Intelligent Design - OK

[Dr. Shane]

Kansas School Board OKs 'Intelligent Design'

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The new standards say high school students must understand major evolutionary concepts. But they also declare that the basic Darwinian theory that all life had a common origin and that natural chemical processes created the building blocks of life have been challenged in recent years by fossil evidence and molecular biology.

In addition, the board rewrote the definition of science , so that it is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena.

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Now there is an idea. When we realize that maybe (just maybe) there isn't a "natural" explanation for everything we observe, maybe we ought to consider a supernatural explanation.

I expect the same crowd that doesn't want to change the definition of marriage will be quite upset about changing the definition of science.

[Dr. Shane]

Only one (1. of the definitions I was aware of includes the need for a natural explanation.

[:"blue"] sci·ence (n)

1.

A. The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena.

B. Such activities restricted to a class of natural phenomena.

C. Such activities applied to an object of inquiry or study.

2. Methodological activity, discipline, or study: I've got packing a suitcase down to a science.

3. An activity that appears to require study and method: the science of purchasing.

4. Knowledge, especially that gained through experience.

5. Science Christian Science. [/]

[Bravus]

May that attempt have all the success of the attempt by another body (also in Kansas?) to change the value of pi to 3.000

Seriously (this sentence is directed to the Kansas school board, not to Shane), add ID or even creationism to the curriculum if you like, but don't demean both science and faith by trying to pretend it's science.

[Amelia]

<img src="/ubbtreads/images/graemlins/129933-offtopic2.gif" alt="" />

How in the world can someone arbitrarily change a mathmatical value? sheesh

<img src="/ubbtreads/images/graemlins/focus.gif" alt="" />

[Bravus]

OK, just to be fair I checked out Snopes and it turns out that the pi = 3 story is mostly an urban myth, based on a hoax:

http://www.snopes.com/religion/pi.htm

Here's some info on that 1897 Indiana bill:

http://db.uwaterloo.ca/~alopez-o/math-faq/node45.html

Apparently the latter also doesn't ddefine pi as 3, but its tangled logic yields up to four different values for pi.

Anyway, I stand by my second sentence above. <img src="/ubbtreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

[Dr. Shane]

If science is restricted to only considering natural explanations for its observations, then its usefulness is limited.

Let's say for example, that aliens from outerspace came down and built Stonehedge or the Egyptian pyrimids. If science is not allowed to consider such possibilities, and that is how they were actually built, then science will never arrive at an acurate conclusion.

If one has ever watched the X-Files, they have seen these two positions contrast. One of the leading characters is a firm believer in science (only natural explanations) and the other is a firm believer in the supernatural. I think in the interst of the truth (which is out there

<img src="/ubbtreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> ) science needs to include the supernatural in its realm of possible explanations or its usefullness is limitted.

[bevin]

The way science is set up, there really is no distinction between "natural" and "supernatural".

There is simply the development of a model that predicts the future. That model can include everything from

"e = m c squared"

to

"if you pray to Allah for your cancer to go into remission, there is a 4% increase in the probability that it will do so"

And right here is the fundamental problem with creationist/intelligent-design pseudo-science. Their models completely fail to correctly predict anything that is not better predicted by the evolution models, and the evolution models repeatedly correctly predict things that the creation models get wrong.

Give ONE experiment that has been performed that evolution can not explain but intelligent-design can...

There aren't any.

/Bevin

ps: The pro-ID Dover school board just lost 8 out of 9 of incubents in elections...

Yahoo news item

[Dr. Shane]

That sounds like a flawed system. In Texas school board members' terms do not all expire the same year so that there is never a huge turnover in members all at one time.

[Dr. Shane]

I am surprised that after two generations of evolution being taught in the public schools that the majority of the public even holds any doubts about it.

One thing for sure, combine evolution with sex education and Christians shouldn't be sending their kids to public schools. And they certainly should be supporting educational vouchers.

