Louisiana Passes Intelligent Design Law 1574
H0D_G writes "The US state of Louisiana has passed the 'Science Education Act,' a piece of legislation that could allow Intelligent design to be taught in schools. From the article: 'The act is designed to slip ID in "through the back door"'"
And they wonder why. . . (Score:5, Interesting)
they are almost always at the bottom of the list when it comes education in this country or are the butt of jokes about being backwoods hicks.
If they like being laughingstocks, that's no skin off my nose. They have no one to blame but themselves.
Aren't we done with this *yet*??? (Score:5, Interesting)
ID is not science. It's not even rational thinking. If we're going to teach ID, why not Astrology and Palm Reading while we're at it? They're every bit as valid as ID.
If I had a kid in the Louisiana school system, I'd start home-schooling (assuming I hadn't already).
Re:Aren't we done with this *yet*??? (Score:5, Interesting)
Astrology is actually more valid than ID, since it's a scientific theory. About any variant of astrology is falsifiable -- it gives testable consistent predictions. Predictions which are largely false, but a disproved theory is still a theory.
A theory, something that ID is not.
Re:I guess ID really isn't creationism then.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Such extremes such as celibacy have forced even priests into the arms of pederasty.
That's an interesting perspective. I've always thought that the opposite was true: that the priesthood attracted homosexual pedophiles because of the lifestyle and ready access to children under the guise of a trusted authority. I wonder if this is something that can be reliably studied?
So begins the fall of Western Civilization (Score:4, Interesting)
Wonder if I'll be reading about this in 20 years from the prospective that this is what allowed religious fanatics to create generations of religiously indoctrinated Christianized children that jail and execute intellectuals.
Re:I guess ID really isn't creationism then.. (Score:3, Interesting)
"Christians"
Whoops, painting with too broad a brush here! You're assigning the blame of a small group of individuals in the Roman Catholic sect to Christians as a whole.
I know it's cool to hate Christianity right now, but at least get your facts right.
"Such extremes such as celibacy have forced even priests into the arms of pederasty."
Nobody "forced" them to do anything.
What they really want (Score:2, Interesting)
It's not like I said anything that wasn't known for centuries, either.
Supreme Court makeup (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps, they feel with the change in composition in the Supreme Court with Bush's last couple of appointments that this has a better chance of standing up that previous attempts.
Re:When did we PROVE evolution to be true??? (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember when I was in school (non-US), we had an "alternative creationist theories" lessons, but I remember our teacher saying: "The problem is, there is not much to tell about other theories, because they are ... well, not theories in scientific sense of the word." So we had like half of the single lesson (~ 20 min) dedicated to all other theories (I don't even remember them now :) )
Re:I guess ID really isn't creationism then.. (Score:1, Interesting)
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Note it says that the state (Congress) cannot respect or prohibit any religion. All that means is that an official state religion is unconstitutional. The separation of church and state bit comes from a speech that Thomas Jefferson wrote concerning his fears that the new United States (at the time, still under the Articles of Confederation) would become an Anglican country. If you know your history, you would know that Jefferson considered himself a Christian.
As a Christian, what I don't understand is why God couldn't have used evolution as a tool for creation--Creation and Evolution needn't be mutually exclusive. If science says that evolution is accurate, then so be it. Nowhere in the Bible does it say how God created man, just that he did from the "dust of the earth." Personally, I consider myself a "Creational Evolutionist." It is the best of both worlds.
Re:I guess ID really isn't creationism then.. (Score:5, Interesting)
also of interest may be the recent news of E. Coli evolving to metabolise citrate
clickity [newscientist.com]
Re:I guess ID really isn't creationism then.. (Score:3, Interesting)
The one group that seems to be more highly associated with ID in my personal experience (for what it's worth) is Born Again Christians
Pat Robertson has converted more Christians to Athiesm than all the athiests at slashdot combined. He and his ilk are the wolves in sheep's clothing we were warned about.
Never trust a preacher who wears a five thousand dollar suit.
