Slashdot Mirror
The Pseudoscience of Intelligent Design
Mime Narrator writes "An article over at Kuro5hin discusses the controvery over the Intelligent Design movement. The Dover, Pennsylvania school board recently adopted a policy requiring that high school science teachers teaching evolution tell their students that evolutionary theory, a theory that has been shown to explain the origins of life time and time again, is flawed, and that intelligent design is a valid alternative. The ACLU, along with the AUSCS (Americans United for the Separation of Church and State), and 11 parents, are suing the school board, accusing the board of violating the separation of church and state. "
"In other news: The ACLU and 11 parents have successfully sued Slashdot for relating evolution to a theory."
Seriously though - although there are going to be hardcore people who post how wonderful and complete and all-telling evolution is, it is a theory people. Theory. It still has holes, giant unexplainable holes. Intelligent design is simply stating that certain things in life - like DNA - are simply too complex to have been formed by some amino acids randomly millions of years ago. It doesn't necessarily propose a God figure, but SOME intelligence behind our design.
I for one welcome intelligent design as an alternate theory. Evolution has never sat right with me.
Excuse my speling.
Making The Bar Project
Coming off of a month-long IP ban, but what the hell...
I too disagree with the Dover school board's decision (I actually live rather close to there), and I understand the merits of keeping religious beliefs out of our government processes.
However I'm puzzled by this "separation of church and state" clause that, as far as I know, exists NOWHERE in any of this country's founding documents.
Various groups have used this imaginary clause in their personal vendettas against organized religion to wipe it from all public view. I don't think the ACLU and other groups who often invoke "separation of church and state" have much constitutional ground to argue from.
If these groups want a constitutional amendment that outright forbids a government entity from even mentioning organized religion, then fine. But for now, the establishment clause (which essentially holds that government cannot establish an official religion) does not say what these groups think it does.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Isn't this just promoting an open mind? All this talk about how creationism == loony bin reminds me of how poor Galileo must have felt.
oh shush up slutty mcfatkins
its sad to think people pay subscription money so you could write trite claptrap,
measly karma whore
Atheism is then as much a religion as Islam, Christianity, and others. I find it ironic that the ACLU in fighting for separation of church and state is actually fighting against it by trying to keep the atheistic view of evolution at the core of our science curriculums. Intelligent design is such an open ended idea that it could even include the possibility of evolution that started with a creator. By requiring teachers to suggest that the atheistic view of evolution is not 100% fact, the school board is actually trying to uphold the idea of separation of church and state.
The deal with these fundamentalists is that people that actually have a brain don't dare to speak up anymore.
:(
Unless they are confronted, they will just keep on repeating the lies until it becomes true. And who is going to oppose them? It's becoming more and more difficult to speak up against the people of fate.
Real outspoken Atheist are rare, lately. We need a hero
Scientists have clear evidence of the evolutionary process throughout history via these fossils...
Nonsense, even National Geographic says the fossil record is a movie with 999 out of every 1000 frames missing. ID is simply a response to scientism's refusal to keep evolution as the untested hypothesis that it truly is.
Being a Christian I believe in Intelligent Design. However, I also have no problem with science. I don't particularly buy off on the "young earth" theory. I do have a problem with evolution, but here is how I justify my stance for myself. 1. Athiests and those who believe in a God all agree that there was a design of some sort. From the structure of the universe to the human body, to the fact that birds have hollow bones to allow them to fly (reduced weight). How to I know this, because I have listened to athiest scientists lecture. 2. I refuse to believe that we, the human race, originated from a single-celled organism. It is totally unimaginable that we came from something with no intelligence. It makes no logical sense. If you choose to believe that you came from an amoeba, that's fine. I think we should be able to disagree without flaming each other and calling each other's belief "junk science."
I'm not a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.
It takes just as much faith to believe in evolution as it does Intelligent design, more in many people's estimation (Drs Plantinga, Creamer et al). One of the primary reasons is that the very act of evolution requires certain assumptions and that the probability of evolution creating cognative ability approaches null. It is a very sound argument which as yet the best of natural philisophers have yet to overturn.
You can listen to Plantinga's audio commentary on his argument that Pr(E&N/R) is in fact self defeating.
Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
Most neoconservatives are secular jews who do not believe in creationism.
Or are you another one of those ignorant boobs who thinks "Bush supporter" == "Neoconservative"
Seeing how well blind faith has worked in muslim countries, the think-tank came to the following conclusion:
"If we can change our educational system fundamentally, so that believing without question in a supreme authority becomes ingrained in successive generation's psyches, then we can supplant God's authority with our own, and the people, having gotten used to not questioning authority, will do whatever we tell them, like sheep"
I'll take a tinfoil hat in x-large, please.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
The fundamentalists got it all wrong, and so do the evolutionists. It is absolutely clear in the Rig-Veda that the world was created by Purusha.
This 2000yr old documented view of creation is more consistent than the bullshit "evolution" that has been around for 50 years, and has changed its story every decade or so.
Lets see how the fable of 'evolution' holds up over centuries, or millenia. 100 years from now, evolutionists will be written up as a minor blip of humanist phillosophy that went zealously wrong.
