Hooray: No ID in PA Schools

Nothing in the world is more dangerous than a sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity
- Martin Luther King

And for something to think about: Both creationists and evolutionists support the fact that we are the product of a whole lot of incest. 

"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind." --Albert Einstein

(don't have anything else to add, just came across this quote the other day as I was looking for ways to create my son's "science-themed" bedroom)

Okay, for fun I'll take the unpopular stance and jump in with ncc... that's crap.   Judge's don't need to have any say in the content of a class.  That's for the teachers and scientists to decide.  It's their place, not his, to explain the theories of how we came to where we are right now. 

Like it or not, it is a theory that is oft argured and should be presented.  There was a time not to long ago where people were laughed at for saying the Earth was, in fact, NOT the center of the universe.  People were killed by the government for saying otherwise, let alone teaching otherwise.  Do we really want the government regulating what our kids learn?  Personally, I want mine to hear the merits of both sides and make an informed decision.  Not have it made for them by a political appointee.

As for the

bts

No one has also made the argument that intelligent design doesn’t necessarily mean created by the Christian God... Any one or thing currently unknown to us could theoretically be an "Intelligent Designer". Extra Terrestrials to name just one example... or the whole we actually live in some larger beings Petri dish to name another of infinite possibilities.

As a college educated Christian I am smart enough to recognize that philosophy and science are very closely related. In fact many of our most famous scientists were also popular philosophers.

Brett, the purpose of our education system is to produce productive citizens. School is not supposed to indoctrinate children into a religious way of thinking but to teach them to think critically.

When faith is given a false veneer of scientific theory, it hurts the faith and science. The ID principle basically says "life, the universe and everything is too complex for us to understand so, therefore, a magic deity did it." This is not science. It has no place in a science class. It is faith and, YES, it is the judiciaries job to adjudicate in matters where tax dollars are spent in promoting faith. The judiciary is not telling the school board what they must teach children; the judiciary is telling them what they must not teach children in public funding schools.

If you investigate, you will see that there is no theory of ID. There is only an assertion that life is too complex for a Creator (Intelligent Force) not to have created everything. That, in sum, is their "theory". There is no science to back it up. None. When there is no science or empirical evidence to support such theories, we call them dogma.

There are no credible scientists saying the Theory of Evolution lacks credibility. None. Zippo. Niente. Nada.

If a parent wants their child to believe that God created everything, then they should teach them that at home. Science teachers, however, should not be required to teach them that. Science teachers should teach science, not faith.

Don,

As taught, evolution makes no comment about the existence of god. It's unfair to suggest, even obliquely, that that is the motivation of teaching evolution.

It is true, however, that the ID folks blame Darwin for the loss of collective faith in our society. What seems to escape their notice is that people began looking towards their own reasoning, rather than Church dogma, for understanding their place in the universe since the Age of Enlightenment and before. They want to turn back time. They are fighting the tide and they are frustrated that they cannot do more to put God in everybody's house. Schools are their battleground, for the moment.

Instead of trying to change school board policy, they should try to influence their children's hearts and spirituality, instead. It would be a far more effective means of shaping society, one child at a time.

As for the Declaration of Independence, I believe that my Creator (my mother) gave me these rights simply by giving birth to me. I don't have to believe my Creator is a supernatural being to believe in the humanistic ideas found within that inspired document. I don't have to believe that, without a supernatural being, I have no rights. In fact, I and the guy wrote the majority of that document reject that idea entirely.

I don't follow.

I don't disagree but the topic is teaching Science. The class in question is not Spirituality or Philosophy. Introducing faith into Science is like introducing faith into Trigonometry.

I'm making the argument that my rights are my legitimate birth-right, regardless of whether you, I or Jefferson believe in a deity.

BIG WARM HUG & CHRISTMAS KISS FOR YA, DON!

Our celebration has begun here at the officina.

And I agree I am a much better person for having listened to my spiritual voice.

Craaaaap, I missed all the fun... I suppose now I'll have to go start poulating the hottie thread...

bts

Yes, if my goal was to expand the critical thinking and decision making of my Sunday School class.  Remember, the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince people he didn't exist!

