Posted on 11/13/2005 6:07:54 AM PST by NYer
CBN.com – SEATTLE, Washington - The Dover, Pennsylvania school board is on trial in the state capitol. Their crime? They wanted to tell high school students once a year that evolution is only a theory. They also wanted to mention an alternate theory: Intelligent Design, or ID.
That was too much for some parents. They sued, claiming ID is religious and therefore illegal in school. The judge will decide the case in the next few weeks.
So is ID really just religion in disguise? Do both biology and astronomy support ID? And who are these people promoting ID?
To answer those questions, we went to the Discovery Institute in Seattle, the major proponents of ID.
Dr. Stephen Meyer is the head of Discovery's Center for Science and Culture. He says to ban design theory as mere religion is wrong.
"And in fact,” Meyer said, “it's a science-based argument that may have implications that are favorable to a theistic worldview, but the argument is based on scientific evidence."
But perhaps these ID experts are not really reputable?
Mayer stated, "These are people with serious academic training. They are Ph.D.s from very, not just reputable -- but elite -- institutions. And they are people doing research on the key pressure points in biology and physics, and so their arguments are based on cutting-edge knowledge of developments in science."
So what is the evidence from researchers like biochemist Dr. Michael Behe, a Ph.D. graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute?
He is an expert on a special kind of bacteria called flagella. Inside the bacteria are exquisitely engineered ‘inboard motors’ that spin at an amazing 100,000 revolutions per minute.
Darwin said that such complexity must have developed piece by piece. Behe said that is bunk. All the pieces must be in place at the same time or the motorized tails would never work.
Darwin's gradual theory has no good explanation for that -- ID does.
Behe makes the case for ID in a video called "Unlocking the Mystery of Life." The video’s narrator declares, “A thimbleful of liquid can contain four million single-celled bacteria, each packed with circuits, assembly instructions, and molecular machines..."
"There are little molecular trucks that carry supplies from one end of the cell to the other,” Behe explained. “There are machines that capture the energy from sunlight, and turn it into usable energy."
ID experts say the more you know about biology -- and some of the weird creatures like this island lizard -- the worse it gets for Darwinism.
Consider the workings of the genetic code. That code produces all kinds of molecular machines, plus all the other components of life. ID advocates say that to believe those components are just Darwinian accidents takes a blind faith in the creativity of dumb molecules.
So with growing evidence of ID, isn't Lehigh University proud of this cutting-edge scientist who teaches there—and wrote the 1996 bestseller "Darwin's Black Box?" Hardly.
In August, all the other (22) biology faculty members came out with a political statement on the department's Web site. They stated that "Intelligent design has no basis in science."
But they cited no evidence, and made no references to any scientific research.
Dr. John West, a political scientist at Seattle Pacific University, is senior fellow at Discovery Institute. He says these political responses to scientific issues are getting nasty.
West remarked that "hate speech, speech codes, outright persecution, and discrimination is taking place on our college campuses, in our school districts, against both students and teachers and faculty members."
In fact, universities are evolving into centers for censorship. Five years ago, Baylor University dismissed mathematician Dr. William Dembski from his position, primarily because he headed a center for ID there.
This September, the University of Idaho banned any dissent against evolution from science classes -- a slam on university biologist Dr. Scott Minnich, a noted supporter of ID.
"The school seems to be confusing where it's at,” West said. “Is it in Moscow, Idaho, or the old Moscow, Russia? ...in issuing this edict that…no view differing form evolution can be taught in any science class."
And at Iowa State University, more than 100 faculty members have signed a petition against ID -- an apparent political attempt to intimidate ISU astronomer Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez because he writes about ID.
Gonalez is, in fact, co-author with philosopher Dr. Jay Richards of "The Privileged Planet." Both scholars are also connected with the Discovery Institute.
The book and related video argue that astronomy also shows evidence of design. For instance, the earth has numerous aspects just right for our existence.
Gonzalez explained, "...We find that we need to be at the right location in the galaxy...that we're in the circumstellar habitable zone of our star (correct distance from the sun)...that we're in a planetary system with giant planets that can shield the inner planets from too many comet impacts...that we're orbiting the right kind of star -- it's not too cool and not too hot.”
These are just four of 20 some characteristics of earth that make our planet unique -- right for life, right for discovery by human science.
Richards said, "So you have life and the conditions for discovery happening at the same places. That, to us, suggests that there is something more than a cosmic lottery going on. That sounds like a conspiracy rather than a mere coincidence. So that to me is a tie-breaker in the question."
