Posted on 09/30/2005 2:09:51 PM PDT by truthfinder9
It's amazing that these Darwinian Fundamentalists claim they're for science only to turn around and try to destroy any contrary theories or evidence. They're really getting desperate, the ID movement really has them rattled.
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September 30, 2005
It’s happening again: another scientist, another academic institution, another attempt to stifle freedom of thought. The “Darwinist inquisition,” as a Discovery Institute press release calls it, is as predictable as it is relentless.
This time the setting is Iowa State University. One hundred twenty professors there have signed a statement denouncing the study of intelligent design and calling on all faculty members to reject it. The statement reads, in part, “We, the undersigned faculty members at Iowa State University, reject all attempts to represent Intelligent Design as a scientific endeavor. . . . Whether one believes in a creator or not, views regarding a supernatural creator are, by their very nature, claims of religious faith, and so not within the scope or abilities of science.”
I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that this thing is getting out of control. To begin with, the reasoning of the Iowa State professors is, frankly, some of the weakest I’ve ever seen. They give three reasons for rejecting intelligent design. The first is what they call “the arbitrary selection of features claimed to be engineered by a designer”—which, even if that were true, would prove nothing. If certain features were chosen arbitrarily for study, how does that prove that no other features showed evidence of design? The number two reason given is “unverifiable conclusions about the wishes and desires of that designer.” That is a dubious claim; most serious intelligent design theorists have made very few conclusions about any such “wishes and desires.”
But the third reason is my favorite: They say it is “an abandonment by science of methodological naturalism.” Now this gets to the heart of the matter. The statement goes so far as to claim, “Methodological naturalism, the view that natural phenomena can be explained without reference to supernatural beings or events, is the foundation of the sciences.” I’ll be the first to admit I’m not a scientist, but I thought that the heart of the sciences was the study of natural phenomena to gather knowledge of the universe. I thought we were supposed to start without any foregone conclusions about the supernatural at all, that is, if we wanted to be truly scientific.
It seems to me that the intelligent design theorists aren’t the ones trying to inject religion and philosophy into the debate—the Darwinists are, starting out with predetermined conclusions.
But it gets even better than that. The Iowa State fracas started because one astronomy professor there, Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez, has attracted attention with a book on intelligent design. It’s a little odd to accuse Gonzalez of being unscientific; he’s a widely published scientist whose work has made the cover of Scientific American. But that’s exactly what’s happening. And here’s the kicker: Gonzalez barely mentions intelligent design in the classroom. He wants to wait until the theory has more solid support among scientists. All he’s doing is researching and writing about it.
Now the lesson here for all of us is very clear: Don’t be intimidated when confronting school boards or biology teachers about teaching intelligent design. All we are asking is that science pursue all the evidence. That’s fair enough. But that’s what drives them into a frenzy, as we see in Iowa.
goodnite, everybody. i'm going to bed. have fun!
You mean, the Dembski who said
Christ is indispensable to any scientific theory, even if its practitioners don't have a clue about him. The pragmatics of a scientific theory can, to be sure, be pursued without recourse to Christ. But the conceptual soundness of the theory can in the end only be located in Christ.
and
ID is part of God's general revelation
and
Not only does intelligent design rid us of this ideology (materialism), which suffocates the human spirit, but, in my personal experience, I've found that it opens the path for people to come to Christ.
No church/state issue there, huh?
So you have no problem with public educators teaching our children that there is very little evidence supporting a random origin to life, while there is significant statistical evidence supporting the non-random origin of life?
1) Just for the record, I didn't make the statement you quoted in your post. That said, I agree with it. Evolution is not entirely about random chance, and calling it that is either ignorance or an attempt to minimalize the evolutionist argument that change is a product of natural selection. Anyone with a beef about evolution needs to make the case against natural selection.
2) I have not stated an opinion about public educators. But as you state the proposition, you mischaracterize. The school board wants a short statement to be read that tells kids there are challenges to evolution. That is factually accurate. I don't have a problem with kids making up their own minds. The only thing science has to fear is a shortage of new ideas. Over time, no matter how many dead ends we run down, we will continue to get closer to the truth. The very point of science is that nothing is ever beyond reevaluation based on new evidence. People who want to squelch new ideas are not interested in science.
Too bad it was in a book that talked about the relationship between science and religion. Other scientists do that all the time of course without raising anybody's eyebrows, as long as they're doing it with approved theories.
If you're under the impression there is a significant entropy difference between a live body and a dead body, or for that matter between a live body and a similar mass of water, please disabuse yourself.
All the conservatives I know refuse to bow at anyone's feet. Are you a troll?
What about Random Normal Deviates?
Any other scientific theories you'd care to name with similar qualities?
If you have to ask....
Well, since Dembski believes that ID is scientifically accurate, and since he believes in God, you can put two and two together as well as I can. What you can't do is make the realistic claim that because a proponent of a particular theory has a religious view surrounding it, any teaching of the theory in a public school is thus tainted as a church/state violation.
It really isn't that hard to look at what's going on in a classroom and see if what's being taught is or is not religion. If they're examining scientific evidence, and not introducing any religious texts or religious dogma, then it's not religion, regardless of how strongly you disagree with the conclusions they're drawing from the evidence.
And the Revisionists just want to teach the flaws in that proof.
Well, I'm willing to listen to their argument but I doubt my mind would be changed. It has been proved that the holocaust happened and there are witnesses to it, writings of it, pictures of it - but people are free to reject that evidence if they so choose.
He was referring to God's feet. So all the conservatives you know are atheist? I'm not doubting you, because I know there are atheist conservatives, but I don't think they constitute the majority.
I guess this is an example of a solid news/activism post. Far unlike some other posts that have been relegated to other categories.
Does god wear shoes?
This sentence is false.
The mods have a difficult job. They can't be expected to place every thread in the right forum. Not a big deal.
Photosynthesis.
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