Posted on 01/22/2006 10:08:10 PM PST by Para-Ord.45
People who celebrated Judge John Jones's recent ruling that Intelligent Design is a "religious view" and "not science," so that it is "unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution," are satisfied because religion and science have been kept strictly apart, which suits their worldview. It amounts, though, to begging the question that is at stake, and "winning" the argument by sheer force.
Before explaining why, it's worth noting that science is being defined flexibly. If someone says -- "The fossil record does not actually indicate that species evolved into other species, and evidence of the necessary transitional species has not been found, but we assume that those species did exist because our theory requires it" -- this, of course, is science. And if someone says -- "We have no idea how the single bacterium from which all other species allegedly evolved could have emerged from inanimate matter, but we assume that it must have" -- this too is science, to be taught to children as established fact. It is, after all, a "naturalistic" explanation, hence true, hence science.
Most people who believe in God, however, believe that God created nature. If that were so, then it should be at least theoretically possible that scientists, who investigate nature, could come upon evidence of God while doing so. When you delve deeply into something, the goal is usually to discover its source. Einstein, like many titans of science before him, acknowledged this in a general way in many statements, such as: "everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe -- a spirit vastly superior to that of man," or his reference to "rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection."
Such statements, though, while interesting and important, are admittedly not science. ID scientists make a different claim -- that their rigorous investigation of natural phenomena like organisms and parts of organisms, or their rigorous application of mathematical laws of randomness and probability to the complexity of such organisms, yields specific evidence that they were designed, and that evolution does not adequately explain their existence.
ID scientists have presented their evidence in peer-reviewed books published by major, prestigious publishers and in peer-reviewed articles published by major, prestigious journals. A statement circulated by the Discovery Institute -- "We are skeptical of the claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged" -- has already been signed by over four hundred scientists. They come from fields like biochemistry, bacteriology, astrophysics, mathematics, and computer science and from institutions like Princeton, Cornell, Cambridge, Columbia, and MIT.
Twenty years ago, you didn't hear about this sort of thing. Now you do -- because, as often happens, a scientific theory, in this case evolution, is coming under challenge, and a different paradigm, in this case ID, is arising in its place. Of course, not all the scientists who doubt evolution accept ID. But many of them do, and they do so on the basis of scientific research.
Why, then, the claim that ID is "not science"? Part of the reason, to repeat, is sheer prejudice. People who espouse a naturalistic, materialist view of reality, which Darwinism supposedly corroborated and did much to promote, realize that the posited designer of nature is a deity. A deity, as they see it, belongs to "religion" -- at best soft, sentimental stuff that may have a place in the church or synagogue but not in a serious domain like science.
The other claim against ID is that it is "not falsifiable." First of all, the term is, once more, flexible. The statement that "Even if we don't currently understand how evolution via random mutation and natural selection could have produced the species existing in the world, we will eventually" -- is also not falsifiable but, rather, an expression of faith. Second, two Discovery Institute fellows, while acknowledging "that there's no way to falsify the bare assertion that a cosmic designer exists," demonstrate here that "the specific design arguments currently in play are empirically testable, even falsifiable, and involve testable predictions."
And as for that "bare assertion," if it were true that nature had been designed, and if science has now grown sophisticated enough to detect evidence of the designer, then it could, logically and conceivably, also be the case that the assertion is not falsifiable because it is not false.
Interesting questions, calling for further research and open minds. So interesting we might even let children know about them.
It is actually quite entertaining to hear the atheists go on about how ID is a theory but Evolution is a fact. LOL.
bump...
Alloy P-12 BUMP
You CANNOT prove that humans evolved from monkies. Observations INDICATE, but the evidence is still lacking.
Evolution is a THEORY.
You cannot prove the existence of god. You cannot prove that god created all life on earth.
ID is a THEORY.
Scientists are SUPPOSED to be open to all possibilities.
BTW - Atheism IS a religion. Just because they deny divinity that doesn't make it any less of a life philosophy. Scary as it is, because it's not considered a religion, it is taught in our schools....:(:(:(
"It is, after all, a "naturalistic" explanation, hence true, hence science."
Bingo! Science is defined as naturalism, therefore, any evidence of Intelligent Design will never be science. Conversly, any lack of evidence of a naturalistic explanation for phenomena just means that the evidence has not been produced yet but someday will. What a great deal for Atheists!
Too bad their house of cards if falling apart anyway...oh well....
*PING*
Well, "to put aside hints and speak plainly," as Galileo said, this is a lie, and a damned lie at that. ID is a religiously motivated political movement, and not a scientific theory.
