not science unless science is redefined to include the supernatural." This is, he added, "a 21st-century version of creationism."
This is the first time a federal court has been asked to rule on the question of whether Intelligent Design is religion or science. Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, which opposes challenges to the standard model of teaching evolution in the schools, said the Pennsylvania case "is probably the most important legal situation of creation and evolution in the last 18 years," and that "it will have quite a significant impact on what happens in American public school education."
Proponents of Intelligent Design don’t say in the courtroom that they want to replace science with religion. But their strategy papers, speeches, and discussions with each other make it clear this is their agenda.
Intelligent Design (ID) is basically a re-packaged version of creationism--the view that the world can be explained, not by science, but by a strict, literal reading of the Bible. ID doesn’t bring up ridiculous biblical claims like the earth is only a few thousand years old or that the world was created in seven days. Instead it claims to be scientific--it acknowledges the complexity and diversity of life, but then says this all comes from some "intelligent" force. ID advocates don’t always openly argue this "intelligent force" is GOD--they even say it could be some alien from outer space! But Christian fundamentalists are the driving force behind the whole Intelligent Design movement and it’s clear… these people aren’t praying every night to little green men from another planet.
Phillip Johnson, considered the father and guiding light behind Intelligent Design, is the architect of the "wedge strategy" which focuses on attacking evolution and promoting intelligent design to ultimately, as Johnson says, "affirm the reality of God." Johnson has made it clear that the whole point of "shifting the debate from creationism vs. evolution to the existence of God vs. the non-existence of God" is to get people "introduced to the truth of the Bible," then "the question of sin" and finally "introduced to Jesus."
Intelligent Design and its theocratic program has been openly endorsed by George W. Bush. Earlier this year W stated that Intelligent Design should be taught in the schools. When he was governor of Texas, Bush said students should be exposed to both creationism and evolution. And he has made the incredibly unscientific, untrue statement that "the jury is still out" on evolution.
For the Christian fascists, the fight around evolution and teaching Intelligent Design is part of a whole agenda that encompasses reconfiguring all kinds of cultural, social, and political "norms" in society. This is a movement that is fueled by a religious vision which varies among its members but is predicated on the shared conviction that the United States is in need of drastic changes--which can only be accomplished by instituting religion as its cultural foundation.
The Christian fascists really do want--and are working for--a society where everything is run according to the Bible. They have been working for decades to infiltrate school boards to be in a position to mandate things like school prayer. Now, in the schools, they might not be able to impose a literal reading of the Bible’s explanation for how the universe was created. But Intelligent Design, thinly disguised as some kind of "science," is getting a lot more than just a foot in the door.
The strategy for promoting intelligent design includes an aggressive and systematic agenda of promoting the whole religious worldview that is the basis for ID. And this assault on evolution is linked up with other questions in how society should be run.
Marc Looy of the creationist group Answers in Genesis has said that evolution being taught in the schools,
"creates a sense of purposelessness and hopelessness, which I think leads to things like pain, murder, and suicide."
Ken Cumming, dean of the Institute for Creation Research's (ICR) graduate school, who believes the earth is only thousands of years old, attacked a PBS special seven-part series on evolution, suggesting that the series had "much in common" with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against the United States. He said,
"[W]hile the public now understands from President Bush that 'we're at war' with religious fanatics around the world, they don't have a clue that America is being attacked from within through its public schools by a militant religious movement called Darwinists...."
After the 1999 school shooting in Littleton, Colorado, Tom DeLay, Christian fascist representative from Texas, gave a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives, blaming the incident in part on the teaching of evolution. He said,
"Our school systems teach the children that they are nothing but glorified apes who are evolutionized out of some primordial soup of mud."
The ID movement attacks the very notion of science itself and the philosophical concept of materialism--the very idea that there is a material world that human beings can examine, learn about, and change.
Johnson says in his "The Wedge Strategy" paper,
"The social consequences of materialism have been devastating…we are convinced that in order to defeat materialism, we must cut it off at its source. Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist world view, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions."
Dr. Eugenie C. Scott, the Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, points out:
"Evolution is a concept that applies to all sciences, from astronomy to chemistry to geology to biology to anthropology. Attacking evolution means attacking much of what we know of the natural world, that we have amassed through the application of scientific principles and methods. Second, creationist attacks on evolution are attacks on science itself, because the creationist approach does violence to how we conduct science: science as a way of knowing."
The Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture (another Christian think tank) says that it "seeks nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies."
