Short article in today’s *Sydney Morning Herald * about ID in Australia (article focuses on ID in Christian schools):
Check out http://www.venganza.org/ - the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
This letter was sent to the Kansas school board, pointing out that it’s beliefs are every bit as scientific as ID, therefore should be included in the cirriculum.
>Well, they’re community schools, so really in my community it’s “us” and not “you all.” I don’t want to teach Republic of Texas history in my local schools, but there’s a good reason to teach Michigan history. I’m not saying I agree with teaching ID, just that you’re reasons aren’t any good. Community standards count for everything in this country, and it’s part of why we’re so great – you know, no overbearing dictators?
Overbearing dictators?
My reasons for not teaching ID as science include that scientists as a rule clearly state that ID is not science. If some special interest group wanted history classes to teach certain things in your local school, and the great majority of historians complained that those things were not accepted as historically correct and should not be included as history classes, would they be overbearing dictators? Or are you saying their “reasons aren’t any good”?
Understand that there are two levels in play here. First, should ID be taught at all? And, second, if it is taught, should the children be told that it is science?
What would you think of the government requiring French classes to teach children to say things that the great majority of French speakers and French teachers said weren’t French? Can you at least see how people might disapprove of this situation without being overbearing dictators?
If you re-read what I wrote carefully, you’ll see that you and I agree. Calm down!
Balthisar, I re-read “I’m not saying I agree with teaching ID, just that you’re reasons aren’t any good.”
Apparently I don’t take your meaning.
My main point was that labeling ID as science against the overwhelming consensus of scientists was a fraud.
Is this the reason you say isn’t any good? Or is it something else I said?
We agree? You didn’t take a position on teaching ID, as far as I can tell. Did I miss it? By my reading we disagree on my main point - did I misunderstand you on that? Where were we agreeing?
Sorry if I am flaming at you, especially if we agree - I didn’t mean to!
Ooops, my bad – I said “I’m not saying I agree with teaching ID” which can lead one to think that maybe I do believe in teaching it. As for the dictators, we don’t have them yet, but we must keep the conversation open to prevent it. If it’s done via an ID debate, that’s fine. The point is there’s discussion. It’s not just an evil dictator saying thou shalt teach or not teach this topic. We have people fighting for it and against it. If the ID’ers win, well, that’s the price of living in a democracy, just like paying taxes.
Here’s another source to throw into this debate, since we can always use more of them…
It is from the National Science Education Foundation. Shows a critique of new creation models and evidence for and against (and a fair bit of it at that).
What do ya all make of it?
my mistake, the correct name is National Center for Science Education.
To me, ID is a fascinating philosophical and theological idea that should not try to be science. It is something to be argued as a matter of faith, and that it where it should stay.
This is truly amazing. According to this report, as recently as 1985, the conference included a debate (!) on the nature of the relationship between the earth and the rest of the universe in which someone actually took the position that the earth is at the center of the universe. And these are the folks who want to place their views on the nature of life on earth into science classes around the country. There is no question at all why the rest of the world looks at us like a bunch of nuts. That these people can occupy so much of the public discourse is a pathetic state of affairs. I have been in the edu-biz, as a science teacher, for close to 40 years, and I can say that in addition to a couple of recent elections, the wide spread debate on this topic is the clearest indictment I can cite of the failure of the educational system in this country. God help us all. xo, C.
I think the US is unique in that people expect signficant community contribution in what is taught in schools. Here in Australia, the common sentiment is that school curriculum should be left mostly up to experts who understand this sort of thing. I don’t see much benifit in letting those who are largely uninformed about the subject matter decide the curriculum.
Someone actually said the earth was the center of the universe? That’s kinda messed up.
Do ya have this report?. Cause I didn’t see it on the original link.
At any rate, I was just tryin to clear up some stereotypes that everyone has about this issue, that was all, as there has been a lot of em brought up in my experience from both sides.
Oh well, I guess this is will always be one of those unresolvable debates that always becomes a warzone whenever a hint of it is even mentioned. sigh.
Thantos - the third paragraph of your linked article refers to an earlier conference in which that debate occurred (1985). Shalmanese’s description of the Australian viewpoint on school curriculum makes me ache for such a situation. I’d say that that’s at the core of our demise here, and as I said, I’ve been a participant in and student of this system for many years. sigh xo, C.
Yes this is true it does mention the 85 conference. It is in reference to the debates, but remember, debates back in 1985. I can understand though the ache for anyone on either side if there are still one or two geocentrists running around. Those don’t help anyone.
