Wednesday, December 16, 2009

The Importance of Intelligent Design

Too often, people overlook the fact that some of our greatest scientists throughout history believed in intelligent design in one way or another. Newton, for example, very much believed that God was responsible for the stability of the planets. Other notable intelligent design advocates include Huygens, Laplace, and Ptolemy.

Yes, some of the best scientists in history wanted to teach intelligent design in the classroom. We should be teaching this (that many of the greatest scientists believe in intelligent design) in science class. Neil deGrasse Tyson explains why in the video below.

8 comments:

  1. You completely miss Neil deGrasse Tyson's point, which is that intelligent design is a philosophy of ignorance.

    Also, as Tyson points out (in this video or elsewhere) Newton was completely wrong to invoke intelligent design (god) to solve his problem with the stability of the planets. A century later Laplace solved Newton's problems without the god hypothesis (which by the way proves you are being dishonest when you say LaPlace advocated intelligent design stupidity).

    http://darwin-killed-god.blogspot.com/

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  2. The point is that the topic of creationism is a taboo topic in the science classroom, but it shouldn't be. We should teach exactly how intelligent design affected science. I'm not advocating teaching intelligent design as a viable scientific theory, however.

    Hope that clears things up.

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  3. They can teach creationism in science class when they teach evolution in churches. Why not just allow religion/theology/philosophy to be taught in public schools, as its own seperate concept?

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  4. They can teach creationism in science class when they teach evolution in churches. Why not just allow religion/theology/philosophy to be taught in public schools, as its own seperate concept?

    For the third time, I'm not advocating teaching creationism in science class. However by showing how intelligent design has stumbled scientific progress, you show the advantage of the naturalistic scientific method.

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  5. I see what you're saying, but that should be taught in something else, even in a debate or speech class. How many failed theories do they not teach? Should we dig up Miasma Theory and show how germ theory empirically kicked its ass? Mentioning it at all does two things:

    1. Legitimizes it
    2. Invites calls of bias

    As it is, all I have to say to a "creationist" or "intelligent design" adherent is "What practical change would you make?" Then I just watch the drool drip down their chin. If they teach "evolution as wrong," they're going to point to that.

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  6. oops, I mean, "If they teach 'creationism as wrong,' they're going to point to that."

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  7. I understand what you're saying, but science is a philosophy as well, so I don't see anything wrong about bringing something up that relates to said philosophy. However, failed theories are mentioned multiple times in science classrooms. For example, you should have learned how Mendel and Darwin believed genes mixed fluidly instead of the on-off mechanism we know of today.

    But I see your point about the foot-in-the-door nature of creationists. They will see probably see it as a victory if they start talking about creationism, even to show why it isn't scientific.

    I think you may be right now that I think about it. I yield to your argument, good sir.

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