Slashdot Mirror
College Credits For Trolling the Web?
Jafafa Hots writes "Some undergraduate and masters level courses at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary require trolling as part of their requirements.
In William Dembski's classes on Intelligent Design and Christian Apologetics, 20% of the final grades come from having made 10 posts defending Intelligent Design Creationism on 'hostile' websites.
There seems to be no requirement that the posts contain original writing; apparently cut-and-paste jobs are sufficient. Is this the first case of trolling the net being part of course requirements?"
Do you get extra credit if it's a first post?
And the masses cried out, "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0!"
Wait, wait, wait... You're telling me that a Christian, theological seminary actually has a class that involves defending the tenets of the school's beliefs? This is an outrage!
In my independent study class, I search out intelligent design posts and make fun of them.
Sheesh, some people have to be told everything.
... I suppose it's a D- and a career at Burger King...
As long as the students fully disclose that they are doing this for a class requirement, this could be a good thing, for the students, for the school, and for anyone participating in the resulting discussion.
It can be a good thing for students, to expose them to real-world reactions - both civil and less than civil - to their posts. It can train them to make their posts in non-trollish manner. It may also expose them to ideas they would not have otherwise considered.
It can be good for the school and professor when the school gets feedback from others involved in the discussions and from websites.
It can be good for those participating and reading the discussions because THEY may be exposed to ideas they would not otherwise consider.
It's one thing to have an idea, study opposing ideas, then confirm your belief in your original idea. It's another to blindly accept an idea and refuse to think about or even expose yourself to other ideas. Such willful blindness is bad for individuals and, on a larger scale, bad for society.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
...if they ever get the feeling that they are wasting their time?
FOXTROT UNIFORM CHARLIE KILO
I'm not trolling, I'm _evangilizing_ . Time to wreck my karma with a mess of '-1 Evangilist' mods.
No accredited university should be requiring students to make public statements defending specific ideas under ANY situation, trolling or not. If this seminary is not receiving public funding, them I'm perfectly fine with them requiring any crazy shit they want to, but I don't think the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) should be accrediting them as an academic institution (this isn't the first time SACS's rather lax standards have been called into question--over a variety of issues). Students should retain their rights to their own opinions in any respectable academic setting, be they a liberal in a accredited seminary or a conservative at Berkley. If a professors wants to get up in class and rant about their beliefs, that's fine--but they WAY cross the line when they require (or even attempt to coerce) students to affirm those ideas themselves.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Only if you consider clown college and hamburger school to be real educational institutions
I mean, if you go to a nut job school, trying to learn how to be a real nut job, the fact that they have to turn you into a troll first should come as no surprise.
Superstitious idiots are going to be around as long as there are cockroaches. Those of us with brains will just have to learn how to live with it.
RAID doesn't even work all that well.
Intelligent design and (young earth) creationism are in general rather distinct, although the rather large differences are sometimes blurred both by proponents trying to gather support and by opponents who want to simply ridicule both groups instead of trying to reason with them. In order to argue effectively against either of them, you must first identify which of the viewpoints the other party is proposing. Otherwise you just end up talking past one another, which is OK for scoring points with the peanut gallery but does nothing to advance the debate.
(I guess someone will argue that there is no point reasoning with either group. However, in any public forum there will often be someone who is prepared to listen to a carefully constructed argument. On the other hand, this is the internet.)
The Easter Bunny should be discussed in school science lessons rather than dismissed, says the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
"If pupils have strongly-held family beliefs about the Easter Bunny, such ideas should be explored," said Prof William Dembski (D.D, Ph. D. [P.T. Barnum University mail-order]). "Easterbunnyism, Santaclausism or the contemporary militant Tooth Fairy jihadist movement are best seen by science teachers not as a misconception but as a world view. This is more valuable than simply banging on about 'reality.' Reality-based thinking is vastly overrated and certainly won't prepare children for a career in Wall Street or in government."
Simon Underdown of Oxford Brookes University disagreed. "With so much to be crammed into science lessons, it is not a worthwhile use of time to include lessons on Easterbunnyism. We have monthly standardised testing to coach pupils on."
Professor Richard Dawkins is working on a childrenâ(TM)s text on useful ways to quickly construct street-corner gallows and burning stakes for rehabilitation of the religious.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Many if not most seminaries won't grant you don't actually believe what they are teaching. After all, most seminary graduate go off to become preachers and other religious teachers.
