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Because if not, so help me, people: Locusts!
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I thought people were exposed to those different ideas already, in places called church.
Pretty much to the exclusion of other ideas, in fact.
Why is this post different than all other posts? Locusts, maybe.
I believe in creation, as in, I believe God created us. I don’t like any of the ID theories I’ve read. Thing is, there’s no current working theory of evolution. There’s simply not; Steven Jay Gould says so in the intro to his book “The Structure of Evolutionary Theory.” His puprose in writing that book was to drive scholars to find a new direction for a working theory of evolution. It’s like trying to teach a known to be wrong unified fied theory because, hey, we know there is a unified field LAW, so any THEORY must be better than nothing, right?
Teach biology, chemistry, physics, astronomy, and genetics. In other words, teach real science. Leave out faith-based crap like ID and evolution. They are neither one scientific, and it’s a waste of time trying to teach junk science. Unless the purpose is not to teach science at all.
Some of you are just ASKING to get banned.
In my darker moods, I tend to believe it’s all just a big simulation (not original with me, of course — variants of the idea can be found in everything from Hindu scripture to The Matrix).
An awful lot of weirdnesses in quantum mechanics look like exactly like the sorts of things that happen in simulations — the fuzziness is reminiscent the sort of thing you see with quantization errors (like visible pixels in scanned photographs), and the observer effects (Schroedinger’s cat) are a lot like some of the standard cheats used in simulations (e.g. graphical simulations and games often save processor time by not bothering to calculate how to draw things that aren’t visible to anybody at that particular time).
In that case the person who programmed the simulation would be God, I suppose, but perhaps not an omniscient one (it’s pretty easy to write a simulation for which the outcome can’t be predicted in advance).
Maybe He’s just a grad student in some higher plane of existence.
If that’s the case, I hope we don’t get turned off when he gets his degree.
Excuse my ignorance, but doesn’t intelligent design cover everything not evolution? IOW, you either believe we are the result of luck (chance) or a God made the universe and the resulting life was part of God’s plan. Barak Obama belives in Intelligent Design. He’s Christian.
Now, as for teaching it in school? Philosophy class in public school and theology in Religious school. No?
Sorry guys but I just find it hard to get worked up about a public school in Lousianna teaching intelligent design in a classroom alongside the theory of evolution. It is not like that effects my life in the slightest. Who knows maybe I would feel differently if I had a kid going there but as of right now I think I care more about my naval lint. I hope that does not get me banned :(
If you listen to Senor Pequito Futbol-Verde, ID is a wedge being used by fundie Christians (and bandwagoning Wahhabists) to backdoor teaching about God and religion into public schools. Charles seems to define “fundies” as “people who think teaching evolution is equivalent to teaching ‘There is no God’, and thus are trying to get equal time.”
From my limited understanding, ID doesn’t look like good science so it doesn’t appeal to me. But I don’t think ” evolution != God “, so I’m not all that het up about it.
I think that philosophy should be in the public schools in philosophy class.
Is it religious indoctrination to posit evolution as a subset of or mechanistic expression of ID?
Isn’t this whole topic somewhat analogous to teaching children to obey traffic signals, then some time later discussing approaches to municipal government?
Sister, daughter, sister, daughter.
Science, religion, science, religion.
Reason, revelation, reason, revelation.
What sits at the nexus embodying them both at once? And what is the question that human being has? What is the best life, no? How should life best be lived?
Is it Chinatown? Or is it something else?
Forget it Jake, it’s politics.
“Barak Obama belives in Intelligent Design. He’s Christian.”
Um, no, he believes in black theology which is racist, among other things.
“Some of you are just ASKING to get banned.”
If it would not be joining such low company as “alphie” I might aim for that. Can you just imagine the internet 1eet-ness of being able to say – “yeah, Jeff G. banned me. A-yup.”
But I’d rather stay around and chime in on non-thor destroyed threads. Thanks.
Oh, and I hates me some locusts – so none of that, please.
After all these years I still can’t understand this fear or this need to segment and compartmentalize.
If introducing the field of ID in science class does the work of separating, graphically, science from philosophy and teaching students the scientific method and the difference between “theory” as understood by science and “theory” as understood colloquially, isn’t that precisely what we’re after?
