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."
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.
Of the three methods only mathematics proves a absolute. Philosophy argues for proofs of unknowns but all proofs of philosophy remains argument. Science only explains the evidence of a fact. Proof is not at term used in science. There are 6.7 billion people on earth. No two have ever been observed to be exactly the same. Science accepts that as evidence but not proof of difference. A clone might appear. Revelations are usually inspired by Theological thought and Devinne intervention. It may be accepted by a theology but theology itself is the main branch of philosophy. Revelations revealed to Joseph Smith is accepted as knowledge by Mormons. However most of philosophy would disagree.
So you are unaware of any current legal challenges to the idea of intelligent design in association with organized matter?
Galileo improved upon Aristotle and used mathematics to do it. To suggest that these disciplines must remain separate or non-interchangable is to introduce constraints that are unnecessary, just like suggesting theology must be compartmentalized into the realm of faith, as if faith by definition has no basis in fact; as if science can operate without shaping principles attendant to each observer.
I guess I don't see any connection between little green fairies and the presence of organized matter that perfroms specific functions. I also don't see many people propounding little green fairies as viable entities behind the organization of matter. I don't think Judge Jones was addressing such people either. If you're goping to erect a straw man, at least try to be creative about it. Only be sure not to use intelligent design.
I was simply pointing out another 'theory' with an equal amount of supporting evidence (none).
I know of few courts that condemn people to death on the basis of circumstantial evidence. Even where eyewitness testimony is involved, it is not unheard of for people to conspire in telling a lie. Courts are not foolproof. Neither is science. I know of many people who are fooled by the evidence. Most people today still say the sun rises and sets because, on the face of it, that is exactly what happens.
The tentative nature of the theory of evolution requires that, in order to be honest, its proponents present it in tentative terms, just as do the proponents of intelligent design.
Are you saying there is no evidence for the presence of organized matter that performs specific functions, and that it is wholly unreasonable to attribute such organization to a cause other than little green fairies? Is it the mere substitution of the word "nature" for "God" that makes someone a scientist vs. a theologian?
Circumstantial evidence is more trustworthy than eyewitness testimony, and your generalizations aside, people are frequently convicted on circumstantial evidence.
No, that theres no evidence for an intelligence that guides each atom on it's little errand. Salt crystals are not cubical because there's an intelligence guiding each wayward ion into it's little spot in the cube. (Maybe in FesterWorld, not in mine.)
There is no way to prove life could not have been designed. That's why ID is not science.
Your opinion. Try to use any to prove the other. Laws are used as evidence in scientific theory however those laws are determined by mathematics, not science. Faith has no basis in fact. Name a fact observed by faith. Faith has long been defined by philosophy. Ones opinion will not change the definition.
You are so wrong. Try reading the Skeptical Inquirer (most likely there are copies at your local library) and see all the pseudoscience they rail against. MOST of it is from the kooky left. That mag helped turn me into a conservative.
Actually the conjectures of Copernicus and Galileo regarding heliocentrism were not based on mathematics, and provided little mathematical advantage over the Ptolemaic system.
They stuck because they were good inferences and led to good research. But they were the result of imaginative thinking, not logical necessity.
This is pretty common in science.
God is bigger than science marker
Of course, when humans build an implement they do not imbue its particles with intelligence either. That does not mean it was not intelligently designed. The circumstantial evidence (which is apparently more credible than eyewitness testimony) is enough to reasonably infer as much.
Galileo's work tended to be more precise than that of Aristotle because he used mathematics. Mathematics may be employed in connection with a philosophy and the two together may work well as science. There is no need to maintain mathematics as a strictly separate discipline in order to accurately perceive and explain the world around us. It takes a peculiar philosophy to engage mathematics in total separation from other factors attending to human reason.
Do you have evidence and observation it was intelligently designed? Do you have evidence and observation it was not intelligently designed? What supports you opinion? Any observation or evidence of either?
As is yours that there are three types of knowlege that must must remain separate.
Faith has no basis in fact.
It may be defined that way, but most faith is based upon positive statements, either in language or in physical reality. Even people who believe in the Tooth Fairy have at least received some communication implying the Tooth Fairy's existence. And if you can imagine a Tooth Fairy, shall we say what is in your imagination does not exist? It most certainly exists as a thought. Are thoughts outside the realm of science? How can they be when all of science is dependent upon thought in the first place?
Thats not a opinion. Its stated, defined and practiced by each field of knowledge. You should call all the philosophy, science, and mathematics department and advise them that your opinion is that they are interchangeable, definitions should be changed, they should not remain separate and faith and belief should run the show. Get back to me when you have a response from them.
Galileo was not mor precise than Ptolemy. Actually the opposite. But Copernicus and Galileo had the imagination to infer the best physical model for the data.
In the long run it is not mathematical logic that makes for consensus in science. It is the ability to move research forward.
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