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AAAS Board Resolution Urges Opposition to "Intelligent Design" Theory in U.S. Science Classes
AAAS ^ | November 6, 2002 | Ginger Pinholster

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.


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To: Bonaparte
Do you maintain that The Design Inference is a treatise on theology?

A Dembski man! I think you mean this book.

This book presents a reliable method for detecting intelligent causes: the design inference. The design inference uncovers intelligent causes by isolating the key trademark of intelligent causes: specified events of small probability. Design inferences can be found in a range of scientific pursuits from forensic science to research into the origins of life to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. This challenging and provocative book shows how incomplete undirected causes are for science and breathes new life into classical design arguments.

Yes. I maintain this is just another attempt to impose theology on science. It's reasoning from analogy and bad mathematics to make a case for the obviously existent designer. (He doesn't explain why the designer makes more extinct species than living ones.)

It reads more like Biblical Scholarship rather than a science.

61 posted on 11/07/2002 10:16:16 PM PST by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: MHGinTN
Any thoughts, Anyone?

Hmm...

62 posted on 11/07/2002 10:21:07 PM PST by Nebullis
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To: LiteKeeper
You obviously have not been reading the vast amount of literature that the ID'ers have published...or your head is in the sand.

What kind of literature? Popular-press polemics, sure. There's a lot of that. But please show me the positive evidence for ID, as opposed to negative arguments against Darwinism? (IOW, we all agree there are still gaps where God can reside, but where's the evidence that he's actually in one of them?)

If there was such evidence, then the Ohio education standards saga would have ended up somewhat differently...

Board member Marlene Jennings was one of the most outspoken opponents of adding ID to the curriculum. She mentioned to me twice, almost in passing, that she believes creationism will win out in the end as science makes new discoveries. I had to make sure I heard her right.

"Yes, I think creationism is true. That's part of my belief structure," she said.

And yet as the testimony progressed through spring and summer, she had become convinced that "the evidence just isn't there yet."

Jennings has a BA in math, as well as a JD, and has always been interested in science. She agrees that exposing students to controversial topics can be a useful tool. But as the pro-ID scientists testified, she found herself asking them such questions as "have you actually seen this dividing line between micro- and macro-evolution?" and "which biological structures that you work with look like the products of design instead of evolution?" She was not impressed when the scientists couldn't give her a straight answer. The turning point for her was when they couldn't give her any examples of "independent freestanding evidence for design," as opposed to just negative assertions against evolution.

Jennings seems to be unimpressed by credentials per se. She noticed that several of the pro-ID scientists who confidently asserted the plausibility of ID were speaking outside their areas of professional expertise. "There are a lot of scientists out there who you wouldn't give a lot of credibility to at all," she concluded.

And Jennings wasn't the only creationist on the Board who ended up a skeptic of ID as a scientific theory. Martha Wise, who at 24 years is the grande dame of the Board, was quick to mention, "I don't want to be painted into the evolution corner, because I am a creationist." But Wise is quite comfortable that "God hasn't told us everything yet." It's just that "it takes science to discover the details and resolve the contradictions in knowledge." In this sense, "creation and science are compatible."

And Wise doesn't think intelligent design rises to the level of a scientific theory. "What theory? There are no other theories" except evolution. "There is no scientific evidence" for the other side. "They think there is, but there isn't."
- from Ohio’s Saga Approaches an Intermission


63 posted on 11/07/2002 10:22:34 PM PST by jennyp
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To: aruanan
These are the descendents of those who tried to protect the phlogiston theory of combustion.

We can't hold that against the AAAS. The French are to blame.

64 posted on 11/07/2002 10:25:12 PM PST by Nebullis
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To: <1/1,000,000th%
"Bad mathematics?" "Biblical scholarship?"

In other words, you've never actually read The Design Inference. Am I right?

65 posted on 11/07/2002 10:32:24 PM PST by Bonaparte
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To: <1/1,000,000th%
"Bad mathematics?" "Biblical scholarship?"

In other words, you've never actually read The Design Inference. Am I right?

66 posted on 11/07/2002 10:32:40 PM PST by Bonaparte
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To: Alamo-Girl
Could you elaborate please?

Design, intelligent or otherwise, follows rules. We try to figure out what those rules are and how generally they are followed in biology. For example, common structural motives in proteins in different organisms share a common purpose. Such rules, or laws of nature, could be attributed to an intelligent designer, but the converse, assuming certain rules because there is an intelligent designer is not realistic. Unless, of course, you have a designer who has told you, in advance of evidence, what the rules are.

67 posted on 11/07/2002 10:36:01 PM PST by Nebullis
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To: Bonaparte
In other words, you've never actually read The Design Inference. Am I right?

You're partially right. I read as much as I could stand. I had to give up on it. Especially when he starts comparing biology to forensic science.

"We know that someone murdered this man so if we use the same techniques on evolutionary literature, we can disprove evolution and find the evidence for the designer." OK. It's not a quote from the book. But if you slipped it in there it wouldn't read any different.

