Univ. of Kansas Takes Up Creation Debate

<_< Do you even need to ask that about people who vote to change the definition of science as if it were up to them?

 

I.D. not motivated by a religion? John Calvert needs to have a little chat with Pat Robertson.

 

Science is not a "belief" system, rather science is based on evidence. Science strives to show its findings are false. In science, we only accept what we cannot disprove and we keep testing.

No rational, credible person believes in evolution or science. There is no debate of "evolution vs. creationism or ID," rather the controversy is within creationism and ID - as to which of 10,000 creation myths to believe.

Science tests itself and strives to prove itself false in every peer-reviewed journal. No creationism or ID papers are published in scientific journals because 1) no creationism - ID papers are presented and, or, 2) papers submitted are written at a high school or lower level and references are generally untested creationism - ID publications.

You cannot disprove the existence of the supernatural. University of Kansas is doing the right thing - offering creationism - ID as a religion course.

 

whoa. someone in kansas has their head on straight...

go ahead and teach id. see what i care. but not in science classes. that's like teaching health education alongside math class. that is, completely irrelevant.

thankfully, this is a step in the right direction to preserve the integrity of the scientific method while shutting those id folks up.

of course, the id folks won't be happy until science is discredited... but this will shut them up for now i hope.

 

I agree. Intelligent Design is based on faith, not on scientific evidence. Therefore, it should be left out of public school curriculums. That's what church is for.

Personally, I believe there's something more than what science tells me, but I don't discount scientific evidence because of my belief. Maybe some "higher being(s)" seeded the primordial soup, which led to evolution here. Maybe cosmic strings have a kind of intelligence. Or maybe I'm just completely off my rocker.

Pat Robertson is definitely off his rocker. The man should be committed. Feminists, gays and civil libertarians caused 9/11? Chavez should be assassinated? U.S. judges are worse for America than Al Qaeda?

And he still has followers.....

Kool-Aid, anyone???

 

Those UK profs must have been mortified at the discredit the State Education Commission (whatever it's called) has brought upon the state.

Years ago I learned something about Kansas, as I crisscrossed the US between Utah and Virginia several times, and got in the habit of stopping to eat there.

"Mom and pop" restaurants/diners in Kansas towns are real hubs of social interaction. Farmers and others gather at some of them at ungodly early hours, e.g., 5-6 am. They have some great discussions/arguments/rants. I'd love to have been a fly on the wall in some of them the last couple of years, as the whole state has undoubtedly thrashed out the "ID" issue.

Kinda surprised we haven't heard about Bleeding Kansas II. Maybe all the evolutionists have been killed by now, except in Lawrence and Manhattan.

 

ID is Creationism that has abandoned the idea that the earth is young. Evidently an "old earth" no longer disproves God. That's the major philosophical difference between the two, and there's more disagreement between Creationists and those that promote the idea of Intelligent Design than there is among people trained in the biological sciences regarding evolution.

There is a movement among some who are pro ID to create the research papers needed to get ID considered seriously. That's the proper role of someone approaching the problem from a scientific standpoint. Now if they can get someone from an appropriate field to write the paper for peer review ... but alas, there are no scientists in appropriate fields who will do so.

My observation of those supporting either Creationism or ID is that they view science as being part of a war for dominance of the culture. They don't even test the various theories in science against "truth" but rather read into the theories words that aren't (or shouldn't) be there. The Creationists feel that if the earth is old, then the genealogies in the Bible are untrue, and therefore you are saying God doesn't exist. Science doesn't say that at all. It says simply that the evidence shows the earth is a certain age. Those pushing ID accept that now.

The "culture war" aspect is aggravated by non-scientists (like us) attacking them as "ignorant slaves to a bronze age mythology", to quote one politico on the "side" of science. Those are unscientific judgements and don't belong in a debate on the origins either. Those arguments are, like the Creationists and ID proponents arguments, mostly emotional and unscientific.

Stephen Jay Gould expressed it best when he said that religion and science operate in different spheres or areas of interest, and are not able to be mixed successfully.

For me, it is telling that it was the inquiry for truth, borne of a religious Reformation, that led to the development of modern science, and that often by men who were, in their day, devout Christians. I wonder if they would be welcome in the churches today?

 

Good summary.

 

Yes, for being in a position such as theirs, our state board of education members are rather dumb (or at least 6 of them are).

Intelligent Design (proper) is basically a new, more complex way of reasserting the "God of the gaps" fallacy - "Science can't explain this, so God must have done it."

There is a really good wiki on this subject, as well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design

 

This really boils down to a struggle between literal interpretation and bible as a metaphorical (is that a word?) text. Science challenges the literal view because the literal view (it's not really an interpretation I suppose) is at loggerheads with what evolution, geoscience, and quantum tell us about the world.

