Posted on 03/12/2009 3:40:45 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
This past weekend I was speaking on the Intelligent Design vs. Evolution debate. After my lecture a student approached me and asked, “Mr. Carlson, when I tried to defend Intelligent Design in my public school science class, my teacher asked me, ‘which version of Intelligent Design are you talking about? Christian? Native American? Hindu?’ He went on to say to me, ‘If you want to talk about Intelligent Design, you can’t avoid having to give equal time to everybody’s story of creation. This is why it’s best to leave religion out of the science classes.’ Well, I didn’t know how to respond to this.”
This student was faced with a common response from opponents to Intelligent Design. Many who oppose the Intelligent Design position will argue that as soon as you open the door to supernatural creation, you necessarily open the door to any and every version of supernatural creation ever postulated by humanity. However, this just isn’t the case.
The reality is, in regards to the debate over whether or not Intelligent Design should be considered in our public school science classrooms, we are still dealing with the world of science, observation and experimentation. The fact of the matter is this, all people, no matter what religion or philosophy they adhere to, have access to the very same observable scientific evidence. So, whether you’re coming at it from an Atheistic perspective, Christian perspective, Native American perspective, or Hindu perspective, all of us have the same access to the observable scientific evidence. Now, with this being the case, we must ask two questions, but ask them in their appropriate environments: 1) In our public school science classrooms we should ask, “Does the scientific evidence point towards Naturalistic evolution or Intelligent Design?” And 2) Outside of our public school science classrooms we should ask, “Which religious worldview best explains the scientific evidence?”
The Intelligent Design position can be used by whatever religious worldview that wants to attach itself to it. However, those religious worldviews all have the equal challenge of explaining how their creation story best coincides with the observable scientific evidence. So, if you want to embrace a Native American creation story, you have to explain how it fits with the scientific evidence that we all equally share; the same is true for Christians, Hindus, etc… but this should be done outside of our public school science classrooms.
The point of all of this is that Intelligent Design is not about advocating one religious version of creation over another in our public schools. Intelligent Design is simply a position that points out the scientific evidence for some Intelligent Designer found throughout the natural world. Science cannot answer the question of who or what that Intelligent Designer is, but science can lead us to the conclusion that an Intelligent Designer must have been involved. It is left to the various religions to demonstrate why their version of the creation story best fits the scientific evidence for Intelligent Design.
So, what should be taught in our public school science classrooms? We should teach the scientific evidence for and against evolution and the scientific evidence for and against Intelligent Design. However, for those who are persuaded towards Intelligent Design, and who have the further desire to identify the Intelligence behind the Design, this is a pursuit that is rightly taken up outside of our public school science classrooms.
I hate to tell you this but there is no scientific evidence for Intelligent Design.
Well...... at least you’ve got half of the problem solved.
Oh and congrats for posting what is sure to be a wonderful flame filled thread.
How about a nice mathematical model of the genome, showing that if mutations were random, evolution could not have occurred in the time available.
Your statement is a contradiction in terms.
and the existence of a watch is not scientific evidence that there was a watch designer
I agree. scientific and ID in the same sentence...my bad.
LOL
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070319114440.htm
“Calabrese’s model fits with and helps to explain this finding. Since the last common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans lived 6 to 7 million years ago, the model predicts that enough time has passed for humans to evolve a distinct set of hotspots.”
And that was just the first google hit.
It’s not really fair to call evolution completely “random.” Species can quickly (on geological time scales here) differentiate themselves when they face sudden new environmental pressures too. There is an element of “randomness” to it, in that there are genetic mutations from mis-copying (or cosmic-ray type mutations), but a sudden change in food supply or the introduction of a new predator (or prey) can also greatly accelerate the selection process.
Think of how many completely different varieties of dogs there are nowadays, thanks to the bizaar selection pressures we put on them. 20-30,000 years ago, they were probably fairly similar wolves.
In my opinion, teachers should leave origins out of all science classes, and use the time for teaching science. The teacher’s answer was a cop out anyhow, as there are certainly different takes on evolution, but why bother with them? Neither evolutionists or creationists can go back in time to prove their points, and it hardly matters since neither is necessary for teaching the hard sciences, including the biological sciences. When asked if a cell evolved or was created or maybe a little of both, say, “Spend more time learning its parts and function and how to identify what you see.” Leave the rest for philosophy and theology. If we dropped all the extracurricular theorizing on origins, we might prepare more kids to go into the hard sciences in college. Let them worry about their belief systems as they apply to their studies after they learn what they need to know.
The next time you see a watch growing on a bush, give me a call.
This ought to be good - remember to show your work!
So in other words, in a science classroom for any and every question, all the teacher has to do is to default to the standard answer that says - “It’s all attributed to “Intelligent Design.””
The Fossil Record – “Intelligent Design”
DNA - “Intelligent Design”
Beneficial Mutations - “Intelligent Design”
Diseases - “Intelligent Design”
Geologic Record - “Intelligent Design”
Plate Tectonics - “Intelligent Design”
Gravity - “Intelligent Design”
Doppler Effect - “Intelligent Design”
Astronomy - “Intelligent Design”
Age of the Universe – Heck it’s anybody’s guess but …- “Intelligent Design”
Astrology - “Intelligent Design”
UFO’s - “Intelligent Design”
Spectral Analysis - “Intelligent Design”
Big Foot - “Intelligent Design”
So one day a very bright kid in the classroom dares to ask the obvious question – “You keep speaking of an Intelligent Designer” so who is this Intelligent Designer and who designed the Designer?
The teacher answers – “These questions are above (or depending on your POV, below) my pay grade”.
“If you want more answers about Science you will need to defer to your Sunday School teacher who is much more well versed on these topics than I am.”
Bright kid raises her hand again and says – “But I don’t go to Sunday School, my family is not religious.”
Teacher answers – “Well then, you are pretty much sh!t out of luck aren’t you! And you’re probably going to Hell to boot”.
puppies!
I have been puzzled by the assertion that one must subscribe to the evolutionists’ dicta in order to understand biology, and in order to conduct “scientific” research in the biological sciences. Any trouble I had understanding advanced courses in, for example, plant nutrition, had nothing to do with my inability to accept the evolutinists’ world view.
The same math proved conclusively that a bumble bee can’t fly.
The same math proved conclusively that a bumble bee can’t fly.
(BTW to save you some effort..... it’s a myth)
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