Teaching Intelligent Design in the schools is part of a whole Christian Fascist movement in the United States that has power and prominence in the government, from the Bush regime on down. And if anyone isn’t clear about what "cultural legacies" the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture wants to overthrow--take a look at the larger Christian fascist agenda that the intelligent design movement is part of: asserting patriarchy in the home, condemning homosexuality, taking away the right to abortion, banning sex education, enforcing the death penalty with the biblical vengeance of an "eye for an eye," and launching a war because "God told me [Bush] to invade Iraq."
No. Ontology begets cosmology, the source of awe.
I'm not a bible thumper, and I condemn homosexuality because it hurts those who succumb to the behavior, causes plagues because it is unhygienic and perverse, and encourages unlawful behavior, like soliciting the under-aged, and ultimately breaks down society. My theory is that the awful effects of this lifestyle were codified in religious prohibitions in the past to simply instruct the populace in necessary constraints in order for the people to build a strong community. Just as many other moral values are useful in constructing a strong, viable society, suppressing homosexual perversion is important to the maintenance of a strong, healthy population. Those who would demoralize America of course, strongly support the homosexual agenda - it is quite transparent - you are traitorous mortal enemies to America, who should be vigorously excised from America.
All these groups want man, nature, the universe, to be as a machine, devoid of uncertainty and totally knowable by those elites, who can then claim a right to rule over the ignorant masses for the masses' own good. The elites are the top of the heap, king of the hill, keeper of the key, owner of the gold. They probably don't like Dirac either.
Dunno the Peg. Do enjoy bubblin
an' babblin'
My hypothesis, although I have the distinct imnpression I am casting pearls before the swine...
Evolution is predicated on an hypothesis that change occurs from less complicated to more complicated. If this, or some version of this, is true then there must be some principle that allows it to be so. Otherwise it could be as easily said that the simple leads to the complex which leads to the simple, ie random change.
Why is it that the notion of higher and lower orders is predicated? On what basis is this apparent natural phenomenon determined? This is an area of research that has gone unexamined.
I propose that it be examined to determine laws of nature which seem to impose order on existence. Why should there be order? Why not rampant disorder?
If order, then, and more so, if processional - lower to higher - order there must be determinative dynamics that make it so. What is the nature of these dynamics?
This line of reasoning from natural observation must necessarily discard random selection or random processes as not capable of explaining phenomenon.
If I may jump to a possible conclusion, ID is a perfectly legitimate proposition to explain the phenomenological issues raised above.
This is not true. There is no assumption in the Theory of Evolution that any given change will result in a more complicated organism. In fact, it's entirely possible that particular niches are best filled by simpler organisms with narrower specialization, and redundant or overly-complex systems are "evolved out" of the mix for that niche.
Or two researchers who can agree on what it is.
Really great post Amos. You look to the fundamental logic. Not a whole lot of people do that these days. Thank you.
In on sentence you have moved into the ranks of the the truly, inexcusably ignorant. Why do you embarrass yourself posting such juvenile errors?
"Pearls before swine" But I thought you were above insults?
Your post is not a hypothesis, it is at best a question. But really it is the ID movement in a nutshell.
But let me go through it line by line, so that when I say this is an empty piece of nonsense idiocy, you won't think I'm just calling names.
"Evolution is predicated on an hypothesis that change occurs from less complicated to more complicated."
Not really, in fact evolution makes no claims about orders of complexity, let alone being predicated on them. Evolution is complexity neutral. There are principles that evolution postulates drive variation in organism, and complexity sometiems reuslts from those variations. But evolution says it is equally likely for things to become less complex. Animals that move underground gradually lose their sight, because sight is not needed in the darkness, and because sight organs are susceptable to disease and injury, so to begin with you preconcieved premise is wrong, and calls into question the expertise you avowed earlier when you told me to look into evolution. If you had looked into evolution, you would not have made this statement.
"If this, or some version of this, is true then there must be some principle that allows it to be so. Otherwise it could be as easily said that the simple leads to the complex which leads to the simple, ie random change."
There is a mechanism, it's called mutation plus selection.
"Why is it that the notion of higher and lower orders is predicated?"
This sentence is meaningless. Things have to be predicated on something. Perhaps you meant predicted. I'll assume so for the next sentence.
