What do you make of the ID debate? Should they even mention ID in a science class? Or is it totally of limits?


http://360.yahoo.com/cschronicle

The whole thing is blown way out of proportion... and again it is lead by the folks who need to be offended for other people, along with the mothers who simply cannot let their kids make decisions for themselves....

If the idea of a God or Supreme Being is "insanity"... then don't beleive in it.

But so much is unexplained about evolution, it's like a swiss cheese slice.. it has holes all through it.

Why teach bogus science as fact?

Say the truth... we don't know how the hell we got here.... end of story.

Originally posted by Decka
it is lead by the folks who need to be offended for other people,
That's a great line.

Originally posted by Decka

Say the truth... we don't know how the hell we got here.... end of story.

Wow, way to beat the opposing perspectives into submission. I thank my lucky stars that people like you don't run science curriculums across the nation. Otherwise, we'd all be massaging our asses from sitting in caves all day wondering why the Creator allowed tiny cuts to blossom into festering, fatal wounds.

Science is based on evidence and data, not on off-the-cuff explanations from blue-collar religious chameleons. But that's all I'll try to explain to you since even our President can't figure that out.

P.S. In case it's not obvious, I think teaching "Intelligent Design" in our classrooms is ridiculously stupid and is embarassing among first-world nations.

Originally posted by Decka

But so much is unexplained about evolution, it's like a swiss cheese slice.. it has holes all through it.

Why teach bogus science as fact?

Say the truth... we don't know how the hell we got here.... end of story.

So, since we don't yet have all of the answers to one of the most complex questions ever, we should stop trying (and go with something written before they discovered that the earth revolves around the sun)? All of the scientific evidence supporting evolution is bogus?

New Analyses Bolster Central Tenets of Evolution Theory
Pa. Trial Will Ask Whether 'Alternatives' Can Pass as Science

When scientists announced last month they had determined the exact order of all 3 billion bits of genetic code that go into making a chimpanzee, it was no surprise that the sequence was more than 96 percent identical to the human genome. Charles Darwin had deduced more than a century ago that chimps were among humans' closest cousins.

But decoding chimpanzees' DNA allowed scientists to do more than just refine their estimates of how similar humans and chimps are. It let them put the very theory of evolution to some tough new tests.

If Darwin was right, for example, then scientists should be able to perform a neat trick. Using a mathematical formula that emerges from evolutionary theory, they should be able to predict the number of harmful mutations in chimpanzee DNA by knowing the number of mutations in a different species' DNA and the two animals' population sizes.

"That's a very specific prediction," said Eric Lander, a geneticist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in Cambridge, Mass., and a leader in the chimp project.

Sure enough, when Lander and his colleagues tallied the harmful mutations in the chimp genome, the number fit perfectly into the range that evolutionary theory had predicted.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/25/AR2005092501177_pf.html

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We don't know how all the functions of the body work either. Maybe the next time these people get sick they could use "intelligent healing" instead of burdening our science based professions...

Originally posted by Decka
The whole thing is blown way out of proportion... and again it is lead by the folks who need to be offended for other people, along with the mothers who simply cannot let their kids make decisions for themselves....

Yes, i do believe there is a problem from it being blown up, btw that was a great line, i am with Brooks.

If the idea of a God or Supreme Being is "insanity"... then don't beleive in it.

Precisely, but they do not want to hear about it in a public school, or at least in science class.

But so much is unexplained about evolution, it's like a swiss cheese slice.. it has holes all through it.

True, but evolution explains how we got here over time, not how we came to be in the beginning. Not to mention evolution has scientific backing with evidence and strong theories.

Why teach bogus science as fact?

Well, it is a scientific theory still being investigated, bogus science is political science :D

Say the truth... we don't know how the hell we got here.... end of story.

True, but that won't keep us from attempting to find out. And since Darwin, we've developed some good ideas about how we've developed...now onto how it all started :) which quite possibly will forever be impossible to be explained by humans.

I don't care if it's taught, just don't teach it in science class. Teach it in a world religion class or something.

The theory among evolution is we all started off in a sludge and bacteria slowly became an amoeba. Now we all know some people on this planet are still functioning on the same level as that theoretical amoeba. But why do we really need to know how we came to exist? Isn't the more important question is: Why we came to exist? Personally I like some of the Native American legends.

