Posted on 10/01/2005 5:09:16 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
Professor focused on intelligent design as theology, not science, at Dover trial Friday.
HARRISBURG — If there is a God, then he could have made the monkey and the human with similar genetic material.
In the fifth day of Dover Area School District’s trial over intelligent design, John Haught, a Georgetown University theology professor, agreed that was true.
So, the idea that “we came from some monkey or ape is conjecture at this point?” Dover’s lead attorney Richard Thompson asked Haught under cross-examination.
Haught disagreed.
In a First Amendment battle in U.S. Middle District Court in Harrisburg, the Dover district is defending its decision last year to include intelligent design in its biology curriculum. Eleven parents filed suit against the district arguing the concept is a veiled attempt to force religion into science class.
On Friday, Thompson, in trying to cast doubt over the theory of evolution — referred to as the unifying concept of modern biology — raised the issue of common descent.
But Haught said that in the world of science, there is little debate that humans share a common ancestor.
The professor, who spoke deliberately and extensively on the philosophical differences between religion and science, was the day’s sole witness.
Questioned by plaintiffs’ attorney Alfred Wilcox, he said intelligent design’s basic premise — that the complexity of life defies all explanation but the existence of a designer — is essentially an old religious argument based on the 13th-century writings of St. Thomas Aquinas and the “watchmaker” analogy put forth in 1802 by British philosopher William Paley.
A person walking through a field stumbles upon a watch. It is carefully assembled and wouldn’t function without all its parts working together. The person’s inevitable conclusion? The watch must have a maker.
Under cross-examination, Thompson asked if there was a controversy in the scientific community over the idea of irreducible complexity — essentially, the watchmaker’s observation that if a single working part of an organism were to be removed, the entire system would cease to function.
Haught told him that there exists a controversy between Lehigh University biochemistry professor Michael Behe, who coined the term, and most of the scientific community.
“So, you agree there is a controversy?” Thompson asked.
While most of plaintiffs’ expert testimony this week focused on establishing that intelligent design is not science, Haught’s focused on why it’s theology.
Science asks, “How?” he said. Religion asks, “Why?”
As an example, Haught compared the differences to water boiling on the stove.
What causes it to boil?
Well, one could answer it’s because of rapidly vibrating water molecules.
Another answer could be because “I want a cup of tea,” Haught suggested.
Both are correct answers, but one doesn’t discount the other.
One doesn’t bring the subject of desiring tea into the study of molecular movement.
It’s also a mistake to say, Haught said, “It’s the molecular movement rather than I want tea.”
Being able to think up pure abstractions is a difference in degree of sophistication from "rock dropped on toe is bad", not a difference in kind. A four-year old learns about rocks & toes, and slowly but surely their brain develops to the point where their mind is able to wonder about emergent properties, to what extent they make the supernatural superfluous, etc.
Why would you think it's fundamentally different in kind?
That's hilarious. Stalin was a godless communist. Since you brought it up, would you like to discuss how many lives godless communism has taken in the last 100 years (~150 million)? The fact is that Stalin is much better example when related to neodarwinism than to theism. If there is no God, all things become permissible (Dostoevsky), and people are stripped of their instrinsic value. We can see that Stalin thought no more of human beings than he did rats. Hitler was another admirer of Darwinism. Then, there's Mao, Pol Pot, Kim Il-Sung, etc. Who are you kidding ?
Yes, I do. Many people have done it, not just Lewis. But Lewis' point is a piercing one. If all is mindless material process, then the thoughts of the materialist also fall into this category. There is no way around it. In fact, what makes you think that your colliding mental processes are any more rational than mine? There is no basis whatsoever in materialism to believe they are. I do not need to refute materialism - it is self-refuting.
YOU: Through heritable random mutations and changes in the allele frequencies of genetic traits, which through natural selection result in beneficial changes being encouraged through successful survival and reproduction, while detrimental or neutral changes are not so encouraged.
This is hardly adequate to explain now new information is added to the genome. Where does the new information come from in order to add new body parts and organs and physiological systsems? Mutations can only alter information that is already there.
