Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

CALIFORNIA UPDATE

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UC, Christian schools headed to trial
(By CLAIRE COOPER, The Sacramento Bee, October 30, 2006)

The University of California and an association of fundamentalist Christian schools are heading for a showdown over their competing views of academic freedom.

The conflict erupted over a decision by UC admissions officers a couple of years ago to reject future proposals for high school curricula based on certain Christian textbooks published by Bob Jones University Press of South Carolina and A Beka Books of Florida.

The Christian schools sued UC, asserting a right to teach the viewpoints they choose.

A federal judge in Los Angeles has refused to throw out the suit, ruling in August that the schools should have a chance to prove that religious discrimination was behind UC's decision. A two- or three-week trial is expected in 2007.

Among the books are a physics text that treats the Bible as infallible truth and a biology text that calls evolution ''a retreat from science.'' American history, government and literature texts also are at issue.

The 4,000-member Association of Christian Schools International has been joined in the suit by current and former high school students in Riverside County and their alma mater, Calvary Chapel Christian School of Murrieta, which says its mission is to teach students ''to understand, analyze and interpret every subject from a biblical perspective.''
''At the same time,'' the mission statement continues, ''we will be familiarizing our students with the so-called 'facts' of the subjects.''

In its response to the suit UC has said it's not stopping the Christian schools from teaching or studying anything, but that the schools ''have no right to freedom from academic evaluation.'' UC lawyer Christopher Patti said in an interview that the challenged texts failed to meet the university's academic standards.

They're too narrow in outlook, he said, with ''huge gaps about the experience of any nonwhite movements in the United States,'' or they rely too much on faith and supernatural explanations instead of objective evidence and reasoning.

Despite long-established legal precedents recognizing a university's right to control its admission standards as an aspect of academic freedom, U.S. District Judge S. James Otero said in his August opinion that ''if in fact'' UC has been discriminating against religious viewpoints, ''such action would run afoul of the limits of (its) freedom to determine its admissions policies.''

Among many facts to be sorted out at the trial is whether UC's admissions criteria, which permit students to qualify via routes other than approved course work, such as standardized testing, leave Christian school students at a disadvantage.

''We're clearly not trying to keep these kids out,'' Patti said.

He said graduates of the school in Murrieta have had a particularly high admission rate in recent years. He also said UC's approval rate for courses taught at Christian schools is identical to the rate for schools overall.

But Robert Tyler, who represents the Christian schools, said UC has been turning down Christian school courses at the same time it has accepted secular school courses based on viewpoints such as feminism or Buddhism or ''the influence of nearly every imaginable group on history'' except Christians.

The Christian schools assert they want to use the disapproved texts only as supplementary materials, to deepen the education their students get from standard texts.

For example, said Tyler, to explain the concept of separation of church and state, a standard U.S. government text might discuss the Supreme Court's 1952 pro-church decision in Zorach v. Clauson.

A Christian text might go back to the origin of the phrase in Thomas Jefferson's 1802 letter to the Danbury (Connecticut) Baptist Association, which was concerned that a larger denomination might establish a national church.

The class then might consider how a national church would work, ''to give students a better understanding and, frankly, a more diverse understanding,'' Tyler said.

Patti countered that far from being merely supplementary, the Christian texts contradict the standard curriculum with a single point of view that fails to promote critical thinking.

While ''the university has no opposition to questioning current scientific points of view,'' he said, certain ways of questioning aren't legitimately academic because they aren't subject to scientific testing.

The Bob Jones physics text, for example, teaches that ''the only sure truths are found in God's Word, which is settled forever in heaven. The Bible, written by an omniscient God, can never be proved wrong.''

The higher education establishment seems to be firmly in UC's corner.
Barmak Nassirian, spokesman for the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, said universities must defer to academicians to define the essence of their disciplines, not only in biology, chemistry and physics but also in the humanities and social sciences.

''You simply can't bring a bundle of your particular views'' to the university and demand that it ''manufacture a degree,'' he said. ''We wouldn't do this in engineering'' if someone refused to concede, for example, the theory of gravity.

Christian high schools in the Sacramento area and elsewhere refused to comment on the issues. But one prominent school official who's familiar with the case said UC shouldn't be examining Christian high school curricula at all.

