The Volokh Conspiracy

How dare educators expect academic freedom for something as evil as failing to believe in the big bang?

The constitution may give free speech, but it clearly means free speech only for right thinking people.

Those who oppose evolution oppose reality itself. Through their belief and speech they exclude themselves from the constitution and from society itself.

Their belief is a fraud. Their speech is a fraud. They blaspheme darwin. Their lives are hate crimes agaist society.

Death to those who oppose darwin! Death to the christers!

Academic freedom and scientific methods mean putting forth theories, discussing them, and running tests (or debates) to see how they hold up.

Then the cycle starts all over.

Somehow the children of the 60s got into power in the academy and decided that no debate was authorised in a handful of theories they love (darwin, global warm or cool of the week, race abilities).

That's not science or the academy, that is a religion.

Academic freedom and scientific methods mean putting forth theories, discussing them, and running tests (or debates) to see how they hold up.

Key phrase there being "running tests." Any suggestions for running scientific tests on creationism or intelligent design? We've been waiting for some time and this seems to be one (of many) important area where these ideas have nothing to add to our scientifically based understanding of the world.

Won't they have to find biologists who believe their nonsense? Not many of those out there.

Ben Stein makes some really awful points relating to this topic.

"Science leads you to killing people" and relgion does not? Both science and religion were created by man, not by anything else. And man may act in moral or amoral ways. Torquemada and Mengele would respectfully disagree with Stein's foolishness. He is really skilled at basing sound-sounding soundbites on empty nonsense.

The other confusion that people take advantage of is the concept of creation "where/how did existence begin" with evolution concept explaining how life has developed since the beginning of existence.

Newton believed in God, but as the type of being that would create mysteries for us to understand and learn from. He saw the Divine hand in the motion of the heavens, and took up science as a challenge to comprehend the mysteries in front of us. Einstein saw God as an excellent concept and as a common bond between life, but didn't see God as an umpire who made up the rules that you had to live a certain way.

Most of the religious scientists that I know subscribe to the Blind Watchmaker concept of a God and not the evangelical concept of Jesus sitting next to you at lunchtime, reminding you not to eat so many carbs.

Academic Freedom to force confusion and ignorance on children who already score poorly at math and science? Sounds like a great idea. Abstinence also is a great use of forced ignorance on children, and we see how well that has worked.

Happyshooter-- The complete and total lack of understanding of evolutionary theory you display perhaps qualifies you as a teacher of these "alternative" approaches to biology.

I've no brief for ID and don't see any particular reason it should be taught in high school science classes, but it does seem to me that the battle over this is less over any particular theory or what-not and more over what we might call "social authority." When something gets called "scientific," it immediately acquires a great deal of cultural authority - that's why all sorts of activist outfits produce "reports" that "demonstrate" such-and-such "finding." And so it might actually be worthwhile to set aside a day or so in a science class and have even high school students reflect on the limits of science, the ways in which this thing we call "science" doesn't just run according to some beautiful, objective mechanism, etc. If the point, in high schools at least, is to help create minimally educated people who can exercise their civic and personal responsibilities reasonably, then such efforts - and they might include at least looking at ID critiques (and the responses) - don't seem entirely out of place.

As for the "academic freedom" claim, I wonder if those folks really want to travel down that path. Think of all the odious things currently plied on undergraduates, allowed and encouraged in some sense by "academic freedom." It doesn't seem to me that's such a bright idea at the high school level.

The big bang smells like a fantasy.

We're not talking about the big bang. We're talking about evolution.

Incidentally I don't know the real world relevance of teaching evolution in schools.

Erm, doesn't it underpin pretty much all modern biology?

Some random thoughts from someone who considers himself sort of halfway between an agnostic and a Deist -- but definitely *NOT* a Christian Fundamentalist:

1.) Even if Creationism and Intelligent Design are total hogwash, they still ought to be discussed in the schools so that the students can see for themselves that they are hogwash.

2.) There are some aspects of the Theory of Evolution (as commonly presented) that are really non-testable hypotheses, and hence fall outside the realm of Science. For example: The assertion that life on Earth arose solely by random chance. That may well be true, and I personally believe it, but it can't possibly be proven by any kind of reproducible, controlled experiment. Therefore, it is not Science with a capital "S" like, say, Maxwell's Equations or Special Relativity. At best, it is semi-scientific speculation, and at worst it is just another belief system, the same as ID or Creationism. If it were up to me, I'd call it "The Evolution Hypothesis" rather than "The Theory of Evolution."

3.) Whatever harm might come from allowing a few religious wackos to fill a few kids' heads with nonsense is far less than the harm that comes from allowing the Government (especially the Federal government) to define what is or isn't Science, in defiance of the wishes of local, democratically-elected school-boards.

4.) I don't see where there is any logical way to disprove Creationism. If some guy wants to assert that God created the Earth, 6000 years ago, complete with fake fossils and sedimentary rocks, etc., how can you disprove that??

5.) To me, Intelligent Design actually seems easier to attack than Creationism in that I.D. seems to be logically incompatible with conventional Judeo-Christian Theism because their [the I.D. folks] "Designer" keeps making mistakes that S/he has to come back and rectify. Whereas the traditional Judeo-Christian God is omniscient and -- one assumes -- infallible.

The academic-freedom bills now in circulation vary in detail. Some require teachers to critique evolution.
You're not only free to teach what you want, you're also free to teach what the state tells you to. Maybe the solution is to get the government out of the business of giving its blessing to school curricula.

`Academic Freedom,' what a crock. High school teachers have never had academic freedom nor should they (they aren't researchers). But what really underlies the hypocripsy in this bill is the fact that it only provides `academic freedom' for exactly one view. If they really wanted academic freedom for high school teachers why not grant it in all subjects.

That would get interesting. I'd love to see some teacher explain in a world history class (say in response to a question) that our best historical and scientific evidence suggests that no one rose from the dead during that period of time. It could get even more interesting in an actual course on religions. I suspect most of the people supporting this bill wouldn't be very pleased to find a teacher using academic freedom to outline the evidence that the gospels were composed significantly after the fact, contain clear historical inaccuracies (no census like the one claimed was held at that time) and then underwent substantial modifications during the middle ages. These are facts that are accepted even by the vast majority of religious scholars (theologians etc..) but would drive these fundamentalist types mad.

Too bad the bill doesn't actually just grant protections for high school teachers to share scientific evidence in general.

"Incidentally I don't know the real world relevance of teaching evolution in schools."

Not only is it the basis of all biology, but also medicine. Furthermore, creationists and other religious cohorts believe that the earth was created only a few thousand years ago, so this also impacts anyone who wants to go into geology, paleontalogy, the study of dinosaurs, plants, ecology, plate tectonics, astromony and a whole host of scientific fields.

But even for those who don't go into those fields, if evolution is not taught, then students will only be taught the religion, which is that the world was created a few thousand years ago.

If you don't teach basic science, which evolution is a part of, then you pretty much concede it to the wingnuts, and that seriously deprives our students of a sound education.

2.) There are some aspects of the Theory of Evolution (as commonly presented) that are really non-testable hypotheses, and hence fall outside the realm of Science. For example: The assertion that life on Earth arose solely by random chance. That may well be true, and I personally believe it, but it can't possibly be proven by any kind of reproducible, controlled experiment. Therefore, it is not Science with a capital "S" like, say, Maxwell's Equations or Special Relativity.

First off, Evolution doesn't say that life arose solely by random chance. Natural Selection which is a major factor in Evolution is anything BUT Random.

As to the second bit about it not being able to be reproducible by a controlled experiment, what isn't reproducible and you do know that by that logic Astronomy isn't Science because we can't make stars in a lab. :p

There are some aspects of the Theory of Evolution (as commonly presented) that are really non-testable hypotheses, and hence fall outside the realm of Science. For example: The assertion that life on Earth arose solely by random chance.

As Brian Mac pointed out, that's not part of the Theory of Evolution.

Biologists really don't know where or how life started on Earth, or even what the first life was. They have a bunch of ideas and some evidence for each, but this is still a very unanswered question. Whoever finally pieces it together will probably get a Nobel.

Maybe we should just put the "closed for business" sign on all of public schools and let parents pick where they would like their children to be educated instead of having the state do it.

Traditionally, academic freedom is protected with tenure. Academic tenure protects academic freedom by ensuring that teachers can be fired only for causes such as gross professional incompetence or behavior that evokes condemnation from the academic community itself. Intelligent Design and Creationism are not scientifically accepted theories and have no place in a High School science classroom, and teaching them as viable alternatives is a form of professional malpractice, which should be punished by revoking tenure.

For all we know, aliens landed on the planet 10,000 years ago, made woopie with a bunch of monkeys, and that's how man kind was formed. Anyone care to prove that theory wrong? I don't think you can

Wow. Just, wow.

Incidentally, a large part of the decision in Dover was the conclusion by the judge (a conservative church-goer appointed by George W Bush) that supporters of ID were, at best, dissembling about the extent to which religion motivated their decisions:

We have concluded that it is not, and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents. [SNIP] The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy. It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy.

Some commenters at the NRO have opined that the weight of lying about their motivations for so long is starting cause larger lapses in judgment. I certainly hope not.

For all we know, aliens landed on the planet 10,000 years ago, made woopie with a bunch of monkeys, and that's how man kind was formed. Anyone care to prove that theory wrong?

We share over 98% of our DNA with chimpanzees (and a little less but still well over 90% with the rest of the great apes). If we were half alien, then only 50% maximum of our DNA would be common with the great apes.

Of course, the absolute impossibility of a fertile alien/ape cross is just ridiculous fantasy--a horse and a donkey don't even produce fertile offspring.

Next "theory"? BTW, you are not using theory in a scientific sense but a legal one (i.e., just a wild assed guess).

I think the real question here is why high-school teachers require "academic freedom".

There was a time, 150 years ago, when world class researchers were teaching high-school. At that point you could (but they didn't) talk about the "academic freedom" of high-school teachers. Today, when many high-school teachers don't know their own subject (no need for math degree to teach math, biology degree to teach biology etc), I don't think such teachers are qualified to have opinions on the curriculum. They are not "academics" (that is, researchers), and we should expect them to teach what they're told. The post-modernist quackery of "everyone's personal opinion is equally valid" does not belong in the science classroom.

High-school teachers should have the freedom to express themselves outside of class as they please. But in class, to a captive audience, they should teach a given curriculum. University professors and students are in a different relationship. The professors are genuine authorities in their field, and the students don't have to be there -- if they don't like what the professor is saying, they are literally free to stand up and leave the classroom.

