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Show Me the Science [Critique of Intelligent Design, by Daniel Dennett
New York Times ^ | August 28, 2005 | Daniel C. Dennett

Posted on 08/28/2005 2:14:36 PM PDT by AZLiberty

...

Is "intelligent design" a legitimate school of scientific thought? Is there something to it, or have these people been taken in by one of the most ingenious hoaxes in the history of science? Wouldn't such a hoax be impossible? No. Here's how it has been done.

...

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


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Philosophy; Technical
KEYWORDS: allcrevoallthetime; crevolist; crevorepublic; enoughalready; evolution; id; intelligentdesign; science; secularworry; walltowallcrevo; youmadeyourpointojay
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Intelligent Design is not science. Dennett explains why.
1 posted on 08/28/2005 2:14:38 PM PDT by AZLiberty
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To: AZLiberty

Why can't ID be scientific.

Science requires cause and effect- independent and dependent variables.

Its quite enought for me to have the ID'er be the first mover of things from nothingness - and then let Darwin explain the rest.


2 posted on 08/28/2005 2:25:22 PM PDT by spanalot
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To: AZLiberty
This author, with the political approval of the editors of the Times, writes an article that freely references Albert Einstein in its opening paragraphs, but only with respect to his breath-taking work on his General Theory of Relativity.

"Hoax," the man cries. His very work here is a hoax. Either he is bone dumb about Einstein's career, or he knows that Einstein believed the precision and majesty of the universe showed that there was a "prime mover." No, Einstein did not believe in or adhere to any organized religion or stated creed. But he did believe in what is now called "intelligent design."

Dennett is perpetrating a hoax not to mention this fact, that the greatest scientist who has yet lived, believed in intelligent design.

Congressman Billybob

Latest column: "NY Post: Better a Bad Story than None as All (Able Danger)"

3 posted on 08/28/2005 2:25:42 PM PDT by Congressman Billybob (I'm on the road, now. Contact me at John_Armor@aya.edu.net.)
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To: AZLiberty

I disagree. Reading more of both Darwinism and ID helps
keep the mind open. Scientific endeavors in the past 50
years have opened up all kinds of knowledge that EVERYONE
should feel free to explore. Closed minds learn nothing...


4 posted on 08/28/2005 2:27:00 PM PDT by DCMB (Bless GWB and all our troops)
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To: AZLiberty
Here is the explanation in this smarmy "article" for the development of the eye.

We can't yet say what all the details of this process were, but real eyes representative of all the intermediate stages can be found, dotted around the animal kingdom, and we have detailed computer models to demonstrate that the creative process works just as the theory says. All it takes is a rare accident that gives one lucky animal a mutation that improves its vision over that of its siblings; if this helps it have more offspring than its rivals, this gives evolution an opportunity to raise the bar and ratchet up the design of the eye by one mindless step. And since these lucky improvements accumulate - this was Darwin's insight - eyes can automatically get better and better and better, without any intelligent designer

LOL! They have no hard evidence that eye designs have evolved at all. Each of these creatures' eyes were designed by God. Because there are various creatures with differing eye designs they suppose that human eyes evolved. This is sheer speculation and is not science.

5 posted on 08/28/2005 2:27:01 PM PDT by plain talk
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To: Congressman Billybob
But he did believe in what is now called "intelligent design."

No he didn't.

6 posted on 08/28/2005 2:29:31 PM PDT by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
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To: DCMB
Closed minds learn nothing...

But belief really gets in the way of learning!

7 posted on 08/28/2005 2:33:50 PM PDT by Coyoteman (Is this a good tagline?)
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To: AZLiberty

We're citing the NY Times now as an authoritative source?

My question is: why, when the NY Times is recognizably biased on so many of the topics discussed here on FR, wouldn't you recognize their bias on this topic?


8 posted on 08/28/2005 2:35:59 PM PDT by News Junkie
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To: AZLiberty

We're citing the NY Times now as an authoritative source?

My question is: why, when the NY Times is recognizably biased on so many of the topics discussed here on FR, wouldn't you recognize their bias on this topic?


9 posted on 08/28/2005 2:36:51 PM PDT by News Junkie
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To: Congressman Billybob
But he did believe in what is now called "intelligent design."

Dennett is perpetrating a hoax not to mention this fact, that the greatest scientist who has yet lived, believed in intelligent design.

Once again, we hear the opinion of someone who knows precisely zero about science comment about how real scientists think.

Nice try.

