Course Debunking Intelligent Design Canceled 203
Thib writes "As widely reported everywhere, University of Kansas chairman of religious studies Paul Mirecki has withdrawn the "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and Other Religious Mythologies" course that he was preparing for the upcoming Spring semester. From the AP: "Mirecki recently sent an e-mail to members of a student organization in which he referred to religious conservatives as "fundies" and said a course depicting intelligent design as mythology would be a "nice slap in their big fat face." He later apologized, and did so again Thursday in a statement issued by the university." Mirecki was inspired to offer the course after the Kansas Board of Education moved to back intelligent design in state science standards in November."
No double standard (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No double standard (Score:4, Insightful)
This was an action taken in response to the ID religious conservatives having their religion defined and taught as a science. However, opening it up to science opens it up to rebuttal, which can be thorough and at times brutal. I'm sad that this course didn't make it through, as I see no reason why it shouldn't exist in kansas.
Rest of the world, please stop snickering at us. You wouldn't laugh at a person with alzheimers, would you?
Re:No double standard (Score:2, Funny)
No but we'd boo at the Special Olympics.
Re:No double standard (Score:3, Insightful)
On a somewhat tangential note, has the act of pointing and laughing at someone who doesn't agree with what the evidence indicates ever worked to change people's minds? And i
Re:No double standard (Score:4, Insightful)
Um, I guess the course... (Score:3, Funny)
[deem grinning, ducking and running all implied]
Re:No double standard (Score:2)
It was a university - so it's not an issue of public money. That being said, this move did seem unnecessarily antagonistic.
I am (to put it gently) a critic of ID, but I would challenge it on its lack of merit, rather than feed the persecution complex of an inordinate number of its proponents.
It really has no place in any course, public or private. It has neither the credibility of science or the
Re:No double standard (Score:2)
Re:No double standard (Score:2)
No it doesn't. The obessive need to seek out instances of persecution is what marks it as a complex, in my book. The mere fact that you can find some is meaningless. It's a big place, and if you look hard enough, you'll find people that don't like you.
To be clear, I do not wish to paint all IDers with this brush - I'm just remarking on the few that are out there (as there are
Re:No double standard (Score:3, Insightful)
You actually think you can make this claim, and then promise to remain civil in the next paragraph or two? If this guy speaks for you, then I won't debate you, or even better, try for a discourse where the truth is the goal instead of merely winning debate points. I simply won't do it, period. If he doesn't, I'd rather try for a dialog than a debate, but the debate structure is better than nothing if that's what you want. That first point is simply not negotiable - I don't waste
Re:No double standard (Score:3, Insightful)
One of you is confused, anyway. Actually, you both are - you, because both KSU and KU are public universities, chartered by the state of Kansas. Turn in your "informative" moderation immediately, while I arrange for the moderator who gave it to you to be horsewhipped for not even fucking googling it to see if you were right.
Then again, the original poster is confused in a s
Re:No double standard (Score:2)
Should have done my homework and learned what I was talking about before spouting off. Thanks for calling it to my attention.
Re:No double standard (Score:2)
All of these are public universities.
Re:No double standard (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the position is consistent (Score:2)
Of course, if the government doesn't own your school, do as you please.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Double standards from the ID nuts (Score:4, Insightful)
Disclaimer: I am not a proponent of ID, and do not support its teaching in schools.
But it's rare that anyone in a rancorous debate won't have double standards. Narrowing the field to abiogenesis for a moment -- when respected nonreligious [yahoo.com] scientists [daviddarling.info] espouse speculative, largely unfalsifiable hypotheses of origins that have no evidentiary basis other than (hmm) the lack of evidence for abiogenesis, they are welcome to speak publicly, and write for journals and magazines. Where is the outcry?
And you certainly can't wave your arms and yell "ID is the end of science in America!" when by far the greatest threat to science today is radical postmodernism [nyu.edu], whose adherents thrive in overwhelming numbers on university campuses, enjoying secure and unassailable academic respectability, and teaching both implicitly and explicitly that all "so-called facts," science included, are subjective social constructions with no true validity. Where is the outcry?
Here's a personal observation. Although it's unfortunately true that most ID activists are motivated by a prior agenda, in my experience (of moderate sample size) most evolution activists are motivated by a prior agenda as well. Such people tend to be quite surprised when I tell them that I'm a Christian and that I have no overall problem with evolution -- and it is very revealing that this is often considered an insufficient response. They are ultimately satisfied only if I renounce religion entirely. Of course, I am not allowed to have an outcry.
