Slashdot Mirror
Course Debunking Intelligent Design Canceled
Thib writes "As widely reported everywhere, University of Kansas chairman of religious studies Paul Mirecki has withdrawn the "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and Other Religious Mythologies" course that he was preparing for the upcoming Spring semester. From the AP: "Mirecki recently sent an e-mail to members of a student organization in which he referred to religious conservatives as "fundies" and said a course depicting intelligent design as mythology would be a "nice slap in their big fat face." He later apologized, and did so again Thursday in a statement issued by the university." Mirecki was inspired to offer the course after the Kansas Board of Education moved to back intelligent design in state science standards in November."
I can understand why the humor of the FSM is given so much attention.
On the other hand, I am astounded by how many people seem to think that it has merit as an argument.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
Why not? The fist amendment says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;..." It doesn't say anything about disrespecting a religion. And in no way does this college course prohibit the free exercise of religion. If you want to interpret the word respect to have a meaning synonymous with "pertaining to" then you have to get rid of the laws giving tax breaks to religious groups.
Now, as far as the others are concerned. If someone were to make a class named "Jews: The Secret Rules of the World" or "Why blacks should be slaves again" I wouldn't like it very much. It would be pretty obvious that the professor was a racist bastard and should be fired under the policies of the university. But, as a supporter of the first amendment I have to accept and allow this sort of hate speech no matter how distasteful it might be.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
"It strikes me as interesting that he's out to "debunk" intelligent design. Isn't the complaint that everyone here on Slashdot makes against it that it's unfalsifiable- unable to be proved false?"
There is a nearly universal skepticism in Academia (and, well, the world at large) for things that have no evidenciary support. Demonstrating that I.D. has no evidenciary support is the same as "debunking" it. A serious claim need not be falsifiable to be wrong, it simply must have no support. It is up to the scientist to demonstrate "the burden of proof".
Intelligent Design as a "theory" has never once offered any proof that has ever stood up to any intellectual rigor. More importantly, as a "scientific" theory (as proponents claim), it has never inspired or guided the production of new, published, empirical data.
This is what is so hateful in Darwinian evolution to religious folks. It's not just that it opposes religious teaching, but that it appears to promote a selfish, self-centred (or, if they're more sophisticated, gene-centred) teaching in its place. You don't find the same opposition to humanism, do you?
I wrote a JE on this.
Wikileaks, no DNS
You cannot test for the existence of God, a pre-requisite for ID (otherwise, to what does "intelligence" refer in the title?).
Aliens. I kid you not. When I've heard this taught (in my intro-to-science class at a religious university) it was made clear that "intelligent design" doesn't refer to a particular source of the design, only that it is intelligent, as opposed to mindless (that is, evolution.) It could be aliens, it could be a previous civilization of humans, it could be a trans-dimensional spaghetti monster -- they don't care. ID itself doesn't set out to prove what it is, only that evolution is wrong (on the grounds that it is impossible) in order to set the stage for a later debate (once ID is accepted) as to which intelligent designer makes most sense. At that point, yes, their goal is to prove that their god (as opposed to aliens or anyone else's god) is the intelligent designer. Slightly before that, their goal is to give people who already believe in creationism a way of saying "well, this ID stuff is -compatible- with what I believe, and sounds convincing to me, so I'm okay." Not "true", just "compatible".
As long as you are tossing around correlations regarding violent crime, I have one that is better supported and actually has an identifiable cause. See these links:
Crime
Crime and the Drug War
It is no stretch to say that crime is more closely associated with the differenct prohibitions than with lessing religious adherence.
"Drug related crime" is a misnomer, "prohibition related crime" is the more accurate and correct phrase.