Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

georgeob1 wrote:

While the evidence of the ascent of species is far from complete, there is every reason to believe the evolutionary model will lead to man. There is no reason to teach biology in any other form. That, however, is very far short of precluding intelligent design and creation of the universe. My objection comes in when that false inference is included in the package - as it already has often been so included on this thread.

georgeob1,
You have an excellent discussion going on with farmerman. I am not sure of your exact position. It sounds like you agree that high school biology does not need to cover intelligent design. Are you satisfied with intelligent design theory being restricted to subjects such as comparative religion? Or if treated as science, should intelligent design theory be investigated by students only at the university level?

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georgeob said

Quote:

there is every reason to believe the evolutionary model will lead to man. There is no reason to teach biology in any other form. That, however, is very far short of precluding intelligent design and creation of the universe. My objection comes in when that false inference is included in the package - as it already has often been so included on this thread.

There is no evidence to state the above.Man is a top predator now, were a product of our age and environment, just as dinosaurs were of theirs. The environment, being as dynamic as it is, could be evry bit the "design element" that you seek, since life seemed to take divergent roads after each environmentally induced mass extintion. Your objection to "false inferences " is kinda without any substance.If its false, what is true? How do we know that? do you have evidence? You diverge from the rules of science when it comports with your worldview.

In a totally different direction, I hire environmental consultants all the time and my biggest gripe this week is the inability for a company to teach its team members that they all have a stake in the outcome of their clients projects. I find that techniians are sent out to the field (in my project cases, its sometimes all the way to Northern Quebec or Guatemala) and Ive found that they havent even been briefed by their Poject Managers. I feel that training can solve your entry level employee problems and a good in-house tutorial on problem analyses and data presentation would probably be an eye opener. I teach a grad level research methods course every other spring and Its gotten so that its becoming almost a retirement neche. Ifeel like Indiana Jones after Class because these kids wanna know and they quickly begin to realize that they are products of schools with widely differing views on what is "the real world"

.

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I believe the possibility of Intelligent design as it is called involves many more potential scenarios than merely a literal biblical creation of man in the garden of Eden. Evolution or a variant of it could well itself be merely a consequence of a more basic design of the universe. Attacking evolution is both foolish and unnecessary from the perspective of believers. On the other hand, sustaining it is very far from a proof of a case for atheistic materialism.

Those who resist the scientific aspects of biological evolution, the geological record, particle physics, and theories for the evolution of the cosmos, and those who in their successful defense of evolution, loudly proclaim that all intelligent design possibilities are myths are equally misguided and wrong.

Basic physics presents us with several conundrums: Did the visible universe have a beginning - a singularity in the mathematical sense? Or is it merely one of a manifold of alternate universes imbedded in a 12 or 13 dimensional manifold of space-time, and the one that just happened (by chance - if that has any meaning) to have the mass and values of basic physical constants to permit our existence? Either way one encounters something utterly beyond our reach.

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Farmerman,

I don't change the rules of science at all. I do however recognize the boundaries of science and the scientific method.

Many factors impinge on the operations of environmental companies. The most common source of the frustrations you describe is an inconsistency between the hopes and expectations of the client and the form and scope of the contract he places with the consultant. If you use a T & M contract and closely manage the unit rates and hours expended, then you have in effect assumed responsibility for the scope. If you want a particular outcome, then contract for that and pay the risk premium. Alternatively you may have got a lousy consultant. We have an office in Hunt valley Maryland, about 32 miles south of the PA line -- call us.

A second issue is the unpredictable behavior (or at least non-rational) behavior of regulators. The EPA decision to require GE to remove PCBs from the sediments in the Hudson River was not at all supportable in the context of a human health risk assessment (the risk of a diet of Hudson river water with normal treatment is comparable to that incurred by eating two pieces of toast each week). What apparently turned the decision was the fact that the penalties would pay the salaries of 17 staffers in the EPA Region II office for the next ten years. We run into such bureaucratic nonsense all the time

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georgeob1 wrote:

While the evidence of the ascent of species is far from complete, there is every reason to believe the evolutionary model will lead to man.

No there isn't. The evolutionary model (quite pointedly) doesn't lead to any pre-set design.

Why do you say "there is every reason to believe the evolutionary model will lead to man"?

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rosborne979 wrote:

No there isn't. The evolutionary model (quite pointedly) doesn't lead to any pre-set design.

Why do you say "there is every reason to believe the evolutionary model will lead to man"?

I can't figure out your meaning here. Man does indeed exist. The fossil record is extensive, but incomplete. I expressed confidence that, when complete, the progression will remain.

I can't conceive of any other meaning here. What are you driving at????

