Posted on 06/07/2002 11:35:28 AM PDT by jennyp
To Seattle area residents the struggle over how evolution is taught in public high schools may seem a topic from the distant past or a distant place.
Don't bet on it. One nearby episode in the controversy has ended, but a far-reaching, Seattle-based agenda to overthrow Darwin is gaining momentum.
Roger DeHart, a high-school science teacher who was the center of an intense curriculum dispute a few years ago in Skagit County, is leaving the state. He plans to teach next year in a private Christian school in California.
The fuss over DeHart's use of "intelligent design" theory in his classes at Burlington-Edison High School was merely a tiny blip in a grand scheme by promoters of the theory.
The theory is essentially this: Life is so complex that it can only be the result of design by an intelligent being.
Who is this unnamed being? Well, God, I presume. Wouldn't you?
As unlikely as it may seem, Seattle is ground zero for the intelligent-design agenda, thanks to the Seattle-based Discovery Institute and its Center for Renewal of Science and Culture (CRSC).
Headed by one-time Seattle City councilman and former Reagan administration official Bruce Chapman, the Discovery Institute is best known locally for its savvy insights on topics ranging from regionalism, transportation, defense policy and the economy.
In the late '90s, the institute jumped into the nation's culture wars with the CRSC. It may be little known to local folks, but it has caught the attention of conservative religious organizations around the country.
It's bound to get more attention in the future. Just last month, a documentary, Icons of Evolution, premiered at Seattle Pacific University. The video is based on a book of the same name by CRSC fellow Jonathan Wells. It tells the story of DeHart, along with the standard critique of Darwinian evolution that fuels the argument for intelligent design.
The video is part of the anti-Darwin agenda. Cruise the Internet on this topic and you'll find something called the Wedge Strategy, which credits the CRSC with a five-year plan for methodically promoting intelligent design and a 20-year goal of seeing "design theory permeate our religious, cultural, moral and political life."
Last week, Chapman tried to put a little distance between his institute and the "wedge" document. He said it was a fund-raising tool used four years ago. "I don't disagree with it," he told me, "but it's not our program." (I'll let the folks who gave money based on the proposed strategy ponder what that means.)
Program or not, it is clear that the CRSC is intent on bringing down what one Center fellow calls "scientific imperialism." Surely Stephen Jay Gould already is spinning in his grave. Gould, one of America's most widely respected scientists and a prolific essayist, died just two weeks ago. Among his many fine books is one I kept by my bedside for many weeks after it was published in 1999, "Rock of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life."
In "Rock of Ages," Gould presents an elegant case for the necessary co-existence of science and religion. Rather than conflicting, as secular humanists insist, or blending, as intelligent-design proponents would have it, science and religion exist in distinct domains, what Gould called magisteria (domains of teaching authority).
The domain of science is the empirical universe; the domain of religion is the moral, ethical and spiritual meaning of life.
Gould was called America's most prominent evolutionist, yet he too, was a critic of Darwin's theory, and the object of some controversy within the scientific community. There's a lesson in that: In the domain of science there is plenty of room for disagreement and alternative theories without bringing God into the debate.
I have no quarrel with those who believe in intelligent design. It has appeal as a way to grasp the unknowable why of our existence. But it is only a belief. When advocates push intelligent design as a legitimate scientific alternative to Darwinian explanations of evolution, it is time to push back.
That's what they continue to do in Skagit County. Last week, the Burlington-Edison School Board rejected on a 4-1 vote a proposal to "encourage" the teaching of intelligent design. Bravo.
Despite proponents' claims of scientific validity, intelligent design is little more than religion-based creationism wrapped in critiques of Darwin and all dressed up in politically correct language. All for the ultimate goal — placing a Christian God in science classrooms of America's public high schools.
In other words, "ignorance is bliss". I agree with general principle, but I don't subscribe to the implication that knowledge and wisdom are bad things. I'd rather see a cold wilderness for what it is than live my life in a neurotic Disneyland fantasy simply because it seems more comfortable.
It is impossible to accomplish real things in the real world unless you are actually living in the real world.
