20 Years Ago, the Intelligent Design Movement’s “Wedge Document” Was Exposed

I’m sorry, but that is not what I asked. I wasn’t asking about whether it is possible to have ideological blinders on. Both sides seem to think that is the case for the other side. There appears to be some miscommunication and I’m unsure how to proceed so let’s just leave it at that. Thanks.

A better comparison would be scientists who claim to be unbiased, and who have come to the well supported scientific conclusion that the Aryan people are the most fit race of humans. When asked to present the actual scientific work, they can’t produce it. However, they can link you to a propaganda website that just repeats the same claims, sans science.

At that point, finding an internal memo outlining how the website and organization were trying to further Nazi ideology would be enlightening, but hardly surprising.

No, that would not be a better comparison. The Aryan people are not the most fit race of humans because that is a claim that Nazis made!

And now you say you didn’t say what you said.

Why was my post hidden/ Good grief. Who is voting onn this censorship. it was hatmless.
i think its because it hit a nerve. wow.

Was there a public service announcement by the AAAS that Darwinism no longer meant evolution? Because not everyone got the memo.

29• Universal Darwinism

R Dawkins - The nature of life: Classical and contemporary …, 2010 - books.google.com

[HTML] Group adaptation, formal Darwinism and contextual analysis

S Okasha, C Paternotte - Journal of evolutionary biology, 2012 - Wiley Online Library

Epigenetic variation and cellular Darwinism

JP Issa - Nature genetics, 2011 - nature.com

Neo‐ Darwinism , the Modern Synthesis and selfish genes: are they of use in physiology?D Noble - The Journal of physiology, 2011 - Wiley Online Library

Evolutionary developmental biology offers a significant challenge to the neo - Darwinian paradigm

MD Laubichler - Contemporary debates in philosophy of biology, 2010 - books.google.com

Evolution of adaptive phenotypic traits without positive Darwinian selection

AL Hughes - Heredity, 2012 - nature.com

Extending and expanding the Darwinian synthesis: the role of complex systems dynamics

BH Weber - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C …, 2011 - Elsevier

etc. Somehow this ended at the wrong thread. Why?

Sorry, but I don’t understand what you are talking about and you failed to provide any details. I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether or not it’s worthwhile to pursue further.

What has Holocaust denial got to do with teaching history and philosophy of science, which is what Ted is talking about?

Which is not what Ted was suggesting. He was talking about making science students aware of issues in the history and philosophy of science which should be part of a properly rounded scientific education. He wasn’t suggesting that a biology teacher should digress into talking about his latest low score on the golf course, or the politics of Donald Trump, or how to cook Vietnamese food, or the like.

Sounds like those parents are pretty shallow, materialistic individuals, who think the sole purpose of education is to advance their kids’ career prospects, salaries, and entry into the world of upper-middle-class life, as opposed to thinking deeply about what is true. More thoughtful, reflective parents will remember that some of the best lessons they ever had in high school occurred when the teacher departed a bit from the curriculum to talk about a subject (related to the subject of the class, of course) in which he or she had a passionate intellectual interest – even if nothing the teacher said in that context was going to be on any exam. If there’s no room for discussions of that sort in the schools, then the schools aren’t institutions of education, in the proper sense of the word.

Yep, that’s the world of the upper-middle-class life around here. Remote online education during COVID has resulted in even more extreme inequality in education.

Sure, these religious propagandists will try anything to “Wedge” their agenda into the public education system.

It’d be nice if they could be trusted to treat the history of how scientific theories have arisen as a purely educational enterprise to enhance the understanding of the nature of the scientific method.

But we all know that’s not what will happen, right? Instead, it’ll be Bible thumpers shrieking about how Darwin was a racist and an atheist, and therefore so is evolution.

Sad, but true.

Er, ah, uhhh… I was speaking of Ted Davis. He’s a TE who affirms the truth of evolution and isn’t in favor of mandating either ID or creationism in the classroom, and he’s to my knowledge certainly no supporter of the Wedge Document.

Which is exactly what Ted has done – treat the history of scientific theory as an educational enterprise – at his college for 20 or 30 years now.

Ted’s remarks went beyond merely the discussion of Darwin and evolution in ninth-grade biology. He was making some general remarks about the role of history/philosophy of science in science education, that would apply not just to biology but to all science teaching, in both high school and college.

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And I wasn’t.

I was explaining why it would be risky to follow his suggestion, and why prudent educators would be well-advised to ignore it. Maybe they could use some other issue to illustrate how scientific revolutions occur, like heliocentrism or Mendelian genetics.

You might be a little more careful about providing context. Here is what I said previously, in the block of text that you quoted just above your response:

“Which is not what Ted was suggesting…”

“He was talking about…”

“He wasn’t suggesting…”

And here was the start of your response to my statement about Ted:

Since the only person I had been talking about was Ted Davis, the most natural interpretation of your remark was that Ted was one of “these religious propagandists”. If you didn’t mean that, you wrote carelessly. It would be nice if you acknowledged some responsibility here. You could pleasantly surprise me by doing so. :slight_smile:

Yes, I can see how someone would interpret it that way. My bad.

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