"Really Uptight"
There is a new article in the LA Times about the lawsuit that I blogged about yesterday. The name of the case seems to be Hurst v. Newman. The article contains this about the son of the named plaintiff, Kenneth Hurst:
Jeremy Hurst, a 15-year-old sophomore, is caught in the crossfire in town and at home.
His father, Kenneth Hurst, is a scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge and one of the parents behind the lawsuit. His mother is a practicing Christian and is not involved in the lawsuit.
"My mom takes me to Baptist Church every Sunday; my dad gives me all the science books he can," said the slender youth. "Personally, I don't know what to think."
He said his father, who stated in the lawsuit that the class is an inappropriate attempt to evangelize students, seems "really uptight about this whole thing." The son suggested a different tack: "I think kids should choose whether to take the class or not."
No! Allowing kids to chose whether to take an elective course? Solving the problem by letting the interested kids take it and letting those not interested or offended not take it? That is too easy! This is America, where we file lawsuits to censor information, and where people who do not like classes in high school try to stop others from taking them too. That is the American way, and that is what people for the American way do.
I believe that the father, Kenneth Hurst, was actually invited to be a speaker in the class to give it balance. He declined, and then apparently decided to sue. One of the grounds is that the presentation will not be balanced.
Is a lawsuit really the best way to resolve this?
I was also amused by this quote:
The San Andreas fault literally cuts through town, and right here "red state is slamming up against blue state like tectonic plates," said Patric Hedlund, managing editor of the Mountain Enterprise, a local weekly.
If you were wondering "What were they thinking?" when they filed the lawsuit, a copy of the complaint is available here.
Since the plaintiffs asked for a temporary restraining order, the initial phases of this one should move very quickly.
Let me clarify my position. I do not know all the details. I am not at all sure that this course is a good one, or a good idea from a policy standpoint. If I were on the school board, I probably would have required more changes to the course proposal. But does it violate the Constitution? With 13 kids taking it as an elective? Hardly. And I do not think Anthony Kennedy or Samuel Alito will either.
posted by Lawrence Selden @ 7:22 AM
25 comments
25 Comments:
Do Darwinians find themselves between a rock and a hard place here? They do not want I.D. to be about science because they don't like the fact that it exposes real problems with Macro Evolution.
So now we have I.D. in philosophy class, and it's not acceptable there either. Why? Because they don't have a defense? Could it be that they don't dare bring Darwinism into the philosophical realm? (Which is where I think it belongs) Also, what would be the result if they did? You don't want to bring "science" into "philosphy"! You might mix the two up! (wink,wink)
You point out a profound truth about the Left, that they use lawsuits to do their censorship. The irony is that they are putatively against censorship, but are knee-deep in it in the courts. Also, Macroevolution is pure philosophy. You have a great site.
Philosophy has already been polluted by Darwinists, Daniel Dennett being a prime example.
The Darwinists aren't trying to protect the "sacred" ground of philosophy from religion. They're trying to hold on to the ground they've captured with their religion, Secular Humanism.
They love to talk about the Discovery Institute's "Wedge Document", when they have an entire Marxist/Gramscian library they've used as a societal wedge for the past 80 years.
jim jordan
That Limbaugh line might hold true in this issue which religious ideologues have created - that is, if you think the judge in the Kitzmiller case is part of "the Left" - practicing Lutheran, appointed by GW, confirmed unanimously by a Republican Senate... Yeah, he's a real pinko.
everyone else
In order for a new idea in science to be accepted, it needs a positive reason to be accepted - merely disputing another theory does not satisfy this standard. And before it is accepted, we must engage and surmount several discrete reasons why ID should not be taught at the public high school level. It is logically wrong try to answer one of these reasons by refuting a different one (that's Lawrence's "obscurantism") - they require their own separate answers. Once we've soundly and positively answered and disspelled these objections, then ID is ready for consideration:
-It is part of a religious agenda to re-evangelize public education.
-It has not been adopted or accepted by the scientific community - peer reviewed by critics, etc. Proponents are attempting to sidestep that entire process and inject it directly into schools. When academic and professional scientists do encounter ID, they resoundingly reject it.
-Public junior and senior high schools are no place for ideological, flakey science. In school, we teach things that are fundamental to science, laws and theories which have been tested for years, ideas which are logically ironclad, and do not introduce supernatural, metaphysical or theological questions into the realm of science.
