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vern_humphrey
Guest
If you look hard enough, you can see patterns in the urine stains on the men’s room floor. But science, it ain’t.http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon12.gif
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buffalo
Guest
vern humphrey:
If you run across a set of lettered cards and they are littered on the floor you would conclude what from this? If you run across this same set of cards arranged to spell a word what would you conclude? Extend this to a more complicated word? What do the probablities say about the more complicated word? Is the search for this empirical? Can we then assign them future probabilites and predict the odds of this same thing happening again? Does this qualify as science?
Are they random patterns or patterns with a design in mind?
If you run across a set of lettered cards and they are littered on the floor you would conclude what from this? If you run across this same set of cards arranged to spell a word what would you conclude? Extend this to a more complicated word? What do the probablities say about the more complicated word? Is the search for this empirical? Can we then assign them future probabilites and predict the odds of this same thing happening again? Does this qualify as science?
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vern_humphrey
Guest
You’re begging the question – first of all, YOU assume that evolution is “random.” Secondly, you want us to accept that Behe and Company have the answers.Are they random patterns or patterns with a design in mind?
If you run across a set of lettered cards and they are littered on the floor you would conclude what from this? If you run across this same set of cards arranged to spell a word what would you conclude? Extend this to a more complicated word? What do the probablities say about the more complicated word? Is the search for this empirical? Can we then assign them future probabilites and predict the odds of this same thing happening again?
No.
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buffalo
Guest
vern humphrey:
I didn’t mention evolution in the question. Answer the probblem posed.
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wanerious
Guest
I’m not sure what quantum physics has to do with it, but a search for patterns is a more mathematical pursuit. To be strictly scientific or mathematical, one needs to be able to calculate the likelihood of a pattern occurring in a random arrangement of the parameters included in the system, so typically the systems studied in this way are very simple and possess few degrees of freedom to make them amenable to rigorous calculation. There are mathematicians working these problems. The problem with the ID folks is that natural and biological systems are not understood in anywhere near a complete enough manner to make scientific stabs at the nature of complexity of structures. They rely on our possible ignorance of a particular phenomenon to label it as “irreducibly complex”. All one must show is a possible and likely scenario for the evolution of the structure, and the complexity is no longer irreducible. That is not a science, not a set of hypotheses, not a predictive set of theories — it is an assortment of assertions based upon ignorance.
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wanerious
Guest
Well, mathematics really, but ok. It is a well-defined system with simple and definite partial probabilities. Probabilities about future behavior can be made, and one may construct some artificial probability threshold, beyond which one may feel comfortable in assigning a “designed” or “fixed” judgement to the outcome.Are they random patterns or patterns with a design in mind?
If you run across a set of lettered cards and they are littered on the floor you would conclude what from this? If you run across this same set of cards arranged to spell a word what would you conclude? Extend this to a more complicated word? What do the probablities say about the more complicated word? Is the search for this empirical? Can we then assign them future probabilites and predict the odds of this same thing happening again? Does this qualify as science?
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vern_humphrey
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I did.
Seeing patterns in the urine stains on the men’s room floor doesn’t mean someone deliberately peed in patterns.
And no, it ain’t science.
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vern_humphrey
Guest
Amen – and we have people on this thread who would have us abandon our Catholic faith and hang our hopes for salvation on the maunderings of the people who advance Intelligent Design as “obejctive” and “science.”
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Tom_of_Assisi
Guest
vern humphrey:
Who is abondoning the Faith and placing their hope for salvation on academic/intellectual theories?
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vern_humphrey
Guest
Tom of Assisi said:
Anyone who goes about preaching a non-Catholic doctine like Intelligent Design .
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Tom_of_Assisi
Guest
vern humphrey:
How is id anymore “non-Catholic” than evolution?
God is not intelligent?
How is id anymore “non-Catholic” than evolution?
