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Being Stalked by Intelligent Design
American Scientist ^ | Nov-Dec Issue 2005 | Pat Shipman

Posted on 10/20/2005 8:00:33 PM PDT by Rudder

I ignored the threat for a long time. I groaned at the letters to the editor in our local paper that dismissed evolution as "just a theory" and proclaimed the superiority of "Intelligent Design" (ID) to explain the world around us. When a particular emeritus professor pestered me with e-mails asking how I explained this or that aspect of the fossil record (How could a flying bird evolve from a non-flying species? Did I think feathered dinosaurs were real?), I answered him time and again—until I realized that he was reading neither my answers nor the references I suggested. When this same man stood up, yet again, after a lecture to read a "question" that was actually a prepared statement about ID, I rolled my eyes.

(Excerpt) Read more at americanscientist.org ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: creationism; crevolist; evolution; intelligentdesign; science
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A long piece that had to be excerpted but worth the read for the scientists among us.
1 posted on 10/20/2005 8:00:34 PM PDT by Rudder
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To: Rudder
Oh, yes, the "scientists among us."

There isn't anything political about this at all. Is there?

2 posted on 10/20/2005 8:03:35 PM PDT by Reactionary
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To: Rudder

Scientists couldn't be wrong about evolution. We all know Hillary evolved from the Pig....


3 posted on 10/20/2005 8:06:03 PM PDT by freebilly (Go USF Baseball!)
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To: Reactionary

I think his point is that scientists are most likely to be concerned about the risk to science education much like businessmen would be most like to be concerned about a risk to the banking system


4 posted on 10/20/2005 8:06:54 PM PDT by gondramB (Conservatism is a positive doctrine. Reactionaryism is a negative doctrine.)
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To: Rudder

He's claiming that evolution is not a theory?


5 posted on 10/20/2005 8:06:59 PM PDT by Abcdefg
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To: Reactionary
There isn't anything political about this at all. Is there?

Right. One of those leftest professors got up today and said it would be a terrific idea to teach the school children that God the Intelligent Designer may be dead. I think his name was Behe. Anyway, he is one of those that believe in evolution.

6 posted on 10/20/2005 8:07:11 PM PDT by WildTurkey (I BELIEVE CONGRESSMAN WELDON!)
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To: Reactionary

How could scientists be wrong. After all, they've convinced all us non-scientists that, contrary to logic, oil is the leftover residue of hundreds of billions of dinosaurs who all conveniently died in just a few locations on earth, one on top of the next, so we could easily siphon off their remains in lots of 100+ million barrels per graveyard....


7 posted on 10/20/2005 8:11:41 PM PDT by freebilly (Go USF Baseball!)
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To: Rudder

Hopefully those folks who read this article- don't stop at that point, and continue to question Our origins.


8 posted on 10/20/2005 8:12:02 PM PDT by Treader (Hillary's dark smile is reminiscent of Stalin's inhuman grin...)
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To: Reactionary
There isn't anything political about this at all. Is there?

Second post and already the ID gauntlet has been thrown down. You folks must stay up late at night worried to death that some lurker might come to the conclusion that science is science, faith is faith, and never the twain shall meet.

From the article:"If my neighbors and their children wish to believe in Intelligent Design as a matter of faith that is fine with me. What I object to most strenuously is the presentation of a religious belief as a scientific theory in a science class."

9 posted on 10/20/2005 8:12:25 PM PDT by Aracelis
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To: freebilly

When you put it like that...


10 posted on 10/20/2005 8:12:47 PM PDT by ECM
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To: Rudder

Anyone who studies nature and is not overwhelmed with the sense that there is a designer behind it all is tragically and perhaps terminally blind.


11 posted on 10/20/2005 8:12:50 PM PDT by My2Cents (Dead people voting is the closest the Democrats come to believing in eternal life.)
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To: gondramB
I think his point is that scientists are most likely to be concerned about the risk to science education

So, in other words, most scientists are opposed to intelligent design because they fear for their careers.

12 posted on 10/20/2005 8:15:48 PM PDT by My2Cents (Dead people voting is the closest the Democrats come to believing in eternal life.)
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To: Abcdefg
He's claiming that evolution is not a theory?

Yes, apparently, evolution is the "gospel truth," pardon the expression.

13 posted on 10/20/2005 8:17:20 PM PDT by My2Cents (Dead people voting is the closest the Democrats come to believing in eternal life.)
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To: WildTurkey

Darwin himself acknowledged the many flaws in his own theory. Specifically, he theorized that as the fossil record became more complete by continued discoveries, we would find fossils that would demonstrate a slow and gradual change from one species to another. That hasn't been the case. Instead, the fossil record indicates that new species were much more likely to pop up at a specific time in history in very significant numbers seemingly from nowhere. As the complete fossil record becomes more complete, we are finding that there is a conspicuous absence of the in between fossils that we would expect to find in the evolutionary model. To state anything to the contrary in light of the discoveries we have made thus far would seem to me to be scientifically dishonest.


14 posted on 10/20/2005 8:18:28 PM PDT by willyd (Good Fences Make Good Neighbors)
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To: My2Cents

It is easier for them to deny it. To accept it for many means they will never be able to 'define' and 'control' the universe since it cannot be put in a box with provable fixed and immutable 'laws' of science. Epistemology vs Ontology and never the twain shall meet for most scientists.


15 posted on 10/20/2005 8:20:36 PM PDT by Ruth C (learn to analyze rationally and extrapolate consequences ... you might become a conservative)
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To: Rudder

This will explain everything.

http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/index.shtml#creation_vs_evolution


16 posted on 10/20/2005 8:21:01 PM PDT by HisKingdomWillAbolishSinDeath (My Homeland Security: Isaiah 54:17 No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper)
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To: ECM

Of course, scientists have also brought us that greatest of all scientific discoveries-- Cold fusion in a bucket....


17 posted on 10/20/2005 8:21:08 PM PDT by freebilly (Go USF Baseball!)
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To: Reactionary
There isn't anything political about this at all. Is there?

Well, sad to say the Left has used this issue to paint all conservatives as adherents to a superstitious-founded destruction of science. Check out this for what I mean.

18 posted on 10/20/2005 8:21:09 PM PDT by Rudder
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To: freebilly
We all know Hillary evolved from the Pig....

Well, yeah, but not too far from the original.

19 posted on 10/20/2005 8:22:06 PM PDT by Rudder
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To: gondramB
I think his point is that scientists are most likely to be concerned about the risk to science education much like businessmen would be most like to be concerned about a risk to the banking system

Bingo!

20 posted on 10/20/2005 8:22:57 PM PDT by Rudder
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