I guess it’s just the teacher in me that can’t quite fathom why people are so stubborn on this point — particularly when their stubbornness gives taboo power to the thing theys marginalize.
Just seems a pretty weak and anti-intellectual strategy to me.
The people the media use to represent ID is what sinks it I think more than anything.
Jeff, the only negative that comes to my mind is the ‘quality’ of many teachers – at least judging from those I had and those I currently know. Simply put, these concepts are often beyond their ability to comprehend much less convey in an orderly or authoritative fashion.
So yeah weak and anti-intellectual does pretty much sum up the current state of public education.
That’s what we’re after Jeff, that’s not what Charles and the Discovery Institute are after though. CUZ OF THE IDEOLOGICAL PURITY!!!
Shit! I knew I’d screw that italics thingy up. What do I do now?
Banned, banned, and banned.
I think somebody can make a PowerPoint presentation that they all can borrow from, if that’s the case.
The last Pope said that the weight of evidence backing up the general idea of evolution made it credible. That more or less takes care of it for me. I can get behind ID as an idea to bat around in a bull-session, as a discussion of the philosophy of science, but as a scientific theory it’s lacking. It’s basically a gussied-up and detail-refined version of Aquinas’ proofs.
Also, fuck the Allied Atheist Alliance. And the Sea Otters.
In my high school, our biology teacher would occasionally slip into Lamarckian explanations when questioned. Good times.
I just find it ironic that people get so worked up about ID taught in a few schools (or, should I say, attempting to be taught someday) across the nation, meanwhile our kids are being turned into Climate Change, socialist fanatics and no one raises an eyebrow.
Is all the push coming from the extra-Jesusy quarters or has there been an increase in subtle efforts to undermine faith in the way this stuff is approached in textbooks?
I think somebody can make a PowerPoint presentation that they all can borrow from, if that’s the case.
Or maybe write an intellectually fair and honest textbook and discussion guide.
I realize ID has been appropriated and redefined by people who had nothing to do with its origination, but the exclusion of evolution was not intended (ahem) to be part of ID. I actually thought, in fact, the idea was to incorporate evolution.
Guys, this thread is like BEGGING nishi to come back. If only we could work stem cells into the discussion…
After all these years I still can’t understand this fear or this need to segment and compartmentaliz
Art and literature is best taught when it is attached to history. Benefits go both ways. Yet, people have some sort of knee jerk reaction that the “G” word might dare be spoken in a Science class.
Yet, no one flips out when they see climate change being “pushed” in a math text.
As your standard reductionist, I’m always confused why Stephen Jay Gould normally escapes criticism when it comes to politicizing biology.* I don’t suppose being an uber-progressive had anything to do with it?
*Sorry, I like to bash Gould every couple months and this seemed the proper place.
is/are. Obviously I’m a victim of public education.
Carin, I have to disagree with you, there. There’s the history of art, and there’s art that sprung from historical events, but I don’t see how you’re going to find overlap between religion and science. Pretty much all you’re going to do is something that’s incompatible with either, attempting to sew them together.
Faith and science are nearly orthogonal concepts. They don’t contradict or aid each other.
My point isn’t that Science and faith should be taught together. My point is that there is far more damaging cross curriculum shit being taught RIGHT NOW in schools. If a science teacher were to add the sentence ‘perhaps God orchestrated all this’ at the end of a lecture, I kinda doubt he’s going to turn the entire school into a bunch of God botherers.
Yet, they’ve indoctrinated students on multiculturalism and Global warming completely across the curriculum … and what is the right arguing about?
Also, I just may be the only person in the country who’s absolutely satisfied with public education.
Probably these last couple of comments make me outcaste in some way.
Well, Slart then we’re going to have to disagree rather strongly. You think the Detroit Public schools are doing a good job?
Shit, we’re educated Detroit kids to the tune of almost $14,000 per student per year. Think that’s a good investment of our tax dollars? Now, remember to include in your answer that a 24% graduation rate is acceptable. A rate that falls to 17% if you look just at white boys.
I disagree, Slart. They are subjects that can be used to aid each other precisely because they speak to different spheres of inquiry.
You’ll get no argument from me. Check out some of my earliest posts on this site.
educating. Sorry. I did attend Detroit Public schools.
