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Federal Judge Rules Against Intelligent Design
evil agent writes "CNN is reporting that U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III has ruled that Intelligent Design cannot be discussed in Dover, Pennsylvania biology classes. Dover Area School Board members had previously mandated that Intelligent Design be included in the biology curriculum. According to the judge, 'our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom.'" Update: 12/20 23:40 GMT by J : eSkeptic has a look back at the trial and what led to it. And the Discovery Institute has issued a press release.
finally , sanity prevails
Please someone explain to me what's wrong with Intelligent Design as a theory? For God's sake, we intelligently designed the computer, no?
We intelligently designed tons of stuff. What if we put these 'intelligently designed' stuff into a capsule, shoot it off into space. What if the capsule lands on another planet. What if our stuff somehow create life? What if our stuff were AI machines and they somehow recereate themselves... wouldn't they be 'intelligently designed'?
Damn it, what's wrong with the Intelligent Design theory?
It is not exclusive of intelligent design. Most right-thinking individuals realize that an *INTELLIGENT* Creator would either a) include genetic adaptation in the set of biological rules that govern life or b) create an environment in which there is no need for adaptation.
It's not. Why should a local school district curriculum ever be a federal issue?
If the locals in Dover PA want to teach their kids ID, then let them. If doesn't affect anyone else.
> I'm sorry, the word was "evidence" not "printed text trying to force a theory down my throat".
Fortunately for you and your ilk, the judge didn't rule it illegal to deny reality.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
What would Brian Boitano do?
How would you falsify evolution? It's a made-up explanation for a bunch of observations. Are you going to force some species to evolve to survive and see if it does? Noone understands the random factors that go into micro-evolution, much less macro. I posit there is no possible way to prove evolution as the method by which modern species came to be as they are. It is also impossible to disprove, hence it cannot be science. According to the rabid slash-holes who are more fundementalist (or is that just mental?) than any religious personage could hope to be.
This is not quite true. Testing evolution as a theory is extremely difficult (or practically speaking, impossible). However, I can imagine experiments which could be conducted to test evolution as a theory. For example, you could theoretically evolve a new variety of taller horses, or horses with longer necks by housing a random herd of horses in a place where the only available food was high up off the ground. The taller horses and the horses with longer necks would be able to reach the food better and would survive better than the short horses and the horses with short necks. Eventually the descendants would all be able to reach the food easily.
Religion appeared in first civilizations to explains things that could not be explained. Ignorance and fear created religion. When science appeared and started to explain things in a scientific way, religion became a way to impose someone's will to other people and control people.
Apart from that, beliefs in god are only a way to prevent our minds from going insane in the light of doubt about one's role in life, and the questions of why something happened and what is going to come. I suggest you go and read some psychology textbooks.
It is perfectly legal to belief in god, when you are aware of the fact that it is only a model to keep your mind balanced. But don't go on and try to infest science by introducing ID and other BS thinkings, because it does not mentally help. As a sidenote, church isn't very useful as well. One could make religions far more lean by cutting out the church, and only limit to the basic religious principles.
Windows is like decaf - it tastes like the real thing, but it won't get you through the day.
I never agreed with the ID'ers, nor claimed that what they were doing even rated as science. I said some of their questions were good, not their answers or their methods.
And I'm sorry, but the question of how complex organs, which depend on many different subsystems working together, evolve is an excellent field of study which I'm sure will yield many future results.
Go argue with someone who actually disagrees with you. Moron.
Here's the problem: YOU can't explain how it works. YOU didn't bother doing even a cursory search on Google or whatever to see if maybe someone else could. YOU didn't bother thinking about this beyond the "It's too complex for me, must be God!" type of crap that ID people put out there all the time.
I can't explain all kinds of things, but MY default assumption when I can't is that maybe someone else can, or, if not, maybe I can investigate the matter further. I don't just throw up my hands and say "God did it!"
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
Evolution is asserted as fact in basically every place where it is even remotely possible to make such an assertion. You're watching an IMAX movie when suddenly, "Millions of years ago, dinosaurs evolved into birds...", etc. There is NEVER any mention that "we currently believe that dinosaurs evolved into birds millions of years ago...". I have never in my life heard an evolutionist unequivocally admit that perhaps evolution is a false theory. As such, they claim it is fact. If you have a couterexample, please point me to its source so I can read it.
ID as a whole could be falsified if it were possible to show that no god played a role in the creation of the universe. Such an argument will never be discovered for a variety of reasons, but theoretically it could exist.
Examining a particular corner of ID such as literal Biblical Creationism is much simpler. It sets out a number of hypotheses that can be compared against the evidence we observe:
- Earth is around 6000 years old
- The entire surface of the earth was covered by floodwaters at some point
- Fish, birds, land mammals, humans, etc. were all created separately by a single Creator
- All humans are descended from a single couple, Adam and Eve.
I have absolutely zero interest in debating the evidence for these events, since it is almost axiomatic that no evolutionist can accept any arguments for them (they have incredible faith and patience). However, the point is that ID as a whole and specific parts of ID are both theories that can be scientifically examined. Yes, ID involves the supernatural, but if the supernatural exists, how can you exclude it from scientific discourse and still call yourself a scientist?
OH! So "theory" can sometimes be mistaken as "hunch." And since most people are too stupid to understand the difference, we better just leave it off!? That is absolutely rediculous. And you wonder why people are upset? If that's true, then odds are your target audience for the class aren't going to get it anyway. After all, they haven't "evolved" yet, apparently. This, and statements like, "We can't explain how apes became humans along every point in the chain. There must have been environmental or cataclismic forces at work to allow for the gaps we see." This has always been the explanation I've heard for any holes in the theory. No one, and I mean no one has ever provided an explanation that made this make any believable sense. There really is little logical difference between "there's a higher being that developed mankind" and "there's an unknown event for which we have no evidence that must have exacted force on the evolutionary timeline." Even THIS crap was better crafted than, "Well, some people think 'theory' means 'hunch' so it's better to keep the sticker off." Nice.
I accept that people have issues with ID. People have issues with a lot of things. My shock is the extent to which people will suspend reason on the so-called "science" side to defend themselves and not defend their positon that evolution (macro) is great science, but their position that it's flawlessness should go completely unchallenged under any circumstances. What I'm finding is that many of those people have no clue what objectivity is.