<p>Avoidance…that what I see…</p>
<p>I say ID is a faith based pseudo science that is a cross between what Creationists want and what they can get away with calling science, and while ID claims to be based on solid science, much has been debunked. And I think Evolution is much closer and if you want to believe in ID, fine and dandy, just don’t call it Science and teach it as science and deny it is religious. </p>
<p>Your turn.</p>
<p>My turn. OK. I remember seeing a show years ago–Star Trek, Twilight Zone, something like that. Anyway, CGM, it turned out that the entire universe as we know it existed in one of those little “snow globes” resting on a little girl’s nightstand. Her father, (an ET, obviously), had made it for her. There was no religion involved.</p>
<p>If you claim that aliens created life on Earth, then the question of “who created the aliens?” remains, and so on. Basically, the idea that life cannot exist without design means that God must have intervened somewhere, which is religion, not science. Either ID is really, really inconsistent science or it’s moderately inconsistent religion–pick one.</p>
<p>By the way, there is no credible evidence for Intelligent Design. Why do you think they don’t publish in peer-reviewed scientific journals? Every pro-ID argument out there has been thoroughly debunked, so the creationist movement (for which ID is a front) is trying to convince the uneducated public in hopes of achieving its goals in spite of the laughable nature of its arguments.</p>
<p>And to go back to the original topic of this thread, I am thoroughly embarrassed by the total disregard for science in this administration. Stem cell research, and now this? What’s next? Should we teach the “UFO controversy?”</p>
<p>Driver, I remember that there’s a Star Trek where it turns out that a bunch of planets in the galaxy where life was already evolving were seeded with DNA from an ancient alien race. The thing you’re talking about with the snow globes sounds more like Twilight Zone than Star Trek.</p>
<p>Still didn’t answer my question. Deny all you want, ID implies an intelligence that created us people types with a plan. </p>
<p>I love Star Trek, but your answer was another evasion. </p>
<p>I have my answer now. You are embarrassed to tell me what you think IDer is.</p>
<p>I certainly think that Area 51 should be opened to the public. Then the question of who created our alien creators might be on the road to an answer, and we’d be done with these silly cosmic riddles once and for all.</p>
<p>
Sigh. No. See post #240.</p>
<p>If we still had Hubble…ah well…what we could have learned but our Government decided it just wasn’t worth it anymore</p>
<p>and, the big giant brain, you were serious…sorry I guess I mistook that answer for sarcasm…my error…your answer explains a whole lot in just a few words, thank you for being so clear and honest and forthright…I applaud you</p>
<p>No sarcasm. I believe the giant Star Trek brain to be the antecedent of the Twilight Zone extraterrestrial father who created the universe (as we know it) inside of his daughter’s snow globe, on her nightstand. Have not yet figured out where the giant Star Trek brain came from, but am working on it.</p>
<p>Okay, can we all agree on a couple of things.</p>
<p>You don’t have to believe in God to consider ID a possibility.</p>
<p>If you believe in God and do not believe in ID, your version of God is different than many churches.</p>
<p>That a person could be agnostic or an atheist and still have moral values.</p>
<p>Among the believers there are some people who understand their religious and theological beliefs don’t necessarilly belong in a high school science class…existance of the soul and intelligent design.</p>
<p>Can we also accept: </p>
<p>That posters on this site don’t have to have all the answers and don’t have to believe everyone elses quotes or references… and that after a question has been asked once, to repeatedly ask it of an individual could take on the image of harrassment.</p>
<p>I know that I have been criticized for not understanding what Bush meant or if he meant anything at all. I believe what he said was intentional, and that his comment allude to teaching this alongside evolution in the science curricullum. I think there are Republican officials that share this understanding and have seperated themselves from the President’s comment accordingly.</p>
<p>I would like to hear what is better proven by the idea of intelligent design over evolution and what is the evidence of this design. When I scratched my dogs neck tonight and her rear leg started flopping up and down…I thought this is a funny design. Is this evidence that the intelligent designer has (had) a sense of humor?</p>
<p>Does the intelligent designer still exist?</p>
<p>
Mr. B, it’s not a matter of one or the other. ID or Evolution. They’re compatible. But I have to go to bed now.</p>
<p>Mr. B:</p>
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</p>
<p>Yes, but you do have to have a certain disregard for science. If by “possibility” you mean it in the broadest sense of the word, then it is a possibility in the same sense that it is possible that I created the Universe 3 minutes ago and all your memories are implanted; in other words, not scientific.</p>
