[quote]vroom wrote:
You are sounding pretty touchy feely and emotional Sasquatch. Are you sure you aren’t a liberal?
School very rarely teaches us to question the teacher and assume they are wrong.
There are some courses where you can take a viewpoint against standard opinion and support it, and that is okay, but not very many. You have to be very advanced to suggest new theories outside of the humanities, and perhaps inside that area as well.
Science is the process of examining the universe to determine how things work in terms of finding out enough to make predictions or even duplicate things.
Religion is not.
Can the physical universe be the result of some creation event? Sure, but based on the physical behaviors of the world around us, however they came to be, science explores how the universe unfolds or has unfolded around us.
Can the physical behaviors of the universe be ascribable to some omnipotent being? Sure, but that doesn’t change our ability to interact with those laws and to determine how they appear to work.
You or anyone else are free to believe whatever you want, but you don’t unilaterially get to change the English language so that religion qualifies as science.
[/quote]
Would you please show mw where I ever equated this to science. In fact more than 10 times, I have said this has nothing to do with science.
Show me one instance where I misinterpreted the English language. ONE!
Thanks for the science definition though. I mean high school and a double major at the finest school in America (Univ. Wisc. Mad) had not prepared me for such a cerebral exercise.
My point is/was/remains why not the elective capability/option of this and many other subjects. I don’t discount the financial aspects, I’m talking even the possibility of such offerings.
[quote]vroom wrote:
You are sounding pretty touchy feely and emotional Sasquatch. Are you sure you aren’t a liberal?
School very rarely teaches us to question the teacher and assume they are wrong.
There are some courses where you can take a viewpoint against standard opinion and support it, and that is okay, but not very many. You have to be very advanced to suggest new theories outside of the humanities, and perhaps inside that area as well.
Science is the process of examining the universe to determine how things work in terms of finding out enough to make predictions or even duplicate things.
Religion is not.
Can the physical universe be the result of some creation event? Sure, but based on the physical behaviors of the world around us, however they came to be, science explores how the universe unfolds or has unfolded around us.
Can the physical behaviors of the universe be ascribable to some omnipotent being? Sure, but that doesn’t change our ability to interact with those laws and to determine how they appear to work.
You or anyone else are free to believe whatever you want, but you don’t unilaterially get to change the English language so that religion qualifies as science.
[/quote]
Forgot
What about what science can’t explain? Are we not allowed to discuss or teach that in a school setting. School should be more than read a book–take a test. Being a business major I dealt with the black and white almost always. Some of my favorite classes were logic and philisophical which were more exercises in learning rather than rote memory and regurgitation of ‘facts.’
And I know that appeals to you as well.
You’re a cranky pot stirring fuck, but you do think outside the box at times.
[quote]Lockwood wrote:
-I’m not certain if you take offense to an analogy that I used, simply to explain a point, and thus you’re religiously offended, or rather you find some divinity in the writings of Poe…which, although also one of personal favorites in poetry, would be just weird.[/quote]
The analogy would be correct if someone was trying to pass off poetry as science. And while Poe is good, his work doesn’t give me a chubby the same way, say, Ronnie James Dio’s stuff does.
[quote]Lockwood wrote:
-Interpretation is a two-way street: I apologize that you misinterpretted what I wrote, however, if you go back and re-read my comments w/ less of a defensive attitude, I believe you’ll agree that nowhere did I say that anyone is ignorant for not believing in ID. I only presented two opposing sides of an argument, and made reference to the possibility of the two being more intertwined as opposed to being so radically divergent.[/quote]
You stated several times that education is about enlightenment, understanding and having an open mind. I agree. But when you twist this with the implication that if we don’t consider ID, we are being close minded and ignorant, I get a little shitty. Besides, ID has been considered and it doesn’t stack up as well scientifically as evolution.
[quote]Lockwood wrote:
-How do you explain wave-particle duality? Einstein, himself, refused to believe it to his death; though, other scientists supported the theory’s complexity by the fact that we simply need to have faith in the calculations. Try to prove that light functions as a wave, and not as a particle, and you’ll find that to be true; perform a test to prove that light functions as a particle, and you’ll also find that to be true. Yet, we teach wave-particle duality in all science classes, though, it’s admittedly not definitively scientific.
