Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

Our lovely Queen is currently on a birthday cruise around the beautiful Western islands in a hired ship and nobody is thinking of voting her out and I daresay that is costing £10,000 a night,at least.

spendi, There is nothing comfortable about Bush except for die-hard conservatives that are blind to all the destruction created by this looney.

No, spendi. When anybody plans to go to war based on a preemptive attack on another country that will kill innocent people, most people of good will and common sense expects the leaders not to make stupid mistakes like moron Bushco.

Incumbent, foes for state board seat differ on evolution, local control
(By Melissa Shuman, DeSoto Explorer, July 27, 2006)

Controversy has earned 3rd District Kansas State School Board member John Bacon plenty of company on next Tuesday's primary ballot.

The seat on the board that has made national headlines for changing the state science standards on evolution has attracted a total of four candidates to the race this year, all from Olathe. District 3 incumbent John Bacon, who is part of the board's conservative majority, has served for eight years. His challengers -- Republicans Harry McDonald and Dave Oliphant and Democrat Don Weiss -- all disagree with Bacon's views and are determined to unseat him. Tuesday's election will determine who will run against Democrat Don Weiss.

As a former educator, McDonald was one of the founding members of the Kansas Citizens for Science. The organization's focus has been to ensure that the state science standards are in the best interest of students, McDonald said. He was himself a science teacher for 30 years in the Blue Valley school district and now works at Greenbush, a long-distance education group.

McDonald said he's been to six state school board meetings since he began his campaign in January. He said he's also contacted all of the area superintendents to learn about their school districts.

"I knew I was going to have to work hard," he said. "Bacon has gotten re-elected because he's had a base that gets out and votes. More reasonable candidates tend to get elected when you have a large turnout, so that's what I've been working toward."

The candidates have all had a variety of chances to meet voters and to debate issues. They met voters in De Soto High School last month during a learning session on how Kansas funds its schools.

Democrats Oppose Bill Denying Attorneys' Fees

Democratic lawmakers in the House are expressing strong opposition to legislation that would deny attorneys' fees

. "We would be telling government officials everywhere that Congress thinks it's okay to violate people's religious liberty with impunity,"

Intelligent-design proponent distorts foes' views
(Keith B. Miller, Kansas Citizens for Science)

John Calvert, contributor to the science standards adopted by the Kansas Board of Education and director of the Intelligent Design Network, has recently been making false public charges against Kansas Citizens for Science, and the science and educational organizations that have opposed the current standards.

Calvert, the organizer of the hearings set up by the board on the issue, has charged that our group has been used "to promote a materialist world view that seeks to demean the idea of creation."

As a board member for Kansas Citizens for Science and an evangelical Christian, I believe that God is always creatively active in the natural world, and upholds the very existence of physical reality.

There are also several other Christians on the state board, as well as members with other religious views.

It is Calvert and the intelligent-design proponents, not our group or the Kansas scientific or educational communities, who are responsible for promoting an atheistic view of science. They falsely equate the "methodological naturalism" of science with philosophical materialism and portray it as supporting atheism.

The term "methodological naturalism" was actually coined in 1986 by Paul deVries, an evangelical Christian philosopher at Wheaton College. The term was intended to specifically argue against materialism and to emphasize that science cannot make assertions about the existence or nonexistence of God.

This understanding of science is widely recognized by the scientific community and was the basis for the description of science in the standards as proposed by the appointed standards revision committee. But it was rejected by the board majority.

Calvert also charges that Kansas Citizens for Science has a strategy to promote "unguided evolutionary change." But it was the intelligent-design supporters that inserted the "unguided" language into the standards against the recommendation of the standards committee.

The changes to the description of evolution reinforce the false popular view that evolution rejects meaning and purpose in the universe. However, science cannot state that evolutionary processes are not directed by God or are without divine purpose.

As a parent, I do not want my child told in science class that evolution is a meaningless and purposeless process that God has nothing to do with.

Ironically, the current standards, and those who rewrote and supported them, would ask that teachers do just that. In their misguided attempt to make God a part of science, they have instead instructed teachers to teach evolution as a Godless process. How very sad.

State school board's actions fire up its foes

And this thread might come to the quiet rest which it seems to be doing now that the anti-IDers have seemingly packed up their tents and slunk off into the undergrowth leaving the field clear for the argument that ID is science in the sense that it is the logical application of reason to a process which is not noted for responding to the logical application of reason with a view to providing social consequences which are beneficial the the material health of the nation.