20 years of the Creation/ID science curriculum

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What they want is the religious right utopia.

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But they would settle for a good old-fashioned theocracy.(Paging Nehemiah Scudder. Pick up the white courtesy telephone please.)

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I think the ID camp wants students to develop critical thinking skills and so wants both ID and evo theories to be taught and examined critically. Frankly, I cannot fathom why anyone wanting students to be educated would balk at, for example, teaching criticisms of evo theory.

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The "criticisms" they want taught do not represent ongoing debate within the various fields of evolution as conducted, for example, in peer-reviewed technical journals.Rather, the "criticisms" are those found on websites such as Answers in Genesis and the like, or pushed by the Discovery Institute. The "criticisms" are clearly based on religion, not on science.I had a seminar near the end of my grad school days titled Problems in Evolution. Not one of the problems discussed were of the sort found on the creationist websites or pushed as "critical thinking.""Critical thinking" seems to be a code word for teaching religious belief in science classes. The funny thing though--if one were to apply critical thinking skills to such religious beliefs, one would be called an anti-religious bigot, or worse. From what I have seen, proponents of "critical thinking" want their beliefs taught as fact or truth (i.e., divine revelation), and they don't want them to be subject to challenge.Edited by Coyote, : Typo

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There is no evidence that a global flood occurred and there is also no evidence that the laws of physics, with regard to dating methodologies, changed after this mythological flood.

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Biblicalists believe there is evidence. It's all in how you interpret it. Let both POVs be debated, discussed and studied in debth in the schools so as for the students to make up their own minds.

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"Let both POVs be debated, discussed and studied in debth..."Which two POVs would those be? You have science on one hand, what is the other? I expect that it is really religion.You do realize that the last of the major early creationist geologists attempting to prove a global flood gave up by 1831, don't you? There is no other POV in science concerning the belief in a global flood; there is only religious belief trying to sneak its way in any way it can, having long since failed the test of science.It sounds like what you really want is your religious belief taught in science classes, on an equal footing with science, but immune from the peer-review and criticism (critical thinking!) that is normally associated with science. Is that about it?

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However, allowing children to see that it is not necessarily categorically proven that macroevolution by random mutation is 'truth'is a very good idea -no matter what you think is true.

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Allow them to think rather than rely on materialistic dogma -that's the point.

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As promoted in the current debate, the alternative to "materialistic dogma" (a code phrase for science and rationalism) is not "allowing them to think" but rather propagandizing students with religious dogma based ultimately on divine revelation -- which requires the exact opposite of thinking.And that religious dogma, in spite of the current propaganda encouraging such, will not be subject to "critical thinking" as to do so would constitute "anti-Christian bigotry."Part of this agenda for the next 20 years was laid out explicitly in the Wedge Strategy. There is no reason to think that, having been exposed, the Wedge Strategy has been abandoned.

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So should we teach the material belief system as fact if there's a possibility that the other is true???

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What ID is saying is that evolutionists are dogmatically insisting that their belief system is true and factual and they will not allow the evidence against that system to be taught.

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No-one is saying that the other (intelligent design) should replace evolution, only that both should be allowed to be considered as possible scenarios in the absence of absolute proof for either.

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So there you have it -critical thinking replacing dogma.

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You omitted one little thing in your analysis: the evidence is not equal on both sides of the discussion. In fact it is far from equal.Science has repeatable, testable evidence by the library-full, while creationism has only revelation, belief and dogma. Proponents of creationism have developed some 4,000 different religions, sects, and cults over the centuries. Most of these are mutually contradictory such that they can't all be right. But they could all be wrong. So how are you going to test the evidence when it consists of revelation and belief?And you want to teach this in the classroom? That's preaching, not education.

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ID is not a theory, it never claimed to be a theory. ID is an observation, however. The current ID movement, which I will call DI IDism, says reality owes its existence to intelligence. IDists identify phenomena to be the product of intelligence.

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ID is a religiously-based attempt to sneak religion into the science classes by political means, as it has failed to make any headway in science (not surprising, as it is not science).

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On the other hand, evolution is a predetermined conclusion based on a philosophical presupposition that says biological reality is not the product of Divine causation. This supposition exists in defiance of the observation of design seen in every aspect of nature and organisms.

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The theory of evolution is a science, and is studied by a lot of separate fields. There is broad agreement from such diverse fields as geology and genetics as to the overall picture. Science does not deal with "divine causation" unless that causation can be perceived in some way.

