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Science Fiction (Leftists worry IDers are using Leftist tactics to win 'Intelligent Design fight)
TNR ^ | September 9, 2005 | Noam Scheiber

Posted on 09/19/2005 6:01:22 PM PDT by gobucks

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To: gobucks

Aha! Great article. I've been thinking that a lot myself, that postmodernism and creationism/stealth creationism are secret friends.


41 posted on 09/19/2005 8:00:29 PM PDT by Vive ut Vivas
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To: Doctor Stochastic

Hear! Hear! Note well the NYT impish coverage of Intelligent Design. For some time now their science articles, particularly about cosmology, have always gotten in little digs, at least.


42 posted on 09/19/2005 8:00:53 PM PDT by dr_lew
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To: Rudder
You apparently have not read any creationist literature...it does exist. Recommend you do a little research.

BTW - Peer review is not all there is to science...particularly when creationist research is rejected a priori.

43 posted on 09/19/2005 8:00:53 PM PDT by LiteKeeper (The radical secularization of America is happening)
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To: LiteKeeper
You apparently have not read any creationist literature...

A presumptive error on your part.

44 posted on 09/19/2005 8:04:56 PM PDT by Rudder
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To: fizziwig
Intelligent Design, i.e. God

Whoops! You weren't supposed to reveal that to anyone below Invoking Deity Level VIII

45 posted on 09/19/2005 8:20:35 PM PDT by Oztrich Boy (September 20 - 135th anniversary of the liberation of Rome)
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To: Rudder
Then you have not read the literature I have read. There is an abundance of good scientific literature favorable to the creationist position.

You might want to Google "RATE team" (Radioisotope and the Age of The Earth) for starters.

You might also want to do a little reading on Information Theory...and the source of information in living things...and how evolution explains the same.

46 posted on 09/19/2005 8:32:11 PM PDT by LiteKeeper (The radical secularization of America is happening)
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To: LiteKeeper
I've read what you mentioned. It's bogus and, at best, pseudoscience. The same goes for the use of infomation theory as it is applied (incorrectly) to ToE and or ID. I've done a fair share of radioscintillation and am familiar with the decay rates of several isotopes.

Bottom line: Do you believe human beings were here before 10,000 years ago? Do you have data supporting that contention?

47 posted on 09/19/2005 8:49:21 PM PDT by Rudder
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To: gobucks
ID folks in my experience (and I'm not really a hard core ID type myself) do indeed strictly adhere to accepted scientific practices, and approach the problems of 'how' differently than do the scientists which presuppose a philosophic faith position they refuse to discuss: that 'natural' forces are the 'exclusive' cause of what we observe.

Limiting scientific inquiry to natural forces has nothing to do with faith. Scientists only look for natural causes because they do not know of any way to detect supernatural ones.

And that's exactly why ID adherants do not adhere to "accepted scientific practices."

"Accepted scientific practice" dictates that the investigator limit himself to theories and causes that are detectable. For instance, evolution postualtes that biological diversity is caused by genetic mutation and natural selection. Both of these phenomena are easily detectable.

Intelligent design theorists, however, fail to say how their designer or his work can be detected. It is therefore not science.

ID gives the illusion of being science by attempting to use empirical data to falsify Darwinism. Their attempt fails, but even if it did not, it would not make ID theory science.

To make your theory scientific, you have to do more than just knock down an existing theory. Just because the theory you're knocking is false does not make your theory true. You have to come up with independent evidence that supports your theory.

And that's what ID "theorists" fail to do. They point to something, like a Bacterial Flagellum, assert (wrongly) that it could not have evolved in a Darwinian fashion, and then conclude it was designed. But their conclusion does not follow even if their assertion were correct. After all, it's easy to come up with dozens of potental other untestable naturalistic explanations. How do they know their explanation is better than any of these other ones? Unless there is some positive evidence that it was designed, then the design explanation is no better than any other explanation I can pull out of my rear end.

