Posted on 08/19/2005 1:02:07 PM PDT by SmithL
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Echoing similar comments from President Bush, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said "intelligent design" should be taught in public schools alongside evolution.
Frist, R-Tenn., spoke to a Rotary Club meeting Friday and told reporters afterward that students need to be exposed to different ideas, including intelligent design.
"I think today a pluralistic society should have access to a broad range of fact, of science, including faith," Frist said.
Frist, a doctor who graduated from Harvard Medical School, said exposing children to both evolution and intelligent design "doesn't force any particular theory on anyone. I think in a pluralistic society that is the fairest way to go about education and training people for the future."
The theory of intelligent design says life on earth is too complex to have developed through evolution, implying that a higher power must have had a hand in creation. Nearly all scientists dismiss it as a scientific theory, and critics say it's nothing more than religion masquerading as science.
Bush recently told a group of Texas reporters that intelligent design and evolution should both be taught in schools "so people can understand what the debate is about."
That comment sparked criticism from opponents, including Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean, who called Bush "anti-science."
Frist, who is considering a presidential campaign in 2008, recently angered some conservatives by bucking Bush policy on embryonic stem cell research, voicing his support for expanded research on the subject.
Frist said his decision to endorse stem cell research was "a matter of science," but he said there was no conflict between his position on stem cell research and his position on intelligent design.
"To me, I see no disconnect between that and stem cell research," Frist said. "I base my beliefs on stem cell research both on science and my faith.
Won't be any classes after the Sun the Moon and the Stars and the rest of the galaxy cease orbiting the earth. School will be out, permanently.
In 1835 for someone to insist on a particular nature of the stars without empirical observation would have been a statement of belief, not science. When the observations were made and confirmed then it could rightfully be called science.
One day you may be able to show how life arose from inanimate matter, but until that day it is not science.
In 1835 for someone to insist on a particular nature of the stars without empirical observation would have been a statement of belief, not science. When the observations were made and confirmed then it could rightfully be called science.
One day you may be able to show how life arose from inanimate matter, but until that day it is not science.
They do exactly that, but when they get to your classes, they are ridiculed and belittled, until they either lose their faith, or fail you class. Many just shut up and take it.
You are more of an evangelist(• a zealous advocate of something) than you want to admit. You are not satisfied to present your evidence, you demand that everyone accept it is the absolute truth, just as Islam does.
Go to JAIL.
Go directly to JAIL.
Do not pass GO.
Do not collect $200
OK Itsa, I'll bite, What evidence do you have for ID.
Be Specific, and do it without quoting Scripture...
Doesn't Genesis give an account of life arising from inanimate matter?
"And the earth brought forth grass."
It is written.
Inquiries as to how exactly the earth did bring forth grass may or may not succeed, but it would seem to me that such inquiries must remain in the realm of natural science, if they are to be actual inquiries.
hehehehehehehehehe....
That has got to be one of the funniest responses I've seen in these ID threads so far....
I will take your example. You still do not seem to understand the difference between science and metaphysics. A natural cause is in the realm of science but there is no guarantee that there was a natural cause. God could just have said: "Let there be grass." Such a cause would outside the realm of science. Also, the statement "there must have been a natural cause" is a metaphysical one, not a scientific one.
Irrelevant to science and also outside the capability of science to know. Which was my point in reply to the question. The questioner was asking of the same requirement of a sphere of knowledge outside of science.
Not necessarily - wouldn't you consider maths a science? Theoretical physics?
Higher level math dealing in symbol manipulation - no, this does not completely require reference to reality detectible by the senses. It can be purely datum from the intellect. It is a special and very interesting case that illustrates some fundamental truths about knowledge.
Theoretical physics – somewhat in the same category although it deals with the requirements of realit that I described in my definition, only in a theoretical rather than empirical method. [For example theorizing about what particles must/could exist in order to maintain symmetry through transformations of matter.]