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vern_humphrey
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Tom of Assisi:
Tom of Assisi:
Intelligent Design is a collection of beliefs, not science. It is a competitor with Catholicism.
Don’t play the fool. God and Intelligent Design are NOT the same thing.
Tom of Assisi:
Evolution is science – which the Chruch does not reject, and which poses no threat to Catholicism.
Intelligent Design is a collection of beliefs, not science. It is a competitor with Catholicism.
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buffalo
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vern humphrey:
Well if the patterns spelled his name it would certainly look like it.
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vern_humphrey
Guest
“IF?”
What does that mean – if you find a pattern (say an arrangement of craters on the moon) that spells someone’s name, it means – what?
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Tom_of_Assisi
Guest
vern humphrey:
God is the intelligence behind intelligent design. Your straw-man assertions and attacks on it establish nothing.
The Church also has not accepted any one of the several evolutionary theories either.
Who’s the more fool: the fool or the fool of scientific politics?
God is the intelligence behind intelligent design. Your straw-man assertions and attacks on it establish nothing.
The Church also has not accepted any one of the several evolutionary theories either.
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PhilVaz
Guest
TomA << God is the intelligence behind intelligent design. >>
Hello, Intelligent Design ™ doesn’t say that. Read up on it. Both Behe and Dembski would argue it could be an intelligence from another world that spawned life on this planet. So not necessarily God. They simply say “intelligence can be detected.”
TomA << The Church also has not accepted any one of the several evolutionary theories either. >>
Well accepted in Catechism paragraphs 159, especially 283-284. In short, the Church accepts modern science, modern science does not conflict with the faith, and that modern science means evolution and an ancient earth. Its up to amateur theologians in the Church like myself to resolve all the apparent difficulties.
We are definitely running around in circles in this thread.
Phil P
Hello, Intelligent Design ™ doesn’t say that. Read up on it. Both Behe and Dembski would argue it could be an intelligence from another world that spawned life on this planet. So not necessarily God. They simply say “intelligence can be detected.”
TomA << The Church also has not accepted any one of the several evolutionary theories either. >>
Well accepted in Catechism paragraphs 159, especially 283-284. In short, the Church accepts modern science, modern science does not conflict with the faith, and that modern science means evolution and an ancient earth. Its up to amateur theologians in the Church like myself to resolve all the apparent difficulties.
We are definitely running around in circles in this thread.
Phil P
I
ISABUS
Guest
Discovery Institute News
1511 3rd Ave Suite 808 - Seattle, WA 98101 - (206) 292-0401 x126
Discovery Calls Dover Evolution Policy Misguided, Calls For its Withdrawal ****
By: Staff
Discovery Institute
December 14, 2004 SEATTLE, DEC. 14 – The policy on teaching evolution recently adopted by the Dover, PA School Board was called “misguided” today by Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, which advised that the policy should be withdrawn and rewritten.
“While the Dover board is to be commended for trying to teach Darwinian theory in a more open-minded manner, this is the wrong way to go about it,” said Dr. John G. West, associate director of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture (CSC). “Dover’s current policy has a number of problems, not the least of which is its lack of clarity. At one point, it appears to prohibit Dover schools from teaching anything about ‘the origins of life.’ At another point, it appears to both mandate as well as prohibit the teaching of the scientific theory of intelligent design. The policy’s incoherence raises serious problems from the standpoint of constitutional law. Thus, the policy should be withdrawn and rewritten.”
Apart from questions about its constitutionality, West expressed reservations about the Dover School Board’s directive on public policy grounds.
"When we first read about the Dover policy, we publicly criticized it because according to published reports the intent was to mandate the teaching of intelligent design,” explained West. “Although we think discussion of intelligent design should not be prohibited, we don’t think intelligent design should be required in public schools.
“What should be required is full disclosure of the scientific evidence for and against Darwin’s theory,” added West, “which is the approach supported by the overwhelming majority of the public."
Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture is the nation’s leading think-tank exploring the scientific theory of intelligent design, which proposes that some features of the natural world are best explained as the product of an intelligent cause rather than an undirected cause such as natural selection. In recent years a growing number of scientists have presented the case for intelligent design theory in academic journal articles and books published by major academic presses such as Cambridge University Press and Michigan State University Press. For more information visit the Institute’s website at www.discovery.org/csc/.
http://www.discovery.org/graphics/DInewsLogo.gif Discovery Institute is a non-profit, non-partisan, public policy think tank headquartered in Seattle and dealing with national and international affairs. For more information, browse Discovery’s Web site at:
http://www.discovery.org.
[Discovery Institute - Search? command=view&id=2341&program=CSC%20-%20Views%20and%20News&callingPage=discoMa(name removed by moderator)age](http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php? command=view&id=2341&program=CSC%20-%20Views%20and%20News&callingPage=discoMa(name removed by moderator)age)
I’ve been extremely busy with the holiday rush and will have to pick up on this thread next week when I will have the time to finish compiling all the information I’ve been storing on 5 discs about Intelligent Design and Freemasonary. By the way, it does appear from a document I just looked at that William Paley was a Freemason… The article seems to suggest such. It is an interview with Darwin who speaks of his father having had many friends who were Freemasons and implies Paley was one of them. Intelligent Design (ID) is ‘considered to be the intellectual offspring’ of William Paley (1743 -1805), theologian and moral philospher.
Behe and Pearcey (ID folks) are Fellows at the Discovery Intstiture’s Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture. Johnson is on their Advisory Board.
1511 3rd Ave Suite 808 - Seattle, WA 98101 - (206) 292-0401 x126
Discovery Calls Dover Evolution Policy Misguided, Calls For its Withdrawal ****
By: Staff
Discovery Institute
December 14, 2004 SEATTLE, DEC. 14 – The policy on teaching evolution recently adopted by the Dover, PA School Board was called “misguided” today by Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, which advised that the policy should be withdrawn and rewritten.
“While the Dover board is to be commended for trying to teach Darwinian theory in a more open-minded manner, this is the wrong way to go about it,” said Dr. John G. West, associate director of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture (CSC). “Dover’s current policy has a number of problems, not the least of which is its lack of clarity. At one point, it appears to prohibit Dover schools from teaching anything about ‘the origins of life.’ At another point, it appears to both mandate as well as prohibit the teaching of the scientific theory of intelligent design. The policy’s incoherence raises serious problems from the standpoint of constitutional law. Thus, the policy should be withdrawn and rewritten.”
Apart from questions about its constitutionality, West expressed reservations about the Dover School Board’s directive on public policy grounds.
"When we first read about the Dover policy, we publicly criticized it because according to published reports the intent was to mandate the teaching of intelligent design,” explained West. “Although we think discussion of intelligent design should not be prohibited, we don’t think intelligent design should be required in public schools.
“What should be required is full disclosure of the scientific evidence for and against Darwin’s theory,” added West, “which is the approach supported by the overwhelming majority of the public."
Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture is the nation’s leading think-tank exploring the scientific theory of intelligent design, which proposes that some features of the natural world are best explained as the product of an intelligent cause rather than an undirected cause such as natural selection. In recent years a growing number of scientists have presented the case for intelligent design theory in academic journal articles and books published by major academic presses such as Cambridge University Press and Michigan State University Press. For more information visit the Institute’s website at www.discovery.org/csc/.
http://www.discovery.org/graphics/DInewsLogo.gif Discovery Institute is a non-profit, non-partisan, public policy think tank headquartered in Seattle and dealing with national and international affairs. For more information, browse Discovery’s Web site at:
http://www.discovery.org.