Jeff @16,
You said it: we are addicted to binaries. Pepsi or Coke? Notice that as the question is framed, “neither” is never an option. This is a standard semantic “chute-formation” used to herd human thought: a cattle-chute only has two sides.
I think that hominids are at base lazy thinkers, and this hurts us. It takes work to formulate complicated analyses which contain contradictions, and, that there is such a high threshold to rich, inclusive thought means that there is a potential-rich intellectual gradient waiting to be exploited.
And exploit it they do: on TV, in schools, and now in the never-ending Presidential campaign, everyday we’re being acculturated to ponder exclusive, binary and false choices.
Getting at motive, this dumbing down selectively assists those who compete in the public domain to be seen framing issues “for us,” like ad-driven media corporations, non-profit advocacy groups (I’ll drop academia in here) and campaigning politicians. It accrues disproportionately to the nation’s paparazzi, snake-oil salesmen and those obsessed with ginning-up appearances where there are none.
(How better to create demand for what really are dispensable, ‘bubble’ products? Magnetic bracelets, “saving the planet,” abortion on demand, Gabanna purses, Obama-hype and $60 shampoos: the binary choice proffered is always, buy the product, or else!)
Sure, the drovers get their cattle to market – Alar got banned, Obama got elected (just barely), and J-Crew’s sales blipped, but everyone else suffers. Because it sure is hard for America to dress, bathe and get a date when she’s got to go through life with a flailing, fussy Siamese twin growing out of her back.
It’s really pathetic the lengths that the various “purists” on each side of the argument have gone to annoy most people regarding the evolution/ID in the classroom debate.
For what it’s worth, Judge John Jones (the Bush-appointed Federal judge who presided over Kitzmiller Vs. Dover, where the ID movement essentially destroyed any chance of public science classrooms teaching ID) has this great lecture available here where he talks about how brilliant the Constitution works when deciding these types of issues.
Essentially, Jeff has it exactly right. ID isn’t science since there is nothing to test for cause and effect. Evolution certainly does and is tested this way on a daily basis. However, philosophy and religion are an equally important part of a rounded education, and ID most certainly fits in these classrooms where kids can learn how to debate the merits of non-falsifiable theories.
What is sad is that the purists on the science end don’t trust that ID will stop at the science classroom door, and feel the need to block it out like the plague, and this only makes things more complicated.
“feel the need to block it out like the plague”
But it is a plague….a genetic plague of teh Stupid.
And post Kitzmiller, it is simply illegal.
Fold your tents.
Why would you want to impose an inferior education on your reps anyways?
Don’t you want them to have the best science available?
What did I tell you folks?
And post Kitzmiller, it is simply illegal.
It’s illegal because both sides extremists have controlled the argument. It’s too bad that science teachers can’t have a lesson in their classroom that involves ID as a means to further detail what does and does not fit under the terms “scientific hypothesis”. I did in my public science classrooms and it is part of the reason why I understand the difference. Thanks to extremists like yourself who want to control everything within strict unrealistic confines of the law, kids won’t benefit from this lesson anymore.
Congratulations.
As I argued to MC at the time, we still don’t “know” a damned thing.
So … I’m not betting just yet.
hanks to extremists like yourself who want to control everything within strict unrealistic confines of the law, kids won’t benefit from this lesson anymore.
Fortunately, things that are left-out of public education can be supplemented at home. Unfortunately, it’s a tad harder to “undo” the stuff that is included in de rigueur public education.
If introducing the field of ID in science class does the work of separating, graphically, science from philosophy and teaching students the scientific method and the difference between “theory” as understood by science and “theory” as understood colloquially, isn’t that precisely what we’re after?
Fine; but then what about “equal time” for all other mythologies/theologies which attempt to account for the creation and evolution of life? Because it’s obviously Western-centric to privilege ID, there.
So at the very least that would truly be a pyrrhic victory for the Christian Right, when the Left gets ahold of that idea, wins a few court cases, and starts teaching the channelings of Ramtha on evolution … or the “Theory of Everything” purveyed by Ken Wilber, who can lay just as much claim to an Eros-driven alternative to neo-Darwinian evolution as ID can. (He actually quotes Michael Behe approvingly!)
