Conclusive evidence for Design!

[Peter_Plato]

So totally unrelated that the book that Dembski co-wrote, Of Pandas and People, had all the instances of the word ‘creationism’ replaced by ‘ID’.

Many of the book’s arguments are identical to those raised by creationists, which have been dismissed by the scientific community.[35] In fact, a comparison of an early draft of Of Pandas and People to a later 1987 draft showed how in hundreds of instances the word “creationism” had been replaced by “intelligent design” and “creationist” replaced by “intelligent design proponent”, while “creator” was replaced by “agency” or “designer”.[36]In his 2007 book Monkey Girl Edward Humes describes how this change was made after Edwards v. Aguillard settled that teaching “Creation Science” in public schools was unconstitutional.[37]

Why do you think they did that?

This is a classic example of “red herring.” Dembski might also beat his wife (sorry William, I’m sure you don’t), but that is irrelevant to the truth of ID. The fact that you keep bringing this up demonstrates that you cannot distinguish relevant from irrelevant evidence and lowers your credibility.

 

[Peter_Plato]

It’s Creationism wearing a wig and a false nose.

This is merely for entertainment value. Churchill smoked a big cigar, but he still won the war.

The Design Institute had no problem in admitting that they were pushing Creationism until they realised they couldn’t get it into schools. Then it was a simple matter of changing a few words here and there and hope nobody noticed. Or didn’t care.

This point is really only important as a legal or political one, having to do with the separation of church and state, under US law. The fact that you attempt to bring it to bear in the context of a philosophical debate about the validity of ID as a philosophical or scientific position shows that you don’t understand the issue at hand. This is another red herring in regards to ID outside the realm of political or legal considerations.

 

[Bradski]

But that fact is irrelevant, as you admit, to the truth of one’s belief. That’s the point. The question of religious truth is a question that has to be addressed through philosophical arguments, not appeals to disparity of opinion. ?

I agree. But it’s not as if there’s just the one debate going on: Is there a God or not. There are many arguments going on, each with what they feel is a solid claim to the truth.

Nearly a quarter of the Muslims are converts to Islam (23%), mainly native-born. Of the total who have converted, 59% are African American and 34% white. Previous religions of those converted was Protestantism (67%), Roman Catholicism (10%) and 15% no religion.

A reasonable point but one that I will claim as being the exception that proves the rule.

For a non-economist, the more leaders who say they can balance the budget, the more factions within each party who say they can balance the budget and the more arguments within each faction as to who knows the right way to balance the budget, the more convincing it becomes that the budget cannot be balanced.

In the case you’ve given, if it were comparable to many people holding multiple ideas of the truth – that is, everyone had a different idea as to how to balance the budget, then the conclusion must be: ‘…it becomes more convincing that, at best, only one of them is right and they could all be wrong’.

Now, it may be true that you are convinced there is no real answer. But, if widespread disagreement about the answer is the foundation of your conviction, then it is not logical and, in the case of the budget, almost certainly erroneous.

It’s not the foundation. But it does indicate that at the very least, a very large percentage of the world’s population has got one of the most important matters to ever be considered completely and utterly wrong.

Further, if you’re basing this on popular discourse, then a load of scientific theories are immediately thrown into upheaval. Does the widespread disputation of Darwin’s theory provide a credible basis for discrediting Darwin?

If there are lots of competing theories of equal value, then only one can be right, or all of them can be wrong.

The scientific method is commonly described as a four-step process involving observations, hypothesis, experiments, and conclusion.

You’ve missed one out. It’s quite important. After formulating an hypotheses, one makes predictions from that and conducts experiments to confirm if those predictions are correct. ID doesn’t predict anything. It jumps straight to the conclusion. In fact, it starts with the conclusion which is pretty much the reverse of the scientific method. It’s junk science.

When ID researchers find irreducible complexity in biology, they conclude that such structures were designed.

This is completely and utterly wrong. They, on their own admission, start with the conclusion that such structures must exist. They start with a conclusion, look for evidence to back it up, then formulate hypotheses which will tie in with the evidence. That is the reverse of the scientific method.

The Discovery Institute has stated, in writing, that their aim is to…’replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God’. In other words, their aim is not a scientific one, it is a religious one.

Because truth is non-contradictory so all discordant positions can’t be correct.