And there is more -- the finely-tuned underlying rules of the universe-- or physical constants. One of them is gravity. But what if gravity were not constant?
A film clip from Privileged Planet says: "Imagine a machine able to control the strength of each of the physical constants. If you changed even slightly from its current setting, the strength of any of these fundamental forces -- such as gravity -- the impact on life would be catastrophic."
In plain terms, a bit more gravity would mean any creature larger than the size of a pea would be crushed into nothing. And a little less gravity would mean that the Earth would come unglued and fly off into space.
But Darwinism has been maintaining that advanced life is easy to produce all over the universe.
"Almost everything we've learned in the area of astrobiology suggests that, 'Look, this is just not going to happen very often' -- now that might be sort of depressing for script writers for sci-fi movies, but that's where the evidence is taking us," Richards said.
Despite the attacks on ID, Meyer said the design interpretation of the evidence is exposing Darwinism as a theory in crisis:
"I think we're reaching the critical point where Darwinism is going be seen as simply inadequate,” Meyer asserted, “ -- and therefore the question of (intelligent) design is back on the table."
Just as this city of Seattle has all the earmarks of ID, so does nature, except that nature is infinitely more intricate.
HA! I laugh at your number. Now here's a number: 1720. What do you think of that?
Welcome to the "Festival of the Uneducatable Trolls"....
I think they went through the Hebrew to Aramaic, then back to Hebrew translations that the rest of the Jewish Bible did, except for the newer books like Maccabees. These were written in Hebrew or Greek depending on which source you follow, I don't really know.
"When he left Indiana at 14 in the 1930's he also left religion."
Before he was an adult. IOW, before he had any religious instruction on an adult level, or considered the question with the understanding and maturity of an adult.
So common; so tragic. It's odd: we don't let kids quit school or enter into contracts at that age, because we hold that they lack the capacity to make good decisions. But when people that age make a much more important decision, one that concerns their immortal souls, we don't bat an eye.
"OTOH, he was the most moral man I ever knew."
Gee, I wonder where he learned that.
"I have played "Amazing Grace" more times than I have witnessed such behavior by believers. Grace and humility may be Christian ideals, but they are not Christian habits."
You need to read your C. S. Lewis. You criticize Christians for their faults, but you have no way of knowing how bad they would be if they weren't Christians. They fall well short of perfection, but how can you know how far they have come from what they once were?
"I don't think that there are "atheists". Everyone believes in something that cannot be proven."
I agree with that, in the main, but I think that most of those in Western Civ (which excludes Russia) who claim to be atheists are actually in a condition analogous to adolescent rebellion against God.
"I know believers that consider evolution to be the present state of human biological knowledge and nothing more. I include myself in this group."
That is all that ID is.
"The mention of "God", in the affirmative or negative, would be in the wrong venue. Any science teacher who would say; "This proves there is no God", to a class, has an agenda."
It's not necessary to come right out with those words to communicate the concept clearly to students.
"Likewise for the Fundamentalists."
I disagree. I have seen fundamentalists teach a number of subjects without bringing their personal beliefs into it.
The difference is that atheism stems from evil, and evil always attacks good. That is its nature. Fundamentalism does not derive from evil, and is therefore not driven to attack.
"No. You are more than free to teach Creationism/ID in your house of worship but not in the public school house. The latter is mandatory and there must be standards"
Standards? What kind of standards? No standards are applied when teachers scorn religion in the classroom. No standards are applied when a student who has been molested by a homo is sent to a homo recruiter for counseling.
I entered the public school system in 1956, and back then we started every day with the pledge of allegiance and a prayer. We had prayers before assemblies and sporting events. No one was "forced" to pray, as though such a thing would be possible. We had fundamentalists, skeptics, mainstream Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, and nobody got their skivvies in a knot because other people wanted to pray in their own way. We decorated the classrooms for Easter and Christmas, and had pageants and plays.
To exclude prayer and all mention of those religions from the public school constitutes the establishment of a state religion -- atheism -- not least because the only reason to exclude such things from public schools is that they might be harmful.
Such radical rebellion against God was never foreseen by the Framers of the Constitution. In fact, in the early decades of the Republic, the Bible was often used as a textbook (for reading and moral instruction, not history or science).
The Supreme Court rulings forbidding the free exercise of religion in schools and elsewhere are as incorrect as Roe v. Wade.
Sorry, 547 was supposed to be addressed to you.
See, that's the problem. They might not pass college entrance exams. The atheists/agnostics are controlling everything - from teaching evo, but not ID, taking God out of the public square, not allowing Christmas in the schools, when it is our country's heritage (some schools don't even allow using the colors red and green paper cups/plates), because someone might be offended.
