'Intelligent Design' Gets Bush's Nod

So what's the "text book" going to be the Sacred Mushroom and the Cross?

 

I don't think that "Intelligent Design" merits an intelligent discussion. It is simply an attempt by some to push their religion on others. I have to chase them away from my house all the time. Now I may have to chase them away from my school as well.

Once again, the US becomes the laughing stock of the civilized world. I could blame Bush but the responsibility actually lies in the people who voted for him (and those who didn't vote against him).

 

Earlier it was stated that evolution and ID were each theories and as such our students have a right to all theories, thus, teach them both.

This is a trick statement as the word "theory" has a scientific meaning, and a lay meaning.

Using the lay meaning of the word "theory", cigarette smoking causes cancer. We all accept this as a fact because it is a fact. But when you use the scientific definition, it can never be proven that smoking causes cancer, so therefore it remains a "theory". This is the trick wording that the tobacco industry used for such a long time, and technically they still can. However, they have learned that to use that language nowadays -- which is technically accurate -- would destroy their credibility. Hence they now admit that smoking causes cancer.

The same is true with evolution. Among scientists who are not on the fundamentalist payroll, evolution is no longer a theory but a scientific fact. In other words, it is no longer open to discussion just like tobacco and cancer. However, to be "technically" accurate, it remains a theory, just like tobacco and cancer.

Now what remains under discussion is how evolution came about. Was it like Darwin said "survival of the fittest"? or was there another technique. This is where the discussion is now in this area, but NOT over evolution itself. Indeed, every year there is a new discovery that supports evolution.

ID can certainly be used as an explanation of how evolution took place, but only if it rises to the level of a scientific theory. A scientific theory requires evidence that can withstand scientific scrutiny. Once it does that, then let it in the science classroom. But it cannot be let into the science classroom simply because it is based upon faith. Science requires evidence.

On the other hand, I see no problem bringing it up in science class so as to explain to children the difference between a scientific theory and a faith based one. At the same time can be included the views of other cultures in that regard. And I think this can be done respectfully for those that hold that view. But those students need to be made aware that testing in the classroom would be based upon scientific evidence and if they gave answers on tests that rejected science and embraced ID, they would be marked wrong.

Why? Because it's science class. Faith based theories are simply interesting philosophical discussions, but they are are not science.

 

I don't see why people are scared of teaching intellegent design in schools. My wife's home country of the Czech Republic did and still does teach it to students. Even under communism both were shown to the students. The reason is, intellegent design is no less a theory than Dawin's deathbed stolen theory of evolution. Neither one can be proven scientifically enough to say one is more factual than the other. I thing some of the main things that hang up folks on intellegent design is that a)it's part of organized religion b)it was told as verbal stories and later written down thousands of years ago and c)it has power which science can't put in a beaker or turn into a weapon for military use. The thing is this if a person were to sit down and examine both side by side you would see the formation of the earth and the timing of life on it fall side by side with only time being the difference. in religion time is as it is in science often, relative.

Either way at the end of the day in the Czech Republic after they showed students both possibilities, the country still has a 80% rate of atheism. Not exactly a Billy Grahm Crusade going on in school so it seems. I say teach both, the students can decide what they believe or don't believe well enough on their own. Any person of real faith won't let evolution dampen theirs, and a true evolutionist won't let a little faith 'change their religion.' Frankly, I think it take more faith to believe we evolved from pond scum than to think someone higher put us here on this earth.

 

More precisely, I think it's an attempt to undermine trust in the scientific method, in hopes that religious creationism's position will be strengthened.

Yep. But we're the laughing stock only of the scientifically-minded (the ones who've made civilization possible). I imagine that the rest of the world, a majority, are comforted by seeing science demoted.

Ah, well. Today's Lysenkoism will ensure that we aren't leaders in technology much longer.

 

The difference is the scientific method, by which evolution has been tested in the laboratory. There's also the weight of the fossil record which shows that evolution has occurred. The only serious debate left is over the methods by which it has occurred.

Creationism offers only dogma. No data support it, no theory explains it, and no hypotheses can be constructed to test it--because believers can always claim that God chooses not show up in the spectrogram.

 

If ID was a real scientific theory based on empirical evidence it would be debated by scientists not pushed politically into high schools. You don't see string theory advocates trying to push their views into high school physics classes. Instead they conduct experiments and publish papers for peer review.

High school students should be taught that all science is a work in progress. That scientific knowledge is obtained through the scientific method and what they learn represents the current consensus of the scientific community.

