What does anyone know about 'Intelligent Design' (Recent Funky Winkerbean)

[LynneSin]

Is this a new 'Catch Phrase' to create a wedge issue when it comes to Evolution (kinda like calling people who repress women and their right to make their own decisions about their body 'Pro-Life').

Reason I ask is there's been a storyline in Funky Winkerbean comic where the science teacher has been mandated to teach 'IIntelligent Design' along with Evolution. The creator of Funky Winkerbean has hit some pretty interesting topics including Breast Cancer, Vietnam War and one of my favorites - Death Penalty.

So although the comic strip isn't political like Boondocks or Doonesbury, Tom Batiuk (creator of FW) tends to lean left in some of the stuff he's put out there.

Here's the first 2 strips in question:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/fun/funky.asp?date=20040830

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/fun/funky.asp?date=20040831

(btw - in the 2nd script - Johnny Hart is the creator of B.C. which tends to be a fundie preaching script)

[truthspeaker]

1. That's exactly what it is. And it's a load of crap, naturally.

[LynneSin]

2. So fundies are getting around the separation of Church/State

by creating new terms like "Intelligent Design" and trying to get that into our school systems

Excuse me while my head explodes!!

[truthspeaker]

21. it's part of their "wedge strategy"

details: http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=200

[bowens43]

3. It's an attempt to sneak 'creationism' in through the back door.

When creationists insist that 'Intelligent Design' is not an attempt to insert religion (Christianity) into our educational system ask them, 'Who designed the designer?'

'It's turtles all the way down.......'

[Wilber_Stool]

13. I've said it before and I'll say it again

I like turtles.

[Bill McBlueState]

4. funny stuff

I should read Funky Winkerbean more often! Yes, ID is the latest attempt to dress up creationism in a white lab coat. You know, make it look scientific.

And I love it when good comic strips take little jabs at the crappy ones... the anti-Johnny Hart.

[LynneSin]

7. Funky may not be Boondocks or Doonesbury, but he tackles some...

...great issues, which is why I read him everyday.

Sure the Band Camp & Air Guitar is brain candy. But I loved when Lisa became a public defender and had to try and get a stay of execution for a death-row inmate. Turns out the guy was a Vietnam Vet who was suffering from Post-Tramatic Stress and may NOT have been the right guy. Lisa lost her case and I was crying my eyes out when they actually had the execution in the Comic Strip. NOt going to see stuff like that in BC or Mallard Fillmore.

And Batiuk changed his script about a decade ago when he aged all his main characters and made his script into a real-time one, like Jump Start and For Better or For Worse. All of these scripts actually have their kids aging on them, which I think makes the scripts more interesting than having the same 10-year old kid who should be a 70 year old grandparent by now (Family Circle).

It's good stuff in Funky Winkerbean!

[JHB]

5. You got it in one.

For a skeptic's overview, try here:
http://skepdic.com/intelligentdesign.html

And despite how the term gained currency in the '90s, I remember unabashed creationist Luther Sutherland using the term in reference to the standard creationist line back in the mid-80s when he gave a talk at Penn State.

[ck4829]

6. They want it taught in Ohio

The premise for it here is "Life is too complex for it too appear, so it must have been created by a greater being".

First, it sounds like religion outright. Secondly, it doesn't answer anything. Third, it makes me, for one think "Who created this 'greater being'?"

This 'Intelligent Design' will probably backfire and turn kids off of both religion and science at an early age.

[Philostopher]

26. I believe Tom Batiuk is from Circleville, Ohio.

So it's hitting close to home for him, since he's from there (I don't know if he still lives in Ohio or not).

[Beware the Beast Man]

8. Intelligent Design is PC for creationism.

And this is coming from someone who believes both creationism AND evolution. As everyone else said, it's just a dressed-up term.

[LynneSin]

9. you too!

I'm the same way.

