The Missouri is considering HB1227, a bill that would require public schools to teach intelligent design creationism. It’s a descendant of a similar bill that was previously allowed to die, and it shares some of the same properties as the previous version: an amazing opacity and astonishingly pompous attempt by a few blithering lawyers to redefine science.
Read this crap. It begins with a long, long list of eleven bogus definitions, as if making the law into a dictionary will make it irrefutable.
2. As used in this section, the following terms mean:
(1) “Analogous naturalistic process”, a verifiable process which is either a present-day naturally occurring process similar to a past naturalistic process or the human-directed duplication of a process similar to a past naturalistic process. The verifiable process uses similar natural materials, mechanisms, and conditions as the past naturalistic process and produces an equivalent end result;
(2) “Biological evolution”, a theory of the origin of life and its ascent by naturalistic means. The first simple life was developed from basic elements and simple molecules through the mechanisms of random combinations, naturally occurring molecular structures, other naturalistic means, and millions of years. From the first simple life, all subsequent species developed through the mechanisms of random variation, mutation, natural selection, adaptation, segregation, other naturalistic means, and millions of years. The theory is illustrated by the evolutionary phylogenic tree. Theory philosophically demands only naturalistic causes and denies the operation of any intelligence, supernatural event, God or theistic figure in the initial or subsequent development of life;
(3) “Biological intelligent design”, a hypothesis that the complex form and function observed in biological structures are the result of intelligence and, by inference, that the origin of biological life and the diversity of all original species on earth are the result of intelligence. Since the inception of each original species, genetic material has been lost, inherited, exchanged, mutated, and recombined to result in limited variation. Naturalistic mechanisms do not provide a means for making life from simple molecules or making sufficient new genetic material to cause ascent from microscopic organisms to large life forms. The hypothesis does not address the time or sequence of life’s appearance on earth, time or formation of the fossil record, and time or method of species extinction. The hypothesis does not require the identity of intelligence responsible for earth’s biology but requires any proposed identity of that intelligence to be verifiable by present-day observation or experimentation. Concepts inherent within the hypothesis include:
(a) The origin of life on earth is inferred to be the result of intelligence directed design and construction. There are no plausible mechanisms or present-day experiments to prove the naturalistic origin of the first independent living organism;
(b) All original species on earth are inferred to be the result of intelligence directed design and construction. There are no significant mechanisms or present-day experiments to prove the naturalistic development of earth’s species from microscopic organisms;
(c) Complex forms in proteins, enzymes, DNA, and other biological structures demonstrated by their constituent molecules in regard to size, shape, quantity, orientation, sequence, chirality, and integration imply intelligent design was necessary for the first life on earth. Intelligence is capable of designing complex form;
(d) Complex functions demonstrated by growth, reproduction, repair, food metabolization, waste disposal, stimuli response, and autonomous mobility in microscopic organisms imply intelligent design was necessary for the first life on earth. Intelligence is capable of designing complex function;
(e) Within the history of human experience, all exhibits of recurring discrete symbols from a set of symbols arranged in a specific sequence which store information and can be read by human intelligence, is itself the result of intelligence. DNA contains stored information for the assembling of proteins and enzymes which can be read by humans and is the result of intelligence. The recurring discrete symbols sequenced within DNA which store information are the molecules adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine;
(f) Intelligence-directed design and construction of all original species at inception without an accompanying genetic burden is inferred rather than random mutational genetic change as a constructive mechanism. Random mutational genetic change results in an increasing genetic burden and species degradation rather than species ascent;
(g) Intelligence-directed action is necessary to exceed the limits of natural species change, which is a combination of autogenous species change and environmental effected species change. Multi-generation breeding experiments illustrate the limits of natural species change and its inadequacy for developing required genetic information found in dissimilar species;
(h) The irreducible complexity of certain biological systems implies a completed design and construction at inception rather than step-by-step development, as indicated by the structures observed for sight, hearing, smell, balance, blood coagulation, digestion, and hormone control;
(i) The lack of significant transitional forms between diverse species existing today and in the fossil record implies all original species were completed at inception rather than by a step-by-step development from other species. A lack of transitional forms is illustrated by the appearance of large complex life forms in the Cambrian fossil record without any significant previous fossils;
(j) Common designs and features evident in different species imply the intelligent reuse of proven designs analogous to the reuse of proven designs by human designers;
(k) The lack of significant present-day observable changes in species due to random variation, mutation, natural selection, adaptation, segregation, or other naturalistic mechanisms implies intelligence as the cause for all original species;
I would not want to debate the author of this mess; just reading it, I felt my eyes glazing over and eyelids drooping. It’s an argumentum ad snooze-a-rooni.
