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Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

 
 
spendius
 
  1  
Tue 22 Apr, 2008 12:10 pm
wande quoted-

Quote:
As if to provide comic relief between budgetary sessions of brutalizing poor kids and the elderly, our Tallahassee primates continue their assault on evolution.


Well ditto Mr Thomas. One might imagine he had something better to do with his time too if Florida kids and oldies are being brutalized.

Quote:
What makes this latest return to the 19th century interesting is that the Senate and House have swapped their traditional roles.


It's normal for teams to change end at half-time.

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Usually it is the House that goes on crusades to create a Theocratic State of Florida, while the more moderate Senate tends to drag its heels and whine about the Constitution.


There's been plenty of whining about the Constitution on here. Although I suppose if the right side is doing it it will be courageously upholding the constitution. Which goes to show how far into the dark art of the magical spells of word charms Mr Thomas has sunk.

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But on the issue of evolution, it is the Senate going out on a limb, or at least refusing to concede that our ancestors once did.


What does that mean? Who exactly are "our ancestors"? What limb is he talking about?

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The controversy stems from a Department of Education decision to publicly acknowledge the existence of Darwin by mandating schools teach evolution. Unable to stop this bit of heresy, religious conservatives now seek to overturn the decision in the Legislature.


Which they are entitled to do. We would be in trouble if they weren't.

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But they have to be careful.


I feel sure they will be.

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They obviously can't promote creationism in the classroom.


If it's so obvious why is creationism erected on here as an Aunt Sally. If it's even obvious to Floridians, assuming Mr Thomas's own tone, it is obviously completely stupid mentioning it, especially on a science thread.

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They tried replacing that with a super-secret-code term: intelligent design. But a judge tossed that, too.


What has a judge up in a sleepy backwater like Dover got to do with Florida. Mr Thomas will clutch at any straw. No doubt he will simply assume, like any propagandist, that Judge Jones's official reasons were the only ones in play. Which is a bit naive not to say insulting. And there's no super-secret-code term involved. Mr Thomas is simply conjuring up bogeymen creeping under your beds.

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So now, after much pondering, they have come up with academic freedom.


What? Now?? After thousands of years of pondering on academic freedom
and Mr Thomas has only just found out? Socrates was executed for "corrupting the youth".

Quote:
They're not asking that teachers be allowed to teach intelligent design, just given the academic freedom to pooh-pooh evolution.


Which is something AIDS-ers do implicitly when they hide their tender eyes from any of the "controversial issues". One can understand Mr Thomas being upset at anybody pooh-poohing evolution as he understands it in those simple, non-controversial and personally beneficial forms he obviously does. And his close female relatives.

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To make this all very scientific, the teachers would need "germane current facts, data and peer-reviewed scientific information."


Base flattery of the self-improving, don't like narcissitic impulses inhibited, wannabee scientism brigade.

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That sounds good and un-Godly until you try to define terms such as peer-reviewed scientific information. Beyond that, good luck deciding who would have the final say in determining that something met that criteria.


That sounds like Mr Thomas, or his puppet masters at the Chicago Tribune, are in the race to do the deciding and after approving "un-Godly" ( why daren't he use "un-godly"? ) so strongly too.

Quote:
I spent an hour on Google, digging for "scientific information" that claimed to be "peer reviewed," arguing that Earth is 7,000 years old and that T. rexes ate plants until Adam and Eve ate the apple. Then they got dressed, and the T. rexes switched to the Atkins Diet.


He spent an hour on Google. Gee! He deserves a medal.

Sat on his arse no doubt whilst kids and fogies are being brutalized in the streets outside. Seemingly he found nothing and had to invent his sitting ducks for himself out of the usual cliches.

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Imagine a teacher introducing such material as a critique of Darwin, with administrators and parents unable to infringe on his academic freedom to do so.


He introduced it. Previous paragraph explained.

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If you don't think this would happen, you haven't spent enough time in the Panhandle.


Crabbing his own circulation area now.

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An analysis by more level-headed members of the House staff noted teachers don't have such academic freedom in other subjects.


That's because the other subjects are not so controversial. One presumes "level-headed" is a state approved by Mr Thomas.

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"This fact raises issues concerning the underlying intent of the bill," noted the analysis.


What fact is that? A note by "more level-headed" members. See last sentence for definition of "level-headed". What is "more level-headed" anyway. More level-headed than what. He's already accused his readership of being dumbasses from whom anything might be expected.

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Underlying intent is super-secret code for unconstitutional religious intent.


The bogeymen are coming to eat you all up again.

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Critics fear critical analysis will become a slippery slope to academic freedom and from there, off we go to intelligent design.


Tell them to lock their doors at night. What critics do fear is ending up on the losing side.

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In the Senate, Sen. Ronda Storms, R-Valrico, claims there is a Science Inquisition going on in schools, with anti-evolution teachers given bathroom and bus duty.

She couldn't produce any victims. Like her science, her legislation seems to be faith-based.


As does a fair slice of Mr Thomas's creativity. Such as-

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If it is the current Senate version, we soon will replay the Scopes Monkey Trial on Fox News, starring Sean Hannity as a dumbed-down William Jennings Bryan and the state of Florida as his dumbed-down baboon.


