Intelligent Design Ruled "Not Science"

blane.bramble writes "The Register is reporting that the UK government has stated there is no place in the science curriculum for Intelligent Design and that it can not be taught as science. 'The Government is aware that a number of concerns have been raised in the media and elsewhere as to whether creationism and intelligent design have a place in science lessons. The Government is clear that creationism and intelligent design are not part of the science National Curriculum programs of study and should not be taught as science.'"

Comments

Hah.

[SatanicPuppy]

It's not really religion either.

God demands faith. God does not provide proof, because proof kills faith. If you see something that you think is proof of God's existence, you're wrong. He's ineffable. That means you can't effing figure him out.

The arrogance of the goddamn literal read types is just astounding....Anyone else would look at evolution and go, "Damn! That God guy is hella fricking smart! Look at this crap! It's a system for self-improvement built into self-replicating creatures! It's awesome!" but a literal-read weenie will look at it and say, "Don't say nuthin about that in da bible. You must be wrong."

The worst thing that can be said about the literal read types, is that they have nothing to look up to. They know all there is to know about god and everything. So very very sad.

Re:Hah.

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly! How many times has some creationist offered criticism of some experiment I show them. The criticism is sometimes very well founded, and I agree with it. Then in the next breath, they say they believe the Bible is the only truth. Where did the useful skepticism go??

Re:Hah.

[jimicus]

By that definition, anyone who believes that concepts such as irreducable complexity prove intelligent design and thus the bible logically believes in the non-existence of God, as per the very similar argument espoused by Douglas Adams in The Hitchikers Guide...

Might be interesting to try this argument with a creationist.

Re:Hah.

[Smight]

You're confusing faith and belief. Faith is not believing that some one exists, but that they are a trustworthy and benevolent.
 
When you call up your best friend because you need someone to bail you out of jail you have faith in them and hopefully they don't cease to exist.

Re:Hah.

[PopeRatzo]

...but it must be a decision, not a reaction

Are you very certain that you can tell the difference between a "decision" and a "reaction"? Remember, human beings have developed a keen ability to fool themselves in this regard.

Re:Hah.

[PorkNutz]

You're confusing faith and belief. Faith is not believing that some one exists, but that they are a trustworthy and benevolent. ...And you are wrong. Faith has many definitions, one of which you have chosen to deny.

Faith

1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.
2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.
3. Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance: keeping faith with one's supporters.
4. often Faith Christianity. The theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God's will.
5. The body of dogma of a religion: the Muslim faith.
6. A set of principles or beliefs.

-----
Jon Stewart for President T-Shirt
Funny Shirts @ ProStoner.com

Re:Hah.

[Lord Ender]

Good research wouldn't assume anything for which there is no evidence. But, if a working assumption must be made, assuming something magical (such as "gods/unicorns/santa clause did it") would get you laughed out of any academic organization except for Liberty University.

Re:Hah.

[SatanicPuppy]

Robert Frost wrote a poem called "The White Tailed Hornet" basically to put his two cents worth in regarding instincts and evolution: "Once we began to see our images reflected in the mud and even dust...Nothing but fallibility was left us..." Basically, once you stop striving for something higher than yourself, you become no better than an animal.

Frost couldn't see in science a thing greater than himself. It was all about lesser and lesser things, smaller in every way than the ideals he loved.

But it's not about that at all; for many of us, science is about truth, and the glory of humanity, and we view those ideals to be a higher end. A great striving, a noble (nobel?) quest. Something greater.

True believers, and believe is the right word, those who have faith, they look up to an ideal greater than they could ever hope to know, and try in a small way to take some of that into themselves.

Neither of these groups bother me. Hell, there is often overlap. The striving for something greater is what humanity is about.

And then there is the third group. Those who know all there is about the world, and all there is about god, and all there is about science. It's not even only the intelligent design guys, though they annoy me most. They've got the world figured; they know everything about it, and they've pinned it's dessicated body to a piece of felt, and stuck it under glass, where they can point to it every day and declaim how much they "know".

Re:Hah.

[SatanicPuppy]

Eh. Sure, there a lots of testimonials about people who have witnessed the power of god in their lives...I don't know of any that lend themselves to experimentation or replication. You may believe that God has touched your life, you may have faith that something is evidence for the existence of a higher being.

But you don't have proof. Proof is something you can hold in your hand, and show to someone else, something that can have only one meaning, only one possible cause.

Re:Hah.

[Enlightenment]

Are you forgetting the fact that the reason Darwin even postulated evolution was that he had mountains of data? Does the name H.M.S. Beagle mean anything to you? Evolution has been observed in the laboratory, as well as in the wild? Your comment betrays a great ignorance of the actual science.

Re:Hah.

[plunge]

And look, you shifted the goalposts, from common descent via natural selection to complaints about the "genesis of life" which doesn't even concern evolution BY DEFINITION (since evolution is only relevant when you have self-reproduction with heredity, i.e. life already).

Your accusations are standard "pox on all houses" boilerplate. But the rub is that they are creationist boilerplate: the idea of the tactic is that one attacks the very idea that we have good evidence or can know much of anything at all... i.e. simply tries to discredit most of modern biology without actually doing any work... with the hopes that once this is done, religious assertions become more compelling in the aftermath.

Re:Hah.

[plunge]

"Frankly there's not enough data to "prove" either side. "

So you say. The vast vast majority of the people that actually study the data disagree, and most of the people that agree with you, when asked to explain why, demonstrably get things wrong and misrepresent what the evidence is and how it is used.

Re:Hah.

[Anonymous Coward]

You find 4 to be the most ludicrous, so something had to create the universe. Which leads us to try to answer who created god.

Assuming one of the following to be true, pick the most ludicrous:
1. Man created God
2. Unicorns created God
3. Santa Clause created God
4. Nobody created God

Since we have already determined it's ludicrous to believe that something really complex can't just exist, I am going to go out on a limb and say that number 4 is the most ludicrous answer. What I don't get is how can a person who believes the universe is too complex to just exist will postulate a being so complex that he can hold the entire knowledge to create the universe in his head and cause it's creation.

Re:Hah.