[Discovery Institute - Search? command=view&id=2341&program=CSC%20-%20Views%20and%20News&callingPage=discoMa(name removed by moderator)age](http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php? command=view&id=2341&program=CSC%20-%20Views%20and%20News&callingPage=discoMa(name removed by moderator)age)
I’ve been extremely busy with the holiday rush and will have to pick up on this thread next week when I will have the time to finish compiling all the information I’ve been storing on 5 discs about Intelligent Design and Freemasonary. By the way, it does appear from a document I just looked at that William Paley was a Freemason… The article seems to suggest such. It is an interview with Darwin who speaks of his father having had many friends who were Freemasons and implies Paley was one of them. Intelligent Design (ID) is ‘considered to be the intellectual offspring’ of William Paley (1743 -1805), theologian and moral philospher.
Behe and Pearcey (ID folks) are Fellows at the Discovery Intstiture’s Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture. Johnson is on their Advisory Board.
I
ISABUS
Guest
WEST ““Although we think discussion of intelligent design should not be prohibited, we don’t think intelligent design should be required in public schools.”
Isn’t this interesting? I wonder what Behe and the gang are thinking after this latest newsbreak. I honestly don’t think they ever realized they were creating a nasty virus which is now running rampant. What’s the cure?
Also read the following about **Access Research Network. Some more ID folks show up here too… Pearcy, Behe, and Dembski. Be sure to really check this website out and see if you can figure out what was meant to “really” happen. You know I think it backfired on them. The ACLU just kicked out a news release. Have you read it? **
arn.org/infopage/info.htm
arn.org/index.html
Let’s learn how to “properly” debate?
Isn’t this interesting? I wonder what Behe and the gang are thinking after this latest newsbreak.
I honestly don’t think they ever realized they were creating a nasty virus which is now running rampant. What’s the cure?Also read the following about **Access Research Network. Some more ID folks show up here too… Pearcy, Behe, and Dembski. Be sure to really check this website out and see if you can figure out what was meant to “really” happen. You know I think it backfired on them. The ACLU just kicked out a news release. Have you read it? **
arn.org/infopage/info.htm
arn.org/index.html
Let’s learn how to “properly” debate?
D
dcdurel
Guest
This is from an article in the Wall Street Journal:
A Chinese paleontologist lectures around the world saying that recent fossil finds in his country are inconsistent with the Darwinian theory of evolution. His reason: The major animal groups appear abruptly in the rocks over a relatively short time, rather than evolving gradually from a common ancestor as Darwin’s theory predicts. When this conclusion upsets American scientists, he wryly comments: “In China we can criticize Darwin but not the government. In America you can criticize the government but not Darwin.”
That point was illustrated last week by the media firestorm that followed the Kansas Board of Education’s vote to omit macro-evolution from the list of science topics which all students are expected to master. Frantic scientists and educators warned that Kansas students would no longer be able to succeed in college or graduate school, and that the future of science itself was in danger. The New York Times called for a vigorous counteroffensive, and the lawyers prepared their lawsuits. Obviously, the cognitive elites are worried about something a lot more important to themselves than the career prospects of Kansas high school graduates.
The root of the problem is that “science” has two distinct definitions in our culture. On the one hand, science refers to a method of investigation involving things like careful measurements, repeatable experiments, and especially a skeptical, open-minded attitude that insists that all claims be carefully tested. Science also has become identified with a philosophy known as materialism or scientific naturalism. This philosophy insists that nature is all there is, or at least the only thing about which we can have any knowledge. It follows that nature had to do its own creating, and that the means of creation must not have included any role for God. Students are not supposed to approach this philosophy with open-minded skepticism, but to believe it on faith.
The reason the theory of evolution is so controversial is that it is the main scientific prop for scientific naturalism. Students first learn that “evolution is a fact,” and then they gradually learn more and more about what that “fact” means. It means that all living things are the product of mindless material forces such as chemical laws, natural selection, and random variation. So God is totally out of the picture, and humans (like everything else) are the accidental product of a purposeless universe. Do you wonder why a lot of people suspect that these claims go far beyond the available evidence?
