Pennsylvania school district's intelligent-design statement

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Tue, Sep. 27, 2005

Pennsylvania school district's intelligent-design statement

The Associated Press
Associated Press

Text of the statement on intelligent design that Dover Area High School administrators are reading to students at the start of biology lessons on evolution:

"The Pennsylvania Academic Standards require students to learn about Darwin's theory of evolution and eventually to take a standardized test of which evolution is a part.

"Because Darwin's theory is a theory, it continues to be tested as new evidence is discovered. The theory is not a fact. Gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence. A theory is defined as a well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations.

"Intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view. The reference book, 'Of Pandas and People,' is available for students who might be interested in gaining an understanding of what intelligent design actually involves.
(snip/...)

http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/breaking_news/12753367.htm

[Orrex]

1. God damn it!

Of course, that's a metaphor, because I'm atheist, but the point is served.

I'm embarrassed to live in Pennsylvania with this bullshit anti-scientific argument going on. What century are we living in?

I could go on for centuries, but I'll leave it at that.

[LiberalVoice]

2. Ditto.

So great to be living in Pa right now. :eyes:

[Lerkfish]

3. God damn it!

and I'm a christian, but I share your outrage.

The school has absolutetly NO place to proselytze about any religion, even mine.

[NuckinFutz]

10. Embarassed doesn't begin to describe my feelings on this..

Ashamed is closer.

[eallen]

4. Any moderate who wonders whether DU or Freep is a better home....

Should go read any thread on Freep in which evolution is mentioned. About half their active posters are rabid creationists. It shows that site in its true light.

:evilgrin:

[Tempest]

11. Actually, most freepers don't know what they are

They're only creationists because their lords and masters tell them to be.

Freepers don't think for themselves. They're incapable of it.

[lakercub]

55. Actually, while I detest their politics

the evolutionist freepers are quite knowledgeable on the subject. I certainly won't give any links, but I actually go watch the creationist and evolutionist freepers have at each other all the time. The evolutionist freepers know what they're talking about in regard to evolution. And they smack down the creationists all the time. Other than that they are reasonably useless, but on this one subject I have to give them their due.

[Kelvin Mace]

5. Could someone PLEASE explain the correct definition

of the word "theory" to these imbeciles?

In various sciences, a theory is a logically self-consistent model or framework describing the behavior of a certain natural or social phenomenon, thus either originating from observable facts or supported by them. Scientific theories are formulated, developed, and evaluated according to the scientific method.

a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena;

[kath]

40. Yeah. Gravity is a theory too, you morans.

This continual misuse of the word theory as it is used in the scientific context makes me want to :banghead:

[kath]

41. If they're going to give a plug for ID, then they need to mention Flying

Spaghetti Monsterism as well. It's every bit as well supported as ID, if not more so.

www.venganza.org

[regnaD kciN]

46. The Onion ran a story a few weeks ago...

...on how Gravitation should be supplimented by the study of "Intelligent Falling." ;-)

[Xipe Totec]

69. Gravity is a fact

The theory of gravity is an explanation about how gravity works.

Evolution is a fact. The theory of evolution is not about whether life forms evolve, but about how they evolve.

If intelligent design is a theory, then what are the fact that it is trying to explain?

For starters, we should ask creationists why an intelligent designer thought it was necessary to create hemorrhoids.

[AtTheEndOfTheDay]

70. As a spinal cord injury sufferer

I'd like God to explain the intelligent plan involved in making spinal cord injuries incapable of healing properly. Man might solve that riddle soon. Perhaps man is more intelligent than God?

[kestrel91316]

79. I think the "intelligent designer" was brilliant. After all, he/she/it

did manage to create humans WITHOUT anal sacs (unlike the poor dogs and cats.......).

[NorCalDem]

83. Or as Kurt Vonnegut asked on TDSw/JS

Why Hippopotami, Giraffes, and the Clap?

[BlueJazz]

6. Once again, a pack of Religious Nuts embarrass America in the ...

...eyes of the world.