-It is bad science. For example: no reputable scientist makes the distinction between macro and microevolution. The distinction, reconsideration of the two as seperate, and dispute over the former is a recent invention of vapid religious pundits who are seeking to distort science into a shape amenable with their religious convictions. Furthermore, logical "cornerstones" of this nascent idea are unsound: From Behe's mousetrap, to Dembski's filter. These have have been disputed, disproven and resoundingly rejected in academia without qualification.
Public schools are not simply a clearinghouse for all information, both sound and unsound. But, that is the loophole ID is trying dishonestly to create. Public education, especially compulsory public education, is there to educate in ideas which are sound and proven, have run the gauntlet of critical inquiry and objection, and through all that are finally accepted by the larger academic community. This is a very tough standard to meet, and ID has no hope of satisfying it. High school is neither a place nor an excuse to expose students to bad science which disputes the sound science they are learning in their other classes. On the whole, they are not mature, experienced or educated enough to recognize the difference between the two. This impedes the progress of science, and we're already doing a good enough job of that on our own, without poisoning the schools which are supposed to be teaching the sound science in the first place.
ID keeps losing, give it up. Our schools have it difficult enough as it is - forcing them to dumb down students with irrelevant red herrings like ID does not help.
Looks like we have a second wave of McCarthyism rising in this country, that of the humanist, secularist kind.
If we don't like to hear certain things, why let's just create frivolous lawsuits to tie up the courts and cloud the real issues. That way not only do we not have to hear viewpoints contrary to our own but we can prevent others from hearing them too.
Looks like we have a second wave of McCarthyism rising in this country, that of the humanist, secularist kind.
Say what now?
McCarthyism was a witch-hunt that uttery ruined the lives of the people it touched.
In what way is it a viable analogy to what's happening now?
Stewie,
The people bringing these lawsuits are leftists. Judges can't censor you unless a lawsuit is brought i.e. I wasn't talking about the judge.
To all, this course (and all courses like it) should be called "Philosophies of Origins" and include both the theories of Macroevolution and Intelligent Design, among others. The battle is in forcing the Darwinists to explain why Macroevolution is more scientific than ID. That is a battle that can be more easily won.
Sorry Jim, let me see if I have this right: when you say "That is a battle that can be more easily won" you're referring to ID being "more scientific" than so-called "macroevolution."
If this is the case, why is this easy battle taking so long?
McCarthyism was a witch-hunt that uttery ruined the lives of the people it touched.
In what way is it a viable analogy to what's happening now?
You're a "witch" if you wish to have a career in science and you do not toe the Secular Humanist party line. Your career will be ruined once you express a hint of disagreement with the "scientific community", a codephrase for the elitists in academia.
I know that people who love science, myself included, want to think of science as being pure and unsullied and scientists as being high-minded altruistic individual trying to push human progress forward, but sadly that's not the case. Science has been and always will have dirty ties to politics, especially when the politicians control the purse strings.
Darwin himself published his two most famous works to at least partially justify European (specifically British) imperial dominance and racism. Some have tried to whitewash this by saying that other people misinterpreted his observations, but his Descent of Man makes it obvious that Darwin himself supported the supposed misinterpretations.
Ugh, no coffee = bad grammar.
scientists as being high-minded altruistic individuals trying to push human progress forward
Science has (strike been) and always will have dirty ties to politics, especially when the politicians control the purse strings.
everyone,
Briefly:
-Authority of the Academic/Professional Scientific community: They are the ones who have been the arbiters of sound and unsound science all along, they are the ones who reject ID on its scientific merits (and I have repeated their evidence extensively in comments on this blog), and they are the ones who got us to the moon, since you bring it up. This is not some small, mysterious, oligarchical group a la the Elders of Zion - it's a huge community of many, many extraordinarily bright people who come at problems and new theories from all possible angles. Over time, ideas are accepted or rejected or simply held in dispute, etc, etc... and the ID movement is trying to sidestep that process because their idea can't survive the test of actual science.
You only reject the authority of the scientific community when it is convenient to you, therefore you are the one being inconsistent. Evaluating scientific ideas based on their scientific merits is what separates the progress of the 20th century from all others. Yet you wish to return to some sort of Medieval standard for science - why? You actually expect the civilized world to commit such an intellectual apostasy as to stand in the way of the progress of science and humanity?