Robert Heinlein in JOB said that God did make the world 6000 years ago, but he made it very old... If you believe that God is omnipotent, why wouldn't you believe He couldn't leave all sort of fossils and other detritus around to mess with our heads? Or put another way, we only know those things we can see and measure. Those things that fall outside our current set of tools may exist, but we would never even be aware of them.

My big concern with this debate is that of the two positions, Intelligent Design seems more rational and agnostic than the more dogmatic Darwinism. Both require faith beyond the scientific ability to prove something. Only one, Darwinism, says that anyone who disagrees with its precepts is a heretic.

Just sayin...

The problem with those who claim that ID should not be taught in school because it cannot be scientifically tested is the fact that this same criticism is not given to the metaphysical , philosophical, and religious claims made in "biology" textbooks our kids read.

I'm all with you if we stick to the theory, the evidence, holes in the evidence - all that "science." The BIG PROBLEM comes when you actually READ the textbooks and realize that the authors almost always make explicitly and implicitly strong statements that evolution somehow does away with the need for a God, or that evolution explains the beginning of life itself. These, my friends, are not scientific claims, and if you're going to trumpet a "science-only in science class!" argument (which is a pretty bad pedagogy to begin with), at least apply it consistently.

JoDa, no Biology textbook that I've ever read (there are at least a half dozen on my shelf) ever said anything remotely like that. For the most part, they don't have time to cover metaphysics because they have too many topics as is.

If some guy wants to assert that God created the Earth, 6000 years ago, complete with fake fossils and sedimentary rocks, etc., how can you disprove that??

Maybe by providing evidence of fossils and sedimentary rocks that are older than 6000 years?

And when your opponent asserts that God (or maybe the Devil) adjusted the Potassium and Carbon isotope levels in those rocks and fossils , along with the amount of weathering, etc., to make them look as if they were much older than they really are?

My point is that you can't disprove this stuff. You can say -- quite properly -- that it lies outside the realm of Science, but you can't disprove it. And, IMHO, it is vital for school students to learn that LOTS of important things lie outside the realm of Science: Science cannot make aesthetic and/or moral judgments, for example.

Alan, I think it's been pretty conclusively shown (Kitzmiller) that ID is and always was religion. Most damning IMO was the revision of "Pandas" in which the word "creation" (and its cognates) was systematically removed to make the book more palatable as non-religious.

Judge Jones thoroughly documented the fraud of claiming ID as anything more than creationism in drag.

To achieve the numbers the models each generate to support their claims, the underlying math misapplies the 2d Law of Thermodynamics. The 2d Law is applied differently for open and closed systems. For closed systems, eventually all feedbacks become positive feedbacks, which generate impressive looking numbers, based on which it is claimed that such cannot be due to chance or natural variations. The earth and its climate, however, are open systems, meaning that negative feedbacks have to be included in the model.

I don't know what you are talking about (and I'm a statistical physicist!). The 2nd law of thermodynamics has nothing to do with "feedback", a word that I've never heard used in a scientific context.

Darwinian theories work pretty well until you get to about the level of DNA. Among other things, at the size of DNA, quantum effects, like quantum tunneling start becoming significant. You can graft on special case fixes to account for quantum effects and other problems. However, the foundations for those fixes contradict the foundations of Darwinian theories. A similar approach was used in physics before the development of Relativity and Quantum based theories.

I have no idea where you got the idea that the effects of quantum tunneling on DNA have anything to do with evolution. Evolution doesn't even require DNA at all -- it merely requires that organisms have some store of genetic material (check) that controls their development (check), that this material is passed to their children (check) and that it be subject to random mutation of unknown source (check, DNA-polymerase has a known error rate). How this genetic material works is irrelevant to natural selection. It can be DNA, RNA or a set of gnomes.

Teaching Darwinian theories as "the truth" is dogma, not science.

I suppose you feel the same was about the dogma that the earth is round, not flat?

Darwinian theories are the best available for now, and work well in most situations. Still, they have their limits. Teaching those limits and why Darwinian theories cannot explain the situations in which fixes are used is also science, since it is teaching the fundamental scientific principles and process which will lead to a new theory which accounts both for those situations Darwinian theories account for and those it cannot. This also teaches the method for analyzing proposed "alternatives".

This is a wonderful non-sequitor you have set up. I propose, by analogy, that since there are significant unresolved problems in the field of fluid dynamics (viscoelastic materials come to mind), we should start looking for alternatives to the Navier-Stokes equation.

For all we know, aliens landed on the planet 10,000 years ago, made woopie with a bunch of monkeys, and that's how man kind was formed. Anyone care to prove that theory wrong?

It's been proven wrong for years. Now, if you think that geology, anthropology, archeology and all other disciplines which employ sophisticated dating techniques are hooey, then nothing will convince you that you're wrong.

To be a little more specific, I know that ID advocates have been denied publication in peer-reviewed journals on the basis of "ID isn't science" and then continue to be told that "ID isn't science" because it hasn't been critiqued by peer-reviewed journals.

That's not very specific. Names, please?

The BIG PROBLEM comes when you actually READ the textbooks and realize that the authors almost always make explicitly and implicitly strong statements that evolution somehow does away with the need for a God, or that evolution explains the beginning of life itself.

Quotes, please.

All I know is: If these bills pass, the proponents of the Flying Spaghetti Monster theory had better start working on their curriculum materials. They'll be useful in the discussion of alternative theories of evolution.

What I did or didn't learn about the theory of common descent in high school has had zero impact on my daily life. The subject really isn't that important, but it gets blown out of proportion by these two bitter, hostile, enemy factions in the culture war.

Whereas popular belief in global warming could lead the government to impose costly regulations that would affect my standard of living, popular belief in ID (another theory noticably lacking in testable hypotheses) wouldn't alter my daily life in the slightest. It seems like the ID crowd thinks that if they give an inch to the other side, the whole country is going to turn into hardcore atheists micturating on Bibles. On the other end, Dawkins and friends seem to act like if they admit even a minor flaw or gap in the theory that next thing we know everybody will be handling snakes and speaking in tongues.

This is just not as important as the people on either side seem to think it is.

As long as evolution is being taught, the students will see that it gives a superior explanation of life on Earth. Real scientists have no need to censor other points of view.

The problem is, as is demonstrated by some of the woefully ignorant posts here, is that evolution is not being taught. Rather than teach evolution, school districts decide to avoid the controversy and avoid teaching anything about it at all. This deprives students of an adequate grounding in fundamental scientific principles and leads to a scientifically ignorant populace who doesn't know the first thing about science, critical thinking, rational thought, or the difference between fact and myth.

Unfortunately the purveyors of creationism and ID have been all too successful over the last 25 years or so. Even though they have unable to get their nonsense taught, they have managed to get evolution deemphasized when it should be the central topic of biology education.

But if he persists, I won't have a hissy-fit. I'll just tell him "good luck, and show me the working model when you get it built."

But if he gets the local school board to force you to teach that his machine will work, then I bet your tune will change.

Let's say I agree that ID is a simplistic and unscientific myth, and that it is promoted by a conspiracy of disreputable folks who conceal their religious beliefs and intentions. Just what are the evolutionists afraid of?

It's misleading to teach in science class what you so accurately characterise as: "simplistic and unscientific myths promoted by a conspiracy of disreputable folks who conceal their religious beliefs and intentions."

If you want to teach it at all, teach it in philosophy, although then you've got some work to do to justify why it should displace Plato et al.

(Ah, new comments - I was responding to my own previous remark.)

"Let's say I agree that ID is a simplistic and unscientific myth, and that it is promoted by a conspiracy of disreputable folks who conceal their religious beliefs and intentions. Just what are the evolutionists afraid of? "

i think it's less argumentative and more precise to refer to ID as metaphysics. the story of adam and eve is (otoh) myth. ID is more of a philosophical system.

regardless, it's clearly not SCIENCE.

ID isn't really a myth. not that i am saying ID is correct, just that it's not really myth. it's metaphysics.

metaphysics: "a theory of the essence of things"

This, from the WSJ article, is great:

Mr. Cowan's principal said that teachers are not supposed to veer from the approved textbooks. That's why Mr. Cowan would like a legal guarantee he can teach as he sees fit.

"This is America," Mr. Cowan said. "My gosh. Why walk on eggshells?"

That's awesome. Now that we are giving bachelor's degree-educated instructors the "academic freedom" to teach whatever they want in biology class, there is nothing to stop someone from presenting the "evidence" in favor of eugenics, various racist anthropological "theories," et cetera et cetera. Maybe some UFO enthusiast will give his "I want to believe" speech to the class. The fact that it's not in the textbook will not hold back the "academic freedom" of individual teachers. This should end well . . .

"no matter how much libertarians and conservatives have tried to destroy and demean it over the last thirty years or so"

you mean liberals. teachers union, overwhelmingly liberal - fighting merit pay, fighting fair competitition (vouchers, etc.), fighting teacher subject competency tests.

liberals: installing outcome based education and other trendy worthless academic theories about learning, discouraging competition among students etc.

not that i want to hop down this tangential bunny trail.

Wow, lots of pure religious bigotry going on here. You do realize that not everyone's an atheist in this country? America is 80% Christian.

J. F. Thomas (mail):
If most parents had the economic freedom to send their children to schools of their choice, instead of 'one-size-fits-all' the whole debate would evaporate.

So instead of some standards, you want no standards. I can really see how that solves the problem.

So being the little fascist you are, you would force parents to send their little drool-buckets to a government indoctrination center?

Responding to J.F.Thomas:

Actually, if the gov't is going to be in the business of education, then they have to provide the education that the people supporting it desire to provide. This is a government of the people, not a government of the smarty-pants elites who know what's best for everybody. Like it or not, if the people of a state are financing a public education system, they should have complete control over how it is run (or at least, like shareholders, complete control over who sits on the board that decides how to run it.) You can call the people stupid for rejecting the wisdom of their betters, but they have every right to drag the system in stupid directions when it is their money funding the system.

There is an element of randomness to Darwinism which posits: 1) Common descent through 2) natural selection, the underlying mechanism of which is 3) random mutation. Until a gene randomly mutates, there is no opportunity for natural selection to work. It is misleading to attack critics of Darwinism for not believing in common descent or natural selection when their real beef is often with random mutation.

There is nothing inherent in ID which requires believing in Adam and Eve, that the Earth is 6000 years old, etc. This is a red herring. Ditto for requiring that the designer was omnipowerful, omnibenevolent, etc. Maybe the designer was an evil moron. Critics of ID would be on much stronger footing if they didn’t have to rely on such misleading tactics.

