Posted on 11/08/2005 4:17:17 AM PST by PatrickHenry
For the past six weeks, the debate over evolution and intelligent design has played out in a Pennsylvania courtroom.
Today, Kansas gets the national spotlight back — and with it, the possibility of a federal lawsuit here.
“What’s going on in Kansas,” said Kenneth Miller, a Brown University biologist, “is much more radical and much more dangerous to science education” than the contested decision in Dover, Pa., to mandate the teaching of “intelligent design” in public school science classes.
Intelligent design speculates that the world is too complex to have evolved without the help of an unknown designer — an alien, perhaps, or God. Such teachings in public schools, the ACLU says, violate constitutional restrictions on the separation of church and state.
“Absolutely, absolutely,” said T. Jeremy Gunn, director of the ACLU’s Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, when asked if the new science standards Kansas is expected to adopt today could be vulnerable to litigation.
An official with the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, which helped defend the Dover school board, said Kansas should be able to avoid legal scrutiny. Casey Luskin said the standards here critique evolution, but they don’t promote intelligent design.
“It’s definitely a different issue in Kansas” than in Pennsylvania, Luskin said.
‘More radical’
It’s a different battle, perhaps, but definitely the same war. Many of the participants in the Pennsylvania trial are veterans of the Kansas evolution debates, and are keeping a close eye on today’s meeting of the Kansas Board of Education.
Miller, for example, testified in the Pennsylvania trial against intelligent design. He came to Kansas in 2000 to campaign against conservative school board members the last time the evolution debate flared up here.
The new Kansas standards literally change the definition of science, he said, so that natural explanations aren’t necessary to explain natural phenomena. That opens the door, he said, for astrology to be taught in public school classrooms.
“Is this what proponents on the Kansas Board of Education have in mind?” Miller asked.
Michael Behe, a Lehigh University scientist, wrote “Darwin’s Black Box” — a touchstone text of the intelligent design movement. He testified in Pennsylvania, and before the Kansas Board of Education when it held hearings on the science standards.
“I think having students hear criticisms of any theory is a great idea,” Behe said. “I think in one respect, it’ll mean it’s permissible to question evolution. For odd historical reasons, questioning evolution has been put off-limits. If Kansas can do it, it can be done elsewhere.”
More evolution?
Luskin agreed.
“In contrast to what everybody has said, Kansas students will hear more about evolution and not less about evolution,” he said. “This is a victory for people who want students to learn critical thinking skills in science.”
But Gunn noted that the vast majority of scientists believed in evolution as a proven explanation for the origins of life. The “handful” who don’t, he said, have resorted to making their case through politics instead of through traditional scientific methods.
“Do we teach both sides of the controversy on astrology in science class? Do we teach both sides of phrenology?” Gunn said. “This is not a scientific controversy, it’s a political controversy.”
Testimony in the Pennsylvania trial wrapped up on Friday. A ruling in that case is expected in January.
Then how can Behe and Minnich claim that the flagellum is irreducibly complex etc...
As I stated in a post to RWP the other day (I think it was you) Behe does not have an appreciation or understanding of the molecular aspects of proteins nor their physicochemical nature.
The irreducible complexity argument is fine, the problem is the basic suppositions behind it are not congruent with what is known of protein structure and function and genomic architecture.
That would be anyone you can still hoodwink.
Chuckling - you've never gotten an answer to that question, as many times as it has been asked. Too funny.
Their answer, though, is obvious, if unspoken. Those other religions are simply false.
LOL. your post is so true. You responded to yourself.
2. I am reading everywhere now that Darwin's concepts are an adequate explanation for the origin of life, NOT just its evolved present state. That's new isn't it? Patrick Henry, we've talked about this before and you said, if I remember correctly, that Darwin explains the descent of the species not the origin of life. For example, from this article: "But Gunn noted that the vast majority of scientists believed in evolution as a proven explanation for the origins of life." So which is it?