-Religious motivations being irrelevant: Motivation has everything to do with it - ID requires a Designer and introduces irrelevant theological questions into science. This is both unscientific and unconstitutional. On that question of constitutionality, Darwinian theory does not require a greater deity, but it does not necessary prevent one either - that's why it's not unconstitutional. It's scientific because it seeks natural causes, and has been tested and used in practice for 150 years to excellent effect.
It is completely relevant, because the motivation tells us that ID is Creation Sceince, the teaching of which the Supreme Court rejected in 1989 . From page 32 of the Kitzmiller decision:
"As Plaintiffs meticulously and effectively presented to the Court, Pandas went through many drafts, several of which were completed prior to and some after the Supreme Court’s decision in Edwards, which held that the Constitution forbids teaching creationism as science. By comparing the pre and post Edwards drafts of Pandas, three astonishing points emerge: (1) the definition for creation science in early drafts is identical to the definition of ID; (2) cognates of the word creation (creationism and creationist), which appeared approximately 150 times were deliberately and systematically replaced with the phrase ID; and (3) the changes occurred shortly after the Supreme Court held that creation science is religious and cannot be taught in public school science classes in Edwards. This word substitution is telling, significant, and reveals that a purposeful change of words was effected without any corresponding change in content, which directly refutes FTE’s argument that by merely disregarding the words “creation” and “creationism,” FTE expressly rejected creationism in Pandas."
-The "at least let it try" to meet the standards idea: It is trying right now, and failing at every turn in the scientific community.
it's a huge community of many, many extraordinarily bright people who come at problems and new theories from all possible angles.
BWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!
OK, maybe you should run science.
...Moron.
I fail to see what is so "unscientific" about inferring design. Humans do it every minute of every day.
The fact that some loons are trying to throw ID out of PHILOSOPHY class is proof postive that they can't stand any form of public criticism. It's got nothing to do with supposed "science". It's a war of ideologies.
*gasp*! The kids might actually start thinking critically for themselves and question macro-evolution! We can't have that!
Anon,
You're a "witch" if you wish to have a career in science and you do not toe the Secular Humanist party line. Your career will be ruined once you express a hint of disagreement with the "scientific community", a codephrase for the elitists in academia.
I'm willing to put money on the fact that you're not a scientist, published a paper, or worked in academia. It makes it sound like these is some hidden cabal pulling the strings of scientific thought!
Darwin himself published his two most famous works to at least partially justify European (specifically British) imperial dominance and racism.
Say what now?
"...at least partially justify European...imperial dominance and racism"? Do you mean to say that he came up with the theory in order to justify that position? Or do you mean he came up with the theory that later happened to justify that position?
If Darwin went to the Galapagos in order to justify European imperial dominance, then why did he break away from the creation story of the day which had it's own "imperial justification" with Manifest Destiny and the medieval idea that everything on earth was created for purpose in man’s life?
If he was that concerned with justifying imperial dominance, then why come up with a theory that was so divorced from any other contemporary thinking?
I would say that Darwin published his works to at least partially explain his observations in the natural world and fossils. Though I could be wrong; I can’t remember what Darwin writes that justifies imperial dominance in On The Origin of the Species, though I haven’t read Descent of Man – could you point out some passages or chapters I should check out?
Christopher,
ID requires a designer, but it does not care who it is. That's what ID is. Design inference.
Did God do it? ID does not know.
Did an alien do it? ID does not know.
Did a pre-historic non-carbon based life-form do it? ID does not know.
Very glad you've posed that, because it highlights one of the issues the scientific community at large has with ID.
Accepted scientific theories are never in a vaccuum.
For instance, Alfred Wegener proposed continental drift in 1915, which accounted for various observations in geology, geography, climatology and the fossil record. Interesting to note that Wegener's theories were largely dismissed by the scientific community at the time, though are now entirely accepted. They only really became accepted when it was noted how well the theory fit into other observations from other disciplines.
(I hesitate to use the next example, as my point is not in the minutiae of this paragraph, but rather some more interesting stuff further down...) Darwin devised his theory while looking at the variation of the species in the Galapagos: for instance, every island in the Galapagos had its own kind of tortoise, and these had originated from a single tortoise species and had adapted to life on the different islands in different ways. The theory was expanded to include observations in the fossil record (yes, yes, I know many of you will take me to task on this phrase, but I say again: this paragraph is not the point I want to make...take a breath) and also supported theories from astronomy about the age of the galaxy, and theories from geology, etc.
