Posted on 11/07/2002 7:07:47 PM PST by Nebullis
The AAAS Board recently passed a resolution urging policymakers to oppose teaching "Intelligent Design Theory" within science classrooms, but rather, to keep it separate, in the same way that creationism and other religious teachings are currently handled.
"The United States has promised that no child will be left behind in the classroom," said Alan I. Leshner, CEO and executive publisher for AAAS. "If intelligent design theory is presented within science courses as factually based, it is likely to confuse American schoolchildren and to undermine the integrity of U.S. science education."
American society supports and encourages a broad range of viewpoints, Leshner noted. While this diversity enriches the educational experience for students, he added, science-based information and conceptual belief systems should not be presented together.
Peter H. Raven, chairman of the AAAS Board of Directors, agreed:
"The ID movement argues that random mutation in nature and natural selection can't explain the diversity of life forms or their complexity and that these things may be explained only by an extra-natural intelligent agent," said Raven, Director of the Missouri Botanical Garden. "This is an interesting philosophical or theological concept, and some people have strong feelings about it. Unfortunately, it's being put forth as a scientifically based alternative to the theory of biological evolution. Intelligent design theory has so far not been supported by peer-reviewed, published evidence."
In contrast, the theory of biological evolution is well-supported, and not a "disputed view" within the scientific community, as some ID proponents have suggested, for example, through "disclaimer" stickers affixed to textbooks in Cobb County, Georgia.
"The contemporary theory of biological evolution is one of the most robust products of scientific inquiry," the AAAS Board of Directors wrote in a resolution released today. "AAAS urges citizens across the nation to oppose the establishment of policies that would permit the teaching of `intelligent design theory' as a part of the science curriculum of the public schools."
The AAAS Board resolved to oppose claims that intelligent design theory is scientifically based, in response to a number of recent ID-related threats to public science education.
In Georgia, for example, the Cobb County District School Board decided in March this year to affix stickers to science textbooks, telling students that "evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things." Following a lawsuit filed August 21 by the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, the school board on September 26 modified its policy statement, but again described evolution as a "disputed view" that must be "balanced" in the classroom, taking into account other family teachings. The exact impact of the amended school board policy in Cobb County classrooms remains unclear.
A similar challenge is underway in Ohio, where the state's education board on October 14 passed a unanimous, though preliminary vote to keep ID theory out of the state's science classrooms. But, their ruling left the door open for local school districts to present ID theory together with science, and suggested that scientists should "continue to investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory." In fact, even while the state-level debate continued, the Patrick Henry Local School District, based in Columbus, passed a motion this June to support "the idea of intelligent design being included as appropriate in classroom discussions in addition to other scientific theories."
The Ohio State Education Board is inviting further public comment through November. In December, board members will vote to conclusively determine whether alternatives to evolution should be included in new guidelines that spell out what students need to know about science at different grade levels. Meanwhile, ID theorists have reportedly been active in Missouri, Kansas, New Mexico, New Jersey, and other states, as well Ohio and Georgia.
While asking policymakers to oppose the teaching of ID theory within science classes, the AAAS also called on its 272 affiliated societies, its members, and the public to promote fact-based, standards-based science education for American schoolchildren.
note that while the evolutionists insult me, and make excuses, they do not take up the challenge posed to them.
You mean like the examples provided by you, demolished by Gumlegs on your "Evidence Disproving Evolution" thread?
And reiterated AGAIN on the same thread?
(Aside to lurkers: "Challenge" seems to be a bit strong, don't you think? Consider, Gumlegs hardly broke a sweat.)
For something that is irrelevant, one must wonder why the evolutionists attack it so much! Nothing better to do? One would think that the evos would be hard at work discovering new things, digging for bones, looking in their microscopes, playing with their crayons....
Sample quotes from the article:
At an MIT press conference packed with cheering students and colleagues, a beaming Professor Sharp answered questions about the work, which has had important implications for the evolution of organisms and the causes of some hereditary diseases and cancers.
[snip]
The discovery "has been of fundamental importance for today's basic research in biology, as well as for more medically oriented research." and "has changed our view on how genes in higher organisms develop during evolution," the Nobel committee said.
I still have no idea what he's saying here. Is he saying that all Nobel prize winning discoveries in biology tend to disprove evolution? Anyone?
Finally! You were the last holdout. We can now say that about everyone! ;^)
No he does not. Here is a synthesis of his theory:
To assign regularity, chance or design to an event, Dembski proposes one try to explain on the basis of these three possibilities and in that order.
(a) If an outcome is deterministic or has a high probability of occurring and thus can be explained by a natural law, then regularity should be assumed. This is not to say God does not lie behind the scenes ultimately as the Lawgiver, but such an explanation would be based on non-observational criteria.
‘For the filter to eliminate regularity, one must establish that a multiplicity of possibilities is compatible with the given antecedent circumstance (recall that regularity admits only one possible consequence for a given antecedent circumstance); hence to eliminate regularity is to establish a multiplicity of possible consequences’ (p. 65).
(b) If regularity as an explanation fails, one should then see if chance is an acceptable explanation. These are events of intermediate probability, ‘the events we reasonably expect to occur by chance in the ordinary circumstances of life.’
(c) Only once chance has been excluded is design assumed to be the cause. These events are characterized by patterns that are both specified and of vanishingly small probabilities. This approach is conservative in that ‘past specifications will continue to be specifications, though past fabrications (i.e., patterns that in the past failed to count as specifications) may because of improvements in technology now become specifications’ (p. 161).
