The Significance of the Dover Decision

In other words, the theocracy is coming like it or not?

And again you're wrong. It wasn't "evos" trying to silence their critics, it was the parents of school children suing to prevent religion from being taught as science.

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soon I discovered that this rock thing was true
Jerry Lee Lewis was the devil
Jesus was an architect previous to his career as a prophet
All of a sudden i found myself in love with the world
And so there was only one thing I could do
Was ding a ding dang my dang along ling long - Jesus Built my Hotrod Ministry
Live every week like it's Shark Week! - Tracey Jordan
Just a monkey in a long line of kings. - Matthew Good
If "elitist" just means "not the dumbest motherfucker in the room", I'll be an elitist! - Get Your War On
*not an actual doctor

Truth is based on percentages?How many people believe in homeopathy, dead aliens at Area 51, Bush blowing up the twin towers, psychics, healing moonbeams (my favourite), haunted houses, astrology, wiccan magic, shamanism, crystal healing, levitation, divination, perpetual motion, faces (or more recently Bigfoot) on mars, crop circles, aliens probing cow anuses, vaccines causing autism, vampires, exorcism, flouride in water causing stupidity, bermuda triangle, jewish world domination, the US did not land on the moon, elvis is alive (or is he dead now?), atlantis, no holocaust, alien landing strips in South America, Voodoo, and most important last tuesdayism.Sorry if I missed a bunch. The list of nuts is miles long and they are all claiming discrimination from having a place in science.

Simple points.1) Is false. As I pointed out earlier it is ID that relies on evading the scientific process, not evolution. There are no court cases trying to maintain the dominance of evolution in science. The court cases are because ID is failing as science and its supporters are using other means - which are being stopped by the courts.2) Teleology doesn't seem to be enjoying much of a revival in science. Let us note that you make an explicit appeal to religious belief, too.3) Represents an open admission that ID is going to use public opinion to sabotage science education.4) Confirms that ID is based in religion, not science.Let me add that the vague idea that a creator did something somehow in the course of evolution is not science and never can be. You can't get productive research from that, it makes no predictions and it isn't falsifiable. If ID wants to be science it's going to have to get specific about what the creator DID do. And the ID movement - which in reality regards science as just a sideshow to the religious and political elements - does not want to do that.

depends on what you mean by "creator" and what the "somehow" is. entirely within the confines of evolution, human beings have "created" various animals through the process of artificial selection. the prominent example of canis lupus familiaris comes to mind. selection is a process through which an intelligent entity such as the human race can use evolution creatively.it's also important to note that human examples of artificial selection are quite prone to genetic problems. we're not very good at it, and we end up with dogs that can't breathe and cats that can't stop crying because we're selecting for shorter snouts. any example of supernatural selection would probably be indistinguishable from natural selection. but hey, ID "scientists" there's a question for you to investigate. i expect to see research on this. go go go!

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the difference is evos argue against ID a priori....it's not just they are saying there is a lack of evidence. Evos are saying it's not within the scope of science, and that won't hold forever.

actually, there are several topics i'd like some valid ID research on. i'm not opposed to the idea that design by intelligent agents can be show scientifically, i'd just like to see how. i'll post a new thread tomorrow with an example application for design detection research, if you'd be interested in showing how ID is scientific.

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Thank you for the links Mod, I've just spent a very enjoyable time watching these videos. The one thing that would have made my life complete would have been that cameras in court to record this historic trial. Sadly this wasn't the case.I think that the videos highlight just how significant this whole debacle was and do an admirable job of explaining why it is significant.Once again thank you fo your litte nugget of pure gold.

quote:

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depends on what you mean by "creator" and what the "somehow" is.

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My point is that they DON'T say. ID is incredibly and intneeionally vague for political reasons. (Except before religious audiences where they are usually clear that the creator is God).In that respect ID is less scientific than "Creation Science".