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<p>And compatible with many churches. You can easily believe that God created the Universe so that humans would evolve, although I must stress that this is not scientific either.</p>
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<p>Agreed.</p>
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<p>Sure.</p>
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<p>Maybe, but if the question is legitimate or tends to undermine an opposing argument, it can’t simply be ignored.</p>
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<p>I think that to any reasonable person who reads the full exchange should reach the conclusion that Bush was advocating teaching ID in schools.</p>
<p>“Both sides ought to be properly taught … so people can understand what the debate is about” is what he said; I know the GOP will find some way to spin this, but I don’t see how he’s not advocating teaching ID. Frankly, I am appalled at this president’s complete disregard for science. At this point, I think he’s just the religious right’s prison b****.</p>
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<p>That’s just it–there is no positive evidence, it is not falsifiable, and all its assertions that abiogenesis is impossible have been debunked. I would favor teaching ID in a comparative religion class, along with all the other creation myths out there.</p>
<p>A while back I read a wonderful quotation from one of the evolutionary biologists (and of course now I’m having trouble tracking it down) to the effect that, with all the people trying to prove Darwin’s theory of evolution untrue, you’d think they’d have come up with at least one shred of evidence against it by now----if there were one.</p>
<p>I also come back to the argument a born-again friend makes: all this evidence is merely a test of my faith. (He has a physics PhD from MIT, BTW.) There is no SCIENTIFIC answer to that statement. There are a lot of religious/philosophical answers.</p>
<p>For myself, I choose not to believe in a god; I think there is a huge amount of evidence that the world arose from chaos. It is my father’s argument for atheism that sticks in my mind most. Stuck in a foxhole in Papua New Guinea during WWII, he came to the conclusion that no just god would allow such hell on earth, and that he didn’t want to believe in a vindictive, arbitrary, unjust god.</p>
<p>.
the creationist movement (for which ID is a front) is trying to convince the uneducated public GDW</p>
<p>This, to me, seems the crux of the issue. This imperative to mold and shape what is perceived to be the uneducated public. </p>
<p>Those most tenaciously opposed to any discussion in school classrooms of Intelligence or Design (not teaching just discussion), in the make-up of the universe, have a greater fear than the possibility that science may, in some way, be ill-servedcertainly there are other issues in science of greater moral or factual import that these same people remain curiously dumb about. </p>
<p>The real issue, it seems to me, has to do with a potential and reasoned alternative to the death kneel these atheists hoped the uneducated public [read: religious people] were being dealt with the theory of evolution. The anti-religious crowd (nothing wrong with being opposed to a personal religion) is the only one panting and in high-lather over even the possibility that their most socially-rigid scientific dogma may need a philosophical/ethical bath. </p>
<p>I dont know, but it may be that evolution has had some impact on undermining the universe that some young theists needed to maintain their faith and hope in something greater and better than themselves (unlike Mini, MrB, Driver or myself and some other theists here; not every person of faith had the where-with-all to be supported intellectually and emotionally through the best educations and social environments fortune can provide).</p>
<p>Perhaps it is true, as Marx said, religion has served as an opiate for the people; maybe for some it has, a relief to the ruff-n-tumble of cut-throat materialism and every-man-for-himself dogmacertainly it has served this purpose for many oppressed and down-trodden peoples in need of some hope and faith, and not just in America.</p>
<p>There is, I suppose, a reason why those overly fond of evolution developed a social componentit has certainly justified a great many wrongs committed by the superficial and voracious academic/cultural elite against the uneducated public as some are prone to refer to certain people.</p>
<p>I wonder what will happen when the social forces finally combine to scientifically prove that love and affection are artificial outcomes of genetic factors. That is, there is, in fact, no love as any common person could understand or employ it, just chemical, genetic and deterministic outcomes of gender and reproduction. Certainly this is already happening. Will this someday become scientific dogma too? </p>
<p>Im sure there will be those who will never be content until every child is taught this dogma to such a degree that notions of loving your mother, father, sister, brother, boyfriend or girlfriend and husband or wife will be deemed ignorant and superstitious, or worse: a religious residue.</p>
