Question about Intelligent Design?

Question

Ok, here is my question. A lot of people want this Intelligent Design taught in public school science class.

We are all intelligent enough to know what it is, its essentially a belief that the world is so complex that there has to be a creator, that the DNA in the human is code and code can not create itself, etc. If I have any of this wrong feel free to correct me.

Now, let's suppose we put this in all the science classrooms along with the Theory of Evolution.

With me so far?

Now here is my question, what will happen in one or two generations to America when our Adult population has been raised in with that Education?

Are there any harms?

Would medical researchers stop being good medical researchers?

Would evolutionary biologists stop being evolutionary biologists?

Point is, for those of us who think Intelligent Design is junk science or psuedo science, are we getting worked up over nothing?

Answer 1

The ones who make the correct choice and latch on to real science will continue to be good doctors/biologists/etc... The ones who take the side of postulation masquerading as science will remain ignorant.

It won't change much about what people will do depending on what they believe, but it will set more of our youth up for failure. ID is not science, it never has been science and it never will be science. It reverses the scientific method to make observations fit the implications and that is not how honest inquiry is done.

ID is being used as a Trojan Horse to infiltrate science and replace it with religion.

Answer 2

No, we aren't getting worked up over nothing. The harms of teaching kids that evolution isn't a scientific fact based on 150 years of scientific data are great. It's not that they won't be good medical researchers and biologists, it's that without an understanding of evolution there won't be any medical researchers or biologists, or medical doctors, or palientologists, or anthropologists, or any other life science, because evolution is the cornerstone of them all.

I find it ironic and humerous that all of those people who don't believe in evolution owe their lives to evolution, because without evolutionary theory, they would have no doctors or hospitals to go to when they're sick or injured.

Intelligent design is creationism, which is a religious belief. They call it intelligent design in an underhanded attempt to disguise it as actual science. It isn't. Since science and religion are different subjects, they don't belong in the same class.

Answer 3

Even my roomate, one of the most conservative thinkers I know, doesn't want it taught in elementary school science class. He recognizes that it's a completely religious concept and that it belongs in it's place.

Of course there are harms. Indoctrinating children into a LIE is a bad thing. Yes, it MIGHT deter some from seriously considering evolutionary biology as an academic pursuit and career if they've been manipulated into thinking that they'd be studying a lie or a hoax.

No, I'm NOT worked up over nothing. Well, I'm don't feel particularly "worked up", but I'm not CONCERNED over nothing.

And you know, whether or not it causes a big harm, a little harm, no harm at all, whatever, it STILL isn't science and STILL shouldn't be crammed into a subject in which it certainly does NOT belong just to ease to anxieties of the religious collective who think teaching a reality other than theirs is a threat.

And it would still violate the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. Keep church & state separate, people.

Answer 4

The point is, some people are trying to make up science. They do not have research to back up their claims. They have not submitted papers for peer review. They have not followed scientific protocol. They just said that their idea is science and want it taught as such.

If this were to be allowed to happen then it can happen again and again. Eventually, there would be all sorts of off the wall "theories" that were taught like they were science. If ID is taught, then why not teach about Atlantis? Why not teach about UFO technology? Why not teach about Loch Ness monster? These are not science.

What this would be teaching is that if you complain enough then your idea will become science. It does not matter about proof. It does not matter about logic. What matters is if you complain loud and long enough with enough people. That is not science.

Do not say that we should just toss it out there and let the kids decide. The US is lagging so far behind other developed countries in science it is unbelievable. We should be number one, two, and three. Tossing in non-science to the science curriculum will only make that worse.

Answer 5

Intelligent Design is kind of like Feminist scholarship in the late 1980s and early 1990s: it's an invitation out of political correctness to accept the lazy in to academia. ID skips steps, ignores important scientific theories related in terms of logic, and is an attempt to proselytize in science class just as much as preaching atheism is an equally wrongheaded excuse to accept evolution as fact instead of theory - and you know what I mean, taking every theory as if it were fact and treading the dangerous waters of social darwinism as a result. Both positions are equally lazy and unscientific.

