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Intelligent Design Revisited (D Limbaugh)
Human Events Online ^ | 8-22-05 | David Limbaugh

Posted on 08/24/2005 10:47:29 AM PDT by joyspring777

On those rare occasions that I write a column touching remotely on science, especially if I depart from the conventional wisdom of the greater scientific community, the contemptuous e-mails fill my inbox.

Such was the case a few columns ago when I broached the subject of Intelligent Design (ID) after President Bush indicated his receptiveness to ID theory being taught alongside evolution in the public schools. The hostile e-mailers pointed out what a consummate idiot and criminal trespasser I was for treading on their real estate.

They demanded I stick to law and politics, not because I know much more about them either, but by concentrating on those subjects at least I wouldn't be encroaching on their turf, which is reserved for the gifted. OK, they didn't really say that explicitly, but I divined, via supernatural intuition, that that's precisely what they meant.

The thrust of the e-mails was that ID is not science-based but is purely a matter of faith -- Biblical creationism in disguise. It cannot be tested in a lab (can macroevolution or any historical science be reproduced in a lab?). As such, ID should only be taught in public schools, if at all, under the rubric of philosophy or religion, not science. Besides, it is just one alternative theory. If you teach it, in fairness you must teach all other competing theories.

But not all scientists agree that ID lacks a scientific foundation. In the first place, ID uses science to confute certain tenets of Darwinism. In addition, ID proponents, such as Michael Behe and William Dembski, have developed criteria for testing design inferences.

(Excerpt) Read more at humaneventsonline.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: anothercrevothread; babble; creation; crevo; crevolist; drivel; enoughalready; evolution; intelligentdesign; makeitstop; nitwittery; notagain; uninformed
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Well, let's have at it...the battle continues to be joined!
1 posted on 08/24/2005 10:47:33 AM PDT by joyspring777
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Nothing new here. Same old stuff that's been soundly refuted already. I very enjoy David and Rush, but on this subject they don't know what they're talking about.


2 posted on 08/24/2005 10:52:12 AM PDT by TOWER
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To: joyspring777

> But not all scientists agree that ID lacks a scientific foundation.

Not all scientists agree that Holocaust denial lacks a scientific foundation. Nevertheless, the facts show what they show.


3 posted on 08/24/2005 10:55:47 AM PDT by orionblamblam ("You're the poster boy for what ID would turn out if it were taught in our schools." VadeRetro)
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To: joyspring777; PatrickHenry



http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-fact.html


Methinks the Limbaughs ought to stick to law and politics.........


4 posted on 08/24/2005 10:57:14 AM PDT by Vaquero (lets all play " The Crusades")
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To: joyspring777
Already Posted.
5 posted on 08/24/2005 10:58:00 AM PDT by NJ_gent (Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.)
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To: joyspring777
I'm all for ID in the class room.
The left wing indoctrination that "Man created man in his own image" has to stop. Not all people believe "self" is God, and the children in the public schools are not all self oriented zombies. They have open minds and a larger view of the universe than just "Man God and the big, round rock he dwells on."
6 posted on 08/24/2005 11:01:20 AM PDT by concerned about politics ("Get thee behind me, Liberal.")
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Not on the 'must excerpt' list, unless they've stopped updating this list: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1111944/posts

Test posting of a human events online article didn't require an excerpt, so here we go:




On those rare occasions that I write a column touching remotely on science, especially if I depart from the conventional wisdom of the greater scientific community, the contemptuous e-mails fill my inbox.

Such was the case a few columns ago when I broached the subject of Intelligent Design (ID) after President Bush indicated his receptiveness to ID theory being taught alongside evolution in the public schools. The hostile e-mailers pointed out what a consummate idiot and criminal trespasser I was for treading on their real estate.

They demanded I stick to law and politics, not because I know much more about them either, but by concentrating on those subjects at least I wouldn't be encroaching on their turf, which is reserved for the gifted. OK, they didn't really say that explicitly, but I divined, via supernatural intuition, that that's precisely what they meant.

The thrust of the e-mails was that ID is not science-based but is purely a matter of faith -- Biblical creationism in disguise. It cannot be tested in a lab (can macroevolution or any historical science be reproduced in a lab?). As such, ID should only be taught in public schools, if at all, under the rubric of philosophy or religion, not science. Besides, it is just one alternative theory. If you teach it, in fairness you must teach all other competing theories.

But not all scientists agree that ID lacks a scientific foundation. In the first place, ID uses science to confute certain tenets of Darwinism. In addition, ID proponents, such as Michael Behe and William Dembski, have developed criteria for testing design inferences.

