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Intelligent Design
What the Experts Say About Intelligent Design (11/23/2005)
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Barbara
Forrest, Ph.D.
Professor
of Philosophy, Southeastern
Louisiana University
Conclusions
About Intelligent Design: Intelligent
Design is fundamentally religious. This conclusion
is based primarily on ID leaders' and their supporters'
views of it as stated in their own words, and
also based on their total rejection of naturalism.
ID's rejection of naturalism in any form logically
entails its appeal to the only alternative, supernaturalism,
as a putatively scientific explanation for natural
phenomena.
Read
the entire statement >>
Prof.
Forrest also comments on "The
Wedge Strategy" (Page
28), which outlines
the ID movement's plan to promote acceptance of ID and
teach it in public schools.
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John
F. Haught, Ph.D.
Theology Professor, Georgetown University
Conclusions About Intelligent
Design:
Teaching ID would be a violation of the theological
sensitivities of
Catholics, including myself, who distinguish carefully between
ultimate
explanations and natural causes. If a child of mine were
attending a
biology class where the teacher proposed that students consider
ID as an
alternative to neo-Darwinian evolution, I would be offended
religiously as
well as intellectually.
Read
the entire statement>> |
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Kenneth
R. Miller, Ph.D.
Professor of Biology, Brown University
Conclusions About Intelligent
Design:
Intelligent Design is a new anti-evolution movement that
has been presented as an alternative to an older formulation
known as "creation science." It argues that an
unnamed "designer"
must have been responsible for much of the process, although
it presents no evidence for the actions of such a designer.
Theological explanations may be correct, of course, but
they cannot be tested by methods of science and are therefore
not science.
Read the entire statement >> |
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Robert
T. Pennock ,
Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Science
and Technology, Michigan State University
Associate Professor of Philosophy, MSU
Conclusions About Intelligent
Design:
Allowing Intelligent
Design to be included as part of a science class would
introduce material that is essentially religious in nature.
The ID movement rejects the scientific findings of evolution
and posits creation by a supernatural entity, which
is a truly radical proposition. To teach such a view dismisses
well-established scientific findings in favor of an unsupported
religious belief.
Read the entire statement >> |
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Jeffrey
Shallit, Ph.D.
Professor of Computer Science,
University of Waterloo, Ontario 
Conclusions About Intelligent
Design:
In 2000, Christianity Today stated, "Baylor
University in October terminated well-known Intelligent
Design scientist William
Dembski
as head of the Michael Polanyi
Center for Complexity, Information and Design." However,
by any reasonable standard, Dembski is not a scientist.
He possesses no advanced degrees in any scientific field,
has not published any experimental or empirical tests of
his claims, nor has he submitted his claims to the
scrutiny of his peers.
Read
the entire statement >>
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Brian Alters
, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Education,
McGill University, Montreal Conclusions About Intelligent
Design:
The effect of Dover
Area School District's policy on biology instruction
will require teachers to use poor pedagogy,
to disregard findings of the scientific
community, to disregard recommendations
of their national professional science teacher associations,
contradict teachers' professional preparation and development,
and improperly prepare students for postsecondary science
education.
Read
the entire statement >> |
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Kevin Padian,
Ph.D.
Professor of Integrative Biology,
University of California, Berkeley
Curator, Museum of Paleontology
at UC, Berkeley  Conclusions About Intelligent
Design:
There is no empirical
evidence for Intelligent Design. It has no scientific
basis and its proponents have made no effort
to test it as real science must be tested. If ID were
presented in class, students would completely misapprehend
the structure and logic of science. Their understanding
of evolutionary biology would be deficient, "training" in
science would be inferior to other
districts and other countries, and taxpayer dollars would
be wasted.
Read
the entire statement >> |
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