'Intelligent Design' Wins In Kansas

CBS News ^ | 10 November 2005

[Aussie Dasher]

(AP) Revisiting a topic that exposed Kansas to nationwide ridicule six years ago, the state Board of Education approved science standards for public schools Tuesday that cast doubt on the theory of evolution.

The board's 6-4 vote, expected for months, was a victory for intelligent design advocates who helped draft the standards. Intelligent design holds that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power.

Critics of the proposed language charged that it was an attempt to inject creationism into public schools in violation of the separation between church and state.

The board's vote is likely to heap fresh national criticism on Kansas and cause many scientists to see the state as backward. Current state standards treat evolution as well-established — a view also held by national science groups

[gondramB]

"My question is that seeing that ID is mostly based on applying statistics why you are against applying stats to evolution."




Ummm ID is really based on a desire to figure out a way around the Supreme Courts decision to ban religious expression in public schools, something the founder's never intended.

So far all the approaches have either been naive about the science or deliberately dishonest.

Scientific theory can change but it take a preponderance of evidence to change established theory. Rather than requiring teachers to teach without evidence IDers who want it taught in school would be better off funding basic scientific research in hopes that evidence will be discovered.

[js1138]

I think your statement is foolish. Statistical probability is a valid science and it can and is applied to both historical events and future events.

OK, go back a hundred years or so and calculate the odds of your grandparents and parents meeting; calculate the odds of your conception happening with exactly the combination of gametes having your particular DNA.

[SalukiLawyer]

I'm not a scientific expert. I do know one or two things about the forensic branch of rhetoric, however. I know how to use, abuse and even disabuse experts in court, too. Based on what I've read, I'd feel more confident in presenting the intelligent design side of the controversy were I in court before neutral factfinders.

I remember an argument here on FR once where an evolution proponent showed a picture of a fossil that appeared to show a lizard with a vestigal wing of some sort. (What's a thread like this without the line of primate skulls or something?) When I questioned the survival benefit of such an appendage the response was "I am showing you a picture and you refuse to believe it and ask how it lived!!!" As usual, the point was entirely missed. Assuming the fossil is not a fraud, what does it prove? Natural selection? Absolutely not. (There is no logical connection between the fact of the little worse-than-useless wing and a big, useful wing on another animal based on survival benefit.) "Evolution" or some other natural (as opposed to supernatural) process isn't the problem per se. It's the breakdown of the arguments that are always made. Let me explain.

Scientists are not rhetoricians. Neither, apparently, are the non-scientist evolution proponents that appear here and elsewhere. The arguments in favor of evolution reek of a particular type of rhetorical device called an enthymeme. An enthymeme is an argument that looks like a syllogism, and has a certain persuasive effect, but in fact contains logical "missing links" (if I may use the term). The most famous enthymeme of recent times is Johnny Cochran's O.J. argument: "If the glove don't fit, you must acquit."

"If it looks like a wing, it's... er, evolving into a flying thing." Johnny Cochran would have thought of a better enthymeme. (So would I if I were getting paid $500 an hour for this.)

Now, maybe evolution is true and they just need to come up with better arguments. That's a difference between science and forensics, and it can be a weakness, I'll admit. However, I suggest that the recreation of remote events on the basis of limited evidence is very much the proper subject for a forensic inquiry in which expert opinions have their proper role as evidence in a proceeding.

[Raycpa]

Based on your question, you don't understand stats. It is applied to large numbers, not single events.

[Raycpa]

I asked if you objected to teaching the statistical probabilities associated with evolution. You then went on a rant creating a straw dog.

Assuming that ID is based on stat theories, (which is how I understand it), why would you object in explaining the math?

[ChiefBoatswain]

Not a smart move. You should be fired. This sounds like you've decided what the truth is. Essentially, you are an "activist", someone who "knows" what people should be told.

[ARCADIA]

You think then statistics isn't a valuable tool in regards to evolution?

No, not at all. It has its limitations, however, I would be more interested in seeing how it has been used; and, the quality of data that has been measured and qualified. It is not the result of the calculation that matters; what counts is the quality of the model and the integrity of the data. It is one thing to pull 40 vehicles off an assembly line, and to use statistics to predict that X% of that model of car produced on that assembly line will weigh Y lbs +/- Z variance; but, what ID suggests is infinitely more complicated. It suggests the sort of arrogance that is the antithesis of scientific objectivity.

[js1138]

And yet ID advocates apply statistics to singular events, such as the evolution of flagella.

[rwfromkansas]

I have no doubt the conservatives will lose on the KS board races next year as well.

It happened after the last time.

Ironically, polls show people support their actions, but they toss them out because of shame and also the evolutionists have a much more motivated turnout.

[ARCADIA]

Now, maybe evolution is true and they just need to come up with better arguments.

I believe that the burden of proof will be on ID to demonstrate that Evolutionary theory is wrong (not just incomplete), and that ID has something meaningful to add to the discussion.

[RobbyS]

If you think that science can be reduced to phenomenology. I don't think that Einstein did. He was looking for something behind the shadows.

[gondramB]

"Assuming that ID is based on stat theories, (which is how I understand it), why would you object in explaining the math?"

I don't have any objections to discussing the math.... I've taken quite a bit of math and taught math.

Statistics could be part of a legitimate scientific argument.

But no matter what problems you might be able to show with evolution using statisitics that is not the same thing as evidence for intellligent design.

Showing a problem with the current theory doesn't prove an alternative theory.

[gondramB]

"If you think that science can be reduced to phenomenology. I don't think that Einstein did. He was looking for something behind the shadows."

and I've got no problem with that as long as you don;'t pretend it's science and force science teachers to teach some that has no supporting scientific evidenced.

Outside of class we should all feel free to look for or say or believe whatever we like. But inside class we need to teach things reasonably believed to be true based on evidence. That's the right approach whether we are talking about history class or math or science.

[RobbyS]

Which evolutionary theory? Darwin's theory does not hold up in detail any better than Copernicus' theory. More like a grand intuition.

[RobbyS]

So long as you don't insist that it is anything but the conventional wisdom.

[gondramB]

"Which evolutionary theory? Darwin's theory does not hold up in detail any better than Copernicus' theory. More like a grand intuition."

Copernicus, if i remember correctly thought that planets revolved in circles around the sun when in fact the orbits are elliptical.

Now what would be the proper response to finding an error in Copernicus' math? Would it be to teach religion instead or would it be work harder and improve and make the science more accurate?

[gondramB]

"So long as you don't insist that it is anything but the conventional wisdom."

Scientific theory is simply the best available analysis of the known data as evaluated by the scientific community - it's not magic or written in stone It can be and has been revised many times.

On the other hand it doesn't change (or at least it shouldn't change) for political or religious reasons - it should only change because because of new evidence or clearly superior better analysis of existing evidence. The scientific community is designed to be skeptical of such changes and to test and challenge such changes to keep junk science out of the mainstream.

[RobbyS]

Copernicus' math play a small enough role in his theory. . He certainly didn't have a telescope like Galileo to butress his speculation. He was more convinced by the simplicity of a heliocentric system than by the data at his disposal.

[SuziQ]

God created the world in 6 days and rested on the 7th. He took a rib from Adam to make woman. Many of the kids had never heard this before. I'll prob. get fired.

Well, considering the fact that what you taught has nothing to do with Biology, I wouldn't be surprised.