[TlalocW]

7. Great...

As soon as Intelligent Design actually contributes something to science like evolution has, like gene theory, then we'll teach it.

TlalocW

[Beaver Tail]

8. I am an outraged Christian as well

I do NOT want my child learning theology in school. If I wanted her to learn theology in school I would have sent her to a religious school.

ID is complete Bullshit.

[northzax]

15. what's worse, it's BAD theology

teaching ID in schools will do more to undermine Christianity in the US than teaching 'evolution' ever did or will.

ID is poor, cowardly theology, easily shattered by those with faith as well as those with reason. It simply doesn't make sense, from either standpoint, and to teach it is a tacit acknowledgement, by the biblical-literalist community, that they cannot handle a direct challenge to their faith. It is a card dealt from a position of weakness and fear, without the strength of faith and conviction one would expect from a believer.

ID is a direct challenge to Genesis, not from a scientific standpoint, but a religious one. With 'evolution' (I use it in quotes because it is really too complex of a theory to be espoused in one word, and that word has been challenged too much) one can still see Genesis as a metaphor for the evolution of man within God's system. You can still believe, as many do, that God created everything, created a system to fufill a master plan, as stated in Genesis, and let the system run through to the conclusion. This does not preclude any interaction of God and Man, as detailed in the remainder of the bible. Evolution does not deny the existance of a creator who laid the ground-work for everything, in fact it doesn't address it at all. What happened the instant before the Big Bang is a matter of faith, not biology (ok, there are some physicists on the job as well)

With ID, Genesis is a fable, completely at odds with the stories as laid out in the Bible. It specifically states that Genesis is a false story, that while we are reading stories about God doing something, He was really doing something else. It calls Genesis a parlour trick, a diversion from what God was really doing (intervening in the natural processes he designed) God cannot have created a perfect system, since it requires intervention, on a regular basis, to get things how they look now. Instead of the agnosticism of evolution, ID directly claims that a creator is involved, which means that Genesis, instead of being a parable, is an outright lie. you cannot reconcile Biblical Creationism, as a matter of faith, with such a muddled theory. they directly contradict each other in the same realm.

Evolution and Christianity can coexist because of the fire wall built between them, they explain the same thing using completely different languages and systems, they do not contradict because they do not overlap. One addresses the role of a creator, the other addresses the behaviour of a natural system. But Christianity and ID cannot coexist, since both posit the active role of a creator, but a creator who does different things.

imagine three witnesses to a crime scene. Jane says that Bob shot Steve. Sarah says that Bob shot Steve and Joe, who told Bob to shoot Steve was there. These can be reconciled, since Bob still shot Steve it doesn't matter, one way or the other, if Joe told him to do it, or was watching, the action remains. Jill says that Joe shot Steve and then put the gun into Bob's hands. This cannot be reconciled with either Jane or Sarah's stories, in fact it directly challenges both stories.

obviously, the bilbical fundamentalists will never agree with the scientists about evolution, which is fine, they are in different spheres. but I can't understand why they'd want something that is a direct challenge to their sphere as well.

[blackhorse]

28. Bingo!

The whole ID thing is just literalist bullshit. Man, it would be nice if the literalists weren't always indulged in their enraged little tantrums.

Cheers

BH

[papau]

36. Well said :-)

:-)

:toast:

:-)

[The White Tree]

38. Very well and beautifully said. Thank you.

I will print this post and save it for future reference. I've not seen this angle so well explained before.

I put it this way:

Jesus said to Thomas, you beleive me because you have seen, blessed are those who have not seen yet beleive.

When I was a child, a movie came out called - "The Search for Noahs Ark". I never saw that movie but growing up beleiving in God I always had this idea that when I grew up that is what I would do, try to find Noahs Ark, a great adventure to prove there was a God. Of course that is a childish thought. My faith in God and my ability to maintain it reinforces my faith in God. It needs no proof.