Repeated denial is a common tactic of atheists/evolutionists. However, the fact remains that in the chimp DNA hypothesis, the conclusion has no relationship to the premise. Period. You can't wish illogic to be illogical. Something has to be added to the equation or the fallacy remains. Q comes out of nowhere in the conclusion - it IS NOT LOGICAL.
The relationship does not appear in the equation so this is false. You can't just SAY there is a relationship - it has to be logically demonstrated.
More than one mathematician has concluded the statistical impossibility of abiogenesis. Are you a mathematician or are you just one of the faithful who refuse to believe any evidence that works against darwinism?
There have always been scientists that REJECT darwinism from its beginning. There is hardly a scientific consensus. The reason darwinism holds so much power is because the power of the U.S. government (as well as intimidation in the scientific community) is wielded to enforce it. Lord Kelvin and Louis Pasteur are two shining examples. In 1864, 717 scientists, including 86 members of the Royal Society signed a manifesto entitled, "the Declaration of Students of the Natural and Physical Sciences." The manifesto affirmed the Bible's scientific integrity.
In any case, the point is mute because the attributes of a part cannot be applied to ANOTHER competely different whole. haha.
We have been over this once. There is no evidence for a Q at T(0). Besides, Q appears out of nowhere and has no relationship in the premise (x and y are similar in Z: DO YOU SEE A Q IN THERE?). Period. Denying it doesn't do any good. It's there for all to see.
Can you see a mind? Yet, you have one. Your brain is not your mind. You can look at a brain but you will not see a mind. However, we know a mind exists from talking to a person who has one. Can you see a personality? Yet, you have one. Can you see love? Yet it exists.
There is no scientific reason to believe that. Monarch butterflies know to migrate - is that abstract thought in their little insect brains?
In any case, the point is mute because the attributes of a part cannot be applied to ANOTHER competely different whole. haha.
In this statement, you are assuming that the parts under consideration are not part of the whole under consideration. What's your point? We were discussing attributes of parts that make up the whole and attributes of the whole.
We have been over this once. There is no evidence for a Q at T(0).
We have been over your denial of the existence of Q (what evolution calls the common ancestor). Do you deny Q physically existed at all or that Q existed but is not a common ancestor? Please clarify.
All the probability calculations for abiogenesis I have seen are based on faulty premises. For example a very common type of flawed calculation involves working out the probability of 100 amino acids spontaneously falling into the right sequence to form a specific protein, and annoucing the improbable result shows abiogenesis is impossible.
There have always been scientists that REJECT darwinism from its beginning. There is hardly a scientific consensus.
There is a scientific consensus for evolution within the scientific community. A scientific consensus doesn't require the consensus of every scientist, just a large majority. Otherwise there would be no scientific consensus on anything as all it would take is one wackjob with a pHd to destroy the consensus by denying the Earth orbits the Sun.
In the case of biologists over 99% accept evolution is the best model for explaining the diversity of life. That is a consensus.
The reason darwinism holds so much power is because the power of the U.S. government (as well as intimidation in the scientific community) is wielded to enforce it.
The theory of evolution is accepted by biologists all over the world, not just in the US. The theory of evolution holds so much weight because it is accepted by the vast majority of biologists. This came to be because the theory has so much predictive and explainatory power that it became the prefered model for explaining the diversity of life on earth.
Over 600 scientists named steve have signed the following statement:
Evolution is a vital, well-supported, unifying principle of the biological sciences, and the scientific evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the idea that all living things share a common ancestry. Although there are legitimate debates about the patterns and processes of evolution, there is no serious scientific doubt that evolution occurred or that natural selection is a major mechanism in its occurrence. It is scientifically inappropriate and pedagogically irresponsible for creationist pseudoscience, including but not limited to "intelligent design," to be introduced into the science curricula of our nation's public schools.
They weren't made to sign it, they could have politely made an excuse not to if they didn't agree with the statement. They choose to put their name next to it.
I could have sworn that I saw that it was over 1,000. Maybe I didn't have my glasses on at the time. Well, over 600 still makes our point. :)
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