[dubyagee]

In short, the complexity of the universe—and one's inability to explain it in full—is not in itself an argument for a Creator.

True, not in and of itself. But it is ONE argument for a creator. And it certainly is not an argument against creation. So what's the point? It doesn't seem he really has one.

[BMCDA]

Just thought this might be a good addition to the article you posted ;^)

---

"The Quixotic Message", or "No Free Hunch"

IDists...

On Intelligent Design...

• ID is whatever we say it is, and we don't agree.
  

• Greater and greater numbers of scientists are joining the ID movement, which is why we keep referring to the same three year after year. [1]
  

• ID is not creationism, and can be perfectly compatible with evolution. This is why we're asking schools to teach the "evidence against evolution".[2]
  

• We're not creationists, except for those of us who are, but the rest of us won't confirm that we're not. But if you call us creationists, we'll complain to no end. [3]
  

• The correct stance on issues like an ancient Earth, the common ancestry of organisms, and natural selection can be worked out later, after we've convinced the public that they should be rejecting at least one of these. [4]
  

• ID is a widely accepted theory in the scientific community. Just last year, over 100 scientists signed a statement which does not support ID, but does say that they are "skeptical" of Darwinism. The opinions of tens of thousands of other scientists don't count, because they're all biased. [5]
  

• ID is a program for research into the science of design, nothing more. Part of our research plans are to produce coloring books for preschoolers, and to make ourselves more likeable at parties. [6]
  

• ID is a scientific theory for detecting purpose and teleology in nature. But don't ask us what that purpose is, because that's a religious question that's separate from ID.
  

• The Designer could be anything from God to a space alien. But the Raelians, who believe it was a space alien, are being illogical.

On Darwinism...

• Darwinism can't explain the evolution of life in every single detail, therefore it's wrong. But don't ask IDists to explain these things, because that's not the kind of theory ID is. [7]
  

• Mainstream scientists dare not disagree with the monolithic block that is Darwinian orthodoxy. However, here are a number of mainstream scientists who disagree with each other on some issues, which means that they can't agree on anything. [8]
  

• Darwinists are driven by religious and ideological motivations. But since we've removed the picture of God and the phrase "Cultural Renewal" from our website, everyone knows this isn't true of us. [9]
  

• Absolutely everything wrong in society is caused by dogmatic Darwinian atheistic materialists. Including stereotyping, demonizing, and scapegoating. [10]
  

• Darwinists are responsible for both socialism and laissez-faire capitalism. Both racism and liberalism. Both feminism and sexism. Both animal research and the animal rights movement. And Commie-Nazism. [11]

On philosophy...

• Philosophers cannot agree on exactly where the line between science and non-science lies. Therefore, anything can be considered science if we say so.
  

• If a living system looks well designed, it's evidence for ID. If it looks poorly designed, that's just because we have no way of knowing what constitutes good and bad design.
  

• Afterall, we can't tell that it's bad design because we have no way of knowing what the Designer really intends. But we do know that ID will revolutionize culture, society, and law, according to what the Designer intends. [14]
  

• Methodological naturalism is an unfair rule that keeps us from considering supernatural explanations. But this would mean that detectives couldn't consider an intelligent agent in a person's death, because as we all know, murderers are supernatural. [15]
  

• A good scientific theory like ID should be vague and ambiguous, and refuse to propose any specific details about mechanism or history. Some unspecified being "designed" something, somewhere, at some point in time, somehow, is a perfectly good explanation.
  

• The argument from design is not a theological argument, because we aren't necessarily talking about God. But any rebuttal of the design argument is theological, because it requires us to say "God wouldn't do it this way", and this is not legitimate. [16]

On the Evidence...

• Since the peppered moth case has been proven problematic, natural selection is disproven. The other 1,582 studies of natural selection in the wild, as well as the numerous laboratory studies, don't count. [17]
  

• And peppered moths don't rest on tree trunks. The actual datasets of moths found in natural positions in the wild, off but also on trunks, are irrelevant because researchers have captured thousands of moths over the years in their moth traps, and not once has a moth in a trap been found on a tree trunk. [18]
  

• Since moths don't rest on tree trunks but instead higher up in the branches, this means that birds can't get to them, because there is a magic barrier preventing birds from visiting tree branches.
  

• As demonstrated above, moths don't rest on tree trunks, which means that the photographs showing the contrasting conspicuousness of moths on tree trunks found in textbooks are FRAUDS, FRAUDS, FRAUDS. All the other staged animal photos in textbooks are however unobjectionable.
  

• The fact that more inclusive groupings, such as phyla, appeared before more specific groupings, such as genera, is evidence against evolution. Likewise, the fact that Europeans first appeared before Tony Blair is evidence against shared human ancestry. [19]
  

• Evolution can't produce novel information, because any change to an enzyme that increases substrate specificity reduces the reactivity of the enzyme with other compounds, which is a loss of information. Similarly, any change which increases the enzyme's generality is a loss of information because the enzyme has lost some specificity. [20]
  

• Life could not come about by natural means because it has Specified Complexity. Specified Complexity means something that cannot come about by natural means, therefore life must exhibit Specified Complexity. [21]
  

• It was very nice of our loving Designer to design an immune system to protect us from the deadly diseases He designed.
  