<p>Perhaps it will be, or has been, discovered that there are significant racial differences that are genetically encoded. Im sure that right now there are some loveless geeks out there running numbers and playing with their superior X-Box theory (there may be one or two posting right after me). Will we put their new dogma in school science textbooks, if materially true? </p>
<p>There is also much discussion that homosexuality is genetically encoded. Suppose it turns out to be true, and that along with this gene there is a problem, something derogatory, something that may well make a segment of our population factually/genetically (the only real human fact?) inferior to other segments (an analogue to the uneducated public as above) scientifically speaking; that is to say, it will be an indisputable scientific fact: should this be taught to middle school students? </p>
<p>What if there is an alternative hypothesis that relies on logic and a different reading of the same facts that disputes the dogma, like ID? Will we even allow that it could be questioned, or will the spit, bile and daggers still come out?</p>
<p>Faith, hope and loveas religionare believed to have an immaterial source. It may be that the design we witness in this universe and our own lives has an immaterial source as well, that is, it will be unknowable and untouched by a science that only concedes material objects.</p>
<p>Of course there are those who disagree, many of them see hope and love as a superstition of the uneducated public as well. They tend to be pretty intense people, I figure they’ll go a long way.</p>
<p>You know, FountainSiren, I resent your implication that, because I am an atheist, I don’t believe in or demonstrate faith, hope, or love. </p>
<p>Instead of verbal attacks, I suggest you practice tolerance. There are a wide range of beliefs and intensities of beliefs in this world. What people actually DO is way more important than what they <em>SAY</em> or <em>BELIEVE</em> privately.</p>
<p>There is also much discussion that homosexuality is genetically encoded. Suppose it turns out to be true, and that along with this gene there is a problem, something derogatory, something that may well make a segment of our population factually/genetically (the only real human fact?) inferior to other segments (an analogue to the uneducated public as above) scientifically speaking; that is to say, it will be an indisputable scientific fact: should this be taught to middle school students?</p>
<p>Well I don’t see middle school students getting much genetics if any.
and I think it is hilarous that you put “homosexuality” and “defective” in the same thought
Ya know what I think should be perhaps brought up in terms of genetics and reproduction?
That our species is in no way in danger of “dying” out, on th econtrary we have children starving all over the world because of lack of food/potable water- and to some people myself included the indication that some couples need IVF to concieve is more an indication that perhaps there is something wrong with their particular genetic blending than in any “homosexual” individual.</p>
<p>FountainSiren, ID is already in some schools and the religious people are pushing it. How you can not see it as faith based and religious is beyond me. It is.</p>
<p>And your discussion about Homosexuality as a flaw shows your true colors. You write well, I will give you that, but your bigotry is shining through bright and clear.</p>
<p>I have many caring, loving, tolerant, giving friends who are athiests. And I know many “religious”- go to church, try and convert others, want prayer in school, want ID in school (which is what some people want in order to get religion into Public Schools) who are mean, rude, cheat on their wives and not very kind to those less advantaged, yet, they talk the talk.</p>
<p>You will of course now claim I am a bigot because I don’t want ID to be taught in schools. Teach it in Church. It is after all Faith. Teach it in Philosophy. Teach it with all the other stories about how life came about. Just don’t pretend it is any kind of true science.</p>
<p>We used to think that lightning was from God. Do you still believe that?<br>
Do you still believe, as they did in the past, that the devil possessed people and that is why they were “crazy”? Do you still believe that the sun revolves around the Earth? And to say otherwise was blasphemy. </p>
<p>What is your definition of science?</p>
<p>Science is Science. Religion is Religion.</p>
<p>The notion that everything exists simply by accident is no more verifiable or falsfiable than the notion that an intelligent designer might have had a hand in the magnificent complexity of evolution. I’m not sure it can fairly be called more logical, either. Yet again, for the fiftieth time…no one here, nor the president in his response to the reporter’s question, has been advocating for the teaching of ID. We think it should be discussable. Many of you seem to find that blasphemous.</p>
<p>Um, how did he not advocate it when it he it should be taught? Do I not understand the english language? I guess we can’t trust what he said than…And yes, I read the transcript of what he said…</p>
<p>Discussible in the right arena, not in science, as it will be in Dover.</p>
<p>And as it is discussed, it will be found to be a pseudo science.</p>
<p>
apparently you only read the headline.</p>