Posted on 07/30/2006 12:56:40 PM PDT by infoguy
Under the corrupt cloak of a "book review," this Sunday's Los Angeles Times (July 30, 2006) continues its underhanded and one-sided assault on the theory of intelligent design (ID). "The language of life," by Robert Lee Hotz*, is a review of three new works that attack intelligent design. The review was promoted on the top of the front page of the "Sunday preview" edition under the heading, "Less than 'intelligent design': Darwin's believers debunk the theory." And rather than providing its readers an honest critique, the Times' "review" is nothing less than a full-on Darwin propaganda piece. Hotz begins his article as follows (emphasis/link mine),
In the border war between science and faith, the doctrine of "intelligent design" is a sly subterfuge - a marzipan confection of an idea presented in the shape of something more substantial.
As many now understand - and as a federal court ruled in December - intelligent design is the bait on the barbed hook of creationist belief ...
Objectivity? Forget it. You won't find it with Hotz. Hotz' hit piece on ID then continues by haphazardly labeling ID as a "ruse," a "ploy," a "disingenuous masquerade," and "dishonesty."
Hotz claims the works he's reviewing are written by "some of the nation's most distinguished thinkers." Well, one of the reviewed books is by well-known "skeptic" Michael Shermer, whose work has been cited numerous times for falsehoods and inaccuracy (for example, here, here, here, and here)). Shermer has also floundered considerably while defending Darwinism in public, as witnessed in a 2004 debate with Stephen Meyer on TV's Faith Under Fire (link with video). In 2005, Shermer struggled in a debate with William Dembski (link/audio). "Distinguished"? Sorry, Mr. Hotz.
As NewsBusters has already reported this year (link), the Los Angeles Times has never published a single article from a leading spokesperson of intelligent design theory.** (Leading spokespeople would include names such as Stephen Meyer, William Dembski, Michael Behe, Jonathan Wells, Guillermo Gonzalez, Jay Wesley Richards, and acclaimed writer Lee Strobel.) Yet the Times has now published its tenth piece in the last 14 months attacking ID! (I'm using this count).
Is there balance at the Los Angeles Times on this issue? Not even close, folks. The Times is unequivocally disserving its readers. How many Times readers are aware that one of the world's most renowned atheists, Antony Flew, has recently become open to God largely due to the persuasive science of intelligent design?
* Hotz "covers science, medicine, and technology" for the Times, yet Hotz has a B.A. in English and an M.A. in theater history. Am I the only one to think it odd that the Times would find him well qualified to write on science, medicine, and technology?
** Stephen Meyer did co-author a 1987 op-ed in the LA Times (almost 19 years ago) on the subject of human rights; but the article does not delve into the topic of intelligent design. In addition, there was a book review in the Times over 8 years ago (1998) by Edward McGlynn Gaffney, Jr. His review, about a book on the 1925 Scopes trial, included brief references to intelligent design science. However, Gaffney's name would not be included among well-known proponents of ID.
Spellcheck is for p_ssies!
http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/index.shtml#creation_vs_evolution
He is a She...and I could care less...
No. We weren't actually. We were talking about the nature of science.
This is so weird to see. It's an atheistic fallacy that somehow many theists have adopted. "Reality is science, so if something is real, it's scientific."
So weird. From my viewpoint, the true reality is the eternal God and my eternal soul created in His image, and physical matter is the illusion.
To try to force the eternal to be studied by material measures is blasphemous and sinful in my view.
Well, because you suggested that you thought Darwin had claimed the impossibility of a higher power having put man on earth. Although this was not what Darwin affirmatively believed (in his later years) himself, he did not in any fashion assert that it was "impossible," and as I demonstrated he was ultimately agnostic about the possibility of God having a role in the origin of life and the development of humans and other creatures.
BTW: Did I mention "God" in any of my posts? If so would you please show me the exact quote? I simply refernced a higher being putting us on this planet.
O.K. You didn't mention "God". But, so? Certainly God does qualify as a "higher being"!
How much of a higher being that is none of us know.
Yeah, whatever. I don't piddle with unidentified "intelligent designers" and such myself. For me the question of theism is the central theological (but not scientific) question.
Are other things possible? Well sure. But I'm not buying it myself. Could be wrong, but I strongly believe any civilization powerful enough to seed or biologically engineer planets would present some other evidence of itself which would have been detected by now. If there are other non-supernatural beings in the galaxy, we are effectively cut off from their direct influence.
Personally I suspect that other intelligent civilizations exist, but are distributed thinly enough in the vastness of space that we are extremely unlikely to ever encounter them. At best we might manage to pick up a transmission some time.
I suspect interstellar travel is a practical impossibility. If it were not the galaxy should, by now, have been completely colonized by the first species to achieve it.
One possibility, since we're in the realm of sci-fi anyway: Maybe civilizations intentionally hide their presence from one another. There could be a variety of reasons for that.
You are aware that Ross is an old-universe, Big-bang proponent?
You must not know of the BOFH.
http://www.theregister.com/2006/07/14/bofh_2006_episode_23/
"...mentions nothing about subcontracting your services to another company," he counters smartly. "I know - I had the company solicitors give your contract the once-over. As impressed as they were about the numerous strange clauses in your contract - their favourite being the extortionate penalty payment for remaining at work after a UFO sighting in the vicinity of the building - they believe that there's nothing to stop us using you to provide services to other companies.""
...
""You would have been standing by a window," the head of IT says bitterly, a painful memory of his first week in the company rising to the surface. "And one of these two would have said something like 'look at that, is it an Airbus 320 or an Airbus 340'?"
"The actual question was 'is that a 747-200F or a 747-200C'?" the PFY says.
"Yes?" the Boss says.
"And you said something like 'I dunno' didn't you?" the head asks.
"Well, I don't know anything about planes," he replies defensively.
"And what do we call a flying object that you can't identify?" the PFY asks.
"Oh..." the Boss says. "I'll get me coat...""
My point is that without an Intelligent Designer, love (among other things) is meaningless.
You're so wrapped up in "science" that you're missing the truth. Without intelligence, everything is meaningless. Including all the words you're typing on your computer. Meaningless. s;l el jelkejrlk sl .s.;e..w ;alkje jwlle aje wiuep2 de;2 ll2 3u9f;lk a dlfk jdlw e;ls .d elrkjws slfkjd eeoiu23
Because ID proponents do no science and engage in a lot of theatric?
If an "Intelligent Designer" did design us, why do we have so many design defects?
Define "defect"? The thought that the Designer doesn't exist? Yes, I'd admit that's defect.
No. "Science" is the process of making sense of reality, and ultimately truth. Are you saying that "science" and "truth" are unrelated? Strange....
And I'm sick of those who have such a low esimation of the Creator, and of Scripture. And of good science, for that matter.
Talk to me about the irreducible complexity of the cell. Tell me about how blood clots. The fool says in his heart that there is no God, no Designer.
ID has no laboratories, has never mounted a field expedition, has never discovered a fossil. "Intelligent design" has published no independent scientific discoveries in any field, not just biology. ID has no professional journal; ID adherents rarely publish any scientific article with citations to peer-reviewed literature.
ID has offered no testable hypotheses and made no predictions other than supernatural explanations. ID is so impoverished as a theory that it can't even offer mechanisms by which the "Designer" imposed "His Designs". ID cannot even suggest when and where this intervention occurred.
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