Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

KANSAS UPDATE

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Moderates settle for 6-4 majority on Board of Education
(CARL MANNING, Associated Press, November 8, 2006)

TOPEKA, Kan. - Moderates, who plan to get rid of anti-evolution standards forced onto Kansas schools, had to settle for a 6-4 majority after failing to unseat two incumbent conservatives in Tuesday's elections.

In the 7th District, Republican incumbent Ken Willard of Hutchinson eked out a narrow 51 percent victory over Democrat Jack Wempe of Lyons, a former state Board of Regents member.

The other conservative incumbent, Republican John Bacon, won re-election in the 3rd District with 56 percent of the vote over Democrat Don Weiss. Both men are from Olathe.

In the 9th District, moderate Republican Jan Shaver of Independence defeated Democrat Charles Kent Runyan of Pittsburg with 55 percent of the vote, while moderate Republican Sally Cauble of Liberal defeated Tim Cruz, a former Garden City mayor, with 64 percent of the vote in the 5th District.

Democratic board member Janet Waugh of Kansas City was unopposed.

The winners join five members not on the ballot this year: moderate Republicans Sue Gamble, of Shawnee, and Carol Rupe, of Wichita; Democrat Bill Wagnon, of Topeka; and conservative Republicans Steve Abrams, of Arkansas City, and Kathy Martin, of Clay Center.

Come January, moderates will be calling the shots and one of the first things they're expected to do is rework the science testing standards for students to once again make them more pro-evolution oriented.

OHIO UPDATE

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Pro-evolution state school board candidates win
(Scott Stephens, Cleveland Plain Dealer, November 08, 2006)

Ohio's scientists laid down their test tubes and flexed some political muscle Tuesday as four pro-evolution candidates they backed were on their way to capturing or retaining seats on the state Board of Education.
In the race that drew national attention, Tom Sawyer, a former Akron mayor and 16-year congressman, was beating incumbent Deborah Owens Fink nearly 2-1 for a board seat that covers Summit, Ashtabula, Portage and Trumbull counties.

"I believe the state board of education should have a far stronger voice than it had," Sawyer said Tuesday night.

State board races are nonpartisan, but Owens Fink fell victim to a strong Democratic turnout and an opponent with a still-potent name among party faithful.

"In reality, it's a very, very Democratic area and a tough place to be a Republican," she said.

Like the bitter school board battles in Kansas last summer, the Ohio board races produced high drama. Voters were treated to the unusual sight of Kenneth Miller, a nationally renowned biologist, stumping like a ward-heeler for pro-evolution candidates, and Pastor Ernie Sanders, an evangelical radio host, blasting Sawyer as a merchant of sin.

Sawyer, a former teacher who once was chairman of the Ohio House Education Committee, was recruited to run for the seat by Help Ohio Public Education, a group of scientists angered by the board's flirtation with intelligent design, which courts have barred from science class.

"We were looking first and foremost to raise public awareness, and these numbers were much higher than past years," said Patricia Princehouse, co-founder of HOPE.

Three other HOPE-backed candidates appeared headed for victory Tuesday: former state legislator John Bender of Avon and retired school teacher Deborah Cain of Canton were clinging to narrow leads, and incumbent Sam Schloemer of Cincinnati was winning handily.

But the group's biggest target was Owens Fink, a University of Akron marketing professor. She was one of the most articulate proponents of a model lesson for 10th-grade biology teachers that called for a "critical analysis" of Charles Darwin's widely held theory that life on Earth descended from common ancestors.

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Do you think we are politically illiterate wande?

It's all about ladder-climbing, getting the feet under the table, stepping on necks, channeling the funds, contracts and putting down markers for the future. Pragmatic stuff of that nature. There'll be sex in it somewhere too.

Nobody in it gives a damn about Darwin or the kid's education.

Have you never been in on the action? I remember two lady activists forgetting there was an election so intent were they on decorating my S-type to help prise the voters from the front of their TV sets. Quite a lot of voters won't vote unless you send a car for them.

Our news is telling us that the swing is to do with the war. A protest by the previously gung-ho. Is that not right.

Most of the voters have probably never heard of Darwin or if they have think he was a famous monkey.

Politicians are not cynical by nature. It is just that the public drives them to it.

But it is nice seeing you dress them up in fine lace on a Science forum and seemingly approving of scientists laying down their test tubes. Not forgetting the "eeked" of course.

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You're wrong, spendi; while other issues were at play in the overall election outcome, in the particular matter of agenda and ID-iocy vs Science and integrity, it precisely is about the kids' education, and equally about insulating tax-supported, constitutionally secular institutions from sectarian influence.