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These people are reacting to the text of your statement seeming to imply that an evolutionary process would inevitably lead to humans, whereas the science only says that such a result is coincidental to circumstances, and not fore-ordained.

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This is the ultimate assumption of the intelligent design crowd, That the center of the universe is not the deity but us. All of the fossil recording to their estimations point to one conclusion, increasing levels of complexity (read perfection) that leads ultimately to man. This is a very old and long discredited anthropocentric view of the universe. The challenge of the view seems to anger and frighten many people.

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Setanta wrote:

These people are reacting to the text of your statement seeming to imply that an evolutionary process would inevitably lead to humans, whereas the science only says that such a result is coincidental to circumstances, and not fore-ordained.[/quot]

Thanks. I guess that's it. Odd perspective - who would contemplate the question if we didn't exist.

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Even given another planet virtually identical to the Earth, you'd be unlilely to get humans again. There surely must have been too many forks in the road when chance alone decided something.

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Since two people in this thread have accused me of peddling a bogus statistic, I thought I would check out the source for it, then come back to report the result. Having just done so, I must confess that the sum of federal, state and local spending on public schools wasn't in fact $9000 per pupil, as I had originally said. As of 2002, the most recent year I could find the relevant data for, it was only $8700. My source for that is U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics 2002 (NCES 2003-060) (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2003).

http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2003/2003060.pdf

I stand by my statement that this is the opportunity cost parents pay for opting out of the public school system, that private schools are therefore not competing with public schools on a level playing field, and that it is wrong to say that creationist parents aren't denied anything when they send their child to a religious school. Whether, by asserting this, I am joining the ranks of the "cynical data twisters and deniers of fact" (Farmerman), I leave for each reader of this thread to decide for themselves. See you around, everyone.

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Thomas, I never had any problem with your cost numbers. In fact I think I said that it was +/- a few thousand as a function of location (Pa numbers are about 6K).
My use of cynical data twisters was a reference to the actual belief system that runs the lives of the Creationist/ID crowd. If you wish to belong to that group , just pay your 9000$ . Might I suggest you send it to the
"Farmerman Truth in Science" Foundation.
You seem to have some problem with our way of allowing people to opt out, when its a market decision they make in any number of situations.

You probably have no problem with the preppie private schools that provide a "class loaded" secondary education at roughly the per annum cost exacted by any good college. Thats a way that the rich have to distinguish their larvae from others. If Creationism and all it attends means that much to someones delicate sensitivity then, by all means they should have their kids enroll in a Fundamentalist Baptist secondary school. Cost is a red herring issue. All parochial schools are bulging, even Catholic schools(which teach evolution and modern science) have an increasing enrollment . All these people pay "twice"

still not making a resonant point Thomas
_______________________________

Georgeob. Contract vehicles alone dont protect the client from incompetence. Usually the first thing atruly incomptent consultant does is head to their contract whenever things go South.
My original gripe had to do with how there seems to be a lack of complete communication among project team members. This is a function of poor Project Management and training , what I consider the "rookie stuff" .
To tell you the truth, much of my contracting is done through my own staffers and , they are inured to the tricks that consultants play all the time. One of my partners has nothing good to say about tech consultants. I, on the other hand, have invested in twoprincipal service providers and have kept them trained in my industries needs and have been fairly well treated. We have problems once and a while, but the thing that I like about these two, is that they dont try to spin the problem my way. They accept responsibility and fix it. They once did a sampling and analysis of a Lithium plume in and around a lepidolite mine in Mexico. They didnt preserve the samples properly and, while the data was good, it didnt conform to standard. All I knew about the problem was a data report that said the samples broke holding requirements andthe samplers were sent back to collect new. They didnt ask,but I reimbursed their travel (not their time).
Im a firm believer in

Rule 1:The customer is king

Rule2: In all other situations refer back to rule 1

I feel that I can leave larger projects in the hands of these consultants and, because there are 2, and I renegotiate their TOS every year, they try to outdo each other. I often use their senior geochemists as cross checks on each other soIm not left with just one contractors word.

Are you part of one of the "mega" contractors , or are you a smaller provider? you can always PM me.

Im in Harrisburg at the preparations for the Dover case and to attendthe legislative hearings on ID . They are supposed to wind up by June 30 at close of session, but I dont know, its rather interesting.

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here is Farmerman's response to Thomas

Quote:

thomas said

So sure, nobody is denying the fundamentalists any rights -- just imposing a $9000 fine per year on anyone who excercises this particular one.

