Foundation for Thought and Ethics
Script of SMU Presentation
Submitted by Wesley R. Elsberry on Thu, 2006-05-04 13:13. About Antievolution | Foundation for Thought and EthicsThe following is my script for the fifteen minute presentation I gave at the SMU debate on April 25th. I hope to do some more with this, but I need to check with the organizers to make sure I won't step on any toes, if they plan to sell audio or video from the event.
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[Question]
Tonight I am considering a public policy question. That question is, "Should intelligent design be taught as science in the public schools?"
[Short answer]
The short answer is, of course, no. I'm going to give some background, and come back to elaborate on the short answer.
[Not could be slide]
First, you have to recognize that "intelligent design" (or ID for short) is a recognizable body of arguments. This is not about what ID could be, would be, or even should be. This is about what ID demonstrably has been. We first saw it systematically used and defined as a phrase in the Dallas-based Foundation for Thought and Ethics's supplemental high school textbook, Of Pandas and People. Remember that. We'll come back to it.
To understand "intelligent design" or any modern religious antievolution, you have to know that it is based on a two-model view of the world, one I heard expressed in March of this year by ID advocate William Dembski, that ID and evolutionary causes were mutually exclusive and exhausted all the possibilities between them, therefore evidence against evolution counted as evidence for design. This is about as convincing an argument as, "Yo momma!" But this is what religious antievolutionists are stuck with, to simply attack evolution and trust to cultural literacy that people will then fall into their camp.