3. What I object to in the persuit of science is the notion that we can explain it all without the need for a Creator. How do we keep science from encroaching into an area that it has no business? You can say that science evolution doesn't speak to the non-existence of a Creator, but very often that is what is being implied and conveyed via the theories(and rabidly atheist teachers). Often evolution is taught with a vengeance toward God, is my point. Are there any curbs in place for that excess?
I didn't see that you got an answer and these threads have a tendency to take off, so I thought I'd give you my 2 cents.
1. The SETI search is based on the idea that physics and chemistry work the same in other parts of the universe as it does here. If it's the same, then it seems like similar processes that created us should be working. Since we appeared "only" 4.55 billion years after the earth's formation in a universe around 13.5 billion years old, it seems like some other planet could have intelligent life something like us by now.
Behe's concept is actually not Behe's, it's Darwin's. And he re-worked Dembski's ideas to get there. But ID is really an idea looking for data, methods and definitions. Complexity still apparently has no meaning, and there is apparently no objective method for determining it.
2. Darwin, or evolutionary biologists, don't claim to explain the origins of life and don't claim to have any well-defined process for how it occurred. These claims originate with creationists and ID'ers who don't know a lot of science or biology. Behe and Dembski, for example, don't believe biologists claim this.
Evolution claims to explain that species evolve over time from existing species. The evidence for evolution is in the fossil record. No ID'er has ever addressed this massive amount of data in any logical form as of this date. That's why they choose to argue in the arena of molecular chemistry and genomics. There are more unknowns to work with.
3. There are some scienists who believe that man, or our more evolved descendants, will eventually be able to explain nearly everything in the universe. And there are atheists and agnostics who will tell you so. But most scientists are Christians in this country.
The problem with public school in general is that God has been shown the door. But rather than fix this by pretending that the Bible is a science text book, Christians should rally to the cause of Christian classes in schools. Things like ID could be aired there without diminishing the quality of science education, which is already pathetic. The proof of how bad science education is in this country is that we even have to have crevo debates.
ID has no methods, definitions, results or even a journal for publishing research. That's because it's not science. It's just an attempt to sell books, lectures and the like to people who want to hear a faith-based message.
Because they, God help them, are the most scientifically competent IDers. (Dembski on his blog today has a link to the Blacklight Energy page we ripped apart a few days ago. Evidently he can't spot bogus pseudoscience even when it's someone else's. How the heck did he con his way to a math Ph.D.?)
If Behe and Minnich can't articulate the basic, underlying principles of ID, then who can? And if they can't explain it, who's going to write the teaching materials to teach it to high school kids?
Why do you care what IDers say?
Having a Big Brother like the US does that to us. ;-P
When you fish you almost always catch something. And sometimes you just have to throw it back.
Because they're trying to force their pseudoscience into the public schools my kids attend.
Oh the horror.
If that were even the 100th on the list of problems with public schools we'd be in great shape.
I send my kids to private schools you ought to as well.
Science classe is one of the last vestiges of critical thinking and problem solving training in public school. Why screw it up by mixing in philosophy and religion? If it's not broken, don't fix it. Tackle the 100 or so other problems first.
Lincoln Public Schools are fine. Maybe if you took an interest in the schools in your community, you could make them better.
I send my kids to private schools you ought to as well.
Yeah, like I'm going to turn my kids over to people who think the earth is 6000 years old.
The madness is in the rejection of science by the academic dogmatists that promote the faith of evolution over science. To study the arguments made in opposition to telling Kansas students the truth that the evidence (science) opposes the faith of evolution at every turn, is most telling.
Nice piece of histrionics. But it isn't particularly important one way or another. It's also interesting how you substitute science class for what should be biology class. Unless they are now teaching evolutionary theory in Chemistry and Physics classes.
This is all a big to do about nothing.
It seesm those concerend about critical thinking have more issues with hysteria -- their own.
The schools are riddled with problems already, so what's one more? Is that the argument?
This is your impression of all private schools?
Issues with reality dude.
I think the reason so many here get so hysterical at the thought of Behe saying his stuff is because they are the flip side of the coin. Nothing personal to anyone on any side, but this is rather the war among the mediocrities with no better things to do or think about.
Somehow they need each other.
No.
What is the argument, then?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.