Quote:

Please, my heart weeps for them, they are a bunch of cynical data twisters and deniers of fact.TheCreationist believers dont want to really improve education by petitioning for Creation and ID included in school science, they are just( in their zeal) attempting to screw up the matrix of science to include some pre-Victorian alternate world view that has been proven incorrect over and overWhy should their views be given equal time any more than phlogiston or "vis plastica"? The teachers have only so much time in the year to get the basics across, and
our ed system is F*cked up enough even before we install a further watered down curriculum that believes that
"everybody's science has merit and should be taught and we'll just let the parents sort out the chaff at home. Or better still, wait for college"
Maybe knowledge about Darwinian evolution wont make better citizens, but "teaching the controversy" as a valid prep to a college education will surely create a bunch of confused ones

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Thomas wrote:

I stand by my statement that this is the opportunity cost parents pay for opting out of the public school system, that private schools are therefore not competing with public schools on a level playing field, and that it is wrong to say that creationist parents aren't denied anything when they send their child to a religious school. Whether, by asserting this, I am joining the ranks of the "cynical data twisters and deniers of fact" (Farmerman), I leave for each reader of this thread to decide for themselves. See you around, everyone.

Thomas,

I disagree with your argument for the same reason I disagree with any argument that one shouldn't pay taxes because they don't use the service. Should I be exempt from property taxes since I have no children in school and have not needed the fire department or police department? I think it would be the destruction of our society if people could opt out of taxes or take their tax dollars and use them elsewhere just because they don't use a particular service. By deciding to send their children to a private school, the parents are not being denied anything. Rather they are deciding to not avail themselves of a service. They do not become exempt from paying taxes because they didn't use it.

There has been a small movement by some gated communities to try to exempt themselves from taxes since they provide their own internal policing. An argument that has little merit in my estimation. They are helped by the policing outside their community. The arrests and jailing of criminals reduce their risks as much as it does anyone outside the community.

As for the level playing field between public and private schools, that is an argument that cuts both ways. Private schools often have outside sources of funding above and beyond just the tuition of students. Endowments, large donations, the benefit of facilities paid for by a congregation and not just the parents, student transportation provided by the public system. It is this other funding that is ignored when people compare private vs public school funding and claim that private schools can teach for a lot less.

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farmerman wrote:

You seem to have some problem with our way of allowing people to opt out, when its a market decision they make in any number of situations.

Indeed I do -- "we allow you to opt out, but we will keep the money you paid for our product" is a disingenious way of letting people opt out.

farmerman wrote:

You probably have no problem with the preppie private schools that provide a "class loaded" secondary education at roughly the per annum cost exacted by any good college. Thats a way that the rich have to distinguish their larvae from others.

Indeed I don't. I only have a problem when a rich person who wants to give his child a $10,000 education instead of a $9000 one, and the government makes him pay $10,000 for $1000 worth of privilege. I contend this is unfair to rich people, and that it is fairer to make them pay $1000 for $1000 worth of privilege -- which is what you get under a voucher system.

farmerman wrote:

If Creationism and all it attends means that much to someones delicate sensitivity then, by all means they should have their kids enroll in a Fundamentalist Baptist secondary school.

I agree that the freedom to opt out at a $8700 opportunity cost is better than no freedom to opt out at all, which in practice is the situation here in Germany. But that doesn't make the imposition of that opportunity cost right any more than chickenpox are made healthy by the fact that smallpox are worse.

Farmerman wrote:

Cost is a red herring issue.

I am curious whether you would sustain this position if we were talking about the press. Suppose the Bush administration raised taxes and used them to provide the lions share of America's internet, TV, and newspaper coverage. Would you still hold that the opportunity cost for buying the New York Times and the New Yorker is a red herring? In fact, this touches upon my core philosophy about this: I think it absurd that according to Western political culture, churches and the press are areas that the government should not be involved in -- but that it is okay for the state to run the overwhelming majority of schools. The media, religion and education all form the young person into a citizen. And in my opinion, that formation should be a private affair -- in a republic that deserves this name, it is the body of citizens that creates the government, not the other way round.

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Thomas, Your rationale for opting out of paying taxes for school is irrational. Parados has a very good point; all taxpayers must pay taxes irregardless of whether they drive a car to use our roads or agree with our military spending. Just because a taxpayer doesn't use something or disagree with its use paid by tax dollars, doesn't mean they should have an exemption from it. As parados pointed out, many do not have children, but the portion of the taxes they pay are used to pay for the public school system. I'm not sure how far you wish to take this, but your stand just doesn't make any sense.

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parados wrote:

I disagree with your argument for the same reason I disagree with any argument that one shouldn't pay taxes because they don't use the service. Should I be exempt from property taxes since I have no children in school and have not needed the fire department or police department?

