Being Intelligent About Intelligent Design

[rodeodance]

I recieved this as a larger email this morning. Clickable links to stories.

American Progress Action Fund wrote:

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=914257&ct=1264323

> EDUCATION
> Being Intelligent About Intelligent Design
>
> On Tuesday, just a few weeks after the 80th anniversary of the famous Scopes trial, President Bush expressed his support for teaching intelligent design in public schools, saying, "oth sides ought to be properly taught...so people can understand what the debate is about." In so doing, he "invigorated proponents of teaching alternatives to evolution." That's where the problem lies. While there is nothing wrong with intelligent design as an idea, it is not a scientific theory. Treating it as such for political purposes does a disservice to the nation's children.
>
> DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN SCIENCE AND NON-SCIENCE: "American society supports and encourages a broad range of viewpoints," the American Association for the Advancement of Science correctly notes. And while this diversity unquestionably enriches students' educational experiences, it is of critical importance that our educators distinguish between information acquired through rigorous scientific methods and those founded upon belief systems. As President Bush's science advisor, John H. Marburger III, acknowledges, "intelligent design is not a scientific concept." Although its proponents often point to supposed empirically based "gaps" in the science of evolution, intelligent design theory also necessarily involves positing extra-natural (if not religious) phenomena. "Outside the precincts of the religious right, though, the scientific consensus about evolution is very close to unanimous." The National Academy of Sciences, "the nation's most prestigious scientific organization," declares evolution "one of the strongest and most useful scientific theories we have." A recent National Geographic ran a cover story asking, "Was Darwin Wrong?" and then provided the answer in the subhead: "No. The Evidence for Evolution Is Overwhelming." Evolution is, to again quote Bush science advisor John Marburger, "the cornerstone of modern biology."
>
> SCIENCE CLASSES SHOULD TEACH SCIENCE: Commenting on President Bush's remarks, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly said, "Whatever your belief, it should be respected. But the National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science both reject intelligent design and don't want it mentioned in science classes. That, in my opinion, is fascism." O'Reilly added: "There is no reason the students cannot be told that more than a few people, including some scientists, believe the creation of the world, no matter how it occurred, involved a higher power. ... Just state the facts, whether it be science or any other subject." This is a red herring. For one, despite the widespread confidence in evolution theory, virtually all involved in the debate believe that teachers must present a thorough, probing analysis of its scientific merits and demerits. Moreover, many believe that intelligent design could play an important role in public school curricula. Students should be and are taught about theories like intelligent design -- they learn of various belief systems in philosophy and humanities classes, and of the levels of religious belief in our society in sociology classes. (Indeed, consider the recent struggle over evolution in Dover, PA: the school board candidates who opposed the teaching of ID in science classes also strongly supported its inclusion in humanities curricula. "Paradoxically," the New York Times observed, "that may mean that if win, intelligent design would be examined more thoroughly, and critically, than under current policy," which was crafted by ID proponents.) But, contrary to O'Reilly's claim, intelligent design and similar theories should not be taught by scientists, and not in science classes.
>
> BELIEF IN GOD AND EVOLUTION ARE NOT INCOMPATIBLE: As physics professor Lawrence Krauss observes, "One can choose to view chance selection as obvious evidence that there is no God, as Dr. Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist and uncompromising atheist, might argue, or to conclude instead that God chooses to work through natural means." In the latter case, he notes, "the overwhelming evidence that natural selection has determined the evolution of life on earth would simply imply that God is 'the cause of causes,'" as Pope Benedict XVI, when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, stated when he presided over the church's International Theological Commission. Indeed, "when a researcher from the University of Georgia surveyed scientists' attitudes toward religion several years ago, he found their positions virtually unchanged from an identical survey in the early years of the 20th century. About 40 percent of scientists said not just that they believed in God, but in a God who communicates with people and to whom one may pray 'in expectation of receiving an answer.'"
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> THE CONSTITUTIONAL END-RUN: In 1987, the Supreme Court ruled in Edwards v. Aguillard that the teaching of creationism in public schools violated the First Amendment's Establishment Clause. "he doctrine seemed to be shut out of public schools once and for all," Michelle Goldberg writes for Salon.com. But now "intelligent design" -- "an updated version of creationism couched in modern biological terms" -- is giving advocates of creationism new hope that they can circumvent the high court's ruling. Proponents of "intelligent design" insist, of course, that the theory is distinct from creationism, and does not posit the existence of God. Yet the most fierce advocates of "intelligent design," led by the Seattle-based Discovery Institute (which praised Bush's remarks), clearly have a religious agenda. The institute's main financial backer, savings and loan heir Howard Ahmanson, spent 20 years on the board of the Chalcedon Foundation, "a theocratic outfit that advocates the replacement of American civil law with biblical law." A 1999 fundraising proposal that was leaked online stated, "The proposition that human beings are created in the image of God is one of the bedrock principles on which Western civilization was built"; the institute's goal, it said, was "nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies."
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> ID PROPONENTS SHOULD ADVANCE THEIR THEORY THE RIGHT WAY: If proponents of "intelligent design" wish for their theory to hold the same stature in the scientific community as evolution, there is an appropriate course of action. Like any other researchers, they should subject their critiques and theories to repeated testing and submit their findings to be reviewed by their peers. Instead, as it stands now, "church groups and other interest groups are pursuing political channels" to crowbar their views into public classrooms. Neither, moreover, should we close our eyes to the scientific merits and teach "intelligent design" simply because some fear that theories like evolution, which say precious little about how humans ought to act, will open the door to "moral relativism." ("The ultimate extension of this position," Krauss writes, "may be Representative Tom DeLay's comment that the tragedy at Columbine happened 'because our school systems teach our children that they are nothing but glorified apes who have evolutionized out of some primordial mud.'") The politicization of evolution teaching is actually harming our students by making teachers nervous about delving into the topic at all. "In districts around the country, even when evolution is in the curriculum it may not be in the classroom, according to researchers who follow the issue. ... eachers themselves avoid the topic, fearing protests from fundamentalists in their communities."
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>

[skiddlybop]

1. Intelligent Design....

The new ebonics!

