Posted on 06/17/2011 5:37:57 PM PDT by ejdrapes
Bachmann: Schools should teach intelligent design New Orleans, Louisiana (CNN) – Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann explained her skepticism of evolution on Friday and said students should be taught the theory of intelligent design. Bachmann, a congresswoman from Minnesota, also proposed a major overhaul of the nation’s education system and said state administrators should be able to decide how they spend money allocated to them by the federal government. "I support intelligent design," Bachmann told reporters in New Orleans following her speech to the Republican Leadership Conference. "What I support is putting all science on the table and then letting students decide. I don't think it's a good idea for government to come down on one side of scientific issue or another, when there is reasonable doubt on both sides."
By CNN Political Reporter Peter Hamby
(Excerpt) Read more at politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com ...
*I* am a proud skeptic of macro-evolution, but I do believe in a universe that has existed for billions of years. However, I think that Michele has touched a subject of faith that will only bring scorn upon her. The American people, at best, will wonder why she unearthed a subject that is not on their radar. This comment will serve as a distraction, and unless she is extremely deft, it will destroy her campaign.
ID proposes that natural selection of genetic variation is not a sufficient mechanism to explain the diversity of life and that God/the designer had to directly intervene to actually accomplish anything complex.
This is exactly a “god of the gaps” argument. The idea that where science (supposedly) cannot explain something - one must ‘fill the gap’ with supernatural forces.
Science depends upon predictable observable and measurable natural forces.
That is why ID isn’t science.
It proposes a supernatural mechanism.
1. something like that cannot happen,
2. it cannot happen since they've never observed it,* and
3. if it doesn't happen more than once and they haven't witnessed it themselves, then anyone else claiming to have done so must either be insane, mistaken, or a liar.
1. that the most they can say is that, given the usual nature of things, it doesn't happen, not that it cannot happen if given sufficient cause, and that if it did happen, that would be, in and of itself, evidence that the cause was outside the usual nature of things. Stating categorically that there can be no sufficient cause "because biology or physics teaches us..." is just naked arrogance trying to use science as a fig leaf;The retort to 3, because they cannot argue with the first two, would be that 'history' or 'one's life' are not truly 'things,' but simply labels slapped arbitrarily somewhere along the chain of natural events that exist on their own without rhyme or reason and that sticking on these labels is just an attempt by weak people who lack the bravery to see things the way they really are to provide a feeling of meaning where is none--yeah, sort of like the people who use the label of "science" to claim to have the only true way of separating fact from fiction as well as the only means by which to define 'fact' and 'fiction' ?
2. that plenty of things happen that one has never witnessed or had any idea that they could happen,
3. that there are plenty of things that happen only once--the history of one's life, for instance, beginning with one's conception--that are, nonetheless, real.
No it's not. It's merely unsupported speculation as to why the traditional cosmologic constucts don't comply with the observable data. I have as much data to support to the speculation there is an invisible Angel directing the behavior of celestial bodies as science does that "dark matter" performs this phenomenon.
What color is the grass in your world? Certainly not green.
OH NOOO!!! Only one idea may be taught! If I was a bio teacher, I’d tender dozens of questions which the evos can’t explain. The rubbish which was taught in my biology textbooks about origins and evolution, peppered moths and false similarities of fish, cat and human embryos, for example, would not stand. You need not mention God, just sow seeds of doubt about evolution in young minds. Bob
I would like for one of these Bachmann cheerleaders to reconcile why it is acceptable for Mrs. Bachmann to have an opinion of the decisions on local school boards, but not have an opinion on state forced purchase of health insurance.
That is not even a fraction of ID. ID goes well beyond the biological and genetic and encompasses every aspect of the observable universe from the quantum to the cosmologic. It certainly takes into account the anthoropic principal and the incredible fine tuning of the gravitational, electomagnetic, stong and weak nuclear forces.
Aren’t all definitions arbitrary? If science is defined as something, then yes, that is arbitrary. But if everyone uses the same definition, then no matter how arbitrary it is, the term is used in uniformity. So if we decided to call the act of measuring and quantifying empirical data ‘science,’ then any argument over what is ‘science’ must be based on whether it measures and quantifies empirical data.
To say that because the definition of the word ‘science’ doesn’t encompass other ideas, and to use that as a reason to disregard the term all together is disingenuous.
Science is not about measuring thoughts or ideas, because they can not be experimented on. Science is about the physical realm. Science can be used by philosophers and religions, as well as scientists can use ideas as the basis for a hypothesis. But until it is tested (more accurately, until a scientist tries to disprove it) the hypothesis is not science.
What are you implying? That there are no assumptions (faith) in "science"? Science is riddled to the core with assumptions. What if the speed of light isn't a constant after all? It takes more faith to believe in "science" than God.
Yet the foundation of science is logical inference which is not of the physical relm and cannot quantified "scientifically" - none of the classic logical axioms can. Interesting that until at least the 18th century "natural science" always included metphysical rationalism.
She can't defend one thing Bachmann says or does, but continues to deify her.
Oh the irony.......
I know, I was trying to make the point that science was not some all inclusive field but rather the narrow field of testing the hypothesis in the known physical world.
But that is a relatively recent and unreasonably narrow definition of science. Much of the metaphysical is as well "known" as the physical world. The law of non-contradiction is just as reliable as Einstein's theory of relativity.
The federal government should have NO ROLE in education. Eliminate all federal funding for education, fire the employees, and cut taxes so the states or local communities can decide what to do. Cut the federal taxes allocated to education by 70% and use the rest to pay down the debt. Even at that, the locals schools will have much more money than they do now; not that the community needs to put it all back into schools.
It's a scientific model since it cannot be conclusively proven, but there is evidence for it. Evolution, on the other hand, is not science because it has been proven impossible. Saying it is so doesn't make it so.
You are right. Logic is not science. No one here is saying that it is. But science does exist, and it exists as the definition that has been given to it. In our world, science is the gathering of known facts. Logic is a mathematical way to explain reasoning.
Just because most historical scientists were also philosophers (where most logic comes from), it doesnt mean that logic (in the reasoning function) is the basis for science. People like Descartes used empiricism for scientific study, while focusing more on reasoning for their philosophical studies. Descartes actually separated the philosophical from the physical in his belief that eternal truths can be attained through reasoning skills and from within, while physical truths must be tested. So he separated science from philosophy back in the 17th Century.
Really? Please show me how you can apply the scientific without logical inference. The laws of identity, causuality and non-contradiction are just as essential to the scientific method as observable data.
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