Date: 1766
1 : the quality or state of being reciprocal : mutual dependence, action, or influence
2 : a mutual exchange of privileges; specifically : a recognition by one of two countries or institutions of the validity of licenses or privileges granted by the other
Spelling and...Pronunciation: "re-s&-'prä-s(&-)tE---doesn't match very well!
No, I mean capable of planning and executing plans without being constrained by their genetic limitations. A wolf, for example, by definition lives in a den -- it can never train itself to create a spider web to catch a deer. In fact, it can never train itself to do anything.
You don't really believe that, do you? Free markets cannot exist without a substantial amount of design and coordination. In fact, free markets cannot exist without a complex legal system in place to guarantee the integrity of contracts, a monetary system that holds value for buyers and sellers, a proper system of securing land titles, etc.
For the sake of argument, let's say that Darwinism makes no predictions about the future of a species, that is not a prerequisite for a theory. A theory need merely make predictions, which Darwinism does, and be testable in that way.
Yep, that's right.
Huh? Who says? You? LOL
Neither can humans. Does this mean we're irrational? Methinks you are mistaking "rational" with the use of opposable thumbs...
This claim of yours demonstrates that you don't understand the scientific method at all.
That reminds me of a passage from The Origins of Virtue. Interesting reading...
The dark side of the dolphin
It is no coincidence that baboons form coalitions and have relatively big brains; or that chimpanzees rely still more heavily on coalitions and have even bigger brains for their body size. To use cooperation as a weapon in social relations requires individuals to keep a record of who is an ally and who a foe, who owes a favour and who bears a grudge - and the more memory and brainpower available, the better the calculation can be done. It will not have escaped the reader's notice that there is another ape with an even bigger relative brain size. But the human being is not the only species on earth with a bigger brain relative to its body size than a chimpanzee. There is one other: the bottlenose dolphin.
Bottlenose dolphins are far branier than other dolphins and whales, to about the same degree as human beings are brainier than other apes. ...
When a female dolphin comes into season, a male alliance often 'kidnaps' her for some days from the group in which she lived. The males then swim with her, one on either side.... Nor are her suitors especially gentle with her. They chase her when she tries to escape, hit her with their tails, charge, bite and slam their bodies into her to keep her going where they want. ...
There seems to be little doubt that the males are trying to monopolize the fertile female in order to father her next offspring, an that they do so in pairs or triplets for the obvious reason that a single individual could never control the movements of a female or keep her from being stolen by another male or pair of males. ...
However, Connor's team then discovered that male alliances steal females from each other and they do so by forming 'second-order' alliances with other male coalitions. These allies are recruited especially for the occasion of the theft. For instance, Connor's team once saw a triplet called B come to the feeding beach, where they watched another triplet, H, which had a female in tow. B then left, swam a mile to the north and returned with a pair, A. The five dolphins proceeded to attack H and stole the female from it, at which A departed, leaving B in control of the female. A week later, B returned the favour by helping A to steal a female from H. A and B often help each other this way, as do H, G and D: the coalitions are affiliated with others into super-coalitions.
This is exactly how baboons use allied - X recruits Y to steal a female from Z - except for two features. In dolphins, X, Y and Z are not individuals but teams of friends; and in dolphins there is no question of who is going to benefit from the theft of the female: one alliance is merely performing a selfless act of assistance. Indeed, the assisting alliance sometimes already has a female in tow (and may lose her in the commotion) when they help steal another for their allies - yet they can never control more than one female at a time. Far from helping the thieves out if self-interest, they are being immediately generous. Connor and his colleagues believe, but have not yet proven, that the relationship between a friendly pair of alliances is reciprocal. The dolphins therefore do something no primates except humans do: they form second-order alliances - coalitions of coalitions. In baboon and chimpanzee society all relationships between coalitions are competitive, not cooperative.
- Matt Ridley, The Origins of Virtue, pp 160-162
Maybe humans can't create a real spider web to catch deer, but if you saw what they are using to thin the deer herds in parts of New Jersey you'd have to admit we make a pretty good imitation.
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