Intelligent Design Might Be Meeting Its Maker

The New York Times ^ | December 4, 2005 | LAURIE GOODSTEIN

[Right Wing Professor]

TO read the headlines, intelligent design as a challenge to evolution seems to be building momentum.

...

Behind the headlines, however, intelligent design as a field of inquiry is failing to gain the traction its supporters had hoped for. It has gained little support among the academics who should have been its natural allies. And if the intelligent design proponents lose the case in Dover, there could be serious consequences for the movement's credibility.

On college campuses, the movement's theorists are academic pariahs, publicly denounced by their own colleagues. Design proponents have published few papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"Evolution's ethical content consists of the idea that the strong MUST survive."

Evolution has no ethical content. It describes the diversification of biological organisms over time.

[Oztrich Boy]

Plus the interesting use of "documented". Aa in "if we photocopy The Kilian Memos many times, they become more authentic."

[JeffAtlanta]

Ideas have consequences.

You are on a very fallicious path. First of all, you are not accurately portraying the theory of biological evolution.

Secondly, the consequences of a discovery has no bearing on it's validity. For example, does the existence of atomic weapons invalidate the discovery of nuclear fission?

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"Ideas have consequences."

Arguments from the consequences are examples of logical fallacies.

[Right Wing Professor]

Drop in the bucket, compared to the enormous benefit the Bible has been to mankind in terms of its ethical content.

Yeah, the example of what happened to the Midianites has been a constant inspiration.

[Liberty Wins]

"Evolution has no ethical content."

That's not the point. Evolution is an idea which has had consequences. You don't see that as a problem?

[PatrickHenry]

Why do you accuse people who debate with you of being "maniacal?"

If you fear that accepting the theory evolution will send you over the edge, how would you describe yourself? Anyway, here's something I posted a while ago, which may help you to deal with your fear of a linkage between evolution and criminal conduct:

Even without evolution, everyone knows that if we trace our ancestors back far enough we find some bad people. Maybe a criminal here and there, perhaps a wanton woman, a slave dealer, that sort of thing. Go back further, and our ancestors were all pagans. Certainly at some point they were all barbarians, and before that they were savages, perhaps cannibals. We know this is our ancestry, even if evolution were never dreamed of. Our children learn this.

But so what? Does anyone, upon learning our history, decide to be a savage, or a criminal? Or a pagan? Even in these days of endless excuses, does any criminal defend his actions on the grounds that some of his long-ago ancestors were criminals too? Such a defense is too absurd, even for the OJ jury.

We can certainly be influenced by our parents, but the primitive behavior of our distant ancestors is meaningless regarding the kind of people we choose to be. So what difference could it make if, hundreds of millions of years ago, our ancestors weren't even human?

[CarolinaGuitarman]

" That's not the point. Evolution is an idea which has had consequences. You don't see that as a problem?"

See post 644.

[Coyoteman]

Evolution is an idea which has had consequences. You don't see that as a problem?

So, we should give it up, right? Take up basket weaving perhaps?

[Liberty Wins]

"Arguments from the consequences are examples of logical fallacies."

Please don't use slippery sophisms in this debate. I am seriously concerned about what kind of society we are leaving our grandchildren.

What are the consequences of teaching students they are basically animals?

[PatrickHenry]

What are the consequences of teaching students they are basically animals?

There are about 9,000 biology teachers in the US. Presumably they know about evolution. How many of them exhibit the behavior you fear?

[JeffAtlanta]

Please don't use slippery sophisms in this debate. I am seriously concerned about what kind of society we are leaving our grandchildren.

Huh? A logical fallacy means that your question is nonsensical - basically nonsense.

What you are arguing is that we should cover up scientific discoveries if they seem to contradict the literal reading of the bible.

[JeffAtlanta]

What are the consequences of teaching students they are basically animals?

We aren't? That would be a surprise to viruses that jump from birds and other animals to humans.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

" Please don't use slippery sophisms in this debate."

I didn't. You are making an argument from the (perceived) consequences of evolution. The consequences in NO way change the validity of the scientific theory. You committed a logical fallacy.

"I am seriously concerned about what kind of society we are leaving our grandchildren."

As am I. That is why I want the next generations to know the truth, not a fable that will make them feel better about themselves.