The moon wanted to be seen during the day so she came out at the same time as the sun. Trying to compete for the sky, she shined as bright as she could all day and all night, until she began to grow thinner and thinner. Until one night she poked a hole in the sky. The stars began to fall down to Earth. Some were able to stay in the sky during the day, but died in the bright sunlight. So the moon took each star that fell and molded it into a human. The love she felt for these humans made her grow full again. She vowed that she would give them just enough light to see by at night so their world was never dark and lonely.

See there are all sorts of ideas. It doesn't really matter which one is true. It matters that we are here.

I don't care if it's taught, just don't teach it in science class. Teach it in a world religion class or something.

Bingo!

Originally posted by pletorius238
What do you make of the ID debate? Should they even mention ID in a science class? Or is it totally off limits?


So-called “intelligent design” is the idea that some “unseen force” created mankind. This is stupidity on a previously unseen level. It's ok for people to hold irrational notions. Some people still believe the earth is flat. Some believe poisonous snakes cannot harm a person if that person "believes" in 'god'. Some believe that an unseen metaphysical force created the universe.

No problem with that. It's perfectly alright for people to push insane, insupportable ideas......just don't push them in the public schools and present them as being equally valid as scientifically proven ideas.

Barry Lynn said it best: "Student’s hearing two radically differing viewpoints (on how the world came to be) don't understand that one is a religious viewpoint and one is a scientific viewpoint.”

IOW......one (the evolutionary theory) is based on many decades of scientific research, observation and experimentation by the brightest minds on the planet.

The other is pure superstition. Period.

Perhaps if the people of this country decide to start teaching the notion of "intelligent design" in the public schools, we should also begin to teach students witchcraft, divination, palmistry and the reading of tea leaves.

Originally posted by Freethinker
So-called “intelligent design” is the idea that some “unseen force” created mankind. This is stupidity on a previously unseen level. It's ok for people to hold irrational notions. Some people still believe the earth is flat. Some believe poisonous snakes cannot harm a person if that person "believes" in 'god'. Some believe that an unseen metaphysical force created the universe.

No problem with that. It's perfectly alright for people to push insane, insupportable ideas......just don't push them in the public schools and present them as being equally valid as scientifically proven ideas.

Barry Lynn said it best: "Student’s hearing two radically differing viewpoints (on how the world came to be) don't understand that one is a religious viewpoint and one is a scientific viewpoint.”

IOW......one (the evolutionary theory) is based on many decades of scientific research, observation and experimentation by the brightest minds on the planet.

The other is pure superstition. Period.

Perhaps if the people of this country decide to start teaching the notion of "intelligent design" in the public schools, we should also begin to teach students witchcraft, divination, palmistry and the reading of tea leaves.

We have a winner! This post sums it up quite nicely.

somehow what i said got mis-interpreted...

i never said we should STOP seeking the truth...

just admit we don't know how we got here UNTIL we know. and then teach probable theories.

Originally posted by Decka

just admit we don't know how we got here UNTIL we know. and then teach probable theories.

Science DOES admit it doesn't know.

It is religion that claims to have supreme and complete knowledge.

Science evaluates all known information and forms a theory:

THEORY: 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; “theories can incorporate facts and laws and tested hypotheses”.

"Intelligent design" is NOT a theory.

Wikipedia says that ---

Intelligent design (ID) is the assertion that empirical evidence supports the conclusion that the initial life on earth, and perhaps some of its present details, was deliberately designed by one or more intelligent agents; additionally, or alternately, it may include the idea that different empirical evidence supports a similar conclusion regarding the universe itself.

ID is not a **well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world**. It is an idea spawned in the mind of a superstitious person who has convinced himself that life is "too complex" to have evolved from apes.

Secondly, ID is not **accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena**. In fact, it doesn’t explain anything.

It simply removes the explanation, and claims ---- “hey, it's magic!”.

