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Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

 
 
cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Tue 11 Mar, 2008 09:11 pm
It's not about academic freedom; it's about inserting religion into the school's curriculum. They're doing god's work, so it'll never end - the suits, I mean.
0 Replies
 
wandeljw
 
  1  
Wed 12 Mar, 2008 11:30 am
FLORIDA UPDATE

Quote:

(By Bill Cotterell, Southwest Florida News-Press, March 12, 2008)

Actor and social activist Ben Stein visited Florida's capitol today, urging lawmakers to pass an "academic freedom" bill that would protect teachers and students from questioning evolution under newly adopted science curriculum standards.

Stein also joined John Stemberger, head of the Florida Family Policy Council, and Casey Luskin, a lawyer from the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, in defending a private screening of Stein's new film that has been arranged tonight for legislators. They showed a brief preview of the film, in which Stein recounts his meetings with teachers and scientists who have been shunned for questioning evolutionary theory.

Screening of the film "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" was arranged for legislators, spouses and staff members at the IMAX theater of the Challenger Learning Center a block from the Capitol tonight. The House general counsel said the showing does not fall under the state's gift-ban law, because the film company does not lobby the Legislature, nor under Florida's open-meeting law -- as long as legislators don't discuss pending legislation.

Two bills by Rep. Alan Hays, R-Umatilla, and Sen. Ronda Storms, R-Brandon, would forbid school districts or state authorities to punish teachers or students in any way for raising questions about evolution. Stemberger said the new law is needed because of "dogmatic" new science standards adopted by the State Board of Education last month, which allow teaching of evolution as "a theory."

Stein said all scientific approaches ought to be protected in classrooms, not just evolution or creation-based theories.

"This bill is not about teaching intelligent design," said Stein. "It's about freedom of speech."
0 Replies
 
spendius
 
  1  
Wed 12 Mar, 2008 01:35 pm
rap wrote-

Quote:


Such ideas are in the realm of magic and phantasmogoria. We know the trick and there is little of interest. If we pretend we don't know the trick there is no verisimiltude. No Courts of Love for example. Eleanor of Aquitaine and the regulations governing chivalrous conduct in the presence of refined ladies. Camelot being a sort of pun.

Quote:
It's too bad that you thinks that way of Twain


I must beg your indulgence for that rap.

It is caused by an admixture of prejudices I hold to.

Where I morphed from a moustache was, and still is, seen as the epitome of vanity. The thought of standing before a mirror with a razor in hand sculpting such a monstrosity that Twain sported on his upper lip can only be justified if commissioned by a lady and from what little I know there are few signs of that in his writings.

Mr Bronte buried a wife and all his children and the supicion is current in certain circles that in view of the unnaturalness of such a proceeding he must have drawn the life force out of them to sustain his own. Twain, I gather, managed something similar.

His bankruptcy is another negativity but that is a minor matter when set beside his aw-shucks down-home, folksy, cloying sentimentalities which are of the most obvious and naive simplicities and only tolerable to simple minds.

And he was pronouncedly preachy. He has advice for every occasion except, of course, those involving friendly female company in secluded apartments at the mention of which he probably, like Hippolyte in Madame Bovary, "grinned sheepishly".

Years earlier Kant had written of art as disinterested, ( "Stand back, and view my sorrows as a painter might"), and as creating a "second nature" through human agency. A neat definition of ID and an explanation of why ID cannot be taught in any way formally.

Why AIDs-ers persist in talking about the teaching of ID baffles me. When one teaches a child how to get on one doesn't talk about getting on. It would sound selfish. Manners and etiquette indoctrination never mention the objective of the exercise. I can only surmise that AIDs-ers persist in the illusion in order to obey the laws of conservation of energy and prevent the straw getting on fire.

Gautier, later, followed up by declaring art useless, amoral and unnatural and thus being outside of the Darwinian canon. Flaubert's ambition was to write a novel about nothing so as to allow the appreciation of literary felicity to stand alone. Art for art's sake.

And here is Twain--being useful, moral to the point of bigotry and as natural as a skunk on a snuffling hunt.

It is the old argument of the aesthetic against the ethical. All AIDs-ers are ethical and philistine and think the world around them degenerate. The aesthete views it as the best age of all because it contains all the previous historical possibilities plus those of its own time and thus would prefer to have not been born just yet.

"You can do anything but lay off of my blue suede shoes" is aesthetic. Oscar Wilde had a similar thing about his blue china.

