[posey2004]

I.D. is not science, as it can't be tested.

It's a 'faith' that something created this process.

It shouldn't be taught in school alongside science.

[mlc9852]

Doesn't really matter where it is taught - most people don't believe in evolution and never will.

[gobucks]

"It shouldn't be taught in school alongside science."

This presumes science has proved, emperically, that someone can actually 'know' something. I'm sorry, but that proof doesn't exist.

Which means that science is itself is based upon a simple faith statement: we have to believe that when scientists say something is true, we know it is true.

Your words are perfect by the way: "It's a faith...".

[SirJohnBarleycorn]

I.D. is not science, as it can't be tested.

What should be taught along with evolutionary theory are the scientifically-based criticisms of Darwin's theory, and they certainly exist.

The claim that allowing science-based criticism of Darwinism is "the end of science" is MSM eyewash to fool the gullible.

Darwinists remind me of those classical physicists who, when relativity theory was introduced, simply dismissed it, unwilling to even debate the evidence or the theory.

Or those relativity theorists like Einstein himself who, when quantum mechanics was introduced, dismissed it with his famous saying, "God doesn't play dice with the universe."

There have been so many orthodoxies of science in the past that have turned out to be incorrect or incomplete and their many adherents went down with the ship, clinging to their wrong theories to very last.

I predict that 50 years from now Darwinism will be one of those orthodoxies.

[M203M4]

My faith tells me why God created us.

The study of His creation reveals how (and right now, evolution through natural selection empirically explains it best).

I find agreement with Lamoureux on this (warning: long read - there is also a related audio lecture).

[RobbyS]

What is taught in school is not really scientific theory but evolution as a premise. You need to understand that the majority of kids in a typical class cannot handle theory. They are very impatient with ideas. The joke is a students looks bored and asks:" Is it going to be on the test?" The joke is close to the truth. Look at the average high school biology textbook. It never goes beyond simple assertion because most kids will not demand more than that.

[Mulch]

How can evolution be tested?

[Psycho_Bunny]

I don't have a dog in this fight but, because we don't know how to yet test something, doesn't render it untestable.

[Ready2go]

I.D. is not science, as it can't be tested.

It's a 'faith' that something created this process.

It shouldn't be taught in school alongside science.

---

Howdy there posey2004;

We have millions of eye witness accounts that there's something beyond what we see all around us right now...when this life is over.

That we still exist after we die! And we shouldn't be surprised at this because God told us all about our "new bodies" in the Bible.

But how will anyone know if we can't tell them?

Question: Do Near Death Experiences prove life continues after death?

Answer: Yes. The proof is simple and straightforward. The individual having the experience dies and then comes back to life. When he comes back to life he has information that was not available to him before he died.

The only way this information could be in his possession is that he was alive after his physical death. It is true that not all NDEs produce this kind of information, but hundreds do. FAQ number 5 is an example of this.

Skeptics have no explanation for this so they usually argue that the patient was really semi-conscious at the time. This argument fails because the semi-consciousness state would have to go undetected by an array of the most modern monitoring equipment known to man, as well as a number of doctors and other trained personnel.

In FAQ number 5, even if such a semi-consciousness existed (which it didn't), that would not explain the patient's ability to describe the physical features of the doctors and personnel present while he was dead.

Another, even weaker argument, is that human error was involved and the patient somehow obtain this information without the knowledge of the doctors and staff. This might have merit in one or two instances, but there are hundreds of accounts with this kind of information. It would not be possible that they all were human error.

A strong yes, the Near Death Experiences do prove that life exists after death.

http://www.aleroy.com/FAQz12.htm

Wednesday January 09 08:26 AM EST

Scientists Validate Near-Death Experiences By ABCNEWS.com

Scientists validate "near-death" experiences.

When a car plowed into the vehicle in which she was riding, Leslie's chest was crushed, eight bones were broken and her heart stopped beating for three minutes. Before she was revived, she says she glimpsed the afterlife.

"My next experience was really lying on the ground outside of the car, and it was actually an out-of-body experience that I had," says Leslie, who declined to give her last name. "I was actually floating above my body, and I looked down, and I saw all these men working on this poor girl who was down below, about eight feet below me, and she was struggling."

An estimated 7 million people have reported hauntingly similar "near-death" experiences. And a new study in the British medical journal Lancet gives credence to such accounts, concluding they are valid.

Scientists Study Near-Death Experiences

ABCNEWS' Medical Editor Dr. Tim Johnson says this study lends more credibility to the possibility that these near-death accounts are accurate because the researchers conducted the interviews soon after the experiences occurred. The study does not provide a way to scientifically measure whether or not there is life after death, however.

