Reopened at @Agauger’s request. Please keep this thread constructive.
@CLAVDIVS
What you have in the 2005 testimony from Mark Ryland testimony is the actual policy of DI now.
The quote from 1999 is way out of date. Policies change, particularly by learning from bad experience. At some point you guys are going to have to accept things as they are now, and deal with people and policies that exist now. It is 2019, not 1999.
@Timothy_Horton I think you were the one complaining about the Dissent from Darwin List., mainly because of academic freedom issues. Academic freedom means the teacher is free to present peer-reviewed scientific material (not munbo-jumbo) relevant to the class, either pro or con evolutionary theory, in order that the student learn critical thinking. Object away. That is the way science operates. Signing out of this discussion. I have other more significant things to do.
Sure that is what we are trying to do now. @Agauger We forgive you of all your past sins. Your writings on EVN has improved greatly since engaging here. Keep up the progress, I am sure that it will go a long way in improving your standing with the science community.
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Actually, we view it more as Uncle Harry getting drunk and accidentally telling the truth. The multiple articles at ENV speaking out against materialism and atheism, and how they are both part of “Darwinism”, demonstrate that the concepts in the Wedge Document are the same concepts guiding the organization today. There is a really small fig leaf covering the obvious religious motivations within the Discovery Institute.
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Teachers have always been able to do that. Good teachers actually do it, I know mine did. The only reason for the DI to try and introduce legislation is to call attention to their bogus “controversy”. I don’t know of anyone who considered the DI’s vanity journal Bio-Complexity to be a legitimate peer-reviewed scientific source. ICR puts out their own “Creation Research Quarterly” journal with YEC evidence and claims it is peer reviewed too.
We are talking public schools here, both elementary level and high school. Federal court has said ID is creationism which is religion. Therefore it is unconstitutional for anything remotely close to DI’s ID to be anywhere near any public school. And many watchdog organizations like FFRF are watching DI every word and deed.
Of course. That’s why ID is now trying to rebrand the product once again to “teach the strengths and weaknesses”. In the last 3 decades we’ve gone from “Creationism” to “scientific Creationism” to “teach the controversy” to “Intelligent Design” to “teach the strengths and weaknesses”. All in the effort to sneak the Christian religion origin story into public school science classes.
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Most of us would argue that ID is a good example of not using critical thinking. Perhaps ID could be used as an example of how critical thinking doesn’t work.
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Here is an article at the DI’s Evolution News arguing that K-12 school science standards should be changed and requirements to learn and understand evolution should be removed for being one-sided and “biased”.
State Science Standards and You
Should we remove requirements for astronomy too so students can be taught astrology in the name of “balance”?
Anyone from Team ID want to defend why the DI wants to dumb down public school science standards?
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As you say, @Patrick, a federal court (in my backyard) ruled that ID is “the progeny of creationism,” based (as far as I could tell) primarily on the testimony of Barbara Forrest, who uncovered the evidence about the history of this book: Of Pandas and People - Wikipedia, especially the information about the terms “creationism” and “intelligent design” shown here: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/File:Pandas_text_analysis.png
I attended several days of this famous trial and wrote a commentary for Religion in the News, a magazine mainly for religion reporters. I hadn’t heard of it before getting the call asking me to write for them. Here’s what I wrote: RELIGION IN THE NEWS Spring 2003 (the article was published in Winter 2006, despite the words you just read ).
Right after the trial, a managing partner of the law firm hired by the plaintiffs told me, that the judge’s ruling applies “in two telephone area codes.” In other words, there could be other cases in other federal districts that yield conflicting decisions. So far (now 13 plus years) that has not happened, but theoretically it could happen. It wasn’t a Supreme Court ruling that applies everywhere with the effect of a national law.
In practice I don’t expect a flock of test cases. However, IMO, the door is still open to have a test case. I spell this out toward the end of my article. You can read it for yourself–the key point is that a science teacher could (IMO) discuss aspects of ID in a unit on the “nature of science,” a required topic in many states. I hardly expect a groundswell of assent on this, but IMO a legitimate secular case could be made for doing this. The whole article must be read to see the context in which I suggested this.
As an historian of creationism, however–and I actually am such a person, having published several pieces about aspects of that history in several academic journals and books–I simply do not agree with Judge Jones that ID amounts to covert creationism. It’s fundamentally different, and most YEC organizations disparage ID for clearly stated reasons. Almost all historians of creationism (I know most of them personally) agree with me about this, incidentally. The defense at trial didn’t subpoena any genuine experts on this topic (Steve Fuller is not such IMO), or they could perhaps have persuaded the judge not to draw that conclusion. Why does this matter? The plaintiff’s strategy was to show the judge how to connect the dots between the two famous creationism cases of the 1980s (one in federal court, the other in the Supreme Court) and the Dover case. Local circumstances in Dover made it very hard not to connect those dots, but ID in general simply isn’t “creationism” according to the definition of “creationism” dealt with in those two precedents. Both of those cases dealt with YEC views, which were spelled out clearly in those trials. Testifying for the plaintiffs, Ken Miller basically said that ID is a type of “creationism,” by which he seemed to mean OEC views, and he is probably right as far as that goes. But, that’s not the type of “creationism” ruled unconstitutional in those cases. To the best of my knowledge, explicitly OEC views have never been ruled by any court to be “religion” rather than “science.” And, ID authors take much care NOT to talk about “God” or “theology,” but simply offer a secular philosophical critique of the explanatory efficacy of Darwinian evolution. I say exactly that in my article, and I still believe that’s correct. In other words, those precedents shouldn’t have been applied to ID itself, as vs to the specific case in Dover, where board members originally wanted to teach YEC alongside evolution in science classes–a flatly illegal practice that their own lawyers said they mustn’t institute.
