Minor nitpick here…

Einstine belived in a God.

Actually, he didn’t. Or at least not in the anthropomorphic concept of God most people are thinking of when they use the word.

It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere.... Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.
-- Albert Einstein, “Religion and Science,” New York Times Magazine, 9 November 1930

Einstein even regretted his whole “God does not play at dice with the universe” quip because the religious folks had subverted it to their own ends.

It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
-- Albert Einstein, 1954, from Albert Einstein: The Human Side

Quotes borrowed from the Positive Atheism website.

CitizenX: What the educator should do is to say that, even if God is or isn’t behind the wheel, there are these nifty physical laws that are amazing, intricate, and predictable.  Let’s study them, class.

Thank you for saying it short and sweet, and much better than I.

If Little Suzy answers goddidit in a science class, she’s already a lost cause.

If it makes it easier for you, think of Little Suzy as having a learning impediment in this one area.

I don’t think children have any control over what they’re taught to believe.  They don’t have the investment in their beliefs that adults do.  So I don’t consider them a “lost cause” at all, and I don’t think they should be subjected to ridicule and scorn.  In fact, when they’re at the age where they’re already starting to question the wisdom of their parents, that’s the ideal time to teach them to do it RIGHT—to teach them critical thinking and the scientific method. 

If they’ve gone through most of their adult lives clinging tenaciously to this particular “learning impediment,” THEN I would declare them a lost cause and move on.

If Little Suzy answers goddidit in a science class, she’s already a lost cause.

If it makes it easier for you, think of Little Suzy as having a learning impediment in this one area.

Suzy’s learning impediment is that her parents told her a falsehood.  There will be some teachers who use the very diplomatic approach CitizenX suggests, some who rather brutally slap down her preconceptions.

Children are not interchangeable parts.  One approach will work with some kids, the other with other kids, and some kids will never catch on. What is universal is that we cripple our children with the notion that if someone isn’t nice to them, they should curl up and cry “I am a victim”.  With that mindset there is no opportunity for challenge or rigor.  Difficult concepts will forever be beyond the reach of the victim-child’s grasp.

I’m not saying “be mean to kids” and I agree with CitizenX’s call for consideration of how science is presented.  But it is an illusion to think that adopting any one method will serve all children.

This may be a moot issue.  Does anyone here have actual experience as to how this situation is handled in real classrooms?  I doubt most science teachers will be as confrontational as people customarily are on a blog whose tagline is; “What the fuck is wrong with you people?”

If Little Suzy answers goddidit in a science class, she’s already a lost cause.

Saying “God did it” may just be her copout for not wanting to learn all that biology.  For some, it’s the easy way out of a test question. 

It’s been too long since I took high school biology, but evolution didn’t make a fuss - I would have remembered that.  The biggest dread of our bio teacher was covering sexual reproduction (not sex ed, mind you) with the Beavis & Buttheads that we were.  The day we started it, she wrote “sexual reproduction” in HUGE letters on the board, and told us “Get over it (the laughing) before we start.”

I was wondering if there’d be any issue over evolution, since 99.9% of my classmates were christian, but there wasn’t any.  Of course, the Satanic panic and sex ed controversy probably took up all the worrying that they didn’t have time to bitch over evolution. 

What is universal is that we cripple our children with the notion that if someone isn’t nice to them, they should curl up and cry “I am a victim�?.

I’d imagine some fundie parents teach their kids that any response less than positive to “God did it” is religious persecution. 

Many people use hard times as a badge of honor, for good or bad.  Those who have comfortable lives growing up sometimes want to claim some hardship, to have “paid their dues”.  Makes me wonder if the religious persecution card is what comfortable middle class christians want to use as their “badge”.  Has a nice omnious ring to it, and doesn’t require you to lose the McMansion or the SUV.  The house and car can be considered victories over the insidious liberals that are obviously controlling the govt., since GOP control of congress, POTUS, and appointing two SCOTUS justices hasn’t stopped the evil liberal empire.

You know, those who handily write off the kids that come in with a God solution are as much of the problem as any fanatic literalist preachers.  We are talking about half the damn nation coming from this background.  We’ll just write off half the population—no, half the kids—because they were raised in a religious home?

Who said anything about writing them off?  If I was going to write a kid off, I’d nod pleasantly, pat them on the head, and move on.  Which is what I do now, as I’m teaching in a public school, and challenging a student’s preconceptions is probably more than my job is worth at this point.  It’s a shame, really.  I just waded through a stack of papers on Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge, and I don’t know how many times I read something by my students about how the main character’s marriage was ‘failed, because he didn’t have children,’ or that he was being ‘punished, because he didn’t believe in God.’ As a childless-by-choice atheist, I gave a little mental groan every time I saw that.

