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geometer
Guest
Evolution as hard science would be ok with me. What I mean is that people are being assinine about nothing, 150 years and still waiting…
- Status
L
Leela
Guest
Right. Regardless of what sort of universe we experience, we could always say that it was designed to be exactly that way. The problem is that if our experiences were completely different than what they are, we could still say the same thing. So design can’t tell us anything about what sort of experiences to expect or why things are the way they are as opposed to something different, and is therefore irrelevant to science.
I
Iamnotafraid
Guest
That sounds familiar…
2,000 years and still waiting…
In the case of the Jews, what is it now? 6,000 years and still waiting…
R
rossum
Guest
I am not an atheist, I believe in more gods then you do.
Intelligent Design has a number of aspects: political, philosophical and scientific.
It has a political aspect - trying to get an alternative to evolution taught in science classes in American public schools. It is also a political attempt to change some aspects of American society - refer to the Wedge Strategy for this. There is nothing per se wrong with this political aspect. I disagree with their objectives and some of the tactics they use, but they are pursuing those objectives by legal methods. Of course the political aspect of ID generates some political opposition to ID as well. That is pretty much inevitable given the nature of politics.
The philosophical aspect is to try to extend the definition of science to embrace more than just natural causes; to allow supernatural causes to be considered in science. This is not good. Science has its great success because it has deliberately limited itself to natural causes only. If we include supernatural causes then, as Professor Behe said at the Dover trial, we cannot exclude astrology from our redefined “science” - astrology is a mixture of astronomy and supernatural causes. This aspect of ID is foolish; it basically breaks science and throws away the reason for the success science has had over the last few hundred years.
The scientific aspect of ID is very weak. To quote Dr Dembski:Because of ID’s outstanding success at gaining a cultural hearing, the scientific research part of ID is now lagging behind.
Dembski - Becoming a Disciplined Science, RAPID 2002.
Scientifically ID is unacceptably fuzzy. As of now there is no tested mechanism to detect design. Both Dembski (CSI) and Behe (IC) have proposed mechanisms but neither mechanism has so far been tested to a scientific standard. As of now there is no way to falsify a design inference - how would I recognise something that could not have been designed by the designer(s)? As of now there are no timescales proposed for the action of the designer(s) - did they operate only in the remote past or do they operate now? Do they operate continuously or do they only operate at rare intervals? There are no mechanisms proposed by which the designers operate - how do they actually move different base pairs about to get the DNA that they want? All of this means that ID is not so far a scientific theory. Once the work has been done to flesh out more of the details then it becomes possible to consider ID as science. In order to be accepted as a scientific theory any idea has to go through a long and tedious process of filling in as many details as possible and checking results. ID wants the acceptance but has not so far done the grunt work needed to fill in enough of the background.
Dembski realises this, and in his speech to the RAPID conference in 2002, that I referenced above, he proposed an outline of work for ID to allow its scientific aspect to catch up with the cultural and political aspects. So far none of that proposed work has been done, yet ID is still claiming to be science. They appear to be trying to jump the queue, and like any queue jumper are finding that their action causes resentment.
If ID can provide scientific evidence for design then it is entitled to a place in the science classroom and in science textbooks. Archaeology has provided scientific evidence for the design of many of the artefacts that archaeologists find and archaeology has its place in the science classroom. There is no bias against design as such; there is bias against non-science claiming to be science. In its current state ID is not science. That is not to say that it may not one day become science, but it still has a great deal of work to do in order to reach the required standard.
rossum
C
Charlemagne_II
Guest
ROSSUM
Scientifically ID is unacceptably fuzzy. As of now there is no tested mechanism to detect design. Both Dembski (CSI) and Behe (IC) have proposed mechanisms but neither mechanism has so far been tested to a scientific standard. As of now there is no way to falsify a design inference - how would I recognise something that could not have been designed by the designer(s)? As of now there are no timescales proposed for the action of the designer(s) - did they operate only in the remote past or do they operate now? Do they operate continuously or do they only operate at rare intervals? There are no mechanisms proposed by which the designers operate - how do they actually move different base pairs about to get the DNA that they want? All of this means that ID is not so far a scientific theory. Once the work has been done to flesh out more of the details then it becomes possible to consider ID as science. In order to be accepted as a scientific theory any idea has to go through a long and tedious process of filling in as many details as possible and checking results. ID wants the acceptance but has not so far done the grunt work needed to fill in enough of the background.
