I consider that to be a non-sequitur of sorts. Qualified, precise language, as well as mild disclaimers, are honest ways of presenting what we know and why we claim to know it. Such things belong in a science class precisely because it is fraught with philosophical and religious underpinnings. To extrapolate from the admittance of ID the admittance of every disjointed notion is to introduce a red herring. There is a measured and mature way for both atheistic and theistic assumptions to be brought to bear if/when necessary.
The debate is overblown in a way, because even though most school textbooks present only the atheistic point of view, they do so only slightly, yet without good reason; they state with confidence things that should be stated with qualification, but they do so within an exceedingly limted framework, little of which is germane to empirical science.
As for astrology in astronomy class, I think that would be a good way to introduce the subject since astronomy stands on the shoulders of those who first observed the stars and tried to make sense of them. That is to say, astrology contains a fair amount of science. And by now you know I grant a wide meaning to the word "science," similar to that of Alamo Girl.
Wide enough to include fantasies, superstition, and unsupported desires mistaken for belief, among other things...
Call that kind of mish-mash what you will, but do not insult our intelligence -- or your own -- by calling it "science". It isn't.
Science is, quite simply, *the* most incredibly effective and productive method ever found for separating sense from nonsense, truth from falsehood, knowledge from speculation. It is the most powerful means in all of human history for extracting reliable knowledge from the Universe. It has done more to make fundamental discoveries, enhance living standards, produce workable results, etc., than *any* other method of searching for knowledge. Indeed, it has done so vastly better and produce vastly more real results than *ALL* other methods combined, including philosophy, religion, intuition, or anything else you care to list. And it has done so by a careful refinement and accumulation of methods which are demonstrably reliable and effective.
You can not arbitrarily "include" methods known to be shaky and unreliable and still have it be *science*, although I know that this is a popular attempt by those (including the IDers and other mystics) who wish to dishonestly stretch "science" to include their own pet superstitions by "expanding" the definition of science. The deep and fundamental dishonesty of this is that they're trying to wrap their untested (and often *untestable*) beliefs in the authority of science -- but they do so by *undermining* the very essence of science (it's methodical reliability) in an attempt to falsely give their claims an air of scientific validation THAT THEIR CLAIMS HAVE NOT ACTUALLY EARNED.
And let's revisit that "testability" requirement for a moment, since it bears on something that the critics of science seldom seem to properly grasp (and instead just ludicrously ridicule it without understanding with childishly inappropriate analogies like "tunnelvisioned bloodhounds", as if scientific inquiry isn't the vastly wide-ranging activity that it actually is).
Some think that the "requirements of science" are some sort of "club" that erects artificial restrictions to keep out the "unwanted" viewpoints. But that's not the case.
Instead, the scientific method has been developed over the centuries to incorporate reliable methods of acquiring valid knowledge, and avoid unreliable methods.
And the reason that "testable" and "falsifiable" are such large parts of that method is because they get to the core essense of telling sense from nonsense. Or even more to the point, useful knowledge from useless notions.
And that's the crux of the issue. If an idea isn't "scientifically testable", it's because it has *no* real-world consequences. It doesn't affect reality, or if it does, it does so in no predictable or useful ways. It is, in every sense of the word, a useless idea. An idea which has no practical value, which makes no difference, which produces no results. In short, it's an idea that doesn't make any difference whether it's true or not.
Useful ideas *are* testable. Useless ones are not.
Science deals with useful ideas. Useless ones are outside of its scope. For some reason, this seems to bug the hell out of some people, so they feel they have to denigrate science, or smugly declare that there are "larger truths" or "other methods" of determining truth (despite the notably poor performance of those other methods over the past several thousand years), in order to cling to the hope that their preferred philosophies might "really" be true in some "higher" sense, despite the fact that they can't be found useful (and therefore testable) in any *real* sense in this *real* world.
If that's your goal, just be honest enough to come out and say so, but don't try to denigrate science for failing to find any support for your view, or try to dishonestly "stretch" science (to the point where it loses its reliability) in a cheap attempt to *pretend* that your views have been given a scientific seal of approval. You can't have it both ways.
As betty boop has pointed out on several threads, the German language preserves the original meaning: "Wissenschaft encompasses both Naturwissenschaften — the natural sciences — as well as Geisteswissenschaften — the humanities." The Greek counterpart, episteme is the "totality of human knowledge comprised by all the knowledge disciplines at any given time."
js1138, concerning my response to you at post 682, I would offer the fourth paragraph in post 704 as an example.
I gotta hand it to you Fester. Every time I think you can't make a sillier, more uninformed post than your previous one, you go ahead and top yourself. I think you would be more comfortable living amongst the reality-based community instead of FR.