Have any schools tried to teach Chariots of the Gods as science, John Mace? Would they? Of course not. ID is not just junk science. It is creationism repackaged. Everyone know it is. And this judge called bullshit on it. You’re introducing a red herring by bringing up UFOs and deliberately trying to distract attention from the central issue that ID is religion disguised as junk science.
No, I’m attacking the argument that some posters are making that ID should be banned because it is junk science. I already said that if ID = creationism it should be banned. Read the quote from SaintCad that was responding to. He started by saying that even if ID was **not **creationism it should be banned. It’s not a rad herring to respond to faulty reasoning, so I’ll ask you not to disparage my motives any further.
I disagree. At best you could say ID may contain a useful critique of Evolution. That is, that evolutionary theory hasn’t answered everything and it may be that there are complexities of life that the current mechanisms decribed by evolution are fundamentally inadequit to explain. They haven’t convinced me of this (the second part I mean) but it would be a valid postion.
The thing is as a positive theory…as an explination rather than a critique, the only thing they’ve offered is goddidit. And that’s not a scientific theory.
Jones seems to be noting that you don’t need ID to criticize evolution (evolutionist do it all the time) so as a theory it’s really just religion.
Yay, Jones!
Like the judge said, ID “cannot be uncoupled” from creationism. ID is pure religion. It isn’t even junk science because it follows no scientific methodology whatsoever. It is purely a religious objection to evolution and nothing more. Irreducibile Complexity is a religious belief, not a real, observed phenomenon.
My wife had an environmental studies professor who taught Lamarckian evolution with a straight face. I was absolutely appalled. This was at a publicly-funded university; I’m pretty sure it was just sheer ignorance on his part.
But I can’t see a means to make that unconstitutional.
ID, however, is not Lamarckian evolution. It’s a backdoor to God.
If someone came up with another theory about how tentacled monstrosities designed humanity, I suppose it might qualify as junk science (especially if they established predictors–if they’re right, then we’ll find discarded tentacle husks at the bottom of the Marianas Trench). However, it wouldn’t qualify as Intelligent Design at that point: it’d be so different from the philosophy that currently bears that name as to be a different beast.
Daniel
Woo, and, indeed, t.
Now for the Sudden Emergence trial. Or, more importantly, Kansas.
My guess, based on talks 'round these here parts, the next round of school board elections will find the ID proponents in the minority and the recent decision reversed.
Ummmmm . . . I never claimed that “junk science” was religious, my point was more of academic freedom. Do I as a teacher have right to ignore a Board’s decision to add a “junk science” section to the curriculum?
No, you have left. 
But really, if the school board suddenly ordered you to teach Last Thursdayism in place of science classes, then I would cheer you on for defying them. Now, putting the risk of getting fired aside, what’s your job? Teaching kids the truth, or kow-towing to the school board?
There is no legal concept of academic freedom that allows public school teachers to ignore the curriculum requirements mandated by the school board. If a teacher ignores the required curriculum, I assume he would be fired.
Really? According this yahoo news article, there wasn’t an ID textbook, but a modification to the 9th grade Biology textbook:
Not if the required curriculum is religious.
I would disagree with the former half of this statement. While it may be used in service of the religious formulation of ID, the concept itself is, while not so much a valid critique of evolution via natural selection, a valid test of evolution via natural selection.
Or, to put that in a not-quite-so-convoluted way, it is theoretically possible that there are some traits which did not arise via step-wise, accumulated selection. If a candidate for such “irreduceable complexity” is found, then it becomes a test for the power of step-wise selection: can natural selection explain the exsitence and form of the trait, after all? If so, then NS passes the test (which it has done for every instance of alleged IC to date, that I am aware of). If it does not, then what has really been shown? That the trait in question must therefore have been designed? Not at all (and this is the mistake that IDists make when citing IC as “evidence” of a designer). There are possible biological processes which could still result in such traits - a series of simultaneous mutations, for example. Recall that current evolutionary biology only states that natural selection is the primary creative force which drives evolution, but not the only one. Such multi-mutations are not ruled out in the current theory, they are simply relegated to a very minor role in the grand scheme, and rare occurance.
Note that I am not saying, or implying, that such incidents have occurred, only that they could occur. As such, irreduceable complexity is at least theoretically possible; it is possible that several parts of a given trait can arise all at once. But that still doesn’t mean a Designer intervened and made it happen.
And, I’ve said it before, and I wil continue to say it, “inteligent design” can be stripped of its religious affiliation and constitute a viable course of study. We humans are constantly “designing” organisms, and this trend will only increase in the years to come. It may, in the future, be useful (though, admittedly, not necessarily possible) to be able to identify which organisms are “natural” vs. which ones are “man-made” (aka, “designed”). How might we identify a GMO from an “organic” organism? In this context, the search for design can be entirely scientific.
Unfortunately, the “Intelligent Design” (with capital ID) movement has tainted the very idea by imposing religion upon it. If they were truly interested in divorcing the concept from creationism, they could very easily put forth such a proposition as that above. That they do not speaks voumes about their true intent, and their version is rightly shunned.
No. The teacher could sue on the grounds that the material was religious, but that would have to be determined by the court. And if the court made that decision, then the material would be removed from the curriculum. The teacher doesn’t get to make that decision, which is what **SC **was saying.
I am very happy with this decision, but one part of it I’m not sure I like:
Bolding mine.
The bolded part seems a little broad to me, and could prevent genuine scientific criticism. If a new theory comes around, a genuinely scientific one, perhaps something like how relativity came about after Newtonian physics, might this prevent the Dover Area School District from teaching the new theory if it corrects parts of current evolutionary theory found to be inaccurate?
Does this go overboard and prevent even genuine scientific criticism? Or am I misunderstanding this statement?
Not necessarily. Note that it says “the scientific theory of evolution”, which would include any scientific advances made. It doesn’t say “the Darwinian theory of evolution”. If it said that, I’d be very concerned. But I see your point, and that is a bit troubling.
No, I think you’re misunderstanding.
I don’t think the judge intended for that to include updates to evolutionary theory backed by legitimate research. I think that just means that teachers can’t be forced to downplay evolution in favor of some other unscientific theory.
Robin
It seems to me that it takes this decision out of the school board’s hands: an individual science teacher may still denigrate evolution. This doesn’t really seem like such an imposition: to the best of my knowledge, the Dover School Board doesn’t direct science teachers how to teach any existing scientific controversy (e.g., whether we live in a stable-state universe, whether genetic modification of crop species presents ecological hazards, whether punctuated equilibrium is the best approach to evolutionary theory), yet science teachers muddle along regardless.
Daniel
The curriculum directed them to the book, Of Pandas and People, as a “supplemental text,” and kept 50 copies in the classroom. The exposure of the Panda book as a creationist screed was key part of the plaintiffs’ case.
The textbook in question, Of Pandas and People, was mentioned in the letter to students from the school board, which can be found here. Follow the link to the letter to parents. This is the book which had creationism scratch out and ID written in its place, and the book where Behe, supposedly an expert consultant, only reviewed his own chapter. It was distributed in class, but was in the school library, I believe, and mentioned as an alternative source of information. IIRC, churches paid for the purchase of the book.
I heard someone from the Center for Science Education on the radio today who had given pro bono assistance to the plaintiffs. What they showed was that the ID here was entangled with religion, and that in this world at least ID is a religious concept. ID as a scientific concept has not made the cut into acceptance or even publication, so the attempt to present it as an accepted alternative to evolution can only be understood as being religiously motivated.