Posted on 11/22/2005 12:44:07 PM PST by Michael_Michaelangelo
THE first court trial over the theory of intelligent design is now over, with a ruling expected by the end of the year. What sparked the legal controversy? Before providing two weeks of training in modern evolutionary theory, the Dover, Pa., School District briefly informed students that if they wanted to learn about an alternative theory of biological origins, intelligent design, they could read a book about it in the school library.
In short order, the School District was dragged into court by a group insisting the school policy constituted an establishment of religion, this despite the fact that the unmentionable book bases its argument on strictly scientific evidence, without appealing to religious authority or attempting to identify the source of design.
The lawsuit is only the latest in a series of attempts to silence the growing controversy over contemporary Darwinian theory.
For instance, after The New York Times ran a series on Darwinism and design recently, prominent Darwinist Web sites excoriated the newspaper for even covering intelligent design, insulting its proponents with terms like Medievalist, Flat-Earther and "American Taliban."
University of Minnesota biologist P.Z. Myers argues that Darwinists should take an even harder line against their opponents: "Our only problem is that we aren't martial enough, or vigorous enough, or loud enough, or angry enough," he wrote. "The only appropriate responses should involve some form of righteous fury, much butt-kicking, and the public firing and humiliation of some teachers, many school board members, and vast numbers of sleazy far-right politicians."
This month, NPR reported on behavior seemingly right out of the P.Z. Myers playbook.
The most prominent victim in the story was Richard Sternberg, a scientist with two Ph.D.s in evolutionary biology and former editor of a journal published out of the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History. He sent out for peer review, then published, a paper arguing that intelligent design was the best explanation for the geologically sudden appearance of new animal forms 530 million years ago.
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel reported that Sternberg's colleagues immediately went on the attack, stripping Sternberg of his master key and access to research materials, spreading rumors that he wasn't really a scientist and, after determining that they didn't want to make a martyr out of him by firing him, deliberately creating a hostile work environment in the hope of driving him from the Smithsonian.
The NPR story appalled even die-hard skeptics of intelligent design, people like heavyweight blogger and law professor Glenn Reynolds, who referred to the Smithsonian's tactics as "scientific McCarthyism."
Also this month, the Kansas Board of Education adopted a policy to teach students the strengths and weaknesses of modern evolutionary theory. Darwinists responded by insisting that there are no weaknesses, that it's a plot to establish a national theocracy — despite the fact that the weaknesses that will be taught come right out of the peer-reviewed, mainstream scientific literature.
One cause for their insecurity may be the theory's largely metaphysical foundations. As evolutionary biologist A.S. Wilkins conceded, "Evolution would appear to be the indispensable unifying idea and, at the same time, a highly superfluous one."
And in the September issue of The Scientist, National Academy of Sciences member Philip Skell argued that his extensive investigations into the matter corroborated Wilkins' view. Biologist Roland Hirsch, a program manager in the U.S. Office of Biological and Environmental Research, goes even further, noting that Darwinism has made a series of incorrect predictions, later refashioning the paradigm to fit the results.
How different from scientific models that lead to things like microprocessors and satellites. Modern evolutionary theory is less a cornerstone and more the busybody aunt — into everyone's business and, all the while, very much insecure about her place in the home.
Moreover, a growing list of some 450 Ph.D. scientists are openly skeptical of Darwin's theory, and a recent poll by the Louis Finkelstein Institute found that only 40 percent of medical doctors accept Darwinism's idea that humans evolved strictly through unguided, material processes.
Increasingly, the Darwinists' response is to try to shut down debate, but their attempts are as ineffectual as they are misguided. When leaders in Colonial America attempted to ban certain books, people rushed out to buy them. It's the "Banned in Boston" syndrome.
Today, suppression of dissent remains the tactic least likely to succeed in the United States. The more the Darwinists try to prohibit discussion of intelligent design, the more they pique the curiosity of students, parents and the general public.
So then your claim that it should be possible for science to do this is retracted?
Ignoring the possibility and promoting the impossibilty are two differnet things. I don't see the ToE promoting a "no-design" concept either. It just begins with the exclusion of certain possibilities and proceeds from there. Not entirely unscientific or unreasonable. Not very enlightening or useful, either.
