Why is Intelligent Design not offered in schools?

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Melchior:
Everyone go read Darwin’s Black Box. Lather rinse and repeat. 😃

Mel
Then, to see an honest scientific discussion of the topic, go read Finding Darwin’s God by Ken Miller. Game. Set. Match.

Peace

Tim
 
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steveandersen:
Judge Jones and the various witnesses for the plaintives made many very good arguments.

In general:
(1) ID is not falsifiable
(2) Supernatural mechanisms are not testable. In fact there is no proposed mechanism to test.
(3) There is no data to support it
Therefore it is not a valid scientific theory. I’m not sure what your exception to this is?

There are rules to things. Scientists don’t just make stuff up as they go along. Every theory has to meet the same criteria. That is what science is. The whole point of the process is that it a theory must be defensible, internally consistent, rigorous, and match the preponderance of the evidence.
Do you not understand that 1 and 3 apply equally to Macro-evolution? Plus, the falsifiability argument is popular but it is not real a true marker of what is science.

Another archeologist example. A he find two stone next to each other - one has crude pictures of animals the other has random scratches that look like an animal may have been chewing on the stone. If the archeaologist says the crude drawings must have had a drawer which scientific principle is he defying?.. That’s what I thought. 👍

Mel
 
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Orogeny:
Then, to see an honest scientific discussion of the topic, go read Finding Darwin’s God by Ken Miller. Game. Set. Match.

Peace

Tim
I see it’s honest if it supports your views. :rolleyes:

Checkmate. See you forced me into mixed metaophors. 😉

Mel
 
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Orogeny:
That is all ID has done with evolution! There is NO evidence for ID.
What were you saying about impugning the other side?

Peace

Tim
Have you read the evidence presented? Or are you just making an assumption based on reading the oppositions incredibly weak critiques of strawmen? How can you say there is no evidence of design? Tt is everywhere and so obvious a 5 year old can see it. When you see and airplane, something far less detailed in design that a bird, would you say there is no evidence it had a designer? I swear people are leaving their brains and common sense in bed on this issue.

As for impugning the other side - I was making a pot and kettle point. But I also did erase it for a reason.

Peace,

Mel
 
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Melchior:
Have you read the evidence presented? Or are you just making an assumption based on reading the oppositions incredibly weak critiques of strawmen? How can you say there is no evidence of design?
I have been following this debate for quite some time. I have read Darwin’s Black Box (can you say the same about Finding Darwin’s God?) and found it to be a book by a man desperately trying to legitimize his belief in God with science. That makes bad science and bad theology.
Tt is everywhere and so obvious a 5 year old can see it. When you see and airplane, something far less detailed in design that a bird, would you say there is no evidence it had a designer? I swear people are leaving their brains and common sense in bed on this issue.
Please take a minute to read this link. This was written by a biochemist when almost the exact same thing was said to him. Then, please take a minute and re-think your claim that a 5 year old is more capable of seeing the “truth” than a scientist is.
talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/mar05.html

Peace

Tim
 
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mikew262:
The study of science should deal with all possible theories. The judge was wrong.
therefore you are arguing that we should teach alchamy and astrology in our schools as a science. ID is not a science, it isnt even a theory by proper definition. Evolution on the other hand (which is taught in Catholic schools) has substantial evidience to support it. Physical evidience, not just spiritual evidence. Science is science, religion is religion, ID is religion, not science. That being said i am a devout Catholic. I believe that God guided evolution as it occured.
 
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mikew262:
…a short mention that other theories do exist, including ID…This is called “education”. Introduce students to all the theories.
If by “all the theories” you mean “all the scientific theories,” then I agree. ID, however, is not a scientific theory. Therefore, it should not be addressed in a science class. To introduce a religio-philosophical concept like ID into the science curriculum is not “education,” it is poor education, as well as bad science. It should no more be offered as a “scientific” view than astrology should be proposed as an “alternative theory” in an astronomy course.

Now, while I think ID works as a philosophical argument for theism (philosophers call it the Teleological Argument), it fails utterly as a scientific principle. It all falls to a basic difference between theology and science, a distinction which the judge in the Dover case recognized, and which some Christians (even Catholics) do not.

Truly,
Don
 
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Orogeny:
Then, please take a minute and re-think your claim that a 5 year old is more capable of seeing the “truth” than a scientist is.
talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/mar05.html

Peace

Tim
No. That’s not a parallel.