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We intend to reverse the corruption of the U.S. Constitution from the stranglehold of anti-religious fanatics and teach school children that God is the Creator responsible for the observation of design seen in reality. The pro-Atheism corruption of the Constitution will be vacated wholistically one day in the semi-near future, and there is nothing you can about it.

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How will you do that? A theocracy? A dictatorship under a prophet? Bring back the inquisition?(Paging Nehemiah Scudder. Pick up the white courtesy telephone please.)

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Again you're missing the point -while praying may be a good idea, we are talking about science and nobody has any intention on changing it to anything else. Get a grip.

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That is entirely incorrect.The primary goal of ID is to change science completely. These quotations from the Wedge Strategy show this quite clearly:

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Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture seeks nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies. Bringing together leading scholars from the natural sciences and those from the humanities and social sciences, the Center explores how new developments in biology, physics and cognitive science raise serious doubts about scientific materialism and have re-opened the case for a broadly theistic understanding of nature.

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Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions.

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Governing Goals

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--To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies.

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--To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.

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Can you imagine what science would be like if everything had to conform to a fundamentalist and theistic "scientific" method?First -- all the evolutionary sciences would have to go. Geology would probably have to go also (geologists can't find evidence of the global flood). Astronomy and cosmology -- gone (all those old dates, and the Big Bang). Nuclear chemistry -- gone (radiometric dating and all those inconvenient old dates). Lets get rid of archaeology as well -- too many old dates there too, and they can't find the global flood either. And genetics, finding similarities to great apes and all the rest -- gone. And lets get rid of physics while we're at it -- that pesky 2nd law of thermodynamics.Well, you get the picture.

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Fundamentalism Christianity, like Atheist Evolutionism, accepts microevolution. Science has always disproven any type of evolution. Genuine science presupposes Theism as true. Darwinism has ruined science. We intend to rid science of Darwinism and return it to its former glory. In other words, we intend to banish the voices of Fundamentalism and Atheism from having any say in science.

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Sorry to have to break this to you, but you are delusional.You are the voice of fundamentalism

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Darwinism is fraud from top to bottom. Scholars have always known that evolution is false. They failed to educate the world early on which allowed Darwinism to succeed. They decided to be gentle in breaking the bad news that evolution is false. But since 1996 scholars have decided to abandon the gentle approach.

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Actually, religiously-motivated individuals are becoming increasingly strident in their opposition to the theory of evolution since the losses in the U.S. Supreme Court. And they are getting farther from reality. Your post is a classic example.Creation "science" was blown out of the water in the late 1980s, leading to the current push for intelligent design. That has now been blown out of the water as well. The courts have recognized what science has long known.Neither of these two ideas is science, nor were they ever accepted by mainstream science (99.5% of working scientists). They have always been pushed by religious believers and a very small percentage of scientists who are also religiously-motivated (see the Statements of Faith of the some of the creationist websites for example).That is why your comments that you and your comrads are going to force your theology down our throats, and there is nothing we can do about it, are so ludicrous.You can't get your religion into the school systems because it is not science no matter how hard you posture, and everybody knows it.That is why the science curriculum will be free of the creation/ID nonsense 20 years hence.Looks like your only choice is a coup and installation of a religious dictatorship under a prophet. Is that what you are advocating?

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...we will prevail and remove the scourge of Darwinism that has been forced upon us. ...

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We will, in the semi-near future, reverse the corruption of pro-evolution judges. ...

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When the corruption of the Constitution is reversed, science will be restored to the classroom one appoitment at a time.

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You need not be so paranoid, we are only trying to restore a scientific theory that over half of all adults in America accept as true.

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Sounds like a religious dictatorship to me.And what are your plans for those of us who don't wish to live under your religious dictatorship, and who tell your prophet (or whatever your dictator is called) to stuff it?Will the curriculum in 20 years resemble that of a madrasah in Afghanistan just a few years back? Do we get to live in the Christian version of dhimmitude? Do we get the Inquisition back?I can't wait! We'll have a party! (Oh, right. They'll be outlawed too.)(Nehemiah Scudder. Pick up the white courtesy telephone please.)

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The conversations I had were with Fundamentalist Christians and Theistic evolutionists. Both accept microevolution. I do not.

