re: #216 Zimriel

What “legislative tools”? If it’s basic science, it gets taught as basic. If it’s an interpretation of data, it gets brought up in classroom discussion. The “legislative tools” used to keep out Intelligent Design are the same ones which should be used to keep out shari’a.

Yep, those legislative tools. So, who’s to say that Global Warming isn’t basic Science? After all, the Earth is at stake … right?

We’ve been through this before. No-one outside the South thinks ID is likely to get a foothold nationwide. Quit shaking that strawman around; you’re not convincing anybody and you’re just making people pissed at you.

Judging by the percentage of posts here, it seems that ID or Creationism is considered a significant threat. Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s simply comedy relief from the crushing political travesties inflicted on us daily.

Those lizards who don’t live in Texas worry that ID is going to tag Republicans as the “Deliverance Party”, and make the Democrats into the ruling party for as long as the country lasts.

Are you serious? The all-out war against our free enterprise system and individual independence has been going on long before ID or creationism was even a blip on the radar. Or maybe, you’re concerned that the Democratic propaganda machine will tar Republicans as Creationist fringe elements. Watch Dr. Strangelove again. In 1964, it was people against fluoridation (among other things) that were made to look ridiculous. Or survivalists in Idaho, or greedy capitalists, or people who cling to their guns and religion. There is absolutely no shortage of possibilities!

There is no experiment that can falsify Intelligent Design. As you are well aware, I might add; tying this to religion is more misdirection on your part.

Of course there is. A direct experiment demonstrating a natural cascade of self-organization to high-level biological complexity would do nicely. And incredible luck doesn’t cut it mathematically (for example, try calculating the odds of shuffling a deck millions of times and eventually producing all the cards in order).

I’m actually advocating untying Science from religion—and politics from religion as well—and business. Mixing them corrupts them all (although strong ethics is needed for any of them to work).

There are experiments which could be run to falsify / verify certain parts of evolution, dealing with bacteria; although for safety reasons those might have to be done remotely, in a biohazard lab, controlled by robots. The expense would be prohibitive right now but in a few years should be practical.

Indeed there are. Dr. Michael Behe did show evidence of evolution in the terrible war between humanity and malaria (malaria is winning the evolutionary part of it). With something like a billion malaria parasites each in about 2-300 million people, it is a gruesome laboratory. Both malaria and humans have responded with classic evolutionary changes. But Behe demonstrates the limits of evolution from observable facts. That was the point of his latest book. (Yes, I’m aware of and have read the objections of his detractors.)

-sk