Undergraduate school is ideally designed to teach you to think.
Many/most/maybe all seminaries are designed to filter in those who think like the school wants them to and give them the education necessary to propagate their beliefs to others.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Learn from the best.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
They just don't exclude trolling from the permitted ways of achieving the course requirements.
But they are Christians. They should troll the ancient Yule tide carol.
You know, when you make assumptions like that without actually checking the facts, you're not helping.
From their site:
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (1866 Southern Lane, Decatur, GA 30033, Telephone: 404-679-4500) to award bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees.
The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools is a regional accreditation agency recognized by the DOE.
We might not like the fact that they are accredited (and they're aren't lying either, I looked it up), but that doesn't make it not true.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
That underlines the basic problem with fundamentalism in religion- it is anti-creativity and anti-intellectual and very proud of it. Of course copying and pasting the 'argument' is just fine because unlike most institutions of learning, theirs teaches students not to think for themselves.
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
Disclaimer: I'm an ordained minister with a Masters of Divinity (Seminary) and a Ph.D. in New Testament (Public University).
You need to remember that seminarys are strange animals academically. The degree of academic freedom runs the gamete from little (fundamentalist schools) to a great deal (liberal seminaries). However, in almost all there is at least a set of shared convictions that are held by all, or almost all, students and faculty. Even at the most liberal, it's sort of assumed that you at least believe in God, or why are you there? Seminaries are professional schools for training pastors, not academic institutions.
SBTS is part of the "new" SBC, and so is basically fundamentalist in outlook, and virtually all students and faculty will be fundamentalist in outlook. If they weren't, they would have gone somewhere else. It's not unreasonable to assume that most students are going to hold to an ID or Creationist point of view.
Moreover, this course is almost certainly an elective, so no student is required to take it. Even then, speaking as someone who is basically Anabaptist theologically who went to a school where none of the professors were Anabaptist, all my professors were quite flexible. They had no problem with me writing from what one called my "peculiar viewpoint" so long as I did so respectfully and rigorously. I imagine a student that really had a problem for this requirement would be able to get out of it.
Last, Bill Dembski is a smart guy (I've met him), although I don't always agree with him. I rather doubt he would give full credit for "CREATI0N1SM R0X, SUX0RZ!"
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Do not mistake the unaccredited bible school "Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary" for a "College" please.
Look, they were right next to each other. Anyone could make that mistake.
This tagline is copyrighted material. Please send $10 for an affordable replacement.
I was ready to give it the benefit of the doubt - after all, religion without ministry is just jerking off your soul - until I read this gem:
Jeepers, you might as well just write "I spent a full 24 hours giving myself paper cuts with the book while chanting the Lord's Prayer, so I felt I'd leveled up and skipped actually writing the 'reflection.'"
And they keep saying the word "critical review". I do not think that means what they think it means. I think they'd find any actual "critical" writing to be... Suppressive.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
... as the NO U college.
Ever try to matriculate from a SACS bible school? Their accreditation through SACS is absolutely worth nothing at all. I should have made my original comment longer.
Back in the day, you could get a knighthood for attempting to sack Jerusalem in the name of Christianity -- presumably including killing people. If we're down to online trolling, that's a good thing.
If you take the act of posting on a message board, especially one as hostile to religion as Slashdot, and consider it less an act of trolling but one of encouraging discussion, then encouraging thoughtful posts creates an opportunity for the student to have his beliefs challenged and subsequently shaped. Only through adversity do people really learn who they are.
Besides, we're talking about Science here, not "Biblical Creationism" as such. The idea that the Earth was created in 6 literal days replete with "faith-challenging" dino fossils and other fairy tales is the story that Evolutionists spread as Intelligent Design dogma. It shows a very big gap in their knowledge of the ID field which is quite a bit less dogmatic about the 6 day theory and much more in tune with mainstream scientific method.
What ID brings to the table is a new reexamination of facts. Why are clam fossils at the top of very young mountains? What is the evolutionary progression of DNA? Why are there still discrepancies in the geologic and biologic record where we would expect certain types of data but find none? ID brushes away the dogma of science and brings the scientific method back to it.
But that's not to say that it isn't also flawed. Many of the scientists involved with ID hold very religious views which may cause them to insert God into areas they do not yet understand. The "God in the Gaps" folks. Luckily, most ID scientists are able to put their personal biases away for the sake of good science.