**
Scientifically ID is unacceptably fuzzy**
You raise an interesting point. Any theory is unacceptably fuzzy at first. Wasn’t evolution initially received as fuzzy? And ever since Darwin haven’t evolutionists been working out the wrinkles in his theory?
Once the work has been done to flesh out more of the details then it becomes possible to consider ID as science.
The same may be said of the Big Bang. We still don’t understand the mechanism of the Big Bang, but working backward and by logical deductions and mathematics we can surmise that a Big Bang happened. That theory was also fuzzy at first and many fought it, including Fred Hoyle who opted for steady-state. Now it is textbook science.
It’s good for scientists to oppose any notion such as irreducible complexity until the evidence becomes less fuzzy. However, God has done for the origin of life what he has done for the origin of the universe … that is, He has shrouded the mechanism in profound and unknowable mystery.
God is entitled to his secrets. Even the priests of science are not entitled to enter them, though some will stand from afar and admire. Others will just snicker.
Scientifically ID is unacceptably fuzzy. As of now there is no tested mechanism to detect design. Both Dembski (CSI) and Behe (IC) have proposed mechanisms but neither mechanism has so far been tested to a scientific standard. As of now there is no way to falsify a design inference - how would I recognise something that could not have been designed by the designer(s)? As of now there are no timescales proposed for the action of the designer(s) - did they operate only in the remote past or do they operate now? Do they operate continuously or do they only operate at rare intervals? There are no mechanisms proposed by which the designers operate - how do they actually move different base pairs about to get the DNA that they want? All of this means that ID is not so far a scientific theory. Once the work has been done to flesh out more of the details then it becomes possible to consider ID as science. In order to be accepted as a scientific theory any idea has to go through a long and tedious process of filling in as many details as possible and checking results. ID wants the acceptance but has not so far done the grunt work needed to fill in enough of the background.
**
Scientifically ID is unacceptably fuzzy**
You raise an interesting point. Any theory is unacceptably fuzzy at first. Wasn’t evolution initially received as fuzzy? And ever since Darwin haven’t evolutionists been working out the wrinkles in his theory?
Once the work has been done to flesh out more of the details then it becomes possible to consider ID as science.
The same may be said of the Big Bang. We still don’t understand the mechanism of the Big Bang, but working backward and by logical deductions and mathematics we can surmise that a Big Bang happened. That theory was also fuzzy at first and many fought it, including Fred Hoyle who opted for steady-state. Now it is textbook science.
It’s good for scientists to oppose any notion such as irreducible complexity until the evidence becomes less fuzzy. However, God has done for the origin of life what he has done for the origin of the universe … that is, He has shrouded the mechanism in profound and unknowable mystery.
God is entitled to his secrets. Even the priests of science are not entitled to enter them, though some will stand from afar and admire. Others will just snicker.
R
rossum
Guest
You are correct in that science loses interest once all possible details have been worked out - you just go an look up the answer in a book. Every theory has a certain amount of uncertainty in it to keep scientists interested. However currently ID does not have enough detail to qualify as a scientific theory, it is more of a possible hypothesis. For example, Darwin gave us two possible ways to falsify his theory:If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.
If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been produced through natural selection.
- both from Chapter Six of Origins.
So far ID has not been able to provide anything comparable. It needs to tell us how would we recognise something that could not have been designed, just as Darwin told us how to recognise something that could not have evolved. It is worth noting that Behe’s Irreducible Complexity is an attempt to meet the first of Darwin’s two possible falsifications. Also Darwin’s theory makes predictions: we will never see a fossil of a pegasus with both feathers and mammalian characteristics, we will never see a fossil Cambrian rabbit and so forth. ID does not make such predictions.
Big Bang theory lacks a mechanism, as did Newton’s gravity. However, both of those theories can make predictions, that is why Big Bang theory won out over Hoyle’s steady state. The BB predictions were confirmed while the SS predictions were not. Every time a scientific theory makes a prediction it is taking a risk. If the prediction is not correct then the theory will either be changed or dropped entirely. ID seems very reluctant to take that risk because it seems very reluctant to make any predictions of its own; it seems more keen on saying what evolution cannot do.
