Why scientists dismiss 'intelligent design' - It would ‘become the death of science’

MSNBC ^ | 23 Sept 2005 | Ker Than

[Tax-chick]

that I try to check out even things I'm sure I remember

That is an excellent policy. I was in a rush this morning - discovered I was out of diapers!

I virtually shake your hand, and am pleased to no longer be at outs!

[Coyoteman]

The reason they say this is because of the "Earth is 6K Years Old" types out there who see scientific facts in front of their eyes (the light we see today from the Andromeda Galaxy has taken 2.3 million years to get here) and just poo-poo this fact as meaningless. THAT is the concern. When scientific facts become meaningless then science IS irrelavant. Talk to some of the 6K'ers and you would realize that this is a legit concern.

This "6K question" bothers me too. I have obtained a lot of radiocarbon dates that are older than 6,000 years, with some up to 11,0000 years. I have good evidence of human cultural activity, but no flood. Yet I am told everything I have found is wrong because "that's not what I believe." My facts and theories about those facts are dismissed.

Other scientists have a good mtDNA record of human dispersal from Africa going back some 70,000 years.

Given this type of information, why should the Young Earth theory be taught to students in public school science classes?

[Tax-chick]

A learning experience, now completed, as far as I'm concerned.

Cheers to all!

[trisham]

And handshakes all around!

[Celtjew Libertarian]

But predications after the fact don't carry much weight.

Well... yes and no... if nothing else, anomalies seem good places to go asking why? "It may have been a random event," thinks the observer. "But I wonder."

What is it that ID would look for? None of the ID advocates have been able to come up with anything.

Exactly... I think I.D. is good speculation and quite possible... But the advocates have to come up with a way of testing it to call it science.

Moving your earlier comment down:

The kinds of manipulation being done in laboratories would cause trouble if found in the wild. Pig genes in tomatoes and such.

Imagine this, though.... Civilization collapses and mankind forgets science, as a pig-gened tomato makes it into the wild.... 10,000 years from now a new civilization has rebuilt science and is trying to breed better tomatoes.

Might they notice a pig gene in a "wild" tomato? And if they did, how would they try to account for it?

[orionblamblam]

> Given this type of information, why should the Young Earth theory be taught to students in public school science classes?

Teach both sides!

[PhilipFreneau]

>>>This article is an MSM example of something I been arguing for a long time: bio-scientists are mostly willing agents of the leftist-owned communistic atheistic MSM machine.<<<

No doubt. If they were honest, with no political agenda, they would at least allow for the fact that Sir Isaac Newton was a devout Christian, as were many other famous scientists.

[Right Wing Professor]

Thanks to everyone for their civility. If only all flame wars could be defused early, like this one. Problem is, there's so much of the opposite around here, my ol' flame-thrower tends to be on a hair-trigger.

Now I'm actually going to get some work done.

[Tax-chick]

Wishing you a productive afternoon.

(Now I've misplaced the child who's supposed to be doing algebra ...)

[js1138]

This is the stuff of science fiction.

I have a little (very little) story along those lines. When I was about 10 years old my family vacationed on Sanibel Island in the Gulf of Mexico. I had just seen a movie that inspired me to put my name and address in a bottle and toss it into the Gulf.

Some months later I got a letter from a marine scientist asking where I had tossed the bottle (the address was for Jacksonville, on the opposite side of Florida).

Anomalies pop up all the time in science, and you just have to accept some noise as unexplained. I'm sure the person who found my bottle knows what vacations are, and probably shrugged it off.

But how can you test for the cause of anomalies if you don't have a history or a possible history? I don't for example, have explanations for all cases of crying statues, ESP, UFOs and such, but I trust my intuition about such things, and hold a placemarker for them in case one of them acquires better evidence.

[DannyTN]

Science should consider the hypotheses and the evidence. There are two hypotheses with regard to the origin of life and the origin of higher life forms:

1. They were designed by an intelligence.
2. They developed as a consequence of natural processes.

To not consider the first hypothesis and examine the evidence in favor of that hypothesis, limits science and reduces it to dogma.

