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.
Whats 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 ACLUs 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 Institutes 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 dont promote intelligent design.
Its definitely a different issue in Kansas than in Pennsylvania, Luskin said.
More radical
Its 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 todays 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 arent 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 Darwins 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, itll mean its 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 dont, 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, its a political controversy.
Testimony in the Pennsylvania trial wrapped up on Friday. A ruling in that case is expected in January.
Military or basketball metaphors. Decisions, decisions.
I agree, it was really annoying when you claimed that your uncle, apparently a top scientist, was talking total nonsense about science. That's where it should have stopped. Any time your uncle wants to join the debate I'll be happy to have him educate me on where I am going wrong.
In the meantime I've been becoming more educated on the ID/Neo-Darwinism debate, and while it is mildly interesting, I continually get both bored and overwhelmed, because it would be great to find a magic bullet that would put one theory above the other.
Ah, evolution is a theory about variation and speciation. Now which is the other that you refer to? Evidently not ID, which even Michael Behe, the world's leading scientific exponent of ID, agrees is not a theory in the sense that scientists use the word (I already posted a link to his under-oath admission of that fact).
I participated in a debate on another forum which I enjoyed, and I've been trading emails with a lot of intelligent people who make compelling arguments.
That sounds a bit like how this thread was going, until someone laughed at those on the other side of this debate because they are f--ked in the afterlife for their beliefs. Oh... wait...
It is blatantly obvious that there is an amazing degree of scientific elitism on the evolution side of this issue. There is way more here on FR than anywhere else, and while I asked for, received and discussed facts and refutations, I have no interest in posting them here. It was definitely interesting and educational, but it would be wasted here.
I stand ready to be convinced. Thus far you have not posed a single argument of consequence. Just show the physical evidence for whatever position it is that you favour and we'll talk about it. Threatening eternal damnation to those who disagree doesn't count. Lest you get het up about me harping on about that issue I note that you have never shown the slightest remorse for the remark itself, only anger that it should be "mischaracterised". Quite how one should correctly characterise glee at, "You are all f--ked" I cannot imagine.
So ID/evolution goes on the same trash heap with fiscal responsibility, CFR, Federalism and all the other stuff that I get tired of discussing on this board.
As far as I can see you haven't even started discussing ID/evolution on this board in any meaningful way. Do let us know when you are ready to start.
Feel free to donate money to the RAFA. As you've dragged your uncle into the debate I'll tell you about my father. My father was a combat pilot in WW2, 464 Mosquito squadron. He participated in the low-level Denmark raids (described in the RAF's official history as the most demanding flying by the RAF of the war) piloting the camera plane. I guess most people think this about their father, but he was without a doubt the finest man I have ever known. He was also a lifelong atheist and died a few months ago, after a painful illness. From your earlier posts I already know what you think it funny that your God thinks of him.
Too bad the religious fanatics can't even make it to that bar ...
We have our artifacts, you have some oral history, embellished and written down in a little black book by flawed human beings capable of prejudice, covetousness, pride and deceitfulness.
I've never heard anything about this. The "green revolution" has been around for more than a handful of generations.
Hmmm, forced evolution using hypbridisation often produces plants that don't thrive. That'll bring Darwinian evolution crashing to the ground. Yeah.
hybridisation
To be added to the next row of the Evolution Troll's Toolkit, as soon as a few more goodies show up.
Don't forget, "Haeckel Fraud!"
Yeah, but I've already got Piltdown Man. Lemme mull it over.
Ha! They are as nothing compared with my uncle's brilliant and utterly crushing responses to everyone here's feeble witticisms.
OK BIG SHOTS!
I challenge all of you to some undefined competition or other that I'll keep suitably vague in case anyone takes me up on it, and I'm naming my uncle as my champion. The winner gets the lifelong personal services of Nicole Kidman and Cameron Diaz (or Russell Crowe and Brad Pitt if their tastes are so inclined), but because I am currently married bigamously to the last 5 winners of the Miss Universe competition (who are all looking a bit tired after my Herculean bedroom efforts) I'll donate my winnings to a charity of my choice.
Bullies!
Use of hybrid corn though isn't the "green revolution" although Lysenko did claim that such hybrids are non-productive. He claimed the only point of hybridization was to keep farmers enslaved to the Capitalist Seed Mongers.
It would be nice to have self-seeding crops. Fat chance.
It's easy to get self-seeding crops, they just don't do so well. It's a well-known problem in plant genetics.
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