Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

With all due respect Steve may I refer you to Fowler's Understanding Laguage (An Introduction to Linguistics) Chapter 5 and to The Shorter Oxford.

Perhaps I have read too much Joyce to expect the approval of your English teachers.

wande-

I've just spent the last half hour reading up on Mr Bates. I must say that I'm slightly surprised at you giving him a prominent place on your thread.

Group endorses two District 5 hopefuls
(By Tim Vandenack, The Hutchinson News, April 19, 2006)

DODGE CITY - A group that blasts the conservative Kansas Board of Education majority as outside the mainstream is endorsing the two hopefuls opposing Connie Morris in the race for the District 5 seat.

Don Hineman, chairman of the Kansas Alliance for Education, said at a gathering of the organization Tuesday that the group backs Tim Cruz, a Garden City Democrat, and Sally Cauble, a Liberal Republican. Morris, a Saint Francis Republican, is seeking her second term.

The alliance, which will also be involved in the other board of education races, including the contest for the District 7 seat held by Ken Willard of Hutchinson, interviewed the two District 5 challengers before endorsing both. District 5 covers much of western Kansas. "It's nice to have that kind of choice," Hineman said.

The Kansas Alliance for Education formed to combat the candidacies of Morris and two others up for election on the board who backed changes allowing classroom discussion of creationist-friendly concepts about the origin of the earth. Those hopefuls, along with two others not up for election and another not seeking re-election, also spearheaded the controversial pick of Bob Corkins as education commissioner and represent the majority on the 10-member board.

"It's my fervent belief their views don't represent average Kansans' and ours do," Hineman said.

Sue Gamble, a moderate school board member from Shawnee who sits in the minority and also attended Tuesday's event, charged that the majority gets "distracted by ideological wedge issues." Such issues include the possible creation of charter schools and whether sex education in schools should require parental "opt-in" permission, along with the evolution question.

As a political action committee, the alliance can't get directly involved in the campaigns of the candidates it backs. Rather, Hineman said the group would be waging "parallel" campaigns urging support for its picks.
Besides Morris and Willard, the alliance also opposes John Bacon of Olathe and Iris Van Meter, though she won't be seeking re-election. In advance of August primaries, the alliance will be making endorsements in the other campaigns.

Tuesday's endorsements came at a rally here organized to generate interest and support for the alliance and its cause. About 40 attended.
Gamble said the board of education races this year might be relatively low-profile contests, but they are important.

"You've got a big stake in this and we're all going to have to work really hard," she said.

...I have tried to put the Guardian cabal in its proper context in case the prominence you have given it deludes Americans into thinking that it represents British thinking which it does not...
It is generally thought of as the megaphone of the chattering classes ...I don't know whether it advertises Vaseline ...

Author: ID backers aim to be in all aspects of life
(By Ron Knox, Lawrence Journal-World, April 20, 2006)

Intelligent design proponents plan to drive a wedge into all aspects of cultural and academic life, a prominent philosophy professor said Wednesday.

"They'll carry the supernatural wedge in all social sciences and humanities," Southeastern Louisiana University professor Barbara Forrest told a packed audience at the Dole Institute of Politics.

Forrest is the author of several essays on intelligent design, and was a witness in the Dover, Pa., trial on intelligent design.

She said ID proponents would eventually extend battles to all fields that use science, rather than the supernatural, to explain the world around them.

But the problem they'll have, Forrest said, would be the same problem theologians had centuries ago when scientific practice first began to expand upon scriptural knowledge.

She likened ID proponents using the supernatural to explain science to builders during the Roman Empire consulting animal entrails before building.

"They still had to get the job done," Forrest said.

Scientists and others will always have to use established scientific principals to explain how the world works, she said.

"There are no secrets in science," Forrest said. "They have to do it publicly so everyone can pick it apart. That's how it works."

"There are no secrets in science," Forrest said. "They have to do it publicly so everyone can pick it apart. That's how it works."

She likened ID proponents using the supernatural to explain science to builders during the Roman Empire consulting animal entrails before building.

Her philosophy on teaching is simple, but direct. "Learning is hard work," she said. "You have to want it bad enough to work however hard you have to to get it. But it's more than worth the effort."

Are you finished using this excellent thread as a help forum?

Some months ago, Frank Apisa used this thread to make dinner arrangements with Lola and Blatham!