[Pfhorrest]

why is it any different for a Christian believing the Bible? Time and time again, I've found what it says to be true, so I believe it is. I'm curious, what is it that the Bible has claimed which you have observed to be true? I'm assuming here that by "found" you mean something like "observed", and not just "well that sounds right to me", as intuition is clearly no basis for grounding an argument, since arguing that way, you'd only ever convince people who already agreed with you, and never anybody who didn't.

Note that there is a big difference between saying non-false things and saying true things. If what you say implies nothing at all, then you've not really said anything descriptive of the world, and that non-statement is no more false, but also no more true, than silence. So feel-good emotional language (blessed are so-and-so...), lists of commands (thou shalt not...), and so forth, are not even candidates for being true or false. Also bear in mind that "The Bible" is not one big theory, hypothesis, or proposition: it's a whole bunch of them, and as such, some of them could be right and others wrong, and so finding some true statements in there doesn't imply that all statements therein are true.

In my experience, those claims that the Bible makes which are meaningful (actually say something with observable implications), and not evidently false (such as a literal reading of Genesis), are fairly trivial and not disputed even by atheists. (Christians and non-Christians, for all their differences, still agree on a whole lot of things, like for example that 2+2=4, so there are plenty of trivial things in the Bible than even an atheist will agree are true). So if you've read something in there which is meaningful, controversial (i.e. something Christians believe and non-Christians don't), and which you've observed evidence for, I'd be rather interested in hearing what is was, and what sort of evidence you've observed.

Re:Hah.

[Hatta]

Basically, once you stop striving for something higher than yourself, you become no better than an animal.

We are no better than animals because we are animals. If that conflicts with your ideals, you should get some more realistic ideals.

Re:Hah.

[pnewhook]

I had religion (required) in public school. It was great. But they didn't preach any one religion. They showed how all the religions of the world came about, their origins and similarities and differences in their belief systems. Then we had guest speakers, one each from the major local religions that came in to talk about and answer questions of their beliefs and customs.

I firmly believe that type of religion in schools should be mandatory. It would certainly remove a lot of the predjudices and stereotyping that goes on simply due to fear and lack of understanding.

Re:Hah.

[BakaHoushi]

To quote George Carlin, "Give me ONE reason why a human being is better than a chicken. Just ONE. ...See? Nobody can do it! Why? Because chickens are honest, living creatures!"

Let's look at the chicken/human comparison a little more:
We both require and search for nourishment, often in a group.
We take in that nourishment, where a complex series of systems provide energy to all the necessary cells of the body.
We both have an innate desire after a certain period of time to combine our genetic material with another in hopes of keeping some portion of ourselves "alive".
After a set amount of time, natural causes will end our lives, leaving room for the next generation to take our places.

Where exactly do we differ enough that we are so different? Because we use tools? Sorry, but so do other animals. Plenty of simians, and even some birds. Because we create communities where we work together and raise each other? Again, so do plenty of animals. Because we have "free will" and can act in good or evil ways, such as murdering our own? It's been shown that chimps can, in fact, commit murder.

Human beings are intelligent (...well, some of us, anyway...) because that's how we survived long enough to fuck. A frog is not as intelligent because... he doesn't need to be that smart and reasoning to survive. His mechanism is having 10,000 little eggs and, with any luck, a handful will survive to reproduce. Those whose mechanisms didn't work... well, they not here anymore. Ours? It worked. A vulture's design lets him eat rotting meat with little risk of getting sick. If a human ate that meat, he'd vomit. So, using intelligence, we created cooking. Lower risk of getting sick from food. A rhino has thick hide and a powerful horn to fend off predators. We can creates weaponry. Different means to the same end.

So, where's the difference?

Re:Hah.

[ppanon]

Well, another way to look at it is that evolution is half of a proof by induction where you have X(N+1) = F(X(N)) but you are missing X(0).

Scientists say the induction step has meaning because evidence supports it for many N in (long ago to now), and when new X(N)/X(N+a) value pairs are discovered, they appear to follow the induction step.

Religious fundamentalists say that because you have no idea what X(0) is, then the induction step must be wrong. Thus they claim either a God created all X(0) and X(N) is a mere subset, or else they claim that X(N+1) = God(X(N)) for some, but not all, N.

While the scientific approach is far from a complete proof, it does have a lot of evidence that supports it. In contrast, a lot of counterexamples exist for the first religious fundamentalist approach, and the second religious fundamentalist approach has no elegance.

And well, if the rest of the Universe is anything to judge by, I think that's it's pretty unlikely that a Creator would create life through an inelegant process.

Re:Hah.

[aldo.gs]

I do agree that we are not better than animals (although it seems to me that the notion of "betterness" is quite subjective).

But I can think of a difference between us and the rest of the animals: knowledge passed along generations.

I have never seen another species use (or create) some tool and improve it over time. Or keep historical records. Of course, for them there is no need to do it, but we managed to survive without writing and with very primitive weapons too. Maybe it can be summed up as 'civilization', but that term can be ambiguous sometimes.

Perhaps I got your comment the wrong way (and sorry for my english).

Re:Hah.

[SatanicPuppy]

A dog just wants to be a dog. A chicken just wants to be a chicken. A pig a pig. A frog a frog.

But a man wants to be more than a man. For the whole existence of our species we have striven to be more than just what we are. In everything where we have ever fallen short, we have built tools to extend our reach. Every comparison is upward. We have no final goals; when we achieve, we immediately try to take the next step.

We have ideals. People live in pursuit of dreams...We give up sex for them sometimes! We die for them when we must.

We have it in us to be truly animals. Hardly any doubt of that; we see it everywhere. Dogs, chickens, and pigs, as far as the eye can see.

But I'll set my sights a little higher, so that one day, perhaps, we can be something more.

Re:Hah.

[snowgirl]

So, where's the difference?

I'll throw this out here, and all the linguists will nod, and all the non-linguists are going to try and debate me about this.

We have a method that relies upon complex syntax, semantics, and pragmatics in order to generate reasonably effective communication between our species. In one word: Language.

Now, to deal with the issues that people will likely raise:

"What about parrots, they can talk", Parrots are indeed capable of a surprising amount of phonology, that allows them to mimic human speech patterns. It has also been shown that they are able to associate words and phrases with ideas, concepts and behaviors. However, they only satisfy "semantics" in the above, and a relatively small subset of semantics.

