Intelligent design Vs Evolution

it can be taught but not in a science class.

dyslexia
That is where it will be taught along side of evolution.
In effect it is teaching or at the very least suggesting that there is a supreme being. A religious concept.

It is creationism by another name, with a different slant on the propaganda.

IMO, what should be taught in school are FACTS. i.e. "This is what we KNOW."

At some point we get to a stage where the teacher has to say "This is the extent of our best current science." and at that stage, IMO, the teacher should explain that there are several views on what explains everything else (i.e. evolution vs intelligent design vs more "traditional" creationism). Beyond mentioning that "Intelligent Design" is one of those views (and maybe a brief explanation of what Intelligent Design theory is..), it shouldn't be "taught" in any classroom other than perhaps, a philosophy course at the post-secondary level.

I think that this entire concept of "intelligent design" is just putting a quasi scientific spin to old fashioned fundamentalist creationism.It is a way for the religious right to attempt to interject religious teachings in a manner that might just slip through, if people don't recognize it for what it is.

If it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck...........

......it could be Superman! c.i.

When I forst heard the phrase, "Intelligent Design" I figured the fundamentalists hired a public relations firm to put a spin on creationism. It's a title that evokes the trickle down yuppy political correctness. In accord with a janitor being a maintence engineer, or a trash collector being a waste retrieval specialist.

All this coming out of the Bush admistration. He certainly is intent on violating the Consitution, no matter how back door he does it. In this case, they probably hired the same PR firm who has Martha Stewart as a client.

Junk Science is Junk Science. By and large, it is promoted by folks with, if any, at best questionable, credentials in the fields they propose to revolutionize. Most of the provenance of their assertions is skewed, taken out of context, wholly fabricated, or otherwise logically flawed. The tenets of Junk Science are embraced eagerly by folks ignorant of the Scientific Method, and without the ability to engage in reasoned, logical, critical thought.

Agenda-driven, these sorts hypothecate poorly founded, exclusionary, ill-developed counter positions to more widely accepted conclusions they find inconvenient to their own parochial belief-set. Universally, they decry a cabalistic conspiracy on the part of entrenched, self-serving bureaucrats, academics, and/or financial entities as sole and proximate impediment to the universal recognition of The Truth of Their Proposition.


The revelations of crackpots receive far mote attention than they deserve. They are symptomatic of general failure in our educational system. We have raised a couple generations of folk essentially ungrounded in rhetoric, forensics, logic, in short, without the Discipline of Education ... devoid of formal training in critical thought. We've legislated and educated our way to near the point intellectual bankruptcy.


In the not-all-that-distant-past, critical thought was not an attribute common to the human critter. This made things like pantheons of improbable gods and kings who were gods-on-earth quite common.
Then, along came science. The Enlightenment. The Age of Reason. The Rennaisance. The Industrial Revolution. The Explosion of Technology. The Protestant Reformation and The Underwire Bra, Space Exploration and Great Art, Medical Miracles and A System of Laws Enabling the Particapatory, Representative Self Government of A Society are equally products of critical thought. In the past five hundred years, The Human Condition has changed more than in the previous fifty thousand, due entirely to critical thought.

What is at risk in this matter is critical thought ... something our current practice tends to discourage. Of interest and certain influence in this is that by overwhelming preponderance, the bulk of the actual Educators in the US Academic Establishment categorize themselvesf as Politicly "Liberal" to "Very Liberal". When surrounded by like-minded peers one becomes easily convinced of the "Correctness" of the shared opinion. Were the balance to be tilted significantly to the Conservative side, the results for critical thought would be no more encouraging. The Academic Establishment would just be churning out non-critical thinkers according to its own agenda. Contemporary "Political Correctness" is an intellectual embarrassment, and due almost wholly to the influence of The Academic Establishment. A more conservative stacking of the Academic Deck has been demonstrated to produce Nazis, so I think we need to seek a middle ground. I have no clear idea how to effectively achieve this. I can only hope Critical Thought is merely wounded, and will recover.



timber

That which cannot be proven scientifically, by definition, is defended throught opinion. As long as I am free to challenge and explore your religion, I really don't care what you call yourself.

tim, I wouldn't go that far! Many scientists in the field of math/science that believe in religion and/or god also believe in creationism. I don't think we can paint everybody with the same brush. That's the reason why there's so much controversy, pros and cons between science and intelligent design. c.i.