I agree. So either most people are wrong, or all people are wrong.

This is a classic example of “red herring.” Dembski might also beat his wife (sorry William, I’m sure you don’t), but that is irrelevant to the truth of ID. The fact that you keep bringing this up demonstrates that you cannot distinguish relevant from irrelevant evidence and lowers your credibility.

I didn’t post the quote to show that ID was wrong. I posted it to show that it is undeniable that ID is Creationism by another name. The Pandas book wasn’t re-written because they thought that Creationism was wrong and that a ‘scientific version’ might be closer to the truth. The book wasn’t re-written at all. They simply replaced ‘ID’ for ‘Creationism’.

Now if you wanted to prove to somebody that they were trying to slide ID into the debate as a cover for Creationism, what better way could you do it other than that? The proved themselves the very point that they were trying to deny.

For someone who knows about that, to then say that ID is not Creationism simply beggars belief. How is it even conceivable to deny evidence like that?

 

[Bradski]

This point is really only important as a legal or political one, having to do with the separation of church and state, under US law.

So you conclude that the changes were made because of legal and/or political reasons. Which indicates that you understand that they weren’t made on any ‘scientific’ basis. Dembski and the Discovery Institute were told in no uncertain terms that there was indeed a separation of church and state, so as the judge in the Dover trial said (my emphasis):

By comparing the pre and post Edwards drafts of Pandas, three astonishing points emerge:
(1) the definition for creation science in early drafts is identical to the definition of ID;
(2) **cognates of the word creation (creationism and creationist), which appeared approximately 150 times, were deliberately and systematically replaced with the phrase ID; **and
(3) the changes occurred shortly after the Supreme Court held that creation science is religious and cannot be taught in public school science classes in Edwards. This word substitution is telling, significant, and reveals that a purposeful change of words was effected without any corresponding change in content.

I’m not sure how any reasonable person can reject such damning evidence.

 

[ReapReason]

So totally unrelated that the book that Dembski co-wrote, Of Pandas and People, had all the instances of the word ‘creationism’ replaced by ‘ID’.

Why do you think they did that?

To dissociate their theory from creationism as it was being described in relation to what should or should not be taught in schools?

I am not a proponent of ID Theory. But I have to say that there may have been a genuine reason for that change. Dissociation from a view that differs on key points and yet uses a similar description is not a dishonest act so long as there really is applicable differences between the ideas in question. Also, merely pointing out similarities between two views does not necessarily imply that there are no key differences between them in terms of context, meaning, and form.

 

[Bradski]

To dissociate their theory from creationism as it was being described in relation to what should or should not be taught in schools?

It was to hide the fact that a book written about Creationism was now being used to promote ID.

Dissociation from a view that differs on key points and yet uses a similar description is not a dishonest act so long as there really is applicable differences between the ideas in question.

Read the quotes in red in post 277 above. They clearly and unambiguously confirm that Creationism and ID are exactly the same thing. That is, the arguments in the book for Creationism became the arguments for ID. There was no difference on key points. There were no changes made **at all **except one term for the other.

 

[Peter_Plato]

So you conclude that the changes were made because of legal and/or political reasons. Which indicates that you understand that they weren’t made on any ‘scientific’ basis. Dembski and the Discovery Institute were told in no uncertain terms that there was indeed a separation of church and state, so as the judge in the Dover trial said (my emphasis):

By comparing the pre and post Edwards drafts of Pandas, three astonishing points emerge:
(1) the definition for creation science in early drafts is identical to the definition of ID;
(2) **cognates of the word creation (creationism and creationist), which appeared approximately 150 times, were deliberately and systematically replaced with the phrase ID; **and
(3) the changes occurred shortly after the Supreme Court held that creation science is religious and cannot be taught in public school science classes in Edwards. This word substitution is telling, significant, and reveals that a purposeful change of words was effected without any corresponding change in content.

I’m not sure how any reasonable person can reject such damning evidence.

You are attempting a “bait and switch” argument, a kind of “guilt by association” which, in reality is no argument at all. Your strategy is to convince readers that ID is “nothing but” creationism, therefore if you accept ID you are thereby committing yourself to some ridiculously untenable “young earth” creationism. It’s a “damnation by association” argument which should, by now, have been thoroughly stripped of its pretensions.

