Fabulous. As a West Virginian, I am all in favor of dumbing down my northern neighbors:
Experts on both sides of the debate over whether public schools should teach “intelligent design” as an alternative to evolution _ a question already before a federal court _ sparred in front of a state legislative panel.
The House Subcommittee on Basic Education heard testimony Monday on a bill that would allow local school boards to mandate that science lessons include intelligent design, a concept that holds the universe must have been created by an unspecified guiding force because it is so complex.
The legislation is sponsored by only a dozen lawmakers, and its prospects of passing the General Assembly are unclear as lawmakers try to meet a June 30 state budget deadline.
But a federal judge will consider the issue this fall, when a lawsuit against the Dover Area School District is scheduled to go to trial. The suit alleges that the school board violated the constitutional separation of church and state when it voted in October to require ninth-grade students to hear about intelligent design during biology class.
Michael J. Behe, a biological sciences professor at Lehigh University, told the subcommittee that intelligent design has no religious underpinnings. Critics argue that it is a variation of creationism, the biblical-based view that regards God as the creator of life.
Behe then testified that math has nothing to do with numbers, up is down, and the sky is green.
I guess I shouldn’t complain- we will take whatever competitive edge West Virginia can get.
JG
I don’t care if its religious or not, it ain’t science. I guess the teacher could give the appearance by wearing a lab coat and firing up a Bunsen burner but its stil not science and doesn’t belong in a science class.
Mike S
The rest of the world is cheering this too. The dumber American kids are the better the job prospects will be over seas.
Fargus
I wish I’d known that jackass was at Lehigh while I was there for grad school. I’da given him what for.
p.lukasiak
I’m all for teaching “intelligent design” … as long as they include space aliens as the basis for it.
glennk
It’s obvious that so called “intelligent design” had nothing to do with creation because what kind of intelligence would create idiots like the millions that voted for Bu$hCo? No, it’s more like “negligent design.”
John_Wayne
Ah, the great irony of google ads.
Running alongside this discussion:
Creationism
Did God Create in 6 Days?
Consider literal and non-literal views.
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Intelligent Design by God
Is intelligent design behind man & creation?
Order free book today.
http://www.gnmagazine.org/whoisgod/?S=2
Evolution vs. Creation
Where Did the Universe Come From?
New Angle on a Tired Old Debate
Evolution.CelestialMechanic.com
Proof of Creationism
Science authenticating Bible detail
Live chat and discussion boards.
proofofcreationism.com
I particularly love the ‘new angle
on tired old debate’ tagline.
These creationists are going to
ruin contemporary conservatism,
just when you think liberalism is
on the rocks… the American Taliban
leaps up to the rescue and scares
regular folks back to voting for the
mush in the middle.
KC
I vote with p.lukasiak, except aliens is too general, it’s really the xenomorphs from Utahpe who created us. Isn’t it obvious?
jerry
another john cole whine…. how boring john. this is YOUR rethuglican party. you are responsible for it. own it.
Aaron
GlennK,
Showing your elitist roots again, are we? God forbid if voters prefer Bush to Kerry. They must be idiots.
In fact, even as bad as Bush is, I can envision Kerry doing worse. And all those intelligently designed democrats voted for this guy in the primaries.
As empirical evidence, I hold up both candidates academic records as proof that the choice was about the same in terms of intelligence.
Webster Hubble Telescope
I believe in Intelligent Design. This is premised on “The Intelligent Designer” evolving through the ranks of all previous intelligent designers.
ARROW
“The rest of the world is cheering this too. The dumber American kids are the better the job prospects will be over seas.”
Help me with this comment. Assuming intelligent design is really a faith-based answer and the “truth” really is described by the theory of evolution, what job uses such knowledge to assure success?
This whole issue/argument is much ado about nothing. So much conviction on both sides, so much passion. To what end?
BumperStickerist
I read Behe’s book during Sunday School, during those Sundays when I wasn’t teaching, but rather sitting around with a cup of coffee waiting for my kids to finish so we could go home, change, and sacrifice small woodland creatures to the other deities we worship. We are orthodox practioners of ‘Hedging your bets’
Anyway, Behe’s book was entertaining but utterly unconvincing … a fact that I expressed to the pastor … basically, he’s left with ‘this is so darn complex that it’s too complex to have just happened by accident. Which may or not be true.
