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.”
Are they going to relegate the big bang to this “pseudoscience" as well? Last I heard, it can't be tested or proven false either...well, other than by logic.
"Wrong. In fact, very wrong. You'd think people would know by now how how false this statement is. Yet people keep claiming it, in willful disregard for the truth."
I will research these references further as the statements made do not provide any detail for the argument.
However, at first glance, none of the examples made with these references show where a species became something else. There only appear to several examples of variations of subspecies which are expected within a given gene pool.
I maintain that Lizards do no grow feathers because they 'need them' and complex life does not develop from simple life to 'adapt' as is maintained by the Evolution community. Any argument to define this outright speculation as 'science' is absurd.
There has never been an example of one species turning into something else?
Hah! False!
Last night, my dad walked down the street and turned into a bar.
Saw it with my own eyes.
"By the same standard, your theory fails because my little blonde granddaughter doesn't look like an ape and if you say she does, you're in a world of trouble, pal."
She is an ape, as we all are.
As with most things, 10 generations hence will laugh at our simplistic explanations. An evolution textbook will be mistaken for satire.
"As with most things, 10 generations hence will laugh at our simplistic explanations. An evolution textbook will be mistaken for satire."
And your post will still not be mistaken as having a point.
You wrote: "Behe is not religious! But because his research could support Christians, we must take great alarm and protect the sacred domain of science which has always worked best when protected from inquiry?!"
On the contrary, Michael Behe under oath on the stand in the Dover trial explicitly said:
Behe: “the designer is God ….I concluded that based on theological, philosophical and historical facts.”
Note that Behe did NOT say "scientific facts" or "observations". This shows what Behe's real agenda is.
"You asked for a verified example, and I gave you one -- How about Homo erectus =====> Homo sapiens. Now you want it to have been observed and reproducible?
By your requirements, physical observation and reproducibility, pretty much nothing can be demonstrated. You are not doing science."
"physical observation and reproducibility" are not my definition of science but the accepted definition of science.
from http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/courses-jmgay/GlossScience.htm
Scientific Research: The systematic, controlled, empirical and critical investigation of hypothetical propositions about the presumed relations among natural phenomena (Kerlinger, 1964). The objective inquiry into natural phenomena using currently accepted investigation procedures, the immediate product of which is evidence, with the objective of discovering how that aspect of the physical world works. It is an empirical, conceptual system of learning about the physical world that organizes publicly observable facts and reasoning within a structure of theories and inferences. The methods of inquiry are constructed to minimize the effects of natural human biases in observation and interpretation. By convention, the evidence, the procedures used to acquire it, and subsequent interpretation is subjected to peer evaluation as a prelude to publication in the primary literature where it is publicly available for further scrutiny and use.
Scientific Knowledge: The current set of peer-evaluated consensus models about how natural phenomena work, which often differ between groups of researchers at the research frontier. These models are established by evidence obtained from critical scientific inquiry that has been subjected to peer evaluation and replication. All scientific knowledge contains varying degrees of uncertainty and is constantly at varying risk of being modified or discarded as the result of evidence from further inquiry. Models are disproved by multiple findings of discrepant evidence, which is often the result of improvements in measurement technology. Discrepant findings are weakened by failure of legitimate independent replication and are strengthened by their success. Many repeated studies of the same design and execution that result in the same evidence do not significantly increase the likelihood that the model of the phenomena is correct. Similarly, a belief is not strengthened (converted to knowledge) by the weight of the number of people who hold it.
My point is that 150 years into this field of study of an ancient universe, you'd have to be crazy to think you've found all the answers.
Based on your snotty, defensive reply, I'm increasing my stake in my position. Future generations will giggle at what you thought.
You heard wrong. Google "cosmic microwave background".
You wrote:
"Evolutionists ... know they have not found all the answers."
You've ceded my point, of which you accused me of not having one.
Nice turn of events for me. :)
What is "randomness". It appears to be the the way
we handle and analyze events that we cannot predict at
this time. I don't think randomness should be applied to
any scientific inquiry, other than as a clue gathering
sieve, (i.e. if one event occurs more often than another in
a system, that supersedes mathematical probability predictions,
then that event may have a cause that needs investigation
at this time). I believe that scientific inquiry is supposed
to get rid of "randomness" eventually, and if it cannot,
is that because we are too ignorant, or is it because
the universe is not there for our understanding?
Maybe you can explain why creationists drag homosexuality into crevo debates so often.
But I betcha some IDers will still not be satisfied!
I'm an IDer and I resent it being included as a pseudoscience, but for a completely different reason than one would think. Soem IDers insist that the "higher power" mentioned is not God. That degrades it more than anything. That higher power is indeed God and nothing else. Saying it is not opens it up to being equated with aliens and such (ask George Noory). ID is chiefly faith-based, no ifs, ands, or buts.
Silly boy, please place me on your ignore list too.
What is the connection between the example of curing the common
cold with Vitamin C and not having demonstrated it
in real life, in real (i.e. our) time, and the claim that
life as we know it, all "evolved" randomly from soups/mixtures of
chemicals when that hasn't been demonstrated in real time
either?
I don't mind it being mentioned briefly, but I hate both sides making it into a political circus.
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