"What about those apes that I heard learned to use sign language!" Well, first off, I'm happy to see that you recogize that sign language is actually language, and not just some form of gestural gumbo. However, the sign language learned by these Apes is equivalent to that gestural gumbo. They have associated one sign to an idea, and then they throw those signs out until someone actually does what they're hoping to get. "YOU ME TICKLE TICKLE ME ME TICKLE YOU ME TICKLE ME YOU" is a pretty good example of their communicative skill.

"I heard Dolphins can talk!" Dolphins do have a complex communication system that allows them to transmit fairly detailed notions back and forth to each other. However, they still lack the "complex syntax" given above.

"What about white mice, huh?" ok, you got me there.

Re:Hah.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ya know, the eyeball isn't all that great. First, we only have two of them. And because of their positioning, the majority of our surroundings are rendered into a huge blind spot. Squids got it right. Does god love squids more than us? And why can we only see a small portion of the light spectrum? Or Infrared rays? Gamma? Ultraviolet? General radiation?

While we're at it, why do I drink, breath, talk and eat out of the same hole? Dolphins have more options than we do. Great move God. Are you TRYING to make me choke and die on my Hot Pocket?.

And what the hell is up with our genitals? That's like putting a theme park in the middle of sewage treatment plant.

Re:Hah.

[SatanicPuppy]

In what way? Do you think frogs dream of greatness, or that men don't?

Our whole history is one of envy. We envy the tiger its claws, so we learn to make our own out of stone. We envy the deer its speed, so we domesticate the horse. We envy the fish their abilities with the sea, so we invent boats, and then submarines. We envy the birds the sky, so we invent the airplane.

Was all that enough? No. We launch our crazy asses into outer fucking space.

We are not a complacent species. There is never going to be a point where we say, "Enough." Do you know where that's going to lead...I mean, clearly you think you do, but do you know?

Re:Hah.

[BakaHoushi]

You've yet to prove that this makes us better. You've proven only that we are smarter. This should be obvious. But I am asking WHY is intelligence significant? I believe it is significant only because we make it so.

Animals engage in physical competition, with the "alpha male" often resulting from the strongest and fastest. They determine the "superior specimen" this way. To them, physical fitness determines superiority. Then again, think of the social experiment known as High School. How many bullies found themselves "superior" to the nerds because they were bigger and stronger?

Humans are rather vain creatures, and we often define what's "good" and "better" as "what is similar to me or what I strive to be." As such, I find the argument that we are capable of defining things in our own languages to be somewhat egotistical. At the end of the day, we're still living creatures trying to pass on our DNA. How we accomplish that, or what we do when we're NOT trying to pass on genetic material, is mostly irrelevant on a cosmic scale.

That said, I do believe we've done remarkable things. Utterly mind-blowing at times. But I do take offense to the idea of superiority. We're all the same, really. We are, we do, we die. Such is life.

Re:Hah.

[BakaHoushi]

That's not what I'm saying. That's what YOU'RE saying.

I'm saying that culture and improvements are irrelevant. The universe does not care that we do things. The only ones who do care is... us.

In your book, that makes us better. But that's the thing, isn't it? It's YOUR book. Not OUR book. Not THEIR book. Just yours. I'm certain that many, if not most, or nearly all people share that idea with you (myself, too, in a way) but again, we defined what is "better." Life has no inherit value for attributes. It's like arguing over who's a better artist. Ultimately, it comes down to opinion.

Re:Hah.

[Rallion]

In my book, that makes us "better" than animals. I know that I, for one, would be bored out of my mind picking bugs off of others in my "group" and throwing poo.

I'm going to quote Douglas Adams now.

"For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars and so on - whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reasons."

As a species, we value the things that we have. We value self-improvement, because we can do it. We value culture, because we have it.

However, monkeys probably think out inability to properly groom each other is somewhat silly.

It's a problem of bias to an incredible degree. You must admit that it's a bit suspicious that every single way in which some animal is clearly superior to humans is viewed by humanity as utterly unimportant.

Re:Hah.

[gnuman99]

But a man wants to be more than a man.

No. A man thinks he is more than just a man. That arrogance is what causes man to be so much worse and better than other animals.

A man should just want to be a man. To think. To learn. To explore. To spread. That is what is man. As soon as man thinks that it is more than that, bad and/or good things happen. But since we are still just on one little planet, the bad seem to loom over man's very existence more and more.

Man, be just a man.

Re:Hah.

[Lemmy Caution]

There is a body of research that indicates that many types of animals do pass knowledge from one generation to another, evolve it, and even have systems of communication that have transformative grammars (prairie dogs is the most recent example.) Importantly, different populations within the same species will develop and communicate different behaviors, calls, etc. And there are definitely non-human primates (chimps, especially) that use tools, "experiment" with them, and communicate their discoveries to each other.

Humans are a type of animal, full stop. There are features that seem to be unique to humans, yes. But those are still animal things: there are other animal-things that are unique to other species, or limited to subsets of animals, as well.

I'm reminded of something Kurt Vonnegut wrote: "Question: What is the white stuff in bird poop? Answer: That is bird poop, too."

Re:Hah.

[Copid]

Would that be the vast majority of people that study the data, funded by grants they would lose without vowing fealty to evolution, or the vast majority of people that study the data, knowing that any discovery that threatens evolution will cost them tenure?

Let's go back 150 years or so. Nobody believed in evolution. If the whole thing is driven by some giant secular humanist conspiracy, exactly how did it get started? How did the theory make inroads against conventional wisdom and revolutionize biology? Clearly there's something to it other than the massive conspiracy of the Scientific Establishment/Jews/Freemasons/Federal Reserve.

Re:Hah.

[KiloByte]

O RLY?
Now compare this with works of Picasso, or even worse, Andy Warhol? Or that woman who took an unmade bed and sold it for millions as "art"? (No, it's not her who's stupid here...) If you take most "art" of the last century, the critters are actually winning. I really wonder why taxpayers (ie, mine too) money is used to pay the scammers of "art schools" these days.

For compassion, what would you say about that female dog who raised three tiger cubs?

Re:Hah.

