Posted on 09/26/2005 1:53:21 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
A Pennsylvania school district's use of "intelligent design" in its high school biology curriculum goes on trial in federal court today in the nation's first legal challenge to the idea, which contends that evolutionary theory alone does not explain how life on Earth took shape.
The lawsuit, brought by 11 parents in the Dover Area School District, attacks as unconstitutional the year-old policy of telling ninth-grade biology students that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution "is not a fact. Gaps in the Theory exist for which there is no evidence." School officials also recommend a book on intelligent design, or ID.
The plaintiffs, including the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, argue that the policy -- which does not require students to study intelligent design -- serves religious, not secular ends, violating the First Amendment.
ID proponents say scientists can look at life forms and identify the work of a controlling "intelligence," although ID advocates are not specific about the nature of that force. While they do not reject all evolutionary theory, ID proponents argue that it incorrectly insists life took shape purely through a mindless process.
(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...
I am an atheist, not an adeist.
Your "truth" has no evidence to back it up.
I am saying that you never intended to accept any proof even though you said you would. If that is the standard for your 'truth' then perhaps you are correct about what I am saying.
Just why is it important to the evos that others believe as they believe? Kinda like religion, isn't it?
I have it on good authority that the Earth was flat before it was spherical. Only at the close of the third age, when the last of the elves sailed to Eldamar was the globed Earth forever separated from the Undying Lands.
Because science isn't just whatever you "believe". The postmodernists haven't taken over yet.
Of course science is what you believe. Do you know there are some scientists who discount Darwin's version of evolution? Does that make them less intelligent than you?
It wouldn't even have to taste good.
Most evolutionists don't care what others personally believe, but they do start caring when people try to insert religious dogma ("intelligent design") cloaked as science into the public schools.
It is important to science that it remain a discipline that relies on evidence and the testing of that evidence. Broadening its scope to include religious, mythical, and other supernatural musings erodes its ability to function as a tool for studying and defining physical existence.
Kinda like religion, isn't it?
No.
...understand that the theory is of great use to biological scientists...
It seems to me that much (perhaps all) biological science investigation could continue unchanged, without being affected by an evolution or creation backdrop.
Just how does the notion of evolution make scientific investigation more valid?
I suppose I'm looking for the practical implications of pushing evolution and squelching creation. I don't see how a belief in creation is such a horrendous thing that will somehow stop scientific investigation, as many on these threads infer. I think it's absolutely nuts to say that you have to accept evolutionary theory to "do real science"...abso-freaking-lutely nuts.
I didn't call you a relativist, did I? I can't imagine I would since I don't know what that would have to do with evolution.
Evidence can always be interpreted more than one way. Any scientist will tell you that.
about all that the lion share of 'creationists' and their 'id' brethren can understand
It has been proven over and over to you...please open your eyes.
No one has proved to me that humans descended from apes.
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