the President's support of "intelligent design."

[Kurgan]

Good use of the "code" feature.

[riceplant]

Is it really that bad over there? I went to a Catholic primary school actually called 'St. Marys', and we were still taught science. Sure, we had religious assemblies and the like, but it never interfered with our lessons. It's been a few years now, but I think we were taught about other religions as well. And Americans don't even have this at secondary school level?!

[El Sitherino]

We already learn about religion here in social classes. The thing is people are wanting ID to be taught in science class alongside evolution.

[Kurgan]

I'm beginning to wonder if this isn't just a case of a few schools who have "problems with evolution" and created these media incidents. Intelligent Design, like Creationism is a philosophical idea, not a scientific theory, it belongs in a study of religion, not science (unless it is filed under "unproven or discredited ideas"... I mean old theories like the steady state theory, the geocentric theory and spontaneous generation were mentioned in my science classes in Jr./high school, to show the progression of thought).

[Samuel Dravis]

My take on it is that ID is not science and should not be taught alongside 'real' science. It should be in whatever religion classes you might have. ID is quite simply just an opinion, and you could take the same 'evidence' (ok I'll stop using quotes now ) and just say that the reason things are the way they are is because we wouldn't be around to talk about them if they weren't. This is rather dissatisfying answer, but it does fulfill the same role.

[SkinWalker]

I could not suppress the urge to share with you all the following blog entry at Panda's Thumb, which effectively satirizes the President's position regarding the pseudoscience of 'intelligent' design.

 

I am pleased that President Bush and my own Senator Rick Santorum have voiced their support for the teaching of “intelligent design” as an alternative to evolution in our public schools. This is because I, myself, have an alternative explanation to a scientific “theory” that I believe should also be considered for inclusion in the public school curriculum.

 

It has been apparent to me for some time that the sun revolves around the earth and not, as many scientists contend, the other way around. We can observe the sun circling around us in the sky everyday, yet the scientists stubbornly contend that this is because the earth is spinning as it orbits the sun. Surely, if the earth were spinning so rapidly we would be able to detect its motion. Yet I can stand perfectly still and I cannot detect any motion whatsoever.

 

Every scientist I’ve talked with about my explanation disputes my contention, and talk about how their “theory” of planetary motion successfully predicts or explains numerous phenomena (the turn of the seasons, space flight, eclipses, and blah blah blah); however, I believe it is critically important that both sides of this argument be heard in our public schools. The education of our children deserves no less.

 

I soon plan to write to President Bush and Senator Santorum to seek their support for my alternative explanation to the ”theory” of planetary motion. Given their track record of supporting alternatives to teaching science in our public schools, I am quite hopeful that my views will be favorably received.

 

Several of us in the Senate Chambers recently engaged in a short debate on Evolution vs. Creation elsewhere on the internet. That discussion was cut short, but should any proponents of either Bush or "intelligent" design wish to debate the merits of one or both, I'm willing. Indeed, I feel confident that I can effectively refute any argument that a proponet of creation/intelligent design might have. The latter is a pseudoscience based on a the former, which is myth. The science is clear and testable.

 

But beyond the merits of creationism, the President's support of it's presentation in science classrooms is deeply troubling. I would not be surprised if even the most staunch Bush supporters chose not to side with his position on this. I've even noted several conservative blogs that have been critical of it.

 

A war gone bad; treasonous acts of one of his top aids and closest friends; the appointment of a UN Ambassador that was booed his first day on the job; the exposure of lie after lie from his office; and the worst popularity poll results since Sept. 11, 2001... what's a lame duck President to do? Was he attempting to appeal to the religiously inclined in this nation or was he simply speaking without thinking?

 

Okay, the latter is probably a given regardless. But I think there is still a considerable desire of his to appeal to the religious conservatives and the Wedge Strategy is a very real push of theirs.

[edlib]

Actually, Santorum is against teaching ID in schools.Story here.

I only noted it because it's the very first thing that I have ever agreed with him on, although his reasons are different than mine.

 

I enjoyed this editorial about it as well. A couple of very good points, especially the bit about how the correct answers on every test will become "Because it is God's will."

[toms]

Another takeoff of intelligent design here, with this guy's equally provable Flying Spaggetti Monster Theory

http://www.venganza.org/

 

Bush's science adviser, John Marburger, was quoted in The New York Times this week as saying intelligent design was not a scientific concept, and that Bush's remarks should be interpreted to mean he thinks the concept should be taught as part of the "social context" in science classes.

 

So, even the bush side aren't willing to say ID is rea science, but they think it should be taucht anyway? Well, when 2/3rds of the US population think it should be taught alongside evolution its hardly surprising that politicians are gonna try and appeal to them.

