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.
I realize that wasn't what they mean. I am simply pointing out that it is exactly how it would have to happen.
This would also eliminate their a fossil record for 'transitional forms' problem. The only problem is that no one is going to believe one species giving birth to a different species.
Evolutionists try to portray the 'gaps' in the ToE as being minor when, in reality, they are as wide as the Pacific Ocean. There are no gaps in the fossil record. The fossil record is what it is.
I don't think they literally mean between a parent and a child. As I understand it, it works like this:
I realize that wasn't what they mean. I am simply pointing out that it is exactly how it would have to happen.
Except that's not how it would have to happen. I explained how it could happen as a gradual process involving a single population that was divided and the parts isolated from each other.
This would also eliminate their a fossil record for 'transitional forms' problem. The only problem is that no one is going to believe one species giving birth to a different species.
Of course they wouldn't. It's a ridiculous notion. Fortunately for evo-advocates, it's not necessary for evolution to work (despite what it seems like you're insisting).
Evolutionists try to portray the 'gaps' in the ToE as being minor when, in reality, they are as wide as the Pacific Ocean. There are no gaps in the fossil record. The fossil record is what it is.
Yes, the gaps are huge, because scientists are dealing with timeframes in which literally hundreds of thousands of generations pass between fossil samples. But the gaps are slowly closing with each new discovery.
The issue is not a methodology but an approach. The assumption of chance is replaced with the assumption of design. Darwinists relegate change to nondirected happenstance. That is a bias. I recommend a different bias more likely to explain phenomenon.
How do you know this contains information, and that isn't just a random design generated by natural forces of erosion?
Unless you embrace principles of intelligent design, you cannot know. If you are an evolutionist you will not even attempt to entertain an alternative solution implying intelligence.
Indeed, you will insist that the government silence your fellow citizens who disagree with you.
The only thing we can do is fight back:
That's a bit circular logic. We've found plenty of artifacts that have contained writing unknown to us, but nonetheless concluded that it was in fact writing, based on the immediately discernible fact that no forces of nature would have produced them.
Because erosion wouldn't leave such detailed marks.
In other words, because we ruled out natural causes. That's what ID sets out to do, by saying that there are organisms and features of organisms that could not have arisen through any natural cause that can be identified. Maybe they're right, maybe they're wrong, but it's not "unscientific" to pursue that line of inquiry.
> You really are a most entertaining Darwinian fundamentalist.
And you are a wonderful Creationist stereotype, right out of Central Casting.
Here's a hint: one does not need to "KNOW the TRUTH" to know what's not true. I don;t know where Jimmy Hoffa is buried. But I can comfortably ignore claims that he was borne bodily into Heaven by a flight of neon angles singing Abba's greatest hits. Similarly, I do not need to know every last detail about evolution to know that appeals to superstition to explain a few holes in the data record is just silly.
If they could burn the ID heretics at the stake, they would.
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I hear you!
The angry venomous attacks on ID people belie nothing more than pure and vicious hate!
Then one must ask from whence does this hate come? Obviously it's not based on science...
You still have not answered where did the atom come from? Also, an effect without cause means there is no start point of decay since starting point indicates origin. In regards to I AM He goes by another name YAWEH or GOD. So if we build complex machinery we are the most intelligent life in this universe. How do you deal with angels and demons?
If evolution
No Adam and Eve
If no Adam and Eve
No original sin
If no original sin
No judgment for man
If no judgment for man
No need for Jesus to die on the cross
What people are scared about is that they will face a God who judges evil just as He did in Noah's day. Airforce pilot saw what appeared to be Noah's ark. Dead Sea is where Sodom and Gomorrah was. This world is condemned for destruction and we are quickly moving there as we get more wicked to the time that wrath of God is revealed from heaven in more fuller measure against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness--namely 7 years such as this world has never seen nor will ever see after it is past.
Their denial is pathological and not scientific in any way. Darwinists are shackled to some unGodly cause and effect chain that cannot prove anything except if it's anchored within a Godly framework.
Their hatred for a loving revealed Lord is palpable...just as He said would happen.
Perhaps it also came forth unbidden. Perhaps it was an inevitable consequence of existence.
Also, an effect without cause means there is no start point of decay since starting point indicates origin.
I don't follow.
In regards to I AM He goes by another name YAWEH or GOD. So if we build complex machinery we are the most intelligent life in this universe.
Okay. Or not, as the case may be.
How do you deal with angels and demons?
Do you mean "how do we (all) deal with the issue of angels and demons?" or are you asking how I personally deal with angels and demons? As to the first, I don't worry much about how we address the issue, so I don't really have an answer for you. As to the second, I deal with angels and demons in pretty much the same way I deal with elves and unicorns. Spray for 'em once a month, and the problem's solved. Or something. I dunno - I don't recall ever dealing with an angel or demon, but if I do, I'll let you know how I handle it.
Cuneiform writing from ancient Middle Eastern civilizations is unlike anything that's come since. But we can look at some random artifact with it stamped on there and immediately recognize that it was not formed by natural processes.
It's just an argument from ignorance.
Same with finding a tablet with cuneiform writing. We know of no natural process that would cause what we find. It's just that at some point our knowledge is of such a nature that our "ignorance" counts as evidence.
It's unscientific when you can't formulate your hypothesis in such a way that it could ever be falsified.
The way to falsify the hypothesis that the cuneiform tablet is intelligently designed would be to come up with a plausible explanation for a natural process that would account for it. Same goes for living beings. If their diversity and features can be plausibly accounted for, in accurate detail, through natural processes, then Occam's razor would take over from there, and ID would be falsified.
"The way to falsify the hypothesis that the cuneiform tablet is intelligently designed would be to come up with a plausible explanation for a natural process that would account for it."
That wouldn't cut it. There is no way to prove the ID hypothesis for the tablets. What we have instead is overwhelming physical evidence that humans wrote it. We (rightly) concluded that the most reasonable hypothesis is that it was human produced. Then we TESTED that hypothesis. It was decoded and we know what was written on it. The Theory of Human Origins for the Rosetta Stone is now firmly established, not just because we can think of no natural process that could produce it, but because we have POSITIVE evidence it is a human artifact.
"Same goes for living beings. If their diversity and features can be plausibly accounted for, in accurate detail, through natural processes, then Occam's razor would take over from there, and ID would be falsified."
No, it wouldn't be. Even if we never uncover all of the physical processes might have been responsible, it still is a fact that there is no way to test for ID as an explanation for the evolution of life on earth. Unlike the Theory of Human Origins for the Rosetta Stone (THORS), which has positive evidence to back it up, we are still left with *natural processes can't yet explain it* as the only evidence for ID. As there is no way to test for it, it does not belong in the realm of science. As our knowledge gets better concerning the biochemical pathways, ID will have less and less place to work. But ID adherents will always be able to point to the things we don't know and say *Intelligent Design!*. It is at best a hypothesis empty of any predictive or experimental power. It is an argument from ignorance.
Can we do that in all similar cases? Check out the Bimini Road here and here.
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