Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

spendius,
If our early hominid ancestors had invented natural history museums, there may not be any gaps in the fossil record. Smile

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wande-

Darwin was referring to imperfections in the geological record not to gaps in museum collections which are miniscule by comparison.

Have you nothing to say on SDers being consolidators of federalism or the diaspora of the "scientific" party or Darwin's religious education.

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spendius,

That was only a joke. (The purpose of my jokes is to make myself laugh. Other people may not think the jokes are funny.)

The other issues that you bring up seem to be sociological or psychological in nature. I have no thoughts on these types of issues.

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wande-

There are only sociological and psychological issues at stake here.There is no scientific proof that the gap between what is known or may be known and what there is to know can be bridged and in that gap there is something beyond human understanding which may be called God or ID or anything anybody wishes.The idea that there is no such thing as irreducible complexity is a belief and must take it's place along with other beliefs.Groups of believers will make power grabs.

We will never understand what life is nor how it originated but if people can get good jobs trying or arguing about it good luck to them.Science is a tool and we are it's masters.It is not the other way round.The US might vanish without science but the human race wouldn't.Anyone who is not scared witless by the possibilities of science is not a scientist.

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ros wrote-just before my computer went all unscientific-

Quote:

I think you misunderstand FM. Spendi loves scientists, he claims to be one. What he doesn't like is people who pretend to have scientific knowledge and cling to the mantle of science just to boost their own perception as educated people.

And while I don't doubt that there are many in the world who fit that mold, I don't believe it's a valid counterpoint to any of this ridiculous creationism and ID stuff which is going on.

But we can let Spendi speak for himself on this.

which he will now do.

I do not mind people who pretend to have scientific knowledge etc.What I mind is such people foisting their views on others who have been democratically elected to run a school board.The proper way to overcome ID is the ballot box.

I am glad ros recognises that there are "many" people who fit my description although he and I might have a slightly different idea of what "many" means.And I agree that such a notion has nothing to do with ID so long as one can isolate ID from psychological and sociological factors-which one can't.ID is just another metaphor for the mystery at the root of life and the mystery is unfathomable although the metaphor is capable of analysis so long as everybody told the truth which they won't.

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spendius,

The ballot box is one way to change a school board policy by not reelecting incumbents. (Voters in Dover will get that chance next week.)

However, an important feature of U.S. democracy is "checks and balances". If elected officials take action that may violate individual rights, individuals may seek relief through the judicial branch of government.

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Yeah I know.If they have the money.

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spendius

Quote:

I do not mind people who pretend to have scientific knowledge etc.What I mind is such people foisting their views on others who have been democratically elected to run a school board.The proper way to overcome ID is the ballot box.

In the Dover case, it pretty much was the work of two individuals who, by now , have been fairly exposed in this proceeding. When questioned, some of the schoolboard members who voted for the ID statement in bio classes, were assured by the "ringleader" that ID was a scientic and new way to explain life and still retain the core concept of "Gods rule". This they found comforting and satisfying.The individuals who dissented were either shuit down or , as said by a few , I resigned cause I didnt want to deal withit all( my paraphrase).

Bad things can happen when good people dont take a stand. This entire exercise demonstrates how a single individual, properly motivated, can affect great changes.

We still have many "gaps" in the fossil record but for Darwin to assert that such gaps will be "no doubt infilled with the discovery of intermediate fossils" was really a leap (IMHO) by Charles. He had , in the 6th edition of the "Origin..." proposed the spectrum of the growing fossil record and, based upon Smiths earlier work on the UK geologic column and map of the Jurassic fossil annonites,it shows the elegant simplicity that surrounds the use of fossils to suggest how evolutionand extinction, , can lead to no other conclusion than that natural selection actually is in process.
Today, our understanding freom almost a 150 years later view point, has pretty much proved Darwin correct. As Dawkins said, "Darwin himself would probably be amazed at how correct he actually was"

Has anyone else actually read "of Pandas and People"?. If we wish to argue and debate the presence of science in ID and what we should actually fear (ignorance in its plainest unwrapped condition) should read this book. If you have any respect for the scientific approach or a belief that "we can work out most any problem, including avian flu", youll be utterly amazed at what we are asking our kids to swallowin this "Bible tract" of a book. There may even be a downloadable version. I keep a copy or two to lend to colleagues who want to know "whats the b ig deal, lets wait till we get em in class at University, then well fix the flat"

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spendius wrote:

What I mind is such people foisting their views on others who have been democratically elected to run a school board.The proper way to overcome ID is the ballot box.

Are you sure? Given that the majority of people believes in some form of creationism, what makes you think the ballot box will be your friend? But I agree it's wrong of people to impose their views on one another through the power of the government. That goes both way of course, and that's why I advocate vouchers covering the whole cost of educating a child at a public school. (Don't worry: We already had the thread on a tangent about vouchers ca 100 pages earlier, and I'm not going to go there again.)

