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Ortho
Guest
I note that in the recent trial in Pennsylvania, Behe said astrology was a valid scientific theory.
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PLP
Guest
The Wedge Document
The Wedge document is authored by members of the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute. The wedge document, more than any other DI project, betrays the DI’s (and intelligent design’s) political rather than scientific purpose.
The Wedge document is authored by members of the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute. The wedge document, more than any other DI project, betrays the DI’s (and intelligent design’s) political rather than scientific purpose.
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Magicsilence
Guest
Exactly so. And what I have seen about evolution from both sides of the argument fail to convince me of its validity. I accept some of the creationist arguments and think that the answers given do not wholly refute the claim. And at the same time, i see evolutionist arguments, and through simple logic cannot accept them.
Technically speaking, knowing how doesnt amount to very much. Sure, we can preserve someones life a few years, but if there is no point to it all. Why bother?
bad science. It’s tiring to have to refute bad science.
I fully agree. Refuting bad science is tiring. However, there are those that put forth very solid arguments backed up with evidence. And even those are ridiculed. It is enormously boring to see evolutionists putting down arguments because they are not full of complex ideas. Why is simplicity always seen as stupidity by them?Technically speaking, there is no compatibility problem with evolution and our faith. It is not necessarily that which is holding me back.
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The bunk on the internet pages that argue with very little science, yes. I agree, help only to discredit the creationist perspective. Few people are willing to hold on to a bandwagon that seems to be full of people who dont know what they are talking about. And thus, we have very stupid arguments put forth by them which lead to ridicule.
Fully agreed. But I have done all the research. I sat through two years of learning about it through biology. I had an evolutionist for a teacher who yearned to throw “evidence” of evolution wherever he could.
position, I’m willing to consider it on its own merits. Professional scientists have paid considerable attention to those who are making some attempt to at least use a little scientific terminology (e.g. Behe and Dembski); their ideas have received considerable attention and reasoned argument.
I am familiar with the work of Behe to some degree. The only attention recieved, (from what i have seen), is the flood of pages fighting what they have said with, what seems to me to be, illogical arguments.
One example on talk origins is someone saying that Behe’s example of a mousetrap itself is not irreducibly complex. One could substitute the bottom of the trap for the floor. Thus there is one component removed and it still functions. Behe replied, and quite logically so, that all that had been done was the bottom of the trap was replaced by the floor. Nothing, in effect, had been removed. Pretty straightforward so far? The evolutionist reply was that it was missing a part and using its natural environment to fill the gap, so to speak. And therefore, organisms interact with the environment at early stages of evolution until the full organ, part, or whatever of the organism has evolved. I dont see any evidence of this in nature AT ALL. Certainly, organisms use the environment, but they do not use it to help a part of their body which has not fully evolved.
Does that seem so illogical?
In Christ.
Andre.
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john_doran
Guest
you determine that the statistical likelihood of “natural” processes causing the biological diversity in the world, to be vanishingly small - too small (reasonably) to support the conclusion. in other words, one “falsifies” the premise of randomness.
directly. or not. as the darwinists like to say, we’ll figure it out as we know more…
by verifying neo-darwinism.
well, you’re mixing apples and oranges here - lakatos disagreed with popper’s falsification criteria, and believed rather in the idea of scientific progress, which is an axiological concept. so. what lakatos would consider a progressive research program for ID would be markedly different than one in which falsification was foundational.
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hecd2
Guest
john doran:
Alec
evolutionpages.com
But this programme has not been achieved. No-one has come even close to demonstrating such a thing, and as far as we can see the probability of natural processes causing the biological diversity on earth is unity.
Alec
evolutionpages.com
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buffalo
Guest
Treading the light fantastic: Einstein challenged
SOME things never change. But now one of science’s most cherished constants is being challenged by a controversial young cosmologist and a crack team of Sydney researchers.
According to Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, enunciated a century ago, the speed of light - the “c” in his famous equation e=mc 2 - has been a constant 299,792,458 metres a second since the universe began with the Big Bang. Dr Joao Magueijo thinks Einstein, who did have second thoughts but never pursued them, got it wrong. He believes that not long after the Big Bang light hit a “speed bump” and is, in fact, slowing down.