(BTW, my own book debunking Wilber’s ideas (which ideas have influenced Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Jeb Bush) is already slated to be used as a text in both a Science and Religion course, and a Critical Thinking one. Chapter 2 of that text covers kw’s take on Eros-driven evolution, while his overall TOE provides many fine examples of colloquial/untested “theory” vs. scientific understandings of the term.)
“If you give them an inch, they’ll take a mile” in language and intentionalism, right? So why wouldn’t exactly the same thing happen in the science classroom, first from the Right (in demanding equal time for ID against Darwinian evolution) and then from the Left (in extending that idea to all the “heathen” alternatives to ID)?
There are many battles to fight in attempting to delay the decay of Enlightenment-based Western civilization. But if you don’t fight every battle as if it was the most important one, you can be sure you’re going to lose it. And if you lose enough battles, you’re going to lose the war.
So simply shrugging off the teaching of ID in the science classroom without bothering to see exactly where that teaching will predictably lead is not an option … whether you’re on the Left or the Right, as an atheist (and former New-Ager like myself) or as a “one true religion” believer.
To summarize, look at it this way: In supporting the teaching of ID in the science classroom, in any context, you’re opening the door for the Left to do exactly the same thing with their “higher-state-of-consciousness” explanations of evolution (which I have spent a good chunk of the past few years of my own life debunking). That is, you’ll be giving them additional leverage in indoctrinating your kids not merely with their views on AGW (which I personally, like the “professional skeptics” Penn and Teller, am still agnostic about) and the redistribution of wealth, but with the New Age take on religion (and the “<a href=’If introducing the field of ID in science class does the work of separating, graphically, science from philosophy and teaching students the scientific method and the difference between “theory” as understood by science and “theory” as understood colloquially, isn’t that precisely what we’re after?
Fine; but then what about “equal time” for all other mythologies/theologies which attempt to account for the creation and evolution of life? Because it’s obviously Western-centric to privilege ID, there.
So at the very least that would truly be a pyrrhic victory for the Christian Right, when the Left gets ahold of that idea, wins a few court cases, and starts teaching the channelings of Ramtha on evolution … or the “Theory of Everything” purveyed by Ken Wilber, who can lay just as much claim to an Eros-driven alternative to neo-Darwinian evolution as ID can. (He actually quotes Michael Behe approvingly!)
(BTW, my own book debunking Wilber’s ideas (which ideas have influenced Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Jeb Bush) is already slated to be used as a text in both a Science and Religion course, and a Critical Thinking one. Chapter 2 of that text covers kw’s take on Eros-driven evolution, while his overall TOE provides many fine examples of colloquial/untested “theory” vs. scientific understandings of the term.)
“If you give them an inch, they’ll take a mile” in language and intentionalism, right? So why wouldn’t exactly the same thing happen in the science classroom, first from the Right (in demanding equal time for ID against Darwinian evolution) and then from the Left (in extending that idea to all the “heathen” alternatives to ID)?
So simply shrugging off the teaching of ID in the science classroom without bothering to see exactly where that teaching will predictably lead is not an option … whether you’re on the Left or the Right, as an atheist (and former New-Ager like myself) or as a “one true religion” believer.
There are many battles to fight in attempting to delay the decay of Enlightenment-based Western civilization. But if you don’t fight every battle as if it was the most important one, you can be sure you’re going to lose it. And if you lose enough battles, you’re going to lose the war.
To summarize, look at it this way: In supporting the teaching of ID in the science classroom, in any context, you’re opening the door for Left-skewing New Agers to do exactly the same thing with their “higher-state-of-consciousness” explanations of evolution (which I have spent a good chunk of the past few years of my own life debunking). That is, you’ll be giving them additional leverage in indoctrinating your kids not merely with their views on AGW (which I personally, like the “professional skeptics” Penn and Teller, am still agnostic about) and the redistribution of wealth, but with the New Age take on religion (and the
“science of meditation“) as well.
Is that really what you want? Or do you really think that would “stop at the door”? On the contrary, next thing you know they’ll be doing “scientific” Transcendental Meditation in school/class, even as part of their science curriculum–and quite justifiably so, in that context, as it provides many instructive lessons in the testability of hypotheses and the difficulties in running controlled experiments when expectation effects are involved.
I’m not saying you can’t ever mention religion and science in the same five minutes. Just that juxtaposing them, ongoingly, during what is supposed to be science class doesn’t make the most sense.