I wonder too. Do Adventists that oppose the teaching of Intelligent Design in science classrooms in public school also oppose the teaching of creation in science classrooms in Adventist school? There is a big seal outside the science building at Andrews University. Who knows what it says?

[bevin]

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There is a big seal outside the science building at Andrews University. Who knows what it says?

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I don't know about what is outside...

When I visited there in the early 1980's they had a comprehensive and accurate display in the hallways of the theory of evolution, with no doubts expressed.

There was no corresponding display of the theory of creationism - for the simple reason that there is no scientific evidence for it.

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

Well in the past 20 years creation has gained some evidence and more scientists are doubting evolution.

The seal says, "Without Him Not Anything Was Made" Standing on the second floor looking down, it can be read easily.

[Dr. Shane]

Here is AU's Biology program:

[:"blue"] The program in Biology is centered in the study of life within the context of a Christian world view. Perception of the Creator through His creation, the ethical use of individual gifts in caring for creation and personal balance through self understanding are encouraged.

Accordingly students in Biology are challenged through thoughtful, inquisitive study

* to understand life's basic processes through scholarship and research

* to understand their place in the scheme of creation

* to grow in analytical and creative abilities

* to prepare for skilled, productive service in biological, medical and related disciplines

* to find through Spirit-centered study and service, greater personal integrity and a strengthened faith commitment.

[/]

[bevin]

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creation has gained some evidence

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In the last twenty years we have learnt a LOT more about the world we live in - its life forms and its geology.

Everything we have learnt is compatible with a millions-of-years-of-life model, and we have found NOTHING that discredits that model.

NOTHING we have found strongly hints at a short-age earth.

/Bevin

[bevin]

I don't doubt all the AUC instructors believe in a creator.

I do doubt that they all believe in a short-aged earth.

I know at Canadian Union College where I visited about 5 years ago, about half the science dept faculty believed that there has been life on earth for millions of years.

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

It has been in the past ten years that more and more secualr scientists have been abandoning evolution for intelligent design. And they are PhDs.

[bevin]

Shane

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It has been in the past ten years that more and more secular scientists have been abandoning evolution for intelligent design. And they are PhDs.

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You are right - there is a handful of PhD's who are for Intelligent Design. Probably well under 0.1%, but there are some. There are probably higher numbers who believe UFO's being alien spaceships and in Big Foot.

But it doesn't matter here, because

[:"red"]Intelligent Design is Evolution[/]. It teaches a millions-of-years-old earth, it teaches that live started as primitive chemicals. It teaches that most of what we see around us is the result of mutation and natural selection.

The ONLY difference between ID and traditional Evolution is the ID'ers point to a handful of structures and say "that step there - God must have helped the genetic pool get over that one because I can't see how to do it otherwise".

For some bizarre reason many short-age creationists see ID as being on their side. It isn't.

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

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You are right - there is a handful of PhD's who are for Intelligent Design.

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Thank you. And even though they are in the minority, science students should be informed of their desent.

In most cases, these science textbooks that include ID is just a pargraph or a page at the begining of the section on evolution that says something like, "While evolution is the general consessus among scientists, a small minority believe life is too complex to be explained by it. Those in this minority argue that any phenomenon or feature that cannot be fully explained to their satisfaction by conventional science is evidence of supernatural intervention and thus reason to doubt the evolutionary theory." And that is what has the evolutionists all up in arms.

If the science of intelligent design advances, I have no issue with some universities teaching it, as a course on its own. However on the high school level the students should just be made aware that it is out there.

[bevin]

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"While evolution is the general consessus among scientists, a small minority [:"red"]believe life is too complex to be explained by it[/]. Those in this minority argue that any phenomenon or feature that cannot be fully explained to their satisfaction by conventional science is evidence of supernatural intervention and thus reason to doubt the evolutionary theory." [:"red"]And that is what has the evolutionists all up in arms[/]

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Precisely, and correctly.

Science is NOT ABOUT BELIEF. It is about reproducible experiments. It is about objective definitions and measurements.

This is a non-scientific statement being placed in a science textbook because some RELIGIOUS people want it to be there.

