Good news for science, bad news for ID!

[Sir EvilFreeSmeg]

Science not wanting ID to be taught is deja vu all over again. When Gallelio (sp?) offered up his ideas, the church persecuted him. Now that ID proponents are offering up thier ideas, the scientists are persecuting them.

Funny how the more things change, the more they stay the same. It's really all about the money. Whoever's theory is prevelant at the time is the one that gets the funding. The scientists know that if ID is taught, their budgetary demands will not be met. There is no objective argument here. Only one about money and money = power = whole lot of BS.

[maccool]

And what would you call the attempts to keep an alternative to evolution out of classrooms?

Good science. Put it in a comparative religions or philosophy course. Not next to Thermodynamics. Although, if I could come to your Church and spend an hour each week talking about Schreinemakers analysis and metastable equilibria, I suppose that would be fair. But I'm not selfish and I don't want to occupy time you'd spend in contemplation.

Since neither can be proven satisfactorily to be called fact, both should be taught as theories or neither should be taught. To call one more flawed than the other is ludicrous because neither are proveable, since no one was there when "it" happened, whether it is a really big explosion or the manipulation of matter, space and time by supremely intelligent beings.

Yeah, except we're talking about the theory of evolution, not the theory of the creation of the universe. Nice try.

Are humans so full of themselves that there couldn't POSSIBLY be beings/persons more intelligent than us, capable of creating worlds, galaxies and universes?

As a matter of scientific proof, thus far, yes. As a matter of faith, that's according to each individual's beliefs. Then again, I'm not from Kolob.

And lastly, there's just as much scientific proof that supports intelligent design than there is to support evolution

Well, execept for the observations, experiments and falsifiablity issue.

"whoever" is behind creation might have used eons of evolution to arrive at the finished product. How is that so scientifically implausible?

Again, your opinion can't be observed, experimented on, tested, or falsified. That's the fundamental definition of science. Something that many people seem unable to grasp; yourself included.

[Stevinator]

Science not wanting ID to be taught is deja vu all over again. When Gallelio (sp?) offered up his ideas, the church persecuted him. Now that ID proponents are offering up thier ideas, the scientists are persecuting them.

Funny how the more things change, the more they stay the same. It's really all about the money. Whoever's theory is prevelant at the time is the one that gets the funding. The scientists know that if ID is taught, their budgetary demands will not be met. There is no objective argument here. Only one about money and money = power = whole lot of BS.

that's an odd parallel. 100 years ago it was illegal to teach evolution at all. even in a science class. I would equate evolution to gallelio's discoveries. See ID is not new. It has been around for at least as long as the old testament, and prolly passed down from african tribe to african tribe before that. The story of genesis reminds me a lot of the tribal leader in Roots, by Alex Haley. So and so begat so and so, etc.

In gallelio's case it was the religious establishment fighting with science. again here, those who are supporting ID are predominantly religious, whereas those who favor evolution are from a scientific background.

And as to the fight over research dollars, I'm confused, what would the ID people be researching? They believe, against the evidence, that God (or an alien) created everything in a very short period of time, but made it appear as though it had been around for much longer. What would they research? anything they studied would be false, soemthing put there to make the earth appear older, by the God/Alien.

Somehow i doubt that money is the motivator here. It is certainly not my concern--well not directly. I do worry that a populace that does not embrace science as a worthy method of gaining knowledge might lose it's edge on innovation and technology. If they think god just did it, then they might spend more time and money praying for solutions instead of finding them. Heck, we might return to the days where we sacrificed our neighbors to the volcano to appease the fire gods. so, yes, it is money in a way. I don't want the stocks i hold to collapse because America is unable to compete.

[Peregrine]

And what would you call the attempts to keep an alternative to evolution out of classrooms?

Common sense. There IS no scientifically valid "alternative" to evolution, so there's nothing to teach in science class. The entire controversy is a political one, the scientific debate just doesn't exist. It's no different than refusing to teach alternatives to F=MA in physics class.

Since neither can be proven satisfactorily to be called fact, both should be taught as theories or neither should be taught.

