[FulcrumPilot]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4353524.stm


I want to read one anyway just for fun! Anyone know one?

[nonhuman]

Does everyone else just point at us and laugh?

[olePigeon]

Oh! I hope it mentions the Creation Museum where apparently God named dinosaurs like "Tyrannosaurus Rex"... even before Latin and genera identification were invented! WOW!

[kmkkid]

Originally Posted by olePigeon

Oh! I hope it mentions the Creation Museum where apparently God named dinosaurs like "Tyrannosaurus Rex"... even before Latin and genera identification were invented! WOW!

God can see the future. Duh.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by kmkkid

God can see the future. Duh.

Damn, got me again.

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by olePigeon

Oh! I hope it mentions the Creation Museum where apparently God named dinosaurs like "Tyrannosaurus Rex"... even before Latin and genera identification were invented! WOW!

Latin wasn't invented it was handed down from on high. And the 'creation' of genera identification was merely the recognition of the consistent system God set forth in His naming scheme.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by FulcrumPilot

I want to read one anyway just for fun! Anyone know one?

Oh, they've been around since forever. You can't properly brainwash a child in homeschooling without propaganda, can you?

Here are a few:

https://www.abeka.com/ProductInfo/55220.html
https://www.abeka.com/ProductInfo/52574.html
https://www.abeka.com/ProductInfo/57223.html

[von Wrangell]

Originally Posted by nonhuman

Does everyone else just point at us and laugh?

Yes.

: Points and laughs :

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by von Wrangell

oints and laughs:

Don't do that. Ointing isn't nice!

[moonmonkey]

Originally Posted by nonhuman

Does everyone else just point at us and laugh?

Yes.

[von Wrangell]

Originally Posted by Oisín

Don't do that. Ointing isn't nice!

oops! Fixed™

[iLikebeer]

Any mention of the Flying Spaghetti Monster?
First he created a mountain, then some trees, then a midgit...
Have you been touched by His Noodly Appendage?

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally Posted by iLikebeer

Any mention of the Flying Spaghetti Monster?
First he created a mountain, then some trees, then a midgit...
Have you been touched by His Noodly Appendage?

Oh YES!

I have seen the light and have been converted to Pastafarianism.
It's been great for my diet: Worshiping spaghetti, instead of eating it, does wonders for the waist line.

[Kevin]

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally Posted by CharlesS

Oh, they've been around since forever. You can't properly brainwash a child in homeschooling without propaganda, can you?

Here are a few:

https://www.abeka.com/ProductInfo/55220.html
https://www.abeka.com/ProductInfo/52574.html
https://www.abeka.com/ProductInfo/57223.html

I actually followed those links to check out the books.
While they have nice pretty covers their content is just out there.
If you look at the sample pages they are scary in their single-mindedness.

The Biology text mentions how God made our shoulders "broad and strong".

The History text has a timeline showing History beginning in 4000BC.
It also has a sidebar on the shortcomings of Humanism.


As long as no one wants to use one of these books in a public school I say leave them be.
Eventually, anyone taught using these texts will come into contact with ideas that will
contradict what they have been taught. If nothing else, an awareness that there are contradictory
ideas about certain issues they believe are incontravenable will be good for them to experience.

[El Gato]

Originally Posted by dcmacdaddy

As long as no one wants to use one of these books in a public school I say leave them be.
Eventually, anyone taught using these texts will come into contact with ideas that will
contradict what they have been taught. If nothing else, an awareness that there are contradictory
ideas about certain issues they believe are incontravenable will be good for them to experience.

I wonder if the majority of people raised with a strict Christian upbringing wouldn't experience some sort of cognitive dissonance in this situation. So instead of having their perceptions changed by a contrasting issue, they would make excuses for the difference and attempt to find a way to make it fit with their current world view.

I think that it is good for people to experience things that challenge their perceptions, but religious beliefs are not something that many people wish to have challenged.

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally Posted by El Gato

I wonder if the majority of people raised with a strict Christian upbringing wouldn't experience some sort of cognitive dissonance in this situation. So instead of having their perceptions changed by a contrasting issue, they would make excuses for the difference and attempt to find a way to make it fit with their current world view.