68 posted on 11/07/2002 10:38:14 PM PST by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: Nebullis
Uh, what I saw wasn't close enough to discern anything 'flying', just wierd metero-like thingies. Thanks but no thanks for the spookworks stuff.
69 posted on 11/07/2002 10:41:17 PM PST by MHGinTN
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To: MHGinTN
I'm only joking. I wish I knew what it was you saw.
70 posted on 11/07/2002 10:44:36 PM PST by Nebullis
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To: Nebullis
My best guess is a satellite breaking up and re-entering the atmosphere ... or maybe a space object in three pieces that entered the earth's atmosphere. But it was the most spectacular display I've ever witnessed in 57 years of sky watching.
71 posted on 11/07/2002 10:58:42 PM PST by MHGinTN
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To: jennyp
I'd say that such a human nature has been fixed ever since Homo sapiens first appeared.


131 posted on 11/07/2002 9:10 PM PST by jennyp


first appeared?

jennyp joseph smith?


Latter day scientists...books of darwin---apparitions!


72 posted on 11/07/2002 11:15:33 PM PST by f.Christian
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To: MHGinTN
About 15 years ago I was driving home with a friend at about 02:00 when we noticed 7 or 8 HUGE fireballs trailing mile long tails moving across the night sky in a V formation. It was the coolest thing I have ever seen. The next day I found out that it was one of the big old Soviet COSMOS satellites re-entering the atmosphere.
73 posted on 11/07/2002 11:37:26 PM PST by fish70
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To: <1/1,000,000th%
Especially when he starts comparing biology to forensic science.

Isn't that an adequate description of the Darwininian exhortation to connect the dots?(re fossils)

74 posted on 11/08/2002 12:55:49 AM PST by AndrewC
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To: CalConservative
I know a number of scientists who are ID proponents and their scientific credentials are impeccable, as is their work.

Odds are, these scientists are not biologists -- otherwise they would publish research supporting their ID views in peer-reviewed journals. I've noticed that a lot of real scientists that support ID are actually folks in non-biological disciplines, or in many cases scientists in name only.

75 posted on 11/08/2002 2:49:34 AM PST by Junior
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To: <1/1,000,000th%
That's because the anti-science crowd could destroy our civilization in 2 generations if science has to bow before theology on every issue. You'll notice its not working well in Islamic countries and not much better anywhere else.

The fundamentalist crowd on FR suffer from the same tunnel vision that afflicts American communists -- even though their brand of governance has been an abject failure everywhere it's been tried, they believe that all those others simply "didn't get it right" and that with them in charge it won't end up like that.

76 posted on 11/08/2002 3:06:27 AM PST by Junior
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To: LiteKeeper
The IDers have been publishing in popular, not scientific journals. This indicates they feel more confident in selling their ideas to the relatively scientifically-illiterate masses and not to people who actually know what they are talking about.
77 posted on 11/08/2002 3:10:06 AM PST by Junior
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To: Nebullis
First, children must learn their ABCs. Then they can think for themselves

That's wy the Bible is so important, you're right!

Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning, God..."

78 posted on 11/08/2002 5:27:41 AM PST by RaceBannon
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To: Junior
Evolution...Atheism-dehumanism---TYRANNY(pc/liberal/govt-religion/rhetoric)...

Then came the SPLIT SCHIZOPHRENIA/ZOMBIE/BRAVE-NWO1984 LIBERAL NEO-Soviet Darwin/ACLU America---the post-modern age of switch-flip-spin-DEFORMITY-cancer...Atheist secular materialists through ATHEISM/evolution CHANGED-REMOVED the foundations...demolished the wall(separation of state/religion)--trampled the TRUTH-GOD...built a satanic temple/SWAMP-MALARIA/RELIGION(cult of darwin-marx-satan) over them---REDACTED and made these absolutes subordinate--relative and calling/CHANGING all the... residuals---technology/science === TO evolution via schlock/sMUCK IDEOLOGY/lies/bias...to substantiate/justify their efforts--claims...social engineering--PC--atheism...anti-God/Truth RELIGION(USSC monopoly)--and declared a crusade/WAR--JIHAD--INTOLERANCE/TYRANNY(breaking the establishment clause)...against God--man--society/FREEDOM/LIBERTY/SCIENCE!!

------------------------------------------

Only lead foil can save us now...

if you don't want your brain/family sterilized---

the shield between state and TALIBAN--religion(evolution/atheism) is gone...

this is... chernobyl---radiation poisoning...

NUCLEAR SOCIAL----ALIEN ANTARTICA/AMERICA!!

79 posted on 11/08/2002 6:03:15 AM PST by f.Christian
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To: Junior
To: Marathon

Missionaries have said for years that American educational/media institutions are far more closed than in places like Russia. This underscores their point. What was it someone said, to find real communists these days you have to visit an American university?

2 Posted on 03/27/2000 10:56:24 PST by Marathon

80 posted on 11/08/2002 6:18:57 AM PST by f.Christian
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