It didn’t take long for the Discovery Institute to try to call “Darwinists” intolerant for attempting to keep religious advocacy out of the schools. Casey Luskin discusses, over at the Discovery Institute’s Media Complaints Division, the lawsuit that Americans United for the Separation of Church and State just filed against a California school. (Ed Brayton discusses this suit in depth over at Dispatches from the Culture Wars.) Read more (at The Questionable Authority):
Spinning creationism back into the classroom
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This page contains a single entry by Mike Dunford published on January 11, 2006 12:20 AM.
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The course in question looks to me like a mismash of YEC and IDC anti-evolution arguments thrown together and packaged under the name “philosophy”.
The El Tejon Unified School District covers the towns of Frazier Park, Lebec and several other small communities. Most people would recognize the area as a gas stop along interstate 5 leading north from Los Angeles over the Tehachapi Mountains. The high school in question, Frazier Mountain High School is actually located in Los Angeles County and is nowhere near Fresno unlike the claim in the recent AP report.
The local weekly newspaper has a web page devoted to the issue. It can be found at http://www.mountainenterprise.com/I[…]s/index.html
The school district sits squarely on top of the San Andreas Fault in a section that produced the largest earthquake in California’s recorded history (the Great Fort Tejon Earthquake of 1857). With this in mind and remembering Pat Robertson’s warning to the residents of Dover, we might caution the residents of El Tejon School District against any rash actions.
Anywhere, or “nowhere” to anyone else, can now receive national, even international, attention by threatening to wedge “I.D.” into the curriculum. What a weird, in the most troubling sense, country the U.S. has become!
This whole thing just shows how determined the fundies are to spoon-feed their muck to children.
Since they feel it is unfair that they cannot force their religious views into schools, and demand equal time, I propose we let them have their way. But, to be fair, they must allow Muslims, Jews, Zen Monks, Buddhists, Atheists, Agnostics, Deists, Pagans, Wiccans etc equal time to have their say in their (xtian) churches, every Sunday. Funny, but I have a feeling they won’t like this idea. So much for “Do unto others…”
I can’t remember the source .…the evangelicals in the US have budgets measured in billions and over just do a search on
religious obscurantism trillion
quizz —who said
‘Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the feeling of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of unspiritual conditions.’
You did. Do I get a prize? ;)
The fundies are back at it again!!!!! Now is “as long as the course is called philosophy” everything is nice and dandy in the world. Do these morons believe the everybody else is so gullible as they are? Read and weep or cry as you wish, at the following link http://www.latimes.com/news/local/l[…]737779.story?”
This very issue was discussed on NPR this morning. Note, NPR got some of the facts wrong. A good example was the very last sentence of the report that included something along the lines of “Intelligent Design, Evolution, and ? which all conjecture about the origins on life”.
I’m going to send them a correction.
I could not care less about ID being taught in a philosophy course in a school. It makes sense that it would belong there. You can teach it with all the other creation myths in the world.
However, in this instance, the initial course description in the LA times article said:
Apparently, the philosophy content of the course will be minimal and the “science” (and I use that term extremely loosely, if it is even applicable at all) will form the bulk of the course.
Honestly, can’t these people keep their disciplines straight? What’s next? Teaching WWII history in French class?
This is yet another, with apologies for strong language, moronic idea by creationists.
Apparently, their real goal is to draw attention to themselves, feel like “martyrs”, and spend other peoples’ money.
Sometimes, contributors to this site suggest objective discussion of “creationism” in some sort of “comparitive religion” course. This latest creationist push is nothing of the sort, obviously.
If anything, it’s even MORE blatantly and visciously a violation of Americans’ rights to force their children to take a “philosophy” course that preaches someone else’s narrow religious view, and presents lies as “proof” of it, than were the efforts in Dover.
Not only that, but this is, ipso facto, a science course, in addition to whatever else it may be. You can’t set up a course to lyingly deny scientific evidence, call it “philosophy”, and deny a connection with science. If I set up a “philosophy” course that argues against “Gallileo’s philosophy” and presents biased material promoting the idea that the sun revolves around the earth, for example, it is logically obvious that the true goal is to sabotage the science curriculum.
