PA Judge rules against "Intelligent Design"

[wellard]

Originally posted by Sir Degrader: Good. Science is Science, and Religion is Religion, keep them apart.

Amen to that

And the further apart the better [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

from the judge..

"The judge made a point of criticizing the school board members and the "breathtaking inanity" of their decision. “It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy," he wrote.

***self censored out of respect to the mods ******

[ 12-20-2005, 05:36 PM: Message edited by: wellard ]

[Seraph]

Jones blasted the disclaimer, saying it "singles out the theory of evolution for special treatment, misrepresents its status in the scientific community, causes students to doubt its validity without scientific justification, presents students with a religious alternative masquerading as a scientific theory, directs them to consult a creationist text as though it were a science resource and instructs students to forgo scientific inquiry in the public school classroom and instead to seek out religious instruction elsewhere."

Can someone explain to me why the bolded part is a bad thing? Most of the great scientific advances in history were made because someone decided to challenge the commonly held theory. AFAIK String Theory is impossible to disprove, does that mean that scientists should stop looking for alternatives?

I think Timber already said it as well as I could: "I don't disagree with the decision, but I do believe it may be a bit of judicial activism"

[ 12-20-2005, 05:58 PM: Message edited by: Seraph ]

[shamrock_uk]

Because scientific advances stem from scientists making alternative theories based on more compelling evidence.

ID does not do this.

[Azred]

Quite right. If someone comes up with a valid alternate theory that explains natural processes differently that the general theory of evolution, then we have an alternate theory. ID begins with the conclusion and then looks looks for evidence to support the conclusion, which is contrary to the Scientific Method.

Cosmologists are still looking for any alternative to String/M Theory that would explain the universe correctly as we observe it; no better explanation has, to date, been found. The same applies with Evolution--there is no better theory yet desgined to explain what we observe.

[Seraph]

Because scientific advances stem from scientists making alternative theories based on more compelling evidence.

But why would they be looking for mor compelling evidence if they don't doubt the existing theory.

One of the things I found at Cornell was the number times the person who "knew" the science thinking that a very meaningful result was junk because it wasn't what they expected. People who think they "know" science tend to be the biggest obstical to scientific progress.

[shamrock_uk]

Because most scientists realise that current explanations don't fully explain the world around us.

Hence I believe that evolution has gaps, that wave/particle duality indicates our understanding of EM radiation is seriously flawed and the fact that the number of dimensions we live in seems to vary from 4 to 14 depending on who you speak to indicates that we don't have much of a clue there either.

We were even taught the shortcomings of current theory in school. Science has nothing to be afraid of by admitting it doesn't have all the answers.

Historically, there will always be dissenting scientific voices. Hence why Copernicus felt the need to improve on the Ptolemaic model of the universe despite the fact that the latter still matched observations. Also why Einstein chose to stake out his differences with Newton, despite the differences only being observable near the speed of light.

Scientists are always searching for more elegant theories and working to improve and refine existing ones - those who claim to 'know' the answer are no less fundamentalist than their religious counterparts.

[ 12-20-2005, 07:22 PM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

[Azred]

Originally posted by shamrock_uk: Hence I believe that evolution has gaps, that wave/particle duality indicates our understanding of EM radiation is seriously flawed and the fact that the number of dimensions we live in seems to vary from 4 to 14 depending on who you speak to indicates that we don't have much of a clue there either.

It does...because photons can teleport and particles can move backwards in time.

There are 11 dimensions. No, I can't name them. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Anyway...reputable scientists will concur with a generally accepted theory but if new evidence arises then nearly everyone will adjust their worldview. Unless they are archaeologists and they're talking about the age of the Sphinx. [img]graemlins/beigesmilewinkgrin.gif[/img]

[shamrock_uk]

It was all Napoleon I say!

[ 12-20-2005, 08:12 PM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

[JrKASperov]

Originally posted by Azred: Anyway...reputable scientists will concur with a generally accepted theory but if new evidence arises then nearly everyone will adjust their worldview. Unless they are archaeologists and they're talking about the age of the Sphinx. [img]graemlins/beigesmilewinkgrin.gif[/img]

Ehm. Name one time this happened?

Every new theory took some time to adapt because at first, in spite of evidence, people were against. Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Einstein, Heisenberg ea.(QuantumMech), etc. ALL of them were hardly accepted at first. Heck, Heisenberg ea. didn't even believe it themselves.

[ 12-21-2005, 07:02 AM: Message edited by: JrKASperov ]

[Stratos]

I've said it before and I say it again; ID all comes down to pointing at something you find complex and claim it's designed. There's not much else to do.

Ironically, the biggest obstacle to ID is God Himself. The way he's generally described, invisible, immaterial, indetectable and outside space-time, makes him kind of inaccessable to scientific study. If you can't study the central object of your theory, directly or indirectly, what else can you do?