Americans, like the Romans, are a practical race of men. They had to be. They act and leave the dreaming to the nambie-pambies. And science is nothing if not dreaming. Stephen Hawking can only dream.

So you are to be congratulated rap on your preference as it shows that you have been correctly indoctrinated as Sinclair Lewis explained. In this respect your choice of avvie suggests a certain fraying at the edges.

The aesthete has one large advantage though over the man of ethics. He can easily poke fun at himself whereas an ethics man can never do that because to do so undermines his ethics and reduces his confidence in his moral strictures.

An sound aesthete, for example, would take advantage of the evacuation of Congress to admire the fixtures and fittings in the absence of distractions. "There are plenty more where I come from", he might say to the ushers who are eager to exercise their incipient and largely frustrated control freakery. He might even have a sit in the Speaker's Chair or examine the graffiti on the intern's toilet's doors.

Whether to return Jim to his owner is probably the result of a computation of the personal risks being run by doing so. I think Mr Bush would allow Jim to go north. Possibly even Mr Cheyney.

I think you will find rap that rivers have an important influence in a number of cultures. It is not only in North America. It would be interesting though if you explained the nature of the influence of your rivers specifically.

BTW rap-- the eclipse trick was employed in King Solomon's Mines.

Has any AIDs-er read The Song of Solomon? Nancy Mitford set off reading it out at a wedding, for the lesson, but a couple of bishops removed her from the lecturn. Wilde did something similar with the same result. But not bishops. Is it that book which bothers them so much?

If Twain had a sense of humour I'll eat Sitting Bull's ceremonial hat.
0 Replies
 
TheCorrectResponse
 
  1  
Wed 12 Mar, 2008 01:43 pm
Quote:

If Twain had a sense of humour I'll eat Sitting Bull's ceremonial hat.


DON'T DO IT SPENDI. The LAST thing you need to be filled with is more bull, sitting or otherwise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Wed 12 Mar, 2008 02:35 pm
Maybe, spendi stands while he consumes his ale at the pub.
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spendius
 
  1  
Wed 12 Mar, 2008 04:19 pm
Natch.
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rosborne979
 
  1  
Thu 13 Mar, 2008 07:02 am
wandeljw wrote:
FLORIDA UPDATE

Quote:

(By Bill Cotterell, Southwest Florida News-Press, March 12, 2008)

Actor and social activist Ben Stein visited Florida's capitol today, urging lawmakers to pass an "academic freedom" bill that would protect teachers and students from questioning evolution under newly adopted science curriculum standards.

Backed by years of experiences as an actor, and impressive education in economics and law, Ben Stein marches forth to lecture Florida's capitol on Science and Evolution. Fully aware that he knows nothing about Science or Evolution, Ben carefully crafts his argument into one about "free speech".

Behind the scenes, members of the Discovery Institute, still blinded by the bright light that was shined on them in Dover PA a few years ago, skulk around in the background counting how many legislators are willing to sit through a free showing of Stein's propaganda film.
0 Replies
 
wandeljw
 
  1  
Thu 13 Mar, 2008 08:42 am
FLORIDA UPDATE

Quote:
Intelligent Design could slip into science class
(BY MARC CAPUTO, Miami Herald, March 13, 2008)

The religiously tinged evolution-questioning theory of Intelligent Design could more easily be brought up in public-school science classrooms under a proposed ''academic freedom'' legislation being pushed by conservative lawmakers.

And it's not just the ACLU saying it anymore.

A leading voice for the Intelligent Design movement acknowledged as much Wednesday by saying that the theory constitutes ''scientific information,'' which the bill expressly and repeatedly says teachers should present in questioning and criticizing evolution without fear of persecution.

The remarks by Casey Luskin, an attorney with the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, were made during a press conference with actor-columnist-speechwriter-gameshow host Ben Stein, who's exhibiting a documentary in support of the legislation.

The bill was drafted after the state Board of Education voted last month to include repeated mention of evolution and natural selection in state science standards for the first time in state history. The bill expressly bans the teaching of religious theories -- which a federal court has ruled Intelligent Design is.

But the legislation also repeatedly tells instructors to teach the ''full range'' of ''scientific information'' about biological and chemical evolution.
So does Intelligent Design constitute scientific information?

''In my personal opinion, I think it does. But the intent of this bill is not to settle that question,'' said Luskin. 'The intent of this bill is... it protects the `teaching of scientific information.' It's not trying to inject itself into the debate over Intelligent Design.''

Luskin said the institute, which advocates Intelligent Design, doesn't want it ''mandated'' in schools.