Behe contends that irreducibly complex features are better explained by design because our knowledge and reason tell us that such features can only be produced by intelligent causes -- putting the lie, by the way, to the claim that ID is just one competing theory. Thus, ID advocates argue that design inference is testable: It could be refuted if someone could empirically demonstrate that unguided natural processes could produce irreducible complexity.

Moreover, ID theory is neither faith-based, nor results-oriented. It is not a concoction of Christians who were already convinced that God created the world but needed a scientific theory around which to wrap their unscientific faith.

It is not the slave of certain preordained conclusions. It examines the evidence and follows it to its logical conclusions, even if those conclusions -- such as that ID is the most plausible explanation for life's origin -- deviate from currently accepted science orthodoxy.

I trust my correspondents will meet these assertions with equal contempt. But many of them are guilty of the primary sin they ascribe to ID proponents. For they begin with an irrebuttable presumption not just that evolution is a valid theory but that the very origins of life are the result of material, not supernatural causes and any inquiry that proceeds apart from this presumption, by definition, is not scientific. After all, God's existence cannot be proved in a laboratory. By the clever use of circular logic, they ensure that ID can never be accepted as scientific.

Anyone who does not initiate his inquiry with the obligatory presumption is, by definition, a heretic, a crackpot and not part of the scientific community no matter how many science-related degrees he may have on his CV. So again, through grossly circular logic, they perpetuate the myth that no scientists believe in ID.

Consider what Harvard chemistry professor David Liu said about Harvard University's plan to spend $1 million annually toward research concerning the origin of life. "My expectation," said Liu, "is that we will be able to reduce this to a very simple series of logical events that could have taken place with no divine intervention."

Liu's statement is a tacit admission that Darwinists (used loosely here to include all scientific materialists) have yet to demonstrate the origin of life but nevertheless still fervently hold to their rigid presupposition that only a natural explanation is conceivable. That life began without intelligent causes is thus dutifully accepted without question and merely awaits the inevitable confirming evidence.

So held to their own standards, isn't the Darwinists' presupposition that life began without design unscientific? At the very least it requires as much faith as ID could conceivably require. Darwinists haven't even been able to prove, through empirical testing or otherwise, the evolution of existing species to others by Darwinian mechanisms.

I realize that not all scientists reject the idea of an intelligent creator. Nor am I saying that microevolution and ID are mutually exclusive theories. Natural selection, to a point, is entirely compatible with ID -- and with Biblical creationism, for that matter. It is the Darwinists' unsubstantiated leap that all forms of life began apart from intelligent causes that is incompatible, obviously, with ID.

It is neither ID proponents nor Christians who have created an artificial divide between science and faith but dyed-in-the-wool Darwinists. Many of them -- not all -- have chosen to define science in such a way that excludes the supernatural.

So why not allow ID to be taught in public schools or simply permit the fallacies of Darwinism to be exposed? As the brilliant biologist Jonathan Wells demonstrated in his Icons of Evolution, much of the evidence Darwinists have offered has been exaggerated, distorted or even faked, including certain basic “facts” routinely included in biology textbooks. Does such "science" qualify as science?

I repeat: Why can't we have an open inquiry?


7 posted on 08/24/2005 11:05:28 AM PDT by Diddle E. Squat (This has been a Fox Milk Carton Channel Alert)
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To: concerned about politics
They have open minds and a larger view of the universe than just "Man God and the big, round rock he dwells on."

Don't forget the Flying Spaghetti Monster (praise his name and pass the marinara). Once you've been Touched by His Noodly Appendage, you'll have a new appreciation for the supernatural.

8 posted on 08/24/2005 11:10:20 AM PDT by cryptical
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To: Diddle E. Squat

Jonathan Wells the Moonie.


9 posted on 08/24/2005 11:11:19 AM PDT by From many - one.
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To: Vaquero; VadeRetro; Junior; longshadow; RadioAstronomer; Doctor Stochastic; js1138; Shryke; ...
Thanks for the ping. I hate to see good people getting lost in the wilderness like this, but it happens.

Guys, should I ping the list for this mess?

10 posted on 08/24/2005 11:11:25 AM PDT by PatrickHenry (Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. The List-O-Links is at my homepage.)
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To: thompsonsjkc; odoso; animoveritas; DaveTesla; mercygrace; Laissez-faire capitalist; ...

Moral Absolutes Ping.

Going against my self-imposed moratorium on evolution/ID articles, here is one by David Limbaugh. I really like it - simple, to the point, makes some valid points - how can anyone disagree?


(LOL. Of course, those who cling blindly to materialistic science will disagree to their dying breath, no matter what evidence is presented. But this article is for you, not them.)

Freepmail me if you want on/off this pinglist.


