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How Intelligent Design Hurts Conservatives (By making us look like crackpots)
The New Republic ^ | 8/16/05 | Ross Douthat

Posted on 08/18/2005 5:17:34 PM PDT by curiosity

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To: Havoc

"ID pulls the wool off of people's eyes re natural selection"

I disagree. The faulty presumption behind ID is "complexity" and a feeling that something observed as complex for the observer must have an explanation as coming from a designer.

ID is a thick set of wool.


621 posted on 08/19/2005 10:46:55 AM PDT by Shermy
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To: doodlelady
I think you know what I meant.

That's just the problem. We can't assume everyone is on the same page.

If you want to bar religious discussion from a public classroom, it's only fair for you to clearly explain the rules you want to impose on religious discussion.

622 posted on 08/19/2005 10:53:44 AM PDT by syriacus (You are shouting so loudly that I can't "hear" you.)
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To: Tribune7
In that case you can put ID in the class, state the reasons why the probability calculations are specious, the allow the proponents to counter and so on. The most reasonable view would win in open debate

We don't make a practice of teaching science by presenting bad ideas and then showing they're wrong. And in any case, why pick this one bad idea among so many?

Have you ever taken a science course? How much chemistry do you think we'd get through in a semester if we did it by having a discussion over every concept? I find it amusing so-called conservatives are pushing this mushy, liberal, 'whole-science' approach to pedagogy, after the utter failure of 'whole math' and 'whole language', which also had students 'discover for themselves' the rules of math or language.

An additional irony is that scientists like Pinker, whose views are anathema here, and who is politically quite liberal (though not very liberal) is campaigning for the abandonment of such teaching methods, because they ignore how the brain actually learns things, and because they don't work. So we have mush-brained conservatives and hard-headed liberals; truly a world turned upside down.

No, it's been explicitly stated that it could apply to any designer

Sure; it's also been admitted that this is a prevarication. I'm simply taking people like Johnson at their word.

We have a myriad examples of known design. If elements of nature resemble complex items of known design, why not assume design?

We tend to interpret complex objects in terms of what Dennett calls the 'design stance'; seeing something, we ask ourselves 'what is it for?'. It's hardwired into the way we think, not the object we're looking at.

623 posted on 08/19/2005 10:56:03 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor (Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory - John Marburger, science advisor to George W. Bush)
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To: From many - one.
many many, sigh.
That was a rhetorical question Is this 'more best of the best' contributions of the evo ping list.

I went to your web site and did the same 'data check' you did, and yes a search on the word consciousness yields 19222 items.

All that means is the database hit the word 'consciousness' one or more times in each item. That is all it shows many, that's is all it shows many.

Oh From many - one, the ping list. you said you're not on it, okay. BUT YOU SHOULD BE!! HA HA HA HA HA!!
624 posted on 08/19/2005 11:01:44 AM PDT by mordo
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To: Wonder Warthog

So micro and macro evolution only appeared in text books, and scientific debate because us crackpots inserted the terms? You havee lost me.


625 posted on 08/19/2005 11:02:13 AM PDT by aft_lizard (This space waiting for a post election epiphany it now is: Question Everything)
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To: Right Wing Professor
And in any case, why pick this one bad idea among so many?

Why do you think it's a bad idea?

How much chemistry do you think we'd get through in a semester if we did it by having a discussion over every concept?

How much biology/chemistry/physics are we going through now in middle school/high school? How much global warming/gay gene/gender-myth pop-science crap is being foisted on students now in the name of science.

If we teach that there is a design to life and the universe, and a reason for our existence beyond chance, and truth is real and findable, we will have smarter kids and better scientists.

We tend to interpret complex objects in terms of what Dennett calls the 'design stance'; seeing something, we ask ourselves 'what is it for?'. It's hardwired into the way we think, not the object we're looking at.

Or maybe it's because they are designed :-)

626 posted on 08/19/2005 11:25:12 AM PDT by Tribune7
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To: syriacus

I wonder if you even know what you mean.
I wouldn't dare assume you do.


627 posted on 08/19/2005 11:35:33 AM PDT by b9
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To: Right Wing Professor

I saw your tagline, but I was responding to your comment that likened G. W. Bush to a "crackpot."

Pretty straightforward.


628 posted on 08/19/2005 11:49:34 AM PDT by kidkosmic1 (www.InterviewwithGod.com)
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To: doodlelady
I wonder if you even know what you mean. I wouldn't dare assume you do.

