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Louisiana Passes Intelligent Design Law
H0D_G writes "The US state of Louisiana has passed the 'Science Education Act,' a piece of legislation that could allow Intelligent design to be taught in schools. From the article: 'The act is designed to slip ID in "through the back door"'"
There's no need to be a "Bible-belt" politician - a simple politician will do.
It seems that in Louisiana the Bible thumpers have gained some pretty big influence, if the 94-3 and unanimous votes mean anything. A veto would have no chance to stand, so Jindal took the easy way out and signed the law.
However, he might have lost a lot in the process. By not challenging the majority, he just stands in the middle of the mainstream. If he had vetoed the law, he would have stood as a voice for reason. He might have lost the next election, but he's liable to lose it anyhow, since he seems to be indistinguishable from at least 94 other politicians.
Evolution is both a theory and a fact. (un)Intelligent design is pile of crap sugar coated to look like science. It is not a valid scientific hypothesis because it doesn't have an valid data or methodologies to back it up. I don't know what state or school you were taught in, but in most classes I have attended, the focus isn't on the theory but on how and why the conclusion was reached, it a sad day when politic have driven education to put the focus on the conclusion rather than how the conclusion was reached.
Well, given how badly misreported this law has been, I'm not surprised that you misunderstood it.
All this law does is provide legal protection for teachers to tech "alternate views" to the Theory of Evolution. It is NOT exclusively restricted to ID teaching. This could, logically, also include FSM theory. So don't worry, be Happy! Teachers in LA can now ALSO tell children about the Noodly beginnings of humanity in addition to other creationist teachings.
Seriously, this really is much ado about nothing. It's just an anti-stupid lawsuit law, to protect teachers who simply ACKNOWLEDGE the fact that not everyone believes ToE is correct. That's it, nothing more, no matter what the militant Atheist sites and D-Kos may say.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
I hear this excuse for ID all the time. "We need to teach both, for the children to have a well rounded education".
I'll meet them half way. Go ahead teach your ID in schools, For The Children. And because we care so much that the children receive both sides of the story, you start teaching evolution in Sunday School. After all, it's for the sake of the children.
While I agree with you, teaching philosophy in science class is not the way to achieve critical thinking.
ID is a philosophy, and not an alternative scientific theory. As such, I have no problem with it being taught - just with it being taught in science class.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
That's the real problem. We need to teach critical thinking so that people can recognize the morons when they see them.
No sig today...
So, should we also protect teachers who simply ACKNOWLEDGE the fact that not everyone believes the Earth is round?
A teacher's job is not to tell the children what some people believe, his job is to teach what is known to be the most accurate theory in existence.
As for teaching alternative views, I have nothing against that, as long as they are presented exactly as that: alternative. If a teacher presents the "ID" theory in class, it should be shown why ID is not a reasonable alternative to evolution. Children should be aware that ID exists, because they will find it mentioned outside of class, but they should be aware that a well-informed and intelligent person would have absolutely no doubt that evolution is the correct alternative.
Public school teachers have no right to teach "alternate views" based on mythology and superstition. If a chemistry teacher starts teaching alchemy, they should be fired for incompetence. Same goes for a science teacher trying to teach Intelligent Design.
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I find it very, very frustrating when the state legislature decides the particulars of what I should teach in the classroom. This bill does not specifically force me, a LA teacher, to teach ID, or the mythical status of global warming, but it does represent law makers meddling in an area they are not experts.
This would be like the legislature directing doctors on the proper methods of suturing a wound, or instructing how to treat a form of cancer. Doctors wouldn't stand for that for more than a second because they are highly trained professionals that know how to do their job. Teachers are also highly trained professionals that know how to do their job without the state meddling directly in the goings on of the classroom.
The new law does not force teachers to teach ID, only makes it acceptable to teach ID as science. This bothers me. This bothers me almost more than I can stand. ID is NOT science. Science is a process of developing TESTABLE theories that can checked and re-checked for error. Until someone creates a litmus test for God, ID is completely unprovable. One might also argue that there is a giant invisible, undetectable yet all powerful beetle that pushes the earth around the sun. If we can't create a test that supports a theory, it's NOT a theory (nor is it science), it's just a nice story.
