It was not merely Judge John E. Jones who ruled against teaching “intelligent design” (ID), a thinly veiled surrogate for “creation science,” in public schools. The citizens of Dover, Pennsylvania, exercised the power of the ballot to ensure that their city did not appeal Kitzmiller. If the case had reached the Supreme Court of the United States, the justices possibly would have split 5-4 in favor of allowing public schools to teach ID.
Today ID lost its prospect of winning in the Supreme Court: Justice Antonin Scalia, Known For Biting Dissents, Dies At 79. As noted in the Wikipedia article on Edwards v. Aguillard (1987), in which the court nailed shut the coffin of creation science,
Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, dissented, accepting the Act’s stated purpose of “protecting academic freedom” as a sincere and legitimate secular purpose. They construed the term “academic freedom” to refer to “students’ freedom from indoctrination”, in this case their freedom “to decide for themselves how life began, based upon a fair and balanced presentation of the scientific evidence”.
Has quite a familiar ring, doesn’t it? The rhetoric of the ID movement was designed by a law professor, Phillip Johnson, to suit a creationism-friendly judge of the Law of the Land. This is indeed a sad day for ID, which already had acquired a moribund pallor.
That’s also very old news. People don’t like Congress–they like their own representative, though.
I prefer the internet.
And, incidentally, there’s nothing particularly weird about people liking their own representative but disliking the institution as a whole.
Agreed. Congress sucks because of YOUR guys, not MY guy.
(As for me, I have voted for the losing candidate consistently for decades, and I confidently expect my Congressman and Senate votes to be wasted on someone who loses at least 70%-30%. Usually worse.)
Evolutionism is a religious doctrine being fobbed off as a scientific claim. And ID doesn’t have anything to do with any religion. Jones is a moron when it comes to science and you don’t have any idea what science entails. If you did then you would know that your position is not science as it can’t even be tested.
The next Court case will be of parents without any religious affiliation and the evolutionists will have to answer questions pertaining to the claims of their position. They will fail, miserably. It will be very, very entertaining watching the evolutionary experts wilt on the stand.
The intelligence of all living organisms on earth did. And your position still has nothing to explain either living organisms or intelligence. And I understand that upsets you.
walto,
Maybe a sub committee with members of Senate and Congress that is equally represented on both sides of the parties interview and hire.
Right, because some right-wing dipshit will blow it up, based on the “American Exceptionalist” position that whatever the U.S. does differently from any other country is necessarily better because…we rock!
So if anything is done to increase democracy in the U.S. (which is currently one of the least democratic countries among those countries even claiming/trying to be democracies), the result deserves to be destroyed from within.
IMHO, the solution to problems with representation are to move toward more democracy, not less.
Wrong- left wing nutty ideology will ruin the US
What, like it’s ruined Europe?
Why the the qualifier. living organisms not of earthly origin possibly do not require ID? Surely not, if intelligence occurs anywhere without Intelligent design, ID would be forced to produce evidence of a designer.
It would not matter what the religious affiliation of the parents was.
Actually that is all that matters. If the parents do not have any religious affiliation then ID will be OK in the eyes of the Court. And if evolutionism is shown to be atheistic that will also matter to the Court.
newton,
What living organisms not of earthly origins? And we have produced evidence for the designer. OTOH no one has ever produced any evidence for natural selection producing ATP synthase whereas IDists have produced the evidence that it was intelligently designed
Why? Courts discriminate against religious litigants?
It is called “the separation of church and state” You cannot push religion in public schools.
Frankie,
What is the evidence that ATP synthase was intelligently designed?
You qualified your statement,” on earth”. What evidence is that? “
It is irreducibly complex. It is way out of the reach of stochastic processes.
You have mastered the art of argument by proclamation. I hereby DECREE that the sun circles the earth. This is beyond dispute. End of discussion.
That is what we have to study.
LoL! Evolutionists hold that title- ie they are experts in the argument by proclamation as they sure as hell don’t have any evidence. Science says that ATP synthase is IC. Don’t blame me for your lack of understanding.
Moved a comment to guano.
Flint,
And Flint, any time you would like to tell us how to test the claim that ATP synthase arose via stochastic processes would be a welcome addition.
Frankie,
I am not sure what you mean by this can you explain in more detail? Doesn’t irreducibly complex mean that it cannot be explained by Darwinian step by step processes? Is this evidence by eliminating the single and only known alternative?
Frankie,
ATP synthase does not have much to do with the late Justice Scalia. If you want to propose an ID hypothesis for how ATP synthase arose, may I suggest you put up an OP.
