12.22.2005

In support of teaching evolution:

The recent ruling by Judge John E. Jones III in Pennsylvania that Intelligent Design cannot be taught is correct.

In his ruling, Jones said that while intelligent design, or ID, arguments “may be true, a proposition on which the court takes no position, ID is not science.” Among other things, he said intelligent design “violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation”; it relies on “flawed and illogical” arguments; and its attacks on evolution “have been refuted by the scientific community.”
ID is not science, and if schools are to teach science, elucidating students in the Scientific Method, then they should not teach it. For reference, the scientific method is:

1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.

2. Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation.


3. Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations.


4. Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters and properly performed experiments.

Intelligent Design fails under points four. The Flying Spaghetti Monster also fails. Incidently, so does evolution.

I've found this to be one of the better discourses on this subject.

It must be nice to have the legal system behind your pet idea. I wonder how one goes about achieving that.

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