As a science teacher, my job is to teach science. I teach how to do science, not just words and definitions. I can't even begin to teach ID as science because it is not testable. I teach science as a method of answering questions through experiment and analysis of result. There is no way to do this reliably or reproducibly with ID because God doesn't settle down into a test tube very well.
Let's keep ID where it belongs, in religion classes, not in the science lab. Science and religion are not mutually exclusive. Science answers questions about the knowable and testable. If it doesn't fit into that category, then it probably fits into religion or philosophy. It is very silly to try and use science to influence religion and even sillier to try and use religion to do science.
This one's tricky. You have to use imaginary numbers, like eleventeen... --Hobbes
What I find weird about these first few comments is that Catholics have nothing to do with intelligent design. It's a born-again thing, and they utterly hate Catholics.
And you've assigned the blame to a small sect in the Roman catholic church, when there's small sects in nearly all religious groups that don't practice what they preach.
I'm sure I'll be modded flamebait or troll, but this is a serious question. I really want to know.
Is there any sect of Christianity that practices what it preaches?
For example, do the old testament rules apply or not? When it suits their agenda, the old testament is the unerring word of god. When they want a ham sandwich, the old laws don't apply any more; they've been superseded by the new testament.
Wow, troll? Is there really someone who missed the whole Catholic priest scandal?
To mods: I wasn't implying that all Catholic priests are pedophiles... sheesh!
It was a good question to pose. We naturally assume the priesthood to be of good intention.. if we never question the priesthood, it is, as you posited, a perfect place for pedophiles to infiltrate. Much akin to the idea of the creation of the world.. if we don't seriously question the biblical idea, it leaves the door open for the wrong idea to be implanted by fools posing as religious authorities.
perl -e "eval pack(q{H*},join q{},qw{70 72696e74207061636b28717b482a7d2c717b343 637323635363534323533343430617d293b})"
Why don't the IDers slip in a different spin:
./big-bang ...
~/god# make
~/god#
** universe created
** planet Earth instantiated
** animal life evolving
** humans emerging
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
First, I highly recommend you read "Finding Darwin's God" by Dr. Ken Miller for an interesting treatise on the interplay between the realms of science and faith.
But more than that I recommend that rather than shoehorning the idea of spiritual faith into an idea of science you accept that for most people faith has little to do with making a metaphorical reference to natural phenomenon. It may turn out that you're precisely correct - that the idea of 'God' is best equated to the idea of the 'Universe as a whole'.
It may be - and probably is - that spiritual faith has little to do with 'using scientific tools' at all. It doesn't have to do with equations or with rigorous processes. Indeed, if you compare the modern conception of science to Buddhism's Noble Eight-fold Path, it fits pretty well into step five; begging the question of what the others are, or are for?
Traditionally the answer to that has been a very personal one. But I encourage you to recognize that while you can say that science is a way of examining God, this is not true for all people - that spirituality has little to do with the explanation of the material experience. Until there is that general acceptance there will be a great deal to fight about.
[Ego]out
Because it's not true. Most of those who use the term use it to mean a man with a beard who wears a white dress, lives in the sky, and can do magic.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
ID is not a theory. Please stop perverting that word. A "theory" is a scientific term for a model that is backed by evidence, has not been rejected by evidence, and is falsifiable.
/rant.
ID is NOT backed by evidence and is NOT falsifiable, thus it is NOT a theory. It is a belief. Evolution can be proved wrong. ID cannot be.
Of course, nothing in science is ever proven correct either, we just teach the best model we have and work from there. If someone discovers a better model, the current one gets replaced. Keep ID where it belongs: in a comparative religion or philosophy course. It is not science.
ID has no place in any science curriculum. It has just as much place as Last Thursdayism or FSMism.
Back to the question of ID, I think schools should offer both teachings. Neither are provable as correct or incorrect, they are both theories, but the students should be allowed to decide what they believe in and what makes sense to them.
You can't teach ID as science, because it is not science. If you'll teach it, teach it in theology along with the other creation myths, where it belongs.