The other problem with ID is also prevalent in fields such as homeopathy and supernatural research. The attempt to address the issues at hand with a completely open mind leads to bad conclusions. Sometimes the established scientific theory is just fine and doesn't need reevaluation. So when ID scientists start questioning things that don't need questioning, they come off looking like crackpots. However, their search for science is no less deeply held and their methods are no less scientific than mainstream scientists.
Happy shiny people come by my house to troll in person from time to time. I find that WAY more annoying than trolling on websites such as this where we all can have a good laugh at them. When they ring my doorbell (despite a no soliciting sign in the neighborhood), I now have to deal with my dogs and stopping what I'm doing. Trolling on one of these boards doesn't interrupt my morning breakfast or a good wank etc. So to me, if this replaces the door to door brainwashing service it's a good thing (TM).
Sheldon
This is not Apologetics, even when using original material. The tipping point is the "hostile websites" requirement. If a town doesn't want to listen, kick the dust off your sandals and move on.
...and that'll blow the uni off the net for a while, i think :)
Synecdoche: a term denoting a specific class of thing is used to refer to a larger, more general class
RAID doesn't even work all that well.
Works for me ;) Every time a disk fails I replace it and all is good. Haven't needed to load my backup tapes yet.
Superstitious idiots are going to be around as long as there are cockroaches.
Um, no. Cockroaches will become extinct at some point (possibly evolving into a new more intelligent species) and superstitious idiots will still be around. Hopefully our new cockroach-based friends are more interesting to talk to.
I drink to make other people interesting!
The term "Intelligent Design Creationism" seems to me a little unhelpful.
Intelligent design and (young earth) creationism are in general rather distinct, although the rather large differences are sometimes blurred both by proponents trying to gather support and by opponents who want to simply ridicule both groups instead of trying to reason with them.
No. Creationists who disguise themselves as scientists call themselves "intelligent design proponents", IDers are just dishonest creationists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Pandas_and_People#Pandas_and_.22cdesign_proponentsists.22
The term "creationists" was changed to "design proponents", but in one case the beginning and end of the original word "creationists" were accidentally retained, so that "creationists" became "cdesign proponentsists".
The basic metabolic pathways (reaction chains) of nearly all organisms are the same. Is this because of descent from a common ancestor, or because only these pathways (and their variations) can sustain life? Evolutionists think the former is correct, cdesign proponentsists accept the latter view.
You can't take the sky from me...
They are being told to go to websites that are "hostile" to intelligent design, and post material that in support of it -- not necessarily original material. They are not required to take part in an actual discussion. If posting material that everyone on a forum can be expected to disagree with, and then not bothering to stay around to defend your views any further than that, does not quality as "trolling," then I do not know what does.
Palm trees and 8
Exactly. That the author of this article suggests that trolling is required makes the article poster a troll. How ironic.
The directive is to make ID arguments in, quote, hostile websites. They are to look for forums where they know ID is not going to be kindly received and they must defend it in the face of the likely shitstorm of responses. What do we call someone who posts something in a bbs/forum/website that is certain to generate controversy? Oh yea, we call it "trolling". The author of this article was 100% spot-on.
I may be the first (and only) poster to defend the professor in the article, but here goes.
It is a course at a Baptist Seminary in Intelligent Design and Christian Apologetics. From Wikipedia:
These people are studying to be ministers in a religion. One of their roles is to defend their faith and its tenets. Given the position of the Internet in the world today, how could anyone say they are qualified to do that without having done work on the internet? And, since the focus is on defense of those tenets, the best place to practice that is on hostile websites. So I believe the assignment is appropriate to the course aims.
Note that I am not a Baptist (RC here), I think ID (except as a philosophical experiment) is creationism in disguise, and trolls irritate me too. But lets face it - who here hasn't trolled in order to tweak someone or start a flamewar? Hell, the folks on Slashdot practically invented some forms of trolling (Goatse, anyone?).
So, instead of excoriating the professor, we should invite his students onto here and "help" them with their studies.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
If you read the article, you'll see that they don't require "discussion" of any kind:
"provide at least 10 posts defending ID that youâ(TM)ve made on âoehostileâ websites, the posts totalling 2,000 words, along with the URLs (i.e., web links) to each post (worth 20% of your grade)."
The only thing this kind of sociopathic requirement causes is hit-and-run troll posts.
Also:
"What ID brings to the table is a new reexamination of facts."
