<p>It just seemed you were ranting, you keep saying the same thing over and over and over again. Almost everyone here acknowledges that the men you cite believe in a monotheistic God.</p>
<p>However, we have all repeatedly said, we don’t care: it is irrelevant.</p>
<p>I have never checked into the political or religious backgrounds of any scientist I have studied–ever.</p>
<p>I don’t care. I would rather judge them on their science and where it leads than whether or not they think eating meat is murder, or that Christ exists in the Eucharist. Though at least one of those may be true;)</p>
No. I think teaching metaphysics in HS is a great idea, but I don’t think it needs to be taught “alongside evolution.” Evolution isn’t about the creation of life, it’s about its development. But…if you’re going to start “teaching about creation” as posited in the original article, then you’d better recognize that it’s metaphysics, and you’d better open the floor to discussion. That’s all the president said.</p>
<p>Wait just a minute! I capitulated too quickly! That’s what happens when you are in a hurry! What about the kids who do what is right because they know it is right, not because they fear punishment or crave reward, but because they are intrinsically motivated to act in a socially acceptable way. Not every misbehaves at every opportunity. Some actually try very hard to be good even without divine, or parental, entreaties! </p>
<p>Now, my ceramic cleaner is drying out on my stove! Gotta go.</p>
<p>FountainSiren, ignore the facts. To not consider that these very people you quoted me have an agenda that they have stated, to bring God and Religion into the school, and a Christian God at that, and to include that in their science. In their own science, they have stated it is God, its is a Biblical God. The two, by their own words, can not be seperated. They themselves have joined them. THey have brought up their religion and blended it with their science. </p>
<p>If you do not see that, and remember, you mentioned wells and his science. You quoted him. He was the one that set out to destroy darwinism. He talked about God. He talked about his religion. He talked of Rev Moon. </p>
<p>These men brought their own religion into the equation. WHen they opened that door, it can not just be brushed aside. To them it was important, and yet, you feel its not? To the very people, to the very webstites you linked, your own quotes…those people bring in God, Christianity, Faith, the Bible…they did it and they attached it themselves to their science…</p>
<p>I do not need a hug. That was just a put down.</p>
<p>Well, didn’t get the names of the specialists on Lou Dobbs. My husband started talking about the potential cost of fuel oil this winter. Aiy aiy aiy! Anyway, basically the same thing I said in my post. Kansas is studying whether it is a scientific theory and should be studied by students, in which case they will put it in the standards, curricula, and testing. The talking head they had did say that it is not a scientific theory, that it should only be discussed to give a cultural context to students, and that the devine force should be undefined.</p>
<p>Didn’t hear the rest! Oh well. I do wonder what will happen if we start down this road. How many other devine spark theories are there? I wish a divine spark would keep my Alaskan home warm this winter!</p>
<p>“President Bush said Monday he believes schools should discuss “intelligent design” alongside evolution when teaching students about the creation of life.”</p>
<p>Driver, you’ve been pretty skillful at putting a spin on things the Pres. says to try to make them sound like he actually meant something other than what he clearly intended, but I think you fall short on this one.</p>
<p>“intelligent design alongside evolution”. Not a lot of wiggle room there.</p>
<p>And “the creation of life” - not “the creation” but “the creation of life” - isn’t a metaphysical question unless you start from the assumption that it is. I don’t want my kids giving up on investigating the question of how “life” could evolve from the chemical soup of ancient earth by some series of random, but ultimately understandable, events at some point in the billions of years of the planet’s history without divine intervention. That is a basic physical, not metaphysical, question. Frankly, it’s a good example of the difference between science and metaphysics. Either there’s an understandable, real-world explanation, or it “was designed.” But if it was designed, there’s no was to prove or disprove it. If there’s a physical explanation, it’s findable and knowable.</p>
<p>So I don’t want my kids throwing in the towel on science. Not just yet.</p>
<p>Kluge, first, I don’t understand how you can separate the two clauses in the president’s answer to make it agree with your point…and then call me a skillful spin artist for quoting him in full (but thank you anyway.)
