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Lawsuit Claims NASA Specialist Was Fired Over Intelligent Design Belief
New submitter period3 writes "The latest mission of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is defending itself in a workplace lawsuit filed by a former computer specialist. The man claims he was demoted and then let go for promoting his views on intelligent design, the belief that a higher power must have had a hand in creation because life is too complex to have developed through evolution alone."
Intelligent design answers more the 'why' than the 'how' that Evolution does.
This is a bit like saying Religion is more about how you conduct yourself than about judging other people or justifying wars. Sure, theoretically that could be true, but it's not actually true. ID proponents in practice focus more on casting FUD against science than they do working scientific findings into a belief system.
Put another way, it's fine to say "Evolution is the how, my religion is they why" but that's not what they're doing. What they're actually doing is saying "Science is wrong because my holy book says so!" Religious people who don't reject science, whose understanding of evolutionary theory doesn't contradict their beliefs about higher powers, they don't call themselves "intelligent design."
FWIW, I am a Christian and thusly believe in a Creator. But I don't care for that logic of proving a Creator. I don't think complexity is at all relevant. However, if I were to play devil's advocate, I assume the theory is that a Creator exists outside our known limitations.
Similarly you can ask if an omnipotent God can create a rock so heavy that he cannot himself lift it. Either answer suggests that omnipotence is impossible in and of itself, but it assumes limitations that may not apply. If a Creator can create the Cosmos, are they bound by the laws of physics, or are the laws of physics also simply part of their creation?
Conversely you could ask what existed before the beginning of time, or where did all mass in the universe come from originally, or what exists beyond the boundary of finite space. Ultimately, you realize that these are utterly unanswerable questions. Any answer we accept is one of faith and we should not judge others for their conclusions to unanswerable questions without clear answers.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
1. If Intelligent Design does not fit under the definition of "science", then it is obviously time to expand the definition. -- This seems to be the result of ignorance and the fact that both science and religeon use the same words for subtly different purposes. The first example that comes to mind is the word "evidence", which has a very scrict definition under the scientific method. Religeous folks hear that science requires evidence, and become frustrated when their "evidences" for the existence of God are brushed off as incomplete or incorrect. We can probably blame a poor education system for this misunderstanding, though the condition does seem to be self-reinforcing at this point. Not good.
2. The one sister I have who actually has a decent understanding of the scientific method thinks that perhaps I.D. should not be tought in science classes (Thank God!!), but believes that the recent push by religeous folks to influence scientific discourse is the natural reaction to the "war on faith" that religeous leaders have been talking about for as long as there have been religeous leaders. If us un-enlightened would only see the light and conform to their supersticious beliefs, this entire dispute would go away. -- This is the more troubling problem, because the solution requires that we train people to think more critically, both about scientific and spiritual issues. There is room for God and science to co-exist, but very little room for the litteral interpretation of scriptures or the blind acceptance of religeous dogma when one learns to think critically. Unfortunately, I don't think people are generally smart enough to make this leap. Religeon is to comfortable, and offers easy answers to the complex questions that life presents.
Hitchens was right, religeon poisons everything.
Never eat more than you can lift -- Miss Piggy
Without a doubt, there are some common sentiments amongst most /. readers. Making a statement that goes against those common beliefs will be unpopular. If I argued that Bill Gates was a better human that Steve Jobs because Gates is giving to charity where as Jobs rarely/never did, I'd probably be down-modded by those who disagree. Apple is popular on Slashdot, where as Microsoft is hated.
But that's my point. People should offer counter points rather than use the moderation system.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
If he believes in God, Allah, Buddha, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or even Scientology, that is his right.
If he insists on pushing that belief on others when they are 'captive' that is not his right. Termination is acceptable, especially of other methods of behavioral modification (written up, demoted, etc.) have not worked.
I once frequented a coffee shop run by a pair of brothers who were Jehovah's Witness. They had literature available, and if you asked they would try to convert you, but they understood that people came to get caffeine, not God, and thus kept it very low key. They ended up closing down for tangentially related reasons (a run-in with the Aryan Brotherhood that went very badly), but they got it, that religion is not barred from the workplace, but must be subordinate to it, in that the focus of a business, or office is to work, whereas the focus of a house of worship is, well, to worship.
-nB
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Problem is, mockery simply exacerbates the problem: it makes the person being mocked dig their heels in, and gives them a "victimized minority" status to cling to in their irrationality and ignorance.
If your goal is eliminating ignorance, the only way to do that is by engaging in calm, rational discourse. If your goal is to make yourself feel smugly superior to anybody who holds a view you consider "silly," without actually changing anything about the situation, then yeah, keep mocking.
My parents are both fairly conservative catholics, I'd consider myself an agnostic - I consider my parents' set of beliefs to be well-meaning, but pretty irrational, and I don't share them. But we still manage to have discussions about religion and belief without me shouting at them, rolling my eyes, and calling them names, and they pay me the same courtesy. And honestly? Those discussion are far more satisfying and interesting than "LOL U LOVE UR SKY DADDY YOU IDIOT SHEEPLES LOL".
Mockery does nothing to eliminate ignorance, so any argument in support of mockery is simply an argument in favor of divisiveness. As somebody else noted above: STOP. BEING. DICKS.