[Puf_Almighty]

If you consider the useless irrelevance on canvas to be what our "art" is, then yeah, the monkey's right up there with Jackson Pollock. But what about, say, Blade Runner? Or the Philadelphia Philharmonic? Or Cowboy Bebop, Fallout, or The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion?
"Art" ain't just what gets painted.

Re:Hah.

[BillyBlaze]

Well chickens don't have the tools to do those things. Would you really be surprised to see a chicken help another injured chicken? If you saw that, you might call it instinct, just a meaningless programmed behavior. But I say it's compassion. There's really no difference.

Why is it so horrible to be grouped with animals? Are they really such an abomination? Why must we invent a god to create us above them, and to deny the similarity? Being animals doesn't make our humanity any less great.

Re:Hah.

[Tatarize]

So what if a hawk can see much better than I can. I shoot the hawk.
So what if a cheetah can run must faster than I can. I shoot the cheetah.
So what if a bird's cardiopulmonary system is better than mine. I can shoot the bird.
So what if a dolphin can swim faster than I can. I shoot the dolphin.
So what if most animals can fly and I can't. I shoot them.
So what if I am restricted to land covering a tiny 25% of the Earth's surface. I shoot those water things.
So what if bees can see ultraviolet colors. I crush them.
So what if pit vipers can see infrared light. I will back away slowly.
So what if owls can see 100 times better in the dark. I will shoot them.
So what if dragonflies can see completely around themselves. I will crush them.
So what if plants convert light into energy. I will eat them.

I rule over them all. I have tools. Better than otter tools. Better than chimp tools. Better than all other tool-users around... so only tool use matters. Suck it world of organisms with powers I obviously lack. I can't spit venom at you, or spin a web... but I can hit you with a shovel, and that's what really matters.

Re:Hah.

[OS24Ever]

You'd be banging two rocks together in the hot sun right now if it' wasn't for the ability to abstract.

Without abstraction you wouldn't have the innovation that alows you to have this conversation.

Re:Hah.

[famebait]

Ya know, the eyeball isn't all that great. First, we only have two of them. And because of their positioning, the majority of our surroundings are rendered into a huge blind spot. Squids got it right.

Squids got it right _for_a_typical_small_prey_animal. Being able to see your predators is top priority, and that is best achieved by a huge field of vision. To animals with few natural enemies, other issues my take precedence, such as the ability to find food. For predators with few natural enemies, it makes sense to in stead have a highly focused field of vision with excellent resolution and depth perception (requiring significant overlap of the two regions), since catching fleeing food is hard, and starvation bacomes a more looming threat than being eaten by someone bigger.

Witness how birds of prey have forward-pointing eyes, smaller birds who may be their victims have them more on the sides, and large non-hunting birds with few enemies often somewhere in-between.

Then look at yourself in the mirror and tell me we're not built to hunt...

Re:Hah.

[elFisico]

[sarcasm on]
oh yeah, apes are just faking it. and that koko has been reading picture books to herself at bedtime just like a school kid would do, it's only imitation. that she has the wish to express herself via paintings and drawings, that's no sign for intelligence. and that she invents new words is a sign for... what?

you, as many others, suffer from delusions of grandeur regarding human capabilities...

Re:Hah.

[MightyMartian]

It does nothing to explain the genesis of life...

It wasn't meant to, but thanks for demonstrating how quickly people will move the goalposts. You were talking about IC. A formulation is devised that demonstrates how, for instance, in vertebrate immune systems, that IC cannot only be explained, but that how it was in fact predicted that such features can be found. I have no idea where abiogenesis fits into this, other than the fact that if you can demonstrate how even seemingly IC pieces can be derived through naturalistic means, it's quite possible that similar organic chemical processes could be found that answer similar kinds of questions derived from abiogenesis research.

How about in the US?

[oskay]

Will someone in the US government please do the same?

Re:How about in the US?

[MightyMartian]

Nothing more perverts the issue than those that try to make the battle against pseudoscience into a "rights" issue. I don't hear too many people complaining because high school history classes don't teach the "controversy" of whether the Holocaust happened or not, and yet all the Creationists and IDers bemoan the supposed censorship of their pseudoscientific claptrap not being taught in science classrooms, despite the fact that neither Creationism or ID (and ID is, after all, nothing more then Creationism with the word "God" removed in an attempt to fool Supreme Court justices) are recognized as science by the overwhelming majority of scientists inside and outside the US.

People are perfectly free to talk about ID, publish letters in the newspaper, buy spots on TV, stand on the proverbial soapbox and preach it. There is no infringement of freedom, save that all those Evangelicals and the like would like special dispensation so that they could teach their own religious beliefs openly or in a pathetically thinly-veiled form like ID.

Re:How about in the US?

[an.echte.trilingue]

"only 14 percent believe humans evolved without divine involvement."

You do of course realize that one can both believe that the theory of evolution is 100% correct and also believe that God created this process? I am not saying that we should teach that God/god/goddess/gods/goddesses directed evolution, just that the numbers you present are framed. After all, only atheists believe that humans evolved with no divine involvement at any juncture. I would really like to know which opinion polls the article refers to and how they were conducted, because I don't believe that these statistics reflect what Americans actually think.

Re:How about in the US?

[Teun]

Nothing more perverts the issue than those that try to make the battle against pseudoscience into a "rights" issue. I don't hear too many people complaining because high school history classes don't teach the "controversy" of whether the Holocaust happened or not,
But there is a slight difference, for example here in The Netherlands 1 in 6 people alive have witnessed WWII.
Although the people of Little Faith that follow ID and creationism claim a Young Earth and generations of ancestors with the age of Methuselah, no-one is around that witnessed that 'recent' creation...

Re:How about in the US?

[SCHecklerX]

You can believe that all you want. It's still not *SCIENCE*. You can have ID in the classroom. But it's a religious studies or philosophy subject. It is not science any more than creative writing is mathematics.

Re:How about in the US?

[PopeRatzo]

our country is governed by zealots and money-hungry folk, whom are guided by the fundamentalists.

The kind of fundamentalists that are currently running our government are to Faith what a ten-dollar hooker is to romantic love.

Re:How about in the US?