You then go on to say:</p>
<p>
How can one teach the “creation of life” as anything other than metaphysics? We know that life has evolved, and continues to evolve…but we don’t know how it started. There’s too much conflatin’ goin’ on round here! Creationism is not the same as ID; creation is not the same thing as evolution.</p>
<p>“How can one teach the “creation of life” as anything other than metaphysics? We know that life has evolved, and continues to evolve…but we don’t know how it started.”</p>
<p>Well, no. We don’t “know” that life has evolved. The short-term creationists could be right. We can’t prove otherwise, we can’t “know.” All we have is a scientific theory which does a pretty good job of explaining the available evidence if Genesis isn’t actually the exact, correct explanation for all the stuff we find lying around, like fossils.</p>
<p>And we can teach “the creation of life” in exactly the same way we teach everything else in science: as a physical question to be investigated by the same scientific means as anything else. We can work on a hypothesis about how inanimate chemicals could combine to form more and more complex molecules until the point of self-replication had been reached. I don’t have the answer, but I am unwilling to presume that the answer is unknowable. We’ve figured a lot of stuff out over the past couple of thousand years, and we’re really just getting started.</p>
Another thing…I wouldn’t want anyone giving up on these studies either. I think the experiments that have been done that have shown that certain amino acids can be created in a laboratory using simulated lightning strikes on something-or-other are fascinating and useful. This is not a one or the other proposition. And I agree that such studies are science, and not metaphysics. But, even if our scientists can demonstrate that life evolved from primordial soup and lightning strikes, how does science prove randomness? Isn’t there a logic to most evolutionary theory. Survival, adaptation, etc.?
Unwillingness in this case is just a form of belief, though–faith, if you will. I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t expect we’ll ever understand the fundamental conundrum: Did something come from literal nothingness…or is there something that is infinite? And how can either be true?</p>
<p>But if it is, it’s a dead end. “It was Designed that way” becomes the answer to every question.</p>
<p>Kluge, </p>
<p>How’d that whole its a dead end thing work out for: </p>
<p>Newton? He believed it was designed.
Copernicus? He believed it was designed.
Kepler? He believed it was designed.
Faraday? He believed it was designed.</p>
<p>None of them much cared for the throwing dice theory of the universe, moreover, all of them were inspired to do their research due to their desire to uncover the designeven worse, they believed God designed it: I suppose its a wonder they were even able to ask questions (according to your axiom: its a dead end.)</p>
<p>I have no issue with scientists being devout. I don’t even see it as a conflict. But (and correct me if I’m wrong - I’m real rusty on the fine points here) I’m not sure if the work of Newton, Copernicus, Kepler or Faraday actually had to address the “designed” vs. “evolved without guidance” issue. At a certain level, “science” and “discover how God designed stuff” are, for practical purposes, synonymous. he answer is the same whether it was designed or not, so that issue doesn’t come up. </p>
<p>The reason why the ID issue arises in connection with evolution instead of gravity is that evolution is overtly based on the premise of a non-intelligently guided sequence of events. (Well, and it also conflicts with the whole “made in his image” thing.) So that’s where a conflict between science and religion arises. It really doesn’t come up with electricity or gravity or astronomy (I don’t think the Bible actually says the Sun orbits the Earth anywhere, does it?)</p>
<p>So I don’t think the smart guys of the past actually had to choose. With evolution; well, it’s hard to have a foot in both camps. That’s why it’s the target of the ID folks.</p>
<p>Newton? He believed it was designed.
Copernicus? He believed it was designed.
Kepler? He believed it was designed.