• The fundamental unity of living things means that there is only one Designer. The extraordinary variation among living things, including their tendency to kill each other, just means that our singular Designer is very creative and whimsical. [22]
  

• Lateral gene transfer, which is a powerful mechanism of evolution, is evidence against evolution.
  

• The fact that the laws of the universe are perfect for life is evidence for a Designer. The fact that the laws of the universe can't produce life is evidence for a Designer. [23]
  

• Irreducibly Complex structures require multiple parts. Therefore they can't evolve. If someone demonstrates how a structure that requires multiple parts could have evolved, that just means that it wasn't Irreducibly Complex.
  

• IC structures must be molecular systems. Except mousetraps.
  

• "Indirect" pathways are wildly unlikely and as hard to find as leprechauns, and are therefore only a "bare" possibility but not a realistic one and can be safely disregarded, despite the detailed attention paid to them by every major biologist from Darwin to Dawkins. [26]
  

• The ID hypothesis, on the other hand, bears no resemblance to leprechauns.

---

From: The Quixotic Message

[nothingnew]

This discussion has been a no-win discussion for years.

People believe what they believe because THEY WANT TO...

FMCDH

[Katya]

It's interesting the way they always portray the bible thumpers as the "only" creationists out there. There is a whole center of esoteric spiritual thought and philosophies which stem from a creationist view point.
This isn't new either..it's been around for the last century. Theosophists, Rosicrucians, Gnostics and various esoteric orders all subscribe to creationist systems describing the birth of the universe as something other than a big bang from nothingness.

[El Cid]

Re: Assimov post

Quite the screed. It's funny he mentions the Soviet Union and Red China as being 'unscientific':

The Soviet Union, in its fascination with Lysenko, destroyed its geneticists, and set back its biological sciences for decades. China, during the Cultural Revolution, turned against Western science and is still laboring to overcome the devastation that resulted.

when both of these Godless nations (as all communist nations/prisons) treat darwinism as an inviolate religon...

I also don't get the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics defense. I guess I must plead to having a sub-Kindergarden level of intelligence because it sure seems like a violation of this law - and all observations - for a system to become more orderly without a blueprint (e.g., DNA template in a seed), or guiding hand. I am unable to grasp how undirected sunlight + time created -voila- increased order and complexity.

Thanks, though, for posting the links to answersingenesis.org and icr.org.

[Sabertooth]

It is only in school that American youngsters in general are ever likely to hear any reasoned exposition of the evolutionary viewpiont. They might find such a viewpoint in books, magazines, newspapers, or even, on occasion, on television. But church and family can easily censor printed matter or television. Only the school is beyond their control.

So, Asimov is/was a bit of an evo-fascist, eh? How disappointing.

If the government can mobilize its policemen and its prisons to make certain that teachers give creationism equal time, they can next use force to make sure that teachers declare creationism the victor so that evolution will be evicted from the classroom altogether. We will have established ground work, in other words, for legally enforced ignorance and for totalitarian thought control.

Nice unintentional irony. What this is really about is control: Asimov wants it.

There are numerous cases of societies in which the armies of the night have ridden triumphantly over minorities in order to establish a powerful orthodoxy which dictates official thought. Invariably, the triumphant ride is toward long-range disaster. Spain dominated Europe and the world in the 16th century, but in Spain orthodoxy came first, and all divergence of opinion was ruthlessly suppressed.

Yet, secularism is the roughshod orthodoxy of the day. I wonder where Isaac is going with this...?

In more recent times, Germany hounded out the Jewish scientists of Europe. They arrived in the United States and contributed immeasurably to scientific advancement here, while Germany lost so heavily that there is no telling how long it will take it to regain its former scientific eminence. The Soviet Union, in its fascination with Lysenko, destroyed its geneticists, and set back its biological sciences for decades. China, during the Cultural Revolution, turned against Western science and is still laboring to overcome the devastation that resulted.

So, Creationism is like Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, all rolled into one?

OK...

As we now, with all these examples before us, to ride backward into the past under the same tattered banner of orthodoxy? With creationism in the saddle, American science will wither. We will raise a generation of ignoramuses ill-equipped to run the industry of tomorrow, much less to generate the new advances of the days after tomorrow.

We will inevitably recede into the backwater of civilization, and those nations that retain opened scientific thought will take over the leadership of the world and the cutting edge of human advancement. I don't suppose that the creationists really plan the decline of the United States, but their loudly expressed patriotism is as simpleminded as their "science." If they succeed, they will, in their folly, achieve the opposite of what they say they wish.

Oh, the sky is bloody falling. This is Asimov's Global Warming theory.