His theory - published first in the scientific press and then in a popular book, Faster than the Speed of Light - The Story of a Scientific Speculation, was initially greeted with derision.
more…
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john_doran
Guest
well, i disagree.
but that is as may be - i was simply pointing out that there is, in fact, a principled way to distinguish naturally from supernaturally caused evolution.
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hecd2
Guest
john doran:
Alec
But the principle is flawed by the fact that there is no practical way of gathering the data to calculate the statistical probability, and that neither you nor I know where to set the limit for that probability given the size and age of the laboratory (more than 10^22 stars in the observable universe which is 13.7 billion years old). The only principled way to distinguish naturally from super-naturally caused evolution is to find an essential element in the diversity that is impossible to be explained by natural processes (ie has a probability of exactly zero).
Alec
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john_doran
Guest
are you suggesting that the premise of randomness in neo-darwinisn is unfalsifiable?
whether or not you are, you set implausibly unrealistic epistemic conditions not only for warranted belief acquisition, but also for statistical modelling.
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hecd2
Guest
buffalo said:
And Kanekar et al in Phys Rev Lett 95, 261301 (31st Dec 2005), have determined by looking at absorption and emission lines from hydoxyl and hydrogen atoms in an absorber at z ~0.75 that the upper constraint on changes to the fine structure constant and hence to the speed of light over the last 6.5 billion years is less than one part in 100,000 and is consistent with no change at all. Ah well.
And the upper constraint in the change in fine structure constant from looking quasars is of the order one part in 100,000 back to 12 billion years ago was published by Webb et al in 2002 but data published by Srianand et al in mid-2004 suggested no change. The jury is out, but in any case, if there is an effect, it is minute.
Alec
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wildleafblower
Guest
Since this thread was on the top 10 of the Appologetics list, I’d like to have a tad worth of fun with Andre touching upon Behe’s mousetrap. I can’t help but wonder if Catholic Behe’s mousetrap is a metaphor for God, the ‘intelligent designer’ of biological systems! 
*St. Augustine compared the Atonement to a mouse trap;
Christ was the bait by which the Devil was caught like a mouse in a trap.
This implied by the well-known Passion Hymn of Venantius Fortunatus
(English Hymnal, 95; Hymns A. and M., 97).
Thus the scheme of our salvation
Was of old in order laid,
That the manifold deceiver’s
Art by art might be outweighed,
And the lure the foe put forward
Into means of healing made.
This theory has long ceased to be held by anyone. St. Bernard was perhaps the last great theologian to maintain it. But unfortunately the discredit into which it has fallen has been extended to the “classical” theory in general which is not bound up with it.
St. Gregory of Nazianzus, as we have seen, rejected it
and would not admit that the ransom was paid to God either.
St. John of Damascus taught that the ransom was paid, not to the Devil, but to God.*
katapi.org.uk/ChristianFaith/XXX.htm
Who or what is Behe’s metaphor for the devil? Darwin? Atheism? If it is then it’s wrong! Horribly wrong and biased!
Allow me to cruise out of those ancient Mediterranean seas of philosophy and shed more light on this topic of "Design and Darwinism’.
*According to the Pope, the human species evolved and acquired souls during the course of evolution by the grace of God. It naturally follows, said B. Ware, chief geneticist for VatGen, that the Lord must have inserted some specific gene in the genome which enabled humans to have souls. VatGen has dedicated its 650 Meg supercomputer to scanning the sequencing data for the genome using the “Here a miracle occurs” algorithm perfected by VatGen programmers.
According to B. Ware, the soul gene has 666 coding base pairs, and an intron which, when translated, reads “ecce homo”. Leading evolutionary theorist Michael Behe commented on the news, "I knew there was intelligent design and this is the proof." A worrisome side note to the discovery is that, according to a genetic survey conducted by VatGen, about 40% of the world’s population has a defective soul gene. The Vatican has petitioned WHO, the World Health Organization, to undertake a world eugenics program to sterilize “The Half Souled Ones.” A spokesperson for WHO said that the Vatican’s petition has been accepted but that no immediate reaction is planned.*
home.tiac.net/~cri/2000/soulgene.html
I shall NOT :bowdown: to any of this! 
