Posted on 09/22/2005 8:25:42 PM PDT by Crackingham
A court case that begins Monday in Pennsylvania will be the first to determine whether it is legal to teach a controversial idea called intelligent design in public schools. Intelligent design, often referred to as ID, has been touted in recent years by a small group of proponents as an alternative to Darwin's theory of evolution. ID proponents say evolution is flawed. ID asserts that a supernatural being intervened at some point in the creation of life on Earth.
Scientists counter that evolution is a well-supported theory and that ID is not a verifiable theory at all and therefore has no place in a science curriculum. The case is called Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District. Prominent scientists Thursday called a teleconference with reporters to say that intelligent design distorts science and would bring religion into science classrooms.
"The reason this trial is so important is the Dover disclaimer brings religion straight into science classrooms," said Alan Leshner, the CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and executive publisher of the journal Science. "It distorts scientific standards and teaching objectives established by not only state of Pennsylvania but also leading scientific organizations of the United States."
"This will be first legal challenge to intelligent design and we'll see if they've been able to mask the creationist underpinnings of intelligent design well enough so that the courts might allow this into public school," said Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), which co-hosted the teleconference.
AAAS is the world's largest general science society and the NCSE is a nonprofit organization committed to helping ensure that evolution remains a part of public school curriculums.
The suit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of concerned parents after Dover school board officials voted 6-3 last October to require that 9th graders be read a short statement about intelligent design before biology lessons on evolution. Students were also referred to an intelligent design textbook to learn more information about the controversial idea. The Dover school district earlier this month attempted to prevent the lawsuit from going forward, but a federal judge ruled last week that the trial would proceed as scheduled. The lawsuit argues that intelligent design is an inherently religious argument and a violation of the First Amendment that forbids state-sponsored schools from funding religious activities.
"Although it may not require a literal reading of Genesis, [ID] is creationism because it requires that an intelligent designer started or created and intervened in a natural process," Leshner said. "ID is trying to drag science into the supernatural and redefine what science is and isn't."
Bull-crap.
Since we are all properly obeying * the modern interpretation * of the First Amendment... Good or bad isn't the question. Good, bad, right, wrong, evil, moral: all of these are purely religious. Morality and all of its associated concepts are rooted in the belief that some higher power is defining the correctness of human behavior.
* The First Amendment says that Government must exorcise all traces of religion and theism from itself. * (The “modern interpretation.”) Therefore, the Government should never consider issues of morality and of right and wrong.
Therefore, it becomes a question of benefits versus costs, not a question of right and wrong. Fetus killing has its benefits to society, especially if you like to sleep late on Saturday. However, it also has its costs as well. Society (by which I mean whoever manages to seize power) needs to evaluate these costs and decide accordingly.
Today, “morals” are a religious pagan philosophy of esoteric hobgoblins where transfiguration is from pantheons of fantasies as the medium of infinitization. Others get derision for having an unwavering Judaic belief in Yahweh or Yeshua, although their critics will evangelize insertion of phantasmagoric fetishisms into secular law. (Like you have some sort of God given right to teach evolution.)
It was landmark U.S. Supreme Court precedent Reynolds v. United States in 1878 that made “separation of church and state” a dubiously legitimate point of case law, but more importantly; it confirmed the Constitutionality in statutory regulation of marriage practices.
“Laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices...” [Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145, 8 Otto 145, 24 L. Ed. 244 (1878).]
First Amendment???
Is dissatisfaction with inevitable mortality compelling ersatz secularists and religious heretics to seek connection with the Eternal through a Universal Truth by constructing an idol out of their own vanity or conceit they label as morality or science?
Is it a self-deceptive replacement of avoiding sin with a synthetic secular morality?
Is the "Big Bang" theory an inadvertent admission the Universe is an Immaculate Conception?
Is teaching evolution a religious ministry? It also says life is an Immaculate Conception.
Science is constantly operating in, and with, the supernatural. In fact science cannot function apart from it. Science need not necessarily acknowledge or express the supernatural but has shown itself to be less than capable of doing so. Realities of the supernatural are deeper and more certain than anything science can address. As such science serves only as a temporary handmaiden serving (one would hope) the general welfare and satisfying (to a small degree) the curiosity of man.
Throughout all generations certain ones who claim the name of science for themselves have attempted to drive the supernatural out of their midst, but they cannot do so while remaining proponents of science. They can only do so while adorning themselves with philosophical garb and practicing what is inimical to science itself, namely blind close-mindedness.
The only thing ANTI-RELIGION is the attempt to make it ANTI-RELIGION LAW
Congress shall make NO lAW .....