The ID people have no experimental evidence. Their stuff does not belong in a science text book. But, once it is there, it is fair game for the science teachers to point out how unscientific this is...

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

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This is a non-scientific statement being placed in a science textbook because some RELIGIOUS people want it to be there.

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No, it is being placed in science textbooks because there is a minority opinion that shouldn't be ignored. Evolutionists don't have a monopoly on the definition of what science is. There should be room for disagreement among the educated but evolutionists want to silence those that disagree with them and label them religious. Is Anthony Flew religious?

[bevin]

A statement in a science textbook should have an experiment to support it.

ID lacks an experiment.

/Bevn

[Dr. Shane]

No, it doesn't. Scientists with PhDs have done extensive experimentation and not being able to duplicate a process any other way have come to the conclusion that a supernatural intelligence needed to be involved. Their conclusion came after their experimentation. They didn't just wake up, read the Bible and say, "In the begining God created the heavens and the earth."

Now evolutionists may jump up and down, throw themselves on the floor and pound their fists while screaming, "it's not science," but a group of their peers disagrees.

Among educated circles disagreement should not be silenced. The secularists are guilty of the same sin the realigous zealots of the Dark Ages were. Scientists that believe in Intelligent Design are modern-day Galileos.

[bevin]

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Scientists with PhDs have done extensive experimentation and not being able to duplicate a process any other way have come to the conclusion that a supernatural intelligence needed to be involved.

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Sorry, the failure to do something is NOT the same as the demonstration that it is impossible

You don't seem to understand the difference between a few simple experiments in test-tubes and millions of years using billions of tons of reagents.

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

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You don't seem to understand

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I don't understand <img src="/ubbtreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> I am not a scientist. I read the conclusions of aged scientists like Anthony Flew. The debate is not between Shane Linder and the evolutionists. The debate is within the scientific community. Perhaps one may want to claim that Dr. Anthony Flew doesn't understand.

[bevin]

Flew is a philosopher, not a scientist.

Philosophers don't do no stinking experiments.

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

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"The question that we're facing in biology is that when we look at nature, we see design," said Scott Minnich, a microbiologist at the University of Idaho and an ID proponent. "But is it real design or apparent design? There are two answers to the question and both are profound in terms of their metaphysical implications."

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Irreducible complexity asserts that certain biochemical systems in nature contain parts that are too well matched to be products of evolution.

Every part of an irreducibly complex system is necessary: take away even one, and the entire system will no longer work. Because their parts are so intricate and so interdependent, such systems could not possibly have been the result of evolution, ID supporters argue.

Irreducible complexity's main proponent is Michael Behe, a biochemist at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. Among the systems that Behe claims are irreducibly complex are the bacterial flagellum, a microscopic whip-like structure that some bacteria use to swim, and the cascade of proteins that make up the human blood-clotting system.

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William S. Harris, PhD is a native of Kansas City with an undergraduate degree from Hanover College in Chemistry and a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry from the University of Minnesota. He has been conducting scientific research for the last 20 years and has been awarded about $3.5 million in research grants. He has published over 70 scientific papers.

Dr. Harris currently holds an endowed Chair in Metabolism and Vascular Biology and is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Missouri at Kansas City and is the Director of a Kansas City lipoprotein research laboratory. With regards to origins issues, he believes that the central dogma of Darwinism - that highly complex systems developed by random chance and environmental pressure from simple, ancestral life-forms - remains highly speculative and statistically problematic. His view is that a design (non-chance)-based theory of origins is more consistent with the evidence.

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Guillermo Gonzalez is an Assistant Professor of Astronomy at Iowa State University. He received his Ph.D. in Astronomy in 1993 from the University of Washington. He has done post-doctoral work at the University of Texas, Austin and at the University of Washington and has received fellowships, grants and awards from such institutions as NASA, the University of Washington, Sigma Xi (scientific research society) and the National Science Foundation.

"ID theorists start with the evidence of nature and remain open to possible evidence of design. This approach is no different from the approach taken by many of the founders of modern science."

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