<p>CGM, just curious - where do you think the material/energy from which the current universe is comprised came from? Note, I’m not looking for a simplistic answer of the form “from the Big Bang”, I wonder where you think the elements of the Big Bang came from?</p>
<p>Ignore the posts…fine…have you no response to the ID people and their statements? Guess not. </p>
<p>There is no time, I think all has been here for ever and shifts and changes, shrinks and grows, compresses and expands, so the Big Bang can fit in that theory</p>
<p>My turn, what do you think of the statements that the proponents of the science of ID, say themselves, the IDers is God? And all through numerous posts, attacking my concerns, that was denied and that ID never made any such claims?</p>
<p>And, what do you think of Rev Moon and his beliefs on science…as one of the scienctist who you felt was not that important, his many discussions with Moon led him to believe Evolution was evil. And needed to be destroyed.</p>
<p>I would say that the proponents of ID at least are dealing with logic (and hence is more scientific), unlike your view which dismisses logic with the wave of a hand.</p>
<p>NOTE: This is obviously a purely fictitious story that is not intended to represent any known, rational being.</p>
<p>Another science lecture by a local high school teacher (Ms. C.G. Smom), was followed by the typical class question and answer session shown below.</p>
<p>Jim: I am just amazed at the size and symmetry of the universe. It has evolved over billions of years. At first it bothered me that complex molecules and life could develop, but then I realized that over billions of years almost anything could happen. And yet, as far as we know, our planet contains the only intelligent life forms. Why is that?</p>
<p>Ms. Smom: Jim, it is a FACT that you always want to bring up religion in our science class. Do not ask that kind of question again. Next question.</p>
<p>Tommy: You mentioned how the Big Bang started everything and (although I must have missed some steps) you jumped to created life and then to microevolution, implying that purely random processes, mutations, and natural selection can account for everything that exists and occurs in the world today. The lady who lives across the street from me was just reportedly inexplicably cured, overnight, of a large, cancerous tumor that had been well documented by numerous radiological exams. How can you explain this?</p>
<p>Ms. Smom: Tommy, it is a FACT that you always want to bring up religion in our science class. Do not ask that kind of question again. Next question.</p>
<p>Mary: My mom works as an accident reconstructionist who tries to figure out how two or more cars must have impacted in order to produce the vehicle rest positions, crush damage, skid marks, etc. Have scientists tried approaches analogous to that for understanding the evolution of the universe?</p>
<p>Ms. Smom: Mary, it is a FACT that you always want to bring up religion in our science class. Do not ask that kind of question again. Next question.</p>
<p>Susan: I was thinking. What do you think existed immediately before the Big Bang? And what existed just before that?</p>
<p>Ms. Smom: Susan, it is a FACT that you always want to bring up religion in our science class. Do not ask that kind of question again. Next question.</p>
<p>Sally: Relevant to the beginning of life, I have read that scientists have been able to form simple organic molecules from less complex constituents in certain atmospheres at specified temperatures and pressures. What rigorous evidence is there that such conditions ever existed in or around the earth? Or how likely is it that such conditions would have evolved from a Big Bang?</p>
<p>Ms. Smom: Sally, it is a FACT that you always want to bring up religion in our science class. Do not ask that kind of question again. Next question.</p>
<p>Atheista: I am convinced that there really is no need of a God to have created this world. Furthermore, only stupid people believe in God. For example, a stupid boy down the street believes in God. Furthermore, he is a conservative. And his parents voted for George Bush. That is why I am an atheist.</p>
<p>Ms. Smom: Why Atheista, I could not agree with you more! You are so observant and brilliant! I am so glad that you are in my class, and that you do not force your religion on others as these other evil children do! Come over here so I can put a big gold star on your paper. Dear, do you have any other questions?</p>
<p>Atheista: No thanks, Mom. By the way, class needs to end soon, so we can get to our Tolerance Club meeting on time.</p>
<p>Actual science class some years back:
What happened before the Big Bang?
Some people think that’s what God is all about. Some of us just don’t know. Some, like Stephen Hawking, believe in a cycling universe. At this point, the realm of science really begins with the Big Bang. Later research may give us more information.</p>
<p>A different class:
How did life arise on Earth?
Some chemists think it arose in high-clay pools, where particles could organize on the clay’s surface. Other’s think it was a result of the high-energy environment of the early earth. Scientists are investigating these and other theories. It’s an area for future research. </p>
<p>Could God have created life on earth?
