Intelligent design goes Ivy League: Cornell offers course despite president denouncing theory

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."

Merely offering an alternative to a theory that can't be proven isn't a war against that discipline.

Then why don't/won't creationist and ID advocates do that? Instead of offering "an alternative ... theory," they're skipping that step almost entirely -- and a number of steps immediately following, e.g. testing, publication and peer review -- and asking that curricula be altered to (falsely) suggest that the "alternative" has already been presented, tested, refined, vetted, and achieved scientific standing somehow comparable to evolutionary theory!

> I don't think it makes a person anti-American.

I define "anti-American" as any activity that will negatively impact the future of America and it's citizens *and* the person proposing the action is smart enough to figure that out. Since creationism will serve the purpose of undermining science, and since science is vital to the defence, economy and growth of the US... along with being factually wrong and silly superstitous nonsense, creationism is thus also anti-American.

> Which it's hard to educate someone, when you offend them in every post.

You can't reason someone out of a position they got to via unreasonable means. The knowledge and facts are freely available to every American to know that evolution is a factual and ongoing occurance. The rejection of it is based solely on unreason.

> you don't need to do this to be effective.

Facts and reason, calmly and dispassionately put forward, do not work on those steeped in nonsensical ideology. Try talking a Jihadist out of blowing up a schoolbus full of children or a neo-Nazi out of Holocaust denial.

I have to go with Penn & Teller on this one.

So until we can scientifically determine that there are parallel universes, other dimensions, life in other galaxies, etc., we should ban discussion of those issues in any government forum?

There are many theoretically possible ways that the universe came about. The two most popular around here seem to be:

1) God created the universe and established its laws.

2) The universe just happens to exist and its laws just happen to work the way they do.

We're constantly told that #2 is "science" while #1 is "religion". Of course, that's nonsense.

The same thing applies to how life on earth developed. One school of thought is that God designed it. The other is that it just happens to have somehow evolved on its own. One is just as much based on faith as the other.

This is particularly obvious when evolutionists assert that Christians can believe in evolution. We're told that it's okay for Christians to believe that evolution was the method God used to form the millions of species on earth, including man. But if that's true, then evolution itself is INTELLIGENT DESIGN.

Many of the evolutionists here thus use intelligent design arguments to lure Christians into accepting evolution, without realizing that that's exactly what they're doing. Either God had something to do with how we got here, or He didn't. If He did, we're the product of intelligent design.

I do agree that there are some that you can not reason with. But there are many that you can, but not if you offend them first. The goal doesn't need to be changing their belief, but to educate them as to why it's not taught in schools.

I haven't been on these threads long enough to know whether all the Creationist, ID, and Christians are pushing for it to be taught in schools. I'm a Christian, and I don't advocate it, but then again, we homeschool. Some, may just be defending their belief, apart from education.

I think that you carry this into the realm of fanaticism, and I don't see that. We may just have to disagree on that point.

####Could be, but it makes no difference in the methodology or findings of science. Science, for very good reasons, does not insert entities into the chain of causation that add nothing to the explanation.####

Nor does it prohibit the consideration of them. Nor would science be rendered any less valuable by the existence of God and His involvement in things.

Would it be proper for a federal judge to ban discussion of life in other galaxies in the public schools? How about parallel universes?

This is particularly obvious when evolutionists assert that Christians can believe in evolution. We're told that it's okay for Christians to believe that evolution was the method God used to form the millions of species on earth, including man. But if that's true, then evolution itself is INTELLIGENT DESIGN.

No, it's not. I happened to address this on another thread, here.

In short, equating ID with any and every sort of divine governance of nature makes the doctrine far too vague; and it's already far too vague and noncommittal even in it's "orthodox" form.

Nor would science be rendered any less valuable by the existence of God and His involvement in things.

This is where you are flat out wrong. God presumably has no limits to His scope or method of operations, and scripture tells us his motives are unknowable. This is death to science, where the goal is to find the knowable, consistent, unchanging attributes of the world. No one assuming divine intervention could do any science at all.

Folks like Isaac Newton assumed God started the world and left the machinery untampered, except perhaps for an occasional miracle.

But cosmology, geology, physics and biology are ongoing, not occasional. If you believe the processes of biology are subject to whimsical fiddling, you cannot do science.