So what if the Supreme Court found a connection between the Discovery Institute and references to creationism in a textbook written by some of its members? The Supreme Court could also have found that Discovery Institute members like to wear their underwear outside their clothes. What does this have to do with the validity of the philosophical argument for ID? Nothing!!! Why do you keep bringing the Dover Trial up at all? Do you have no other cogent argument against the actual logic of proposed ID arguments?
A comparable argument would be to claim atheists are all immoral (or amoral) because they cannot provide an absolute basis for morality. I.e., All ID proponents are creationists (implying of the most fundamentalist sort) because ID necessarily entails a creator (of the “young earth” kind).

In the atheists=immoral fallacy, the problem is that there may be another basis for morality that may be appealed to. Fair mindedness should allow an atheist to propose alternative foundations for morality to allow assessment of sufficiency.
In the ID = Creationist fallacy, the problem is that design need not entail creation, nor does it entail a particular kind of creation. Fair mindedness again should allow an ID proponent to present what the logical implications of his/her design argument actually are. The argument should not be dismissed merely because it, in some sense, could lead to creationism.

Recall that many scientists were resistant to the possibility of a beginning to the universe (standard Big Bang theory) because they saw it as leading to the existence of God.

Let the evidence lead where it does!

Logically, you should not dismiss the premises just because you don’t like the conclusion. That is not a reasonable argument, it is pure bias. Which is precisely what your supposed “argument” reeks of.

 

[prodigalson2011]

I agree. But it’s not as if there’s just the one debate going on: Is there a God or not. There are many arguments going on, each with what they feel is a solid claim to the truth.

Indeed.

A reasonable point but one that I will claim as being the exception that proves the rule.

But it’s not an exception. Conversions happen everywhere, at all times.

In the case you’ve given, if it were comparable to many people holding multiple ideas of the truth – that is, everyone had a different idea as to how to balance the budget, then the conclusion must be: ‘…it becomes more convincing that, at best, only one of them is right and they could all be wrong’.

And the same holds true of religion. There are only two possibilities: only one religion is right or all of them are wrong. The fact that there is widespread disagreement, however, lends no more credence to one possibility than the other. So using it to bolster a case against religion is just bad logic.

It’s not the foundation. But it does indicate that at the very least, a very large percentage of the world’s population has got one of the most important matters to ever be considered completely and utterly wrong.

But that’s where you’re wrong. If there is a God, then the only ones who have it “completely and utterly wrong” are atheists. There are areas of convergence in nearly if not all of the major world religions. Christianity, Judaism and Islam all proclaim the God of Abraham–that is, the monotheistic God. Catholics and Buddhists can find many common points of moral teaching and understanding of the human condition. In interreligious debates, it is more a question of who has the fullest understanding of God, not who is absolutely right and absolutely wrong. It is a precept of Catholicism that we should acknowledge the truth and beauty present in other religions; though, of course, we maintain the primacy of Christ and the fulfillment of all religions in Him.

If there are lots of competing theories of equal value, then only one can be right, or all of them can be wrong.

But that is precisely the question. Are all religious beliefs of equal value? In my personal search, I found that Catholic Christianity has an unparalleled amount of philosophical, historical, geographical, archaeological and scientific support when compared to other religions. The idea that there is no way of gauging the verity of religious claims is popular nowadays, but it’s hardly true.

 

[buffalo]

I agree. But it’s not as if there’s just the one debate going on: Is there a God or not. There are many arguments going on, each with what they feel is a solid claim to the truth.

A reasonable point but one that I will claim as being the exception that proves the rule.

In the case you’ve given, if it were comparable to many people holding multiple ideas of the truth – that is, everyone had a different idea as to how to balance the budget, then the conclusion must be: ‘…it becomes more convincing that, at best, only one of them is right and they could all be wrong’.

It’s not the foundation. But it does indicate that at the very least, a very large percentage of the world’s population has got one of the most important matters to ever be considered completely and utterly wrong.

If there are lots of competing theories of equal value, then only one can be right, or all of them can be wrong.

You’ve missed one out. It’s quite important. After formulating an hypotheses, one makes predictions from that and conducts experiments to confirm if those predictions are correct. ID doesn’t predict anything. It jumps straight to the conclusion. In fact, it starts with the conclusion which is pretty much the reverse of the scientific method. It’s junk science.

