Is Intelligent Design Being "Expelled" From Scientific Thought?

Great job, "Josephu" on your "Catholics and Cutting Edge Science" comment.
Many who are anti-religious say something like "...religion doesn't belong in the classroom with science...".

Well I agree, but in that case, we shouldn't be teaching the Theory of Evolution, because it is all an unprovable BELIEF based heavily on an ASSUMPTION (belief) that there is no God with the power or interest to create the complexity we see in our world, and thus nature had to do its own "creating". The thing that is amazing is how the Darwinists so tenaciously, illogically cling to their belief system. It makes you wonder if there isn't something...spiritual (Gen 3:5)... going on there.

Think of a Nickel. Creation is heads and evolution(or scientific observation) is tails. The truth lies along the edge. The difficulty with scientific observation is the incorrect conclusions arrived at using only the available information. Given 'all' information, a different conclusion would be found. What Darwin observed was correct. The conclusion should have been 'adaptation' and not evolution. Just as wolves bred for tameness become dogs, other species can change to better interact with environmental changes to the extent that their recessive genes allow.

Religious conclusions are also questionable since all information is not available due to the Catholic Church deciding which books to include and which not to include in the Bible. Also, pick up any three bibles and the wordings are different for many pasages. This is supposedly done to improve the ease of understanding but does just the opposite. Shakespear meant every word he used and none of his work is 'adjusted for clarity'.

As the calendar we use today only came into use in the time of Cesar, and owing to the probability that Adam and his decendents lived nearer to the equator, their means of counting years is questionable. It would be easier to count moon cycles {29.53 days (29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes) on average} as that region of the earth has no seasons. If this is true, then Adam lived to be 75.19 of our years, Henoch only 29.51 and Mathusala a whopping 78.344 years.

Another oddity with numbers relates to 3 Kings Chapter 7 Verse 23 describing a 'molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim'(diameter) and 'a line of thirty cubits compassed it round about' (circumference). This indicates that pi=3 or 30/10. Verse 26 tells us 'the layer was a handbreadth thick: and the brim thereof was like the brim of a cup.' To arrive at a correct value for pi then the diameter of 10 is from outside edge to outside edge and the circumference was measured around the inside edge. Two different circles. This is the only way to describe pi with any accuracy as it is a continuous fraction and therefore one of the other dimensions used must also be a continuous value ie. the one not given.

And finally, the identity of God. Just as the law is described as both the letter of the law and the spirit of the law so is the word of God and the spirit of God. God is the plan for our existance, not the executer of the plan.

There must be one before there can be many. What is the difference between human and nonhuman? Can a species produce anything (reproduce) except its on species? Growth and change and improvements within a species can be expected, call that evolution if you like, but an oak tree will never make apples no matter how much its acorns change.
Common ancestry?
If Darwin's ancestors were anything but human, then we have nothing in common. James E. Gambrell

"Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact. Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, wings, etc." (Of Pandas and People, pages 99-100). And, according to Ben Stein, intelligent design is the "hypothesis" that an "all-powerful designer" created the ancestors of the forms of life that exist today, and that those ancestors were not significantly different from their living descendants. (See "a discussion between R.C. Sproul & Ben Stein about evolution, and the movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4609561480192587449&q=Expelled%3A+No+Intelligence&ei=-csSSNigCZDCqAP65aDFBA )

Mr. Stein believes that the all-powerful designer is the god of The Holy Bible. By this belief, he has transformed his god into an untestable hypothesis. God is no longer something to have faith in; God is now a hypothesis that cannot be proved to be true.

Casey Luskin of the Discovery Institute asserts that intelligent design is a "scientific theory." Mr. Luskin is wrong. The intelligent design hypothesis cannot be tested, cannot be proved to be true, and cannot become a scientific theory.

Ben and Casey should take note of the fact that, under the rules of science, a miracle cannot be included a scientific theory. They should also note that putting a miracle into a hypothesis renders that hypothesis untestable.

Part of the article says:

"Gaudin ... a practicing Roman Catholic ... says, religious theory doesn't belong in science class."

As a Catholic parent,
I want "Cutting-Edge Science"
taught in science class,
... such as:

- Molecules-to-man evolutionary theory violates the second law of thermodynamics by positing spontaneous increases in order through random interactions of matter.

- Matter from explosions does not condense to form objects like galaxies.

. . .

- Molecules-to-man evolutionism violates the Law of Biogenesis: Life does not come from non-life.

- The specific complexity of genetic information in the genome does not increase spontaneously. Therefore, there is no natural process whereby reptiles can turn into birds, land mammals into whales, or chimpanzees into human beings.

- All organisms are irreducibly complex. Therefore, in order for any kind of organism to exist, all of the essential parts of that organism must be fully functioning from the beginning of its existence.

From: What Does The Catholic Church Teach about Origins?
http://www.kolbecenter.org/church_teaches.htm

Creationism and “intelligent design” are absurd, and they are the same thing. The development if ID basically moved in five drafts, systematically replacing the word creation with the words intelligent design. It’s all the same thing and it is not science. It is religion, and has no place in a science class. Admittedly, we don’t know how life began, but the argument in ID is basically “we don’t know, therefore, god did it” and that argument is so closed to actual intellectual thought. As an atheist, I look at science with the idea that “we don’t know, so let’s do some research and tests to see if we can find better answers.” It would be a farce to say that this movie is about free speech. The right-wingers make the argument that it is about equal exposure, that people shouldn’t just be limited to one viewpoint but should be exposed to them all. That is, when it is a matter of their viewpoint being excluded. They say children shouldn’t be taught just evolution, they should see alternative theories. However, if there were Christian schools that just taught creationism, which there are, then the hypocrite republicans wouldn’t have a problem with that at all. Same goes for gay couples adopting. They say children should have the opportunity to see what the alternative is like, having two heterosexual parents. But the other side of their argument is that children with two opposite sex heterosexual parents should be exposed to same-sex couples. Republicans just choose to ignore that half of what their argument really says. Again, all hypocrisy. Follow their argument to it’s very end, and logically it collapses down around itself.