Is Intelligent Design Being "Expelled" From Scientific Thought?
The argument over Evolution verses Creationism has heated up classrooms and the scientific community for years.
Many in education claim they're only allowed to teach that man evolved from a lower life form.
Now a new movie is asking...Shouldn't we be allowed to question the status quo?
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is a provocative documentary looking for answers.
Producers say they're not trying to validate one theory over another, they just want their First Amendment rights.
In the movie trailer Ben Stein asks, "Excuse me?" Exasperated, his professor replies, "Yes Ben." As Stein says, "How did life begin in the first place?"
Social commentator Ben Stein wants an answer to that question.
He claims there is a bias against teachers and scientists who think there may be an alternative to evolutionary theory...
Later in the trailer Stein asks, "Could there be an intelligent designer?"
Stein's movie opened in limited release.
It's being met with success, making the Top 10 list during opening week.
Signal Mountain resident Greg Nance just watched the film, "I wish everybody could see it."
But many say creationism simply isn't science.
UTC Biology and Environmental Science Professor Tim Gaudin says, "Science is supposed to be about refining and testing our ideas."
Gaudin says science is based on observation and evidence and Intelligent Design doesn't fit the bill.
Gaudin says, "If I say, 'Well this is too complex for me to understand it, it must have been designed.' Where do you go with that?"
Gaudin is a practicing Roman Catholic.
He says Evolution and Creationism don't have to be mutually exclusive, and the Catholic Church agrees.
Standing in the lobby of the Rave Movie Theater in East Ridge Nance says, "If there is a God, which I believe there is... Then how did he do it? So science is not blocked by God, but science is blocking God."
Gaudin says, religious theory doesn't belong in science class.
He says many teachers in Tennessee skip over Evolution and that puts students at a disadvantage.
He says, "I don't think it's reasonable to expect people to be teaching those sort of ideas in a science classroom when clearly they aren't scientific."
Others say to rule out the possibility that man was created by a higher power makes no sense.
Nance says, "If you erase that from the picture I'm no better than another creature, a one-celled animal."
Ben Stein and the producers of Expelled just want to ask the question...
Stein says, "We don't think that we have all the answers. We don't think that anyone has all the answers. We just want free speech."
The movie has run into a bit of legal trouble.
Last week Yoko Ono sued the filmmakers over the movie's use of John Lennon's song "Imagine."
Producers say the nature of the film makes it legal.
Apples and Acorns
There must be one before there can be many. What is the difference between human and nonhuman? Can a species produce anything (reproduce) except its on species? Growth and change and improvements within a species can be expected, call that evolution if you like, but an oak tree will never make apples no matter how much its acorns change.
Common ancestry?
If Darwin's ancestors were anything but human, then we have nothing in common. James E. Gambrell
Actually, you are quite
Actually, you are quite wrong. Species that are very different are unlikely to merge, but animals of different species with a high percentage of common DNA are able to reproduce. True, in most cases the offspring is sterile, but in some mutant cases they are not. They go on to pass their DNA on to ancestors, and thus, slowly the species changes. Look at lions and tigers. They are different species, Panthera tigris and Panthera leo, but they are capable of reproducing together. Their habitats do not generally cross except in captivity, but again, there are occasions. A freak storm could separate a lion from the pride and, lost, it will venture out alone. Once alone, it will wander, looking for other lions, but it could perhaps migrate and in a single lifetime make it into an area where tigers are indigenous. That’s the beauty of evolution. It is based on the chance encounters and the slow progress of miniscule changes, generation after generation. But I guess anyone who can really look at the world around us and believe that it is only 8,000 years old can’t be taught much about genetics anyway.
Ben's Definition of Intelligent Design
"Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact. Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, wings, etc." (Of Pandas and People, pages 99-100). And, according to Ben Stein, intelligent design is the "hypothesis" that an "all-powerful designer" created the ancestors of the forms of life that exist today, and that those ancestors were not significantly different from their living descendants. (See "a discussion between R.C. Sproul & Ben Stein about evolution, and the movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4609561480192587449&q=Expelled%3A+No+Intelligence&ei=-csSSNigCZDCqAP65aDFBA )
Mr. Stein believes that the all-powerful designer is the god of The Holy Bible. By this belief, he has transformed his god into an untestable hypothesis. God is no longer something to have faith in; God is now a hypothesis that cannot be proved to be true.
Casey Luskin of the Discovery Institute asserts that intelligent design is a "scientific theory." Mr. Luskin is wrong. The intelligent design hypothesis cannot be tested, cannot be proved to be true, and cannot become a scientific theory.
Ben and Casey should take note of the fact that, under the rules of science, a miracle cannot be included a scientific theory. They should also note that putting a miracle into a hypothesis renders that hypothesis untestable.
Roman Catholics & "Cutting-Edge Science"
Part of the article says:
"Gaudin ... a practicing Roman Catholic ... says, religious theory doesn't belong in science class."
As a Catholic parent,
I want "Cutting-Edge Science"
taught in science class,
... such as:
- Molecules-to-man evolutionary theory violates the second law of thermodynamics by positing spontaneous increases in order through random interactions of matter.
- Matter from explosions does not condense to form objects like galaxies.
. . .
- Molecules-to-man evolutionism violates the Law of Biogenesis: Life does not come from non-life.
- The specific complexity of genetic information in the genome does not increase spontaneously. Therefore, there is no natural process whereby reptiles can turn into birds, land mammals into whales, or chimpanzees into human beings.