This is completely and utterly wrong. They, on their own admission, start with the conclusion that such structures must exist. They start with a conclusion, look for evidence to back it up, then formulate hypotheses which will tie in with the evidence. That is the reverse of the scientific method.

The Discovery Institute has stated, in writing, that their aim is to…’replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God’. In other words, their aim is not a scientific one, it is a religious one.

I agree. So either most people are wrong, or all people are wrong.

I didn’t post the quote to show that ID was wrong. I posted it to show that it is undeniable that ID is Creationism by another name. The Pandas book wasn’t re-written because they thought that Creationism was wrong and that a ‘scientific version’ might be closer to the truth. The book wasn’t re-written at all. They simply replaced ‘ID’ for ‘Creationism’.

Now if you wanted to prove to somebody that they were trying to slide ID into the debate as a cover for Creationism, what better way could you do it other than that? The proved themselves the very point that they were trying to deny.

For someone who knows about that, to then say that ID is not Creationism simply beggars belief. How is it even conceivable to deny evidence like that?

http://forums.catholic-questions.org/picture.php?albumid=639&pictureid=11701

YOu - The Discovery Institute has stated, in writing, that their aim is to…’replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God’. In other words, their aim is not a scientific one, it is a religious one.

So? Motivation does not negate truth.

How about only empirical science in the science classroom, that is observable, repeatable, predictable>

 

[buffalo]

So you conclude that the changes were made because of legal and/or political reasons. Which indicates that you understand that they weren’t made on any ‘scientific’ basis. Dembski and the Discovery Institute were told in no uncertain terms that there was indeed a separation of church and state, so as the judge in the Dover trial said (my emphasis):

By comparing the pre and post Edwards drafts of Pandas, three astonishing points emerge:
(1) the definition for creation science in early drafts is identical to the definition of ID;
(2) **cognates of the word creation (creationism and creationist), which appeared approximately 150 times, were deliberately and systematically replaced with the phrase ID; **and
(3) the changes occurred shortly after the Supreme Court held that creation science is religious and cannot be taught in public school science classes in Edwards. This word substitution is telling, significant, and reveals that a purposeful change of words was effected without any corresponding change in content.

I’m not sure how any reasonable person can reject such damning evidence.

Do you believe there is a difference between create and design?

 

[Bradski]

You are attempting a “bait and switch” argument, a kind of “guilt by association” which, in reality is no argument at all. Your strategy is to convince readers that ID is “nothing but” creationism.

I am responding in the first instance to this:

It has been pointed out many times that Design is totally unrelated to Creationism and is a philosophical interpretation of reality based on the primacy of reason.

Creationism is ID. It has just been proved above. The arguments are identical. The aim is identical. The people who were pushing Creationism are identical to those pushing ID. Nothing has changed – except that Dembski and his mates are now claiming that what they are engaged in is a scientific exercise. Except they aren’t using the scientific method, so whatever they think it is, it ain’t science.

therefore if you accept ID you are thereby committing yourself to some ridiculously untenable “young earth” creationism. It’s a “damnation by association” argument which should, by now, have been thoroughly stripped of its pretensions.

Let’s keep focussed here. No-one mentioned YEC. The Discovery Institute never mentioned YEC. YEC is not comparable to ID.

So what if the Supreme Court found a connection between the Discovery Institute and references to creationism in a textbook written by some of its members?

I’d rather you didn’t keep reinterpreting what has been said. A court didn’t find that there was ‘a connection between the DI and references to Creationism’. It found that the arguments for Creationism and ID were identical. Not similar, or open to similar interpretations, or having some vague connection or even written by people with similar views. They were exactly the same arguments.

Logically, you should not dismiss the premises just because you don’t like the conclusion. That is not a reasonable argument, it is pure bias.

If the premises led to a conclusion, wherever that might be, we might be in a better position to validate them or not. As you say:

Let the evidence lead where it does!

But if you start with a conclusion and develop premises to reach that conclusion, then we have a problem. The evidence put forward doesn’t ‘lead where it does’. It has already been decided where it leads.

Could any reasonable person not see a problem with that?

 

[Bradski]

Do you believe there is a difference between create and design?