--
Dum de dum.
Re:Double standards from the ID nuts (Score:2)
The outcry came in the form of budget cuts and a lac
Re:Double standards from the ID nuts (Score:4, Insightful)
Why should there be an outcry?
First of all everyone (including scientists) have the right to free speech. Secondly the sequence of developing science almost always needs to start with wild speculation, some of which bears fruit to hypotheses, some of which bears fruit to theories, some of which bears fruit to solid tested and confirmed science.
Abiogenesis is quite admittedly a weakly developed and weakly supported field. That is hardly surprising considering that it attempts to address a singular microscopic event hidden in the deep depths of time, and which has left no direct trace. And at one point nuclear fusion was a very weakly developed and weakly supported field due to it's own extreme difficulties.
There is some very good science going on in the field of abiogenesis, but as I said it is still a weakly developed and weakly supported field. As such it rates little or no place on a highschool science curriculum. And as far as I am aware it does not appear on government highschool curriculums, and therefore there is absolutely no battle and no reason for any battle by anyone over it. The current stupidity going on is over evolution and only evolution, and those involoved who drag the origin of life into it either missunderstand evolution (thinking it includes abiogenesis), or are trying to use abiogenesis (and it's weakness) as a strawman for evolution to launch an invalid attack.
The current "outcry" here is over people trying to push ID in government run highschools as science. Everyone is perfectly free to hypothesize anything they like (including ID), and they are perfectly free to burn their science textbooks and use the Bible as their science text in church or in private schools or almost anywhere else.
Highscool science class is for teaching the fundamentals of science and the scientific method, and providing a general overview of the major fields of thoroughly tested and thoroughly supported science that has earned nearly universal acceptance in the relevant professional field.
No double standard here. Evolution absolutely positively satisfies that standard. ID doesn't even make it out of the starting gate of scientific theory, much less pass the hurdles of "well tested" and "well supported", and it's acceptance in the relevant expert professional field is roughly zero-point-one-percent (as opposed to the roughly 99.9% acceptance of evolution amongst professional biologists).
The founders of the ID movement explicitly created it to circumvent the Supreme Court ruling that they could not teach Biblical Creationism in government run classrooms. It is a religious agenda attempting to don a scientific costume, and that costume simply is not fitting and it falls apart at the slightest touch. It consists almost entirely of argument-from-ignorance (I don't understand X therefore Goddidit), and attacks on evolution that have been reviewed by the experts and exposed as horribly flawed.
The government cannot take sides on religion, and highscool science classes are not a battleground for deciding science. Highschool teachers and highschool students are hardly capable of evaluating and judging competing theories of quantum mechanics. If someone believes that they have some theory as a viable alternative to evolution, or they believe they have identified some flaw in evolution, then they should present it to the PhD's and professionals in the field for peer review. The PhD's and professionals in the field *are* equipped to understand it and evaluate it and to see if it is valid or flawed. If and when it earns broad acceptance by the experts in the field then and only then should highschools teach students that this is current accepted best understanding in this field.
Re:Double standards from the ID nuts (Score:2)
IDers, on the other hand, are everywhere. They're the ones in charge, and the ones who put their candidate in the White House. They run churches, companies, media outlets, and yes, schools. Compared to the vast numbers, wealth and influence of IDer's, postmodernists are
Re:No double standard (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, as far as the others are concerned. If someone were to make a class named "Jews: The Secret Rules of the World" or "Why blacks should be slaves again" I wouldn't like it very much. It would be pretty obvious that the professor was a racist bastard and should be fired under the policies of the university. But, as a supporter of the first amendment I have to accept and allow this sort of hate speech no matter how distasteful it might be.
Re:No double standard (Score:2)
Then again, if someone were to compare people who died on 9/11 to the Nazi murderer Eichmann, people in academia would leap to his defense.
Re:No double standard (Score:2, Insightful)
The second statement seems perfectly reasonable to me. And the first is inflammatory, but not inaccurate. How about adding:
"Judaism and other patriarchal tribal mumbo-jumbo from prehistory"
"Buddhism and vague non-thinking for the weak-minded"
"$cientology, pyramid schemes and other large-scale confidence tricks in modern society"
Re:No double standard (Score:2)
"Hinduism: Overwhelming the Cowed Masses"
"Wicca, and other beliefs held by frizzy-haired women with too many cats"
Re:No double standard (Score:2)
Yeah because attacking religion should be banned, right?