How would ID theorists react if it were shown that predictions from a multiple-designer version of ID were more accurate than predictions from a single-designer version of ID? Would they be prepared, as good scientists, to accept multiple designers and to reject a single designer? That is the sort of risk that ID takes if it starts making predictions. It seems to me that ID does not want to take that risk, because the political and cultural agendas behind ID have a higher precedence than the scientific agenda. ID needs just enough scienceyness to make a political noise, but not so much that it has to put its core assumptions to the test. ID’s political support would not take kindly to a scientific proof of multiple designers I suspect.
That is one of the reasons why scientists do not like the supernatural in general and ID in particular. If something is attributed to the supernatural: God, Vishnu, Allah, The Designers or whatever then it becomes “unknowable”. No scientist is ever going to accept that without good scientific evidence to back it up. Heisenberg did provide such evidence, so we know that certain combinations of quantum variables are unknowable. ID has not produced such evidence, so it is merely seen as a “science stopper”, which is never going to be popular with scientists.
The origin of life is indeed a difficult problem, but it is being worked on and some progress is being made. To assert, without evidence, that it is “unknowable” is unscientific and very likely to irritate a lot of scientists.
rossum
C
Charlemagne_II
Guest
Rossum
The origin of life is indeed a difficult problem, but it is being worked on and some progress is being made. To assert, without evidence, that it is “unknowable” is unscientific and very likely to irritate a lot of scientists.
No doubt this is true. Science has puffed itself up with know-it-all ambitions. Science, in this respect, has not learned wisdom … and it never will. Even though every scientist I know proclaims himself to be a fount of wisdom, he cannot explain the mechanism by which wisdom works … and often as not (like everyone else) has little of his own. Yet he knows there is wisdom.
There is also intelligent design. Darwin himself said so, but was never so pretentious as to suggest that it required a mechanism to prove. Indeed, if irreducible complexity of life happened all at once, long before the later stages of evolution, who would be there to witness it? The same people who would not be there to witness the Big Bang.
“… I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist.” Charles Darwin
The origin of life is indeed a difficult problem, but it is being worked on and some progress is being made. To assert, without evidence, that it is “unknowable” is unscientific and very likely to irritate a lot of scientists.
No doubt this is true. Science has puffed itself up with know-it-all ambitions. Science, in this respect, has not learned wisdom … and it never will. Even though every scientist I know proclaims himself to be a fount of wisdom, he cannot explain the mechanism by which wisdom works … and often as not (like everyone else) has little of his own. Yet he knows there is wisdom.
There is also intelligent design. Darwin himself said so, but was never so pretentious as to suggest that it required a mechanism to prove. Indeed, if irreducible complexity of life happened all at once, long before the later stages of evolution, who would be there to witness it? The same people who would not be there to witness the Big Bang.
“… I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist.” Charles Darwin
C
Charlemagne_II
Guest
Since everyone knows that the teaching of evolution in high school is a loaded question both for atheists and theists, I for one would not mind if the following quotations prefaced the science book chapter on evolution, so that students and parents would not feel that they were being manipulated by what has become sadly an atheistic science.
“… although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.” Richard Dawkins, Biologist
“… I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist.” Charles Darwin, Biologist
What say you?
“… although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.” Richard Dawkins, Biologist
“… I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist.” Charles Darwin, Biologist
What say you?
T
Touchstone
Guest
I think you are displaying the true motivations of the Intelligent Design movement with such a recommendation. Neither of these comments have anything to do with science, and it is this kind of conflation and muddled thinking that we are hope to rectify by teaching our youth science as science, not as some political pawn in a cultural chess match. To the extent anybody took heed of either of these comments in a sceince textbook, they would have the method being advanced (hopefully) in the rest of the book. Science demands that those kinds of conclusions get appreciated for what they are – non-scientific, personal indulgences in religious and metaphysical conjecture. They are welcome to it, but it ain’t science.
There’s an odd kind of “phantom scientism” running through the posts of some Catholics on this board, this idea that whatever a scientist says, even on matters which are manifestly outside the scope of science, somehow carries the imprimatur of science. As an atheist, I am interested in Dawkins’ views, and Darwins, on the subject of God and supernaturalism. But as a matter of science, I couldn’t care less about such statements, anymore than I am disturbed by Kenneth Miller supposing that all of the science he surveys suggests to him in extra-scientific terms that there is a Creator God who has designed and created the universe in such a way that it unwinds as it has.
