Glad of that, of course the last rites are being spoken over Darwininianism.
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.
Lemme guess - you're hunting for quotes right now where Fritzler sounds like he accepts evolution, to support your thesis that people say one thing in private and another in public, right? ;)
Chess rules are fairly simple, but except in rare positions, the specific moves are not forced. In Wolfram's cellular automata, each move is forced, but you still cannot predict outcomes. At least that's what he asserts.
How did you get a camera in my office? How may fingers am I holding up? :-)
I have no problem with that, but it does not necessarily have scientific implications. We could be part of the outrolling of a very simple algorithm and not be able to determine the algorithm.
I meant quash ("to suppress or extinguish summarily and completely") - not squash.
That is what I see people trying to do to the Intelligent Design movement.
IMHO, that technique usually backfires because it creates interest where there might otherwise be none, it creates suspicion that those who quash have something to hide and it becomes fruit for the Bohemian.
Well, it wasn't by impersonating the cleaning crew over the weekend, if that's what you mean. Errr, yeah.
Well, whatever - communion is being served here, whenever you get bored with this stuff...
Right Wing Professor [post 898]: "There is no Nobel Prize in biology. Would you like to substitute 'Physiology and Medicine', or would you prefer 'Chemistry'"
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More straw men, RWP? gore3000 did not claim that there is a "Nobel Prize in biology." He was quite clearly referring to discoveries in biology that have won Nobel Prizes. Here's just one example of scientists whose discoveries in biology have won Nobel Prizes --
Here's an example of a scientist whose contributions to biology have won him a Nobel Prize --
And here's an example of a scientist whose work in biology won her a Nobel Prize --
-- but the speaker is not claiming that McClintock won a "Nobel Prize in biology."
You make categorical claims about a theory that you yourself have admitted you know very little about and have not read even one book on -- and then you engage in transparently cheap shots like this one launched at gore3000.
Do you realize how this makes you look?
For the record, I suspect we are the outrolling of a very simple algorithm which will be found. I further suspect that algorithm was actualized by harmonics of the initial fields. Additionally, I suspect that it will be taken as proof of intelligent design by those who are predisposed to it and for the materialists it will be explained as an artifact of multi-universe.
I know you meant quash. I think the movement should be squashed. It's an attack on the whole nature of science.
It makes me look like I'm trying to parse the almost unintelligible phrase "what Nobel Prize winning discovery in biology EVER does not tend to disprove evolution". But any excuse for a rant, eh, Bonaparte? Would you care to translate Gore3000 into the Queen's English?
As for not having read any Intelligent Design works, I hold strong opinions on many works of which I have read only fragments - the Koran, Gravity's Rainbow (made it to page 50, but the trip down the toilet about did it for me), The Bluest Eyes (only made it to page 3), to name but three. Once you've detected it's BS, you don't have to take a bath in it. A gentle whiff is usually sufficient.
I can also tell you categorically that any work claiming the earth is flat, Jews are the spawn of Satan, or Napoleon never existed, is also BS, and I don't have to read a word of any of them.
Glad of that, of course the last rites are being spoken over Darwininianism.
But somebody wins them every week.
Noooo, not every week. Check the papers, then do the math....
I've only ever seen Gödel mentioned in popular science magazines, where the incompleteness theorem seems to fascinate some people. It had no impact, AFAIK, in any scientific field.
Those were my opinions, so Dr. Stochastic doesn't have to defend them. And they weren't knocks on Newton, who was one of the three or four most brilliant men in human intellectual history, or Gödel, of whom I know little enough except for his theorems in symbolic algebra. I simply think that to argue about whether Newton was a scientist is anachronistic; universal gravitation, etc. were considered philosophy at the time. And Gödel's work, while it may have influenced computer science, had no influence that I'm aware of on the physical sciences. I wasn't thinking 'computer science' when I wrote the above, and it therefore was too sweeping a statement. Mea culpa.
How about flat universes?
Columbus may have proved that the Earth is round, but cosmologists have had the last word: the Universe is flat. Research published in this week's Nature by de Bernardis et al analyses data, collected by the BOOMERANG microwave telescope which was carried at high altitudes over Antarctica by balloon, to produce a map of the tiny variations in the cosmic microwave background -the ancient radiation left over from the Big Bang. These variations can be used to recalibrate models of the origin of the universe. Their findings indicate that the cosmos is flat, and just dense enough to reach the all-important critical mass density -a conclusion which saves us from the cataclysmic universal collapse known as the 'big crunch'.
In an accompanying News and Views article Wayne Hu discusses the implications of this research and this web feature is flattened off by the inclusion of related articles from our electronic archive.
You come across like a defense lawyer trying to create "reasonable doubt" in the minds of the jury. There is just no reason for those kinds of mental contortions to understand the email; Dr. Fritzler is quite clear:
I did send a follow-up email, but I doubt I'll get a response. If I do I will report it.
I don't think the statement was represented as anything other than what it was. That is why I posted the statement that preceeded the list.
My point all along on this thread has been that the AAAS is wrong in discounting ID as a legitimate area of scientific inquiry. Whether you agree with the suppositions of ID or not, whether you have alternate viewpoints or not, why would you want to flatly deny a voice to a portion of the scientific community? In effect, this is what is happening.
You say that his "phrase" was "unintelligible" to you. And yet you announced its meaning with axiomatic conviction, ie. that gore3000 was claiming that there is a "Nobel Prize in biology."
Now all you have to explain is how something can both be "unintelligible" and have a meaning so obvious that it can be stated with such certainty.
Good luck.
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