Re:End up in court (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:When did we PROVE evolution to be true??? (Score:2, Interesting)
We can't define anything precisely. If we attempt to, we get into that paralysis of thought that comes to philosophers⦠one saying to the other: "you don't know what you are talking about!". The second one says: "what do you mean by talking? What do you mean by you? What do you mean by know?"
So you'll never PROVE evolution is true, just as you will never PROVE ID to be true or for that matter ANYTHING to be true! All you can every do is look at the world around you (evidence) and try and make a good guess as to what is going on.
The difference between the evolution and ID camps is the honest observation of the physical world. Scientists are always searching for new evidence to explain the world and their observations. The ID crowd is always searching for ways to prove their faith, it's that simple.
The ID crowd is as dangerous as any fascist movement, they will ignore all evidence that does not support their belief system.
Don't get me wrong, there are also scientist who are fascists. they truely belive their version of reality is the "correct" one. They are also as dangerous as the ID crowd. but they are usually not organized and they are few. The ID crowd is organized and there are a lot of them. It's truely a situation of mass delusion and it will quickly turn to fascism if they were to ever get in a position of power. Just look at the Islamic countries for example.
Re:Aren't we done with this *yet*??? (Score:4, Interesting)
Astrology is actually more valid than ID, since it's a scientific theory.
No, no it's not. Maybe back in the "stupid ages" you could have argued it was a hypothesis, but never a theory.
According to the National Academy of Sciences,
"Some scientific explanations are so well established that no new evidence is likely to alter them. The explanation becomes a scientific theory. In everyday language a theory means a hunch or speculation. Not so in science. In science, the word theory refers to a comprehensive explanation of an important feature of nature that is supported by many facts gathered over time."
About any variant of astrology is falsifiable -- it gives testable consistent predictions.
Wether something is falsifiable or not isn't relevant to wether something is true. It's only relevant to wether you can prove it's true. Imagine it's the year 1000 BC. Some crackpot submits a hypothesis called Quantum Mechanics. Quantum Mechanics would be as true back then as it is nowadays, but you'd never be able to prove it in that era with their technology.
If you're really suggesting that a falsifiable idea is in some way superior to non-falsifiable ones, then surely in the year 1000 BC astrology would be superior to Quantum Mechanics, which would be quite wrong.
Do not mix falsifiable ideas with non-falsifiable ones. They don't mix. It's apple's and oranges, *not* apples and rotten-apples.
A theory, something that ID is not.
I'm gonna go with "duh" here.
And besides, who here ever said it was a theory?
Re:For The Children (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, I remember being taught Evolution as a kid... in Catholic School. They also described Darwin as the man, right down to his own religious convictions, and his assertions that Evolution was never meant to supplant religious belief (which makes the whole proposition of Evolution as an anti-religious proof to be silly at best). IOW, we got the full scientific curricula, as well as the historical and personal context.
Meanwhile, the public schools (by comparison) still teach the lowest-common-denominator version of it.
This brings up something bigger than Evolution though, IMHO. While Catholic schools still teach classes in Logic, Critical Thinking, and Rhetoric (the latter esp. in Jesuit-run schools), the public schools don't even bother. I think that lacking to be a far greater scientific travesty than whatever gets taught during a Biology class.
Re:I guess ID really isn't creationism then.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Why can't people recognize that "God" is a metaphorical reference to the universe which science is dedicated to studying?
When a scientist brings forth an equation that describes the manner in which mutation and natural selection come together to create higher order life out of lower order life, which was created out of chemical soup, they are "contemplating the nature of God".
It's such a stupid thing to fight about. If you took a perspective where you were using scientific tools to examine God in which we all live, and you subjected your conclusions to rigorous processes with peer examination, and you created a model based on verifiable facts that described the "Personality" of God, it wouldn't be any different from modern science.
The equations of a scientist are an abstract representation of the Personality of God, and the stories of religion are personified representations of the equations of a scientist. Everyone is talking about the same damned thing, and arguing about which metaphor they like the best.
