Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

1) Parents should have a right to teach their children whatever they want, but the state isn't required to follow along.
2) Parents should be able to force school districts to teach what the parents want their children to learn.

Showdown on science
(Florida Today Editorial, December 18, 2007)

The Sunshine State is fast becoming a battlefield in the war on science.

That's because the State Board of Education must vote early in 2008 on whether or not Florida schools should teach proposed new science standards that embrace evolution as a core scientific principle.

Current standards don't even mention the word "evolution."

That's incredible -- and does huge injury to a solid science education.

Now a standards update -- written by Florida educators and based on recommendations of national science groups -- could correct the blunder.

But their approval is far from certain because some board members appointed by former Gov. Jeb Bush want to ignore science, keeping students in the dark.

Board member Donna Callaway told a religious newspaper in Jacksonville she objects to the proposed new standards because evolution "should not be taught to the exclusion of other theories of the origins of life."

Like Callaway and other members appointed by Bush, some religious groups want faith-based beliefs inserted in the science curriculum.

They claim intelligent design -- a thinly veiled version of creationism, which is the belief the universe is too complex to have been created without the work of God -- should be taught as an alternative to evolution.

Many people, including some scientists, share a belief in a divinity that sparked all life.

But beliefs, as opposed to scientific theories like evolution, gravity, or the laws of physics, can't be tested using the scientific method and don't belong in science textbooks or classrooms.

Intelligent design advocates sometimes claim students should be taught both sides of what they call "the controversy" over evolutionary theory for the sake of academic freedom.

But there is no controversy, since evolutionary theory underlies all of biology and reflects volumes of rigorous, repeatedly tested and undeniable evidence.

That's why a federal judge in Pennsylvania last year rightly ruled Dover, Pa. schools can't require the teaching of intelligent design because that would be an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.

And why a January article in the official Vatican newspaper endorsed that ruling and said evolution does not conflict with Roman Catholic teaching.

Others in state government are also marshalling the forces of ignorance to defeat the much-needed revisions to Florida science teaching standards.

Department of Education director of instructional materials Selena Carraway this month used her job title in e-mails advocating defeat of the standards.

This while Florida desperately needs to develop a highly educated workforce to draw more high-tech and bioscience employers like the Burnham Institute for Medical Research in Orlando, to diversify its flailing economy beyond tourism and agriculture.

According to a new report from the Florida Chamber Foundation, those educated workers are critical to the state's future.

If top education officials refuse to let students receive the best science education possible, that's not going to happen.

The Board of Education should approve the revised science standards and bring Florida schools into the 21st century.

TKO-

One simply cannot proceed, and be taken seriously, if one insists on conflating ID with what one teacher thinks it is.

The remark- "it's very advanced." used as a sarcasm only relates to your putative teacher's viewpoint. which I take to be your own.

Had you read all the thread, as I have, a lot of posts more than once, you would know that I have said many times that ID cannot be taught. It actually is very advanced and can only be gradually assimilated out of an ambience.

If you wish to argue with someone who thinks ID can be taught formally you might do better to find them and have your dispute with them. There isn't one on this thread. How can I be expected to respond to someone who assumes something about me which is incorrect.

Until your educational system downgrades the status of the category loosely referred to as "parents" these problems will persist. The various vested interests I have mentioned from time to time will see to that.

Whenever one sees the word "parents" used in these contexts it inevitably refers to an idealised fantasy, a supernatural vision if you like, rather than to them two silly sods sat on the couch watching Friends and munching their way through the nutrient bed scratching, farting and picking their noses.

Our Prime Minister often uses the expression "hard working families up and down the land" when he's greasing us up ready to shove his latest dose of aggravation our way. We titter. Or at least those of us do who know what these "hwfuadtl" are like in actuality. Those who beam with self-satisfied pride at hearing the PM speak so highly of them are obviously off their rockers.

These parents have to ask their kids to set the video machine and show them what not to do with the other remote controls when the recording is taking place and which button to press. They're passe. I think South Park thinks they should all be shot.

All parents have but one objective here- it is to find ways of displaying the superiority of their genetic structures and they don't care who they use to do it. Like Philip Larkin said in This Be The Verse.

And it's the fine art of all fine arts. Infinitessimal gradations on the scale produce infinite dispersions of energy. The irreligious have no other way of seeing themselves. Maybe it contributes to Global Warming.

"It's very advanced" is a statement meant to show that IDer's like to argue that if people don't find sense what they are selling, that there is something wrong with them, not ID.

TKO wrote-

Quote:

"It's very advanced" is a statement meant to show that IDer's like to argue that if people don't find sense what they are selling, that there is something wrong with them, not ID.

It is obviously far too advanced for you. All these matters are connected up. It's easy picking one thing out and dealing with it in isolation and with an ignorant assertion.

If you want to go from proving the ark never went to sea straight to knocking down all the religious structures that's your affair.

See post above for a peek at inchoate- " Infinitessimal gradations on the scale produce infinite dispersions of energy." Imagine that attitude in the Director General of Running Everything inc.