Lastly, I just saw the movie, the Hitchhikers Gudie to the Galaxy, which touches on this (the book not the movie, preciently it seems, since it was written in the 70's) in the description of the Babel Fish (For those unfamiliar, a Babel Fish is a fictional creature that the characters stick in their ear allowing them to understand other languages).

The existance of the Babel fish, in this story, was alluded to as someones argument for the non-existance of God. The argument goes like this:

I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves that you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. Q.E.D."
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

Again though extremely well said.:toast:

[Beaver Tail]

44. This is extremely

Well thought out, well phrased and well said. You put it in words much better than I could have ever put it and will definitely be using this argument in the future to combat ID falsities.

Thank you very much, IMO you hit the nail right on the head.

[Occulus]

59. I think I can boil your post down some:

"We believe ID is legitimate because we believe we are too stupid to figure it all out for ourselves."

"can't have happened by itself" = "too fucking stupid to conceptualize that it COULD".

In other words, creationists are dumb. Idiots. Stupid people. Gullible. Taken in. And so on.

[northzax]

66. no, that's unfair

not what I said at all. I think the IDers are misguided, and the Creationists are making a poor play by throwing in their lot with the IDers. I wouldn't call creationism itself stupid, but they have been fooled by ID.

[kestrel91316]

80. My own personal religion (which I invented) says that there WAS an

intelligent designer who INVENTED EVOLUTION several billion years ago.............but you won't hear the fundies trying to teach THAT.

[rurallib]

9. While other societies advance because they studied

science and then did research to make breakthroughs, America will be huddled in a corner with third world countries praying for God to make things better.

[Tempest]

12. Scientific brain drain

Scientists and researchers are leaving the U.S. in droves.

Last year Sweden surpassed the U.S. as the number one destination for scientific researchers.

Even Ireland is catching up to the U.S. in the number of advanced scientific degrees being earned. India and China passed the U.S. several years ago.

[damntexdem]

37. No, America will be asking the Intelligent Designer to ...

episodically make things better. ;)

[drm604]

13. Sigh

I love my state but I wish it could do better.

[slay]

14. Christian agenda attacking science

We better hope we can evolve or else there are dark, dark days ahead where the guys who can claim "God" the loudest will rule with an iron fist. :(

[renegade000]

16. lewis structures are just a theory...

the theory is not fact, gaps in the theory exist...it is a well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observation...

i don't see anyone coming up with Intelligently Designed Atomic Bonding :crazy:

hell, everything is just a theory...

people are quite ignorant.

[Mountainman]

17. It makes no sense to challenge theory with superstition!

I cannot understand how the argument that evolution is a theory and therefore we can also offer superstition as an alternative. That makes no sense whatsoever. The theory has lots of substantiation and the superstition has only faith to support it.

We are a nation of idiots I'm afraid.

[KittyWampus]

18. DU'ers Would Do Much Better To Crititque The Perverted Version Of ID

being pimped by the Creationists-In-Disguise.

Intelligent Design is NOT Creationism and IF TAUGHT ACCURATELY it's as perfectly valid a theory as Darwinism.

DU'ers, the Left and Scientists need to stop attacking Intelligent Design and START insisting that the Religious Right withdraw their half-baked version of ID from consideration.

[Kailassa]

19. T'was God, She did it!

I agree, evolution is just a theory, so let's teach that some sort of super-being waved her wand to fill in the gaps that evolutionists have not accounted for.

Gravity is just a theory, and also has gaps. The theory of "falling unless the superbeing holds stuff up" explains things much better. Otherwise, how do you explain clouds?

Light is just a theory, and a very poorly understood one at that. However once you understand about the angels on pin-heads loving to dance brightly on thin wire filaments, you will see the light.

And of course all DUers know the sacred story of the origin of the Squid.

[KittyWampus]

27. ID does NOT posit any being. The fundies abusing the theory do

and DUers who don't know what they're talking about do.

But Intelligent Design does not necessarily posit a being. And anyone who takes ID that far is obviously going too far.

Not all ID Theorists go that far though.

