However, in a victory for the other side of the evolution debate, the Kansas School Board just passed new requirements mandating that evolution be called into question and the tenets of Intelligent Design be taught:
It seems to me that if the scientific evidence for ID is actually all that strong, it would become accepted and taught in science curriculums soon enough as it is. One never sees advocates of string theory or 'the big crunch' advocating that school boards mandate the teaching of their theories in schools. But then, few if any people have any religious/philosophical investment in whether or not those theories are true.Meanwhile in Kansas, the Board of Education has voted to make the teaching of the principles of intelligent design mandatory.
Science teachers will now be required to instruct their students that evolutionary theory is not proven, and will have to add that life is in fact so complex, it could not have arisen without the involvement of some external agent, or higher power.
Board chairman Steve Abrams told Reuters: "This is a great day for education."
The new standards approved by the Board of Education mean several specific challenges must be leveled at Darwinian theory.These include statements to the effect that the fossil record is inconsistent with evolutionary theory; that there is a lack of physical evidence to explain our genetic code, and that evolutionary explanations are "not based on direct observations...and often reflect inferences from circumstantial evidence", the BBC reports.
7 comments:
Good news for Dover. Now, if parents in Kansas can bring a similar case...
:)
Ten years ago when the Kansas folk tried to ramrod creationism, all those school board people were voted out then. It'll take another election cycle; then we'll see it.
It seems to me that if the scientific evidence for ID is actually all that strong, it would become accepted and taught in science curriculums soon enough as it is.
This is a joke. The majority of scientists today object to ID for philosophical/religious reasons, not scientific ones--i.e. because of a quasi-religious faith in materialism. The fact of the matter is that no evidence, no matter how strong, would convince most opponents of ID, just as contemporary miracles do not convince atheists.
This is a joke. The majority of scientists today object to ID for philosophical/religious reasons, not scientific ones--i.e. because of a quasi-religious faith in materialism.
Without knowing the minds of each and every scientist out there, it is of course very hard to know whether or not this is true. Certainly, past theories that were seen as a threat to an uncreated universe (Behe loves to compare ID to the Big Bang) were actually accepted very quickly, because the evidence was there and pretty hard to argue with.
The other thing I find unconvincing about the "it's the evil materialist scientists keeping ID down" line of reasoning is that it just doesn't seem to fit with the way the science community works. There are huge benefits out there for an up-and-coming scientist who can provide data to support a major change in a field of study. That's the stuff that prestigeous chairs, awards and fellowships are made of. It doesn't make sense that scientists would nearly uniformly hush up ID if they thought the evidence held up and promised further breakthroughs if followed.
Anonymous, don't make me laugh. You wish, perhaps, scientists oppose ID on philosophical grounds. And, of course, as long as you avoid actually reading some scientists' scientific objections, which you can find at www.talkreason.org, you can continue spouting nonsense.
The "scientific objections" at www.talkreason.org, like all the rest, consist pretty much of "consensus science"--i.e. "everybody who matters agrees with me, so I don't need to give any arguments."
But I do have a question for any critic of ID: do you believe that is even possible that any kind of evidence could exist that would prove ID? If so, what sort of evidence would that be? If not, then it is irrelevant to the question of whether ID should be taught, if there is no scientific evidence to support it; for if science is incapable of proving ID even if it is true, then we should not be interested in limiting ourselves to science. What matters is the truth about the world, not just a limited portion of truth selected by some arbitrary principle.
Anonymous,
I certainly think it's possible that some evidence could exist.
Didn't you see 2001? Note that the obelisk in the movie is utterly simple in design--a great argument against Behe's point of complexity.
Seriously, yes. But--as a proponent, it's Michael Behe's job to come up with what that evidence might be, isn't it, since it's his theory. Why do you make it the job of the established view to have to prove the validity of opponents.
When I first read Behe's book, I took his scientific thesis seriously. It was talking with other scientists that convinced me he was wrong. They were more persuasive.
Actually, his science as far as it goes is fine. It's the leap he makes in logic that is unpersuasive.
You cannot have even read one of Mark Perakh's pieces at talkreason if you can so glibly dismiss the whole site.
Maybe you're just afraid it will be persuasive.
Post a Comment