[freespirited]

Lipskar met head-on the suggestions by some that intelligent design is meant as a "back door" to putting religion in schools. "It's not a back door, it's a front door!" he said. "But the objective is not to make people religious. It's to make them understand that the world was put into place by an intelligent being. We are not random chemical reactions."

But decree is antithetical to scientific understanding.

The fact remains that intelligent design is not a scientific theory. At best it is set of criticisms of debatable legitimacy. At worst, well, I won't go there.

My high school science teachers never demanded that my Sunday school teachers present biochemistry on Sunday morning, and at the moment, I am wishing the good rabbi would resist the urge to meddle in the biology curriculum.

[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

Ah but you are being deceptive. Your high school science teachers did insert themselves into your Sunday School class by claiming that Genesis is false. At minimum those who believe Genesis should have the opportunity to defend themselves in the environment where the false charge is made.

[rrr51]

I keep hearing that ID is not a scientific theory. That's right, but evolution isn't either. Like ID, it can't be disproved and it doesn't predict anything.

[NJ_gent]

"My high school science teachers never demanded that my Sunday school teachers present biochemistry on Sunday morning, and at the moment, I am wishing the good rabbi would resist the urge to meddle in the biology curriculum."

You make a good point. Perhaps physics professors should be taking Sunday schools to court to demand they teach alternate theories of things like Jesus walking on water. It could be explained that Jesus walking on water was only one 'theory', and that others include that he was actually walking on sand in a very shallow part of the water, or that heat produced a mirage of water under his feet. If some people feel the need to inject religious beliefs into the science classroom, perhaps others should look into injecting some science into the religious classroom.

Personally, I think that both are equally inappropriate.

[DallasMike]

But decree is antithetical to scientific understanding.

Exactly. So why the frantic effort over preventing intelligent design from being taught? If it really is such a bad theory it will be shot down. And if evolutionary theory is not a decree, as Intelligent Designers say that it is, then it should stand up quite easily.

My high school science teachers never demanded that my Sunday school teachers present biochemistry on Sunday morning, and at the moment, I am wishing the good rabbi would resist the urge to meddle in the biology curriculum.

There are plenty of people of faith who are also highly-credentialed scientists and their contributions to the dialogue need to be taken seriously. Why deny them the ability to speak in the public square?

Science deals with explaining observable facts. The standard theory of evolution has problems explaining some of those facts. That doesn't mean that we should toss away the idea of evolution entirely but it does mean that those unexplainable facts need to be looked at from the perspective of other theories.

For the record, I am not a young-earth creationist. I believe that evolution is a fact, that it has occurred throughout history, and that it is the best explanation of many observable facts. There are some facts though which cannot be explained by evolution without a lot of hand-waving and faith. I have degrees in chemistry and chemical engineering and thus tend to be more concerned with the chemistry end of things. Evolution is not so good at explaining things at this level. Behe's discussions of irreducible complexity should be taken seriously.