Nope, wrong. Evolution is an "unproven theory" just like gravity is, and just like "bacteria cause disease". The "just a theory" argument is pure propaganda, in reality very very few scientific theories actually become laws (and usually only the very basic fundamentals).

To call one more flawed than the other is ludicrous because neither are proveable, since no one was there when "it" happened, whether it is a really big explosion or the manipulation of matter, space and time by supremely intelligent beings.

Have you even looked at the evidence? There is lots of it in favor of evolution. On the other hand, the ONLY evidence for intelligent design comes from religious texts, which are not scientifically valid sources. Every single attempt at a logical argument by intelligent design supporters has been completely discredited.

Are humans so full of themselves that there couldn't POSSIBLY be beings/persons more intelligent than us, capable of creating worlds, galaxies and universes? I think humans are just a bunch of petty, self absorbed, self centered cynics.

That's nice. "I feel we're arrogant" isn't a valid scientific argument, and does not belong in science class.

And lastly, there's just as much scientific proof that supports intelligent design than there is to support evolution, especially if you're smart enough to consider that "whoever" is behind creation might have used eons of evolution to arrive at the finished product. How is that so scientifically implausible?

No there isn't. The ONLY evidence or reason to add an intelligent designer to the theory is the bible (or other religious texts). I fail to see why we should consider it valid evidence, when the same book also contains such brilliant wisdom as night and day being created before the sun (an absurd concept considering our modern knowledge of the universe).

[s4nder]

ID, in my opinion, is just stupid. It's great until someone asks: "Who created the thing that designed life?"

We had that topic in highschool once, about whether or not life could have been brought here by aliens or created by an intelligent "creature". Both fall under the same category: according to these theories, when we were created or brought here, life already existed. It doesn't answer the question of how life came into being.

Besides, it's not certain that God even exists. Just check out the God FAQ

[Dondrei]

dondrei:

Only if you use the very limited definition of “deism” as a belief in a god, but that is not the common definition used today. Deists reject the concept of a personal god and, thus, reject both scripture and revelation. I would say a better definition of a deist is a person who believes God who does NOT believe in organized religion. Your definition describes what I would call a theist.

Theism, if you prefer - although technically they are synonymous. The specific use of deism to refer to that particular set of beliefs (which should actually be Deism with a big 'D') results from historical usage and the fact that it developed in a largely Christian environment - thus making it in some sense defined in opposition to Christianity and Scripture specifically.

I fully accept the disprovability argument to prevent ID from being taught in science classes, but I refuse to accept the argument that it should not be taught because this is just the first step by creationists in getting religion back into schools. If we accept the final goal of proponents of a law as a reason to reject that law then shouldn’t we overturn almost all gun control laws?

I don't think that's a reason people use to not let them in so much as a caveat which people add to the real reason. Which is that it is not scientific.

There is a simple solution that would solve this problem and many others. Get the Government out of the education field and privatize our schools.

Overly idealistic. You seem to think that privatisation is a panacea and have the antiquated notion that market forces will sort everything out satisfactorily. Privatising schools brings its own problems. Just as corporations realise that anti-competitive practices are more cost effective than making their product better, private schools realise that spoon-feeding their students (and sometimes outright cheating) is more cost effective than the difficult task of teaching them properly.

Here in Australia private school students are heavily overrepresented in university uptakes, but at the same time are overrepresented in first-year drop out rates. Once removed from the private school environment, where they are spoon fed and taught to pass exams rather than understand the work, they find they aren't self-sufficient and can't cope on their own.

And then of course there is the fact that private schools cost a fortune. On top of the money they receive from the government - why a private school receives a huge chunk of public money and can then charge outrageous fees is beyond me. Unless you're suggesting that poor children shouldn't receive an education I can't see how you plan to do away with public schools.

This is where I both agree and disagree with you. As long as the teacher never refers to the ultimate source of evolution, then he is teaching science. But as soon as he even implies that evolution is solely the result of chance and natural selection, then he is no better than the teacher that implies that a supernatural power guided evolution.

I don't get it. What's the difference between saying that evolution is the result of chance and natural selection and saying that evolution occurs at all? Or saying that the world wasn't created in seven days?