I use this as an example, b/c it seems so many people so quickly support the “ID is not a science” rationale, and thus, in doing so, add credibility to the notion that everything else taught in science classes is scientifically sound.[/quote]
How do I explain it? I don’t.
[quote]Lockwood wrote:
I didn’t quote the Bible to use such as some sort of ID supporting rationale. Though, yes, why couldn’t historic writings be used to support such? We use prehistoric artifacts and findings everyday to explain the science of our pre-historic ancestors, so why is it that you oppose the use of a writing that’s over 6000 years old as somehow not as acceptable to support a hypothesis as is the drawings found on an Aztec pottery?[/quote]
If someone wanted to use Egyptian hieroglyphs to explain evolution, I would be against that, to.
[quote]Lockwood wrote:
Again, I can’t stress that what I wrote was neither to incite further argument, but rather to provoke thought that sometimes the answers don’t have to be so modernized down to simpleton ‘black or white’ but rather only looking at both sides can we fully appreciate the totality of the issue.[/quote]
I don’t think we have too much of a black and white attitude about this subject. If an opposing theory about evolution surfaced the had significant scientific backing, I think it would get a fair hearing. Just because ID doesn’t fit the bill doesn’t mean people are black and white about the subject.
[quote]Solomon Grundy wrote:
I have more of an issue with Evolution being taught as a fact. What other theories are out there? Are they taught in school? Belief in Evolution is one thing?faith. I think there is more proof of Intelligent Design than there is for Evolution. Intelligent Design should be taught in school as another theory. I am not saying teach who you/they think created everything.
Teach both options as theories with supporting evidence or lack of. I wouldn?t care if they taught that we came from sexual relations between an alien and a monkey as long as it is taught as a theory. For the record there is not an American document (founding Document) that says that there is a separation of church and state. It is an impossibility. The basis of our government and courts are based on Christianity, like it or not.
I also don?t think that it is possible for a person to separate themselves from their core beliefs. Even if you are Atheist, Agnostic or practice Wicca, those beliefs that you have will permeate every decision that you make and in everything that you do.
A question for all no-Christians- Why is Christianity so vehemently apposed in America? Why not every other religion or ?faith??
Me Solomon Grundy
[/quote]
solomon, you need to learn the difference between a scientific theory and a non-scientific theory. And to answer your question. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, Newton’s Theory of gravity. Both are theories, should we not take them as fact?
First of all - I am happy with the court’s decision. It tries to stop the worrying march of ID into science classrooms, where it does not belong.
Second, I was raised christian in a family of scientists, and while I don’t believe any more, I have learnt to respect and value the views of sensible christian scientists who have no problem with combining religious beliefs and a scientific profession. This included religious education in (and outside of) school.
If ID were to be taught, it should be in philosophy or religious education - off course among other theories… ;-). Evolutionary theory is the current state of science (and has been for a long time) - whether it is liked or not - and it is part of a well rounded scientific education. And if it one day becomes obsolete by more modern (and sound) science, so be it - that’s how scientific progress is made.
I understand why some people get testy when it is being “attacked” by people with an obvious religious agenda (as has become obvious in the court decision) - and the reaction might be misinterpreted as “anti-christian”; but it is not. It is an honest attempt to protect the integrity of scientific teaching. I think that creationist activists do their belief a disservice - the court’s decision make this quite clear.
Makkun
PS: Allow religious education (and some secular equivalent) in school - it will help de-escalate the discussion.
[quote]vroom wrote:
Hell, time permitting and as long as it isn’t labelled science, I don’t care what electives are offered to students in any school system.
However, I’m guessing that offering only some religious electives would set some people off.[/quote]
It wouldn’t be about some. Use a collegiate fromat and let class size dictate whether it is offered. If you can’t reach minimums, then it can’t be. I know that won’t pacify all, but nothing will.
And that’s all that I have been expressing. So it may just be so, on this shortest day of the year for those of us that count (ie. north of the equator) that we almost agree. It must be Christmas. It must be a miracle.
See people, it’s real. The impossible is actually possible in this most blessed season.
And to all…Good night.
vroom–I do truly wish you the best. Especially moving forward to unchartered waters through the upcoming year. It is the new sasquatch.