I'd like to know what topics you would forbid in a public classroom.

629 posted on 08/19/2005 11:50:47 AM PDT by syriacus (You are shouting so loudly that I can't "hear" you.)
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To: Tribune7
Why do you think it's a bad idea?

Because you can't calculate a priori probabilities for a process without specifying mechanism in detail.

How much biology/chemistry/physics are we going through now in middle school/high school? How much global warming/gay gene/gender-myth pop-science crap is being foisted on students now in the name of science.

My kids didn't get a whole lot of that. Your Public School System May Vary.

If we teach that there is a design to life and the universe, and a reason for our existence beyond chance, and truth is real and findable, we will have smarter kids and better scientists.

I disagree completely.

630 posted on 08/19/2005 11:53:33 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor (Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory - John Marburger, science advisor to George W. Bush)
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To: kidkosmic1
I was responding to your comment that likened G. W. Bush to a "crackpot."

Huh?

631 posted on 08/19/2005 11:54:24 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor (Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory - John Marburger, science advisor to George W. Bush)
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To: curiosity

Boo Hoo hoo

I'm being called a crackpot, so I'll just slink off into the shadows....

NOT!!!!


632 posted on 08/19/2005 12:08:20 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: PatrickHenry

Dang! 300!

It was 290 last time I saw this!


(The Army could use your recruitment secrets!)


633 posted on 08/19/2005 12:10:13 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: Just mythoughts
Re:was and became...Hebrew words" This "not in vain" is the same Hebrew word as without form = waste. Something happened to cause this earth to become void and without form. "

Here's the English translations from the Hebrew Bible. The translations are not significantly different from what the NIV has. There is no indication anything "became" the word in Gen is properly "was". Isaiah says He created it, not a waste. The whole universe was unformed and void before creation.

Gen 1:2 Now the earth was unformed and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters.

Isaiah 45:18 For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens, He is God; that formed the earth and made it, He established it, He created it not a waste, He formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD, and there is none else.

"moved"

Moved, hovered, was over...All the same.

" My dictionary says "science" is having knowledge. "

That def is severely lacking and so broad as to be meaningless.

Jeremiah 4 refers simply to the choices and consequences of the exercise of Free will. Following the Holy Spirit leads to Heaven. Rejection leads to the ruin, disaster and devastation of life in hell. That occurs even as and though the Earth passes away.

634 posted on 08/19/2005 12:11:26 PM PDT by spunkets
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To: Modernman
At this time, though, there is no environmental pressure for, say, hippos to evolve a higher degree of intelligence.

And if I wanted a smarter one, just what 'pressure' would have to BE applied?

635 posted on 08/19/2005 12:13:14 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: Elsie
And if I wanted a smarter one, just what 'pressure' would have to BE applied?

An environment where food is scarce and can more readily be accessed through tool use might be one such pressure.

636 posted on 08/19/2005 12:15:17 PM PDT by Modernman ("A conservative government is an organized hypocrisy." -Disraeli)
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To: Modernman

I don't want 'might'.

I want some ACTUAL examples.


637 posted on 08/19/2005 12:17:01 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: Elsie
Dang! 300! It was 290 last time I saw this!

I update the logo whenever I get an additional ten. Actually, I waited until it was 302, in case there were any dropouts. And there is one non-evo name on the list, still very much on probation (sort of an experiment), so it wouldn't be accurate to say I had 300 pro-evolution names until the list had gone comfortably over 300.

638 posted on 08/19/2005 12:18:56 PM PDT by PatrickHenry (Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. The List-O-Links is at my homepage.)
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To: Elsie
I want some ACTUAL examples.

I can't see into the future to tell what stimuli, if any, will make certain animals more intelligent in the future.

What is the point of your question, anyway? Or is this one of your usual attempts at intellectual masturbation?

639 posted on 08/19/2005 12:20:50 PM PDT by Modernman ("A conservative government is an organized hypocrisy." -Disraeli)
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To: curiosity
In the past, it was often the right that tried to draw societal implications from Darwinism, and the left that stood against them. And for understandable reasons: When people draw political conclusions from Darwin's theory, they're nearly always inegalitarian conclusions. Hence social Darwinism, hence scientific racism, hence eugenics.

Seeing as this writer describes racism & eugenics as traditional right-wing values, I doubt that he genuinely want to prevent harm to the right.

640 posted on 08/19/2005 12:26:15 PM PDT by Sloth (History's greatest monsters: Hitler, Stalin, Mao & Durbin)
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