I’ll point out once again that science is not atheist in its disposition, just naturalist in its methods. That means that God or gods are completely welcome, and would be a celebrated scientific topic if they would deign to be addressable by the scientific method. If a god came to earth and performed miracles that confounded all of sceintific understanding of physical law, on demand, and under any and all levels of scrutiny, we would have no trouble in saying that science have verified the existence of a god, a being who by inspection apparently power to do what she wants in changing, subverting or manipulating physical law. This would be a god verified and documented by science, and the journal articles would issue forth with great intensity as science worked to describe, document, test and analyze the phenomena this god represented.
Just pointing that out because the allegation of atheism in science is really not any conviction or conclusion against the existence of gods, but only the demand for real, objective evidence for the entities and processes it addresses. As it happens, no religions can produce such evidence, produce such a god, addressable in natural terms. But science remains open to the prospect. If such a god appeared in Central Park tomorrow and began moving the stars around in the sky to spell people’s names, or moving various planets around in the orbits in the blink of an eye, science would be all over it.
-TS
C
Charlemagne_II
Guest
Just pointing that out because the allegation of atheism in science is really not any conviction or conclusion against the existence of gods, but only the demand for real, objective evidence for the entities and processes it addresses. As it happens, no religions can produce such evidence, produce such a god, addressable in natural terms. But science remains open to the prospect. If such a god appeared in Central Park tomorrow and began moving the stars around in the sky to spell people’s names, or moving various planets around in the orbits in the blink of an eye, science would be all over it.
Apparently God is a good deal more subtle than you.
I’ll point out once again that science is not atheist in its disposition, just naturalist in its methods.
That was a howler.
“According to a 1998 survey of members of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), nearly 95 percent of NAS biologists are atheists or agnostics.” article.nationalreview.com/?q=NWEzZGRiMzE0ZDRhNzE2ZGJjMjVjYTZhMzJiZjJmMzI
Be honest, Tom, the real reason you don’t want those quotations in the biology textbooks is that Darwin’s quote is eminently more weighty than Dawkins’, and that Dawkins makes a fool of himself by pretending that Darwin’s theory somehow makes atheism respectable.
If most biologists are atheists, why shouldn’t the parents of religious children have some kind of club handed to them by Darwin himself with which to beat back the silly propaganda of his fanatical atheist followers?
Apparently God is a good deal more subtle than you.
I’ll point out once again that science is not atheist in its disposition, just naturalist in its methods.
That was a howler.
“According to a 1998 survey of members of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), nearly 95 percent of NAS biologists are atheists or agnostics.” article.nationalreview.com/?q=NWEzZGRiMzE0ZDRhNzE2ZGJjMjVjYTZhMzJiZjJmMzI
Be honest, Tom, the real reason you don’t want those quotations in the biology textbooks is that Darwin’s quote is eminently more weighty than Dawkins’, and that Dawkins makes a fool of himself by pretending that Darwin’s theory somehow makes atheism respectable.
If most biologists are atheists, why shouldn’t the parents of religious children have some kind of club handed to them by Darwin himself with which to beat back the silly propaganda of his fanatical atheist followers?
T
Touchstone
Guest
Yes, subtle unto imaginary.
Maybe you misunderstand my use of “disposition”. Science as an epistemology is agnostic on the matter of anything supernatural. It’s “out of scope” for science, and any religious claims that are predicated on supernaturalism are just incoherent to science. The personal philosophical convictions of those practicing science are NOT the methods of science itself, which makes stats like above, which I am familiar with and totally understand to be predictable, given the nature of the enterprise, irrelevant as the disposition of science itself.
Neither quote is the least bit relevant to the study or practice of science, so they are quite equal in that sense. But as a matter of extra-scientific thinking, I think Dawkins’ quote is the more profound and, on objective terms, the more influential – weighty as a measure of influence. Try googling each quote just as a test and see what you find. Dawkins’ quote touches on a far-reaching of Darwin’s theory that Darwin himself could not have grasped during his own time; the development of Darwin’s theory, complete with the validation obtained with the discovery of DNA and genetics has “killed God”, in an important sense. Nothing can disprove God’s existence, but Darwin’s theory became (long after Darwin’s death) a theory of such scope and robustness that it made God-as-creator superfluous in natural terms, and relegated God-as-creator to a purely metaphysical conjecture. That’s not a matter of science, a realization that the products of science, in this case Darwin’s dangerous idea, can obviate long standing arguments for why one should accept the existence of God as a belief.