Now, if we were actually teaching classes on thinking, and metaphysics, in public school, I can see how you’d counterpoint one with the other. Likewise, if you were to occasionally note in science class the disjoint nature of faith and the scientific method, that too might be an interesting and appropriate discussion.
You invoked the demon, Carin.
OT: as a woman who, IIRC, can do both pushups and pullups, how would you counsel other women who are convinced they could never do such things work their way into unaided, full pushups and pullups?
My wife is one of those people, but a woman I spar with is another. She’s plenty capable and willing, but she doesn’t know how to get herself strong enough to do the pullup part. Pushups she’s got handled.
Learning to differentiate is the opposite of imposing.
What YOU want is to impose — and you want to do so without allowing students to ask why.
Sad, but it’s one of the reasons we are where we are.
NB: pointing to a video of Dara Torres ripping off a long series of pullups as if she weighed nothing doesn’t help.
Shit, don’t ask me how I double-posted that, in a single comment no less.
OT: as a woman who, IIRC, can do both pushups and pullups, how would you counsel other women who are convinced they could never do such things work their way into unaided, full pushups and pullups?
My wife is one of those people, but a woman I spar with is another. She’s plenty capable and willing, but she doesn’t know how to get herself strong enough to do the pullup part. Pushups she’s got handled.
Well, I do need help with the pull-ups. But, I haven’t given up. It is truly amazing how you attempt (and fail) a thing one week and could SWEAR you’ll never be able to do it. It is just impossible. So, you modify (but don’t surrender) and then suddenly … in a couple of weeks you are doing that thing that was previously inconceivable.
Pushup that I couldn’t do and funky sit-ups that were not “just” really fucking hard, but simply beyond any hope of my ability. And, guess what? I can do ’em now.
For the pushups – I did girly style until I could do them until I was blue in the face w/o breaking a sweat. If you can “easily” do 15 per set … it’s time to move up.
Your schools can suck without my schools sucking. Public schools are not all cut from a single mold; shocking thought, possibly.
Thanks for the response on pushups/pullups, Carin. Possibly if I can get the wife up to 20 or 25 pushups (from the knees) she can do one or two of the regulation variety (which, side note, there isn’t. Mostly at TKD we do as many different kinds of pushups as you can imagine, including the kind that transition you gradually to one-handers).
Pullups might have to remain a struggle, though. Possibly declined pushups might work some of the right muscles?
I do stuff on my bowflex to try to approximate a pull-up.
And, with the push-ups, most of those varieties can be done on your knees as well, even one armed. But, you have to spread your knees out. I did all the pushups for the p90-x on my knees until I could do ’em normal. Elevated ones (feet on a bench) can be done with knees on a bench.
A guy at the gym was using a ball for his pushups. Said it worked his whole core that way. Perhaps I’ll give it a try today.
hmmm well… mostly i am with dan on this one, and jeff and others to a limited extent. there may be a place for ID in the public schools, but it isn’t a science classroom. unless it is used as an exercise to teach about what constitutes scientific theory and method (non-falsifiability, repeatability, etc.) and what does not meet even the most minimal standards for scientific theory and method (ID doesn’t.) there may be a place for ID in a class on philosophy or comparative religion. but that’s a different matter.
that said, my issue with teaching ID in science classes is one i’ve never really seen articulated. and that’s that it specifically privileges a particular religion or group of religions (call it judeo-christian, or even ‘abrahamic’.) there are religions which don’t include any anthropomorphic first cause or ‘creator g-d.’ and making kids who may come from families that practice one of those religions study ID in a science classroom *IS* religious indoctrination. unless you want to include pseudo-scientific rationalizations for other religions (like buddhism and the vedic traditions at least, and perhaps scientology and other such cults as well) i would not go there. it sets a very bad precedent and frankly i think it’s unconstitutional in terms of the establishment clause.
back when the press first started going totally apeshit about bush’s use of extraordinary rendition a lot my my leftish friends went apoplectic with TEH RAGE. and when i would say to them, ‘yeah, but clinton invented that shit and he used it constantly too.’ they would say, ‘but but but… we never thought it would get used this way. whaaaaaaaaaa!’
when you are making laws it is beyond stupid to only consider how they might be used by your best friends in the best of times. one must also consider how those laws may be used in the future by your bitterest enemies in the worst of times. and i think that rule applies to the mixing and confusing of science and religion in the classroom.
am i banned? o.O
hehe @47 we have must typed right past each other. great minds, etc. yadda xD;;
Your schools can suck without my schools sucking. Public schools are not all cut from a single mold; shocking thought, possibly.
