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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
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Its adherents are flattering themselves. AFAIK, ID has yet to generate a single falsifiable hypothesis, test it, publish the data, analyze and interpret them in usual scientific fashion. That, not some conspiracy or blind devotion to the status quo, is its real problem.
Really! What have they discovered????
If they have discovered evidence of an "Intelligent Designer", then they have direct scientific evidence of God. Wouldn't that be kind of "big news"?
It will be interesting to find out what the scientific evidence of God will tell us. Maybe His name is Allah? Maybe Zeus. What does He look like? Old man with a beard?
This hysteria about ID being a threat to science is belied by the fact that many scientists who hold to this unpopular theory are still able to do good science in other fields and even in biology.
“I always assumed scientists were free to ask any question, pursue any line of inquiry without fear or reprisal,” he says. “But recently, I’ve been alarmed to discover that this is not the case.”
Same issue with Global Warming, Climate Change, and the Greening of America. Ask questions and be accused of being an environmental heretic!
Sounds like the results of lots of trial and error, or perhaps stupid design, but certainly not any form of intelligent design.
I’m somewhat confused as to how this is a First Amendment issue. I wasn’t aware that the First Amendment required me, or any group I belong to, to publish or disseminate the views of people I disagree with.
Does the First Amendment require FR, for example, to publish the rants of democrats; does the First Amendment require schools to give equal time to NAMBLA; does it require science classes to give equal time to proponents of Velikovsky or Lysenko?
I’m somewhat confused by that claim that possible medical discoveries are being thwarted by ignoring the claim that some unidentified entity or entities having unspecified capabilities and limitations, did some unspecified thing or things at some unspecified time or times, using unspecified methods for unspecified reasons.
The founder of the Discovery Institute is on record in a recent interview as saying that there is no theory of intelligent design, no explanatory hypothesis that competes with evolution. There is, in fact, no content to intelligent design, no body of research, no hypotheses that can, for example, tell where to dig and what to look for in the way of fossils. There is no hypothesis that guides research into genomic similarities and differences among species. No theory that would guide medicine in choosing suitable animals for drug and vaccine research.
There is one bright and shining light in the world of Intelligent Design, however. Ben Stein will pay any student ten dollars to see his movie. Student tickets in my area are only $6.50, so there’s money to be made. Schools and churches are being urged to sign up for this free money.
ping
We want more freedom.
Ben Stein has captured the crux of it.
Really? So who's the designer of cancer? The devil?
Funniest sentence of the day.