As for Darwin, he had no idea how his theory would fare over the succeeding centuries. From his point of view, it was very sketchy in contrast to what has become of the theory today. But even today, it’s not hard to find subscribers to evolutionary theory who still entertain their intutions about some “First Cause” that they call God. Darwin wasn’t a philosophical skeptic in any robust sense, and when you read him, seems rather soft in that regard. That’s fine, though. He was a scientist. What you suppose we can draw from the Darwin quote escapes me.
Because Darwin’s ideas are not justified or discredited based on what he thought about God’s existence or non-existence. Darwin’s scientific ideas stand or fall on their own merits, completely without regard to what Darwin thought about God. And that is an essential part of learning and practicing science, being able to neatly reject the quotes you offer, and the desire for some “club” that you suppose Darwin is handing to parents, as utterly irrelevant to the subject of science.
-Touchstone
ETA: btw, just to momentarily get back on thread topic, what became of the scientific theory advanced in Darwin’s Black Box or Dembski’s Intelligent Design? Don’t we have to have a theory before to be able to assess its plausibility? What is that theory, if so?
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Iamnotafraid
Guest
The club is called creationist Pseudo-Science.
This is the kind of stuff they teach;
God did it, no need to study any further, class dismissed.
You all now have degree’s in ‘Truthology, from Christian Science Tech.’
:whacky:
One does not need to read Behe to see that a gap theory is a gap theory: if the principles of an idea are unsound, then it does not become any better as theology or philosophy by being explained in detail. And this is one such idea.
C
Charlemagne_II
Guest
Touchstone
What you suppose we can draw from the Darwin quote escapes me.
Pretty obvious, isn’t it? Darwin saw no necessary connection between evolution and atheism. Dawkins does. Darwin is logical. Dawkins is not. Dawkins’ point of view may well reign among biologists, but that is not because of naturalism. If it were, you would see the same stats in the other natural sciences, which you don’t. The only conclusion to be drawn is that biologists since Darwin have made the illogical connection that evolution disposes of God. Why do they not just suppose that evolution is intelligently designed if it seems to be?
Was the first micro-organism just an accident of nature? And has every creature all the way up to man been an accident? Interesting. The only creature who can intelligently design most anything he wants to design is an accident of nature and without purpose. And he is not supposed to imagine anything that designed him and all the rest of creation? This is the only creature who can understand laws, but he is not supposed to imagine a lawmaker?
Where’s the proof? As you say, it’s a conclusion atheists desire or creationists desire … but it’s certainly not a conclusion for which there is any convincing argument either way, unless you want or don’t want to be convinced. I’m satisfied that God made us this way … not to drown us in awe and wonder, but to tease us with His shadow crossing the universe everywhere we look … unless we are no looking.
In any case, the numbers are in. Biologists are largely an atheist crew.
Parents have every right to defend their children from the atheist wrecking crew. Drop evolution from the biology curriculum. One can learn plenty of biology without it. Put evolution and intelligent design in some other course, such as Great Debates of the Western World, where at least the Christians have a fighting chance.
What you suppose we can draw from the Darwin quote escapes me.
Pretty obvious, isn’t it? Darwin saw no necessary connection between evolution and atheism. Dawkins does. Darwin is logical. Dawkins is not. Dawkins’ point of view may well reign among biologists, but that is not because of naturalism. If it were, you would see the same stats in the other natural sciences, which you don’t. The only conclusion to be drawn is that biologists since Darwin have made the illogical connection that evolution disposes of God. Why do they not just suppose that evolution is intelligently designed if it seems to be?
Was the first micro-organism just an accident of nature? And has every creature all the way up to man been an accident? Interesting. The only creature who can intelligently design most anything he wants to design is an accident of nature and without purpose. And he is not supposed to imagine anything that designed him and all the rest of creation? This is the only creature who can understand laws, but he is not supposed to imagine a lawmaker?
Where’s the proof? As you say, it’s a conclusion atheists desire or creationists desire … but it’s certainly not a conclusion for which there is any convincing argument either way, unless you want or don’t want to be convinced. I’m satisfied that God made us this way … not to drown us in awe and wonder, but to tease us with His shadow crossing the universe everywhere we look … unless we are no looking.