Church-state separatists say religious groups are trying to use the bill as a Trojan horse to introduce religion in science classrooms.

''The Intelligent Design movement has embraced this political strategy to sneak its religious views into the science classroom, and that's what you're seeing now in Florida,'' said Howard Simon, a Florida director for the ACLU, which filed the Dover case.

''The strategy is this: Let's call Intelligent Design scientific information, and let's make sure that teachers can teach that scientific information,'' Simon said, adding that his organization would sue if the bill became law and teachers began proselytizing in class.

The Discovery Institute vigorously denies that Intelligent Design is a religious theory and says the definition of the theory holds that life shows such patterns of design that it's the result of an intelligent cause, rather than natural selection.

What's that ''intelligent cause?'' The institute's top scientists say God, but they say that's not part of the theory.

Based on that belief, days of grueling testimony and something called the Discovery Institute ''Wedge'' document outlining a strategy to make science more ''consonant with Christian and theistic convictions,'' a federal judge in a Dover, Penn., case ruled in 2005 that Intelligent Design was too close to creationism for the science classroom.

Teachers can mention Intelligent Design or biblical creationism now, as long as it's not in the science classroom. In the science classroom, it's an open question as to whether teachers can mention these evolution alternatives.

Stein said his documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed shows that the academic freedom bill is needed.

''If there were complete freedom of speech, I don't think this bill would be necessary,'' he said. ``There are plenty of people who ask what seem to be innocent, sensible questions about the flaws and gaps and lacunae in Darwinism and they get severely punished for it.''

Stein said he didn't think the bill was aimed at ''protecting'' Intelligent Design. One of the drafters of the legislation, John Stemberger, president of the evangelical Florida Family Policy Council, said Intelligent Design can't be taught, though ''criticisms'' of evolution could.

When asked who would decide what ''scientific information'' is, Stemberger said the teacher would have to follow the curriculum and only bring up ''relevant'' information about chemical and biological evolution. Stein said it was the teacher who would decide.

Republican state Sen. Ronda Storms of Brandon and Rep. Alan Hays of Umatilla say their bill's intent is not to teach alternate theories, but to ensure that teachers and students will have the ability to freely question and criticize evolution.

Indeed, natural selection is under active challenge from evolutionary-developmental biologists, who say multicellular organisms can dynamically change form under certain environmental conditions, producing major evolutionary jumps.

Simon and mainstream scientists with the National Academy of Sciences say that's science, and that Intelligent Design is not because it ultimately rests on untestable supernatural entities.

Luskin, the Discovery Institute lawyer, said that's an irony: ``One of the funniest things in my opinion is that many of the people who are claiming Intelligent Design would be taught under this bill adamantly believe Intelligent Design is not science. So in their own view, the text of this bill would not protect the teaching of Intelligent Design.''

Said Simon: ``There is no constitutional right to mis-educate Florida students. If a science teacher is teaching serious science and is censored, that's an academic-freedom issue we would defend. But if they're having Sunday school in science class, that's a problem.''
0 Replies
 
spendius
 
  1  
Thu 13 Mar, 2008 11:49 am
wande wrote-

Quote:
Said Simon: ``There is no constitutional right to mis-educate Florida students.


In which case, some would say, all the schools should be closed.

How can "mis-educate" mean anything if "educate" is not defined. One suspects if Mr Simon was to attempt to define it we get nothing but those views which suit his purpose, whatever that is.

His opponents could, with just the same sweet and easy breath, say Mr Simon was trying to mis-educate the kids.

As I keep saying--it's a football match with the pitch consisting of kids.

Why do you keep putting this rubbish on wande?

It's so superficial.
0 Replies
 
cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Thu 13 Mar, 2008 11:51 am
spendius wrote:
wande wrote-

Quote:
Said Simon: ``There is no constitutional right to mis-educate Florida students.


In which case, some would say, all the schools should be closed.

How can "mis-educate" mean anything if "educate" is not defined. One suspects if Mr Simon was to attempt to define it we get nothing but those views which suit his purpose, whatever that is.

His opponents could, with just the same sweet and easy breath, say Mr Simon was trying to mis-educate the kids.

As I keep saying--it's a football match with the pitch consisting of kids.

Why do you keep putting this rubbish on wande?

It's so superficial.