And here's the bit that really gets me. I haven't come across on any ID sites or in any ID literature any exploration of the important follow-on questions that allow it to fit into observations from other disciplines.
Questions like:
- When were the species put on the earth?
- Were they all created at the same time or new species introduced at other epocs?
- How many to begin with?
- Were they uniformly scattered or put in one area?
These are questions that could be explored using the fossil record.
When I start asking these questions to IDers, the response is usually "No, this is as far as we're taking it."
They've posed this grand new theory and...stopped.
How does ID fit with other disciplines and theories about the earth and the history of the universe at large?
To help answer this question I've gone to the horse's mouth and scoured the Discovery Institute site for information and haven't found anything. For all the scientists that are supposedly supporting ID theory, not one of them seems to be exploring how ID impacts the rest of scientific knowledge at all.
Or am I wrong? Can anyone point me in the direction of someone who has at least taken a cursory glance at what the implication ID is for the rest of scientific knowledge?
It doesn't have to be scientist. Tell me what you guys think.
Until this is discussed, the scientific community will always hesitate before accepting ID.
Christopher
Yeah Sternberg's just another poor, persecuted IDeologue, getting beaten up by all the atheist materialist secular humanists who while away the days preening in their university offices.
Sternberg is no martyr, he got what he had coming to him - the "peer review" was done by Young Earth Creationists, who are most definitely not objective critics in this case. That makes him a liar and a fraud. For a thorough examination of the Sternberg episode, see http://danielmorgan.blogspot.com/2005/12/sternberg-saga-continues.html
Most of the "witch hunt" claims were either sexed-up or invented by the Creationist/ID/Christian community. They obscured the timeline of what happened, played fast and loose with the facts and language. I respect them no more for that than I do Michael Moore for Fahrenheit 9/11. Like him, they're liars and propagandists, and there is no reason trust a thing they say.
But, the scientific community tends to be pretty brutal on their frauds, like the guy who lied about cloning a human embryo in South Korea. He's been professionally discredited, as he should be.
A computer is not a naturally occurring organism, and if only for that reason alone, your analogy is unsound - don't waste my time with that BS. ID people make their idiot "The Gods Must Be Crazy" Coke bottle argument on a conssitent basis, but it does not hold water. I digested this in a post months ago on my blog.
Of course it's possible for people to be wrong in large groups. ID is a perfect example of that. Solidarity through ignorance. But, even after writing pages upon pages in the comments of this and other blogs, presenting concrete, positive evidence for Evolution, you people cling tenaciously to your precious creation science, because you can't think for yourselves. Then you give me these stock responses over and over and over again, which I've refuted a hundred different ways, and because it doesn't pretend to the supernatural and your fairy tale account of life's origins, you reply with more stock answers, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.
So, you won't accept logic, you won't accept evidence. I am therefore led to conclude that the only thing you can accept is an argument from authority, because authority is the only reason you have a personal Christian belief system, and therefore the only reason that worldview forces you to reject evolution. You grew up in a setting where authority figures told you then what you believe now. If you grew up in a Muslim country, you'd just as probably have their belief system, because one's choice of religion - regardless of their revelatory pretenses - the merely the effect of socially conditioned superstitions.
Yes, I'm being blunt. Yes, I'm being offensive. That does not affect the soundness of what I'm saying though. Why should one's worldview or religious convictions assert any influence over science... whatsoever? Unless you evaluate natural phenomena through natural explanation, you are at the mercy of your creed, which will only distort and poison the empirical evidence and objective criticism, reasoning and conclusions one makes in religion's absence. It has no place answering questions of "what," "when," "where" or "how."
And you don't even completely think through your own arguments. You reject evolution because of ID, but the notion of ID - perverse and insulting as it is - isn't even necessarily incompatible with evolution. An intelligent designer certainly could have designed this universe where evolution plays out the way it does. Deism is an old idea that even predates Paley. There's no way to know the answer to that question, though - at least, not in this life. Where ID disputes evolution is not in inventing a designer, but in moving him so close to his design - that some magical deity designed the human eye (apparently just as he designed all the other eyes transitional from planarian to arthropod to bee to human to bird). That he somehow magically transplanted all sorts of nearly-related organisms onto the Earth in the cambrian era.