Oh well.  They call ‘em Sophomores for a reason.

We also seem to have lost a little context here.  My reference was to a student taking a humanities class.  Presumptively, ‘Little’ Suzy is a full-grown adult in a college level humanities course.  She should know better than to make a ‘goddidit’ argument, just as I should know better than to go to someone’s church and then stand up in the middle of a sermon and shout “Actually, that’s a pretty common misconception!” Explaining the conquest of the Americas with “God loves Christians, and wanted them to take care of and convert the savage Natives,” is going to get you an F.  AND IT SHOULD.

The academy operates on the assumption that some answers are -correct- and other answers are -wrong-.  It’s -supposed- to be a place where students learn to think -well-.

When I was teaching rhetoric and composition at the college level, I made it very clear to my students that the Academy privileged logic and rationality.  I did this without ‘bashing’ anyone’s religion.  We live in a society that explicitly endorses religious freedom, which means that you can cast your -personal- vote on the basis of ‘God tells me what to do.’ On the other hand, we also have a society that explicitly honors a SECULAR basis for law. If an instructor assigns you a paper that asks whether or not assisted suicide should be legal, and you, as a student, respond with “No, ‘cause God said so,” you’ve just failed that paper, because you’ve revealed that you don’t even have the basic groundwork to -begin- discussing the issue AS A SOCIAL ISSUE.

Students, by the time that they hit college, have been ‘nurtured’ into idiocy.  They truly believe that everyone has an opinion, and that they’re all equally valid.

Now we probably can’t do anything about that at the public school level, because the public will prevent that.  But at the college level, there’s absolutely no reason why the farce should continue.

P.S.

Citizen X, I’m -always- polite and nurturing to my students.  It’s my job to help them think better-- I don’t operate under the assumption that they’re worthy of contempt because they aren’t already thinking well when they come into my class.  So, when I get ‘goddidit’ answers from my students I explain politely, and at length, why that’s not an acceptable response in academia.

P.S.  To ANYONE who feels the need to start giving teachers advice about how to do their jobs, spend some time teaching.  Not sitting in the back of a classroom, watching someone else teach, but teaching.  That means planning the lessons in accordance with state guidelines, managing behavior issues in the class, responding to the daily email and phone requests of parents who want to know why their children got a 96 instead of a 98 on the test.  And don’t forget assessment.  According to state guidelines, you should be assessing students during -every- class.  That means if you have five classes of thirty students apiece, that you should be collecting approximately 150 pieces of evidence EVERY DAY, which you’re supposed to look at and assess.

Which is why I’ve been pretty much absent from this board for months now, and will probably disappear again, tomorrow, as it’s the end of Thanksgiving break.  That means it’s back to 12-16 hour days, five days a week, and a minimum of eight hours a day on weekends.

When they told me I’d get summers off, they didn’t mention I’d still be working the same number of hours, and that I’d just have to pack those hours into the school year.

And to top it off, I’m a ‘student’ teacher, so I’m not being paid.  Fun fun fun. [/rant]

Suzy isn’t a lost cause.  I didn’t renounce Christianity until I was in my early 20s.  My family was fairly quiet with regard to religion but I fell in with some fundy friends in high school.  Even went so far as to burn my rock music tapes (sigh) because of their “influence.” It wasn’t until I fell in with some friends after high school that prized thinking for one’s self that I grew up some and eventually admitted to atheism.  For me I tried to walk the Christian line but then realized that there are only two real ways:  either you must believe everything in the Bible absolutely or you can believe none of it.  Anything else is intellectual cowardice and social conformity. 

So faith or reason.  To a child the choice is not obvious.  It is ridiculous for us to assume it will be; we all had our journey to traverse to answer that question.

We don’t need to coddle Suzy but we don’t want to be disrespectful of her or her family.  Simply phrase the question more to the answer being sought: “please explain how Pluto keeps its orbit” should be sufficient.  The original question of “why” Pluto orbits that way is sloppy.

Much of the conflict we have between religions, etc., has as much to do with a lack of respect.  Unfortunately, we “enlightened” ones are just as guilty.  We pounce on those that disagree without regard for assuring that we’ve considered their POV.  We don’t know that Suzy’s parents have attempted to indoctrinate her, we just assume it based on our own prejudices (sp?). 

If we castigate those that come from religion, we drive them back into the arms of those you will say “see?  they don’t care about you the way we will.” Reason need not be cold and inhumane, it just needs to disciplined. 