Always remembering Hamlet’s plan to use The Mouse-Trap as an ethical litmus test for Claudius: “The play’s the thing / wherin I’ll catch the conscience of the king.”
I love William Shakespeare :yup: You have to be an adult lover to understand him. 
Much to do before week ends. Let me have some fun.
*St. Augustine compared the Atonement to a mouse trap;
Christ was the bait by which the Devil was caught like a mouse in a trap.
This implied by the well-known Passion Hymn of Venantius Fortunatus
(English Hymnal, 95; Hymns A. and M., 97).
Thus the scheme of our salvation
Was of old in order laid,
That the manifold deceiver’s
Art by art might be outweighed,
And the lure the foe put forward
Into means of healing made.
This theory has long ceased to be held by anyone. St. Bernard was perhaps the last great theologian to maintain it. But unfortunately the discredit into which it has fallen has been extended to the “classical” theory in general which is not bound up with it.
St. Gregory of Nazianzus, as we have seen, rejected it
and would not admit that the ransom was paid to God either.
St. John of Damascus taught that the ransom was paid, not to the Devil, but to God.*
katapi.org.uk/ChristianFaith/XXX.htm
Who or what is Behe’s metaphor for the devil? Darwin? Atheism? If it is then it’s wrong! Horribly wrong and biased!
Allow me to cruise out of those ancient Mediterranean seas of philosophy and shed more light on this topic of "Design and Darwinism’.
*According to the Pope, the human species evolved and acquired souls during the course of evolution by the grace of God. It naturally follows, said B. Ware, chief geneticist for VatGen, that the Lord must have inserted some specific gene in the genome which enabled humans to have souls. VatGen has dedicated its 650 Meg supercomputer to scanning the sequencing data for the genome using the “Here a miracle occurs” algorithm perfected by VatGen programmers.
According to B. Ware, the soul gene has 666 coding base pairs, and an intron which, when translated, reads “ecce homo”. Leading evolutionary theorist Michael Behe commented on the news, "I knew there was intelligent design and this is the proof." A worrisome side note to the discovery is that, according to a genetic survey conducted by VatGen, about 40% of the world’s population has a defective soul gene. The Vatican has petitioned WHO, the World Health Organization, to undertake a world eugenics program to sterilize “The Half Souled Ones.” A spokesperson for WHO said that the Vatican’s petition has been accepted but that no immediate reaction is planned.*
home.tiac.net/~cri/2000/soulgene.html
I shall NOT :bowdown: to any of this!
Always remembering Hamlet’s plan to use The Mouse-Trap as an ethical litmus test for Claudius: “The play’s the thing / wherin I’ll catch the conscience of the king.”
I love William Shakespeare :yup: You have to be an adult lover to understand him. Much to do before week ends. Let me have some fun.
O
Ortho
Guest
buffalo said:
This is an excellent book. Very readable by the non-scientist.
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St.Eric
Guest
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hecd2
Guest
john doran:
The existence of miraculous intervention is unfalsifiable, which is why it is methodologically excluded from science.
Alec
evolutionpages.com
Of course not. Why would you think that I would suggest such a thing?
The existence of miraculous intervention is unfalsifiable, which is why it is methodologically excluded from science.
Not at all. If you can lay out, even at a very high level, a) a programme for determining the statistical probability of the diversity of life being explicable by natural processes somewhere in the universe and b) tell us below which non-zero probability we should conclude that it was caused by supernatural processes, then you might have a point. No-one else has the faintest notion of how to begin such a programme or set such a limit.
Alec
evolutionpages.com
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Wolseley
Guest
Not exactly. The Church has no specific stance on it one way or the other; but the Church does insist that whichever method was used, God is the Ultimate Source. To-wit:
Concerning cosmological evolution, the Church has infallibly defined that the universe was specially created out of nothing. Vatican I solemnly defined that everyone must “confess the world and all things which are contained in it, both spiritual and material, as regards their whole substance, have been produced by God from nothing” (Canons on God the Creator of All Things, canon 5).
