Posted on 10/07/2009 8:18:14 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Seattle – Richard Dawkins, the world’s leading public spokesman for Darwinian evolution and an advocate of the “new atheism,” has refused to debate Dr. Stephen C. Meyer, a prominent advocate of intelligent design and the author of the acclaimed Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design.
“Richard Dawkins claims that the appearance of design in biology is an illusion and claims to have refuted the case for intelligent design,” says Dr. Meyer who received his Ph.D. in the philosophy of science from the University of Cambridge in England.
“But Dawkins assiduously avoids addressing the key evidence for intelligent design and won’t debate its leading proponents,” adds Dr. Meyer. “Dawkins says that there is no evidence for intelligent design in life, and yet he also acknowledges that neither he nor anyone else has an evolutionary explanation for the origin of the first living cell. We know now even the simplest forms of life are chock-full of digital code, complex information processing systems and other exquisite forms of nanotechnology.”
In Signature in the Cell, Dr. Meyer shows that the digital code embedded in DNA points powerfully to a designing intelligence and helps unravel a mystery that Darwin did not address: how did the very first life begin?
Signature in the Cell has just entered its third printing according to publisher HarperOne, an imprint of Harper Collins, and has been endorsed by scientists around the world, including leading British geneticist Dr. Norman Nevin, Alastair Noble, Ph.D. chemistry, formerly Her Majesty’s Inspector of Schools for Science, Scotland, and Dr. Philip Skell, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Meyer challenged Dawkins to a debate when he saw that their speaking tours would cross paths this fall in Seattle and New York. Dawkins declined through his publicists, saying he does not debate “creationists.”
“Dawkins’ response is disingenuous,” said Meyer. “Creationists believe the earth is 10,000 years old and use the Bible as the basis for their views on the origins of life. I don’t think the earth is 10,000 years old and my case for intelligent design is based on scientific evidence.”
According to Discovery Institute, where Dr. Meyer directs the Center for Science & Culture, the debate challenge is a standing invitation for any time and place that is mutually agreeable to both participants.
If there's no evidence for intelligent design in life, how could the universe give the illusion of design?
No wonder Dawkins doesn't have the wherewithal to debate.
The guy shoots himself in the foot every time he opens his mouth.
Richard Dawkins is an amateur liberal philosopher who behaves like a spoiled brat when he is not behaving like Bill Maher, Rosie O’Donnell or some other radical leftist fraud.
A stealthy admission, with the added "but others are doing it".?
Ok, lots of that sort of thing goes on here. I indulge myself in wiseguy comments, too.
Getting back to the article; I can see easily enough that from Dawkin's perspective, debating with anyone who doesn't agree with what can be termed neo-Dawinism wouldn't be profitable to him at all.
So what is the major difference between these two writers, what is the crux of the issue separating them?
One assumes life some how self-organized, randomly sprung into existence.
The other writer postulates that some evidence for what has become known as "design" can be seen in lifeforms.
"Proof" for this latter can only be inferred from the evidence perhaps, but first, one must be able to accept the possibility that the neo-Darwinian philosophical outlook may be quite wrong, at least as far as the abiogenisis assumption is concerned.
All the poo-flinging merely distracts from the set of ideas being discussed.
Dawkins will not approach the idea whatsoever. He states his case, but adds much poo-flinging along with it, towards any who dare challenge the assumption.
Are you following in his footsteps here?
““Box 2. Natural divisions
From the following article:
Intelligent design: Who has designs on your students’ minds?
Geoff Brumfiel
Nature 434, 1062-1065(28 April 2005)
doi:10.1038/4341062a
Evolution advocates say that researchers should be careful about how they respond to such overtures. If the request is for a public debate with an intelligent-design advocate, the best answer is ‘no’, argues Robert Pennock, a philosopher of science at Michigan State University in East Lansing. “A public debate is an artificial setting for getting into scientific issues,” he says. “There's no way in that format to thoroughly give a scientific response, especially to a lay audience.”
“A formal debate is not how we do science,” agrees Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education in Oakland, California. “But I think it's appropriate for scientists to meet with students and educate them about what the real science is saying.”
That's what Victor Hutchison and his colleagues in the zoology department at the University of Oklahoma in Norman have been doing for the past few years. “We will not agree to debate the creationists publicly,” he says. “But we encourage faculty members and graduate students to attend their meetings and challenge them in the discussion.”
Debate is not good for Darwinists.
“Posting dated Monty Python clips in response to another’s post is not as clever or witty as you seem to think it is”
It made me laugh
“Aliens planted the first life on earth”
I never expected ‘Expelled’ to be funny, but him saying that made me laugh hysterically, how can anyone find him credible? Dawkins seriously jumped the shark on that note.
Then, later on you admit that it IS assumption, through use of something of a strawman argument;
Even if there were to be some truth to the abiogenesis idea, at this time there is nothing empirical, testable, falsifiable which irrefutably supports the postulate, or else we would have seen it by now.
Yet, the assumption persists, and it does appear that those whom dare point this out, will have poo flung at them.
Dr. Meyer who received his Ph.D. in the philosophy of science from the University of Cambridge in England.”
Obviously another buffoon who got his degree from a degree mill
LOL!
George Bush dodged debate with Cindy Sheehan
He’s a philosopher (BS artist), not a scientist.
Blue Dragon: You say that abiogenesis is not assumption?
Filo: Correct
Me: Filo is about as evo-religious as you can get...and yet he mistakes his nature-worship for science!!!
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.