Posted on 04/18/2008 4:04:57 PM PDT by PurpleMountains
I just returned home from seeing the premiere of Ben Stein's new movie, "Expelled:No Intelligence Allowed". I was amazed that such an important movie that addresses serious questions would be so enjoyable and have such great entertainment value. The movie exposes Darwinism and the crushing of scientific inquiry going on in this country. Darwinism is the foundation science of modern liberalism, and just as liberalism is a failed philosophy and imposes political correctness to stifle debate, so is some of Darwinian theory wrong, and scientific study and debate about it is simiarly stifled. I urge everyone to see this movie and spread its messsage.
(Excerpt) Read more at forthegrandchildren.blogspot.com ...
It's not much of a "science" if it consistently avoids the tough questions.
The theory has advanced, surely, but the gaps and the issues avoided by its adherents has also multiplied.
I find it strange that the most advanced geneticists and molecular biologists simply marvel at the statement that the advancements in the complexities of living things happened randomly, or in conveniently packaged mind-boggling complete "packages", and always toward improved complex systems.
“Maths deals with proofs - not science.”
Not true. Consider Davy’s electrolytic isolation of new elements, Hales’ work on the circulation of sap in plants, or the null results of the Michelson-Morley experiment.
Just the usual scientific evidence. Please describe the features and characteristics of the designer you hypothesize about and suggest an experiment that would validate its existance. Also explain how a designer can evolve from nothing.
Offer some direct evidence for ID or shutup.
I agree with you. It is the evolution religionists who insist that science has "proven" their theory; and that the ID crowd has not.
You’re not doing the Darwinists any good with that nasty mouth. That’s the point of the movie, as far as I can tell from the commercials. It’s about academic freedom, not yelling “shutup” like a 2-yr old begging for a spanking.
Why should you have the right to make a fool of yourself as an undisciplined boor, but not I?
I will do neither until you explain Darwin's personal reservations about his own theory.
You have read it and his subsequent comment on the controversy haven't you?
You can read, can't you?
The ID crown doesn’t want to support their theory - if they did they would not spend money on movies. Instead they would spend that money on research.
But the do not, they fund next to no research. Why is that?
That’s bullcrap.
What were ‘Darwin’s personal reservations ‘ about his theory?
No - that is factual correct material.
If I am incorrect please show my the error of my ways.
Before you judge, see the movie. They aren’t pushing for anything but a chance to be heard. Their main concern is that freedom, your freedoms are being compromised. Truth is not a one way street. When intolerant orthodoxy becomes truth, we all lose.
Oh, and one of the anti-intelligent design heroes is on film in this movie explaining his own version of the “origin of the species”. According to him, humanity may well be the intelligent design of aliens? It may be truth but then again it may not be. Why is that any more plausible than the existence of God?
As a trained biologist, I have never seen anything that prevents me from believing in both evolution and intelligent design. All I ask is that you do not equate simple creationism with intelligent design.
Which deity do you consider ‘God’?
This does not prove that it happened that way, nor can this be replicated in any experiment.
That is, they cannot take a cell without a Krebs cycle, give it the initial starting conditions, then wait through several generations and then end up with a cell with a Krebs cycle. The term "opportunism" in this case is simply a synonym for "something magic happens".
I Have been to the ID sites and looked in vain for an ID scientific theory. I can get no ID proponent to offer a scientific theory. You offer nothing. This is not a surprise. ID is just a lie. It is a legalistic boodoggle to inject Genesis into the classroom.
This raises a couple of questions for me, which I would like answers to:
1) Do you recognize any limits on the ability of what you call "science" to establish an absolute truth?
2) Why does a designer need to "evolve" from "nothing"? I could as easily ask you how the universe itself "evolved" from "nothing". Or are you going to insist that it is eternal and self-existent?
Btw, if you undertake to answer #2, remember that "nothing" must be really "nothing". Not a "something" that we agree to CALL "nothing", because I won't agree to it.
I'm just askin'....
Can religion “establish an absolute truth”?
There is no ID theor except that "complicated things need a designer". There are no experiments. There is no literature. It ain't science, it's religion.
Logically if a virus requires a designer, then a designer requires a designer. You ultimately come to a first designer that arose from nothing.
ID may be crock, but the sort of 19th century brand of darwinism that’s taught to children (i.e, before they get to college), is well known to be equally uncientific nonsense that no serious geneticist or biologist accepts today. The paradigm today is punctuated equilibrium, which frankly, is nothing like the sort of simple-minded “survival of the fittest” doctrine that hacks with education degrees foist on children.
Survival of the fittest isn’t even a darwinian notion, it’s a social idea taken from Herbert Spenser, but I digress. Punctuated equilibrium suggests that a) evolution takes place at the cellular level primarily—not the level of the species; and b) that “evolution” is a reaction of cells to external events such as disease, viruses, comets, etc. Only when you get massive external change does a species “evolve”, or rather mutate. Those mutations that survive pass on their genes, those that don’t die out.
Despite the efforts of academia, the reality is that conceptually speaking, at least, punctuated equilibrium is not incompatible with creationism. And I would not equate creationism with ID—the former is a legitimate religio-philosophical construct, while ID is basically an attempt to take such a construct and force it into a scientific framework. “God in the gaps,” as such a theory is known in religious studies ciricles, is poor theology and poorer science.
Anyway, those who design the curriculum of public schools are blissfully unaware of the fact that pure darwinism is as passe as marxism.
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