The Church does not have an official position on whether the stars, nebulae, and planets we see today were created at that time or whether they developed over time (for example, in the aftermath of the Big Bang that modern cosmologists discuss). However, the Church would maintain that, if the stars and planets did develop over time, this still ultimately must be attributed to God and his plan, for Scripture records: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host [stars, nebulae, planets] by the breath of his mouth” (Ps. 33:6).
Concerning biological evolution, the Church does not have an official position on whether various life forms developed over the course of time. However, it says that, if they did develop, then they did so under the impetus and guidance of God, and their ultimate creation must be ascribed to him.
Concerning human evolution, the Church has a more definite teaching. It allows for the possibility that man’s body developed from previous biological forms, under God’s guidance, but it insists on the special creation of his soul. Pope Pius XII declared that “the teaching authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions . . . take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter—[but] the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God” (Pius XII, Humani Generis 36). So whether the human body was specially created or developed, we are required to hold as a matter of Catholic faith that the human soul is specially created; it did not evolve, and it is not inherited from our parents, as our bodies are.
While the Church permits belief in either special creation or developmental creation on certain questions, it in no circumstances permits belief in atheistic evolution.
catholic.com/library/Adam_Eve_and_Evolution.asp
Again, not exactly. Here, you have a confusion in terminology.
Dogma is a specific term, meaning that the teaching or truth in question has been solemnly definied by the ordinary Magesterium of the Church. Such definition renders the dogma infallible, and as such, binding on the faithful and belief in it is necessary for salvation.
To make a long story short, dogma cannot be refined. A dogma can only be formally defined by a reigning Pontiff or an ecumenical council, and both methods render the dogma infallible. An infallible declaration cannot be altered in any fashion, any more than Holy Scripture or Apostolic Tradition can be altered.
I suspect the term you were actually looking for is doctrine. A doctrine is not infallible, it can be altered, rejected, resurrected, what have you. Dogmas cannot.
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PLP
Guest
Which arguments? Which refutations?
Which arguments? Anything other than the metaphorical criticism of a metaphor (below)?
I’m puzzled. Everything you do in your prosaic life is informed by answers to questions about “what” and “how”. You might believe that science isn’t all there is, but it’s hard to rationally call it trivial or irrelevant.
Like what? I’ve examined creationism and ID, and I’ve seen neither a solid argument nor an argument that was backed up with good evidence. Not one. I’ve seen a lot of bad logic and bad evidence, though.
There’s nothing wrong with simplicity per se. I certainly deny that simplicity is always seen as stupidity by proponents. I don’t deny that some unsophisticated people who believe evolution use faulty arguments, but there are good arguments and rebuttals for *all *the creationist claims.
Again, it’s impossible to discuss your assertions in more detail without some specific examples.
Well, this is definitely the thrust of the OP.
Can’t argue with you there.
Of course he did. That’s his job. Science is about drawing conclusions from evidence. This objection is as unsound as objecting to theology school because all they do is talk about God.
Then you haven’t seen all the evidence. Try Irreducible Complexity and Michael Behe on Talk.Origins.
This is a metaphorical criticism of a metaphor. It’s interesting, but it’s not really on point. It really doesn’t matter whether literal mousetraps are or are not “irreducibly complex”. The technical definition of irreducible complexity not all that objectionable; it’s been shown, however, that irreducible complexity does not entail intelligent intervention.
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PLP
Guest
john doran:
My point was that ID fulfills *neither *Popper’s nor Lakatos’ conception of good science. I suspect you have to move all the way over to the PoMo Humpty-Dumpty Deconstructionists to call ID “science”.
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hecd2
Guest
Yes, and in that case, as Behe admitted under oath, you would also have to include astrology.
Alec
evolutionpages.com
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JSmitty2005
Guest
To all the anti-evolution Catholics out there, this article that was released, although in a Vatican magazine, was by no means official.
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Ortho
Guest
How does one determine what is official in a Vatican magazine? Is anything oficial? Can it all be disregarded?
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