Introducing The College Student’s Back to School Guide to Intelligent Design

Evolution News & Views ^ | September 25, 2009 | Casey Luskin

[GodGunsGuts]

There are a lot of false urban legends promoted in academia about intelligent design (ID). They often start with myths promoted by misinformed critiques in scientific journals, court rulings, or even talks by activists at scientific conferences. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for this misinformation to then be passed down to college students, who may know very little about ID and lack the resources to correct their professors’ misinformed and misplaced attacks on ID. Not anymore.

If you’re a college student, recently gone back to school and expecting to hear a lot of anti-ID views from your professors, we’re pleased to present this “Back to School Guide” for students...

[metmom]

It puts him in the ID camp with Newton, Pascal, Henry, Faraday, Kelvin, and Pasteur. Gosh, that sounds like the SI (metric) system of units! Do you think maybe they knew something?

Nah, couldn't be. Dontcha know that the present day crop of evo hobbyists know much more than any of those old, dead guys who didn't have an education worth mentioning?

I mean, after all, they didn't understand a fraction of what we know today. They were just a bunch of posers......

We all know how smart the evos are because they keep telling us so. Of course, they're going to know more than that bunch.

[metmom]

I don’t know because I don’t know who they had in mind when they recognized the intelligence it took to create the universe.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[count-your-change]

The modern failing...Hubris.

[tpanther]

Good for you. I have a more diverse background, going to at least 7 different schools while in the Air Force for 10 years and finally one final cschool once I got out.

I’ve bumped into alot of head cases over a series of 3 decades.

And they weren’t students.

Moreover, I work with a nurse now that proves it’s gotten worse. She’s taking a course and the professor is fixated on materialism.

[Agamemnon]

Wow - what a lot of typing. In the context of the argument, intelligent design was supposed to be demonstrated within a naturally occurring and self-replicating biological system. Oops. You fail. Grade: F.

I have to admit, it was great fun to construct such an experiment on a blissfully pleasant Sunday afternoon in the Fall in Connecticut. How's Experiment #1 going for you anyway?

So - with a perceptible hint of hesitation in your writing - you say you have an MS in some "science" of some kind, have you?

Clearly for what ever that degree is worth, or (hopefully) completed syllabus was supposedly intended to teach you, it did not prevent you from making the fatal cognitive mistake of failing to read or understand the question as was posed.

Of course, if you were any kind of scientist with any amount of accomplishment whatsoever you should have noticed from the start that there was no argument made at all, but merely a clear and simple challenge: "So someone tell me, how would you do an experiment to test for intelligent design?"

"Oops!" is right. You're busted. One typically sees that level of gross conceptual and cognitive disconnection in the logic of only the most novice of babbling freshman!

You see, dear storm-drain, you are a perfect example of today's materialist evolutionary acolyte who fails to read and to answer the question as posed, reads into the question more than it asked, alleges a context for a question that was never established and winds up looking like the very fool the instructors of his allegedly completed "science" curriculum doubtlessly hoped he'd never become.

But alas, clearly you have become....

Sucks to be you.

Oh, yes, and by the way I happen hold 3 completed undergraduate and graduate degrees specifically in life sciences namely Biology, Chemistry, and Biochemistry.

You have demonstrated by way of your postings to others on this thread and in your posting to me in particular, no capacity for critical thinking or reasoning as a natural scientist could or would be expected either to critically think or to reason.

As such, readers are left to speculate as to whether that MS you allegedly have in some as yet un-identified "science" might be something like "Library science" or possibly even "Fashion science."

Now, one supposes that principles embodied in the Dewey decimal system could be challenging for elementary school children, and possibly, too, for some lesser-accomplished adults who have equal levels of difficulty negotiating the nuances of, say, the Sunday Comics, perhaps, yet the metaphysical possibility exists that by their reading your Master's thesis such mysteries might become more clear to both populations.

Or for those who can't seem to decide whether the red shoes go with the tan handbag, perhaps they could consult your Master's thesis for some guidance in what is for some that tortuous decision making process.

Next thing you may say to impress us, is that your MS had a dual concentration in Library AND Fashion science, and in that accomplishment we should all be awed.

I believe what would ultimately impress most readers about you at this point, however, storm-plug, would be firmly establishing in everyone's mind, what is your level of personal competence to be able to successfully decipher what are the inherent differences between an "argument" made and a "question" asked.

[GodGunsGuts]

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[tpanther]

“Any notion not capable of being tested is not science”.

Over and over I see this assertion and never ever any offer as to why it holds true for somethings while things like

scientific study of prayer...

string theory...

multiverse theory...

global warming...

evolution/materialistic origins...

get a complete free pass.

Double standards anyone?

[count-your-change]

Too funny, Ag, way too funny!

[tpanther]

LOL!!!!

Most entertaining and spot on as usual.

LOL!!!

[tpanther]

“I don’t see how an experiment on a computer has reference to biology”.

OF COURSE a materialist can’t see the connection!

To me it’s almost hard to miss, what with all the references of machinery when speaking of even the smallest parts, cell structure/function, etc.

I recall in my pathophyisology class the instructor asking us to list and describe in some detail the funtions of blood.

It was enlightening to see that no one even came close.

Sure everyone listed the stuff we were taught...

transports gases for exchange O2 for CO2 and so on...

or proteins/wastes...

but few got temperature regulation.

I can’t remember all of them but it was fascinating...and we’re still learning!

[tpanther]

Any plant seed is a self assembling object.

You have planted grass, no?

---

No it’s not, it comes from a plant, it isn’t self assembling, it gets all it’s contents from a parent plant.

[ColdWater]

I don’t know because I don’t know who they had in mind when they recognized the intelligence it took to create the universe.

Interesting that you leave it open that God may not be the Intelligent Designer.

[metmom]

I leave it open that I don’t know who Einstein was thinking of when he concluded that the universe showed evidence of design and must have a designer.

[ColdWater]

I leave it open that I don’t know who Einstein was thinking of when he concluded that the universe showed evidence of design and must have a designer.

You leave it open that you do not believe that God is the Intelligent Designer.

[metmom]

Focus, CW. The discussion started with my comment that Einstein and Newton concluded that the universe must have had a designer based on their observations.

It wasn’t about who I thought the designer was. It wasn’t even about who they thought the designer was.

It was about the evidence that led these two brilliant men, more brilliant than your average (or not so average) FRevo who denies seeing any intelligence, that the universe must have had a designer.

[donmeaker]

You can hypothesize...but with out a test to see if it is reality vs. wild speculation, it can not be distinguished from wild speculation.

Scientific study of prayer-if you assert that prayer heals disease, you can do a test of that, compared to alternative treatments, or even between Amoth-Sog and Cthulu. Alas, some tests leave you unable to reject the null hypothesis, and you end up learning nothing.

[ColdWater]

Focus, CW. The discussion started with my comment that Einstein and Newton concluded that the universe must have had a designer based on their observations.

And I am curious why you bring out Einstein and Newton (clearly Deists) and ID. Do you believe that God was the Intelligent Designer?

[papertyger]

Subject the components of any structure to the same forces that structure would normally be subject to, and see if those components form the original structure, or reach equalibrium somewhere short of that structure.

[metmom]

Because they can safely be presumed to be smarter men than any FRevo and they saw enough evidence for intelligence in their observations to conclude a designer.

So, when the FRevos argue against the idea that the universe shows evidence of design, they are arguing against the conclusions of demonstrably more intelligent men.