So you claim. So this would make the significance of Dover, what? That IDists weren't doing research before Dover, despite what they were telling school boards, but now they are, and so Dover was an impetus to IDists to actually do scientific research?The significance of Dover is the clarity with which it was revealed that ID is not science, and that some ID advocates are willing to perjure themselves on the stand. Its grassroots advocates do not understand ID beyond that it opposes evolution, and they primarily think of it not as science that they understand, but as a strategy for getting religion into the classroom with a better chance of success than creationism.The significance for IDists is that if you want to be considered science you have to do science. Publishing your own journals and holding your own conferences, or even worse, shenanigans like what happened with the BSOW, are not going to help ID become accepted as science.--Percy

What law? The Dover case was a civil suit where a school board got sued. There was no law established, just a variety of existing laws looked at. Which of these existing laws do you think will be overturned, or did you mean that the current interpretation of the law will change? Correct. So if we find a group of people claiming to hold a scientific idea but the scientific community rejects them so instead they try to create situations wherein a court case will happen because they believe a successful court case will allow them to get their topic taught in school then we might conclude (assuming a free country) that this so-called scientific idea is on very weak ground.I'm glad we agree. I wish it were, I'd have absolutely no problem with it then. It would be merely a philosophical empirical argument. One of the many such arguments that claims to be a good direction for science to look into next.Unfortunately 'ID' is a political and legal movement with a lot of money, lawyers and a PR firm. I think we should separate the teleology from the bullshit political movement. We already have a word for teleology. If you want to be a scientific teleologist, call yourself an STist or somethnig. ID is a different monster. Yes, this a sad possibility. This is why the ID movement has skipped the appealing to scientists part entirely. It is much easier to try and make this kind of scenario happen than it is to convince trained sceptics that ID is legitimate science. That is why spends money on films spreading lies to make them look oppressed by great Goliath of dogmatic science, on PR companies and lawyers. That is why we call ID a political movement and not a scientific one.ID spends an enormous amount of resources on building this appearance of unfairness and discrimination. Why bother spending their millions of dollars on research when they can spend it on propaganda? A much more cost-effective way to realize the goals of the wedge strategy. In the US the figure is closer to 80% I think that currently any scientific textbook or paper that denies the existence of God is already unacceptable and untenable. Of course, if a public body were to promote a theistic religious view in a scientific context, that too would be unacceptable and untenable. It would be promoting theistic religions over non-theistic ones: I'm fairly sure that isn't kosher either.

If you had read the trial transcripts you would know that in fact it was the ID side that was making the claim that there needed to be an equivalent to "affirmative action" in order for ID to have a chance to BECOME a science. They actually ADMIT that ID has no research but that it should be included in schools anyway to encourage interest so that someday it might find a breakthrough. If you had read the trial transcripts you would know that it was specifically for this reason that it was concluded that ID did not belong. More importantly, it was the ID side itself that was trying VERY hard to distance itself from the notion that ID is teleology. Had you been a witness for the ID side you would have completely and utterly torpedoed their case! In fact, the constitution and the justice system exists to protect the public from this nonsense that the majority can dictate whatever they want. The significance of this trial is that it was a perfect application of the principle of protecting the minority from the tyranny of the majority based on the constitution. You would have made an EXCELLENT witness for the plaintifs in this case.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

Even though this is off topic, I want to post a response only so you do not assume that I was ignoring you.
No, randman, I will not start a new thread to present scientific evidence that supports-the ToE. And do you know why? Because it would be a colossal waste of my time. You are either extraordinarily ignorant of what constitutes a science or you willfully refuse to learn. To even suggest that finding scientific evidence supporting the ToE is all but impossible only shows that you would simply deny anything I provide you as being scientifically valid. We both know that there are literally thousands upon thousands of peer-reviewed journal articles that support the ToE. To state otherwise only shows the level of your ignorance or your stupidity.But as I stated, this is off topic so I'll stop now.

I am not going to take your word for it.Please provide cites in the scientific literature.Do not provide self-published nonsense from an ID site.If ID is going to influence scientific thought in the future, it will need to show results using the scientific method. If ID is able to use the scientific method to produce results, ID papers will be published in the scientific literature.You claim that this has already happened.Put your money where your mouth is.

As others have pointed out, the parents brought lawsuit, not scientists.But one thing hasn't been pointed out. Of all the advanced scientific countries, there's only one that has huge swathes of
creationists type bible punchers, and it's no coincidence that that is the one which has an evolution/I.D. education related trial.It's all about religion, Randman. Less religiosity in a country will mean less I.D. support, and the most religious country in the west is where the modern movement comes from. The decision at the trial was that I.D. is a religious movement, and you can easily find quotes from its theologians like William Dembski to back that up.Religions characteristically rely on the indoctrination of children to perpetuate themselves, which is why I.D. aims at the classrooms, and claims, like other forms of creationism, that the evidence based science taught at present is indoctrination. But religion, when it takes on real science done with scientific method will always lose in the long run, and always has.