Stof, I agree that there is a standard of academic quality that needs to be met when it comes to college courses. I also understand that professors are not supposed to push agendas on their students. I hope that if such an ID course were ever offered, they wouldn't push it as absolute truth, but rather a study of the different lines of reasonings for the case of a creator. Many theology classes are tought in the same way. A professor who is teaching a class about the New Testament doesn't push cristianity upon his class.

Look, I'm not asserting that ID should be on an equal footing with the hard sciences. But I have no objection against people having a college class in the social sciences. We don't submit social sciences to the same rigors as scientific theory.

I stated that ID sounds more like a soft science moreso than a legitimate science right now. Here's how wikipedia defines a soft science:

Soft science is a colloquial term, often used for academic research or scholarship which is purportedly "scientific" however it is not based on reproducible experimental data, and/or a mathematical explanation of that data. The term is usually used as a contrast to hard science.^[1]

I've also stated that at this point, ID is no more than a soft science and thus should be treated in the same way. Perhaps in the future, when this field matures a bit more and a professor publishes something to the scientific community, then we can work from there. I'm not suggesting a backdoor legitimicy, but rather an informative class on what it is, and what it is not, without pushing ideologies.

Ok. Then that's what I said earlier

"If the course is to study what ID is, what little basis in science it has, and it's history as a political movement? then sure.?

My wording may have been a bit harsh, but that's what a course that studies Creationism objectively as opposed to subjectively would have to cover.

Ok, then everything is agreed.

Back to the problem of ID:

You can't form a theory on a negative statement.

For the sake of argument, lets assume that evolution is not true. Assuming i'm a creationist, I assert "evolution is false, therefore, creationism must be true."

That statement is not enough to form a scientific theory. Proving A is false doesn't automatically mean that B is true. Too many ID people play that card, and I think its a little annoying.

yes, ID was inspired by religious fundamentalists. If you look at the website misterd provided (antievolution.org), it's pretty much entirely funded and propogated by fundamentalist christians (and michael behe who makes truckloads of money telling FC that evolution is wrong, god made us!). When a group tried to get "Of People And Pandas" put into school eductation it fell flat on it's face pretty much for the reasons cited. It was trying to teach creationism as science, and when asked to back it up with science they failed. They even brought in Michael Behe himself, who got his ass handed to him on the stand (I'll talk about that in a sec for anyone interested).

ID isn't a scientific movement, it's a religious movement trying to undermine science that it sees as threatening. Some FCs don't like ID because they reject any evolution outright, and ID seems to suggest that god just helped evolution and filled in any gaps (though in actuality, it's purpose is to critisize evolution as a whole).

As for Michael Behe, in the court case deciding whether or not ID should be taught in schools he went on the stand and went on his spiel about irreducible complexity. He cited the immune system as one irreducibly complex system. He said that no one knows how it could've evolved, it would have to be created as a whole. To which the prosecution laid out 50 or so articles in science journals, and other research papers which actually described how the immune system could evolve. To which behe replied "Well those studies aren't conclusive." The prosecution asked "Have you read any of these studies?" and under oath behe had to reply "no". The judge commented that he felt sorry that none of those scientists had made nearly as much money off thier papers as behe had off his one book. But that gets at the heart of the problem.

ID isn't a scientific theory, it's just fingers in the ears, screaming really loud hoping that no one will listen to these evolutionists. It proposes nothing tangible, it makes no predictions, and has no means of testing it. All it states is "evolution is flawed, there must be an intelligent creator!" who just happens to be the abrahamic god.

I'm not sure where your first point is relevant...ID to my knowledge is formed on the affirmative statement that "Life and the Universe have a designer".

I agree completely that many do use the logic you mentioned, but that sort of thing is not a necessity. I think the problem is that ID as a theory doesn't really fit into science even when properly and formally stated. However I wouldn't be against someone building a scientific version of the theory if they believe they can. It would at least be interesting to see it formalized.

I think ID fits better as a philisophical argument, but again I would appreciate it being formalized as such. I would like to be able to read up on some sort of official ID theory/philosophy to better understand their position but to my knowledge such a thing doesn't exist. And indeed to teach a class on the topic it would have to.