Your irrelevant, scarcely intelligible, maundering self-aggrandizements throughout this discussion notwithstanding, there is no question that ID-iocy is not science and does not merit inclusion within science curricula. That you persist in such manner of discourse as you do serves only to further confirm the intellectual bankruptcy of the proposition you forward while illustrating a boundless lack of understanding pertaining to science, the American political process, the American Electorate, and the practice of academic honesty.

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I have never said that ID merited inclusion in a science curricula. The reason being that such an idea is obviously ridiculous.

It might be an idea if you learned how to read before recycling a Setanta rant of the utmost predicability and meaninglessness.

Still- you enjoy it don't you?

That's what we are here for isn't it. Get the gremlins out for a bit.

What was the turn out?

I know that about a third of your ambassadors are political appointees and the rest career diplomats and that Europe has a predominance of the former.

Why do you think we are so regally treated?

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I have never said that ID merited inclusion in a science curricula. The reason being that such an idea is obviously ridiculous.

Yes you have, repeatedly. Youve linked ID with "true science" a number of times. Consequences of that position are obvious when you go blabbering about the 'value free" schooling and how the subjects like art etc would ALSO benefit freom "true ID" (which of course youve failed to convincingly explain what it is that"true ID" even means)

Im not going to take time re-reading your plotzkis, since they are either rather schizo or merely the rank diversions of your "mind".

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spendi's inability to remain consistent is what makes him into a "poet."

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spendius wrote:

I have never said that ID merited inclusion in a science curricula. The reason being that such an idea is obviously ridiculous.

It might be an idea if you learned how to read before recycling a Setanta rant of the utmost predicability and meaninglessness.

Still- you enjoy it don't you?

That's what we are here for isn't it. Get the gremlins out for a bit.

What was the turn out?

I know that about a third of your ambassadors are political appointees and the rest career diplomats and that Europe has a predominance of the former.

Why do you think we are so regally treated?

At once straw man, irrelevant, and at odds with fact. To begin with, the statement to which you responded contained neither mention nor implication that you had said ID merited inclusion in science curricula (despite the fact you both implicily and explictly have so done), nor was it as you allege a recycling of anything.

Further, if indeed you do perceive my comment to have been "meaningless", that crisply and concretely confirms the point of the remark's criticism of your style and substance in this conversation. Whether you honestly don't get it or you knowingly choose to play the part is in the end immaterial; nothing you've written demonstrates that you "get" the matter at discussion; rather, what consistently your posts have demonstrated is intent to obscure the matter at discussion, and to overlay another agenda entirely... an agenda of argumentiveness for its own sake, effected and affected to focus attention on its practitioner as opposed to the matter at discussion.

It would appear, spendi, that any Ivied Halls with which you might be experientially familiar would be not those of Academe, but rather of some Rabelaisian Abbey of Thelema.

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Rubbish c.i. The one thing poets are is consistent.

I have not and am not infavour of anything remotely akin to bringing the idea of intelligen design into science classrooms and nor have I ever linked it to "true" science (your phrase) which I presume doesn't include psychology, sociology, literature and language studies and the like.

Would The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales by Bruno Bettelheim be classed as true science for example? True ID is locked away back down that lot you have sprung from.

I saw a crazy thing in a book recently which had you gradually adopting the ways of the Indians as if the land was the real shaper. I'll look it up.
I took a note.

You could link that to biology via psychological effects on immune systems. Best thing is not to explain it but to just cause the effects.

Do the fairy tales. The earth does look flat to a kid.

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Do you think we are politically illiterate wande?

It's all about ladder-climbing, getting the feet under the table, stepping on necks, channeling the funds, contracts and putting down markers for the future. Pragmatic stuff of that nature. There'll be sex in it somewhere too.

What annoys me about spendi is that he posts this rubbish with such volume that many people will actually believe that theres some substance in what hes saying> Actually hes all wet since all the spokespersons for science have entered the fray on a pro-bono basis. Many actually use their own vacation times and pay their own expenses. As far as "getting their feet under the table academically" no respectable elite University wants to be even seen dead being involved with arguing the ID/Creation ist "experts", It just makes the endowing alumni doubt the worth of the science programs.

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I saw a crazy thing in a book recently which had you gradually adopting the ways of the Indians as if the land was the real shaper. I'll look it up.
I took a note.

Maybe the substance of that note can be summarized with three words."Acquire a clue"

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True ID is locked away back down that lot you have sprung from.

