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.

Comments

Well good

[butters the odd]

Intelligent design isn't science, therefore it doesn't belong in a science room.

Re:Well good

[sickofthisshit]

Intelligent design makes claims that are extremely sloppy in logic, if not utterly fallacious. Feel free to be stupid on your own time, or to teach your children to be stupid, but realize that is what you are doing.

Generally, it boils down to finding examples of complicated structures or systems in biology, and saying "see, this is complex enough that I don't think it could arise by evolution." It is a strawman---no biologist says that evolution has to result in structures that obviously arose from simpler precursors.

It is one step above young Earth creationists, who seek "geological evidence" to "support" their preconceived interpretation of the Genesis chronology. ID proponents are almost all seeking "flaws" in evolution to avoid threatening their preconceived notion that God played a crucial role in biological development.

Pardon me if I don't have much sympathy or respect for people who choose to support such stupidity.

Re: Well good

[Black Parrot]

> If high schools had philosophy classes, though, it would be a perfect subject there.

I don't think ID has enough substance to rate being treated as a philosophy.

Better would be a class on critical thinking vs. pseudoscience.

Re:Well good

[numbski]

Just so we're clear here....

The desktop computer I have today has evolved over the last 30+ years. Heck, we could go back decades or even centuries beyond that depending upon what you call a "computer". What one might consider a computer 100 years ago most certainly bears no resembelence to what we have today. This process of evolving was more or less self-contained.

Now, I could go either way in the argument from here that Charles Babbage didn't create the computer knowing that things would evolve and change and grow, and didn't write a big elaborate story explaining how things would change and grow, but at the same time those evolutions required intelligent design.

I believe the point that the gp was trying to make was that we're teaching science, or rather the fact that things HAVE changed, discuss why they have changed, and perhaps even what dictated those changes. When we tech computer science, we may go into a brief history lesson, but we generally wouldn't dwell on the life and times of Charles Babbage. We also wouldn't start rambling on about how Mr. Babbage is still watching today and shaping the computer industry. A seperation of church and state here is appropriate. That still doesn't mean that intelligent design and evolution are mutually exclusive, but rather it's the wrong material in the wrong classroom.

Oh, and Mr. Troll, indoctrination is not so. Once you hit 18, you should begin to think for yourself. Long before that in fact. The fact that society as a whole tends to be one large flock of sheep that is herded around as such does not mean that your or I should be so. Sure, I was raised christian. I strayed away. I learned to think for myself, had the very foundations of what I believed torn apart due to the fact that science contradicts the story-book biblical teaching of my childhood.

I came back to it as a personal choice and a matter of faith. If you are insinuating that we as adults are not capable of making choices beyond what we have force-fed to us as children, well I would suggest you're posting on the wrong boards.

Or maybe not, this IS slashdot after all. :\

Re: Well good

[Black Parrot]

> The people who are rabidly against the concept of intelligent design are nothing more than arrogant freaks who declare that man may be able to build evolving life in the lab but nobody else in the universe has ever been able to do so, nor ever will

Uh, no. We're rabidly against Intelligent Design (notice the capitals) because it's a blatant political attempt to wedge pseudoscience into the public school classrooms to provide cover for creationist voters who don't want their children to learn about evolution.

Re:Well good

[Jayjay75]

"Schools should teach what the majority of people in the district want taught."

And if the majority of people in the district are illiterate peasants who only want their children to learn to grow crops, what then?

Schools should teach what best practices dictate that they should teach, and also what colleges and universities expect that incoming students should know. If educators merely pander to the masses, the level of education will never rise. Any parents that don't like the curriculum can, as you say, home-school their kids.

Re:Well good

[Ithika]

You post is the rantings of a bigot who hates Christians.

Come back and say that when Christianity has a monopoly on absurd creation stories.

Schools should teach what the majority of people in the district want taught.

No, schools should teach reality, that same reality which is the case in America, China and Mars. The phenomena of genetic mutation and speciation don't cease to exist because you stick your fingers in your ears and burble loudly.

There should be freedom to discuss anything in the classroom. I find it absurd that liberal groups want to give academic freedom to ideas they believe in, but will deprive others of the right to speak their mind.

"Liberal groups"? Who are these anonymous, ever-present, conspiratorial "liberal groups" that are hell-bent on destroying your fun^W^W^Wteaching science in science classrooms?

Prove to me there is no God.

I don't have to, any more than I have to prove to you there is no tooth fairy, no Grim Reaper, that Buffy isn't real and that Cthulhu isn't really dead but dreaming deep under the ocean. You assert that something exists, you come up with the proof.

People have believed in God since the start of time. What makes scientists today so much more certain than scientists of 100 years ago?

Cos, you know, science progresses. That's what it does; that's what it's meant to do. I'd be extremely troubled if scientists today knew less than 100 years ago.

Re:Well good

[SpryGuy]

Why is the parent a troll? It's the truth. That's about the only place ID could or should be taught. I have no problems with ID being mentioned in mythology courses or even comparative religion classes. But it's not science (and in many ways is the opposite of science), and doesn't belong in ANY science classes.

Re:Well good

[adrenaline_junky]

Holy freaking smokes are you ever wrong.

And we're glad that someone came along and pointed it out! You must be right because you speak with such fervor. And we all know that truth is determined by the intensity with which an idea is believed.

Intelligent design is exactly what belongs in a classroom. But it has nothing to do with religion.

Which classroom are you talking about? Are you seriously suggesting that this is a topic that gradeschool through highschool kids should be studying? What classes should be dropped so that this particular pet subject of yours can be studied?

There isn't a biological engineer on the planet who wouldn't love to create life from raw elements and watch them evolve into something more complex.