Faraday? He believed it was designed.</p>
<p>Feynman? Atheist
Hawking? Atheist
Jay Gould? Atheist
Sagan? Atheist</p>
<p>The funny thing if you have heard of the Steve Project is that a good chunk of the science dept especially in biology at Reed College are named Steve.</p>
<p>Darwin himself (though we are far, far beyond Darwin in evolutionary science) did not think there to be an inherent contradiction between the existence of a divine intelligence and the sequence of seemingly unguided events in which he perceived a pattern which he called “natural selection”. He remained an agnostic until his death (though he says clearly he was a believer when he wrote “The Origin of Species”), and he didn’t see it as necessary to either affirm or reject a Supreme Being in order to interpret the data he collected.</p>
<p>If ID belongs anywhere in a scientific discussion (which I doubt for reasons already stated), it probably belongs alongside considerations of the Big Bang vs. steady state vs. Fred Hoyle. Of course, it leaves one with the same sort of metaphysical speculations that one hears from many 10-year-olds, religious or not, regarding what existed before the Big Bang, and who created God before the world was created. </p>
<p>It would be a topic for interesting speculation, except as CGM as so well demonstrated, the agenda of the ID folks, as they state so well and even movingly themselves, has nothing to do with science, and everything to do with the propagation of a Christian agenda. I’m surprised anyone would even try to deny the agenda when they profess to it themselves.</p>
<p>As to preaching about original sin, if one preaches to people consistently of human sinfulness, one should not be surprised when eventually they stoop to the expectation.</p>
<p>But I have yet to hear, here or elsewhere, that atheists are suspect in the way they approach science, which, it now seems, is the orthodox approach to science. The temple gate-keepers are, apparently, threatened by the thoughts of those who are wavering and hesitant in their orthodoxy.</p>
<p>Atheism, it seems, has become a necessary conditon of science.</p>
<p>On the other hand, there seems to be a less than generous attitude toward those scientists and philosophers who do not believe that theirs is the ‘dead-end-theory’ of inquiry, practiced, more or less, by those made unfitor at least lacking in sufficient curiosityto succeed in science.</p>
<p>Still no answer regarding your claim you did not care about the ID proponents religion, while I did, and my assertion that they themsleves connect ID to their religion. But then that is not suprising that when facts are presented, they are ignored. Oh, kind of like ID itself.</p>
<p>It was an interesting list FountainSiren created, I have seen that list before.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-sciencechristianity.htm[/url]”>http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-sciencechristianity.htm</a>
Over a hundred years ago, Andrew White, co- founder of my alma mater, Cornell University, wrote a two-volume history of the conflict entitled The Warfare Of Science With Theology.
His research demonstrated a three-step process of dealing with new scientific concepts based on hundreds of cases.
“· First, the Church tries to crush the “heretical” view, often through censorship and persecution of the scientist.
· But as the evidence supporting the scientific viewpoint inevitably grows, the Church struggles to find a compromise position that incorporates both viewpoints.
· Eventually, the scientific victory is complete, and the Church is left to indulge in apologetics, a field of study that explains away and defends the Church’s actions. In this stage, it is common for apologists to claim that there is not, and never was, any conflict between the Church and science.”
Among the topics covered were the Bishops telling Columbus’s crew that they would die because the world was flat. The harassment, imprisonment and torture of scientists including Copernicus (censored), Galileo, (Imprisoned and censored), Bruno burnt at the state - because they offered evidence contrary to the standing still of the sun for Joshua, by the declarations that “the foundations of the earth are fixed so firm that they can not be moved,” and that the sun “runneth about from one end of the heavens to the other.”
Johannes Kepler - disagreed with the church view that comets were fireballs thrown in anger from the right hand of God.
“Rene Descartes, alarmed by the Inquisition’s persecution of Galileo, delayed his plans to publish The World, a book that agreed with Galileo’s views. Later he wrote Meditations on First Philosophy, which introduced the idea that truth can be discovered only through scientific investigation and the scientific method. This earned the hostility of the Church, and their persecution caused Descartes much suffering. This great philosopher, who is famous for attempting a logical proof of God’s existence, was called an atheist, and his works were placed on the Index of Prohibited Books. Protestant theologians in his resident Holland wanted him tortured and put to death.” quoted from site
It goes on to discuss how Isaac Newton kept his beliefs secret to avoid confrontations with the church.
Lightning was also considered a punishment of sinners by God; when Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning rod, Christians everywhere bitterly assailed him for robbing God of his judgment.
Bertrand Russell, censored and barred from teaching in New York State, 1940.
<a href=“http://www.infidels.org/library/[/url]”>www.infidels.org/library/</a> historical/andrew_white/Chapter3.html</p>
<p>EK4 wrote:
Newton? He believed it was designed.
Copernicus? He believed it was designed.
Kepler? He believed it was designed.
Faraday? He believed it was designed.</p>
<p>Feynman? Atheist
Hawking? Atheist
Jay Gould? Atheist
Sagan? Atheist</p>
<p>While I find this list interesting–and it’s not clear to me that you couldn’t create an equally prestigious list of contemporary scientists who at least appear to believe in a god-I couldn’t help noticing that the first four all pre-date Darwin and the last four are 20th century scientists. How much do socials mores have to do with their apparent beliefs? Galileo and Copernicus, after all, faced huge sanctions from the Catholic Church for their work in astronomy. If someone were threatening to send me to jail–much less the Inquisition–if I didn’t go to church, I’d be there on Sundays, no matter what I actualy thought.</p>
<p>More interesting than Darwin on the subject of religious beliefs and evolution is Alfred Russel Wallace–the other developer of the theory of natural selection. Wallace believed in the divine creation of humans, even as he believed that his natural selection theory explained the rest of the biological world.</p>