[quote]makkun wrote:
First of all - I am happy with the court’s decision. It tries to stop the worrying march of ID into science classrooms, where it does not belong.
Second, I was raised christian in a family of scientists, and while I don’t believe any more, I have learnt to respect and value the views of sensible christian scientists who have no problem with combining religious beliefs and a scientific profession. This included religious education in (and outside of) school.
If ID were to be taught, it should be in philosophy or religious education - off course among other theories… ;-). Evolutionary theory is the current state of science (and has been for a long time) - whether it is liked or not - and it is part of a well rounded scientific education. And if it one day becomes obsolete by more modern (and sound) science, so be it - that’s how scientific progress is made.
I understand why some people get testy when it is being “attacked” by people with an obvious religious agenda (as has become obvious in the court decision) - and the reaction might be misinterpreted as “anti-christian”; but it is not. It is an honest attempt to protect the integrity of scientific teaching. I think that creationist activists do their belief a disservice - the court’s decision make this quite clear.
Makkun
PS: Allow religious education (and some secular equivalent) in school - it will help de-escalate the discussion.
PPS: And, just for the record, I’m an atheist…
Makkun[/quote]
Actually I don’t agree totally that this was purely about the sanctity of science. I believe that to be a bit naive of you.
Agreed it should be taught as elective and as theory, but let’s agree to disagree about the truth behind this decision. It was clearly stated by the judge that he was upholding precedent wrt religion in schools.
The politics forum is the politics forum. Real life and real people trump it, Christmas or not. I’ll take this opportunity to wish you and yours a safe and happy holiday season.
Now, enough niceness, I don’t think I can take any more for a while. Where’s Rainjack?
I just want to prefase this by saying I know very little about this subject.
Correct me if I am wrong, but ID “theory” doesnt actually explain anything does it? From what little I have read, I was under the impression that it really only points out the holes in the current evolutionary theory. If thats the case, I dont know that I really have a problem with aspects of Behe’s work being taught in public schools.
Im not saying it should be taught as a viable option to evolution but what’s wrong with telling the kids that some biochemists believe the current theory of evolution falls short of explaining the complexities of biological systems? I mean, if Behe’s observations are correct and just his (and others) conclusions (i.e. God created everything) are wrong, does that mean we have to completely dismiss his underlying point that the current theory of gradual, piecemeal evolution doesn’t sufficiently explain life’s complexities?
Isn’t there a prominent biologist who argues in favor of a non-gradual type of evolution for similar reasons? One in which changes happen rapid leaps?
With that said, as a christian, I have a huge problem with any type of theology being injected into a science class. First, I dont want a science teacher teaching my kid religion…they are liable to screw it up anyways. Second, science is about finding a natural explanation for things.
By definition, if God had/has a hand in the development of life, science can tell us nothing about it. He, and all his actions, are by definition supernatural. All we can expect from science is an explanation of the natural world through natural processes. Anything that uses God, or an intelligent designer (aliens?), as an explantion cannot, by definition, be considered science…and therfore, should not be tought in science class.
The court got it mostly right. There is some science behind pure Intelligent Design. IMO, this science is on a level that exceeds the capabilities of a vast majority of HS science students. If you say there’s no science behind it, read Behe’s testimony, you’ll begin to understand. Unfortunately, as Judge Jones said, and Behe tries to convey, the science behind ID can’t reasonably extricate itself from religious creationism.
Genes and environment alone don’t determine whether an organism lives or dies. Especially once the organism gets a brain.
[quote]vroom wrote:
Hell, time permitting and as long as it isn’t labelled science, I don’t care what electives are offered to students in any school system.[/quote]
I can see it now:
1st hr. -elective- Coffee appreciation
2nd hr. -elective- Home Economics with JB
3rd hr. -elective- Gym with CT, CW, or maybe Tate
4th hr. -elective- Creative writing with TC
Lunch
5th hr. -elective- Female appreciation with TC
6th hr. -elective- Home economics with JB
7th hr. -elective- Debate class with the T-Nation forum
[quote]lucasa wrote:
vroom wrote:
Hell, time permitting and as long as it isn’t labelled science, I don’t care what electives are offered to students in any school system.
