How would one go about teaching Intelligent Design?

[Don Claybrook]

Seriously, if you were tasked with teaching Intelligent Design in a school, how would you do it?

You might start with pointing out how grand, intricate, and marvelous our universe is. And then you'd follow-up with a statement that because the world is so grand, so intricate, so marvelous and beautiful, there must have been a creator to make all this stuff, to put it in motion, and so on. That's it. That's the conclusion. What else is there? I'm sure they'd spend weeks ranting about how evolution is wrong, carbon dating is wrong, etc, ad infinitum. But what about lessons in support of ID? Where's the meat of the course?

I really think ID is a philosophical argument, interesting as far as it goes, but certainly not science.

Be the devil's advocate: how would you teach intelligent design? What would you cover (other than demonizing accepted science)?

[ithinkmyliverhurts]

1. Powerpoint.

And then we'd watch _Time Bandits_ to bring it all home.

Then salt water taffy.

[Don Claybrook]

2. Sure...but seriously

Where are the proofs? Where are the studies? Where's the data that they'd use to fill the syllabus? I realize I'm preaching to the choir, but I got to wondering about this tonight, and it seemed to me there's not much "there" there for them to teach.

By the way, I like your sig line. Is it Steven Wright by any chance, or your own composition?

[FreedomAngel82]

6. Exactly

I believe in God but how can you prove it?? :shrug: That's like when you're little and your parents tell you about Santa Claus.

[Don Claybrook]

18. There are many things that cannot be proven

Some of these things are probably the most important subjects that can be pondered in a lifetime. And they have no place in the realm of science. Science is about the discrete, the measurable, about proving and disproving theories with no agenda affecting the outcome (of course, in real life this doesn't always hold true when there's a Nobel or a chairmanship on the line).

Thanks for your post.

[TahitiNut]

3. Rote recitation.

It's not necessary to actually 'learn' when one can merely regurgitate.

[charlie]

10. Yup

One day you'll open a textbook and it'll say: God's Will.

What's 127535 divided by 648?
God's Will.

The kids will love it. Nobody flunks, nobody gets left behind.

[rawtribe]

4. I would start with Monty Python.

ARTIST: Monty Python
TITLE: All Things Dull and Ugly

All things dull and ugly, all creatures short and squat
All things rude and nasty, the Lord God made the lot
Each little snake that poisons, each little wasp that stings
He made their brutish venom, He made their horrid wings

All things sick and cancerous, all evil great and small
All things foul and dangerous, the Lord God made them all
Each nasty little hornet, each beastly little squid
Who made the spiky urchin? Who made the shark? He did

All things scabbed and ulcerous, all pox both great and small
Putrid, foul and gangrenous, the Lord God made them all

[DanCa]

5. I would do a goggle search first

I would teach it straight out of the bible with no political agenda. . My problem is that this is going to be used to fill a young kids mind with "devils and dust" and convert him into republicanism rather than teach just from a biblical account.
Do a search on the RCIA you'll know whats coming down the pike.

The only way to fight this anti choice trojan horse is to use liberal arguements and bible passages to explain why jesus was a liberal. Gawd I hate conservatives they force their view point on everyone.

[Don Claybrook]

9. But do you see

that the moment you start using the Bible as a textbook in a public school, we have a huge, gaping problem? The Bible should never play the role of a public school textbook, more especially so in a science class. I don't consider science as something that trumps all other studies, but science reigns supreme in its own container, and stuff that wants to fit into that container must follow the rules that govern that container, or must be able to give a very compelling reason why the container size and shape should be changed. ID just doesn't belong with science, since it's not science.

[DanCa]

19. I agree with you it's a trojan horse.

I was responding to the original question how would I teach the class. Not if I wanted it in school Trust me I was kicked out of my family's church for standing up to these nimrods. Hope were cool sometimes i have trouble explainning things in type..

[Don Claybrook]

22. we're completely cool...please see post #20 n/t

[FreedomAngel82]

11. That's what they want

They're saying all what they are now to get it into it. I used to think maybe there could be an optional class but after talking with some people about it on another board for a few times and thinking about it myself I just thought how I want to be the one to teach my future kids about religion. I know what my future kids would be able to handle and everything. They want religion back in school and not just Christian schools. They want every public school to be a Christian school. Damn everybody else.

[DanCa]

17. Yeah I do agree with you all

I was responding to the question how would I teach ID. I don't advocate teaching it in school myself.

[Don Claybrook]

20. Thanks...I hope you didn't take offense at my reply to you

I did understand where you were coming from, but wanted to reaffirm that I was talking about public schools in this case.

For what it's worth, I've mostly abandoned the church as an adult, but I think there's lots of good and worthy stuff to be found in the NT. And I think Jesus was a much more with-it guy than these reactionary types like to portray. I personally think that Jesus found his Buddha-nature (one could also say that the Buddha found his Christhood).

[DanCa]

24. I completely agree and wasn't offended.

Trust me I am a liberal church goer I don't want ID in school either. It is so wrong what the fundies are doing. I mean it's not traditional bible school it's an anti choice conversion course.