The study reported in Lancet looked at 344 patients in the Netherlands who were successfully resuscitated after suffering cardiac arrest in 10 Dutch hospitals.

Rather than using data from people reporting past near-death experiences, researchers talked to patients within a week after they had suffered clinical deaths and been resuscitated. (Clinical death was defined as a period of unconsciousness caused by insufficient blood supply to the brain.)

About 18 percent of the patients in the study reported being able to recall some portion of what happened when they were clinically dead; and 8 to 12 percent reported going through "near-death" experiences, such as seeing lights at the end of tunnels, or being able to speak to dead relatives or friends. Most had excellent recall of the events, which undermines the theory that the memories are false, the study said.

"We don't even begin to have the tools to debate the subject on a rational scientific basis," Johnson told Good Morning America. "I don't think our belief in afterlife is defined on a cause of the brain." Johnson, who serves as assisting minister of the Community Covenant Church in West Peabody, Mass., said belief in the afterlife remains primarily a matter of personal faith.

Brain Down, Consciousness On?

Lead researcher Pim van Lommel of the Hospital Rijnstate in the Netherlands said the study suggests that researchers investigating consciousness should not look in the cells and molecules alone.

Even when the brain is not showing signs of electrical activity, it is possible that a person can still be conscious, he said. In other words, people can be conscious of events around them even when they are physically unconscious.

"Compare it with a TV program," he told The Washington Post . "If you open the TV set you will not find the program. The TV set is a receiver. When you turn off your TV set, the program is still there but you can't see it. When you put off your brain, your consciousness is still there but you can't feel it in your body."

Many people describe seeing their own bodies from a distance, as though watching a movie. Others say they felt their bodies rushing toward a brilliant light.

Some who have had this experience say it's a sign there is a tunnel that leads to eternal life, but researchers do not really know what the visions mean. The study does not address whether there is such a thing as the soul, God or the afterlife.

"I think what's happening is that people are trying to validate their experience by making these paranormal claims, but you don't need to do that," said Susan Blackmore, a psychology professor at the University of the West of England in Bristol. "They're valid experiences in themselves, only they're happening in the brain and not in the world out there."

She believes the experiences are like a movie that our brains run at times of extreme traumatic stress. The brain creates endorphins which can reduce pain, and under extreme stress, these large amounts of endorphins produce a dreamlike state of euphoria.

Life Beyond Death

Some of those who described the experiences to ABCNEWS say they feel they were given the opportunity to explore life beyond death.

"I was looking down, and I saw my body, and I saw the doctors," said Jessie Lott, one woman who was resuscitated.

"I had come into this place of brilliant, beautiful life," said another, Dannion Brinkley.

"The feeling of peacefulness, the feeling of utter acceptance, utter — I mean, love, and it sounds so hokey, and I hate that part of it, because there aren't really good words to describe it," Leslie said.

Another woman described how she felt she was being pulled toward a giant tunnel, a common theme in the near-death experiences.

"I couldn't stop it. I didn't know why I was moving. I was just pulled right through this enormous, infinite tunnel," said Diane Morrissey.

Blackmore says science can also explain those tunnels: Electrical brain scans show that in our last moments, as the brain is deprived of oxygen, cells fire frantically and at random in the part of the brain which govern vision.

"Now, imagine that you've got lots and lots of cells firing in the middle, towards fewer at the outside, what's it going to look like? Bright light in the middle fading off towards dark at the outside," Blackmore said. "I think that's where the tunnel comes from. And as the oxygen level drops, so the bright light becomes bigger and more immediate, and you get this sensation of rushing forward into the light."

Scientist Turned Spiritual Healer

But not all scientists are skeptics when it comes to explaining near-death phenomena, and researchers have debated such issues for years.

Joyce Hawkes, a cell biologist with a PhD, had an accident that forever changed her life — and her view of science. She suffered a concussion from a falling window.

"I think that part of me — that my spirit, my soul — left my body and went to another reality," she said. She was surprised at the experience.

"It just was not part of the paradigm in which I lived as a scientist," Hawkes recalled. "It was a big surprise to me to have this sense of something different than the body — a consciousness different than the body — and to be in this wonderfully healing, peaceful, nurturing place."

Hawkes now works as a spiritual healer.

"I think what I learned was that there truly is no death, that there is a change in state from a physical form to a spirit form, and that there's nothing to fear about that passage," she said.

The Dutch researchers found that people who had such experiences reported marked changes in their personalities compared with those who had come near death, but had not had those experiences. They seemed to have lost their fear of death, and became more compassionate, loving people.

"I can hardly wait to die, and yet I don't have a death wish. I live my life a hundred percent more now because I have such a fine appreciation about what might happen to us and where we might go," said Morrissey.

