Hello James-
Nice post.
Don't you think that one of the problems is the compartmentalisation of "education" in formal structures.If some people think of education in terms of schools and others in terms of wider experiences and yet others as what unavoidably goes on in an a growing mind subjected to an infinitely variable and often unconsciously perceived range of inputs then it is hardly surprising that they talk past each other.
The forces ranged against intelligent design seem to me like Dom Quixote unless they can achieve what they seek in a school system in the wider world which would include the questioning mind of each individual person.What that would involve doesn't bear thinking about.
Obviously I'm not considering other motives relating to money or power.
We both know,I feel sure,that there are areas in biology which an amoral scientific mind would consider not only of great importance to adolescents but of great interest to them as well.No possible explanation exists of this gap outside of the morality of those involved professionally with schools and to have a morality one has to be somewhere within the ID camp or a cynical legal trough which sees adolescent ignorance and confusion as the never ending path to riches.
Quote:Hello Lola my luuflee leetle cheeckeen.
Hello, Spendi......you fancy ole rooster.
from none other than Charles Krauthammer
Quote:Which brings us to Dover, Pa., Pat Robertson, the Kansas State Board of Education, and a fight over evolution that is so anachronistic and retrograde as to be a national embarrassment.
Dover distinguished itself this Election Day by throwing out all eight members of its school board who tried to impose "intelligent design" -- today's tarted-up version of creationism -- on the biology curriculum. Pat Robertson then called the wrath of God down upon the good people of Dover for voting "God out of your city." Meanwhile, in Kansas, the school board did a reverse Dover, mandating the teaching of skepticism about evolution and forcing intelligent design into the statewide biology curriculum.
Let's be clear. Intelligent design may be interesting as theology, but as science it is a fraud. It is a self-enclosed, tautological "theory" whose only holding is that when there are gaps in some area of scientific knowledge -- in this case, evolution -- they are to be filled by God. It is a "theory" that admits that evolution and natural selection explain such things as the development of drug resistance in bacteria and other such evolutionary changes within species but also says that every once in a while God steps into this world of constant and accumulating change and says, "I think I'll make me a lemur today." A "theory" that violates the most basic requirement of anything pretending to be science -- that it be empirically disprovable. How does one empirically disprove the proposition that God was behind the lemur, or evolution -- or behind the motion of the tides or the "strong force" that holds the atom together?
link
Quote:Let's be clear. Intelligent design may be interesting as theology,
Not half.
Would you really prefer that scientific specialism of evolution which,due to its simplicity attracts the roundheads,to the fascinations of theological thought and functions.The difference between complicatedness and complexity.
It is a mere bolthole where people posture as intellectuals using an esoteric discourse of their own invention without subtlety or grace which they think impresses the young.
An aesthetic preference for complexity probably won't change the organization of oxygen and hydrogen molecules.
Possibly not.Sub atomic science has a very long way to go.Think you not that you have anything other than an image of it.As you may have recognised with your "probably".Or it may have been a Freudian slip.
Christian theology not only changed the world but is set to dominate the world by what one is forced to assume is an evolutionary process.Oxygen and hydrogen are the same in China,in the world of Aztecs,in Tierra del Fuego and in the rain that fell on the very spot where your apartment is 200 million years ago.
Theology rules goodstyle.
Are you sure? The Muslim folks are getting numerous. The stats on secular notions are, if we graph from 100 years past, uptrending nicely.
Intelligent desgin is not only bad science, it's also bad religion. Religion based on blind faith as a result of indoctrination simply precludes any spiritual understanding of our nature. Religion, rather than imposing itself on science, should adopt the scientific process of enquiry. The difference being that, whereas science ends up with yes or no answers to objective questions, religion must enquire about the subjective, about the self, and doesn't end up with answers but with a mystery. The mystery in this sense doesn't have an answer but is ultimately fulfilling.
Quote:Are you sure? The Muslim folks are getting numerous. The stats on secular notions are, if we graph from 100 years past, uptrending nicely.
Sorry Bernie.I'm not sure what you mean there.
spendie
You mentioned something about the dominance in the world of christian theology. I don't grant the notion credibility, if I understand you correctly, which is never quite certain.
Bernie-
I'm sorry.I didn't mean on a head count.
Have you read Darwin on mate selection by the female.If you're all evolutionists what was all the fuss about Monica for.I know what the fuss was-you're all Christians.You just haven't told the voters what evolution science means and it sounds good being "scientific".All those monogamous couples in Dover running down to the polls thinking themselves scientific.What a joke.And the women spending like demons to make themselves look sexually attractive at cocktail parties.Take away the bedrock theology and just watch the fur fly.And evolution scientists would have to applaud.And they would applaud price gouging too,and short weight,and robbing banks except there wouldn't be any banks.Christian theology is struggling to mitigate "natural selection" already and it doesn't mean natural selection of wives-it means natural selection of the next rumpy-pump free from all theology.Know what I mean?
Its just pure bull **** created by a SCIENCE FICTION writer who was looking for money. Do ya research people
TheIntro wrote:Its just pure bull **** created by a SCIENCE FICTION writer who was looking for money. Do ya research people
Research beginning where, person?
spendie
I do know what you mean. We are heir to a lot of core ideas, some explicit and most implicit, which were hanging about from breath number one. Just as christian theology was heir to a thousand bits of thought and value which came up the line from earlier. But like your vestigal tail, they aren't necessarily doing any work, they are just getting in the way.
You are an odd sort of traditionalist, spendie. You must have seen that wonderful Brit documentary of the on-going study where kids, some in private school and some in public school, are interviewed and filmed at seven year intervals in their lives beginning at age seven? The inexorable consequences of social class are eye-opening (for me). Do you take the odd weekend and go grouse hunting in Ireland?
Hes been watching South Park like the Doo Hoo kid.
farmerperson
My attempts to maintain a broad grasp of cultural issues are clearly falling behind.
blatham wrote:I don't grant the notion credibility, if I understand you correctly, which is never quite certain.
Ah, LMAO, rooledonthefloorpeeininmypants . . . ain't that the ugly truth . . .
As I look around, I see evidence fora belief in Stupid Design.