This is wrong. Scientists already reexamine facts constantly. ID does not add anything useful to the discussion, because it postulates a "theory" that can neither be proven nor disproven, and doesn't make any kinds of useful predictions. That's like saying "postulating sock gnomes requires you to reexamine the facts of where you left your socks yesterday." It doesn't.
And finally:
"The other problem with ID is also prevalent in fields such as homeopathy and supernatural research. The attempt to address the issues at hand with a completely open mind leads to bad conclusions."
That, again, is wrong. Scientists are required to have a completely open mind when it comes to everything, even homeopathy. This is precisely why we have useful studies in which scientists tested the claims made by homeopathy and other "alternative" medicine. It's also why we know which of these things work, and which don't.
The ones who don't have an open mind are the people who still believe homeopathy works. Their closed-mindedness makes them unable to accept the evidence.
The directive is to make ID arguments in, quote, hostile websites.
Why don't they do something easier, like question President Obama's economic policies or the wisdom of a Governmental takeover of the health care system on a site like Daily Kos? At least then you'd be arguing a position in a hostile environment that may have merit -- there isn't much merit to ID and arguing it is the rough equivalent of the 9/11 truthers or the whackjobs that think Obama isn't a native born American citizen.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
What ID brings to the table is a new reexamination of facts.
What ID brings is a rebranding of creationism to make it APPEAR similar to science. It's creationism, with less honesty.
You can't take the sky from me...
This is nothing to do with theology. The examples quoted make it clear that this is a political issue. One of the most depressing things for people like me, who went to a small university in the English fens before deciding that engineering was more interesting and of more benefit to the human race, is that US fundamentalists completely confuse politics and religion. The madness is spreading to the Anglican Church in the UK, where Nigerian politics is now more important than good relations with the Episcopalians.
US fundamentalism takes the form of assigning religious worth to capitalism - if God loves you, you will be materially rich - and also aligns itself with backward notions about Creationism and ID which are more about trying to prove liberals "wrong" than spreading light. The simple fact is that it requires really determined blinkers to believe either that Bible literalism has very deep roots (certainly St. Augustine would have wondered what these people were on about) or that the enormous body of information about geology and biology built up in the last 200 years admits of a fundamentalist interpretation.
To be blunt, if these seminaries were doing their jobs they would be teaching pastoral care, teaching how the New Testament (rather than some cherry picked collection of political positions) can be made relevant today, and preparing their students to heal wounds in society and reduce polarisation between social groups. Instead, they appear to be giving course credits for less violent versions of the activities that give the Taliban a bad name.
You say that seminaries are schools for training pastors, and I agree they should be. But we should then not defend "seminaries" that are training schools for bigoted ideologues who will seek to stir up division in society and spread ignorance. If this man Dembski cannot see why he is wrong on this, he needs to be hit on the head with the Sermon on the Mount till he gets a clue.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Disclaimer: Christian Electrical Engineering Student
I would like to point out that "RichardDawkins.net" is definitely presenting one side of this story, and anyone who takes a brief look at the site can tell which side that is. This is a philosophy course they're referencing and if you look at the tests you'll notice that the questions are just like any philosophy course. They ask you to explain/argue both sides of an issue (one of the test questions even says argue against ID).
Speaking as a student, this is actually a brilliant form of instruction. What better way to make you understand and can use the material you've been taught then to have you defend it against people who will purposely be attacking it vehemently. This course is titled Intelligent Design so I would expect students to learn enough about it to defend it on some level. Why take the course if you're not going to learn the reasoning behind the subject matter.
Also, to everyone who has said that students shouldn't be given an assignment that makes them present/defend a viewpoint outside of their own. Try taking an english class sometime with a christian viewpoint. The stuff they require you to read and write about definitely does NOT fall within my viewpoint most of the time.
Back in the day, you could get a knighthood for attempting to sack Jerusalem in the name of Christianity -- presumably including killing people. If we're down to online trolling, that's a good thing.
Alas, we're not just down to trolling (and that's been going on, in one form or another, since the Inquisition, probably earlier). Killing people over petty religious differences about what the fairy in the sky wants us to do, or how we're supposed to abase ourselves before him, or mistreat our wives and daughters, or whatever is very much alive and well. If you're a medical doctor specializing in women's medicine and willing to provide an abortion, your life as as good as foreit in large swathes of the United States. Of course, you'll have trouble finding such a physician in most of the US, because they've been terrorized out of their clinics, their homes, their communties, and often their careers.