I’ll say one positive thing about it, it does have a useful clause further down.
(6) If a scientific theory or hypothesis proven to be false is taught for historical, illustrative, or other reasons, the theory or hypothesis shall be identified as false when taught orally or in writing.
OK. (a) through (k) of section (3) above are all false. Can we dismiss the kids and go home now?
With any luck, the other legislators in Missouri will be able to recognize that this noise blows chunks, and it will once again languish and die.
(Also on Sb)
Why do lawyers or law-makers think they can rewrite definitions to suit instead of consulting the existing definitions. Being lawyers, they must realize that most of their definitions assume the truth of what they want to prove instead of actually defining the terms. Why on Earth don’t they do their research instead of just blowing smoke when it comes to the facts of biology?
Uhm, did you mean “descendant” rather than “ancestor?”
Markita Lynda:
In this case, it’s because they aren’t interested in biology. They’re interested in providing the veneer of authority on their religious beliefs. They are, in effect, trying to define their god into existence.
Law-making is nought but defining ought where nought but is was.
There’s an absolutely stellar takedown of this bill located at AngryAstronomer (Jon Voisey) – http://angryastronomer.blogspot.com/2012/01/happy-new-year-have-id-bill-missouri.html
So…we deny that intelligence has had any effect on human evolution? How do we propose that intelligence even evolved in humans, then?
Apparently evolution denies any and all genetic manipulation of life
Oh well, it’s cutting-edge IDiocy, even if it is ancient claptrap. Evolutionary theory has to be misrepresented to make it to be “wrong.”
Glen Davidson
How many of their points are archaic?
Who seriously tries irreducible complexity anymore?
Why ‘teach the controversy’ when you can just redefine things that you don’t like into falsehoods, then declare them false? It’s actually pretty clever in it’s moronic premise. If they pass a law that says that ‘this false straw man of evolution is the actual legal definition of evolution’, they can then say (truthfully) that the legal definition of evolution in their state is an unscientific falsehood that no one should be allowed to teach. They could even get some legitimate scientists to come on and say that the legal definition of evolution in the state was unscientific and shouldn’t be taught!
I’m slightly impressed, in exactly the same way I’m impressed when I come across a particularly clever new computer virus.
Can’t they read their own bills.
The hypothesis does not address the time or sequence of life’s appearance on earth, time or formation of the fossil record, and time or method of species extinction.
Later,
(i) The lack of significant transitional forms between diverse species existing today and in the fossil record implies all original species were completed at inception rather than by a step-by-step development from other species. A lack of transitional forms is illustrated by the appearance of large complex life forms in the Cambrian fossil record without any significant previous fossils;
So ID does not address the fossil record that obliviously proves it right?
One wonders what some of the Missouri residents are thinking when you tell them it’s the Show Me state.
The windier these IDjits get, the more often they shoot themselves in the foot & the easier it is to document the stupid they wallow in.
I wonder if they’ve got another bill ready to go that sets pi equal 3 because it’s in the bible.
Those people are hopeless. There’s no point arguing with them. They’ve made up their minds, and that’s that.
What puzzles me: why are the evangelicals so desperate to cling to their anti-evoluton BS? Is their commitment to Christ so weak, so tepid that they have to bolster it with mountains of nonsense? Are their egos that fragile?
¿Or is it, as so many of us suspect, just like the anti-gay fervor of the evangelical “leaders”: an entirely cynical, hypocritical way of hanging onto good incomes and lots of power? Well, maybe not “lots”, but some.