I can see it now:
1st hr. -elective- Coffee appreciation
2nd hr. -elective- Home Economics with JB
3rd hr. -elective- Gym with CT, CW, or maybe Tate
4th hr. -elective- Creative writing with TC
Lunch
5th hr. -elective- Female appreciation with TC
6th hr. -elective- Home economics with JB
7th hr. -elective- Debate class with the T-Nation forum
The “intelligent design” thing is actually designed in a pretty intelligent fashion. It is based on two assumptions:
that science has authority today, therefore whatever is perceived as “scientific truth” is likely to be believed by the masses (bottom line: “science” as the ultimate indoctrinator)
that the masses have little to no means of discerning real science from a mock-up
It actually has an elegant simplicity in a twisted sick way, very much like the 9/11 attacks.
“Intelligent design” is not science. For it to be science it has to meet several criteria, NONE of which are even close in this case:
Built upon previous theories
Science is a gradual process, where theories are built upon previous results, not as something entirely new that appears out of blue sky, but as an improvement to an older view.
Typical example: Einstein’s relativity is an extension of Newton’s classical mechanics. Within relativity, classical mechanics are not made obsolete, but are just a special case (low speed, low energy density). Conversely, relativity really is classical mechanics plus the relativistic corrections.
“Intelligent design” is not connected to any real scientific theories, which it tries to negate. It is a collection of religious statements, dressed-up and disguised as “science”.
Deduced from experiments
When new scientific theories are not deduced from older ones, they’re deduced from experiments - that’s the other extreme of scientific progress.
Most new theories, in reality, appear at the border between new experimental results and theoretical progress.
Einstein’s relativity was made possible by certain experimental results that were not compatible with classic mechanics - certain details in the orbit of Mercury, etc.
“Intelligent design” is not and, more important, CANNOT be validated by experiment.
It essentially says “we cannot explain why such-and-such feature appeared, therefore it must be designed by Someone”. Or in other words “no need to bother finding an explanation for as-of-yet unexplained phenomena, since surely Someone is responsible for them”. It is not knowledge moving from ignorance to light, it is ignorance defending its own dark nature.
Peer review
Scientific theories undergo the so called peer review process - they’re published and then everyone in the scientific community has their best shot at it. All theories that belong to real science (as opposed to hoaxes such as “intelligent design”) are validated or rejected this way.
“Intelligent design”, so far, has been either ignored as less than worthy of discussion by the real scientific community, or rejected as crackpot religion.
Power of prediction
Real science can predict future scientific results. E.g., Einstein predicted that, during a solar eclipse, the rays of light coming from distant stars very near the edge of the Sun will bend towards the Sun by a very small but measurable amount.
He did that before anyone had a chance to verify it, purely based on the predictive power of the relativity. When the astronomers made the measurement for the first time, lo and behold, Einstein was right.
“Intelligent design” has no predictive power that can advance knowledge based on theoretical inference, since it simply says “this is inexplicable, Someone made it, it’s anybody’s guess what He had in mind”.
My guess is that even this judge’s decision is not a setback but a move forward for “intelligent design”.
I feel that their plan is not necessarily to win the battle, but bring up a squirmish either way - the goal being to make the lay people believe that there is actually a “debate”, that there is a “scientific” theory of “intelligent design” which is “discussed” in a “rational” way.
It is not. It’s all baloney. The very fact that a judge has to step in and spank them is bad, since the whole debate shouldn’t have started anyway. It’s like a bunch of dopeheads claiming that snow is black and attempting to propagate it as a universal truth. You don’t argue with dopeheads, you send them straight to rehab.
[quote]florin wrote:
The “intelligent design” thing is actually designed in a pretty intelligent fashion. It is based on two assumptions:
that science has authority today, therefore whatever is perceived as “scientific truth” is likely to be believed by the masses (bottom line: “science” as the ultimate indoctrinator)
that the masses have little to no means of discerning real science from a mock-up
It actually has an elegant simplicity in a twisted sick way, very much like the 9/11 attacks.
“Intelligent design” is not science. For it to be science it has to meet several criteria, NONE of which are even close in this case:
Built upon previous theories
Science is a gradual process, where theories are built upon previous results, not as something entirely new that appears out of blue sky, but as an improvement to an older view.
Typical example: Einstein’s relativity is an extension of Newton’s classical mechanics. Within relativity, classical mechanics are not made obsolete, but are just a special case (low speed, low energy density). Conversely, relativity really is classical mechanics plus the relativistic corrections.