It's like watching two parents fighting over whether their daughter is a beautiful little flower or a cute little button. The religious communities and the scientific communities are just as bad as each other in this regard.
Re:As a member of the Church of FSM (Score:2, Interesting)
uhn. As a chemistry teacher, I thought that teaching the four elements important. And look, the four elements wasn't based on mythology and superstition, it was based on observation and an attempt to explain the world.
When I taught physics, I taught Aristotelian physics too. Given that this hammer and this feather fall at different speeds, what conclusion do _YOU_ draw? Clearly the concept that "heavy things fall faster" is not utterly ridiculous on face. It actually requires somewhat subtle thinkng and subtle experiment to refute Aristotle's physics and replace it with Newton's. We did that because Newton's was _much_ more powerful to make predcitions about what will happen in the world.
In teaching Biology, it is UTTERLY reasonable to teach ID. It then requires some subtle thinking and the results of experiment to posit that variation and selection processes result in a much more powerful ability to make predicitions about what will happen in the world than ID does.
It is _ALSO_ reasonable to posit that there is no good evidence, and no way to perform the experiment to decide first causes. As in physics where at some point physics falls apart and the cosmologists are left with "and thing something made it go boom." -- Biologists are left with "and some very complex things appear to have happened all at once, and the time lines for that are outside our ability to experiment."
At this point, a competant teacher says something on the lines of "However, science has little to say about first-causes. That is the arena of philosophy and religion. What we _can_ say is that at a human scale Newtonian, and at a Stellar scale Einsteinian physics works, and that at a cellular scale, and at the scale of species genetics, variation and selection _works._ Further a scientists has no business going.
This is an entirely APPROPRIATE discussion in a school science class, and teachers who chose not to have it are just freaking cowards.
Did the Louisiana law actually INTEND this, or was it their hope to sneak religion back into the science classroom? IMNSHO, that matters not. But _good_ science teachers cover all those bases.
Re:I guess ID really isn't creationism then.. (Score:3, Interesting)
The priesthood lifestyle? Living with a bunch of other men? Rumors of others like you there - some kindred spirits?
Like I said, it's just speculation - a study would be cool. But I doubt you could get the church to cooperate (or for that matter the priests).
Re:End up in court (Score:3, Interesting)
The common argument is that it may fit into a philosophy class - as you've mentioned - but there's little reason to even do that since it doesn't appear to be a well-defined argument of any import
I don't know, I think it could fit in well with the other religious creation stories. Raelism, Xenu, or any of the various myths in this wikipedia article [wikipedia.org] could be bunched together with it. Think of it as an education in different cultural beliefs.
Re:I guess ID really isn't creationism then.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Thing about it is, religion has a lot to tell us about man and his societies that isn't really scientifically verifiable. You can't do an experiment where you take a few human cultures, give them rules to live by, let them sit in the dish for 5 generations, then see what the results are. You'll be dead before there is any data.
Take a look at Evolutionary Psychology [wikipedia.org]. They try to break it all down, from the smallest granularity, the individual, right on up to cultural systems. If you're going to try to find predictive patterns in cultural systems and agree on rules for a society that elevates certain values (personal freedom perhaps?) without destroying itself in x number of generations, you need to look at the religious/cultural values of history, study their interactions both external and internal, and attempt to make deductions.
As our world fills up and mankind grows increasingly powerful, these are going to become increasingly important questions to answer if we don't want our cultural systems to knock us back down a notch. And there is ample room for contributions to the discussion from both the scientific and religious communities, if they can ever stop bickering about terminology.
Re:I guess ID really isn't creationism then.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Erm, you need to consult a biology textbook about how bacteria reproduce. Hint: They don't need partners to do so. That makes cross-breeding a bit difficult. Especially since a strain of E.coli was used that doesn't do the conjugation thing, either.
Point taken. I'm laughing at myself over that one. Thank you for the correction and for not being condescending about it.
