Intelligent design goes Ivy League: Cornell offers course despite president denouncing theory

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | 04/11/2006

[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."

[DoctorMichael]

Another book to be added to the course's syllabus?

[gondramB]

"For centuries we have lead the way in science and technology despite having the most believers and your dreaded ignoramuses of the Bible Belt etc..."

Ignoring the personal insults... the lead in science is changing. Far less of PhD. in key fields are coming from the the U.s and many of those are foreign nationals. Funding for research is way down and science education is under attack.

Its not a problem with the bible or the bible belt. I'm from the bible belt and I believe in the bible.

This is a problem with the bible being misused.

[gondramB]

"
The supposed conservative war on science consists of nothing more than a VERY MILD request that alternatives to evolutionary theory"
\
Its much broader than that - its an attack on academics in general.

Take global warming. The real debate is how much is human caused and whether there is proof we can effect global temperatures. But there are conservatives arguing that global warming itself is fake... and frankly that is such an ignorant position (as the numbers are really clear) that they get dismissed by the scientific community.

The issue of evolution is bigger than you present it because what they are asking is for science to stop basing what it teaches on what can be observed and instead to include faith.

that is a recipe for scientific disaster as the Chinese and our other competitors don't suffer from that same issue.

[johnnyb_61820]

John Sanford currently participates in Creation Science. His current studies (and his new book) are about genome degredation, which have clear implications for ID and Creationism.

"I'm a Christian and I believe in intelligent design but until there is scientific evidence of it, it doesn't belong in science class."

But there is -- lots of it. It was _thought_ that the Darwinism had found a way to create informational systems from nothing, but the fact remains that Chance and necessity do not explain the origin of life. When you exclude chance and necessity what is left? Intelligent causation.

[js1138]

You mean malevolent design.

[gondramB]

"But there is -- lots of it."
\
Great. Get the proper credentials and write the papers that will document that evidence and prove your point.

Don't skip that part and demand it be taught on faith.

I'd love to see proof of God. But I have not seen it yet exceot when I had a personal encounter with God - that convinced me but he did not give me proof to show others.

[Junior]

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April 11, 2006

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2. 04/11/2006 Intelligent design goes Ivy League: Cornell offers course despite president denouncing theory
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34. 04/04/2006 Evolution debate shifts to textbooks [South Carolina]
35. 04/04/2006 Evolutionary scrap-heap challenge: Antifreeze fish make sense out of junk DNA
36. 04/04/2006 Some scientists think humans descended from Martian microbes
37. 04/04/2006 Texas Prof.: 'We're Breeding Our Brains Out' (We need to Kill More Humand to Save the Earth)
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[Junior]

It's a day late. Sorry.

[puroresu]

#####Its much broader than that - its an attack on academics in general.#####

There is no such attack from the right. None. Nowhere. If you're looking for one, look toward Harvard, where the school president was practically run out of town on a rail for noting that men on average may be better in some disciplines (math, physics, etc.) than women. Or the American Psychological Association, which altered its official position on homosexuality after a sit-in by gay activists.

There's your war on science. Merely offering an alternative to a theory that can't be proven isn't a war against that discipline.

Science entertains possibilities all the time that can't be observed or tested. Life in other galaxies. Other dimensions. Parallel universes. There's nothing wrong with that.

[js1138]

You are proposing that some entity deliberately and intentionally set up a system that enforces the stability of living species by a means so cruel it couldn't be imagined by the most psychopathic human being.

[gondramB]

"Freepdays for April"

what does that part mean?

[gondramB]

"Freepdays for April"

what does that part mean?

[gondramB]

"There is no such attack from the right. None. Nowhere. If you're looking for one, look toward Harvard,"

the presence of attacks from the left does not in any way disprove attacks from conservatives - you can see them in this thread.

[MissAmericanPie]

Fantastic

[orionblamblam]

> Your Darwin is safe in the hallowed halls of academia.

Darwin himself is long dead and buried. Darwin's discovery of the facts of evolution, however, cannot be destroyed or swept under the rug, no matter how much the supernaturalists might want to.

[mlc9852]

But each person can still decide what they want to believe, in spite of your "facts".

[orionblamblam]

> For centuries we have lead the way in science and technology despite having the most believers and your dreaded ignoramuses of the Bible Belt etc...

For centuries, we have been leading the way in scientific advancement because we've been leading the way *from* supernatural explanations *to* natural ones. Now there are those who want to reverse that trend.

[Reily]

I have read that book its tripe!

dlw

[blowfish]

But each person can still decide what they want to believe, in spite of your "facts".

Absolutely! You are free to disregard any physical evidence you like. Just don't demand that everybody else must disregard it.

[gondramB]

"Darwin himself is long dead and buried. Darwin's discovery of the facts of evolution, however, cannot be destroyed or swept under the rug, no matter how much the supernaturalists might want to."

Name calling from either side is not helpful.

Also, people who believe in God can have well founded reasons to believe - without examining those reasons it makes no sense to dis them