I think that it is good for people to experience things that challenge their perceptions, but religious beliefs are not something that many people wish to have challenged.

Oh yeah, I wasn't advocating exposure to contradictory ideas as a way to have beliefs changed, I was advocating it merely to force an awareness that differing beliefs exist. The thing with so many fundamentalists is that their world-view is so circumscribed they can't even fathom differing world-views existing, let alone world-views contradictory to their own. That's all I want to happen: Have some strict fundamentalist have an encounter that produces cognitive dissonance, that makes them go "Huh?". What they do after this experience is immaterial to me, I just want the experience to happen to them.

[loki74]

I think it is very important to teach the concepts of intelligent design in ALL schools. Also, Intelligent Design ≠ Christianity. (Intelligent Design simply means that there was an intelligent force at work--not any specific God, heck, not even necessarily something that exists today.)

I attend a private Christian high school. Guess what, in Biology class we learned about evolution. Not just microevolution, but Evolution in the context of how we all came to be. It was not taught with a bias against it. It was taught to us objectively. As a matter of fact, they dont even bother touching in Intelligent Design because they assume we've already heard it! (most of us are Chrisian) Why, you ask? Because the school feels that it is important to present us students with multiple points of view, the evidence and arguments for each point of view, and let us decide on our own.

Originally Posted by CharlesS

Oh, they've been around since forever. You can't properly brainwash a child in homeschooling without propaganda, can you?

Here are a few:

https://www.abeka.com/ProductInfo/55220.html
https://www.abeka.com/ProductInfo/52574.html
https://www.abeka.com/ProductInfo/57223.html

This is utter and out-right foolishness.

First reason being, it is in no way whatsoever related to the topic of this thread. As I understand it, A-Beka Books are Christian books NOT intended for public schooling. The proposal of teaching Intelligent Design in public schools is quite revolutionary, as far as I can see.

The second reason your post is foolish is that to "properly brainwash" a child, one must present one and only one take on a given issue. Evolution is a theory. It is far from 100% proved. Yet it is the only thing being presented to these kids. THAT is brainwashing. Conversely, if you teach both Intelligent Design and Evolution (and teach them without bias to any one side) you give the kids a choice--this creates individualism. Creating individualism is the antithesis to brainwashing.

[jonasmac]

When I was a kid, some of the curriculum used by my school was from ABeka. It was a private college prep school. I can say that the education I received was equal to if not better than those who were taught elsewhere.

Evolution was taught as a theory, albeit a false theory. Over the years, I've heard various Creationist accounts on the subject, and I've made my own choices based on my own faith and system of beliefs. Are there people who blindly follow Christian propoganda? Yup. Are there people who follow whatever evolutionary propoganda exists as well? Darn tootin'.

I think that for the most part Creationism, Intelligent Design, etc....should also be taught, not as a foil to evolutionistic science, but rather as popular and prevailing alternate theories to an event or events that no one was around to witness.

What's the big deal anyways? Why is it so hard to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe there might be an intelligent design to our being?

[JoshuaZ]

Originally Posted by olePigeon

Oh! I hope it mentions the Creation Museum where apparently God named dinosaurs like "Tyrannosaurus Rex"... even before Latin and genera identification were invented! WOW!

Dude... that means God invented Latin! Holy moly!

[lurkalot]

Originally Posted by FulcrumPilot

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4353524.stm
I want to read one anyway just for fun! Anyone know one?

Of Pandas and People is the one mentioned in the Dover, PA. ID lawsuit, Kitzmiller,et al v. Dover School District, et al.

Edit to add quote: From the initial complaint:
"The phrase "Intelligent Design" was first widely used in the book Of Pandas and People: The Central Question of Biological Origins and has been vigorously promoted by opponents of the scientific theory for the last fifteen years. Unlike the the theory of evolution, however, intelligent design is neither scientific nor a theory in the scientific sense; it is an inherently religious argument or assertion that falls outside the realm of science." PDF.

and the PS. Get the book from a library unless you want to financially sponsor the wedge driving ID movement. I guess I shouldn't advertise it.