Unruly mobs are already being stirred up to shout down and intimidate our elected officials for daring to consider something most of the industrialized world already has and relies on with great (albeit certainly not perfect) success: national healthcare.
At least one news anchor on Fox has publicly suggested killing the speaker of the house with poison (under the guise of humor, but in a way bound to incite the nutjobs that hang off Fox News' every word).
As for sacking a city on the basis of religion, have you taken a look at Bagdad lately, or forgotten how our then-president Bush claimed to be on a "crusade" and that he spoke with God prior to ordering the invasion.
I'm not so sure things have gotten any better. So far the US has been insulated from the consiquences of our leaders' actions (9/11 notwithstanding), but that is unlikely to continue in even the medium, and certainly not in the long run. And certainly, from the view of much of the rest of the world, it's highly debatable whether the US' actions are any better than those of any other maurading, plundering nation.
Try listing all the countries we've either invaded or bombed over the least twenty-five years or so. You'll find the list surprisingly long (and you'll notice this is all POST Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos, so it hardly includes our most dramatic actions of the last half century). It's profoundly depressing to discover what an out of control bully we've become. But hey, we can keep telling ourselves we're "the best in the world!" and make sure not to listen to the rest of the planet that knows better. Of course, that means we won't be able to benefit from the experiences of others (like the many nations with working and thriving national healthcare systems), but that's a small price to pay for "being the best."
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
These people make an unpopular argument for an opinion they themselves support, with the intent to discuss the topic. A troll would choose an unpopular position that is typically not his own, with the intent to rile up people. It's not trolling if you're interested in a discussion, even if the actual result is name calling and flames. A good troll post is indistinguishable from an honest opinion. That doesn't turn every unpopular opinion into a trolling.
But the syllabus doesn't require discussion. It merely requires 10 posts. You could hit 10 different web sites on a Saturday afternoon and do that with very little thought or preparation, and then it's Miller Time. If Dr. Dembski wants discussion, he/she needs to say so because many students will do as little as they think they can get away with - which is not something to be encouraged or condoned, but it is the reality and something one should account for.
That definition of trolling is a bit narrow. Yes, not holding the opinions you're stating can be a form of trolling, but I think the key part is "intent to rile up."
Even if you believe what you're saying, you ARE trolling if you seek out hostile audiences for your unpopular opinions with the sole purpose of riling them up. I think the question here is "are these people trying to rile others up?" Because I'm guessing, coming from some Baptist degree mill, that they think their tripe will actually change people's minds.
Still, I think they're trolls. Ignorantia juris non excusat applies in matters of the law, it stands to reason it should prevail on the internet as well.
As I am a Christian who believes in Intelligent Design, please allow me this as an opportunity to defend my brothers. I hold that whether the SBTS requires trolling depends rather strongly on the definition of trolling. I found the following on Wikipedia.
In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional or disciplinary response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.
Since Wikipedia's main focus is on people who disrupt Wikipedia, and not at all with ID per se I claim that Wikipedia's definition is neutral and sufficient. Now, as I parse it, meeting the definition of "troll" rests on four prongs. First, the troll must make a post. Second, the troll's post must be controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant, or off-topic. Third, the troll's post must be in an online community. And fourth, the troll's primary intent must be to provoke other users into an emotional or disciplinary response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.
I think the fist prong is passed pretty easily, at least if the summary is to be believed. For the second prong, I judge the posts to be controversial, non-inflammatory, relevant, and on-topic. Since "or" is the connective then the second prong is passed as well. The third prong is passed also, since "'hostile' websites" is approximately the same as "online community". I believe it fails, however, on the fourth prong. I believe the students' primary intent is either to get a satisfactory grade in the class or to learn. I believe the teacher's primary intent is to teach his students. Now, obviously, the result of the posts MAY be the provocation of emotional or disciplinary responses or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion. However, Wikipedia's definition didn't state that such was the result. It stated only that such must be the troll's primary intent. Since a concept must meet all its prongs prongs to meet the definition, I claim that the only possible conclusion is that these are not trolls, and this is not the fist case of trolling the net being part of course requirements.
-Loyal
I aim to misbehave.
I'm not the biggest fan of Richard Dawkins. I'm an Atheist and yes, Evolution is the only explanation for biodiversity on Earth but that doesn't mean I think people should be ridiculed for their beliefs.
His attacks on Intelligent design serve as a front for him to attack religion as a whole. He spreads the myth that religion and evolution can't be compatible (why exactly could it not be argued that god designed life with the capability to mutate?) to attack religion whilst using "I'm just debating the science" defence when called on it.