"Under the auspices of science, individuals are told that they cannot have faith and beliefs that are not supported by the scientific community"
I experienced this first hand when attempting to take a college level biology class back in the 80's. The professor's words were:
"For all present who have a pre-conceived notion that life began on earth though means other than evolution, I'm going to ask you to leave those notions outside this classroom."
A spirited debate followed that reverberated all the way to the dean's office. Despite an aplogy and invitation from the dean himself to continue the class, I declined, knowing there was no way I would get fair treatment and didn't wish to take the GPA hit.
The quickest way to overturn a judgement that something is impossible or otherwise can't be done is to get out there and do it. Which, needless to say, leads me right back to my previous post - show me the money on an empirical, objective, reliable test for design, and the field is yours. Until then, ID is more or less dead in the water.
So randomness is actually designed after all, and this designed string can be distinguished from the designed string?
Got it...
I tend to use words like "difficult" as opposed to impossible. Ideologues are the ones who talk in extremes. Scientists qualify their language.
who flashed the blueprints in the mind of man?
I create my own blueprints -- do you get them faxed in from off-world?
"who flashed the blueprints in the mind of man?"
Man.
So is the 'no-angels' concept of physics un-useful?
I believe you said the two strings were different, did you not? One of them randomly generated and the other one not?
One of the following strings was generated randomly, the other was designed -- I challenge the IDers to describe how they would determine which is which:
31dd02c5e6eec4693d9a0698aff95c2fcab58712467eab4004583eb8b7f89 55ad340609f4b30283e488832571415a
31dd02c5e6eec4693d9a0698aff95c2fcab50712467eab4004583eb8b7f89 55ad340609f4b30283e4888325f1415a
Interesting... Haven't been following the argument.
But be careful. Which random generator did you use? You know there is no such thing as a truly random number generator?
btw, I believe in God and evolution.
In some cases. No one qualifies the second law of thermodynamics, for example. Entropy always increases in a spontaneous thermodynamic process; no exceptions.
No. The concept of phsyics that "promotes" no angels is one I have never seen or heard of.
If they can, it'll be a demonstration that ID truly does open windows that science claims are shut. :-)
Of course you have. I just advanced it, and it's based on a comparison of modern physics and the physics of the middle ages.
Darwinism is the foundation for Communism and Nazism. The law suit and all the comments on it prove it."
Well, I guess that just settles it then. lol
You have any clue into that? My brain kinda shut down when I read it.
"You have any clue into that? My brain kinda shut down when I read it."
Yes, I do, it's called *Wishful Thinking*.
I assume you mean something other than design as understood from an articfact manufactured by humans.
Design is not such a difficult thing to comprehend that one needs empirical tests to identify it. Where there is organized matter, there is design. Design is what separates the intelligible from the intelligible. What empirical test is there to distinguish the intelligibile from the intelligible?
What emprical, objective, reliable test is there for your existence?
I think there was a better way to handle your dispute and that was to bring to the attention of Ad Mod.
But I notice you folks seem to have a deep seeded anger for some reason you don't discuss your try to beat others over the head and belittle them to make them look like weenies or you try to undermind one education...
It has cause me to look into some of your profiles or post to see if there was a pattern or just a patch of frustration!
How can one have a one on one discussion if you are always in a sophomoric put down frame of mind or worst!
To insult Alamo-Girl was uncalled for because you did like her oppinion!
I never heard of Sam Francis and I use to do a lot of reseach on conspiracy indeph this must be a new one...
I stop this search years ago for it was like the occult it was always chaseing the carrot an one never got to bottom of the endless chase or distraction!
sadly you too Liberal Classic and co horts will always be angery for you have no benchmark only the one you think you aquire here in the world...
Someday you will be clueless in the Universe you will have no true rudder or guiding star which you have failed to establish an relationship!
You will have invested all of your time on what is true in this dimension which most will be obsolete in the future leaving you tetherless in eternity!
Beyond here your degrees in education will be useless unless you also reside in a degress of glory!
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