Posted on 11/08/2005 4:17:17 AM PST by PatrickHenry
For the past six weeks, the debate over evolution and intelligent design has played out in a Pennsylvania courtroom.
Today, Kansas gets the national spotlight back — and with it, the possibility of a federal lawsuit here.
“What’s going on in Kansas,” said Kenneth Miller, a Brown University biologist, “is much more radical and much more dangerous to science education” than the contested decision in Dover, Pa., to mandate the teaching of “intelligent design” in public school science classes.
Intelligent design speculates that the world is too complex to have evolved without the help of an unknown designer — an alien, perhaps, or God. Such teachings in public schools, the ACLU says, violate constitutional restrictions on the separation of church and state.
“Absolutely, absolutely,” said T. Jeremy Gunn, director of the ACLU’s Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, when asked if the new science standards Kansas is expected to adopt today could be vulnerable to litigation.
An official with the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, which helped defend the Dover school board, said Kansas should be able to avoid legal scrutiny. Casey Luskin said the standards here critique evolution, but they don’t promote intelligent design.
“It’s definitely a different issue in Kansas” than in Pennsylvania, Luskin said.
‘More radical’
It’s a different battle, perhaps, but definitely the same war. Many of the participants in the Pennsylvania trial are veterans of the Kansas evolution debates, and are keeping a close eye on today’s meeting of the Kansas Board of Education.
Miller, for example, testified in the Pennsylvania trial against intelligent design. He came to Kansas in 2000 to campaign against conservative school board members the last time the evolution debate flared up here.
The new Kansas standards literally change the definition of science, he said, so that natural explanations aren’t necessary to explain natural phenomena. That opens the door, he said, for astrology to be taught in public school classrooms.
“Is this what proponents on the Kansas Board of Education have in mind?” Miller asked.
Michael Behe, a Lehigh University scientist, wrote “Darwin’s Black Box” — a touchstone text of the intelligent design movement. He testified in Pennsylvania, and before the Kansas Board of Education when it held hearings on the science standards.
“I think having students hear criticisms of any theory is a great idea,” Behe said. “I think in one respect, it’ll mean it’s permissible to question evolution. For odd historical reasons, questioning evolution has been put off-limits. If Kansas can do it, it can be done elsewhere.”
More evolution?
Luskin agreed.
“In contrast to what everybody has said, Kansas students will hear more about evolution and not less about evolution,” he said. “This is a victory for people who want students to learn critical thinking skills in science.”
But Gunn noted that the vast majority of scientists believed in evolution as a proven explanation for the origins of life. The “handful” who don’t, he said, have resorted to making their case through politics instead of through traditional scientific methods.
“Do we teach both sides of the controversy on astrology in science class? Do we teach both sides of phrenology?” Gunn said. “This is not a scientific controversy, it’s a political controversy.”
Testimony in the Pennsylvania trial wrapped up on Friday. A ruling in that case is expected in January.
"Beagle's Barf" is why I have brown bagged it all these years.
Ignorance-never-sleeps placemarker.
Hmm...
"God is dead"
~Nietzsche
"Nietzsche is dead"
~God
"God=dead, Nietzsche=dead...
ergo God=Nietzsche?"
~Behe
I read the 4 pager, but I'm not up to 117 pages - maybe tomorrow.
Where'd the redefinition come from?
There is significant evidence the standards are religiously motivated, and if the ACLU wins in Dover, Kansas may be next. But Kansas was more careful than Dover, and there isn't a constitutional right to have a School Board with an IQ above room temperature. I think this might get corrected next year at the School Board elections, although how long Kansas continues on the pro/anti evolution yo-yo is anyone's guess.
I really do think Kansas is going to suffer in terms of student admissions to places like MIT, and in terms of hiring faculty and luring biotechs, and that's going to affect how people vote. I moved to Nebraska from New York. I interviewed here only because I'd been recommended by someone I respect and didn't want to make him look bad. Then I liked what I saw. But a lot of people won't even give this part of he country a look, and when you couple this with what they consider the quintessence of snake-handling, redneck education, Kansas is going to be hurting.
RWP - (chemistry, I believe?). How will the ACS look at this, relating to Kansas High Schools and Universities, since Chemistry curricula are quite standardized nationwide?
The ACS won't do diddly squat. All the ACS cares about is supporting the chemical industry - the part of it that hasn't moved to India - and making money off its journals and search engines. it's no coincidence that most of the tiny minority of creationists who have some non-zero level of scientific achievement are chemists.
I'm not sure. I think you get invited.
The 6502 (oops, Grandmaster) appears somewhat fickle.
You DO!!??
There better be squatter's rights after 6 years!
"Festival of the Suddenly Silent Sneak-back Troll" placemarker
I can't find it in that document. There were several drafts. I probably didn't link the final one.
Damn. I thought the ACS had some muscle and just might flex it.
This statement on the surface seems logical. I mean this happens everyday in our lives. We observe complexity and attribute its existence to a designer. For example, nobody looks at a car and supposes it just happened.
Yet somehow when we look at the complexity of a single cell (how many times more complex than a car?) or the order of the universe, we're supposed to say that it just happened into existence by itself?
How much complexity do we have to discover before it becomes an insurmountable conclusion to think that it just happened? Is there such a limit, ever? If not, can science ever realize it has limitations?