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All this hardly meshes with House Speaker Marco Rubio's plan to make Florida a world-class education center in math and science.


Plenty of people harbour plans of that nature. If Mr Thomas's piece is anything to go by, and his assessment of his fellow Floridians, Mr Rubio has a tough task on his hands and anyway it's part of his role to speak like that as a matter of course.

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The jobs and careers that our children are going to aspire to fill haven't even been invented yet," he says.


In which case nobody knows what to teach them except maybe adaptability and one thing scientific facts are not is adaptable. Intelligent design can adapt to anything.

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"Their competition is not Mississippi or Alabama; it's China and India and emerging markets."


Rubbish! One vote and you could have siege America. Perhaps Mr Thomas has never heard of tariffs or import regulations. The serious competition is from other US states. Competition in what anyway? Lap dancing. Micky Mouse museums. Rocket launching.

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Why, then, are legislators considering laws that would teach science at a Mississippi and Alabama level?


That's what they were elected to do. I don't think Mr Thomas has been elected. Appointed with approval from the Chicago Tribune maybe.

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Because in China, India and every advanced country looking to pass us by, they teach evolution.


Is that a fact?? The evil empires are coming to gobble us all down again.

What a complete load of bullshit that off topic interruption was wande. I wouldn't want to be caught batting for that team myself. I bet Mr Thomas's mouth turns down at the corners. Have you any connections to the Tribune up in the cold and windy north?
0 Replies
 
farmerman
 
  1  
Tue 22 Apr, 2008 12:12 pm
crap
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farmerman
 
  1  
Tue 22 Apr, 2008 12:13 pm
see above
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farmerman
 
  1  
Tue 22 Apr, 2008 12:13 pm
ditto
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farmerman
 
  1  
Tue 22 Apr, 2008 12:13 pm
Laughing
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farmerman
 
  1  
Tue 22 Apr, 2008 12:15 pm
spendis jealous of anyone who can write cleverly, since he is so unafflicted
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spendius
 
  1  
Tue 22 Apr, 2008 12:20 pm
You read it too fast fm.

But I'll admit Mr Thomas is clever. Kids birfday party conjuror clever.

If I could only manage to write like that I'd give the job up and take to spitting on the traffic off bridges.
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spendius
 
  1  
Tue 22 Apr, 2008 12:23 pm
fm- if you read everything that fast it explains a lot.
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spendius
 
  1  
Tue 22 Apr, 2008 12:31 pm
Regarding Alabama-

Quote:
I had a woman down in Alabama,
She was a backwoods girl, but she sure was realistic,
She said, "Boy, without a doubt, have to quit your mess and straighten out
You could die down here, be just another accident statistic".


Slow Train Bob Dylan.
0 Replies
 
spendius
 
  1  
Tue 22 Apr, 2008 12:36 pm
I reckon that responding definitively to a lengthy post in 45 seconds is as good a scientific definition of trolling as I've heard of. It places measureable standards on it.

It means you have your head in a bag bellowing "crap".
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farmerman
 
  1  
Tue 22 Apr, 2008 05:59 pm
Spendi, good writing isnt gliding in with phrases that have no context, nor is it speaking in tongues. You could do a lot worse than to try to emulate Thomas. When you are , like he, able to say more in half the space, then youre a writer, till then, stick with your job at the water works.
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spendius
 
  1  
Tue 22 Apr, 2008 06:18 pm
Which phrases of mine have no context fm?

I cannot cure you of this assertion habit you have can I?

You are supposed to offer evidence of me having no context and not just to assert it as if your assertions are valid simply because you have made them. You yourself often stress that point and I agree with you when you do.

It's just that I don't understand you suspending the rule everytime when you are stumped.

Thomas couldn't write his way out of a paper bag. Nobody who thinks he's a big deal can write worth a blow. That's because you always know the subject and there are never any surprises.
0 Replies
 
spendius
 
  1  
Wed 23 Apr, 2008 08:42 am
There is a way of examining propositions which employs the method of looking at the extremes of them and drawing a scale between those points and then, using a compass, say, analysing the positions in between. To get your bearings.

As we can easily see by looking along this thread that AIDs-ers are happy to focus on the extreme religious position even to the extent of raising the spectre of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, long gone atrocities which have no relevance today and even, from yesterday, that T-rex ate plants. They have conjured out of their own heads the crazed fundie in a science class ranting about hell-fire and American science going down the tube if grade kids are not imbued with the spirit of the scientific method.

Aside from the fact that AIDS-ers are self-evidently only imbued with the spirit of the scientific method when they want to be it is equally self-evident that any glimpses of the other extreme, even mild ones, are dealt with by AIDs-ers is if they don't exist. Teacher atheists, in my experience, are militant.

AIDS-ers should thank me for the mild glimpses I give them of the other end. There's a Greenwich Village something called The Other End.

I thereby provide them with bearings. Get them to look along the line a bit which is what good Faustians are supposed to do. We have a picture of their end. History shows it us, to the extent we trust it. We are escaping from it as the drifter does in Drifter's Escape when the bolt of lightning struck the court-house out of shape. At about 3% a year give or take the odd glitch.

