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Posted on 01/30/2006 10:27:35 PM PST by Sweetjustusnow
The two scariest words in the English language? Intelligent Design! That phrase tends to produce a nasty rash and night sweats among our elitist class.
Should some impressionable teenager ever hear those words from a public school teacher, we are led to believe, that student may embrace a secular heresy: that some intelligent force or energy, maybe even a god, rather than Darwinian blind chance, has been responsible for the gazillions of magnificently designed life forms that populate our privileged planet.
Hermaphrodites are also a good example of procreation before the male/female specialization.
Yes, I am. However, starting with the assumption that there is no God is just as wrong. Is it possible to restate the TOE without either assumption?
The theory of evolution starts with neither assumption, but, consistent with the fact that it is science, with a methodology that looks to natural phenomena and facts in the natural world. Since no natural phenomena or facts in the natural world establish the existence of a god or gods (or anything else supernatural), the theory of evolution does not contemplate them. It simply looks at the facts established in nature and the natural world, and draws the conclusions that are consistent with those facts.
Well, hermaphroditism developed, perhaps, after sexual reproduction, but it's still interesting.
The most common example of it is the common Garden Snail. Each snail has both male and female sexual organs. Two snails mate, and both end up laying eggs. Very nice.
Another interesting variation is in some fish, which begin their adult lives as males, then become females later in their lives.
Life's fascinating.
Re: Spam.
Thank you for effectively saying, "I refuse to learn anything that may contradict my religious beliefs. As a result, I will not be taken the least bit seriously when I yelp, 'Evolution is dumb!'"
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What you are doing here is denying any assumptions while making a major one in the same sentence. Methodolgies cannot be employed without subjective, philosophical underpinnings. Undertaking science with the assumption that only natural phenomena can be considered or observed is undertaking science with a particular philosophical point of view. It is a choice you and other observers have made from your own experiences. It is a stance incapable of objective, emprical testing in and of itself.
The equation F=ma does not postulate random mutations and natural selection as sole causes for the speciation observed today, either.
That is essentially what certain folks are saying when they refuse to consider organizer matter as potetially indicative of intelligent design. What kind of belief would refuse to consider or address how intelligent humans are capable of discerning and commenting upon intelligible data in terms of intelligent design?
Could you tell me where the evidence of mutation can be found in the peppered moth? If the dark moths were already in the population then the slection was simply environmentally directed. The birds liked white meat ans since white meat shows up better against dark trees, the light moths got the horns, no?
You are mistaking the definition of science with its methodology. Reaching conclusions based only on natural phenomena and the facts of the natural world is what science does; it's what science is. It is oxymoronic to say that one can do "science" but consider supernatural elements.
You can reach conclusions by including supernatural elements in your reasoning process, but you are not doing science. You are doing something else; theology, probably.
The methodology of science has been, over the last 500 years or so, so effective in producing tangible results that it has developed a cache of a type that it appears that any statement of fact must at least attempt to disguise itself as science or risk losing credibility with the public. But calling non-science "science" doesn't make it science. (You can call a "tail" a "leg", but that doesn't mean that dogs have five legs.)
It is not uncommon for the devotees of non-theistic science to confuse or change the arguments under consideration. For whatever reason, they feel inclined to paint proponents of intelligent design as religious boobs rather than 1.) address the nature of organized matter that performs specific functions and 2.) admit they bring as much subjective baggage into science as anyone else. This is unfortunate, because there are some benefits in the details uncovered through non-theistic science that are lost when proclaimed as dogmatic support for a shaping principle that has little or nothing to do with the details themselves.
My understanding, learned in mmy diving days, was that goosebumps are not vestigial but simply an effect of the body removing blood supply from the body surface to minimize heat exchange with the surroundings.
Gay Jeans!!
DEFINITION OF SPAM placemarker
Not that it has anything to with the post, but I think Newton actually said that F=d(M*V). It was just reduced because it was assumed that mass was constant.
No. You are assuming a philosophical definition for science that science cannot methodologically validate. You are free to proceed with your assumption as to what defines science. In most cases your methodology and conclusions will not suffer. But when you argue from the details of your methodology into the bigger scheme of things your philosophical stance, for better or for worse, will guide the explanation.
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