Maybe I should have used other examples of what I feel is a similar adaptation, the white moth/black moth example. I'm sure we've all heard it. White moths do well in an area with white tree bark because birds cant see them. The few black moths that are born don't do well. When some even turns the tree bark black, the tables turn and the white moths get eaten and the black moths flourish. So my question was relating to this example. Is this just a simple adaptation or "evolution"?
Re:I guess ID really isn't creationism then.. (Score:3, Interesting)
If I understand correctly, when the C of E allowed ordination of women, some vicars weren't happy about it and joined the bead-jigglers. And since right-footed vicars were allowed to be married since Elizabethan times, one can assume some of those crossing the floor were and remain so. It would have been a delightful irony if Rome had forced them to divorce!
I don't know if it's only allowed for switchers, though.
Re:I guess ID really isn't creationism then.. (Score:3, Interesting)
IMO celibacy does cause general sexual frustration which may give people urges that they wouldn't otherwise have. It is possible for people to be sexually attracted to pretty much anything given the right circumstances, hence necrophilia, bestiality, coprophagia and shit like that (pun intended).
Pedophilia is actually acceptable in some cultures. It seems obviously wrong to most of us, but those cultures that are okay with pedophilia may think being gay is wrong, etc. The only universal sexual taboo that humanity has, is that each culture must have at least one sexual taboo.. likewise individual religions have their own taboos.
While I agree with age limits on sex, especially in age difference so that children can't be taken advantage of (though I personally would have been happy to have sex with girls of similar age, or even older women when I was about 12, but these days I can see why that would be a really weird situation :p ), the rules vary a lot from place to place. Here in Scotland the legal age for getting married/having sex is 16. Apparently the legal age to have sex is 14 in Canada (as long as the other person is under 16), and I think it is generally 18 in America, and so on. Clearly there is no one set of rules that everyone agrees on, and there probably never will be. No person exactly conforms to their society's sexual norms either, they just pretend to!
Re:What happened to objectivity in science? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I guess ID really isn't creationism then.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Christianity really shouldn't even teach from the Old Testament, the only purpose that it serves is to provide all the prophecies that pointed to the coming of Christ. Christianity should be taught from the New Testament, and specifically the Gospels.
Insightful? It would seem to me that Jesus himself was pretty clear in Matthew 5:17-19.
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Re:I guess ID really isn't creationism then.. (Score:5, Interesting)
How about, "If you lie, you will have to maintain multiple subjective realities within your mind to avoid being caught, and you will still get caught anyways. Extended along the timespan of a lifetime, you will become a creature without an identity of your own, spawning new partial identities for yourself constantly in response to external stimulus, unable to say with any degree of confidence who you are or what you believe. You will be powerless to hold your form when you meet a man with integrity. When you enter this subjective state of being, you will already be in Hell, and you will stay there for the remainder of your life."
Stop taking things so literally. This is no different from high school science, where they explain reality to you one year, and you take it on faith that they're not lying to you, then the next year, they explain how things that were presented as conclusive facts last year are actually a good deal more complex than was presented to you, and the things they taught you last year were really an oversimplified fairy tale to get you headed in the right direction.
Peter's Dream (Score:3, Interesting)
I can't think of a time when a narrative dream in the Bible was ever literal. Think about Joseph's dream, the dreams of the cupbearer and baker, Pharaoh's dream, and Nebuchadnezzar's dream. This too is an ALLEGORY. Peter, the one who experienced the dream, clearly explains that the message God sent to him was to be understood allegorically.
Please notice that the sheet with unclean animals was let down THREE times (10:16). Then...
19 While Peter was still thinking about the vision, the Spirit said to him, "Simon, THREE MEN are looking for you. 20 So get up and go downstairs. Do not hesitate to go with them, for I have sent them."
The Spirit sent three men just as He had sent the sheet down three times. The focus is on people -- three Gentiles -- not food.
I think this is the New Covenant doctrine that is being illustrated:
Or is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since indeed God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith is one. - Romans 3:29-30
Remember what God said: Do not think that the Son came to abolish the Law. (Mat. 5:17) Not one jot (iota) or tittle has passed away.