Heres "true ID" again, as if it had any meaning at all. "False ID "should be a falsifiable concept then.

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fm wrote-

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Actually hes all wet since all the spokespersons for science have entered the fray on a pro-bono basis.

I'll have to plead guily if I'm all wet if all the spokespersons for science have entered the fray on a pro-bono basis. Seems logical.

I can't make sense of the rest of the paragraph but I think some doubt on the part of the alumini might be in order. Is the anti-ID side aiming at leaving the alumini in no doubt.

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Maybe the substance of that note can be summarized with three words."Acquire a clue"

I only said I read it. It was a striking idea. Do you not jot down randomly picked up stray ideas. That isn't the proper way to proceed. I didn't imply I agreed.

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Heres "true ID" again, as if it had any meaning at all. "False ID "should be a falsifiable concept then.

True and false are subjective first of all but allowing them interchangeability isn't trying to falsify ID precisely what you are doing here which is tantamount to admitting it is falsifiable or that you are wasting money and talent trying to falsify something you yourself think not falsifiable. The latter being the equivalent of a stick-up.

To avoid such an allegation you'll have to admit that ID (true or false) is falsifiable.

Have I got that right?

George-

It's too good to be true.

It might be cancelelloutable.

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In Dover, only the testifying experts had their time reimbursed(and these were a minority of advisors) and even those invoices were slashed by agreement. The testifying experts were voire dired under the present DAubert test applicable in the US courts. They went through a lot of harrassment (both sides) and some of the evolution experst were even threatened with bodily harm (How Christian is that?)

Most people behind the scenes will never be acknowledged nor part of any post trial notoriety. (Mostly for personal reasons that anonymity remain the best weapon aginst religious bigots).
Youre own terms about "The soulessness of 'Anti-ID" is a mild example of how the "true believers" thought nothing of intimidation or in-your-face shout downs.

IMHO, it had more of a portrait of the famous Missiippi and Alabama civil rights cases of the 50s and 60s. In those cases witnesses were under guard (and not very enthusiastic guard either0.

Your portrayal of the workers in the pro-science side of Dover as merely seeking some personal gain is far off the mark.Noones written a book yet (the only folk whos even made it to the chicken and peas circuit is Judge Jones , and he was assigned to the case by a rotating pool). His only duty was to follow the Constitution of Pa and the US and avoid laying his ass out on the block for an obvious appeal. Now, had the voters not repudiated the anti-science school directors by votng them the hell out, there probably would have been an appeal.

However the 9th circuit case is potentially more far-reaching, since it revolves about almost all basic guarantees and doesnt only settle on the establishment clause. In fact, the establishment clause could be severed from the cae entrely by stipulation. It involces speech, assembly, equal access , and free practice of religion.

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Here ya go. Since I avoid spendius posts, I had nothing else to do for a minute.

"For ever! For all eternity! Not for a year or for an age but for ever. Try to imagine the awful meaning of this. You have often seen the sand on the seashore. How fine are its tiny grains! And how many of those tiny little grains go to make up the small handful which a child grasps in its play. Now imagine a mountain of that sand, a million miles high, reaching from the earth to the farthest heavens, and a million miles broad, extending to remotest space, and a million miles in thickness; and imagine such an enormous mass of countless particles of sand multiplied as often as there are leaves in the forest, drops of water in the mighty ocean, feathers on birds, scales on fish, hairs on animals, atoms in the vast expanse of the air: and imagine that at the end of every million years a little bird came to that mountain and carried away in its beak a tiny grain of that sand. How many millions upon millions of centuries would pass before that bird had carried away even a square foot of that mountain, how many eons upon eons of ages before it had carried away all? Yet at the end of that immense stretch of time not even one instant of eternity could be said to have ended. At the end of all those billions and trillions of years eternity would have scarcely begun. And if that mountain rose again after it had been all carried away, and if the bird came again and carried it all away again grain by grain, and if it so rose and sank as many times as there are stars in the sky, atoms in the air, drops of water in the sea, leaves on the trees, feathers upon birds, scales upon fish, hairs upon animals, at the end of all those innumerable risings and sinkings of that immeasurably vast mountain not one single instant of eternity could be said to have ended; even then, at the end of such a period, after that eon of time the mere thought of which makes our very brain reel dizzily, eternity would scarcely have begun."

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fm wrote-

Quote:

Quote:
I saw a crazy thing in a book recently which had you gradually adopting the ways of the Indians as if the land was the real shaper. I'll look it up.
I took a note.
Maybe the substance of that note can be summarized with three words."Acquire a clue"

There is an example of a totally unscientific mindset. Simply dismiss a notion because it is not liked. No scientist would have responded in that way. The idea of the environment being the shaper is the root of evolutionary theory.