[riceplant]

I'm sort of an agnostic leaning towards atheism, so I am probably biased, but I find it hard to believe that anyone outside of the clergy and Religious zealots/fanatics take the book of Genesis as anything more literal than a metaphor. 2/3rds of the US population? Mankind is doomed.

[edlib]

Well, it's funny... back when I used to attend church semi-regularly, I remember all kinds of Bible studies and discussion groups on decoding the symbolism of the prophesies, especially Revelations. Nobody actually imagined that a giant, multi-headed beast was going to rise up out of the oceans, and that the people of the world were going to follow it unquestioningly. There were many long discussions on what all the various symbols really meant, and how to interpret them. Even passages of the Bible that seemed pretty straightforward were dissected this way for clues to prophetic truth.

 

Only Genesis was unique. This was interpreted as literal truth, with no symbolism encoded. No questions were to be asked.

 

This always struck me as odd. If the last chapters of the Bible can be filled with symbols with other (sometimes many other) meanings, why can't the first chapters also be such?

 

After all, what is the purpose of the Bible? Is it meant to be an in depth, encyclopedic reference to everything that humans will ever need to know about the culinary arts, science, architecture, history, and politics? Or, is it meant to be a guidebook on how humans are supposed to relate to each other and their deity, with enlightening examples and stories?

 

I tend to lean towards the latter, thinking that if God really did reveal the text of the Bible, then it really couldn't have served His purposes to spend the first 40 chapters going over the minute details of the big-bang, and the intricacies of natural selection and genetic mutations in ways that would make Stephen Hawking's head swim, just to get to the good part about being nice to one another.

 

Besides, think about the way the early chapters of the Pentateuch were supposed to have been written: With God revealing all to Moses on Sinai, and him later setting all down. Now think about it: Moses was hardly a man of science, even such as it was back in ancient Egypt. He was probably well educated for the day, but I doubt that he could have kept up on a discussion of universal expansion and cooling, baryons, and trilobites for long before getting lost and starting to glaze over. So when it came time to set it down on paper, he took what he remembered, and what little of that he actually understood, applied some judicious editing, and came up with: "In the Beginning..."

 

It still strikes me as odd that any religious person would choose to interpret it literally. Why cling to that one particular book as totally non-symbolic? What exactly does it have to do with salvation if man wasn't created in exactly that manner? Why must there have been an actual, physical Adam and Eve for the rest of the writings to have any value?

[toms]

It does seem to be a new, or at least growing, phenomemon that more and more people seem to be taking the bible literally.

 

There is no legal "seperation of church and state" as such in the UK, and there are loads of Faith Schools (mainly catholic). A lot of the other non-faith schools have Church of England elements in morning assemblys. But as far as i know it never even occurs to these schools (catholic, CofE, whatever) NOT to teach evolution and to talk up Creationism.. as it seems to in the US. The religious elements are kept seperate and taught in the religious studies classes, the science is taught in science classes.

 

I went to sunday school, my mother was a church warden, we knew our vicar fairly well, never, at any point, did any of them imply that every bit of the bible was to be taken literally, and that evolution was wrong. It was always treated as an alegory, never as fact. To be honest i'm having a very hard time understading how anyone COULD think it was fact... religious or otherwise. So much of the bible is obviously about demonstrating ideas through soties (the parables for example) that it always seemed logical that genesis was too. Even to the priests, sunday school teachers and (i think) the last pope.

 

Do you think 2/3rd of the US has always felt this way, but only with the election of someone like bush they have had the courage to come out of the closet? Or do you think it is a new and growing phenomenon of literal christian fundamentalists now outnumbering the moderates (as a lot of the moderates have lapsed)?

[edlib]

Well, America has always been about going to the far extremes. Moderates have always been somewhat frowned upon as wishy-washy, which is a fate even worse than clinging to the totally wrong belief, in many people's view. In this case, people tend to grab onto one side of the debate and just hold on for dear life.

 

Fundamentalism is growing, not only here, but around the whole world. Partly, I think it's a reaction to a culture that is changing faster than the human mind was meant to cope with. Late in the last century the world was forced to come to grips with all the technologies that effectively erased all the old tribal and national boundaries we had all gotten so comfortable with, and forced people who had never had any contact with the outside world to accept any number of different cultures, ideas, and schools of thought that they may never imagined existed.

 

I think a lot of people weren't mentally ready for this, and closed up their minds instead, and adopted a highly literalistic view of the "old ways" that simply couldn't be corrupted by all this new stuff being thrown at them all at once. In that way, at least subconsciously anyway, they believe that they can keep their tribal heritage pure.