[fishtank]

Baloney.

If a Chinese company is going to reverse engineer a computer, or a Mercedes, (or a nuke) are you telling me that they won't have to use science and engineering to accomplish their task?

Of course not.

"It can't be tested", is like saying that the fields of cryptography, archeology, forensics, etc "can't be tested".

All of these areas involve the study of the workings of an intelligence on matter.

Your statement is incorrect.

[Rodney King]

I.D. is not science, as it can't be tested. It's a 'faith' that something created this process.

By that standard, would you say then that the "big bang" is not science?

[FastCoyote]

"I.D. is not science, as it can't be tested. "

Who says it can't be tested?
There are plenty of ways to test it using statistics, and information theory and a variety of logical constructs. Stating something is untestable, is obviously incorrect coming from someone who believes in scientific theory.

[Celtjew Libertarian]

I.D. is not science, as it can't be tested.

Quibble: I.D. hasn't been tested. I don't know how it could be done, but it strikes me that those in the I.D. debate should be able to suggest a way by which genetically manipulated species could be detected.

If they're not sure how to go about it, there's enough manipulation by human scientists that they could look for a possible touchstone between naturally evolved and genetically manipulated there.

I.D. is intriguing philosophy and theologically -- I'm inclined from a philosophic point of view to think it's likely true. But until scientific studies are proposed and carried out to develop methods of identifying intelligently made from naturally evolved organisms there it's not science.

Even if there is no pre-human I.D., such studies may be useful. In the future, we may need to determine whether some pandemic is the result of random mutation or biological warfare.

[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.

[Matchett-PI]

"I.D. is not science, as it can't be tested. It's a 'faith' that something created this process. It shouldn't be taught in school alongside science."

Why is Darwin's metaphysics taught in science classes, then?

"Origin of man now proved. -- Metaphysics must flourish. - He who understands baboon would do more toward Metaphysics than Locke." --- [Charles] Darwin, Notebook M, August 16, 1838

As proudly quoted front and center by Michael T Ghiselin in his book Metaphysics and the Origin of Species

[AFPhys]

You might be surprised to hear that many of the scientists I have worked with support ID, believing that evolution leaves out important factors.

It is not that they deny evolution occurs, any more than they would deny that E= 1/2 m v^2 is a good approximation to the more accurate representation of Einstein. To many, ID seems as if it might be a more accurate refinement of the way life developed on earth, and they believe that there are very important difficulties posed by a strict "survival of the fittest" explanation.

[LiteKeeper]

Using your criteria, evolution isn't science, because it can't be tested either. None has discovered the mechanism - it is a matter of "faith"

[woodb01]

I.D. is not science, as it can't be tested.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Then entropy can't be tested either (The Second Law of Thermodynamics).

Because Intelligent design is the CONVERSE COROLLARY of entropy.

Where entropy is an accepted LAW in science that systems tend toward disorder, intelligent design says that with specialized energy input disorder can be ordered.

[Mrs. Don-o]

You wrote: "I.D. is not science, as it can't be tested...It's a 'faith' that something created this process..It shouldn't be taught in school alongside science."

I have to start by saying I don't have a dogma in this fight, beinst I'm a Catholic and my Church does not require a literal view of the first chapters of Genesis (and hasn't at least since St. Augustine of Hippo and the Alexandrian Fathers 1700 years ago--- who interpreted it spiritually and allegorically)---

But having said that, I say that I.D. is not actually a faith. It is testable, at least implicitly, as illustrated in this article itself. If you can show that an "irreducibly complex" bacterial flagellum is in fact reducible to working sub-parts, you've successfully tested an I.D. concept by proving it to be dubious in that particular case.

Similarly, if you show that a bacterium has developed a previously-nonexistent gene for producing nylonase, and a gene is (per Dembski's definition) Complex Specified Information, you've shown that CSI is a natural, mutable phenomenon.

This looks a an UH-oh moment, a major challenge for the ID people. But let them debate: the debate itself may be the spur that drives even more scientific investigation. ID may not be a fully ramified descriptive-explanatory-predictive theory, but it is still a stimulating heuristic critical tool. O felix culpa.

ID's most interesting claim, to me, is that design is empirically detectable (and thus, not a matter of "blind faith.") Criminal detectives, cryptography experts, archaeologists, and SETI investigators proceed on the assumption that there are some measurable criteria by which they can distinguish naturally-occurring patterns from designed messages and rubble from designed artifacts.

Let the ID proponents like Dembski and Behe work out their empirical criteria and see where we go from there. And if God is doing His work via a quantum-driven mutation-selection mechanism, what is that but His Word echoing through the ages? He's not bound by time and space. Deo gratias.