Posted on 01/11/2006 8:28:26 PM PST by saalebhosdike
A few thoughts regarding the recent foolishness in the courts of Pennsylvania over Intelligent Design:
A pertinent question is why the curricula of the schools should be the concern of judges, who are little more than the enforcement arm of the academic and journalistic elites, imposing on Kansas what could not be legislated in Washington. I see no evidence that judges deploy intelligence, knowledge, or any other qualification other than boundless belief in their unlimited jurisdiction.
Another question is precisely what is meant by Intelligent Design. The answer is not easily divined by reading newspapers: The press have many virtues, but facility in communication is not among them. Reporters, whose thinking is tightly templated, seem to think that Intelligent Design has something to do with Christianity. I know many who suspect intelligent design, but are not religious. This idea is too difficult for reporters, and too dangerous for Darwinists. If one heresy may be discussed, so may others be, and the cracks in the foundations become evident.
It is interesting to put the matter in historical context. To simplify exuberantly, but not inaccurately for present purposes: People long ago saw the world in (I hate words like this one) non-mechanistic terms. They thought that events occurred because Someone or Something wanted them to occur. They believed in dryads and maenads, sylphs and salamanders, gods and demiurges. It can be debated whether they were foolish, or responding as in a fog to things real but intangible.
They thought more about death in those days, perhaps because they saw more of it, and wondered. Existence was to them more moral than physical, and more often seen as a passage from somewhere to somewhere. Come Christianity if not much earlier, they accepted Good and Evil, upper case, as things that actually existed. In the cosmic order as they understood it, mind, intention, will, and consciousness trumped the material.
Then in roughly the fifteenth century a shift began to a mechanistic view of the world. Next came Newton. There were others before him, but he, though he was himself a Christian, was the towering figure in the rise of mechanism, the view that all things occur ineluctably through mindless antecedent causes. He said (remember, I’m simplifying exuberantly) that the physical world is like a pool table: If you know the starting positions and velocities of the balls, you can calculate all future positions and velocities. No sprites, banshees, or Fates, no volition or consciousness. He invented the mathematics to make it stick, at least for pool tables.
This notion of mechanism spread to other fields. Marx said that history was a mechanical unfolding of economics, Freud that our very personalities were a deterministic result of strange sexual complexes, Darwin (or more correctly his disciples) that we were the offspring of purposeless material couplings, first of molecules and then of organisms. Skinner made us individually the will-less product of psychological conditioning. Sociology did much the same for groups, giving rise to the cult of victimhood: I am not what I am because of decisions I made, but because of social circumstances over which I have no influence. Genetics now seeks to make us the result of tinker-toy chemical mechanism.
No will, free or otherwise. No good or evil, right or wrong. Consciousness being an awkward problem for determinists, they ignore it or brush it aside. Death is harder to ignore, but accepted only as a physical termination. One says, “John is gone,” but does not ask, “Where has John gone?” The world offers no mystery or wonder. All questions come down to no more than a fine tuning of our analysis of Newton’s pool balls. (Again, I am exuberantly….)
These two views, which reduce to the age-old puzzle of free will and determinism, can be endlessly argued, and have been. Mechanism prevails today because, within its realm, it works, and perhaps also because it does not suffer from the internal contradictions of religion. Technology, almost the only advance made by our otherwise unimpressive civilization, produces results, such as iPods and television. It does not answer, and cannot answer, such questions as Where are we? Why? Where are we going? What should we do? So it dismisses them. Mechanists are hostile to religion in part because religion does not dismiss these questions, but harps on them.
The two conflicting schemes attract adherents because mankind always seeks overarching explanations, particularly regarding origin, destiny, and purpose. Some of us are willing to say “I don’t know.” Others, well denominated True Believers, have to think that they do know. The country is replete with them: Feminists, Marxists, Born-Agains, rabid anti-semites, snake handlers, Neo-Darwinists. They care deeply, brook no dissent (a sure sign of True Belief), and have infinite confidence in their rightness (or perhaps don’t and pretend certainty to ward off a disturbing uncertainty).
In re Intelligent Design, the Darwinists have pretty much won. Their victory springs not so much from the strength of their ideas, but from their success in preventing Intelligent Discussion. They control the zeitgeist of the somewhat educated, as for example judges. It is enough.
Evolution is one of the three sacred foundations of political correctness, along with the notions that there can be no racial and sexual difference in mental capacities, and that religion is unprogressive and should be suppressed, Yet these are delicate things all three, and cannot well bear scrutiny. Thus the various determinists grimly avoid examination of their ideas.
The lacunae are nonetheless obvious. All is material? If I were to talk to a Neo-Darwinist, I might proceed as follows. “One day you will die. Where will you then be? Yes, yes, I know. We do not speak of this. Yet death does seem to be a bit of a reality. Do you never wake up at three in the morning and think, ‘Where in the name of—in the name of Logical Positivism, I suppose you would think—are we?’ If not, you are a great fool.
