[PatrickHenry]

The author was one of the key witnesses in the Dover trial.

Bold, underlining, and link to the opinion added by me.

[PatrickHenry]

Christmas greetings from Darwin Central!

Evolution Ping The List-O-Links

A conservative, pro-evolution science list, now with over 330 names. See the list's explanation, then FReepmail to be added or dropped. To assist beginners: But it's "just a theory", Evo-Troll's Toolkit, and How to argue against a scientific theory.

[nothingnew]

Merry Christmas PatrickHenry. He's gotten you here and He will continue to do so.

FMCDH(BITS)

[ArtyFO]

I'm surprised that some enterprising company, say Ford, hasn't adopted "Intelligent Design" in their advertising.

[Rudder]

In other words, the problem with evolution, in his (Santorum's) view, is that it invalidates morality because it does away with God.
That kind of visceral opposition isn't going to respond to scientific evidence, and it certainly isn't going to be affected by a judge's ruling - even from a judge whom the senator himself supported for the bench.

Yep, one down and many, many more battles to go.

[fizziwig]

Well I guess I just don't understand then...Miller and Krauthammer say that evolution can be blended easily with the concept of God...maybe, but not the Judeo Christian God, only a God who created nature and then set it on its way to no particulary end or direction except what may happen be chance.

Now, if Miller and Krauthammer say that God is directing evolution to a particular end...then we are back full circle to ID...

So, what is it boys...Judeo Christian God...or something else...or pantheism maybe...or what?

Miller mentions Christian message...Christianity is not a message...it is a statement of certain immutable facts about the univers and Man in particular...you can take it as fact and truth and be a Christian, or you can dilute it into Christianity and water which basically has Christ as a philospher and not God become Man....which is my hunch as to what Miller believes.

[LiteKeeper]

YEC INTREP -

[jess35]

It's a good thing they don't see gravity as a cultural and moral threat.

[RussP]

"After six weeks of watching from the bench as ID's pseudoscientific arguments fell apart, as it advocates admitted they had no positive evidence for 'design,' ..."

These guys are downright frightening. No "positive evidence for design"? Baloney. There's plenty of positive evidence for design. What these people mean when they say "no positive evidence" is "no absolute proof." Funny how they require absolute proof for design, but not for evolution. When it comes to evolution, superficial plausibility is enough for them.

[MindBender26]

All this Creationism foolishness would evaporate when men of the 21st Century remember that the Bible is NOT the word of God, but it is the stories of men who lived 25 centuries ago, stories passed down by word of mouth, with multiple added stories, interpretations and translations.

It is simply a written recitation of a 2500 year old children's game of "telephone."

The Creation was included in those stories because man needed a way to explain the start of the world and 2500 years ago, they didn't have the scientific skills to understand evolution.

Just as men has abandoned the flat-earth theory, the falsity that the Earth is the center of the universe, and the once universally accepted theory that little devils caused musket balls from smooth bore guns to veer off course, but rifling spun the balls and bullets, so the devils fell off, someday, we will understand that someday science will tell us exactly how the Earth, the solar system, and everything else was created... and we can all chose to believe that was, or was not, God who did it that way,

[Nicholas Conradin]

That kind of visceral opposition isn't going to respond to scientific evidence, and it certainly isn't going to be affected by a judge's ruling - even from a judge whom the senator himself supported for the bench.

The initial response of ID-backers has been an ad hominem attack against Judge Jones. His being appointed by Bush appears to be especially grating.

I disagree with the statement that ID is winning. The Dover experience - 8 school board members defeated - should be a wake-up call for conservatives if they seek to make ID an election campaign issue.

[strategofr]

""How ridiculous to make evolution the enemy of God. What could be more elegant, more simple, more brilliant, more economical, more creative, indeed more divine than a planet with millions of life forms, distinct and yet interactive, all ultimately derived from accumulated variations in a single double-stranded molecule, pliable and fecund enough to give us mollusks and mice, Newton and Einstein?""

I agree. It seems to be that the assumption of the creationists (aka IDers) is that God was smart enough to figure out a universe where the physical laws fit together to explain things, but not smart enough to make these same laws create the life forms he wanted.

So, after finishing the creation of the physical laws of the universe, he had to begin "fudging" things to create life and then to create the different forms of life.

I don't think so.

[massadvj]

Among the many implications of this trial here in Pennsylvania is that the outcome is but one more nail in the coffin of Rick Santorum.

[curiosity]

Faith and Science Ping.

[jennyp]

In an Aug. 4 interview on National Public Radio, Santorum stated that "if we are the result of chance, if we're simply a mistake of nature, then that puts a different moral demand on us. In fact, it doesn't put a moral demand on us - than if in fact we are a creation of a being that has moral demands." In other words, the problem with evolution, in his view, is that it invalidates morality because it does away with God. ... That kind of visceral opposition isn't going to respond to scientific evidence, and it certainly isn't going to be affected by a judge's ruling - even from a judge whom the senator himself supported for the bench.

I'm very glad he mentioned that. That is precisely the motivation behind the DI's pursuit of the whole ID crusade: They think that we're all incapable of learning from history. We're incapable of reasoning our way to a moral system that's objectively good & life-affirming. So they think that without everyone believing in a supernatural Authority Figure, all major moral struggles will always end up being more passionate versions of Coke vs. Pepsi. And therefore, without God all there is is Hobbes' war of all against all, as the most ruthless interest groups try to crush each other in pursuit of their own interests, unrestrained by any objective morality.

IOW, creationists fear that the postmodernists are right: There is no objective Truth. Creationists, to their credit, hate this possibility, but they are stuck in stage 3 of the grieving process: magical thinking. They hope that if the intelligentsia can get back to believing in the same Authority Figure god again, then the major moral arguments of the day can get settled once & for all, and everyone will be happy again.

But it's all so unnecessary. It may take time & much painful experience, but we can learn from history, because there is objective Truth out there to learn from.

[sono]

For all I know, God pulled a Ron Popeil - He Set it and Forgot it and let things evolve. There, problem solved. Now let's fix social security, get a coherent energy program, adopt tort reform, and solve immigration and health insurance issues in 'o6.