I truly believe the heavens & earth were created in 7 days, but no one ever said those 7 days were 24 hours in length. I believe the '7 days' probably represents major time periods of change in the creation of the earth

[Beware the Beast Man]

11. Not to mention, the Genesis account of creation

does not rule out evolution. If you look at the stages of creation from "day" to "day," it follows an evolutionary pattern. And you're right on about the 7 days thing! :hi:

[TreasonousBastard]

16. The Hebrew word for "day"...

in Genesis is actually the 24 hour one. They had other words for things like "in Caesar's day."

Having said that, though, most Biblical scholars still take Genesis as allegorical, and the whole Creation and Garden of Eden story as myth, along with a lot of the rest of it. There aren't many scholars who look to the Bible as a history or science text, any more than they would look to the Vedas or Upanishads.

There seem to be a few respectable scientists who are playing with "intelligent design" but the problem is figuring out just who or what did the designing. Or what the design actually is. It's just not "science" until some of those questions are answered. It's not unscientific to ask these questions, but it is highly unscientific to propose answers without proof.

The "science" of intelligent design started with some legitmate questions about how, even after billions of years, the universe could have randomly ended up as it did. And how life on earth could have ended up as it is. Mathematically, it is a bit of a stretch and it is a good question to ask if the evolution of the universe is truly random, or was it "guided" in some way.

The serious questions have now been hijacked by the creationists, and that is their entry point into the schools. It's not science, and isn't even a well thought out hypothesis yet, but it's close enough for them.

To investigate is science, to believe without observable and repeatable proof is religion.

[LynneSin]

19. So what you're saying is "Intelligent Design" didn't originate...

...as a new packaging design by fundamentalists, but a concept out there that, if I'm reading this correctly, has been taken over by fundamentalists.

ID Scientists are looking for explanations as to why a Giraffe has a long neck or an Elephant has a nose (just using examples)- ie: these things just didn't happen 'randomly' out of life but by some design that has yet to be named. But the fundamentalists have tapped into these theory saying that the 'design that has yet to be named' is actually God.

Am I even in the ballpark on this theory? I really want a better understanding since I have a feeling this will be the new 'wedge issue' that will be used to divide the left from the right

[TreasonousBastard]

20. As far as I know, that's right...

although I'm not exactly an expert.

Looking at, say, the well-known fruit fly genetic experiments, some people have noted that it takes "x" generations to change the fly's color.

Then, they have taken that and expanded it to saying that it would have taken maybe trillions of years for a whole new species to evolve if the changes were simply random.

The truth is that there are flaws and unknowns in present evolutionary theory that some are seeking to answer and others are seeking to exploit.

Don't be scared off by the phrase "irreducibly complex systems," because that's where the current crop of creation apologists hang their hats. It's got as many faults as what they're criticising, but that doesn't stop them.

Here's the lowdown:

http://skepdic.com/intelligentdesign.html

And here's an ID site, for their point of view:
http://www.origins.org/

[Jim__]

22. I've never heard Intelligent Design described as anything but

creationism in disguise. I am curious as to what legitimate science has to say about this. Do you have some references to science papers or books on Intelligent Design?

The "science" of intelligent design started with some legitmate questions about how, even after billions of years, the universe could have randomly ended up as it did. And how life on earth could have ended up as it is. Mathematically, it is a bit of a stretch and it is a good question to ask if the evolution of the universe is truly random, or was it "guided" in some way.

My understanding is that science does not consider the evolution of the universe, or more specifically, life, to be random. The universe evolved according to physical laws - which means it's not random - I'm not claiming that science understands everything; but I don't believe that it claims things are just random.

As far as life on earth winding up as it is through some purely random process, this is a common assertion, and a false one, made by creationists as a tenet of evolution. It is not a tenet of evolution. While changes might be random (some are, some aren't), selection makes the process generally non-random.

[TreasonousBastard]

23. See the two links in my post above...

and some of the questions are legitimate, but ID isn't. ID is simply a quack offshoot from science that creationists and cranks hang on to.