If you give these nuts an inch they'll take a mile. So am on your side a hundred percent.

[charlyvi]

7. IT is just a smokescreen.

They would start by saying...."In the beginning, God created Heaven and Earth....."

Intelligent design is just the foot in the door.

[usregimechange]

8. by supporting assertions with more assertions

[dweller]

12. With pablum

and a cattle prod.

and never, ever mention Pavlov.

dp

[Don Claybrook]

13. or his little dog, Toto. :) n/t

[walldude]

14. I heard a guy on the radio bring up the point,

"How do you know the world was created in 7 days?" If on the first day god created the heavens and earth then the earth wasn't yet spinning, there was no moon, no sun, so how do you know only one day passed? There was no way to tell time. If god is an all knowing all seeing omnipotent creature then a million years could seem like a few minutes to him.
As far as teaching "Intelligent Design" well it would take about 30 minutes.

[Don Claybrook]

15. You probably know this, but here's a fun one

Pull this one out on your favorite rigid fundamentalist Christian.

Ask, "Is God so powerful that He can make a mountain that is so large even He cannot move it"?

The typical response is a quick, "of course he can", followed by 9 to 11 seconds of silence, followed by, "hey...you're trying to trick me".

Oh, and the first day of creation only took 1 day because the Bible says so (they have no concept of what transcendent actually means).

[ladjf]

32. And the 30 minutes would be stretching it.

[jzodda]

16. Easy

Roll a fat joint and pass it around

explain to the class that only an intelligent creator could possibly invent the wacky weed

lesson over, then pass out the munchies!

[TankLV]

21. Well, you ask the client what they want, make a list.

Begin with function - and follow with some design theme ideas.

You are talking about architecture, aren't you?

Or interior design.

Or Graphics.

Or fashion.

Can't think of anything else that merits the term.

[Don Claybrook]

23. Yeah, it's a real shame the term "Intelligent Design" was wasted

Just think of the product marketing potential. You could base an entire multiyear ad campaign on Intelligent Design. But when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Maybe we can get the term trademarked and start pushing Intelligent Design Backpacks, Intelligent Design Prayer Rugs, and a whole line of other items for our soon-to-be-minted Christian public schools.

[kestrel91316]

25. Easy:

"Class, some folks think there is an intelligent force behind the design of the universe. Scientists disagree and say that this is just a way to put religion and the idea of a god into the classroom. If you want to know more, do some independent research and write me a paper discussing the pros and cons of both sides for extra credit."

End of subject.

[barb162]

26. I would sabatoge it

Example: Say: certain people "feel" or think that the earth was created in ----. Then you sabatoge and say: Now of course we know this is most likely not the case because paleontology, archeology, etc.,---. Depends on the age group you're teaching how sophisticated the delivery is, but I can't see how anyone could possibly or seriously want to teach it on the same level as evolution.

-

[Pepperbelly]

27. I did some research into ID because on one level, I found it appealing.

So I went to the source documents. The Grand Wazoos of the movement and their original thoughts on the subject. I was searching for something tangible, something upon which one might hang their hat.

But I didn't find it. At all.

The specific cases offered were, to say the least, eminently arguable. If this were to become something that had to be taught in the schools, there is only so much that can be done logically and anecdotally. Except for those few, highly controversial examples, the gruel is quite thin.

This is not ready to become a legitimate academic pursuit because there simply isn't a sufficient system of knowledge, theory, or hypothesis that can be studied. It seems to me to be entirely based upon conjecture without hope of evidence.

That is the case if this were to be legitimate. But that approach is bass-ackwards as an academic model. No, I fear that the skeptics, the cynical, and the scientifically minded were right ... this appears to be nothing more than a backdoor introduction of religion into public school curriculum.

[wli]

28. lobotomize anyone with enough brains to see through it

[heidler1]

29. Being disrespectful of the notion that we shouldn't argue about religion

has caused me to have to listen to many poorly thought out proofs. The old standard one was that the complexity of human life and the wonders of the world would never happen accidentally. My response starting in about 1935 was "OK then this religious view is based on probability. Then I ask, Is this God more complex than any of the creations that you attribute to him? They always answer, "yes". Then I would say, "Your belief infinitely compounds the probability that it did not happen that way. This also puts them in a box wherein This God must have always been. So what was he doing forever? This usually shuts them up. Intelligent Design is just a new wrinkle in the same argument.

This whole illogical I.D. argument will be laughed out of science classes.

[Yavin4]

30. Creator? Why Not Creators?

If everything is so grand, intricate, and marvelous, why only one creator? Why not many creators? Look at our man-made great creations, skyscrappers, airplanes, satellites, computers, etc. These grand things were created by many, many people.

I don't see how you can teach intelligent design, and then say, honestly, that one being did ALL of it.

[ladjf]

31. Yes. ID is just a notion. How could there be a curriculum based

on a "notion". Once the concept of ID is explained in one paragraph, thats it. Nothing else to say. Sciences have bodies of knowledge, tests, experiments, things that can be objectively studied.