His hard line approach makes Atheists as a whole look like intolerant arses and I don't want to be associated with it. Even science, even though it is evidence based, does rely on a certain amount of faith (that earlier theories are correct, that scientists in fields you're not familiar with are correct). Yes science changes over time but so does religion. There are plenty of laws based on questionable religious principles but there are equally plenty of laws based on questionable science.
I've tried to spend some time examing the scientific evidence for the age of the universe and the evidence for evolution. I've come to the conclusion that the Universe most likely is Billions of years old, because there are just too many things that can't reasonably be explained simply by the idea that God created the Universe 6 or 10 thousand years ago (if he did, why bother making the universe have bizarre things that otherwise would indicate a very old universe).
However, looking at the amazing complexities of life, I still feel that given the long odds, the 'completely random permutation moderated by natural selection' isn't wholly sufficient to explain all life either. So, I fall into the camp of those who believe in God, believe that he had a plan when creating the Universe to cause life to arise on Earth (and possibly elsewhere; the Bible neither excludes the possibility, nor indicates it positively, and science has yet to find evidence of life elsewhere, but allows and renders it likely).
I believe he used a mechanism of evolution in 'creating' life on earth, but I think it's also possible that he fine-tuned the Universe to overcome the 'long odds' that would otherwise be against the random generation of life and rise of very complex organisms. That's not to say he was constantly intervening in evolution. If God is all knowing and all powerful, then it's perfectly plausible that he fine tuned everything from the start of the big bang such that from that point on, everything would happen that was necessary for life to arise somewhere in the Universe.
Am I an IDer? Am I a creationist? Am I an evolutionist? I'd say I'm not really a creationist, and most of the creationists would say I'm not, I suspect. Am I an IDer? My views, I think, would loosely fall into the ID camp because it is much less stringent about the 'how' and 'when' of the way that Intelligent Design was worked out (although, probably most IDers believe in a much more 'active' intervention in the design of life than I do). I do basically believe that evolution is correct, though I view it as less random than pure evolutionary theory suggests.
I think your statement that ID == Creationism (in disguise) is ignorant of the facts of the differing views of people.
However, all that said, I don't think ID should be taught in *science* class. It's not a matter of science, and I have no problem admitting that. I think it would be appropriate for it to be part of a philosophy and religion class, because that's more of what it is. I think it's appropriate for schools, both public and private, to have classes that educate students about the most commonly believed religions and philosophies (such classes, particularly in public schools, should be held from, as much as possible, a neutral perpective - anthropology rather than catechism - learning *what* people believe, rather than trying to convince students to believe one thing or another). People shouldn't graduate from high school without knowing anything at all about Judeaism, Chrisitianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Universalism, Atheistic Humanism, Existentialism, etc).
They are not required to take part in an actual discussion. If posting material that everyone on a forum can be expected to disagree with, and then not bothering to stay around to defend your views any further than that, does not quality as "trolling," then I do not know what does.
It's more than that. if you look at one of their syllabi (sp?) here they refer to science as the "chief antagonist" of Intelligent design. Further evidence is shown by your remark. The problem here is that they are encouraging their students to have open hostility towards anything science (or at least anything anti-ID) rather than a simple "let's sit down and talk", which is far more effective.
I remember once having a roommate who was HARDCORE Christian - always church, everything was because of God etc.. I, on the other hand, am an agnostic, and to me everything has to be proven scientifically (or reasonably well) for me to bother with it. In other words, we were polar opposites. Yet, he was probably my best roommate I have ever had. Why? Because in our frequent science vs. religion conversations we had, we never referred to each other as the "bad guys" (even jokingly) and we always tried to see the other person's POV. There was nothing "antagonist" or "hostile" about either of us, yet we managed to have some of the best conversations I have ever had with anybody.
The approach they are taking here is the opposite: science is the bad guy, and ID is the good guy and anybody who sides with the beliefs of the bad guys are equally bad. This is no different (in principle, anyways) than the fundamentalist islam when claiming their superiority over western culture. Both unacceptable, and both breeding ground for contempt.
Also, would someone care to explain their NEGATIVE percentage attributed to "active class participation" here?