Forgive me, c.i., I mean no disparagement to the religious or academic who are not crackpots, nor I suppose to crackpots who are neither, and who do not become political crackpots, who seem to have an affinity for the first two.



timber

Creation science is not science but pseudoscience. It is religious dogma masquerading as scientific theory. Creation science is put forth as being absolutely certain and unchangeable. It assumes that the world must conform to its understanding of the Bible. Where creation science differs from creationism in general is in its notion that once it has interpreted the Bible to mean something, no evidence can be allowed to change that interpretation. Instead, the evidence must be refuted.

Compare this attitude to that of the leading European creationists of the 17th century who had to admit eventually that the Earth is not the center of the universe and that the sun does not revolve around our planet. They did not have to admit that the Bible was wrong, but they did have to admit that human interpretations of the Bible were in error. Today's creationists seem incapable of admitting that their interpretation of the Bible could be wrong.

I wouldn't have thought that science "proves" things, ultimately, more that it is able to disprove things, thus rendering a particular belief about how things work the most reasonable belief available - until some aspect of that belief is challenged by farther discoveries, and it is altered somewhat, or abandoned....but anyway...

It seems that the agenda of the religious right are far more powerful in your country than in mine - because I can see no problem, when evolution is taught, of the concepts of "intelligent design" being also put forward as an alternative hypothesis - just as, presumably, differing hypotheses about the manner in which evolution actually occurs are - (since this is a field full, as I understand, of new concepts) - and critiqued, just as other hypotheses are critiqued.

But perhaps I am naive...

Deb, the religous right in this country is a powerful fixture of the right wing of government. They are extremely well funded, with the same powerful lobbiests the major gas companies and agricultural organizations use to make sure their agendas are given added attention in Congress.

Intelligent Design is based on religious belief. The separation of church and state should prevent this from being taught in schools in this country. The power of the religious right is the only reason this debate is even taking place.

It should be born in mind that The Power of Religious Fanatacism slammed airliners into America. and routinely converts vehicles into crowd-scything schrapnel throughout the world.



timber

and we seem to be exported that self-same lunacy
A RUSSIAN woman is seeking to sue the Moscow publishers of Harry Potter, alleging the children's novels offend her religious feelings and incite to black magic, news agencies have reported.

There was a similarly titled thread over in the rough neighborhood a while back. It began with a link to a newspaper article about a referendum on a state ballot, I believe. It rapidly became a "Creationist" against "Any Otherist" shouting match, punctuated by digressions into abortion and gender preference and a lengthy hijacking by a proponent of a peculiar personal revelation of Intelligent Design, before becoming an ill-tempered, fouly fought brawl requiring significant load time on a broadband connection just to view.. Go figure.



timber

Intelligent design is just a new twist on creationism. The advocates of both these theologies begin with the assumption that God is the creator of the universe. If they are Christian, they will believe that the first two chapters of the book of Genesis gives the one true and authentic account of creation. They then set out to prove that point. In the process they raid the stores of scientific scholarship, taking what they think can be used to support their point of view. They pick and choose and distort and in the end set forth something that sounds very learned. But it isn't science.

The idea is that the best way to explain the complexity of nature is to postulate the existence of and intelligent designer capable of creating that complexity.

One thing they do not like to deal with is the question, "Where did the Intelligent Designer come from?" This is a very simple question that they can only answer with a theological assumption. They say that one of the attributes of the Intelligent Designer is that It is eternal in nature.

Science based on the assumption of an Intelligent Designer puts us right back into the pre-scientific era with all sorts of guesses as to how and why the Almighty did things, and with theological assumptions about the Almighty that then come to determine the way in which scientific findings "must" turn out. Such as: God made man as the crowning glory of his creation. Therefore the sun must revolve around the earth because the earth, as the abode of the chief end of creation, must be the very center of the universe. Simple. Who can deny the logic in that?

Hazlett, Those of us who do not believe in "intelligent design" can see the way religious people are able to pick and choose those science that supports their position, and leave the rest. It doesn't take logic, just 'faith.' c.i.