[reprobate]

64. Huh? You lost me. "Design" doesn't REQUIRE a "Designer"?

Please elucidate.

[MarsThe Cat]

77. not a supreme being of a designer-

we could have been "designed" by a highly advanced civilization- it's very possible, even probable- that there are intelligent lifeforms that are even a billion years or more ahead of us evolution/progress-wise.

[smoogatz]

23. What a ridiculous statement.

Sorry, no biological or cosmological "theory" that relies on supernatural intervention is scientifically valid. No version of ID should ever be taught as science.

[KittyWampus]

26. There's nothing supernatural in ID Theory. Only when the fundies

get a hold of ID and start trying to push their agenda, does a "creator" get involved.

ID simply posits the theory that nature has an inherent capacity for developing Intelligence.

[smoogatz]

29. "Design" requires a designer.

I.e., a thinking, planning entity with the power to will everything from gnats to gibbons into being. You're just substituting "nature" for "god." I get the feeling you're making this up as you go along.

[Kailassa]

30. Not God, Gaia?

Would you like to tell us the basis for that statement, with appropriate references please?

It is my understanding that ID posits an intelligence doing the designing, rather than an intelligence being designed. This is supported by the ID website; http://www.intelligentdesignnetwork.org/

To quote:
"The theory of intelligent design (ID) holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection. ... In a broader sense, Intelligent Design is simply the science of design detection -- how to recognize patterns arranged by an intelligent cause for a purpose."

Perhaps you see there a reference to nature's capacities that I missed. Frankly, I would think it was made more sense to believe in a creator-god than to believe that evolution was consciously guided by nature, which didn't exist until evolution began. If that is possible, perhaps I'll learn tomorrow that I created myself.

Or perhaps you mean that the characteristics that evolved in living organisms, the environment, and the organisms themselves combined to produce a situation which led to the increasing complexity of organisms and the development of intelligence. If so, congratulations. You have stumbled on the theory of evolution.

[Zhade]

54. You've got it backwards, and you're also wrong.

ID as it's been pushed does indeed posit a designer. That your niche belief system isn't in line with the ID idiots doesn't negate the fact that the form of ID we're fighting against states that there is a designer.

Also, you state that ID isn't supernatural without these idiots being involved. You're wrong - I've seen you allege countless times that "nature is consciousness" or similar tripe. That's supernatural.

Now you've changed it to "ID simply posits the theory that nature has an inherent capacity for developing Intelligence."

You're moving the goalposts you established many posts ago, and if this is your view now, it's incompatible with the term "intelligent design", because if nature (define, please, exactly what you mean by nature - and if it involves nature being "alive" and "conscious", then once again that's supernatural) can become intelligent (what does this even MEAN?), then it's an after-the-fact situation, and not the before-the-fact situation that fits the criteria of the term "intelligent design".

But seriously, what does your last sentence mean? That animals in nature can become intelligent? Obviously, humans kind of prove that to be true. Do you mean nature itself gains intelligence? If so, define what you mean by nature, and then show some evidence that this happens - evidence that, in pretty much all of your posts on the subject, invariably fails to materialize.

[Occulus]

60. But it DOES still equate to

"we're too dumb to know for sure".

[lakercub]

62. no

The word is DESIGN. Therefore a designer. True ID (whatever that means) does not posit a specific designer, it doesn't posit anything. It's totally useless.

If you take the least christian tack on ID the statement would be "Life has evolved through natural selection, adaptation, random mutation, and genetic drift but some of these processes seem to have had an intelligent force guiding their devlopment." The last part of that sentence, which could be true, is utterly scientifically meaningless. It adds nothing to science. It can't be observed, tested, or verified in any way. Absolutely no sensical hypothesis could falsify that statement. And the ability to hypothesize something that can falsify an idea or theory is absolutely crucial to real science.

At most, ID and creationism belong in philosophy or comparative religion class. I choose a philosophy of science class where the students can learn what constitutes science and what doesn't. Not one second of biology class should be spent on this crap.