[fiannaFailMan]

only atheists believe that humans evolved with no divine involvement at any juncture

"Believe?" I would say "think is the most likely explanation after having considered the evidence" would be more appropriate.

Excelent

[yakumo.unr]

Very pleased to hear the government come out and and state what by far the majority of the country would assume anyway, nice to have it made official.

May as well teach crystal healing in heart surgery if your going to allow RE into Science classes.

That's good.

[cromar]

I can't believe it is such an issue in the USA. People don't seem to even understand the definition of science. While I won't diminish the importance of religion or spirituality in life, science is based on reason and logic and is therefore a very practical and useful way to understand the natural world.

Personally, I don't see any conflict between the world being created by some God, even in 7 days, and its being formed over billions of years by natural processes. One is a faith based way of experiencing the world, the other is a sensory based, practical, and logical way. They are both useful.

What isn't useful is to deny children understanding of what, very practically and falsifiably, is the way our reality works.

Re:That's good.

[adisakp]

Personally, I don't see any conflict between the world being created by some God, even in 7 days, and its being formed over billions of years by natural processes.

True, just like there is no conflict between a child believing a magical fairy has given them a coin to replace the tooth they placed under their pillow and their parent believing that tricking that child by trading a coin for a bunch of tears is an easy way to pacify their child over a lost tooth.

It's just two alternate ways to experience the same reality. For some people it's nice to get the "coin" and for others, it's more important to try to know what is really happening.

Re:That's good.

[clickety6]

Would you rather live in a magical world full of fairies or dry reality?

Dry reality? You obviously don't live in the same world as me because there are more incredible and amazing things in this universe than I could ever fully explore in a single lifetime. I don't need to add imaginary fairies and hobgoblins to the mix. Just read a book about cosmology, or quantum physics or the human mind or zoology or... you don't need to start inventing fairies and easter bunnies to live in a magical world -we're already in one!

Re:That's good.

[asylumx]

I believe in both...

Seriously, how could God have created the world in seven "days" when day & night didn't even exist until the second "day" then? So who's to say that (his) seven days were not billions of our years?

The problem isn't that people read the bible in a literal sense, but that they read one sentence literally, and the next as symbolic.

Re:When they can explain...

[WilliamSChips]

The Big Bang theory doesn't say what happened before. The Big Bang says things only about the progression of the universe after its beginning. The difference between the Big Bang and a literal reading of Genesis is that the Big Bang is based on natural laws that have been discovered.

Re:When they can explain...

[MightyMartian]

Could you list the sources where you got your definition of Big Bang cosmology? I'd love to know what hoakey craphouse you got it from. Big Bang cosmology neatly explains:

1. the red-shift of distant galaxies.
2. nucleosynthesis
3. the black body radiation that can be found every in the universe

ID, on the other hand, explains nothing. It's an empty statement that is designed to

a. fool judges
b. make such vague statements on the origins of the universe and life that everyone from a Young Earth Creationist to a Theistic Evolutionist are supposed to be friendly and consequently overthrow the evil secular forces of public education in America.

My recommendation to you is to

a. go read something on the Big Bang by actual cosmologists
b. go look up the Wedge Document to find out what ID *really* is.

Re:When they can explain...

[Lord Bitman]

Account 1: "Nothing existed. Then something inconceivably complex existed. That something willfully created us, specifically."

Account 2: "Nothing existed. Then through sheer logical necessity, everything else existed. Everything. Those parts of everything which were capable of contemplating existence posted on message boards. The rest were not aware that they should be doing so."

Why do you feel there should be an explanation for what caused causality?

Re:When they can explain...

[MightyMartian]

Even worse, you enter a logic trap when you insist that things require a Prime Mover. If the universe requires a Prime Mover, then the logical extension to that is that the Prime Mover also does, and you enter an infinite regression of Prime Movers. The standard answer by those who insist on causality all the way down is that their Prime Mover is exempt. At that point, an application of Occam's Razor states that unnecessary entities should be removed, and so if the alleged Prime Mover requires no lower-level Prime Mover, then why can't the universe exist without the need of a Prime Mover.

Religion != Abrahamic religion

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

God demands faith. God does not provide proof, because proof kills faith. If you see something that you think is proof of God's existence, you're wrong. He's ineffable. That means you can't effing figure him out.

This is typical Abrahamic religion thought, and not common to all religions. And to make it worse, the fact that it's a typical argument in Abrahamic religious traditions, doesn't make it an essential feature of them.

Which means that you're carrying out a strawman argument, since you're not engaging the actual claims and beliefs of any actual adversary, only those you project onto an imagined one, and which just happen to be very conveniently weak.

Re:Religion != Abrahamic religion

[hahiss]

You can't say this is a "typical argument in Abrahamic religious traditions" and then claim that it is a STRAW MAN! Dude, your FIRST sentence shows that your bellicose outburst in the second sentence is high-handed balderdash (because the first shows that the poster WAS engaging the actual claims and beliefs of an actual adversary).

Maybe if you've got some view that god is "effable" or that one can prove the existence of god (good luck with that) or can show that one need not be committed to a dualism of faith/reason, offer that. But *please* don't lecture people about logical fallacies that you are capable of defining but poor at identifying in action.

Bullshit

[DogDude]

Because, when it all boils down to it, you have to have faith in something, be it science or religion.

Bullshit. Don't water down science as something that people must have "faith" to believe in. That's is 100% false, and that is purely rhetoric to make science sound like something that is debatable. By and large, it is not. It's not always right, but it is right a hell of a lot more often than not. Religion and science do NOT intersect. In fact, they're polar opposites.

science

[Gary W. Longsine]

Science is based, even moreso, on the scientific method, which, sadly, doesn't seem to be taught in schools in the U.S. It may be mentioned once or twice in ten years of education, but it's not taught, such that kids graduate from high school actually understanding it well enough to explain it to someone else.

Re:As a Christian...

[CaptainCaustic]

Claiming that you have an opinion regarding Evolution is like saying you have an opinion on Gravity.
Doesn't matter if you don't like the idea or not, you can't get away from the fact they exist.

Re:As a Christian...

[DogDude]

The schools don't force an opinion. Science, by and large, isn't an "opinion". Get your head out of your ass. To put science and faith on the same level is insulting to scientists everywhere.