The only PT Boat Journal on the web: http://www.PT171.org
Nope. If you live forever, you will go to china. It's inevitable. It can take until that bird wears away the mountain, but it will happen.
I am trolling
Just a question for you... What do you think a newly-created world would look like (how does one distinguish a newly-created world from one billions of years old)?
Would a God capable of creating the entire universe and everything in it not be able to create a world with what appears to be decayed organic matter?
Would it be intellegent to create a world with matter in varying stages at the beginning (basically a world with it's ecology/geology already set in motion)? Would a God that's powerful enough to create matter be restricted to only creating living matter and then waiting for it to decompose...or could he create decomposed organic matter?
To say that fossles and fossel fuel are contradictory or mutually exclusive with creationism reflects a serious consideration/understanding of what creationists believe...and how powerful/amazing they see God as being.
I believe I just discovered a "Blind-evolutionistic-theory-believing fundamentalist-scientific-wacko". Thanks for coming out of the closet. And you might want to wipe the spitfoam off your keyboard so you don't get electrocuted (I say this as a labor of love).
The plant did not change itself to become immune to the effects of round-up. The strong plants survived and the week plants died. The same thing happens with humans and disease. People with strong immune systems live and ones with weak immune systems die.
Most ID people will argue this fact. Evolution (in the sense that organisms change/adapt) is as much a theory (or religeon) as ID. Niether has been observed.
-Tolerate my intolerance
It's a shame how uneducated some people are. Seperation of Church and State only applies to what the Federal Government can/can't do. =/
-illumina+us "I put on my robe and wizard hat..."
"It's very funny to think that the neo conservatives go to war over oil - the compressed remains of million year old creatures, yet believes the world is young."
s .htm
a nyon.asp o ula.asp u rtsey.asp
There is no evidence that oil is made over millions of years. In the lab it is produced quickly, just as coal, opal, petrified objects, fossils, stalagtites and stalagmites are formed.
There is a museum that has a petrified ham, which was petrified in only one year. Likewise, stalagtites and stalagmites can grow in just 50 years. Layered sedimentation is actually based on particle size of flowing material, and not of millions of years of layering. An entire layered sediment canyon was created in 3 hours by the Mt. St. Helen's eruption.
http://www.creationism.org/sthelens/MSH1b_7wonder
Some other interesting links:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v24/i4/c
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2003/1209miss
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v17/i2/s
http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-155.htm
http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-157.htm
Also note that a young earth creationist correctly predicted Uranus's electromagnetic field, while those believing in millions of years were incorrect.
http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-203.htm
Engineering and the Ultimate
God invented humans just a little bit after humans invented God.
Ever think that certain things are beyond the full understanding of the human mind?
No. Why should they be? You didn't even make it past the second paragraph without a flawed premise.
hmmm...i thought he rested on the 7th day and it was good so he just sorta stopped creating...from that point all i remember is him being vengeful (read: destructive) and then forgiving (also read: passive).
---Excuse the bad English, I'm American---
Oh yeah, and if you're in the United States and you get horrified when "church and state" get mixed, here's a pop quiz for you: Which amendment states: "The separation of church and state shall not be abridged." I bet nobody on Slashdot will be able to figure this one out.
*
*
*
*
Answer: The first amendment is not the answer. It reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." Note that Congress, not public schools, is the entity mentioned in this amendment. Also note that the rule is: no law respecting blah blah blah or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. So don't tell me that's what the almighty Constitition states, because it doesn't.
I assume nothing:
God. Didn't. Know!
Omniscient? Not according to the bible.
You can't take the sky from me...
'Nuff said.
Well, not quite. To quote Aleister Crowley, "The Christians to the lions!"
Yes - that DOES mean I would like to see you all exterminated to the last man, woman and child.
And I will.
Have a nice day.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
We are a democracy.
One of the failings of democracies is that when 51% of the people decide something, it can be hard to stop. We do require 60% for some things but they are currently trying to repeal that in the senate. I hope the Dem's hold them back.
OTH, it's better than the countries where 5% of the people can do this.
This really all revolves around abortion. It is what has irritated the religious types enough to do this. They don't care of the corporations take over the country as long as abortion is outlawed. Lately gay marriage has them going too.
My point is... there is not much you can do. The left is pretty discredited and irrational. They went so hard to the left that most of the "center" allied with the republicans. I would go so far as to say most the the left actually hates america which is kinda sad since it is their own country. It's hard to ally yourself with people who hates their own country.
So we have the religious right + corporations + center vs the center + socialists + communists. The corporations have the money and the religious right have the feet. What I do seriously prepare for is moving from the country if it looks like it is truly going religio fascist.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
So anyone who thinks something different from you is a fool? You must be real fun at parties.
Everyone should try LDS at least ONCE in their lives.
It'll really close your mind to possibilities you've already imagined.
1. God never existed. 2. People made God up. 3. Intelligent design is just a way for fundamentalists to bring God back into the classroom.
Hey I have only one problem with fundamentalists: that they exist. They certainly have a right to exist... I'm just saddened that they actually do.