"This is an area of research that has gone unexamined. "
Actually no, all aspects of the generation of order in natural structures are under intense scientific scrutiny, and (you know its comming) all those scientists (more than 99%) agree that mutation plus natural selection is the best theory yet to explain them. The idea that there is no research is laughable, and again points out that you seem VERY ignorant of something you feel just fine talking about with authority.
"I propose that it be examined to determine laws of nature which seem to impose order on existence. Why should there be order? Why not rampant disorder?
If order, then, and more so, if processional - lower to higher - order there must be determinative dynamics that make it so. What is the nature of these dynamics?"
So far you have proposed a bunch of inaccurate (sometimes laughably so) assumptions. In the above paragraph, you then ask a series of questions. All of these are good questions, but NONE of them is a hypothesis. A hypothesis is a prediction, based on observation that can be subjected to verification through experimentation and further observation. But if that description is a little too vague for you, I'll make it easier, no hypothesis ends in a question mark.
"This line of reasoning from natural observation must necessarily discard random selection or random processes as not capable of explaining phenomenon."
Again another assumption, but still not a hypothesis. Also this assumtion is flatly wrong. Order arises from choas all the time. Randomness often makes ordered structures, the face on Mars, bucky balls, the fact that both Lincoln's and Kennedy's assassins had three names, all are random occurences of order, or as we call it coincedence. It's funny that english has a whole word for something you think can't happen. Snowflakes, for example, are ordered structures that come from random forces (cold, wind, crystal dynamics). Unless you are willing to say that God or some other unknown, superpowerful entity designs every snowflake. If you want to say that go ahead, but in science you need some kind of evidence for that, and since we can see the random forces at work(observe snowflake formation in a lab where the same forces yield different flakes), you will basically need a videotape of God chisleing little snowflakes.
The assumption that order cannot arise out of randomness is disproven everytime you play cards. All hands are dealt randomly, but you can still get four of a kind of a straight flush. Or are you saying God deals every hand of cards as well. Because you can say that, but that doesn't make it science. In the same way as all of inquisition era science was preoccupied with trying to find how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, a most antiscientific endeavor.
And before you throw thermodynamics at me, please stop. Don't make a fool of yourself. Entropy has no bearing over this. Entropy or the tendencay towards disorder has a very specific scientific meaning. It really stands for energy (heat) in space. As space increases, entropy (disorder) goes up if energy is constant. By this measure, the observed expansion of the universe means that all of the molecules on earth could line up in a picture of Elvis, and overall the universe would still be trending towards disorder and increasing entropy. Of course that doesn't really mater because the Earth is not a closed system and it's getting energy from the sun all the time. Put energy into a system and you entropy goes down; that is the definition of entropy.
"If I may jump to a possible conclusion, ID is a perfectly legitimate proposition to explain the phenomenological issues raised above."
It might be if you proposed a hypothesis. You haven't yet, so I don't know what ID is when you refer to it. That's how science works. Just saying "I think it's ID" which the close reader will see is all you said in this post, is meaningless. Provide a description for ID, a mechanism, empirical evidence supporting your conclusions, in a word provide SOMETHING. Just saying "I belive it is ID" is not ANYTHING.
So to summarize, you said a bunch of stuff as given, that was simply wrong. You asked a lot of questions, and then you said ID did it.
That is the ID movement in a nutshel. Make false attacks on real science, claim that there are deep unprobed mysteries of the universe, and then instead of probing the mysteries, as real scientists do, leap straight to the conclusion phase, SKIPPING THE SCIENCE PART (observe, hypothesis, experiment, verify). Now why on Earth would I have contempt for that?
Grade: F
Don't beat yourself up over it. The whole world saw Behe fail miserably to answer the same challenge last week. The entire ID community has failed to deliver a hypothesis for a decade. That means ID is not science. PERIOD.
You can't put it into science class until you have something.
Please feel free to give it another shot.
"Evolution is predicated on an hypothesis that change occurs from less complicated to more complicated...."
Completely incorrect.
Except that Amos the Prophet is completely wrong in the premise.
Logic is useless if the premise is wrong.
Amos can give it all the shots he wants, but when you start your critique of geography by saying New York City is the capital of japan, you aren't likely to improve.
Why is it that people think they can out think 150 years of science when they can't get the most elementary principles right?
You mean, other than the fact that he got it completely and utterly wrong?
How so, From many - one? Please elaborate further.
Please explicate the premise according to which Amos is to be falsified?
Did he??? Please explain.
Can you point to the basic fault that queers his argument? Some of us would be really grateful to you if you could do that.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.