There are still a lot of questions about the mechanism for the actual appearance of new species, but ID doesn't answer them. Any such questions are mostly still back in mainstream science and are being answered slowly. As usual.

[Jim__]

27. OK, I've read your links; but, I don't see anything that indicates ID

is science. While the ID site does have some legitimate scientists on it, eg:


Jonathan Wells is a postdoctoral biologist and senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, and holds Ph.D.s from both Yale University and the University of California at Berkeley

Charles B. Thaxton Creationist, Chemist, Ph.D. in Chemistry from Iowa State University

The scientists that are there are creationists. (At least the ones I saw. I didn't go through the whole site.)

I'm not trying to be difficult here. I consider creationism in all its various manifestations and disguises as a serious threat to American education. If they manage to get this stuff through the school house door, science education in this country is in serious trouble. While ID might ask some legitimate questions, they are questions that are cherry-picked out of legitimate scientific research. As far as I have been able to ascertain, neither ID nor creationism contribute anything to the scientific debate. They pick legitimate scientific questions, declare them insurmountable without appeal to "magic" (creator, designer, whatever), and then demand that "magic" be added to the science curriculum.

I tend to disagree with your statement:

There seem to be a few respectable scientists who are playing with "intelligent design" but the problem is figuring out just who or what did the designing. Or what the design actually is.

But, I can't say that it's incorrect. I don't know of any respectable scientist playing with "intelligent design." I would be interested to read some legitimate science on this question. If there really isn't any, then I think your statement lends a prestige to ID that it really hasn't earned; and shouldn't be given.

[TreasonousBastard]

28. But, I never said that ID is legitimate...

only that certain questions are.

[Mizmoon]

10. Intelligent design is an interesting thought

The ideas are rooted in observations like the way that cells function, with bodies orbiting a nucleus, is similar to the way moons orbit planets, and planets orbit suns. The way a fetus evolves resembles the way creatures evolve in nature. There seem to be themes that repeat themselves in the universe, and for some this indicates that God has a hand in it all.

It's very interesting to think about, but it really has no place in a science class. Science class teaches scientific principals, while religion class is the place for this sort of musing.

[ghostsofgiants]

12. ...

Check out episode 8 of season 1 of "Penn and Teller: Bullshit!". They talk about the subject, it's great.

[JHB]

14. On a related issue, atheism does not rule out creationism...

Since the creationists always imply that teaching evolution amounts to "establishing atheism" or that atheists "need" evolution to justify their beliefs, I like to point out that atheism and creationism are quite compatible.

Atheists are quite capable of believing in "superior beings" if there were solid evidence of it/them, such as a world that could not form through naturalistic means.

However, that would simply mean such beings were more powerful and knowlegable than we are. No more, no less. It wouldn't make them divine beings to be worshipped, any more than bacteria cultures should worship the lab technicians who provide them with their own little Edens.

[TreasonousBastard]

17. Likewise...

religion and evolution are compatable.

It's a certain type of dogmatic and unyielding belief in the unobservable that causes the problems.

[Rabrrrrrr]

15. "Intelligent Design" is a crock of obfuscating shit

not to be negative or anything about it.

:-)

[LuminousX]

18. Why do Fundies want non-Fundie teachers to teach

their religion? Aren't they afraid the teacher will mess it up? Isn't that why there are seminaries? I'll never understand the mind of a fundamentalist.

[ironflange]

24. "I thought Les was teaching the course on science fiction"

Enough said.

[patcox2]

25. There is a somewhat similar theory in physics

In the field of cosmology there is some theory along the lines that the nature of the universe and its laws is as it is because we as observers are necesary to the universe because it would not exist without observers, therefore the laws of the universe are "designed" to accomodate sentient life to observe it. But thats not the evolution-alternative version of intelligent design, that is just rationalized creationism.