Is Intelligent Design Religion in the Guise of Science?

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Wouldn't a simple way to deal with this be to say, "if your theory is called intelligent design, then we will discuss intelligence and we will discuss design but we will not discuss theology"?

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Sure, let's discuss the theory.What is the positive evidence?
What are the potential falsifications?

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But what about "teaching the controversy"? Shouldn't we?

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Should we "teach the controversy" regarding if the Holocaust happened?

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So here is the problem that I see: This systematic suppression of ID is nothing less than coercion. But if you think not, then I am curious to hear why it is you and so many others feel threatened by it. Why does ID threaten?

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ID in science classrooms threatens in the same way Holocaust denial in history classrooms threatens.

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If there is no God, only matter, then let's make up our own story of where we came from avoiding God having anything to do with it.

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Can you please quote from Origin of Species or any other scholarly Biology paper that expresses the above?

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...unproven evolutionary assumptions accepted as fact are not good enough for everyone.

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Do you accept DNA paternity testing as accurate?

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Long laborious meticulous and empirical it may have been but he still only observed natural selection and variation within kinds

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What method or system can I use to determine what "kind" something is?Can I use DNA?

So, what are the testable predictions of ID and how have they been tested?What are the potential falsifications of ID?What discoveries about natural phenomena has ID theory contributed, and what further research has been proposed?

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What exactly is your point? Humans are related to humans -that hardly proves evolution in the macro sense. It is a scientific fact that humans reproduce and make other humans - and they pass on their DNA, mutations and all.

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Evolutionary Biologists and Population Geneticists use exactly the same theories and processes as are used in DNA paternity tests to determine relatedness between species.DNA tests show that humans are related to non-humans. Edited by nator, : No reason given.

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If they can reproduce that would make them the same kind though one human may not become pregnant by a specific other human but you nonetheless know they are the same kind.

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So, does that mean that my housecats and Siberian Tigers are not the same kind?Does that mean that robins and crows are not the same kind?What about species that reproduce assexually, like worms and bacteria?If classifications of "kind" is so obvious, then why isn't there a list published somewhere that everybody pretty much agrees with like there is for the gentic and morphological trees of life?

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DNA is a bit problematic because we share 50% of our DNA with bananas which taken strictly would mean we are half banana or bananas are half human but luckily we can tell the difference.

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Really? I was not aware that a complete banana genome had been decoded. Can you link to a source to this information?Edited by nator, : No reason given.

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Well can you, with human intervention, cross them? Lets face it, their disparate sizes size will be the limiting factor in the wild.

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Well again, do the experiment.

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I am asking you to answer the questions I've asked.Why won't you?

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How do you identify these things?

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Er, there are bacteria (and many plants and fungi) that don't require two parents combining half their DNA to produce offspring. Only one parent is needed. There is no "breeding", in other words, with other individuals.What about them?

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Are worms worms and are bacteria recognizable entities?

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I don't know. What would you say makes a bacteria a bacteria, according to the 'kinds' model?

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Genetic and morphological trees of life are human constructs -there are different ways of interpreting them depending on your preconceptions.

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So, does this mean you don't consider DNA paternity testing to be accurate?If you don't accept the genetic tree of life, then you must logically also reject DNA paternity testing, or the use of DNA in criminal forensics, since the technology and interpreative techniques are identical.

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If you believe in evolution from a common ancestor, you make trees of life according to your philosophical beliefs -you assume they are related according to features like backbones but embryologically they often develop differently meaning they are not related or they would be developing the same way.

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Bullshit.Do you think that DNA paternity tests work like this? Do you think that people's philosophical beliefs determine how they analyse tests like this: How does that work, exactly?And anyway, if classification of "kinds" is so obvious, then why isn't there a published map or tree or ladder or whatever of "kinds" somewhere? Where are the definitions or methods used to determine on kind from another?How, in other words, is the term helpful in understanding how nature works?

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Sorry, read it some time ago - maybe you can source the information.

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Maybe you can do your own research to support your own claims or don't make them.Edited by nator, : No reason given.

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Yes. teach that too -very important when the truth becomes distorted according to someone's agenda. History tends to repeat itself if we live in ignorance of what mankind is capable of or try to pretend that something didn't happen that did.

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So, we should teach, in history class, that the Holocaust never happened, as if it is a valid interpretation of the historical data?Seriously?Also, I'd appreciate a reply to the questions I asked in Message #106Edited by nator, : No reason given.

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How so?
The holocaust is a well documented fact of history

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...and yet, there is a small but passionate and vocal group of people who disagree with the mainstream academic interpretation of the evidence of the Holocaust and think that keeping their view of what happened out of history classrooms is unfair. They claim persecution and blackballing by the academic community, have their own conferences and journals, and are otherwise extremely similar to the Creationists in attitude and intent.If we allow Creationists to put religious, nonscientific pseudoscience in the science curricula, why shouldn't we also allow any and all pseudoscholarly crackpot fringe ideas that people want to be taught in any subject?

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and the enormous possibility that God played a massive part in human history is also worth knowing about.

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What part did God play in which events? How do you know?Look, public schools should teach mainstream scholarly history in history class, and mainstream scholarly science in science class, and mainstream scholarly grammar and composition in English class.

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If it's rubbish then don't worry about it having an effect -

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That's crap. Rubbish can and does often have an effect.Why do you think that people believe that if they kill themselves in a suicide bombing, they will go directly to heaven and enjoy many virgins? Rubbish, to be sure, wouldn't you say?

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if it's true then everyone needs to know that there is a controversy and that we didn't necessarily evolve from pond scum by pure accident.

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There isn't a scientific controversy.Again, yours is a unscientific view that is just as dangerous in science classrooms as the unsupported view that the Holocaust never happened is to the history classroom.In other words, we shouldn't teach as science or history that which is not supported by the facts.If you believe your view is scientifically supported by the facts of nature, then you need to present the scientific model that explains the facts of nature.Until you do that, why should we include your unscientific view in a science classroom?

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Compare and contrast instead of indoctrinating into one viewpoint and insisting that it is truth if there's a good chance that it is not.

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So, are you saying that the idea that the Holocaust didn't really happen like the maintream historians all think it did should be presented as an equally valid viewpoint?How about the idea that aliens built the pyramids?

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Not really.

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Yes really.

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apparently we are also related to bugs and bacteria and so many things -but is that really what the results show or is it a wishful interpretation based on a presumptive worldview. Was the 'evidence' forced to fit the initial belief system?

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Do you believe that people can "interpret" DNA paternity tests to fit their preconceptions?For example, how might someone do that with the following test?:

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Well label your photo and lets see what other possibilities can be derived from the pure facts.

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How about you explain to me how that photo can be "interpreted" to reflect somone's preconceptions?Either the DNA markers match or they don't, right?Do you accept that DNA paternity tests are accurate?