Reading the full article the main point is dealing with the occurances in 1998. Reading it in the intended context is showing the new hypotheses being shown at this conference, and while the results are far from conclusive (and in fact some are very soundly refuted), it shows evidence of a change from the usual uninformed, rhetorical, and oftentimes propoganda approach to the subject on the part of creationists. Read some of the later paragraphs, near the end especially, and I think that is what the article is really hinting at.
Anyhow, I’ll make my main point and then I’ll be done. Basically there are stereotypes on both sides.
Creation advocates say that evolution is used by atheists to argue against God, and they point to people like Richard Dawkins as examples (and I know cause I used to do it too). Usually this is not the case though, and creation advocates need to stop throwing up these rhetorical smokescreens.
Evolution advocates say anyone who adheres to ID/Creation is uninformed, anti-science, or that the idea itself is not science. This article was meant to show that there are some who are trying to do authentic, and genuine research, and how some of it has been soundly and conclusively proven false. While it is far from conclusive for either side, it does offer some hope for some real, testable, and falsifiable hypotheses to be given for a creation model to be developed.
So what I am saying is yes, there have been nutcases out there who simply make whichever side their on look bad, and there are people who confuse the issues and create these kinds of dead end stereotypes in the first place.
Once we drop these stereotypes and quit creating more and more of a quagmire as far as this debate is concerned, then we can really have a fruitful discussion of the matter at hand. We can all try to examine evidence on both sides objectively with the idea of getting to the truth of the subject, rather than just insisting that the side we take must be right. We can also take a look at how the creation stories in the Bible and other texts are meant to be taken, again with the same objective in mind.
an amendment to that last post, since I’m not able to edit these posts, when I said The Bible and other texts I meant to say The Bible and other Sacred Texts.
But that process took millions if not billions of years - one does not need to put a bacterium in a vat and have a dinosaur pop out to show ID to be false compared to Darwinian speciation. If each stage of the process of going from amino acids to bacteria were shown to be plausibly probable given the timescales and conditions of that era, that would provide a natural explanation for the phenomenon and make a supernatural explanation unnecessary. The God of the Gaps is getting mighty skinny these days.
Excuse me, but the main argument against including ID into a science classroom is that there is no evidence for it. The main case the ID folks make is that evolution doesn’t anwer all of their questions. It’s a case of, “Your theory can’t be true according to the way I believe, and therefore my theory is correct.” It’s not necessary to DISprove ID. The problem is that there’s no evidence in its favor to begin with. “I can’t believe evolution,” is not evidence for ID. The issue in the US is that, #1, the public appears to be in the driver’s seat when it comes to curriculum design, and #2) Conservative Christians appear to be in the driver’s seat when it comes to political, social, and educational policy. These two factors have led us to this situation - unique in the world, apparently - in which a court is now going to be called upon to decide if a non-scientific crypto-religious viewpoint on the nature of life on earth can be included in a public school’s science curriculum. If there were a God, I’d be praying to her to throw this baby out of court. xo, C.
It’s really too bad that philosophy classes aren’t a part of public school curriculums, because that is where ID belongs, and it could and should go there. (At least, I don’t think they are! I’ve never heard of them. 
) The weird thing is that I was trying to remember what was taught when I was in grade school through graduation (at Catholic schools,) and I honestly can’t remember this entire debate ever coming up. Nobody ever even thought of teaching creationism or some kind of ID, or anything related to that whole field. It just wasn’t an issue that even came up. This WAS in 1980’s Minnesota, though.
I won’t pretend to be blessed with more than a cursory understanding of Intelligent Design and Darwin’s theory of evolution, but it occurs to me that students should be given the opportunity to be exposed to both. Education should, in my view, not be limited to teaching ‘facts’ but also providing students with catalysts for thought. Too much pre-programmed “information” is shoved at students too easily these days via television, computer applications etc. and not enough emphasis is placed on the need for original thought. Life is not black and white and it would be to the students’ advantage to learn to reason and make their own decisions based on differing theories. The primary benefit of a good education is the ability to think not to merely amass knowledge stored into handy compartments of the brain. It’s a bit scary to think that withholding the teaching of an alternative theory is even up for debate!
Your views has some merit in general, but to a much lesser degree in science education, which is by it’s nature vastly more black and white than other parts of education. In addition, you use the term theory a few times, but as has been demonstrated many times, ID is not a theory in the scientific sense. A good science education will in fact teach students to think, that is the heart of the scientific method. In fact, the more they are taught to reason properly, the less they should pay attention to ID.