The university should admit students solely on the basis of their ability to succeed, said Assemblywoman Sharon Runner, R-Lancaster, a co-founder and board member of Desert Christian Schools.

In their suit the Christian schools say their students score better on standardized tests than students overall. They say that should be enough to satisfy UC admissions officers, who should not be ''parsing through the viewpoints and content of Christian school instruction and texts to ferret out disapproved religious views.''

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Critical thinking and telling kids the truth would necessitate an examination of ID in its pure form. If the term gets confused with Creationism that's a different story.

But in relation to this particular aspect it is relatively easy.

What about other areas of life. I don't think many people are up for critical thinking and the truth right across the board never mind kids.

Anti-IDers have chosen the one aspect to apply their strictures to. That very fact, and I know it is true, tells me they have a political or trouble-making agenda. From what I have seen on here they wouldn't go near critical thinking in general. They have simply designed their own playing field for their own purposes. They don't even know what critical thinking is judging from their posts. You would need a calculator to count the use of uncritical assertions on this thread alone. They don't even read critically.

A population of critical thinkers would be unmanageable. It's an Ivory Tower sport. You need all the information to think critically.

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wande quoted-

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But Robert Tyler, who represents the Christian schools, said UC has been turning down Christian school courses at the same time it has accepted secular school courses based on viewpoints such as feminism

Wow! Feminism eh? That's what the Footballer's Wives posts and the odd description of the pub were all about.

Anti-IDers just asserted they were a waste of space and a case of me drawing attention to myself. Good on ya boys. Not in denial on that one are we?

That's what I mean about being unable to read. If anti-IDers don't understand something it is declared baloney. Just like that. Peer reviewed too. Well- they are scientists and everybody trusts scientists don't they. They are infallible like the Pope.

There's a coalition out to remove The Bible. Allowing their methods to obfusticate that is plain stupid. And a lot of art will go with it. A lot of businesses will prosper and another lot decline.

On the face of it the UC case looks far more significant and interesting than Dover. It's a Blue state isn't it? The racial aspect was mentioned in wande's post.

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Quote:

On the face of it the UC case looks far more significant and interesting than Dover.

. For once I agree with spendi. The Dover case was merely "belling the cat". Here we have the enucleated issue of freedom of expression and a "so what" attitude that should be persistent in secular education. If the other venues of admission, including standardized testing can be achieved by sectarian schoolers, then UC should not be able to exclude themfrom admission
Its really about what you know, not what you believe I dont "believe" in punctuated equilibrium, however Im conversant in the data and mechanisms proposed by the aauthors.

However

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Critical thinking and telling kids the truth would necessitate an examination of ID in its pure form

. lease explain what does" ID in its pure form" even mean? does it even have a meaning? Is it a religion or is it science. See how we can chase our tails after we open our yaps with phrases that have no common ground of meanning. I believe that youre use of that phrase is merely a dodge to assign some substance to an otherwise silly postulate.

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ID is naked without religion.

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No it isn't. Some folks (not a lot, but I think our gunga is one of them) think that terrestrial life was engineered by beings from somewhere else.

Now, I'm sure the religious ID folk would think this was absurd, but, to an a-theist like me, it's at least as plausible. Probably not going to become a unifying concept for the movement, though.

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Hi pd, Looks like (atleast to me) that your belief in terrestrial life guiding life on earth is such a small minority, it'll remain that way forever. It's not only the religious/ID folks to think that's absurd, and I'm also an atheist.

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Quote:

A federal judge in Los Angeles has refused to throw out the suit, ruling in August that the schools should have a chance to prove that religious discrimination was behind UC's decision. A two- or three-week trial is expected in 2007.

The federal court having jurisdiction is United States District Court Central District of California.

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p-dog, arguing that not all ID is religiously based

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No it isn't. Some folks (not a lot, but I think our gunga is one of them) think that terrestrial life was engineered by beings from somewhere else.

All that does is defer the origins from "when did it happen and how" to "where did it happen and how"

gunga is a proponent of the Freddy Hoyle et al theory of extraterrestrial seeding, and unless this is a limit function that goes on forever, life hadda begin somewhere.

