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.
The issue is divisive because it concerns issues beyond the scope of "mere elementary education." Not only are we talking about science education at the lower levels, we are also talking about the very nature of what science is. Sadly, the too many scientists and non-scientists have no understanding of the presuppositions that characterize the style of scientific thinking.
I luff da Lemon Sisters, and here zey are! A one an' a two!
I was thinking of something more current but in the same ballpark. Von Danniken made a cultural splash in the early 70s with a ridiculous crackpot book. I read it back when it was hot and forgot it along with everyone else as the rebuttals accumulated.
The ancient Egyptians left a lot of records which we relearned to read with the decipherment of heiroglyphics in the 19th century. Since then, there has accumulated a body of work on Egyptology that doesn't blow away with every little breeze.
Ah yes, more Evolutionary Logic.
Eldredge calls the linear horse fossil series at the American Museum of Natural History deplorable and particularly speculative. When you look at the original source he's talking about "imaginary stories." No mention of bush or tree horse evolution. All he says is the evidence we have for horse evolution is deplorable, speculative and it's one of the "imaginary stories" we use as evidence for evolution in textbooks.
I'm sorry you don't want to believe the context of the interview, but I've shown you how to check for youself many times now.
Of course when Eldredge has a wider audience, such as on the 20/20 interview with Silvia Chase, he conveniently forgot that he called the horse series on display deplorable and speculative. He also forgot that he called it one of the "imaginary stories" in the textbooks. With this larger audience he can't let the world know the fossil evidence for horse evolution is deplorable, speculative and an "imaginary story," so he calls the exact same display "a good example" of evolution.
Not once in the Chase interview does he mention bush or tree horse evolution as he is referring to the deplorable, speculative, imaginary story - the linear horse display at the museum.
Here's an action item for you: Go to the original source and find any mention of tree or bush horse evolution and get back to me.
This happens. Let us remember the example of continental drift and plate tectonics, once routinely dismissed as pure silliness -- until the undersea evidence to support the idea was found. Sometimes, the great breakthroughs are like that. But usually the grand conjecture does not come ahead of the evidence. (In the case of continental drift, there was some initial evidence -- the suggestive shape of the continents.)
But far more numerous are the examples of misguided pseudo-science, powered by the mania of derranged cranks and kooks, who devise their grand schemes, and who bitterly complain that the world won't pay attention to them. To the uneducated, all of these may be incipient breakthroughs too. And even to the educated (but factually uninformed), what may at first glance seem silly may indeed be the start of a breakthrough. So it may be with the field of "Sphinxology," with which I am totally unfamiliar. A breakthrough may be coming, or it may never be more than the whacky fantasy of a minor cult. (Or a major one, like astrology.)
And how do we ever distinguish between genuine science and Bermuda-triangle, crop-circle, ancient-astronaut foolishness? Ultimately, the facts will prevail -- if they are persuasive. Often, these things take time, better instruments need to be developed, more data needs to be gathered, etc. There may be be some "silly belief" of today that will become scientific orthodoxy tomorrow. That is the hope of every basement inventor and attic theoretician. But the scientist must be primarily concerned with ideas that are supported by verifiable facts, not fanciful conjectures with no significant factual foundation. Evolution is an example of the former; ID of the latter. At least at this point.
That presentation implies a linear sequence widely known, not just by Eldredge, to be wrong. He's saying exactly that. An old museum display is misleading.
Why is it misleading? Not because we know nothing, or because evolution didn't happen, but because we do positively know that the course of horse evolution was more complicated than what is presented in that display. It is this oversimplification and not the state of the evidence for horse evolution which Eldredge criticizes. I know you want to stay ignorant on this point, but you want it too badly.
You're using Evolutionary Logic again so I have to get us back in context.
He doesn't just call the display misleading. He calls the evidence for horse evolution that we teach our kids deplorable, speculative and one of the imaginary stories we have in the textbooks. Then he turns around and says this very same evidence is "a good example" of evolution. Whoops.
Please provide a reference from either the Sunderland or Chase interview where Eldredge says horse evolution is more complicated than what is presented in the display.
The old AMNH display-version of events (which as I will show predates the AMNH display) appeared and for all I know still appears in some textbooks. If so, that's unfortunate since that version of events is wrong. I'm having trouble believing that you can't tell Eldredge criticizing a bad presentation from Eldredge criticizing the actual state of our knowledge.
Everything Eldredge says is right according to the evidence we have now. Just for instance, that nice up-to-date site on The Evolution of the Horse by Deb Bennett of the Smithsonian cites O. C. Marsh of Harvard in the 1870s as "codifying" the linear version of horse evolution which found display at the AMNH. Bennett goes on to say:
The mental image of an evolutionary ladder formed by species which, like rungs, succeed each other in time, gives rise to a number of significant conceptual distortions, the most frequently encountered of which are:You claim that Eldredge is speaking out of both sides of his mouth, one side when he criticizes the horse series and one side when he affirms that the fossil record of horses demonstrates evolution. But when he speaks out of the one side of his mouth he is in agreement with the preponderance of modern authority, as much as he is when he speaks out of the other side of his mouth. He isn't wrong in either case; you're just playing "Twist and Shout" with him.
(1) there is one "main line" of horse evolution, which begins with Eohippus and ends with the one-toed Equus.All four of these ideas are false. Although they are frequently voiced by the public, they also represent scientific viewpoints which were current during this century, some until recently.(2) different horse genera succeed one another through time with little or no overlap, i.e. several different kinds of horses rarely coexisted.
(3) one species gradually evolved into another, so that an "intermediate form" can be expected in every newly-discovered stratigraphic layer.
(4) the reason that Eohippus and other early forms existed was in order to evolve into Equus, i.e. the existence of the presently living form was pre-directed or predestined.
Ah, yes. See my point to bb, above; IDism is not about macroevolution, but about the nature of science. There are those who want to upset the whole applecart and devise a radical new science, free from the constraints of "naturalism", but without some indication that such a revolution would result in anything better than what we have or that it would be useful to anybody, least of all scientists, such a revolution is simply an invitation to chaos.
Sadly, the too many scientists and non-scientists have no understanding of the presuppositions that characterize the style of scientific thinking.
Why is this sad? A scientist who is well grounded in the philosophy of science performs no better research than one who isn't.
Eldredge does not disagree with modern mainstream science. Neither side of his mouth is wrong. You show me where he takes a position that I would not personally agree with and I'll admit he's wrong.
Because we are human beings before we are scientists.
Rally monkeys??
I don't know what "Sphinxology" is either, but since the term wasn't used in the articles that I read - it most likely is not related to the Geologists' findings.
You put Intelligent Design in the category of "fanciful conjectures with no significant factual foundation." I disagree.
IMHO, there already are many accepted facts which point in the ID direction but are dismissed out-of-hand. I believe your term was something like "retrospective astonishment."
The evolutionists have set the bar of proof higher for ID than for themselves; therefore, I suspect a compliant proof for ID would utterly shatter confidence in evolution when it should not. IMHO, the subject should have been the randomness element only. Just my two cents...
I don't know, because ignorance is pitiable wherever it shows up?
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