And yes even if a student thinks a current theory is wrong, they still need to learn it. If they want to take part in a scientific debate they can use the methodologies of science to collect evidence, conduct experiments and publish papers. If their idea proves out, in time it will become the current consensus of the community and then should be taught in high school.

 

Funny thing about the fossil record. All those damn missing links that tie one thing to another. What new life form have they managed to create in a laboratory. The only thing I've seen proven is 'survival of the fittest' something far from evolution. Nothing in recorded history has managed to show anything evolving into anything else. An interesting theory that makes great movies like X-Men, but still unproven by a far stretch.

 

You're a little out of date. "Missing links" get found all the time.

According to scientists, evolution is no longer open to discussion. It is widely considered a fact. On the other hand, the "how" of evolution is still being figured out. Darwin's explanation for how evolution proceeded is only one explanation among many. His theory was "survival of the fittest".


So evolution is a fact, but Darwinism may not be. They are not the same thing.

And contrary to your claim that nothing in recorded history has been shown to evolve is pretty absurd. Bacteria evolve all the time. Indeed, thousands of examples of small evolutions are seen all the time. The problem with "seeing" it in higher life forms is that they live too long to see it clearly. But in organisms that live for hours or days, evolution is seen ALL the time.

 

The modern cow cannot survive in the wild. The animal it evolved from is now extinct. The animal it evolved from was called the Auroch. (In different areas it went by other names.) It was 6 feet tall and had horns 30 inches across. The animal adorns numerous caves from prehistoric man. It actually was a very dangerous animal to early man, quite unlike the modern cow.

It's a fascinating tale of evolution. And much of that evolution was manipulated by man.

There are numerous additional examples of evolution having taken place before our eyes.

 

I'd like to see you try. Once you postulate intelligent design, you can't get away from the question of who the intelligent designer was.

Personally, I don't think G.W.B's opinion on intelligent design is persuasive. The very fact that he exists is ample proof that there's not a shred of intelligence behind any of it.

 

Tony didn't he play for the Bears?

 

I was under the apparently false impression that education should teach us *how* to think, and not *what* to think.

 

I'd like to see you try. Once you postulate intelligent design, you can't get away from the question of who the intelligent designer was. [/quote]

So in your thinking intelligent design can only occur if the entity doing the creating is a god? Keep in mind, mankind is not too far away from being able to "create life" using advanced scientific techniques. Will that make us "gods"?

In my mind, no.

 

Do you mean that teaching evolution and not including intelligent design is teaching students what to think?

The how to think that Science classes should teach is the scientific method. Which is a structured approach to gaining knowledge of the world. They should also teach what scientists have discovered using that way of thinking.

Teaching intelligent design is teaching students what to think. It gives them the impression that in the scientific community evolution is a heavily debated theory, which is not the case.

 

what it comes down to is that science scares people. they'd rather not know how the world works, they'd rather believe the thousands-of-years-old things that people came up with to explain away complex situations. there are many people who would like to see science undermined and discredited.

[should I go into how upset my religious mother was when i decided to go to college to study science? and that i even decided to go to grad school? she comforts herself by focusing more on the fact that my work is closely tied to the medical field...]

science classes should teach science. real science. that has published papers in peer-reviewed journals using physical evidence and well-designed experiments. not some dogma made up by people with no worldly evidence to stand behind it.

how do you design an experiment to test intelligent design? if you can't do it, it doesn't belong in a science class.

you want to discuss the origin of life? make a separate class for it, outside the science curriculum. don't try to force a place for religion in the laboratory.

oh. and WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE? public schools can't pray so why can they teach religion?

 

People like "Intelligent Design" because when they embrace it they don't have to think and, quite often, thinking about things scares people or makes them mad. :cussing: If you blindly accept the idea that the world is only 6000 years old ukeleft: then you don't have to deal with all the questions the world around us raises.

People like their nice comfortable thoughts. Just look around you. People don't want to think about what their actions are doing to the future of their children. Burn more oil? Sure! Global warming? Not proven so its not happening. (In spite of the fact that the Siberian tundra is thawing.) Don't like something? Just tune in to the "news-toons" and they will tell you it isn't true. :roll:

The idea of Intelligent Design fills the emptyness in the lives of people who are too intellectually in-curious to examine the real truths/facts of what is going on and has gone on in our world and the universe that surrounds it.

 

There was a post in somewhere that mentioned "If they require Intelligent Design to be taught in schools, they should require churches to teach evolution"

Bet that would end the argument promptly!

 

Bush: a superstitious idiot who is nonetheless capable of valuable intuition - how to appeal to other superstitious idiots.

This movement is a direct attack on science by those who wish to continue to steal from the masses.