“Let me put the matter differently. Either you believe that there is life after death, or you believe there isn’t, or you aren’t sure—which means that you believe that there may be. If there is, then there exists a realm of which we know nothing, including what if any effects it exerts on this passing world. If there is nothing beyond the grave, why do you care about anything at all? You’ve only got a few more years, and then—nothing.”
Or I might say, “You don’t mind if I boil your young daughter in oil tonight, do you? The world being purely material, the only effect would be to interrupt certain chemical reactions conjointly called ‘metabolism’ and to substitute others. You cannot object to such a small thing. She will not mind: Consciousness not being derivable from physics, she cannot be conscious. Boiling children cannot be Wrong, as the term has no physical meaning, and in any event all my actions follow inexorably from the Big Bang. I am only doing as blind causality instructs me.”
In truth we know very little about existence, neither you nor I nor biochemists nor even federal judges. We defend our paradigms because we crave a sense of understanding this curious place in which we briefly are. We do it by ignoring the inconvenient and by punishing doubt. Thus the furor over Intelligent Design.
Not as much as this writer woudl have us believe. Quantum theory is rising, as is suprestring theory and several other views of teh scientific world.
"Consciousness is the ground of all being." -- Dr. Amit Goswami, a professor of physics at the University of Oregon, now retired, and an author, philosopher, and instructor.
What does he mean by this? Religion can be quite consistent, unless he means that the premises themselves are contradictory. But all religions are, to some extent, a complete faith in the logical outworkign of their premises.
It was a federal court, because at issue was the 1st Amendment's establishment clause. The trial uncovered the school board's motivation was religious. In particular, Christianity. They also uncovered the IDers motivations, it was the same. They, along with the school board had claimed the motivation was scientific. The that the matter was scientific was debunked as federal courts do all the time in such cases as patent law, environmental law, and other regulatory matters. It was uncovered during the trial that Behe had no peer review as he originally claimed, they provided no science, and nothing substantial as an alternative to evolution.
"There is room for asking about the purpose of life, even in the high school classroom, is there not?"
Not in science class, because science can't address the matter.
"Why do you assume such thoughts are 'above their heads'? "
Those thoughts aren't above their heads. The various ideas that are out their can be taught and discussed in social studies, where Freedom is taught as the American way and the free exercise clause is discussed in govm't class. My reference to "above their heads" was to the ability to fish through and effectively recognize ID as a con. It takes more than any HS education to do that effectively, just as it would to recognize errors in the materials taught in biology.
" Do you wish to hermetically seal off science from other disciplines and competing world views?"
Competing world views? Science doesn't address world view. That's social studies, English class and govm't class. I've never seen a philosophy class. Science class should be just that, science not science plus junk. The same goes for math. In those classes truth and rational thought are essential. Truth is singular and unique. Does competing world view fit into math class also?
So what was there before the Big Bang?
Actually, to use the full quote, "God is dead, and we have killed Him."
"Consciousness not being derivable from physics"
It most certainly can.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0738204366/103-3181196-0503838?v=glance&n=283155
See the link in my post #46. It's a great read and ties everything in quite nicely.
I note that Amazon is bundling it with "The Self-Aware Universe" by Goswami. I got that book for Christmas in '04 and it's terrific.
From your "'open your eyes' kinda article":
"A pertinent question is why the curricula of the schools should be the concern of judges, who are little more than the enforcement arm of the academic and journalistic elites, imposing on Kansas what could not be legislated in Washington. I see no evidence that judges deploy intelligence, knowledge, or any other qualification other than boundless belief in their unlimited jurisdiction."
Eye-opening indeed. Perhaps you (or maybe Fred) would care to answer a few questions:
-- Did Judge Jones have anything to do with initiating the lawsuit (or, for that matter, with initiating the series of events that led to the lawsuit)?
-- When the parents filed suit, and the School Board answered, on what basis should Judge Jones have declined jurisdiction?
-- Are you (and Fred) suggesting that judges should decline to accept jurisdiction "just because"? A kind of "I don't like you" or "I don't like the issue" imperial power to arbitrarily deny citizens access to the courts?
-- Wouldn't the power of a judge to "just say no" to jurisdiction despite proper invocation by citizen-litigants in fact create the imperial judiciary you (and Fred) seem to think already exists?
Is the tyranical minority keeping you from attending your church?
I'll check it out. I'm a "nuts and bolts" kinda guy and Evan Walker Harris explains Quantum Physics like no one else. I've never been much into blind faith...and he manages to explain things in a way the layman can understand.
My hat's off to him. I think I read his book about 6 or 7 times now.