Court decisions that cost other people money won’t stop creationists for long (although they will get them voted off of school boards). It’s time for civil suits that go after individual creationists, for their conspiracies to violate the civil rights of Americans.
Why did they rush to have a special meeting of the school board on New Year’s Day, which this year was a Sunday? Did they have a newly-elected majority on the board, or what?
I looked over the course syllabus approved by the school board, and I can’t find anything about discussion of the Kitzmiller v. Dover court decision. It seems like that might be a good starting point.
Uh, but only two “philosophies” are mentioned, evolution and intelligent design creationism, and one of them is actually a science.
(Snicker) I imagine the class will be filled with those misconceptions.
Gosh, I wonder, is it the many listed Creationist videos that might not be presented, or the few evolution videos?
Perhaps we could provide a copy of the Ken Miller video? Anyone want to make a bet as to whether the teacher would actually show it?
Maybe they’ll watch a panel discussion of creationism by the cast of “Veggie Tales.” I wonder whether Larry the Catholic Cucumber will explain Pope John Paul II’s support of evolution?
Someone ought to teach a college level course on the Kitzmiller trial. They could include the TMLC search for a compliant school board, the DI “teach IDC/don’t teach IDC” internal debate, the falling out between the TMLC and the DI, the actual court testimony, including perjury, rampant memory failure, and unethical behaviour by president of a foundation with Ethics in its title, and, of course, Judge Jones’ decision.
Of course, all of these tactics are the proposed answers to the same question: “How can we preach God’s Truth (our version) from the pulpit of the American Public Education system?” The number of possible answers to this question is limited only by our imagination and our industry.
Clearly, an upfront approach fails badly. So we can’t call it religion. Almost as clearly, we can’t properly represent anything about science whatsoever, since only misrepresentations serve our purposes. But since the courts are nibbling away at our misrepresentations, it’s necessary to misrepresent them! Fortunately, there’s no necessary connection between the *content* of a class, and the *description* of the class, so maybe we can get a class approved based on the description and then preach Truth. Fortunately, we have no shortage of soccer coaches/biology teachers who have Seen The Light and been reborn.
Moving right along, if we call our church services “philosophy class” maybe the courts will let us preach. Maybe if we make our church services electives, the courts will let us preach. Once we get Reborn judges in place, this will become a lot easier. Right now, God is testing our faith, so we must redouble our efforts to show Him we’re His children.
First they pushed Untelligent Design as a science, even though it’s not a science and its advocates do no science.
Now, they’re pushing it as “philosophy,” even though it is anything but a philia of sophia, in fact quite the opposite. By continuing to push “questions” about “Darwinism” that were answered in some cases over a century ago, they are simply trying to infect as many children as possible with their ignorance.
Maybe they could teach this filth in sophiaphobia classes?
Will the lies of God’s people never cease? .
Three things should be noted: The course is an elective. It only runs for a month. And the board okay’d it with an emergency meeting on New Year’s Day. I’m sure they chose all three steps in the hopes that they could pass under the radar. They clearly failed. Informed parents saw the ruse, contacted Americans United and the suit resulted. I suspect the course will be over before a federal court issues an injunction. How this unfolds shall be interesting. The school district is unlikely to get help from either the DI or the TMLC, so their defending counsel use novel defenses that neither the DI nor the TMLC has tried. Now all we have to do is wait for the San Adreas to slip while the suit proceeds.
Dembski is going to speak in Kansas on intelligent design creationism. This event being sponsored by the religious cult known as Campus Crusade For Christ
Read more about this event here
Now, if IDC is not religious someone please explain why this religious cult has such an interst in it?
We need a dedicated thread on this event me thinks…
.