Even if this is true... so? Why does this suddenly become a topic that MUST BE TAUGHT IN SCHOOL?

If you want to have a real education then it should be along the lines of:

        Let's say you wanted to create a world as complicated as earth - what knowledge and technology would this require?

I always suspected that I never had a real education. You know, actually, this sounds vaguely like some of the stuff that was discussed in a science-fiction literature course I once took. So maybe I did have a real education. I agree, science-fiction literature should be a required course for ALL students. No graduation until you can recite Isaac Asimov's laws of robotics from memory!! Moo-haha!!

Can an intelligence construct a world? Absolutely.

Oh? Really? Have you met these aliens? I've read plenty of science-fiction that makes the same assertion, but I never knew it was an established fact. But you speak with such authority that it MUST be.

Can we? No. Why not? That's what physicists and geological engineers and biologists and a whole bunch of other people are trying to answer.

Honestly, this is an interesting question. But this is hardly what physicists and geological engineers and biologists are spending their time studying. Their studies may tengentially relate to this subject, but I suspect that the number of scientists that are specifically working on this goal could fit in a small room.

The people who are rabidly against the concept of intelligent design are nothing more than arrogant freaks who declare that man may be able to build evolving life in the lab but nobody else in the universe has ever been able to do so, nor ever will

Sorry, but you sir, are the arrogant freak. We are not necessarily against discussion of this "intelligent design" concept. Indeed, it has been the subject of many science-fiction books that a whole lot of us here on Slashdot have certainly read. What we are against is teaching ID in a classroom in a way to undermine the extremely solid theory of evolution.

It doesn't matter if ID is real or, if it is, who did the design. It really doesn't matter. What does matter is the question of "how could it be done".

Sure. Its an interesting question. There are lots of other interesting questions that people can ask as well. This is just one of many. Take your self-righteous frothy mouthed zealotry and find a more useful outlet for your overly abundant enthusiasm for this particular concept.

Re:Well good

[ekwhite]

It seems that your prejudices are showing, sir. I am NOT a Christian, but I am uncomfortable with all the Christian bashing that goes on in these boards. To me, this is as bad as Christians bashing other religions.

Re:Well good

[vertinox]

Raising kids to believe in mythology is child abuse.

I'm still bitter about the whole Santa Claus thing...

Re:Well good

[bnenning]

But it's not science (and in many ways is the opposite of science), and doesn't belong in ANY science classes.

Actually I think it should be mentioned in science class, as an example of what science is *not*.

Re:Well good

[demachina]

"Generally, it boils down to finding examples of complicated structures or systems in biology, and saying "see, this is complex enough that I don't think it could arise by evolution.""

Their is a conundrum here when ID proponents say these supposedly "enormously" complex structures couldn't possibly have spontaneously sprung in to existence on their own.

The entire framework of their philosophy is that God, the most complex entity imaginable, somehow spontaneously sprang in to existence from nothingness.

Randomly throwing together organic molecules over the course of billions of years to produce the basic building blocks and mechanics of life seems trivial by comparison to spontaneous creation of an all powerful, omnipotent being.

My inclination is that if it was impossible to for a bacteria to spring in to existence from pools of organic molecules over the course of billions of years, its even more unlikely that an omnipotent being could likewise spring in to existence from nothing.

Re:Well good

[Yewbert]

"Ok, so now they teach the " Fact of Evolution" not the " Theory of Evolution" hmmm.... you know that humanism, atheism, and being agnostic are all religions too,... "

I wish I knew whom to give credit to for this quotation:

"If atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby."

Re:Well good

[Izmir Stinger]

It's more like a bunch of philsophers looked at the world and thought it was way to complicated to have occurred by chance.

I wonder if these same philosophers look down at their Bridge hand (13 cards) and conclude that the odds of them being dealt that particular hand are less than 1 in 6 billion, so they couldn't possibly have been dealt that hand by chance. The dealer must have given them a seemingly random crappy hand on purpose.

Re:Well good

[Alioth]

You clearly do not understand what a scientific theory is, nor what science is. You never hear real scientists saying "Evolution is fact!" because it isn't. The theory of evolution doesn't say "There is no supreme being". Teaching evolution theory does not say "A supreme being cannot exist". The theory of evolution doesn't even mention supreme beings.

Intelligent design, on the other hand, is not a scientific theory by any definition and therefore should not be taught in a science class because it simply isn't science. Whether you're Christian, Muslim or an atheist, it makes no difference - ID is *not* a scientific theory. If intelligent design is to be taught, then it should be taught either in a philosophy class or a religious studies class. It has no place in a science class because it simply is not science.

Scientific theories are NOT about faith - in fact, part of the scientific method is to *disprove* theories, wheras faith is exactly the opposite - simply believing it's true and not challenging it. Scientists are always looking at probing the theory of evolution, trying to find its weaknesses and trying to disprove evolution theory as it stands because *this is what science is about*. Intelligent design is not a scientific theory because it does not set out anything that's falsifiable. Things that must be taken on faith are by definition not falsifiable.

Finally, saying "Evolution is only a theory" also grossly misses the point about what a scientific theory is. People who don't know what a scientific theory is often equate it with a "hunch" (sort of like how detectives have theories in TV shows, which are actually hunches). This is not what a scientific theory is.

For a broader understanding of what a scientific theory is and is not (it is NOT 'fact' as you state, and no scientist worth their salt would claim theory to be a fact), start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory

Re:Well good

[|/|/|||]

Modded up by other ignorant Slashdotters. How sad.

Are you new to this debate, or have you just not listened to anyone that you disagree with? Perhaps you've already stopped reading this -- that would explain your profound misunderstanding. Please, bear with me for just a minute, and in the future you'll be able to enter this debate a little bit better armed.

