'Intelligent Design' Gets Bush's Nod

I like your post in general and I have no problem with this one either.

However, whenever prayer comes up I feel I should clarify something. Prayer absolutely IS allowed in Public Schools. In fact, the often reviled ACLU fought for the right of children to pray in schools.

You see, the The 1st Amendment is quite clear on this. Government cannot interfere with the free exercise of religion. Thus all children can pray in school. On the other hand, Government cannot establish any religion either. Thus, the teachers cannot organize or oversee any prayer because to do so would serve to establish whatever they led as THE religion..

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;...

In 99.9% of the schools in America, this contradiction is handled just fine. If a child wants to pray before a test or a meal, he or she certainly can. The problem only arises when a child wants to pray in a way that is overly public. When that happens, it can affect other children, and when that happens, and the school allows that to happen, it runs into the school "establishing" one religion over another.

Since prayer is a private conversation with your God, this should never be a problem. It only becomes a problem when certain people with an agenda want to make it one.

Or when honorable and decent people misunderstand the concept of the separation of Church and state. So when I see it stated that you cannot pray in public schools, I enter the fray to prevent the misunderstanding of this latter group. (The former group prefers that the misunderstanding persist.)

As for ID, I think ID has a place in science class as a way for teachers to point out the difference between a theory based upon the scientific method, and a theory fabricated out of a belief system. ID starts with a conclusion and then looks for evidence to support that conclusion. And it rejects any evidence that does not support the conclusion that they have already reached. Developing theory this way is not only unscientific, it's anti scientific.

And as for evolution being a theory, it has really moved beyond that. We have tons of proof now that evolution happens all the time, and there is tons of proof that humans evolved as well. On the other hand, Darwins specific explanation of evolution remains a theory.

So the semantics are important. Saying that Darwinism is a theory is accurate. Saying that evolution is a theory is at best an obfuscation.

 

How can one be sure that evolution is 100% fact? That our existence is from a sequence of pure random events?

It's interesting to think of the whole think as a wager. That is; if the evolutionists are right, I (and other believers) at worst go through life believing some fairytale about some guy that died on a cross for our sins, set us free, and gives eternal life. On the other hand, if we are right... well, you get the point.

Oh, not all Christians believe the 6000 year old earth thing. Many of them accept the idea of it taking billions of years. I can accept that. To think all this was whipped together in seven days sounds like a rush job anyway. (It took way longer than that to build and design the Prius. :mrgreen: ) I kind of like the idea that this designer/artist took billions of years to make this place for us.

 

Bush is not a superstitious idiot. He is a brilliant political tactician. His comments about intelligent design had nothing to do with education, and it had nothing to do with religion.

It had everything to do with posturing for the 2006 elections.

 

100% of the biologist in this field who are not on a Religious group payroll believe that evolution is a fact. And actually, the word "believe" is not entirely accurate here. 100% of them "conclude" this on the basis of their scientific background and understanding.

Ahh, Pascal's Wager. A notoriusly NEGATIVE reason to believe in God.

Actually, you have every right to believe in what you want to believe in. The point of this thread is the teaching of ID in Science class. You can certainly believe in ID, you just can't teach it as a reputable theory until it withstands the scrutiny of the scientific method.

This is a good point and one that many miss. ID is not the opposite of Evolution. ID simply postulates that evolution was not random but "evolved" the way it did because of the hidden hand of a supreme being. It's a fascinating point of view and I welcome you to that view. But it still has no place in the classroom until it withstands scientific scrutiny. But unlike Evolution that clearly withstands that scrutiny, ID does not, and cannot.

 

Nature is never random. What genome mapping clearly teaches is that nature tries every combination, not some combinations at random. Out of one million tries perhaps one is successful and is able to reproduce (natural selection).

There is great misunderstanding by the general public of science. For example, "chaos" is highly structured, highly organized and predictable - you just need to know the starting point (hard to find). Examples: various nodes in the human heart fire at different times. Chaos explains how the impulses come together to produce a strong contraction. Water dripping from a faucet is chaotic, clouds and weather is chaotic. You can model the behavior quantitatively. Again, you just need to know the starting point.

Our understanding is based on testable hypotheses and reproducible methods and results, not acts of faith. ID is neither testable nor reproducible. Science always strives to prove itself false. We only accept what we cannot show to be false - and we continue to explore and test.

 

I should have clarified myself. I was referring to the fact that schools are not allowed to organize prayer, displaying a preference of one religion over another. And my point, as I'm sure you saw, was that if schools can't sponsor prayer, why should they sponsor religious arguments in a science classroom?

Here's where the difference between scientists and religious folk comes into play. Really, the general public does not understand genetics, genomics and how all of it works. Allow me to try to explain.

skruse mentioned this as well. Nature tries pretty much every available combination. They're only at random in the way that you cannot predict them using our method of logic. During development, lethal mutations (and there are many, life is rather picky about what will sustain it) weed out any non-viable combinations. The organism dies either before it is born if the mutation is severe enough, or shortly thereafter. In 99% of these cases the organism does not get to reproduce to pass these weak genes on, and the mutation does not persist in the population. End of story for those mutations. Some mutations are of advantage. These organisms are better able to compete for resources and reproduce, hence their genes are passed on. Eventually (decades, centuries depending on the lifespan and gestation time of said organism) a large portion of the population will have these genes as it is a selective advantage. The new version out-competes the old version. So really, the good mutations are picked from the bad and there is no randomness about it. Combinations are carefully chosen after real-life testing, if you will.

One thing about science is, randomness may be apparent on the outside until you investigate it. Then you learn there is a logic behind everything, no matter how incredibly important or insignificant it may seem.

 

just had to say that i've recently converted to the church of the flying spaghetti monster