ATS: Australian scientists reject 'I.D' being taught in schools.

As expected, the issue of 'Intelligent design' has reached Australia's shores. Our scientific community has rejected it outright and have gone as far as publishing an open letter in the major newspapers to disuade it being taught in schools.



This could possibly be a result of the 'wedge document'. It makes me cautious as it could compromise teaching proven knowledge and confuse kids as to what scientific evidence there is and isn't. Teaching 'Intelligent Design' in science class would imply to them that there is evidence of a designer. It could also lower the standards of future generations as it could influence their objectivity in scientific research.
Related News Links:
www.heraldsun.news.com.au
www.theaustralian.news.com.au

[Issue of bias: There are only two major media corporations in Australia [Newscorp and Fairfax] so objective media is limited.]

[edit on 20-10-2005 by riley]

I think we should give the kids a bit of credit. They are more than capable of making up their minds as to whether or not ID has merit or not. In fact the religious amongst them would already believe in God as the creator, whereas the non-religious would spurn the notion any way. No harm no foul in my eyes.

I guess where the line should be drawn though is whether ID is a religious concept or a scientific theory. Which is it? If its a religious concept it has no place in science class, if it is actually a scientific theory then it should be allowed to be at least mentioned in science class. Evolution is still a theory and that gets the time of day.

ID could point to alien interference in the World's biological evolution. It doesn't necessarily point to a white robed God designing everything.

As far as I can gather there is no scientific evidence for 'intelligent design'. The pro-ID claim is that life is too complex so must have had assistance.. however that is an assumption. There may be questions in regard to the evolutionary process but there is no evidence that directly indicates the existence of an intelligent being. Missing information and unanswered questions is not grounds enough to make scientific conclusions so should not be taught as possible fact. Evolution.. though it is a theory; is also a fact with a wealth of evidence that supports it.


[edit on 20-10-2005 by riley]

Ok I may sound likea freakin' idiot but not as stupid as Umbrax was in the 'Virgins' thread when he said:

Originally posted by ulshadow
Whats a Virgins anyway???

What is Intellgent Design???

That life is designed by an unseen intelligence [god, aliens etc].

[edit on 20-10-2005 by riley]

So it just means we were created as we are now? Like Adam and Eve aren't neanderthols but evolved Homo Sapiens in Genesis...But as Chief Wiggum said:

Originally said by Chief Clancy Wiggum, Springfield Police
Everybodys heard of an angel but who's ever heard of a "neanderthol"?

That they 'were' designed by a higher intelligence. That could still allow for evolution to continue the process that was jump started by something else.

Im not saying I buy into I.D but they do have some points which today's evolution theory cannot explain.

How does evolution explain such complex organs such as eyes and ears? Are we to accept that a random mutation gave some microbe eyes? Or that tiny light receptive pits gradually morphed into lenses and pupils? There is no grey area in these kind of organs. They are either fully functional or they are useless appendages. There would of been no natural selection favouring an organism with a useless flap of skin coming off both sides its head for a few million years until a working ear arrived.

"...unscientific views such as spoon-bending and alien abductions."

Lemme tell ya, if we'd had UFOlogy and Conspiratorial History as subjects in high school, I would have paid attention a lot more.

That being said, I agree with Subz. Give them all the information and theories there are and let the kids decide for themselves. There are still so many holes, unanswered questions in the theory of evolution. The ID movement is growing in the scientific community, and if you don't teach it to the kids, how are they supposed to approach it and refute it if they choose when they come across the argument in industry? Comparing spoon-bending to intelligent-design is a cheap tactic, like saying that teaching quantum theory would open classrooms to teaching John Titor.

[edit on 2005-10-20 by wecomeinpeace]

The point scientists are making is that there is NO evidence of an intelligent designer. ID has frequently been promoted in direct opposition to evolution theory.. which leads me to think that their belief is that mutations in species a caused by this unseen intelligence and not natural selection. There are many unanswered questions regarding evolution.. but there are also many answered questions that have scientific evidence supporting them. Absence of data is not evidence of an unseen force.. and disproving evolution would never prove an alternative theory that is based on untestable assumptions.

Originally posted by riley
The point scientists are making is that there is NO evidence of an intelligent designer. ID has frequently been promoted in direct opposition to evolution theory.. which leads me to think that their belief is that mutations in species a caused by this unseen intelligence and not natural selection. There are many unanswered questions regarding evolution.. but there are also many answered questions that have scientific evidence supporting them. Absence of data is not evidence of an unseen force.. and disproving evolution would never prove an alternative theory that is based on untestable assumptions.