People talking to invisible men who live in the sky is an opinion... a wrong one.

Re:government defined science

[wizardforce]

Many of the advancements to science can be considered outside of what is considered "science" at the time. An attempt to limit scholarly inquiry by excluding it from scientific discussion will only discourage diversity in the scientific community.

that is dead wrong, the great leaps forward were strictly through the scientific method which is about as far away from being outside science as you can get. Intelligent design is as you say "excluded" because it explains nothing, predicts nothing and does not adhere to any logical methodology. If ID wants to be scientific they need to provide real evidence, not just what the Bible says. We want concrete testible predictions and an actual theory that extends what is known not just a God of the gaps ideology.

ID is unique (I'm not talking about young earth crap) because it really is not straight philosophy as it has too many ties to empirical data, it shouldn't be religion because (at least the reasonable arguments) don't actually argue for a "God,"

Intelligent design is nothing more than a philosophy, it makes no predictions and explains nothing outside of a purposefully un-named designer [after Dover it was well understood that God was the implied designer] It isn't based on solid empirical evidence but mere misunderstandings and ideology.

I don't think it is fair to any argument to preclude it being reasonable based on the fact that it doesn't really fit into current frameworks that have been set up.

if you are referring to fairness in the context of giving equal time to each side it is entirely irrelevant. The side that has the most well estabolished evidence and predictive power wins. The scientific community is not interested in being dragged into an ancient ideological pissing contest. I don't mean to start a flame or anything here, I am just sick of religion pretending to be science when it is nothing of the sort.

Re:The cardinal sin of "I don't know."

[bill_mcgonigle]

The creator of the Universe caring about what happens to us is like us caring about what happens to some Ant hill somewhere.

Without detracting from the rest of your argument, this part needs work. We're limited beings, complex machines made of crude matter. The Yahoweh mythology is about an infinite being.

Do you have absolutely no interest in what the ants are doing inside their ant hill? I think it might be neat to watch them. But I certainly don't have the resources to do so frequently, widely, or intently, so I elect not to care about them.

Those constraints don't apply to the supreme being worshiped by the tribes of Abraham, ergo it would be surprising if he didn't pay attention to everything. And play Ski-ball at the same time.

Why ID isn't science

[Mr. Underbridge]

Many of the advancements to science can be considered outside of what is considered "science" at the time.

You're confusing prevailing beliefs held by scientists with the scientific method itself. You're right, at any given time some portion of the best-believed scientific knowledge will be wrong, and other scientists will eventually find evidence for other theories. This will, however, be done using scientific principles. It will not be done by examining scripture.

ID is unique (I'm not talking about young earth crap) because it really is not straight philosophy as it has too many ties to empirical data, it shouldn't be religion because (at least the reasonable arguments) don't actually argue for a "God," and yet it doesn't fit very nicely into the current definitions of "science."

ID simply does not use the scientific method. To do so, it would have to generate a testable hypothesis which is disproveable. It is inherently not proveable to show that the earth was made, in some way, by a deity. As Wolfgang Pauli once put it, "That's not right. That's not even wrong!" His point was that, for a theory to come under the purview of science, it has to be disprovable. ID is not. ID takes a specific belief and carefully skirts around existing evidence in a way that it avoids making a testable hypothesis. As such, ID does not belong in science curriculum. There's also the notion of "why the Christian religion?" If they get equal billing with science, surely Mayan, Greek, Norse, Phoenician, Aztec, Zulu, Persian, Flying Spaghetti Monster, and other creation myths should be taught in science class, right?

An attempt to limit scholarly inquiry by excluding it from scientific discussion will only discourage diversity in the scientific community.

We're talking about what should be taught in high school science. Textbooks contain the best available knowledge at any given time, and that's what should be taught in PUBLIC schools. The vast majority of scientists have examined the available evidence and mechanisms and concluded that evolution is almost certainly responsible for the existing biodiversity on earth. No one, however, is preventing a group of people from conducting research into ID or anything else, or of teaching it in parochial schools not funded by taxpayers. So no one is attempting to limit scholarly inquiry.

intelligent design

[phoenix65401]

Just to point out. In the bible it says God created the world. However it doesn't say how he did it. For all we know he created the world through evolution. Fact is, no one will ever really know for sure. Anyway just something to think about.

Re:Yeah, but ...

[DragonWriter]

Isn't evolution *also* pretty much just a theory at this point, like Intelligent Design?

No. Evolution is a "theory" as the term is used in science, that is, it is a proper scientific hypothesis (an explanation which makes predictions which are empirically falsifiable) which has withstood attempts at falsification.

Intelligent Design is a "theory" only by one of the looser definitions in common conversation, a a conjecture that does not make predictions which are falsifiable even in principle. Its nothing more than "that looks really hard, so God musta did it."

Attempts to equate the two are equivocation.

Re:Sorry, there is no god.

[jofny]

he only exists in your mind

Im assuming that such an objective, clear-headed individual such as yourself as some empirical evidence of that?

The reason I ask is because (and I speak as one of those unwashed masses I think your post was aimed at), all of the scientific theories Ive heard for the origins of the universe sound just about as implausible as the idea that a god of some sort created everything. My uneducated understanding here is that those scientific theories tend to work (sort of) mathematically, but there's not a whole lot of concrete evidence in support of any in particular.
Likewise, in my limited experience here (less than 3 decades), it has seemed to me that people will pretty much use anything to keep them in line - material or imaginary - but that a combination of guns and an economic stake in your way of existing seem to work far better for keeping people in line than religion does.
I havent seen any evidence of god that I cant explain with math or science, but I certainly havent seen any math or science that preclude the idea....but...since you're so sure of yourself...maybe you have some? It would certainly help me settle of couple of bets with my other uneducated friends.

Re:Meh... alert me when...

[crashfrog]

The fundamental basis of the scientific is repeatability.

All the evidence that underlies evolution is repeatable - without having to reproduce 3 billion years in a laboratory the size of the entire Earth.

When you understand how this can be true, you'll be a lot less stupid - and you'll understand what "repeatability" means in the scientific method.

Re:Yeah, but ...

[Goth Biker Babe]

Intelligent Design is not a theory, it's a conjecture. So not only do you not know science you also don't know English.