Just not provable, and if it were provable would have absolutely no utility beyond “Hey, all this shit was designed by some entity” … which has a very, very, very limited use, if any, in terms of science.
Intelligent design is to science what “Home Cooking” is to restaurant advertising. It’s descritptive, but doesn’t tell you anything. My mom was a lousy cook.
Randolph Fritz
“Intelligent design”, as a hypothesis, can’t be tested, which puts it outside of science, however much we may wish otherwise. Problem is, we can’t tell that there’s design–this isn’t always obvious, think of crystals–and we don’t know what intelligence is, anyway, so we don’t know it can do that’s special. Doesn’t belong in the science texts, think I.
Tim F
Behe’s book is worse than unconvincing. On the one hand it’s an intellectual train wreck, which the undergraduate me refuted pretty easily. On the other hand Behe lets fly with lines like this:
The result is so unambiguous and so significant that it must be ranked as one of the greatest achievements in the history of science. The discovery rivals those of Newton and Einstein, Lavoisier and Schr
Clever
‘”Intelligent design”, as a hypothesis, can’t be tested, which puts it outside of science, however much we may wish otherwise.’
Hypotheses outside of science? Hmmm.
I do agree with your ending statement though. But your argument makes my brain hurt. Kinda like people calling ‘Intellgent Design’ science.
I do think it shows bad on the religious entities pushing it that they have to validate God with science. Belief in God has always been about faith. And thats the way it should stay.
“There’s somebody somewhere doin this” is not a scientific argument, so science is not going to be the one to answer it.
Tim F
BTW, if J. Wayne is a Republican and he’s using ‘American Taliban’ then there’s hope yet for that benighted party. All he has to do now is repudiate his party leadership and most of its representatives.
Marc Lawrence
When Beelzebub is in the Sixth House
And Jupiter slams into Mars
Then war will guide the planets
And rancor will steer the stars
This is the dawning of the Age of Republican Taliban!
The Age of Republican Taliban!
Republican Taliban! Taliban!
Acrimony and chauvinism
Antipathy and lies abounding
Nothing but falsehoods and derisions
Morbid living nightmarish visions
Mystic murky calumniation
And the mind’s complete incarceration!
Republican Taliban! Taliban!
When Beelzebub is in the Sixth House
And Jupiter collides with Mars
Then war will guide the planets
And rancor will steer the stars
This is the dawning of the Age of Republican Taliban!
Republican Taliban! Taliban!
They refuse to let the sun shine,
Let the sun shine in,
The sun shine in!
They refuse to let the sun shine,
Let the sun shine in,
The sun shine in!
They refuse to let the sun shine,
Let the sun shine in,
The sun shine in!
They refuse to let the sun shine,
Let the sun shine in,
The sun shine in!
They refuse to let the sun shine,
Let the sun shine in,
The sun shine in!
They refuse to let the sun shine,
Let the sun shine in,
The sun shine in!
They refuse to let the sun shine,
Let the sun shine in,
The sun shine in!
They refuse to let the sun shine,
Let the sun shine in,
The sun shine in!
They refuse to let the sun shine,
Let the sun shine in,
The sun shine in!
They refuse to let the sun shine,
Let the sun shine in,
The sun shine in!
They refuse to let the sun shine,
Let the sun shine in.
The sun shine in!
Rick
John,
Get the hook.
Cordially…
Mr.Ortiz
This whole issue/argument is much ado about nothing. So much conviction on both sides, so much passion. To what end?
You know what? I’ve never looked at it that way before, and you’re probably right, but not for the reasons you think. First of all, you’re right that the particulars of evolution don’t hold any day-to-day importance for anyone other than evolutionary biologists, but it’s the lack of respect for science that we get riled up about. Divine Design (let’s call it what it is) teaches kids that whatever they can come up with in a pot-fueled haze in their basement stands up against theories that have been peer reviewed and experientially validated. May as well teach kids about the magic of healing crystals.
But back to why you’re right. Divine Design will fail for the same reason that the war on drugs has. By equating pot with heroin, “drug education” has lost all credibility with kids because everyone knows someone who smokes and is a functional member of society, like a best friend who gets good grades, or a parent who runs a successful business. Any kid with an ounce of curiosity (that is, those most likely to go into science jobs) will eventually come across a thorough refutation of Divine Design on the Internet. At that point, everything they ever learned in high school and below will be called into question. Maybe kids will start to understand the importance of higher education. Maybe they’ll take their education into their own hands and start reading books (gasp!) on subjects that interest them. Maybe that’s too rosy a picture, but I’m a big believer in the law of unintended consequences.
