Creationism is a 'bad' movement

I'm specifically speaking about the Intelligent Design Network,



They are against teaching "evolution only," but they are also against teaching "evolution period." They seem to take what they can get, however. They describe their intended school policy thusly:



It discourages candid discussions of "material assumptions?" It discourages discussion about singular events occuring in the distant past? This isn't really so much about evolution as the discouragement of the Big Bang theory. That is not objective science.



Science is what we know. Church is for what people believe. In the education system, let's stick with what we know. In class, we must describe random phenomena as "random."

Zip

And where do they say this?


This is what ID is encouraging, not discouraging apparently. What's the problem?


How is this relevant? I'm sure you are missing something.


Objective science is allowing valid criticism of evolution and providing other possible explanations for already existing empirical data. How is it not objective?


No #, but the problem is that evolutionary theory is not complete.


The point is, it is not considered random by some, perhaps a chance of probability, or that evolution is directed by some force, even if it be natural.

[edit on 28-6-2005 by Jamuhn]

It's not objective when the "criticism" of science occurs in school board meetings. This is not a valid platform for the review of science and accepted theories.

If "intelligent design" advocates were honestly attempting to develop alternative explanations for the evidence that supports evolution, they would do it through valid scientific channels.

Again, science describes the "how", philosophy seeks to answer the "why". ID certainly fits within "why".

You have to kind of squint your eyes, but it lists this question,

And when you click on it, it brings you to this www.intelligentdesignnetwork.org... (which talks solely about "evolution only." So, that statement of mine was based on what I observed to be a hint, but maybe I was just squinting too hard.)



I took that directly from their site. It plainly says it discourages candid discussions of material assumptions.



As I also quoted, the explanation stated that it discouraged discussion about singular events occuring in the distant past. These are Intelligent Design Network's words, not mine. It is not I that is missing something because those are not my words.

I consider the Big Bang theory to be a proposed singular event occuring in the distant past, do you not?



Yes. I agree that that is what science is. Why do we need this new system at all if we both agree about what science is? By the way, students already have science classes.



Yes, and that is a part of science. Science allows for falsifiability to encourage a "back to the drawing board" approach. As evolutionary theory is perfected, it has not been proven false yet.

A key part of your religion is a conspiracy to replace rational thought with unthinking religious dogma?


Intelligent Design, according to the people that came up with it, is not a religion. So is it part of your religion or is it a science that you investigate?



I do no understand what you are saying.


Science and religion go 'well' toghether so long as they respect each other's boundaries. Religion is not science and science is not religion. Creationism is a breaking of those boundaries. And if anything, Evolution is the culmination of the Rennaissance and the Age of Enlightenment, when church dogma and scriptural authority were pushed out of way to make room for rational, scientific, thought.


In this case, its Christians who are doing something bad.


I suggest you re-read the original statement. People who beleive in creationism aren't bad people, they are simply improperly educated. The bad people here are the ones who run the creationist conspiracy to remove science from science classes and enfore their unscientific, irrational, religious dogma upon everyone. Not the people who happen to beleive creationism.


Check again. Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, all have a variety of people in them, some beleive in creationism, others reject it. All are muslims, chrisians, and jews.


Why? A certain group of christians are. They are actively working to end rational thought in science and bring in, with the protection of the government's authority, their own little ideas on their religion. Why not call it what it is? And why do you keep translating 'creationists' as 'all christians'? Most evolutionists are christians.
No one has to 'accept' them by teaching their religion in public schools. No one has to accept any group in that way. Only science belongs in science classes, it doesn't matter how many people beleive in any particular religion.

I fail to see why your personal beleif system should be free from 'attack', that is, free from criticism.

How is anyone going to be able to choose on their own if a coalition of churches is having their private dogma taught and tested on in public schools? Its like requireing sunday schools to teach darwinism.



In the United States, several states made it illegal to teach science based evolution in schools. Teachers were prosecuted by the law for teaching science. Then, finally, the supreme court realized that science belongs in science classrooms. So now, the political movement that is creationism can't take that tack, it has to have a different approach, because its already lost that legal battle. So they tried to argue for 'equal time' for their religious beleifs in science classes, the courts again said 'science in science classes'. Now the attempt is to get control of local school boards and change the school standards to include pseudo-sciences like Intelligent Design. That too, inevitably, will fail.
So while there aren't many calling for the rejection of evolution from science classes,they are calling for inlcuding illogical, irrational, faith based beleifs to be taught in science classes. That is a destruction of rational science.

Because the creationist movement does not critique evolution rationally and does not propose a rationalistic alternative, it merely states, as its answer to all scientific questions, one version or another of 'God did it". Thats clearly not even an attempt at objective rational logical consideration.

