Ben Stein Blows it on Fox--ID is Religion (vanity)

Fox News | 04/20/2008 | Soliton

[Soliton]

Ben Stein was just on Fox News with Geraldo. He was asked If ID versus Evolution was a "left, right thing". He responded,"No, It's an atheist versus a non-believer thing". Stein inadvertantly admitted that ID is a religious argument, not science!

[tongass kid]

The paper you cite is full of errors, too numerous to mention. Much of content I learned many years ago as an undergrad zoology major, and then shortly later in graduate school most was discredited. Since then more topics discussed in the paper have been found to be overtly false.

[PugetSoundSoldier]

In your example of your car, the energy clearly caused damage but it still was recieving energy so under a technical definition of the 2nd law wouldn’t it not apply. Its that sort of situation which makes me wonder if the second law wouldn’t be better stated if it required the energy to be delivered in some form of an organized manner. Since our everyday experiences show us that unorganized energy tends to be destructive (i.e. it faids the paint, causes mutations, lightning, tornadoes, and etc).

Or perhaps in my example the energy to the car is NOT usable by the car, so it is essentially either neutral or negative. We know that sunlight is needed by plants (which drive the planet's lifesystems, really), and that mutations arise because of sunlight.

For the car, it cannot use sunlight, so that energy is either a nonissue, or a negative (it accelerates the oxidization and deterioration of the system).

But hey, I'm just an engineer, not a physicist! :D

[PugetSoundSoldier]

I guess I should have clarified - it does not apply in terms of an isolated system from an energy and entropy standpoint. The earth is not isolated, and does not have a fixed amount of energy and matter contained within it.

[allmendream]

Any court decision or scientific theory that you find yourself in opposition to is “full of holes”. That is all I hear, “full of holes”. I begin to think the same reflexive argument without substantiation is “full of holes”.

[Fichori]

And, once agian, last I checked, the Big Bang does concern its self with how everything came into existence.

Strictly speaking, it only concerns itself with what happened AFTER everything came into existence. They always speak of the the first millionth or trillionth of a second, and so on.

Not like they would know, they weren't exactly there with a stopwatch to measure it.

If nihil improviso genero panton, cannot panton improviso existo nihil?
(Many apologies for my lousy Latin)

[Fichori]

"Last I checked, the Big Bang was an inextricable part of the GTE."

" Then you checked wrong. Neither Conservapedia nor Wikipedia tie the big bang to evolution. And I defy you to find the big bang in Darwin's original book.

So, can you show me your supposed link from an evolution-supporting viewpoint? Someone credentialed who says that evolution requires the big bang theory? Because they are independent theories.

ID extremists like to intimate the two are inextricably linked, but that is simply not the case - it's just a strawman for the ID extremists."

Without the Big Bang, there is nothing to evolve.

Unless of course, there is an Omnipotent Creator who, in six 24 hour days, spoke into being everything that exists.

But then there is no need for Macro-Evolution.

[mrjesse]

I don’t know what the “monolith of 2001” is, but google seems to show results about a space odyssey or something. Anyway I don’t watch much TV or movies. (I’m only 30) — Sagan is probably Carl Sagan, but I don’t know what he’s famous for, all I know is that I’ve heard his name.

Thanks!

-Jesse

[dr_lew]

I think in my reply I failed to draw the distinction between the existence of isolated systems, and the applicability of the 2nd Law.

When the 2nd Law says, “In an isolated system ...”, it means that you have to include all systems which mutually exchange energy, and then declare that the total entropy of all these systems must not decrease.

Your question about objects being heated by the sun is interesting. Consider a solar cell. It is producing an “ordered” form of energy by its photovoltaic action. That is, it’s a form of heat engine. The second Law says that you can’t just absorb heat and do work without also discharging heat. Ultimately, it is the localized source of the sun in the sky that allows processes on earth to “do work” using the suns radiation by discharging the “waste heat” into space.

Note that “doing work” would also include the decrease in disorder represented by any real or hypothetical process of spontaneous origin of cells or celluar subsystems.

A very interesting but difficult subject!

[PugetSoundSoldier]

Or maybe there was a Creator who set everything up, and set up the laws of the universe that USED evolution to bring about His creation?

Your only “option” is extremely limited. And was it 24 hour days? Many Christians hold (including me) hold that the creation story is simply allegorical, to show that God created everything. Others hold that the 24 hour periods are simply representative of time, not literal time. And others - like you - hold it was exactly 24 hours.

