Posted on 04/11/2006 10:34:58 AM PDT by SirLinksalot
Intelligent design goes Ivy League
Cornell offers course despite president denouncing theory
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Posted: April 11, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
Cornell University plans to offer a course this summer on intelligent design, using textbooks by leading proponents of the controversial theory of origins.
The Ivy League school's course – "Evolution and Design: Is There Purpose in Nature?" – aims to "sort out the various issues at play, and to come to clarity on how those issues can be integrated into the perspective of the natural sciences as a whole."
The announcement comes just half a year after Cornell President Hunter Rawlings III denounced intelligent design as a "religious belief masquerading as a secular idea."
Proponents of intelligent design say it draws on recent discoveries in physics, biochemistry and related disciplines that indicate some features of the natural world are best explained as the product of an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection. Supporters include scientists at numerous universities and science organizations worldwide.
Taught by senior lecturer Allen MacNeill of the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology department, Cornell's four-credit seminar course will use books such as "Debating Design," by William Dembski and Michael Ruse; and "Darwin's Black Box," by Michael Behe.
The university's Intelligent Design Evolution Awareness club said that while it's been on the opposite side of MacNeill in many debates, it has appreciated his "commitment to the ideal of the university as a free market-place of ideas."
"We have found him always ready to go out of his way to encourage diversity of thought, and his former students speak highly of his fairness," the group said. "We look forward to a course where careful examination of the issues and critical thinking is encouraged."
Intelligent design has been virtually shut out of public high schools across the nation. In December, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones' gave a stinging rebuke to a Dover, Pa., school board policy that required students of a ninth-grade biology class to hear a one-minute statement that says evolution is a theory, and intelligent design "is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view."
Jones determined Dover board members violated the U.S. Constitution's ban on congressional establishment of religion and charged that several members lied to cover their motives even while professing religious beliefs.
"The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy," Jones wrote. "It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy."
Sophistry my friend. A disagreement with TOE is not an attack on science in general. Once again, you are placing too much importance on that one concept. You also do not make a logical case for your bold assertion that having americans not holding to TOE will put us behind China. You are reasoning in circles.
Sorry, the attacks are on the scientific method, shared among hundreds of individual fields.
This is the problem; the argument is not "evolulution is wrong because..." It is "Its just a theory" or "Its not true" or "It can't be proved" or some such. That is an attack on the scientific method.
I see a grave danger in attacking science in general to try to discredit evolution.
Go back and examine some of these threads. This is what gets scientists so upset. The actual logic and facts contained in creationist's attacks on evolution are easily dismissed; the attacks on science hurt us all.
"After all, the ID/evolutionary debate is about history, not the future."
The debate is not about history but about whether to teach science as we are best able to observe it or whether to allow politics to prevent new generations from learning about the scientific method and how to explore the world. Frankly, I don't even care if most students take biology at all but if they do they should not be taught that truth is decided by school boards and politics.
There are three methods of knowledge known to man. You seem void of knowledge of any of the three but they are named Philosophy, Science, and Mathematics.
The method of philosophy is the argument for proof of faith and belief in things unknown. In thousands of years it has provided little or no new knowledge. It is void of any fact and all proofs have remained argument.
The method of science is observation of a material fact, evidence, and empirical evidence of the fact and a explanation of the fact with evidence that constitutes theory. Aristotle is known as the father of science. The method of science was invented to exclude faith and belief because faith and belief obstructs and fights new facts or knowledge and views science as a threat. Aristotle's science was retrieved from the Arabs in the early middle ages and accepted by the western world as Aristotelian thought and the method of science. It has no method of observing anything other than a material fact. Faith and belief cannot be observed as a material fact or knowledge and remain argument. Proof is not a term of science. Science provides evidence.
The method of mathematics provides proof of absolutes and determines laws by designation of symbols and numbers. Descartes is thought the father of mathematics and turned to mathematics when his philosophy failed to provide proof of doubt and remained argument that was refused by the church.
The three methods are separate and not interchangeable. Philosophy can only argue faith and belief and is void of facts. Science can only observe material facts and provide the evidence for the fact, not proof. Mathematics only determines absolutes and laws. It does not determine faith and belief not does it observe new facts.
Last there is the failed method of knowledge, Opinion. Opinion is despised by Science, Philosophy and Mathematics. It is incapable of logical argument, is void of facts and knowledge and determines no absolutes or laws. Opinion seeks agenda by accusation, name calling, misrepresentation of facts, lack of knowledge and in the end violence when opinion is refuted. One of opinion is usually known as a opinionest or opinion est. Opinion is thought to be the most vile of all unethical acts.