The only reason to limit examination of the first hypothesis by science is an "apriori conviction and devotion" to the theory of natural processes. And that faith on the part of evolutionists is what doesn't belong in the science classroom.

[DannyTN]

Science should consider the hypotheses and the evidence. There are two hypotheses with regard to the origin of life and the origin of higher life forms:

1. They were designed by an intelligence.
2. They developed as a consequence of natural processes.

To not consider the first hypothesis and examine the evidence in favor of that hypothesis, limits science and reduces it to dogma.

The only reason to limit examination of the first hypothesis by science is an "apriori conviction and devotion" to the theory of natural processes. And that faith on the part of evolutionists is what doesn't belong in the science classroom.

[js1138]

You can repeat your claim as many times as you wish, but ID is not a hypothesis that can be tested by science. Why do you thing the Discovery Institute backed out of the trial?

It's because they admit they have no way of researching their claims.

[cogitator]

Thanks for your reply. I offer two articles for your perusal: To my mind, the concept of a gene here or there in the DNA sequence mutating randomly and causing very small, and almost always harmful, changes in an organism seems convincing enough and well established.

New Analyses Bolster Central Tenets of Evolution Theory (Washington Post)

But I have seen no satisfactory scientific explanation of what we see in the fossil record, which are sudden leaps by which new types of organisms appear in relatively short (from an evolutionary perspective) periods of time.

The Steps of the Puzzle

If this had occurred from the minor random genetic mutation that is well-established, it seems to me the fossil record would reveal life forms along the entire spectrum of possibilities, at every point in the spectrum.

Exactly what is seen (within the limits of fossil preservation). One of the problems with the presentation of evolution in the media and textbooks is that they only show a few "charismatic" fossils, not the whole range of what's been found.

[Celtjew Libertarian]

This is the stuff of science fiction.

Yeah, and I may have come up with my story idea for the nextNational Novel Writing Month this November.

But how can you test for the cause of anomalies if you don't have a history or a possible history?

Aye, there's the rub.

I don't for example, have explanations for all cases of crying statues, ESP, UFOs and such, but I trust my intuition about such things, and hold a placemarker for them in case one of them acquires better evidence.

Pretty much the same.... Thing is, it bugs me as much, when scientists take a "It's not science, therefore, it doesn't exist," attitude, as when people try to add their religion to science.

I'll am interested in similarities and points of agreement between science and various mysticisms.... But I admit that's philosophy.

[little jeremiah]

Moral Absolutes Ping.

Unfortunately I've run out of my alloted time on FR this AM... so I can't read the comments on the thread or the rest of the article. But the few comments I did manage to read look very interesing.

It's obvious to a simpleton like me the belief in evolution is a substitute for belief in God, and that is why evo-fundies get outraged and vicious at the mere suggestion that there may a flaw or two in neo-Darwinism, and why any scientist of any kind who brings up any criticism is immediately labeled as a crank, whacko, stupid or even as Richard Dawkins pronounced, "wicked".

Evolution believers will brook no hint of apostacy from the populace.

Freepmail me if you want on/off this pinglist.

[Celtjew Libertarian]

There are two hypotheses with regard to the origin of life and the origin of higher life forms:

1. They were designed by an intelligence.
2. They developed as a consequence of natural processes.

Not to mention:

3. They developed as a consequence of an intelligently designed process.
4. Some combination of 1., 2., 3.

[Sam Cree]

"It's obvious to a simpleton like me the belief in evolution is a substitute for belief in God..."

Although I think it fair to say that there are many "evos" who are believers in God and Christians.

[js1138]

This is very simple. the Discovery Institute is right about one thing. ID needs to have some science before it claims to be science. It's interesting that all the so-called holes in evolution theory are the result of the normal workings of mainstream science. Pride and ambition insure that every crevice will be explored. The best prizes in science are reserved for people who overturn old ideas.

[Join Or Die]

How is it a factual error?

I can have faith in anything I want, just because I believe it to be true wholeheartedly doesn't necissarily mean it's true.

Do not confuse faith with fact. Faith MAY be fact, but by it's very nature you can't prove one way or the other, that's why it's faith.