"What are the consequences of teaching students they are basically animals?"

We aren't just basically animals. We are completely animals. Human animals to be exact. Again, the (perceived) consequences have no bearing on the validity of the theory.

[Liberty Wins]

"Take up basket weaving perhaps?"

Look, this is very similar to the debate between believers and non-believers. (Whoa, now don't accuse me of saying you all are atheists!)

There used to be a very familiar phrase in our culture - - the "fear of God." Personally, I like to think of God in his kind, benevolent form, but I have to admit when I read in the papers about some horrific crime in which a kid was murdered for his sneakers, or something similar, that phrase comes immediately to mind and I wish fervently that the murderer had had the "fear of God."

So, if you don't believe there is an afterlife, and you are just the product of other organisms that arrived by chance, what difference does it make if you lead an upright life? It is far easier to lead a selfish life (until you get caught).

[JeffAtlanta]

So, if you don't believe there is an afterlife

Islamic terrorists believe in an afterlife and it is the primary thing that empowers them to be suicide bombers. The "fear of God" has no useful benefit if you use religion to justify bad behavior.

In these threads, for example, we often see creationists that think that they are justified to lie for God.

[Liberty Wins]

"How many of them exhibit the behavior you fear?"

Wrong question. How many biology teachers have the courage to tell their students in the strongest possible way not to do drugs, not to do sex, etc? My son's English teacher was arrested for possession and don't think we parents didn't stay awake at night wondering what he had taught the kids.

I'm not saying all high school teachers are depraved. I'm saying many of them are moral wimps when it comes to teaching right from wrong.

[PatrickHenry]

Either I didn't write clearly, or you are avoiding the point I made. I'll try again. You asked: What are the consequences of teaching students they are basically animals? I mentioned that there are 9,000 biology teachers, and surely they have been taught the very thing you fear will bring us to ruination. So, of that evolution-tainted sample of 9,000, how many of them provide evidence of the conduct you fear will result from learning about evolution?

[Coyoteman]

The Pragmatics of Patriotism (1973)

Quotations from Heinlein's address at the U.S. Naval Academy April 5, 1973

• I now define "moral behavior" as "behavior that tends toward survival." I won't argue with philosophers or theologians who choose to use the word "moral" to mean something else, but I do not think anyone can define "behavior that tends toward extinction" as being "moral" without stretching the word "moral" all out of shape.

• Selfishness is the bedrock on which all moral behavior starts and it can be immoral only when it conflicts with a higher moral imperative. An animal so poor in spirit that he won't even fight on his own behalf is already an evolutionary dead end; the best he can do for his breed is to crawl off and die, and not pass on his defective genes.

• The next higher level is to work, fight, and sometimes die for your own immediate family. This is the level at which six pounds of mother cat can be so fierce that she'll drive off a police dog. It is the level at which a father takes a moonlighting job to keep his kids in college—and the level at which a mother or father dives into a flood to save a drowning child… and it is still moral behavior even when it fails.

• Evolution is a process that never stops. Baboons who fail to exhibit moral behavior do not survive; they wind up as meat for leopards.

• The next level in moral behavior higher than that exhibited by the baboon is that in which duty and loyalty are shown toward a group of your own kind too large for an individual to know all of them. We have a name for that. It is called "patriotism."

• Behaving on a still higher moral level were the astronauts who went to the Moon, for their actions tend toward the survival of the entire race of mankind.

• Men are expendable; women and children are not. A tribe or a nation can lose a high percentage of its men and still pick up the pieces and go on… as long as the women and children are saved. But if you fail to save the women and children, you've had it, you're done, you're through! You join Tyrannosaurus rex, one more breed that bilged its final test.

• "Patriotism" is a way of saying "Women and children first." And that no one can force a man to feel this way. Instead he must embrace it freely.

Food for thought. Source.

[Liberty Wins]

"What are the consequences of teaching students they are basically animals?"

Remember, the Bible was taken out of the schools more than a generation ago.

So how does a biology teacher explain to students that yes, they descended from the same ancester as the ape, but no, they need to act in a different way from the animals, but I can't tell you the source of this wisdom. Oh, and you should be "cooperative" for the sake of the larger society, and how many kids will buy that? Hmm, let's "cooperate" to fool the security guards and shoplift this weekend?