The Real Issue... (Score:3, Interesting)
This is what is so hateful in Darwinian evolution to religious folks. It's not just that it opposes religious teaching, but that it appears to promote a selfish, self-centred (or, if they're more sophisticated, gene-centred) teaching in its place. You don't find the same opposition to humanism, do you?
I wrote a JE [slashdot.org] on this.
Re:The Real Issue... (Score:2)
I actually do, much to my initial surprise.
They start off with rants about how they have no clue how the eye evolved so no one else must, and then they'll often veer off to rant about "secular humanism". Then
Is this true? (Score:2)
If this is really the case, then I think everyone who understands the principle of scientific investigation should be up in arms about this.
Specifically, it is ridiculous (scientifically) to reject or fight against a scientific conclusion simply because you don't like its implications. Einstein famously "didn't believe" in q
Utility as cause for belief... (Score:2)
To belief the reverse is simple Strausian doublethink [frontpagemag.com] (paragraph six).
It is amazing how many scientifically educated individuals, or at least scientifically aware individuals in fact appear to deduce the opposite [slashdot.org] of that which is reached with a simple application of Bayesian logic. [slashdot.org]
Symbiosis (Score:2)
thank you for your apology... (Score:2, Insightful)
It strikes me as interesting that he's out to "debunk" intelligent design. Isn't the complaint that everyone here on Slashdot makes against it that it's unfalsifiable- unable to be proved false?
Debunking intelligent design (Score:2)
Although I agree that I.D. as a theory is unfalsifiable, the claim that I.D. is not religiously inspired (as made by many of its supporters) is falsifiable - i.e., through letters, e-mails, etc.
Additionally, I'm not sure that he ever said that he was out to "debunk" intelligent design, that's just the headline, and you know how accurate /. headlines are...
Brief de-confusion (Score:5, Insightful)
You see, Creationism can't be taught in schools officially because it's a religious belief, and we have separation of church and state (short short version). So, Creationism, version 2, relabeled "Intelligent Design" is put forth (to the best of my understanding) as a *scientific theory*. Since it's now "scientific", the claim goes, it can be taught in schools as an alternative theory to evolution.
That's what the critics are complaining about - that it's being pushed through as being "scientific", though at it's core (the criticism goes) it's nothing more than Creationism wrapped in pseudo-scientific language. Presumably, the course would take the "scientific theory" angle and attack ID in terms of science (i.e. to be a theory it must be verifiable by experiments, be predictive, etc..) A real pity it got canned over some (from what I understand) private emails.
I just have to mention this, thought: In one of the articles, someone criticizing this professor says "he is so full of hatefullness for religion". George Carlin moment here: WTF is "hatefullness"? Would that be something similar to...I don't know..."hate"? This person must have studied at the George W. Bush school of "Higherest Linguistication of the English Language".
Re:Brief de-confusion (Score:3, Funny)
Apparently the emails weren't as private as they ought to have been. Actually, my guess is he sent something to college-democrats-l@kansas.edu or its equivalent (college democrats? I don't know what sort of organization he targeted it at- I'll bet you it wasn't college republicans, though).
Re:Brief de-confusion (Score:2)
I hate to disagree with you, but "the state of being full of hate" is "the state of being full of hate". The link you gave defined "hateful", which I don't have a problem with. The -ness suffix creates a noun out of whatever it is appended to. Since the word you're changing already has a core noun meaning, appending the "-ness" makes no sense. Hence, "hate = hatefullness mod -ness"
Oh, and if you do a google search on hatefullness [google.com]....the first link is "Hatefullness of C
Re:Brief de-confusion (Score:2)
1. Eliciting or deserving hatred.
2. Feeling or showing hatred; malevolent.
hate'fully adv.
hate'fulness n.
right there -^
Hatefulness.
Ah well. No matter.
Re:thank you for your apology... (Score:2)
I would hope not, because that's not a good argument. The issue is that it's not provable, testable, or in any way verifiable. There is no evidence - and that's a different issue than it being unfalsifiable.
The Flying Spaghetti Monster has just as strong a claim to be the originator of the universe - and no one can conclusively prove otherwise.
