Posted on 11/01/2005 6:42:25 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
You'll have to ask the advocates of ID to point you to that. It's all in their imaginations.
Use common sense.
I'm not the one trying to sneak charlatan pseudo science into the classroom...
I see the point. The argument has sound basis.
But, if we are going to have a supreme court that will reverse the rulings that led to protection from the state's actions then we will have to have not just a school board making some changes but it will need to be an entire rewriting of laws and state constitutions- a massive effort otherwise we will lose many precious freedoms. The long term result may be good but in the interim many abuses will become legal.
Now, with regard to this specific case, it would appear to me that if federal constitutional protection is ever thrown out by the Supreme Court that the Pennsylvania constitution would permit elective religious instruction in public schools as long as it wasn't required.
Religious Freedom
Section 3.
All men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences; no man can of right be compelled to attend, erect or support any place of worship or to maintain any ministry against his consent; no human authority can, in any case whatever, control or interfere with the rights of conscience, and no preference shall ever be given by law to any religious establishments or modes of worship.
http://sites.state.pa.us/PA_Constitution.html
I don't claim to be a constitutional scholar, but I'm pretty sure the Constitution doesn't say anything about schools or scientific theories. In fact, I think it fair to say that James Madison and his fellow Founders would have been horrified at the prospect of a federal judge telling folks in Dover what they should or should not teach their 14-year-olds. Yet the boundless ambition of undemocratic Democrats will not permit dissent.
Revelation 4:11Intelligent Design
See my profile for info
But it is a common tactic used by the religious evolution zealots, metmom.
Ridicule without substance, all the while claiming to be intellectually honest and 'scientific.'
It is, IMO, a response of one afraid of the challenge to one's faith.
Same reasons that pertain to the Easter Bunny: there's no physical evidence that such a designer exists.
***************
This case is an excellent argument for home-schooling. I doubt that the Founders had in mind the bloated behemoth we call our public school system.
And while the school may not have been turned into a revival meeting, it appears some school board meetings were, with the Chair of the School Board talking aboput taking a stand sfor a man who died on the cross for them, and his wife giving extended reliigous testimony.
Prior to 1940 there were how many journal citations about plate tectonics? How many about geosynclinal theory?
Theories are theories, and exposing children to the logical processes which allow them to compare and contrast the merits and drawbacks of various explanations for percieved phenomena should be a good thing.
After all the purpose of an education should be to teach you to think, not what to think.
From there, the theory will stand or fall on its own merits.
"Intelligent design .... is just the Logos of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory." - Willam Dembski, author of 'The Design Inference'.
"That's not evidence, it's ridicule. And it does nothing to support the claim that there was no design.
But it is a common tactic used by the religious evolution zealots, metmom."
You need evidence in order to teach something. If you want to teach that there was a lost city of Altantis in history class there should be historical evidence.
Before you teach that God did something, in a science class, you should have scientific evidence.
You don't teach everything you cannot disprove. There are lots of things we cannot disprove. We cant disprove ghosts or aliens or demonic possession or that the CIA killed Kennedy but we don't teach them without appropriate evidence.
Important point.
As a geoscientist its tough for me to read a lot of crazy comments on this board just so these people can find a way to establish their religion in a science classroom.
correction:
man and God
and he died for you too
There is no “claim that there was no design”. That’s just an transparent attempt to try to make someone else disprove your religious based claims or teach them as a science.
I explained to you last night that atheists do not necessarily claim that there is no God. In a similar way evolutionist have no need to disprove Intelligent Design.
As long as ID is just a religiously motivated hypothesis with no significant peer reviewed evidence supporting it, it will be restricted to some kid of social studies class, not science.
I think there is an issue of definitions here.
So lets work through it.
There is nothing in science that says "there is no design to the universe."
However, there is also nothing in science that says there is. Science is silent on the subject, as it must be. Any proper scientific theory is also silent on the subject. Now, ID is not silent on the subject, which is one of the many reasons ID is not science.
But there are other issues as well. I would argue that ID is not only not science, it is also bad religion (religion is used in the most general sense here). Certainly science can inform faith. In my case it does. However, the two must be kept separate.
For example, I am a Christian and I believe that God created the universe. That is a matter of faith, not science. It happens to be my faith. As a matter of faith, I believe God created life, too. However, to create the biological aspect of life (as apart from the spiritual part or soul), he used the mechanism of evolution.
Now, as a matter of science, I cannot prove God created life with evolution, that is a matter of faith. I can prove that evolution exists; that is science.
But as a matter of faith, I believe that ID is bad religion. Consider the central ID tenet: look at an engineered structure and you "know" it was designed: an airplane, a computer chip, a complicated building, etc. Pick the most complicated thing you can think of. Well, it turns out that none of them are "designed." At least not by a designer. They are all designed using global optimizing programs which use, get this, genetic algorithms. Genetic algorithms are a direct analog to evolution. They were written based on evolution. Yes, Darwin is responsible, directly, for the central algorithm of essentially all computer design systems of complicated structures, because it is one of the very few algorithms that can solve the global (rather than local) optimization problem.
So, if we look at all these complicated things we know one thing for sure. They were not "designed." They were developed by global optimizing algorithms based on Darwinian evolution. Only a complete imbecile would attempt to "design" a computer chip or circuit board without them.
So, could it be that God created the biological aspect of life with evolution?? As a matter of common sense and faith I believe that is more likely than His possible use of the direct design by ID?? Why, because he is not an imbecile. Of course He would use a global optimizing algorithm. Well, you might argue, God can do anything. He doesn't need to use your cute algorithm. Certainly correct. But which is the greater, more magnificent creation: creating the system that after 4.5 billion years created the life He wanted, or just magically creating it 6,000 years ago?? Or, as IDers argue, creating the system 4.5 billion years ago, but He didn't quite get it right and had to tinker with it a few times??
Certainly correct, if that were the only measure. However, as a matter of simple logic, the converse is surely true.
Namely, any "theory" that lacks any journal citations after a reasonable lenght of time can certainly be dismissed.
No, silly.
My point was, and it was clear to you despite your obtuse response, that the issue was the lack of substance to ID.
We may both engage in cheap attacks. But only the ID / creationist crowd lacks any kind of support at all. We at least have both.
I have asked many times on these threads, as have others, and many times quite politely, for the IDers to post some substance to their claims. It has always been lacking (with the execption of betty boop). By contrast, we evolutionists, have done so extensively.
My favorite case is when the IDers claim "we can do the math" or "ID is based on mathematics", or statements to that effect. I have heard it a lot. But, when asked politely to post the math the answer has always been the same: silence.
My response:
Why not do both?? You can be educated, accomplished, and even a scientist and also be a Christian, a family man (person), and spend time with your kids and family.
One of my best friends, whom I have known since we were in graduate school together, certainly can do both. He is an MIT Ph.D; a competent and successful scientist by any measure. However, every year for the past 20 years he and his wife have lead his church group to Mexico to build 4 homes over spring break. They take about 80 high school kids to do it. My daughter goes every year. Most will go all 4 years of high school.
It is possible to do both.
There is no positive correlation between being uneducated and being good. Or being educated and being un-Christian. They are simply separate issues. The simple fact is that believing in the obvious science and evidence for evolution does not make one anti-God or anti-religion. However, it is arguably true that being anti-evolution is clearly being anti-education and anti-science.
Thank you.
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