SkinnyHead: Fine, then.

Answer this - What is ID? Don't dissemble, don't give me some goddamned garbage, just answer the question. You've repeatedly claimed what ISN'T ID, but you've refused to answer what Intelligent Design encompasses (oh, and you're outright lying about ID not being a religious movement).

As to everything else you're bringing up, you're being woefully ignorant or you're simply seeing what you want to see to fit your own twisted needs.

The reason ID can't be taught in Science class is that it cannot conform to scientific testing standards. AT ALL. Even forgetting the obvious religious aspect of the Intelligent Design agenda, it cannot be tested using scientific apparati and thus there is no place teaching it along side things that can be tested using those same methods.

Less talky talky, more Billy Billy!

Actually, SkinnyHead, just answer me this one damned question.

I have an appendix. It doesn't do anything useful, but everyone person on earth was born with one. People who've had their appendixes removed suffer no ill effects.

If Intelligent Design were true, why would we still have appendixes? Would not an Intelligent Designer see that they have no use and therefore not include them in babies born today so that biological resources could be put towards, say, stronger lungs or heart, a bigger brain?

Evolution postulates a workable theory for why people are born with appendixes - they're vestigial organs, and somewhere in our biological history, they fulfilled a function. Now they don't.

Simplified Question - Why would an Intelligent Designer give us an organ that had no use? Vestigial organs in nature are relatively common.

SkinnyHead: No, ID is not a form of Christianity.



"Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions." ~ The Wedge Document

Citizen Snip: SkinnyHead: No, ID is not a form of Christianity.



"Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions." ~ The Wedge Document

The day evolutionary biology unambiguously explains how living self-replicating cells were created out of non-living ingredients, we will all be evolutionists. Till that day shut the fark up, research, keep your head down and prove what you are yelling to everyone.

_{/only solid proof is acceptable, not promises to prove, or even worse, subterfuge of having already proved}

SkinnyHead: Dan the Schman:

I am shocked that you would make such an intellectually dishonest comment.

It was appalling, wasn't it.

Nah, though I didn't lol. But kudos for attempting to lighten the mood.

1) ID and Creationism are forms of Christianity. You can't dispute this, because it's been proven time and again and even their proponents have admitted it and even your comments are basically conceding that it is some form of religious teaching.

No, ID is not a form of Christianity.

Well, ID proponents would disagree with you, but okay.

2) You are correct that aspects of a religion can be taught so long as they aren't endorsed. This means they can say that Jews, Christians, and Muslims believe in the same God, they just disagree when it comes to each others' "Prophets". You can't, however, teach that Christianity is the one true religion, or claim any evidence of its superiority over any other religion.

Are we in agreement thus far?

Yes.

Good.

I hope I haven't put any words in your mouth. I mean, you comparing a "comparative science class" to a "comparative religion class" as an example of how to teach ID without violating the First Amendment does imply that you concede ID to be religious in nature.

No, I was answering the assertion that "teaching religion in a public school is quite illegal". Endorsement of religion is unlawful, not just teaching it.

People who want to ban ID from school have to do more than say it is a religion. They have to prove that the school is teaching it in a manner that endorses it as a religion.

Even if that wasn't intentional, ID is religious in nature. An unknown, omnipotent "designer" is, by definition a God (just not necessarily one tied to one specific religion), and Gods are religious (or mythical) by nature.

According to that way of thinking, it would be illegal to read the Declaration of Independence in a school room, because it refers to the self-evident truth of a creator. The founding fathers who wrote the first amendment did not consider mere belief in a creator as a religion.

Not true. First, how is an unknown, omnipotent designer scientific? Where is the evidence? Where is the objectivity? You are getting into a debate here, but you're not presenting evidence in favor of ID. How is it NOT religious?

As for the Declaration of Independence, that's not what it says, and you've been corrected on this matter before. You're twisting the words. The truths that are self-evident (note: not the "self-evident truth of a creator") are that all men are equal and have certain inalienable rights. Yes, it says these are endowed by a creator, but it doesn't state it as an unequivocal truth. Secondly, there is a difference between saying that a creator endowed us with the right to speak freely, and saying that this frog right here was designed by a creator.

There is a difference between the two, whether you see it or not. Besides, the Declaration isn't taught in such a way that endorses a creator because no classes in high school focus that deeply on the issue.