The argument you link is one that states: Science has grown too complex for anyone but experts to make judgements about evolution.

Melchior’s argument was that the inherent functionality and beauty of a bird is similar and greater than that of an airplane. If A is like B and A had a designer then could not B also have a designer? After all B(ird) is much more functional at flying and more aesthetic than A(irplane)?

The first argument seeks to deny me my voice under a weight of scholarship, so it sounds like an evil argument. Particularly when the origins of man is philosophical as well as scientific. Sorry, I won’t bend under the weight of talkorigin’s mockery of me because I choose to have an opinion not rooted in current scholarship. The revolution of Newtonian physics this last Century UPENDED the CONCEPTUAL underpinnings of physics, so I really am not interested in being tyrannized on the conceptual origins of man by a bunch of sheep bleating scientists trying to drown out philosophical speculation.

However, I yield that an argument based solely in a specific field of science with a topic restricted within that field then it is only common sensical to either yield to expert opinion or learn the field yourself.

The second argument (Melchior]s) is essentially, imho, a spiritual argument in that the longing to praise the Designer is inherent in us. But that longing and spiritual recognition of a designer in Nature does not in itself constitute a proof of a Designer–or what need of faith?
 
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Orogeny:
I have been following this debate for quite some time. I have read Darwin’s Black Box (can you say the same about Finding Darwin’s God?) and found it to be a book by a man desperately trying to legitimize his belief in God with science. That makes bad science and bad theology.
Please take a minute to read this link. This was written by a biochemist when almost the exact same thing was said to him. Then, please take a minute and re-think your claim that a 5 year old is more capable of seeing the “truth” than a scientist is.
talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/mar05.html

Peace

Tim
Everything this guy wrote is completely consistent with micro-evolution, such as his six months of lost work. It was not a jump from one species to another. His points do nothing to undermine what I said. Specifically about the airplane and the bird. A guy on TalkOrigins saying how educated he is does not address my point at all. And that is why it is so frustrating talking to those who assume micro-evolution and yet never answer any objection straight on. It is all “how ignorant of these people - I have a Ph.D. so can tell you they are wrong” that is not an answer. I mean no offense but it is just an artful dodge. Can’t you guys just admit that you don’t believe any hard evidence, but that you believe what people you think have authority tell you without necessarily backing it up? Dawkin’s talks often of the “honest moments” of macro-evolutionists where they hide the unanswerables from the public, as if evolutionary theory had not gaps or holes. Anyone who is honest - including Dawkin’s admits there are some big ones.

So how about that bird and the plane? How about the complexity of a single cell for that matter as compared to, say, a computer? Can a computer come about after a billion years without a designer?
Why do several species just seem to “appear out of nowhere” in the Cambrian era? What is the explanation for that?

Macro-evolution is not very strong as science goes. It is the working model and it is hard for people let go of the outdated and look for better explanations but that is the essence of what is going on with macro-evolution.

ID challenges Darwinistic dogma and that scares people. But that is not a valid argument against it.

Enough of this it’s December 22nd!

Merry Christmas,

Mel
 
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AdvanceAlways:
therefore you are arguing that we should teach alchamy and astrology in our schools as a science. ID is not a science, it isnt even a theory by proper definition. Evolution on the other hand (which is taught in Catholic schools) has substantial evidience to support it. Physical evidience, not just spiritual evidence. Science is science, religion is religion, ID is religion, not science. That being said i am a devout Catholic. I believe that God guided evolution as it occured.
This is just silly. This is not a cogent argument, it is a means of distraction that liberals often employ. Draw parallels to absurdly outdated things and you think you have made a valid point. Mock views you disagree with instead of engaging them. Plus, you are mixing categories and make the false assumption that science is philosophically neutral. It never has been.

Darwinism is philosophy not science.

Mel
 
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MichaelTDoyle:
No. That’s not a parallel.

The argument you link is one that states: Science has grown too complex for anyone but experts to make judgements about evolution.

Melchior’s argument was that the inherent functionality and beauty of a bird is similar and greater than that of an airplane. If A is like B and A had a designer then could not B also have a designer? After all B(ird) is much more functional at flying and more aesthetic than A(irplane)?