What a shrill little rant this is. Asimov is demonizing his enemies as much as much as any cultist, and more than the vast majority of preachers in this country. In so doing, he completely undercuts his credibility as one who might explain the merits of evolutionary theory. It's not enough to be right, one also has to have a clue.

I'm not the first to say it, but getting rid of government schools will solve this conflict... but I'll bet the intellectual heirs of Asimov will shriek the loudest against it.

[LogicWings]

Well, that was fun while it lasted. Thanks. Haven't been in a brawl like that in quite a while. Until next time.

[unspun]

There are many interesting hypotheses and theories about how the universe got just where it is today.

There are also many kinds of bigots.

I just posted this in a thread debunking the false claims that the Vatican and Hitler were buddies. But fans of Asimov's writing here may actually find comraderie with Hitler's sources (well, aside maybe from the occultists) so I'll post it here, too:

Hitler and the occult:
http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/resources/books/annual3/chap09.html
http://www.dropbears.com/b/broughsbooks/military/occult_nazism.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/7069/hitler.html
http://logosresourcepages.org/hitler.html

Hitler and Social Darwinism (socialism combined with eugenics and racism):
http://www.toolan.com/hitler/fuhrer.html
http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/hit.htm
http://husky1.stmarys.ca/~wmills/course203/8Racism.html
http://www.gennet.org/metro15.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Rampart/4871/Darwin.html

Hitler and Nietzsche:
http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/TCEH/Nietzsche.html
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/hum_303/nietzsche.html
http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/nietzsche/nietzsche.html
http://www.worldagesarchive.com/Reference_Links/Reinventing_Nietzsche.htm
http://www.needham.k12.ma.us/high_school/cur/Baker_00/baker_1800_soc/baker_jw_gg_p3/friedrich.htm

Finally, I suggest this book/documentary, about how such evils grow in cultures....
http://www.rationalpi.com/theshelter/live.html
http://www.freemedia.org/videos/howshouldwe.html
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0891072926/ref=ase_rationalpi/002-0567108-0640019

[tophat9000]

Simple forms of life came into being more than three billion years ago, having formed spontaneously from nonliving matter

OK? ...Now how is this more rational argument? Spontaneously creation of the universe and live from nothing?

How is this a more rational argument that creation is from a predating intelligent force?

Evolution only explains how a living thing may be forced to change & improve to go on …. it done not explain spontaneously creation of things

[HiTech RedNeck]

The thread of evolutionism -- by Patrick Henry

[VOA]

bump

[MEGoody]

"In short, the complexity of the universe—and one's inability to explain it in full—is not in itself an argument for a Creator."

Yeah, Issac. And I'm sure you are just waiting for that tornado that will pass through your town, gathering up the ingredients and delivering up a beautifully baked cake to your kitchen counter.

[Fester Chugabrew]

If creationism is such a "threat" to science why did we even bother to send any creationists up in the space shuttle?

Good heavens, their presuppositions had to be a detriment to "real" science. Sheez. At least we could have sent people up there who only deal in "scientific facts" completely apart from and religion and/or philosophy. What a waste of taxpayer monies. /sarcasm

Creationism is no more a "threat" to science than an accordion is a "threat" to deer.

[biblewonk]

Scientists thought it was settled.

Starts with a lie and goes downhill from there.

[biblewonk]

Yet, though creationists seem to accept the literal truth of the Biblical story of creation, this does not mean that all religious people are creationists. There are millions of Catholics, Protestants, and Jews who think of the Bible as a source of spiritual truth and accept much of it as symbolically rather than literally true. They do not consider the Bible to be a textbook of science, even in intent, and have no problem teaching evolution in their secular institutions.

And they're ok. It's those other nuts that must be stopped.

[Poser]

I love Asimov's science fiction. The Foundation Trilogy was the best piece ever written.

[Tax Government]

Everybody secretly knows that when I close my eyes, the entire universe disappears and may never come back.

How can you just idly by, and give me such control your futures?

[Tax Government]

Everybody secretly knows that when I close my eyes, the entire universe disappears and may never come back.

How can you just idly by, and give me such control over your futures?

[Jn316]

Does the Creator take pleasure in fooling us?

>No, but HE loves revealing what we don't see.

Does it amuse Him to watch us go wrong?

>I doubt it.

Is it part of a test to see if human beings will deny their senses and their reason in order to cling to myth?


>This is moronic. HOW COULD IT BE A TEST IF HE ACTUALLY EXISTS?????

Can it be that the Creator is a cruel and malicious prankster, with a vicious and adolescent sense of humor?

>It sounds like he believes but doesn't want to.

[D. Brian Carter]

This thread is still going? This is hilarious. Reminds me of the Atheists/Agnostics/Monotheists arguing at http://www.normalbobsmith.com , but not as funny... This conversation is a dead end, folks. Ah, but I guess it's been going on since the beginning of time, whenever THAT was.