By the way, because it figured so prominently in my argument, I’d like to point out that I’m not a pothead myself, but I have known both kinds: those who use it as a crutch to avoid reality, and those who use it as a cheap way to enjoy their considerable wealth.
ppgaz
Intelligent Design is such a brilliant and artful scheme of manipulation, it could only have been created by an intelligent superior force. There is no other explanation for it.
Faith is adherence to belief in the absence of proof.
Science is mostly systematic discovery of information, unrestrained by belief.
Faith can be challenged by science. Abusers of faith — those who are bent on turning it into an appliance for the maintenance of influence or power — are afraid of science. Afraid of any systematic and rational process, really, which is why they fear courts, and man-made laws. It is much more difficult to emotionally manipulate in an atmosphere of science and secular law. It is easier in an atmosphere of doubt, uncertainty, and ambiguity.
Wise scientists, back in the good old days when people argued about “Is God dead?” and things like that, said that science represented no real threat to the idea of God’s existence, since his existence could be neither proved, nor disproved, with science.
What science threatens is the power of other people to tell you what God’s existence is, or is not, or means. I’m relatively sure that God himself is not amused by their bullshit.
SnarkyShark
I used to be republican. Crazy ass creationist and domionist are one of the main reasons why I left.
Republicans better reform their party quick, otherwise these loons will be hung around your neck forever.
We aint going the theocracy route. Not now, not ever.
Were haveing a re-hash of the scopes monkey trial for godsakes.
We should already have a base on the moon, and be looking toward the stars. You moderates in the Republican party better get busy.
And yes, I am now a reform Democrat, and we are reforming our party.
You heard any crap about the 2nd amendment lately?
Didn’t think so.
caleb
Oh….and the answer to the question of Intellegent Design…….42.
Jody Tresidder
“so he goes Lysenko with the American Taliban.”
Bloody hell, wish I’d thought of that line, Tim F….brilliant.
Intend to casually employ it for non-commercial use myself, if that’s okay?
metalgrid
What truely saddens me is that more and more scientific breakthroughs and their implementation – be they technology or biology related are increasingly coming from outside the US. It’s not enough that we’ve dumbed down our population, but we have created so many entryway barriers to new technology, that it is easier to implement these technologies elsewhere rather than in the US.
I can’t wait for when the genome project and it’s successors are stripped of funding in the US because it threatens the belief that god created man in a mysterious way.
Stormy70
The government should not be funding most of the crap it funds now. National Defense is the Federal Government’s primary purpose. Private money should be providing the primary funding for any technological or medical research. I’m not against certain stem cell research, but the government should not be funding it.
Tim F
Jody, NP. Glad to be of service.
‘Ricky,’ I have the book. Read it three times. Refuted the obvious logical fallacies out of my own head and had to turn to the literature to answer the stuff the undergraduate me hadn’t gotten to yet.
In his glib sort of way I take it that ‘Rick’ is a creationist. That burning smell would be his credibility.
ppgaz
Uh, Stormy? NIH, which I think is the principal venue for medical research access to Federal dollars, has about a $25-30b budget. Tens of billions of dollars to support medical R&D.
Let’s see .. are we suggesting that (a) funding should be channeled only to research that is acceptable on religious grounds? Whose religion gets to make those decisions? Which elected officials, having been chosen according to a religious test which is proscribed by the Constitution, should be in charge of that sort of thing? Is the government the authority on how to resolve variances between faith-based and science-based imperatives? Don’t answer, these are rhetorical questions.
And (b) …. assuming that we don’t want the US to become even more of a Third World country in terms of its attitudes toward science …. you know, what with science being scary and a threat to faith-based government, and probably a threat to the Defense of Marriage act, and everything … and Darwinists who hate Jesus and only want to persecute Christians, and all … where will the replacement funding come from?
How about little plastic cups at McDonalds’ counters, like the ones they use now to collect spare change to Feed the Children? “Please give for medical research?” Is that what you have in mind?