Pass it along...

[newyawker99]

9. Hi skiddlybop!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[formerrepuke]

2. I wasn't aware Bill O'Reilly was a scientist. His opinions on the

matter are sooooo important. Why does Steven J. Gould die slowly and prematurely from cancer, and this ass continues to blather on -about nothing...?

[wtmusic]

3. I demand both sides of the "round earth" controversy be taught

as well...and how 'bout an atheism class to round out the bill? :shrug:

[PATRICK]

4. It boils down to this

A guy smugly jumps your Queen as if it were checkers. You try to explain that if you want to play the real game- much less win- you have to follow the rules.

Only the guy keeps insisting he won until you pretty much feel like punching him out. But that is not chess either so you have the vague feeling you are losing, not chess, but the argument with the abusive idiot.

They appear to be playing the the game of science and logic but are in horrible violation of both and for good measure have tossed out their own Christian values for a Frankenstein monster so convenient and arrogant they now are really far gone. They can only comprehend enough to make it work in their favor. Spending a lot of deep time trying to unravel their moves somehow seems...

Mainstream Christians abide by the rules while delving from their own perspectives into scientific questions. I have notice that what disappears without much loss are the pleasantly simple notions of traditional faith because so much more truth is gained. It is just the opposite for these intelligent redesigners. the most evident truth is simply conformed and redefined, using its own language seemingly against it to preserve unsustainable traditional notions and frameworks.

It is further dishonest to to blank out the reality that Biblical authors or the actual people of the revelation events or subsequent generations each had differing and equally limited truth perspectives.
In some ways we can scientifically know more than the writers and perhaps the actual witnesses. As meager as that is in quantitative historical hard evidence it is invaluable and enriching- or else we should carve out our brains and die when baptized.

And they cannot see themselves making heretical fools out of themselves by using clockmaker deism from the freethinking days of the Enlightenment as ammo against the subsequent scientific advances they helped come about. Why should God be confined to a Mind in a strictly human model bound by rules to which we do not even consider ourselves bound? Even by consistency and honesty. God becomes a static but whimsical pagan pantheistic convenience even by the warped route of fundamentalism.

Because it is about them being divinely right, not God or truth or anyone else's right to fair play.

[skiddlybop]

6. Like I said,

intelligent design = ebonics

[satireV]

5. Imagine this.

Imagine if an evolution supporter demanded that the Principle of evolution be taught in Sunday school because they said it is a competing theory.

I wonder how loud the creationists would scream that it isn't a competing theory.

[PATRICK]

8. That's a good idea

In fact it is being done though not so in your face as that. The idea of God up in the sky throwing bolts and unleashing rain has had its day, but they hold the line on an utterly dependent inert nature needing some super human entity at the controls(which would explain the dismaying mess). The more scientific possibility of life being an expression of a "living" universe in some sense organically dynamic and developing is thankfully devoid of unnecessary imaginary role descriptions of the Creator or the tug of pantheism(New Agers). God doesn't mess with the verbal and rational probings of a young sentient race regarding progress in sensual experience and analysis of its surroundings, at least not in that presumptive domineering way. Why can't they FOLLOW the model of the enabling, not interfering Creator and do good not dogma when real life demands more than oneupmanship and pride? If they want to criticize they might want to look at the politically hostile subtext of some scientific theory that also has little to do with the facts or rules of un-dogmatic science. But oops, guess who caused this spat in the first place? It wasn't men of science.

[smoogatz]

7. O'Reilly--what a dipshit.

"Whatever your belief, it should be respected. But the National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science both reject intelligent design and don't want it mentioned in science classes. That, in my opinion, is fascism."

A.Whatever your belief, it should be respected? What if I believe that non-whites are subhuman? Or I believe that man-boy love should be legal in every state? Should those beliefs be respected, Bill? Is all opinion and all "belief" suddenly equal in this country? Are there no good ideas and bad ideas? Have truth and untruth somehow melted together into one big, sticky pool of equally valid "belief"?

B.Science has nothing to do with belief. It's about arriving at the best possible understanding of the universe based on the available evidence. Belief--the act of accepting religious dogma as a matter of faith--is the opposite of science. Religious dogma should not be taught in science classes--certainly not on my dime.

C.Fascism is the merger of corporate and government power. It is NOT the teaching of science in public-school science classes. Fascism is not whatever rightwing proponents of the merger of government and corporate power would like us to think it is. It has a specific meaning--one that our current government has a vested interest in blurring. We are teetering dangerously on the brink of "soft" fascism in this country, and Bill O'Reilly is one of its most prominent cheerleaders.