Theory - "A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena."

Conjecture - "The formation or expression of an opinion or theory without sufficient evidence for proof."

Note that a theory explains facts and is repeatable and/or can be used to make predictions. A conjecture is just a guess...

Re:Meh... alert me when...

[FunWithKnives]

what many would claim to be absolute truth based only on

There are no absolutes in science. What we have is the best model so far, based on observable evidence. The model will continue to change, and parts of it will be modified, thrown out, and refined. That is how the scientific method works.

"Creationism" or any religion-based "theory," and I use that word very loosely, are not built upon observable evidence over time. Creationism is not based in fact, and it is not continuously refined and retested. There is a reason why people refer to religion as "faith."

Please try not to view those of us who accept evolution as doing so upon faith. It is simply the best model that we have at the moment. If the model changes, based on new, factual evidence, and it can be retested with the same results, then our understanding of evolution will change right along with it.

I don't know about you, but I like my explanations of the things around me to be based on fact, not largely fictitious prose written two-thousand years ago.

Re:Meh... alert me when...

[DragonWriter]

The problem I find, however, is that when we try to extrapolate what many would claim to be absolute truth based only on what we know how to observe so far, we can easily come to the wrong conclusion.

"Absolute truth" isn't what science is about, and "extrapolation" isn't as important as you would make it; inasmuch as it is relevant at all, it is just in coming up with hypotheses. Once you have a proper scientific hypothesis you then, by definition, have empirically falsifiable predictions you can test to validate the hypothesis. If those predictions fail, your hypothesis is wrong. If they do not, your hypothesis is a viable theory. That doesn't mean it is right: a more parsimonious or powerful theory may displace it because of the greater utility it provides, or additional predictions may be later derived from your hypothesis enabling new tests that may fail. No proper scientific theory (though some things popularly labelled theories are untested hypotheses) rests on extrapolation alone: if it is properly called a theory (as evolution is) it has testable predictions with have withstood testing.

Science isn't about giving answers that are some kind of Ultimate Absolute Truth. It is about refining models that have explanatory and, more importantly, predictive power.

Re:As a Christian...

[MightyYar]

Are you serious? If you are, then what you missed is grade-school science.

Gravity is a theory. Newton described it pretty well, but then Einstein came along with the general theory of relativity and blew it away. Even so, we know that Einstein is also wrong and scientists are searching for a better description still.

None of this changes the FACT that if I drop something, it will fall to the ground.

Evolution is similar. Darwin described it pretty well in the end, but the theory has changed quite a bit since his time. The mechanisms are still being discovered and theorized.

None of this changes the FACT that organisms have changed over time, and in response to changes in their environment.

I can make you feel the presence of God

[spun]

All I have to do is stimulate the right part of your brain with the right electromagnetic field. It was an interesting experiment, as everyone knew that something was being done to their brain, yet most people still felt that the experience indicated the actual presence of the divine.

One argument I love to refute from personal experience is the "If you ask with an open heart He will show you the way," argument. Well, I have and I got nothing. I'm still an agnostic, but I can only believe based on my experience that any God that might exist must not give a damn whether I believe in Him or not.

Re:What's wrong with...

[vidarh]

People are free to choose what to believe, but that's no excuse for teaching superstition in science classes.

There's a near infinite supply of "alternative" theories from crackpots. You can't teach them all, or even a small fraction. What makes creationism worth mentioning?

Unless someone has presented a testable hypothesis there's simply no reason or excuse for presenting it in science classes other than as part of a discussion on how to spot why the theories are not scientific.

Re:Cheap Smear

[SatanicPuppy]

I love how everyone who has a crackpot theory thinks they're Galileo. The truth of it is, if there had been a real scientific community around Galileo, they'd have agreed with him. His evidence was sound.

There is zero evidence for ID. None. The only arguments I've ever heard in favor of it were arguments against "DE" as you call it, or Evolution as the rest of the world refers to it. Darwin wouldn't recognize much more than the shell of it, these days. He laid the groundwork, but there has been a lot of building since then.

Basically all ID arguments come down to the following: "Evolution doesn't explain X. X is either irreducible or too complex to have come about 'by accident'. Therefore ID is correct, and God exists."

This is not proof. This is not science...It's actually a fallacy: the argument from ignorance. In many cases, the ID objection isn't even rational. ID has no falsifiable hypothesis, it has no positive evidence supporting it. It's not science, by any definition of science I have ever heard.

I always ask, "Do you have any rational, positive evidence to support ID?" And the answer is always no. I have never heard a single thing that wasn't either negative, or trivial. Maybe this will be the first time.

Re:government defined science

[localman]

Many of the advancements to science can be considered outside of what is considered "science" at the time.

I don't think that's accurate. Those advancements were outside of what science people wanted to hear (like the earth going around the sun) but they were still perfectly within the realm of science. Science has nothing to do with majority rule, personal preferences, or what sounds reasonable. Science is about testable theories; theories that help us predict the future. Even if every scientist in the world hates a new discovery, it's still science if it is a testable theory with the ability to make predictions. This is why science is fundamentally different than religion. It's a subtle but critical difference that nearly all ID proponents fail to grasp.

Cheers.

Re:Pascal's Wager

[SETIGuy]

Isn't it sufficient enough for these science types to believe in god because it is a "safe bet?"

Athiesm IS the safe bet.

OK, lets suppose you believe in a god. Which pisses your god off more, not believing in any gods, or believing in one of his competitors?

Now place your bet. Which god are you going to believe in? Now, if you're like most people you'll choose the one you were indoctrinated to believe in. In the history of the world, far more people have not believed in your god than have. Even right now more people don't believe in your god than do.

Better do your research. You'd better read up on all the gods that have ever been worshipped to make sure you pick the right one. Assuming you only choose a single one and that there is only one god, rather than a pantheon, your chances are probably about 1 in 10,000 you'll get it right. You'll waste a good fraction of your life on this fruitless search. That's pretty high stakes in this bet.

