Posted on 11/28/2005 6:54:46 AM PST by Right Wing Professor
Intelligent design — already the planned subject of a controversial Kansas University seminar this spring — will make its way into a second KU classroom in the fall, this time labeled as a “pseudoscience.”
In addition to intelligent design, the class Archaeological Myths and Realities will cover such topics as UFOs, crop circles, extrasensory perception and the ancient pyramids.
John Hoopes, associate professor of anthropology, said the course focused on critical thinking and taught how to differentiate science and “pseudoscience.” Intelligent design belongs in the second category, he said, because it cannot be tested and proven false.
“I think this is very important for students to be articulate about — they need to be able to define and recognize pseudoscience,” Hoopes said.
News of the new class provided fresh fuel to conservatives already angered that KU planned to offer a religious studies class this spring on intelligent design as “mythology.”
“The two areas that KU is trying to box this issue into are completely inappropriate,” said Brian Sandefur, a mechanical engineer in Lawrence who has been a vocal proponent of intelligent design.
Intelligent design is the idea that life is too complex to have evolved without a “designer,” presumably a god or other supernatural being. That concept is at the heart of Kansas’ new public school science standards — greatly ridiculed by the mainstream science community but lauded by religious conservatives — that critique the theory of evolution.
Hoopes said his class would be a version of another course, titled Fantastic Archaeology, which he helped develop as a graduate student at Harvard University.
The course will look at the myths people have created to explain mysterious occurrences, such as crop circles, which some speculate were caused by extraterrestrials.
The course will explore how myth can be created to negative effects, as in the case of the “myth of the moundbuilders.” In early American history, some people believed the earthen mounds found primarily in the area of the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys were the works of an ancient civilization destroyed by American Indians. The myth contributed to the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which relocated American Indians east of the Mississippi to lands in the west, Hoopes said.
“It was that popular explanation that then became a cause for genocide,” Hoopes said.
That example shows the need to identify pseudoscience, he said.
“What I’m trying to do is deal with pseudoscience regardless of where it’s coming from,” he said.
But Sandefur said intelligent design was rooted in chemistry and molecular biology, not religion, and it should be discussed in science courses.
“The way KU is addressing it I think is completely inadequate,” he said.
Hoopes said he hoped his class stirs controversy. He said students liked to discuss topics that are current and relevant to their lives.
“Controversy makes people think,” he said. “The more controversy, the stronger the course is.”
This is not evolution. This is social development.
That is exactly what I meant and said. I just pointed out that geographically isolated populations do develop different characteristics.
Races are subspecies. In fact the terms mean the same thing in regards to talking about animals. In a political climate though, we separate the terms somewhat.
quantum mechanics
I'll be real interested to see where Quantum phyics goes in the next few decades.
In forensics study, one finds a potential crime scene. Within it are a mutlititude of factors thay may have for example lead to someone's death.
The arrangement of factors can upon examination grow to a level of complex relationship such that it is no longer reasonable to presume that the death was an accident. The array of observed factors is too complex to allow for chance as the cause.
Similar reasoning proceses are used to assess voter fraud. Are a set of flawed ballots and accident of deliberate? The task of proving deliberate fraud falls to establishing an array of complex causes that cannot be reduced to chance.
As I said before, most science draws on this type of reasoning process.
I am unsurprised to find that censored books are popular.
ID has been around for hundreds of years. In its present form it has been around since 1802, unchanged and without modification in any particular.
ID has provided the impetus for exactly zero research. It has provide not a single testable hypothesis or prediction.
Currently, it's most vocal proponents -- Behe and Denton -- have ceded the concepts of common descent and the age of the earth. As far as a hypothesis for change that distinguishes ID from Darwinism, they have exactly nothing; they sit where ID sat 200 years ago. If there is to be a debate, ID will have to come up with an actual argument.
Festival of ID -- the Prediction-Free Theory!
Where do you expect quantum physics to go?
You wrote: "Its hard to understand why studies of theology would relate to inferences between the scientific conclusion of a designer toward the further belief that the designer is God."
I don't understand your position. Are you saying that Christian Scientists who reject the Germ Theory of Disease should get equal time in medical schools? Do you think that the Theory of Demonical Possession and Exorcism should supplant treatment for stroke victims?
Where are you going to draw the line between real science and any religious or cult notion that comes along?
You can't disprove the idea that angels make airplanes fly, but I sure prefer good old secular engineering.
Where do you expect quantum physics to go?
It's getting into stuff that science has not really dealt with before. I'm not an expert and don't know a whole lot about it, but I find it fascinating.
You can't disprove the idea that angels make airplanes fly,
You mean they don't??? Oh crap...
You may be an ape, I won't argue with you, but I was made by God in the image of God, to know him, love him and serve him.
You don't serve God or man by denying his handiwork and telling impressionable minds that God didn't create the universe, but rather there was a big bang, from what????
When I was in the 8th grade in 1962, our biology teacher explained that a wholly new life was created at conception, throughout the animal and plant kingdoms. Today, she wouldn't be allowed to say that. Not because it's not true, but because of political pressure.
That's the force behind evolution's exclusive position in American education, political pressure.
Yep, politics has confused the issue. As I've said before, I believe in creationism, but I've never had a problem with science. Too many people apply their opposition to evolution to encompass science in general.
That is unfortunate because we wouldn't have a whole heck of a lot without science. I actually believe that God inspires certain scientists to make new discoveries. I have never had any conflict whatsoever, even though I'm a strong Christian.
but I was made by God in the image of God, to know him, love him and serve him.
I think we all were originally.
Science has been dealing with the issues of quantum effects since the late 1890s. The general formulation of quantum theory hasn't changed much since 1928. What specifically do you have in mind?
I may be in the wrong area, but I'm talking about relatively new stuff like string theory and all the new kinds of particles and stuff they are discovering with all new behaviors. That is stuff that has changed a LOT since 1928.
Charles Darwin was gay? And had ten children anyway? Wow. Must have been really closeted.
They have to. Astronomy and geology are consistent with an earth that is billions of years old. Physics is consistent with the methods of radiometric dating for fossils and rock strata. Organic chemistry is consistent with the structure of DNA that supports common descent. It all fits together. To deny evolution is to deny all the evidence from all of science that supports the theory.
Creationists are not only anti science, but when you pin them down, many are openly anti-reason. This isn't good for conservatism.
Race is largely irrelevent from an anthropological standpoint, because variation within races is much greater than variation between races.
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