I’ve just finished reading Nick Lane’s “Life Ascending” and I’m now going through “Power, Sex, and Suicide.” Just like Jerry Coyne’s “Why Evolution is True” and Dawkins’s “The Ancestor’s Tale” and Darwin himself, without preaching or proselytizing or falsifying the truth, such books make it clear that evolution is the only explanation of a great many things around us.
If I were religious I’d insert a snarky comment here about such evangelical fakes being so blind to the truth of evolution suggests that they are also blind to the truth of Christ and his message. But I’ll choose instead to say nothing at all.
Ugh, as a proud Missourian and St. Louisan, it was painful to see that 3 sponsors of this bill are from suburban St. Louis. I used to do legislative analysis in Jefferson City and it wasn’t surprising to see batshit crazy bills coming from the sticks, but this has come from my backyard. Luckily my rep doesn’t seem to have anything to do with it.
One wonders what some of the MissourI residents are thinking when you tell them it’s the Show Me state.
Some of us are thinking that our legislators are showing us what idiots they are.
My friends ask me why I’m intent on moving out of Missouri, and the bible belt, as soon as I can…this is why.
What amazes me about this is that there’s basically nothing to ID. It generated a few papers with bad math and was thoroughly shot down. Actual creationism is full of logical fallacies but there are actually quite a few people out there generating silly journal articles about starlight already on its way to earth or vapor canopies. Creationists plaster this junk onto the holes in their existing theology, but creationism at least has the virtue of having once been taken seriously by smart people who lacked better data.
But creationists secretly hate ID because ID encompasses evolution and allows for (naturally evolved) spacemen with a sense of humor. Intelligent Design’s only purpose in life is to trick school boards. There’s basically nobody taking it seriously in any other context.
Christine, ID is also useful for tricking aging philosophers into thinking there’s scientific evidence for a creator deity.
It only worked once but they’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of that one instance.
I would like to propose a bill that all fundie trolls* in MO stick a decayed porcupine in the orifice of their choice**.
*For the purposes of this bill, “fundie troll” is defined as anyone who has stepped foot in a church, synagogue, mosque, or other place of worship sometime in the past decade.
**For the purposes of this bill, by “stick a decayed porcupine in the orifice of their choice” I mean “send me a check for $100”.
Hmmm…
3, subsection (3)(b):
Since no one will identify such an “intelligence responsible for earth’s biology,” IDiocy can’t be taught according to this. And given the first condition, that means nothing about biological origins will be taught, not evolution, not IDiocy, nor “other scientific theories.” Because it requires both evolution and IDiocy, or else biological origins can’t be taught at all.
But maybe I’m jumping the gun — maybe someone will actually find Jesus and perform the necessary experiments. *snicker* I’m not holding my breath. I expect all of the following will similarly go even further down the toilet in MO:
Which sounds pretty comprehensive. I guess they could cut logic and critical thinking as well, but they’d have to put that into the curriculum first. Anyway, this will free up lots of room for more important courses like Fundamentals of Bible Study, Intro. to Multiple-Choice Answering, Elementary Football Analysis, and Advanced Burger Flipping.
What about a verifiable mechanism?
Let’s see some good evidence — “verifiable present-day observation or experimentation” — for psychokensis.
Remember that time Rachel Maddow reported South Dakota passing a law (passing!) requiring a global warming disclaimer in classrooms, which should include, among other things, that “astrological” and “thermological” influences cause weather phenomena?
I can’t figure out which is dumber, this stupid redundant shit or horoscope weather.
No, that was Indiana.
One thing these CDesign proponentists never seem to consider is how any designer could possibly do the designing (or the engineering). What tool, what mechanism could any intelligence possibly use to create or engineer the chemistry–in situ yet–in order to produce such complex forms from scratch (and presumably without centuries or millennia of trial and error)? There’s no evidence of labs or instruments. No evidence of the methods of manufacture or manipulation. No proposals even about what the technology to achieve this could possibly look like. The only answer is that they believe it was done by magic (Clarke’s law notwithstanding). But how ludicrous. Why would any intelligence with a magic so powerful and exacting mess about with such a crude and clumsy thing as biology? They never think these things through because their a priori assumptions about Gawd’s revelation get in the way.