"So it depends on my definition of a word?"
No, it depends on your definition of not of the word, but of the thing itself. In addition, there is a significant difference between the word "is" and the word "substantiation." To quibble over the definition of the word "is" is obviously meretricious, but reasonable people can reasonably disagree over the definition of "substantiation."
Besides, you answered the question below: you insist on the sort of "study" that academia endorses.
"But you offered no citations, not even to your own documented research."
People who insist on "citations" and "documented research" in all cases, rather than only where appropriate, think they are applying intellectual rigor. In actuality, they are only engaging in willful ignorance. This is especially humourous in light of the recent study showing that most studies are bunk.
WRT the present subject, any valid experimental design would require the researchers to engage in illegal activities, and would in the end rely on the judgment of human beings as to whether conduct amounted to implying or communicating that the fossil record disproves the existence of God.
If the referees were liberals, they'd deny it even if they saw it. And since all studies (outside of narrowly circumscribed areas in the hard sciences) are selected by liberals for funding, conducted by liberals, and designed by liberals to support liberal dogma, you're demanding that which is as a practical matter impossible.
"You are offering nothing more than your own interpretation of obsrevations"
Yes, that's right. And that is far and away more reliable than most "studies" coming out of academia.
"I could just as easily point out that I have encountered few if any atheists who argue that evolution somehow disproves the existence of deities to counter your claim."
Certainly you could. And one might say that, a priori, your impressions are as valid as mine. From that starting point, however, one must ask a few questions. For instance, have you been looking for such data in the right places; is your experience as wide as mine; do you have an axe to grind that influences your perceptions; have you been watching for as many decades as I; do you have the historical perspective lent by personal experience and observation both before and after the great melt-down; and, perhaps most important, have you spent most of your academic career over in the hard sciences enclave, or do you have the background in the humanities (theology, philosophy, psychology, literature, history, political science, etc.) to correctly interpret such data as you have collected?
"If this is the case then you could surely at least point to online discussions where this has occured."
Soitenly I could, if (a) I had been collecting links, or (b) I were willing to invest the time in searches. Saw one right here on FR last night. Quick search…ah…there are some instances here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1522991/posts
And that’s about all the time I have for searching just now.
"Now you are telling me to do your research for you."
Nope. Telling you to do your own research.
"I have never encountered anyone telling me to do this who was making a sustainable claim."
Or rather, every time someone has told you to "do your own research" you have refused, instead deciding arbitrarily that the evidence you have not looked for doesn't exist. Tsk, tsk, hardly scientific.
"Nothing that you have offered amounts to evidence"
You arrive at that conclusion only by arbitrarily discounting my observations and interpretation thereof. What are your "scientific" grounds for that?
"why should I trust anything that you say?"
You can never know whether you should trust anything I say until you do your own research.
I checked my Merriam Webster dictionary and theory means guesses.
scientific theory = scientific guesses.
Rather than trying to trick, just look up the word theory.
Simple, eh?
I want academic freedom; you don't.
Of course a scientific THEORY is never proven; it is a GUESS. Glad you're finally coming around.
"Mathematicians agree that any requisite number beyond 1050 has, statistically, a zero probability of occurrence (and even that gives it the benefit of the doubt!). Any species known to us, including the smallest single-cell bacteria, have enormously larger number of nucleotides than 100 or 1000. In fact, single cell bacteria display about 3,000,000 nucleotides, aligned in a very specific sequence. This means that there is no mathematical probability whatever for any known species to have been the product of a random occurrence—random mutations (to use the evolutionist's favorite expression)."—I.L. Cohen, Darwin was Wrong (1984), p. 205.
http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/08dna04.htm
"So I'm guessing we can now lay to rest any notion that ID has nothing to do with religion?"
Eh? Without the Intelligence, there is no ID. How could it have nothing to do with religion? Who ever said that?
scientific theory = scientific guesses.
Rather than trying to trick, just look up the word theory.
Simple, eh?
Son, you are grasping at straws. When scientists use the term "theory" it does not mean "guess."
But lets just say you are right, and "theory" does mean "guess."
If that's all a "theory" is, why are the CS/ID folks so eager to attain that status?
"Evolutions is just a theory," we hear so often on these threads. But now, its "ID is a theory too, let us in, please let us in, oh, pretty please! We want to play too."
You can't have it both ways. If a theory is just a "miserable guess," why are the CS/ID folks so eager to drag their religious beliefs up to that status?