Science is not about belief. Science has nothing to do with belief. Honestly. The fact that ID requires belief is what makes it nonscientific. ID requires belief because it is untestable. You have to accept it as fact if you want to use it. The theory of evolution, on the other hand, requires no faith. It is *NOT* accepted as fact, because in science there are no absolute truths. The theory of evolution is a good explanation that we came up with, and we use it because we can't come up with a better one. It's not sacred, it's not "fact", and nobody takes it on faith.

"Every man, woman, and child on the planet is a religious zealot. The only difference is what their religion is."

I disagree. Using myself as an example, I can say that not everyone needs a religion. I have no faith -- only assumptions.

the belief that those that believe in a creator are wrong is a religious belief.

Science makes no claim about anyone's beliefs. The very idea of whether there is or isn't a creator is completely out of bounds. It would be like proposing that there's an invisible elephant in another, completely inaccessible dimension. Science can neither tell us that the proposition is true nor that it is false. It's not something that can be analyzed by science one way or the other. God is out of bounds for the same reason, as are all beliefs in the supernatural. We're not talking about teaching that God is not real, we're talking about not teaching that God is real. See the difference?

Re:Well good

[smellsofbikes]

I'm not precisely disagreeing with what you've said. But a lot of scientists do indeed say that evolution is a fact, seeing as they watch it happen on a daily basis in microbiology laboratories and drug/chemical testing facilities all across the world. The theory of evolution posits HOW it happens. In a similar way, gravity is a fact. There is a theory of gravity that posits how IT happens, and that is, in my opinion, a much weaker theory than evolutionary theory. But it doesn't mean gravity's just a theory. It means our explanation for it is just a theory.

Evolution is a fact. We're just filling in the details, and that's the theory part.

Re:Well good

[sickofthisshit]

Sure, you hear scientists all the time saying evolution is a "fact."

Of course, if you press them, they will qualify it and say something like "the apparent descent of organisms with modification is observed in the fossil record so often in so many cases, that it strains credulity to worry that genetically similar organisms did NOT arise from common ancestors; furthermore, as a totally separate question, the adaptedness of organisms for their particular mode of existence does NOT require that they were 'designed' for that purpose, or arose from some mystical teleological drive, but rather is a forseeable consequence of the process of natural selection."

And if you continue to press them, they will admit that the particular facts of how natural selection led to a particular feature might be debatable or unclear, so that any particular piece of evidence in isolation is hardly ironclad "fact."

The point is, there are a huge number of practicing biologists who get up every day and go to work as honest scientists WITHOUT seriously doubting Darwin. They treat evolution and the theory of natural selection as facts, in the same way they treat the multiplication table as fact; not because they go out of their way to prove it, but because it is what they learned, it makes a huge amount of sense, and it is almost guaranteed to be fruitless to question it.

You might as well argue that "atoms" and "nuclei" and "protons" and "neutrons" are just a model put forth as part of "atomic theory." Nobody serious doubts anymore that they exist. Yes, in principle, the whole thing could be overturned by some immense revolution in particle physics, but almost nobody believes its going to happen.

The difference between ID and "evolution" (to use a vague general term to represent a huge amount of biology) is that evolution actually DOES have a tremendous amount of persuasive evidence on its side, while ID just has a bunch of "betcha can't explain to my satisfaction the evolution of the flagellum, HUH!"

Re:Well good

[misleb]

Actually, ID (before it was hijacked by Creationism) technically belongs in a philosophy course. Creationism belongs in a sociology course. And the book of Genesis belongs in a mythology course.

-matthew

Re:Well good

[|/|/|||]

Yes, it's a stupid attitude, and I'll tell you why.

Starting with a belief and then trying to justify it through evidence is a sure way to fool yourself. If you're already sure that something is true, then you're going to subconsciously ignore evidence and arguments to the contrary. Look at all these slashdotters posting about ID that have no idea what constitutes a scientific theory. They've been told over and over, but they don't listen, because their minds are not open to alternatives. Science, on the other hand, thrives on alternatives. Turning over old ideas is what drives science forward. In science, you have to work on the assumptions (theories) that you've already established, but you always have to keep checking those assumptions because eventually you will find out that they are not completely correct.

The "Young Earth Creationists" are not keeping open the possibility that their underlying assumption is wrong. Their goal is not to get closer to the truth, it is to find support for the assumptions that they started with. Very bad way to find out anything about reality, IMO.

As for the idea about God faking the age of the Earth, you're falling into the trap of thinking that because something is possible then it must be true. There are an infinite number of complex explanations for how all of the particles in the universe got to where they are now. The only way to proceed is to eliminate the ones that we can't test -- such as the "God made it to fool us" idea. Sure, it could still be true, but when it's 1 among an infinite number of possibilities, it's infinitely unlikely to be true. Anyway, even if you decided that it *is* true, you have to admit that it has to be taken on faith. It has nothing to do with science.

Re:Well good

[Rary]

"Simply put, any sort of belief related to supernatural beings, for or against, is religious."

I do not believe in God.
I do not believe in Santa Claus.
I do not believe in the Easter Bunny.
I do not believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
I do not believe in ghosts.
I do not believe in leprachauns.
I do not believe in (etc etc etc)...

How many freaking religions can one person have at a time?

The GP's quote, in addition to being humourous, was quite accurate. I do not have faith in the lack of a god, I lack a faith in a god. I believe there is no god in the same way that I believe there is no tooth fairy, and in the same way that I believe that aliens were not involved in JFK's assassination. I simply don't buy it. To me, it's a ridiculous idea. This does not make a religion.

