Posted on 04/20/2008 8:49:48 AM PDT by Soliton
“Intelligent Design” is of no scientific value in determining the origins of life in the universe. A designer would have to be supernatural (i.e. not subject to the laws of physics) or natural and subject to those laws. If the designer is natural in origin, then it would have to have been designed by another designer –again supernatural or natural. Ultimately come to an original designer that either evolved from a lower state of matter, or was created by a supernatural being. You will note that this is back to where we started. Science does not deal with supernatural phenomena by definition. Scientifically, the only answer is evolution. ID, however, is really about the cosmology of the Book of Genesis anyway, but if that is admitted, it can’t be taught in school. And there’s the rub.
The term “Intelligent Design” was adopted by the Discovery Institute, the originator of the ID movement, and a non-profit company that was incorporated specifically to get the story of Genesis taught in public schools (as specifically stated in the incorporation documents). To that end a Creationist textbook was published called Of Pandas and People.
In 1987, The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that teaching creationism in public schools violated the separation of church and state in Edwards vs. Aquilard.
In a similar later case, Kitzmiller vs. The Dover Area School District involving the school’s acquisition of Of Pandas and People, it was proven in court that the publishers and the people who financed the purchase lied in depositions when they stated that Intelligent Design wasn’t just another term for Creationism. They did this by showing that dozens of passages in the pre-1987 Edwards vs. Aquilard copies of the book used “Creation”, while later versions substituted “Intelligent Design” in its place.
The entire Intelligent Design movement is a dishonest, legalistic Trojan horse specifically intended to teach creationism in public school even though it is against the law.
Complete transcripts of Kitzmiller vs. Dover can be found here:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dover/kitzmiller_v_dover.html
Well, if you are talking about evolution as “all species out of one” (as Darwinism teaches), then it is mere dogma since there is so little evidence for speciation in the fossil record.
Any time a theory relies upon unproven presupposition (read as “faith”), then it becomes a religion. A system of “belief” that defines the origin of all things and how they should behave...
[Soliton] To prove, as in your example that sumo wrestlers do not exist, would require you to search the universe looking for a sumo wrestler.
No, I just have to look in my fridge. Can't you read?
Doggone: “”Potential” is correct, since there isn’t any actual evidence, nor has any “potential” evidence been offered by the ID promoters.
ID is an idea. A philosophy. An alternative without any evidence for science to examine.”
Well, no ID is not merely an idea, it is a theory. Just like the THEORY of evolution, ID is a theory which attempts to explain physical phenomena. For your edification, here is the dictionary definition of the word THEORY:
A coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena: “Einstein’s theory of relativity”.
The only “evidence” you need to call something a theory is to continually test that theory experimentally or with observable phenomena. Most theories go through many iterations and modifications as more experiments and research is conducted.
Currently, there are many points of Darwin’s original theory which don’t appear to be supported by modern science. I believe ID is a movement to help define some of the physical observations better. Like any theory (if given the proper venue for debate) it will only thrive if it stands the test of time and legitimate scrutiny.
I also think that any legitimate theory must stand up when applied across the spectrum of science. In my mind, that is where Darwinism falls flat on it’s face - too many incongruencies and inconsistencies. It is a legitimate Theory, but no more so than ID, in my opinion.
Watching the close-minded evolutionists in the movie try to explain how life began was hilarious. On the backs of crystals. Space aliens. (How were the crystals and aliens created?)
How do you propose that we test ID?
DogGone: “How do you propose that we test ID?”
I think the ID theory will have to be verified by the same means that the evolution theory has been supported - by observing current life forms and their characteristics plus fossil records and other “historical” or geological evidence. I think mathematical and computer simulation is another tool that can be utilized to prove or disprove ID.
As in any theory, we can’t just observe one phenomena and base the entire theory on that. This seems to be a great strength of the ID theory in that it is very unifying - it helps explain many dimensions of complexity and similarity in the world around us. Without the pre-disposed ideals of some early scientist toward a designer, we probably would have taken much longer (if ever) to describe physical laws in a general way to apply to diverse phenomena (i.e. calculus, the laws of thermodynamics, etc).
You nailed it with that comment. I remember from my childhood when science was separate from politics and religion. Yes, the barbarians were around then as well, but they didn't have the political power they have today. Reasonable people accepted science as agnostic, in other words...just the facts, with no consideration of political or religious correctness.
Today reasonable people are assaulted from both sides. We have the liberal luddites who (think they) want a world where mankind doesn't impact his environment at all, and on the other side we have the religious luddites who refuse to accept any scientific theory that doesn't agree with the bible.
I am not a luddite. I want a world where scientific facts are used to make reasoned decisions. I want a world where scientific advancements lead to improvements in the quality of life. I want to be able to grow new organs to replace my worn out clunkers. I want unbiased climate data to lead to reasoned decisions on whether or not we really need to (or even can) do something about climate change.
