Posted on 12/21/2004 7:59:02 PM PST by postitnews.com
HARRISBURG, PA-The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and attorneys with Pepper Hamilton LLP filed a federal lawsuit today on behalf of 11 parents who say that presenting "intelligent design" in public school science classrooms violates their religious liberty by promoting particular religious beliefs to their children under the guise of science education.
"Teaching students about religion's role in world history and culture is proper, but disguising a particular religious belief as science is not," said ACLU of Pennsylvania Legal Director Witold Walczak. "Intelligent design is a Trojan Horse for bringing religious creationism back into public school science classes."
The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United Executive Director, added, "Public schools are not Sunday schools, and we must resist any efforts to make them so. There is an evolving attack under way on sound science...Read More
(Excerpt) Read more at postitnews.com ...
Of course, this is exactly the point at which science started several hundred years ago -- the assumption that natural phenomena are regular and consistent. This is what science is. This is how geology and biology got to their present state of knowledge and theory, by assuming unchanging rules for the behavior of things.
There's a difference between making assumptions about the way things work and how the laws of nature got that way in the first place.
The general assumptin of science prior to quantum theroy was that the universe is a clockwork whose parts could be examined and understood. The observed quirkiness of life was assumed by many to be a special property of living things. Thae particular property of human consciousness was attributed to the soul -- something completely non-physical.
Quantum physics suggests that the quirkiness of nature is an essential property of physical objects. Where this leads requires speculation, but the clockwork physics is obsolete. Anyone who argues that mere matter cannot be conscious is simply arguing from an obsolete notion of what matter is and how deep its properties go.
Some people like to think that we (that is, existence itself) are God's thoughts. Modern physics would not conflict with this.
All this is pure speculation, but it bothers me that people are so unimaginative that they thinks science requires atheism. What science requires is willingness to conform one's imagination and speculation to what is observed.
How many times do we need to tell you. ID is not a theory. Will never be a theory and CANNOT be argued agaist evolution because it is NOT a theory.
Was there any word you did not understand from the above? I will be glad to clarify if needed.
Laws in science are far more likely to be wrong than a theory.
Time to post this again:
From an NSF abstract:
“As with all scientific knowledge, a theory can be refined or even replaced by an alternative theory in light of new and compelling evidence. The geocentric theory that the sun revolves around the earth was replaced by the heliocentric theory of the earth's rotation on its axis and revolution around the sun. However, ideas are not referred to as "theories" in science unless they are supported by bodies of evidence that make their subsequent abandonment very unlikely. When a theory is supported by as much evidence as evolution, it is held with a very high degree of confidence.
In science, the word "hypothesis" conveys the tentativeness inherent in the common use of the word "theory.' A hypothesis is a testable statement about the natural world. Through experiment and observation, hypotheses can be supported or rejected. At the earliest level of understanding, hypotheses can be used to construct more complex inferences and explanations. Like "theory," the word "fact" has a different meaning in science than it does in common usage. A scientific fact is an observation that has been confirmed over and over. However, observations are gathered by our senses, which can never be trusted entirely. Observations also can change with better technologies or with better ways of looking at data. For example, it was held as a scientific fact for many years that human cells have 24 pairs of chromosomes, until improved techniques of microscopy revealed that they actually have 23. Ironically, facts in science often are more susceptible to change than theories, which is one reason why the word "fact" is not much used in science.
Finally, "laws" in science are typically descriptions of how the physical world behaves under certain circumstances. For example, the laws of motion describe how objects move when subjected to certain forces. These laws can be very useful in supporting hypotheses and theories, but like all elements of science they can be altered with new information and observations.
Those who oppose the teaching of evolution often say that evolution should be taught as a "theory, not as a fact." This statement confuses the common use of these words with the scientific use. In science, theories do not turn into facts through the accumulation of evidence. Rather, theories are the end points of science. They are understandings that develop from extensive observation, experimentation, and creative reflection. They incorporate a large body of scientific facts, laws, tested hypotheses, and logical inferences. In this sense, evolution is one of the strongest and most useful scientific theories we have."
#####It doesn't mean that intelligent design isn't necessarily factual, but until you have positive evidence for a designer (something that can be tested and hypothetically falsified), it isn't science#####
Dimensio, I might have some philosophical problems with your sentence quoted above, but in the spirit of Christmas let me applaud you for clearly displaying an open mind by writing that sentence.
I urge you to read the book "Not by Chance!" by Lee Spetner, prof. emeritus of information theory at MIT. You will be very surprised.
The Neo-Darwinian Theory of Evolution is based on probabilities, but the proponents of the theory forgot one thing. They forgot to do even a first-order probabilistic calculation to test the mathematical plausibility of their theory. I defy you to show me a single source that does so. Dawkins has no clue on that matter. He doesn't even understand the problem. Spetner and others have done the calculations, and have essentially proven that the theory doesn't work -- not even close.
We all have an open mind, but some of us are reluctant to get ahead of what the evidence clearly implies, and are careful about reading into the evidence what may not be implied but what we want to find.
Interesting debate found here:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/fitness/spetner.html
You. Are. A. Total. Retard.
Put please, don't stop posting. Your jousting at dim-bulb windmills is most amusing.
What scenario would you like to see analyzed? And, please, be specific.
(applause)
"What scenario would you like to see analyzed? And, please, be specific."
I'd be impressed to see *any* probabalistic analysis of the NDT from its adherents. I haven't seen one yet (and I've read two or three pro-evolution books).
On second thought, do you even understand the problem? I'll bet you don't.
That debate is excellent!
I am never going to live this down am I!!!! LMAO!
See what I get for being silly!
I though so as well. :-)
Two very smart guys.
As I suspected, you are just a poseur and have requested nothing.
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