PA Court rules with regard to ID teaching in schools.

by stevenyc 24 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Double Edge

  Funky.... neither a lie, nor a blunder born of ignorance....just a fact:

  Einstein on Prayer, Purpose in Nature, and the Soul

  The following excerpts are taken from Albert Einstein - The Human Side ,Selected and Edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press, 1979.
  

  Einstein on Prayer (pp. 32 - 33)

  A child in the sixth grade in a Sunday School in New York City, with the encouragement of her teacher, wrote to Einstein in Princeton on 19 January I936 asking him whether scientists pray, and if so what they pray for. Einstein replied as follows on 24 January 1936:

  I have tried to respond to your question as simply as I could. Here is my answer. Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place is determined by laws of nature, and therefore this holds for the actions of people. For this reason, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that events could be influenced by a prayer, i.e. by a wish addressed to a supernatural Being.

  Einstein in the Bern Patent Office

  However, it must be admitted that our actual knowledge of these laws is only imperfect and fragmentary, so that, actually, the belief in the existence of basic all-embracing laws in Nature also rests on a sort of faith. All the same this faith has been largely justified so far by the success of scientific research. But, on the other hand, every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe-a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is indeed quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive.

  It is worth mentioning that this letter was written a decade after the advent of Heisenberg's principle of indeterminacy and the probabilistic interpretation of quantum mechanics with its denial of strict determinism. Next Segment of Article

  ---
• 

  acsot

  and if you click on the "Next Segment" of the article, Einstein is quoted as saying:

  Einstein in 1934 at a Conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science This quote from Einstein appears in "Science, Philosophy, and Religion, A Symposium",published by the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion in Their Relation to theDemocratic Way of Life, Inc., New York, 1941. In it he says:

  The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events the firmer becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this ordered regularity for causes of a different nature. For him neither the rule of human nor the rule of divine will exists as an independent cause of natural events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted [italics his], in the real sense, by science, for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot. But I am convinced that such behavior on the part of representatives of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal. For a doctrine which is to maintain itself not in clear light but only in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human progress. In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vast power in the hands of priests. In their labors they will have to avail themselves of those forces which are capable of cultivating the Good, the True, and the Beautiful in humanity itself. This is, to be sure, a more difficult but an incomparably more worthy task...
• 

  jstalin

  There's some good stuff in that opinion. Page 28:

  Moreover, in turning to Defendants’ lead

  expert, Professor Behe, his testimony at trial indicated that ID is only a scientific,

  as opposed to a religious, project for him; however, considerable evidence was

  introduced to refute this claim. Consider, to illustrate, that Professor Behe

  remarkably and unmistakably claims that the

  plausibility of the argument for ID

  depends upon the extent to which one believes in the existence of God

  . (P-718 at

  705) (emphasis added). As no evidence in the record indicates that any other

  scientific proposition’s validity rests on belief in God, nor is the Court aware of

  any such scientific propositions, Professor Behe’s assertion constitutes substantial

  evidence that in his view, as is commensurate with other prominent ID leaders, ID

  is a religious and not a scientific proposition.
• 

  Elsewhere

  He accused school board members of disguising their true motives for introducing the ID policy.

  "We find that the secular purposes claimed by the board amount to a pretext for the board's real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom," he said.

  Once again the fundi christians are caught in a LIE.
• 

  mkr32208

  is that one of the most brillant scientists the world has ever know,

  So what he was a mathematician and a physicist he didn't study biology! Like saying "well your an english major so you must be able to explain how to fix the engine in my car..."

  I vote ignorance...

  As to the penn. ruling I think thats just about the best thing I've heard in WEEKS!
• 

  Abaddon

  Equally ironic that the first response repeats a typical ID-style argument from authority.

  If Albert Einstein believed in ID, so what? It's not what people believe in, but that which is that determines whether some idea is right or not.

  And also, why do people (I'm not saying you believe in either ID or big-C-reationism Double Edge) from the godidit side of the argument always use quotations by physicists supposedly saying they believe in god?