“Intelligent design” is not connected to any real scientific theories, which it tries to negate. It is a collection of religious statements, dressed-up and disguised as “science”.
Deduced from experiments
When new scientific theories are not deduced from older ones, they’re deduced from experiments - that’s the other extreme of scientific progress.
Most new theories, in reality, appear at the border between new experimental results and theoretical progress.
Einstein’s relativity was made possible by certain experimental results that were not compatible with classic mechanics - certain details in the orbit of Mercury, etc.
“Intelligent design” is not and, more important, CANNOT be validated by experiment.
It essentially says “we cannot explain why such-and-such feature appeared, therefore it must be designed by Someone”. Or in other words “no need to bother finding an explanation for as-of-yet unexplained phenomena, since surely Someone is responsible for them”. It is not knowledge moving from ignorance to light, it is ignorance defending its own dark nature.
Peer review
Scientific theories undergo the so called peer review process - they’re published and then everyone in the scientific community has their best shot at it. All theories that belong to real science (as opposed to hoaxes such as “intelligent design”) are validated or rejected this way.
“Intelligent design”, so far, has been either ignored as less than worthy of discussion by the real scientific community, or rejected as crackpot religion.
Power of prediction
Real science can predict future scientific results. E.g., Einstein predicted that, during a solar eclipse, the rays of light coming from distant stars very near the edge of the Sun will bend towards the Sun by a very small but measurable amount.
He did that before anyone had a chance to verify it, purely based on the predictive power of the relativity. When the astronomers made the measurement for the first time, lo and behold, Einstein was right.
“Intelligent design” has no predictive power that can advance knowledge based on theoretical inference, since it simply says “this is inexplicable, Someone made it, it’s anybody’s guess what He had in mind”.
My guess is that even this judge’s decision is not a setback but a move forward for “intelligent design”.
I feel that their plan is not necessarily to win the battle, but bring up a squirmish either way - the goal being to make the lay people believe that there is actually a “debate”, that there is a “scientific” theory of “intelligent design” which is “discussed” in a “rational” way.
It is not. It’s all baloney. The very fact that a judge has to step in and spank them is bad, since the whole debate shouldn’t have started anyway. It’s like a bunch of dopeheads claiming that snow is black and attempting to propagate it as a universal truth. You don’t argue with dopeheads, you send them straight to rehab.[/quote]
I feel sorry for you. Once again people like you can’t grasp the fact that whether or not this is science is not the debate. You wasted alot of your own baloney on that little bit of nonsense.
So I’m glad you made yourself feel all smarty pantsy, but seeing as you missed the entire gist of the thread and really just agreed with what everyone before you said,albeit much more concisely.
I’m thinkin’ we’d learn to cook with JB in the morning and evening with lunch in between. That or he could teach about apparel, he seems to dress pretty snazzy and be well versed in fine Italian clothing.
Why don’t we just tell the truth and teach the “I have no fucking idea” theory?
Yes, evolution occurs(that does NOT necessarily mean life started that way).
Yes, studying evolution is science.
No, Intelligent Design is not science.
No, we cannot confirm the beginning of life on Earth, we can only speculate.
No, there is no proof that life isn’t intelligently designed.
Since science is based on the best available information at the time, it is subject to change when new discoveries are made. Throughout the ages, man thought he had it all figured out, proven “scientifically”. Then, lo and behold some new shit surfaces and changes everything.
So in short, we don’t really KNOW. We think we know, but we simply don’t. If we did, there would be no debate.
Teach evolution in science class, but when some kid presses for answers to the origin of life, tell the truth.
I was waiting for a train one day (my car was in the shop) and two women came up to me wanting to talk about science and creationism.
I said, “Great, but before you begin your discourse, can you explain to me your understanding of the scienticfic method, so I know what you are talking about when you say science?”
She couldn’t; she just started talking scripture.
Okay, the world is so complex that it had to be designed.
That is fine but you have replaced one problem with another. Who designed the designer?
Surely he must be complex to design such complexity?
No, he’s been around forever.
But how can something so complex not have a designer?