Bottom line: ID ain’t “creationism in a cheap tuxedo,” as nearly all scientists like to say. It’s a very different animal. In tone, however, it strongly resembles YEC creationism, insofar as ID proponents seek to challenge “Darwinism” as a cultural secular mindset and bring about spiritual renewal through their alternative ideas. That’s what the “Wedge” document was all about.
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It would seem OEC violates the same prongs of the Lemon test that YEC does. I don’t see how the age of the Earth changes the core constitutional problems.
Replacing “God” with “Intelligent Designer wink wink” doesn’t seem like a legal way around the constitutional problems. Using age old creationist arguments and removing the overt mention of God isn’t going to work.
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Yep. Once more the entire point of the ID movement is to circumvent the Constitution’s First Amendment Establishment Clause and get the Christian creation tale pushed into public school science classes. The record shows ID has never been about scientific discovery, not even for one day.
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From Paul’s linked:
These facts alone suggest that our critics have badly misrepresented us.
An excellent example of a lawyer testifying! I would have objected.
I read the first dozen or so comments carefully, and skimmed the rest.
What I find useful every time the ID creationism claim to be science are direct quotes from the major players.
Michael Behe;
“Although intelligent design fits comfortably with a belief in God, it doesn’t require it, because the scientific theory doesn’t tell you who the designer is. While most people - including myself - will think the designer is God, some people might think that the designer was a space alien or something odd like that.” (Michael Behe, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 02/08/01).
“In my estimation, although possible in a broadly permissive sense, it is not plausible that the original intelligent agent is a natural entity. … Thus, in my judgment it is implausible that the designer is a natural entity.” From “Reply to My Critics” Biology and Philosophy 16: 685–709, 2001.
“Well, I’ve said that quite a number of times. I think I said that at the beginning of my testimony yesterday, that I think in fact from – from other perspectives, that the designer is in fact God.” Dover, Day 11PM, Cross Examination by Eric Rothschild.
Of course my personally favorite moment from the Behe Cross-Ex was the following day;
["Rothschild: We’re going to look at chapter 8 of that book, if you could pull up the chapter heading there? And it’s titled The Explanatory Filter, Archaeology and Forensics, and it’s written by somebody named Gary S. Hurd. Are you familiar with Dr. Hurd?
Behe: No, I am not."](Kitzmiller v. Dover: Day 12, PM: Michael Behe (continued))
William Dembski;
“Indeed, intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John’s Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory.” (“Signs of Intelligence,” 1999, Touchstone magazine).
“…but let’s admit that our aim, as proponents of intelligent design, is to beat naturalistic evolution, and the scientific materialism that undergirds it, back to the Stone Age." “DEALING WITH THE BACKLASH AGAINST INTELLIGENT DESIGN version 1.1, April 14, 2004.
Phillip Johnson;
“This [the intelligent design movement] isn’t really, and never has been, a debate about science, it’s about religion and philosophy.” World Magazine, 30 November 1996
“Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of intelligent design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools.” American Family Radio (10 January 2003)
“I also don’t think that there is really a theory of intelligent design at the present time to propose as a comparable alternative to the Darwinian theory, which is, whatever errors it might contain, a fully worked out scheme. There is no intelligent design theory that’s comparable. Working out a positive theory is the job of the scientific people that we have affiliated with the movement. Some of them are quite convinced that it’s doable, but that’s for them to prove…No product is ready for competition in the educational world.”
Berkley Science Review (Spring 2006).
Since Paul Nelson is posting here, I wonder if he would want to comment on his admission;
*Easily the biggest challenge facing the ID community is to develop a full-fledged theory of biological design. We don’t have such a theory now, and that’s a real problem. Without a theory it’s very hard to know where to direct your research focus. Right now we’ve got a bag of powerful intuitions, and a handful of notions such as “irreducible complexity,” and “specified complexity” - but as yet no general theory of biological design." Touchstone Magazine interview, July/August 2004
Even ignoring the “Wedgie,” the major ID creationists admit there is no science, and merely a religious ambition behind their movement.
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@TedDavis TE, OEC, YEC, EC, ID are all creationism and can’t survive a test case. Sure the Dover case has justification over just central PA but if a similar case is heard anywhere in the United States, the judge in that case has to use the precedence of the Dover case unless there are big differences in the case. Even the Appellate Court and the Supreme Court must take into account the Dover precedence. Since you were covering this, why wasn’t this case appealed to the Appellate Court and eventually to Supreme Court?
Dr. Trischitta, regarding the appeal question, the creationist members of the Dover School Board were voted out in the next election. The pro-science members felt a wasted million dollars had been more than enough.
So, in order for there to be an appeal to a higher court, some other Distirict Court Court would need a similar case to be tried and with an opposing opinion issued. In the meantime, the Dover 2005 decision is the law.
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True, but the Christian Right as in Liberty Counsel could have taken over the case and appealed. Surely they would have lost on the merits as the Religion Freedom defense would have hardly stood a change.
Thompson quoted a book written by Discovery Institute leaders advocating for teaching ID in school. What would be the basis of your objection?
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As it was explained to me, the Dover School Board controlled the question of an appeal.
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