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."
Nothing you say is remotelely relevant to my post. What I said was:
Science makes inferences from things that can be observed and checked by others. It is interesting that scientists from all over the world agree on the main paradigms of the various sciences, while people of varying religions are killing each other over the interpretation of texts.
It is interesting that most scientific disputes are settled in a few years or a few decades, while people of various religions are re fighting 1700 year old heresies.
There are distinct difference in the subject matter and methodologies of religion and science. Science only studies those questions that can be resolved by empirical methods.
Oh really? What kind of "harm?" The last time I checked, the properties involved with intelligent design are natural and normal. The details may be more profound or numerous in some places, but they are hardly superstitious. DNA is not superstitious. Understanding it from the perspective of intelligent design hardly causes one to whip out a ouija board, consult an astrologer, and slaughter people in the name of the intelligent designer.
Nor does understanding the physical universe from the perspective of intelligent design cause one to hang up all investigation as if answers are not helpful or necessary. Frankly, evolutionists have absolutely nothing to offer in place of intelligent design that is even remotely useful.
It is interesting that Christians and non-Christians from all over the world agree on the main paradigms concerning the presence and activity of an Almighty Creator, and have agreed on these things for "slightly" longer than 200 years.
The differences between religion and science may be considered intellectually, but practically the two simply cannot be separated. The suggestion that science is somehow more unanimous and precise in its derivations than the combined experience and observation of mankind in general is hopeful, to be sure, but not necessarily, or empirically, certain.
"I see a grave danger in attacking science in general to try to discredit evolution."
By those that really matter, this is not happening. Once again I submit you are over generalizing and resorting to hyperbole - although I don't think you mean to.
"Frankly, evolutionists have absolutely nothing to offer in place of intelligent design that is even remotely useful."
That is because they are not in competition - one is science and the other is religious faith - apples and oranges.
Indeed. +++
Wait a second. I thought you were the one who said "usefulness" is a positive attribute for science - one that would make ID a scientifically acceptable idea. What could be more useful than intelligent design? More importantly, what kind of science can happen without it?
"Wait a second. I thought you were the one who said "usefulness" is a positive attribute for science - one that would make ID a scientifically acceptable idea. What could be more useful than intelligent design? More importantly, what kind of science can happen without it?"
Actually Issac Assimov said it but I agree with it. Usefulness of an assumption in science lies in its ability to predict verifiable facts not predicted without the assumption.
Intelligent design predicts and assumes organized matter performing specific functions. I reckon we could call it a coincidence of nature that atoms do not fly apart and we have an intelligible universe to explore with our intelligence, but that wouldn't be particularly scientific, would it?
ROFLOL!!!!!!!!
"Intelligent design predicts and assumes organized matter performing specific functions. I reckon we could call it a coincidence of nature that atoms do not fly apart and we have an intelligible universe to explore with our intelligence, but that wouldn't be particularly scientific, would it?"
So show how it predicts verifiable behavior that cannot be predicted without and your on your way - then make you case to the scientific community so they can check your work.
I'd be happy for you to show that ID has scientific basis - the ID people that upset me are the ones who want it taught without such proof, as accepted by the scientific community.
Proof? All this time I have been saying the standards of science, unless pure math, do not involve "proof." Theories entail data that fits more consistently with the model. Every case where the elements retain ther specificity is evidence that may be inferred as pointing to intelligent design. In every case where we've known for certain that intelligent design has taken place, it entails organizing matter to perform specific functions. It also entails dynamic processes. For certain people to suggest that intelligent design MIGHT be responsible for said organization is innocuous to science in general. But it seems to have a way of tightening the threads on certain philosophical undergarments.
Evolution can not be falsified either.
I am not sure where you got the idea that I thought "Science" is a bastion of anything. It is a business and for the most part it has to sell products that the buying public wants.
You're right that my use of the word "proof" was a little strong. I should have said verifiable physical behavior predicted by ID that cannot be predicted without ID. But I used "proof" as a short hand.
If all things are a product of intelligent design, then it would be difficult, if not impossible, to provide a specific example where ID does not apply. The theory fits well because the physical universe is ubiquitous with intelligibility. The first indicator of intelligibility is mere existence coupled with cognition. Even in this case, function (cause and effect) is apparent. I see no reason scientifically to discount intelligent design in any case where there is cause and effect.
Science is, and must always be, a quest for intelligibile data. It is not an unreasonable inference to make: jumping from intelligibility to intelligence and design. At the same time, it is not an empirically provable idea. That is why the idea should, to be honest, be presented in qualified terms. As far as I know, that is how proponents of ID generally state their case: tentatively.
But as history plays itself out, the principles at stake in this debate have little bearing on the general body of knowledge aquired by science and scientific method. Much good has come from pushing aside ramifications that might cater to superstition and false belief. At the same time, much harm has come from cracking science up to be more than it is, namely a practice limited by human weaknesses.
You don't think there is anything that can prove ToE wrong?
Thank you. I appreciate you letting me know.
You're all right. :-)
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