The first argument seeks to deny me my voice under a weight of scholarship, so it sounds like an evil argument. Particularly when the origins of man is philosophical as well as scientific. Sorry, I won’t bend under the weight of talkorigin’s mockery of me because I choose to have an opinion not rooted in current scholarship. The revolution of Newtonian physics this last Century UPENDED the CONCEPTUAL underpinnings of physics, so I really am not interested in being tyrannized on the conceptual origins of man by a bunch of sheep bleating scientists trying to drown out philosophical speculation.

However, I yield that an argument based solely in a specific field of science with a topic restricted within that field then it is only common sensical to either yield to expert opinion or learn the field yourself.

The second argument (Melchior]s) is essentially, imho, a spiritual argument in that the longing to praise the Designer is inherent in us. But that longing and spiritual recognition of a designer in Nature does not in itself constitute a proof of a Designer–or what need of faith?
Excellent post. Let’s see if it get’s answered or buried in the manner you pointed out.

I will let that last paragraph slide. 😉

Mel
 
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Hitetlen:
Very simple. ID is not science, it is religion. Science only deals with falsifyable ideas, that is propositions which can be proven false, which can be tested by experiments. The concept of “Intelligent Design” cannot.
Macroevolutionary theory also cannot be falsified. QED.

ID hypotheses aren’t generally suitable for most high school science classes because the level of mathematics that underpines much of the theory is beyond the scope of what high school reaches. ID theory relies heavily on the same sorts of “predictive” mathematical models used in cryptography.

Time in science class would be better spent separating science from scientism. The idea that all processes are entirely material and reducible to naturalistic explanations is not a scientific statement. It is a scientistic metaphysical proposition pushed by organizations such as the National Academy of Sciences, which is almost entirely membershipped (a new word!) by atheists.

– Mark L. Chance.
 
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AdvanceAlways:
I believe that God guided evolution as it occured.
I have no problem believing that. However, I also believe God provided the inital spark.
 
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Hitetlen:
You are correct to point out that the origin of life has nothing to do with evolution. We can say that we don’t know how life emerged on Earth, that is we don’t know the exact process. That is the honest answer, but that does not mean that a supernatural “explanation” should be entertained. That would be called the “God of the gaps fallacy”.
Oh, but you misunderstand. The origin of life has everything to do with evolution. For evolution to have a life form to mutate, there had to be a life form. Where did it come from? How did the phospholipids arange themselves around the nucleic acids and aminio acids required for the molecules that are required for life? What animated the first cell?
For that matter, where did the amino acids and nucleic acids come from?
My object is not to inject a supernatural explanation into the mix. My object is to get the atheistic neo-Darwinists to admit that they have no clue as to the origin of life. I have an answer with which I’m perfectly content, but it’s not science and I won’t interject it here.
Now, without life, there are no organisms for natural selection to select, so they are in a bit of a pickle.
BTW, I, being an educated scientist, have no problem with random mutation and natural selecton. It’s the assertion that it all happened at random and there is no particular reason we’re here but dumb luck that I question.
If there is no rational explanation for the origin of life itsef, or even what life is, then the scientific community will have to take a serious look at some of the assumptions under which they work with such confidence.
As I recall, in all of the science classes I took, origin of life was glossed over as, “Lightning strikes at the primordial soup over a few billion years, chance would say that life would arise.” I just saw that the other day on a scientific site.
So, life, source of motion, energy, reproduction and eventually the ennervating force of mammals is…lighting? (“It’s alive! It’s alive!” 😛 ). Okay, what causes loss of motive force, energizing force; that which we call death.
They can talk all they want about transitional forms and geologic stratification (again, I have no intellectual problem with this), but until they address life directly, they’re whistling in the dark.
Oh, and I understand the theory of transitional life forms …comparative anatomy and all that.
 
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MichaelTDoyle:
No. That’s not a parallel.
The entire point of my posting that link is the absurd notion that the evidence for design (and remember that this discussion is about teaching ID in science class) is so obvious that a 5 year old child can see it. Why do you think that a 5 year old child can see what someone who has spent a large part of their lives studying cannot?
However, I yield that an argument based solely in a specific field of science with a topic restricted within that field then it is only common sensical to either yield to expert opinion or learn the field yourself.
Then you agree with me and the reasoning for my post.
The second argument (Melchior]s) is essentially, imho, a spiritual argument in that the longing to praise the Designer is inherent in us. But that longing and spiritual recognition of a designer in Nature does not in itself constitute a proof of a Designer–or what need of faith?
EXACTLY!!! He is right about that. Not a single thing in that justifies teaching it as science. It is what it is - faith.