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by loki74

I think it is very important to teach the concepts of intelligent design in ALL schools. Also, Intelligent Design ≠ Christianity. (Intelligent Design simply means that there was an intelligent force at work--not any specific God, heck, not even necessarily something that exists today.)

...

The second reason your post is foolish is that to "properly brainwash" a child, one must present one and only one take on a given issue. Evolution is a theory. It is far from 100% proved. Yet it is the only thing being presented to these kids. THAT is brainwashing. Conversely, if you teach both Intelligent Design and Evolution (and teach them without bias to any one side) you give the kids a choice--this creates individualism. Creating individualism is the antithesis to brainwashing.

If any responsible science teacher teaches evolution and "intelligent design" alongside each other without any biases, he or she is simply being disingenous. The reason? "Intelligent design" is simply not a science, at least not yet. Virtually no one does any scientific research involving "intelligent design," and there are virtually no peer-reviewed scientific papers published on the subject. Contrast this to the scientific study of evolution, which has been worked on for over a century, with thousands and thousands of scientific papers published. "Bias" toward the teaching of evolution in science classes is thus fully warranted. Textbooks are not supposed to be the repositories of fads.

Now, if you want to place evolution and "intelligent design" on equal footing in a philosophy class, that's your business. But the fact is, what a lot of "intelligent design" proponents want is to outright skip over all the decades and decades of intermediate steps that made evolution an actual scientific field of study (and thus worthy of inclusion in a general science class textbook). They want to just stick it in there without having to do anything to prove its worth. Like I said, if you want to include it in history or philosophy curriculums that's fine (I took a wonderful class in college on the history and criticisms of evolution, taught by an evolutionary biologist), but you can't put it in a K-12 textbook without doing some very lengthy scientific work to back it up.

[von Wrangell]

Originally Posted by loki74

Evolution is a theory.

You don't know the terminology used in science. In science theory doesn't mean the same as in "common" speech. Read up about the difference for example between a scientific hypothesis and a scientific theory.

You also better hold on to your chair. Don't let go. Gravity is also "just" a theory.

[loki74]

Originally Posted by von Wrangell

You don't know the terminology used in science. In science theory doesn't mean the same as in "common" speech. Read up about the difference for example between a scientific hypothesis and a scientific theory.

You also better hold on to your chair. Don't let go. Gravity is also "just" a theory.

Hahahaha OKAY... so I used a word wrong. Whoop-dee-freakin-doo.

The point is, you simply cannot prove 100% without a reasonable doubt unequivicallly (spelling) that evolution is the truth. If that were the case, they would be coming out and proving it beyond a resonable doubt, if not for the sake of science for the sake of making Christians look bad.

On the other hand, to say that its possible that gravity does not exist is pretty silly, no?

======

SpaceMonkey makes a very good point; one I cannot entirely disagre with.

I would say however, that I am not totally sure how much of the siad research and papers etc are on macroevolution, or Evolution as a means of origin.

I have no quabble with what Darwin proved--survival of the fittest, adaptation, etc etc. To deny this is simply ridiculous. The most redily available example of this adaptation is that the skin of people in Africa has adapted to the heat. I believe Darwin proved this with birds' beaks on various islands?

I have trouble with the idea that Evoltion has been proved as a means of origin. I think the fundamental far-fetchedness of this notion in combination with the severe lack of evidence does set it on nearly equal footing as Intelligent Design.

Once again, I do agree that the amount of scientific research does should have a profound effect on whether or not this goes into science books. The question is, how much of the scientific research on evolution is with regards to Evoltion as origin?

Finally, even if evolution has more scientific validity, I believe that the fact that alternate views (Intelligent Design and otherwise) exist should be mentioned--and it should also be explained that they are not being taught in the science class due to the lack of scientific research into them, and that they are more philisophical.

