Posted on 12/21/2004 7:59:02 PM PST by postitnews.com
HARRISBURG, PA-The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and attorneys with Pepper Hamilton LLP filed a federal lawsuit today on behalf of 11 parents who say that presenting "intelligent design" in public school science classrooms violates their religious liberty by promoting particular religious beliefs to their children under the guise of science education.
"Teaching students about religion's role in world history and culture is proper, but disguising a particular religious belief as science is not," said ACLU of Pennsylvania Legal Director Witold Walczak. "Intelligent design is a Trojan Horse for bringing religious creationism back into public school science classes."
The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United Executive Director, added, "Public schools are not Sunday schools, and we must resist any efforts to make them so. There is an evolving attack under way on sound science...Read More
(Excerpt) Read more at postitnews.com ...
Where's your asbestos suit?
Or are you just a masochist?
(Turns away, holding hands over eyes, exclaiming,"Oh no! I can't look!")
You need to learn more about what real science means.
What you do not understand is that, by virtue of adhering to ID theories an individual excludes himself from the world of science, divests himself of the high priesthood of scientists, and places himself into the dark world of superstition. Science and religion are as far apart as, well, east from west. One simply cannot allow the intermingling of tangible, provable, hard facts with unseen and uncertified hunches. No hunches allowed, nosirree.
And while the world may appear to be full of information for you and all humans to observe and test, don't believe for one second that any intelligence is behind that information. That would be as irrational as the most insane of fairy tales. IF you want to be a part of real science, that is. So, please remain in the world of superstition and hocus pocus, and don't even pretend to know the real facts about the world in which you live. Let the real scientists figure out what this world is all about. Okay?
Two is the oddest prime number, it's the only even one.
There's a website out there with a bunch of numbers, and the "conclusion" is supposed to be there. But it's all nonsense. There are also websites refuting it, but the original silliness remains, and gets some mention every now and then. A few years ago some flaming fool (now banned, but still remembered) posted it here in its entirety, with the unspoken implication that it was his work. I found the website of origin, and the poster was exposed not only as an idiot, but also as a plagiarist. Very low-grade stuff. By now, I suppose that "proof" is copied on dozens, maybe hundreds of websites. Doesn't mean a thing.
I would agree, that in practice, government funding of education would lead to government/ACLU control. I was being idealistic in that I would wish for the government funding without the government control. Also I would limit it entirely to local government; state and federal governments should have no part in the funding. As far as abiogenesis, you are free to believe that this is a specualtive idea because it is. It is also no part of the theory of evolution. Life could have been created directly by God, and that fact would not damage evolution one bit, because the ultimate origin of life is not a topic that evolution deals with. Actually, I think a lot of this debate arises from misconceptions. Evolution does not, in and of itself, state that there is no God or that there is no intelligent guidance involved in the process (it doesn't say that there is either.) Admittedly there are people who state that evolution demonstrates that there is no God or that the process must be entirely random, the actual theory doesn't state this. This is no more a part of the theory of evolution than Inquisitions are a part of Roman Catholic teaching.
Actually, now that you mentioned it, I think I have seen this "proof" before. Is it the one where they use some bogus logic to show that anything with odds greater than some large number (like 1 in 10^80 or so) is really mathematically impossible? They then use some more bogus numbers to derive a probability for abiogenesis that is lower than this. I pretty much debunked that argument by pointing out that the sequence of the last 25 powerball drawings actually occurring is far less probable than the criterion of mathematical impossibility given in the "proof."
ID is excluded from science simply because it suggests no lines of research. ID presupposes that certain biological structures could not have evolved. In science this is called a null hypothesis, and the obvious response is to conduct research towards falsifying that hypothesis. (There is no way to prove such a hypothesis except by repeated failure to falsify it.)
This is exactly what mainstream science is doing, working to find naturalistic explanations for so-called irreducible structures. This is what science does. This, apparently, is not what ID does.
Feel free to falsify this post by presenting an overview of the ID research program. What are its goals and accomplishments?
How very French of you. The French Revolutionists said the same as the executed Lavoisier and other scientists.
Philosophy class would be the ideal place to discuss theories of Intelligent Design. If we still taught philosophy...
Possibly. I've seen that one too. But I was talking about something even dumber, based on numerology. Something about the number of books in the bible, the number of words, of letters, the days of creation, the number of this, of that, and then ... badda-bing! There's your proof. It appeals to a certain kind of pre-human mentality.
I presume that you are saying that the probibility of any long series of "random" events is close to zero. Yet things do happen.
The real crime of ID is assuming that things that are unknown are unknowable. If we cannot demonstrate abiogenesis then it is not worth investigating. If we do not understand all the small steps leading to a complex structure, it is not worth investigating.
ID is a totalitarian impulse, a shutting down of curiosity. It derives directly from the notion of original sin, which asserts that curiosity is a mortal sin.
Foolish mortal! Obsessed with the flesh! You would do well to bear in mind the fate of Dr. Frankenstein. He meddled in things that man was not meant to know! Beware!!
</idiot mode>
What I meant with the "Be Careful" was, the homeschooled students would likely be ahead in math and basic English and grammar, as well as history. You would, however, assuming that you taught them creationism exclusively, be beginning them with a fundamental lack of understanding of how science works, of the nature of evidence, the true meaning of the terms "Theory", "Law", and "Hypothesis". You would also be destroying any sense of skepticism which is quite necessary for future scientific inquiry and advancement.Reading the posts of one Goodseedhomeschool, a banned freeper, I lost any enthusiasm for homeschooling I ever had. I still very much support vouchers for accredited private schools.
Don't forget Jeykill! He was warned. "Your experiments, Doctor! They go too far. Don't you know there are forces in nature that must not be tampered with!!??"
Jeykill AND Frankenstein. You'd think we'd learn.
Thank you for your measured response! It's always a pleasure discussing things such as this with someone who is polite!
Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
And who could ignore the lesson from "The Island of Dr. Moreau"?
Not to mention the Great Rabbi Loew of Prague and his Golem.
Jekyll.
"Jeykill"
I kind of liked the original.
You know, I have posted my request for an outline of the ID research program at least half a dozen times in the last week, with no responses.
I think we need a pool to bet on the date of the first publication of an ID research program.
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