You would think that an all powerful god would make the choice obvious. If you think the choice is obvious, feel free to stand on a box in St. Peters Basilica, at the great mosque in Mecca, at the temple of Tirupati, at the Wailing Wall, any of the thousands of temples to the god you didn't pick, and explain to them why they picked the wrong god. If you picked the right one, I'm sure he will protect you. After all, there are no true believers in a foxhole, because what would a true believer need a foxhole for?

Since the choice isn't obvious, more logical assumption is that either there isn't a god, or he doesn't give a damn who you worship or even if you worship.

Read Kissing Hank's Ass for an alternative look at Pascal's wager.

Darwinism = scientific method applied by nature

[victorvodka]

The problem with attacks on Darwinian science is that they are done from the perspective of someone who accepts an ancient text as flawless received wisdom. Such a person assumes that we in the scientific community also accept our received wisdom (The Origin of Species, for example) as flawless. But no, we realize that Darwin didn't have all the facts or all that many fossils, that science builds upon the shoulders of giants instead of believing that all of reality was revealed at some point in the distant past. Darwinism looks at nature and sees it performing the scientific method (experiments, paradigm abandonment, etc.) to achieve its ends, even as it itself undergoes these forces. I wrote about this at length here:

the Authoritarian Model of Information Value

Re:'Cause I gotta have faith, faith, faith...

[aibrahim]

for example, I have faith that the person who put together the periodic table of elements in my chemistry class did so correctly. We wouldn't get very far if we didn't have faith of that sort, because it's beyond any of us to build our entire knowledge base from the ground up.

Well, I have trouble with this part of your statement. You see, if you learned the lessons of your high school chemistry class properly, then you should be able to construct the periodic table on your own. At least a good portion of the table. I don't recall at this moment if high school chemistry covers enough material for you to understand how to arrange the lanthanides and actinides... but I digress.

I don't care if you remember the periodic table. I care that you understand electron configuration and the concept of the valence shell. If you get that, which is a large chunk of the course material of an introduction to chemistry, then you can reconstruct the bulk of the periodic table, including entries for elements you can't remember or have no exposure to. In fact, you can construct your own alternative periodic table if you so wish to emphasize different aspects of the elemental properties.

My main point is that even such a simple pronouncement as "here is the periodic table," should be understandable and re-creatable by the student of science. That's why so many proofs in math are left as an exercise for the reader/student. It is important that you be able to carry through the reasoning yourself, important that you draw your own conclusions.

This is how science differs from faith.

Re:Both are theories

[jjohnson]

The fact that both are theories does not make them equally plausible scientifically. I'd rather my kids studied the best theory science can offer, not the minority view that's propped up by 'scientific' propoganda institutes with overtly religious funding.

And contempt in equal measure.

[PackRat Q. Winnebago]

The point that the parent was attempting to make is that other species are designed not to need all this intellectual baggage we drag around with us. They can still accomplish the three prime objectives of life (eat, breed, die), and never waste a moment sitting and agonizing over the wording of their slashdot posts.

Re:ID

[misleb]

Conversely, the theories that are most easily disprovable are most likely to turn to be false

Awesome. So guess my theory that there are unicorns somewhere in this galaxy is probably true because it isn't very disprovable.

I recognize I am using 'disprovable' in a more literal sense than you mean. However, even more broadly, ID is disprovable if you can prove that another theory (like DE) actually occured.

So ID is true until proven false but any other theory is false until proven true? Is that how this works? ID proponents can just sit back and claim ID is true with every one else has to do the actual scientific legwork?

I wish I had you for a science teacher. I could make up any theory and it would be true by default... as long as it wasn't disprovable! And I wouldn't have to do any actual research. I'd just tell the rest of the students to prove THEIR theories to be true. And if they couldn't do so to my satisfaction, I'd get an A!

-matthew

Re:Libertarianism

[Copid]

Isn't anyone here the least bit concerned about the whole government-declaring-what-is-or-isn't-science thing? I thought there were more libertarians here. But I guess most everyone supports giving the government more authority as long as it is pushing through their preferred policy positions.

Well, they could just choose things willy-nilly to toss into science classes. A recipe for awesome guacamole here, some trivia about Ben Stiller there, and maybe a little shot of Civil War reenactments with period dress.

Seriously, though, this sort of thing should be important to libertarians. People keep trying to get ID into classrooms, and because it's basically dressed up religious apologetics, they are (rightly) taken to court (or at least challenged in the policy making body) over it. They defend their idea by saying, "It's not (just) religion! It's also science! Lookie here at this book that used to be a creationism tract but now has the words 'Intelligent Design' in it!" An argument ensues over whether it's really being introduced based on scientific merit or whether it's just a lame trick. Typically, ID is (rightly) tossed on its ass. Libertarians should not be afraid of this process because the alternative is the slow decay of science education brought about by people who would rather have their preferred deity pushed by the government than confined to churches and private life.

A scientifically complete model isn't enough

[Myria]

I should say that I would consider a scientifically complete model of the universe that includes no "extra" variables to be a sufficient proof.

Such a model would not be enough to disprove the existence of God. For the universe inside Super Mario Brothers, there exists a scientifically-complete model; it happens to be 40960 octets long. However, when I hex edit a saved state, I am the god of that universe. I can modify the state of the game at will, without modifying the rules. Despite a self-consistent and fully-accurate model of the universe, God exists and can perform miracles.

Similarly, a god of our universe would be able to create objects without regard to the standard rules, and discovering those rules would not disprove her existence.

Note that I'm an atheist. I just want to make sure the logic on all sides is valid.

Re:'Cause I gotta have faith, faith, faith...

[Copid]

So let's look at how humans should behave according to darwin ... they should be trying to steal and kill from eachother ... and we all know what that leads to. That attitude does indeed exist, but it destroys economies, and creates misery beyond belief, especially for the people that should have gotten stronger, according to darwin.

I don't think that Darwin ever suggested that.

However Darwin predicts the reverse. It should create happiness, "better" humans, etc. If WOII (or Somalia, or one of the many revolutions in South America, or the general state of the muslim world, or ... take your pick) proved anything, it's that apparently there's a little problem here.

You're defining "better" in a way that's not particularly relevant to biological evolution.

I can't figure out why people want to use evolution as a theory that describes how we should behave rather than how we got here. Nobody claims that we should drop bags of hammers on people because gravity causes them to fall and they "should" be allowed to fall.