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.”
You wrote: "You either have chance or design. Unless you have come up with a third way?"
Reply: What is your problem with chance? You--as all of us--are a product of chance. Which people met and had offspring. Which egg and which sperm actually met. Before that, in meiosis, which of the parent's DNA was incorporated in the splitting of genes to the haploid structure of the ovum and spermatozoon. What is there about chance that upsets you?
Perhaps you think that every sperm is directed by a god to go to a particular ovum and everything is pre-determined after that. This would be a a view that rejects free will. If everything is pre-determined, we don't need discussions.
So what is your problem with chance?
Hey, now!
Only if you put your money on 24 too. Otherwise it is a rigged wheel.
I saw that once in a casino, but when I mentioned it to the guy doing the wheel, he went nuts.
Oh man. I hope I don't get a reply on it. It was an argument that I was trying to avoid.
Chance---plus selective pressures.
But if you think you can shut me up, you haven't been reading your own posting history. Your posts amount to "You're stupid, you theocrat" and the other version--"Isn't she a stupid theocrat, Beevis?" The only shutting up that'll accomplish is to bore. But put me on "ignore," if you like. Bore and ignore.
I'm not really talking to you, after all.
Cool, I didn't know you had a blog. That one just got added to the bookmarks.
If I throw a ball onto a roulette wheel and it lands on 24, is that chance or design?
It is the one-time result of having thrown a ball one-time on a roulette wheel.
>>>And ID doesn't even have an idea about when the "intelligent meddler" did his/her thing. Having set up a Universe, with zillions of stars and planets, does the "Creator" allow natural laws to just go along or does it meddle from time to time? Based on what whim?<<<
The future state of rewards and punishments, maybe? Certainly the power of God is far beyond our comprehension; but there is little evidence that mankind would have survived the evils of mankind had not the doctrine of Christ spread throughout the civilized world. That is, it is highly probable we would not be free, or even alive, to be in this debate except God had sent us a savior to alter the course of history about 2000 years ago.
So, does he meddle? The Bible says he does. History says he does. Even scientists say he does (except for the closed-minded). But there is one way to be certain: if prophecy comes true, he meddles.
So, thanks for coming up with a third alternative. Where does that leave your argument?
>>>Please feel free to list any specific instances of this you've encountered.<<<
You, for instance. Your friends in the ACLU, for instance. The secular left in general, for instance. Need any more instances?
I've quoted no meddler, no book, no miasma nor plasma. I was discussing the evolution of online discourse, and the impoverished rhetoric of the evo-spammers here on FR . Your imagination has supplied the miasma (?!) and other stuff. But, evos so often assume other stuff.
he meddles.
That's some heavy meddle.
Um, how about Christian God? Believe it now?
Always have.
Well, we sure know that an evo couldn't play bluegrass.
It's mostly local politics. The world does not need yet one more uninformed opinion on Plamegate or the war in Iraq.
Whatever you say, Phil.
Well, we sure know that an evo couldn't play bluegrass.
Not with it being winter anyway. It's all covered.
>>>It's a fantasy cooked up by Michael Behe to sell books to suckers.<<<
Rather, it is a stumblingblock to anti-God secularists who cling to the cult callied "evolution". That is why evolutionists are so adamant that his theories be suppressed.
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