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.
Oh, I did not realize it was your personal creation. I thought it was a kind of physics that was widely accepted at some point.
So, then I could say Chaos Theory is the basis for the Anarchists? String Theory the basis for Socialists? Game Theory the basis for women?
Here again, the bar of impossibility is set up. Science doesn't do that.
IMHO, mathematical theory explains so many of the mysteries of this world. Consider the argument of free will versus determination. (Similar to evolution versus ID?)
Someone recently suggested that maybe it is neither black or white. Our life might be a combination similar to intelligent agents as in agent-based simulation modeling. It is worth considering. Maybe God has an overall plan, but to make life worth living, he allows free will.
A totally deterministic world only encourages socialism and laziness.
Why? Assuming, arguendo, that humans are intelligent and design things, a test for intelligent design ought to be able to tell us that human-designed artifacts are the product of intelligent design.
Where there is organized matter, there is design.
In what sense are snowflakes and salt crystals "designed"?
Design is what separates the intelligible from the intelligible.
If we can understand something, it must have been designed? Why on earth should I believe that?
What emprical, objective, reliable test is there for your existence?
Solipsistic mazes are something you'll have to figure out on your own, I'm afraid - the problem doesn't interest me, because it never leads anywhere interesting.
Marvin Minsky. I like that theory.
Oh, it was. I just advanced the converse, the no-angles theory, like Calvert's 'no-design' theory. I think the analogy is pretty exact.
I've come to believe -- through reading these threads -- that this is one of the key issues facing the U.S. How it is decided will define the country far into the future.
Sure it does - it is impossible for you to exceed the speed of light in a vacuum. Of course, if you can show otherwise, fame and fortune is yours for the taking, but the "showing otherwise" part is your job, not mine.
Well, I guess that just settles it then. lol
You have any clue into that? My brain kinda shut down when I read it.
What is dialectical materialism? A study guide with questions, extracts and suggested reading
No angles, eh? I like it already - physics should be a lot easier without all those damn vectors :)
That's nice, but Marx' ideas were formulated before Darwin published.
1848 Communist Manifesto
1859 Origin of Species
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/spencer-darwin.html
Dueling links. Herbert Spencer -- the forerunner of Ayn Rand -- was a devote capitalist.
Well, I guess that just settles it then. lol
You have any clue into that? My brain kinda shut down when I read it.
The Real Ideological Root of Terrorism DARWINISM AND MATERIALISM
As far as we know today, this is true. It may not always be the case. Besides, you say this not from experience and observation, but because you believe what others have told you.
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."
Perhaps there was more to it that you've not told us, but from just what you have posted, it sounds as if he wasn't doing anything like what TN4Liberty was talking about.
It looks like the prof wasn't telling you that you "couldn't have" a particular belief, he was just asking the class to set aside their preconceptions and keep an open mind to the material that was going to be presented, and/or asking the class not to start a disruptive debate over religion, when biology is religion-neutral.
In short, "evaluate the material on its merits, not immediately reject it because it seems to contradict something you may already believe or not believe." That seems a fair request.
I have a friend who teaches college-level biology, and she has found the need to make a similar statement, just because she has learned that if she doesn't, anti-evolution students start to make a big fuss and disrupt the class with objections as soon as she reaches any "touchy" material in the course material.
To head off such confrontations and keep the peace in the class, she gives a little "speech" the first day which somewhat resembles the one you describe.
A spirited debate followed that reverberated all the way to the dean's office.
Did it really require that, or were you perhaps overreacting to a request to keep an open mind and not just dig your heels in over material you might be predisposed to reject upon its first mention?
Despite an aplogy and invitation from the dean himself to continue the class,
Sigh.
I declined, knowing there was no way I would get fair treatment and didn't wish to take the GPA hit.
Are you *sure* you actually understood the prof's meaning?
Again, perhaps there was more to it than you have mentioned here, but just from what you *have* mentioned it doesn't seem worth starting a war over, or concluding that the prof was going to vindictively penalize you in some way.
In the sense that they become manifest to human intelligence, and thus objects of science. More specifically, they consist of organized matter that behaves consistently under consistent physical laws. Consistency, intelligibility, non-randomness - these are all part of design.
If you want people to believe otherwise, the burden of proof is rightly yours.
Besides, you say this not from experience and observation, but because you believe what others have told you.
The results and the work that produced them are available for anyone to verify for themselves - nobody asks that science be taken on faith, least of all scientists.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.