Posted on 01/17/2008 7:42:51 AM PST by ZGuy
Stein is fantastic.
“Intelligent design theory, or ID, is opening new doors of scientific research, particularly in cancer and other disease research, according to its adherents,”
Nonsense. Divine intervention offers zero potential benefits to scientific medical research. It’s the antithesis of scientific research. Teach ID in social studies, political science or religious studies, not science class.
We as the human race have discovered a lot over time. What we haven’t discovered, is how to quit burning the heritics at the stake. If you don’t sign on to the current dogma, you’re a foul unwahed beast.
And so it goes with those who have adopted the tenth century world vision from the top of the scientific establishment.
What, the world isn’t the center of the universe, you die...
What, evolution wasn’t the origion of the species, you die...
Science, the more it changes the more it is the same.
Stein supports Al Franken for US Senate.
From this little snippet of the research I see no way in which belief in either itelligent design or evolution affects the research. These scientists are examining how cells work right now, not whether there were simpler versions in the past or if this structure was designed and created all in one shot.
Throughout the twentieth century the political sensibilities of the world’s major scientists has been abysmal. Most major scientists involved in the Manhattan project had a love affair with Marist-Leninist thought. Ditto, British scientists (e.g., the Cambridge cells). Scientists have willingly moved in lockstep with totalitarianism (e.g., Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union). And then there are scary types like A.Q.Khan. In the United States we produce so few expert scientists (preferring to cherry-pick from aboad) that the crazies have proliferated in the so-called social sciences. Simply put, the political instincts of the scientist are much too Strangelovian (or Alous Huxlian) to be trusted entirely.
“Nonsense. Divine intervention offers zero potential benefits to scientific medical research. It’s the antithesis of scientific research. Teach ID in social studies, political science or religious studies, not science class.”
Well, if you say so, I guess it must be true. No sense questioning it.
BTW, your comment would qualify as a classic ad hominem.
“Why do you think the very idea or suggestion of intelligent design is so antagonistic to scientists who claim they have evidence? Why not have the debate? If they are so confident, why not have debate?”
To interject, the reason is that ID makes no scientific claims worth debating. It advances a hypothesis as to life’s origin, without shedding additional light on any scientifically testable phenomenon. That’s not science.
Ben Stein is a great (and intelligent) guy, but he’s clearly not that scientifically literate. His religion is also clearly interfering with his views on this subject. He doesn’t seem to realize that ID might just as easily be done by giant pink rabbits from Aldeberan VII, or the Flying Sphaghetti Monster. Nor does he apparently realize that the ‘random’ nature of evolution might also be viewed as a very subtle guiding hand from above.
One facet of things the IDers seem to frequently ignore is that DNA looks anything but ‘designed’, from an engineering standpoint.
Finally, on the subject of dogma and repression of free thought - religion has a much worse track record than science. I assure each and every one of you that if you come up with a theory that addresses most of what evolution does, and provides experimental/observational tests that validate your theory at the expense of evolution, scientists will rally to your cause.
Your new explanation will almost certainly have to conform to modern cosmology and geology timescales and the fossil record though, as those are well confirmed at this point.
Someday, science will cross that great chasm of the unknown and when they reach the other side, they will find religion has been there all along. :D
BTW, your comment would qualify as a classic ad hominem.
Intelligent Design, not Divine Intervention.
But intelligent design is science. Really. Trust me. Teach the controversy. (Wink, wink)
By "intelligence." he means something like entelechy, or what some philosophers would call a "vital force." I think the whole argument between neo-darwinists and their opponents amounts to what "natural selection" means as a process.
That is very strange but true. When Ben Stein and Al Franken used to tour the Country (most college campuses) doing their Stein-Franken or "Franken-Stein" debates, they were like Hannity and Colmes, they never agreed on anything, but claimed to be friends. They used to work together and say they have known each other 30 years.
It is strange and disappointing that Stein sent Franken a campaign contribution and said he would support him. I cant say I Hannity would do the same if Colmes ever ran for the senate, sure hope not.
Guess Im off topic, but I found that post more interesting than the others.
ID. ID. Yawn. If ID proponents spent as much time trying to counter the lies of “climate change” which threaten the very security of this nation, we would be much better off.
...
Indeed. ID promises to provide an opportunity to look at the data from a new perspective, and a potential to drag the debate into chaos squabbling over the Designer.
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