Democracy, Intelligent Design, and Evolution PDF Download

Author: Susan P. Liebell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136016406
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 185

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Book Description
Should alternatives to evolution be taught in American public schools or rejected as an establishment of religion? Democracy, Intelligent Design, and Evolution argues that accurate science education helps shape a democratic temperament. Rather than defending against Intelligent Design as religion, citizens should defend science education as crucial to three aspects of the democratic person: political citizenship, economic fitness, and moral choice. Through an examination of Tammy Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District, contemporary political theory, and foundational American texts, this volume provides an alternative jurisprudence and political vocabulary urging American liberalism to embrace science for citizenship.

Author: Susan P. Liebell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136016325
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Book Description
Should alternatives to evolution be taught in American public schools or rejected as an establishment of religion? Democracy, Intelligent Design, and Evolution argues that accurate science education helps shape a democratic temperament. Rather than defending against Intelligent Design as religion, citizens should defend science education as crucial to three aspects of the democratic person: political citizenship, economic fitness, and moral choice. Through an examination of Tammy Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District, contemporary political theory, and foundational American texts, this volume provides an alternative jurisprudence and political vocabulary urging American liberalism to embrace science for citizenship.

Author: David K. DeWolf
Publisher: Discovery Institute
ISBN:
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 126

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Book Description
This book is is a legal critique of of the factual and legal flaws in Judge John E. Jones III's Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School Board (2005), a controversial district court decision about the teaching of intelligent design in public schools. - Publisher.

Author: Matt Young
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 9780813534336
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
Historically, religious scriptures are defined as holy texts that are considered to be beyond the abilities of the layperson to interpret. Their content is most frequently analyzed by clerics who do not question the underlying political or social implications of the text, but use the writing to convey messages to their congregations about how to live a holy existence. In Western society, moreover, what counts as scripture is generally confined to the Judeo-Christian Bible, leaving the voices of minorities, as well as the holy texts of faiths from Africa and Asia, for example, unheard. In this innovative collection of essays that aims to turn the traditional bible-study definition of scriptures on its head, Vincent L. Wimbush leads an in-depth look at the social, cultural, and racial meanings invested in these texts. Contributors hail from a wide array of academic fields and geographic locations and include such noted academics as Susan Harding, Elisabeth Shussler Fiorenza, and William L. Andrews. Purposefully transgressing disciplinary boundaries, this ambitious book opens the door to different interpretations and critical orientations, and in doing so, allows an ultimately humanist definition of scriptures to emerge."

Author: David F. Prindle
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317499360
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
The controversy over teaching evolution or creationism in American public schools offers a policy paradox. Two sets of values—science and democracy—are in conflict when it comes to the question of what to teach in public school biology classes. Prindle illuminates this tension between American public opinion, which clearly prefers that creationism be taught in public school biology classes, versus the ideal that science, and only science, be taught in those classes. An elite consisting of scientists, professional educators, judges, and business leaders by and large are determined to ignore public preferences and teach only science in science classes despite the majority opinion to the contrary. So how have the political process and the Constitutional law establishment managed to thwart the people’s will in this self-proclaimed democracy? Drawing on a vast body of work across the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities, Prindle explores the rhetoric of the evolution issue, explores its history, examines the nature of the public opinion that causes it, evaluates the Constitutional jurisprudence that upholds it, and explains the political dynamic that keeps it going. This incisive analysis is a must-read in a wide range of disciplines and for anyone who wants to understand the politics of biology.

Author: Bradley Monton
Publisher: Broadview Press
ISBN: 1770480188
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 179

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Book Description
The doctrine of intelligent design is often the subject of acrimonious debate. Seeking God in Science cuts through the rhetoric that distorts the debates between religious and secular camps. Bradley Monton, a philosopher of science and an atheist, carefully considers the arguments for intelligent design and argues that intelligent design deserves serious consideration as a scientific theory. Monton also gives a lucid account of the debate surrounding the inclusion of intelligent design in public schools and presents reason why students’ science education could benefit from a careful consideration of the arguments for and against it.

Author: John Bellamy Foster
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
A critique of religious dogma historically provides the basis for rational inquiry into the physical and social world. Critique of Intelligent Design is a key to understanding the forces of irrationalism that seek to undermine the natural and social sciences.

Author: Philip Kitcher
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780199724994
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
Charles Darwin has been at the center of white-hot public debate for more than a century. In Living With Darwin, Philip Kitcher stokes the flames swirling around Darwin's theory, sifting through the scientific evidence for evolution, Creation Science, and Intelligent Design, and revealing why evolution has been the object of such vehement attack. Kitcher first provides valuable perspective on the present controversy, describing the many puzzles that blocked evolution's acceptance in the early years, and explaining how scientific research eventually found the answers to these conundrums. Interestingly, Kitcher shows that many of these early questions have been resurrected in recent years by proponents of Intelligent Design. In fact, Darwin himself considered the issue of intelligent design, and amassed a mountain of evidence that effectively refuted the idea. Kitcher argues that the problem with Intelligent Design isn't that it's "not science," as many critics say, but that it's "dead science," raising questions long resolved by scientists. But Kitcher points out that it is also important to recognize the cost of Darwin's success--the price of "life with Darwin." Darwinism has a profound effect on our understanding of our place in the universe, on our religious beliefs and aspirations. It is in truth the focal point of a larger clash between religious faith and modern science. Unless we can resolve this larger issue, the war over evolution will go on.

Author: Michael Shermer
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1429900903
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
A creationist-turned-scientist demonstrates the facts of evolution and exposes Intelligent Design's real agenda Science is on the defensive. Half of Americans reject the theory of evolution and "Intelligent Design" campaigns are gaining ground. Classroom by classroom, creationism is overthrowing biology. In Why Darwin Matters, bestselling author Michael Shermer explains how the newest brand of creationism appeals to our predisposition to look for a designer behind life's complexity. Shermer decodes the scientific evidence to show that evolution is not "just a theory" and illustrates how it achieves the design of life through the bottom-up process of natural selection. Shermer, once an evangelical Christian and a creationist, argues that Intelligent Design proponents are invoking a combination of bad science, political antipathy, and flawed theology. He refutes their pseudoscientific arguments and then demonstrates why conservatives and people of faith can and should embrace evolution. He then appraises the evolutionary questions that truly need to be settled, building a powerful argument for science itself. Cutting the politics away from the facts, Why Darwin Matters is an incisive examination of what is at stake in the debate over evolution.

Author: Stephen C. Meyer
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062071521
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 576

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Book Description
The New York Times bestselling author of Darwin’s Doubt presents groundbreaking scientific evidence of the existence of God, based on breakthroughs in physics, cosmology, and biology. Beginning in the late 19th century, many intellectuals began to insist that scientific knowledge conflicts with traditional theistic belief—that science and belief in God are “at war.” Philosopher of science Stephen Meyer challenges this view by examining three scientific discoveries with decidedly theistic implications. Building on the case for the intelligent design of life that he developed in Signature in the Cell and Darwin’s Doubt, Meyer demonstrates how discoveries in cosmology and physics coupled with those in biology help to establish the identity of the designing intelligence behind life and the universe. Meyer argues that theism—with its affirmation of a transcendent, intelligent and active creator—best explains the evidence we have concerning biological and cosmological origins. Previously Meyer refrained from attempting to answer questions about “who” might have designed life. Now he provides an evidence-based answer to perhaps the ultimate mystery of the universe. In so doing, he reveals a stunning conclusion: the data support not just the existence of an intelligent designer of some kind—but the existence of a personal God.