The founding fathers were afraid of religious influence on politics, with good reason. I am appalled that this is, once again, a real threat to our way of life. I include both forms of luddites in this opinion because the left wing luddites are just as religiously fanatic as the right wing variety.
6ppc: “The founding fathers were afraid of religious influence on politics, with good reason.”
This is a very curious statement?!? I think you may have gotten your facts scrambled. This should read, “The founding fathers were afraid of POLITICAL influence on RELIGION, with good reason”.
The founding fathers, as a general group, had little fear of religious leaders but great fear of politicians. And as has been reiterated many times over on these threads, most of these men were advocates of their own personal religious ideals - in which God is the hingepost for all inalienable rights.
The founding father's did not want political influence on religion because they were afraid that a single religion would come to dominate politics and make laws restricting practice of competing religions. I stand by my statement.
Watching the close-minded evolutionists in the movie try to explain how life began was hilarious. On the backs of crystals. Space aliens. (How were the crystals and aliens created?)
I thought that was great too. They kept getting all testy with Ben Stein when he would try to clarify their answers. They admitted that they don't know the answer, yet at the same time they are absolutely sure that God wasn't involved. Talk about arrogance!
Do you know the name of the scientist in Paris that Stein talked to? I loved that guy. Was that Michael Behe, the biochemist who wrote Darwin's Black Box? I was fascinated by his explanation of how the more you study the workings of a cell, the more you realize that it could not have arisen spontaneously as a result of a random process.
6ppc: “on the other side we have the religious luddites who refuse to accept any scientific theory that doesn’t agree with the bible.”
I don’t contest that these people exist but they differ very little from the Darwinian Atheist who cannot accept any theory that doesn’t align with Darwinism. These proponents have equated Science to Atheism and have set up “rules” in academia that no serious scientist can believe in a Creator.
Hear hear.
The people you are speaking of are among the unreasonable people I abhor. True, they are not "luddites" in the true sense of the word, but they are dogmatists. They profess to be anti-religion, but in reality they have substituted atheism for religion. I see little difference between them and religious fanatics.
I happen to believe the theory of evolution is essentially correct. I believe we do not yet understand all of the details, but the theory fits the observed facts. I do not have a problem if you wish to believe otherwise, but I DO have a problem when you propose to teach a theory (ID) that does not observe scientific principles and does not fit the observed facts.
This obsession with imposing religious doctrine on science is damaging our educational system. We are falling behind in science and engineering, and arguing about evolution vs. the bible is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
The same comment applies to the obsession about climate change. Rather than developing reliable alternatives to oil, such as building nuclear power plants and viable battery technology, our government decides to subsidize converting food to fuel while preventing us from obtaining the oil we need (ANWR and offshore) to tide us over until the new technology is available...all because of the enviro-luddites.
I've gotten on a bit of a rant here, and I apologize, but I'm disgusted at how both extremes are leading us into the abyss. I believe in common sense (or as a local radio host says, un-common sense, since common sense is not very common).
I accept the theory of relativity which doesn’t ‘align with Darwinism’
The scientist in Paris was my favorite, too. I don’t think it was Behe; seems that it was a longer name. He had the greatest attitude.
My husband’s a physicist (PhD - works with directed energy), and he thought it was one of the best movies he’s ever seen.
Fine, if it leads to that conclusion, but you have to deal with fact that we have thousands of transistional fossils which indicate that species have changed since they first appeared. Often quite dramatically.
You can assert that they were designed to change over the years, and perhaps that's right, but it's another way of describing Theistic Evolution. I don't have a problem with that concept. It's impossible to prove so far, but it doesn't mean we won't someday.
If the debators would recognize they are debating philosophy and do so openly, it would all be a much healthier, more honest, and much more rational exercise. As it is, the claims on both sides that they speak for science or that science supports them, are utterly laughable.
A simple example is trying to operationalize a signature of decision as specified complexity beyond they level a probabilistic account of the system can reasonably trace to uncorrelated randomness, at less than astronomically unlikely figures (no anthropic deus ex machinas allowed). Meaning, if you need 500 events of independent probability 1/100, you need to either show a sample size approaching 10^1000 or you need to give up random accounts.
The reasoning is fine, the full desired ID conclusion won't follow from it, but something important will. The processes actually involved can't have independence in a statistical sense. They have to have significant internal correlation.
One can find formal systems that have that character. The criticism directs biologists to look for such correlated formal systems, not independent random ones.
It is an example. The generalization is there are plenty of gains from taking seriously attempts to poke holes in any popular theory, regardless of who is putting them forth or where they think they will end up. One needn't have any opinion whatever on the latter score, to gain something from the cross examination.
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