_______________________________

Religious fanaticism is tearing a gaping hole in the fabric of our nation. How deceived can people be to think that the elimination of abortion, the persecution of homosexuals, or passing a constitutional amendment against certain marriages will solve the problems of the lack of social justice, economic fairness, and political equity that exist in this country?

just admit we don't know how we got here UNTIL we know. and then teach probable theories.
How many times must we inform you that evolution does not even pertain to the origin of life? Every time you bring this up, you just look even more and more like a complete idiot.

But so much is unexplained about evolution, it's like a swiss cheese slice.. it has holes all through it.

Why teach bogus science as fact?

It's clearly not 'bogus' science. As a model for how life developed over a very large amount of time through small adaptations, evolution is basically true. It's not necessary to pin down all the details, fill all the holes.

Just by convincing the public that there is a 'controversey' at all, the anti-science reactionaries have won.

Say the truth... we don't know how the hell we got here.... end of story.

Say the truth . . . religion is complete bullshit. It's disappearing from most of the industrialized world fast.

along with the mothers who simply cannot let their kids make decisions for themselves....

You want kids making decisions instead of their parents? I hardly believe that. Does that apply to other things that a kid could be learning about in school such as sex-ed or homosexuality. Let the kid decide, not the parent?

I am sorry, but a man in the military is not a child who needs a parents approval to do anyhting. I am sure had he lived Shehaans son could have taught her stupid ass a thing or two about life. unfortunalty now this brave man is a poster child for a babbling bunch of idiots chanting slogans in front of the white house like its 1969

Originally posted by Travh20
I am sorry, but a man in the military is not a child who needs a parents approval to do anyhting. I am sure had he lived Shehaans son could have taught her stupid ass a thing or two about life. unfortunalty now this brave man is a poster child for a babbling bunch of idiots chanting slogans in front of the white house like its 1969
Insults by Trav: "stupid ass" -- "bunch of idiots" Typical for a Republican (there are exceptions, but Trav sure isn't one of them) Because a woman in mourning of her sons death is so wrong. I mean, knowing her son was sent going to Iraq thinking Saddam had WMDs, and then finding out he never had WMDs, thus making Bush's first and main reason false, and making her sons death for nothing is nothing to be upset about. And how dare she come out against the war when she once supported it! I mean, changing your opinion based off of new infomation is so wrong! How dare she get mad that Bush's war was based off of something that wasn't true! Stupid woman...lets go and drag her name in the mud and rip her to shreds!

:rolleyes:

I am sorry, but a man in the military is not a child who needs a parents approval to do anyhting. I am sure had he lived Shehaans son could have taught her stupid ass a thing or two about life. unfortunalty now this brave man is a poster child for a babbling bunch of idiots chanting slogans in front of the white house like its 1969

Pay attention to the thread and the post I replied to. I wasn't talking about Sheehan's son, I was responding to a post about the teaching of intelligent design.

well back to the topic . . .

There's so far more accumulated evidence, a workable theory, for evolution.

Yet there's no theory so far for gravity. Will they stop teaching gravity in school? Just say it's God pulling on you or what?

The problem with intelligent design is that once you subscribe to it, it becomes "truth" and with this new found "truth", the story ends. It will remain untestable as it is built on faith and not fact. Because of this, intelligent design will never be on par with actual scientific theories and should never be taught like one. Intelligent design, by it's very nature, will always remain mythology, even if it is modern contemporary mythology, and should be treated as such.

Once you buy into ID you cross over the boundary that divides common sense and the religio-politico mystique that doesn't allow for the teaching of any of the sciences that is based on evolution, teaches evolution or even hints about evolution.

From there, you look around and see the United States high-schoolers finishing out of the top 10 in the world in the sciences and math and no longer being able to compete on the international stage.

The world laughs at us as she watches the american people send technical and high-skilled jobs to India, China and Singapore because we no longer have a talented pool of young workers from which to draw our work force. Then factor in that the foreign workers will not only do the job better they will do it cheaper and with no benefits.

Not a very bright picture for out younger generations but at least god made man and woman and we can say 'UNDER GOD' better than anyone.

Wow - Dop, great post. And FT, great post on page 1.

There may be holes (like the swiss cheese spoke about above) in the evolution theroy (holes that we are filling every day with proven scientific computations), but far less than the holes in the "creator" theory.