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.”
Is that French? We don't allow no cheese eating surrender monkeys here.
That's movement you do to put your foot on top of the coin that somebody dropped.
Figment or no, your assignment to the janitorial pool remains firmly in place.
On behalf [sudden power surge]
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>>>This hasn't been true since long before you were born. 14th amendment, Section 1.<<<
U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Church of the Holy Trinity vs. United States of 1892, begs to differ. Further, you have no clue when I was born, sonny. All of my public schools showed our nation's traditional respect to Christianity by posting the 10 Commandments and the Law of the Lord in every hallway, and in many classrooms. In all of my public schools the worst danger one could imagine was an occasional fistfight, or a painful paddling by the Principal. That was before the lies of the hateful ACLU, and the former klansman, Hugo Black, corrupted our society -- corrupted it with their lies regarding the original intent of the Constitution, the 1st Amendment and the 14th Amendment -- lies that created an interpretation of the religious clause that did not exist. The ACLU is indeed thankful there are always plenty of useful idiots, like you, to propagate their lies.
All us figments are joined at the central 6502. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.
Does this assimilation take place, incrementally, over a period of time, while one is asleep?
All us figments are joined at the central 6502. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.
Does this assimilation take place, incrementally, over a period of time, while one is asleep?
It happens when you're on FR, but you won't even notice. In fact, the only clue you'll have is that you'll start inadvertently double posting.
It happens when you're on FR, but you won't even notice. In fact, the only clue you'll have is that you'll start inadvertently double posting.
You wrote: "There are some documented inconsistencies in the predictions of CMB, in red shift, and even in visual observations."
LOL. The inconsistencies in the Holy Scriptures would make any person take deep breaths.
The sheer number of faiths claiming they have "knowledge of God" makes one wonder. Surely, they can't all be right, no matter what emotional fervor or personal experiences believers have.
ID offers no explanation of anything. When did the Creation Meddler do his thing? How did He do it--tweaking a DNA gene here and there? Intervening because of prayer?
ID offers nothing of substance to either religion or science.
Read From Darwin to Hitler : Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany (Hardcover)by Richard Weikart - even you can understand the connection between fascism and Darwinism.
It occurs by many small incremental changes over time that lead to microevolution, and then BAM!!! - you give birth to a new kind, type, ilk, variant,........
You are assimilated into the continuum of the all powerful 6502.
But they could all be wrong.
>>>"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?"<<<
Because he can. Man cannot so much as create a grain of sand, without making it look phony. And yet someone or something (certainly not man) created our universe marvelous beyond comprehension: so expansive that when we look at the nearest neighboring galaxy, we are seeing it as it appeared millions of years ago; and so complex that every time we think we understand it we find we know so little as to know nothing.
The difference between the faithful and the atheist is simple: the atheist believes every thing happened by chance (ignoring how it happened in the first place); the faithful believes the future is pre-determined (and therefore the past). That difference will be unresolvable until the end of time.
Hope that helps.
>>>Can you answer "where did existance come from?"<<<
Certainly. It was invented by God, who is without beginning and without end.
"D*mned straight! Real men use Vi; Emacs and pico is for wussies."
Cold Busted!
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