I thought that one of the tenets of Christianity involved not bearing false witness. Apparently the fundies have their own branch of Christianity in which deception, dishonesty and lying are perfectly acceptable. These people are a slap in the face to all of those Christians that spend their whole lives trying to live up to the precepts of their religion. Pathetic fundies have a well deserved place to roast in hell!!!!!!!!!!!
Here’s another one!
http://headlines.agapepress.org/arc[…]/292005b.asp
I’m not sure it’s fair to say that ID must be religious because religious groups find it appealing.
The reason it must be religious is cos there’s no good secular purpose to this pile of tripe. Big difference.
Corkscrew:
I think Barbara Forrest pretty well dispensed with this issue. ID is straightforward creationist doctrine transparently disguised as whatever they want to claim to evade legal restrictions. It’s not that religious groups “find it appealing” but rather that the creationists dreamed it up directly for the purpose of spreading creationism.
Mmmm, roast! Now I’m getting hungry! Should I get a beef or a pork roast?
For once I agree with ‘em. I’m totally intolerant of efforts to undermine the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and I don’t expect my position on this issue to change.
Flint:
This is not correct. First of all, creationism, as commonly understood, begins with a religious text and then extrapolates to observations in nature. ID begins with observations in nature and makes no extrapolation whatsoever to any religious text. ID merely proposes that intelligent cause is a live possibility based on observations in nature.
Secondly, which version of ‘creationism’ is ID supposed to be “spreading”? YEC, OEC, Hindu, Islamic, other? Which one? IDPs come from many different faith backgrounds, and some claim no religious belief at all, so which “religious view” is ID supposed to be “spreading”?
That is demonstrably incorrect. IDC began as “Creation Science”, and after Edwards v. Aguillard, overt references to specific Christian themes were removed in an attempt to circumvent the E v. A ruling.
Only cdesign proponentsists would disagree.
Donald you might enjoy reading Judge Jones’ ruling on intelligent design. His ruling is probably the very best source for a detailed answer to your question.
More infiltration via philosophy. I think my professional colleagues should address this issue somehow … if there are any philosophers of biology that read this blog, maybe they can tell me if this has been done?
Donald M wrote
But that is blatantly false. No IDist has ever published systematic observations of “natural” phenomena that have been shown to require the conjecture of an intelligent designer. I have read Dembski’s The Design Inference, No Free Lunch, and a slew of his essays, and I have read Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box and a slew of his defenses against criticisms of them. I have read Meyer, Johnson, Wells, and their colleagues, and not one of them has published one scrap of data that require the conjecture of an intelligent designer.
They claim to have a methodology for detecting “design” independent of knowledge of the properties, skills, and abilities of the purported designer(s), but have never published validation and reliability data that shows that the methodology works.
Hence in Ohio in 2002 they suddenly abandoned “teach intelligent design” (which was a motion made to the Ohio State Board of Education), and advocated “teach the controversy”, which only requires quotemining and distorting and misrepresenting genuine science. That’s much easier than doing actual research, of course, because a cheap lawyer like Casey Luskin can do it: you don’t need actual scientists.
All the blather about how intelligent design “theorists” have shown this or that founder on one simple fact: they provide no systematic empirical data at all.
If you doubt that, point me to any publication in the ID literature that presents systematically gethered data that address any hypothesis derived from the ID conjecture, or any systematically gathered data that address the validity and reliability of the ID “methodology”.
RBH
Donald promotes the standard misconception at the heart of all ID supporters.
ID does NOT begin with direct observations, but rather interpreted observations of nature.
IC is an interpretation of an observable phenomenon, not the phenomenon itself.
so, right from the “beginning” ID is NOT based on any direct observations.
Thanks for subconsciously pointing that out for us there, Donald.
It is because ID does NOT begin with direct observation, that one actually can’t even develop a scientific hypothesis to test it.
Luskin conveniently ignores that some “Darwinists” like me say, “go ahead, teach YEC in a non-science class.” From the brief description of the course, though, there seems to be no “equal time” for critical analysis of YEC. If so, why aren’t the “I’m not a creationist” IDers demanding that critical analysis?