If you find categorical evidence of design you have pretty much nailed the fact that whatever it was that had been designed had been created.

But Dembski and chums haven’t found something unusual in nature and looked for an answer as to why it should be so. They haven’t found something that they can’t explain and then offered a testable hypothesis to explain it and then look for evidence to either confirm or deny their hypothesis. Because that’s what science does. That is the scientific method in a nutshell.

What Dembski et al have done, and they have been quite explicit in admitting this, is to state a conclusion, in the first instance – there was an Intelligent Designer (and I wonder who that could be) and then look for evidence to support that conclusion. They know what the only possible answer will be before they’ve even formulated the question.

 

[buffalo]

If you find categorical evidence of design you have pretty much nailed the fact that whatever it was that had been designed had been created.

But Dembski and chums haven’t found something unusual in nature and looked for an answer as to why it should be so. They haven’t found something that they can’t explain and then offered a testable hypothesis to explain it and then look for evidence to either confirm or deny their hypothesis. Because that’s what science does. That is the scientific method in a nutshell.

What Dembski et al have done, and they have been quite explicit in admitting this, is to state a conclusion, in the first instance – there was an Intelligent Designer (and I wonder who that could be) and then look for evidence to support that conclusion. They know what the only possible answer will be before they’ve even formulated the question.

You are acting as if they were the first to understand design. ID has been around for a very long time.

Science continually observes and pursues. IN fact right now they are convinced the Higgs boson exists and have convinced taxpayers they need billions of dollars to prove it. Another - Dark Energy.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I
I’d rather you didn’t keep reinterpreting what has been said. A court didn’t find that there was ‘a connection between the DI and references to Creationism’. It found that the arguments for Creationism and ID were identical. Not similar, or open to similar interpretations, or having some vague connection or even written by people with similar views. They were exactly the same arguments.

Could you be so kind, then, to spell out those arguments, as you understand them, so that we can be convinced they are indeed the same?

 

[tonyrey]

You are attempting a “bait and switch” argument, a kind of “guilt by association” which, in reality is no argument at all. Your strategy is to convince readers that ID is “nothing but” creationism, therefore if you accept ID you are thereby committing yourself to some ridiculously untenable “young earth” creationism. It’s a “damnation by association” argument which should, by now, have been thoroughly stripped of its pretensions.

So what if the Supreme Court found a connection between the Discovery Institute and references to creationism in a textbook written by some of its members? The Supreme Court could also have found that Discovery Institute members like to wear their underwear outside their clothes. What does this have to do with the validity of the philosophical argument for ID? Nothing!!! Why do you keep bringing the Dover Trial up at all? Do you have no other cogent argument against the actual logic of proposed ID arguments?
A comparable argument would be to claim atheists are all immoral (or amoral) because they cannot provide an absolute basis for morality. I.e., All ID proponents are creationists (implying of the most fundamentalist sort) because ID necessarily entails a creator (of the “young earth” kind).

In the atheists=immoral fallacy, the problem is that there may be another basis for morality that may be appealed to. Fair mindedness should allow an atheist to propose alternative foundations for morality to allow assessment of sufficiency.
In the ID = Creationist fallacy, the problem is that design need not entail creation, nor does it entail a particular kind of creation. Fair mindedness again should allow an ID proponent to present what the logical implications of his/her design argument actually are. The argument should not be dismissed merely because it, in some sense, could lead to creationism.

Recall that many scientists were resistant to the possibility of a beginning to the universe (standard Big Bang theory) because they saw it as leading to the existence of God.

Let the evidence lead where it does!

Logically, you should not dismiss the premises just because you don’t like the conclusion. That is not a reasonable argument, it is pure bias. Which is precisely what your supposed “argument” reeks of.

It is absurd to believe a court verdict is infallible evidence for non-Design and merely reveals the irrational lengths to which some individuals will go to “defend” their deeply entrenched prejudice that everything is ultimately valueless, purposeless and meaningless - including of course their own conclusions…

 

[tonyrey]

** Originally Posted by**

tonyrey
therefore if you accept ID you are thereby committing yourself to some ridiculously untenable “young earth” creationism. It’s a “damnation by association” argument which should, by now, have been thoroughly stripped of its pretensions.
Let’s keep focussed here. No-one mentioned YEC. The Discovery Institute never mentioned YEC. YEC is not comparable to ID.

