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Future of Conservatism: Darwin or Design? [Human Events goes with ID]
Human Events ^ | 12 December 2005 | Casey Luskin

Posted on 12/12/2005 8:01:43 AM PST by PatrickHenry

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To: PatrickHenry
History of Australia. Before Darwin, England exiled criminals to purify the race.

Actually, Australians consider that that worked.

661 posted on 12/13/2005 11:57:12 AM PST by Oztrich Boy (so natural to mankind is intolerance in whatever they really care about - J S Mill)
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To: Fester Chugabrew
"Is this a theory you genuinely espouse, or is it one you fabricated for the sake of argument?"

A little of both. I did bring it up to make a point. There is no way to figure out if my assumption or your assumption is true. Neither is testable. They are philosophical positions, not scientific theories. The observation that the matter is organized and acts according to predictable laws is not enough info to make a scientific choice.

"Have you somehow demonstrated that the presence of organized matter functioning under predicatable laws cannot be explained by intelligent design?"

Nope. You have also not demonstrated that the universe doesn't just *exist* with no intelligent designer either.
662 posted on 12/13/2005 12:01:28 PM PST by CarolinaGuitarman ("There is a grandeur in this view of life...")
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To: caffe
Can any of you "real scientists" defend this statement?

I'm not a real scientist but I read them. Evolution (common descent) is a fact acknowledged by people who have examined the evidence, including most ID advocates.

Not everything is known about the genealogy of every living thing, and there are many details to learn about how variation works.

663 posted on 12/13/2005 12:01:44 PM PST by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
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To: Fester Chugabrew; PreciousLiberty
But it seems that when consensus is given as a reason to accept or reject an arugment one might just as soon declare that objective reality is not dependant upon the number of people who accept or reject its claims.

The missing piece for you is that they accept or reject it on merits. It's the other way around: the concensus is reached because of the merits, it does not attain merit purely through concensus. That would be argumentum ad populum.

Both begin with assumptions about the universe that are beyond proof

There's that "proof" word again showing a lack of knowledge of what scientific theory is.

but neither is wholly unreasonable.

Finally, we agree.

If you can find an individual who seriously espouses spaghetti monster theory, please let me know.

If I find him I will have him trampled under Her Holy Hooves, that culinary infidel! And you know who you are, PL. Repent!

664 posted on 12/13/2005 12:04:31 PM PST by antiRepublicrat
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To: antiRepublicrat
I just wish he'd quit trying to call it science and quit bandying around the vernacular "theory" as if he were referring to scientific theory.

You can wish all you want, but I don't know why. Post the definition of theory, and then explain to me how it is outside the definition to maintain that the presence of organized matter that behaves according to predictable laws is due to an intelligent agent. What is "unnatural" about an intelligent being? I would find it highly unnatural to find organized matter acting according to predictable laws without either intelligence or design as part of the scenario.

665 posted on 12/13/2005 12:05:08 PM PST by Fester Chugabrew
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To: Alamo-Girl
Once upon a time "science" referred to the entire body of knowledge, episteme - philosophy - spiritual and natural - all of it. Hence I Timothy 6:20-21 in the King James translation says:

Actually "the entire body of knowledge, episteme - philosophy - spiritual and natural - all of it" was not what Paul was refering to in I Timothy 6:20-21

666 posted on 12/13/2005 12:06:46 PM PST by Oztrich Boy (so natural to mankind is intolerance in whatever they really care about - J S Mill)
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To: Fester Chugabrew
Post the definition of theory
667 posted on 12/13/2005 12:13:08 PM PST by antiRepublicrat
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To: Oztrich Boy

Oooh, replying to a scripture post with post #666.

:)


668 posted on 12/13/2005 12:14:17 PM PST by antiRepublicrat
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To: antiRepublicrat
The missing piece for you is that they accept or reject it on merits.

That aspect has not been lost on me in the least. Both of us are reasonable enough to know that the number of proponents of a theory does not validate the theory. To deduce an intelligent agent from the presence of organized matter that behaves according to predictable laws is not a deduction wholly without merit.

There's that "proof" word again showing a lack of knowledge of what scientific theory is . . .

Read it again. I used the word "proof" in a negative sense, with the understanding that science is, and always will be, speculative in nature.

One thing that may be lost on the evos who've been dealing with me over the years is that I would hardly espouse substituting ID for evolution in the schools. Atheistic science should be welcomed much as any other science, and its proponents treated with respect (although I've done more than my share of initiating disrespectful discourse). I tend to set a bad example in that regard.

669 posted on 12/13/2005 12:15:02 PM PST by Fester Chugabrew
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To: antiRepublicrat

I can't link to that due to restrictions. Is it too long to cut and paste?


670 posted on 12/13/2005 12:16:01 PM PST by Fester Chugabrew
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To: antiRepublicrat

I can quote scripture for my own purposes


671 posted on 12/13/2005 12:18:10 PM PST by Oztrich Boy (so natural to mankind is intolerance in whatever they really care about - J S Mill)
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To: Fester Chugabrew
To say that matter is organized and acts according to predictable laws is to say more than "stuff exists."

How?

The ubiquity of intelligent design is such that, like the air you breathe, it goes unnoticed. It is considered natural only because you were born into it and have become accustomed to it.

As it happens, I notice the air I breathe because I'm allergic to much of what it carries. In any case, your statement is, in fact, nothing more than, "stuff exists."