But they are all under the thrall of the NEA. The paradigm is used everywhere, because it benefits the teachers and administrators. The only reason your school doesn’t suck is because (most likely) the parents don’t suck.
“But they are all under the thrall of the NEA.”
True. But if that’s really a crucially important thing, how come my schools don’t suck? How come there are public schools, elsewhere, that don’t suck?
Last sentence of the previous comment, Slart.
Ah. Well, my younger kid’s school is a highly mixed bag of incomes. Mostly we all share a kind of pride in our kid’s achievements, though, which is probably what you were referring to.
Maybe parents sucking is a larger effect than the NEA?
Sometimes fingers go before reading is done, Carin. Sorry.
Parents not sucking can make up for a bad school. Or a mediocre school.
I’m into “education” philosophy. It is kinda my bag, since I got a post grad Ed degree. Home schooling too, draws me toward the issue of education.
Yes, I would say parental involvement is the highest indicator of whether or not a kid (and, in a larger sense, the school) does well. BUT, that is not to say I don’t believe that a schools could be different.
Locally, I’m not impressed with the schools- although I bet to a parent they would all say they were fabulous. I mean, who wants to think that they’re not sending their child to, at least, a competent school. I asked the neighbor kids what they were learning in “social studies” and they couldn’t tell me. He had a test the next day, so I asked him what it was on? Umn … mumble mumble … then he said “Well, I just study for the test, and get usually an A, and then forget it.” Yes, they come from a good family.
Gotta go do pushups now :)
“I did in my public science classrooms and it is part of the reason why I understand the difference.”
Gee, I was taught the difference with the example of Trofim Lysenko.
Like an order of magnitude more relevent.
So you taught IDT as example instead of Lysenko and LaMarck?
I think you should have been fired.
What about it? The way I propose teaching can use any non-scientific creation myth that purports to use science as proof. Using a particular Western-centric foil while working in a Western culture is not something that needs to be apologized for, though again, if some kid asks about Ramtha, the same lessons would apply.
Not being part of the Christian right, I don’t much care about victories or losses on a political scale. Teaching students how to make category distinctions, however, seems reasonable to me — one that would be useful for both science and philosophy classes.
I don’t think that teaching that ID is not science leads anywhere dangerous. I don’t know where this talk of equal time comes from, but it certainly wasn’t from what I was proposing.
No, I’m not. And no it will not.
I resoundingly reject the idea that by distinguishing between ID and evolution as science — by teaching the difference between a scientific theory and what belongs properly to the field of metaphysics — I am hurting science.
I certainly wouldn’t be afraid to answer questions about those ideas should students raise them. Why this need to protect evolutionary theory? I’m quite confident that it will hold up as science vs things that aren’t.
Who is confusing them?
“Mixing” is a misleading term here, as well. There is no suggestion of equivalence. One is used to show what the other is and is not.
Who is suggesting we make students study ID?
Acknowledging it for purposes of distinguishing it from science and placing it in its proper epistemological sphere is not religious indoctrination. Neither is the teaching of Greek and Roman mythology in the literature classroom.
What are you people so afraid of? It’s crazy.
There are a lot of ideas parents pass on to children that are challenged by education. And frankly, the reason public schools are getting so poor at teaching is that they spend too much time removing potentially offensive material from the curricula and not enough time teaching people that being exposed to new things is not the same as mind raped.
JeffieG……
“Learning to differentiate is the opposite of imposing.”
But we ALREADY do that.
Any discussion of IDT is just a waste of valuable spacetime.
Gee, I was taught the difference with the example of Trofim Lysenko.
Like an order of magnitude more relevent.
Congratulations! We are all very impressed with your name-dropping of high brow intellectuals. Very Impressive!
I was referring to what I was TAUGHT in High school, not what I teach. I’m not a teacher. And to reiterate, I was taught that ID is not science IN A PUBLIC SCIENCE CLASSROOM as part of the section on understanding what makes up a scientific hypothesis.