You could not ask for better evidence that creationists are fundamentally unteachable. He makes a pseudo-scientific claim. We point out that the claim is bogus, with references to several works scientifically refuting the claim. He ignores the references, refuses to read them, claims the argument is unchanged, admits that no matter what we do he won’t ‘take our word for it’, and in fact, calls the whole process of scientific refutation ‘rhetorical gimmicks’. He’s essentially arranged a wall of nonsense around himself that guarantees that nothing that he considers counterevidence will ever enter his brain. The way he’s arranged reality, no counterevidence ever could exist.
And last but not least, when we point out that he has no idea what he’s talking about, he calls this an ‘ad hominem’, quite a fashionable rhetorical gimmick among creationists these days.
Donald, your complaints are imbecilic. Read the articles and explain why they don’t ‘settle the issue’. Your simply saying they don’t impresses no one. If you won’t read the articles (most likely), just shut the hell up and go away.
Nope. That’s why it’s faith. Not coincidentally, that’s why it’s useless.
Except for stroking one’s ego and fleecing the credulous, of course.
On the other hand, Donald doesn’t think ID has to explain … well . . ANYTHING. Anything at all whatsoever. It doesn’t have to tell us what the designer does. It doesn’t have to tell us how it does whatever it does. It doesn’t have to tell us where we can see it doing anythign today.
Odd, isn’t it.
Like I said, Donald is a liar. A deceitful, deliberate, calculating liar.
Well, Donald, since you’re not answering questions and all, here’s a few more (that I have asked you before) that you can go ahead and not answer. Again.
*ahem*
How does “evolution can’t explain X Y or Z, therefore goddidit” differ from plain old ordinary run-of-the-mill “god of the gaps?
Here’s *another* question for you to not answer, Donald: Suppose in ten years, we DO come up with a specific mutation by mutation explanation for how X Y or Z appeared. What then? Does that mean (1) the designer USED to produce those things, but stopped all of a sudden when we came up with another mechanisms? or (2) the designer was using that mechanism the entire time, or (3) there never was any designer there to begin with.
Which is it, Donald? 1, 2 or 3?
(sound of crickets chirping)
Yeah, Donald, I can understand why you don’t want to answer that simple question.
You are a liar, Donald. A dishonest, evasive, deceitful, deceptive liar.
Mr. M seems to have left the building. (Probably he’s reading all those references, so he can speak more knowledgeably on the subject. Or not.)
But since, when the going gets tough, Mr. M. “defers” (read, “ducks behind”) DI luminary Michael Behe, perhaps I can answer for him: the Intelligent Designer “poofed” it into existence in a puff of smoke.
But doesn’t he know that smoking is hazardous to his health?
The burden of proof lies with those making the claim. You and your chorts are the ones claiming that all these studies explain in detail how the immune system arose and that they provide a detailed, testable model in step-by-Darwinian step fashion. It is up to you to show how they do that. Studies showing similarities in structures and functions might be useful as evidence of common decent but do not tell us how RM/NS built those structures or functions in the first place, which is what we want to know. Saying that because they’re similar, evolution must have built them without providing the details of how is of no use.
We know from these studies that functions and structures are similar between organisms. Great. How, again, did RM/NS, the mechanisms of evolution build these structures and functions, step-by-step in the first place, or did they just somehow “arise” or “spring forth”? Where’s the detailed testable model for that? Answer: there isn’t one. Not for the immune system nor for any of the other IC systems Behe described in his book.
But instead of explaining how these studies provide that information, we get attempts to change the subject, attempts to shift the burden of proof, ad hominems (and not very clever ones at that, and the like.
This is science? Right!
Better luck next time.
In yet another case of classic projection, DM forgets that HE was the one who made the claim that:
so, no DM, it’s up to YOU to explain how these dozens of studies don’t qualify as actual research studies addressing the issue of the evolution of immune systems.
I really think you need a shrink, there, old boy.