  Evolution. Physics. Different.

  Where are the quotes by biologists about the implications of the first x pico seconds of existence? Would they have a fully informed opinion oif cosmology? Hmmmm...

  Anyway, for the record;

  Einstein

  "I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony in
  what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions
  of human beings."

  Spinoza used the word "God" for some mystical cosmic unity. He was branded an atheist
  for centuries.

  Einstein

  "It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religous convictions, a lie
  which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal
  God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something
  is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration
  for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."

  Einstein

  "My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind."

  So, Einstein may have believed in some 'rule maker'. But that the entity responsible was personalityless and unconcerned with man. And whether he would approve of teaching a hypothesis as an alternative to a theory... whether the advances made in cosmology would mean he would still believe in a 'rule maker'... we don't know, although I'd bet on the answer to the former being "no" (using common scientific definitons of theory and hypothesis).

  But we don't know what he'd think now, and the opinion expressed cannot be proved, which is why arguements from authority are crap.

  In Europe we think it's mad. It is SO not an issue. Religion : Church (if you go). Science : School (if you go). And the idea that anyone is fooled by the Trojan Horse of ID is baffling. Dig into most prominent ID-ers and you find a re-marketed Creationist. It's the same "change the name, make the presentation more credible" routine the ultra-right have done in Europe. The neo-facist National Front became the British National Party. Head honchos were unchanged.

  Obviously it works; ID attracts those that Creationism is not credible enough for, just as anti-immigrant scape-goating of far-right parties attract those the more overtly racist attitudes of the old-style ultra right.

  And it has NOTHING to do with belief in god. The fricking POPE believes in evolution - the RC church figured out the literalistic arguments were unwinable DECADES ago, but also that they weren't important, as you can just move god further back and make him bigger and smarter.

  Ultra-Literal Biblical Creationism (YEC) treats god like a potter, and have to advance a bizare conspiracy theory about dating et. al and ignore mountains of evdience.

  Contextually Literalistic Creationism (OEC) at least allows for conventional timescales, but still treats god like a potter.

  ID-ers treat god like a draughtsmen.

  If we go beyond purile humanised idea of god, we get closer to the truth, if there is one about god.

  There is no job title like potter or draughtsmen for someone who can throw raw ingredients into a mix just the right way, with just the right spin, and make anything like all this around us. That is why I feel those who go beyond the anthropomorphic constraints of tradition are probably closer to the truth of god, if there is one, than those whose imaginations fail at god being anything clever than a cosmic daughtsman.
• 

  funkyderek

  Double Edge:

  Funky.... neither a lie, nor a blunder born of ignorance....just a fact:

  You can declare it so if you wish, but the quote you provided doesn't support your assertion, nor does any quote I've ever read from Einstein.
• 

  jstalin

  Pg 75:

  As expert testimony revealed, the qualification on what is meant by

  “irreducible complexity” renders it meaningless as a criticism of evolution. (3:40

  (Miller)). In fact, the theory of evolution proffers exaptation as a well-recognized,

  well-documented explanation for how systems with multiple parts could have

  evolved through natural means. Exaptation means that some precursor of the

  subject system had a different, selectable function before experiencing the change

  or addition that resulted in the subject system with its present function (16:146-48

  (Padian)). For instance, Dr. Padian identified the evolution of the mammalian

  middle ear bones from what had been jawbones as an example of this process.

  (17:6-17 (Padian)). By defining irreducible complexity in the way that he has,

  Professor Behe attempts to exclude the phenomenon of exaptation by definitional

  fiat, ignoring as he does so abundant evidence which refutes his argument.
• 

  JAVA

  But Judge Jones said he had determined that ID was not science and "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents".

  Thank god! We better hide this judge before King George W taps his phone calls without a court order.
• 

  FairMind

  We must not believe Charles Darwin’s teachings! It is an obvious fact that the man was an apostate and did you not notice the beard?