....oops Evan Harris Walker.
Thanks so much for the link to Denis O. Lamoureux's paper on Evolutionary Creation at http://www.ualberta.ca/~dlamoure/3EvoCr.htm.
As he correctly states, the leading evangelical evolutionary creationist today is Howard Van Till. He spent most of his career at Calvin College, an institution considered to be the leading evangelical college in the United States supporting this view of origins. Van Till claims that God created the world 'fully-gifted' from its inception so that all the universe and life would evolve without subsequent Divine interventions.
I agree with him except for one thing - I think there was at the very least one subsequent "Divine intervention" when God specifically created Adam in His image.
As there was no "suitable" mate to be found for Adam from among the other lesser creatures --- which had been created (anciently) --- God created Eve from Adam's specifically created substance.
God banished the two of them from the Garden of Eden after they deliberately disobeyed (sinned), marring his image in them.
What happened after that?
Dick Fisher has written a couple of fascinating articles defending the special creation of Adam and Eve while at the same time providing a possible explanation for why many scientists insist they have biological evidence that all life descended from one single ancestor.
Like Lamoureux, Dick Fisher is also a Fellow of the American Scientific Affiliation (ASA). Here are the links to his articles:
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/topics/Evolution/PSCF12-93Fisher.html
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/topics/Evolution/PSCF3-94Fisher.html
~Dick Fischer~ Genesis Proclaimed Association
Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History
http://www.genesisproclaimed.org
Any feedback would be appreciated.
On a side note: Personally, I think that until scientists get rid of their current PR people and instead promote people like Lamoureaux and Fisher as PR persons on the subject of evolution, they will not make much headway with the American public - the vast majority of whom claim to be Christians.
The most vocal proponents of "evolution" (their PR people), are atheists like Dawkins, and other rabid, frothing-at-the-mouth God haters. Types like the "humanist" Eugenie Scott, et.al., don't fool anyone either - just because they have chosen a "low key" approach. Web sites like internet infidels may champion such people, but serious, orthodox Christians will not pay one bit of attention to the opinions of atheists/secular humanists when it comes to the important questions of life.
Thank you for all the information and links!
You're welcome.
Why would God need to create Adam atom by atom, molecule by molecule, from dirt? A possible scenario is that "man", God's ultimate creation, was differentiated from other creations by the presence of Free will - one of God's intended outcomes of evolution. With Free will, God bestowed Adam with a soul, through His first direct divine contact (ensoulement would be His divine intervention, bestowed for each human being).
Eve would have been a biologically compatible partner for Adam, also with Free will and ensouled. By His grace, God's gift to Adam found Adam. And, through Free will, something which gives humans alone the ability to act outside of God's will, they sinned - the first free creation spurning the creator.
So, we may have all descended from a single ancestor, but ensoulement was our gift from God, differentiating us from prior ancestors in the most important way possible. And by utilising the mental gifts God also gave us, through evolution (as he willed evolution to unfold from the initial moment of all creation), we were given the tools to understand the "how" of creation, while divine inspiration provided us with the "why".
"Need" wouldn't have anything to do with it.
Ecclesiastes 3:11: "...He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end."
"Does competing world view fit into math class also?"
Sho nuff does - ain't you heerd o' New Math? Thet NEA bunch is sho happy wit it. /sarc
Forgive me, Lord for my bad mouthing of hard working, union dues paying, Gramsci spouting, math educators from the shallow end of the gene pool.
Well I suppose that's one way to look at the question. Certainly it is not the only way.
Coyoteman, about a week ago on another thread, we were discussing Aristotle's laws of causation, there being four. And it seemed to me you didn't mind that I characterized the modern-day scientific method (methodological naturalism that is) as being exclusively interested in material and efficient causes. Then I may have suggested material and efficient causes didn't seem to explain everything that needs to be explained in the world of nature. Whereupon you wrote back and asked me how I thought science could "measure" formal and final causes.
Well, having thought it over, I'd answer that question by saying: Probably the same way the scientific method seemingly always deals with such problems: Either hold them tacitly, as unexamined initial premises; or outright deny they exist. Then these same folks will turn around, and describe to you their formal cause: random mutation + natural selection.
These are the self-same people who will tell you that, as a random process, nature does not intend toward any particular goal. But then, the next thing you know, these same folks will turn around and tell you that natural selection is keyed to the survival of the fittest (however defined) — which is a telos, a final cause.
No disrespect intended; but it seems to me, Coyoteman, that neo-Darwinist theory in particular is well overdue for an epistemological "house-cleaning." FWIW
Thanks so much for writing!
This is going to take more effort than I can put in tonight (its late and I haven't shaved).
Let me look at this fresh over the weekend and see what I can come up with as a suitable response.
Coyote
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.