Posted on 09/22/2005 8:25:42 PM PDT by Crackingham
No, it's a suggestion that someone be ignored.
You won't mind if I extend the courtesy to you too?
Wolf
Well pity the poor slobs then: reporters and (it seems reasonable to assume) judges are hardly the "best experts" of what properly constitutes "science."
You can characterize breaking events anyway you want to, jennyp. But the fact remains, ID does not depend on what the Discovery Institute has to say about it. I will not join you in engaging in a debate on the issue as long as you insist on presenting it on the basis of the fallacy of misplaced concreteness: The issue at stake is not DI, it's ID -- and the two are not identical.
Hopefully, SCOTUS will not engage in that fallacy when/if the Dover case comes before it.
I just had the thought--if all the answers are already in the bible, what does the Discovery Institute hope to discover?
I might have been a little hard on you.
I have no idea, Coyoteman: I do not carry a brief for DI, and I do not handle their PR. But regarding your question, I have two observations:
(1) The Bible is not a textbook.
(2) God -- being wholly extra-cosmic (that is, not a phenomenon within spacetime) is not an object for science, nor can be.
Thanks for writing!
> so you made it up from your experiences
Well, that's a lie.
As I said, a number of surveys conducted over the years show that Creationism is effectively absent from those professionally trained in the hard sciences. It's virtually unknown amonst those trained in the paleontological and biological fields, for obvious reasons.
My own experiences don't enter into it.
Oh, I see. You're talking Creationism. That is different than ID.
Virtual ignore off/
Perfessor, you can't argue anything, you ignore logic and reason remember!
You can't back off now.
You said something INCREDIBLY stupid.
Fess up!
Reason has nothing to do with science, it hasn't in decades, and you don't use it either.
>>js1138 is correct. Most scientists don't think about philosophy from one decade to the next. Philosophers spend a lot of time wondering how science can be explained, and undoubtedly it's an interesting question for them, but the impact on science and scientists has been truly minimal.<<
You said something very dumb, you thought because of your position and intellect you could defend it. And you can't.
Since your tactics are using your intellect and position to convince people of things, you are not to be believed...until you can show up with some logic or reason.
Which you have ignored for decades...
LOL
You'll answer. You have to. Or you'll retreat from this thread. Remember, you may set a precedent. Think about it. Go into a scientific closet and use some logic. I will accept an apology.
DK
> You're talking Creationism. That is different than ID.
As pointed out before... no, it's not. If ID is only used to explain away *some* events in the history of evolution, it's useless. If it's used to explain away them all, then it's Creationism.
Well, a miracle has happened on this thread.
Right Wing Professor has been bested, and he retreated. It's a miracle, and this will burn in his heart forever. He said something stupid and was caught, like a kid.
He will never be able to show up on an EVO thread without wondering if his collosal mistake will show up on it.
He denied scientists use reason.
What a maroon!!!
DK
Bugs Bunny would be proud!
And so in the great Cosmo-Evo Pantheon of high level debate on the Free Republic, a great evo-prognosticator came up from under the lily pads, and hit the bait like a mad largemouth bass on a hot summer day. And like the bass, he could not retreat, or let it go.
Wolf
I really would have accepted an apology.
DK
I don't believe RWP and JS1138 are still here. I'd be replying to a nonexistant throng. They took a dumb position, and defended it. It was hilarious when they retreated. But thanks as always.
That is a great picture.
I'll have to remember it.
Thanks.
Truly there is a clear difference between the intelligent design hypothesis and the intelligent design movement. Just like there is a difference between the abiogenesis hypothesis and the "free thinkers" movement.
Correlation is not causation.
If both the "Nature did it!" and "God did it!" people would kindly hush, we'd get some science done around here.
Moreover, this is an overarching issue – not just an intelligent design hypothesis issue.
You see, the Ernst Bayrs of the world would like very much for biology to be deemed an “autonomous science”. But one cannot construct fences around the discipline to keep the physicists out. Biological systems must always obey the physical laws.
Likewise, physics cannot construct fences around the discipline to keep philosophy out. There is order in the universe – if this were not so, there could be no physical laws.
The Greek philosophers knew this as did their Judeo/Christian counterparts. Both called it philosophy (or more appropriately, episteme) – and science and math were a part of it – not separate from it. The one side (Plato, Aristotle, etc.) approached it from reason – the other side (Paul, Timothy, etc.) from faith.
But they were both looking at the same thing: the order in the universe.
It has only been in the most recent times that man deigns to separate science from philosophy and worse, tries to elevate science as more sure knowledge. And the fracturing of knowledge continues apace, as the Bayrs try to carve out islands which do not actually exist in the body of knowledge.
So here we are – people like betty boop and I – and a very great many mathematicians and physicists as well as theologians and philosophers – labeled as trying to impose philosophy on science.
Hardly!
If biology etc. continues this march of scientific materialism, each discovery made – albeit useful for technological progress – will be tunnel-visioned, misleading and potentially, false. They will be valid only on the illusionary islands of autonomy.
The example I used earlier of pi would apply in this case. One could observe a string of numbers in the extension of pi and if the extension is all that he can see in his worldview, he will conclude that the string of numbers is random. But if he steps back and realizes that those numbers are the result of the algorithm itself, then he will know that the string of numbers are not random but highly determined.
This field of view is what the mathematicians and physicists – and yes, the intelligent design hypothesis – has brought to the table of evolution biology.
Biology must throw away the autonomous science maps which declare “there be dragons” beyond the corporeals.
If it is not done because of the intelligent design hypothesis - it will nevertheless be done because the mathematicians and physicists have already landed on the island.
Meanwhile, the theologians and philosophers will patiently wait on the other side of the mountain of scientific knowledge - ready to welcome everyone when they finally affirm what they have known to be true for millennia.
Hello jennyp! A "movement" is a political force; it isn't science. And, I might add, DI isn't doing anything that the scientistic popularizers of neo-Darwinism aren't doing -- e.g., the Dawkins/Dennett transatlantic axis -- which is not to excuse either "side." Political polemics isn't science.
It is a very great misfortune that issues in science are being deliberated in the courts, IMO.
More in a minute....
Indeed, Alamo-Girl -- if this were not so, the universe would be wholly unintelligible.
Thank you so much for this beautiful, insightful, elegant post/essay!!!
p.s.: Ernst Mayr's proposal that biology ought to be regarded as an autonomous science is a non-starter, IMHO. How on earth could such a thing be reconciled to the (highly questionable in my view; but no matter) supposition that "matter in its motions" will ultimately, finally be found wholly to account for the emergence of biological organisms (e.g., the hypothesis of abiogenesis of which folks like Dawkins et al. seem to be so fond)? It seems one can't have it both ways....
We can calculate the structures of chemical compounds and their course of their reactions to essentially arbitrary degrees of accuracy by quantum physics methods. Nonetheless, chemistry survives, and is very different from physics, because the whole is more than the sum of its parts. The laws of chemistry are still useful - far more useful, when it comes to figuring out how an addition reaction will go, for example, than rigorous quantum calculations.
Indeed. It's quite depressing, Wolf: Is there anything at all that's immune from politicization these days? And, once politicized, that doesn't inevitably wind up in a court of law?
As if your average judge can ascertain the merits of a scientific dispute. He can call all the expert witnesses he wants to. But there are at least two problems with that. One, if the experts stick to the science, the judge probably wouldn't understand their testimony. Two, if they go with polemics to "win," the judge will be swayed by emotional arguments by default. I just don't see how science is served by any of this....
Sigh.... :^)
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