Teaching religion in science class, due to the nature of science, is tantamount to endorsing said religion. Science is about evidence and proofs and testing. Teaching ID would, first of all, be lying, since it hasn't filled out the requisite forms to join the Science Club, and secondly would be implying there is evidence for a God, thus endorsing a religion.

Are you saying that science is different than other classes because science teaches truth?

I'm not going to validate religion, if that's what your trying. What I'm saying is that teaching religion in science would give the illusion of validity to religion. Teaching it would imply that it's accepted as science.

As I've said before, teaching ID would be lying to the children, since it is not accepted as a valid scientific theory. It is not equal to gravity or evolution or photosynthesis or heliocentrism. Nor is it disputed among scientists who operate in the appropriate fields.

bolzy: The day evolutionary biology unambiguously explains how living self-replicating cells were created out of non-living ingredients, we will all be evolutionists. Till that day shut the fark up, research, keep your head down and prove what you are yelling to everyone.

I'm sorry, religious doctrines have proved this? Beyond, you know, "'cause this old book tells us that?".

bolzy: Citizen Snip: SkinnyHead: No, ID is not a form of Christianity.



"Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions." ~ The Wedge Document

The day evolutionary biology unambiguously explains how living self-replicating cells were created out of non-living ingredients, we will all be evolutionists. Till that day shut the fark up, research, keep your head down and prove what you are yelling to everyone.

/only solid proof is acceptable, not promises to prove, or even worse, subterfuge of having already proved

IX) What does that have to do with the Wedge Document? Or anything for that matter?

6) Why not ask archaeologists how the moon was formed? Or ask a hematologist to list every single absolute cause of skin cancer, no "maybe"s or "possibly"s accepted?

S) The wonderful things about science are its willingness and eagerness to be proven wrong and refusal to have absolute, unequivocal answers. I have no doubt there will be (if there isn't one already) a possible explanation for how such a thing could occur, as well as experiments to back it up, but we will never know with 100% certainty, and we'll never claim to.

Please put your straw man away.

bolzy: The day evolutionary biology unambiguously explains how living self-replicating cells were created out of non-living ingredients, we will all be evolutionists. Till that day shut the fark up, research, keep your head down and prove what you are yelling to everyone.

/only solid proof is acceptable, not promises to prove, or even worse, subterfuge of having already proved

Why would you want evolutionary biologists to explain something from abiogenesis, another field entirely? That's a little odd. You might as well be asking them to prove gravity waves.

If you're interested in abiogenesis, there's a lot of information on Wikipedia, as well as many of the current theories.

Evolution concerns itself with what happened after life got started, not how it got started.

I swear I saw those goalposts here a minute ago...

bolzy:The day evolutionary biology unambiguously explains how living self-replicating cells were created out of non-living ingredients, we will all be evolutionists. Till that day shut the fark up, research, keep your head down and prove what you are yelling to everyone.

I'm yelling to everyone? Well, sorry guys. I didn't realize that image was so loud.

/what that had to do with my original comment, I don't know

SkinnyHead: Huh.... did you bother to read the article you just linked to me? Ya know, at all?

FTA: "The actual normal flora bacteria within the appendix, as well within our gut, are the same, so we've lost all of those specialised bacteria.

"So it doesn't have that safe house type of function anymore, I don't think.

"It's a vestige of something that was there in previous incarnations, if you like."

The article goes on to mention exactly what I've previously said - as humans evolve further, the Appendix has shrunk further and further, making even this incredibly minor role even more suspect.

Thanks for proving my point though, I owe you a beer!

jekostas: Actually, SkinnyHead, just answer me this one damned question.

I have an appendix. It doesn't do anything useful, but everyone person on earth was born with one. People who've had their appendixes removed suffer no ill effects.
...
Evolution postulates a workable theory for why people are born with appendixes - they're vestigial organs, and somewhere in our biological history, they fulfilled a function. Now they don't.

That's a popular misconception. "Vestigial" is not the same as "functionless". "Vestigial" means it has lost its original function, which is the case for the human appendix.

SkinnyHead: jekostas: Evolution postulates a workable theory for why people are born with appendixes - they're vestigial organs, and somewhere in our biological history, they fulfilled a function. Now they don't.

Yes, you're correct. Evolutionists have claimed that the appendix is a vestigial organ that no longer has function. They argue, why would an Intelligent Designer give us an organ that had no use?