I'm surprised that there hasn't been more controversy over the philosophical ramifications of quantum theory on religion. I suppose it's because the subject matter is rather bizarre and confusing.

 

Even the Vatican says the Intelligent Design is not science.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051118/ap_on_...tican_evolution

For once I agree 100% with the Vatican!

 

I agree "religion" does not belong in our public schools, however, I think schools should have a way of teaching that there are "other" theories out there.

All of you would be upset if there was a rule banning the teaching of other forms of governement, other cultures.......

Well, our children would be well served to know that there are people who believe in creationism AT THE SAME TIME they were learning evolution.

My .02

 

Intelligent design makes sense to be taught to our schools... but in a *philosophy* class, not a biology class.

ID is not science. To pretend that it is Science is an INCREDIBLE outrage and insult to Science...

I for one remember recieving a strong education in the basic framework of science in high school... and it was very clear to me that science never pretended to have all the answers... but that it's a framework for exploration.

Science of course acknowledges that there are gaps in it's explanations... to fill in those gaps with "God did it" defeats the purpose of science... to explore and gain a deeper understanding of the universe around us.

 

Like I said, intelligent design/Creationism can be taught in a philosophy class... but teaching in a biology class is an insult.

Because ID/Creationism isn't science... it's philosophy.

Moreover, calling ID a theory in the same vein that evolution is a theory is not fair... scientific theory is more than just something that someone made up...

 

Is someone saying ID is science? I agree with the philosophy thing...HOWEVER, what about my point of view. In biology, if you want to teach science, I am not sure Darwins THEORY fits. That is taught like it is DARWIN's FACT. You bring up Darwin, THAT is the time to bring up Creation. You want to teach gene and mutations, fine. This is where it gets muddy. Darwin belongs in the same class as ID.

Science still has not found the missing link...still theory.

Oh, I am a Born Again Baptist...truth in advertising.

 

There is essentially no dissent within the scientific community as to whether ID is a "scientific" theory.
It is not.
It is a political tool, if not to teach religious doctrine in schools, then to at least teach doubt of an established and well documented legitimate scientific model.

ID does not qualify as a scientific theory.

Here are some definitions of the word "theory":
a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena; "theories can incorporate facts and laws and tested hypotheses"; "true in fact and theory"
hypothesis: a tentative theory about the natural world; a concept that is not yet verified but that if true would explain certain facts or phenomena; "a scientific hypothesis that survives experimental testing becomes a scientific theory"; "he proposed a fresh theory of alkalis that later was accepted in chemical practices"
a belief that can guide behavior; "the architect has a theory that more is less"; "they killed him on the theory that dead men tell no tales"
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

The word theory has a number distinct meanings depending on the context.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory

A comprehensive explanation of a given set of data that has been repeatedly confirmed by observation and experimentation and has gained general acceptance within the scientific community but has not yet been decisively proven. See also hypothesis and scientific law.
college.hmco.com/geology/resources/geologylink/glossary/t.html

a general principle that explains or predicts facts or events
education.jlab.org/beamsactivity/6thgrade/vocabulary/

a statement or set of statements used to explain a phenomena. A theory is generally accepted as valid due to having survived repeated testing.
www.carm.org/evolution/evoterms.htm

A theory is an abstract formulation of the constant relations between entities or, what means the same thing, the necessary regularity in the concatenation (qv) and sequence of phenomena and/or events. A theory may be true or false. A valid theory attempts to eliminate all contradictions in the application of cause and effect to a given specific situation or set of conditions. The aim of a theory is always success in action. ...
www.mises.org/easier/T.asp

A scientific theory is an established and experimentally verified fact or collection of facts about the world. Unlike the everyday use of the word theory, it is not an unproved idea, or just some theoretical speculation. The latter meaning of a 'theory' in science is called a hypothesis.
www.whatislife.com/glossary.htm

 

Theory is not the opposite of fact.
Evolution is definitively a biological theory.

Would you shut down nuclear reactors because relativity is a theory?

 

Kiloran beat me to it.

Theory in science is much stronger than theory in common use in language. Darwin's theory has been through a very long and arguous vetting process in the scientific community going back to the 19th century. It came out of that process alive, and as a framework for further understanding biology. In science, calling something "theory" doesn't mean that it's unproven idea someone had... on the contrary, it's been all but proven.

that is the fundamental misunderstanding of anti-evolutionists nowadays... the definition of "theory" in the scientific sense... it's not something that you pulled out of your butt.

Moreover, science isn't about your point of view. Science isn't dictated by a democratic vote of those who would recieve it.