In any case, the numbers are in. Biologists are largely an atheist crew.
Parents have every right to defend their children from the atheist wrecking crew. Drop evolution from the biology curriculum. One can learn plenty of biology without it. Put evolution and intelligent design in some other course, such as Great Debates of the Western World, where at least the Christians have a fighting chance.
C
Charlemagne_II
Guest
East Anglican
Any gap theory is unscientific because science is about discovering what is not known by deduction.
But more so by induction.
Any gap theory is unscientific because science is about discovering what is not known by deduction.
But more so by induction.
W
wasmit
Guest
Shouoldn’t the promoter of an idea(i.e. you) be required to explain what it is?
T
Touchstone
Guest
Dawkins is not saying that biology demands atheism. Rather, in saying that evolution enables the atheist fulfillmen in intellectual terms, he’s pointing to the fact that “creation” in terms of biology has traditionally been an obstacle for atheism: How did all these animals come to be? Darwin’s theory provided a godless mechanism to explain it, thus removing a substantial intellectual difficulty to atheism.
But that says nothing about converting theists to atheism, or providing a case for the disproof of God. It simply meant that the atheist now had a much more robust picture of the world as a godless reality. It was fulfilling in that it became much more robust, much more complete thanks to Darwin’s theory. Theists can and do remain convinced that Darwin’s theory is just so much evidence of God’s design, further up the chain.
It doesn’t seem to be, beyond some superficial look, and one’s intuition. We are “design-biased”, as humans. It’s how we’ve managed to survive the last millions of years, through the development of planning, design and implementation capabilities, building things according to those designs. When you are a hammer, everything looks a nail, and anything so complex as a human will positively light up the humans “design reflex”. But science is something of a campaign to dislodge the intuition, and as such, the “seems to be” just doesn’t hold up beyond simplistic reactions.
As far as other sciences go, I don’t know the numbers. Of the physicists I know, I’d say the percentage of atheism is just about as high. But I think the process of working in biology provides a close up view of life as an emergent property of physical law. One can ask “Who made physical law?”, then, but that’s pushing God back beyond the farthest barricade. God hasn’t been disposed of, then, so much as banished to the metaphysical, at least on the matter of life and biological development.
I think no more than “wetness” is an accident of nature, when hydrogen and oxygen are combined. Calling it an “accident” is prejudicial language, of course, assuming there is some “goal” of “non-life” or “life” in play.
What do you mean by “accident”. If you mean ‘something against the expected plan’, then no, just because there’s no expected plan in view. If you mean something that occurs, at least in part, due to stochastic processes, then yes. If you started with the same base materials all over, though, we would expect life to form again, and become increasingly diverse and complex over deep time. Because parts of the process are stochastic, we would not expect an exact replay of the life development we have here today. If the asteroid that we suspect took out the dinosaurs doesn’t hit the earth, the story of biological development is a very different one.
But life seems to be an emergent property of the universe. Life needs the right raw materials and lots of time to “bake”, but with a sufficient setup, life emerges, just as a matter of physical course.
No one is suggesting we don’t imagine a creator, or a designer. As above, it can hardly be helped. We are “design-biased” to the core. It’s only through systematic epistemologies with corrective feedback loops (like science) that we can get out of our “design bias”, and see the things that are empirically supported as designed as distinguished from those which are fantastically complex and ordered but do not fit the matching process of design (associating designer with a mechanism and output).
I’m a homeschooler, with six kids, the oldest just about to graduate and head off to college, not one day in a regular school, public or private. So I certainly will affirm the value of parental discretion and control over education. To think that “great debates” would be anything but a huge setback for education and knowledge is to invite that very setback, I think. Science is valuable because the evidence and performance of ideas carry the day; it repudiates political debates in favor of a meritocracy of ideas. I realize that can be very frustrating, as by that measure science admits of no “diplomacy” towards religious sensitivities and mystical taboos, but that is its greatest strength. Its precisely because making science the subject of a rhetorical debate is so ludicrous that we cherish it.
If you think that’s the answer, banning biology education, and degrading science down to fodder for debates, that ought to be a source of alarm, a matter of strong cognitive dissonance. If that’s the answer, it begs questioning what you fear and why. If the only way to have a “fighting chance” is to avoid an objective bit of analysis of the evidence, what does that say?
