Posted on 09/22/2005 4:15:34 AM PDT by SeaLion
Editor's Note: This article is the first in a special LiveScience series about the theory of evolution and a competing idea called intelligent design.
TODAY: An overview of the increasingly heated exchange between scientists and the proponents of intelligent design.
COMING FRIDAY : Proponents argue that intelligent design is a legitimate scientific theory, but a close look at their arguments shows that it doesn't pass scientific muster.
Science can sometimes be a devil's bargain: a discovery is made, some new aspect of nature is revealed, but the knowledge gained can cause mental anguish if it contradicts a deeply cherished belief or value.
[snip]
Darwin's truth can be a hard one to accept. His theory of evolution tells us that humans evolved from non-human life as the result of a natural process, one that was both gradual, happening over billions of years, and random. It tells us that new life forms arise from the splitting of a single species into two or more species, and that all life on Earth can trace its origins back to a single common ancestor.
Perhaps most troubling of all, Darwin's theory of evolution tells us that life existed for billions of years before us, that humans are not the products of special creation and that life has no inherent meaning or purpose.
For Americans who view evolution as inconsistent with their intuitions or beliefs about life and how it began, Creationism has always been a seductive alternative.
Creationism's latest embodiment is intelligent design (ID), a conjecture that certain features of the natural world are so intricate and so perfectly tuned for life that they could only have been designed by a Supreme Being.
[article continues...]
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
Because it's not an idea, it's a strategy.
With respect, it would appear that you do not follow published scientific developments very closely. The science journals are an extremely adversarial arena, scientific theories are constantly slugging it out with one another over the interpretation of data or analysis of 'best-fit' of theories to evidence. And sometimes the battles can rage for quite some time (e.g. steady state vs. big bang, etc.).
But it isn't a matter of views alone duking it out, it's interpretations of data based on evidence that is the substance of contention in legitimate science. ID has merely stated an unsupported view, it cannot be investigated by science, and has no legitimate claim to be taken seriously by scientist unless/until it can present data and evidence that can stand up in peer-reviewed publications.
Instead, some ID-proponents, funded by some minority religious factions, have presented comic-book simplifications to the general public and made a special pleading for 'equal time.' If Astrologers did the same, scientist would probably respond--rightly--in the same way
:-)
"The objective is to convince people that Darwinism is inherently atheistic, thus shifting the debate from creationism vs. evolution to the existence of God vs. the nonexistence of God," Johnson wrote in a 1999 article for Church and State magazine. "From there, people are introduced to 'the truth' of the Bible and then 'the question of sin' and finally 'introduced to Jesus.'"
Just so the agenda is clear; it's not science (you have no need for that) but about religious proslytesing.
For a specific religious sect.
In the classroom.
Pity about the First Amendment, that might slow you down a bit...
Yes, it is--because Darwinism is science, and the current 'controversy' re: ID is a religious matter. You raise some interesting points about the nature of ToE (some have been answered in other posts), but the main thrust of this overview article is not to 'resolve' the controversy, but to show the political dimension.
You may disagree, but my view is that this is a 'fight' which a minority religious group has picked to advance a specific political agenda--and that is worrying. In a 'fight' between science and political unreason, I would not expect a science journal to be anything other than "skewed" in favour of science.
I didn't read the small print at the top.
Looks like I have to wait until Friday for the part I wanted to read.
ID is "fact" now, eh? Even many ID'ers admit it doesn't even qualify as a full scientific theory, and instead describe it as an "inference".
But "fact"? How does that work when ID'ers will only "infer" that "intelligent design" occurred, but won't say (or even speculate as to) how, or where, or when, or by whom it was instantiated? How can you refer to the factuality of an approach where at least four of the five basic reporters' questions -- who, what, where, when and why -- are purposefully avoided? Even the "what" is rather shaky since, for instance, Dembski won't apply his mathematical model of "specified complexity" to a real world case.
God created English, see Genesis 11
Whether it is a "scientific challenge" or not depends on whether what it is challenging is "science."
The claim that biodiversity can be explained solely by naturally occuring forces has been made with such force that it has become dogma.
ID challenges that claim -- rationally, objectively and with measurable evidence -- without resorting to faith.
I was planning on posting it as a thread tomorrow--I'll ping you when it's published, if you like.
The creations speak for themselsves, do you really need to do other than look around at the of earth? Can you not see that even the little bombadire bettel could not have evolved, that there had to be a Creator?
Might not be a the biblical god. Might be space aliens. Might be vast mechanized robots. Might be Allah.
We really should consider all the scientific possibilities. One of which is that the bible is not literally true.
Ah yes, but that, that we post has not changed. That, that you post, theories of evolution, change by the hour.
We know our God, you guys can't even find or agree on a missing link.
Tell me about that tooth will ya, or how about all those parts we don't need, like the tail bone, ah the never ending fable of evolution vs the never changing truth of the Word of God.
Huh? D' I publish a paper, I rely upon the First Article of the Bill of Rights, the paper is owned, as you know, by a church, again a right protected and guaranteed by the First Article of the Bill of Rights.
Why are you suddenly fighting us so hard?
Jake
I'm not sure where you are getting your informatioon, but, the who is God, the when is right on 6,415 years ago, and the where is, well, look around, earth and the heavens.
If there were a fee for thinking, anti-evos would have NO need to file an expense report.
Great! Ping me with the post.
It's rarely a dull discussion!
Stasis is rarely seen as a sign of intellectual health.
And it reinforces the point: if it doesn't change, why does it need to be repeated?
We know our God, you guys can't even find or agree on a missing link.
Your God tells you not to lie, does he not?
Tell me about that tooth will ya, or how about all those parts we don't need, like the tail bone
Yeah, why would an intelligent designer do that?
You refereed to ID. None of that is included in ID. (None of is excluded either, which is the problem with ID; it's vacuous.)
God is an Englishman.
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