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You have shown by these posts that you are the exact opposite of a scientist.Why should anyone trust anything you have to say on the subject of science? Might as well ask the mice for their opinions on cats.By the way, microevolution, which apparently everyone else in the world but you accepts because of the evidence, can be readily seen.Google "ring species" and see what science has found.

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Ring species provide unusual and valuable situations in which we can observe two species and the intermediate forms connecting them. In a ring species:

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A ring species, therefore, is a ring of populations in which there is only one place where two distinct species meet. Ernst Mayr called ring species "the perfect demonstration of speciation" because they show a range of intermediate forms between two species. They allow us to use variation in space to infer how changes occurred over time. This approach is especially powerful when we can reconstruct the biogeographical history of a ring species, as has been done in two cases. Source: Ring Species: Unusual Demonstrations of Speciation, by Darren E. Irwin.

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This is clear evidence not only of microevolution, but also of macroevolution (speciation).What is nice about ring species is that you have the two endpoints, clearly two species, but you also have all of the transitionals (that creationists swear don't exist) still intact as living populations in between the two endpoint species!Deny the evidence for microevolution all you want, but its right there in front of your face. Just like a lot of the other evidence for the theory of evolution and the rest of science.

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Something a person who cannot refute would say.

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Ray

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You want refutation?I refuted your contention on microevolution, and threw in macroevolution too boot back in Post #148 but you have ignored it.How are you going to come up with a curriculum if you can't debate science? Or will your proposed curriculum be limited to preaching?

You had two ideas in your post, kind of mixed together. I hope I separated them correctly.

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What's all this trash about astrology being immune to scientific inquiry? Astrology is simple enough to test: get a list of predictions and see how accurate they are. Duh! I'd say it's been done, but I'm not going to go chasing sources. The results don't matter one bit. What matters is that it can be tested.

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And this is all just nonsense. Trying to build an association between ID and astrology, but it fails.

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I really should look this up. It can't be new. There's got to be a term somewhere. Essentially what we have is an attempt to ad hom against astrology as an attack on ID. It's not a straw man, because there actually is astrology. I don't know what to call this junk. Anybody?

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Your "ad hom" against astrology came from Behe's testimony in the Dover trial. When asked about his definition of "science" Behe had to come up with a definition broad enough to include ID--that was the whole point of the trial, that ID was science. He was forced to admit, under oath, that his definition was sufficiently broad that it also included astrology. And the point was not that the tenets of astrology could be amenable to the scientific method (that was done centuries ago; astrology failed), but that astrology as it is currently practiced is not scientific. In that respect, it matches ID rather well. And that admission by Behe was one of the cornerstones of the Dover decision. (Another cornerstone was the clear link between ID and religion.)

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Now how can ID be counter to evolution? ID only questions abiogenesis, which is "supposed" to be a separate issue. Looks like these two "separate" issues are siamese twins. They're joined at the head and the heart, and if one dies the other can't last.

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Separate issues? What a joke! Only separate when it suits the hypocrites' argument from what I've seen. But all part of the same fairy tale.

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Abiogenesis is not necessary for evolution. Evolution works just fine under any of these five hypothesis regarding the origin of the first life forms.

Abiogenesis is not necessary for evolution because, as evolutionists have been saying all along, evolution deals with change over time -- not origins.

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ID opposes evolution and evolution opposes ID - SHEESH!

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Actually it should be "ID opposes evolution on religious grounds and science opposes ID on scientific grounds."

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Neither is it true that I am unable to provide an ID hypothesis. It has not been asked of me, and for three reasons I do not intend to provide one.
1.) It's another person's challenge, and as I haven't carefully read every post there's a fair chance it's been met and ignored.
2.) I'm lazy
3.) The post I reply to attempts to make me look bad for not meeting this challenge, when it was never mine to begin with. For future reference, this is not a good way to overcome reason #2.

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The reason there are no ID hypotheses is that ID is religion in disguise. Its basis is fundamentalist Christian belief, not science.Having no scientific basis, all the IDers can do is try to knock down the theory of evolution in the hope that they can raise doubts about science in general and the theory of evolution in particular, and based on those doubts, they hope to come up with some converts to their real religious beliefs. And if they can cast doubt on all of "materialism and its cultural legacies" so much the better.But when asked to propose an ID curriculum (the topic of this thread) there is no response. There is only anti-evolutionary propaganda masquerading as pseudo-science in the hope of fooling somebody.But hey, that's good enough! Let's teach it in the schools anyway.I can see the curriculum now: