Actually, “We will not lie, steal, nor cheat, nor tolerate among us anyone who does” is not from the Ten Commandments, but from the Honor Code of the United States Air Force Academy.
It is the official doctrine of the Unification Church. A major figure in the ID movement is Jonathan Wells who is a Unification minister, and who says that he had a “mission from Father”(Rev. Moon, who regards himself as an improvement on Jesus) to “destroy evolution.”
Nonsense. The Church teaches that some of Scripture is literally true, and some is figurative. And there is no reason to suppose that real people (like Adam and Eve) wouldn’t be in an allegory.
I don’t see how they could possibly get that from what I said. Could you try to explain a little more clearly?
Nothing in that statement is scientific. It is merely my acceptance of what God says in Genesis.
Actually, the Inspector General found something even more disturbing at the AF Academy:
"Our purpose for Campus Crusade for Christ at the Air Force Academy is to make Jesus Christ the issue at the Air Force Academy and around the world," Blom says in the video. "They're government paid missionaries when they leave here." **Actually, the Inspector General found something even more disturbing at the AF Academy:
"Our purpose for Campus Crusade for Christ at the Air Force Academy is to make Jesus Christ the issue at the Air Force Academy and around the world," Blom says in the video. "They're government paid missionaries when they leave here." **Fair enough, I see your point. Still, when the discussion is about “intelligent design” (which, of course, some people want taught in schools) and creationism, evolution, etc., it is equivocation on a massive scale to speak of “creationism” and not to clear up at the beginning that you’re not referring to the kind of “creationism” that means primarily taking Genesis 1-2 literally and opposing the theory of evolution when that is the conventional understanding in the context of this discussion. Thank you for clearing things up, though, it makes the discussion easier!
Okay. I accept that they want ID to be considered science and taught in schools. But - and I’m not arguing with you here, I’m honestly curious - in what way do they “play cute” when it comes to the religious implications of their work? I guess what I’m trying to ask is, “Which religious implications of their work do they pretend don’t exist, and how would the absence of those ‘religious implications’ make ID look like science?”
I agree with you completely here. With regard to what you were responding to with that, I’m not entirely certain that the concept of ID is not helpful just because it doesn’t prove Christianity. But I’m also not sure that that’s what you were saying.
Oh, no, I wasn’t trying to say or imply that you are or are not irritated by this fact; I believe that in the statement I made to which this quote was a response, I misunderstood your reason for criticizing ID proponents. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
So they’re trying to pull a fast one because they present ID as science and try to get it taught in public school science classrooms?
Right, I am familiar with the refutations of that objection. I am genuinely surprised that a leader of ID proponents furnishes that objection against evolutionary theory.
Would it be consistent, rational, and honest for an ID advocate to plainly state the following:
Okay; I had a strong suspicion that that wasn’t what you were saying.
That’s a good point; very often “creationism” is not used as a descriptive label but simply as a smear.Fair enough, I see your point. Still, when the discussion is about “intelligent design” (which, of course, some people want taught in schools) and creationism, evolution, etc., it is equivocation on a massive scale to speak of “creationism” and not to clear up at the beginning that you’re not referring to the kind of “creationism” that means primarily taking Genesis 1-2 literally and opposing the theory of evolution when that is the conventional understanding in the context of this discussion. Thank you for clearing things up, though, it makes the discussion easier!
When confronted by Darwinists, Dembski and Behe in particular have tended to adopt a “we’re just doing science here” pose. That’s “playing cute” in my view. Richard Dawkins is even worse—he hews to atheism with more fervor than Dembski and Behe do to Christianity, yet makes the same claim: “Oh, I’m just following the facts.”
That’s a bridge too far, I think. ID has its philosophical components, surely, but is largely scientific in that it proposes a hypothesis—life was designed by some intelligence—and marshals evidence in support of it. Fair enough. I just don’t think Behe and Dembski et al ought to pretend that science is hermetically sealed off from philosophy and religion—never has been, never will be. Global warming is religion, not science—just look at how that debate has gone.
At heart, the only way to “prove” Christianity is to experience the resurrection. Certainly, establishing design in nature proves a core tenet of Christianity—that God is real, God is the Creator of all, and God plays an active role in His creation.
No problem.
No, I happen to think ID should be taught. They’re pulling a fast one in downplaying the Christian aspects of it in order to get it taught in classrooms, in my opinion.
Absolutely.
There is a bit of difficulty with Proposition 3: how is evolution empirically falsifiable? How does one prove, precisely, that one of the core claims of materialism—that life arose through unguided natural processes alone, and that the mechanisms for this were natural selection and random mutation—are false?
From what I can see ID has far more politics in it than science. They spend more money on politics and spin than they do on science.