Re:Well good

[tbannist]

No, it just that many of the fundamentally religious slashdotters make it so easy to mock them. I mean really, when someone posts in public that everything in the Bible is true, that it's easier to believe that God used quantum folding and cryogenic hybernation to pack all the animals in the world onto Noah's Ark than it is to believe that story is allegorical, what do you expect to happen?

And yes, Athiesm is more scientifically sound than fundamentalist religion. Fundamentalist religion says things happen because invisible hands makes them happen, atheism says invisible hands don't exist. It usually means the atheist believes in basic principles of science, which fundamentalists frequently deny. However, that comparison doesn't always hold true when you compare rational athiests versus rational believers. There is room to believe in the existence of a God without falling into the trap of believing in superstitions and mysticism.

Some people can't see the difference between those points, but it's simple. In the first world view, the hands have a will and can choose whether or not consequences can occur. Thus the world is inherently unreliable and unpredictable, while second believes that events and reactions can be predicted with sufficient understanding.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster isn't a strawman argument and isn't an appeal to ridicule either. They aren't claiming the ID people believe in the Spaghetti Monster. Instead they created an example that shows that the "impartial" people who are supposedly allowing the theologically neutral viewpoint into the classroom are lying and simply looking for a way to force their religion on children. There is exactly as much proof to back up the Flying Sphaghetti monster as there is for Intelligent Design, in other words, none. Both are designed to be impossible to disprove.

Of course, the current battle over Intelligent Design in schools isn't even really over religion, though many of the footsoldiers are lead to believe it is. There are people who are afraid that they (and their successors) will loose their current power if American Children are well educated on scientific topics. They want children to be raised ignorant of scientific knowledge so they will always have a supply of pawns to mobilize against anything they dislike.

It's the new way to win elections, some people are just planning to ensure their group maitains power well down the road.

Re:Well good

[einhverfr]

Gould was also responsible for the Punctuated Equilibrium theory. This theory holds that you have long periods of relative stagnation punctuated by short periods of rapid changes (forced by environmental changes).

BTW, one can experimentally verify most of the effects of changing environments on natural selection of fruit flies. Fruit flies make good subjects here because you can deal with a large number of generations in a short time frame.

But the obvious example in recent times is the development of DDT resistance among insects. Indeed it is possible within a *very* short timeframe (evolutionarily speaking) to make a population of insects quite resistant to any given insecticide or other environmental hazard. For example heat-resistant fruit flies have been successfully bred using the same process (as an odd byproduct of this research, these fruitflies also lived twice as long ans their ancestors too). Perhaps if HIV is unchecked, we will see the human population develop resistance to it too (untreated HIV has an 90-95% mortality rate, perhaps 1-2% less).

If metabolic processes can be changed so easily, and if physical features can be changed as we have observed in birds during times of drought, why is it not likely that everything else can be seen to change as well?

Re:And evolution is?

[miketkrw]

The fossil record provides overwhelming evidence of the the great tre of life Darwin described. Pick up a science book. To say there is no evidence of Darwinism is nothing other than total willfull ignorance.

Re:Teach all

[jandrese]

ID isn't a theory though, it's dogma. We don't teach dogma in science class for the simple reason that it is not science. It's like complaining that students aren't getting equal time for Aztek cooking in their Asian studies class.

Re:Don't go jumping up and down just yet

[cytoman]

You quote out of context, and you should be ashamed of yourself for being so dishonest. The judge said that he is not discouraging those people who study ID, and he says they have deep beliefs in what they are doing. But, this is the most important thing, he says that ID is *not science* and therefore *should not be taught in a science class*.

Stop spinning things by taking it out of context, and be honest for once.

Just a theory?

[Dark Paladin]

Thank goodness.

And I know I'm feeding the trolls, but I'm sorry, but the comment "It's not any less scientific than evolution" is a fascinating one to me.

Let's break down the scientific method:

1. Observation
2. Hypothesis
3. Experiment
4. Results, start over at 1.

Evolution we know happens (see the changing patterns of moths around pollution, etc). However, the Theory of Evolution as originally put forth by Darwin is based on the idea of "survival of the fittest": those species who have a mutation that enables them to survive better than their competitors will breed and pass along that mutation to their descendants, who will then continue the process.

How did Darwin come up with this theory?

1. He observed the various species on the islands, and how they were all similar (birds, I believe) and how each was best fit to his environment.
2. He hypothesized that this condition arose because of his theory (see above).
3. The experiment (mainly carried out by other folks looking at fossils): See if similar species have changed over time due to environment and had mutations that allowed them to survive. Usually this "experiment" involves saying "All right, we have Fossil A which we know to be 100,000,000 years old, and we have Fossil C which is 25,000,000 years old. Fossil C shows a better ability to survive the environment, and is the same kind of creature as A except for the mutations observed. Therefore, there should be Fossil B that is like Fossil A, only it includes some of the mutations of C but not all of them as the species adapted to better fit the environment. This fossil should be between 100,000,000 and 25,000,000 years old. If we find it, then we know we're right. If we don't, then either we need a better theory or need to keep looking." (For nit pickers who will say this is not a true "experiment", you are right - but these kind of "observational experiments" are perfectly valid when talking about cosmological experiments, such as testing the Theory of Relativity or the Big Bang Theory).
4. Results: Over time, thousands of fossil records and observations of species has held up the Theory of Evolution. Adaptations have come into play (such as the "Survival of the Fittest and the Luckiest", which holds that sometimes pure chance comes into play of wiping out a dominant species, such as an asteroid, but when equilibrium is reached Survival of the Fittest is shown to work again).

This leads to a "theory": a set of rules that *currently* work in explaining a phenomena. The Theory of Relativity has been held up by experiment (such as "can we find bended light around a large gravity source. Answer: Yes.). As long as no one comes up with a better scientifically proved theory, the theory is held up.