A combination theory is the "seeded planetary enucleation hypothesis'. Earth had enucleated from clusters and globs of proto -planetary crap. Some of the proto-planetary crap could have contained building blocks of extremophilic monists. These then developed via esterification and polymerization until a working definition of life was met.

However. most Iders have a problem trying to make-believe that they are dispassionate scientists. The entire Discovery Institute is a third generational spinnoff from the old Deluge Society and the Institute for Scientific Creationism.
Thats why Dover was a walk in the park because the defendents realized quite early that they were under the microscope of the establishment clause. If the UC Davis case goes against the UC system, then it will have to be be elevated to the Supreme Court. This one could be veeerrry interesting, because I can see it's ejecta wasting lots of precious time in the developmental stages of University Curricula.

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farmerman wrote:

A combination theory is the "seeded planetary enucleation hypothesis'. Earth had enucleated from clusters and globs of proto -planetary crap. Some of the proto-planetary crap could have contained building blocks of extremophilic monists. These then developed via esterification and polymerization until a working definition of life was met.

Eh? Enucleated is describes something having had its nucleas removed, not a verb synonymous with accretion of planetesimals...

Anyway, I agree that is quite a ridiculous theory indeed. It is clearly impossible for life to develop in the gaseous pre-solar nebula, which is what formed the protoplanets.

The conditions were not nearly reactive enough for any type of life-like system to emergy; hardly any volatiles, and nothing but the emptiness of space.

If one makes the question recursive by arguing that asteroids from other solar systems carrying robust life forms came during this time, there would still have to be a base case in which life came from non-life, and the most plausible situation in the universe for that is on a differentiated inner planet about 1 AU from the sun -- just like Earth.

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c.i. didn't even read patiodog's post properly and it was simplicity itself.

pd said " some folks" not himself.

ID might be thought of as any aspect of a sense of wonder and awe and ineffable mystery. A route to the "oceanic feeling" which psychologists suggest is an essential for sanity. ID being the only route when science proves that The Bible cannot be interpreted literally

In the atheistic materialist conception everything is as determined and banal as everything else. How can one be awestruck at an extrusion of blind, meaningless forces. At least a plastic cup is not meaningless. It is actually wondrous

To goggle at a spider's web when it is no different from the ridges on the shore in the sand when the tide has gone out or any of the billions of soggy leaves on the sidewalk is simply foolish because all have simply been extruded by circumstances.

To have one's emotions wrung out by Mahler's Song of the Earth is fatuous when it is just a noise similar to that made by an engineering factory.

A sunset over a far away ocean and a grey day are both ineluctable modalities of the visible. The sunset is swooned over because it is a status symbol having travelled there and having a camera to record it. Those who live there probably don't even notice it. The asserted swoon is simply an excuse to assert superiority over one's fellow man.

The soggy leaves are simply not looked at closely. The Campbell's soup-can is not thought about. It is just dismissed as tripe because to not do requires mental effort. The leaves and the can are abandoned for a superficial glance at a hillside in exotic climes and there's another hillside just across the park at home moulded by similar forces under different circumstances. Such abandonment signifies the emptiness of the atheist and his dissatisfaction with the wonders at his feet where he lives and if he lived in the places he visits he would be just as dissatisified in a short time with what he's swooning over in another place.

The atheist has no art. He just has strategies for display and his deployment of them takes advantage of other people's sense of awe and wonder which he must himself think ridiculous.

Anyway- c.i.'s assertion was flatly contradicted by patiodog. Saved me bothering. Using only 3 short words doesn't alter the flatness of it. It's a polite euphemism for bullshit.

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Regarding the University of California federal court case, the Association of Christian Schools is alleging religious discrimination. The university's response is to defend its right to set standards regarding admissions. Below is an excerpt from a recent essay by Charles C. Haynes about this case. Haynes is a senior scholar at the First Amendment Center, Arlington, Virginia.

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Solely on academic grounds, the most problematic textbook may be the one used in biology. If UC can show that the text presents inaccurate or misleading science, then the university may have a legitimate basis for not accepting the course. If, however, the textbook presents the core information students need to know about biology, then the additional religious content should not disqualify the course. In other words, if the science itself is sound, then the fact that the authors promise to "put the Word of God first and science second" should be irrelevant in the university's decision.