This isn’t the time for ivory tower pronouncements that lement that the rest of the world isn’t as smart as us.  We are in the minority.  Over 50% of the country doesn’t know who is right or wrong.  We’re taught that if we’re not Christian then we are evil.  So if we act like it (closed minded, callous, condescending), then all we do is to reinforce the notion.  We need to educate, but to do that people will understandably require an emotional reason to want to listen to us.

We need not enforce our own dogma, but rather to set an example.  Suzy must want to be more like her freethought teacher and follow her example.  This isn’t coddling or pandering, it’s being a role model.  We don’t remember those teachers we were forced to state an agreement with, we remember those teachers that made us want to be more like them. 

Besides, Suzy lives with her parents.  She is immersed in their belief system.  As her teacher, we simply need to expect and require that she learn the facts and reasoning process that the curriculum requires.  No more, but certainly no less.  Beyond that, we would be just as guilty as those we complain about.

It is my unfortunate belief that non-theists will be in abject minority for decades to come.  Simply put, the theists have a more active and enticing marketing plan than we have.  They have more children (by edict) and so better expand their ranks (look at the astounding advent of the Mormon Church).  They have a 30-second plan to being accepted and enjoy riches in some afterlive. 

What do we have?  Study hard and someday you might be smart like us and oh yeah, you need to take responsibility for your actions:  this is the only life you got.  Hardly a recruiting message…

Nowiser and my posting cross.  I’ll change little Suzy’s name to little Samual and then our examples can reconcile…

nowiser: It’s precisely that crap you mentioned that made me decide to give up my pursuit of an education degree.

Fair enough, I’ll provisionally retract the ‘lost cause’ remark until such time as everybody agrees on a set of scenarios that don’t leave as many blanks to be filled. Perhaps I should qualify it and say that Little Suzy is probably a lost cause and leave it at that.

In the non-American school system I attended, orbital mechanics was on the physics curriculum somewhere between 11th and 13th grade. Then and probably now, there were three tiers of public schools, one to prepare students for college, one for students headed for academically challenging professions, and one for basically unskilled labor. Each tier requires a demonstrable level of academic achievements, which in practice means that how well a student does upon completing elementary school at 4th grade determines which school doors are open to him or her.

Little Suzy would be a misnomer; she may be already old enough to vote, she probably has a long history of giving the wrong answer of goddidit (yes, it is the wrong answer to a science question), and for that matter it’s doubtful that she could remain in the most challenging tier of schools.

Whether she deconverts later in life is outside of the scenario’s scope, but in the way I instantiate it, she lacks the basic qualifications to attend the physics classes I did. We never had a case like this, but I strongly suspect that the school’s principal would have encouraged her parents to voluntarily remove Little Suzy to a lower-grade or private school.

Just as an openly atheistic student may run into problems with his peers, the overly religious Suzy would not have had an easy time with her classmates. It’s more likely that she’d be subjected to ridicule and mockery by her classmates than by teachers.

We don’t need to coddle Suzy but we don’t want to be disrespectful of her or her family.

This is where I part ways with CitizenQ and Consi. They present a false dichotomy - either be completely abrasive or follow what amounts to a policy of appeasement.

The only teaching experience I have is eight semesters worth of TA at college. Goddidit isn’t in the range of conceivable answers to what I graded and it depends on Suzy how I would have responded to such an answer in class.

Then and probably now, there were three tiers of public schools, one to prepare students for college, one for students headed for academically challenging professions, and one for basically unskilled labor

Why, that’s an absolutely ridiculous system [/sarcasm]

Here in America, everyone is Rocket Scientist material, and if they don’t live up to that potential, it’s because their teachers sucked.

VoijaRisa said:

It’s precisely that crap you mentioned that made me decide to give up my pursuit of an education degree.

I don’t want to completely divert this thread, but I have toyed with the thought of submitting a post to start a new thread that deals with American education, and my own experiences with pursuing a teaching credential.  I know there are many people on this board who are interested in the topic, either because of their own experiences in school, or because they have children in the public school system. 

I just want to qualify my earlier remarks while acknowledging VoijaRisa.  Yes, there is a LOT of crap associated with this process.  And there is a LOT of crap involved with daily teaching obligations.  Quite frankly, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to handle that well enough to stay in this profession.  I may choose, ultimately, to do something else.

But I do want to say that, despite the amount of work that I’m doing, I see something very cool or interesting -every- day.  Every day I see a student say or do something, or just write something in their journal, that makes me go ‘that’s pretty cool.  He/She is just a sophomore, and is already thinking about these things.”

