Steve Peterson wrote:

SNIP


So give us your words. How about the first 20 sentences a teacher should
use to introduce the idea that evolution, or some other scientific theory,
has met an impasse, and cannot advance without invoking an intelligent
designer? How about the first lecture of an 8 week section? I still wait
with bated breath. You still the one that wants ID taught in school? How
about giving those poor teachers a little help?

OK:

Science, in its current form, is unable to address the question of
"First Cause" - that is, Science is mute on the question of how the
Universe came into being in the first place. It is mute on the question
precisely because Science (in its current form) has chosen to take a
purely mechanical/materialist/reductionist view of the Universe. It
explains the observed Universe with the *assumption* that it has no
overarching purpose or design and, of necessity, can only be understood
at a detailed mechanical level. One consequence of this is that, when
faced with a non-demonstrable/verifyable theory such as interspecial
evolution, today's Science assumes that the indicidental evidence
supporting such a view will (in principle) be explained in entirely
reductionst terms in the future. In summary, Science today never
looks outside of the materialist/reductionist methods to explain
what exists.

This approach to Science has yielded many practical and demonstrable
benefits. However, it creates an inherent inability for Science to
*ever* speak to the question of "How did it all begin?" There are,
however, some meta-Scientific proposals about how we might answer this
question. "Meta-Scientific" usually (but not always) refers to systems
of thought that *accept* the methods of Science as far as they go, but
propose additional ideas about the nature of what brought the Universe
into being initially. Several common Meta-Scientific explanations
include:


- The Universe is itself everlasting - it had no beginning and will have
no end. This position is held by very few people.

- The Universe is a magical place and its origins cannot ever be
known or apprehended. This position is held by a number of mystical
religious and philosophical traditions.

- The Universe had a "designer" - an intelligent force that brought it into being
by an intentional act of creation. This position is suggested (but not
demonstrated) by the vast complexity required to create and sustain life
on Earth. People who hold this position argue that such complexity
could never be achieved by random selection processes and that the
complexity itself is prima facia evidence for the presence of a
"designer." This position is consistent with most traditional religious
and philosophical schools up through the 20th Century. It is enjoying
a resurgence in the 21st Century as serious questions about the
sufficiency of the materialist/reductionist assumptions of Science have
been raised. There is great resistence to this idea in traditional
Science.

Now - YOU tell us, why on earth this is so doggone offensive to the
high priests of Science defending their educational turf?
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Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/