Both these examples tend more to prove the rule by their exceptions and both cases have their applied or experimental application. In the case of theoretical physics this necessary for them to accomplish the scientific requirement of "proof" or "exists." [e.g., Dirac's theoretical work was only "proven" by experimental evidence of the positron.]
I'm not sure what you mean by the "rest of reality".
Those aspects of reality, things that exist, that cannot be known using science alone. We all know a great many of them, some are the most important aspects of being a human.
And I enjoy living in a universe governed by science
This is not a very scientific statement. Science doesn't "govern."
rather than the whims of a temperamental deity.
Perhaps you've chosen to accept someone else's description of diety rather than explore, test and know for yourself. Again, not very scientific.
I am not a proponent of ID, it is an ill thought out attempt to merge Creationism into a Scientific package that is acceptable to Science. I have a simpler explanation.
1:1* ¶ In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Nothing can explain why there is something rather than nothing, I choose to believe God.
Math is an art, not a science. Math comes into the realm of science only when it actually measures or discribe something.
I'm not talking about teaching a bible class - or Koran, or The Eightfold Path - in public school.
And yes, science, and philosophy, separated their spheres from religion in a difficult time.
They used to be fused. And religion was the ruler. If it's not known by religion, or if it contradicts what we think religion says, it's wrong.
Now what has occurred? Science is the ruler. If it can't be known by science it doesn't exist. If it can't be proven by science, it's wrong.
BOTH are errors, unskillful education.
There must be a way to avoid either error and teach the truth. It is at least as harmful to have science be the only arbiter of truth.
What we are teaching then is scientism. It is false, debunked centuries ago and it is very very harmful. Yet it is a popular cultural view.
We must find a way to avoid both errors.
But how else is one to make an inquiry into this matter, other than scientifically? It seems to me that the only alternative is to accept it as a Mystery, which many have been content to do before we were taught the virtues of Science.
How can it be a "theory" that God commanded the earth to bring forth grass, and the earth obeyed? Where does this leave "Intelligent Design" ?
You point out why I think that it is important to again teach logic and philosophy in the schools. This could easily be done without any conflicts about Church and State by reintroducing Aristotle and other classical philosophers.
If I project your thesis out a bit I come to the conclusion that eventually everything, including what is only mystery to us now, can be known by science. This we could call the "Science of the Gaps."
Science names, describes and models a subset of reality. It is the firmest knowledge we have, it's designed to be so. But the firmest set is not therefore the largest set.
There was a time called the Age of Reason when man fell in love with logic. It was thought by many then that soon all the deep questions of man throughout antiquity would soon fall to its power.
I love science, but we must always keep in mind precisely what it is we "know" when we say we "know."
Oh, I agree that the inquiry must be done by the scientific method. But it is not against the canons of science to declare that a particular phenomenon cannot be explained by natural means.
How many centuries ago, exactly? One decimal will suffice.
If you knew the history of western education you would know how facile this statement was. The university arouse at the height of the Age of Faith. The study of the natural sciences (although primitive by today's standards) were an integral part of the education. The "virtues of Science" were completely understood by those who also placed their faith in God.
Can you cite a precedent? I think not! I can't even imagine such a thing - as a scientist.
Off the top of my head, late 1700s. Within a very short period of its emergence. It falls on its on petard, performative error.
"Only that which is (can be) known by science is true."
Prove the above statement using science.
You know Itsa, I'll take my hat off to you for that post.
Seriously. No hidden "boot" waiting with that.
That was the VERY FIRST time an ID/Creationism supporter has been Truthful about what ID is, and what it isn't.
Thank You.
Look, I'm not opposed to people having their Religious Faith/Beliefs, whatever they may be. If someone wants to pray to a grill cheese sandwich because they see the face of their respective diety on it, more power to them. If it makes them happy, fulfilled, etc, even better.
My problem with it comes when they can't be honest about it when they try and interject those beliefs into areas, like Science, dressed up as something it isn't.