You say that the designer could be aliens, but come on... you know that no one takes that seriously, especially coming from you. Maybe from a Scientologist who really actually belives something along those lines... but you're a Christian: God did it. He is as plausible a designer as the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
The discussion of the designer is necessary to the discussion of ID, because it "solves" the origins and development of life by conjuring him up. It answers the question of life's origins by inserting another question: the origin of a designer. You see, the original question still isn't answered - all you did was insert another step before the answer. So then why did we even bring up a designer in the first place? What was the point? You know that answer too: evangelism.
Get the hell out of our schools.
If Christians "got the hell out" of our schools, who would be left to fight the ever increasing liberalism that is driving them into the ground? Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it!
To all,
Can science explain where matter came from? No. It can only explain what happened after the Big Bang. Prior to the Big Bang, there was no such thing as science, it had not been created. Scientists agree on an age of the universe of approximately 14 billion years. Science, space-time, etc. began just before 10(-43) seconds after the Big Bang, or creation. Logically, if we were created by accident, then it would follow that the universe was created by accident. How can science ever cause a nonscientific event?
Yes, Macroevolution is as unscientific as Creationism because it pretends to be something that is both round and square. Such a beast is NOT scientific. Only a Clinton appointee would such a stupid argument.
It's worth noting that Christians somehow tie evolutionary theory in to the big bang theory. The two actually have relatively little, if anything, to do with each other, save the fact that both explain things that Christians hope God did.
Stephen Hawking himself no longer subscribes to the big bang theory - it's not *the* singular hypothesis that all of academia support. Such a hypothesis on the beginning of the universe does not yet exist. A very cool one, though, is that the universe perpetually collapses in on itself, re-expands, then collapses again, over and over. Doesn't really explain where it came from in the first place, but it is fun nonetheless.
And, just this week we've gotten in some new data which suggests that many stars are accelerating away from the universe's center, rather than slowing down. That was quite unexpected...
"A very cool one, though, is that the universe perpetually collapses in on itself, re-expands, then collapses again, over and over. Doesn't really explain where it came from in the first place, but it is fun nonetheless."
It's very stupid nonetheless!
"And, just this week we've gotten in some new data which suggests that many stars are accelerating away from the universe's center, rather than slowing down. That was quite unexpected... "
So we really don't know much at this point! Hmmm, science.... always changing, new theories, old theories, big bang, multiple universes, 3,000,000,000-6,000,000,000-no 14,000,000,000 years old. This isn't science, it's guess work. These theories along with Darwinian Evolution would not even get past discovery in a court of law.
Some worship the Creation, others the Creator!
No, apparently, some study creation, while you worship the creator.
Evolution's been to court a lot lately, so has ID. How's the score so far?
So you think the courts are a fair representation of how most clear thinking Americans think? Under 18 abortions without parental consent? Release a admitted child rapest back into society after 60 days served? Do you think our courts always make sound decisions? How's the score in regards to these areas of justice?
You can't legislate or litigate good parenting, it doesn't work.
The decisions in cases concerning evolution are extremely well-supported throughout the rulings. The Kitzmiller case, for example, is a 139 page decision, ruling on all the evidence that ID proponents put forth in court. Now they're regretting doing all that, because they gave the judge the opportunity not only to rule on the constitutionality of ID education as it was implemented in Dover, but also rule on the viability of all the evidence submitted at trial, which he does quite entertainingly I might add.
You took a tangent in bringing it up though. I was answering the previous poster's assertion that evolution couldn't hold up in court - because it obviously has. Recursively disqualifying what the poster said by voiding the justice system's judgement doesn't get us anywhere.
Really, saying "the courts don't always get it right" boils down to nothing. That's a moot point, as it's an obvious assertion to make about any activity in which people take part. Saying that the courts don't always get it right does as much to defend their decisions as it does to question them, so you might as well just skip to questioning them objectively on a case-by-case (or ruling-by-ruling, as it were) basis, because categorical declarations about human nature like the one you made above are worthless.
Long story short: making that point adds nothing to the conversation.
one side says..."we don't know how it all started or how it got to be what it is, but we're trying to find out the best way we can". The other side says "we know how it all got started because our big book tells us, now we just make up more stories to fit our own world view. Thanks be that the fearful and superstitious cannot (for now) burn scientists or anyone else who disagrees with them at the stake... they used to be so good at it, still are in many places.
Post a Comment
<< Home