If we were to run around, having to giv
Re:thank you for your apology... (Score:2)
The complaint against it is that it's unfalsifiable... unfalsifiable and untestable. The two complaints against it are its unfalsifiability and untestability... and unverifiability. Our three complaints against it are that it's not falsifiable, not testable, not verifiable... and not provable... Among
Re:thank you for your apology... (Score:2)
Well, bloody hell! I wasn't expecting a Spanish Inquisition.
Re:thank you for your apology... (Score:4, Insightful)
People tend to get confused when there's so much nonsense being generated by both evolutionists and creationists alike.
Someone who is religious can say that God created the world and the creatures living on it. This can't really be proved or disproved by any scientific means. However, some other people who are religious are taking that one step further and saying 'how' God did it with claims that can be (dis)proved (eg, saying the Earth is 6000 years old and created in a week). People criticize creationists for being unscientific and being highly dogmatic, but in truth I have seen the same kind of crap from evolutionists too. People in both groups have some very good arguments though -- if you are willing to be objective about listening to them.
Many Christians I have spoken to (including some highly respected university lecturers), don't think it matters whether the earth is 6000 years old or 4.5 billion years old. To them the Bible is about saying why God made the world, not when or how he went about creating it. The book is highly poetic and not necessarily written to be scientifically accurate. Most of the media these days with headlines like 'Evolution vs God' and stuff are just needlessly promoting a facile view that religion is incompatible with widely promoted scientific theories.
Re:thank you for your apology... (Score:2)
Joking aside for a moment, we were reading Inherit the Wind the other day in AmLit class. The worry from the 'fundies' of the day, as it were (though they were not called 'fundies' back then) was that mentioning Evolution in schools would somehow make young minds incapable of proper moral or religious thought, and that they'd be snatched away from the faith just like that! [snap]
Looking at the hard-core anti-ID types today, we see that the worry about mentioning
Re:thank you for your apology... (Score:2)
Re:thank you for your apology... (Score:2)
If your claim is that intelligent design is a scientific hypothesis, then your problem is that there is no way to show it may be false. This means that it can't be a scientific hypothesis.
If your claim is that intelligent design is a religious belief, then it's subject to being debunked on religious grounds. So, for example, when I went to a Catholic university some years ago, I was taught that intelligent design is poorly reasoned, and thus a prett
Re:thank you for your apology... (Score:2)
Most scientists don't mind religion, because religion is inherently unprovable and so can't have any effect on scientists' fields of study. However, the "evidence" for ID is flat-out incorrect, and *that's* what bugs most people with an interest in science - to have th
Re:thank you for your apology... (Score:3, Insightful)
Excuse me for summarizing the complaint improperly. The full complaint then, I suppose, is it's "not falsifiable" and therefore can't be a proper scientific theory. Which still leaves us at 'not falsifiable' and a Slashdot headline claiming the course was nevertheless going to 'debunk' it, which is just Slashdot misleadin
Re:thank you for your apology... (Score:2)
I am not Catholic; I believe the professor teaching the class was. I'm not sure that either point is relevant.
Well, those are really touching words. Great way to encourage healthy dialogues and understanding!
Yea, I don't really care. My take on it is this - intelligent design is old news, and it hasn't become any more interesting over the years. Let's move on to something else.
Re:thank you for your apology... (Score:2)
Isn't it just that the class would "debunk" the ID *movement*? It seems to me that, while you can't disprove intelligent design itself, you can very clearly disprove whether ID, such as it is, is acceptable in the realm of scientific study.
I would say it is a (yet another) case of a Slashdot headline being unclear, rather than hypocritical.
Universal Skepticism (Score:3, Interesting)
There is a nearly universal skepticism in Academia (and, well, the world at large) for things that have no evidenciary support. Demonstrating that I.D. has no evidenciary support is the same as "debunking" it. A serious claim need not be falsifiable to be wrong, it simply must have no support. It is up to the scien
Too much credit for the world (Score:2)
Although I agree with most of what you said, I reject your idea that the "world at large" rejects things "that have no evidenciary support". I'm fairly certain that the majority of the world's 6 billion plus people believes in one faith or another. Correct me if I'm wrong on this...
Kansas (Score:5, Funny)
Choose your battles wisely (Score:5, Insightful)
C'mon, if you have something valuable to say or important to do, then say it or do it with prudence and wisdom at least!