So it’s not an entirely crappy job.  It’s just that it’s very similar to working at a job where you have five different bosses that you report to, all of whom want different things from you, and none of whom communicate with each other.

OK.  I would really like to end my derail here. 

DOWN WITH ID IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS! 

ah.  That’s better.

...but I have toyed with the thought of submitting a post to start a new thread that deals with American education, and my own experiences with pursuing a teaching credential.

Go for it, nowiser.  I for one would love to read it.  If you can spare the time.

Why, that’s an absolutely ridiculous system

Sarcasm or not, it worked very well.

Each type of school could tailor the curriculum to what the students were likely to need in their professional lives and the classes were filled with students of comparable aptitude. For the ones preparing for college, traditionally there were three major variations - those with a focus on “old languages” like Latin and Greek, “new languages” like English, French, Younameit, and of course the natural sciences version. I was in one of the latter and goddidit would have been completely out of place. A more likely one for Suzy would have been the old-language type, which is the most compatible with a future career as theologian.

To be accurate, it was technically possible to fail all the way down to special-ed schools, but to do so pretty much required retardation in the clinical sense.

Then there were all kinds of private schools, often boarding schools, that catered to the affluent; as often as not parents seeking a non-traditional education like the Waldorf schools or simply the type of secluded boarded schools rich parents park their unmanageable brats in - I suppose in the hope of preventing them from becoming delinquents until the parents were not held legally accountable for the kid’s actions anymore.

By the way, teachers were considered sucky if too many students failed their classes. It was their job to teach the kids well, goddamnit, and they had to figure out how to make them pass without compromising academic standards or slowing down the whole class.

Even colleges came in different flavors, the pure universities or a version that was lighter on theory, but very hands-on.

All things considered, I really don’t want to inflict an American high school on my daughters…

You, on the other hand, may have enjoyed teaching then and there.

They have the same system here in Austria.  Both my kids are enrolled in the college-prep “gymnasium”, Modern Language branch.  My tenth-grade daughter Rosi will be attending high school in San Francisco for a semester starting next January.  It will be interesting to see what she thinks of it.

Of course, the most important factor for quality of education is the teachers, not the system.  My kids have had some good ones, and some not so good ones, just as I did in the States.

It will be interesting to see what she thinks of it.

My sister attended schools in both countries and transferred from Europe to the U.S. at roughly the same grade. To say that she was pissed off at the quality of education she received in the States is a gross understatement.

You know what would be a really cool wake-up experiment for American education?  Subject 500 American school kids to the German school placement tests, and show where each one would be directed if they were in the German school system.  Then compare those percentages to their German counterparts.

Nowiser, that’s a very bleak assessment of the teacher’s life in America.  Thanks for writing it.  I think I’ll share it with anyone who says; “Teachers only work 9 months out of the year so why do we pay them so much?”

I really believe most teachers could do a much better job if it weren’t for the “5 bosses” thing. Imagine a pilot receiving landing instructions from five different towers?

DOF, you claim nowiser’s assessment of teaching answers the question “Teachers only work 9 months out of the year so why do we pay them so much?�?

But nowiser’s description is only part of the answer. First off, we DON’T pay them so much. My friends who went straight into business after college make more than most teachers after 10 years in their profession.

Secondly, without a good education, business does not function as well. Americans bitch and whine about the outsourcing of jobs, but refuse to do the one thing that will ensure that they and their children are marketable in the world economy: EDUCATE THEMSELVES.

Good point, Christina.  Teachers are paid as if their jobs barely mattered, and there is common ‘misunderestimation’ of how hard those jobs are.  Yet business utterly depends on an educated workforce.

At the risk of giving offense, however, there are several things that make it difficult to spot and reward exceptional teachers, including; teacher’s unions, rigid public-service pay scales, bureaucracy, political correctness, and abysmal-quality books.  That is probably not an inclusive list.

Now, if it can be shown that this account is not true, then one has no choice but to discount the authority of the Bible as unreliable. It would then be difficult to believe ANY of it

There is a website that cites biblical evidence for a flat earth at the centre of the universe.  I think the scientific phrase here is QED (or is that too arrogant- me saying I’ve proved my point?)

The site is either so heavily into Irony as to be able to make battleships, or the guy really is a nast small minded piece of work.

Since I started reading SEB a few weeks ago I’ve been analysing British TV.  Apart from religeos programs Evolution is the norm- used routinely in the news as well as chat shows.  As I have posted before ID/Creation news items tend to be ‘look at those funny Americans’ (Kansas, Creationist Natural Hisry Museum etc’

Now, if it can be shown that this account is not true, then one has no choice but to discount the authority of the Bible as unreliable. It would then be difficult to believe ANY of it

Reasoning thusly is exactly what nipped in the bud any chance of my becoming a Christian, back when I was fourteen or fifteen.  It took a couple more years before I was sure I was a muggle.