Again, thank you for your honesty.
I think that you misunderstood my point. I am not saying that it is proper for science to declare that something could never be explained by natural means, only that at the present time that it cannot be explained so. As for a precedent, at the present time science cannot explain the origin of life.
Yes and yes and yes.
The basics of philosophy, metaphysics, epistemology could so easily and valuably be part of basic education. How can we claim to be teaching knowledge without teaching about knowledge?
"What we are teaching then is scientism. It is false, debunked centuries ago and it is very very harmful. Yet it is a popular cultural view.
We must find a way to avoid both errors."
Science was debunked centuries ago?
Really?
D, maybe I'm just not understanding what your positing here, but would you care to be specific on how exactly you'd suggest bridging Religion and Science, without allowing one to step on, control, or rule over the other.
If it's your idea that Religious Philosophy should be taught alongside Science I would strongly disagree. As an Example, would you teach kids Home Economics in an Autoshop class? The two are distinctly different.
If you are saying both should be taught seperatly, I would agree. I think people should learn all about the various Religious doctrines, without applying an inequal amount of importance to any particular one.
And besides, you didn't answer my question, "Where does this leave Intelligent Design ?" It seems that this idea has no scriptural support whatsoever in the account of grass being brought forth by the earth at God's command. It seems to me that a scriptural mandate for Intelligent Design would require something to the effect of "God made the grasses," which we do not see. Instead we have the earth left to its own devices, as it were. Not too much of a stretch to see this as a scriptural mandate for Naturalism. What say you?
This might approach it from a tangent:
"The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible."
- A. Einstein
It is sad that every parent who is told shell out thousands of dollars to give a liberal education to their child is being lied to. Todays "liberal arts" colleges (with the exception of one or two) are anything but. They have been turned into technical institutes. The result is that we are turning out graduates who can build but cannot think.
Thanks for your reply.
I think I answered your questions (and it's "scientism" not science) in my recent posts to others. Rather than repeat them, if you could scan this page?
Then, please let me know if there's something still remaining in your questions.
thanks again...
I can readily accept that God might have use natural laws as a instrumental cause in creation. That being said, do not think that every Christian is a Biblical literalist. I can distinguish between poetic language and historical accounts.
That's it precisely. Technical institutes.
Maybe it's just my pet peeve, but I see the harmful effects throughout our culture, communities, politics.
Technical institutes.
It seems to me this was the height of "scientism" - Laplace. Laplacianism (?) had its demise with QM circa 1900, so we may ironically mark the fall of scientism with the greatest triumph of science.
Anyway, I may broadly agree with you that science does not address all the questions of existence. Nevertheless, the progress and material causes of life on earth would seem to be well within the purview of the materialist conception of science.
And science.
The materialistic concept of science is a metaphysical construct, not a scientific one.
That's "conception", and certainly I can agree with you that materialism is part of the metaphysical basis of science, and not a scientific conclusion. But it is in fact ingrained in the foundation and practice of science, and abandoning it would be tantamount to an overthrow of Science as established by Galileo and Newton.
Lighten up. If you can't handle a little robust humor, join a convent or something.
Your insults and name-calling don't bother me one bit.
Yeah, they do. But if your sense of humor hadn't left with your rationality, they wouldn't.
As an ex-evolutionist and atheist I was once just as bitter and hatefilled as you are toward believers.
Oh, so you're telling me you never had a sense of humor...
By the way, I was converted more than 30 years ago from atheism and evolution at the same time and haven't doubted the truth of what I believe for one minute since then.
Sad. A brain is a terrible thing to waste. But I suspect in this case it wasn't much of a waste.
Sorry for the typo, it's late. To the point, however, nonsense. As I have stated many times, science must posit a natural cause for the formation of a hypothesis. It does not require the insistence that only natural causes exist. One is a research method, the other a metaphysical assertion. Science does not equal materialism.