Why does that matter? Nothing is complete, and religious ideas are hardly 'complete' either, they say it starts and ends with god, thats not 'complete', thats a faith based statement.

How do you see evolution as 'incomplete' also?

The idea that life is directed by a 'force' used to be called 'vitalism', and it wasn't scientific and it was rejected a long time ago. Evolution is random, insofar as variation, in populations, is random and mostly caused by random mutations. Thats random.

damn, you sure about that there? i guess your forgettin the whole "the earth isnt the centre of the universe" thing a few hunderd years back



just like youd be suprised to find out how many old smoothy crooners were actually alchaholic wife bashers.....which made about as much difference to thier music (ie. none) as religious belief does to an ACTUAL scientist working from empirical data.....



no it is not a bad concept, its brilliant. cause god and data dont mix in an experiment, the basis of science. as experiments are used to prove or disprove theories. data is measurable and verafiable over and over. god is not. god is a belief, data is not a belief, its a tool used to discern facts. the bible is not data, it is not a book of hard facts prized from a multitude of experiments, it is a STORY of how something may or may not have happened that without the ability to scrutinize it against empirical data, and will remain just that, a story. where is the confusion in this?.........if scientists in days gone by mixed these two as readily as you say they are mixable, i seriously doubt we would be sitting here discussing things on the internet, in a house powered by electricity on opposite sides of the planet, heck, my guess is we probably would still think the world was flat.....good science follows the data, not beliefs

everyone should keep in mind that lots of the posts in here have been moved from older discussions. Replying to them is aok, infact, its what peopel should be doing, but keep in mind that the OP's might not be tracking the converstation anymore.

Ok, so now you admit that there is noone trying to take evolution out of schools. That was the main bulk of the "conspiracy" proposed by Skeptic Overlord. I don't think Bible-based creationism should be taught in science class either, but that is not what I have been talking about.


Once again, I have not been talking about the creationist movement. I am talking about research that is on the fringe of intelligent design that presents alternative scientific theories, and perhaps that evolution is guided, even if it be by natural forces.


Once again, no mention of religion with me.


I'll name for you at least two controversies within evolution, phyletic gradualism vs. punctuated equilibrium, and in the evolution of homo sapiens, replacement model vs. regional continuity model. Want more?



If this theory you are talking about isn't scientific, then why would you think I am talking about that? Vitalism is not even what I've been talking about. I realize the holy Stephen Jay Gould thinks evolution isn't guided, but I am not here to replay someone else's opinions, but to propose the settlement of this matter once and for all by more research into topics such as Intelligent Design. Intelligent Designers even state that this directional force could be natural (not vitalism), but in all, they don't try to answer it, just to show that it is guided. There is no guarantee that if evolution is guided it is because of a supernatural force known as God. But I think everyone is scared of the proposition because of it what it might mean to theologians.

[edit on 29-6-2005 by Jamuhn]

I was gonna wait for Nygdan to get back to you on this, but he's a busy guy, so I figured I'd jump in.

The Revolution Against Evolution
The Crusade Against Evolution
Index of Court Cases Dealing with Evolution

Zip

Zipdot:

From the first website:
www.rae.org...

Don't seem to be denying the teaching of evolution in that one.

From the second website:


Once again, noone is trying to take away evolution.

From the third website:
Only 2 of the 8 court cases mentioned were trying to exclude evolution from schools, one case from 1968, and one from 1981. The one from Louisiana is trickier, either both evolution and creation should be taught, or neither one.

So here is the only evidence you have for these "conspirators" trying to take evolution out of the schools? Your evidence relies on two court cases 25-35 years old?

C'mon, I thought the point of this forum was because there was a conspiracy in our midst to take evolution out of the schools. Heck, your links even supported a contrary position to Skeptic's mission statement.

[edit on 30-6-2005 by Jamuhn]

Rather they are trying to destroy all rational and scientific thought by stating that creationism is rational science. They're ok (well, strictly speaking, there are some minority groups that want to eliminate evolution, but the mainstream creationist movement doesn't normally call for that as an open part of its platform. In secret they do tho.) with evolution being taught, so long as its also taught that their personal faith 'trumps' all logic.



Remove evolution specifically /destroy rational thought and sciece in the public, six of one, half a dozen of the other really.



Inteligent Design is creationism, intelligent design is but a thrust of the creationist movement.


it does not present scientific theories. It presents faith and mystical beleif with the trappings of 'science like talk', ie, it is pseudo-science.


If you are talking about intelligent design, you are talking about religion.