As a native Kansan, I can truly tell you how embarrassing and ignominious all of this creationist bullshit is, and as I now live in San Francisco, I can also tell you how idiotic it (deservingly) makes my homestate look. I grew up in Wichita (where there are as many True Believers as there is sand in the Sahara), and my mom still works in the public schools there. The horror stories she tells me are sickening. One of the members of the school board is anti-public education, for god’s sake! Worse, the citizens of Wichita sit idly by and watch this crap happen(many are glad to see it happen, as well). Even though I’m never having kids (regardless of whether or not I get married), I was lucky to get out of Kansas when I did. It’s the school system today, it’ll probably be the medical system tomorrow, etc. etc.

By way of Pharyngula:

Editorial: Bush science policies hurt U.S.

Brain drain in action…

Well, now that I’ve read through all the commentary, I have to say I’m surprised at two things: (1) the amount of mischaracterizing that seems to be the case so far, and (2) the absence of anyone calling much attention to it.  If you truly accept the prognosis of a lot of the critics of ID, you’d think anyone who dares suggest any belief in it at all is a hard-headed, ignorant, young-earth “fundie.” The fact is,there’s a much larger spectrum covered by the belief in creationism, and a much larger “middle” than a lot of people recognize ("middle" = any of a variety of mediating positions that offer a combination of the two). 

Don’t know. I had thought that most people here were confronted with evolution during high school, but have been surprised to find that it is not the case. These folks are prime candidates for the fundies because with only bits and pieces of knowledge the get sucked in by the fundies false science.

This kind of blanket assumption of ignorance is what I find puzzling.  After all, the very term “Intelligent Design” was locked into the language of the debate by the pivotal work written by William Dembski with that title.  Dembski is no ignorant “fundie.” He has 2 Ph.D.’s, in mathematics and philosophy, and holds degrees in theology and psychology.  He has received two fellowships from the National Science Foundation and at the date of writing Intelligent Design, he was senior fellow of the Discovery Institute’s Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture.  He is a scientist in every sense of the word, and bases his findings on scientific method.  And unlike the ultimate claims of some evolutionists, he knows where to draw the line and not claim more than can be proven.  He does not present ID as a claim of proof, simply as another theory that merits consideration.  He has found enough that evolution cannot explain and ID can, to present ID as a theory to be considered on a rational as well as a scientific basis. 
His work was followed up by Darwin’s Black Box, by cellular biologist Michael Behe, who observed, by scientific method, interactions and interrelated activity at the most basic cellular levels which could not have developed by a process of evolution over extended periods of time.  Some of the processes he observed were so intricately linked that all of them were required in order to function.  (The most well-known of these is the bacterial flagellum or tail, used for movement, and blood clotting.) So there does not have to be the uncrossable chasm between faith and science that so many people insist must be the case.  If nothing else, the current state of the debate has brought about a reconciliation between my brother and me.  We parted ways a few years ago after he (a professing atheist) became greatly offended when I shared with him concerning my then new-found conversion.  He went off to his science fiction reading he loved, and I went off to Bible College.  With time and attitude changes, things are different.  For one thing, my bookshelf now contains several science fiction selections (Orson Scott Card is my favorite), and one book on loan from my brother, Has Science Found God?, by Victor J. Stenger, a rebuttal of ID theories.  And we both appreciate Science & Theology News magazine.  It’s a different world. 

I really have no problem with some basic ideas of evolution, that is, theories about the process and patterns of evolution that are discernible and provable even over periods of relatively short duration.  I have a bigger problem with what is termed “descent with modification,” the “larger picture” of evolution that makes unproveable assumptions concerning life origins, and modification across species lines.  This is evolution’s notorious “missing link,” and one that evolutionists in recent times have back-pedaled to avoid.  In a recent debate between William Dembski and Eugenie Scott (executive director of the National Center for Science Education), she insisted, “none of us are arguing about descent with modification.�?

I’m sure she was sincere, but I remain skeptical.  I’ve seen plenty enough of the old charts showing the amoeba-like form gradually developing fins, then legs, crawling up from the water to develop further, eventually into human form.  Talk about a leap of faith!  Even scientists themselves don’t believe it.  Take a look at the reconstructions made with dinosaur bones, which resemble reptiles.  Take a look at any modern creature said to have descended from them, and--what a surprise--they have reptilian features. 

