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

MSNBC ^ | 23 Sept 2005 | Ker Than

[FastCoyote]

"Not only is it not correct, it has nothing to do with ID."

The Oracle at Delphi speaks. I guess I better bow down to your in depth analysis.

[little jeremiah]

Just checking in to FR this morning - this is as good a place as any to put a link to Hitler's Library, an excellent article about Hitler's personal philosophy:

Hitler's Forgotten Library: The Man, His Books, and His Search for God
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/895696/posts

It's a fascinating read. And if anyone ever says that Hitler was a Christian, this puts a stake in that arguement.

(wasn't it recently that we both brought up this article? Dang memory!)

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"The Oracle at Delphi speaks. I guess I better bow down to your in depth analysis. "

I'll take that as a tacit confession you couldn't show how your first proposition about atheist scientists has anything to do with ID.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

I never said he was a Christian. I said he was a Creationist.
He wasn't an evolutionist.

[little jeremiah]

Very interesting article. I didn't read the whole thing (it'd take me a good long while) but checked out his conclusion, and bookmarked it.

[little jeremiah]

Just making the record clear. If you're interested in Hitler's ideology, read that article. It's highly interesting.

[little jeremiah]

Thank you - I like reading comments written by my intellectual superiors!

Not kidding.

(Looks like you used the list on my profile page - I better update it!!!)

[Mrs. Don-o]

You wrote: "Please show me one piece of non-biblical evidence supporting ID.

This question implies that there is Biblical evidence supporting ID (ID as a specific hypothesis advanced by such scientists as Michael Behe and William Dembski.) That's dubious.

A far as I can see, ID isn't Biblical.

It seems (somebody correct me if I'm wrong!) that ID postulates that whenever you run into apparent irreducible complexity in organelles (like cilia) or new complex specified information (CSI) in a genome, it could not have arisen from pure mutation-selection processes. That would mean that the Designer must have nudged the process along, which produces a picture of God continuously intervening to get the results He wants from a system which was not set up well enough to guarantee them from the git-go.

By way of contrast, the Genesis account says that after the 6th Day, God was finished with the creation project. Finished! He pronounced it all "Very Good," and He rested. From then on, all innovations flowed from the "secondary causes" He set in place.

One needn't embrace a literal 6-day-creation account --- as the Catholic Church doesn't --- to see the significance of this. The spiritual truth here seems to be that creation "from nothing" isn't going on anymore.

I remember the late (Catholic) Bishop Austin Vaughn, a keenly intelligent as well as an honest and uprght man, saying thaat God hadn't intervened and created anything in the Universe ex nihilo since Genesis--- and even there, He employed secondary causes ("Let the waters bring forth.." "Let the earth bring forth...")--the single exception being human souls, which are spirits and do not evolve from matter.

IIRC, he stated that, not as his opinion, but as Catholic doctrine.

I am sure my view of this is incomplete. Anybody want to fill me in?

[gobucks]

I very rarely see the forensic science angle brought up on these threads. Can't for the life of me understand why ... :)

[eagle11]

ID/Creationism and Liberalism have alot in common:

....both are based on sentimental "feel good" ideas that cannot be objectively analyzed, and both - by not deflecting the need for rational and objective tests - manage to appear acceptable to a dumb-downed public, which favors emotional knee-jerk policies to those based on reason (read conservative).

....when supporters of ID/Creationism label those who accept evolution as communists, they are immitating those on the Left who label conservatives as racist and bigoted, because they fear rational debate. It seems more and more that the Creationist/ID crowd and the Cindy Sheehan leftists are part of the same club - and they have no respect for our intelligence and they both seem to fear free thinking and debate.

....the Creationists on the right, like their counterparts in the left's environmental movement are trying to pass sentimentally-charged beliefs as true science. And neither of these camps are fooling the truly educated among us.

BTW, my cellular phone is based soundly on quantum theory, the same model that reveals an Earth, solar system and universe billions of years old...anyone who thinks ID is the "death of science" doesn't understand science, that viewpoint was probably stated by an ID/Creationism supporter.

....this debate just gets more and more hysterical....

[Heartlander]

Wow… Hitler was a creationist and was not a Christian? That’s a pretty broad brush you’ve used to paint that picture. In fact, what would happen it we used that same brush on Neo-darwinism?

[Critical Bill]

Everyday I also am amazed at the amount of info available ( and speed of collection).

I sort of feel sorry for Encyclopedia salesmen.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"Wow… Hitler was a creationist and was not a Christian? "

Most likely not Christian; his views certainly wouldn't have been consistent with any mainline Christian denomination. That's why I said he was a Creationist, but not a Christian.

"That’s a pretty broad brush you’ve used to paint that picture. "

No, it isn't. He believed that the world was created by a God, and that the Aryan race was that God's most perfect special creation. That makes him a Creationist. I am sorry you don't know that there are all sorts of different creationists; Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and so on. People have called Hitler a pagan; if that is true then he was a pagan Creationist. That is why I was very careful in saying that Hitler's Creationism was not Christian Creationism. I was countering the claim he was an evolutionist. He wasn't.

"In fact, what would happen it we used that same brush on Neo-darwinism?"

Creationists call evolutionists Nazis all the time, why would this be anything new?

[Heartlander]

So, if anyone believes that life and human intelligence was created by anything other than purely mindless natural causes – they are a creationist?
Hmmm…