Re:Choose your battles wisely (Score:2)
Amen.
a little background... (Score:3, Funny)
'nuff said.
Re:a little background... (Score:2, Interesting)
On the other hand, I am astounded by how many people seem to think that it has merit as an argument.
Re:a little background... (Score:3, Insightful)
FSM is irony. Real irony, not the Alanis Morrisette kind, not hypocrisy, but actual irony. The idea is to parody intelligent design in such a way as to use the exact same arguments, but result in a ridiculous, unsupportable conclusion. That way, when the intelligent design supporters claim it's ridiculous, they have to poke holes in their own argument to show that is the case. Then you merely repeat their own words back to them when they promote intelligent design.
Unfortunately, intelligent design a
Re:Disagreement (Score:5, Insightful)
The supporters of ID clearly want people to draw the conclusion that they cannot explicitly state in the classroom: God is the "Intelligent Designer". But once you've accepted arguments for some manner of supernatural intervention into the evolutionary process, anything that has the power to make such interventions is a viable possibility. God, Flying Spaghetti Monsters, space aliens, superintelligent hamsters with tiny guitars. It's all the same.
Since The Flying Spaghetti Monster is omnipotent, any evidence for the Judeo-Christian concept of God (the Bible, the ubiquity of belief in God, etc.) must have been created by the FSM in order to test our faith in His Noodly Presence.
If FSM is a straw man, it's a straw man that the God Hypothesis is strapped inside. Because any blow you can land that would discredit the Flying Spaghetti Monster can be turned against any other supernatural agent.
Disagree? Feel free to demonstrate to me, a humble believer, that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is not the creator of our Universe.
Re:Disagreement (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Disagreement (Score:2)
And because that's all it argues (and all it can ever "safely" argue) it's absolutely content free. The whole "science" is that conclusion. They can't tell us a
Re:Disagreement (Score:2)
Try Uncaused Force, Teach the Controversy! [kuro5hin.org] then. It's every bit as scientifically valid, detailed, and correct as any ID publication. Feel free to check the references - they are all peer reviewed articles saying exactly what the article claims they say. Of course the conclusion is that the theory of gravity is wrong and we need to teach our children about the "uncaused force" that moves objects - some would say that an uncaused force is God, but of course the theory need not expli
Re:Disagreement (Score:2)
They are not obscure.
They are not peripheral.
They are not slight.
Re:Disagreement (Score:2)
Instead, I'll reexplain what you missed from my last post (gp).
I pointed out that:
"it wouldn't help" for me to "do your homework for you."
I also pointed out that the differences are not obscure.
Perhaps if I denied the existence of the Earth, you would feel that you could convince me of its existence with arguments.
From my perspective, this is a very similar situation.
The way that most people believe in God is - obviously, fundamentally and very - different from how people believe in the FSM. If you
Re:a little background... (Score:3, Funny)
On the other hand, I am astounded by how many people seem to think that it has merit as an argument.
I'm equally astounded by the number of people claiming that it's a silly or non-existant argument, without being able to tell us why.
Of course, *I* know that the whole FSM thing is clearly silly, since the world was created 17 weeks ago by the Invisible Pink Unicorn - may we all be skewered on her righteous horn - but I'm not sure what the ID people argue.
The sad thing is: (Score:4, Insightful)
This is like the chairman of the math department making fun of people for studying the work of Gauss, Galois, Ramanujan, Hilbert, etc.
Having been a college student and teacher, I have a hard time beliving that anyone who feels like mocking people that are passionate about his subject is very effective as a professor. I don't trust his apology, either.
Re:The sad thing is: (Score:2)
He's debunking a transitory, but (sociologically) interesting myth. It would be like a math prof debunking Gauss et al if he were "debunking" the work of Augustine, Aquinas, Maimonides, and Ibn Rushd.
As it is he's just grubbing for headlines with reactionary tactics.
Read it again: (Score:2)
And - whether you or I, personally, believe ID or not - most major religions include the fundamental belief that the world and our lives have purpose, and that the world and life did not come about by chance.
Also: "Mirecki repeatedly criticized fundamentalist Christians and Jews and mocked Catholicism."