Your comprehensive treatise on the whole subject of medical research funding, especially in an era of science-bashing, is eagerly awaited!!
metalgrid
Stormy,
I’m not disagreeing with you in that regard. But these are also the statements that get me pissed off at the LP because they try to play the zero sum game without working incrementally in a pragmatic manner. The government is in the business of funding non-military stuff, so the pragmatic question you should be asking yourself is what stuff it should be funding. However much you wish and state otherwise, the fed is not going to give up its considerable power of funding – you can crawl into your hole and keep repeating what you just said over and over and not get anywhere, or you can at least try and do the most feasible thing and get government to spend it in useful ventures.
Europe and East Asia are already outstripping us in the wireless technology front. India and Europe are beginning to outstrip us in the biology front. Meanwhile we’re spending money (which according to you we shouldn’t be spending), on worthless endeavors that will not put us ahead in the world. Unfortunately, there is no big market out there for theological belief, or else africa and the middle east would be leading the world with us slowly creeping up from behind.
Tim F
Put this another way. I sit on some committees involved in recruiting students for grad school. If this ID bullshit goes on then I’m going to have to keep a list of the worst districts in order to weight students’ applications properly. Given two equally-qualified students there’s no question that I will pick the one who I won’t have to spend the time untraining the cerationist nonsense that their school system forced them to read.
I’m not alone. Unless Horowitz succeeds in his nutty Cultural Revolution ID-trained students will have a harder time competing for college and grad school slots.
ppgaz
Stormy, the ideas just keep coming ….
How about we let the sick people pay for the medical research? I mean, it’s their problem. And the poor, too … since they don’t take care of themselves and get proper care when they should, I think they should pay more of the cost, too.
Well, part of my idea is already in place. By having big rich pharmaceutical and HMO companies soak us for high prescription revenues, to fund that expensive research that they remind us about every night in expensive tv ads …. the sick and the old are already being taxed through non-public channels. It’s kind of like Privatized Medical Research tax, without all the hassle of government collecting the tax! And it’s self-supporting, since a large part of those revenues flow into lobbying in DC to keep the lawmakers beholden to the corporate interests, and keep the public bamboozled …. it’s a great scheme. Just jack up the drug prices! Then the medical labs will have all the money they need. Get the US out of the ER! Catchy slogan.
Why should healthy Republicans, who, thanks to cushy health insurance plans that we pay for through higher prices on products and services, have to bear all the burden here, when they are the healthiest and should reap the rewards?
Screw the people who can’t afford health insurace and get good care. Screw the old people who didn’t have enough sense to supplement their Social Security benefits by buying stock in Enron …. oops, I mean, Halliburton …. let THEM cough up (pun intended) the money for medical research!
And if stem cell research is against God’s law, we can outsource that to Mexico where people aren’t as finicky about the religious aspects of these things. We can round up all the illegals that come over here to earn money to support their families back in Mexico, and put them to work in medical labs in Juarez!
If we just put on our thinking caps, we can just have it all! Approval by God, more revenue for BigPharma, fewer Mariscos shacks in Texas and Arizona ….. just call me the Paul Wolfowitz of medical research funding. Sure, my ideas are radical, but they make sense. Don’t they?
Call it NeoCon public health policy. Hell, their ideas are working in Iraq. Why not apply their brainpower to other big problems?
metalgrid
ppgaz,
Ok I don’t mean to derail this thread too much, but you guys did screw it all up first. You put all this power into federal hands so that if some guy in the administration doesn’t like a particular branch of research or a particular person doing that research, they can basically cut off their funding and end their careers – no matter how brilliant and result oriented the scientist(s) are. I really hate the democrat political establishment for creating the mechanism for this which the republicans have so efficiently hijacked. Couldn’t leave it to the states to run their own research programs could you?
As for the medical establishment, well, that’s the special interests fault. What should have proceeded as a dissmination of medical knowledge and cheaper medical costs has instead been consolidated to a precious few with schools limiting their graduates in order to keep a monopoly on the production of doctors and driving up medical costs. Considering over 90% of doctor visits by patients don’t require a doctor and can be treated by nurses or even second year medical students, the politicization has instead caused these people to still need to go to doctors for treatments and prescriptions – all held together by lobbyists and expanded government power.
You socialists have been had. All that your good intentions have done is make it even harder for people to afford medical care, make it harder for companies to conduct research, and waste tax dollars in government redistribution where more money disappears into waste and inefficiency and lining political pockets than into actual programs. Socialism, meet the law of unintended consequences – your persistent, unyielding nemesis.