48 posted on 09/19/2005 9:28:01 PM PDT by curiosity
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To: fizziwig
Huh? Are you saying that those that believe in Intelligent Design, i.e. God, are all liberals?

By mentioning God you just proved my point. I guess you didn't read the Discovery Institutes's memo on not to mention the G word.

It's not a coincidence that all IDers just happen to be Fundamentalist Christians or Moonies. ID is just a backdoor way to get creationism back into the schools. So you're not fooling anyone when you claim ID is different from creationism.

Or are you saying that those that believe that a fair assessement of evolution should include its many flaws are all liberals?

No, however I've yet to hear a fair assessment of the flaws in Evolution from the Creationist (which yes includes the IDers). All you get is one of the following.

1) Argument from ignorance (i.e. Why are there still monkeys, etc)

2) Flat out Lies (i.e. quote mining, sound bytes over substance - Evolution violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics,)

3) Hate filled rants (i.e. Darwin is responsible for Hitler, Stalin, the Designator Hitter rule, etc)

49 posted on 09/19/2005 9:30:54 PM PDT by qam1 (There's been a huge party. All plates and the bottles are empty, all that's left is the bill to pay)
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To: PatrickHenry

Thanks for the ping!


50 posted on 09/19/2005 9:41:48 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: LiteKeeper
You might want to Google "RATE team" (Radioisotope and the Age of The Earth) for starters.

OK google "RATE team"

What do I do next?

51 posted on 09/19/2005 10:02:06 PM PDT by Oztrich Boy (September 20 - 135th anniversary of the liberation of Rome)
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To: fizziwig
Yes an assertion does need to be backed up with evidence and or logical reasoning. ID does quite well with that. Again, read Johnson's book.

Johnson is not a scientist.

In addition, he fails to propose any empirical test of ID. Nor has anyone else proposed any test for it. The only thing ID people have attempted to do is find evidence against Darwinism. But evidence against Darwinism, even if valid (and the evidence they have presented isn't), is not evidence for ID.

They argue ID as a default position, and that is fundamentally unscientific.

52 posted on 09/19/2005 10:28:29 PM PDT by curiosity
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To: gobucks
I love it! Gobucks, you have no idea how thoroughly this article discredits the creationist cause - by pointing out how your epistemological roots are hopelessly intertwined with leftist postmodernist nihilism. And yet you somehow think this vindicates creationism!

LOLOLOLOL! Ah, this truly makes my day.

53 posted on 09/19/2005 10:40:13 PM PDT by jennyp (WHAT I'M READING NOW: Seeing What's Next by Christensen, et.al.)
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To: goldstategop
The Left's rejection of truth and moral absolutes have left them with no leg to stand on. All they can say about Intelligent Design is they think its premises contradict science. But post-modern epistemology says truth is relative and that its culturally bound. So it doesn't matter what people believe in because every person has to figure that out for themselves. There are rational arguments to make against ID but the Left won't make them for then they'd have to give their post-modernist dogma. And they show no signs of doing so.

I don't know if the author is a leftist or not, but I think you missed an essential aspect of this article: The article assumes that postmodernist epistemology is a bad thing.

54 posted on 09/19/2005 10:46:07 PM PDT by jennyp (WHAT I'M READING NOW: Seeing What's Next by Christensen, et.al.)
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To: curiosity

"They argue ID as a default position, and that is fundamentally unscientific."

And Evo argues "chance" as a default position.

No Johnson is not a scientist, but his book is well documented. uses sound logic and reasoning, and pretty much throws a monkey wrench into Darwinsism....so to speak. But, I don't expect any of the evo devo..tees to ever read it. Oh well...

I was an evo devo up till I read his book a few months aga. I was devastated by it. Being a geologist by training I was given the standard line about evo in college and I bought it hook line and sinker. It still may be a valid theory but it is seriously flawed, as Johnson so eloquently points out.

Also, Johnson doesn't argue for ID in the book, it is moslty just a critique on Darwinism, and quite well done.