ID scientists, on the other hand, predicted that a function for the appendix will be found. Guess who was right.

Scientists discover true function of appendix organ.

That's quite a lot of lies there, Skinny. Evolutionists claim, and there is ample evidence to support the claim, that the appendix is a vestigial organ. But it has long ago been abandoned that the appendix has no function. Vestigial just means it no longer serves it's original function.

And, contrary to what your inane fantasy tells you, it was evolutionists who predicted, tested, and found out what the current function of the appendix is, not creationists. And it is evolutionists who predict and are testing for what the function of the appendix used to be. Intelligent design proponents did zero research and spent zero hours in labs doing any experimentation or testing.

Intelligent design proponents are this special kind of intellectual theives. They find out that science made an error that it corrected, as science is oft to do, and then they claim they predicted the error after the fact. So they can say whatever they want, but regardless of what they say it's worthless because they do nothing to support their claims.

bolzy: The day evolutionary biology unambiguously explains how living self-replicating cells were created out of non-living ingredients, we will all be evolutionists. Till that day shut the fark up, research, keep your head down and prove what you are yelling to everyone.

You're one to talk about doing research. You can't even read the articles that you cite as evidence in favor of your point. It takes someone like me to find the articles you cite, read them all thoroughly, and discover that quite contrary to everything you've said, the research you cite actually argues the opposite conclusion than the one you're drawing based on doing your "research" on creationist websites.

But, it's nice to know what standards you have for finally accepting the science of evolution. It's stupid that in order for you to accept evolution, you require an answer to a different question.

I blame this all on a decline in our educational system.

I had a very, very poor education through high school. I didn't know what grammar was until 10th grade, and didn't have any trigonometry until college.

Even so, I remember every year in my science classes, the teachers would spend the first few weeks going over the basics of the scientific method. Our first exams were on the scientific method.

When they taught evolution, they actually mentioned creationism. They said this is the theory of evolution, and this is why it is considered a scientific theory. This is "Creation". It is a religious concept, most of you will hear about at church. They itemized why it would not show up in science books, and contrasted its lack of scientific method to the process behind the theory of evolution.

This was in a very rural, conservative portion of the bible belt. We were taught that science had this concept of evolution that fit the scientific process, and that churches had their own concept we could learn more about in church. There was a very clear delineation of what would be taught in a science class versus what we would learn at church.

There were no protests, there were no legal fights over the need to bring church into a science class. Kids spent hours every week in their church related activities, it was fine for them to have science related activities.

Schools should teach English, Math, Science, History, Social Studies, Government... Give kids a solid understanding of Physics and Math, and then let them decide whether they want to believe in the god they learned in church. Teach them History and Government, and let them decide whether the Constitution should be ignored. Teach them English so they can communicate and get a job.

Leave religion in the church or at home. If you don't think they are getting enough religious instruction at church, try reading the bible to your kids at home. It is not the public educational system's job to teach your children religion.

Kome: And, contrary to what your inane fantasy tells you, it was evolutionists who predicted, tested, and found out what the current function of the appendix is, not creationists. And it is evolutionists who predict and are testing for what the function of the appendix used to be. Intelligent design proponents did zero research and spent zero hours in labs doing any experimentation or testing.

Not only that, but their "prediction" was pretty useless. The ID proponents predict everything has a function. They believe this on faith. And they make zero predictions on what these to-be-discovered functions will be.

Intelligent design proponents are this special kind of intellectual theives. They find out that science made an error that it corrected, as science is oft to do, and then they claim they predicted the error after the fact. So they can say whatever they want, but regardless of what they say it's worthless because they do nothing to support their claims.

And if no function is found, they just say we haven't found the function yet.

UNObserver: //waiting for a IDer to misquote his paper(s)

Creationists found about him out years ago. A number of his positions are fairly easy creationists to misrepresent. Here are a couple of links that will introduce you to the creationist misuse of Woese:

Icons of ID (new window)


Testimony of Wells during the Kansas Kangaroo Court (new window)

lake_huron: Dan the Schman: /this is fun.
//I assumed this was the inspiration behind the Billies.