Intelligent Design doesn't follow these rules. It goes like this:

1. Observation: There's a lot of different species out there.
2. Hypothesis: Some "intelligent designer" must of altered the species to allow them to survive in their environment.
3. Ummmm....

The "step 3" is important. With Intelligent Design, you *can't test it*. Actually, let me back up: you're not allowed to test it. The only way to prove/disprove Intelligent Design is to find a tablet between 100,000,000 and 25,000,000 million years old that says "Note to self: change DNA of duck billed platypus to make it better to survive. Love, ID."

If you do bring up a changing fossil record and say "Look, we have a changing species over time", the ID'er will say "Ah, see - the designer changed the species". Again, no proof, no experiment needed.

This is why ID is not science, or even a theory: it's a belief. It's a nice belief. Do I believe some God/Goddess/Higher Being made the Universe? Sure. Do I think that They put a hand in everything?

Who cares? Until such a being gets on the Megaphone of the Cosmos and says "Hey, dudes - check out Chromosome #15 where I spelled out 'Jesus if fucking metal", I'll trust that They wrote the universe so that we could

Let the games begin!

[Irvu]

I am thrilled ecstatic over this decision. This judge clearly has brains and a willingness to use them. I am going to be happy.

I am not, not going to assume that the fight is over. Keep in mind that it was a loss in the Scopes Monkey Trial that galvanized scientists to fight ever harder for strong science (read no religion) in the biology classroom, and the school as a whole.

While I as a scientist am thrilled by this I also know that the people who oppose science are right now doing 2 things: 1) pasting this decision into a circular or 2 along with the choice words "activist judge" to raise more money/attention/support for their 'cause', and 2) digging in for another, longer fight.

I will celebrate this, and keep vigilant at the same time.

Re:Links to more information:

[Black Parrot]

> Damn...what a smackdown.

Also:

"It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and
proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and
again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind
the ID Policy."

Intelligent Design Does Not Belong In Biology

[aquatone282]

It belongs in Philosophy.

Re:Don't go jumping up and down just yet

[LordKazan]

He also said it doesn't belong in science class - it's fine in comparative religion.

Oh there won't be an appeal - the parents are happy with the decision, and the NEW SCHOOL BOARD is too - the legal counsel for the school board cannot appeal without their client's consent and who their client is changed - 8 of 9 members were up for reelection last month, they all got canned and replaced with people who said ID doesn't belong in science class (but it's fine in comparative religion)

Re:And evolution is?

[CodeShark]

--buzz--

Wrong. Darwin's theory essentially predicts that the leaves on a given branch of the "tree of life" (your analogy, not mine, but anyway...) will change in response to outside influences such as survival of the fittest, et al. and these influences seem to account for micro-evolution 100%.

What it does not account for is macro-evolution, that is, the changing of one species into another at the chromosomal level by purely natural selection. Having not followed this very closely in the last 10 or so years, I may be out of date, but this is the missing link that would confirm all of the Origin of Species theory, and to my knowledge this link has never been found. In fact, the closest approximations to this have only occurred in laboratory settings where very intelligent designers have preset up the conditions for it, and manipulated a whole lot of variables to keep the randomness of nature from interfering and ruining the experiment(s). Which I think would constitute an "intelligent design" of a sort, though I am not embracing the whole ID philosophy by saying so.

Let me (and the rest of the /. universe) in on the secret if you have reference to any verified scientific publication that purports otherwise, would you?

Question to religious freaks

[HangingChad]

The ones trying to drag their small-minded dogma into the nations classrooms. Which part of...

My kingdom is not of this world; (John 18:36)

isn't clear?

Re:Intelligent Design is not Hocus Pocus

[Decameron81]

"Damn it, what's wrong with the Intelligent Design theory?"

Nothing as long as you don't try to disguise it as science. Scientific theories can be tested. Intelligent design can't.

I might as well tell you that elephants can fly. The fact you can't prove me wrong doesn't make my "theory" science.

Remember, "science" is not a synonim of "truth". In fact, no-one is saying ID can't be true. Simply that it's not science.

Re:And evolution is?

[rw2]

Not only is the eye not irreducibly complex, but there are many different kinds of eyes in animals today and in the fossil record. The eye most definately evolved.

Re:And evolution is?

[TripMaster Monkey]

Oh please. There are examples of intermediary steps in eye development throughout the animal kingdom, from simple eye spots all the way to mammalian eyes. Each step is fully functional and does what the organism possessing it requires it to do.

Here's a couple of questions for you:

If the eye is in fact designed, why does it suffer from the imperfection of the blind spot? Nerves in the mammalian eye actually lie on top of the retina, and where they gather together and plunge through the back of the eye to form the optic nerve, no light can be sensed. This is a design flaw any fallible human engineer would catch and correct...so what does this say about the superhuman Designer of ID fame? (And before you maintain that the eye needs to be designed in this manner, consider the eye of the octopus and squid, which is actually designed correctly (nerves lie under the retina, avoiding the problem of the blind spot).

Cats have eyes that can see clearly in what we perceive to be total darkness. Some squid have twelve different types of color sensing cells (as opposed to our three). Eagles have acuity of vision undreamt of by man. Bees and some birds can see into the ultraviolet. Pit vipers can see into the infrared by virtue of their pits (infrared-sensitive eye pits). Before you ask 'what good is half an eye, consider what good your eyes are to you, deficient as they are.

Re:And evolution is?

[Black Parrot]

> Show me evidence that I evolved from a fish or a single celled animal.

Ask your librarian for a first year biology textbook.

> You can't, therefor evolution isn't science.