I don't ask that ID be taught in schools, I ask that Darwinsim be treated like any other theory and be open to criticism. Instead it has become scientific dogma and held as the absolute truth when in fact, it is simply a theory and a weak one at that.


55 posted on 09/19/2005 10:47:26 PM PDT by fizziwig
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To: PatrickHenry
"..Evolution is a law (with several components) that is as well substantiated as any other natural law, whether the law of gravity, the laws of motion or Avogadro's law. Evolution is a fact, disputed only by those who choose to ignore the evidence, put their common sense on hold and believe instead that unchanging knowledge and wisdom can be reached only by revelation." James D. Watson Nobel laureate and discoverer of the DNA Molecule Its a shame we need to kowtow to some so-called christians for their voting block. There are plenty of Christians who believe in God/Christ, but not in Santa Claus
56 posted on 09/20/2005 3:41:08 AM PDT by Vaquero ("From my dead cold hands")
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To: fizziwig
And Evo argues "chance" as a default position.

No, no it doesn't. If you'd actually studied evolution -- the real science, not the strawman characterization presented by creationist shills -- you would understand this.

No Johnson is not a scientist, but his book is well documented. uses sound logic and reasoning, and pretty much throws a monkey wrench into Darwinsism....so to speak.

But if he doesn't understand the underlying science -- and there's every indication that he doesn't -- then his arguments are based upon faulty premises and, as such, have no validity.

But, I don't expect any of the evo devo..tees to ever read it. Oh well...

Many of us have read it. That's how we know that it's a load of garbage. But, of course, creationists ignore facts not convenient for them.

I don't ask that ID be taught in schools, I ask that Darwinsim be treated like any other theory and be open to criticism.

It is, in the same way that we hold gravity theory, atomic theory and electromagnetic theory to "criticism". Unfortunately, many of the "criticism" layed against it is founded upon faulty premises and a poor grasp of science.
57 posted on 09/20/2005 3:58:07 AM PDT by Dimensio (http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif <-- required reading before you use your next apostrophe!)
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To: Doctor Stochastic
Both creationism and creationism-lite are essentially equivalent to postmoderndeconstructionism.

If you were looking for a tagline a bit more comprehensible than the one you currently use, I suggest your own words, quoted above.

58 posted on 09/20/2005 4:42:42 AM PDT by PatrickHenry (Disclaimer -- this information may be legally false in Kansas.)
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To: jennyp
I love it! Gobucks, you have no idea how thoroughly this article discredits the creationist cause - by pointing out how your epistemological roots are hopelessly intertwined with leftist postmodernist nihilism. And yet you somehow think this vindicates creationism! LOLOLOLOL! Ah, this truly makes my day.

Such were my own thoughts when I came upon this thread. Normally I would have refrained from pinging the list to a gobucks-initiated thread, as the others I've seen are of no scientific value. But when I read this article, I swiftly deployed the ping list -- with a song in my heart! The author nails it!

59 posted on 09/20/2005 4:52:38 AM PDT by PatrickHenry (Disclaimer -- this information may be legally false in Kansas.)
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To: PatrickHenry; gobucks; jennyp; curiosity
From the article: "Conservatives were quick to point out the danger of this view [relativism] in the '80s and '90s. They argued that a science that rejected the idea of truth was vulnerable to the most inane forms of intellectual hucksterism. And they were right.

Whoa, reality check, please! New Republic is actually admitting that we were right about the perils of ding-bat relativism?

Has New Republic really published an intelligent article with which I find myself, in large measure, in accord?

And has gobucks actually posted said article, which makes the same compelling case I've argued--that ID is appalling chicanery, using liberal 'special pleading' to assault science and education, and thereby does great damage to genuine conservative issues?

Will you people please stop messing with my mind like this!

...Hey, hang on just a minute here...

...Am I on Candid Camera?

60 posted on 09/20/2005 5:17:21 AM PDT by SeaLion ("Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man" -- Thomas Paine)
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