That’s a question that lies outside the realm of science.</p>
<p>And to answer Mary’s question: “Mary: My mom works as an accident reconstructionist who tries to figure out how two or more cars must have impacted in order to produce the vehicle rest positions, crush damage, skid marks, etc. Have scientists tried approaches analogous to that for understanding the evolution of the universe?”
Yes, Mary, that’s exactly how scientists arrived at the conclusion that the present universe was condensed into a small particle roughly 13-14 billion years ago, which “exploded” in what is now called The Big Bang. Incidentally, Mary, that theory originated with a Catholic priest named Georges Lemaitre (<a href=“http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/science/sc0022.html)%5B/url%5D”>http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/science/sc0022.html)</a>.</p>
<p>And to reply to Atheista: your comments do not belong in the classroom. Please keep your politics and your intolerance to yoruself. In this room, we discuss science, which is not opinion.</p>
<p>logic? So now religion is logic…ahha!!! I see know where everyone is coming from. Still won’t address the quotes. By evading what they say, doesn’t make what they say anyless true.</p>
<p>Please, at least be honest in your defense of the ID proponents, and don’t hide behind the so called science of ID. </p>
<p>And when did I dismiss logic? Ah, when I showed that your ID pushers are Christians who think God is the IDer, which you claimed way back wasn’t their agenda. </p>
<p>So, do you still believe as was stated many posts back that ID does not say God is the IDer?</p>
<p>Or just to ask me about my personal beliefs?</p>
<p>Fundingfather, here is one for you: Do you believe in the Last Days? Are you a born again? You have questioned my beliefs, I wonder about yours.</p>
<p>dmd77.</p>
<p>These were not intended to represent difficult-to-answer questions in a science class. Only examples of LEGITIMATE questions (except for obviously the last comment). Ms. Smom apparently believes, since some of the questions do not REQUIRE atheism, that all such questions are a deliberate attempt to hijack science classes and transform them into religious indoctrination.</p>
<p>Pafather, Wow. As a teacher I find that really offensive. But that’s just me and not why I came here.</p>
<p>I just wanted to chime in that Alaska’s Science Performance Standards, Concepts in Earth Science, states:</p>
<p>“The student demonstrates an understanding of the theories regarding the origin and evolution of the universe by:…” and then goes on to describe the expectation at each grade level. Notice the plural on “theories.” </p>
<p>I, personally, teach primary aged children and we talk a great deal about what a theory is. No one was present at the beginning of the universe with a notebook taking notes. We don’t know what happened. People use different methods to try to make informed “guesses” about what happened. Some use math, some use faith. I can’t advocate a religion, but I can talk about how one might use faith to develop a theory. Just like I can talk about how one might use math to develop a theory. We also talk about using evidence to defend, prove or disprove a theory, and that that is why all of the origin theories are just that. We cannot duplicate them in the laboratory. Why are y’all making this so hard? </p>
<p>I have had a very weird experience when a parent, who hadn’t been in my class and who didn’t ask me what was said or how it was presented, came in to my class (after talking to the principal and pulling his child out of my class) and began telling me how there was proof that the earth was only 8,000 years old and that carbon dating is a lie and that seashells were placed on mountaintops by God because he wanted them there. Okay. I don’t know why this particular parent had such a hard time, since I had had other parents who were concerned who actually took the time to be in the class for just this reason and had no problem with what I said. In fact, as in your example, one girl even brought her own beliefs in, and noted how the discussion we had had just reinforced her own beliefs. There is nothing against students discussing these topics in class, but as a teacher I cannot be perceived to be advocating a religion.</p>
<p>I really don’t know what most people think teachers are doing in class. When was the last time y’all spent a day in class? Go. Visit. Watch. Listen. And THEN if you think there is something amiss, talk to the teacher. Or better yet, become a teacher. We need intelligent, passionate people who can work within the parameters we are given and challenge students to think, apply logic, and learn the scientific method. Maybe then the next generation WILL find a definitive answer. Or at least have better arguments. ;-)</p>
<p>Do some real research on the supporters of ID. See their agenda. In their own words. Then talk to me about logic. </p>
<p>Wanna keep asking about my personal beliefs, that evades the issues at hand. Tell me that Wells, Behe. Johnson, Dembksi, are all honest in their presentation as ID as pure science, that the IDer is an unknown, that it should be taught as science…</p>
<p>Books by Hugh Ross- check out his books.</p>
<p>dmd77,</p>
<p>exactly. Well done.</p>
<p>I will answer your question as it pertains to this topic: looking at the facts of an existing great, beautiful and unbelievably complex universe and the total lack of a rational/logical explanation that conforms to scientific principles of how this could be created from nothing, I have to conclude that it was created by a a being that exists outside the confines of science as we know it and define it. To come to any other conclusion is illogical in my mind.</p>
<p>Nice dodge…</p>