No, because as Setanta and others have argued, an educated citizenry strengthens the republic, and you benefit from a strong republic even when you don't have children in school. My issue is not with your paying property taxes -- I just think that parents are better qualified than the school board to spend them. After all, parents would pay the cost and their children would receive the benefit, while currently the school board receives the cost and has no direct self-interest the benefits public schools provide.

parados wrote:

I think it would be the destruction of our society if people could opt out of taxes or take their tax dollars and use them elsewhere just because they don't use a particular service. By deciding to send their children to a private school, the parents are not being denied anything. Rather they are deciding to not avail themselves of a service. They do not become exempt from paying taxes because they didn't use it.

I agree that your society and mine are both more attractive because society pays for educating our children. But I believe you are failing to distinguish between society paying for a public good, and the government producing it. I am guessing, without actually having read your posts on the issue, that you support a system of universal health care. Against my ideological biases, I agree such a system would be a good idea -- you have a single payer (the government) fund the system, but the services themselves are provided by private agents, to customers who choose to be treated by this doctor rather than by that one. (At least that's how the health care system works in Germany.) A voucherized school system need not be any different in design than universal health care. Its principal strengths and weaknesses are the same.

parados wrote:

There has been a small movement by some gated communities to try to exempt themselves from taxes since they provide their own internal policing. An argument that has little merit in my estimation. They are helped by the policing outside their community. The arrests and jailing of criminals reduce their risks as much as it does anyone outside the community.

I don't know about the details of this; obviously gated communities cannot be exempted from state taxes, federal taxes, and the taxes of any community service they enjoy. But the argument you make about your scenario is one-sided. True, the gated community is helped by the policing outside their community -- but the outside world is also helped by the policing inside the community. It isn't clear to me without further explanation that the net benefit goes only in one direction.

parados wrote:

As for the level playing field between public and private schools, that is an argument that cuts both ways. Private schools often have outside sources of funding above and beyond just the tuition of students. Endowments, large donations, the benefit of facilities paid for by a congregation and not just the parents, student transportation provided by the public system. It is this other funding that is ignored when people compare private vs public school funding and claim that private schools can teach for a lot less.

That's a fair point as far as those outside sources come out of tax money. Can you give me an estimate of the size of it? As for endowments, donations, etc -- I am not aware that public schools cannot have those. Nothing I know of keeps grateful alumni from founding a "Society of the Friends of Thomas Jefferson High", donate to it, and have it fund the school. Of course, there may always be things I don't know of.

cicerone imposter wrote:

Thomas, Your rationale for opting out of paying taxes for school is irrational.

I seem to have evoked this particular misunderstanding in many readers. This suggests that a) this is my mistake, and b) I should repeat what I just said in my reply to parados: I am not arguing for letting people opt out of paying taxes for schooling. I am arguing for letting them opt out of public schooling, provided that they also opt into private schooling.

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"That's a fair point as far as those outside sources come out of tax money. Can you give me an estimate of the size of it? As for endowments, donations, etc -- I am not aware that public schools cannot have those. Nothing I know of keeps grateful alumni from founding a "Society of the Friends of Thomas Jefferson High", donate to it, and have it fund the school. Of course, there may always be things I don't know of."

The most common form of this type of private contribution to public schools are the bake sales to raise money for specific use. Sometimes large donations are received by people like Bill Gates who can donate schools with computers. Some major public universities like Cal Berkeley also receive money from alumnus that are considered significant donations.

As for your $9,000 per student figure, that seems to be the high-end budget for high income communities where the tax base is much higher than the average.

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The following link provides the funding for one of our local school district, Californa, and some of the high-end schools on the East Coast. http://www.lgef.org/financeabcs.html

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I would like to take this opportunity to point out that Parados has very cogently and succinctly stated the case for not giving any tax exemption or rebate to those who avail themselves of other services than those provided the general community--and often to services additional to those provided the general community.

Another more obscure point needs to be taken into consideration as well--wealthy people don't get wealthy all by themselves. A literate work force is worth far more than an illiterate work force. The children of the public schools are far more likely to give service to the nation in the military than the children of private schools. Even when conscription is in operation, the children of private schools enjoy the benefit of the influence of their parents, such as was scandalously seen during the Vietnam War, when the likes of a George Bush could play at citizen soldier, while millions of others were denied the same opportunity to evade service which would take them in harm's way.

And finally, the point needs to be reiterated that this is a democratic republic--not an oligarchy, despite the often crypto-oligarchic and crypto-plutocratic effect of political influence peddling. When the majority voice of the people say that they value the public education system enough to pass property tax levies, then the wealthy, in or out of gated communities, are obliged to pay, whine though they might. That's how it works, and as Churchill observed, democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the other forms which have been tried. The religiously fanatical need to accept what the wealthy have been obliged to accept for two centuries--democracy.

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Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

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