Unfortunately - people have been dumbed down so much that nobody understands English anymore and rely on the ACLU LAwyers and their MASTERS in black robes to be nice enugh to read it for them.
ID disappears in a puff of logic....
Actually I do understand it, but thanks for asking. :-) It also states that the government cannot restrict the free exercise thereof. Your argument, while fundamentally a good one which I totally understand, doesn't fly in the face of the fact that schools teach, or at least expose, children to other religions. Islam seems to be in vogue right now. If they are getting their drawers twisted over only Judeo-Christian principles then let's do away with ALL religious references in public schools and leave that to the parents.
> Would you care to discuss the physics?
What would be the point? Creationism isn't about physics, logic or evidence. It's about faith that runs counter to all those. Debate is thus virtually impossible. All that's left is appropriately directed mockery.
> would you care to discuss the math?
See above.
"Pray".
Good one, and amen.
How is your world constructed, such that those who mount a defense are accused of warwongering?
Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?
--James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments, 20 June 1785
See post 48.
With respect, this is word salad--I cannot fathom your point here.
Atoms are not directly observable, but close scientific observation of a range of phenomena allow us to infer, not only their existence, but their properties, and to make accurate predications of their behaviour.
What 'unobservable phenomena' do you mean to indicate?<<
Of course it is word salad to you. You inserted the word "directly" to make my original post fit your bias. That is strictly your problem, not mine.
Your last question, is hilarious. If it is not observable, it is not a phenomenon. Duh! Thought experiments without observable phenomena to go with them are not phenomena.
I do appreciate the sophomoric comments on atoms. An inference using phenomena we believe we understand is fine. The next step would be to say we understand everything using scientific scrutiny. Is that the road you want to go down on? Do you like quantuum mechanics as a total solution forever?
Study more epistemology and then maybe some psychology on why people unconsciously ignore things or insert things (like directly) to suit their own bias. You might have some fun!
DK
Scientists have successfully ignored epistomology and most other isms for centuries. Too busy solving actual problems.
Do you wish to argue that biology is not making progress or acquiring knowledge? You certainly welcome to set up a competetive shop. There are hundreds of well funded religious colleges.
I know some of them are teaching creationism, but I don't see any massive research output.
I've been a nuclear reactor operator for a number of years. A bunch of my friends are also ROs, and several, not all of course, accept ID. So are we just a bunch of "hardly-s"?
Concerning the epistemology - there is considerable "poaching" on either side of the divide. In that regard, I agree with betty boop that Niels Bohr had the right solution:
A parable: "when you complain about farmers, don't speak with your mouth full".
For instance, if you believe that science has a full explanation of space/time and energy/matter then please give sources. Or if you believe that it is nevertheless appropriate to declare a thing random when the system in which it is contained is undetermined, then explain your reasoning.
My point was that the system of physical reality is not yet fully understood - both space/time and matter/energy - and thus "randomness" is a false and misleading term (especially in these debates).
Scientists have successfully ignored epistomology and most other isms for centuries. Too busy solving actual problems.<<
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that studies knowledge. It attempts to answer the basic question: what distinguishes true (adequate) knowledge from false (inadequate) knowledge? Practically, this questions translates into issues of scientific methodology: how can one develop theories or models that are better than competing theories? It also forms one of the pillars of the new sciences of cognition, which developed from the information processing approach to psychology, and from artificial intelligence, as an attempt to develop computer programs that mimic a human's capacity to use knowledge in an intelligent way.
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/EPISTEMI.html
If you KNOW scientists that ignore epistemology, you and they have some severe problems WRT to reality. It forms the foundations of how we can know, what we know.
Doh!
DK
See post #10.
The ID hypothesis does not stipulate whether the "intelligent cause" is a phenomenon (emergent or fractal) or an agent (God, collective consciousness, aliens, Gaia, etc.) - much less a specific phenomenon or agent.
I am the first to acknowledge that I am a Christian believer. However, that doesn't mean I could not see the place for any idea that theorized an "organizing principle/law" that is an as yet undiscovered phenomenon. An organizing principle might fit whereas a randomness principle does not.
An organizing principle would also fit the intelligent model.
I really have to forward this to my friends, they will be ROTFLTAO for hours.
News flash, scientists ignore how they know truth or facts for centuries.
Engineers are more honest. But they have to do things.
DK
By the way, I am not a creationist. LGM creationism is the part of ID I can relate to, and it requires some evidence. Too tough a concept for you?
The "meaning" of the organizing principles is, IMHO, the domain of theologians and philosophers.
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