Peace

Tim
 
oat soda:
i think the church needs to better catechise what we can answer with modern science, and what we can answer with religion. also the point that reason can never contradict faith but science and truth all have their origin and end in God himself who is truth. we should never be threated by science because we have faith that God so ordered the universe that it should always point to himself. every scientific discovery unravels the mystery of creation and of God.

for instance, modern science can’t answer questions like what is morally acceptable or why am i here. so my problem is that if we hold that the goal of education is finding the truth, why are we afraid of teaching about God in our public schools when we know that science can never explain existence itself or being or our intellect? these things are outside the sphere that science can answer. but, it doesn’t mean we can’t attempt to understand them or explain them.

i think people who are threatened by evolution are those that hold to an over literalistic interpretation of the genisis account.
Science is simply a group of methodologies (sp?) that seeks how that intelligent designer (God, IMO) did it. I’m being a little facetious, but I don’t think its too far off.
 
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Melchior:
A guy on TalkOrigins saying how educated he is does not address my point at all.
Your point was that the evidence for design is so obvious that a 5 year old child can understand it. I maintain that if you are speaking of scientific evidence, you are wrong and to suggest that is insulting to say the least.
And that is why it is so frustrating talking to those who assume micro-evolution and yet never answer any objection straight on. It is all “how ignorant of these people - I have a Ph.D. so can tell you they are wrong” that is not an answer. I mean no offense but it is just an artful dodge.
Are you willing to take on someone like the talkorigins writer on the science? We are speaking about the science, aren’t we? Is there a problem with someone with an advanced education in the subject joining the debate? Will he have to use simplistic terms or can he use actual scientific terms?
Can’t you guys just admit that you don’t believe any hard evidence, but that you believe what people you think have authority tell you without necessarily backing it up?
Ask yourself that question. How much scientific study have YOU made on the subject of evolution? What field was it in?
Dawkin’s talks often of the “honest moments” of macro-evolutionists where they hide the unanswerables from the public, as if evolutionary theory had not gaps or holes. Anyone who is honest - including Dawkin’s admits there are some big ones.
Dawkins has written of hiding things from the public? Could you please give me a citation for that?
So how about that bird and the plane? How about the complexity of a single cell for that matter as compared to, say, a computer? Can a computer come about after a billion years without a designer?
I agree that there is a designer. I am saying and have consistently said that you cannot scientifically test design. What kind of test would you run on a flagellum (since that is one of Behe’s favorites) that would show a design? If you say that it is irreducibly complex, I will say that you haven’t studied the subject at all.
Why do several species just seem to “appear out of nowhere” in the Cambrian era? What is the explanation for that?
You mean those animals that have pre-cursors in the Pre-Cambrian?
ID challenges Darwinistic dogma and that scares people. But that is not a valid argument against it.
As bogus and false as that statement is, I will just end this post with this one question - How do you falsify ID? How do you test ID?

Peace

Tim
 
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Melchior:
Do you not understand that 1 and 3 apply equally to Macro-evolution?
They most certainly do not! :eek:
And as I’m fond of saying, that micro/macro distinction is a bunch of hooey. Once you concede that things can evolve then your stuck with it. You can’t just be a little bit evolved. 😉
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Melchior:
Plus, the falsifiability argument is popular but it is not real a true marker of what is science.
Why would scientists propose an idea if there is no way to test it or prove it wrong? :confused: It would be worthless.
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Melchior:
Another archeologist example. A he find two stone next to each other - one has crude pictures of animals the other has random scratches that look like an animal may have been chewing on the stone.
Make up your mind; are they random scratches or do they look like an animal may have made them?
Scientists would have to compare the scratches to scratches known to be caused by an animal to make that assertion.
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Melchior:
If the archeaologist says the crude drawings must have had a drawer which scientific principle is he defying?..
If the archeologist found one and only one stone on it with drawings on it an no human being ever drew anything afterward then you may have a point that it would be a leap to ascribe that one artifact to humans. However, artifacts are rarely found alone or without context, science doesn’t make assertions based on one piece of data, we have quite a lot of known human carving to compare it to, and we can even carve our own to test ideas on how old marks might have been made so I don’t see what your point is.
 
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