Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

If spendi was a cop he'd have powdered sugar on his blues.

Really. Some fundamentalist Creationists do, yes, and they are as opposed by the IDers as are the AIDers.

Foxfyre wrote:

Really. Some fundamentalist Creationists do, yes, and they are as opposed by the IDers as are the AIDers.

These are the IDers.

Content in a state of ignorance

Quote:

Content in a state of ignorance
(Diane Roberts, St. Petersburg Times Opinion, March 28, 2008)

Ignorance troubles neither voters nor politicians. According to a recent St. Petersburg Times survey, only 22 percent of Floridians want schools to teach evolution only, while fully 50 percent prefer only intelligent design or the Bible. "In Florida we love to establish the facts by voting on them," says professor Travis.

"I would love to know what the 'scientific alternatives' are," says Joe Travis, evolutionary biologist and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at FSU. "I don't know of any. Not unless I change my definition of 'science' to include the supernatural."

But why stop with Darwin? How about including theories of gravity other than Newton's?

During these hot summer months there had been turmoil in Ulster over Asquith's Home Rule Bill, and hunger strikes among the militant suffragettes in London. Then on 28 June, The Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who had been at the premiere of Pygmalion in Vienna, was shot: and Europe moved to the edge of war. But for much of this time 'all political and social questions have been swept from the public mind by Eliza's expletive', Shaw reported. The Bishop of Woolwich cried out for it to be banned; Bishop Weldon felt saddened that such a vulgar word had to be uttered by a married lady with children; .......
Scholars and intellectuals duelled in the columns of The Times, Westminster Gazette and Cambridge Review over the origin of "bloody". The Oxford Union met and voted in favour of a motion declaring ' a certain sanguinary expletive' to be 'a liberating influence on the English Language', but the Debating Society at Eton deplored 'the debasement and vulgarization of the commercial theatre'. The Daily Express got hold of an authentic Covent Garden flower girl called Eliza, took her to the play and reported her as being shocked. 'No self respecting flower girl would say such a word. . . it sounded simply horrible. (sic)' At 10 Downing Street the Prime Minister received a letter of protest from the Women's Purity League; and at His Majesty's , Tree (the producer) was reprimanded by the Theatre Manager's Association. 'The Word was passed by the Lord Chamberlain and there my responsibility ends,' he told the press....

Academic Anarchy
(By LIAM JULIAN, The Tampa Tribune, March 28, 2008)

The evolution debate in Florida grows tiresome, and not only because Ben Stein - he of unfailing monotone-is now involved, but because it keeps rehashing the same, tired points albeit in different ways.

Stein trotted to Tallahassee the other day to offer a preview of his forthcoming documentary, "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," which chronicles the supposed classroom suppression by "Big Science" of any theory that competes with evolution. Lawmakers were allowed to see the movie; the press and public were not.

Stein was also hanging around the capitol to promote the "Academic Freedom Act," sponsored by Republican Sen. Ronda Storms and Rep. Alan Hays. The bill would allow teachers the right "to objectively present scientific information relevant to the full range of scientific views" of evolution. Stein said at a news conference, "This bill is not about teaching intelligent design. It's about freedom of speech."

Casey Luskin - who works for the Discovery Institute, which supports intelligent design - echoed Stein's sentiments and said the bill would protect only teachers who choose to educate students about scientific objections to evolution. Luskin, however, believes that intelligent design is science.

There they go again. If this bill passes, of course, the tedious debate will revive: Is intelligent design science or isn't it?

Let's avoid this already exhausted topic, though, and examine other reasons why making the "Academic Freedom Act" a law is a lousy idea for Florida's students and schools.

To start, Stein's claim that the bill protects "freedom of speech" deserves close consideration.

Teachers are already free to say whatever they please to a roomful of 8-year-olds, just as I'm free to say whatever I please around my office. If I casually observe that my boss is a philistine afflicted by halitosis, or if a Florida history instructor mentions that his school's principal is a "lump of foul deformity," neither of us will wind up in a dark, damp jail-cell. We will both, however, almost surely be fired (although public-school teachers are protected by powerful unions, so perhaps the history instructor keeps his job).

What Stein really meant to say is that the bill insulates teachers from being held accountable for their speech. One wonders whether Florida's citizens really desire that public-school teachers have that type of protection, one to which few private-sector workers are entitled (and for good reason).

The "Academic Freedom Act" is an insult to principals, who will see their autonomy over school functions further diluted if the bill becomes law. Unlike most managers in the private sector, public-school principals are not allowed to exercise authority over their schools and their staffs. They cannot, for example, hire and fire employees - a basic management tool - without bearing sundry red-tape encumbrances.

This bill only adds more of that red tape. Principals would have no way to discipline teachers who are, say, presenting to students inaccurate scientific information ("who says it's inaccurate?") or deviating from the prescribed, state standards.

Principals are accountable to the government for the academic performance of their students, and yet the government is proposing another bill that will severely hamper the management flexibility of principals. This is accountability without autonomy, and it's a recipe for failure.

Here's another disturbing piece of the "Academic Freedom Act": Students may not be penalized in any way for subscribing "to a particular position or view regarding biological or chemical evolution." So when little Johnny receives an "F" for an essay in which he has proclaimed the earth was created in a week, little Johnny's teacher better watch out - the lawyers are coming.

In this particular case, Floridians should be especially wary. Academic-freedom bills, of all stripes, are generally terrible things. They proclaim to protect a persecuted class, but rarely is that verifiable.

The Storms and Hays proposal purports to shield public-school teachers who are vilified for questioning evolution's tenets. But a significant number of such teachers simply doesn't exist.

And what's more, public-school educators, especially the most incompetent ones, already receive from their unions more job protection than they need or deserve.

The "Academic Freedom Act" is thoroughly flawed and is deserving of deft dismissal.

So when little Johnny receives an "F" for an essay in which he has proclaimed the earth was created in a week, little Johnny's teacher better watch out - the lawyers are coming.

(If spendi can make irrelevant injections of nonsense, so can I)