Does Intelligent Design offer a scientific explanation for the origin of life? Would you tell the physics professors that they couldn't teach the Big Bang theory?
Doesn't science attempt, at the most basic level, to ascertain the process between cause and effect and what transpires during that process? How can science deal with a first cause event, if that is indeed what has happened with this universe?
The ONLY method ever known that can usefully test the unknown for meaningful explanation is the scientific method. Science and science teachers have every right and indeed a duty to put forward the best science as explanation of how things are OR how things probably are. Right down to and including first cause.
Stu, Just how exactly are you going to test a first cause, or test for what kind of physics existed during the Planck period of the Big Bang? You can't, can you? That's why it doesn't belong in a science classroom. The problem here is that most people associate science with the ultimate process in which to understand all of reality. Science is a logical and inductive process that is grounded in hypothesis, testing and reproducibility. If you can't come up with a hypothesis, there is no science. If you can't test it, there is no science. If you can't reproduce it, it wasn't science. Likewise, knowing something from something other than science does not make it wrong in the absolute sense, it just doesn't belong underneath science.
Well biological science does not have to address directly the nature of existence and its origins. It is concerned with life processes, and evolution, with the changes of life over time on our planet, and the mechanisms thereof. Biologists want to understand how non living organic matter became living matter. Its a tough question. The easiest answer is that a higher power made the arrangement. If that is the answer, then ID should report its findings on the origin of life and test thier hypothesis somehow. I hope they can offer something beyond "irreducible complexity". Maybe they should outline a program that will seek to observe higher intelligence in the process of creating life from non-living matter in some other part of the universe. If the superior power did it here, it is not unreasonable to assume it may be seeding life elsewhere in the universe. Granted, that is a tough assignment. Here's your chance to settle the question once and for all. Others should continue to seek data on how non living matter can organize into living matter from physical laws inherent in matter and energy. Physics is concerned with origin of matter and energy. Some physicists believe there must have been a first cause. Some do not. While our experience seems to confirm that all effect has a cause, and therefore existence itself must have a first cause, physics is discovering that this may not be true for the universe. Quantum physics and string theory paint a bizarre world untouched by our notions of logic. Some theorize that existence can emerge from nothing, and that universes are being constantly created from nothing. No cause.
While you cannot test the Big Bang per se, you can test what happens when matter is exposed to conditions that are thought to exist at the Big Bang.
Science teachers have a duty to teach unprovable theories? Do they have an equal duty to provide disclaimers before they teach? It is one thing to teach a process of verifiable change over time, it is quite another to teach a conclusion that may indeed be faulty or incomplete as an established fact. The entire concept of evolution has it roots in "unintelligent" design, or random process of mutation and change. Why is that any more logical than the concept of "intelligent" design? Why do we accept this concept of random without proof? Simply because we can't see the design? Scientist study effect and guess at cause until they can prove the cause. They are lacking proof of cause, or the theory would have grown beyond the "Theory of Evolution" to the "Science of Evolution." Evolutionists are sorely lacking in anything beyond speculation of the cause. I am not suggesting that religion be taught in science classes, only that science not be pushed onto children as THE only answer to life's mysteries. It is one possible explanation in a closed system of rules generated by science. This type of dogmatic thought by atheists that science is THE answer to the unexplained is exactly as fundamentalist in nature as certain religions.
Science is not pushed on children as the only explanation, it is offered as one explanation. Religion offers other explanations. Scientists only ask that religion not force itself into the science classroom. When creationists could not force creationism into the science curriculum, they rebirthed ID and dressed it up as science. Now that that effort is unvieled, the IDers are now trying to limit what can be discussed in the science classroom. If we were to limit scientific discussion to testing hypotheses reproducing results, then any natural process longer than a generation would fail to qualify for discussion in the science classroom. If you want to send your kids to a school like that, there are many choices. THere are even madrasas in your hometown.
I couldn't agree more. Since you can't test god, that topic is best suited for another class other than science. However, I would go one step further and take the entire "philosophical" area of science out of the science classroom and put it into a philosophy or social sciences class. A good science class will only attempt to cover topics that are rooted in the scientific process. The "Intelligent Design" theory is a valid theory of origins, but since it cannot be tested and confirmed, it has no place in a science classroom. I do understand the distinction, and it is ashame that a lot of religious people are upset that people are trying to push god out of the science classroom -- but in all reality, the very definition of science excludes the possibility of ever testing for god. Therefore, the two are incompatible in that respect.