Let’s keep focussed here indeed: you are attributing to me statements I have never made!

 

[Bradski]

Let’s keep focussed here indeed: you are attributing to me statements I have never made!

My apologies there, Tony. A cut and paste that went wrong. The quote was from Peter, not yourself.

 

[Bradski]

Could you be so kind, then, to spell out those arguments, as you understand them, so that we can be convinced they are indeed the same?

Go buy the book. You can find it here: amazon.com/Pandas-People-Central-Question-Biological/dp/0914513400.

Dembski and the guys changed every instance of ‘Creationism’ to ‘ID’ so read the book as is. Then change ID back to Creationism and read it again. You may find every argument to be…exactly the same!

Clever, huh?

 

[Portofino]

And the same holds true of religion. There are only two possibilities: only one religion is right or all of them are wrong.

I would word it differently, though still following your logic. As I see it, there are a few logical possibilities:

–one religion is entirely right and all others are at least partially wrong, while others still are almost entirely wrong (Scientology, perhaps, would belong to the latter camp )
–no religion is entirely right, and all of them are at least partially wrong, but one of them is closer to being entirely right, than the others
–no religion is entirely right, and all of them are at least partially wrong, but in different respects (for example, perhaps the Buddhists got karma and reincarnation right, while the Christians got belief in a personal God right; etc.)
–no religion is entirely right, and all religions are entirely wrong (the Freud or the Dawkins view)

If there is a God, then the only ones who have it “completely and utterly wrong” are atheists.

That depends, it seems to me. If there is no “personal God”, then the atheist is wrong in one respect (namely, that there is no God) and right in another respect (that there is no personal God).

The atheist could be right about other things as well. For example, the believer might say, “if God exists, non-belief in the existence of God is a grave error – perhaps the gravest-- on account of which eternal salvation is jeopardized.” In actuality, the existent God could say (in our terms), “belief in me is not required, and insistence on belief in me has wrought much havoc amongst yourselves, and created many false and artificial sources of division. A leaf does not need to believe in photosynthesis, to turn green” (that second line is not mine, but from a friend ).

Also, the atheist could say, “there is no survival of the personality after death”; while the believer, obviously, would tend to say, “there is survival of the personality after death.” It could be that such afterlife as does exist is so radically different than how we conceived it – including the form that the “survival of the personality takes” – that neither the atheist nor the believer was right, and – in a certain sense – the atheist was correct in rejecting all of the versions posited by the major world’s religions, and in positing that “you” (as you think of “you”) will indeed exist for this life only.

This could go on ad infinitum, as regards the resurrection of Jesus, the immaculate conception, the perpetual virginity of Mary, the assumption into heaven. The atheist could be wrong in positing that a higher power does not exist, but right in having rejecting any or all of these doctrines (perhaps he was wrong in having rejected some of them, right in having rejected others).

interreligious debates, it is more a question of who has the fullest understanding of God, not who is absolutely right and absolutely wrong. It is a precept of Catholicism that we should acknowledge the truth and beauty present in other religions; though, of course, we maintain the primacy of Christ and the fulfillment of all religions in Him.

That’s a mature attitude, it seems. Since “absolute, infallible truth” is the requirement for being “absolutely right,” it does seem plausible – to me – that no religion is likely to be either entirely right, *nor *entirely wrong. Personally, this is plausible to me only because the bar for being “right” is set so high, that it allows not even for a smidgen of error or distortion.

Also, there may even be aspects of “truth” that all religions are ignorant of, and not even aware of as a conception (not even having an erroneous conception of it, but no conception at all).

So you could say, “this religion got things basically right, when it addressed them directly. But there are aspects of truth that it *never *addressed, and was completely ignorant of; it never even suspected their existence.”

 

[Peter_Plato]

Go buy the book. You can find it here: amazon.com/Pandas-People-Central-Question-Biological/dp/0914513400.

Dembski and the guys changed every instance of ‘Creationism’ to ‘ID’ so read the book as is. Then change ID back to Creationism and read it again. You may find every argument to be…exactly the same!

Clever, huh?

I was aware of this before you pointed it out. My point has been: It makes no difference!

A fixation is not an argument no matter how many times it is presented.