But please, drop some more names so we can bask in the glory that is your superior mental capacity.
It’s sooooo dreamy, man…..
C’mon, rap is the new haiku.
I wanna see you slangin’ and rhymin’.
pleeeeeeeeeeeeezzzz
Carin at #34 about how schools are allowed to mess up the children with their crazy global warming ideas… it’s not hard to see how ID could be at very direct cross-purposes with the global warming brainwashing. Talking about both in the same curriculum could cause confusion and unwelcome thoughts.
Doesn’t seem to be taking very well. Might want to rethink that strategy.
I’ve offered one here. Adapt or die, Nishi.
Like me; love me!
I am just like the other cool kids!
Slangin’, rhymin’ and name-droppin’!
Ooooo! Ooooo!
JeffieG is correct.
So….let me unpack the intentioalism here……..you are advocating teaching IDT is “crapology” in science class?
one *could* be used to show what the other is not. and i do think that employed in that manner ID could be quite useful for teaching science. sorry for my lack of clarity there.
the thing is, i’m not confident that is how it would pan out in real life. the exploration of various fields of inquiry and their specific differences is certainly not where the groups pushing ID concentrate their emphasis or efforts. but yeah, if it were used to teach what science and other disciplines are and are not, then i’d be all for it.
clear enough to escape the ban-hammer?
this is so 2008
Tman @44,
“It’s too bad that science teachers can’t have a lesson in their classroom that involves ID as a means to further detail what does and does not fit under the terms “scientific hypothesisâ€. ”
ID is a “bridging” concept because it encourages its holder to ponder evolution and Creationism at the same time. If more children contemplated it early in their lives, then they’d be practiced at mediating contradictions and critical thinking’d get a big boost down the line.
If I’za teacher, I’d juxtapose a representative selection of the world’s modern, still-practiced religions, like, say, Hopi Corn-Mythology, Confucianism, Environmentalism (note: Environmentalism mimics Catholicism’s sin-redemption-salvation model, so it’s a good stand in for it), and Wicca, and then toss ID in the pot to emulsify the learning.
ID is that powerful of a concept.
Jeff is rather sparing with the ban-hammer. Witness that Nishi, who I am confident would flunk any rational Voight-Kampff test, is still free to post.
No. I’m advocating teaching that it’s not science.
You can discuss whether or not it’s crapology in philosophy class. Not that you’d take one, of course.
i was being tongue in cheek about banning. our host is indeed patient and generous in his relative lack of bannings of actual trolls. impossible tho i find it, i am trying to go easy on the use of smileys. call it meaghan damage if you like. but i guess i should have included a ;-D at the end.
It’s way more important that there’s room for kids what don’t care how species got differentiated or if God made peoples and stuff, that are more interested in music or math or starting a business or computer programming. I think these ones are a much bigger percentage of your student body than the ones what are even minimally concerned about intelligent design or taxonomy.
See, this debate involves public schools, which are kinda boned in the first case. That in mind, there’s not much point in debating.
“any rational Voight-Kampff test”
Ooooo! Oooooo!
Slart is right, with his obscure Bladerunner reference.
Yes, I have very little empathy.
Here’s a tag for conservatives and faux-“classic liberals”.
I think that’s sort of… not helpful.
feets, I already beat the crap out of the League.
Im matoko.
Golly, Kate, no. 75 startled me. It almost looked like a brain cell might have fired in your cranium.
Good to see you living down to expectations in the following posts.
Regards,
Ric
I know you are matoko, I googled your rap thinger and found that. Now I will go eat the last Ramona’s burrito what’s left.
DON’T DO IT HAPPY!!
Oh, sorry happy, I thought “Ramona’s burrito” was slang for something else. Still thinking about the personal grooming post, I guess.
The teaching ID vs teaching evolution battle has been around for many, many years. At this time it’s main use is as a cover. It is the magician’s hand that is moving and attracting all of the attention.
Meanwhile the other hand, the one you are not watching, is setting in place the “scientific-religion” and “religious-science” of environmentalism. It’s two, two, two treats in one.
More than twice as harmful as either ID or evolution would be in the worst nightmares of either the god-bothering theists or the atheists. It will destroy both of their worlds.
Real science becomes politicized junk. Religion gets shoved aside unless it revolves around Gaia as God. Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis, as always.