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Im sure that the satisfaction you may feel from a voucher system may be modified when you read about how the US dalliance with "Charter SChools" has become an exercise in "Exuberant entrepreneurship". In Pa alone, we have a number of criminal investigations on Charter Schools whove gone beyond their charters and have engaged in criminal misfeasance

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farmerman wrote:

Im sure that the satisfaction you may feel from a voucher system may be modified when you read about how the US dalliance with "Charter SChools" has become an exercise in "Exuberant entrepreneurship". In Pa alone, we have a number of criminal investigations on Charter Schools whove gone beyond their charters and have engaged in criminal misfeasance

That may be true. In our last digression on vouchers, Setanta said something similar about Ohio voucher programs. Back then, I tried to google for more information, and found it practically impossible to locate sources that don't have a horse in this race one way or another. As a result, I couldn't decide whether the real world confirms or contradicts my views. But whatever the practical experiences with vouchers may turn out to be, the main point of my last post was a different one: It was that democratic ballots are no friends of the truth when the majority believes in a fallacy. I stand by this point.

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Thomas,

One week from today, Dover citizens will be voting on a new school board. If the incumbents are defeated, it would be an entirely new school board. Farmerman may have the results before I will.

I still feel that there is an "overlap" in the results of creationism surveys. People who believe in creation as a religious doctrine but do not want creation taught as science, are still being lumped together with creationists. Creationism is a pseudo-science, whereas creation (without the "ism") is a religious doctrine.

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Thanks fm.

I'm not sure you understand my position.I agree with all your positions on evolution and on superstitious mumbo-jumbo.You may charge me with elitism if you like but large numbers of people are not capable of handling them psychologically.I know that from many arguments in pubs and elsewhere.It isn't just evolution.It is science itself.
A scientist has no culture.He's part of nothing.He is an observing eye and a reasoning brain without fear or favour.He is also extremly new in human terms.Perhaps he holds the keys to the future but I'm not sure we would like it.I mean biologically.

The most important thing for a nation,a concept anathema to a scientist as the Fuchs defence attempted to claim,is being "in form" as Spengler phrased it.I think it unlikely that a nation can maintain being "in form" without some concept of the numinous being available to the masses of ordinary people in the short run.Maybe in the long run they can come to terms with its absence.It is a moot point whether it is better to have one centre of worship or allow multi schisms to jump out of the woodwork as they do to cater for this need.
I am not a protagonist of ID but I can allow others to be so if they wish and even to institutionalise it.
Science,left to itself,is fearsome to the average citizen and is already subjected to checks on cloning and stem cell research and probably many other areas.

I have already said once or twice on this thread what your colleagues have said.They will fix them but only the high flyers.Gas jockeys,shelf stackers etc who make up a large proportion of the social mix are probably (?) better off not being fixed in that way.The school board has that dilemma.
Dover is a place I never heard of before.One would need to know something about its economy,which will have been boosted by this case,and its ethnic mix and even its geographical character.wande told me it was a rural community which means it is faced with fertility mysteries.An engineering town is faced with man-made extensions which,however difficult,have no mystery.Its ethnicity may well be central European just two generations back and thus deeply religious and if it is fairly cold sensuality may be less evident than it might be on the gulf coast.Compare Italian music to Scandanavian music or art in general.

These are factors the board will be taking into account either consciously or unconsciously.They were elected.That is foundational to me.I think the plaintiffs are either stupid or trouble makers or on the make for money or attention.

If,after this upcoming election,there is still an ID majority on the board I don't think the judge has any choice other than to find for them.

I apologise for the weak composition but I'm working and not up for revision.

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There are basically two schools of (oops, definitely can't call it thought, in both cases, now can we; let's say, er) view;
one looks closely at the evidence, and one (studiously) ignores it, basing their possition on somewhat ephemeral things.

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wandeljw wrote:

I still feel that there is an "overlap" in the results of creationism surveys. People who believe in creation as a religious doctrine but do not want creation taught as science, are still being lumped together with creationists. Creationism is a pseudo-science, whereas creation (without the "ism") is a religious doctrine.

I believe this is wishful thinking. In several polls aggregated by Pollingreport, about 50% of the respondents stated that the following statement "comes closest to [their] views on the origins of species": "God created human beings in their present form" (CBS) or "God created human beings in their present form exactly the way the Bible describes it" (CNN / USA Today); "Humans did not develop from earlier species" (Harris); "The biblical account is the most likely explanation for the origin of human life on Earth" (NBC).

There is no way around it: these statements describe the creationist position, and half the American population finds it more plausible that Darwinian evolution. Uncomfortable as it may be to acknowledge, this is the truth about public opinion in America. This opinion will make its way into the schoolbords, whatever happens in Dover, PA.

