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To: billorites; Alamo-Girl; AndrewC
This is exactly the effect that creationism or “intelligent design theory” (ID) is having, especially because its propagandists are slick, superficially plausible and, above all, well financed. ID, by the way, is not a new form of creationism. It simply is creationism disguised, for political reasons, under a new name.

Well, that's his first misstep. He's simply wrong, and HE'S being purposely "disguised for political reasons" as he likes to put things.

ID is NOT Creationism. Nor is a dog a cat.

ID is appeal to a mathematical model of probabilities and improbabilities about the likelihood of complexity occuring randomly in nature.

Creationism is a theory of origins that posits God bringing about, in 6 days as per the judeo-christian bible, all that we see in the universe.

928 posted on 05/26/2005 2:30:13 PM PDT by xzins (Retired Army Chaplain and Proud of It!)
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To: xzins
ID is appeal to a mathematical model of probabilities and improbabilities about the likelihood of complexity occuring randomly in nature.

... by using numbers chosen through no rational criteria, having no demonstrable relationship to the events they purport to model, and combining them to get a really, really big other number, and then applied arbitrarily in an attempt to point out how improbably everything is.

Very scientific.

934 posted on 05/26/2005 2:39:18 PM PDT by Gumlegs
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To: xzins; Gumlegs; billorites; Dimensio
ID is appeal to a mathematical model of probabilities and improbabilities about the likelihood of complexity occuring randomly in nature.

Horse manure. It is the postulate (it doesn't even rise to the level of "theory") that, as the name "Intelligent Design" explicitly states, some (unspecified) form of (unspecified) intelligence added some (unspecified) amount of (unspecified) "design" into life on Earth at some (unspecified) time(s).

Any "model of probabilities and improbabilities" employed by the IDer's is done solely in support of their attempts to "prove" that certain aspects of life "could not have" evolved. The purpose of this is to try to bolster the credibility of "intelligent design" as the "obvious" alternative, but they obviously aren't clear on how science works. Weakening one theory in no way supports a different hypothesis. ID is not the "default" explanation which "wins" by eliminating the competition. Mankind outgrew that particular fallacy centuries ago.

So please stop repeating nonsense like trying to claim that Intelligent Design "is" an "appeal to a mathematical model of probabilities", as if it's nothing more than a particular analytical method. Instead, probability calculations (usually naive and bogus ones) are just one of the *tools* they attempt to employ in order to flail about for "support" for what ID actually *is* -- the notion that life was "designed", that it was CREATED. In short, creationism by another name.

Creationism is a theory of origins that posits God bringing about, in 6 days as per the judeo-christian bible, all that we see in the universe.

So you're claiming there's no such thing as an "old Earth creationist"? Are you remarkably naive, or just dishonest?

Yes, young-Earth Biblical creationists are one *kind* of creationist. But there are many other kinds. By definition, anyone who posits that an act of conscious creation was involved in the formation of life can fairly be classified as a "creationist", although obviously there are many different "flavors". One of those flavors is the pseudo-scientific postulate of "ID".

953 posted on 05/26/2005 3:23:52 PM PDT by Ichneumon
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