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Notice how fm not so neatly stepped aside from considering the mention of feminism and the racial aspect in the quote wande gave us.

The reason I came on about those things, and there are other parts of the same coalition, the names of which I'll refrain from mentioning, was because I knew they would be glazed over as usual and a load of distracting mish-mash, which we all know anyway, would be called upon to do service as snow.

So my reminder was glazed over as well.

And yet that is the crux of the matter which the experts in critical thinking have once again averted their gaze from and which is further proof of their comprehension skills.

A nod may be as good as a wink to a blind horse but both are nothing to a critical thinker with his head up his arse.

And -"Wow! Feminism eh?" was a blast of serried trumpets.

Just wait until we get onto the dance of the seven veils. That will sort the critical thinkers from those fighting departmental battles up a dark alley in a public arena which knows nothing about them.

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spendi,

The University of California case will definitely be interesting to follow. It is now at the level of the federal district court. Unlike Dover, there will definitely be an appeal at the United States Court of Appeals level. If the appeals decision is fought by either party, the case will then go to the United States Supreme Court.

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I predicted that in the run up to Dover. Actually predict is not really the word.

I stated it as a given. It's a BIG DEAL issue. And with money at stake. Lots of it.

I might, in my wilder moments, few of which you have seen, hint of a slight chance of seccessionist forces arising. I was much struck by the continuous frontier of the Red zone at the last election and the fact that no Blue patches marred it's perfection internally and that it had easy access to deep water ports.

But I think you are too smart for that. The Russians weren't. But they have a lot of oil they don't use which helps paper over a lot of cracks. As you know.

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I'm not trying to argue against my own point, but a recent news report claims scientists have found life forms (bacteria-like) living off of radioactive energy. It's one report, but it's interesting on its own merit considering our general thinking about life forms.

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They would inherit the earth if we nuked it up then and you can't get meeker than they must be.

Jesus would have laughed. It was the money exchanging that did them in what with one thing leading to another he would have said.

"I tried to tell them."

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Oh--and all that fornication.

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farmerman wrote:

p-dog, arguing that not all ID is religiously based
Quote:
No it isn't. Some folks (not a lot, but I think our gunga is one of them) think that terrestrial life was engineered by beings from somewhere else.

All that does is defer the origins from "when did it happen and how" to "where did it happen and how"

gunga is a proponent of the Freddy Hoyle et al theory of extraterrestrial seeding, and unless this is a limit function that goes on forever, life hadda begin somewhere.

A combination theory is the "seeded planetary enucleation hypothesis'. Earth had enucleated from clusters and globs of proto -planetary crap. Some of the proto-planetary crap could have contained building blocks of extremophilic monists. These then developed via esterification and polymerization until a working definition of life was met.

However. most Iders have a problem trying to make-believe that they are dispassionate scientists. The entire Discovery Institute is a third generational spinnoff from the old Deluge Society and the Institute for Scientific Creationism.
Thats why Dover was a walk in the park because the defendents realized quite early that they were under the microscope of the establishment clause. If the UC Davis case goes against the UC system, then it will have to be be elevated to the Supreme Court. This one could be veeerrry interesting, because I can see it's ejecta wasting lots of precious time in the developmental stages of University Curricula.

Regardless, just interjecting a bit of where one might go from the basic premise that IDers purport to hold. Design by no means implies God. And it does defer the question of origins, to be sure -- but, then, evolution isn't a science of ultimate origins -- and perhaps evidence that might elucidate origins is available elsewhere but not in our little patch of the universe.

Nothing I believe, it's just that I don't think the religious and policitally motivated face of the American intelligent design movement really undertstands where they claim to be coming from. There is still an attempt to bridge the gap between the knowable and the unknowable with a patently silly religious construct. It's the gap they can't deal with. I don't mind the gap.

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PD, You know full well we're in agreement in most things, and spendi's interjection about my not reading your post is his way of trying to create a division between us. His attempts are elementary at best.

Your comment, "...to be sure -- but, then, evolution isn't a science of ultimate origins" is not quite true. Scientists are continually looking at other planets and outer space to see if they can find evidence about earth's origins.

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