--- Richard Tenney <retenney@yahoo.com> wrote:
Excellent post, and not too long at all. . . . I for one found it very instructive and helpful in the current debate. . . . Thank you all for enriching my life!
Thank you (all) for the kind comments. Same here and back at you. If Jim and Don would like to continue the dialogue, since we are unlikely to reach a consensus on whether the theory of evolution is inconsistent with a geologic record of descent with modification, maybe we could move on to discussing the social consequences of the proposal to teach intelligent design in Utah public secondary schools. Most social questions, like the one under discussion, are not simply black and white, but have shades of grey that have to considered by weighing the costs and benefits of alternative courses of actions. For example, if we do teach intelligent design in Utah secondary schools, you [Richard] mentioned the cost to society of reducing the essential human characteristic of curiosity: Richard wrote:
[I]f we conclude that all this evolutionary science is too improbable . . . what are we to do about it -- drop the whole thing and quit trying to puzzle it out? . . . That sounds like a far more tragic consequence to me. . . . When we throw in the towel, for whatever reason, we all lose.
I also alluded to the potential social cost of not teaching the next generation the benefit of the scientific method - a mental discipline that was hard-fought for over several hundred years and has reaped the comfortable lifestyle that we enjoy in a modern post-industrial society. To that I would add the economic cost to the State of Utah from being perceived as backward and out-of-touch with the rest of the world, thus possibly detering capital investment and jobs away from the State. Don felt that the teaching of evolutionary theory and the theory of creation would lead to further adherence to Social Darwinism and, I infer, might lead to totalitarism in this country - Don wrote:
These concepts [the racist and social Darwinistic views of Huxley, Darwin and Lyle] were readily adapted by Adolph Hitler to his program of extermination of "sub-humans". Evolutionary ideas applies to societies by dictators including Lenin and Stalin have had horrible results.
I added that we need not limit the social costs of the general public perverting the biological theory of evolution into Social Darwinism to the Soviets - I pointed out that Don's concept could be extended to capitalism and U.S. history as well. My questions to Jim and/or Don, and anyone else in the list are these - 1) What is the destabilizing condition that leads you to feel that the current Utah secondary school system cirriculum based on the theory of evolution should be supplemented with the provisional theory of intelligent design? Is it that you feel the theory of evolution or a theory of creation by random self-organization are just plain wrong? Or is there more, for example, that as a remedy for a feeling of general decline of morality in society, you feel the decline might be slowed by interjecting more religious training into the public school system? If you feel that way, that's fine, I don't agree with having religious training in public schools, but I won't turn this into a discussion of the separation of church and the state. 2) What to you perceive to be the social benefits _and_ the costs of your proposal to supplement the current Utah secondary school cirriculum on evolution with the provisional theory of intelligent design? What do you feel about the potential costs that Richard and I alluded to? I'm unclear as to the social benefits that you claim will come from your proposed course of action - beyond the obvious that our children will not grow up to be good people if we teach them things that are not true. Or, if you would like, we can continue to discuss the weaknesses in a theory of creation by random self-organization of inimate matter. - Canopus56(Kurt) P.S. - I've concluded that there must be an intelligent designer. Every time I load my car up to go for some astronomy relaxation, high cirrus clouds blow in. Clearly, somebody up there doesn't like me. -:) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com