Actually, it was the accidental posting in

burndtdan [TotalFark] Quote 2008-02-21 07:55:27 PM
http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=3416592 (new window)

The link you gave was cool. However, even before I read it, it seemed natural for me to do


I've never witnessed the birth of a meme before... So beautiful... Sniff...

rofl did i accidentally start a meme in that thread?

or did i just accidentally stumble upon a meme?

ok, i just went back and looked at the thread after i accidentally put billy in there... and the rest of this thread...

seriously, i was laughing so hard i was crying.

preserved for posterity (new window)

I have spent a lot of time reading biology books and books about evolution, more specifically, and I will have to agree that most of the teachers I had, in high school and the community college I went to before transferring to a university, had no idea what they were talking about and confused more kids and/or sent them the way of ID believers than they informed.

burndtdan: rofl did i accidentally start a meme in that thread? or did i just accidentally stumble upon a meme?

It would seem a little of both. You posted accidental genius, and while trying to figure out what the possible reference was, I found an actual connection.

Dan the Schman: burndtdan: rofl did i accidentally start a meme in that thread? or did i just accidentally stumble upon a meme?

It would seem a little of both. You posted accidental genius, and while trying to figure out what the possible reference was, I found an actual connection.

"genius"... riiiiight...

i had the wrong url in my clipboard. i can't begin to express how amused i am by everyone turning it into something.

I wonder if the inanity on display by the likes of Bevets, SkinnyHead et al could possibly rise to the acme of stupidity enshrined on a daily basis here: http://www.fstdt.com/

Another gem from 3 days ago:

The fact that there is no evidence of God existing is even more proof that he does, as it proves that he is a supernatural being.

burndtdan: rofl did i accidentally start a meme in that thread?



/No GIMP skillz

burndtdan: To be fair, I think that inert did the first PS. So you and inert are the lucky parents...

bolzy: The day evolutionary biology unambiguously explains how living self-replicating cells were created out of non-living ingredients, we will all be evolutionists. Till that day shut the fark up, research, keep your head down and prove what you are yelling to everyone.

/only solid proof is acceptable, not promises to prove, or even worse, subterfuge of having already proved

Here's a quick analogy:

Big Bang - Construction of Stadium
Life Begins - Coin Toss
Evolution of Life - Super Bowl
Natural Selection - Coaches Play Book (method by which the game is played)

All three are connected; however they are operated by differing forces. You need the stadium to play the super bowl, but when the stadium is built and who built it is irrelevant. The same with the coin toss, it has some effect on the way the game is played, but not terribly significant; the game plan is not changed by winning or loosing the coin toss.

Evolution and Natural Selection say basically the same thing - How the planet came to be doesn't matter, how life started has no bearing; how life has changed... now that's an important issue.

Make sense?

Isn't there some bill being considered in Britain to the effect that constant creationist attempts to insert creationism in a variety of forms into the public school curriculum constitutes legal nuisance and abuse of the legal system? Basically the same measures being applied to Jack Thompson at the moment.

Any way we could get that implemented in America?

Zamboro: Isn't there some bill being considered in Britain to the effect that constant creationist attempts to insert creationism in a variety of forms into the public school curriculum constitutes legal nuisance and abuse of the legal system? Basically the same measures being applied to Jack Thompson at the moment.

Any way we could get that implemented in America?

My understanding is that the courts are loath to take away someone's first amendment right to petition the courts unless they have a very well-established pattern of being a vexatious litigant. Even then, it's something you have to do on a district-by-district basis. I would suspect that any similar bill passed in the U.S. would be declared unconstitutional.

Welcome back, abb3w. It's been quiet here without you, Billy Joel notwithstanding.

/i can haz p's and q's?

Woese from ten years back (emphasis is mine):

The years of ostracization may have left Woese cynical about biologists, but not about biology. He is passionate about the future of his science. "Microbiology is undergoing a quiet revolution," he says. "The way we look at microorganisms is changing. The way we look at microbiology, its place in the pecking order of biological sciences, is changing. Microbial ecology has finally become true ecology; a microbial niche can now in principle, for the first time, be defined in organismal terms. Microbial diversity has once again become a respectable thing to study."

Maybe one day it will even become a respectable thing to teach. The status of biological instruction, especially in the high schools, disturbs Woese. "Biology is poorly taught in general at the high school level," he says, referring to the polarization of evolution by the scientifically heterodox. "Scientifically, the matter is simple. The essence of biology is evolution, and biology should be taught from an evolutionary perspective. Yet, although evolution is covered to some extent in high school biology courses, it bears the scarlet letter and is taught in a guarded fashion, embalmed in caveats. The reason for this is obvious, as are the pressures on textbook publishers."