[Zhade]

71. Welcome to DU, lakercub.

Your post is dead-on.

[NickB79]

31. "It's as perfectly valid a theory as Darwinism" Really?

How many peer-reviewed journal articles have been published supporting intelligent design in ANY scientific journal in the past, say, 50 yrs? Very, very few, if any. You can't teach accurately a hypothesis (not a true theory, btw) in a science classroom that has almost no science supporting it.

Why does no one seem to realize that the word theory, in the scientific community, is the strongest statement you can make regarding the validity of an idea? A scientific theory in the true sense of the word has been tested repeatedly and found to solidly explain observed phenomena of the world around us.

To give some understanding of the strength of "just a theory", if Newton's law of gravity were discovered today, it would be called the theory of gravity. Anyone want to claim gravity is "just a theory"?

[Bridget Burke]

32. Then teach Intelligent Design as philosophy.

It is NOT science. And there's more to Evolution than "Darwinism."

[damntexdem]

39. Nonsense! ID is pure Creationism without a spine.

To get around separation of church and state it attributes some aspects of natural development to the work of an unknown Intelligent Designer. It's bad science, among other things, because: unlike science, it OUTLAWS asking questions about its explanation, the Intelligent Designer; it makes no testable hypotheses -- when challenged on some statement that science has refuted, ID advocates jump to a different claim, or ignore the debunking altogether; it claims to win if it can disprove another account, without offering any positive evidence for its own. It's bad theology, among other things, because: it relies on god-of-the-gaps argumentation; it denies that God could have acted through evolution; it portrays an IDer so inept that it must continually intervene in nature to make things turn out all right; and it lies about its intent in public venues, while its protagonists admit elsewhere that their intent is narrowly religious.

Science can identify designers, when something is known about the designers: anthropologists can identify human artifacts; forensics scientists can identify perpetrators of crimes; SETI hopes to identify ET signals by assuming similarity of ET and human motivations and methods. When science identifies designers on the basis of knowing something about them, it then asks AND ANSWERS more questions about them. ID, by contrast, explicitly denies the possibility, desirability, and necessity to identify the IDer. Here's an example: ask an ID advocate whether or not the fossil record doesn't indicate that there must have been multiple designers in different eras millions of years apart. This approach has been tried. The answer: we can know nothing about the IDer, including whether there were multiple IDers. No approach that outlaws investigating its major concept can possibly be anything like science.

[Zhade]

52. Your version of ID likewise has zero proof and is not science.

Thus, it is hardly "legitimate".

And schools teach EVOLUTION, not Darwinism.

If you can't even get that simple fact straight, why on Earth should anyone afford your unproven mysticism a second glance?

[WindRavenX]

56. no it isn't perfectly valid a theory as Darwinism

You can't have a testable hypothesis with ID.

It's NOT science and do NOT even attempt to sully science with the suggestion it is.

[lakercub]

65. How is ID as valid as evolution?

How would you falsify it? How would you test it? What predictions can you make based on the idea of ID? A scientific theory isn't a theory in the way we tend to use the word in common speech. I might say something like "My theory is that the FSM did it all." That sentence would be correct...that would be my theory...but it wouldn't be a SCIENTIFIC theory. In fact we use the word theory way too often in society. Most statements people call theories are actually unjustified hypotheses. Nothing more. Scientific theories have mounds of evidence and are as high as you get in the scientific world. When an idea or hypothesis graduates to the level of theory, it has reached the scientific pinnacle. It could still be disproved, but chances aren't good that it will be.

[Sandpiper]

20. Seeing a Pro-Stupidity agenda vigorously promoted is just insufferable

Do the wingnuts really think that the U.S. will remain a superpower if we foster a national climate of anti-intellectualism?


That muffled sound you hear is the Founding Fathers, children of the enlightenment, all puking in their graves.