Philip Johnson, the founder of ID disagrees:I also don’t think that there is really a theory of intelligent design at the present time to propose as a comparable alternative to the Darwinian theory, which is, whatever errors it might contain, a fully worked out scheme. There is no intelligent design theory that’s comparable. Working out a positive theory is the job of the scientific people that we have affiliated with the movement. Some of them are quite convinced that it’s doable, but that’s for them to prove… No product is ready for competition in the educational world.
Agreed.
No argument there!
Okay, that’s an excellent point—Darwin did offer that as a falsifiable premise for natural selection and random mutation; indeed, that’s what Behe’s “irreducible complexity” attempts to refute.
There is no “admission to science”. The scientific method is itself a product of religion. Archimedes got along fine without it. It is a modernist notion that science is somehow holy.
But that is true of every discipline once you scratch the surface. Should we not teach basic physics because quantum physics is incomprehensible?
Two points, firstly Darwin did say that evolution explained biodiversity:It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.
He didn’t, as my quote above shows.
It is perfectly falsifiable, for instance just show that some chemical that is required for the origin of life cannot arise naturally in the conditions of early earth.
Science is greatly respected because science produces a lot of useful results. I agree that science is a modern idea, but ID in its current form is also a modern idea. If ID wants to be part of modern science then it has to play by the rules of modern science. If it can’t do that then it can’t get into school science classes. Perhaps it should try for philosophy classes or politics classes instead, it would have more chance there.
My point was that the scientific controversies in evolution are too detailed for inclusion in schools - much like the Copenhagen Interpretation vs Hidden Variables in quantum mechanics. The “controversy” that ID wants to teach is political or theological, not scientific. Hence it does not belong in science classes.
Here we disagree:Johnson is best known as one of the founders of the intelligent design movement, principal architect of the Wedge Strategy, author of the Santorum Amendment, and one of the ID movement’s most prolific authors. Johnson is co-founder and program advisor of the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture (CSC).
How improbable is God? Certainly Dembski’s design detector, the Explanatory Filter, says that God is designed, see my piece: God and the Explanatory Filter. One of the problems with Dembski’s detection of design is that he allows no “we don’t know yet” option - his filter can only say regularity, chance or design. Hence it is a version of the God of the Gaps argument dressed up in some mathematical language.
You are maligning a large number of religious scientists. You cannot seriously assert that Keith Miller (Catholic), Theodosius Dobzhansky (Russian Orthodox), Ken Miller (Protestant) and Abdus Salam (Muslim) suffer from anti-religious bigotry. Richard Dawkins is one scientist, not all scientists, and his views on religion are his own, not part of science.
We agree on that. Darwin said that his theory explained biodiversity but not biogenesis. I was trying to refute your assertion that “Darwinists go well beyond Darwin—they claim that these mechanisms fully explain biodiversity”; I was showing that Darwin always said his theory explained biodiversity.
How? The beak shapes are changed by natural selection, the Grant’s work on Galapagos Finches fully confirmed Darwin’s ideas of variation and natural selection.
You are incorrect here. We have produced new species of fruit flies in the lab and we have observed new species arise in nature. For many examples see Observed Instances of Speciation, for more exapmles see Some More Observed Speciation Events.
Some minerals form only in reducing conditions, some minerals form only in neutral conditions and some minerals form only in oxidising conditions. By examining minerals of a given date we can tell something about the conditions on earth at that date. Some minerals only form at certain temperatures, that can tell us about temperatures. Glaciers leave impressions on the rocks they pass over, that can also tell us about temperaturees on earth. There are many ways to find out about conditions on the early earth. Have a look at the Banded Iron Formation for an example.
There is potential evidence as I have shown. There is no actual evidence, otherwise the hypothesis would have been rejected and a new hypothesis formed to include the new evidence.
I stand corrected. Thankyou.
You are mixing up evolution with abiogenesis. Evolution is very well supported, abiogenesis is currently more of a set of hypotheses than a theory. There is not enough data yet to demolish the incorrect hypotheses so we still have too many of them. Once we have more data we will be better able to see which of the current hypotheses are still standing.
Since Behe has now admitted that irreducible complexity can evolve (indeed it’s been directly observed to evolve), that’s a dead issue.
The origin of life is indeed a falsible hypothesis. The evidence so far suggests that life was indeed brought forth from the earth as God says, but scientifically, it’s an open question, yet.
There is if you want to do science. It’s a tough system, but it works very well. If you can’t bring a testable hypothesis to the table, you’re out of the game. Keep in mind, the Soviets and Nazis tried hard to make science work their way. And they ran all the committees, and all the schools, and it still didn’t change; they just erected a parody of science, and it helped to bring them down.
The problem is, scientists do have far more credibility and respect. More, this scientist suggests than is good. It is the tendency of the public to see scientists as the new priesthood of a new religion that causes the envy that (among other things) produced ID. It was sort of an “if you can’t beat 'em, join 'em” mindset. Scientology and others are similar.