My philosophy on this thing is that kids should be presented with as many possible viewpoints so that they can make their decision on their own. If the scientific evidence really does favor Evolution, then they will probably accept it as true.

=====

Lastly I would like to point out that Intelligent Design and Evolution do not necessarily contradict each other. One could say that all things evolved by chance, and the other simply that all things evolved beacuse some entitiy (once again, not necessarily God) wanted them to. Some find the former less far-fetched, others find the latter less far-fetched.

[UNTeMac]

The simple fact is that people want intelligent design taught because of their desire to convince others of their religious beliefs. All other arguments for its use in a science class are a smokescreen designed to disguise the real issue. Religion is currently clashing with well-tested science. It's not the first time religion will need to yield and it won't be the last. Scientific methods will always prevail because when conducted properly, they are neither ethnocentric nor self-serving. Religious attempts at scientific thought always are.

[von Wrangell]

Originally Posted by loki74

Hahahaha OKAY... so I used a word wrong. Whoop-dee-freakin-doo.

The point is, you simply cannot prove 100% without a reasonable doubt unequivicallly (spelling) that evolution is the truth. If that were the case, they would be coming out and proving it beyond a resonable doubt, if not for the sake of science for the sake of making Christians look bad.

On the other hand, to say that its possible that gravity does not exist is pretty silly, no?

It's no laughing matter when people who don't understand the very basic terminology used in science are trying to force a train-wreck of a "theory" on kids.

There is almost nothing in this world we can prove 100%. That is why scientists use the term "theory". That you believe we can prove anything 100% shows you don't know how scientific thinking works.

And scientists aren't interested in making Christians look bad. Science isn't about making anyone look bad. It's about making observations and predictions based on those observations. This is another thing you fail to understand.

And lastly. It's just as silly to say that evolution doesn't exist as saying gravity doesn't exist. Both have been studied extensively and backed up with facts. Which is why they are called theories.

But for you to understand that you'd need to understand some basic scientific concepts like facts, hypothesis and theory.

[von Wrangell]

Originally Posted by loki74

The most redily available example of this adaptation is that the skin of people in Africa has adapted to the heat. I believe Darwin proved this with birds' beaks on various islands?

It's more likely that we (white) adapted to the lack of sun in our areas. Since we originate from Africa. Got little to do with heat.

I have trouble with the idea that Evoltion has been proved as a means of origin.

Yet again you show how little you know about the theory. Evolution doesn't deal with the "origin". It's not interested in that part. That's a whole other theory.

Please, read just a little bit about these matters before you make the decision to support that we unleash a train-wreck of a theory on our children.

[lurkalot]

Originally Posted by jonasmac

snip...
What's the big deal anyways? Why is it so hard to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe there might be an intelligent design to our being?

The problem is not as abstract as that.

The problem is that specific stories are proposed as alternatives to be taught in public school science classes which can not possibly account for the way life on earth formed and developed. These stories are non-sensical and it is therefore unreasonable to expect them to be taught even as supplemental let alone alternative "theories". Contrary to popularly stated opinions there is no way the biblical creation story could be true without engaging in self deception and creative re-interpretation of the text and the historical evidence of life's evolution on earth. Evolution and biblical creationism are indeed mutually exclusive.

Intelligent design as identified in the ID textbook "Of Pandas and People" is nothing more than biblical creationism repackaged. The actual school textbook promoted to introduce the position of ID proponents to school children clearly contradicts their frequent denials that ID is christian creationism in disguise.

That makes teaching of ID simply illegal in biology classes in public schools in the United States.

The following excerpt from a court transcript of a hearing on the application to intervene by the publisher's of the textbook is posted on the Panda's thumb website. It clearly reveals that frequent denials that ID and creationism are one and the same are highly misleading. It also reveals how out of touch the text of the book OF Pandas and People is with scientific and historical reality.