See the whole article here:
arn.org/docs/johnson/chofdarwin.htm
I think Philip Johnson hit the nail on the head when he wrote:
The reason the theory of evolution is so controversial is that it is the main scientific prop for scientific naturalism.
The reason that evolutionists refuse to discuss the contradictions to Darwinism, such as the immense lack of fossil records, the origin of life, the lack of a continuum, the total inability to respond logically to Behe’s irriducible complexity, etc, is because evolution is not science. It is only the main scientific prop for a philosophy called “materialism”, or “scientific naturalism”.
This philosophy insists that nature is all there is, or at least the only thing about which we can have any knowledge. It follows that nature had to do its own creating, and that the means of creation must not have included any role for God. Students are not supposed to approach this philosophy with open-minded skepticism, but to believe it on faith.
A Chinese paleontologist lectures around the world saying that recent fossil finds in his country are inconsistent with the Darwinian theory of evolution. His reason: The major animal groups appear abruptly in the rocks over a relatively short time, rather than evolving gradually from a common ancestor as Darwin’s theory predicts. When this conclusion upsets American scientists, he wryly comments: “In China we can criticize Darwin but not the government. In America you can criticize the government but not Darwin.”
That point was illustrated last week by the media firestorm that followed the Kansas Board of Education’s vote to omit macro-evolution from the list of science topics which all students are expected to master. Frantic scientists and educators warned that Kansas students would no longer be able to succeed in college or graduate school, and that the future of science itself was in danger. The New York Times called for a vigorous counteroffensive, and the lawyers prepared their lawsuits. Obviously, the cognitive elites are worried about something a lot more important to themselves than the career prospects of Kansas high school graduates.
The root of the problem is that “science” has two distinct definitions in our culture. On the one hand, science refers to a method of investigation involving things like careful measurements, repeatable experiments, and especially a skeptical, open-minded attitude that insists that all claims be carefully tested. Science also has become identified with a philosophy known as materialism or scientific naturalism. This philosophy insists that nature is all there is, or at least the only thing about which we can have any knowledge. It follows that nature had to do its own creating, and that the means of creation must not have included any role for God. Students are not supposed to approach this philosophy with open-minded skepticism, but to believe it on faith.
The reason the theory of evolution is so controversial is that it is the main scientific prop for scientific naturalism. Students first learn that “evolution is a fact,” and then they gradually learn more and more about what that “fact” means. It means that all living things are the product of mindless material forces such as chemical laws, natural selection, and random variation. So God is totally out of the picture, and humans (like everything else) are the accidental product of a purposeless universe. Do you wonder why a lot of people suspect that these claims go far beyond the available evidence?
See the whole article here:
arn.org/docs/johnson/chofdarwin.htm
I think Philip Johnson hit the nail on the head when he wrote:
The reason the theory of evolution is so controversial is that it is the main scientific prop for scientific naturalism.
The reason that evolutionists refuse to discuss the contradictions to Darwinism, such as the immense lack of fossil records, the origin of life, the lack of a continuum, the total inability to respond logically to Behe’s irriducible complexity, etc, is because evolution is not science. It is only the main scientific prop for a philosophy called “materialism”, or “scientific naturalism”.
This philosophy insists that nature is all there is, or at least the only thing about which we can have any knowledge. It follows that nature had to do its own creating, and that the means of creation must not have included any role for God. Students are not supposed to approach this philosophy with open-minded skepticism, but to believe it on faith.
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dcdurel
Guest
You see, materialistic evolutionists can’t afford to think that Intelligent Design could possibly explain life. They can’t even acknowledge it, for fear it would turn their whole philosophy—yes, philosophy, not science—upside down. To believe in design means believing in a Designer, and that belief wouldn’t fit at all with the closed universe that’s essential to the naturalistic worldview.
This is from:
freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1286965/posts
This is from:
freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1286965/posts
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