So you still can’t offer any confirmed scientific topics which should be added to 9th grade basic evolution teaching. Just unsubstantiated, very technical hypotheses which shouldn’t be addressed until college level. Got it.
Maybe you just aren’t educated enough to understand what a scientific hypothesis is.
And your own education, that trained you to discuss the nature of scientific hypotheses, was… ?
I’m not the one demonstrating pitiful scientific ignorance and confusing unverified hypotheses with empirically verified scientific facts when discussing what to teach to 9th grade students. 
No, Eddie, your (and the DI’s) relentless attempts to deceive laypeople about the meaning of the term “theory” lies at the very center of pseudoscience.
I think you’ve forgotten that I’m big on the substance of testing hypotheses, while you and the DI are not.
It’s not a theory. Calling it a theory is deceptive.
Why should I read the book instead of the papers?
I didn’t say it didn’t. I said it’s not a theory, and your description of it as a theory is deceptive, particularly in your context of secondary-school education.
Because it’s just a rebranding. Calling it a theory is deceptive.
Why would they do that? The man has no knowledge of the subject. Does the DI want schools to mandate that the janitor teach his criticisms of algebra while they’re at it?
I would suggest it be taught in civics class, to illustrate the principle of separation of Church and State.
Crackpot “theories” that have not been subjected to peer review do not make it into the high school science curriculum. That’s how it works, and how it should work.
I’m fine with it being taught in science class as an example of pseudoscience.
It is certainly not an “empirically verified scientific fact” that whales arose out of a series of mutations, plus drift, plus selection, etc., from some primitive artiodactyl. It’s an inference. You want the science curriculum to present some inferences (the inferences you personally agree with) as fact, while keeping students in the dark about the fact that other scientists draw different inferences (the ones you don’t agree with).
It’s a THEORY. Despite your relentless and deceptive use of the word, ID doesn’t have one.
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 right now, and that’s a 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.
Paul Nelson, Touchstone Magazine 7/8 (2004): pp 64 – 65.
It’s as true today as it was 15 years ago–at least the “we don’t have such a theory” part. one would think that “powerful intuitions” would spur someone to do something, but it hasn’t, so I don’t agree that “powerful” is an accurate adjective. I also don’t see how one can have a “research focus” to direct without any research to speak of.
He’s a synthetic chemist. He makes complex molecules out of simple molecules for a living. He was rumored to be short-listed for the Nobel Prize a few years back. He certainly has more knowledge of the chemical difficulties involved in an accidental origin of life (which also supposedly proceeded by taking simple molecules and building up complex ones) than all or almost all of the people posting here, and he has written about those difficulties. I would suggest that you, being Psychiatrist and not a Chemist, read his writings before commenting further on his knowledge level on this subject.
James Shapiro’s ideas on evolutionary mechanism have been published in peer-reviewed technical journals, so you shouldn’t object to a short summary of those ideas, just a few sentences, being presented in high school biology class.
So? He doesn’t do any OOL research.
So what? He’s never done any of the research.
Also, AFAIK, none of us here are claiming that our opinions on OOL should be offered to 9th-graders.
I very much would object, because Shapiro has nothing but words to offer.
Your labeling of mere “ideas” as a “theory” is utterly deceptive in the context of high-school education. Why are you being more accurate now?
I would point out to everyone here that in the past, here and elsewhere, John Mercer has denied that I have accurately presented Discovery’s policy on science education. Now I have presented statements of that policy. But instead of dealing with the question whether or not I misrepresented the policy, he is attacking the particulars of the policy statement, e.g., the way “theory” is used by Discovery, etc. But the intellectual quality of the Discovery statements wasn’t the point at issue. The point at issue was whether or not Discovery policy since 2005 has been to mandate the teaching of ID in the schools. I have repeatedly said that this was not Discovery’s policy. And I have repeatedly been told that I am ignorant of Discovery’s policy, have no authority to say what it is, etc. But now I have presented it. The textual evidence is there. It is explicit that Discovery does not support mandating ID instruction in the schools.
If JAM believes that evidence counts, he would admit that I characterized Discovery’s policy statements (which are called “policy statements” on the Discovery site!) correctly, and that Discovery has explicitly disavowed attempts to try to force ID onto the science curriculum. But I don’t expect that any amount of textual evidence, even under huge headlines with the words “Policy Statement” above them, will ever cause JAM to retract any charge or argument made against me.
How about you, George? Do you now concede that this has been Discovery’s consistent policy since at least 2005, not to mandate the teaching of ID in the schools? Does the textual evidence matter to you?
Eddie, put down the goalposts or you’re going to hurt your back.
My position is that the DI’s policy hasn’t changed from the Wedge document. The five-year goal stated in the Wedge document is explicitly unconstitutional, so of course it must be denied publicly.
Their public howling about the Dover decision speaks much more loudly than any public policy statement.
So your position is that I have correctly characterized all their formal policy statements on mandating ID in the schools since 2005, but that this doesn’t matter, because you believe they are lying about their actual policy? That they really have a different policy?
If so, then give me credit for accurate reporting of their current publicly stated policy, and make your quarrel with Discovery, not with me. But I don’t think you have it in you to ever admit that I am right about anything. Your track record with me shows a pattern of reflexive nay-saying, and I’m sure most people here have noticed that.
You obviously either didn’t read or didn’t understand their analysis of the Dover decision. It contains no backtracking, expressed or implied, on their “no mandating of ID” policy.
I believe that the plural, analyses, would be appropriate. I describe them more accurately as howling.
You’re right about the written statements. You really have issues if you can’t see that my point has always been their secrecy.
You’re still deliberately misrepresenting the concept of “theory” in science, as is the DI.
Future historians: Note this date! I don’t think this has ever happened before!