Bush: Schools Should Teach 'Intelligent Design'

[Pericolos0]

WASHINGTON — President Bush (search) said Monday he believes schools should discuss "intelligent design" (search) alongside evolution (search) when teaching students about the creation of life.

During a round-table interview with reporters from five Texas newspapers, Bush declined to go into detail on his personal views of the origin of life. But he said students should learn about both ideas, Knight Ridder Newspapers reported.

"I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought," Bush said. "You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes."

The theory of intelligent design says life on earth is too complex to have developed through evolution, implying that a higher power must have had a hand in creation.

Christian conservatives — a substantial part of Bush's voting base — have been pushing for the teaching of intelligent design in public schools. Scientists have rejected the idea as an attempt to force religion into science education.

On other topics during the group interview, the president:

—Refused to discuss the investigation into whether political aide Karl Rove or any other White House official leaked a CIA officer's identity, but he stood behind Rove. "Karl's got my complete confidence. He's a valuable member of my team," Bush said.

—Said he did not ask Supreme Court nominee John Roberts about his views on Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion.

—Said he hopes to work with Congress to pass an immigration reform bill this fall, including provisions for guest workers and enhanced security along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Bush spoke with reporters from the San Antonio Express-News, the Houston Chronicle, The Dallas Morning News, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and The Austin American-Statesman

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,164446,00.html

Why does the most powerful man in the world have to be such an amazing ignorant retard

[DaanO]

Well, i partly agree with him. (Kosmo, how's this for a subtle reply?) I do feel that people should get in touch with multiple views on the creation of life, i think people should read up on creationism as well. However, our schools are part of a scientific system, and therefor only scientific theories should be taught. Telling people about intelligent design is just fine, but school is not the place.

On the subject of intelligent design i can be very short. I think it's utter crap. If we wouldn't be intelligent, we would not be aware of our situation, or our own complexity. The only beings that can actually reflect on themselves are incredibly intelligent, spores can't do that. Dead or lifeless things can't do that. Basically, only complex worlds will have beings that can think about how complex they are. It's not really a coincidence that we are complex because if we wouldn't be complex we wouldn't realise it.

Which doesn't mean that there is no intelligent design but that the arguments the people use to support their case (it cannot just be a coincidence that WE are so complex) it bullshit.

Besides that the Karl Rove thing is scary and says a lot about who Bush is, if of course he is telling the truth. The other two points sound decent.

[Pericolos0]

ofcourse you can teach it in religion classes, together with all big other creation theories in the world .

BUT NOT IN A SCIENCE CLASS, which is the whole 'wedge strategy' intelligent design proposers are trying to do. Intelligent design is not a valid theory. Bush has no idea what a scientific theory is and how scientific methodology works.

There is nothing intelligent about teaching people that when stuff is complicated, it's not worth investigating. God did it all anyways.

Also the whole existance of Bush disproves anything intelligent designed us

[DaanO]

It's a valid theory but not a valid scientific theory, quite the difference. I do believe that there are some that believe the theory that are actually quite sane, the when stuff is complicated, it's not worth investigating people are silly indeed.

Oh and see Bush as the most challenging test that was ever created for this world and intelligent design is possible again

[The Postman]

Well, i partly agree with him. (Kosmo, how's this for a subtle reply?) I do feel that people should get in touch with multiple views on the creation of life, i think people should read up on creationism as well.

Because it's a fucking science classroom not a theology class. Get your head on straight.

[Kosmo]

If someone can direct a question to Bush, I got one: "You are an idiot", thank you.

Now, I'm fine with fundamental christian teachings in school, but like Peris said, it hould happen in the religion class, not in science. And my opinions about the so called "intelligent design" is that it is brainwash propaganda, created to be easy to believe just like all the christian bullhonkey. And I think that if games can influence children to kill, I'm pretty sure that this kind of lies affect people like brainwashing does.

If they accept all the other creation stories to the religion class I'm sure that there is no problem there then, but my firm believe is that religion study should be objective, and best if they were completely removed from schools.

Since I don't think that there is any objective teaching about religion.

Besides, what is the point in confusing students with two kind of opposite teachings? First you teach them about evolution and give them the proofs scientists have gathered, and then you say "but intelligent design says it is impossible".

Bush is just a complete retard and should not be making these kind of decisions since he is infact a fundamental christian and thusly does not have and objective view of the matter.

[von*ferret]

Except he has his right to his opinion, and the majority of America voted him into office so.. as much as you dont like it Kosmo's your bickering isn't going to change it. I agree different ideas should be taught, however I'm not well read on this topic so I'm unable to give a solid opinion. However I'm a firm believer that religion should not be in schools asside from the creation of our country and how it was formed. (gasp I know thats an odd statement from an republican)

[Pericolos0]

Everyone has the right for his opinion, but if i say earth is 6000 years old, is that an opinion? or simply a false statement? Bush says he wouldn't talk about his opinion, on the origin of life, but i would not be surprised if he believed in a literal genesis. Bush does not even realise evolution does not even deal with the origin of life, thats another field of study. If you do not know anything about something its not very smart to have an opinion on it, at least you realise that ferret .

[Kosmo]

Except he has his right to his opinion, and the majority of America voted him into office so.. as much as you dont like it Kosmo's your bickering isn't going to change it.

Yeah, Bush has right to have an opinion, but after that opinion makes changes to schooling system, I think I'd lock Bush in to mental institute and lose the key. I mean, he was voted to represent the interest of the people, and not to change anything just because he has a hunch that all this crazy "intelligent design" just might be true.