Too bad you don't really know which one was wasted.
1Co 1:20* Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
1Co 1:21* For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
DEMAND that the scientific community CHANGE its understanding of this bedrock law to accommodate evolution and you will suddenly awaken whole areas of science that have never considered the impact of this SCIENCE FRAUD called "evolution." Evolution will collapse, or science itself will collapse. Either way, the fraud will end. Science will embrace the religion of evolution and will lose all relevance, or evolution will be exposed as the science FRAUD that it is...
Neo-Darwinist evolution is nothing but a zealously proselytized secular fundamentalist religious belief. It is the opiate for the atheists...
Same cult, different words.
Wake up, think for yourself, and stop worrying about the meandering thoughts of a second rate, derivative Hellenistic hack of 1900 years ago.
It seems to me it does, or at least it confines itself to materialism. The material is a comprehensive domain!
Ultimately this devolves to the doctrine of Lucretius, "tangere enim tangi, nisi corpus, nulla potest res." - "For nothing can touch or be touched, except body."
... or, as I see it, anything that can affect the material is itself material. So, if you want to conceive of God as a material agent, then science will leap up and drag Him down, just like the helicopter in Jaws II.
BWAHAHAHAHA!
Yeah, let's pass a bill through Congress to override the Second Law!
PH, pass this one around. You couldn't make it up.
Thanks again, woodb01. This one will be on Panda's Thumb tomorrow.
the progress and material causes of life on earth would seem to be well within the purview of the materialist conception of science.
Isn't that almost tautology? "material causes are in the purview of a materialistic conception."?
But I think I know what you have in mind. I hope you'll forgive me if I seem to be to anal or philosophical in reply. First a rephrase, hoping it's in line with your thought.
Are the material causes of life within the purview of science? Yes. Up to a certain point. And, forgive me again, it hinges on the meaning of the word "cause."
But certainly, most definitely, science should, can and does help us understand the workings of matter and what we call forces acting on matter.
Remember science describes, or models, the material world. If the model "works" we say we "know why" or "know how" or "know what causes." [Of course later we can discover REALLY how it works and replace the previous model.]
A quick example: It's said that we could not understand how the heart works until the pump was invented. Then we could describe, model, the heart as a pump and know how it works and what "causes" the blood to flow. But what causes a pump to work. Well, Bernoulli's equation… and so on. Science doesn't really address the true cause, only describes how matter fits into certain concepts capable of comprehension by man.
But all the way we are still and only naming and modeling. [In the quantum world our models start to break down and we "know how" only by mathematics, symbol-rule modeling.]
Science, again, is the firmest knowing we have. We can use these models to blow up mountains, fly to the moon. I'm not denigrating science, only saying it needs humility too.
While its irrelevant to the scientist doing science, we should remember that these are models comprehensible by humans that when applied to matter follow the requirements of the model.
That's really all we truly know. And we can always ask a question on a higher level that science cannot help us answer.
We should avoid then mistaking our model for the thing itself. Avoid thinking we have reduced the thing itself merely by describing it in a material modeling method.
If we live, as we sometimes tend to, in a more and more scientific universe we lose everything but our models – we lose a great deal of our experience in this universe. For example when lightning becomes "just" a discharge of charges, we have lost lightning.
Nothing in the universe is "just" its scientific description.
Science should increase our wonder and appreciation of the cosmos and spark us to other and higher spheres of knowing. I love science a great deal; it's a fond hobby and study of mine. Here, I'm only advocating perspective in its teaching. Hey, I think I made it back to the topic of the thread!
Hope I haven't gone way off from the intent of your reply. And, thank you for posting it..
Be as technical as you want; I can handle the math.
BTW, you other creationists and IDers out there. This guy, like it or not, is your spokesman.
Are you familiar with Lewis's "Abolition of Man"?
Without external inputs of energy, any system, on its own, moves from order to disorder. Without external inputs of energy, systems eventually become totally random.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.