For my own part, I have more interest in the science/theology connection in other areas, such as the relation of health and religious belief.  Studies have been done showing that people of religious faith are significantly healthier.  Stanger tries to explain this away by other factors, such as the tendency of religious groups to be less likely to smoke or to drink heavily.  But such factors do not explain some studies, such as one I read about concerning a study of the effects of prayer.  People in the study, with the same medical diagnoses, were prayed for without being aware of it, while a control group of equal number were not prayed for.  Even after the consideration of other factors that had the potential of skewing the results, it was still found that that the study group was substantially healthier than the control group (30% as I recall--these details are from memory of a study discussed in a clinical group I was associated with, around 5 years ago.)

No, we’re not all Fundies, and we don’t all see church and state issues and government foisting undesirable consequences upon us.  Many of us have an interest in both disciplines and do not see the current status as an either/or proposition.  There is even sadness at seeing the harm that we can all do to one another as we entrench ourselves even more deeply than before.  I would think scientific method and “quality education�? both would demand that all theoretical possibilities be considered and taught, rather than choosing a path that is the equivalent of censorship of valid ideas.

Did I just see what I thought I saw? Did you really just use Behe as an example saying he uses the scientific method?

My my. While I won’t imply you’re stupid, I will say you’re gullible and not intellectually honest enough to go look at both sides.

First of Dembski is a mathemician. They don’t use the scientific method. He deals with probabilities. They’re big numbers to be sure, but with the driving force behind evolution, natural selection, they’re completely reasonable.

Second.... I’m still not beliving you just cited Behe. And you used the flagellum argument?! You’ve got a few things wrong. Behe hasn’t used the scientific method. He started to, but abandoned it. He got as far as a hypothesis in which he predicted that systems, such as the flagellum, or blood clotting cannot function without all its constituent parts.

However, that’s where he quit. Behe abandoned the scientific method and claimed absolute veracity wihout even bothering to actually test his little hypothesis.

But other people did. Turns out that it fails. The flagellum is reducible. Take out a few bits and you get a device that infectious bacteria use to inject venom. With blood clotting, you can take out components and there’s several species which lack them and are still able to clot blood.

Thus, Behe seems to be a very poor “scientist”.

As far as wanting “all theoretical possibilities be considered and taught”, I have nothing with that. However, ID hasn’t been established as a theory. It’s barely even a hypothesis. And incase you forgot the difference, a hypothesis comes first, and only after RIGOROUS amounts of testing can it become a theory.

Additionally, if you claim to want to put out all competing theories, ID is very low on the list of alternatie theories out there as far as support goes.

If you want to be completely honest, gravity has a much more accepted and tested opponent that actually IS a theory. It’s called Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND). Look it up sometime since you seem to be the curious sort. The point is, that there’s actually a fair number of real scientists that support MOND. Meanwhile, ID remains untested and is only “supported” by .0001% (yes that’s the actual figure) of scientists. So why should we give privledge to something that’s not actually a theory and has a factor of 10,000 times less support than MOND?

The reason is that it’s not a scientific debate. It’s religion trying to wear sheeps skin. It’s done a cute job, and I’m sorry to say, you’ve been duped. If you really want the truth on how bad Behe’s science is, take a look at the transcripts from the Dover trial. Behe admits under oath, that by his definition of science, such things as astrology are sciences.

Additionally, you seem like you like to read, so I recommend Barbra Forrester’s book. I can’t remember the title, but it’s the product of a several year investigation into the history of ID, and just how it functions as Creationism’s Trojan Horse.

Mxyzptlk writes…

Well, now that I’ve read through all the commentary, I have to say I’m surprised at two things: (1) the amount of mischaracterizing that seems to be the case so far, and (2) the absence of anyone calling much attention to it.  If you truly accept the prognosis of a lot of the critics of ID, you’d think anyone who dares suggest any belief in it at all is a hard-headed, ignorant, young-earth “fundie.�? The fact is,there’s a much larger spectrum covered by the belief in creationism, and a much larger “middle�? than a lot of people recognize ("middle" = any of a variety of mediating positions that offer a combination of the two).

Is there now? Perhaps you’d like to elaborate on that statement. I’m not personally aware of any “middle” which offers “a combination of the two.”

This kind of blanket assumption of ignorance is what I find puzzling.  After all, the very term “Intelligent Design�? was locked into the language of the debate by the pivotal work written by William Dembski with that title.  Dembski is no ignorant “fundie.�? He has 2 Ph.D.’s, in mathematics and philosophy, and holds degrees in theology and psychology.