Q Actually in this version of the book it describes who creationists are, doesn’t it, if you look at pages 22 and 23 and 24. It says there’s different types of creationist’s literature. There are older [old earth] creationists, younger [young earth] creationists, agnostic creationists, right?
A Yes. We were trying to give some articulation to the breadth of what that term means.
Q And then if you could turn back to page 22, you explain that “Creation is the theory that various forms of life began abruptly, with their distinctive features already intact: Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers and wings, mammals with fur and mammary glands.” That’s how you defined creation, correct?
A Yes.
Q All right. And I would like to take — you to take a look at an excerpt from Pandas and People. Turn to page 99 in the excerpt I gave you.
A All right.
Q Says, “Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact: Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks and wings, et cetera.”
Do you see that?
A I see it.
Q So that’s pretty much the exact same sentence substituting creation for intelligent design, isn’t that right?
A The reason that you find the similarity in the two passages is because this obviously was at a time when we were developing the manuscript. We had not chosen the term “intelligent design” at that point. We were trying to — this was just a place holder term until we came to grips with which of the plausible two or three terms that are in scientific literature we would settle on. And that was the last thing we did before the book was revise — I mean was sent to the publisher.
Q It was creation, creation, creation until the end and then it was intelligent design.
(Court transcript, pp.97-99)

[iLikebeer]

Just looking at every internet argument about evolution/ID, you can see the difference in credibility.

ID backers always bring up the flaws in evolution. Right, there's plenty of papers written, and it's a theory. When we figure out better explanations for some details, they will be changed. It's a work in progress that is peer reviewed and for now best fits the available data.

How do we argue ID? Some guy created everything back in the day, we don't know the length of that day, but it is beyond us to know so whatever you argue, you're wrong. God did it. That's not science. Where are all the papers and hypothesi detailing ID? Philosophy and religion are not sciences.

All you ID backers would be better off arguing that instead of teaching science as rote facts to be memorized, science teachers should be teaching science, a system of correlating observations and data with predictive ability through hypothesis, more observations, and eventually a repeatable and observable theory that best fits what we know now (my rough definition.) Then not only would your religious beliefs be safe, we might also get the added benefit of actually teaching a few people here and there to think critically.

[OreoCookie]

I clicked in the links to see the books. I quote from the first one's sample page (biology):

Critical Thinking:
8. Men and women both have exactly 12 pairs of ribs. Why is this not a contradiction of Genesis 2:21-22?

I never thought of that, really … 

[analogika]

Creationists, er, I mean "I.D."ers:

I assure you, the rest of the world - and that includes most of the Judeo-Christian heritage - is either shaking their head in bewildered amusement or laughing their asses off at you.

This is not theory in the colloquial sense.

That is fact.

[Y3a]

I still laugh at the "Creation Science" museum that displayed a chunk of rock with both 'human' and dinosaur footprints on it. Of course you couldn't examine the 'evidence' and ther same CS folks bought the chunk of land with the prints and guarded it from disbelievers, but someone found a continuance of the set of prints just outside the boundry and used laytex molds of the inside of the footprints to show that the 'human' prints had claws, 3 toes in front, one in back. The CS museun quietly removed the display.

Facts ruining the blind assumptions of the CS crowd!

[RIRedinPA]

Originally Posted by El Gato

I wonder if the majority of people raised with a strict Christian upbringing wouldn't experience some sort of cognitive dissonance in this situation. So instead of having their perceptions changed by a contrasting issue, they would make excuses for the difference and attempt to find a way to make it fit with their current world view.

I think that it is good for people to experience things that challenge their perceptions, but religious beliefs are not something that many people wish to have challenged.

I can think of a certain leader of a certain country as a prime example of that.

[RIRedinPA]

Originally Posted by FulcrumPilot

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4353524.stm


I want to read one anyway just for fun! Anyone know one?

I'd settle for a paper published in a peer reviewed journal.

[Scientist]

Originally Posted by loki74

I attend a private Christian high school. Guess what, in Biology class we learned about evolution. Not just microevolution, but Evolution in the context of how we all came to be. It was not taught with a bias against it.

Either your Christian HS did a substandard job of teaching evolution or someone wasn't paying attention in class.

[Dork.]

Originally Posted by von Wrangell

It's no laughing matter when people who don't understand the very basic terminology used in science are trying to force a train-wreck of a "theory" on kids.