-TS
C
Charlemagne_II
Guest
wasmit
*Shouoldn’t the promoter of an idea(i.e. you) be required to explain what it is? *
Ordinarily yes, but advancing the ideas behind ID would require an exhaustive effort which I’m not up to. I asked atheists to explain it so that I could take a short cut to finding out if they really understand it. Some do and some don’t. There’s no way I can know who does and who doesn’t. When an atheist begins to use a phase like “irreducible complexity” and then follows up by citing mathematical probabilities and disputing them, I know much ground does not have to be covered.
The exchange with Touchstone was predictable. He didn’t need to go very far before I knew that he had done plenty of reading … and thinking. But unless Touchstone has degrees in biochemistry or mathematics, however, I don’t know that he’s any more of an authority on Intelligent Design than are Dembski and Behe. So I don’t feel the least bit obliged to take authorities* he* cites over those who have as much authority in the respective fields.
Remember that this is a highly charged topic we are discussing. Darwin’s own theory of evolution is incomplete. Einstein’s own theory of relativity was incomplete because he botched it with the cosmological constant, a device he invented to keep the universe eternal when his own math suggested that it was not. When LeMaitre threw out the constant, the jig was up and the Big Bang was on.
So I understand that scientists are uncomfortable with intelligent design, because they cannot put it under a microscope or falsify it. Who cares? If it’s logical that the first living creature had to be created all at once rather than evolved, why is this the end for evolution? Why is it the end for science that the first living thing might have been intelligently designed from the start and that living things are still being intelligently designed and sustained.
It’s not as if intelligent design can’t possibly exist. Don’t you intelligently design things every day? And that’s how Darwin concluded that it’s reasonable to think of intelligent design behind all of life, and why Newton thought it was reasonable to think of intelligent design behind the whole universe. This doesn’t mean the end of science, as Newton and Darwin proved. It only means that science at last may learn a little humility.
And oh, if we only knew how much humility it needs to learn. Science wants to be God and wants a priesthood of scientists to glorify it. Won’t it be fun when we all come under the scientific thumb?
*Shouoldn’t the promoter of an idea(i.e. you) be required to explain what it is? *
Ordinarily yes, but advancing the ideas behind ID would require an exhaustive effort which I’m not up to. I asked atheists to explain it so that I could take a short cut to finding out if they really understand it. Some do and some don’t. There’s no way I can know who does and who doesn’t. When an atheist begins to use a phase like “irreducible complexity” and then follows up by citing mathematical probabilities and disputing them, I know much ground does not have to be covered.
The exchange with Touchstone was predictable. He didn’t need to go very far before I knew that he had done plenty of reading … and thinking. But unless Touchstone has degrees in biochemistry or mathematics, however, I don’t know that he’s any more of an authority on Intelligent Design than are Dembski and Behe. So I don’t feel the least bit obliged to take authorities* he* cites over those who have as much authority in the respective fields.
Remember that this is a highly charged topic we are discussing. Darwin’s own theory of evolution is incomplete. Einstein’s own theory of relativity was incomplete because he botched it with the cosmological constant, a device he invented to keep the universe eternal when his own math suggested that it was not. When LeMaitre threw out the constant, the jig was up and the Big Bang was on.
So I understand that scientists are uncomfortable with intelligent design, because they cannot put it under a microscope or falsify it. Who cares? If it’s logical that the first living creature had to be created all at once rather than evolved, why is this the end for evolution? Why is it the end for science that the first living thing might have been intelligently designed from the start and that living things are still being intelligently designed and sustained.
It’s not as if intelligent design can’t possibly exist. Don’t you intelligently design things every day? And that’s how Darwin concluded that it’s reasonable to think of intelligent design behind all of life, and why Newton thought it was reasonable to think of intelligent design behind the whole universe. This doesn’t mean the end of science, as Newton and Darwin proved. It only means that science at last may learn a little humility.
And oh, if we only knew how much humility it needs to learn. Science wants to be God and wants a priesthood of scientists to glorify it. Won’t it be fun when we all come under the scientific thumb?