Interesting to note that Dembski is a mathematician, philosopher, theologian, and psychologist, but not a BIOLOGIST. Hmmmm.

So tell me, when you’re seeking a medical opinion on some condition you have do you go and consult a cosmologist? Seeing as you seem to think that any scientist is fully qualified to propose theories outside their realm of expertise I’d guess the last people you’d ask for medical advice would be actual doctors.

He has received two fellowships from the National Science Foundation and at the date of writing Intelligent Design, he was senior fellow of the Discovery Institute’s Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture.

Anyone associated with the Discovery Institute Center is pretty much immediately suspect. Weren’t you just bitching in another thread about using sources that have an axe to grind? The folks at Discovery have been grinding a really big axe for a really long time. Play by the rules you’re insisting others play by or go home.

He is a scientist in every sense of the word, and bases his findings on scientific method.  And unlike the ultimate claims of some evolutionists, he knows where to draw the line and not claim more than can be proven.  He does not present ID as a claim of proof, simply as another theory that merits consideration.  He has found enough that evolution cannot explain and ID can, to present ID as a theory to be considered on a rational as well as a scientific basis.

He certainly qualifies as a scientist, it’s just too bad it’s not in a relevant field. It’s not like he’d be the first scientist to latch onto a stupid idea and refuse to let go. I’ve read a lot of Dembski’s work and I’d dispute the idea that he basis his conclusions on the scientific method.

As for finding stuff that ID can explain, please elaborate. ID doesn’t explain anything. It just’s another way of saying “Goddidit.” It makes no predictions, it’s offers no explanations, not only is it not a theory, but it’s hardly a hypothesis.

His work was followed up by Darwin’s Black Box, by cellular biologist Michael Behe, who observed, by scientific method, interactions and interrelated activity at the most basic cellular levels which could not have developed by a process of evolution over extended periods of time.

Now I know you’re on crack. Behe is a joke of a scientist. His performance during the Dover Panda Trial in Pennsylvania was a laugh riot:

HARRISBURG - One of intelligent design’s leading experts could not identify the driving force behind the concept.

In his writings supporting intelligent design, Michael Behe, a Lehigh University biochemistry professor and author of “Darwin’s Black Box,” said that “intelligent design theory focuses exclusively on proposed mechanisms of how complex biological structures arose.”

But during cross examination Tuesday, when plaintiffs’ attorney Eric Rothschild asked Behe to identify those mechanisms, he couldn’t.

When pressed, Behe said intelligent design does not propose a step-by-step mechanism, but one can still infer intelligent cause was involved by the “purposeful arrangement of parts.”
...
After Behe could not identify intelligent design’s mechanism for change, Rothschild asked him if intelligent design then isn’t just a negative argument against natural selection.

Behe disagreed, reiterating his statement that intelligent design is the purposeful arrangement of parts.

In other words, “If it looks like it was designed than it was designed and the proof that it was designed is that it looks like it was designed.” Gotta love good old fashioned circular logic.

Oh, but it gets even better! Behe actually admitted that in order for Intelligent Design to qualify as a scientific theory he had to change the definition of the word theory to such an extent that even Astrology would qualify as a scientific theory:

HARRISBURG - Dr. Michael Behe, leading intellectual light of the intelligent design movement, faced a dilemma.

In order to call intelligent design a “scientific theory,” he had to change the definition of the term. It seemed the definition offered by the National Academy of Science, the largest and most prestigious organization of scientists in the Western world, was inadequate to contain the scope and splendor and just plain gee-willingnesses of intelligent design.

So he devised his own definition of theory, expanding upon the definition of those stuck-in-the-21st-century scientists, those scientists who ridicule him and call his “theory” creationism in a cheap suit.

He’d show them. He’d come up with his own definition.

Details aside, his definition was broader and more inclusive of ideas that are “outside the box.”

So, as we learned Tuesday, during Day 11 of the Dover Panda Trial, under his definition of a scientific theory, astrology would be a scientific theory.

Astrology?

Who knew that Jacqueline Bigar, syndicated astrology columnist, was on par with Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe?

Eric Rothschild, attorney for the plaintiffs, asked Behe about whether astrology was science. And Behe, after hemming and hawing and launching into an abbreviated history of astrology and science, said, under his definition, it is. He said he wasn’t a science historian, but the definition of astrology in the dictionary referred to its 15th-century roots, when it was equated with astronomy, which, according to the National Academy of Science, is a science.

So, taking a short logical leap, something Behe would certainly endorse since he does it a lot himself, you could say that intelligent design is on par with 15th-century science.

