Ok. Why not. Let's teach ID in Science class!

ID has been slammed by the scientific community as not being science at all. Just mere flights of fancy and wishful thinking dreamt up as a wedge to shove in the armour of the great and good, to attempt a collapse of that great destroyer of theology: the Theory of Evolution. An attempt to force theology into where theology has no rightful place to be. Slammed because it apparently ignores mountains of (verified) evidence and seems to go out of its way to miss-represent Evolution and the way it works. When you throw in the frequent arguments from incredulity you can understand why they argue ID isn’t science. You can understand why those who dedicate themselves to the teaching of science do not want to be forced to teach this mumbo-jumbo. I agree with them the science class room is no place for this stuff.So the question needs to be asked, should it be taught at all? Is there any merit in brining this concept to young impressionable minds at any stage of their education? Is there a place for it in Religious studies, Philosophy, History.Or should it actually be taught in science class? The YECs want Evolution to be taught with all its gaps and holes explained (an attempt to weaken it as a theory), so then what would be the harm in teaching ID and all it’s problems and errors and misrepresentations?. Surely if both hypotheses are laid out step by step, side by side problem for problem then, can we not trust our children to then see the absurdity of ID?Surely it is a good scientific grounding to be taught how to recognise the good science from the bad.SO why not? Let’s teach ID fully and wholly, with no varnish or leaving anything out let’s give them what they want, and make them realise that this (for them) is a truly bad idea.This message has been edited by ohnhai, 24-10-2005 11:11 AM

I think this has been pretty well covered in the existing ID / education threads... if I'm not mistaken, those who think ID is science favor it in science class, and those who think ID is not science say you can teach it in a religion class, or as an example of bad science.So... I get the feeling this has been well covered.Oh, and here's a similar thread that you may want to check:
http://< !--UB EvC Forum: An educational angle we all could live with? (Philosophy of Science) -->http://EvC Forum: An educational angle we all could live with? (Philosophy of Science)Let me know if you still want to pursue this; if you feel differently I'm willing to promote the topic. But my initial sense is that this has been done, and there's not much new to talk about.Thanks.AbE: It actually looks like the coverage of this basic question in the "Education and Creationism" Forum is not as good as I thought. Still OK, but not great. Like I said, either way is OK with me, but I wanted to give you my take first.This message has been edited by AdminBen, Saturday, 2005/10/22 08:04 AM

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I see Bens point in that the topic has been covered elsewhere. Perhaps you could redefine this topic into a more concise question that has not been covered. Give it a go:

Reword your Title. Make it unique and controversial.(concise, also)

Use those great verbal skills and hit us up with a deep philosophical question/assertion/comment on I.D.

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One of us will promote it within a week if it evolves into something even cooler than it is. ( They do this to me, also in my PNT's!)

Ok , Re vammped the whole thing and givien it a new twist. Seriously turned up the dial on the language and generally had some fun with it.Hope you like.

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

What needs to be presented are the arguments against ToE, from the perspective of ToE critics. One of the reasons for this is the fact evos largely rely on unproven assertions, overstatements, and outright distortions in the textbooks presenting evolution.

We are talking about the teaching of ID here randman. Try a little harder to both read and stay on topic.

I don't think they have that much time. It's as much a waste of time to teach ID, even as a negative example, as it would be to examine Holocaust denial or flat-Earthism.American students are leaving high school not even knowing how to do a Purnett Square. Let's get the fundamentals of biology across, because that's all we have time for. We can waste time on the frivoloty of tearing down ID, which is not all that hard, in college.

Off topic here, sorry . Randman, open another topic and give evidence (with specific references) for 'unproven assertions, overstatements, and outright distortions in the textbooks presenting evolution'.A long-time lurker coming (back) out of hiding to stop this hit and run BS. For goodness sake Randman, stop sniping and just give us the damn facts!Oh and by the way please apply the same standards to your own posts and assertions that you seem to demand from others.

But Holocaust denial and Flat-Earthism are not held up as shining examples of science that YECs want taught in schools.And how long would it take? An afternoon at most?This message has been edited by ohnhai, 24-10-2005 08:09 PM

I disagree. ID is a current issue; the others are much less so. ID is something that actually can affect the students, and dealing with it in their class may have practical applications in their own lives. I'm not so sure taking one day out of a biology curriculum would be so bad. You're not going to have enough time in high school to do a good job teaching the fundamentals no matter what--just enough to allow those who are interested to realize that they're interested, which will allow them to delve into it in college or on their own. I think high school is a great place to deal with practical aspects ofBecause, I mean, seriously--what good does teaching 95% of high school bio students the Purnett Square do? For most of them, I don't think much. What difference would it make in most of their lives?I think we can see from this forum that the EvC debate is not about a lack of education / information. Even when faced with appropriate information, those who don't want to believe it don't believe it. EvC is a social issue. Teaching biology to the general public... what good does it do? But teaching how to think logically, how to examine issues, and to deal with a currently applicable issue such as ID? I think that's relevant and worthwhile.Ben

bobbins, I have done that already. Look at my past threads, such as detailing Haeckel's fraud, falsely claiming a phylotypic embryonic stage as proven, false claims of human gill slits, false depictions of the ape to human transition, false depictions of Neanderthals as ape-like of Cro-Magnons as transitional species when they are the same species as us, depictions of Pakicetus with webbed feet and calling it a whale, unproven claims of mutations being random, discounting other reasons for similarities such as convergent evolution without any factual reasons for doing so, etc, etc,....An easier way to do this would be to open up evolutionist textbooks and review the claims there. Chances are most are not factual.

OK. Also, sorry about responding to the other post before I read your comment. I will bow out of this thread until or unless I see a way to contribute to a discussion of ID.

There isn't a whole lot of science in ID, so there won't be much to teach.The proposals in the USA typically mention problems with ToE. So if I were required to teach ID, I would start with the alleged problems of ToE. The way I would want to present this would be to present a chart giving an estimate of the degree of empirical confirmation for various theories and hypotheses. I would include on the chart:

• the claim that the earth is at least 1 billion years old;
• the theory of evolution;
• the theory of gravity;
• the belief that Jesus was a real person;
• the virgin birth;
• the resurrection;

The aim would not be to challenge religious beliefs. Rather, it would be to emphasize that the empirical evidence for scientific theories greatly exceeds that for religious beliefs.Of course, the religious groups might cry foul, and demand that ID be not allowed to be taught in science class. I would consider that a good outcome.

My point exactly... If ID was taught in class, in a scientific manner , then the result would not be what the Bible Belt Belligerents intended. And they would indeed cry “Hey no fair”.To drive the point home maybe we should also require schools to accurately teach all religions to all students no matter of their personal belief systems .