The Law of Gravity is just that, a law; its apples and oranges to compare it with the Theory of Evolution. The Law of Gravity can be proven through experimentation, the evidence for it is not that "every physicist" says so. To often the only argument for evolution is "every biologist" says so. Arguments from authority are not science.

The real problem is that Darwinism may be true but a lot of the "evidence" for it that is taught in public schools is false. The embryo drawings have long been known to be frauds. The peppered moths and finch beaks are examples of variation within a species, not the emergence of a new species and so forth.

The presentation of the subject is too often thinly veiled propaganda for atheism. Most obviously, by its own terms Darwinism explains how species evolved once life came into existence. It does not explain how life arose in the first place. Supporters of Darwinism are too quick to paper over this difference which is crucial. Even if Darwinism is 100% true, it really says nothing one way or the other about any supreme being, aliens or what have you.

I could really care less if my heart surgeon is a bible thumping fundamentalist or total atheist. He could worship Satan for all I care as long as he knows how to fix my heart. It really does not matter what the average person believes on this subject. The time spent on evolution would be better spent making students economically literate or just teaching the three Rs. A subject with marginal value that raises First Amendment problems no matter how it is taught should be taken out of the government schools altogether.

We all know that there are people who treat science as dogma or a source of fundamental authority, and this strikes me as just as much of a problem as the people who reject it entirely. They're two sides of the same coin.

I've never seen science in this way -- it's more procedural, in the sense of being a way to learn about things in the world. The results of using the scientific method can acquire authority as evidence accumulates and experiments or observations get reproduced, but that's the result of constantly checking an idea against reality. Reality, not science, is the source of any authority that comes about. (When someone says "trust me, I'm a scientist," we know we are supposed to laugh. That's not how it works.)

Part of this procedural view is that any given time, science may understand a certain portion of reality very well, moderately well, not so well, or not at all. Children should definitely learn this, which is not a flaw in science but merely a sign that our understanding of reality is not complete. And it's not just children, but also many adults, who should learn that the unanswered questions in scientific disciplines are exciting rather than unsettling. People need not go rushing off to supernatural explanations just yet -- but there's another place where that becomes important.

The place religion can come in is when children learn that there are some things that may correspond to current reality (as understood by science), but that we don't like and therefore endeavor to change. Finding a cure for cancer comes to mind... this involves learning a great deal about the reality of cancer, but doing so in a way that will hopefully let us do something about it to serve human goals.

Right about there, we begin to exit science and think in other disciplines. How do we determine what human goals exist, which are good and which are bad, and which of the good ones take precedence? That's not a science question, but kids should definitely learn to ask it and debate possible answers.

Religion is a powerful source of potential answers in this area. Secular philosophy, the lessons of history, and the insights of great artists are also good material to work with. That's why we have the humanities, or at least why we will have them once the sillier current trends are sent where they deserve to go. (If the humanities have lost their social status in recent years and suffer from physics envy as a result, we don't really have to look far to see why.)

The problem with trying to stuff the goals/morals/values debate back into science, where it doesn't belong, is that it wrecks both science and the non-scientific disciplines. (The same applies if you try to do it in reverse, stuffing science into the goals/morals/values debate.) On the one hand you get people claiming to "believe in" science and saying that science should determine our decisions, and on the other you get people who claim (not unreasonably) that this is an invocation of authority no different from quoting the Bible. This sort of thing muddles up both our attempts to get an accurate picture of the world and our debates about what we, as human beings, want to do about that world.

Why do we WANT to cure cancer, anyway? Why do we care about the temperature of the oceans? Science isn't going to provide the answers, no matter how much it lets us understand the problems or work towards our preferred solutions.

"We worked with plenty of teachers who had been harassed by their schools for daring to bring scientific papers to class, in mainstream science journals, that pointed to weaknesses in neo-Darwinian theory."

I'm sure you did such things at the Discovery [sic] Institute. What papers in mainstream (blind peer-refereed, I assume?) science journals would these be?

Is there a generally-recognized, non-circular, definition of the boundary between 'science' and 'non-science'?

Science involves falsifiable theories. As a bonus, they should provide predictive power.

ID fails at both of these. Evolution gives us a theory of how the eye evolved and how it could happen again. ID says "well, some totally external power did it, and could do it again."

If we have a bunch of black moths and a bunch of white moths, and we paint all the trees white, evolution gives us a falsifiable theory about how the gene pool will change over time.

The embryo drawings have long been known to be frauds.

And pray tell, when was the last time the infamous "embryo drawings" were included in a textbook.

So being the little fascist you are, you would force parents to send their little drool-buckets to a government indoctrination center?

Read what I wrote. You can teach your children however or wherever you want. What you do not have the right to do is expect the government to subsidize it nor do you have the right to get some kind of tax break because you are not sending your little ignorant morons to public school. I don't have any children yet I happily and enthusiastically support public education. My tax burden is actually higher because I don't have children, why should yours be lower because you choose not to take advantage of public education.

Characterization of "scientists" as pro- or anti- evolution is by itself enough to show that this debate is not about "science." To me, pro- or anti- in science is a bizzare characterization.

Exploring evidence that supports or fails to support Darwin's theory of evolution is simply science...There is no place for pro- or anti-. Those that would reject examination of evidence that contradicts the theory of evolution are not acting as scientists. They are adherents to the religion of Darwinism....Just as those who would reject evidence consistent with the theory are probably adherents to some religious-based Creationism. The "-ism" seems to be an idicator that science isn't really involved anymore.

Oren: Most damning IMO was the revision of "Pandas" in which the word "creation" (and its cognates) was systematically removed to make the book more palatable as non-religious.

The judge said that this was done in order comply with a Supreme Court decision. Why is it damning to comply with a court decision? Shouldn't everyone try to comply with the law?

Wow, lots of pure religious bigotry going on here.

Really, where? When someone says something obviously false and ascribes their view to a religion, and someone else corrects them, is that religious bigotry?

You do realize that not everyone's an atheist in this country? America is 80% Christian.

What does Christianity (or atheism) have to do with evolution? Do you realize the Catholic Church sees no conflict between the two? Why should scientifically illiterate people get to vote on what is and is not science? Do linguistically illiterate people get to vote on what is and is not an English word?

The Law of Gravity is just that, a law; its apples and oranges to compare it with the Theory of Evolution. The Law of Gravity can be proven through experimentation, the evidence for it is not that "every physicist" says so. To often the only argument for evolution is "every biologist" says so. Arguments from authority are not science.

In addition to what Morat20 said, all of which I agree with, it's worth pointing out that the "Law of Gravity" has been proven to be false. Don't get me wrong, it's incredibly useful for making predictions in most circumstances, but it isn't exactly right. (For example, the orbit of Mercury is observably different from what is predicted by the Law of Gravity.) Einstein's general theory of relativity has replaced Newton's Law of Gravity in situations where the added complication is justified for a more accurate answer.

The Law of Gravity doesn't work at quantum distances either.

Good grief. How do you argue intelligently with bozos? I've heard this business about evolution is a "theory" and so it isn't true, as opposed to "laws" which are.

Again and again, we point to these bozos such as Railroad Gin what "theory" means in a scientific sense. Again and again, they simply refuse to understand it.

"Maybe the designer was an evil moron. Critics of ID would be on much stronger footing if they didn’t have to rely on such misleading tactics. "

Find me ONE supporter of ID who believes that the designer was anyone other than the Christian God and not an evil moran. It is you who set up the red herring.

"The presentation of the subject is too often thinly veiled propaganda for atheism. Most obviously, by its own terms Darwinism explains how species evolved once life came into existence."

So what? Darwinism exists and is a fact, and how it is twisted by others is ireelevent. Perhaps there are proponents of Darwin who are vegans, or believe the moon is made of cheese. It doesn't alter the facts of evolution.

" Even if Darwinism is 100% true, it really says nothing one way or the other about any supreme being, aliens or what have you.

Exactly. So why are you so determined to show that natural selection is something dreamed up by atheists?

Look, the whole business of ID is that you have people who believe in the absolute truth of the Bible. For them, you can't believe in God and religion unless you believe every little statement in the Bible is true. If they Bible said that the sun revolves around the earth, you can bet that they would be doing their damnest to disprove Copernicus. This really at bottom has nothing to do with science or truth, despite their protestations. This in fact has everything to do with proving the Bible 100% correct.

If, on the other hand, they were more like, say the Catholics, who don't view the bible as literally true, then they would be more likely to accept evolution, as Pope John Paul II did. It is the rigidity of a niche religion that has caused all these problems.

Now, of course, someone will retort that science is rigid on this matter. Not at all. Just the opposite. When you come up with scientific evidence that contradicts a current theory, science adjusts. They do that all the time. Theories on comets, big bang, origins of the universe -- these change frequently as new evidence comes in.

This is truly idiotic. So the benevolent Christian God did this why... to f*ck with us? Is that the God you believe in? Is that the God ANYONE believes in?

A quick reading of the Old Testament would suggest that He's done his fair share of mischief over the years...

Ah, the Volokh Conspiracy, where Econ 101 gives us definite, objective rules and predictions we can use to shape pretty much all law and politics, but biology, archeology, and various forms of hard science are all massively suspect -- at least when they conflict with the beliefs of some parts of the Republican Party base.

As to the "why not just mention that some disagree?" folks, I say the following. When I took a science class in high school, my teacher discussed Astrology, but only to show that it had no grounding in science at all and was, basically, hokum. At some point, especially in the lower grades, students have to be told what the correct answers are. What do you want the correct answer to be about whether the earth is 6,000 years old or not?

ID belongs in the same intellectual rubbish bin as ebonics and the labor theory of value.

You've done well to string those three things into a coherent sentence.

Railroad Gin -- you should note that no one understands how gravity works. As modified by relativity, it is simply a theory that fits the data we have gathered to date, just like evolution.

As to the hysteria of biologists -- the problem is that these fools actually think education and science are important. Heck, some of them have devoted their lives to it!

All kidding aside, I like the idea that doctors should regularly ask their patients if they believe in evolution before prescribing anti-biotics, explaining that the DR wants to know whether the patient would prefer the most basic anti-biotic or the ones developed to remain successful against the drug-resistant bactieria that have evolved in the years since anti-biotics became widely available. It would be a valuable piece of public education, and I expect it will be much more effective than the brains-on-drugs ads.

HGB

"Yep, after what he did to Job to prove a point to the Devil, I would not classify him as an all loving and good and no bad stuff God. When he did have a reason to be mad he would do even worse stuff."

Indeed. The God we are asked to worship is actually more like the Devil than any other being. He is capricious, insecure, demanding, easily hurt, never satisfied, quick to damn you for all eternity, clear that his laws must be followed but vague as to what those laws are, happy to trip you up on legalisms, and unfair.

But, He loves you. And we must worship him or else. I say, can't we get a better god? One who actually allows us free inquiry into the universe that s/he created? Or is that asking too much?

Gin: "Why is the burden of proof on those who don’t want atheism imposed on their children?"

Who says evolution has anything to do with atheism? Actually, quite a few evolutionary biologists believe in God.

"If it were up to religious people they wouldn’t have to send their children to government schools."

They don't have to. They can home school. They can send the kid's to religious schools. And they can teach whatever myths and religions they would like to on Sunday.

"If Neo-Darwinism could be taught, warts and all, without it being a pretext to “prove” that there’s no God, then there wouldn’t be a problem. "

Hurray! We can agree on something. It is the ID and creationists who insist that evolution is about atheism, but evolutionists have no issue with that. This is exactly why Catholics and many other mainstream religions have no problem supporting evolution as a fact.

Evoluion is not about how life originally formed eons ago. Rather, it is about how life has evolved SINCE then. And the evidence is far too strong. The fact that we share about 98% of our DNA with apes -- is that a mere coincidence?

Why is the burden of proof on those who don’t want atheism imposed on their children?

With whom, exactly, are you arguing? Please explain this connection between atheism and evolution--especially in light of how the Catholic Church has no trouble seeing that there is none.

If Neo-Darwinism could be taught, warts and all, without it being a pretext to “prove” that there’s no God, then there wouldn’t be a problem.

Since when is learning about the world "a pretext to prove that there's no God"? Where did you get such an idea?

As a believer in evolution and a scientist, I agree that scientists should be open to the idea that all our currently accepted scientific accounts -- Relativity, atomic theory, Big Bang, Darwinian evolution, Quantum Physics -- are simply the best accounts based on current evidence and our best attempts to reason with them. In that sense, they are *all* theories, some with more massive supportive evidence and internal coherence, and some scoring less on these criteria. For example, Einstein, when asked about his sense of what theories are least likely to be overturned in the future, chose the Second Law of Thermodynamics, not his own Relativity. On the other hand, he was less certain about at least some aspects of Quantum Mechanics. This gives you an idea of how scientists really think of theories.

There are at least two problems with the proposal to "teach the controversy" in high schools with respect to evolution. One is the nature and limitation of the kind of science that can be taught in high schools. To really understand Einstein's worries about Quantum Theory or the debates within the field of evolutionary biology requires an enormous amount of background. The role of high school science classes is to teach the current major explanatory accounts in various fields of science, especially those that are judged to be useful to enter various fields, such as engineering, medicine, etc., and also those that are judged to be important to be an educated citizen. The bar is pretty high for what controversies should be included in science classes in high schools. A science teacher should not include a challenge to Big Bang as a controversy because Happyshooter cannot get his head around it and so he doesn't believe in it. That is not controversy, just one man being a taco short of a combination Mexican meal.

Do I think the Darwinian Theory is the last word? No. It is entirely conceivable that another theory might supersede it in the future, just as Einsteinian theories superseded Newtonian Mechanics. I agree that high school science courses should give a sense of how science works, how nothing is set in concrete, new evidence changes what scientists believe, etc. But the courses should also give a sense of how evidence has to cohere in order for theories to be accepted, how every kook's arguments against this or that scientific theory doesn't constitute a reason to include them as "controversies."

The second problem in "teaching the controversy," in high schools by teaching ID is that ID has been considered and rejected by knowledgeable people. There is no way in hell a high school student (or even a high school science teacher) with her limited knowledge, background, and time can actually *evaluate* the alternatives. The net result in including it as a controversy is that the kid would go away with, "Some folks think Darwin's theory is right, some folks think ID is right, my preacher thinks the latter, so I guess nobody really knows." Or even, egged on by the born-again teacher, who teaches phys ed in the morning, and biology in the afternoon "crazy folks believe in Darwin."

Some people might say, "Hah! Knowledgeable people? Scientists are just an in-group that tries to keep out people who challenge them." Scientists, as individuals, might behave that way, but as a group, slowly but steadily, new evidence and theories are absorbed, old inadequate theories are jettisoned, and so on. They are not just a bunch of people with a con to get money from the government. Look around you -- the results of scientific breakthroughs in understanding the world are everywhere. The way for challenges to Darwinian Evolution to succeed is not by getting a know-nothing Florida representative to pass a law to include ID by stealth in high school science courses, but by gathering evidence and arguments that together produce changes to theories at the scientific community level. The fact that some times scientists as a group have rejected theories that ultimately proved correct is actually an argument in favor of scientists as a group. We only know that they rejected the correct theory because as a group they eventually accepted the correct theory. Second, the fact that scientists have in the past rejected correct theories for some time is not an argument that every theory they reject should therefore be considered as a serious alternative. There are differences between "Not enough evidence," "interesting, but wrong," "just plain wrong, and "dumb."

Cats don't need thumbs. Their people have can openers.

I love the typical creationist apologetics on display here:

"Well, you can't prove god didn't create the world in seven days, and you can't prove god didn't create people out of dust, and you can't prove that there's no god, etc, etc, etc."

One step at a time. How about the proponents of creationism (or ID, or god, for that matter) first prove the veracity of their beliefs before asking the rest of us to disprove them. And stories culled together from Middle Eastern mythology don't count as proof of anything, except the existence of creation myths.

But the dialect (or language; there is no scientific distinction between the terms), which linguists typically refer to as African American Vernacular English or Black Vernacular English, is eminently worthy of academic study.

To clarify, I didn't mean in K-12. It would probably be a good idea for teachers to help kids who have grown up speaking AAVE to learn "standard" English by comparison to AAVE rather than just teaching them that AAVE is "wrong." But it wouldn't make any sense to teach kids AAVE.

Randy R. wrote: " ... Because fruit flies have short lives, you can go through many generations in a fairly short period of time, and genetic mutations are observable, as just one instance...."

OK, I agree that it has been scientifically demonstrated on numerous occasions, under reasonably controlled and reproducible conditions, that the characteristics of a population can change measurably over a few generations in response to external pressures. That is one aspect of what is loosely called "The Theory of Evolution," that has indeed been proven scientifically.

But the Evolutionists make other assertions, such as the idea that two populations from the same parent species, when exposed to differing environmental pressures for thousands of generations, will spontaneously diverge into two brand new daughter species, totally different from each other. Personally, I believe that is true. But I do not believe that it has been proven (in the strict scientific sense) by a series of reproducible, controlled experiments.

Nor would such a controlled series of experiments ever be practical. Therefore, from a practical point of view, it is a non-falsifiable hypothesis. In fact, if you look at the selective breeding of animals, people have been selectively raising dogs for 15,000 years or more, and they have not succeeded in creating a new species; every dog on this planet is still just a sub-species of wolf.

The assertion that Life arose by purely chemical reactions, with no supernatural intervention is even more non-falsifiable. How would you run a controlled experiment? Go get a statistically valid sample of proto-planets, and observe each one for a few billion years to see what percentage of them develop life-forms?

Some aspects of what is loosely called "Evolution" are indeed science, but other aspects lie in that fuzzy grey area where Science, Theology, Cosmology, Metaphysics, Philosophy, etc. all intersect.

The statistical near-impossibility that multiple simultaneous mutaitions could occur that would be necessary to explain complex organs and organisms.

It has been shown in numerous cases that natural selection co-opts proteins that previously had a separate function. Actually, some very interesting work was done on bacterial flagella precisely because ID proponents flagged it as an example of irreducible complexity. As it turns out, many of the components of the flagella (it's a fairly large macromolecular structure) can be shown to have previous functionality. For instance, one of the main proteins that creates the cell-membrane pore was shown to be borrowed from an excretory system.

The idea that complex "irreducible" organisms or organs cannot evolve by incremental progress completely evaporates once you realize that the various constituents parts can evolve independently to serve their own individual purposes. This motif has been shown a few dozen times over the past few years.

As for law vs. theory. A law is something that has undergone enough empirical testing that it can be expressed in mathematical form in order to predict future events with certainty. A theory as you say is “broader and more encompassing” than laws in terms of what it attempts to explain. That does not mean the explanation is true.

I think you go wrong when you say a law can "predict future events with certainty". It can't. A law can make definite predictions, but there's absolutely no certainty about whether those predictions will be true or not. The law is no better than the theory that underlies it, and no scientific theory can ever be proven with certainty.

There's nothing that makes the definitive predictions provided by a mathematical law more valid than the predictions of a theory that cannot be reduced to math. As long as the non-mathematical theory makes predictions that are falsifiable (as evolution does) it is legitimate science.

The fossil record is consistent with neo-Darwinism. However it is not inconsistent with various approach to ID. Therefore it is not in and of itself proof.

That is of course true, but it overlooks an important difference between the theory of evolution and ID. Evolution makes specific predictions about the fossil record, which could have been proven to be wrong. Evolution's predictions still could be proven wrong. ID, on the other hand, makes no predictions. Absolutely any fossil record is consistent with ID. The fossil record will never disprove ID, because ID is not falsifiable.

That's why evolution is science and ID isn't. ID is like the Ptolemaic system in astronomy. It can't be definitively proven to be false, but it's useless for making predictions about things we don't already know about.

You make a big deal about how we don't "know" evolution is true. That's right, of course, but the same could be said for any scientific theory. We don't "know" the theory of gravity is true (indeed, we know the theory of gravity as taught in high school *isn't* true, and we know the current theory of gravity based on general relativity is incomplete). All we know is that gravity, like evolution, makes a great deal of falsifiable predictions, and to a great extent the predictions of the theory have turned out to be correct. That's the best any scientific theory can ever do.

I don't have a problem with discussing ID or creationism in school, any more than I have a problem with a class discussing Greek mythology.

Where I do have a problem is when the teacher attempts to get the students to believe that the sun is actually Apollo's chariot and that he drives it across the sky every day. Or that winter is caused by Persephone spending a few months every year in Hades.

Modern theories of Astronomy &climatology provide much better explanations of these phenomena.

The statistical near-impossibility that multiple simultaneous mutaitions could occur that would be necessary to explain complex organs and organisms. Under the current theory of natural selection, it would imply that the earth must be many billions of years older than anyone thinks it is in order for these overwhelming statistical odds to play out, or there is something other than just natural selection at play.

Your assertion is true, but you misstate the current theory of evolution. The theory of evolution predicts that "multiple simultaneous mutaitions [sic] ... [creating] complex organs and organisms" will not occur. If you could show such mutations occurring in any large number you would disprove the theory of evolution as we currently understand it.

I was honestly taken aback a bit at some of the reactions to my previous comment about the "tricky God". Then I remembered that there is that whole branch of Christianity who thinks we should ignore the New Testament entirely, and in that light, it makes more sense.

How does ID actually solve any problems? To me it just seems to kick it back one generation. Has anyone ever heard a remotely satisfactory answer to the "who designed the designer" question? I suppose if you say an everlasting god that's one thing, but presumably any other answer (like the "evil moron from outer space" mentioned above) needs a creator too.

I love how simply raising questions about evolution transforms one into a "creationist apolegetic." For what its worth, I believe in Neo-Darwinism, although I am aware of its shortcomings. However, my belief in the Constitution is more important to me.

"How about the proponents of creationism (or ID, or god, for that matter) first prove the veracity of their beliefs before asking the rest of us to disprove them."

Well how about you prove the veracity of Darwinism before asking the proponents of ID to disprove it? Again, it is the champions of Darwinism who insist it be part of the curriculum, not the other way around.

Perhaps the answer is not teaching ID, but certainly there needs to be closer montoring of how evolution is taught. But there is definitely a problem with the way its being taught that is both bad science and raises First Amendment issues.

The problem is that every time this arises, the knee-jerk reaction is "there go those fundamentalist wackos again, aren't I so proud to be smug and sophisitcated." Rather than proposing an alternative to deal the problem, or even acknowleding that there is a problem, we get the usual orgy of religion bashing.

As for the baboon heart, there are undoubtedly genetic differences between humans and baboons that may or may not be the result of evolution. Even conceding that it is, this might be an argument for a specialist in experimental medicine to study this. It might even be an argument that all doctors of biology majors learn it. I don't see how it is something that every student needs to known in order to graduate high school.

To me that is the real issue. Couldn't all these problems be avoided by just getting it out of the core curriculum? We don't teach Estruscan pottery in highschool either, though a Professor of Art History should know something about it. I'm just not seeing that Darwinism is in the same category as subject-verb agreement. Society would be a lot better served if students had to learn about the Law of Supply and Demand and its implications.

Yeah, but one of the things that is especially annoying about evolutionists is their pig-headed refusal to ever say "We don't know..."

Biologists are usually very willing to say "we don't know", especially if they do research. It forms the basis of their grant applications.

The objection to teaching ID as "science" is that shouting "MAYBE GOD (or UFOs, or elven wizards) DID IT!" in response to every instance of the phrase "we don't know" does not amount to a scientific theory. And ultimately, thats all ID actually amounts to.

Has anyone ever heard a remotely satisfactory answer to the "who designed the designer" question?

Not only that, but the 'Designer' seems like a klutz. He designs these nifty living organisms, but he forgets to give them eyes so they can see where they're going, so he has to come back a few hundred million years later and correct the oversight. Then, all of a sudden he remembers that he has to give them flagellae, so that they can get there, and so he has to come back in another hundred million years to fix that mistake, etc.

The Designer's motto seems to be "Re-work is Job One." That is very different from the God that the nuns taught me about in catechism class.

Why is the burden of proof on those who don’t want atheism imposed on their children? Put differently, the purpose of this particular board is discuss what should be taught to public schoolchildren not whether in the absolute sense some particular theory of evolution vs. ID is or is not true. If it were up to religious people they wouldn’t have to send their children to government schools. But through compulsory attendance laws, fighting vouchers, etc. the secularists have longed coerced everyone to go to government schools. Given this reality, religious people would be perfectly happy any perspective about the origin and development of life were kept out of the curriculum. But it is the secularists/atheists who insists that this be taught. Finally, if this is going to be taught, it is the religious people who ask that there be balance either by presenting their beliefs or at a minimum by being allowed to address shortcomings in Neo-Darwinism itself. It is the secularists who insist that it be done their way only. The punchline is that it’s the religious who get accused of “imposing values” when a moment’s reflection shows they’re the ones having values imposed on them.

I found this post the most fascinating of the thread. And it will give me the chance to say something controversial.

In fact, the government has very strong interests in teaching evolution to your kids, even if you don't want it taught because you believe that this might cause your kids to question their belief in God. I do know that most Americans believe strongly in their right to inculcate their children with a religious belief, and in a very broad sense, I have no quarrel with this.

But there's a difference between teaching your children religion and restricting their access to any information, no matter how accurate, that might cause then to question the religious belief.

There are very compelling reasons why the government can require you to ensure your children are educated. An educated populace is necessary for this nation to compete with other countries. An educated populace makes better decisions in a democracy. Basic science education broadens the pool of potential scientists, which results in smarter scientists and eventually a better chance for new discoveries that can help humankind.

Moreover, your children have an interest in hearing accurate information. This is a little dicier, because there is a limit to how much we want the government intervening to protect the interests of children when they are compromised by their parents, but it is in your children's interest to understand Darwin even if you don't want them to. So they can make the best choices. So they can become a biologist if they want to. Etc.

We take the right of parental autonomy pretty seriously in this country, as well we should. But it is not absolute. And every religious parent has to accept that there is a possibility that his or her kid might reject the parent's devoutly held religious beliefs. And it isn't the government's job to ensure that this is less likely to happen, when there are compelling interests on the other side of the ledger.

I don't see how it[Theory of Evolution] is something that every student needs to known in order to graduate high school.

The issue here is not whether the minority of students with parents who object to the teaching of evolution should be forced to learn it in order to graduate from High School.

The issue is whether public school teachers should be encouraged, or possibly even required, to teach a misleading set of assertions spruced up with some rhetorical finger-wiggling as an example of a scientific theory, even in the face of objections by the local school board.

Couldn't all these problems be avoided by just getting it out of the core curriculum?

Is biology a required class in many public schools? If not, and you don't want your children to learn about evolution have them take something else. But don't ask biology teachers not to teach evolution, and don't let them teach religion, however disguised.

Oren:
Alan, I think it's been pretty conclusively shown (Kitzmiller) that ID is and always was religion. Most damning IMO was the revision of "Pandas" in which the word "creation" (and its cognates) was systematically removed to make the book more palatable as non-religious.

Judge Jones thoroughly documented the fraud of claiming ID as anything more than creationism in drag.

Are you aware most of Jones' opinion was lifted verbatim from the plaintiff's briefs?

Is that common jurisprudence?

There are very compelling reasons why the government can require you to ensure your children are educated. An educated populace is necessary for this nation to compete with other countries. An educated populace makes better decisions in a democracy.

There is a major non-sequitor buried in that statement someplace. If you want your children to get a good education, the *last* thing you would do is to send them to a government-operated school. Why do American children consistently rank near the bottom among major nations in Math and Science skills? HINT: It ain't got nuthin' to do with a few knuckle-dragging creationists in Kansas!

As I mentioned earlier, I'm a soft-core atheist. And yet, I send my kids to Christian schools in spite of the fact that they will be exposed to some creationist/ID nonsense. (not because of it).

But my kids get to learn Latin, Rhetoric, Logic, and Plane Geometry while the public school kids are learning all about Al Gore and how to put condoms on bananas.

But my kids get to learn Latin, Rhetoric, Logic, and Plane Geometry while the public school kids are learning all about Al Gore and how to put condoms on bananas.

If they don't go to public schools, how do you know what public schools kids learn?

I've attended local school board meetings on a number of occasions, and by far the most screaming complaints have come from people whose children DON'T attend the school and never will. In fact, our resident "STOP TEACHING MASTURBATION TO KIDS" and "STOP TEACHING ATHEISTIC EVOLUTION TO KIDS" fellow sent his kids to the religious school he ran. Perhaps he was just drumming up business, but given that his little school had a horrendous reputation -- perhaps he was just crazy.

Hey Clayton, what's changed in evolution since you went to school? I mean, at the level High School kids would learn.

Hey Clayton, what's changed in evolution since you went to school? I mean, at the level High School kids would learn.

The entire horse evolution sequence (with the nice steady progression from Dawn Horse upward) is no recognized as being fundamentally wrong.

Others have mentioned the falsified embryonic development drawings by Haeckel. Or are current high school textbooks still using those?

When I was in high school, evolution was taught as a series of gradual, almost imperceptible changes. I hope that they are acknowledging that there is a serious shortage of these gradual changes. There are perfectly legitimate evolutionary explanations for the lack of intermediate fossils (such as Gould's punctuated equilibrium theory), but those explanations are required. Why? Because of the shortage of the intermediate fossils hasn't been found.

I think Dilan raises a valid point, that students should be exposed to different viewpoints both for society's benefit as well as their own. But doesn't this cut both ways?

Not really. Evolution isn't taught in public schools for the purpose of exposing religious students to contrary views. It is taught because it is a very important part of the biology curriculum. The reason this doesn't violate anyone's rights is because parents don't have the right to prevent their child from ever hearing a view inconsistent with their religious beliefs. But there has to be an independent reason for teaching it.

The same principle applies to exposing atheists to religious instruction. It shouldn't simply be the case that atheists are exposed to religious instruction solely for them to hear alternative views. However, where reference to religious subjects is appropriate to the curriculum, atheists shouldn't get to object to it. For instance, if a school wanted to require a class on comparative religion, or to include discussion of religion's role in American history or world cultures in social science classes, that's absolutely fine.

Finally, the establishment clause only prohibits a school endorsing a religious belief. Telling everyone to bow their heads in prayer, or teaching religion as the equivalent of science, qualifies. But the forms of religious instruction that are actually analogous to teaching a child of religious fundamentalists evolution are not barred by the establishment clause. Schools can-- and I would argue should-- teach students more about the different religions of the world and the relationship between religion and history and culture.

The thing is, conservative Christians tend not to want this, as far as I know. Many of them are just as afraid of the presentation of Christianity alongside, say, Buddhism or Islam as they are about the teaching of evolution.

Are you aware most of Jones' opinion was lifted verbatim from the plaintiff's briefs?

As I said earlier, Jones is a W-appointed, god-fearing Christian that (by popular report) goes to Church every Sunday. Your shameful attempt to besmirch his credibility might work if he were a Clinton appointee, since then perhaps I might see bias.

Come to think of it, it was a brilliant stroke of luck that we got a W appointee. It goes to show that it's a plain fact that ID is creationism in drag, nothing more.

String theory is in its infancy. No self-respecting string theorist would every claim its maturity (I work with them, believe me, they're working as hard as they can).

If they don't go to public schools, how do you know what public schools kids learn?

Duh, maybe I like, you know, read a newspaper once in a while or get on the Internet. Maybe I pay taxes to support the public school racket. Maybe I can compare what my neighbors' kids are learning with what mine are learning?

Just one little true-life anecdote to illustrate the last point: My kids were in 6th and 8th grade last year, while the neighbor's public school kid was in 7th. I distinctly remember one evening when they were all doing their homework at our house, and I looked over their shoulders to see what was going on: My 8th grader was doing symbolic logic (i.e. Truth Tables, DeMorgan's Theorem, etc.). My 6th grader was doing Latin. And the neighbor kid was coloring a poster on AIDS in Africa. The incident stuck in my brain because it sums up so neatly the difference between public school and private school.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


Okay, so how much of the story of creation changed since you were in high school?

Well, I can't speak for Clayton, but I think that the Creation story has changed a little bit since I was in [Roman Catholic] high school in the late 1950's. I'm not 100% certain, but I think that back then they were still teaching pretty much literal Genesis, but now they have gone over to the idea that evolution is God's method for implementing Creation.

Fair enough as to the disclaimer. But I think its at least arguable that First Amendment concerns justify singling out evolution as opposed to electromagnetism.

But what about just not teaching it period? The best I've heard is that for the one in 20 million that grows up to transplant baboon hearts, he should learn it. Why does the stundent who grow up to be an auto mechanic or accountant?

does that mean physics teachers shouldn't teach the laws of motion?

Yes if the teacher is using them to "prove" to students that God exists.

Also is the fossil record proof of Darwinsim? Or does Darwinism inform how to interpret the fossil records. There is some circular reasoning going on here.

"Are you aware most of Jones' opinion was lifted verbatim from the plaintiff's briefs?

Is that common jurisprudence?"

You mean is it common for each side to submit proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law?

And for the judge to accept the winning sides proposed findings and conclusions?

L.R. 52-1 Non-Jury Trial - Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law . In any matter tried to the Court without a jury requiring findings of fact and conclusions of law, counsel for each party shall lodge and serve proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law at least five (5) court days before trial.

Yes, it's common jurispurdence. Next Question.

But what about just not teaching it period? The best I've heard is that for the one in 20 million that grows up to transplant baboon hearts, he should learn it. Why does the stundent who grow up to be an auto mechanic or accountant?

Evolution has a very strong claim to the core curriculum, it seems to me. It is a very important part of science, and not just for transplanting baboon hearts. Something as simple as the reason why we can't simply spray pesticides everywhere to eliminate pests follows directly from the theory of evolution. There's just a heck of a lot of things in biology you can't understand without understanding evolution. And understanding biology is important.

Evolution also is important because of its cultural significance. Indeed, the fact that so many people have protested it so much has only increased its salience. The Scopes Monkey Trial should be studied in history class. But how can it be studied if students don't know what all the fuss was about?

Similarly, the relationship between the Enlightenment and the rise of science, on the one hand, and western religious traditions, on the other, is a fascinating story that every citizen should understand. But evolution's actually a key part of that story-- along with heliocentrism, I would say that evolution is one of the two key issues where there was tremendous pushback from the traditional forces against the advance of science.

Look, I think there is great value in a well-rounded education. This is the reason why we don't just all go off to trade schools. And Darwin's ideas are ponderable and important and influential. And they explain a great deal of observable phenomena. And they have a huge cultural impact.

An educated person should understand how evolution works and what it attempts to explain. And we all have an interest in having an educated populace.

@Railroad Gin:

Also is the fossil record proof of Darwinsim? Or does Darwinism inform how to interpret the fossil records. There is some circular reasoning going on here.

Ah -- you are beginning to see how science works. The answer is: both assertions are true. Evolution is a framework in which you can view and interpret the fossil record; it is not the only one (Lamarck had a different proposal, for example). The proof of evolution is that viewing many different fossil records through its lens leads to a reasonably simple consistent picture, unlike the other proposed frameworks.

Think about Newton's theory of gravity. Does it inform our view of the solar system, or is it proved by motion of the planets? This theory is so ingrained in our culture today that people who have not studied the history of science or advanced physics cannot view the motions of the heavens in any other way but through it. And the proof of Newton's theory is that with only a few adjustable parameters (the masses of the planets and the sun) it gives a consistent picture of the motions to a high degree of accuracy.

In general, a scientific theory is a way of looking at the world. Its proof is that looking at the world that way is superior to looking at the world in different ways.

I carry no brief for ID. But I find the idea that the state has "compelling interests" in requiring parents to send their children to youth propaganda camps public schools, or in ensuring that students are exposed to "accurate information", positively hilarious.

Giddy little fascists, these educrats, every last one.

Railroad Gin:

Or explain why believing in Neo-Darwinism is akin to learning arithmetic or the significance of 1492.

That your just playing games is clear when you reverse the verbs in your sentence: Explain why learning new-Darwinian evolutionary theory as a part of the biology curriculum is different from believing in arithmetic or ascribing special significance to the events of 1492.

Children don't have to "believe" in evolutionary theory. They have to learn it as currently understood, just as they have to learn math and the historical significance of 1492 (also a topic that has changed since I was in school, since the earlier Viking expeditions to the New World weren't known of when I was a tyke).

I don't doubt that the majority of people supporting the teaching Darwinism are sincerly interested in truth, science, fairness, etc. But lets not pretend that a lot of the impetus behind it doesn't come from atheists, secularists, etc., trying to impose their own religious beliefs. To point this out is not the same as equating evolution with atheism.

[emphasis added]

To assert this without any real evidence--especially using squishy words like "a lot of the impetus" (how much is "a lot"?) is just verbal sleight of hand to suggest an equation of evolution with atheism in a plausibly deniable fashion.

Of course atheists will only ever fall on one side of the debate: evolutionary theory doesn't depend on faith to support its hypotheses and ID does. That atheists will only ever be on one side (whereas deeply religious and moderately religious and uncritically religious people will fall on both sides) doesn't prove or even offer significant support to any claim that most or even "a lot" (whatever that means) of the impetus to keep ID out of the science curriculum comes from atheists or secularists, nor that those who do so are trying to impose their religious beliefs.

Clayton E. Cramer wrote at 5.2.2008 5:25pm:

From what I am reading, string theory is therefore not science. The few predictions so far tested that were orders of magnitude off. Yet string theory is glamorous--not an embarrassment.

I think that may be because string theory is mathematics, not necessarily descriptive, but possibly descriptive, of observable physical phenomena.

That's roughly analogous to saying that calculus of variations is mathematics, not physics. Yet CoV is useful to describe and predict some phenomena within the limits of classical mechanics.

Or as to what c. gray alluded to, Kansas in fact tried to remove Darwinism from the required state curriculum and leave it up to local school boards. Yet the usual suspects came out and got it reinsitated.

By "the usual suspects" you must mean the voters of Kansas, who have promptly thrown out anti-evolution majorities on the Kansas Board of Education twice now.

It might be kind of nice if the board candidates who wish to remove evolution from the state science standards would actually mention that fact _before_ an election. It would spare the voters a lot of trouble and save the State of Kansas a bit of money on pointless show hearings.

I'm going to offer a final thought before I shut down the computer for the weekend:

I suspect that most of us, on both sides of this debate, are concerned about the same thing: Preserving the integrity of Science. In a sense, Science is the crown jewel of Western Civilization, it has brought us huge material benefits, and it also serves sort of the same emotional outlet for us that the building of cathedrals or pyramids gave to earlier civilizations.

But there are two very different ways that Science could get corrupted:

A.) Traditional, fundamentalist, old-time religion could raise its irrational head and drive Science out of the marketplace of ideas. Personally, I think that is theoretically possible, but very unlikely in practice.

B.) The other, more subtle, way that Science could get destroyed if if Science itself turns into a "religion" -- especially a State-sponsored religion. And I think threat (B.) is much greater than (A.) That's why I find it so scary when Science and scientists start acting dogmatic and authoritarian, and trying to use the power of the State to suppress unconventional viewpoints, no matter how silly.

I don't see a dime's worth of difference between, say, Richard Dawkins and the Rev. Billy Bob Whazzisname. They are both shrill, authoritarian, irrational, dogmatic fanatics.

Try telling an MD that ID did the human body. If he doesn't laugh in your face, he will say that the designer sure wasn't very good.

Did that answer the question? Who cares who appointed him? Does it matter that some 90% of his opinion was lifted verbatim from plaintiff briefs? Is that common?

DENNIS TODD: Can YOU Read?

I answered your question.

I suspect that most of us, on both sides of this debate, are concerned about the same thing: Preserving the integrity of Science.

I think you are wrong. The ID'ers/creationists don't give a flip about science if it conflicts with their religious views.

John A: "Evolution's defenders respond that there are no credible scientific critiques of evolution, any more than there are credible alternatives to the theory of gravity. "

Clearly Adler doesn't feel the growing belief that "the world sucks" has sufficient scientific validation...

[I got here at 190 posts; my apologies if someone beat me to this...]

The point, Railroad Gin, is that evolutionary theory is no more a system of belief than is mathematics or history.

JeanE

Advocates on both sides of this debate have contributed to the problem, but can we at least acknowledge that parents have a valid concern that whatever kids are learning about evolution in school often conflicts with families' religious beliefs, and that we need not trample over religious beliefs in order to teach basic science?

No, we can't. The scientific method discovers inconvenient things all the time. Those who fervently believe that the Earth is flat--whether based on religious or other reasons--do not have a right to demand that the geology curriculum specify that the notion a spherical planet is just a theory; those who believe in animal spirit guides don't get to have that covered in zoology; Wiccans don't get to "teach the controversy" about magic circles and the four elements in physics class.

If parents see a conflict between evolutionary theory and the creation of life as they understand it, then it is up to them and/or their pastors to explain the difference between scientific understanding and spiritual or religious understanding.

"There certainly is a conflict between basic biology and intelligent design: how does bacteria become resistant to antibiotics over time? Why are some people born with webbed toes if the body was designed? Why do some people have six fingers? Why do some people have malformed cones in their eyes that make them colorblind? "

i don't see those as inconsistent with intelligent design. and note that i am NOT defending intelligent design. i just recognize that it is not science. it is metaphysics.

i think you are falling for the same fallacy that many "911 truthers" do. the fallacy of the perfect govt. in this case, it's the fallacy of the perfect creator. fwiw, im not aware the intelligent design negates the possibility of intraspecial evolution and adaptation (bacteria example), mutations, etc.