N
Namesake
Guest
If you want ID to gain status equal to the sciences then it must be subjected to the same rigorous testing through the scientific method. So far ID fails that testing completely. ID is bad science and bad theology.wasmit
*Shouoldn’t the promoter of an idea(i.e. you) be required to explain what it is? *
Ordinarily yes, but advancing the ideas behind ID would require an exhaustive effort which I’m not up to. I asked atheists to explain it so that I could take a short cut to finding out if they really understand it. Some do and some don’t. There’s no way I can know who does and who doesn’t. When an atheist begins to use a phase like “irreducible complexity” and then follows up by citing mathematical probabilities and disputing them, I know much ground does not have to be covered.
The exchange with Touchstone was predictable. He didn’t need to go very far before I knew that he had done plenty of reading … and thinking. But unless Touchstone has degrees in biochemistry or mathematics, however, I don’t know that he’s any more of an authority on Intelligent Design than are Dembski and Behe. So I don’t feel the least bit obliged to take authorities* he* cites over those who have as much authority in the respective fields.
Remember that this is a highly charged topic we are discussing. Darwin’s own theory of evolution is incomplete. Einstein’s own theory of relativity was incomplete because he botched it with the cosmological constant, a device he invented to keep the universe eternal when his own math suggested that it was not. When LeMaitre threw out the constant, the jig was up and the Big Bang was on.
So I understand that scientists are uncomfortable with intelligent design, because they cannot put it under a microscope or falsify it. Who cares? If it’s logical that the first living creature had to be created all at once rather than evolved, why is this the end for evolution? Why is it the end for science that the first living thing might have been intelligently designed from the start and that living things are still being intelligently designed and sustained.
It’s not as if intelligent design can’t possibly exist. Don’t you intelligently design things every day? And that’s how Darwin concluded that it’s reasonable to think of intelligent design behind all of life, and why Newton thought it was reasonable to think of intelligent design behind the whole universe. This doesn’t mean the end of science, as Newton and Darwin proved. It only means that science at last may learn a little humility.
And oh, if we only knew how much humility it needs to learn. Science wants to be God and wants a priesthood of scientists to glorify it. Won’t it be fun when we all come under the scientific thumb?
C
Charlemagne_II
Guest
Touchstone
Nothing you have said mitigates the likelihood that atheists will continue to use evolution as a club to badger Christians. Dawkins is the classic example. I’m sorry that you have decided to put your head in the sand about this and pretend it isn’t so, and that real science is above all such skulduggery. Even Einstein proved he wasn’t above it when he used that famous Razor to implant the cosmological constant in relativity.
That evolution is not vital to the learning of biology goes without saying. Do you think a physician need to read Darwin before he operates on a patient? To depict this as “banning biology education, and degrading science down to fodder for debates” is senseless. What matters to parents is not whether their children learn evolution, but whether they are conditioned by atheist biologists to doubt. I know you don’t see that because you are an atheist … you also have a dog in the fight.
Dawkins is not saying that biology demands atheism. Rather, in saying that evolution enables the atheist fulfillmen in intellectual terms, he’s pointing to the fact that “creation” in terms of biology has traditionally been an obstacle for atheism: How did all these animals come to be? Darwin’s theory provided a godless mechanism to explain it, thus removing a substantial intellectual difficulty to atheism.
To which Darwin himself would answer:
“I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist.”
Nothing you have said mitigates the likelihood that atheists will continue to use evolution as a club to badger Christians. Dawkins is the classic example. I’m sorry that you have decided to put your head in the sand about this and pretend it isn’t so, and that real science is above all such skulduggery. Even Einstein proved he wasn’t above it when he used that famous Razor to implant the cosmological constant in relativity.
That evolution is not vital to the learning of biology goes without saying. Do you think a physician need to read Darwin before he operates on a patient? To depict this as “banning biology education, and degrading science down to fodder for debates” is senseless. What matters to parents is not whether their children learn evolution, but whether they are conditioned by atheist biologists to doubt. I know you don’t see that because you are an atheist … you also have a dog in the fight.
Dawkins is not saying that biology demands atheism. Rather, in saying that evolution enables the atheist fulfillmen in intellectual terms, he’s pointing to the fact that “creation” in terms of biology has traditionally been an obstacle for atheism: How did all these animals come to be? Darwin’s theory provided a godless mechanism to explain it, thus removing a substantial intellectual difficulty to atheism.
To which Darwin himself would answer:
“I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist.”
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