They also conveniently forget that the proposition here is not between religion and atheism/scientific method, as symbolized by Darwin in the common mind irrespective of whether Darwin was an atheist himself; a matter of no consequence to this debate and not verifiable either. The debate is between the status quo, the mix now, and atheism/scientific method.

What's the rush? Is there gold somewhere?

One fine day Florida might be the state which scuppers a real atheist presidential candidate. Like Dover-a place in between. The key swing state with hanging chads to up the excitement. Exciting climaxes are a speciality of Faustians. Even on the game shows. Everywhere. If there's an exciting climax there a bunch of cheering nitwits all looking at the big screen to see if they are on in the background and who have no idea what they are cheering but just like cheering and somebody who can get them going at it.

If you want to see proper cheering go to Royal Ascot, where naked greed is palpable, and watch a race where the favourite and second favourite in a 3 horse race ding-dong it for the last two furlongs locked in a titanic struggle to the line and it takes a judge's microscope to decipher the photograph unlike those photographs of distant galaxies which can be deciphered at a glance by seasoned journalists on Scientific American and 2000 words knocked out to wow the armchair whizz-kids as easy as sucking Coca Cola through a straw, say.

We don't treat going to war from the positions of the extremes. Our version of war would look positively pacifist to a Carthaginian general.
0 Replies
 
spendius
 
  1  
Wed 23 Apr, 2008 09:00 am
soz wrote, on the Politics forum-

Quote:
One thing -- is it a 10-pt lead or 9? CNN says "about 10" in its copy and says "10" in the numbers.

Andrew Sullivan says 9. Nimh says 9. I saw 9.4 someplace. Is it the ".4" that's throwing things off?


Exciting climaxes. Everywhere. Once the excitement of the Gutsy Broad's victory abates it begins again on the margin of victory which might swing a super-delegate in another race brewing up for an exciting climax in Denver and then the big one with hanging chads being replaced by "voting difficulties" of various sorts and law suits flying left, right and centre and Mr Bush having to stay on while they sort it out as Regent President.

It's brilliant.
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wandeljw
 
  1  
Wed 23 Apr, 2008 10:33 am
Please quiet down, spendi.

BREAKING NEWS FROM FLORIDA SENATE
Quote:
The anti-evolution (or "academic freedom") bill passes in the Senate
( Leslie Postal, Orlando Sentinel, April 23, 2008)

The Senate by a 21 to 17 vote just passed a controversial bill that aims to protect teachers who are critical of evolution.

The bill, proposed by Sen. Ronda Storms, R-Brandon, is modeled on the Academic Freedom Act suggested by the Discovery Institute, which backs the theory of Intelligent Design.

Critics say it is a sneaky way to inject religious beliefs into public schools and aims to undercut the state's new (and many say top-notch) science standards.

Storms filed the bill shortly after the State Board of Education adopted new science standards that require for the first time the teaching of evolution. That was a controversial decision that upset many residents who argued evolution was unproven, in conflict with their religious beliefs -- or both.

But Storms said the bill was about protecting teachers First Amendment rights.

"This is a freedom of speech issue," she said before the vote.

An identical version of the bill was filed in the House but it has since been changed. It now says only that teachers must give a "thorough presentation and critical analysis of the scientific theory of evolution."

Critics don't like it much better, noting that it singles out evolution for special treatment and that the new standards already require students take a critical look at all things scientific.

That bill still waits a vote by the full House.
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spendius
 
  1  
Wed 23 Apr, 2008 11:08 am
What on earth are these "critics" (who are they?) doing using a word like sneaky about a long open debate culminating in a public vote in the Senate. There's nothing "sneaky" about it. Do these "critics" (whoever they are) know something the 21 Senators don't know? Were they elected or anything and taking responsibility? They seem a bit anonymous.

Critics have said, and I can name a few, that marriage is a sneaky way of subjugating women. (Putting it at its mildest). Critics have said a lot of things. Are you, wande, only selecting these particular critics to quote because you also think that the bill is a sneaky way of injecting religious beliefs into public schools. That's hardly a commendable activity on a science thread. The Sentinel hiding itself behind the word is hardly commendable journalism either.

What is sneaky is using the conjuration of "critics" to hide the voice of the Sentinel behind.

If you can't identify these "critics" wande I think it is time for you to keep quiet. And give your orders to those you have power over.
0 Replies
 
wandeljw
 
  1  
Wed 23 Apr, 2008 11:35 am
I was not "giving orders". I said "please".
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gustavratzenhofer
 
  1  
Wed 23 Apr, 2008 11:39 am
spendius wrote:
If you can't identify these "critics" wande I think it is time for you to keep quiet. And give your orders to those you have power over.


Hey, spendius, this is wandel's thread. Show a little courtesy or I will show you the door.

Comprende?

And add the friggin "L", will you?

Jesus.
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wandeljw
 
  1  
Wed 23 Apr, 2008 11:40 am
Thanks, Gus!
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gustavratzenhofer
 
  1  
Wed 23 Apr, 2008 11:43 am
I'm there for you, brother.
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