There is almost nothing in this world we can prove 100%. That is why scientists use the term "theory". That you believe we can prove anything 100% shows you don't know how scientific thinking works.

And scientists aren't interested in making Christians look bad. Science isn't about making anyone look bad. It's about making observations and predictions based on those observations. This is another thing you fail to understand.

And lastly. It's just as silly to say that evolution doesn't exist as saying gravity doesn't exist. Both have been studied extensively and backed up with facts. Which is why they are called theories.

But for you to understand that you'd need to understand some basic scientific concepts like facts, hypothesis and theory.

I never really understood this whole Intelligent Design kerfuffle. This is precisely because evolution is a scientific theory, and intelligent design is not. This is not a knock against ID at all. Scientific theories, as VW stated, deal with things that are observable. ID specifically deals with things that are not observable, and which believers need to accept on faith.

I always bristle when people talk about "believing" in Evolution. You don't believe in a theory. You keep on observing the world, and confirm that your observations fit the theory. When observatons start to deviate from what is predicted by the theory, then you tweak the theory until predictions start being accurate again.

Is it possible that some outside force put everything here in 4000 BC, fully formed? And all the evidence we find pointing to an evolutionary theory were put there at the same time just to throw us off? Sure it's possible. But it can't ever be proven via the scientific method, because we won't be able to observe any direct evidence of this. It's also possible that some outside force put everything here in 1975. I can't disprove it, because I wasn't around before then. People around me who claim to have existed before 1975 could have been put there, fully formed, on the day I was born, and only *think" they remember the Jets winning their only Super Bowl.

In short, I think people who want to put ID on the same scientific footing as Evolution are missing the point. The two concepts answer fundamentally different questions. ID can never be on the same scientific basis as evolution, barring (literal!) divine intervention. And evolution can never have the same religious legitimacy as ID to some people, because it was never intended to answer religious questions. Can't we all just get along?

[Monique]

It is funny how the right loves to change the terminology of things and make it sound more intelligent and more scientific. Like calling Creation, Intelligent Design. Of course they mean that a Christian God is behind it all.

Also, since you cannot prove Evolution as 100% fact so it cannot be taught is lunacy, medecine cannot be proven as 100% fact so it should not be taught. Nothing in science can be proven as 100% fact because of this little thing called human beings who can influence things in many ways.

You can believe that some theories are proven correct like gravity, the air we breathe...

Also, the earth is certainly more than 4000 years old, there are those huge animals I think they were called dinosaurs which were what thousand of years older than Mesopotamia.

And what color were your human of 4000 years ago; because according to your Intelligent Design they were called Adam and Eve and were white and now 4000 years later we are up to 6 billion people, God they were busy bees, but then again they only had 2 sons. Wow talk about making people appear by magic.

Now prove to me in a scientific manner that the earth is only 4000 years old and scientificaly we can grow from 2 humans into 6 billion humans. I want years and population charts please.

Since you cannot I will save the trouble to the Creation people on this panel.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by Monique

And what color were your human of 4000 years ago; because according to your Intelligent Design they were called Adam and Eve

Ooops. Sounds like someone doesn't know what the words "intelligent design" mean.

Kitchen. Now.
There's a good girl.

[Monique]

Sorry lousy cook and prefer to read books contrary to the right wing women.

[Shaddim]

Originally Posted by Doofy

Ooops. Sounds like someone doesn't know what the words "intelligent design" mean.

Kitchen. Now.
There's a good girl.

Doesn't stop her from going on a good rant though... Just shows how "well read" she is.