Spengler has it in his "revenge of the oppressed" phrase. I've seen it in other places as well. Studies of customs have suggested its validity.And in matters of dress and physiognomies.

You are no scientist fm.

Pauligirl wrote-

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Since I avoid spendius posts,

Judging from the contribution which unnecessarily contained that phrase I think it is a good idea that you avoid my posts Pauligirl. It looks as if you only engage with what you already find acceptable. You might have given your pointless post a further twist by saying that the scenario you describe is contained within an atom inside your garbage bin handle and that all atoms are the same in that respect.

I have heard it said that such ideas are a route to madness as they overwhelm some people.

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timber wrote-

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while other issues were at play in the overall election outcome,

That's a laugh in view of the result having caused a Pentagon shake-out and a possible new direction in the middle-east and only a week after full confidence had been expressed in the removed Defence Secretary.

Contrary to the impression your phrase was intended to give it looks as if the ID/Science debate was insignificant in the election, as I have said.

It is hardly "honest" to use spin of such crudity and then base assorted assertions on it.

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tHANK YOU PAULIGIRL. Should we bother to tell Spendi who the author was or let him just look it up? Very Happy

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You are no scientist fm.

. Then what the hell am I paying all these dues for? I need to get a refund. Thanks spendi, your ability to cut through the tripe is only exceeded by your ability to eat a whole liver pudding.

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By the way PauliGirl , although I dont much care for most of the authors works,(I plead abject ignorance and a low threshold of boredom) there are occasions where I just love his metaphor.

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Donald Rumsfield - New York Times - Interview - May 16th 2001.

"Once in a while, I'm standing here, doing something. And I think,

'What in the world am I doing here?'

It's a big surprise."

Is this guy related to any of the American contributors to this thread by chance?

You couldn't make it up!

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Well, the man is in his 80's , he can be forgiven a touch of senility, except when his thumb"s on the button. The fact that hes shown thee signs for a long time has always worried many

There was talk that since he was showing more advanced signs of dementia there hadda be some quiet way to dump him. Even though many of us find the politics of the neocons repugnant, nobody should have to suffer the indignities that accompany Alzheimers.

Hes gotten an honourable way out and he shall , no doubt, just fade from view.
Alzheimers can attack and occupy the most brilliant minds,It shouldnt be the cause of childish derision. Do you stand around publically poking fun at handicapped people Mathos? Does it give your ego a boost to hide behind your anonymity and call an Alzheimers victim a retard? Better look to your own inbred Parliament, theyre out there doing "silly walks".

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fm wrote-

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Then what the hell am I paying all these dues for? I need to get a refund.

Oh fm- there are many sweet tricks to get dues paid. There'll be no refunds. Anyway the source of you paying your dues is Gov't funds isn't it and the bodies you pay them to help wheedle for those funds so I can't see why you are whinging or why you would want a refund.

Are people defined as scientists in the US because they pay their subscriptions. It wouldn't surprise me when they casually wave aside interesting ideas because they don't like the sound of them.

Pauligirl gave her quote outside of its ironic context. For sure it's a piss take but not every young reader here would know that. It is on page 15 of the 18 page long preacher's speech at the Retreat which begins-

"--Adam and Eve, my dear boys..." and ends " Stephen, his tongue cleaving to his palate, bowed his head, praying with his heart.

--O my God!--
--O my God!--
--I am heartily sorry--
--I am heartily sorry--
--for having offended Thee--
--for having offended Thee-- etc".

Does Pauligirl seek to have young readers here having their tongues cleaving to their palates.

It can be dangerous. I laughed along but I'm not sure everybody does.

The description of Hell is the funniest I thought.

Bosch scared plenty witless and that was a piss take too.

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The British Government has committed large resources, gained much disapproval and sacrificied a great deal of pain and suffering in support of the policies of the ex Secretary of Defence and The President.

Could you give us an idea of how things stand now. Are a few disenchanted wobblers in the US going to make us look foolish?

Was M. Chirac a good judge of US resolve? Was the whole policy one giant bunch of assertions? One experienced commentator said that the result signalled a yearning for a low tax Fortress America. A sort of skulking off to bed to mope. Intellectual collapse. Catatonia. The assertions unravelled in the face of reality.

What was the turnout? I saw a 20 odd % somewhere. Is that a guide or a small local aberration?

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Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

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