emotional

Actually the default position, until the 19th century (give or take a few ancient Greek philosophers), was intelligent design. By default, when you see something as complex as the human body or an eukaryotic cell, you infer intelligent design. It is only external evidence, such as the fossil record and the nature of DNA, that forces a different view of how those complex entities arose.



ID doesn't have any more basis than Paley's tired watchmaker analogy. "We know they were designed because complex organisation, just like a watch, requires an intelligent designer". Once the non-intelligent design hypothesis, otherwise known as evolution by natural selection, is disregarded, the door is open to Paley's design inference. That's why ID consists not of positive proof for ID (it can't, by definition) but only of evolution-bashing.

I'm not partial to the materialist tenet that there must be a naturalistic explanation for everything; but once such an explanation is found, the supernatural hypothesis ought to go to the dustbin of history. By default intelligent design, and they've had their share of teaching that hypothesis for over 2000 years, but ever since 1859, ID is a lost cause, just as angel theory has been given up in favour of gravity.

simian

http://www.natcenscied.org/

If you do some digging, there should be a state-by-state breakdown.

Simian

Albion

This is an incorrect definition of methodological naturalism. If they're going to start playing Humpty Dumpty with definitions, they can pretend things are whatever they like. Doesn't make it so. I assume someone will get Ken Miller or Micahael Ruse to go and explain a few basics to them before they pass this rubbish.

enigma555

Thanks simian!

Found their pressroom.

http://www.ncseweb.org/pressroom.asp?state=MD

manderguy

Here's my letter:

I am disappointed to learn of your sponsorship of House Bill 4946. The troubling portion of the bill is the end, which states:

<snip relevant text>

This has a number of serious problems associated with it.

First, the bill demonstrates a gross misunderstanding of science by its authors. Science works by disproof, not by proof. Evolution is an unproven theory, just like gravitation and relativity. To refer to evolution as an unproven theory as an attempt to cast doubt on its validity is disingenuous or ignorant. The theory of evolution is the unifying theory of biology and libraries full of evidence support it.

Second, the idea that intelligent design is a scientific theory ignores the boundaries of science. It is untestable and useless. By it's very nature, a designer would have used supernatural powers to design. Scientists deal only with the natural world, since that is all they can test and measure. It's akin to saying you caught more fish, compared to your fishing buddy, through divine intervention. It may well have been divine intervention, but science has no way to measure it. Scientists simply don't have a God-o-meter or a Supernatural Events Generator. You may have an explanation for your fish, but it would not be scientific.

Intelligent design has none of the utility that evolutionary biology possesses. Scientists use evolutionary biology every day, from comparing animal models to human ones for drug development, to making more effective drugs by examining the genetics of the underlying biochemistry, to developing better crops. We could say the human immune system (a common claim of intelligent design advocates) was designed, and where does that leave us? Nowhere. It does not generate the deeper understanding of the immune system that evolutionary biology brings through comparative biochemistry and genetics research. It brings us no closer to developing better vaccines or preventing autoimmune disorders as evolutionary biology does. Even computer programmers are using evolutionary based algorithms to create better programs.

Third, the bill states that intelligent design is a competing theory for common descent via evolution. It is not, because it is not scientific, and because it has no evidence. Real scientific theories must pass scientific muster before inclusion in schools. This is true whether it was relativity at the turn of the century, plate tectonics in the 1960's (which was suggested in the 20's but it took that long to become the leading paradigm), or intelligent design now.

The fact is, intelligent design has zero empirical evidence, while all the evidence from fields as diverse as geology, paleontology, archeology, anatomy, developmental biology, behavioral biology, ecology, genetics, and evolutionary biology itself support the validity of common descent and evolution. The proponents of intelligent design know they have no science to stand with, so they dishonestly try to get their psuedoscience into the cultural mainstream by playing politics.

Finally, the use of Creator as an explicit capitalized word makes me think this bill will have trouble with separation of church and state tests. Even the Discovery Institute (the group pushing intelligent design) begs off the question and leaves it at a non-capitalized "designer". They know the implications of invoking God too explicitly. They've seen the courts throw out laws written by other creationists (e.g. Edwards v. Aguillard).

This bill is a backwards step in science education. It would make the state of Michigan a laughing stock for much of the country. This bill goes much further than the recent Kansas bill which simply dropped evolution from the requirements. That small shift made Kansas the butt of a lot of jokes, and created the impression they were uneducated, backwards hicks. We do not want this reputation for Michigan.



Any comments? Particularly on the utility of evolution. A couple powerful, easily understood examples would be great.

It's pretty long as is, but I'm thinking about adding some of emotional's thoughts: " By default intelligent design, and they've had their share of teaching that hypothesis for over 2000 years, but ever since 1859, ID is a lost cause, just as angel theory has been given up in favour of gravity."

There's actually a decent chance of this getting read by the recipient (I have a contact). I don't want to overwhelm said rep, but I do want to get the main points across. And since there are so many instances of nonsense in that short part of the bill....

Albion

I'd switch these sentences; you want to emphasise that all theories are unproven, not that evolution is unproven. In fact, if you can get "evolution is an unproven theory" away from the beginning of the sentence, that would be even better.

"By its very nature" (ditch the apos)

It's also not true that methodological naturalism is a theory or a hypothesis, and it's certainly not true that it states that the natural world is all that exists. This is an attempt to frame the situation as a theistic-atheistic one by painting science as atheistic, and they should be called on it. Also, methodological naturalism covers all of science, so if this bloody intelligent Creator of theirs is an alternative, it's an alternative everywhere, not just in biology and not just in evolution. And it's no more use as an alternative to germ theory or atomic theory than it is to evolution.