####Therefore any person answering this question who believes God used, or normally uses, natural causes in the creation of biological diversity, certainly must reject the essential I.D. position.#### (A quote from the post you linked)

Again, either God had something to do with how we got here, or He didn't. Evolutionists here constantly assert that science says nothing one way or the other about the existence of God. I fully agree with that. But the evolutionists then contradict themselves by asserting that any suggestion that God had anything whatsoever to do with anything is unscientific. It's "unscientific" to suggest that God created the universe and its laws. Science, we're suddenly told, requires us to assume that the universe just happens to exist and its laws just happen to operate the way they do. It's "unscientific" to suggest that God placed the first living cell on earth. Science, we're now told, requires us to assume God had nothing to do with it.

Correct me if I have you confused with someone else, but I believe you have stated that you're a Christian. If so, do you believe God had anything at all to do with how human beings came to exist? Or, to put it another way, if God did not exist, would we be here?

####Folks like Isaac Newton assumed God started the world and left the machinery untampered, except perhaps for an occasional miracle.####

Science says nothing one way or the other about God's existence. Therefore it was not unscientific for Newton to suggest that God started the universe and set up its laws.

####But cosmology, geology, physics and biology are ongoing, not occasional. If you believe the processes of biology are subject to whimsical fiddling, you cannot do science.####

True, but asserting that God set the laws of physics, biology, etc. up, and in fact created the medium in which they exist, is not unscientific unless you define science as EXCLUDING the possibility that God exists.

Newton was a scientist, regardless of his religious beliefs. He was a scientist because he employed empirical methodology and reasoning. He looked for natural causes rather than miracles. He assumed the regularity and consistency of natural phenomena.

Anyone doing this is doing science, regardless of beliefs. Science does not comment one way or the other on the existence of God.

I fail to see what point you are making.

The point is that if science says nothing one way or the other about the existence of God, then it isn't a violation of the rules of science to suggest that God created the universe, created its laws, created life on earth, etc. It isn't mandatory to speculate that God did all those things. It isn't necessary. But it isn't prohibited.

Yet we're told that it is prohibited. That the only scientifically permissable opinion is to assume that God had nothing whatsoever to do with the universe, its laws, life, etc.

Parsimony prohibits multiplying entities beyond necessity. It's a central component of science, almost the defining attribute of science. It would be impossible to do science if you could insert expanatory whizbangs in places where they aren't needed or you don't know the answer.

It's OK to insert whizbangs as long as they have attributes that can be tested and which suggest lines of research.

Correct me if I have you confused with someone else, but I believe you have stated that you're a Christian.

No. I'm a nonreligious philosophical theist. (Strictly speaking I'm an agnostic, but if you consider agnosticism as a spectrum or range of views between atheism and theism, I'm well over to the theistic end.)

If so, do you believe God had anything at all to do with how human beings came to exist?

I tend to believe that God had (and has) everything to do with how everything comes into (and continues in) existence.

Or, to put it another way, if God did not exist, would we be here?

I suspect that the world is dependent on God for it's continued existence. If God were to cease existing, then so would the world.

At the same time I suspect that, while God freely and unstintingly gives the gift of existence to all things, that he also allows them the freedom to exist (and evolve) according to their nature and circumstance. I suspect that, to whatever extent God governs the universe, He does so in a manner that is seamless with respect to the authentic nature of all things, so that the universe will ultimately appear to be complete and coherent from the "naturalistic" perspective. IOW I don't think He uses "miracles". Except in the sense that existence itself is divinely grounded, so that literally everything is "miraculous" to begin with.

Now, since God is distinct from his creation, then there are (at least some) aspects of God that transcend the world. So there may be some "seam" at the point where you pass from the creaturely realm to the divine realm. But I'm not convinced this seam will be visible, or at least readily apparent, from the creaturely side of things.

There are two popular whizbangs. One is God. One is happenstance. I don't see one as being any more scientific than the other.

Here's my opinion about how scientific education should operate. I'm not for taking a Bible into science class. I don't even particularly care if ID is taught as a specific discipline (Behe's ideas, for example). I'd be more than satisfied if evolution was taught as a theory, and if five minutes were spent at the beginning of the semester explaining that science says NOTHING one way or another about God's existence. Therefore, maybe the universe, its laws, its lifeforms couldn't exist without a deity that created them. Maybe it could.

