The majestic chemistry of life should be astounding to everyone. But these facts should not be misrepresented as support for the idea that life's molecular complexity is a result of "intelligent design." To the contrary, [1] modern scientific views of the molecular organization of life are entirely consistent with spontaneous variation and natural selection driving a powerful evolutionary process.Two straw men carried to the altar to be burnt. (At least the Evo-Church is not yet directly burning humans -- indirectly, yes arguably, for abortion and assisted suicide are concepts that evolve out of the powerful evolutioary politics and psychology of the High Evo-Church.)In evolution, as in all areas of science, our knowledge is incomplete. But [2] the entire success of the scientific enterprise has depended on an insistence that these gaps be filled by natural explanations, logically derived from confirmable evidence. Because "intelligent design" theories are based on supernatural explanations, they can have nothing to do with science.
What are the two straw men --
In the same way buying a lottery ticket in the intergalactic mega-mega-mega-mega....mega-mega-millions is entriely consistent with it winning. Something in excess of one chance in 10**100. Of course one ticket will win! And I'm sure the interstellar folks who run it, the Blue Siliconish-Pavonian's in their giant lottery outlet UFO's want you to believe that yes, indeedy, YOUR ticket could win! Buy it today!
Well, gosh darn it, they've got the High Holy Evo-Chirch peddling that (probably, almost certainly rigged) lottery to 99.97% of "official" scientists. So pure they float ...
Percy Bridgman, scientific experimenter without-par, winner of the Nobel Prize for physics in 1946, countered that line more rationally that Bruce Alberts (who should return to the Tijuana Brass. maybe, to make a more honest nickle).
Has Alberts won a nobel? (Oh -- that may be or to come -- the Nobel Committee has already joined the pod people, they buy the Blue Silicon-Pavonian lottery tickets in the trillions!).
Anyway here is what PW Bridgman wrote on the matter at hand:
Some believe that religion and science are utterly incompatible. Actually, that view is relatively recent. It dates back not to Galileo, but to the liberal theologians of the Enlightenment. (Incidentally, Galileo was not actually branded a heretic, the sentence he received was for disobeying orders.) Not every educated person believes that science is against religion. There are a growing number of people who believe otherwise, and that have rational support for the idea that theology and science cannot be totally separated. Many scientists (including Newton, Faraday, and even Galileo) have been deeply religious. To add to that, some scientists have actually implanted their religion into their scientific work, including Newton, Boyle, Maxwell, Pasteur, and others. Clearly, religion and science are not always bitter enemies.Also, the evidence suggests that religion (and more specifically the theistic philosophy that stemmed from the Christian worldview) was a significant factor in the birth of modern science, at least partly because it provided some unique philosophical principles that science requires. Why, for instance, would a rational investigation of nature be successful? Because a rationally orderly God created the universe. (Nature consistently operating in mathematical patterns would especially be confirmative for this belief.) According to the Christian religion of that time and area, the universe is orderly, this orderly world can be known, and there is a motive to discover this order. Indeed, many of the founders of modern science were Christians trying to demonstrate that humanity lived in an orderly universe. Why should the investigation of nature be empirical? Because God could have created an orderly universe in more than one way. This sort of mindset is rather different from classical atheism (which was even accepted in the 16th century), which holds to the metaphysical view of a universe dominated by chance events. This philosophy hardly implied an orderly universe.
"The Nature and Philosophy of Science" -- PW Bridgman,
http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/bridgman02.htm
What silly nonsense. Abortion and assisted suicide are pre-modern concepts that are thousands of years old, with a well-catalogued presence throughout ancient and medieval societies both Western and non-Western.
See: George Devereux, "A Typological Study of Abortion in 350 Primitive, Ancient and Pre-Industrial Societies," in Therapeutic Abortion, 1954.
See: Emanuel E J, "Euthanasia: historical, ethical, and empiric perspectives," in Archives of Internal Medicine, 1994.
I've got a suggestion - why don't you actually read some of the research results in this field before you attempt to (mis)characterize it again? Currently, you're just looking foolish in these rants with your cartoon-version of evolutionary biology, which bears only a very passing resemblance to the real thing.
["the entire success of the scientific enterprise has depended on an insistence that these gaps be filled by natural explanations, logically derived from confirmable evidence."]
Percy Bridgman, scientific experimenter without-par, winner of the Nobel Prize for physics in 1946, countered that line more rationally that Bruce Alberts (who should return to the Tijuana Brass. maybe, to make a more honest nickle).
Not in the passage you quoted, he didn't. Are you sure you understood it?
And that's "Herb Albert" in the Tijuana Brass, not Bruce Alberts, you goof.