I am well aware that there are controversies within evolutionary theory. You said that the theory is 'incomplete', and I wanted to get your take on that. I agree that there are controversies and lots of room for future study and discussion, and if 'considering alternative theories' meant that students were debating these things, then i'd say, 'great'. But thats not what the school boards backed by creationist outlets are suggesting, they are suggesting that "God did it", whether they call it young earth creationism, biblical literalism, or Intelligent Design.




Because there is no scientific theory that is anything like what you are talking about.


Intelligent Design cannot answer questions or settle matters. It is not a scientific theory.


And they have failed, utterly, in demonstrating an ability to detect intelligent design in nature. That is the claim of their entire programme and its been an utter failure, and will allways be a failure, its not a scientific methodology, its religion.

I, for one, would be ecstatic if intelligent design in living organisms could somehow be rationally demonstrated, it'd be a hell of a lot bigger than 'trumping' evolution, it'd be, in effect, a metaphysical science, with much more promise, from the get go, than all physical science could even hope to offer. And I don't think that any scientists would want to supress an incredible advance like that. But the Intellligent Design Programme is not going to accomplish that.

Damn, I knew I shoulda just waited for Nygdan to respond...

Oh well,

www.antievolution.org... This is a freakin' very extensive list of anti-evolution activity in the U.S.

I know that you are suggesting that this anti-scientific "Intelligent Design" movement is not against the promotion of evolution, but do you honestly feel that there is not an ongoing Christian movement against the teaching of evolution in public school classes in the U.S.?

Zip

[edit on 6/30/2005 by Zipdot]

I read through the first, oh....15 posts, and decided to write this. Sorry if anyone did this already. What people call Intelligent Designers can be put in MANY different ways, with many different 'gods'.

I myself like to believe in it, but more so as the intelligent designer being the Tao. The Tao is making it's way back. It makes M (or string) Theory look delicious. They both agree perfectly. On one hand, you have the science/mathamatics involved, on the other, you have the philosphy that describes it and how we should interperet the thoery in our lives. Perhaps the ancient Far Eastern Mystics knew more than we thought.

Now, the Tao wouldn't 'design' persay, but rather let design happen, freely, and let the opposing forces (yin-yang) tug back and forth creating a good balance of in-between. The same is done with M-theory's 'energy'. As most ancient Eastern philosophies (even European and American) point that all things are 'alive' with a 'breath of life' so does M Theory. All things a made up of small vibrating little strands of energy. This energy is the 'breath of life'. It all points to one thing. Either everything is dead, or everyting is alive. You choose the life you'd like to live. Mine is of peace, with everything alive playing off of one another. Be they rocks, people, goats, water, or hydrogen gas.

I myslef used to be a Christian. A blind neo-con at first (brought up that way by my parents), then I went to school and learn the history of Christianity. This had me very upset at everyting Christianity was from the early 300's AD and after. So I became a Gnostic (That's what REAL christianity is. After the Roman's got hold of it, they bastardized it and made it all crazy). The Gnostics (jews following Jesus' teachings as a sage, rather than a god, since he wasn't) shared a view VERY similar to those of the orient as well. Part of which is why I crossed over. I still believe Yeheshua existed (albiet with a more normal name), but his teachings are like that of Bhudda not 600 years before him. But that's a different thread.

Anyway, where was I...

Oh yes. Read the book 'The Tao of Physics' by Fritjof Capra. This guy wrote it in '75, when string theory (let alone m-theory) was in its infancy. And he saw that the coming theories of the physicists, being one himself, were really just seeing the universe, finally, as described by our ancient sages long ago (in all ancient 'religions' [if that's what you want to call them]). I urge anyone, even the layman, to read this book. Its is extraordinary!

- FallenOne

Edited for, well, the the actual topic of the post : CREATIONISM is what happens after 1700 of lies, deciet and treachery by the Roman Empire. It was done to keep Rome in charge of SOMETHING as it crumbled to the ground from Northern attacks. It should not be taught about forcibly, or even mentioned in a class of science. What should be taught is the history of all religions, and let the kids decide what they want to take in the next courses, be it science or creationsism. It should be up to the STUDENT.

[edit on 30/6/2005 by FallenOne]

String Theory and Branes are mathematical concepts that have nothin to do with Taoism, they can't be said to be in agreement in a meaningful way.



Doubtful. They apparently had absolutley no idea about atoms, let alone sub-atomic particles, branes, strings, or any of that. Taoism is a mystical philosophy, and as such it can be made to seem like its talking about practically anything. Thats why it seems to 'agree' with quantum physics. In reality its got nothing to do with it, nor does it claim to really.

The big difference between this and Intelligent Design, is that Intelligent Design says 'this is not philosophy, this is science.' Of course, its entirely wrong.