Maybe you should back up and tell us what definition of 'science' you're using.

Re:This is an attack on Free Speech

[Dephex Twin]

You see? If you'd had a better grounding in science, you wouldn't be confused about this. EVERYTHING isn't taught in science class... SCIENCE is taught there-- natural explanations supported by evidence using the scientific method!

I sure didn't have a problem in high school learning about "what a majority of people in the USA believe"... when I took a *comparitive religions* course.

A majority of people also believe that George Washington was our nation's first president... oddly, I don't recall ever learning that in my science class.

Re:And evolution is?

[pe1rxq]

Okay here's one for you: explain the eye. It either works or it doesn't. There is no evolutionary intermediate form that would function so how could it have evolved?

Classic mistake.... the 'I don't know how so it is impossible without devine intervention' excuse.
Science has already demonstrated that you need only a few modifications to allow normal brain tissue to become light sensitive.

And an eye with a few components still can give you an advantage over others that don't have it:
-Take out the muscles that move it around, you would have to turn your head to look at different things, but it would still be usefull.
-Take out the focussing stuff, you would only see a few things really clear, but when a large blob comes at you at high speed you might step aside while someone without this less usefull eye would get hit/eaten.
-Take out color, black and white tigers still look dangerous enough without the yellow.
-Take out the transparent stuff and place a thing layer of skin in its place, you would get even worse focusing but one could still see blobs moving around.
-Remove the fluid stuff and place the retina close to the skin, you could still detect sudden changes in the lighting.

Do them all and you are very close to the simple lightsensitive braincell.

I am not saying that is the way it happened, but I could think a possible path up in a few seconds without the need to drag some higher being into the picture.

The whole 'irreducibly complex' stuff is a joke, the being that is supposed to do that sort of stuff would need to be even more complex...



I don't disbelieve evolution but neither do I blindly believe everything the scientists tell me is fact That's rather the basis of science.

As an aside: did you consider that God could, by definition he's omnipotent afterall, have forged the fossil record? I think most Christians believe he's not like that and so didn't.

Don't try to use logic and omnipotent gods in the same sentence, its to easy to logically disprove an omnipotent god....
Besides the world was created last week including evidence, such as your memories, of the past.

Jeroen

Of course there are intermediate forms of the eye!

[hpulley]

By the eye, what do you mean? A device to detect light? Or a device with an iris, cornea and retina? Light-sensitive cells exist in many simple forms and have evolved to more and more efficient versions of vision. There exist forms of life with simple and complex vision today. See this article about a PBS show on the subject. "The first animals with anything resembling an eye lived about 550 million years ago. And, according to one scientist's calculations, only 364,000 years would have been needed for a camera-like eye to evolve from a light-sensitive patch."

Here is more at this press release about the evolution of the human eye. '"It is not surprising that cells of human eyes come from the brain. We still have light-sensitive cells in our brains today which detect light and influence our daily rhythms of activity," explains Wittbrodt. "Quite possibly, the human eye has originated from light-sensitive cells in the brain. Only later in evolution would such brain cells have relocated into an eye and gained the potential to confer vision."'

And lots more links here. so please let's stop using the eye as an example. What next, bacterial flagella? That one is explained too. Next question?

Is it all figured out? No, but in science when we don't know it all we say that we are still looking, we don't say things we don't know must be explained by supernatural means, which is what ID does. It cops out with, "it must be something intelligent that designed it" instead of trying to understand the real reasons. Science may never find all the answers, it doesn't promise that it will but at least it doesn't have the answers BEFORE it has the QUESTIONS.

Re:This is an attack on Free Speech

[smooth wombat]

Why can't a teacher tell his students that many people believe God created the universe?

Why should someones belief in a supernatural being be included in a science class? If they mention God (a Christion god) why not mention Zeus, Odin, Vishnu, etc? Science isn't about beliefs, it's about testing the natural world.

People have believed in Christ for over 2000 years.

And the Earth has been in existence for what, 4.5 billion years? Besides, what does Christ have to do with it? Christ isn't God (at least not from what I remember of my catechism classes).

Many people believe God created everything, and as people, we're doing our best to describe and measure what he created.

Whoa! Hold on thar pardner. You just made a huge leap of false logic. First you say that many people believe that God created everything yet provide no evidence for this belief. Then you suggest that we are trying to measure what he created. If you haven't provided any evidence to further the claim that God exists how can you say that God created everything?

Also, who says God is a he? Why not a she? Why not an it? A supernatural being able to create matter from nothing most likely doesn't have a gender.

Many people believe in lots of things. Some people even believe they are Jesus. That doesn't mean they are correct.

Re:This is an attack on Free Speech

[hunterx11]

Science is all about theories.
Indeed it is.

There are no facts when it comes to how the universe was created.
Well, we're talking about evolution here, not cosmology; even if that weren't the case, while we obviously don't know how the universe started, empirical observations which can give us insight into the beginning of the universe, such as the cosmic background radiation, are facts.

Why can't a teacher tell his students that many people believe God created the universe?
Because it isn't a scientific belief. This isn't a matter of teaching about how people believed in geocentrism, or phlogiston, or the ether; it is a non-falsifiable claim.

This is not like telling students some new theory that someone thought up 5 minutes ago. People have believed in Christ for over 2000 years. It seems like it should be mentioned in the biology class.
You're right; it isn't some new theory. It isn't even a theory at all; it's an untestable model.

Many people believe God created everything, and as people, we're doing our best to describe and measure what he created. I'm not advocating replacing science text books with the bible. But to leave out something that a majority of people in the USA believe is wrong.
What people believe is a subject for an anthropology class, not a science class.