Oh I agree with you. Good points.

The thing with ID is that there are a bunch of different groups (religious and scientific) each pulling in different directions with this theory. The religious groups want to hold this theory up as proof positive of divinity, whilst some scientific groups are forwarding the theory as proof that the concept of evolution is flawed. Last, but not least, there's the group that think both theories compliment, and by no means cancel out, each other.

Im of the later group if anything. There is ample evidence that evolution has occurred. The classic case of the iguana's tooth matching the dinosaur - iguanadon - shows that there is a direct connection between totally different species. But, as I mentioned before, there are simply things evolution cannot explain.

What's the only alternative to nature taking its course? There's only one that pops into my head and that's some "thing" interfering with evolution. There is ample scientific extrapolation that uses the absence of something to justify something else.

Another classic example is observing a wobble in a small stars orbit and deducing that an unseen black hole must be there to cause it. You cant see there is a black hole there but judging from what you can observe you can say with some conviction there is a black hole there.

I feel the same way here. Until I can see a complete working evolution theory that explains EVERYTHING I remain open minded about the possibility something had its hand in at least Earth's evolutionary process.

To be honest, after doing the debate on "Evolution" and "Intelligent Design", I think both are awful theories...

Both of them have so many holes in them, I could park a bus in them and now it isn't even funny anymore. The Scientific community has such a strangle hold that "Evolution" is right, they never bother to look what caused the very first reaction...

While I agree that evolution doesn't explain everything about life--most especially its origin, it does explain all variations since the inception of life that have been examined. The history of life on planet Earth goes back so far in time that mankind may never uncover all the facts; however, that in no way invalidates the theory of evolution. Given what we do know about the evolution of life on this planet, it is almost inconceivable to think that what we don't know did not undergo the same processes all the way back to the very beginning. Further, we are only just now beginning to delve into and understand the evolution of DNA, RNA, and the other ingredients of life as we know it. There is no good reason to abandon evolution in favor of something else or to give something else an essentially co-equal status alongside evolution--a status like that must be earned and as yet ID has not done so.

If science is anything close to correct--and nothing so far has been able to refute it--then somehow all life is essentially an evolution of hydrogen anyway. We, all of us, as well as everything else we know was cooked up in the interior of stars and dispersed when those stars exploded. Only to be gathered up again by gravity and cooked again and again. Somehow, in the fullness of time those repeated cookings & explosions made all the elements heavier than hydrogen. The parallel emergence of life from the debris ejected by those explosions is not so strange as to be inconceivable--we just aren't wise enough yet to understand.

[edit on 20-10-2005 by Astronomer68]

I think the religious groups should have stuck with the subject of abiogenesis. For those who do not realise.. 'that first reaction' is indeed NOT part of the evolution theory so is not a 'hole'.

There are many things unanswered.. and as science takes time to answer them they are prone to attack by religious groups. Now.. if one day a camera filming in between mutating cells films a bearded guy tinkering around with genetics.. by all means that could be offered as some sort of evidence [can't think of a better example atm]. Likewise an alien is captured and tested and has similarities to human dna.. that could be considered proof of genetic tampering. I completly agree kids should have an open mind.. someone needs to answer these questions though so it is far better that they are presented with facts to work from rather than 'maybes'. If ID is a fact.. following the facts already available will lead to the same place eventually anyway.

No sniping at each other, play nice now.

Don't think I don't believe in GOD because of what I posted above, because I do. The prevailing theory of the beginning of the universe, the so-called "Big Bang" theory is practically inconceivable to me. Essentially the theory states that the entire universe sprang from an inconceviably small point of something and was initially without matter or any of the forms of energy we recognize and as it began to expand & cool the universe adopted all the immutable laws of the universe. And yet, in spite of my personal diffulcty in grasping the concept, if the theory is true, the laws which now prevail throughout the universe could have taken on almost an infinite number of forms, most of which would have totally precluded life. The fact that we are here at all is as easily explained by divine intervention as anything else--and believing in such is much more satisfying. I believe; therefore, that GOD created the conditions & rules under which the universe operates when the universe was created and those conditions & rules absolutely favor the emergence of life in every place and under all conditions that don't absolutely prevent it.

[edit on 21-10-2005 by Astronomer68]