A seemingly random pattern may be discovered later to contain information. In a practical sense, biological observations, such as ‘junk DNA’ may very well be found in the future to have a use, just as functions have been found for previously classified ‘vestigial organs’.12,13
These three alternatives are complete and mutually exclusive.
‘The design inference, on the other hand, eliminates chance in the global sense of closing the door to every relevant chance explanation’ (p. 42).
It must be pointed out that judging probabilities requires some background information that accounts for how the event E could have arisen. Seeing some coins lying on a table, with no knowledge of their history, does not allow strong statements to be made, compared to the case of observing coins being flipped and allowed to be dropped. Low probabilities are assigned on the basis of what we know, from experience and scientific experimentation. I suggest that we do have good reasons to be sceptical of a claim that an oil painting of Queen Elizabeth II resulted as a tram full of paint cans derailed in front of Buckingham Palace.
ID is scientifically irrelevant. Politically, of course, it isn't. Politically, it's a useful Trojan horse for trying to impose the beliefs of a peculiar sect of Protestant biblical literalists onto science. Biologists, in fact, have been beguiled by the self-evident speciousness of ID into ignoring it, as they ignore most crackpot theories, and this is how it's managed to gain a foothold in places like Ohio. I just got back from OSU, where they still don't understand what happened to them.
That's why I give so little respect to creationists. This is not an intellectual debate - if it were an intellectual debate, it would be over - it's a battle for raw political power. Creationists want to impose their peculiar worldview first on conservatism, then on American K-12 education, and finally on science itself. It's fundamentalist radicalism: the very antithesis of conservativism.
Gore3000, when he claims that atheists can't be physicians; f.Christian, with his ravings; these are truly the American Taliban. It's easy to mock their arguments for ID, but one shouldn't discount their seriousness, or the lengths to which they will go to.
I agree with the last sentence, mostly for theological reasons but also from experience. It seems that the more we discover, the less we know. However, I think this theory of algorithms do have scientific implications. After all what are formulas but a kind of algorithm? Science is about discovering these algorithms. We may never discover the first one in this life, but we can discover others and that is what science is about.
I guess I might consider it a bit presumptious on your part to tell me I was wrong in explaining my own thought process, but you apparently know what I'm thinking better than I do.
Please read the statement preceeding the list. If there was some intent to deceive, it seems unlikely I would have posted that statement with the list is there. It seems pretty clear to me what it was saying, but perhaps I need some verification from you to make sure I'm actually thinking what I am thinking.
[The preceding was a "paint-by-number" post. To play, change the color of each word according to the number table. Number table: 1=blue]
You are all misinterpreting what ID is about and why it is valid. Complexity does not make something intelligently designed, it also takes specificity. The fact that there are simple rules to chess does not mean that playing a game totally at random will produce a winning game. Even a beginner could beat a computer playing any legal move chosen at random. A good player needs intelligence, a good visual ability and lots of concentration. There is nothing random about how they play and it is sort of ludicrous to say that just because something has a set of 'rules of the game' that the game can be played at random. We know there are rules to the universe, there are rules in physics, chemistry, biology. However, that does not mean that randomness creates anything other than chaos.
The real irony was that it was the reformation and Protestantism that made it possible for natural philosophy to escape the stranglehold the Catholic Church held over the intellectual life of Europe. Now, centuries later, the Church is a haven for the scientific values of the enlightenment, and it is one branch of Protestantism that endangers those values.
No doubt it annoys you that I want to analyse you as a historical phenomenon, and defeat you, rather than debate you. You could regard that as an insult. So be it. But I see it as self-contradictory to cede the enlightenment values of civil and equal discourse to a school of thought that seeks to suppress those values.
It seems pretty clear to me what it was saying, but perhaps I need some verification from you to make sure I'm actually thinking what I am thinking.
It was pretty clear to everyone, really, but maybe you just need a refresher course in basic reading comprehension. We'll take it step-by-step, and I'll type slow so you can keep up.
I know a number of scientists who are ID proponents and their scientific credentials are impeccable, as is their work.
4 posted on 11/07/2002 10:27 PM EST by CalConservative
Names?
92 posted on 11/08/2002 10:18 AM EST by Right Wing Professor
Here's a start, but you already know that, right? [List, blah, etc, snip]
100 posted on 11/08/2002 10:51 AM EST by CalConservative
Now do me a favor: the next time you need to be spoon-fed, knock on someone else's door.
...uh oh... here it comes! Secure all hatches.
Thanks for the hint!
To call the board of the AAAS wise is really silly. Let's examine a few truths of life:
1. those who can do.
2. those who cannot, teach.
3. those who cannot teach, become bureaucrats.
And that is what these folk are, just bureaucrats. If they were any kind of good scientists they would be out there discovering things. Instead they are sitting at a desk looking to see what pencil to push. Also, if they were real scientists, they would welcome inquiry, they would welcome discussion, they would welcome developing analytical thinking in students. However, being just bureaucrats and not scientists, all they want to do is impose their will on others because they are scientists manque.
You do not wish to quash ("suppress or extinguish summarily and completely") ID, you awant to squash ("press or beat into a pulp or a flat mass") ID.
Hey, an insult and an excuse in the same sentence! You must be catching on to evolutionism real fast!
So you are another evolutionist who cannot take up the challenge of showing that the theory of evolution has been verified by real science but nevertheless insists that anything but evolution is not science. Don't you see how ridiculous that makes your statements look?
An algorithm can become smarter simply by randomly varying its own steps, observing the result, and selecting for changes that improve that result. These are called genetic algorithms, and they've been the subject of thousands of papers. Chess programs which do this are well known; they're slow and inefficient, but they definitely get better over time. Just do a google search using 'chess genetic algorithm.'
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