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fm wrote-

Quote:

Bad things can happen when good people dont take a stand.

Come on fm.What on earth does that mean?

This is getting a bit loose
Thomas wrote-

Quote:

Are you sure? Given that the majority of people believes in some form of creationism, what makes you think the ballot box will be your friend?

The ballot box has been a friend to us all.It matters little to me whether I agree with the result.I accept it.I don't vote anyway.

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Quote:

Judge questions board member about textbook donation
(By MARTHA RAFFAELE, The Associated Press, November 1, 2005)
HARRISBURG, Pa. - A federal judge questioned a school board member about inconsistencies in his testimony on the purchase of "intelligent design" textbooks to be used as high school reference books.
Under questioning by a lawyer for the plaintiffs, Dover Area School Board member Alan Bonsell said he had received an $850 check from fellow board member William Buckingham. The check was made out Bonsell's father, who volunteered to donate copies of "Of Pandas and People" to the district.
Near the end of Bonsell's testimony Monday, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III asked him why he never shared that information in a January deposition when he was repeatedly asked under oath about who was involved in making the donation.
"I misspoke," said Bonsell, who served as the board's president in 2004.
On Thursday, Buckingham testified he collected $850 in donations to help purchase the books during a Sunday service at his church.
*********************************************************
Bonsell was also asked by lawyers for the board and the families whether he recalled mentioning creationism at school board retreats in 2002 and 2003, something that school Superintendent Richard Nilsen had included in his notes from both meetings.
"I don't remember bringing it up. Dr. Nilsen wrote it down, so I must have said it," Bonsell said under cross-examination by plaintiffs' attorney Stephen Harvey.

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so we have a bit of "lying under oath, perhaps"

spendius, No matter what the election results, we dont run the Commonwealth by "A majority vote of the community"
The Constitution of the Commonwelth and the Federal Constitution allow laws at lower levels SO LONG AS THEY DONT CONFLICT WITH THESE DOCUMENTS.
ID, is, by the slow chipping away by the ACLU, being shown to be a repackaging of Creationism which is specifically excluded from science curricula.

"There are in fact 2 things, science and opinion:the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance."

Spendius, I might say that you are quite a contradiction. You are often capable of some really great insights usually truncated by completely silly points of logic. Are you a UK stand-up comedian?

Over here we usually listen to "larry the Cable Guy" so were not used to highbrow humor.

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fm-

Therefore it would improve my contributions if I knew what the "silly points of logic" were and could study them and,if they are actually as silly as you say,eradicate them from my repertoire.I am nothing if not flexible.I have been called a snake in the grass on a few occasions.
My "great insights" are probably more in the way of gaps in your own thinking.It is all pretty straightforward to me.I probably think from a different base line than most people.

I could wring those plaintiffs out like a dishcloth.The defence is pussyfooting in order to spin it out for obvious reasons.Thanks to your poke about my ignorance I've been reading about your governing institutions and had one of my tentative theories confirmed.Who wears the pants now and who wore them in 1787.
It's a cliche among English intellectuals,which btw is not a claim to superiority but to a state of mind,that if there's any trouble there's a woman in back of it somewhere.Also-the first rule of proper journalism is "follow the money".One can be quite averagely intelligent and follow those rules.

A few questions if you can be bothered.

Do you think this case is heading for a higher court?

Pop'n of Dover.Agriculture or industry.Any ethnic loadings.Height above sea level.Rough guide to weather.Any strip joints.How many churches.Which denoms strongest.% white.How many people are in town just for the case.Anything else sociological you might think relevant.Like who exactly are the plaintiffs in respect of connections with top families.

Your colleagues have it about right.Get the top 5% into boot camp and what does it matter what the rest think.The Marine drill men turn Mumsie's little darlings into-well-you know-in a few weeks.That's scientific.

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Quote:

'Intelligent Design' Battle Goes to Polls
(Associated Press, November 1, 2005)
DOVER, Pa. A battle over a policy requiring that ninth-graders in this rural community learn about "intelligent design" in biology class is being fought on two fronts -- one political, one legal.
In a federal courtroom in Harrisburg, 20 miles away, a judge is hearing arguments in the sixth week of a landmark trial over whether the concept can be introduced in public school. The non-jury trial is expected to conclude Nov. 4; it is unclear when the judge will issue a decision.
At the polls in Dover, voters will render their decision Nov. 8 on whether to retain eight of the nine Dover Area School Board members -- all Republicans -- or replace them with a Democratic slate whose platform calls for removing intelligent design from the curriculum.
Republican voters outnumber Democrats in the district nearly 8-5. But party affiliation may not matter in the election: While the challengers are running on the Democratic ticket, half of them are actually registered Republicans, according to a spokesman.

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Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

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