Re:Links to more information:

[Gauchito]

I was hearing a discussion about this topic on the BBC the other day, and one of the panel members made an excellent point: the same criticism ID'ers make about evolution can be made of a ton of other scientific theories (in all sciences, not just biology), so why aren't those theories criticized as well? They aren't because evolution is the typical battleground in the cultural war between religious and secular US, not Relativity or Gravity.

Of course, ID is obviously (to us, at least) a euphemistic backdoor for the religious types, but his point, I think, is still a very, very good one. I know a lot of people who still waver in their opinion about the merits of ID (even non-religious people), mainly because they buy the attacks by the ID'ers. I've found that those people, however, accept their arguments thanks to ID's secular mask. Defending against every attack on evolution one at a time is a bad way to convince people, since you mostly just get them in that state where they stop discussing because they are tired of bringing up points they heard (or they don't remember any more) but aren't entirely convinced. Bring up a point (like the one the panel member made) that makes the ID'ers look like hypocrites, and any support for what they say quickly vanishes.

Re:This is an attack on Free Speech

[DrFrob]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, science doesn't give a rat's ass about truth. Science is about seeking out explanation, understanding, and prediction. A scientific theory can simultaneously be absolutely wrong (e.g., classical physics) but entirely usefull if it allows one to make predictions and explain behavior reproducibly.

Religious studies

[Midnight Thunder]

If it fits anywhere is in a class of religious studies. When I was at school I had class by this name, and it taught about all religions and did not try proving that one religion was better than another. It was more about trying to provide intellectual insight into the basis and beliefs of each religion.

The other places that would be suitable for teaching this is bible school, church or even private Christian schools.

BTW Don't forget that even the Catholic Church recently came out and declared their support for evolution.

Re:And evolution is?

[Fareq]

"because I lack the ability to understand an evolutionary system of a grand scale, I have therefore conclusive proof that God must have created the world... After all, everything too complicated for me to understand is just God's miracles"

Deciding what is science

[benhocking]

To further back up my comments about who was and who was not performing due diligence:

Witold Walczak, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer representing the families, noted in his cross-examination of Geesey that the policy was adopted over the objections of Dover High School's science teachers.

"The only people in the school district with a scientific background were opposed to intelligent design ... and you ignored them?" he asked.

"Yes," Geesey said.

From MSNBC.

It *poses* no questions, more to the point

[ianscot]

It's an interesting interpretation of the state of the universe, but it answers exactly zero questions about it.

The gist of the problem is, ID is unscientific more because it *poses* no questions than because it answers none.

The M.O. of Intelligent Design's advocates forever now has been to go to the edges of what science knows and identify something out there that hasn't been fully explained yet. They then claim the as-yet-unexplained area is evidence of things being so complicated there can be no explanation except a godlike "designer." When science figures out the supposedly irreducible complexity of whatever the example was, the IDers just move the goalposts to whatever's on the edge now.

Michael Behe -- author of "Darwin's Black Box" -- for example, started out talking about fossil whales. Why weren't there intermediary whale forms between mesonychids and true whales? Oops -- over the next 20 years many, many steps in between turned up. "Black Box" is the same watch-watchmaker argument, only about subcellular structures like cilia. The logic's flawed in the same way, and his book is out-of-date in several of its claims. Don't worry, ID types will move the terms of the debate out somewhere else. We're never going to be omniscient, so they'll always have something to seize on.

The trick is, if the ID vision of the universe being so complex it can't be explained by anything but a God was accepted, nobody would ever have asked *any* questions about how things work. In these people's minds, every- every- everything is so infinitely complex that the only possible response to the world is to worship its creator. They've been making this argument since well before Darwin was around, it's not specific to evolution.

It's not just that their idea doesn't answer any questions. No questions would even get asked , if these people ran the world, or your school system.

(And of course that would suit them just fine, because their religious views are about preserving their authority, not about explaining the world or helping anyone lead a moral life.)

Re:No, it's PARENTING!

[m50d]

We made sure our kids were capable of critical thought, judgement and self-determination in the area of beliefs.

Which mitigates it enormously. Many people don't.

They have their own (for the record, two have ended up Catholic, one agnostic, one athiest - the jury's still out on the youngest two, but they're leaning toward agnostic and Jewish).

Yes, but can you honestly say you think they had an equal choice between all possibilities? I doubt it given you have two catholics but noone going for another religion that neither of you have.

If I believe a thing to be true, wouldn't not sharing that with my children be abuse?

No. We believe that freedom of thought and belief is a fundamental human right. Beliefs are a matter for the individual, like, say, sexual preference. Regardless of what you believe, it's not your place to tell anyone else what they should, but especially someone who isn't old enough to make their own decision.

Re:When did you start attending church?

[Cstryon]

You are wrong. One of the things learned as a child was that I had the choice, and I make the choice. Infact, one of the things taught in Christianity is Freewill. How could I be accountable if I was never making a choice.

Every change had to confer a survival advantage

[Trinition]

Every change had to confer a survival advantage

Why?

All that needs to happen is for a change not to cause the organism to die before it can pass its genes on. If there is a mutation, even a harmless or slightly detrimental one, so long as the organism still successfully reproduces, then it passed its genes on. Its unmutated counterparts may still reproduce at a better rate, causing its own numbers to diminish relatively.

But if that disadvantage then mutates again to something that is then a great advantage, then this organism can regain its losses and procreate even faster than its nonmutated counterparts.

Sometimes to reach a gloablly optimal path, you have to take a locally suboptimal path. So long as one mutation doesn't completely destroy an organism, the mutation, even if immediately unhelpful, can serve as a stepping stone to future, more helpful mutations or advantages in changing environments.