- All organisms are irreducibly complex. Therefore, in order for any kind of organism to exist, all of the essential parts of that organism must be fully functioning from the beginning of its existence.
From: What Does The Catholic Church Teach about Origins?
http://www.kolbecenter.org/church_teaches.htm
Study entropy much?
First of all, I would ask you provide data for your so-called science. You say genetic information does not increase spontaneously. Your god theory is the only one that involves spontaneous increases. Evolution occurs over millions of years. Also, the idea that “All organisms are irreducibly complex” is not true at all. It’s simple really. Look at a periodic table and there is existence, perfectly reduced into the most basic of parts. We are not special! Now, for your idiotic invocation of thermodynamics and the second law, read as follows: “An important law of physics, the second law of thermodynamics, states that the total entropy of any isolated thermodynamic system tends to increase over time, approaching a maximum value.” Note, then, that this only applies to an isolated, or closed system. The earth isn’t a closed system because it is powered by the sun. Therefore, the second law of thermodynamics does not disprove evolution. Don’t try to use your christian powers of manipulation to make your idiotic rituals and dogma look like science. Thanks Wikipedia and to the worlds greates DJ, MC Hawking!
Creationism and
Creationism and “intelligent design” are absurd, and they are the same thing. The development if ID basically moved in five drafts, systematically replacing the word creation with the words intelligent design. It’s all the same thing and it is not science. It is religion, and has no place in a science class. Admittedly, we don’t know how life began, but the argument in ID is basically “we don’t know, therefore, god did it” and that argument is so closed to actual intellectual thought. As an atheist, I look at science with the idea that “we don’t know, so let’s do some research and tests to see if we can find better answers.” It would be a farce to say that this movie is about free speech. The right-wingers make the argument that it is about equal exposure, that people shouldn’t just be limited to one viewpoint but should be exposed to them all. That is, when it is a matter of their viewpoint being excluded. They say children shouldn’t be taught just evolution, they should see alternative theories. However, if there were Christian schools that just taught creationism, which there are, then the hypocrite republicans wouldn’t have a problem with that at all. Same goes for gay couples adopting. They say children should have the opportunity to see what the alternative is like, having two heterosexual parents. But the other side of their argument is that children with two opposite sex heterosexual parents should be exposed to same-sex couples. Republicans just choose to ignore that half of what their argument really says. Again, all hypocrisy. Follow their argument to it’s very end, and logically it collapses down around itself.
Post new comment
Recent blog posts
- 5/13/08 Ringgold Primary School 1st Grade!
- Caught on Tape: The Power of Thursday's Storms
- 5/9/08 This Week's Garden of the Week Winner!
- Extra Video: Running of the Chihuahuas, The Kissing Donkey, and the Beer Guzzling Toddler
- 5/8/08 Severe Weather This Afternoon.
- Berry Time in Tennessee
- 5/5/08 Harrison Elementary 3rd Grade!
- Summer Movie Extravaganza
- 5/2/08 This Week's Garden of the Week Winner!
- Monteagle Family Makes National News for a Storm Closet.
AP News Video
Recent comments
- yes they will it just
23 min 14 sec ago - RE Child support
25 min 3 sec ago - You neede to be under 17 the
34 min 25 sec ago - Stimulis Check
1 hour 4 min ago - and your views would be?
1 hour 30 min ago - #
1 hour 32 min ago - repercussions? for whom?
1 hour 38 min ago - what other side?
1 hour 41 min ago - What is rense.com
5 hours 9 min ago - whow
5 hours 16 min ago
a) Creation, b) Evolution or c)...
Think of a Nickel. Creation is heads and evolution(or scientific observation) is tails. The truth lies along the edge. The difficulty with scientific observation is the incorrect conclusions arrived at using only the available information. Given 'all' information, a different conclusion would be found. What Darwin observed was correct. The conclusion should have been 'adaptation' and not evolution. Just as wolves bred for tameness become dogs, other species can change to better interact with environmental changes to the extent that their recessive genes allow.
Religious conclusions are also questionable since all information is not available due to the Catholic Church deciding which books to include and which not to include in the Bible. Also, pick up any three bibles and the wordings are different for many pasages. This is supposedly done to improve the ease of understanding but does just the opposite. Shakespear meant every word he used and none of his work is 'adjusted for clarity'.
As the calendar we use today only came into use in the time of Cesar, and owing to the probability that Adam and his decendents lived nearer to the equator, their means of counting years is questionable. It would be easier to count moon cycles {29.53 days (29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes) on average} as that region of the earth has no seasons. If this is true, then Adam lived to be 75.19 of our years, Henoch only 29.51 and Mathusala a whopping 78.344 years.
Another oddity with numbers relates to 3 Kings Chapter 7 Verse 23 describing a 'molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim'(diameter) and 'a line of thirty cubits compassed it round about' (circumference). This indicates that pi=3 or 30/10. Verse 26 tells us 'the layer was a handbreadth thick: and the brim thereof was like the brim of a cup.' To arrive at a correct value for pi then the diameter of 10 is from outside edge to outside edge and the circumference was measured around the inside edge. Two different circles. This is the only way to describe pi with any accuracy as it is a continuous fraction and therefore one of the other dimensions used must also be a continuous value ie. the one not given.
And finally, the identity of God. Just as the law is described as both the letter of the law and the spirit of the law so is the word of God and the spirit of God. God is the plan for our existance, not the executer of the plan.