Tim F
I’m curious, whose careers has the NIH or NSF ended unjustly? I can give you pages of criticism of the way that the government funding agencies support research, and pages of response explaining why each problem is really a trade-off. Most comforts of modern society, from highways to computers to railroads to airlines to the internet, wouldn’t exist without support at the federal level. I know private research and I can tell you that it wouldn’t go nowhere without federal partnerships.
Medical care in ‘socialized’ countries is better by every possible measure, except in Britian where the system is a complete clusterfuck. We spend more and get less, and the rumor that we get better elective surgery is a myth. Our infant mortality rate is a disgrace. Medical access for most patients is vastly better.
Point being, most of metal’s ‘facts’ are wrong. Not that I expect to have any impact, being a member of the nebulous evil socialist cabal responsible for everything that is wrong with society and all. Just saying.
metalgrid
Tim,
Just do a search on the number of people who have been removed from the NIH and CDC over the past years and compare grants given out to universities and other research organizations by the NIH over the past 16 years. Then call up some of those researchers and talk to them. I spent many years in medical research, I know the political hoops we had to jump through to get funding each time someone at the higher level was shuffled due to political pressure.
Also you completely missed my point about the medical care industry and their doctor monopoly on patient care.
You can keep repeating how wrong I am, and just like the right noise machine, repeating it incessantly doesn’t make it so.
ppgaz
Metal, the only thing you left out from your boilerplate screed is (a) Liberals caused the flu vaccine shortage last year (it’s out there, I kid you not) and (b) Liberals are the reason for the spread of West Nile Disease.
I don’t have to say that you are just quoting the right wing noise machine. All I have to do is turn on Rush Limabugh and hear your words coming out of his mouth, and the thing is QED.
metalgrid
ppgaz,
I’m not an economist, so I’m not going to even touch point a, and I’m not stupid, so I’m not going to ally myself with point b. I don’t particularly substribe to the right wing side when it comes to politicians because they say one thing and do another. Unfortunately, it’s the same with the left. I’d much rather aim for a static state with divided government than I would go for either the left or the right at the head of the wheel on runaway government.
As for the new pet left project of socialized medicine – you know what, I’m all for giving it a try within a state. Pick one, heck, I’ll even volunteer my state of Massachusetts for that, and lay out socialized medicine there. I am willing to give it a try on a state level. If it turns bad, or gets ugly, I can pick up and move – although I am sure the medical monopolizers, err I mean doctors will be leaving the state in droves before that happens. What I am not willing to throw myself behind is implementing it at the federal level – at least not for a few more years till I cash in my retirement and head to Costa Rica. This is why the left gets my goat all the time. I like to think I have an open mind, I’m willing to go along with these experiments at a state level to see how it goes, but to do it at a federal level and leave me with no choice to move elsewhere other than out of the US, especially with the specter of unintended consequences so prevalent over government policy is a bit unfair isn’t it?
It’s not that I don’t trust your motives – I just don’t trust the government to get it right.
Kimmitt
I’m all for giving it a try within a state.
Vermont’s Dr. Dynasaur system has been in place for years and has been extremely successful; it covers everybody under 19 and over 65, which is very close to socialized.
It is a testimony to the moronic obsession with minutae of the modern media that the guy who created Vermont’s program (Gov. Howard Dean) fricking RAN FOR PRESIDENT a year ago, but few people know even the basics of his successful background as a five-and-a-half term governor.
metalgrid
Kimmitt,
This is the first time I’ve heard about it and I’ve lived and worked in Mass all my life and not even the media here has mentioned it glaringly enough for me to run across it. Why isn’t this more publicized? It can’t all be because of conservative media bias – you guys do have a heavy media presence as well.
I also don’t think Dean is a typical Democrat – he was streaks ahead of Bush and Kerry and every single other candidate in the individual liberty ratings, second only to the LP candidate.
Rick
‘Ricky,’ I have the book. Read it three times. Refuted the obvious logical fallacies out of my own head and had to turn to the literature to answer the stuff the undergraduate me hadn’t gotten to yet.
In his glib sort of way I take it that ‘Rick’ is a creationist. That burning smell would be his credibility.
Tim F,
I may regret asking (again), but WTF are you going on about? I made a 3-word (body) post, and you’re off on something about some book and undergrad triumphs and creationism and smoking-crater credibility.
Let me repeat: WTF?
Coridally…
Rick
See? You even goofed up my signature closing. I hate that!
David
I will agree with the teaching of creationism in schools, as soon as the churches agree to start teaching evolution as an alternate.