Whereabouts does that fall in the spectrum:
argumentum ad tedium … argumentum ad carborundum?
This approach is so insidious, there is a famous older example that did a lot of damage to public opinion:
If you ask people “did Bill Clinton lie?” virtually everyone will say “yes,” but it’s not true: he was successfully impeached over an accusation of perjury (lying under oath)—”I did not have sexual relations…”—but he wasn’t found guilty!
In his deposition, his opponents had specifically defined sex not to include oral sex, already knowing he had done that, so that later it’d look like he was lying—which clearly worked. It’s why he wasn’t convicted of perjury and removed from office.
A little while ago I learned that France’s populace trusts their politicians to make good technical decisions a lot more than Americans, and that it is because they elect engineers and scientists instead of lawyers, which made me wonder: what the hell are we doing electing lawyers?
I don’t know, that sounds more like argumentum ad stupid. It works by using arguments so inane and stupid that the opponent is overwhelmed, shutting down brain function. Afterwards, the person declares victory since the other person is unable to respond to the stupid.
Some places in Missouri remain quite rational. In spring of 2011 there was a school board election in Columbia Mo. Six candidates were competing for 3 seats. A homeschooled kook came out of her Southern Baptist congregation and ran on a “Christian, Conservative, Committed” slogan. She only ranked a distant fourth in race.
From the Columbia Daily Tribune on March 16, 2011, the brainwashed freak for Jeebus says:
‘Evolution is a theory, … and I believe creationism could be taught alongside that,’ she said at the forum. ‘In order to ensure complete public education of our students, we must examine a variety of scientific theories about the origins of life,’ she added later. Dickson pointed to Edwards v. Aguillard, a U.S. Supreme Court case that ruled against teaching creationism in schools but supported teaching ‘a variety of science theories about the origins of humankind’ with the intent of ‘enhancing the effectiveness of science instruction.’ …. ‘[Dickson said] But I think on a grander scale, it’s just getting all the information out there and not putting up roadblocks to knowledge.’ …. In addition to potentially adjusting biology curriculum, Dickson said she would like to look at the history curriculum, which she said should include more lessons about America’s Christian heritage. ‘Some parents have expressed their concern that we’re not doing an adequate job of teaching how important the Bible was in the history of our country,’ she said. If a student objected to the materials, he or she could be excused from the assignment, Dickson said. Dickson also said she would like social studies to include ‘American exceptionalism,’ or the idea that America and its citizens hold a special place in the world. ‘I would want to take a look at what we are teaching our kids in [the] way of American history because although there have been some things we’re not proud of as a nation, we are an exceptional nation and a very compassionate nation,’ she said.
I like to think that I am not that pretentious, but lack quantifiable data to support my claim. So the best I can say is “probably not.”
Every time one of these stories comes out I am torn. Onery anti-establishment kid I used to be wants to live in Missouri and fight the good fight. The old guy in me is happy in Seattle where private groups may indulge in this denial of reality, but this sort of thing would not pass muster in the public sector.
Unfortunately the “Show-me” in the “Show-me State” mostly pertains to fastidiously holding on to ideas no matter how outdated.
Are they actually trying to legislate scientific theories?
So, if DNA is “recurring discrete symbols,” like a language, and the only options for these kinds of sequences is to be “…lost, inherited, exchanged, mutated, and recombined to result in limited variation,” then haven’t you proven that no new thing can ever be said or written after Gawd has created language?
I’m sure J.K. will be happy to see your suit brought against her on behalf of the “actual” writer of her books.
So if a Missouri science teach does accurately present evolution, and a student is “influenced” by the facts to quit his “belief in a a nonverifiable identity”, will the teacher be subject to criminal prosecution for violating this law?