If that was done, few people of faith would concern themselves with this issue. The internet, private schools, and homeschooling are breaking the evolutionist monopoly, one way or the other. But even my modest suggestion would bring down the wrath of the hardcore evolutionists, the ACLU, and the arrogant federal judiciary. We'd be told that to even mention the possibility of God having anything to do with life or the universe would be outrageous. We'd be told that even a single sentence treating evolution as anything other than the single most established fact in the history of the world would be a "constitutional violation".

And so the controversy continues.

All of science has the same problem, not just biology. There is no branch of science that doesn't conflict with someone's religion.

Somewhere in an introductory science class the students should be introduced to empirical methodology, and should be taught that science only deals with what can be studied by empirical methods.

Each religion and each church has its own unique perspective. I don't believe it is possible for a brief statement to reconcile the findings of science with everyone's religion, and I don't think it is up to the school to try.

Again, either God had something to do with how we got here, or He didn't. Evolutionists here constantly assert that science says nothing one way or the other about the existence of God. I fully agree with that. But the evolutionists then contradict themselves by asserting that any suggestion that God had anything whatsoever to do with anything is unscientific.

What's going on here is that science insists -- and ONLY FOR THE PURPOSE OF DOING SCIENCE -- on operational naturalism. IOW you're not allowed to insert the step, "then a miracle occurs," into your scientific theory. If you could do that then any theory with such an element becomes invicibly ad hoc, since a "miracle" can by definition accomplish pretty much any needed end.

It seems that either you're refusing, or you're claiming that scientists covertly refuse, to make a distinction between operational naturalism (which is basically an acknowledgment of the properly limited aims and capabilities of science) and philosophical naturalism (the assertion that the "creaturely" universe is all there is). Some scientists do conflate operational and philosophical naturalism, having in mind individuals like E.O. Wilson or Dawkins, but most don't and I don't think it's a fair characterization of scientists generally. Certainly creationists are FAR MORE likely to conflate the two than are evolutionists.

Again, either God had something to do with how we got here, or He didn't.

Just to further clarify, I do NOT agree, or even come close to agreeing, with the implication that this distinction corresponds to the distinction between "evolution" on the one hand and "intelligent design" or "(antievolutionary) creationism" on the other.

Although I'm a complete amateur on the subject, my unschooled instinct is to think that the problem of God's relationship to the world (or conversely the lack thereof) is one of the key, and one of the most complicated, issues of theology. It seems to me that there are many possible scenarios, and that some (which seem to me to be real possibilities) are completely consistent with a thoroughgoing "evolutionary" view of nature, and inconsistent with an ID (and consequently "interventionist") view.

IOW, the mere acknowledgment that "God had something to do with how we got here," at least by itself, without significant elaboration, I think takes you almost nowhere toward answering the question of how exactly the "getting here" occurred. There is some connection, especially if you do have an elaborated theological theory about God's relation to the world, but I think the two are for the most part distinct questions.

#####It seems that either you're refusing, or you're claiming that scientists covertly refuse, to make a distinction between operational naturalism (which is basically an acknowledgment of the properly limited aims and capabilities of science) and philosophical naturalism (the assertion that the "creaturely" universe is all there is).#####

I fully understand the distiction between operational and philosophical naturalism. That's why I noted above that Newton was not in violation of the rules of science when he suggested that God created the universe and its laws, and proceeded to study the universe and those laws.

####Some scientists do conflate operational and philosophical naturalism, having in mind individuals like E.O. Wilson or Dawkins, but most don't and I don't think it's a fair characterization of scientists generally. Certainly creationists are FAR MORE likely to conflate the two than are evolutionists.####

Most scientists probably don't confuse the two, but the ones that are very active in the evo-crevo wars usually do. I doubt that most scientists would object to my earlier suggestion that five minutes be spent at the beginning of the semester explaining that science can neither confirm nor refute God's existence, and that the universe may or may not be dependent on God. But the activist evolutionist scientists would be in court in no time. To them, an acknowledgement that science cannot refute God's existence is the same thing as telling the kiddies that God exists, and they can't tolerate that. Science, to them, must assume God doesn't exist.

As for creationists confusing the two (operational and philosophical) more than scientists, it depends on which scientists we're talking about. Creationists don't confuse the two any more than most politically active evolutionists.

Doesn't theistic evolution confuse operational and philosophical naturalism? Yet, the evolutionists here promote it constantly as a way that Christians can both believe in God and accept evolution. Of course,, as they give with one hand, they take away with another, as they also won't allow theistic evolution to be taught in the schools.

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