Hint for those who aren't in the know, I.D. /= Creationism. In fact, most "new earthers" (those who believe the Earth was created in 4004 B.C.E.) think I.D. is just as much bunk as Evolution. Thus, lumping them both together just makes a person look ignorant. However, I don't suppose that's ever occured to most foaming-at-the-mouth pro-Evolution zealots, since they're too busy bashing anything that could possibly outside of their perceived reality. It's refreshing to see that the New Earth crowd aren't the only closedminded boobs on this rock.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by MacNStein

Hint for those who aren't in the know, I.D. /= Creationism. In fact, most "new earthers" (those who believe the Earth was created in 4004 B.C.E.) think I.D. is just as much bunk as Evolution. Thus, lumping them both together just makes a person look ignorant. However, I don't suppose that's ever occured to most foaming-at-the-mouth pro-Evolution zealots, since they're too busy bashing anything that could possibly outside of their perceived reality. It's refreshing to see that the New Earth crowd aren't the only closedminded boobs on this rock.

Hint for you. ID was created (love to use that word) after the Supreme Court denied a request to allow to teach Creationism at schools in 1987, because it contained references to God (aka Christian God). It was only after that that ID was created. Same wine, different label, try again.

Outside of the US, ID and Creationism has virtually no standing.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie

Hint for you. ID was created (love to use that word) after the Supreme Court denied a request to allow to teach Creationism at schools in 1987, because it contained references to God (aka Christian God). It was only after that that ID was created. Same wine, different label, try again.

Funny that. I was using ID (by a different name) before 1987.

Originally Posted by OreoCookie

Outside of the US, ID and Creationism has virtually no standing.

Nonsense. Creationism has little standing, for sure, but ID beliefs can be found everywhere.

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by Doofy

Funny that. I was using ID (by a different name) before 1987.

Was that different name 'creationism'?

[BRussell]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie

Hint for you. ID was created (love to use that word) after the Supreme Court denied a request to allow to teach Creationism at schools in 1987, because it contained references to God (aka Christian God). It was only after that that ID was created. Same wine, different label, try again.

Outside of the US, ID and Creationism has virtually no standing.

Yup, ID is a religious and Republican political movement, funded by all the usual political conservatives and people like Bill Gates. Here's another fascinating history. It origins have nothing to do with scientific empiricism, and everything to do with a religious and political movement.

[Hugi]

Out of curiosity, are there any advocates of "intelligent design" (that you know of) outside the US?

[analogika]

Originally Posted by Doofy

Funny that. I was using ID (by a different name) before 1987.



Nonsense. Creationism has little standing, for sure, but ID beliefs can be found everywhere.

"Intelligent Design" is the name invented for creationism post-1987.

It is the same thing.

The belief that some supreme being set up the universe according to a set of marvellously intricate rules and then kicked off the Big Bang fifteen billion years ago is NOT the belief currently being sold to the stupid as "intelligent design".

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by analogika

"Intelligent Design" is the name invented for creationism post-1987.

It is the same thing.

The belief that some supreme being set up the universe according to a set of marvellously intricate rules and then kicked off the Big Bang fifteen billion years ago is NOT the belief currently being sold to the stupid as "intelligent design".

I thought the "supreme being kicking off the big bang" was intelligent design and that the main argument against it is that it can't be proved?

Can you show me any proof that anyone teaching it is saying otherwise? I'm not looking for a fight here, just can't seem to find anything by anyone other than the "anti-ID" people which even looks like it's creationism repackaged. Are we sure this "not a supreme being kicking off the big bang" thing isn't just FUD from ID opponents?

[Uncle Skeleton]

Originally Posted by MacNStein

I.D. /= Creationism

you mean != (I wouldn't be so anal except that you seem like a guy who likes to be accurate).

I'm not a proponent of ID, but I've done my best to understand those who are, and this is how I understand it (please correct me if I've still not got it right):

1. The world around us is complicated.
2. All the complicated things we know the origins of were created by intelligent design (ours)
3. It's far more likely that anything complicated we see would follow the same pattern (design) than not (some natural process), until proven otherwise. (the null hypothesis)
4. No one has proven otherwise (to our satisfaction (we being ID supporters)).

The problems with this is twofold. One, subscribers do not accept evolution as believable because they have no conception of a number as large as 4 billion years.