Sounds about right.

How anyone can take Behe seriously on the validity of Intelligent Design after the fool he made of himself in Dover is beyond me. The fact that you seem enamored with him just gives me every reason to write you off as another lost cause.

Some of the processes he observed were so intricately linked that all of them were required in order to function.  (The most well-known of these is the bacterial flagellum or tail, used for movement, and blood clotting.)

Both of which have been shown to be quite reducible. Of course both of those links were written by people who are advancing the Theory of Evolution so you’ll naturally claim they have an axe to grind and thusly not as credible as Dr. *snicker* Behe, no matter how big a fool he makes of himself.

So there does not have to be the uncrossable chasm between faith and science that so many people insist must be the case.  If nothing else, the current state of the debate has brought about a reconciliation between my brother and me.

Bully for you and your brother, but I fail to see how that makes Dembski or Behe’s thoughts on the issue any more relevant.

And no one ever said there had to be a huge chasm between science and faith. I personally know a lot of people of faith who have no problems with science in general or Evolution in particular.

I really have no problem with some basic ideas of evolution, that is, theories about the process and patterns of evolution that are discernible and provable even over periods of relatively short duration.  I have a bigger problem with what is termed “descent with modification,�? the “larger picture�? of evolution that makes unproveable assumptions concerning life origins, and modification across species lines.  This is evolution’s notorious “missing link,�? and one that evolutionists in recent times have back-pedaled to avoid.

There’s nothing unprovable about descent with modification. There’s new supporting evidence coming in for it just about every day. The fact that you’re not up on it doesn’t mean it’s not there.

Of course your choice of the word “unprovable” shows your ignorance of science. Proofs exist only in mathematics, everything else is just a theory. Evolution, Gravity, Electromagnetic Radiation, none of it’s proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, they’re all “just theories.”

I’m sure she was sincere, but I remain skeptical.  I’ve seen plenty enough of the old charts showing the amoeba-like form gradually developing fins, then legs, crawling up from the water to develop further, eventually into human form.  Talk about a leap of faith!  Even scientists themselves don’t believe it.  Take a look at the reconstructions made with dinosaur bones, which resemble reptiles.  Take a look at any modern creature said to have descended from them, and--what a surprise--they have reptilian features.

Outside of Behe and Dembski, which scientists don’t believe this? More specifically, which biologists don’t believe this?

Look, just because a concept is too much for you to get your head around that doesn’t make it false. Not that the Theory of Evolution is all that difficult to understand, but some folks just seem to have more trouble than others with it.

For my own part, I have more interest in the science/theology connection in other areas, such as the relation of health and religious belief.  Studies have been done showing that people of religious faith are significantly healthier.  Stanger tries to explain this away by other factors, such as the tendency of religious groups to be less likely to smoke or to drink heavily.  But such factors do not explain some studies, such as one I read about concerning a study of the effects of prayer.  People in the study, with the same medical diagnoses, were prayed for without being aware of it, while a control group of equal number were not prayed for.  Even after the consideration of other factors that had the potential of skewing the results, it was still found that that the study group was substantially healthier than the control group (30% as I recall--these details are from memory of a study discussed in a clinical group I was associated with, around 5 years ago.)

Yes, we’ve discussed that supposed study here not too long ago. That was the Columbia University Study back in 2001 which claimed that prayer doubled the success rate of IVF treatments and was even published in the Journal of Reproductive Medicine. Too bad it turned out to be a fraud.

So far there haven’t been any major studies that show a significant link between prayer and health, though there may be something to it. Then again many doctors think just having a positive attitude is enough to affect your health for the better.

No, we’re not all Fundies, and we don’t all see church and state issues and government foisting undesirable consequences upon us.  Many of us have an interest in both disciplines and do not see the current status as an either/or proposition.

Tell us something we don’t already know, eh? It’s not just atheists who hang out at this site. We’ve got plenty of believers here as well that seem to have little trouble reconciling their faith with their acceptance of science.

There is even sadness at seeing the harm that we can all do to one another as we entrench ourselves even more deeply than before.  I would think scientific method and “quality education�? both would demand that all theoretical possibilities be considered and taught, rather than choosing a path that is the equivalent of censorship of valid ideas.

I agree wholeheartedly and just as soon as you can demonstrate that Intelligent Design is a theoretical possibility that is equally valid to the Theory of Evolution then I’ll agree that we should teach it in science classes. I won’t be holding my breath if the best you can do is to quote more of Behe. I’ll be too busy laughing my ass off. At the very least you should try to find a Biologist who actually buys into that nonsense.