Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

ros-

From that arrogant remark anyone would think that the issue was cut and dried.

I fear your underestimation of your opponents constitutes a liability to your own side's position.Thinking of them as fools can hardly be scientific and from an evolutionary perspective it is ridiculous.

I consider people foolish if they believe that ID should be taught in science class because it's science.

ros wrote-

Quote:

I consider people foolish if they believe that ID should be taught in science class because it's science.

Well they don't.

But it might be good science to teach it nevertheless from other quite valid points of view.

Too bad you missed your chance to delete that post, spendius.

That was one of your worst ever!

Well-we are just trying to entertain aren't we.One can't expect to win friends and influence people unless one at least makes an attempt to minimise the utter,mind numbing boredom of the average existence.Pigeons are "right" when they go coooo!
It's about having a laugh innit?Being right is way down my list of priorities.I don't even know what it means.Tittering feels right.I've read that tittering sets up diapole potential electrical differences on skin surfaces which give the chicken flu virus the two fingered salute and the comprehensive **** off.
It's in Rabelais and explains why everybody didn't die of the various plagues.

I was just gasting my flabber when I saw what ros wrote. I love when the balloons of pretention get busted by the prick of applied wit

blatham wrote:

If not, I'll add this. Merely consider all the related things one will teach in "science" education as children come up through their learning development. There will be characters and red rubber balls and onto stories of, say, Madame Currie and then into the lab. The lab teacher may well pass on an anecdote about him accidently blowing up a beaker (story as safety warning). He may pass on other stories of his excitement for the science he teaches or of other scientists (story as means to develop interest in students for the subject matter), etc etc. Learning isn't anything like a pristine transfer of contextless datoids.

Fine with me -- as long as you don't require in your school board's science standards that such stories become a mandatory part of the science curriculum.

blatham wrote:

georgeob1 wrote:

In the first place if the "Humans are fumdamentally not exceptional....' bit was included in some high school text book, I would excise it on scientific grounds alone. Our overwhelming dominance of the earth gives the lie to this assertion even from a narrow biological perspective. Moreover the inclusion of this notion, phrased as it is, in a section presumably explaining the common evolutionary origin of all species, goes well beyond what is required to make that point, suggesting an additional motive for indoctrination on the part of the author. The lady from Coibb county (a prosperous suburban area North of Atlanta) may well be on tpo something.

You are being purposefully obtuse on this point, george. thomas as well. The "specialness" of humans is a fundamental premise in traditional christian theology. Humans have souls, rabbits don't, monkeys don't. etc etc. Please don't suggest this lady is aiming for precision in the language of science. She is aiming at turning back or discounting a Darwinian account of the origins of species because that doesn't match her literal interpretation of genesis and her related theology.

"Our overwhelming dominance" is laughable, george. No biologist would agree with you, even limiting to this infinitesimaly teenie sliver of time you are speaking of - how many humans were alive on the planet in the late Neolithic, a mere 10 or 12 thousand years ago? How many beetles are there in the first three inches of soil in your county? Cockroaches remain essentially unchanged over 50 million years and we won't outlast them. Bacteria, viruses.

I wou;d accept your argument Blatham if it was offered in a classroom by a living beetle or even a virus (I would permit suitable voice amplification equipment). However since that is not possible, or even remotely conceivable, I find it absurd.

blatham wrote:

You get the difference there, thomas?

I get what you think the difference is. But I don't think your analogy works. The ethics and the science are intermingled in the case of economics, but distinct in the case of natural science. A strictly economic welfare analysis of the Love Canal has ethical implications by definition. Once you can answer whether the love canal was economically efficient or not, you also can also answer whether it is good or bad from the standpoint of utilitarian, contractarian, or Kantian ethics. In that case, I would agree it makes sense to teach them together.

But the same is not true for the natural sciences. When you have decided how to engineer an atomic bomb, the ethical dilemmas it brings are as open as they were before you engineered it. Hence I stand by my opinion that the ethics of H-bombs, evolution, and personal computers belong into a philosophy curriculum, not a science curriculum.

What, for example, of medicine? Should a medical degree avoid address to ethical questions?

As you know, business colleges have recently (post enron etc) found reason to add ethics courses to their degree training.

Your Love Canal statement above is really very odd. I've never seen anyone run away from moral questions in the manner you do - as if moral principles fall junior to economic efficiencies.