Science requires natural explanation for phenomena. It can't allow for the supernatural. Therefore scientifically all these notions are ruled out along with the supernatural power guiding evolution. For philosophical satisfaction, students should really be taught at the start of their scientific education that this is an axiom and that science can neither prove nor disprove supernatural concepts. Unfortunately many people get the misconception that science somehow disproves such things as god(ess(es)), leprechauns and astrology.

[KillerAim]

Stevinator:

In gallelio's case it was the religious establishment fighting with science. again here, those who are supporting ID are predominantly religious, whereas those who favor evolution are from a scientific background.

At Galileo’s time, Western scientists were religious, often priests or brothers. Education was mainly done in religious schools. Therefore, Galileo not only had trouble with religious people, he also had trouble with the prevailing scientific theories of the day. This is nothing new in history. One dirty little secret about scientists that often fails to be mentioned is that many are as biased as the next guy and they will fight tooth and nail to suppress any theory that conflicts with their own.

In past centuries, the greatest killer of women was fever following childbirth. One woman in six died of this fever. In 1795, Alexander Gordon of Aberdeen suggested that the fevers were infectious processes, and he was able to cure them. It wasn’t until 125 years later that the scientific community agreed with him.

Anyone who looks at a globe can see that South America and Africa seem to fit together, and Alfred Wegener proposed, in 1912, that the continents had in fact drifted apart. The theory was most vigorously denied by the great names of geology until 1961. Scientists also ridiculed Jenner and his theory on the source of smallpox and Pasteur and his germ theory. Nowadays, all you have to do is look at Bjorn Lomborg and the flak he caught when he wrote the “Sceptical Environmentalist”.

They believe, against the evidence, that God (or an alien) created everything in a very short period of time, but made it appear as though it had been around for much longer. What would they research? anything they studied would be false, soemthing put there to make the earth appear older, by the God/Alien.

Care to back that statement up? I’ve come across no prominent ID advocate that suggests that God created everything in a short time and then “doctored” the evidence. They argue such things as irreducible complexity and that while there is plenty of evidence that supports microevolution there is little to none that supports macroevolution. While knowledgeable scientists can refute these arguments, the ID arguments are not as obviously wrong as you suggest.

. . .

Peregrine:

There is lots of it in favor of evolution. On the other hand, the ONLY evidence for intelligent design comes from religious texts, which are not scientifically valid sources.

. . .

The ONLY evidence or reason to add an intelligent designer to the theory is the bible (or other religious texts).

Again, while I agree that the support for Intelligent Design is suspect at best, you do your side no service by completely distorting their case. As I said above, the argument using irreducible complexity and the fact that most evidence of evolution supports microevolution with little supporting macroevolution do not come from religious texts. Lumping them in with bible thumpers says that you have dismissed them as religious fanatics without even attempting to understand their point of view. And people talk about religious intolerance!

[Stoutwood]

Science requires natural explanation for phenomena. It can't allow for the supernatural. Therefore scientifically all these notions are ruled out along with the supernatural power guiding evolution. For philosophical satisfaction, students should really be taught at the start of their scientific education that this is an axiom and that science can neither prove nor disprove supernatural concepts. Unfortunately many people get the misconception that science somehow disproves such things as god(ess(es)), leprechauns and astrology.

I'm glad that a few people realize this. It seems that whenever a religious debate crops up on the OTF, neither the theist nor the athiest side seems to grasp this fundamental concept. I want to slam my head against the keyboard whenever I see someone say something along the lines of "I don't see how you stupid religious people can deny the fact that God doesn't exist when science has proved otherwise." Meanwhile some of the most conservative places in the country are engineering schools. I wish I could somehow make religious people understand that science isn't a threat to their beleifs and make athiests realize that it doesn't back up theirs. That would solve a good portion of the more annoying political debates.

[maccool]

While knowledgeable scientists can refute these arguments, the ID arguments are not as obviously wrong as you suggest.

So, even though the arguments can be refuted, scientifically, they're not incorrect, scientifically? Gotcha.

[stormrage112345]

Do you heathens know the glory of your savior? Listen not to the liars who claim science or inteligent design. We all know that it was the flying spaghetti monster.