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To: DannyTN
I followed your link to your ICR scientists, and indeed some of them appear to to be credentialed, working scientists. I think you might be surprised, however, by some of the things they've written.

If you wish to make the point that believers can be competent scientists, I can accept that. But I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for any of these people to demonstrate that the traditional working assumptions of science are inadequate. These people are scientists to the extent that they apply scientific methods and assumptions.

The fundamental error of ID is not the assumption that God designed the universe. That is irrelevant to the current debate. The fundamental error of ID is the more mundane error of incorrectly describing the behavior of the universe, once brought into existence.

ID asserts that certain processes and phenomena are impossible, specifically, that certain biological objects cannot have come into existence through the regular processes of chemistry. Please note that we are not discussing who made the dirt, or who created the laws of nature. We are discussing how the world works now that it exists.

The problem here is one of basic procedure. When science is confronted with a mystery of how something came to be, it attacks the problem in manageable pieces, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. Some problems require decades or even centuries. But there is an underlying assumption that eventually the pieces can be reassembled into a congruent whole.

ID, as a matter of principle, asserts that certain processes cannot be disassembled. Like the old maps with the warning, "Here be dragons," ID says that some physical processes simply can't happen. It is not a matter of whether ID is right or wrong about these assertions. It is a matter of implying that one should give up without a fight. It is like saying that human flight cannot happen because there is no source of energy is compact enough and light enough to overcome gravity. True in 1900, but not the kind of attitude that leads to discovery and invention.
147 posted on 03/13/2004 8:57:07 PM PST by js1138
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To: js1138
The problem here is one of basic procedure. When science is confronted with a mystery of how something came to be, it attacks the problem in manageable pieces, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. Some problems require decades or even centuries. But there is an underlying assumption that eventually the pieces can be reassembled into a congruent whole.

Indeed, that's the problem of ID. Instead of reducing a complex problem to simpler principles as it is common in science, they go the other way: they try to explain a complex problem by postulating an even more complex one (omnipotent designer, who is as complex as it gets).
In other words they increase the degrees of freedom instead of decreasing them.

149 posted on 03/13/2004 9:38:10 PM PST by BMCDA
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To: js1138; VadeRetro
ID asserts that certain processes and phenomena are impossible, specifically, that certain biological objects cannot have come into existence through the regular processes of chemistry.

Actually ID doesn't accert that those are impossible. God obviously did it, so there is some process that works. We don't know what processes God used. It is not unreasonable to believe that God may have used what we consider to be regular processes of chemistry. What ID maintains, is that biological objects did not come into being by mere chance and random processes of chemistry, but was part of an intelligent design process. Whereas, evolutionists INSIST on a completely random process, that does not require a creator or designer.

"ID, as a matter of principle, asserts that certain processes cannot be disassembled."

Here again you are wrong. ID is not against dissasembling creation to learn about it's design. ID simply objects to attributing that design entirely to random chance, because there is little evidence for that. Evolutionists assume "random chance" was the causative event not because of the evidence, but because they assume a lack of a creator. Thus their belief system is influencing their science.

Please note that we are not discussing who made the dirt, or who created the laws of nature. We are discussing how the world works now that it exists.

Not really, we are discussing how life began and whether it was by random chance or through intelligent design. We are not discussing how the world works now. Even if man dissassembles DNA to the point that Man himself can create new life forms from scratch, that will not prove the evolutionists belief that man came from random events rather than was designed. Likewise, even if man dissassembles physical processes to the point that Man himself can control the forces necessary to bring an entire universe into existence, that will not prove that our universe was happenstance rather than intelligent design.

It is a matter of implying that one should give up without a fight.

No it is a matter of stating unequivocally that one should not assume as fact that which he has extremely limited knowledge of.

Science is full of examples of such scientific arrogance and it harms the cause of science as well as Mankind. How many families had suspicions and split up because their child had the wrong eye color? According to 1970's genetics eye color was controlled by a single gene and and two people with recessive genes could not have a baby with different color eyes. Only now 30 years later, a humbler science admits that eye color is controlled by at least 4 different genes and that those four are not the complete list, there must be more factors.

We are barely starting to learn about the human genome, but evolutionists eager to defend their beliefs have already made enormous claims for DNA proving common descent. Even if we fully understood DNA, it would not prove that. Claims to that effect are simply bad science, a belief system attempting to usurp the name of science in it's defense.

206 posted on 03/14/2004 2:29:10 PM PST by DannyTN
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