[mikezilla]

It's odd to me that this evolution argument has come back so strongly since it was buried in the 50's (the argument to not teach it I mean.)

I'm not really looking to sling mud or really insult anyone. I just have a minor observation. What exactly is there to teach in an objective intelligent design class? (Giving the benefit of the doubt and not putting it in a science class for obvious reasons.) The argument seems to have been petered down to "We are so complex it couldn't have possibly been an accident" which I consider a valid argument to the point that, hey it makes sense. But that's the WHOLE class right there; that ONE question. What book would they be studying? Certainly not the bible as it lacks objectivity for other "schools of thought" (to use their words.)

Perhaps the answer is an existentialism class, where students sit on bean bags and drink hot tea while they discuss what they universe means. There's no need for books or teachers really, because it's OBJECTIVE study with no one pushing it either way. Maybe we came from God, maybe we came from frogs; let's discuss.

I guess I do have one final opinion, that's more truth than anything. Kids do have a place to learn about creationism. It's called church. Kids have been learning about a God created world there for thousand of years. Why the sudden (and heated) push to get it taught in schools I wonder? Why this innate desire to pull the country apart even further than it already is?

Poor USA.

[Kosmo]

Like what mike said, what there is to teach in objective intelligent design class, and what there is to teach in objective religion class. All data presented from religion is always presented as truth, there is no theories and no room for other religions, and that is why I think religion should not be teached in school for other than it's historical value, it's impact on culture.

But then again, I have studied religions quite a bit myself, studied them to understand them and to learn, not to believe. But anything I have learned from about 90% of the other religions on the world, I surely didn't learn in school and it was not objective, that argument got me transferred from religion to a class where we studied life from a pholisophical stanpoint (I really can't explain it more specificly, but it was around what mike explained, we sat on a circle with a bunch of atheists and just tossed views about life).

If we are to teach religion, we should teach them objectively and more broader than just the mainstream religions.

[mikezilla]

Oddly enough (and this is a weird sidenote.) I was taught about religion in high school.

It was a class called humanites where we studied what drove the famous nations and cultures through out history. We studied their art, their music, their literature, and their religion. It was a fascinating course that spoke more of history than any traditional history class I'd ever taken. It teaches you about the people that launched atrocities and those that saved entire races of people. We already know the facts of what happened, it was an amazing experience to sit around and piece together our version of the why.

I would support a class like this being manditory, it explains the human condition and its cause and effect so fluently.

Anyway, that's my two cents on the subject.

[Pericolos0]

in belgium there's religion class, about 2 hours every week. Catholic schools teach regular christian religion, goverment school give you a free choice of religion (by parents).

I've had both 6 years of atheïstic classes where you actually learn about morals and all kinds of diferent religions, and got 6 years of christian class when i went to a catholic school.

But even there the bible was presented to us as allegorical with some references here and there to historical facts. We even had to do researches about other religions and learn about their ideas.

I remember my teacher feeling embarassed when he told the class that in order to be a christian you have to believe the miracles jesus performed had to be true, noone believed this. This was because the entire belgian education system is based on promoting critical thinking.

But anyways the teacher was a very moderate christian and he explained to us how the universe came to be via big bang and everything, genesis was clearly allegoric to him, he also showed us how genesis was derived from older creation myths. He did believe in a form of intelligent design though, and i had a big debate with him about this where i ended up in front of class drawing various stages of the evolution of the eye, because he was convinced such a complex thing couldn't have come to be by itself.

[The Postman]

Except he has his right to his opinion, and the majority of America voted him into office so.. as much as you dont like it Kosmo's your bickering isn't going to change it. I agree different ideas should be taught, however I'm not well read on this topic so I'm unable to give a solid opinion.

ad populum. Just because an idea is popular does not make it correct. He's a fumbling idiot and his breed of idiot is setting this country behind in scientific achievement unlike any administration ever. Is it safe to say yet that he's the worst president we've ever had?

Intelligent design isn't science because it's unfalsible. It isn't science so it has no place in a science classroom. For more information, go here: http://www.talkorigins.org It'll answer a lot of your questions.

However I'm a firm believer that religion should not be in schools asside from the creation of our country and how it was formed. (gasp I know thats an odd statement from an republican)

There is a difference between a republican and a drooling fundamentalist cretin. Intelligent Design is just a funamentalist word for "Creationism" which is a religious principle of divine creation.

After all, your party did used to stand for something other than a bunch of screaming fundamentalists waving flags and crosses. It used to stand for freedoms, fiscal responsibility and a strong military (amongst other things). I can actually agree with a lot of what the old Republican party stood for. However now it's got a drunk driver at the helm and there looks to be no real way of wresting control.

Oddly enough (and this is a weird sidenote.) I was taught about religion in high school.

It was a class called humanites where we studied what drove the famous nations and cultures through out history. We studied their art, their music, their literature, and their religion. It was a fascinating course that spoke more of history than any traditional history class I'd ever taken. It teaches you about the people that launched atrocities and those that saved entire races of people. We already know the facts of what happened, it was an amazing experience to sit around and piece together our version of the why.

I would support a class like this being manditory, it explains the human condition and its cause and effect so fluently.

Anyway, that's my two cents on the subject.

Exactly. I had a similar class as well. I'd support a humanities class that studied cultures world-wide. Not some hamfisted attempt to cram religion into science where it doesn't belong.

[JynxDaddy]

Over here, my School used to have RE class (religous education- yet they only taught christianity hmm..) Luckily I didn't beleive any of that, being a young impressionable child.

It think it's up to parents to teach about religion.

Only science should be taught in science classes.