Now comes a old argument of theological philosophy,(creation dressed up as ID), that has been relegated to opinion for centuries. It begs to be accepted as science. It's premise is that you can't disprove creation or ID and uses a term of philosophy. Well who cares except the opinionest who can't prove or disprove anything by opinion and philosophy. Science simply asks is there any new evidence of a observed fact or knowledge that we can explain by the scientific method. The reply is we have faith and belief, argument and opinion. Science answers you have had thousands of years to provide new facts or knowledge to be explain by science and have failed. You remain argument and the method of philosophy and not a observed fact by science.
Once rejected Creation and ID says we will accomplish our agenda with opinion. We will use the power of philosophical law to impose our faith and belief in science and require it taught as theory. We will distort the meanings and terms science. We will deny any facts of science with opinion. We will refuse and keep from others any knowledge of the scientific method. We will discredit science by any agenda of opinion possible.
However one should caution opinionest to be careful of what they wish. If science ever observes ID or Creation as a fact, that fact will be explained by science whether the the fact is a Deity, God or a unknown. It will not be explained by philosophy. All of faith and belief may cease to exist. Only one or none of religion will be correct. Most of faith and belief along with opinion will become ridicule. The total of their knowledge may be tugging a goat or riding a donkey if lucky.
A example of opinion can be observed in the first paragraph and is furnish by another poster. We would like to thank him because opinion can only be accomplish by meaningless, random, and useless thoughts. Not many are so capable of such opinion.
"Last time I checked it was evolutionists who prefer to use the law to choke out any mention of intelligent design in association with organized matter that performs specific functions."
Really? I've never met a scientist who wouldn't discuss new evidence although there may be some. The problem they universally have, though, is with teaching things not supported by evidence and in particular being told to teach things not supported by evidence.
You can try to bring up a liberal boogeyman red herring, but that does not change the fact that science deals in the tentative.
I concur
Is that a philosophic, scientific, or mathematic statement? Please answer without mixing or interchanging concepts.
Coming from you that's a laugh, Mr 'Matter performing intelligent operations'.
Who are the people who prefer to use US law to prohibit the suggestion that organized matter performing specific functions might best be attributed to intelligent design?
Some may argue, myself included, that a fourth source of knowledge is REVELATION.
I disagree. The proof of revelation is whether or not it is TRUE.
Is a observed fact a faith and belief or a unknown? Is a unknown a scientific fact. Can faith and belief be determined zero by a mathematical equation. Perhaps you should examine your question of opinion. Are the definitions of the sun and moon interchangeable. Is it your opinion that all these things are the same and interchangeable regardless of definition.
Socrates (469-399 B.C.E.) Scorrates first thought the method of philosophy and is the father of philosophy. He was sentenced to death by a Theocratic state rather than change his arguments. He choose death by hemlock rather than refuting his method. The definition of philosophical method can be found in the first chapter of most first year philosophy text books.
Aristotle's Method Aristotle's method of investigation varied from one natural science to another, depending on the problems encountered, but it usually included:
defining the subject matter
considering the difficulties involved by reviewing the generally accepted views on the subject, and suggestions of earlier writers
presenting his own arguments and solutions.
Again, this is the pattern modern research papers follow, Aristotle was laying down the standard professional approach to scientific research. The arguments he used were of two types: dialectical, that is, based on logical deduction; and empirical, based on practical considerations. It has change little except that more evidence and empirical evidence is require to explain the fact. The method is usually defined as I stated earlier in any first year science text book of inquiry.
math·e·mat·ics (mth-mtks) n. (used with a sing. verb) The study of the measurement, properties, and relationships of quantities and sets, using numbers and symbols. The definition can be found in most alimentary math texts. Although Descartes is known as the father of mathematics the origin is unknown. It is ongoing and includes both deducted and inducted reasoning.
Philosophy
The same people who would block the suggestion that we teach the Theory of Little Green Fairies in science classes. Those pesky science types, always harping on the need for physical evidence! Think of all the wonderful theories we could teach without that petty requirement for evidence!
And you wish to propagandize the word tentative as if there were only one degree of tentative.
In real life, the kinds of arguments used to support evolution and common descent are trusted to the extent that they are accepted as proof in courts of law, and are used to imprison, even execute people.
Thanks for responding, but, I haven't the inclination to discuss "what is real?" and "what is really real?" or whether TRUTH exists.
I believe TRUTH can be known, and REVELATION is one way to know. Hey, I like the three other methods of obtaining knowledge that you posted previously as means to determine TRUTH.
Also, Revelation is not Philosophy, either, as you earlier inferred. Philosophies seem to be based upon systems of reasoning, whereas, Revelation seems to not always follow reason.
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