This whole story is ridiculous tripe. Consider the source: the article comes from Richard Dawkins' web site; hardy an unbiased source on this particular topic. So what we have here is a story from one side of the argument complaining about a course at a university whose topic is APOLOGETICS. When studying apologetics, you learn how to defend a particular position (see definition two at dictionary.com here). What better exercise for learning a skill like that than to go out there and defend a particular position publicly? Certainly ID gets attacked enough by Darwinists (many of them ad hominem or straw man attacks--examples of which can be found in posts above this one) that people shouldn't get too upset when ID proponents start defending their position.
Why assume the students are going out there and randomly "making posts" but not contributing to the discussion? Maybe the professor grades the posts specifically on the quality of the discussion, with the 10 or more posts in a single back-and-forth discussion being worth more than trolling 10 different web sites. Who knows? We don't, and certainly Dawkins doesn't. Either way, it seems that this is a very appropriate exercise when learning something like apologetics. Certainly making blanket judgments and name calling doesn't move this issue forward at all. Nobody's going to be persuaded by a flippant dismissal of their position without giving any reasoning.
1) Let's see here... I have done none of the following:
- Taken the course in question
- Spoken to anyone with knowledge of the course about its content
- Chosen to assume, as you have, the position to be taken by the opponant
So I couldn't really tell you what standards would be applied to grading the posts. Again, that doesn't mean there are none, and your use of more condescending terms to claim that it does has no bearing on that.
I can tell you that, being a theological course at a seminary, it is surely not a science course; so the criteria you want to apply about "making predictions", while importrant to viability of a scientific theory, probably have no relevance at all.
2) If you're on a public forum, you don't get to choose whether you "consent" to people disagreeing with you on that forum. If the moderators of the forum wish to set policy that restricts the ID point of view, that is certainly within their power; outside of that, there is nothing that need be "excused". (I sure hope slashdot remembers to cry "censorship" each time that happens, though.)
What you are claiming is that stating a minorty position is "trolling". You are incorrect and should educate yourself as to what trolling actually means. You also might want to rethink why it is you want freedom from hearing the voices of those who think differently than you.
Bullshit.
The theory of evolution says no such thing. That's a strawman invented by the creationists themselves.
Yes, there is a "social darwinism" piece of bullshit, but it has about as much to do with the real darwinism, as JavaScript has to do with Java. I.e., except for piggy-backing on its name, not much whatsoever.
And, anyway, the real darwinism doesn't actually say "only the strong survive", and it certainly doesn't say "if you are too weak to survive we shouldn't help you."
Social species and social adaptations are in fact cases where a species survives precisely _because_ individual members who are too weak to survive on their own, are helped by other members. Ants or bees are cases where no individual member could survive and reproduce on their own at all. The workers are asexuate, and the queen pretty much can't forrage and feed on its own. The species survives precisely _because_ there is a high degree of cooperation between the individual members.
Heck, even wolves or lions (predators seem to be a favourite of proponents of "might makes right") actually have a group hunting and group survival strategy built in. Wolves couldn't reliably bag the kind of bigger game they normally feed upon, if they didn't act as a group. So, yes, a weaker member which might not survive on his own, nevertheless can survive in a group that cooperates.
Sexual selection and sexual dimorphism are also cases where evolution favours cooperation and specialization. E.g., the male lion is too big and heavy to be a good hunter on his own, while the females aren't as adapted to fight other predators. (That mane is battle armour, for example. A predator going for the male lion's neck will most often just get a mouthful of hair.) A pride survives by the _combination_ of the two specializations. And sometimes they even find more innovative ways to use that dimorphism: e.g., against bigger game, the male lion lies in ambush while the females chase the prey towards him, effectively allowing him to use his greater mass and strength without the handicap of his poorer sprint performance.
Nature and evolution are full of stuff like that. Resemblance to the "if you are too weak to survive we shouldn't help you" canard: zero.
Second, darwinism doesn't judge "fit" as "strong" or anything else. The only criterion that matters is: fit to make more offspring. Period.
For different species that can mean radically different things. For example for rabbits, the criterion isn't strength, it's just being fast and affraid enough to run away fast enough, and making lots of baby rabbits faster than the foxes can eat them.
But even that doesn't even scratch the surface of how many things can mean "the fittest." E.g., being bitter and bright coloured works just fine for ladybugs. (See, aposematism) There is no strength or speed or anything else involved. You just have to be bitter so the first bird that tries to eat you spits you back, and recognizably coloured so it learns not to try again in the future.