Source (new window)

Billy-Bob Kenobi: "My understanding is that the courts are loath to take away someone's first amendment right to petition the courts unless they have a very well-established pattern of being a vexatious litigant. Even then, it's something you have to do on a district-by-district basis. I would suspect that any similar bill passed in the U.S. would be declared unconstitutional."

Hmmm....well all things considered, that's how it ought to be. As Carl Sagan put it: ""The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas."

Even so, I wish there were some way to permanently derail their plans. Even if you're separated from the wolves by an electric fence, it's pretty hard to sleep soundly when you keep wondering how long the current will hold out.

SkinnyHead:
Why not give it a try? Get Congress to pass a law to mandate the teaching of evolution only and to prohibit US public schools from teaching the scientific theory of intelligent design. If Congress is afraid to defy the majority of voters who favor teaching differing views, just tell them, hey, that's argumentum ad populum, science is not a democracy! That should do it.


There's a big difference between "belief in God" and "farking stupid enough to believe it would ever remotely pass for science and therefore be taught in school".

Obviously the latter exist, but thankfully they're in the minority.

So, uh, gonna bother answering any of the questions brought up since your last visit? Nah, didn't think so.

abb3w: Clear enough?

You'd think someone who claimed to have some form of law degree would know something about the constitution.

SkinnyHead: scientific theory of intelligent design

You keep insisting that ID is a scientific theory, yet real scientists have time and again demonstrated exactly why it isn't. Where are the scientific tests for design that can suitably be implemented in a hypothesis testing scheme?

SkinnyHead: Yes, I've heard many people express that particular philosophy. Pardon me if I don't agree.

If it is a science then where are the scientific tests? Where are the data, testable hypothesis? Methods for predicting design and distinguishing it from non-design? By any reasonable metric used to separate a scientific inquiry from a non-scientific one ID doesn't pass.

And it isn't a purely philosophical distinction. Yes there is an area called Philosophy of Science and different people have proposed different metrics for defining what exactly "Science" is. But most reasonable people have defaulted to a pragmatic approach where we take a bunch of the ideas talked about in Philosophy of Science and ask if a study is at least giving an honest attempt at fulfilling most of those basic requirements in some form or another. We look and ask if they are using a methodology that most scientists would recognize as being scientific. We ask if they are gathering data, testing hypotheses, and producing scientific papers of their results.

ID pretty much refuses to do this. Look at the "scientific" definitions they are dealing with, IC and CSI being the two biggest. By their very definitions you can;t do any sort of hypothesis testing with them. You can;t look at system X and predict whether it is IC or not and then test it with some sort of metric to reject or accept the null hypothesis. You can't use CSI to determine if sequence X/System X was designed or not designed with any sort of confidence interval.

So, why exactly does it get a free pass around the sorts of things all other areas of scientific study do and why should it be called science?

SkinnyHead: If you haven't yet noticed, simple blind disagreement doesn't help your case any. ID is not Science, it's been proved so in the courts.

Make a case for it or STFU.

Kome: abb3w: Clear enough?

You'd think someone who claimed to have some form of law degree would know something about the constitution.

I would hope that someone with a high school diploma or equivalent (let alone one in "law") would have known the Bill of Rights enough no to have made the mistake he just made. Of course, a great many Americans who get degrees can be surprisingly ignorant about the American form of government. It is a crying shame and a national disgrace. But then again, it is also a shame how our education system keeps the vast majority of people ignorant about evolution.

Gee, being unaware of the existence of the Tenth Amendment shows just how ignorant about the law SkinnyHead is. (I could care less whether or not he knew it was the Tenth Amendment, but that he is unaware of the principle is pathetic. Anyone who pays attention to the news can't help but be aware of the principle even if they forgot what they were told in high school government class (or whatever high school called it).

entropic_existence: So, why exactly does it get a free pass around the sorts of things all other areas of scientific study do and why should it be called science?

Oh, with these people, it's worse. They give creationism a free pass while they put evolution under impossible burdens of proof.

And then they b*tch because the overwhelming majority of the scientific community doesn't take them seriously.

"Why do we hiccup? A University of Chicago anatomist provides the answer and it's another of God's tests of our faith" will go post on 26 Feb 2008 at 1:37 AM.