But the simple fact is that Einstein never would believe in "Intelligent Design", any more than he would believe in ID's intellectual equivalents of astrology or alchemy.

10 posted on 08/28/2005 2:45:15 PM PDT by 2ndreconmarine
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To: PatrickHenry
A designed ping.
11 posted on 08/28/2005 2:45:41 PM PDT by Gumlegs
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To: DCMB
years have opened up all kinds of knowledge that EVERYONE should feel free to explore. Closed minds learn nothing...

Following your inestimable line of reasoning, then, we should all "open" our minds to astrology, wiccan, palmistry, and tarot card reading.

12 posted on 08/28/2005 2:47:01 PM PDT by 2ndreconmarine
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To: js1138
No, you are wrong. One click on Google produced these two quotes from Einstein:

"A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestation of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this sense alone, I am a deeply religious man."

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."

Einstein wrote a 60-page pamphlet on this subject, published in his book of essays. He was a deist, or pantheist if you choose, in the same sense as Thomas Paine, who is also (wrongfully) claimed as an atheist by those who don't do their homework.

John / Billybob

13 posted on 08/28/2005 2:48:40 PM PDT by Congressman Billybob (I'm on the road, now. Contact me at John_Armor@aya.edu.net.)
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To: 2ndreconmarine
I'm curious why you assume I know "precisely zero" about the scientific process. I was an advanced placement physics student before I turned to the dark side and switched to liberal arts.

I had another dose of the scientific method in the Ph.D. program at American University, 35 years later.

I still recall the class at Yale in which Professor Berringer used the entire hour to solve a series of third-order differential equations to result in the conclusion that E=mc2. It was a neat piece of math. And yes, I do know a bit about the scientific method. LOL.

John / Billybob

14 posted on 08/28/2005 2:54:45 PM PDT by Congressman Billybob (I'm on the road, now. Contact me at John_Armor@aya.edu.net.)
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To: Congressman Billybob
These quotes do not support in any way the assertion that Einstein would support Intelligent Design, a political movement which exists solely to cast doubt on evolution.

Einstein doubted the indeterminacy of quantum theory, and he was wrong.
15 posted on 08/28/2005 2:55:39 PM PDT by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
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To: VadeRetro; Junior; longshadow; RadioAstronomer; Doctor Stochastic; js1138; Shryke; RightWhale; ...
Darwin Central's Sunday Edition, part three:
EvolutionPing
A pro-evolution science list with over 300 names.
See the list's explanation at my freeper homepage.
Then FReepmail to be added or dropped.

16 posted on 08/28/2005 2:56:29 PM PDT by PatrickHenry (Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. The List-O-Links is at my homepage.)
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To: plain talk
"...Each of these creatures' eyes were designed by God. Because there are various creatures with differing eye designs they suppose that human eyes evolved. This is sheer speculation and is not science."

Actually, ID is sheer speculation and not science. At least evolution has testable hypothesies. ID does not and cannot. If anyone can give a testable hypothesis of ID, I would sure like to see it.

17 posted on 08/28/2005 3:00:49 PM PDT by DaGman
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To: AZLiberty

The New York Times has an ideological commitment to Darwin's General Theory of Evolution that has been evident for many years. They fear and hate Intelligent Design theory because they view it (wrongly) as a backdoor introduction of religion back into our public schools, and religion in the schools is something they cannot stomach, unless maybe it's playing at being good little Muslims.

This article is full of howlers, the most amusing of which has already been picked up in a previous repy: "real eyes representative of all the intermediate stages can be found, dotted around the animal kingdom." Nonsense.

Like Congressman Billybob, I also majored in science (physics at Harvard) before I decided to change to another field.

Darwin's general theory remains a hypothesis. Intelligent Design is also a hypothesis. I have no great religious stake in one system or the other. I do certainly find it persuasive, for instance, that the universe has existed and evolved over a period of billions of years, not the 6,000 years that used to be posited in literal accounts of the Bible. But I find it scientifically implausible in the extreme that life as we know it evolved in the way that Darwin posited. The statistical evidence argues to otherwise.


18 posted on 08/28/2005 3:05:24 PM PDT by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: Cicero
Nonsense.

I think we can guess why you bailed out of physics.

19 posted on 08/28/2005 3:07:39 PM PDT by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
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To: Cicero
The statistical evidence argues to otherwise.

What statistical evidence?

20 posted on 08/28/2005 3:11:42 PM PDT by bobdsmith
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