Posted on 12/20/2005 7:54:38 AM PST by snarks_when_bored
Fox News alert a few minutes ago says the Dover School Board lost their bid to have Intelligent Design introduced into high school biology classes. The federal judge ruled that their case was based on the premise that Darwin's Theory of Evolution was incompatible with religion, and that this premise is false.
If you want to know what mainstream science has to say about the subject, www.talkorigins.org is an excellent site for learning. If you want to to know the creationist standpoint (not held by the overwhelming majority of the community), there are plenty of websites on that side of the coin as well. Good luck, as it is a complicated subject.
(Now to go off to the USPS website & do the Angie thing...)
"Judaism seems to me to have little evangelical bent. Perhaps that's why (along with Hitler and other anti-Jew pogroms) there are not very many of them."
You're correct in that. Judaism is a tribal religion, by origin. Not in the tribes? Sorry. A good example.
I thought Math proved the existence of infinity?
You are welcome.
This time, with emphasis added:
As we will discuss in more detail below, the inescapable truth is that both Bonsell and Buckingham lied at their January 3, 2005 depositions about their knowledge of the source of the donation for Pandas, which likely contributed to Plaintiffs’ election not to seek a temporary restraining order at that time based upon a conflicting and incomplete factual record. This mendacity was a clear and deliberate attempt to hide the source of the donations by the Board President and the Chair of the Curriculum Committee to further ensure that Dover students received a creationist alternative to Darwin’s theory of evolution. We are accordingly presented with further compelling evidence that Bonsell and Buckingham sought to conceal the blatantly religious purpose behind the ID Policy.
Bonsell AND Buckingham might well wish to retain criminal defense attorneys at this time.....
Thanks for that tidbit of history, concerning the book that Marx sent to Darwin...the mere fact that the book was 'uncut',(the seal was never broken), and that is how the book remained in Darwins library, is very interesting..
Thanks again...
"ID doesn't attempt to explain the origin of matter. You are making the mistake of thinking that ID includes everything that Gensis does."
Maybe I am missing what others think ID is. Can there be Intelligent design without a divine being to design it? I have trouble wrapping my brain around that argument.
"I'm saying that a highly complex system is more likely to exist because of deliberate action by an intelligent being than by chance. Complexity implies a creator, but it doesn't have to be a divine being. I could place dice like that if I wanted to (and if I knew your name)."
"so are you saying there is an intelligent being but not a divine intelligent being?
"ID takes as a hypothesis that there is a designer, but it doesn't require the designer to be divine, or to have created matter from nothing, or to have done it as outlined by the teachings of any religion."
Still can't wrap my brain around the fact that people can believe there is a Designer who created everything yet is not divine. Separate religion or God from it and only use logic and I can't logically see how a non-divine being designed everything but did not create everything. Maybe someone can help me with a logical coherent explanation. Thanks
Intelligent Design has fizzled.
5. ID has no record of carrying out scientific experiments or suggesting experiments or providing descriptive classifications or understandings. The major thesis of ID is, "Gee, it is so complicated, so we can explain this only by saying 'God did it.'." Since this idea can be applied to anything we do not understand, it lacks intellectual rigor. As in the case of Paley's The Blind Watchmaker--from which ID derives--it is fundamentally anti-intellectual and rejects the notion that human intellect can puzzle out the complexities. It is noteworthy that IDists do not attempt to apply their notion to quantum mechanics.
6. As shown in the ID document Wedge, http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.html, ID adherents attribute a slew of moral and social evils to the theory of evolution, claiming that it fosters "materialism", "naturalistic explanations", and is anti-theistic. Some even go further to claim that the "naturalism" of evolution is responsible for most of the evils of the world. However, to many conservatives that ID hoped to attract, the idea of materialism is perfectly fine and not inconsistent with their theological views. The idea of an ordered social hierarchy fits with evolution and conservative, libertarian values. ID thus offers nothing attractive to these groups and the idea that a grand "designer" directly intervenes to make some people more successful, as suggested by ID, leaves social conservatives uncomforttable.
7. A major problem with ID is that it accepts supernatural forces and actions as being on the same plane with engineering and real science. Since evolution is based on an interwoven network of concepts from geology, physics, astronomy, paleontology, if ID wins wide acceptance, then all such disciplines are equally discredited. Few conservatives or liberals wish to go there. The problem is the mind-set of ID.
The mindset is superstitious in nature. There are many people who are happy to see science and rationalism debased, because they hold to views about psychic phenomena, UFOs, appearances of the Virgin Mary in weird places, astrology, dowsing, predictions of Nostradamus, hidden codes in the Bible, reincarnation, a heaven/paradise after death, and a hundred other non-rational beliefs. The fundamental issue is a rational, healthy outlook on the world, with joy in its beauties and sadness for what some people sometimes do, vs. a supernatural outlook, in which gods intervene willy-nilly, some people have "hidden psychic powers", and happiness is determined (or pre-determined) by weird forces that do not stand up to rational inquiry.
8. A major weakness of ID is the matter of implementation. It's one thing to have a design, but how does it get turned into a fabrication? Every engineer knows that a first design runs into "but we can't make that". Other design flaws frequently appear until there is sufficient reiteration between makers and designers. This may be the the ID explanation for species extinction!
But, now suppose we have an "intelligent design" for an eye. Where and when does this get implemented? Since the coding starts with the DNA of a single cell, maybe each fertilized egg is made by the god-designer. On the other hand, maybe the divine intervention comes only when cells begin to differentiate. Or maybe when humans evolved 2 million years ago and the design has been on auto-pilot ever since? And was the planet earth itself intelligently designed? These are many questions ID has no answer for.
Creationism is not ID.
ID does not require the designer to be a sentient being.
"I agree with you that evolution requires added complexity (or more accurately it has to explain increases in complexity documented in the fossil record)"
Your agreement is meaningless, since evolution does not require any such thing. Single-celled species outnumber all other species on this planet, yet they have evolved for lo! these billions of years.
Sorry.
All competing theories are welcome except the ones that say "god did it" QED.
That is religion and not science.
I take it the "amoeba to man" scenario is then incompatible with evolutionary teaching and thought. Matter simply develops and self-organizes any way it might, with evolution simply meaning "change." The notion of "complexity" is an arbitrary one, since the definition might imply elements of design, which in turn is inimical to naturalist assumptions.
First, the Amendment in question......
Article [I.] Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Now, the US Constitution does NOT define, anywhere, what "religion" is. But, it is abundantly clear that religion is RECOGNIZED by the US government and PROTECTED so that citizens can participate without hindrance.
What follows is the FOREMOST and BEST clue as to what the persons who wrote the US Constitution viewed religion to be.
The Declaration of Independence
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.
The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Darwin's 'thank you' note to Marx was the standard academic courtesy note; he thanks Marx for having sent him a complimentary copy of Das Kapital. Darwin also confesses to not being an economist, thereby absolving himself of any responsibility for judging the correctness or incorrectness of Marx's views. Clever guy, that Darwin.
Also, as eleni121 didn't know when he posted (but does now), there is proof that Darwin never read the book Marx sent him. Books used to come from the printer with the pages sealed together and had to be cut open - the complimentary copy that Marx sent Darwin is uncut and therefore unread.
Waiting for eleni121 to acknowledge that he was wrong....
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