<p>So, do you think IDers believe that the IDesigner is God. And, by extension, as the ID supporters, many of which claim to be Christians, is it a Christian God. And do you think that the identity of the ID will be kept out of the ID lessons in Science class? And will, say, a person, who has a non-Christian background version of the IDer be accepted?</p>
<p>And what is your vision of this Being? Was its purpose good, bad, neutral? Describe being to me. </p>
<p>Do you have no response to the words of the ID proponents…the vocal ones that are linked everywhere, whose articles appear on the various ID Science Websites?</p>
<p>Guess not.</p>
<p>“I have had a very weird experience when a parent, who hadn’t been in my class and who didn’t ask me what was said or how it was presented, came in to my class (after talking to the principal and pulling his child out of my class) and began telling me how there was proof that the earth was only 8,000 years old and that carbon dating is a lie and that seashells were placed on mountaintops by God because he wanted them there.”</p>
<p>I watched a very large, Christian-based homeschool association fracture into three parts, never to be put back together, related to said “controversy”. There were a few “old-earth creationists”. Then there was the group that said the scientists lied about carbon dating. But the largest group said that God had put the carbon dating technology into our hands, and the seashells on the mountain tops “in order to test our faith.”</p>
<p>As previously noted, perceived design does not require “intelligence”, and “intelligence” can program chaos and randomness, without any awareness of future direction. ID lacks the one thing that evolutionary theory (which has come a long way since Darwin) has, which is explanatory power.</p>
<p>Someone asked earlier about evolutionary explanations of cancer, etc. From a neo-Darwinian perspective, natural selection on the genotypic level is not affected in one way or the other by what happens to living organisms once they have reproduced themselves. The work of natural selection at that point is complete, and chaos can reign supreme. However, the work of Eldredge and Gould and their successors focuses on the “economy” of natural selection. A pool of multiple genotypes sharing “space” might result in genotypical adaptations to economize. And once that it is done, there may be no turning back. The “space” may become richer in ‘survival material’, but once the genotypical adaptation is made, it will not return to its former state except by natural selection to conform to species survival needs. In other words, there are always evolutionary dead ends.</p>
<p>CGM, I am not here to defend proponents of ID or to make claims about their beliefs. If you think that I have made any of the claims that you mention, please point out the specific posts. </p>
<p>What I do find fascinating is your insistence that the scientists who are ID proponents are automatically wrong and/or biased because of their religious beliefs. You keep hammering and hammering this same theme but provide no proof of this. Yet, you are comfortable with a leading evolutionist who is so adamantly anti-God that he refuses to shake hands with a minister, calling him “an ignorant bigot”. The fact that you don’t see the irony of your position is amazing.</p>
<p>There is no irony. I find it funny that still deny ID is not faith based and has no connection to Religion and God.</p>
<p>From FountainSiren" If ID has validity, and many believe it does–including a plethora of well known scientists (I’m betting you haven’t read anything about ID other than commentary by those who feel threatened by it–I posted a link)and philosophers–why would it only be taught to those with a predisposition for truth? If it has validity, as it does (not absolute truth, it is simply a valid theory) why would we keep it from some and offer it to others."</p>
<p>From Driver:</p>
<p>. It’s not something that needs to be “taught,” per se (at least not in science class; the “prime mover” concept is essential to much of philosophy); It’s simply a concept, a possibility, certainly in the realm of metaphysics rather than hard science. But to reduce science to sterile problem sets at the expense of the natural human wonderment at the base of all science is to make it a dry exercise. ID doesn’t mean God. It simply remains open to the possibility that there’s more to our existence than happenstance."</p>
<p>According to the ID proponents themselves, It does…</p>
<p>From Susantm</p>
<p>ID is simply about the POSSIBILITY of a designer. It says nothing about what the Designer may be like. It does not deny that some evolution has taken place. A Designer could use evolution as a mechanism, perhaps guided. Of course, each person may draw different conclusions, but the basic foundation of ID is simply to look for evidence of intelligent design.“…Yes, most of those who promote ID probably believe in a God. They do not all believe in the same God. That does not make ID a religion, any more than the fact that I am a Democrat makes everything I believe a Democratic position.” </p>
<p>According to Behe, a main spokesman for ID, it is God. And his Christian God. CHeck out Johnson, Check out Ross.</p>
<p>A non-proponent of Christianity who is of the opinion that ID is an accurate way of thinking about the origins of the universe and life itself:</p>
<p>One of World’s Leading Atheists Now Believes in God, More or Less, Based on Scientific Evidence after decades of insisting belief is a mistake, Antony Flew has concluded that some sort of intelligence or first cause must have created the universe. A super-intelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature, Flew said in a telephone interview from England.