Imagine it like this. Suppose a mutation makes a human very nerdy looking. Girls don't like that. Their chances of reproduction drop sharply. The occasional nerd of the opposite sex may come along allowing this breed to trickle on. Then computers are invented and these nerds have anew environment in which to flourish. Their nerdy traits make them very successful, which in turns attracts a large number of mates, allowing what was a negative mutation to carry on in greater numbers!

OK, that one was a stretch :)

My kid, my decision

[BobSutan]

Its simple really, if I want my kid to learn religion in school then I will send him to a religious school, catholic or otherwise. Faith is based on a belief, not facts, and that is not science. Since this was tought in a science class it is a just decision and our kids will be better for it.

For those that believe ID is anything but a dressed up creationist view masquerading as a science of any kind, think again. Most people capable of critical thinking aren't fooled and thankfully neither was the judge.

Re:When did you start attending church?

[EvilSS]

If a person is raised as an atheist, they cannot chose to be an atheist as an adult but they can chose to believe in religion? That is essentially what you are implying, that a person can only make a choice to go against their upbringing and cannot make a conscience choice to continue the beliefs of their parents. This simply is not true.

Re:And evolution is?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Just because something is explainable or natural does not remove it from being a miracle.

Re:And evolution is?

[varith]

Because the fossil record does not show "bigger and bigger life forms" in the upper layers - it shows newer ones!. In fact, your theory would require large dinosaur bones to be on the top layer of everything instead of in the middle layer - as they are.

That is not honest, quote it in full

[Pac]

The obnoxious sticker said: "This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered".

Now you can read it in two ways:

a) The word "theory" here means exactly what it means in Science. In this case, all textbooks should have hundreds of similar stickers as in "This textbook contains material on inertia. Inertia is a theory, not a fact, regarding the way bodies upon which no external force is acting behave. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered".

b) The word "theory" here is being used with its layman meaning, as in the song "I have a theory" in Buffy's Musical Episode. "I have theory, it could be bunnies". In this case the sentence is not only wrong, it is a blatant religious statement. That was found to be the case, and then the judge nixed it.

Re:the failures of public education

[idsofmarch]

So much for the idea of presenting our young minds with a number of schools of thought, and giving them the ability to examine the evidence and choose between them responsibly.

But, that's not what is happening. Evolution, because it threatens fundamentalists, has been singled out as an idea worthy of questioning separating the theory from other scientific theories. Not all ideas are equal and it's been 'polite tyranny' that forces us to consider the laughable science of ID as equal to the well-tested, falsifiable, predictable ideas that make up evolutionary theory.

Mostly agree

[einhverfr]

Well put. Intelligent design might be summed up as the idea that "natural processes alone cannot explain the complexity of higher life forms." I do object to it being taught but for reasons other than what most people say here.

The problem with intelligent design is that it is not testable. I think the scientific term might be "interpretation" rather than "theory." In other words, it has little predictive value and is a bit more of a "here is what I think this information means" rather than "here is a theory we can use to predict such and such."

Other "interpretations" in Science include, notably, the "Copenhagen Interpretation" of Quantum Physics. The Copenhagen Interpretation is the idea that "for the purposes of quantum experiments, observation can be thought of as the force that defines a quantum event to a specific manifestation, i.e. the collapse of a specific wave." Like Intelligent Design it is probably untestable. After all, how do you test the effect of observation on quantum phenomina? Certainly not by comparing it in an observed vs. a non-observed state.... In essence the Copenhagen Interpretation really is a "useful way of thinking about" the experimental data in quantum physics. But the fact is, it has no more predictive value than other interpretations, and when you compare the writings of Schroedinger and Heisenberg, one hardly even sees a common interpretation there. I.e. Schroedinger seems to think that the state really is undefined, while Heisenberg thinks it is defined yet unknowable for the non-omnicient. I.e. to Heisenberg, it is not that the velocity and position of an electron are mutually undefined on a physical level, but rather than measuring one prevents measuring the other accurately without simultaniously measuring every other quantum event in the universe. In this view the electron has a distinct position and a distinct velocity, but we can't measure them simultaniously. In this view, these properties exist *indepentant* of observation, while to Schroedinger, they don't.

The problem of interpretations of theory and in fact scientific theory itself is well summed up by Heisenberg in "Physics and Philosophy" where he discusses the fact that data does not imply theory, and that interpreting any set of data (in order to create a theory) necessarily requires bringing in additional assumptions, and that these assumptions may or may not be testible. While Heisenberg doesn't discuss Occam's Razor, it is noteworthy that when you have competing theories, the less complex one is usually assumed to be the most useful. Hence we use a heliocentric rather than geocentric model of the solar system because it is easier to get the motions accurate with less work even though one can mathematically transpose one system into the other with a bit of work.

The apparent problem with Intelligent Design as an interpretation of evolutionary theory is that it appears to most of us to be conclusion ("There is a Creator God") in search of a proof. For this reason, it doesn't seem to fit well with the scientific Principle of Parsimony, a.k.a. Occam's Razor ("One Should Not Needlessly Multiply Entites"). In essence ID requires more work to get the same result as evolutionary biology would. So from a rigid scientific view, ID is a bit like arguing that Saturn moves around the Earth. Yes, you can make it work, but there really is no reason to do so when you have a simpler heliocentric model to work with.

Our current evolutionary theory is fairly incomplete and is still being actively developed. Indeed evolutionary theory is as flawed as the ID people say it is but that is largely because there are missing pieces which are still being worked out. For example, there isn't really a solid understanding as to why populations diverge so quickly when the biodiversity is low,* but the answers to these questions will, I think, better answer the shortcomings of evolutionary theory than ID does today.

* I would say we are about 80% there but this is a very complicated pr