It can’t be explained by any stochastic process- go ahead and try, and then test your explanation. We have only been waiting for decades…
BTW Alan, ATP synthase is relevant to the OP as the OP suggests that ID is evidence free and evolution has it all. Yet the reality is the opposite and I am pointing that out.
Don’t tell the State of Texas
Frankie,
I agree it cannot follow any stochastic processes but that is a negative argument and assumes only 2 alternatives. Can you form a positive argument?
Frankie,
That is true both of the Banana and ATP synthase. In fact, the worth of an answer seems to be proportional to the number of things to which it can be applied.
Frankie, is there anything in the entire world of biology that is not irreducibly complex and therefore out of the reach of stochastic processes?
The fact is there is no theory of “Intelligent Design”. ToE is incomplete and a work-in-progress, sure.
There is no theory of “Intelligent Design” regarding the observed diversity of life on earth. You seem to be stuck on your perception of inadequacies of the ToE. ID has zero to offer in explanations.
Yet that same evidence for atp can equally be applied to bananas. To buttons. To bees. To bin bags.
If the ‘evidence’ for ID is simply that some things are above some arbitrary level of complexity then you should probably find some way to formalise that.
Oh, wait now….
Good idea, how do you do that?
walto,
I don’t disagree but how is the question i.e. rules that limit lobbing special interest limit campaign spending eliminate candidates advertising etc.
Alan Fox,
There is no ToE, Alan. Science requires quantification and evolutionism lacks that. And ID has explanations. Your denial means nothing
The late Molly Ivins wrote an editorial once about a herd of sheep that suddenly dropped dead right outside a military base. The ranchers had a couple of Pentagon people come explain what happened, and held the meeting in a house surrounded by rotting sheep. The stench was almost overpowering.
And the Pentagon people said “sheep? What sheep? We don’t see any sheep.” And THAT ended the “investigation”.
Frankie could find a job with the Pentagon.
colewd,
Do you know what a positive argument is? If so please provide one for stochastic processes producing ATP synthase.
IC is a positive argument for ID as only intelligent designers can produce it. It is the same as archaeology has- signs of work, ie something mother nature could not have done
Flint,
Flint couldn’t find the Pentagon
Yes, you said
But what is that evidence specifically for atp? Otherwise it seems ID has one ‘explanation’ (it’s complex/IC, therefore designed) for everything
Seems unlikely to be of any use in future research to me. Perhaps you can give an example of how that ‘knowledge’ would be of actual practical use?
It’s called “biology”. Perhaps you should look into it
What are the “signs of work” for atp?
Don’t ID people do research into ID claims then?
I read yesterday that in the 2014 elections, the top 100 contributors gave more money to the candidates (or PACs) of their choice than the next 4.5 MILLION contributors combined! Welcome to Scalia World.
(Oh, and the fact that these contributions all went to the same party, and the decision was 5-4 along party lines, is undoubtedly pure coincidence.)
Ah, so when I post this link you can simply say, you can’t prove the mutations were not random! and declare ‘victory!
The funny thing is that I can post that link at all, from decades ago I’d note, and that single page in a book contains more technical work then ID has ever done re: atp.
And yet Frankie will still prefer ID as an ‘explanation’ for atp, despite the evidence or quality of the proposed origin details.
That’s a daft statement. Starting with Origin of Species, there’s a vast literature, lab and fieldwork, consilient evidence. The ToE can be briefly summarized in a couple of sentences. Off the top of my head. Where organisms compte for scarce resources and reproduce with heritable variation, differential reproductive success will result in change in allele frequency.
Nonsense.
A refutation of my claim that there is no theory of “Intelligent Design” as an alternative explanation for the diversity of life on Earth should be easy for you, then. State the theory of ID and how it explains life’s diversity.
Frankie,
If you can’t provide a specific positive argument for the Intelligent Design of ATP synthase then it seems to me the honorable thing would be to concede this point. As, after all, on that link there is what you are asking from on the stochastic processes front.
Unless you want to play the ‘can’t rule out intelligent design guiding the mutations’ card, in which case I’ll be asking you to make a positive argument. And so we go round again!
Alan Fox,
There isn’t any evidence that supports evolutionism Alan. It is untestable And Origins was a start but there wasn’t any theory
Science requires quantification and evolutionism lacks that.
It is a fact that science requires quantification and it is a fact that evolutionism cannot offer any. So what is the nonsense bit? Please make your case or admit that you cannot.
A refutation of my claim would be to link to the theory of evolution but we all know that you cannot.
BTW ID can have explanations without being a theory. Your understanding of science rivals three year olds’.
And you also rule out ID too. You can’t quantify the difference between a banana or ATP synthase except to say ‘they were designed’