I’m thinking of a God very different from the God of the Christian and far and away from the God of Islam, because both are depicted as omnipotent Oriental despots, cosmic Saddam Husseins," he said. "It could be a person in the sense of a being that has intelligence and a purpose, I suppose."</p>
<p><a href=“http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=315976[/url]”>http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=315976</a></p>
<p>British philosopher Anthony Flew, once as hard-nosed a humanist as any, has turned his back on atheism, saying it is impossible for evolution to account for the fact that one single cell can carry more data than all the volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Mr. Flew still does not accept the God of the Bible.
But he has embraced the concept of intelligent design a stunning desertion of a former intellectual ambassador of secular humanism to the belief in some form of intelligence behind the design of the universe.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.washtimes.com/world/20050303-115733-9519r.htm[/url]”>http://www.washtimes.com/world/20050303-115733-9519r.htm</a></p>
<p>Although Im sure this will be somehow meaningless to some and they will continue to insist that all intelligent people who think that there is intelligence or design in the universe and life are foaming-at-the-mouth religious fanatics who want to undermine the atheistic origins of America.</p>
<p>Momof1 – as the wife of a high school biology teacher who has been dealing with this for over 20 years (there is nothing new about any of this, only the names have been changed!) I just want to say AMEN to your post. Teachers usually talk to students, process ideas, look at different perspectives together – at least good ones do. And in 12 years of public and private education with 3 kids I can count the bad ones we’ve encountered on one hand. And even they have responded to civil conversation about various issues.</p>
<p>From Susantm: Have you actually read anything by a proponent of ID? They do not push religion. They simply look at the evidence and ask whether there is evidence of design, rather than random chance, in the natural world. They are scientists who study the data and try to come up with logical conclusions. They simply reach different conclusions from those reached by evolutionists. There is no need to teach any faith at all when discussing ID. It simply asks whether there might be some kind of intelligence behind nature. It could be God, the Force, or whatever. ID is NOT, repeat NOT creationism"</p>
<p>Yeah I have read the proponents of ID. They do believe IDer God. Wells believes evolution is evil. SO yeah, I have read their work, their interviews. </p>
<p>From FountainSiren:</p>
<p>“ID requires nothing else. Relax. Chill…the barbarians are not at the gate: there are no barbarians, there are only good people that you disagree with on this point.”</p>
<p>So the proponents of ID are lying to me when they say the IDer is God? </p>
<p>Susantm:</p>
<p>It is NOT NOT NOT creationism. It does NOT propose that the earth is just a few thousand years old. It is NOT a God of the gaps theory. It does not even deny that evolution occurs. It does NOT state who or what the designer, if there is one, looks like or what one’s religious faith should be. That is for each individual to decide for him/herself."</p>
<p>Read my quotes a bit back. The pushers of ID do say it was God. Gee. In their own words no less.</p>
<p>“But to reduce science to sterile problem sets at the expense of the natural human wonderment at the base of all science is to make it a dry exercise.”</p>
<p>I find science - and its problem sets - among the most beautiful of all creations, and has its source in natural human wonderment. It is NEVER - if it is truly science - a dry exercise, and only a non-scientist could conceive of it that way. I can’t imagine any scientist I have ever met viewing science, especially evolutionary science, as “sterile”, especially as we have witnessed the science itself evolve. To me, it is that natural human wonderment which represents the Divine implanted in the human heart. It is the process of science itself that allows (as do many other aesthetic processes) the Divine within the heart to unfold.</p>
<p>None of this requires, for purposes of the expression of a natural human wonderment - which is science – the existence of an outside “intelligence” or a “designer”, both of which lack explanatory power, and hence hinder the expression. And none of this is required for my faith, either.</p>