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Amazing...
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The ID man is heir to a culture of knowledge-building that has evolved over millennia, and, for quite private reasons that have nothing to do with the rest of us, he declines the legacy.
From what I can tell, it would be more accurate to say that ID'ers decline a certain portion of the legacy. What must be asked is whether they are selectively declining the portion of greater present value or, on a different view, whether, at the end of the day, they will have increased the total value of that legacy.
Indeed, it is sad and tragic.
What is sat and tragic is this article, which does nothing to hurt the ID case, but continues to make Darwinists look like 5 year olds who don't want to debate issues like irreducible complexity or the anthropic principle. They continue to sit back and claim that they "own" the same science that they cannot explain through genetic mutations. In addition to this myopic belief system, they continue to sling mud at those who question the holes in their "scienctific theory".
In fact, Stephen Meyer of the Discovery Institute testified that there is a "tremendous amount of criticism of the theory that students should be permitted to know about." For example, nearly 400 scientists, including professors at MIT, Rice, and Yale, have signed a Discovery Institute statement that questions "the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life."
In addition, other Darwinian skeptics are flying under the radar. For instance, the April 28 issue of the science journal Nature reported approaching a skeptical researcher who declined to be interviewed because he did not want to hurt his chances for tenure.
Not really. In computer science, there is the concept of genetic or evolutionary algorithms that are designed, not as a direct solution to a problem, but a system in which possible solutions or parts of a solution are thrown together, tested, and the best parts combined until a certain goal is reached.
The result is that there are a lot of useless "solutions" on the way. But that's part of the process of complexity rising from simple parts. Not the process of "an all-thumbs amateur."
In the same way, evolution can be seen a process. Maybe there is an intelligent designer behind it who set it up and gives it nudges along the way. I don't know if there are specific fingerprints on the process we could be looking for.
But the fact is we humans design evolution-like processes that are messy, but work, and that the people who design these processes are not seen as incompetent blunderers. Given a Bible that says man was created in God's image, does it seem so unlikely -- as a philosophical and religious idea, if not necessarily a scientifically provable or disprovable one -- that the methods man uses to create may be images of the method God has used.
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Continuing on, I provided my view of the range of reactions that I have observed among colleagues, which seems to me a suitable ending for this overview of the controversy:
I've received four kinds of responses regarding the Meyer article. The first is one of extreme hostility and anger that the peer-review process was not barred to a "creationist" author—no questions asked (a minority view). The second is what I'd term the herd instinct: this response arises when some key people (often members of the first group) are upset. Some people, once they begin to feel the heat from individuals with strong opinions, feign being upset too or actually become upset, for fear that they'll seem to be a "supporter" of an unpopular or despised position. Many of these individuals initially displayed no concern or qualms about the paper until some loud voices displayed their discontent. Those in the third category don't really care about the issue one way or the other, because it doesn't impact their research. In terms of population size, groups two and three are by far the largest. The fourth group consists of those who found the paper "informative," "stimulating," "thought-provoking," (real quotes I've heard from colleagues about the paper), including some who are in agreement with some of Meyer's ideas. Many members of the third and fourth groups have told me that in their opinion sooner or later the design issue will have to be debated in a reasoned manner.
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daily trashing of ID, God and his creation thread.
It appears more & more that ID is the current refuge for the charlatans who are running out of steam (& media attention) on their bigfoot & flying saucer bablings.
Sad AND Tragic, indeed!
Interesting that this author is arrogant enought to think himself more humorous and insightful than Ms. Radner.
Just one more sign of the arrogance of evol believers.
Why is the question of design forbidden. Let me show you a painting and take the question of design off the table. Now, tell me how it came into being. You have to ignore all the obvious signs of intelligent design. Explain, now, how it got here.
What a pompous goofball. Parts actually made me laugh out loud at my computer. 8^>
Okay, I am correcting you. You are a babbling idiot with absolutely no knowledge of the complexities of building a bridge across a large river, much less the creation of a universe of unimaginable vastness, with an unimaginable array of LIVING creatures, on an even more unimaginable place called Earth, located in an unimaginable (but "routine" as the so-called experts label it) galaxy called the Milky Way, of incomprehensible size in it own right (100,000 light years in diameter), near a companion galaxy called Andromeda (that is 2 million light years away), which is labeled by the so-called 'experts' as a nearby object. For all we know Andromeda no longer exists, nor the bulk of our own galaxy, since we only know them from the light of their far-distant past.
And you, a mere man, with the importance in the scheme of things of, maybe, a grasshopper (not to demean grasshoppers), are proclaiming the creator of the universe as "imcompetent"?
Get a clue, and while you are at it, get a life, jerk.
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It's shocking that someone of Robert McHenry's stature would speak in such a deprecating manner. It is always better to stick to facts than to ridicule an opponent.
"What does it mean to say that a given degree of complexity is irreducible?"
The crux of the debate. Until the ID community can give a clear answer to this question, they're not going to accomplish anything.
YEC INTREP