Science MUST present these views, however, to clearly point out what it is NOT. To fail to show an example of what is not science is to risk allowing further extensions of such slop. This is the great risk and harm of not ending this sort of destructive argument (because it almost always ends up as an argument and not a scientific debate) and distracting from serious scientific inquiry. Students (being untrained in the difference between science and religion) WILL ask these questions in class, so the instructor will be forced to address the topic one way or another.

Presented as I have described it, MORE people that call themselves religious may take more of an interest in the sciences as it should be. As things stand, we risk allowing ID fanaticism to psychologically handicap our students in science classes because of UNNECESSARY religious antagonism (and I am complaining about ATHEISTS that claim there is no God too because such certainty is as religious as being a born again Christian).

I doubt many ID Christians would pursue evolutionary biology. They might pursue ID. Religious groups will provide grants and - as far as university administration is concerned - grants are grants. Few will insist on not letting more money onto their campus.

Earlier, I mentioned ID failed to mention another theory. I am refering to Chaos Theory. This is an actual scientific theory, but is something we all can agree on: Sometimes a phenomenon involves so many variables that it is impossible to triangulate specific causes. For example, in one study of a dripping faucet, researchers could not predict the exact time of the next drop. Why? Too many factors mucked up the results. This is not so unlike some of the logic of ID, but the conclusion of Chaos Theory is expressly scientific: We don't know yet. *Maybe* in the future we will have the specific data we need, but we need more sophisticated methods and tools to sort it all out.

ID fails because it stops at a conclusion expressly UN-scientific: "TRUTH" (shouted incoherently). Science DOESN'T deal with "TRUTH." It deals in probability and data. Data can be flawed. Were a scientist to use the Bible as evidence, they would state that either the human copier, translator, or reader (the scientist in question) is falible (and the Bible concurs) and, hence, conclusions about "TRUTH" may, in fact, be mistaken.
How often do you hear someone spouting ID say that?

Answer 6

In a free thinking society, it is actually dictatorship to restrict people to one point of view, which is the case now. Only evolution is presented. People believe what they do because they have only been given one point of view, which is a theory, but it is presented as fact.

In the case of any truth of either side, both views, or many views, should be presented along with any evidence that appears to support it. If people's theories are valid, or they have an audience that at least prefers their views, then they will keep their jobs. Giving a balanced approach is a better way to go.

On college campuses, they do not just teach one philosophy, they teach many, both traditional like socrates, and revolutionary, like Karl Marx. people cannot be free thinkers if they are forced into only one philosophy. They need to learn to evaluate what is out there, and decide what is true or not true by objective criteria.

evolution vs creation... will not really affect medical science....that will continue anyhow.

Answer 7

If we are going to teach "intelligent design" in a science class, how about teaching the creation myths of other religions in the same science class.

The harm is that we would be wasting time in a science class on a pseudo-science that could be used teaching real science.

Leave religion to the religious organizations and keep science in the science class.
.

Answer 8

The problem with Intelligent Design is the blending of church and state - specifically the Christian church and state. You cannot possibly argue that the "creator" in this Intelligent Design idea is meant to be anything other than the Christian God. This "creator" is not representative of the Gods and Goddesses of the Hindus, the Wicccan Lord and Lady, or even Allah. It is the Christian God and no other that they want to say "created all", which endorses Christianity as having the "correct" creation myth.

I don't fear Intelligent Design. I recognize it for the thinly veiled lie that it is.

)O(

Answer 9

It comes down to classroom time. If you open the classroom to every little idea that comes along, nothing winds up being taught. In plane geometry, you are taught that parallel lines never meet. There are non-Euclidean geometry systems in which "parallel" lines meet at two points or non-parallel lines do not intersect. These are valid ideas with practical applications, but do not get introduced in high school as they d not add to critical reasoning. Similarly, Intelligent Design has yet to produce a testable hypothesis. It does not add to critical reasoning.

Answer 10

Intelligent Design proponents refuse to answer the question of who designed the designer.

Instead, Intelligent design proponents try to set up their own creation myth as THE official creation myth among all the creation myths available.

There are no scientific facts related to creation myths of any kind, there are facts related to evolution. Evolution belongs in the study of science, creation myths in the study of culture or religion