Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

Ministers to ban creationist teaching aids in science lessons
(James Randerson, The Guardian, December 7, 2006)

The government is to write to schools telling them that controversial teaching materials promoting creationism should not be used in science lessons.

The packs include DVDs and written materials promoting intelligent design, a creationist alternative to Darwinism, that were sent to every school in the country by the privately-funded group Truth in Science.

Advocates of the theory argue that some features of the universe and nature are so complex that they must have been designed by a higher intelligence. Last week, the Guardian revealed that 59 schools had told Truth in Science the materials were a "useful classroom resource".

The government has already stated that the Truth in Science materials should not be used in science lessons. On November 1, the education minister, Jim Knight, wrote: "Neither intelligent design nor creationism are recognised scientific theories and they are not included in the science curriculum. The Truth in Science information pack is therefore not an appropriate resource to support the science curriculum." The Department for Education said it was working with the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, the public body that oversees the national curriculum, to communicate this message directly to schools.

But Evan Harris, the Liberal Democrats' science spokesman, said: "I'm amazed that they have found it so difficult and it has taken so long." He feared that some teachers would use the packs to promote intelligent design as a belief or that it would be presented as a valid scientific theory.

"[Pupils] are somehow being told these agendas are alternative ways of looking at things. They are not at all," the Nobel prizewinner and prime mover in the Human Genome Project, John Sulston, said at a lecture last week at the British Museum. "One is science - a rational thought process which will carry us forward into the indefinite future. The other is a cop-out and they should not be juxtaposed in science lessons."

The teachers' manual accompanying the DVDs says that the curriculum states that pupils should be taught about different ways of interpreting empirical evidence. "An essential part of this is for pupils to understand the nature and causes of scientific controversy. A good example of this, specified by the national curriculum, is Darwin's theory of evolution."

Andy McIntosh, a professor of thermodynamics at the University of Leeds and a member of the Truth in Science board, has written to request a meeting with ministers to discuss the advice the department is planning to send out to schools.

Liberal Democrat MP Phil Willis, who chairs the parliamentary science and technology committee, said it was a good opportunity for the department to "send out a very clear directive to say that these materials should not be used within any national science curriculum lesson".

wande-

The Guardian are merely trying to wind the topic up into a controvesy because it is very cheap filling up white space with it.

UK UPDATE

Quote:

Ministers to ban creationist teaching aids in science lessons
(James Randerson, The Guardian, December 7, 2006)

"[Pupils] are somehow being told these agendas are alternative ways of looking at things. They are not at all," the Nobel prizewinner and prime mover in the Human Genome Project, John Sulston, said at a lecture last week at the British Museum. "One is science - a rational thought process which will carry us forward into the indefinite future. The other is a cop-out and they should not be juxtaposed in science lessons."

The evangelicals have been actively pushing their agenda for years now, while the science and engineering community has scoffed at the sillyness of it all.

evangelical thrust, which is anti-science at its core.

I'm glad that these controversies are finally coming to light, because the scientific point of view thrives in the light, while the other does better in back rooms and dark hallways.

"Stupid things happen when educated people stand by and say nothing"

dear god

I believe in spendi
The god almighty
maker of heaven and earth
and in mathos his only son
who was crucified dead and
buried

he descended into hell
on the third day he rose again
he ascended into heaven

and sitteth on the right hand of god the father almighty


.................


well thats as far as i can go off top of my head

er I was trying to be really really sarcastic but bottle of new zealand sauvignon blanc got in the way

can anyone recite the creed as attempted above?

Evolution, 'design' still hot topics for teachers
(By Jennifer Toomer-Cook, Deseret Morning News, December 9, 2006)

There's no legal or scientific room for teaching Intelligent Design in public schools, National Center for Science Education executive director Eugenie Scott told a science teachers convention this week in Salt Lake City.

But evolution challenges are not going away, she said. Intelligent Design was debated on two Utah college campuses last week. And a Utah senator says while he won't carry another origins of life bill, something else could be in the works.

"Yes, it's coming, but it's not coming this year ... something that will address this opinion about Darwinism, that defines how life started," Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, said Thursday.

The National Science Teachers Association's Western Area Conference is at the Salt Palace Convention Center through today.

Scott on Thursday outlined court rulings leading to today's evolution debate, beginning with a court-upheld ban on evolution lessons in the 1920s-era Scopes trial. The U.S. Supreme Court in the 1960s overturned that ban as religion-based.

By 1980, 20 states required schools give evolution and creation science equal instructional time. An Arkansas judge struck that down, saying you can't start with a conclusion and refuse to change it regardless of the data gathered and call it science.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the premise in 1987, but the ruling opened the door to today's debate, Scott said. It said teachers can present alternative ideas to evolution regarding the origins of life. Justice Antonin Scalia's dissent also said people have a right to present in schools whatever scientific evidence there may be against evolution.

Scott says there isn't any. "Common ancestry is the only game in town."

But proponents of Intelligent Design, or the idea that life is too complex to be explained by evolution alone, disagree. Biological philosopher Paul Nelson of the Discovery Institute, in a Utah Valley State College panel discussion last week, said that while not yet a scientific theory, Intelligent Design may gain legitimacy in the scientific community to explain origins of Earth and its inhabitants.

Scott said the concept is the same old idea, different name, noting a Dover, Pa., judge said it couldn't be taught in public schools last year.

Intelligent Design was never part of Utah legislation. Rather, Buttars' bill directed the State Board of Education to stress Darwin's theory of evolution is not empirically proven.

And a Utah senator says while he won't carry another origins of life bill, something else could be in the works.

Biological philosopher Paul Nelson of the Discovery Institute, in a Utah Valley State College panel discussion last week, said that while not yet a scientific theory, Intelligent Design may gain legitimacy in the scientific community to explain origins of Earth and its inhabitants.