On that note I would have no problem with ID being listed in a group of theories that have yet to be proven and studied from the perspective of "what did these theories do wrong" etc... Students can learn how to approach the community and it could prove quite beneficial in that format. Although I will point out that if the theory is formalized so that it can be part of the class then there is no longer a need to entice students to formalize it...which is part of why I'm fine with it. But I do think that if someone formalizes the theory it should be given a fair shake before it's simply banished to the corner to be scoffed at as a bad example. The work should go into the theory by someone who supports it and wants it to be taken seriously and it should get its time at the podium once that work is done.

Yeah right now ID is more of a "spin" that you can put on science more than an alternative explanation of it.

I think its called the anthropic principle. "The earth and the universe has been fine tuned to allow for our existence, so therefore it must have been designed that way since there is no way for it to be random." It is true that everything in the universe came about in a way that allows for our existence, but depending on whether or not you subscribe to the anthropic principle, then you can arrive at a couple different conclusions.

It's not even spin, it's just propaganda. Half of what ID supporters spew is complete ignorant nonsense that isn't even up to par with high school text book explanations of evolution and natural selection. And willfully so, most of them actually avoid learning, and still argue, even the so called intelligent ones (look at the example of behe I posted above).

It doesn't predict anything, or propose any method of exploration into it's proposals. It's not even a proper hypothesis. People keep saying "well let them do the research, try to flesh it out!" What research? And who's doing it? There's no research to do because no predictions are made. Aside from Behe the supporters aren't scientists, their people like Ben Stein who clearly don't even understand the basics of evolution. And even Behe is hardly a credible scientist, at this point he's just whoring himself out for money to fundamentalist christians.

Dear god, I'm watching a video of Ben Stein being interviewed about the movie, and he is completely off his rocker. He's claiming that "darwinism" (what he calls evolution) is supposed to explain mutations, natural selection and GRAVITY. And then complaining that "darwinists" can't explain where GRAVITY came from or why planets arbit the sun.... (expletive coming) HOLY FUCK.

This is the guy you want educating you about science? This is freaking ridiculous.

While I agree with your position, it is equally true that a lack of expert support for a theory is not proof of its falsehood. It certainly bodes ill but I don't think it is fair to condemn it on those grounds alone.

As an aside:

Ironically I listened to Coast to Coast AM for the first time in months last night and they had on a Catholic Priest who is part of the church in the capacity of an astronomer. In the 2 hours interview he impressed upon me that the Catholic church wishes it to be known that they are pro-science and that they are not against evolution at all. I took a great deal of comfort in seeing that the church is at least interested in this avenue and recognizes its merits. Thats a great step in the right direction and I wish I had known of it sooner. They apparently have a whole program from multiple fields of study and they are active in the scientific community and have made contributions themselves.

Religion is not (and should not be) opposed to Science, as I've often said on these discussions religion is the "Why are we here?" and Science is the "How did we come to be here?". Thats obviously simplifying it quite a bit but I found its a good starting point for grasping the larger more complex issues between religion and science.

1. Yes, people DO criticize Simpsons-type classes, though those are typically not classes ON the Simpsons (or other pop culture phenomena), so much as a course that uses the them as a scaffolding on which to hang a course on more legitimate matters (like philosophy).

2. It absolutely does offer ID legitimacy - that's why the ID people have been fighting tooth and nail to get ID into a classroom. Moreover by offering a college course, you are giving academic credibility to the topic by saying that it is worthy enough to earn credits towards a diploma, which is academic legitimacy.

3. Who's denying them a chance to investigate ID? For the curious lay people, we don't deny them the chance to investigate conspiracy theories, but we don't reward them for it and say it is has academic merit. For the "serious" researchers, there is plenty of money out there for anyone who has an idea for someone to test ID. Oddly enough, no one is going for it (all that money is being used for PR purposes instead). Even the leading ID proponents have failed to design experiments that test their idea (the lead culprit, Michael Behe, was - the last I checked- investigating the role of centrioles in causing cancer, an idea that has nothing at all to do with ID).