And it’s rather interesting that the general “creation order” listed in the Bible is the same as used for evolution! Maybe God ordained evolution? Maybe He set the universe up to operate that way?

[dr_lew]

Not like they would know, they weren't exactly there with a stopwatch to measure it.

It's all still here. You don't have to go anywhere to see it ... Well, sure it's died down a little bit!

[dr_lew]

Check this Youtube video

[Fichori]

"Or maybe there was a Creator who set everything up, and set up the laws of the universe that USED evolution to bring about His creation?

Your only “option” is extremely limited. And was it 24 hour days? Many Christians hold (including me) hold that the creation story is simply allegorical, to show that God created everything. Others hold that the 24 hour periods are simply representative of time, not literal time. And others - like you - hold it was exactly 24 hours.

And it’s rather interesting that the general “creation order” listed in the Bible is the same as used for evolution! Maybe God ordained evolution? Maybe He set the universe up to operate that way?"

If the Creation story is just an allegory, where between Genesis and The Revelation does the allegory end?

[Fichori]

I was referring to the the first millionth or trillionth of a second after the 'Big Bang'.

[Recovering_Democrat]

OOh, wow, you've really done a lot of research on the question, I can tell.

One line from an interview, without having seen his film...which touches extensively upon atheism by interviewing evolutionists.

How about this headline:

Soliton Blows It on FR--Hasn't Seen Film That Has Evolutionists Boasting About Their Atheism

:)

[PugetSoundSoldier]

Somewhere around the time of the Judges, when the Torah started being written down. And of course, the praise/Psalms and prophecy books aren’t really historical texts, either.

If the Creation Story wasn’t allegorical, then tell me who recorded it?

[Fichori]

Somewhere around the time of the Judges, when the Torah started being written down. And of course, the praise/Psalms and prophecy books aren’t really historical texts, either.

If the Creation Story wasn’t allegorical, then tell me who recorded it?

You have a good point.

In Genesis Gen 2:7 it says

"And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."

If that is just allegory, how do we know that mankind has a soul?

How do we know that it isn't allegorical cover to cover?

As far as that goes, it could all be just fairy tails written by someone who had lots of time on their hands.

How do we know its not all just fairy tails?

Unless the whole Bible is inspired by God and recorded by man according to the will of God, then what is to say any of the Bible can be trusted?


As to who recorded the Creation, I think it is highly likely that the Creator who was responsible for the Creation, told the original author of the Creation Account exactly what to write.

[Soliton]

You are a thoughtful person and well informed about ID. I will not be referring to the court case again, because very few proponents of ID on this site took the time to read it anyway. This is my last personal reply on the subject.

As to the Discovery Institute. They had their chance in court, and according to the transcript, blew it badly. Respectfully, an article by the loser in a lawsuit is not produced under oath and does not follow any rules of evidence. If you read Kitzmiller, then you know that a finding of the court was that the defendants and witnesses were dishonest. I don't know why I would believe them now.

I have spent three days talking to proponents of ID. I have discovered that with the exception of you and a couple of others, they:

1. Don't understand ID and the ID Movement.
2. Actually undermine ID by explicitly stating it is about God
3. Have no clue as to what evolution theory is or what the evidence is for it
4. Have no interest in learning what evolution theory is or what the evidence is for it
5. Don't know or care to learn what the scientific method is and what it has meant for mankind

To paraphrase your summary of ID for me, ID is not so much a positive theory of the origins of life, but a system for critiquing Darwinism by suggesting that complex things require a designer. It does not address any aspect of what the "designer' might be. Your response to me was kind and informed. I have researched the ID statements on the internet and your description is consistent with theirs. It explains the problem, and answers Ben Steins point in "Expelled". There is no scientific evidence FOR ID, and no one is looking for it, least of all its own proponents. The scientific establishment is right to limit teaching of ID on scientific grounds regardless of legal issues. ID is an interesting, but unsupported, assertion.

This is not to say that ID should not be mentioned in schools, but it should be identified for what it is, again an interesting but unsupported suggestion, not a competing theory to Darwinism.

Thanks for the chat :)

[Ben Ficklin]

"Did you watch the movie"

No, I browsed thru my chicken embryo slides.

[Ben Ficklin]

Meanwhile, science is grinding out the numbers, data, and results.

[bray]

Meanwhile, Ben Stein is exposing the Truth about Darwinists and their Gastapo tactics. The same movie can be made about Global Scamming. You must be so proud.

Pray for W and Our Freedom Fighters