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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.
So you feel you can prove God had nothing to do with creation? LOL
Do you believe in God?
From the article I linked:
"Rather, Schwartz argues, they have not been found because they don't exist..."
The initial point stands, your arrogant elitism notwithstanding.
I never said I could. I believe that the existence or non-existence of any deity is an unprovable proposition.
Do you believe in God?
Which one?
I don't know what you're trying to say. You don't think fossils exist or you don't believe in physical evidence?
Other than you're anti-evo, I don't understand what your point of view is.
longshadow gave it to me.
I prefer the expression "anointed".....
;-)
Did you actually READ that?
You've introduced more to the argument than is necessary. You've leapt to the conclusion that an intelligent designer must, by definition, be supernatural. This is made clear by the introduction of capital letters "I" and "D" as if some deity is necessary for intelligent design to take place. My question concerns the idea of intelligent design itself, and why it should be considered a supernatural phenomenon. Why cannot nature engage in intelligent design? You keep insisting intelligent design is beyond the realm of science. How can that be, since science by definition must make use of intelligent design just to create and test hypotheses?
Yep
I never said that science never will, (rather presumptuous for you to assume you know my thoughts), but science doesn't deal in "proofs." If asked whether we will find evidence establishing, with reasonable confidence, this fact, I'd say it is theoretically impossible, but I am willing to listen to examples of how it might be possible. (It is theoretically impossible, in my view, because you could not discount every possible explanation of a positive indication [i.e., what you've attributed to God may be attributable to a natural, yet unknown cause] and a negative indication, obviously, means nothing. [because God may just not want to be found.])
I'm sure at one point in history people didn't believe man would ever walk on the moon. I remain open to all kinds of possibilities from science.
Walking on the moon was an engineering problem. The equivalent would be wondering whether people would ever walk along the Rainbow Bridge into Asgard, or the like.
As for God, do you believe in any of them?
I don't think there is any way to establish an answer to that question either way. So I think it might be possible that a god or gods exist, but I have no way to assess any confidence in any such possibility.
Do you then consider yourself to be an agnostic?
1) Take DNA from modern human.
2) Take DNA from apes.
3) Compare.
4) Note similarities (commonalities). Perhaps these may relate to a common ancestor?
Just a guess. I do bones meself.
Oh, please. I capitalize the "P" in Pennsylvania. Doesn't mean I think the Keystone State is a god.
My question concerns the idea of intelligent design itself, and why it should be considered a supernatural phenomenon. Why cannot nature engage in intelligent design?
Are you talking about the "theory" of intelligent design, or are you using it as a pretend code-word, one that which only you know the real meaning?
-Can an intelligence design something? Sure.
-Is everything that appears designed actually designed by an intelligence? No.
-Can we tell when something is designed by an intelligence and when it is not? No. Not with certainty, and only in circumstances where we have antecedent knowledge. When dealing with areas without antecedent knowledge, we have an insurmountable false positive problem.
Are we done?
That probably is the closest term I've heard. But there is a sense of "I just can't decide" to it in common usage that I don't think applies.
"Yes, you do. Science is not art or literature, where matters of opinion and interpretation count."
Really?
So there is no interpretation or opinion involved when deciding where fossils belong in the evolutionary tree?
It's non-subjective and completely agreed upon because these are data points which can be tested and re-tested, right?
If that's the case then there would be no difference of opinion among scientists and no need to revise parts of the tree from time to time.
What would we expect, and why would we expect it?
Moreover, laboratory experiments reveal how close to impossible it is for one species to evolve into another, even allowing for selective breeding and some genetic mutation.
What laboratory experiments?
Try "Weak Atheism" in wikipedia. That fits me, and sounds like it might be right for you.
What's the most interesting find you've ever had? Where did you find it? I have to admit I think it's pretty cool to dig stuff up and figure out what it means.
Good points. The more you read about scientists, the more it seems they disagree on many points.
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