[astroBspacedog]

45. Pro-Stupidity Agenda?

Seeing a Pro-Stupidity agenda vigorously promoted is just insufferable

Now wait just a minute here! My church has a Pro- Stupidity agenda and we're proud of it. "The First Church of the Last Laugh", --- a light-weight religion with only one holy day a year and it's 150% dogma free.
http://www.saintstupid.com/

[Dr Batsen D Belfry]

21. Here is what I don't get

For most people, religious education, of which creationism is a part, is already available by attending the religious institution of their choice. For some it is free, for others, like myself, there is a cost. Nonetheless, it is my choice if I decide to send my children to religious school.

How can the administration that is for smaller government reconcile spending more public funding on something that is already available from private institutions. Mr. Santorum? Do you by chance have an answer?

DBDB

[superconnected]

34. Sunday schools are free.

They could simply send their kids to church.

[regnaD kciN]

47. But that isn't their goal...

Their goal, by teaching ID in public schools, is to send other people's kids to church.

:grr:

[northzax]

81. would you be referring to Santorum's Protection of Accuweather Bill?

obviously government shouldn't be providing anything for free that's avaliable from a commercial entity for a fee.

[obreaslan]

22. How do these two statements make sense together????

"Because Darwin's theory is a theory, it continues to be tested as new evidence is discovered. The theory is not a fact. Gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence...

Intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view..."

THERE IS NO EVIDENCE IN INTELLIGENT DESIGN IN WHICH TO HAVE GAPS!

Just because it differs, does not make it a viable theory. Where as there are "gaps" in the facts of Darwin's theory, there ARE still facts for a theory to be built upon. ID is based on superstition, and folklore. There are no facts to back it up other than the "idea" that "life is to complex to have happened on it's own", and a philosophy book written some 2000 years after the supposed 6000 old creation date. If I wrote a book about the political environment in Scandinavia in the first century A.D. based solely on information passed down orally and never written down until I did it, would you accept that as fact? Or would you trash that book as historically inaccurate and basically a crock of shit?

First it's Darwin, who's next, Copernicus? Newton? Isosceles? That triangle is to perfect to have happened without help from a higher being. :grr:

[superconnected]

24. Evolutionists fail again under the ploy of the Republicans

because they have embraced the word and are using "intelligent design" instead of "creationism".

Sort of like "healthy forrests" no?

Meanwhile "Darwinism" is the new word for "evolution" - which here the dems have also allowed. Darwins theorys can be attacked a lot better than the whole the concept of evolution.

Trapped again.

Why not tag evolution, "intelligent creation". That would screw them up. But, we won't. Dems suck playing the political word game.

[damntexdem]

42. Actually, many have begun using the term "IDC" ---

"Intelligent Design Creationism."

As to the IDer not being God, the ID advocates get rather upset when we claim that they're supporting the Raelians.

[regnaD kciN]

48. Actually, "Darwinism" is not just the theory of evolution...

...philosophically, it stands for the argument that evolution disproves the existence of God, and "proves" that there is nothing behind the universe but random chance. (See E.F. Schumacher's Guide for the Perplexed on this subject.) As such, needless to say, it is something fundies want to connect with Evolution so that, in the public mind, one equates the other.

Anyway, doesn't the ascent to political dominance of the Republicans disprove any notion of evolution? ;-)

[smoogatz]

25. If I was teaching biology in the Dover, PA school district

On the first day of class I'd tell my students: "the school district requires that you be read the following statement." Then the assistant dean of students or whoever would read the thing. Then I'd say: "What you just heard is nonsense. The so-called 'theory of intelligent design' is NOT a legitimate scientific alternative to evolution as an explanation for the origins of species. It is not based in science, and it is not taken seriously by any reputable biologist in the world. Evolution is as close to being "proven" as any scientific theory ever formulated: in fact, new evidence supporting it continues to pour in. You can believe in intelligent design if you want, but you might as well believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy while you're at it--they're just as plausible"

[damntexdem]

43. What? You heretic! How dare you propose telling the students that ...

there's no Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus? Next thing, you'll be claiming there's no Easter Bunny! And as we all know, there IS an Easter Bunny and he's responsible for candy and Easter eggs -- but we can't know any more about him than that. ;)

[iam]

33. Religionists

base their ideas on the existence of nothing. Religion is the worship of the unknown and the promotion of ignorance.

