Comments | neuralbuddha: Background to the Dover creationism trial

neuralbuddha

Background to the Dover creationism trial

Nov 03, 2005 13:02

While I was reading through the above, on the York Daily Record site (their local newspaper), I came across the text of an open letter sent to the Dover area school board by a group of department members [ Edit: at the University of Pennsylvania ] opposed to the promotion of unfounded theories as science. I thought it expressed it's point so well ( Read more... )

Comments 16

ogrilion November 7 2005, 01:46:05 UTC

TBH I quite agree with this. It' not the place of science classes to teach about the why, only the how.

one simple line in the course saying that evolution theory nither proves nor negates the idea of a level of inteligent design would be sufficient I think.

science is there to discover the processes by which thing happen/happened.

I'd leave thologists and philosophers to worry about teaching about any intent behind it (or lack there of).

neuralbuddha November 7 2005, 03:09:32 UTC

It' not the place of science classes to teach about the why, only the how
Grrr. It's the place of science classes to teach anything that's relevant to science. If we have a well grounded theory about why things are as they are with evidence to back it up then it should be taught in science classes at the appropriate level. I'm not saying we have such a theory but I'm not happy about limitations being putting on what should be be taught as science other than those which are inherent to the nature of science itself.

one simple line in the course saying that evolution theory nither proves nor negates the idea of a level of inteligent design would be sufficient I thinkMore than sufficient. Why not have one simple line saying that evolution theory does not negate the idea that beauty is truth? Or that red is your favourite colour? Or that slavery was wrong? Or that resources should be allocated from those according to their ability to those according to their need ( ... )

ogrilion November 7 2005, 05:19:09 UTC

of course it does happen. I would disagree that it negates the need for a creator entity. So a definable, mesurable process has been observed. biologically this covers all questions but does the remit of bioligy cover all that is pertinent to life and it's orogins? some day biologists may be able to definatly tell us the mechinism by which life apeared on earth, but would the definition of that process fully cover the question of how life began? I don't think so ( ... )

neuralbuddha November 7 2005, 06:18:06 UTC

does the remit of bioligy cover all that is pertinent to life and it's orogins?
The definition of biology is basically all science that pertains to life. If it's about life but it's not biology then it shouldn't be in a science class. As for the origins of life perhaps biology doesn't cover this. But no-one (or at least a lot fewer people) are saying we should teach ID as an alternative to organic chemistry or geology or cosmology or even philosophy. It's evolution that's almost always harped upon. The reasons for this are something I find difficult to understand. From a scientific standpoint evolution is no more controversial than any other well established branch of science and less so than most.

to me the idea that the fact that we can mesure processes and mechanics is at odds with the idea of a devine originatior of said processes and mechanics doesn't make sense.I understand that point of view and as it stands would agree with it. However I also subscribe to the principle of Occams Razor which says that if you have an observable ( ... )

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