I say this in full sympathy for the motivations behind it, namely the desire for free expression and the free exercise of religion, in the form promulgation of belief, in this particular case. But still, "facts are just facts and you can't have opinions about facts," as Peter Schickele said.
I'm a deist...not an atheist.
Evolution is a scientific theory.
ID is a faith-based belief.
FSM is a similar faith-based belief.
Neither ID nor FSM is a scientific theory.
Evolution, itself, is actually very clever. The natural variability among species allows life to change to meet new environmental challenges. No species is static, random mutations will occur. If the mutations are favorable the individuals carrying those mutations will be favored for reproduction.
Bile? Any evidence to support that...or just a faith-based belief?
That's nothing! How about the stability of the proton? Now that's clever!
Bookmarking for daytime reading.
Christianity becomes more and more criminalized and oppressed with each passing year in America, from banishing public display of the Creche, prayer and the Ten Commandments to forcing Christian pharmacists and Catholic hospitals to dispense abortifacient chemicals under penalty of being fired, fined or other sanctions. Our Christian belief that the practicing of homosexual perversion is a great evil has become a "hate crime" if we dare speak out publicly about these beliefs. And it certainly doesn't end with these few items I've listed.
There's also the anti-6th Commandment/ anti-Christian laws that allow doctors to help destroy certain patients who are ill and feel desperate. (Many of these patients are not elderly or terminally ill, they are simply depressed and feel like they want to die). Then we have cases like Terri Schiavo where a Court actually ordered her to die by starvation, and threatened everyone with arrest who would attempt to give her a drink of water. They did in fact arrest a loving soul who tried to give her a drink of water.
All these terrible things are the definition of blatant religious criminalization and oppression. I don't think we're very far away from an oppression which will be much worse than we have today. That's the clear direction we are headed in.
Christianity becomes more and more criminalized and oppressed with each passing year in America, from banishing public display of the Creche, prayer and the Ten Commandments to forcing Christian pharmacists and Catholic hospitals to dispense abortifacient chemicals under penalty of being fired, fined or other sanctions. Our Christian belief that the practicing of homosexual perversion is a great evil has become a "hate crime" if we dare speak out publicly about these beliefs. And it certainly doesn't end with these few items I've listed.
There's also the anti-6th Commandment/ anti-Christian laws that allow doctors to help destroy certain patients who are ill and feel desperate. (Many of these patients are not elderly or terminally ill, they are simply depressed and feel like they want to die). Then we have cases like Terri Schiavo where a Court actually ordered her to die by starvation, and threatened everyone with arrest who would attempt to give her a drink of water. They did in fact arrest a loving soul who tried to give her a drink of water.
All these terrible things are the definition of blatant religious criminalization and oppression. I don't think we're very far away from an oppression which will be much worse than we have today. That's the clear direction we are headed in.
Sounds more like religion to me. It's quite pathetic that lawyers and judges now determine what is science and what is not.
The "fossil record", for the most part was created at one specific period of time, which supports catastrophic event theory (real science with much more scientific support than evolution religion).
There never will be a fossil record showing transitional forms, because none existed at the time the fossil record was created, no did they ever.
The fossil "record" isn't being continuosly created today, because these creatures decay and or are eaten by scavengers before sufficient material can cover them to create a fossil.
Here's an intresting book for those who are tired of the far-fetched evolutionist gospel. fountains of the deep
Evolutionists are like muslims, no matter how much proof you present to them proving their prophet was the furtherst thing from one, they still refuse to accept the facts.
So what about it? The very founding of the United States of America was also a "religiously motivated, political movement", that declared to the King of England that we have GOD GIVEN, INALIENABLE RIGHTS that supercede the Crown's rule of religious oppression and government tyranny.
If not for that deep religious ideology that permeated the souls of America's first Pilgrims and most of the authors of the Declaration of Independence, the Darwinists, (who themselves are a political, anti-religious movement), would assuredly have something far worse to suffer than some Christian parents who don't want their children being taught the direct opposite of what their religion teaches them.
Darwinism, the flimsiest of all modern 'sciences', is nothing other than a subversive cult engaged in the fine art of destroying the Christian faith. People are finally beginning to realize this, and Charles Darwin's 'evolution' will soon be rotting in the grave along with its Christian-bashing, Bible-hating founder.
There is another reason Evolution is so protected. The Progressive Movements intellectual political ideology is based on it. I've just been reading about this and now I know the rest of the story. Evolution is much more that science. It has spawned a world view that involves political thinking, morality or lack of, relativism, marxism, eugenics, euthanasia,abortion,child sex liberation, environmentalism and atheism. Just to name a few.
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