Re:Read it again: (Score:2)
Just because most (all?) major religions believe that the universe wasn't created as the result of chance, doesn't mean that these religions should be logically compelled to argue ID in biology. Christianity for example would be good to argue that God is the reason the univers
Re:The sad thing is: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not like ID is some accepted scientific theory, it's just some shit creationists made up because they needed to improve their marketing. In the past it was easier because everyone was brainwashed as a child about creationism. Now that people are better educated, and generally do not attend religious schools, they needed something they could plausibly sell to people weak on sc
Re:The sad thing is: (Score:3, Insightful)
Making fun of people is seldom a good way to encourage healthy dialogue and understanding... in any department.
Re:The sad thing is: (Score:2)
Yes... but it's fun!
More professionalism, please (Score:5, Informative)
Skeptical Inquirer: The Magazine for Science and Reason
http://www.csicop.org/si/ [csicop.org]
Discussion and debate of biological and physical origins
http://www.talkorigins.org/ [talkorigins.org]
Understanding Evolution
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/ [berkeley.edu]
Re:More professionalism, please (Score:2)
I agree. This guy should be ashamed of himself. What century is this? 21st? Only asshats demonize people who disagree with them.
People who believe ID in spite of the overwhelming evidence of evolution really bug me, I will admit it, but since I'm not in the forth grade, I am mature enough not to call them names. I don't stoop to that level. I think it's really cheap.
Re:More professionalism, please (Score:2)
Re:More professionalism, please (Score:3, Insightful)
I guess the subject just angers them
No, it's not the subject. It's the endless stream of ignorant zealots beating the same dead horses endlessly. Sooner or later you just lose patience.
I have seen, and answered, the same argument "The second law of thermodynamics says evolution is impossible!" so many times that I want to scream each time it I see it. I am sick and ti
High school science classrooms are not... (Score:5, Informative)
It just isn't. Classrooms are for teaching science. Science has its own forums for such debates.
Now, when you put it in that light, the question becomes "do we want material that is not accepted by the scientific community taught in classrooms.
For those of you digging at religion, remember that a good portion of the religious community, including the Catholic Church, do not accept ID.
Science, non-science (Score:2)
I enthusiastically disagree. The teaching of ID in a science class makes the question, "Why are we teaching non-scientific subjects in science class?"
ID cannot be tested by the scientific method; ergo, it is not science! No matter how much the proponents of this backwards "theory" wish it were science, it is not. You cannot test for the existence of God, a pre-r
Re:Science, non-science (Score:2)
Re:Science, non-science (Score:3, Interesting)
Aliens. I kid you not. When I've heard this taught (in my intro-to-science class at a religious university) it was made clear that "intelligent design" doesn't refer to a particular source of the design, only that it is intelligent, as opposed to mindless (that is, evolution.) It could be aliens, it could be a previous civilization of humans, it could be a trans-dimensional spaghetti
Politico Religious Fanatics != Scientist (Score:3, Insightful)
When they have more than the bible and a few theologians then maybe it could be considered.
If they worked with biologists to understand organisms and all of the stuff already studied, then maybe it could be considered.
If they didn't just deride evolution instead of studying real things and relating them to the world, then maybe there could be a discussion considered.
But when some jesus waving ignorant religious fanatic undermines hundreds of years of study with a good catch word, that pissed me off.
If I were him I would not have apologized. I WOULD HAVE TELEVISED!!!
Re:Politico Religious Fanatics != Scientist (Score:2)
You're glad that this prof abused his position of power in order to attack an entire set of religious beliefs? You're glad that this prof essentially intended to indoctrinate his students against Christianity? (Hey, anti-Christians band the word "indoctrinate" all the time; it seems to me that attacking a set of beliefs rather than presenting them in a fair and mature way is the essence of indoctrination.)
"But when some jesus waving
Re:Politico Religious Fanatics != Scientist (Score:2)
I'm not exactly a fan of ID either, but this kind of hateful rhetoric goes against everything the US s
Re:Politico Religious Fanatics != Scientist (Score:2)
Nice try. The word "indoctrinate" means "to teach doctrines to; teach uncritically." You can teach a doctrine of anti-religion just as easily as you can teach a religious doctrine.
Re:Politico Religious Fanatics != Scientist (Score:2)
Data, please. I've seen these claims before, and they always boil down to a gut feeling that things were better in "the good old days." They
Re:Politico Religious Fanatics != Scientist (Score:3, Interesting)
As long as you are tossing around correlations regarding violent crime, I have one that is better supported and actually has an identifiable cause. See these links:
Crime [drugwarfacts.org]
Crime and the Drug War [firearmsandliberty.com]
It is no stretch to say that crime is more closely associated with the differenct prohibitions than with lessing religious adherence.