"What is the intelligent design explanation for any of these things if organisms were designed a certain way?"

again, playing devil's (ID ) advocate, the fact that they believe there is a creator does not mean that there cannot be variation, mutation, defect, etc.

of course, they don't have a SCIENTIFIC explanation for these things. and evolution DOES. that's why evolution is a well accepted scientific theory, and ID is metaphysics disguised as science.

What is the intelligent design explanation for any of these things if organisms were designed a certain way?

shoddy workmanship? poor quality control? god got wasted that day?

"So if the intelligent designer isn't so intelligent, why is it named such?"

any creation that includes free will is necessarily gonna have warts, d00d. and i didn't say that under ID that god(s) wasn't 'so intelligent'. i said that the fact that creation is not perfect, and more correctly that the umpteenth generation AFTER creation hasn't resulted in a perfect world, is not a refutation that a god COULD exist. your arguments are starting to sound like the average stoned sophomore waxing atheist.

" Obviously, true-blue IDers are implying that this designer is God, who would be perfect by definition."

realizing that ID is (largely) a kludge for religion, you again need to get real. at least in the judeo-christian creation/genesis/exodus myth, if there is one thing that is crystal clear it is that man and creation is flawed. for pete's sake, look at adam and eve. fall from grace. bla bla bla bla.

note also that the ID god has a sense of humor. witness the platypus.

" I can see the truther parallel, but we aren't talking about dolts like W and Rumsfeld here. "

no, but the point stands. your argument is like the argument that there can't be a god because shite stinks and no god would place the anus next to the genitalia.

etc.

just sophistry imo.

" i said: again, playing devil's (ID ) advocate, the fact that they believe there is a creator does not mean that there cannot be variation, mutation, defect, etc.

you said: Then they've just admitted that evolution occurs, haven't they?"

actually, ime many ID'ers accept evolution. the majority may not accept INTERSPECIAL evolution, although even that is not necessarily inconsistent with ID.

again, i am not here to DEFEND ID. i am here to DISTINGUISH ID. for the umpteenth time- it's metaphysics not science. ID'ers may be right. who knows? that's not the point. the point is that it isn't science.

It’s quite incorrect, as asserted above, to believe that ID, together with its progenitor Creationism, make no predictions. They’re both poverty stricken in the scientific-theory “prediction” department — their general explanation for most everything being “God did it!” — but they do make at least one quite specific, implicit prediction: which is that transitional fossils linking disparate living groups (those that are supposedly independently designed or created) do not exist — yet exist they do.

In a particularly delightful irony, which occurred around a decade and a half ago, no sooner had Intelligent Design guru Michael Behe published a supposedly penetrating inquiry on how the lack of known fossils of the precursors to whales (legless sea mammals) was powerful indication of “Intelligent Design” being afoot, so to speak — than mere months afterwards, the first of what are now several known fossils of early whales — whales with legs! — turned up in the fossil record. *

Similar fossil evidence has been found in recent years almost exactly transitioning between lobe-finned lungfish and tetrapods (four-legged land animals, e.g., amphibians and us).

Thus, the predictions of ID (and Creationism, for that matter) are not satisfied, and they thereby fail as scientific theories.

*It’s almost as dazzling a philosophic comeuppance as the historical episode which took place around the turn of the 19th century, when philosopher G.W.F. Hegel pompously “proved” philosophically (or so he thought) that the number of planets (regardless of how the concept of planet had changed over the years) can never be different than seven — arriving in print with this philosophic wonderpiece nearly simultaneous with the discovery, by Giuseppe Piazzi in 1801, of the eighth planet Ceres. Ceres is today regarded technically as a “dwarf planet,” but that’s mere latter-day definitional handwaving — it’s a world, forged out of the old solar nebula, in orbit about the Sun. Since then, of course — to Hegel’s further chagrin — other, much more sizable, undoubted planets (such as Uranus and Neptune) have also been discovered.

"I don't see a dime's worth of difference between, say, Richard Dawkins and the Rev. Billy Bob Whazzisname."

Except that Dawkins is possibly one of the most brilliant and articulate scientists alive today. The God Delusion has sold over 1.5 million copies and enjoys a #72 sales rank on Amazon.com. He may be a shrill fanatic on the subject of religion, but there's no question about his contributions to evolutionary biology. Your Reverend Billy Bob Whazzisname is just what his name implies, a forgettable caricature.

again, playing devil's (ID ) advocate, the fact that they believe there is a creator does not mean that there cannot be variation, mutation, defect, etc.

Then they've just admitted that evolution occurs, haven't they?

That would certainly reflect Michael Behe's stance; he is an evolutionist, but believes that there are many biological systems whose existence cannot be explained by natural selection.

One of these days I'm gonna get around to the "Why Johnny Can't Evangelize" post that's been forming in my head, and this topic will be one of the chief exhibits. (In this context "evangelism" refers to all ideological debate, not just the religious sort.)

One of the problems with this subject is that debates tend to go into more directions than the Cambrian Explosion. The conversation turns into message overload, and, more importantly, the conversation is distracted from focusing on the core issues.

Some people act as if establishing ID as a philosophy and not science is sufficient to support the claim that evolutionary theory is science and good science. (Behe himself appears to be stating in the linked article that ID is a philosophy.) Discrediting Hypothesis A does not necessarily credit Hypothesis B; the latter has to be assessed on its own merits.

So what is the core issue regarding evolutionary theory? The most critical the claim that there exists a mechanism by which organisms can generate new complex systems. Skeptics state that this claim is philosophical, not scientific. Many evolutionists tend to (consciously or unconsciously) treat this basic assumption as if it were already established as science, and as good science, and that the other sides of the debate are aware of this. Creationists and origins agnostics also tend to stray from the foundational issue.

There are other assumptions that influence evolutionists and creationists, but a sinus headache is keeping me from pursuing that line of thought. Later.

Jean: "In reality, a lot of science teachers don’t have a particulary strong background, and are basically just following the text. If the text doesn’t make much of a distinction, then some teachers will not pick up on the difference either.
Face it, we’ve been teaching evolution for decades and many people really and truly believe that in school they learned that evolution explains the origins of life. "

Sadly, your statement is probably true in too many instances.

What I don't get is why the anti-evolutionists are so worked up about all this. If they don't think evolution is correct, that's fine. But why do they have to spoil an education for the rest of us or our children? Why can't they just leave it to Sunday school?

Why is this so important to the Discovery Institute that they have to devote so much time and energy to this? Don't we have enough problems?

And I'm am particularly disturbed by Ben Stein, who I used to respect. But now he has gone on the anti-evolutino bandwagon, and has been quoted that science always leads to people killing people.

Grover Gardner. Ref UFOs.
About ten years ago, the Air Force announced they had cleared "96%" of the solid unknown sightings by matching them to U2 and SR71 flights. So if 72% think the government is hiding UFO info, 28% haven't been paying attention.

Yeah. This is a proxy for the culture wars. Some time back, Buckley hosted a debate between the scientific creationists and evolutionists. The former were scientists, and could have taught at least a beginning course in evolution if they'd felt like it. On the evolutioin side, in addition to the scientists, were the then head of the ACLU and the head of Americans United for The Separation of Church and State--who are more extreme than the ACLU. The former is a lawyer and the latter a clergyman. But they knew that more than a scientific theory was up for grabs here.

Going on 25 yrs ago, a science writer named G.R. Taylor wrote on evolution's mysteries. He did not promote creationism, nor require a creator of any sort. But he pointed at holes in the theory and postulated, among other things, "the masking effect" to explain certain lacunae.

Strikes me that this could be as annoying to evolutionists as creationism, being apostate and all, without talking about a divinity.

"A lot of what is driving the NCSE's propaganda campaign is a dread fear that if anyone questions the average biology teacher about the theory, he or she will have to admit that science isn't about dogma and Revealed Truth--and that's all that a lot of biology teaching in this country is."

The average biology teacher or scientist will readily admit science isn't about dogma and Revealed Truth. Just ask them. Dogma and revealed truth are the realm of religion.

They would also probably readily agree that the number of changes in any branch of science since one left high school is simply a function of when one finished high school.

[Arnold Asrelsky] Judge Jones did not say that the editors of 'Pandas' changed every instance of 'creationism' to 'Intelligent Design' in order to 'comply' with a Supreme Court decision.

Here is what Judge Jones said:

The weight of the evidence clearly demonstrates, as noted, that the systemic change from “creation” to “intelligent design” occurred sometime in 1987, after the Supreme Court’s important Edwards decision.

You say my motives are suspect. You can read my blog for more on the subject.

"Imperfection cuts directly against ID: it proves the design was not intelligent at all, unless the design is simply unknowable, and what is the point of studying anything at all if we cannot know it? "

no... it doesn't. again, you are doing the same thing that the 911 truthers do. and i am put in the unenvious position of defending ID, which leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

look, id is metaphysics. it is not science. you want to set up this strawman - that intelligent design = a creation that is perfect. and of course that's absurd, and yes it IS sophomoric stoned arguing 101.

LOTs of stuff in philosophy/metaphysics, is unknowable. so WHAT? have you read any philosophy? and of course philosophy can ASK questions that have scientific consequences. heck, there is an entire branch of philosophy called the philosophy of science.

you are not offering an intelligent (pun intended) critique of ID because you keep misrepresenting ID, so you can easily shoot it down.

what *i* am shooting down is the very idea that ID and Science (in this case evolution) are even in the same ballpark. they aren't.

but for the *th time, the fact that free will (appears to) exists, that there is imperfection in the world, etc. etc. does NOT "disprove" ID. only if we accept your false conception of what ID necessarily entails.

look, there either IS or IS NOT a creator(s) out there. that much is about as certain as we can get.

"ID isn't metaphysics either,"

only if you want to redefine what metaphysics means. since that seems to be your tactic - redefine words and change concepts to mean what you want them to mean so you can shoot them down.

" it's an argument from ignorance."

assuming that's true, it STILL doesn't make your point that ID is not metaphysics. because those are not mutually exclusive. try again.

it's metaphysics because of the QUESTION addressed. is that so hard to understand?

" It says "we don't know why there is X, therefore X was designed." With nonsense definitions of "irreducible complexity" that amount to Stewart's definition of pornography (see Behe's testimony), it doesn't offer anything of value at all."


again, totally irrelevant.

whether or not it offers anything of value is 100% irrelevant to whether or not it is metaphysics. it's a value judgement you made, but not relevant to my point.