At any rate, Intelligent Design is well-qualified to be called a "theory," because it explains the data, which, if it were without design, would be incomprehensible to reason and senses.

Here we go again. Intelligent design explains nothing, it predicts nothing, and it has nothing to do with science. Your Grand Theory that states "Nothing is comprehensible except for design" is so vague as to be meaningless. I was in the Navy. I can comprehend the ocean. Where's the evidence that it was designed? That it always and everywhere mysteriously goes exactly to the shore and no farther!!?

You again conflate human intelligence, for which we have evidence, with some sort of "other" intelligence, for which there is no evidence and which is beyond our ability to test.

Can you state something that ID doesn't explain?

I'm coming to believe there may be something to The Hitchhiker's Guide theory, which is that human thought is considered to be so primitive that it's considered to be infectious disease in much of the universe

672 posted on 12/13/2005 12:18:43 PM PST by Gumlegs
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To: Right Wing Professor; betty boop; cornelis; hosepipe
Thank you for your reply!

The prophesy about Judas Maccabi in Enoch 90 takes the "great horn" (reign) to its end. The end of the Maccabees is in the early reign of King Herod the Great: Antigonus was defeated by Herod with the aid of the Romans, and beheaded at Antioch in 37 B.C. The chapter continues to the Messiah and on to the Messianic Kingdom, end of days and final judgment.

Enoch contains many references to Christ. Throughout Enoch, Jesus Christ is called "the Elect One". Luke 9:35 which was translated "And there came a voice out of the cloud, saying, 'This is my beloved Son: hear him." actually uses the Greek phrase ho eklelegmenos - IOW, "This is my Son, the Elect One: hear him."

Some scholars believe that Enoch was disfavored by the Jews after the crucifixion because of such references, i.e. they wanted to deny Christ was the Elect One. Later Christian scholars disfavored Enoch because of its discussion of angels and demons. So it fell into obscurity for nearly two millennia. And nowadays, some new agers have picked up Enoch as well as some Jewish mysticism as a basis for their "religion". Jeepers!

As a reminder to Lurkers, the link at post 621 was to a pre-Dead Sea Scroll era translation, 1882. Only one of the five sections did not have fragments found at Qumran. The best translation since (known to me) is in Charlesworth's collection.

The natural world is a closed system, in as far as I can detect.

Indeed. But nature cannot be a closed system - particularly a geometric one - without a beginning, a cause which cannot be a physical cause but must exist and be singular and therefore transcendent to the natural or closed system or geometry.

As a side point, we cannot say something is random in the system without knowing what the system "is" - which we do not yet know.

Existence exists. God exists. Without that context, we are just blind men trying to describe an elephant.

673 posted on 12/13/2005 12:19:33 PM PST by Alamo-Girl
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To: Ichneumon; js1138
I would say that anyone who has raised a 2 yr old would agree with me. Disobedience is their natural persuasion and, without the influence of the parents or, as Hillary likes to say, the village, this trait would not be suppressed.

But I freely admit, that one's world view or religious persuasion effects their definition of morality. So the elephant in the room is which is right. If there is a right answer, then there MUST be a standard that makes it so. What makes your definition or standard of morality right and that of the terrorist wrong?

JM
674 posted on 12/13/2005 12:19:50 PM PST by JohnnyM
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To: Alamo-Girl

Science doesn't try to unseat philosophy any more than it tries to unseat mathematics.

But science can change our perception of what is normal, reasonable, intuitive and natural by expanding our ability to observe.

Things that have historically have eluded our ability to assign causes have had causes assigned by science. Some are mundane like volcanos and earthquakes; some a little more difficult, like mental illness.

Our interpretation of these phenomena changes as science advances.


675 posted on 12/13/2005 12:19:53 PM PST by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
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To: JohnnyM

"I would say that anyone who has raised a 2 yr old would agree with me. Disobedience is their natural persuasion and, without the influence of the parents or, as Hillary likes to say, the village, this trait would not be suppressed."

Unless your child is the Bad Seed they also have a natural inclination to try to please their parents too. Children don't know enough to make moral decisions.


676 posted on 12/13/2005 12:23:56 PM PST by CarolinaGuitarman ("There is a grandeur in this view of life...")
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To: Fester Chugabrew
As if the theory of intelligent design could not possibly cite a specific intelligent agent! It is actually capable of more specificity than the theory of evolution. It posits a single, almighty, intelligent agent, not vague "forces of nature;" not a concoction of natural selection, random mutations, unguided forces, etc.

Behe denied this. Under oath.

677 posted on 12/13/2005 12:24:18 PM PST by Gumlegs
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To: Oztrich Boy
Thank you for your reply, but please explain further what you mean!

For Lurkers: the word in Greek is gnosis which is interpreted as knowledge in I Cor 13 and 14.

678 posted on 12/13/2005 12:26:12 PM PST by Alamo-Girl
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To: JohnnyM

My standard of morlity does not include killing people who disagree with me.

As for the two-year-old, I've raised two kids past that stage. Disobedience is not the natural persuasion, but neither is obedience. The notion of morality and evil is not particularly relevnt when dealing with toddlers.


679 posted on 12/13/2005 12:26:27 PM PST by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
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To: js1138
"My standard of morlity does not include killing people who disagree with me. "

Neither does mine. On this we agree. But what makes your morality right, and the one who sees killing as ok, not?

JM
680 posted on 12/13/2005 12:28:06 PM PST by JohnnyM
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