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.”
All 6 boys in my family have a hairy mane on the back of their necks. My one brother's mane goes all the way down his back.
>>>It was the preponderance of evidence that gave evolution it's position as one of the best supported sciences.<<<
Or, it was the first time self-proclaimed athiests found a way (scientific, if you must) to challenge the universal belief that God created the heaven, the earth, and all its hosts.
>>>Humans ourselves are the last surviving subspecies of the species Homo sapiens -- which also at one point included Archaic Homo sapiens, Homo sapiens idaltu , Homo heidelbergensis, Neandertals, and, quite possibly, H. erectus/ergaster.<<<
This is faith-based myth.
>>>ID is thousands of years old and thus far is batting zero.<<<
Then why are evolutionists so afraid of it?
If you'd like a fuller exposition on the new Kansas standards and why they're falsehoods, see my blog.
Only if the designer is a lunatic, working at cross-purposes with Himself (designing opposing systems that fight one another), and trying to make it look (for Mysterious Purposes) as if evolution is the driving force. Apparently this Designer of yours changes his designs over time to produce a fossil record that matches the predictions of evolution. A Designer doesn't have to do that. Also He inserts retroviruses into DNA that match the predictions of evolution. A Designer doesn't have to do that either. He places a different species of flightless bird on every oceanic island. Why? He places fossil marsupials in antarctica. Why? He designs whales with vestigial legs hidden inside their bodys, and then creates a fossil sequence of creatures that look like land-dwellers slowly losing their legs over millions of years. Why?
Evolutionists are anti-science cultists who absolutely refuse to allow anyone to question the fundamental teachings of their cult. More generally, Evolutionists fall into the "Flat-Earth" category; Behe is their Gallileo.
You are aware I am sure that Behe accepts the following:
How many of those tenets of ID do you support?
Can you answer "where did existance come from?"
It is interesting that humans have blood types A, B, AB, O and a number of variations, for example, Rh factor plus or minus. Chimps have three of these types. In most other mammals, blood types are not recognized. Erythrocytes came lately in mammalian evolution. Earlier life forms merely circulated the molecules in the blood.
It is very supportive of evolution that blood evolved around the haemo-porphyrin molecule. The chlorophyll molecule is also based on a porphryin ring, but at the center is a magnesium atom instead of an iron atom.
Some animals use a copper-based molecule for oxygen transport to tissues. Lobsters, for example.
The creator of "intelligent design" obviously made a lot of experiments trying to "get it right".
Perhaps "trial and error" played a large role in the "creator's creation"?
This was true until July 9, 1868.
LOL. You are some comedian!
You stated speciation did not exist, and now several people have posted evidence to the contrary. And your response -- LOL.
If you cannot bring anything better to the discussion why do you bother?
Do you have any evidence to show that Homo erectus did not lead to Homo sapiens. Or is it your religious belief that contradicts this?
Sometimes the intellectually honest answer is *We don't know.*
This is one of those times.
I don't think anyone knows ALL the answers. I sure don't.
I'm not afraid of it. I just don't want it taught in science class, because it doesn't meet the basic standards of science; observation, predictions, falsifiability. I am in favour of religion classes at public schools, where such things can be freely and uncontroversially taught.
Math nothing. There are no theories in Behe's theories.
"I don't think anyone knows ALL the answers. I sure don't."
Nor do I. :)
Quarks, gluons, the "colors" etc. The generations of matter: strange, charmed, etc.
Certainly, if you think it's driven by randomness, you are seriously misinformed.
Then what drives evolution then, Prof? You either have chance or design. Unless you have come up with a third way?
Wish i even knew .00000001% of answers
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