[riceplant]

That's a good point, but does it apply to America? America doesn't have a history, at least not much of one, definitly not a tribal history. By the way, I like your theory about God telling Moses about creation how it really happened, and Moses, not understanding it, simplifys it to the Book of Genesis. I think some scientists have divided the history of the planet into 7 phases, or 'days', before, but I suck at finding sources to quote. This seperation would obviously lend credence to Christianity and Judaism, if scientific 'support' were to be found for Genesis.

[edlib]

Well, tribal culture has been expanded into regional and nationalistic tendancies. Any group with a common culture and belief code can adopt the tribal mindset. That's all I meant by that. For example, if you don't think Texans can see themselves as a type of tribe, then think again.

Christians can see themselves as a tribe. So can Republicans or Democrats.

 

I was actually thinking about folks from small-town rural southern and Mid-Western America, for whom life hasn't changed much in the last couple of hundred years, (mostly revolving around family, farming, and religion,) suddenly besieged with big-city and foriegn cultures coming at them from thier radios, TV, movies, and internet, shattering thier long held and largely unquestioned beliefs.

Just like the desert Arabs reacted when they found the rest of the world on thier doorstep with radically different ideas on cultural matters, they folded back into Fundamentalism rather than seek to embrace the alternate cultures they were now suddenly exposed to.

 

As to the 2nd part of your post:

I once fell asleep on the couch watching a program on Genesis, and awoke a couple of hours later watching a show about the big-bang. I was shocked at the similarities between them. If you replace "days" with "eras" and "Earth" with "Universe," then Genesis is actually a really good 1 paragraph shorthand synopsis of the early history of the universe... at least in the basic order of events. So I guess I can totally see that theory.

[SkinWalker]

For those interested in signing a petition, click here: http://ga1.org/campaign/intelligentdesign

 

After signing the petition, users are sent to CSICOP's creation and intelligent design watch page.

[CloseTheBlastDo]

Heh - gotta feel sorry for you Americans sometimes

...donno if any of you have seen this, but made me chuckle

 

http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4133&n=2

[CapNColostomy]

Oh my.

[lukeiamyourdad]

Why is there a J-List ad there?

 

It's just...weird...

[swphreak]

http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4133&n=2

 

I'm... speechless...

 

As for teaching ID in schools... why bother? They can teach that stuff in church.

 

Edit: Yeah I know about the Onion... I'm just speechless at the thought

[CloseTheBlastDo]

I hope you guys all realise that it's a parody - right?! (If you do, I apologise, but some of the replies gave me the impression you guys think it's a 'real' article...!)

 

Damn good one though

[SkinWalker]

Let's not forget that The Onion is satyrical work, albeit an often funny and relative one as we can see here.

 

Still, I'm forced to backpeddal a bit and give the President a little credit. It would appear that I accepted the media accounts of his statements out of context and made some assumption about his position.

 

Bush’s science adviser, John H. Marburger 3rd, said in a telephone interview with the New York Times that “evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology” and “intelligent design is not a scientific concept.” He added that the president’s comments should be interpreted to mean that ID be discussed not as science but as part of the “social context” in science classes, and that it would be “over-interpreting” Bush’s remarks to conclude that the president believes that ID and the theory of evolution should be given equal treatment in public school science courses (Bumiller, 8/3/05).

 

Some would conclude that the Marburger is "down-playing" the President's remarks, but I can see how Bush's statement that "intelligent design" should be discussed so that students are at least aware of it and why it is flawed were misunderstood. Certainly the "IDers" exaggerated the remarks as did the liberals in government and media who were critical.

 

Bush is still a dummy, though.

 

Reference:

 

Bumiller, Elizabeth (8/3/05). Bush Remarks Roil Debate Over Teaching of Evolution. New York Times, National Desk Section

[TK-8252]

But teachers already do that. They already say that some people believe in creation, but evolution is the most accepted theory among scientists. We get taught all about religion in history class. If that's all "intelligent design" would be, then we already teach it.

[toms]

His scientific advisors have been saying for weeks that he didn't know what he was talking about. I guess the question is whether you think

(a) He gave a reasonable answer but was misquoted out of context.

(b) He gave a dumb answer without thinking and has since backpedalled after finding out it was unsustainable.

© He calculatingly gave an answer that he knew would go down well with most of middle america, and then used his advisors to give a small disclaimer that he knew wouldn't get as much coverage or be noticed by much of middle america.

 

I'd go with B.

[CloseTheBlastDo]

I also go with B.

 

Sounds like this was a bit of an 'off-the-cuff' statement he made at a 'wide-ranging Q/A session' (according to the original article this thread is based on) - so he was probably told afterwards 'Hmmm - you may have to take that back ya know'

[edlib]

Based on his history, I think I would have to choose "C"...

 

But I can be a cynical bastard even at the best of times...