Isn’t creationism based on the belief that that universe is so complex that it had to be made by an inteligent designer? If you say yes, then don’t you need to know who made the maker? And who made the makers’ maker? Who made the makers makers maker?
The below is from today’s NY Times, well worth your time to read no matter what side you are on…
By now, the Christian conservatives who once dominated the school board in Dover, Pa., ought to rue their recklessness in forcing biology classes to hear about “intelligent design” as an alternative to the theory of evolution.
Not only were they voted off the school board by an exasperated public last November, but this week a federal district judge declared their handiwork unconstitutional and told the school district to abandon a policy of such “breathtaking inanity.”
A new and wiser school board is planning to do just that by removing intelligent design from the science curriculum and perhaps placing it in an elective course on comparative religion. That would be a more appropriate venue to learn about what the judge deemed “a religious view, a mere relabeling of creationism and not a scientific theory.”
The intelligent design movement holds that life forms are too complex to have been formed by natural processes and must have been fashioned by a higher intelligence, which is never officially identified but which most adherents believe to be God.
By injecting intelligent design into the science curriculum, the judge ruled, the board was unconstitutionally endorsing a religious viewpoint that advances “a particular version of Christianity.”
The decision will have come at an opportune time if it is able to deflect other misguided efforts by religious conservatives to undermine the teaching of evolution, a central organizing principle of modern biology.
In Georgia, a federal appeals court shows signs of wanting to reverse a lower court that said it was unconstitutional to require textbooks to carry a sticker disparaging evolution as “a theory, not a fact.” That’s the line of argument used by the anti-evolution crowd. We can only hope that the judges in Atlanta find the reasoning of the Pennsylvania judge, who dealt with comparable issues, persuasive.
Meanwhile in Kansas, the State Board of Education has urged schools to criticize evolution. It has also changed the definition of science so it is not limited to natural explanations, opening the way for including intelligent design or other forms of creationism that cannot meet traditional definitions of science.
All Kansans interested in a sound science curriculum should heed what happened in Dover and vote out the inane board members.
The judge in the Pennsylvania case, John Jones III, can hardly be accused of being a liberal activist out to overturn community values - even by those inclined to see conspiracies. He is a lifelong Republican, appointed to the bench by President Bush, and has been praised for his integrity and intellect.
Indeed, as the judge pointed out, the real activists in this case were ill-informed school board members, aided by a public interest law firm that promotes Christian values, who combined to drive the board to adopt an imprudent and unconstitutional policy.
Judge Jones’s decision was a striking repudiation of intelligent design, given that Dover’s policy was minimally intrusive on classroom teaching. Administrators merely read a brief disclaimer at the beginning of a class asserting that evolution was a theory, not a fact; that there were gaps in the evidence for evolution; and that intelligent design provided an alternative explanation and could be further explored by consulting a book in the school library.
Yet even that minimal statement amounted to an endorsement of religion, the judge concluded, because it caused students to doubt the theory of evolution without scientific justification and presented them with a religious alternative masquerading as a scientific theory.
The case was most notable for its searching inquiry into whether intelligent design could be considered science. The answer, after a six-week trial that included hours of expert testimony, was a resounding no.
The judge found that intelligent design violated the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking supernatural causation and by making assertions that cannot be tested or proved wrong.
Moreover, intelligent design has not gained acceptance in the scientific community, has not been supported by peer-reviewed research, and has not generated a research and testing program of its own. The core argument for intelligent design - the supposedly irreducible complexity of key biological systems - has clear theological overtones. As long ago as the 13th century, St. Thomas Aquinas argued that because nature is complex, it must have a designer.
The religious thrust behind Dover’s policy was unmistakable. The board members who pushed the policy through had repeatedly expressed religious reasons for opposing evolution, though they tried to dissemble during the trial.
Judge Jones charged that the two ringleaders lied in depositions to hide the fact that they had raised money at a church to buy copies of an intelligent design textbook for the school library. He also found that board members were strikingly ignorant about intelligent design and that several individuals had lied time and again to hide their religious motivations for backing the concept.
Their contention that they had a secular purpose - to improve science education and encourage critical thinking - was declared a sham.
No one believes that this thoroughgoing repudiation of intelligent design will end the incessant warfare over evolution. But any community that is worried about the ability of its students to compete in a global economy would be wise to keep supernatural explanations out of its science classes.