After Bush's NCLB mandate, I agree. Our schools are failing this country - at the very least from K through 12.
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farmerman
 
  1  
Fri 14 Mar, 2008 06:04 am
The ads atop this very thread show how bankrupt the ID/Creation "school" is. All the ID sites default back to some church group or contain heavy ads for Bible paraphernalia. Science does use money in its endeavors and spends a sizable amount in publication. ID /Creation spends ALL of its money on baseless propoganda.

When are the IDjits gonna publish anything original?SUrely if they had anything, thyed be out there crawling over themselves to let us know. SO far the silence is deafening.
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spendius
 
  1  
Fri 14 Mar, 2008 08:31 am
I told you something interesting and that you hadn't heard before fm. I didn't fill it all in because it's a bit complicated. But the key bits were there.

And you just ignored it. As you do when you're stumped. Then you go back to that stuff which is so original I'm surprised you don't have it in a fossil case in your emporium of polished oak. So what's the point if you just turn away from anything interesting in asking us to post something which qualifies when nothing can qualify under the conditions operating.

Pehaps you do have it in a fossil case on reflection. You have brought it out again for us to admire. Thank you. Very nice.
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wandeljw
 
  1  
Fri 14 Mar, 2008 08:34 am
FLORIDA UPDATE

Quote:
Eyes wide open
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spendius
 
  1  
Fri 14 Mar, 2008 12:21 pm
The editor of the TDE seems a little nervous. All this out on a limb tip-toeing.

Still- it was a bit better than the usual flannel.

The thing about failure, as GBS pointed out, is to leave a bigger contoversy behind.
0 Replies
 
farmerman
 
  1  
Fri 14 Mar, 2008 12:54 pm
from wandel's article clip
Quote:
But part of the danger of the bills is that, while never mentioning creationism, it says teachers and students can not be punished for advancing other "scientific" theories. That could include creationism, of course, but could include racial superiority theories or any other theory that the teacher or students consider scientific
.

The burden of proof that "creationism" or "ID" are actually scientific theories lies with those who invoke the protection that these bills supposedly offer.
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Setanta
 
  1  
Fri 14 Mar, 2008 01:16 pm
That creates a can't-lose situation for pandering legislators, though. The actual burden of proof would not be borne unless and until someone brought suit in the matter, at which time the legislator can say he or she did his or her best, but that the evil court system is "legislating from the bench" once again.
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spendius
 
  1  
Fri 14 Mar, 2008 01:36 pm
Suppose the proof is not only too difficult to explain but too dangerous as well.

I know that requires you to accept that you don't really know what is going on but there it is. It is a scientific fact fm that you don't know what is going on or even why you are in a monogamous marriage or have bowthrusters to clean sea-food out of and a good bit of other stuff.

It certainly is no proof that nobody knows what is going on.

GBS, that extraordinary AIDs-er, said that "everything romantic, or romantically artistic, is just what I have come into the world to trample on, laugh out of countenance, and finally slay."

Actually the first acceptance of his plays was in Germany. Spengler country. Thomas Mann offered an explanation of that: that because of his "curiously unerring instinct" Germany had come to recognize Shaw's importance to the modern stage, (early 20th Century), indeed to modern intellectual life as a whole, earlier than the English speaking world in which the "womanly woman" role ruled supreme.

That jigsaw piece fits nicely into the picture that is too difficult and too dangerous to explain.

Raise your game fm. You're getting repetitive again. You're in the bus queue debate mode. The proof would give you the screaming ab-dabs and make the soles of lady AIDs-er's feet blush bright red.
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wandeljw
 
  1  
Fri 14 Mar, 2008 01:37 pm
Farmerman and Setanta,

The Florida ACLU is being alert about this. Their director remarked: "There is no constitutional right to mis-educate children."

One of the poorly thought-out aspects to the proposed bill is that it is aimed at K-12 education. Most reasonable people feel that K-12 students need to be taught basics. Adding controversial ideas would confuse students at this level and dilute their education. Evolution is a basic concept that students need to understand when learning life sciences.
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Foxfyre
 
  1  
Fri 14 Mar, 2008 01:43 pm
Oh yeah, indoctrination is okay and allowing children to expand their thinking and to see other possibilities is interpreted as confusing them. Yeah, that's the way to go all right to avoid 'mis-educating' children.
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Setanta
 
  1  
Fri 14 Mar, 2008 01:58 pm
The irony here is killin' me . . . there is no more blatant a form of indoctrination that religious orthodoxy, which is, preferably, shoved down the throat of the child before she is even old enough to understand the words being used. There never was a vendor of the superstitious claptrap of religion who ever intended for his victims to expand their thinking.
0 Replies
 
 

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