If theism is a religion or belief system one would also have to argue that atheism is also a belief system or religion of its own. If we are going to discuss the origon of life why are we giving our kids only one side of the story. As a christian man I have NO PROBLEM with my children learning about evolution. I beliueve it is part of recieving a well rounded education to thuroughly understand all sides of an argument. Expalining creationism can be done with no biblical refrence at all, and I would actually prefer it to be taught that way.

As to why there are NO credible scientist supporting creationism I will give you just a few quotes from some credable scientists:

"No wonder paleontologists shied away from evolution for so long. It seems never to happen. Assiduous collecting up cliff faces yields zigzags, minor oscillations, and the very occasional slight accumulation of change over millions of years, at a rate too slow to really account for all the prodigious change that has occurred in evolutionary history. When we do see the introduction of evolutionary novelty, it usually shows up with a bang, and often with no firm evidence that the organisms did not evolve elsewhere! Evolution cannot forever be going on someplace else. Yet that's how the fossil record has struck many a forlorn paleontologist looking to learn something about evolution."

Niles Eldredge - Chairman and Curator of Invertebrates, American Museum of Natural History. "Reinventing Darwin: The Great Evolutionary Debate," (1995), phoenix: London, 1996, p. 95.

"Paleontologists had long been aware of a seeming contradiction between Darwin's postulate of gradualism, confirmed by the work of population genetics, and the actual findings of paleontology. Following phyletic lines through time seemed to reveal only minimal gradual changes but no clear evidence for any change of a species into a different genus or for the gradual origin of an evolutionary novelty. Anything truly novel always seemed to appear quite abruptly in the fossil record."

Ernst Mayr - Emeritus Professor of Zoology, Harvard University, "Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist," Harvard University Press: Cambridge MA, 1988, pp. 529-530.

"The only illustration Darwin published in On the Origin of Species was a diagram depicting his view of evolution: species descendant from a common ancestor; gradual change of organisms over time; episodes of diversification and extinction of species. Given the simplicity of Darwin's theory of evolution, it was reasonable for paleontologists to believe that they should be able to demonstrate with the hard evidence provided by fossils both the thread of life and the gradual transformation of one species into another. Although paleontologists have, and continue to claim to have, discovered sequences of fossils that do indeed present a picture of gradual change over time, the truth of the matter is that we are still in the dark about the origin of most major groups of organisms. They appear in the fossil record as Athena did from the head of Zeus-full-blown and raring to go, in contradiction to Darwin's depiction of evolution as resulting from the gradual accumulation of countless infinitesimally minute variations, which, in turn, demands that the fossil record preserve an unbroken chain of transitional forms."

Jeffrey H. Schwartz - Professor of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh, USA, "Sudden Origins: Fossils, Genes, and the Emergence of Species," John Wiley & Sons: New York NY, 1999, p. 3.

"The 'modern evolutionary synthesis' convinced most biologists that natural selection was the only directive influence on adaptive evolution. Today, however, dissatisfaction with the synthesis is widespread, and creationists and antidarwinians are multiplying. The central problem with the synthesis is its failure to show (or to provide distinct signs) that natural selection of random mutations could account for observed levels of adaptation."

Egbert G. Leigh, Jr. - Biologist, Smithsonian Institution, USA, "The modern synthesis, Ronald Fisher and creationism," Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Vol. 14, No. 12, pp.495-498, December 1999, p. 495.

``We account the Scriptures of God to be the most sublime philosophy. I find more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history whatsoever.'' Isaac Newton (1642-1727)

``Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation and that is unthinkable.'' Sir Arthur Keith, a famous British evolutionist

``A Heavenly Master governs all the world as Sovereign of the universe. We are astonished at Him by reason of His perfection, we honor Him and fall down before Him because of His unlimited power. From blind physical necessity, which is always and everywhere the same, no variety adhering to time and place could evolve, and all variety of created objects which represent order and life in the universe could happen only by the willful reasoning of its original Creator, Whom I call the Lord God.''
Isaac Newton, the Principia

``The current scenario of the origin of life is about as likely as the assemblage of a 747 by a tornado whirling through a junkyard.'' Sir Fred Hoyle, The Intelligent Universe (1983)