So based on Item 6, Intelligent design should go on the same page where the paragraph and illustration about Lamarck is? I don’t know, still seems like a waste of space. While we’re at it can we use the bit about Odin using the skull of the Giant Ymir to build the dome of the sky for Astronomy classes?
As a citizen of the Kansas side of the KC metro area, I assure you the answer to the title question is, “Yes.”
Evolutionary Biology : “But what about all this evidence for evolution?”
Creationist: “were you there?”
it’s like arguing with a brick.
The thing is, they’re told to remain firm in their faith. So, it’s an act of faith to not believe the evidence. As someone who once tried pushing one of those donkeys up the hill, allow me to say to you : don’t bother. even if you get it up the hill it’ll only turn and trot back down.
Who am I to argue?
“There are no plausible mechanisms or present-day experiments to prove the naturalistic origin of the first independent living organism.”
There aren’t any to prove the existence of legally-trained politicians that are profoundly stupid either. Yet they exist, and we may plausibly infer an entirely naturalistic mechanism behind it. A supernatural origin for the existence of a population of idiot lawyers would be proposterous.
Wouldn’t it?
I liked this part:
the second sentence is supposed to be referring to evolution, but the authors seem completely oblivious to the fact that it’s a description of ID.
No ID proponent that I know of has actually provided any mechanism by which the “intelligent designer” might have physically realized his/her/its designs. I’ve never heard of any hypotheses as to what such a mechanism might be, much less of any tests being proposed to narrow down the list.
It’s just kind of implicitly assumed that that part happens via magic, and it never seems to occur to IDists to even notice that this is a problem for an alleged scientific theory.
FlickingYourSwitch #30
No, what they’re trying to do is allow religious myths to be taught in public schools.
“Theistic figure” – Kokopelli?
One thing that confuses me about this issue is the definition of intelligent design. Is it even definable as a single coherent concept? Aren’t there as many variations on what constitutes intelligent design as there are religious belief systems? By using this term and demanding equal time, isn’t it possible that Missouri is creating a situation where any religious belief system that teaches a creation myth involving an intelligent creator can seek inclusion under the law? Clearly, the sponsors of the bill are referring to the Judeo-Christian creation myth, and specifically the Protestant, evangelical interpretation of it. But as written, the bill does not appear to specify which ‘intelligent design’ concept must be used (although I have not actually read the whole thing–just recovering from a stomach bug and couldn’t risk it). It just strikes me as yet another example of conservative overreach that will come back to bite them in the end. Would love to see Mormons and Scientologists use this bill to demand schools teach their unique creation ideologies to all students in Missouri. and it would definitely be instructive to have some of the Native population’s creation myths taught as viable alternatives to evolution, as well.
This, coupled with the Times apparent difficulty grasping the definition of ‘fact’ vs. ‘shit politicians say,’ makes me believe we have culturally jumped the shark. When facts become a commodity determined by the whim of an ill-informed majority, you may as well hunker down and prepare to wait out the coming New Dark Ages.
Actually religious myths can be taught in public schools. In courses on mythology, literature, or comparative religion. What they want is for religious myths to be taught in science classes. And there they should be required to cite the peer reviewed scientific literature, to be able to show a hundred papers or so that back their mythology. Especially papers that show their deity/creator actually exists.
@michelemanion:
Intelligent design is actually pretty secular. It purports to identify and quantify characteristics of designed objects and systems as opposed to objects created without intelligent intervention. It fails spectacularly because natural processes can create both complex and densely meaningful information and because proponents don’t even understand concepts like “complexity.” In information theory gibberish is the most complex form of information because it has no meaningful patterns than can be simplified (i.e., I can say “100,000 spaces” and save 999,986 characters).
ID is actually compatible with many religious systems as well as semi-secular systems like “Chariots of the Gods.” That’s why religionists don’t really like it that much and only pull it out when they’re trying to sound scientific. Honestly, there’s not much to teach there, just a handful of discredited or misinterpreted papers. Out and out creationist textbooks give space to ID of course but most of their actual content is massaged to match the fundamentalist Christian mythology.