Board Rescinds 'Intelligent Design' Policy - "Of Pandas and People"

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EVOLUTION_SHOWDOWN?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US

DOVER, Pa. (AP) -- Dover's much-maligned school policy of presenting "intelligent design" as an alternative to evolution was officially relegated to the history books Tuesday night.

On a voice vote, and with no discussion beforehand, the newly elected Dover Area School Board unanimously rescinded the policy. Two weeks earlier, a judge ruled the policy unconstitutional.

"This is it," new school board president Bernadette Reinking said Tuesday, indicating the vote was final and the case was closed.

A different group of school board members had been in control when the policy was approved in October 2004. The policy required that a statement be read to Dover public school students about "intelligent design" before ninth-grade biology class lessons on evolution.

The statement said Darwin's theory is "not a fact" and has inexplicable "gaps." It also referred students to an "intelligent-design" book, "Of Pandas and People."

Up until yesterday, no one knew what the highest prime number was. So I have to say that until yesterday, math was just a theory.

What was discovered yesterday was the highest number so far that is provably prime! That doesn't mean it's the highest prime number. Just the highest we know about. So, we still don't know whether prime numbers go on forever, although there are theorem that say yes. (BTW: That's why this sort of esoterica is still being researched. It's an attempt to prove or disprove that theorem.)

So, math is still just a theory. 4 + 4 could actually equally 7, but the designer decided eight. So, math needs intelligent design too, i guess.
The Professor

well, there is always the AIDS vaccine to fall back on for my 15 minutes of fame.

Of course, there's no way of knowing you've done it! Remember the number set if infinite. So, it should, in theory, take infinity before we know for SURE that we've hit the highest possible prime number.

The story the poster saw was about finding the highest prime number we know about, SO FAR! The people working on it are not claiming it's the HIGHEST prime number. Just the highest we know about. Now, the paper might have reported it in such a way that it could be interpreted wrong, but the researchers know what they've found. They aren't claiming anything questionable.
The Professor

numbers exist? I am not a mathematics person but I would suspect not.

That's not what was reported. I saw the first blurb on this in a math and statistics journal about 2 weeks before christmas. What was in that magazine was NOT that they had established a proof finding the upper limit for "primeness", but rather that they had discovered the highest prime number, so far.

That type of thing has been done for so long, that i remember it being in the Guiness book when i was in high school. (Yeah i was a math geek back then, too.)

Unless there's been something in the news that is different than what i saw in the math journal, the claim is not a proof of the limit of prime, but merely the highest prime number so far has been identified. IIRC, it was an 18 or 19 digit integer.
The Professor

It is a lot of crap written to confuse people who have very little scientific knowledge. Even an amateur like my self can see the errors.