…but hey, if you are to ingorant to parse the words in those papers, or simply too lazy to even try, feel free to admit that.
starting from that position, you might begin by asking some actual QUESTIONS about how we have ascertained the evolution of the immune system through actual things we like to call “experiments”.
However, you have to actually express a genuine interest in knowing the answers, rather than expecting you preaching nonsense is gonna encourage anybody to translate these articles into sub-layman for you.
The latest silliness from the mouth of Donald M:
Yep, Donald, we’re chortling all right.
But not with you, if’n you know what I mean.
The burden of proof lies with those making the claim.
And we did.
Now it’s YOUR job to show where it falls down, if it does.
That means READING the papers. And THINKING about it.
That does NOT meaning running away.
Folks keep putting the answer in front of you…and you keep rejecting it WITHOUT EVER LOOKING AT IT.
Idiot.
And I call you a liar, because I truly doubt that you ever read any of the papers or understood any of the concepts presented. Only a liar would reject evidence, no matter the quality, without ever analyzing it and keep saying no evidence has ever been presented.
Right. Behe (and you) claimed that no work is being done on the evolution of this system. In light of all the references you’re intent on ignoring, I’d say that claim doesn’t hold up too well.
Who, exactly is making that claim? The references provide a substantial framework for the key steps in the evolution of adaptive immunity. I expect there will be decades of research fleshing it out. But even after decades, centuries, millenia of research, you can always ask for “more detail”. So, how much detail are you demanding? Let’s get quantitative here.
Before we waste our time any further on this, which papers did you read, Mr. M?
Next Dover, you mean? That had very little to do with luck, my friend.
Agreed.
Show me the designer.
Show me what it does.
Show me how it does it.
(sound of crickets chirping)
Yep, that’s what I thought.
Are you gonna answer my questions this time, Donald? Or are you just going to run away. Again.
How dreadful.
Here, Donald, let me repeat my questions for you once more, just in case you missed them the first dozen times:
What, again, did you say the scientific theory of ID is? How, again, did you say this scientific theory of ID explains these problems? What, again, did you say the designer did? What mechanisms, again, did you say it used to do whatever the heck you think it did? Where, again, did you say we can see the designer using these mechanisms to do … well . . anything?
Or is “POOF!! God — uh, I mean, The Unknown Intelligent Designer — dunnit!!!!” the extent of your, uh, scientific theory of ID .… ?
How does “evolution can’t explain X Y or Z, therefore goddidit” differ from plain old ordinary run-of-the-mill “god of the gaps?
Here’s *another* question for you to not answer, Donald: Suppose in ten years, we DO come up with a specific mutation by mutation explanation for how X Y or Z appeared. What then? Does that mean (1) the designer USED to produce those things, but stopped all of a sudden when we came up with another mechanisms? or (2) the designer was using that mechanism the entire time, or (3) there never was any designer there to begin with.
Which is it, Donald? 1, 2 or 3?
Oh, and if ID isn’t about religion, Donald, then why do you spend so much time bitching and moaning about “philosophical materialism”?
(sound of crickets chirping)
You are a liar, Donald. A bare, bald-faced, deceptive, deceitful, deliberate liar, with malice aforethought. Still.
Let’s assume for the sake of argument that this is all absolutely true.
So what?
We don’t know where Jimmy Hoffa or Amelia Earhardt are, either. Does that mean, in your view, that God kidnapped them?
“We don’t know” means “we don’t know”, Donald. It doesn’t mean “we don’t know, therefore your unsupported assertion must be true”.
But then, ID is indeed nothing more than God of the Gaps, isn’t that right?
Donald,
I have asked you what the ID explanation for the immune system is. You have failed to answer. So I will lay out my chain of questions.
1 What is the ID position on the human immune system? 2 Why do we need it? 3 Would it not have been simpler (and more rational), for the designer to design in a way so that an immune system was not needed?
Maybe you will address this on your next drive-by. I wont hold my breath waiting though.
I live at 34033 Commonwealth in Seattle. Been up here before?
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