For some species, they don't even go the whole way with that. They don't actually have any defense of their own against a predator, but just mimick the colours of a species that does. The "being fitter" there just means the most resemblance to the real aposematic species you're immitating. That's it. That's the whole survival of the fittest in that aspect.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
...This is not about preaching, this is about setting up an Us vs. Them attitude in the students, to make it easier to accept the irrational. After all, the other side is evil, they wouldn't have been so mean to them if they weren't, they must be wrong...
Exactly!
And we see that illustrated beautifully in the grandparent's post - "If you take the act of posting on a message board, especially one as hostile to religion as Slashdot..."
Slashdot is not intolerant of religion, per se. However, it can be brutally intolerant of badly reasoned arguments, articles of faith presented as proof, and other forms of stupidity. Only the most disingenuous tool would suggest that such a metaphorical "bringing a knife to a gun fight" as cut-and-pasting some lame intelligent design screed into a forum populated by those well-equipped to refute it's every point, is anything other than some form of "Martyrdom Light". Having seen the same pathetic arguments put forth time and again, often verbatim (cut-and-paste counts, remember), the forum regulars can be expected to pounce hard and fast. That's pretty much the definition of trolling, and it has nothing to do with intelligent discourse.
Actually I'm pretty sure it's simpler than that. Christian parents got tired of sending their kids to public schools and then having them come home and explain how they learned that the Bible is wrong.
Personally I'd have gone a different route: just get rid of evolution. There's no reason to teach it in schools. You can teach science, genetics even, without using evolution at all. Stuff that supposedly happened billions of years ago has very little relevance on learning about chromosomes and zygotes. I mean, really... we're still trying to get elementary school kids to wrap their minds around the simple concept that unprotected sex makes babies, and we're going to also try to teach them about natural selection?!
Of course the problem with that is that all the science books are completely steeped in evolution. You'd have to write new ones, but I maintain that it could be done.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
"Religion is a way of conveying real world knowledge, just like science."
Science is not "a way of conveying real world knowledge". Books or web sites or audio tapes are "a way of conveying real world knowledge". Science is a way of gaining real-world knowledge.
"Frequently, both in religion and in science, the humans behind it all get it wrong"
But that is the point: Science doesn't assume that it is right, and doesn't pretend that it is right. In science, you observe, construct a hypothesis, test the hypothesis (where you either disprove the hypothesis or not, but hardly ever prove it), discuss the results, and go back to step 1. Note that failure is part of this, but "truth" is not.
Shakrai merely wanted to equate Daily Kos in particular, and Democrats in general, with the lunatic fringe of intelligent design.
Umm, no, Shakrai had no intention of doing anything of the sort. My only point was that there are lots of hostile audiences on the internet and it seems strange to limit such a project to ID. Would you be whining as loudly if my example had been "go to redstate and argue in favor of single payer" or is your outrage limited to examples that contrast with your political beliefs?
This is typical of the fact free, anger filled rants of the rapidly disappearing regional rump party known as Republicans
What makes you think I'm a Republican?
A better example might have been 'why not try to argue with the Republicans that Obama was born in the US
You won't find very many mainstream Republicans that question where Obama was born. In fact I'm pretty sure in my original post that I called out these people for the morons that they are. Any "Republican" that questions where Obama was born deserves to be taken as seriously as the "Democrats" that think Bush allowed 9/11 to happen so he could invade Iraq.
I doubt you care but I was actually a flag waving Democrat until a few months ago. What changed? State and local issues for one. Half of my state is dictated to by the other half that regards us as inbred hicks and tries to impose urban solutions on rural areas that face different problems. More than that though was seeing the asshats of the Democratic Party once they realized that they might have actual power. The Republicans have personalities like Sean Hannity -- you guys have Keith Olbermann. The Republicans have hyper-partisans like Tom Delay and Mitch McConnell -- you guys have Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. Republicans have their corruption -- you guys have your corruption. See the trend here?
Both parties are all to happy to see an election where they get 50%+1 as a "mandate" and pretend that the other 49.999% of the country doesn't even exist. Both parties are willing to run the Congress in such a way that the minority party has no effective power and no real ability to represent their constituents. Both parties condone processes (gerrymandering) that corrupt our electoral process. Both parties are in bed with lobbyists and special interest groups. As far as I'm concerned there's no real difference between Democrats and Republicans. The only reason that most of my criticism is directed at the Democrats is because they happen to be the ones who are currently driving our bus over the cliff. Once the GOP is back in the drivers seat I'll start aiming some criticism at them as well.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.