I still think the evidence shows that CS/ID is belief and dogma, not science. [And you shouldn't have to go do the last definition in the dictionary before you find one you like.]
“So are you saying that the "bad" Christians we observe would be raving sociopaths if not for their Christianity?”
Could be. It could also be that they are not availing themselves of the Graces Christianity offers, so the fault lies not with Christianity but with their failure to practice it.
“I feel fortunate that I am not so personally depraved that I require the threat of eternal damnation hanging over my head to keep me from engaging in ruthless violent acts.”
My, aren’t you special. That out of the way, with that statement you again betray your near total misunderstanding of Christianity.
“Remember that the Christian God isn't the only one out there. Atheists lack belief in all gods, not yours in particular.”
That’s theology on a kindergarten level.
“So how do you think that this concept is being communicated? Be specific.”
Oh, to name just a few of the means, eye-rolling, snickering, mugging, heavy sighs…
“This is your presumption.”
No, it is my observation, oft repeated.
“Why should I believe that atheism stems from evil?”
Do your own research. But then, scientists never seem to have any aptitude for the kind of observations and thought experiments that are necessary to that kind of research.
“If you can't support this assertion then any arguments you make from it are meaningless.”
People who make that kind of statement never seem to understand what a monumental undertaking it would be to set them straight; how many light years down the wrong path they have gone.
“Evidence for this assertion?”
Observation.
“Which USSC ruling forbade the free excercise of religion in schools and elsewhere. Please be specific.”
I’ll give you one example. If you want more, use Google.
http://www.atheists.org/flash.line/prayer14.htm
"Thus far you've offered me nothing but your own say-so"
Okay, you're so wrapped up in "winning" now that you're not even keeping up with the discussion. At the bottom of my last note was a link to an example, but it looks like you didn't even read the note before starting to write.
"As I said, I can use the fact that I've not encountered any atheists who use evolution as a disproof"
None? Not one? That's not credible. You reject my "many if not most," but don't hesitate to assert an absolute of your own.
"of all gods"
More kindergarten theology.
"my "evidence" would be just as valid and grounded as yours."
Actually, no it wouldn't. I'm a more reliable and objective observer.
"What illegal activities?"
Secretly taping classroom activities and student counseling sessions.
"I asked you to provide a link to an online discussion where an atheist made a claim that you attribute to "many" atheists. That's hardly a clinical study, and it certainly wouldn't be illegal. Why did you ignore that request?"
A better question would be, why didn't you read to the bottom of the note before wasting time and bandwidth writing that?
"Wouldn't it be easier for you just to admit that you made an unsubstantiated assertion and be done with it?"
Possibly, but I don't take the easier path. I try to find the truth, even when it requires me to admit that I have been wrong. You should try it some time.
"Why all of this verbose and heavy-handed nonsense in an attempt to justify making unsubstantiated assertions that are almost certainly false?"
Missed the point again, eh? Let me spell it out: you try to present your demands for "sustantiation" as intellectually rigorous, but in reality you just use that as an excuse for dismissing inconvenient arguments.
"Yes. Prove otherwise."
Sorry, the default answer is "no."
"What if I did have some kind of starting bias, like believing that atheism stems from evil?"
You know, the practice of misrepresenting carefully considered and mature opinions as "starting biases" interferes with the seach for the truth. Oh, and it is also indicative of the influence of evil.
"What melt-down?"
Read "The Closing of the American Mind."
"Look, I get it, you got caught in a lie."
I'm sorry. I thought I was discussing this matter with an intellectually honest person. My mistake.
"Uh, could you reference a specific post where that occured, or are you going to say "do your own research" and then when I fail to find anything accuse me of having a bias?"
If I didn't know that your refusal to scan the first few posts in the thread arises from malice, I would accuse you of being lazy.
"To support your claim."
No, to find the truth.
"There's nothing wrong with rejecting claims when the person making the claim absolutely refuses to substantiate it."
You are in the position of a person sitting in a windowless room in midtown Manhattan on busy weekday, who, when told that if he goes out on the street he will see many people on the sidewalk, answers, "No, I'm not moving. You prove it to me." All he has to do is walk out of the building and he will see for himself, but instead he folds his arms, sticks out his lower lip, and says, "I'm not going to do your research for you."
"I can assert that I've made all kinds of observations, but that doesn't amount to evidence of anything."
Interesting. When you said your experience was different from mine, I accepted that at face value. I didn't call you a liar. You, on the other hand, discount mine.
"I see nothing unscientific..."
That's pretty sad. I think I'm done with this for now.
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