"The mind of god is not knowable and gods work is an artifact of gods mind."
- John Burgess

[Endangered Specie]

35. and this is a fucking BLUE STATE?

The Ministry of Truth gains yet another foothold

[Zhade]

58. See post #18 and tell me you're surprised.

We have ignorant, uninformed mystics who don't understand basic science, too.

[Phx_Dem]

72. true, but what the poster said may have some truth

The main problem with ID (other than it's not a real stand alone theory) is that it always ends up promoting a xtian God, one could suggest many possible beginnings that don't involve the God of the xtian bible, Spinoza's God for example.

In the short story The Last Question, Isaac Asimov offered a unique version of creation, which involves a universe wide computer that "evolves" over time, it reaches a point where it can answer "the last question". Pretty great short story, Personally if one were to extrapolate different versions of a "God theory" one of them would have to be Asimov's version.

[Zhade]

75. The poster's point might have some truth, if it made any sense.

S/he claims ID is not supernatural, then talks about how nature can become intelligent. Assuming (thanks to the continued and repeated lack of a definition) that nature means "living entity" or something, that's supernatural.

Plus, the argument that "nature gets smart" fits the definition of ID is erroneous, because that implies there's no designer-portion of the ID argument. It ceases to be about design at all.

It's just a poor attempt at making mystical bullshit not sound like mystical bullshit.

But the Asimov story sounds neat.

[yellowcanine]

49. Why don't they just cut to the chase and recommend Genesis? It would

be more honest.

[bee]

50. yeah... put a christian book called

"of pandas and people" in front of the majority of public high-school students and see what happens.
:rofl:
I can tell you exactly what I would have done with it. :evilgrin:

[pinniped]

51. Why do some of these asshats call ID a theory?

Has it been tested????

[lakercub]

78. No

It hasn't even been defined. Isn't this great science? "An unknown, and scientifically unknowable, entity of unknown, and scientifically unknowable, origin used unknown, and scientifically unknowable, methods for unknown, and scientifically unknowable, reasons to develop life as we know it." What a great science class that would be. The tests would be easy as hell.

Imagine a high school student tested on irreducible complexity.
Teacher: How did the eye form?
Student: The eye is too complex to have "formed." It was designed as is.
Teacher: Great job. A+

Ugh.

[Miss Chybil]

53. And next week, girls, be sure to wear your burkas, or it's

off with your heads! Amen.

[usregimechange]

57. Ha! The laughing stock of a nation.

[reprobate]

61. Please, god. Save me from all those trying to save me.

[sakabatou]

63. Shit

ID is not a theory, it's not even a hypothesis.

[lakercub]

67. A little critique

Here is a site that criticizes the Discovery Institute's Wedge Project. The Discovery Institute is THE leading ID house out there. It shows that, while ID can posit any designer it wants, it is no secret which designer they've chosen.

http://www.infidels.org/secular_web/feature/1999/wedge.html

[smoogatz]

68. Hey, Lakercub...

Welcome to DU!

[obxhead]

73. Wow thats my home town paper. cool

So what "proof" is there that ID (which is a new term) is true either. :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

[Jim__]

74. This is sad!

On top of everything else I disagree with about the school district's policy, I find this statement sad: The school leaves the discussion of the origins of life to individual students and their families. As a standards-driven district, class instruction focuses upon preparing students to achieve proficiency on standards-based assessments.

Does that mean that there will be no classroom discussions of the origins of life? If so, I think that's pathetic. And, class instruction focuses on preparing students to achieve proficiency on standards-based assessment? Really? That's it? Pathetic!

[Solly Mack]

76. Dover's mascot can now be the Dunce

since that's what they'll be matriculating - a bunch of dunces.

[baby_mouse]

82. IDers need to look up in the dictionary the word "teleological" eom.