11 posted on 08/24/2005 11:13:31 AM PDT by little jeremiah (A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, are incompatible with freedom. P. Henry)
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To: cryptical

Deserves a link:

Address:http://www.venganza.org/


12 posted on 08/24/2005 11:15:15 AM PDT by From many - one.
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To: joyspring777

There's an interesting conjuction of these two lines of thought in mitochondrial DNA research that makes a strong argument that all humans came from a single woman in Africa several milliuon years ago. Sort of Eve of Genesis meets Watson and Crick. I.D. and evolution are not mutually exclusive ideas.


13 posted on 08/24/2005 11:19:30 AM PDT by JeeperFreeper
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To: cryptical
Don't forget the Flying Spaghetti Monster (praise his name and pass the marinara). Once you've been Touched by His Noodly Appendage, you'll have a new appreciation for the supernatural.

Your comment explains exactly why I support ID.
There must be so much truth in it, those who believe otherwise are overly rabid and demanding others believe as they do - by law! They're hell bent (literally) on silencing anyone who speaks out against their "Self God" or their "Darwin theology."
The reaction has been astonishing, and "The demons always screech the loudest when they're being cast out".
Atheists FEAR the issue of God. They're TERRIFIED by it. Why is that? Why do they lash out at those who believe in a higher power than man? Why do they demand others bow down to THEIR Gods without question?

14 posted on 08/24/2005 11:19:59 AM PDT by concerned about politics ("Get thee behind me, Liberal.")
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To: concerned about politics

Yes - the so-called scientists seem to use a lot of hoo-doo while accusing those who disagree with them of spewing hoo-doo. They are right and the rest of us are wrong because . . . well just because...


15 posted on 08/24/2005 11:26:18 AM PDT by trebb ("I am the way... no one comes to the Father, but by me..." - Jesus in John 14:6 (RSV))
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To: concerned about politics

Because their god can be recreated in a laboratory, which means that it is accountable to them and not they accountable to it.

A "user-friendly" and non threatening deity that requires nothing from them.


16 posted on 08/24/2005 11:29:22 AM PDT by L,TOWM (Liberals, The Other White Meat [Quicquid peius optimo nefas])
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To: concerned about politics
Your comment explains exactly why I support ID. There must be so much truth in it, those who believe otherwise are overly rabid and demanding others believe as they do - by law! They're hell bent (literally) on silencing anyone who speaks out against their "Self God" or their "Darwin theology."

The reaction has been astonishing, and "The demons always screech the loudest when they're being cast out".

Atheists FEAR the issue of God. They're TERRIFIED by it. Why is that? Why do they lash out at those who believe in a higher power than man? Why do they demand others bow down to THEIR Gods without question?


Terrified? More like disgusted. The bottom line is that you (CS/IDers) want to teach your religion in science classes--mandated by law of course.

Keep out of the science classes and there is no problem. But no, CS/ID has been developed to sneak religion in. ID even has to deny their designer is the Hebrew god, which everyone knows it is. The whole thing is based on a lie--denying the religions connection and trying to sneak it in.

That's why I post my stories:

Hopi Creation Story

Way back in time all men emerged from a single hole in the earth. There was a mockingbird there at the entrance to the hole. He gave each a name and a language. To one he would say, "You shall be a Hopi and speak that tongue." To another, "You shall be an Apache and speak that language." And so it went for all who came from the hole, including the White People. The earth was still covered in darkness in those days so the peoples came together and decided to change things. They made the sun and the moon and placed them in the sky. With light and warmth things got easier for the people so the chiefs of all the races and tribes got together and decided to break up and go to different places. They decided to go eastward to where the sun rises and that whoever got there first was to cause a shower of stars to fall from the sky, and then everyone would see this and stop where they were. The Whites, always impatient, soon grew tired. Their women rubbed flakes of skin from their bodies and molded them into horses. Thus, mounted on these speedy animals, the Whites were first to arrive in the east. Thereupon a shower of stars fell to the ground and all remained where they were at the time.



17 posted on 08/24/2005 11:29:30 AM PDT by Coyoteman (Is this a good tagline?)
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To: little jeremiah
how can anyone disagree?

LOL! Around here? You could make the statement that light is brighter than darkness and someone would take the opposing side!

Good Article - Thanks for the ping.

GE
18 posted on 08/24/2005 11:30:03 AM PDT by GrandEagle
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To: Coyoteman
want to teach your religion in science classes

It is YOUR religion that can't stand the competition.
19 posted on 08/24/2005 11:31:42 AM PDT by GrandEagle
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To: GrandEagle

I meant any SANE person.

Heheheh.


20 posted on 08/24/2005 11:34:27 AM PDT by little jeremiah (A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, are incompatible with freedom. P. Henry)
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