" This is even more obvious in light of how as you say many IDers accept evolution anyway."

i don't SAY this. i know it. but since in your initial argument you failed to make the distinction between intra and interspecial evolution, your argument again fails.

" ID is obviously only a cudgel with which to beat "secularists" in a culture war, not some kind of serious philosophical proposition."

again, totally irrelevant. you keep changing the goalposts because you have no argument. "Serious philosophical proposition". that's a subjective value judgment and not relevant.

i didn't ID was some kind of GREAT or supersweet or serious "philosophical proposition"

i said it was (for the *th time) METAPHYSICS ***not*** science.

nothing you have said disputes that. you just keep changing the argument. for example, arguing that it is not a "serious philosophical proposition" says exactly ZERO about whether it is metaphysics (as opposed to science.).

i think you need to consult a dictionary and learn what

1) metaphysics
2) science
3) evolution (distinguish between intra and interspecial of same)

MEAN.

all you have done is construct strawmen and demonstrate you don't understand the underlying arguments.

most telling was when you thought that the fact that some ID'ers accept evolution (intraspecial) somehow means that ID has been disproved. if you even had a cursory knowledge of ID you would have understood that many many ID'ers totally accept intraspecial evolution. their argument is that the scientific theory of evolution fails on many fronts (such as so called "irreducible complexity"), and they attempt to SUBSTITUTE A METAPHYSICAL CONCEPT ***NOT A SCIENTIFIC THEORY OR HYPOTHESIS*** to fill the perceived hole in evolutionary theory.

that is where, to paraphrase yoda... they fail.

many scientists successfully bridged the science/philosophy bridge... carl sagan comes to mind. even though he did not spend tons of time on evolution, his concept of emergent complexity is a much better argument ... since it's a SCIENTIFIC ARGUMENT than ID can be - since it is not science.

whit,

Would you please define Intelligent Design as you understand it? It sounds like you see it potentially requiring as little as a single primordial act of creation (creating the universe and the material laws that govern it), subsequent to which everything could follow materialistically, without necessarily imputing else to the specific intentions of the creator, including, for example, human form. Certainly, even prominent Darwinists like Ken Miller would go along with that (and more than that even -- if I recall, he's a practicing Catholic), but they'd never call it Intelligent Design.

As I understand the term, it implies at least come degree of intentionality beyond the initial creation, which is impossible to replace with evolution alone. For example, from the American Heritage Dictionary:

intelligent design
n. The assertion or belief that physical and biological systems observed in the universe result from purposeful design by an intelligent being rather than from chance or undirected natural processes.

(my emphasis)

The very point of Intelligent Design, going back to Paley and Thomas Aquinas, i.e., the impossibility of arriving at certain kinds of biological complexity by natural processes alone, is by definition incompatible with evolution.

I've only skimmed most of the comments, so if you addressed this already, I apologize. Just link me to the comment.

Larry Fafarman,

I'm no expert, but your argument seems to overlook the following:

1. Many mutations that are neither competitively advantageous nor dis-advantageous survive to become part of the variation within a species. Such variations can provide the environmental feature to which a co-evolutionary species first adapts; and

2. A mutation that is competitively advantageous for independent reasons can provide the environmental feature to which a co-evolutionary species first adapts.

What am I missing?

LM says,

I'm no expert, but your argument seems to overlook the following:

1. Many mutations that are neither competitively advantageous nor dis-advantageous survive to become part of the variation within a species. Such variations can provide the environmental feature to which a co-evolutionary species first adapts

Some of these variations -- if they exist at all -- cannot survive in the absence of corresponding variations in other species. For example, in flowers that depend on "buzz" pollination, the pollen is contained inside tubes and is inaccessible to pollinators that do not "buzz" the flowers, i.e., vibrate the flowers with their wings. This pollen's feature of being contained inside tubes is something that cannot develop gradually -- it's either all or nothing. The pollinating insects themselves are highly specialized -- when buzzing the flowers, the wings are vibrated in a special way that may involve special muscles.

A mutation that is competitively advantageous for independent reasons can provide the environmental feature to which a co-evolutionary species first adapts.

The pollen's containment inside tubes is not competitively advantageous in independent situations -- it is fatal when independent of buzz-pollinating insects.

Even when changes in both species can be gradual in the development of mutualism (the changes can't be gradual in buzz pollination, as I showed above), there is no competitive advantage unless those gradual changes in both organisms exist at the same time and place, and that is unlikely if both gradual changes are rare.

Larry,

Why couldn't the containment tube evolve after bees are already pollinating this type of flower?

LM said,

Why couldn't the containment tube evolve after bees are already pollinating this type of flower?

I don't understand what you are saying here. By "type of flower," I presume you mean the type of flower using buzz pollination, i.e., a flower where the pollen is contained in tubes. So how could something that already exists -- the containment tubes -- evolve afterwards?

Here is how buzz pollination works: the insect grabs the flower and the insect then vibrates its wings in a special way -- perhaps involving special muscles (I don't know) -- and the vibrations shake the pollen loose from the tube. The characteristics of both the flower and the insect are very closely coordinated and these characteristics cannot evolve gradually -- they are all or nothing. And as I pointed out, even if the co-dependent characteristics could evolve by gradual changes, the gradual changes would provide a benefit only if those gradual changes co-exist in both organisms at the same time and place, and that is unlikely if the gradual changes are rare.

whit and Larry Fafarman,

Would you two please decide between yourselves whether intelligent design is science or metaphysics, because from a skeptic's point of view it looks an awful lot like those goalposts are on wheels?

My ideas about co-evolution here have nothing to do with intelligent design! Co-evolution concerns the evolution of interspecies relationships whereas ID concerns evolution within a single species. My arguments about co-evolution assume that the principle of intelligent design is not a barrier to mutations within a single species.

My sinuses are better now.

Theologian Francis Scaeffer introduced a principle of Christian evangelism that applies to the art of persuasion in general. The conventional wisdom says to lead with your gospel, to make it as logical and appealing as possible, in hopes that the audience will accept it. But there's one problem; people are not open to competing worldviews unless they first find significant fault with their own.

To state the obvious, persuasion assumes that the idea you're selling is right and the competing ones are at least partially wrong. Living at odds with reality ultimately brings humans into conflict with their own self-interest. Thus the art of persuasion must begin with the other person's worldview, to identify the point(s) at which that worldview comes into greatest conflict with that person's self-interest.

This isn't possible unless one can first establish some common ground on what defines reality. All factions in the origins debate want to make sense of the world, but they have different perceptions as to what is sensible. Creationists and many evolution skeptics in general can't find the sense in the basic evolutionary mechanism I described earlier: "a mechanism by which organisms can generate new complex systems." Behe and other skeptics can make sense of it in some cases but not in others. Atheist evolutionists can't make sense of the notion that phenomena external to the physical universe even exist, much less had any influence over the origins of species; everything that is real has a scientific explanation. Many evolutionists perceive evidence of evolution in our lifetimes, which reinforces their belief that it happened back then. Common ground is pretty scarce, and people who debate this topic who can find any of that common ground are even scarcer.

One also has to know what the other side actually believes if one is to address the opposing worldview. Treating all objections to evolution as religious in nature ignores the nonreligious ones and thus fails to accomplish this task. (Hey, for some people it's evolution skepticism that influences religion and not the other way around - and some treat the two as separate issues.)

I see a lot of inconsistency here, and also some pure ignorance. For example, Hipposgoberserk, exactly what, based on your peerless knowledge of biology, has occurred to create a new species? Are you asserting that because MRSA is, of course, due to the well-known and universally accepted phenomenon of microevolution, the staph in MRSA is no longer staph, even though the pathogenic categorization pretty clearly says that it is? Staph or E-coli evolving from one form of Staph or E-coli to another, so that it is now secreting a variation in its proteins, doesn't make it a new species any more than you having dark hair and greater secretion of melanin makes you less susceptible to skin cancers than me having brown hair and fair skin suffices to turn one of us into something that is not a human.

The point I wonder about above, which surely impressed its expositor when writing it was that the fact that the Dover ID enthusiasts modified some book about Pandas(?) to remove religious overtones, but the book should be banned from any school because its proponents "secretly" (right, all over the newspapers, great secret) wanted to push religion. That is like saying that the SCOTUS must uphold the Parker gun ban because one guy who filed an amicus brief is a militiaman who wants to overthrow the government of the US, or another guy is a handgun importer who wants to sell a truckload on the streets of LA to gang members. Last time I looked, at Volokh, the motives of the proponents were not supposed to matter if the actual, you know, law was on their side.

By this "logic" presented here with great censoring enthusiasm because their hearts are pure, we are supposed to ignore any science that Sam Harris doesn't like. We could prepare an exhausitvely documented lecture featuring arguments only by Steve J. Gould, Richard Dawkins, Stuart Kauffman, Colin Patterson, and Frederick Hoyle, explaining, respectively, problems with pure natural selection and the NDS, punctuated equilibria, random positive mutation, cladistic criticism of inter-species descent "tree", and multiple concurrent steeams of consecutive dependent probabilities over time, and that lecture would be considered "religion" even though every person quoted was an avowed atheist or agnostic.

Gentlemen, remind me not to engage any of you as either scientists, philosophers, or my lawyer.

"Would you two please decide between yourselves whether intelligent design is science or metaphysics, because from a skeptic's point of view it looks an awful lot like those goalposts are on wheels?"

LM. it's metaphysics. it REFERENCES and even incorporates some scientific schtuff, but so does LOTS of philosophy.

Any real scientific theory needs evidence to support it. With ID or creationism, which every you choose, you need evidence -- actual evidence -- that a creator created the various species.

Aside from a book written thousands of years ago, where is that evidence? Any film of God creating something? Any records left of actually showing how God created a mouse, or a bacteria? Fossils of God's footprints as he or she walked around the earth? Eyewitness accounts?

I'd settle for even the tiniest bit of real evidence to support the theory. But all you have is one book. And it that's all you need, then evolution still beats anything else.

On a related note:

Hallelujah. Rationality returns. A religious group has been rejected in its bid to offer a Master of Science degree. The Institute for Creation Research, which backs a literal interpretation of the Bible, including the creation of Earth in six days, seeks a certificate to grant online degrees in science education in Texas, reports Nature. But the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board voted unanimously last week not to pass the request, following the recommendation of Raymund Paredes, the state's commissioner of higher education. "Religious belief is not science," Paredes said…