Jeff expresses himself quite well on the topic. But, lest he’s misread again by some: on this very blog, he’s happily published a retort from Daniel Dennett against a greedy skyhooker.
People might look for crudely drawn characters here. They won’t find them though.
Upon rereading it, my comment above applies to much, much more than this single topic.
(Pssst, here’s a general guide: Jeff isn’t a dummy.)
Nishi, did you write this?
If so, you seem to approvingly quote another on this matter:
If Aziz=Jeff on the matter, it’s odd how you’d have a different response. I mean, it could simply be that you have a rather obvious cognitive bias on the matter.
If you didn’t write that, ignore the above.
Okay, reading the comments, that was you Nishi.
Funny, it’s odd how Jeff has already explained his basic stance, in the comments to a post of yours, on this very fucking blog, back in ‘06.
Could someone just compose a list of random commenters I could safely ignore? Like Adblock but using SBP’s TrollHammer.
Wouldn’t work. The names change but the song remains the same.
Good point, g. I think I need SongStuckOnRepeatHammer.
Have to talk to SBP. He’s the code man.
Stuff I work on if you can’t fix it, you just need a bigger hammer not a smarter one.
I think I’ll go with a bigger hammer myself.
Smart hammer? Think about it. Sounds like Jurassic Park. There you are, hiding in the tall grass, surrounded by smart hammers.
Newman!
Lol and lmao. Newman!
Best part, that and the lawyer.
I’ll be off and on rest of night. Up and down sleep is the norm here.
blowhard, you must never forget that nishi is a self-proclaimed “griefer.” So, if her arguments seem inconsistent, well, that’s because it’s a “feature” not a bug of her modus operandi.
Short Attention Span Theater is sometimes high comedy, which normally means you wind up laughing at some other poor dumbass.
They teach a lot of shit in science class that isn’t science, why shouldn’t they be allowed to explain ID? Anyone who expects nothing but rigorous scientific discipline in a Middle or High School classroom is smoking more dope than the back row. There’s simply not enough time.
For example, one of my kid’s textbooks contained a chapter on the solar system that had an incredibly flawed and inaccurate description of the Galileo affair. But the idea is to make the future scientist familiar with the ideas and how they came about, not to present a doctoral dissertation.
They teach Global Warming, Environmentalism, the big rock that killed the Dinos, The Big Bang, the land bridge theory and quantum theory all in the same way. A chapter, if you’re lucky, in a textbook. ID would be maybe one question on a test.
Maybe, just maybe, one kid will get so interested in the ID idea that he spends his life studying all about it, then he proves it wrong. Or, you know, maybe he hears about it at Church and runs for office on a platform of HOPE and CHANGE, gets elected and the next thing you know…
I was thinking of a platform of despair and stasis.
sure, blowhard i wrote that.
your point is?
i think Sir Richard is crazy to want to try to eliminate religious belief…its hardwired.
But neither does IDT belong in any shape or form in a science class….it is a colossal waste of spacetime in a science class.
There are more meaningful counter-examples of the scientific method like Lysenkianism and Lamarckianism.
Unlike Sir Richard, I do think that religion can be a powerful force for good in peoples lives, but it doesn’t belong in the public square, or science classrooms.
This is my habbibi Aziz— we were co-bloggers at Gene Expression.
and….exactly what part of evil, sociopathic internet dna virus don’t you get?
Wildly off topic but re: “the big rock that killed the Dinos”, I found this book to be revelatory.
Basically, if one looks for correlations to the mass extinctions, beware the volcanoes!
Swelling Yellowstone Boogey-out, blowhard, coming to a theater near you!
That’s funny sdferr, I’d love to see it but the timing has to be just right.
I’m 108, minutes from dying of natural causes, my children and grandchildren have moved to Mars, that would be the perfect day to observe a truly cataclysmic event!
Comment by blowhard on 4/6 @ 9:54 pm #
Jeff has never given any neccessary and sufficient rational for IDT to be introduced into a science class.
There are better, more relevent counter-examples being taught already.
Its a waste of spacetime.
Like I said, zip it up and keep it in churches and bible colleges where it belongs.
Teach it in World Religions or philosophy.
Quit prancing and braying in the public square.
And we can all get along just fine.