Some balance (and fact) to this discussion (Score:3, Insightful)
The comments on this story are full of this type of misinformation
Re:Some balance (and fact) to this discussion (Score:3, Insightful)
The "technical claim", if you will, of ID is (in my understanding) that evolution fails to explain major structural changes and only explains incremental changes. ID therefore claims to be the "missing element"
Good for the Goose (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Good for the Goose (Score:3, Insightful)
While he may have been insensitive and overzealous, I see nothing wrong with a professor of religious stu
Re:Good for the Goose (Score:2)
FTA:
You're telling me that a religious studies prof who says this could actually be anything *but* unprof
Re:Good for the Goose (Score:2)
Re:Good for the Goose (Score:2)
Back to reality: no separation of church and state (Score:2)
1. In my reading of the constitution, it's the Congress (that is the FEDERAL legislature) that's barred from establishing religion. This was intended to preserve the rights of individual states to do what that wanted in this area. So IMO, Kansas may as a state decide to teach whatever the hell it wants, even if (gasp) the citizenries of other states disagree.
2. It's practically speaking impossible to completely avoid the influence
Re:Back to reality: no separation of church and st (Score:2)
Amendment XIV
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal prot
Re:Back to reality: no separation of church and st (Score:2)
The problem is, I read the non-establishment clause not as a protection of individual citizen's rights, but as a protection of states' rights. I read the non-establishment clause as a restriction on what the federal government can shove down the states' throats. I don't read the clause as a guarantee to individual citizens that they will be completely free from such legislatio
R-E-S-P-E-C-T (Score:2)
But I take away the point that no matter how ridiculous or simple or wrong someone's point of view may seem, if they are sincere about it, that point of view deserves respectful response and dialogue.
Additionally, that respect for someone's opinion can never be confused with respect for the opinion itself; it doesn't mean aquiesence to or approval of thos
Tell it like it is...if you're on TV. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's funny how people fully support this kind of forthright talk about any number of groups when it's done by politically-motivated radio and television personalities with license to broadcast over public airwaves to millions of people, but when a man with a doctorate of theology uses similar language in an email discussion with the atheist student group to whom he is an advisor, it causes an uproar.
He is in the Hospital; some PRO ID people beat him (Score:3, Insightful)
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/dec/05/mirecki_
He was beaten down and sent to the Hospital by 2 people who where upset about his anti fundamentalism/anti ID stance.
THESE ACTIONS are the real problem, as they represent the blindness of religious fundamentalism when pressed by the freedom of speech.
The reason I think ID is an issue, is that fundamentalism doesn't allow for an other opinion, it is intractable in its stance about what is right in religion. (whatever the religion).
Even thought Dr Mireki might not have been the most tactful person in his approach to counter the ridiculous decision in his state; it is NEVER acceptable for anyone to be terrorized because of his/her opinions, and the reality in America is that anyone who EVER confronts the religious rights ideals, gets taken down by any means necessary.
This can be seen in the horrendous actions of anti-abortion activists; the pervasiveness of anti-sex education & the ineffective yet over emphasized abstinence movement; the obvious miscarriages of authority that are happening at the FDA in relation to the abortion pill; the rise of intolerance of religious differences; or any idea that goes against "Christians".
In effect, this is the reflection of the Christian fundamentalist leader currently in power.
So its all grand to have people here criticize his actions, when the reality is that in his particular environment (the middle of the bible belt in Kansas), he actually has to deal with the effects of these religious fundamentalist directly, especially working in the field of religion.
Whether it is from the possibility of loosing his jobs from the university who feels public pressure trough their funding, or attacks on his and his loved ones physical person, this is not like being on slashdot with an alias and saying whatever crap and then disappearing.
If you cross them they go after you especially if you have clout.
Personally I really wish had not backed down, and given the course; furthermore the University should really support him no matter what as this directly reflects on their credibility as an independent institution of learning.
Maybe Iran or China are worse.... or are they?
Re:Not acceptable (Score:4, Insightful)
And the people promoting this intelligent design crap are not putting it forward as just their opinion. They are trying to pass it off as though it were a respectable scientific theory. They deserve to be called names.
Re:Not acceptable (Score:2)
You're retarded (Score:2)