Revelation 4:11
Constantly searching for objectivity in the evolution debate...
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Posted on 04/11/2006 10:34:58 AM PDT by SirLinksalot
Intelligent design goes Ivy League
Cornell offers course despite president denouncing theory
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Posted: April 11, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
Cornell University plans to offer a course this summer on intelligent design, using textbooks by leading proponents of the controversial theory of origins.
The Ivy League school's course – "Evolution and Design: Is There Purpose in Nature?" – aims to "sort out the various issues at play, and to come to clarity on how those issues can be integrated into the perspective of the natural sciences as a whole."
The announcement comes just half a year after Cornell President Hunter Rawlings III denounced intelligent design as a "religious belief masquerading as a secular idea."
Proponents of intelligent design say it draws on recent discoveries in physics, biochemistry and related disciplines that indicate some features of the natural world are best explained as the product of an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection. Supporters include scientists at numerous universities and science organizations worldwide.
Taught by senior lecturer Allen MacNeill of the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology department, Cornell's four-credit seminar course will use books such as "Debating Design," by William Dembski and Michael Ruse; and "Darwin's Black Box," by Michael Behe.
The university's Intelligent Design Evolution Awareness club said that while it's been on the opposite side of MacNeill in many debates, it has appreciated his "commitment to the ideal of the university as a free market-place of ideas."
"We have found him always ready to go out of his way to encourage diversity of thought, and his former students speak highly of his fairness," the group said. "We look forward to a course where careful examination of the issues and critical thinking is encouraged."
Intelligent design has been virtually shut out of public high schools across the nation. In December, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones' gave a stinging rebuke to a Dover, Pa., school board policy that required students of a ninth-grade biology class to hear a one-minute statement that says evolution is a theory, and intelligent design "is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view."
Jones determined Dover board members violated the U.S. Constitution's ban on congressional establishment of religion and charged that several members lied to cover their motives even while professing religious beliefs.
"The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy," Jones wrote. "It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy."
Academic freedom at Cornell? Who woulda thought?
There is nothing wrong with ID being taught in school - its only when they teach it in science class as valid science that it threatens the future of the country.
Well, no matter what side of the evolution/ID debate you are on, what's wrong with it as a college elective course? Hopefully it promotes critical thinking, discussion, etc., in a more learned atmosphere. This is certainly preferable to confusing 8th and 9th graders with what is a much more scientifically detailed debate, which is whether there are legitimate scientific questions about evolution.
It happens oocasionally. That is how you get full prof freepers at Cornell.
ping
Placemarker
I concur. It's a hopeful sign for Cornell. The dominance of colleges and universities by woefully ignorant liberals has to end sometime, and this may be an early indicator of change.
Related issue going on here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1613178/posts
It is being taught in the hard sciences. I'm wondering what the level of the coursework will be. If it is graduate level, the students will ahve a much deeper understanding of biological sciences than the majority of people in the crevo debates. This may be an elective that will simply be testing students by dissecting faulty ID concepts.
I think you'll get a good idea of where the instructor is coming from here.
This link shows that the professor thinks modern day ID (the kind espoused by DI) is religion.
Teach the controvesy! Support academic freedom! Teach critical thinking!
[But just 'cuz we finally got ID into a science class doesn't mean you can criticize it. That's not what we wanted at all! You just gotta belieeeeeeeeeeeeve!]
If that is the intent, I don't think it will work. I suspect those who take this class will be quite versed in ID and evolution, and will not let the lecturer get away with B.S. comments denigrating ID.
They say that the Evos believe that life evolved through nondirect, materialistic processes.
But the Non-Evos counter: we need to prove that life came from non-life or abiogenesis. And we need then a change from simple life forms to more complex forms over time.
The Evos say: We could talk about competing models and so forth... so as to have a starting point in this game of life.
The Non-Evos counter:
If we don't know how this game started by naturalistic, evolutionary processes then how do we know that it happened by naturalistic and evolutionary processes?
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I understand that micro-evolution exists but macro evolution is somewhat of a stretch for me at this point. Macro-evo, I don't believe is fact unless abiogenesis is fact. This is not about science, necessarily... it's has much to do with philosophy.
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The point of the IDer's, I think, is to not be pigeonholed by some definition of Science... but rather to consider other truths that exists but can't be pushed into a test tube... or tested empirically.
And I don't think they are saying that we should run around claiming that God did everything.
Btw, at what point does does Anecdotal data become Empirical data?
I agree the merits or demerits of Intelligent Design (or for that matter Probabilistic Design) can not be rationally or even adequately discussed at the middle school or high school level. In general teachers at these levels are too poorly trained in science to do any more then rote teach facts out of a textbook. That's a hard enough problem considering how bad textbooks are at that level.
Given the professor's background, this actually looks like it could be an interesting and thought provoking course. I wonder if they will record it for further dissemination?
> Academic freedom at Cornell? Who woulda thought?
Whoulda thought they'd take the opportunity afforded by academic freedom to teach politically correct rubbish? Guess what, they did.
Coming up next: Ouiji boards and phrenology.
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