Right after the horrors of World War 1, the ACS successfully lobbied the US not to sign the chemical weapons treaty, on the grounds that it would hurt the US chemical industry.
I was under the impression that they had a strong hand in the development of curricula, at least at the college level.
I'm kind of amused by people who think threats are a good substitute for argument.
You've not seen me defend anyonw who has lied; quite the opposite in this case.
The desires of some of the school board certainly factored into what some of them wanted the statement drafted; there is no denying that and I wouldn't even try to do so.
While some of them might want to teach creation, that is not what the sachool board statement stated. one should not lose sight of how the statement actually reads.
The plaintiff's own witnesses claimed that one can set aside their religious beliefs regarding evolution v. ID. They really had no choice but to admit that point since their own witnesses admitted their biases against Christianity and in favor of secular humanism.
Not only that, but they also claimed that some evolutionists are also Christians. If that is the case, one cannot summarily argue that ID is merely creation in disguise.
Are BOTH sides playing word games regarding their religious biases? Of course they are; and one cannot easily claim that the pro-evolutionists aren't doing the same thing as the pro-ID side.
"Justice Scalia , with whom Justice Thomas joins, As to the Court's invocation of the Lemon test: Like some ghoul in a late night horror movie that repeatedly sits up in its grave and shuffles abroad, after being repeatedly killed and buried, Lemon stalks our Establishment Clause jurisprudence once again, frightening thelittle children and school attorneys of Center Moriches Union Free School District. Its most recent burial, only last Term, was, to be sure, not fully six feet under: our decision in Lee v. Weisman, 505 U. S. ----, ---- (1992) (slip op., at 7), conspicuously avoided using the supposed "test" but also declined the invitation to repudiate it. Over the years, however, no fewer than five of the currently sitting Justices have, in their own opinions, personally driven pencils through the creature's heart (the author of today's opinion repeatedly), and a sixth has joined an opinion doing so. See, e. g., Weisman, supra, at ---- (slip op., at 14) (Scalia, J., joined by, inter alios, Thomas, J., dissenting); Allegheny County v. American Civil Liberties Union, Greater Pittsburgh Chapter, 492 U.S. 573, 655-657 (1989) (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part); Corporation of Presiding Bishop of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints v. Amos, 483 U.S. 327, 346-349 (1987) (O'Connor, J., concurring); Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38, 107-113 (1985) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting); id., at 90-91 (White, J., dissenting); School Dist. of Grand Rapids v. Ball, 473 U.S. 373, 400 (1985) (White, J., dissenting); Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U.S. 263, 282 (1981) (White, J., dissenting); New York v. Cathedral Academy, 434 U.S. 125, 134-135 (1977) (White, J., dissenting); Roemer v. Maryland Bd. of Public Works, 426 U.S. 736, 768 (1976) (White, J., concurring in judgment); Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, 413 U.S. 756, 820 (1973) (White, J., dissenting)."
Yet somehow when we look at the complexity of a single cell (how many times more complex than a car?) or the order of the universe, we're supposed to say that it just happened into existence by itself?
How much complexity do we have to discover before it becomes an insurmountable conclusion to think that it just happened? Is there such a limit, ever? If not, can science ever realize it has limitations?
Beware the fallacy of comparing inanimate designed objects with life that has the benefit of reproduction with genetically heritable traits. Their possibilities for their current form are so dissimilar as to only draw contrast to the point you are trying to make.
What you seem to propose in your apparent endorsement of ID is for science to willingly succumb to the tide of complexity and end the final chapter of man's struggle to understand the world around him with a scrawled 'Goddidit - the end'.
Science does indeed have limitations, and readily admits to them. One of these is that things beyond natural law, the supernatural, are beyond its realm. Such phenomena cannot be observed, tested, quantified, or otherwise measured. ID, in its quest to be granted scientific standing, must first abolish this limitation or it will never fit the definition of science.
As a philosophy, ID has merit. As a science, it is a fraud.
The desires of some of the school board certainly factored into what some of them wanted the statement drafted; there is no denying that and I wouldn't even try to do so.
While some of them might want to teach creation, that is not what the sachool board statement stated. one should not lose sight of how the statement actually reads.
What the statement actually says is only part of the issue. We don't expect crooks to always broadcast their illegal actions - we expect a certain amount of deception from them. Same with the liars in this case - their intent is what's important under Lemon (which is still the law of the land).
If their intent was not important, why did they feel it was necessary to hide that intent? Why all the lies? Answer: they knew what they were doing was un-Constitutional, and hiding their intent was the only plausible deniability they could cling to.
Not only that, but they also claimed that some evolutionists are also Christians. If that is the case, one cannot summarily argue that ID is merely creation in disguise.
Nonsense. The evolutionists just don't believe in trying to sneak their faith into schools by pretending that it's science. That doesn't make them any less Christian.
Are BOTH sides playing word games regarding their religious biases? Of course they are; and one cannot easily claim that the pro-evolutionists aren't doing the same thing as the pro-ID side.
Fine, then. If you're making that claim, back it up by showing us where the pro-science side has lied in this case. We've seen where the creationists lie (and lie, and lie, and lie - to the press, to the public and finally under oath). I'd love to see your proof that both sides are being dishonest.
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