Built upon previous theories
Science is a gradual process, where theories are built upon previous results, not as something entirely new that appears out of blue sky, but as an improvement to an older view.[/quote]
Information theory would say that the only difference between randomness (noise) and intelligence (signal) is your level of understanding. And there is no in between, once you understand something within randomness, it becomes information. A theory based strictly on randomness, confirmatory statistics, and gross anatomy is shortsighted, and clearly has holes. One that incorporates more extrapolatory statistics and less randomness (intelligence and/or design) could quite easily supercede evolution.
[quote]
“Intelligent design” is not connected to any real scientific theories, which it tries to negate. It is a collection of religious statements, dressed-up and disguised as “science”.[/quote]
This is what the Judge was saying, even if it was a science (his supposition), it would be unable to separate itself from religion. So, for one second, try to imagine an ID without the god you impose on it.
[quote]
2. Deduced from experiments
When new scientific theories are not deduced from older ones, they’re deduced from experiments - that’s the other extreme of scientific progress.
Most new theories, in reality, appear at the border between new experimental results and theoretical progress.[/quote]
Right,
Theoretical Progress:
Number Theory was just being born when OoS was written.
Game Theory didn’t exist until about 40 yrs. later.
Cellular Automata, Computational Theory, and Complexity Theory were all still 60 yrs. off.
Experimental results are too numerous to list. A good percentage is confirmatory, but there’s also confounding evidence, I’m sure ID website will give you a laundry list of possible candidates.
[quote]
Einstein’s relativity was made possible by certain experimental results that were not compatible with classic mechanics - certain details in the orbit of Mercury, etc.
“Intelligent design” is not and, more important, CANNOT be validated by experiment.[/quote]
Once again, separate God from ID and suddenly it becomes testable. If random chance doesn’t explain a given phenomenon, then most likely there are more sophisticated (or intelligent) forces at work of which you were previously unaware.
No, it says that the Darwinian ideal of natural selection may not or cannot be the only force at work. One organism learning from another or parallel gene transfer could quite easily confound natural selection.
[quote]
3. Peer review
Scientific theories undergo the so called peer review process - they’re published and then everyone in the scientific community has their best shot at it. All theories that belong to real science (as opposed to hoaxes such as “intelligent design”) are validated or rejected this way.
“Intelligent design”, so far, has been either ignored as less than worthy of discussion by the real scientific community, or rejected as crackpot religion.[/quote]
It hasn’t been ignored, many scientists support the idea, and they span the gamut from religious zealots to respected and well-mannered, once again, I’ll refer you to ID websites for laundry lists.
[quote]
4. Power of prediction
Real science can predict future scientific results. E.g., Einstein predicted that, during a solar eclipse, the rays of light coming from distant stars very near the edge of the Sun will bend towards the Sun by a very small but measurable amount.
He did that before anyone had a chance to verify it, purely based on the predictive power of the relativity. When the astronomers made the measurement for the first time, lo and behold, Einstein was right.
“Intelligent design” has no predictive power that can advance knowledge based on theoretical inference, since it simply says “this is inexplicable, Someone made it, it’s anybody’s guess what He had in mind”.[/quote]
Once again, ignore the religious bias you have. Using confirmatory statistics I can show that some result is not due to chance. I can use extrapolatory statistics to further predict which factors are most important. Ever hear of DoE? Six Sigma?
[quote]
My guess is that even this judge’s decision is not a setback but a move forward for “intelligent design”.
I feel that their plan is not necessarily to win the battle, but bring up a squirmish either way - the goal being to make the lay people believe that there is actually a “debate”, that there is a “scientific” theory of “intelligent design” which is “discussed” in a “rational” way.
It is not. It’s all baloney. The very fact that a judge has to step in and spank them is bad, since the whole debate shouldn’t have started anyway. It’s like a bunch of dopeheads claiming that snow is black and attempting to propagate it as a universal truth. You don’t argue with dopeheads, you send them straight to rehab.[/quote]
I agree with the judge’s decision, he’s correct that ID shouldn’t be taught in public high schools, it’s too complex. I also agree that it can’t extricate itself from more creationistic causes, and the students/public were definitely being misserved by that schoolboard.
As for ID being taught as science, it is and will be at the collegiate level.