Re:It's all a moot point anyway (Score:2, Interesting)
This is just a theory. Scientists are still trying to figure out if the universe will ever stop expanding, and begin to contract. But it makes sense to me. All things in the universe, both living and inanimate, follow this pattern of birth, growth, decline, and death.
Re:You mean... (Score:5, Interesting)
Buddhism has an interesting viewpoint on issues like this.
You'll notice all kinds of gods in Buddhist iconography and mythology. If you're a Buddhist, you're not expected to believe in any of them. You can if you want, but belief isn't an end in itself. Belief is something that on its own is hard to maintain. You can't be expected to believe in something all the time. You may believe in the non-existence of ghosts, you might find it difficult to maintain that belief if you are alone in a creepy house.
Since a belief is something you put mental energy into, it ought to pull its weight. Therefore, a Buddhist might ask, not whether a belief is true, but whether a belief is useful. Etymologically, the English world "belief" carries this sense of investment, being related to "beloved".
In the case of Last Tuesdayism, you can't prove its factuality one way or the other, so it's pointless to have an opinion on that. But a Buddhist might ask, "Well, suppose everything was created last Tuesday. What would be different?" Well, one thing that might be different is that you might choose to forgo revenge against somebody who "injured" you on Monday. The utility of Last Tuedayism, then, is this: it raises the question of whether your past pain is a better guide to choosing your behavior than your future happiness.
The Buddha himself once referred to beliefs as being like rafts. Once you have crossed the river, you leave them behind. Christianity, unfortunately, filtered down to us through Greek thought, with its bitter rivalry between philosophical schools. Therefore, much more emphasis is put on orthodoxy (right teaching) over orthopraxy (right action). Whereas the Jews produced Talmudic commentaries from almost every conceivable position, Christians produced diatribes against each other for heresy (which comes from the Greek word meaning to "choose" -- that is to choose for oneself).
Interesting Tidbit (Score:3, Interesting)
In my local Christian school (Lutheran) they do this. Never really see secular schools do it, too 'controversial'. But the school I am talking about is big on making christian faith your own rather than just the one you have by default.
Re:Interesting Tidbit (Score:3, Interesting)
I went to public school, and am an atheist... but I was brought up Lutheran (ELCA) and we actually learned about other religions a little bit as part of our weekly Confirmation classes. We even went on a field trip to a Jewish Synagogue and my Pastor put on a Yarmulke and we were learning about the Torah and how they do their service from the Rabbi. Before I was Confirmed, I met with the Pastor, and he asked me if I really believed in it, and I said yeah of course, even though I didn't quite. I didn't pay that much attention in Church but it always seemed to me that the ELCA attitude, or at least at my Church, which is a fairly large one, was that it's OK to not believe in God: if you're overall a good person then you go to heaven, and if you're a bad person overall then you go to hell.
That being said, we did also cover religions of the world quite a lot at my public school in my 8th grade Social Studies class. We split into teams and each had to make a big presentation about one of the world's major religions. (This was in MN.)
Re:It's all a moot point anyway (Score:2, Interesting)
Ultimately, I think there's a place for both evolution and ID in schools, in the appropriate context.
If by "in the appropriate context" you mean "evolution in science class and ID in religion class", then you'll get no argument from this atheist.
Until science can definitively determine the origin of matter, they can put ID in science class in my opinion. ID is a hypothesis just like the big bang.
Re:Interesting Tidbit (Score:3, Interesting)
If God is good, why is there such evil in the world?
If God is good then my do bad things happen?
Why does the Bible contradict itself?
Christians are too hypocritical.
ETC
Come on those are too easy, there are much better and more fundamental questions than those 5th grade questions.
Re:Interesting Tidbit (Score:3, Interesting)
I was a selfish bastard before I started reading philosophy, and it wasn't the post-modern stuff that justified my selfishness, but a nineteenth-century German by the name of Max Stirner.
Again, I am not concerned about society. After all, society is not concerned about me unless it wants something from me. Why should I grant society any higher regard than it grants me?