Two, there is a failure in the null hypothesis that complexity arising through a natural process is more unlikely than it being designed. Namely, who created the creator? Another creator? Who created that guy? Eventually, you have to have a creator that arose himself through some natural process. If the creator can arise through a natural process, that can be no less unlikely than the world we see arising through a natural process, and this completely illiminates point 3 above. What is left afterward? Evolution, which has significant but incomplete evidence behind it, and ID, which has no evidence whatsoever.

Now, I've not yet had the opportunity to see a rebuttal to this reasoning, so if anyone can present one I would be grateful to read it.

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by Doofy

I thought the "supreme being kicking off the big bang" was intelligent design and that the main argument against it is that it can't be proved?

Can you show me any proof that anyone teaching it is saying otherwise? I'm not looking for a fight here, just can't seem to find anything by anyone other than the "anti-ID" people which even looks like it's creationism repackaged. Are we sure this "not a supreme being kicking off the big bang" thing isn't just FUD from ID opponents?

These people are the primary pseudo-scientific voice of the current intelligent design movement. They are mostly the ones that go on all the talk shows and do interviews for news reporters and such.

Their views can basically be boiled down to a quote from this article, which is available on their web site:

And beginning with Fred Hoyle’s discovery of the carbon-12 resonance in the early1950s,18 physicists began uncovering a number of ways the universal constants of physics and chemistry (gravity, the strong and weak nuclear forces, etc.) were fine tuned for complex life. Reviewing these developments in 1982, leading theoretical physicist Paul Davies described the fine-tuning of the universe as “the most compelling evidence for an element of cosmic design.”19

Hoyle, an eminent theoretical physicist and agnostic, followed with The Intelligent Universe (1983), featuring chapter titles like “The Information Rich Universe” and “What is Intelligence Up To?” Hoyle, no friend of Christianity or Biblical creationism, nevertheless asserted, “A component has evidently been missing from cosmological studies. The origin of the Universe, like the solution of the Rubik cube, requires an intelligence.”20

Or as Hoyle said elsewhere, “A commonsense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature.”21

Hoyle’s argument, thus, extended even to the realm of biology. “We are close here to what
seems to be going on in the mind of the Darwinian enthusiast, whose processes of thought seem to be conditioned by the tacit assumption that the environment is intelligent, an idea which I would in part subscribe to, but one which in Darwinian theory is quite against the rules.” Hoyle wrote in the same 1983 book. “A proper understanding of evolution requires that the environment, or the variations on which it operates, or both, be intelligently controlled.”

As you can see, the basic idea is that the universe and biological lifeforms in general are just so complicated and seem to fit together so perfectly well that their development must have been guided by some sort of "intelligence." While one could work the Big Bang in here, ID goes much farther than just saying that a supreme being kicked it all off. It's saying that a supreme being controlled it all through time. ID can incorporate evolution, where evolution is the change in organisms over time through a process guided by a supreme being, but it is absolutely contradictory to evolution by a process of natural selection and mutation.

[loki74]

Originally Posted by von Wrangell

Yet again you show how little you know about the theory. Evolution doesn't deal with the "origin". It's not interested in that part. That's a whole other theory.

Then I guess its the whole other theory that I'm reffering to! If the "evolution" you refer to doesnt deal with origin, then I do not see where our beliefs are in conflict.

To be absolutely clear, this is my stance: If something cannot be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, it should not be taught in a science classroom. But if one thing that cannot be proved beyond a reasonable doubt is taught in a science classroom, as many alternative views should be presented as well, so that they have the choice.

In my school, Creationism is taught, and since it cannot be proved scientifically, Evolution as origin is also taught. The other type of evolution (as in Darwin's work) is (and should be) taught in any case, since it has been proven scientifically

If in general Evolution as origin is not taught, then I have no problem with anyting. But if it is, I think that it is essential to provide alternate views.

====

Like I said, evolution happens. But instead of realizing what I was trying to say, you decided to go and cut down my attempt at an example of this. Okay, so we became white, and eveyone was originally black. Whatever, I don't care. It's not relevant to the point I was making

I'm done with this thread, and I'm done with you. It is quite evidednt that all you want to do is prove to me that I'm not a very scientifically knowledgeable person.