Posted on 04/19/2006 3:57:51 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
One of the fundamental claims of the IDers is that it's possible to construct mathematical tests that distinguish between designed things and natural things. I haven't ever seen such a thing, but if someday somebody comes up with such a test, I'll be glad to consider it. But right now I have no reason to believe that such a test is possible. All I know is that Dembski, et al. want one, and that they expect it to tell them that organisms are designed and not natural.
Goat herders. There was a shortage of camels that year and besides, cheese made of goats milk was all the rage.
List all the 'proven' theories you know.
CG: But our observational skills are good enough to observe speciation.
If Sir Francis is right, there goes atomic theory.
Oh, wait. You're sticking your virtual nose into an arena in which you are woefully incapable of competing: a CRIDer specialty. In order for your claims about the frivolity of evolution to have any merit, you'd actually have to understand evolution, much less science in general. Oh, and then supply evidence of your claim. Get back with me when you've done this.
It would be appropriate for me to use your tactic and categorically insult the demographic to which you belong (an eye for an eye), but that would be unfair to those unfortunate enough to share that distinction with you. Hopefully, they will see the damage your type of, um, "thinking", does to their cause and you will become the marginalized voice you deserve to be.
No one ever said a raven turned into a writing desk. The question is "Why is a raven like a writing desk."
Perhaps it's for the same reason that fruit flies like a banana, but time flies like an arrow.
According to the main ID proponents, ID has nothing to do with religion or God.
According to science, ID has little to do with science.
What is more reasonable about a supernatural cause for our existence than a natural cause?
By the way, the cell did not turn itself into other uses or species, it simply reproduced itself and occasionally errors crept into that process.
Hey you're welcome here where you will only have to worry about the porcupines and the mountain lions.
What this really means: "Hopefully, the powers that be have learned their lesson that evolution will not be mocked or challenged in the public fora and will take firm and immediate action to shout down and crush dissent the moment it dares raise its voice.
And camels spit.
This, to me, is a very interesting subject, in that I make a living as a designer...perhaps the reason why I am interested in these crevo threads.
Common design that across the range of genomes catalogued matches the expectations of common descent. A Designer who only apparently designs in nested hierarchies that appear (from the fossil record) to be modifications of earlier nested hierarchies. Yeah, right.
A designer doesn't have to match the expectations of common descent, yet the lunatic who designed life on earth apparently did so, for unfathomable reasons, according to you. If you want a design hypothesis with legs try millions of teams of competing designers, all starting with the same basic template, with the objective of destroying/subverting each others designs, and only allowed to work with successive slight modifications. A celestial God-game or a Raelian management training exercise. That is a design hypothesis that matches the evidence, but curiously we don't see that one coming from the design proponents.
Like the science of Galileo and Copernicus? Oh, but of course...we enjoy the benefits of their science a mere hundreds of years after their work.
Everyone loves a story. Cosmologists, archaeologists, anthropologists, evolutionists--tell great stories. Some are plausible, many are entertaining, a few provoke insight.
But none of those "ists" tell a story considered "The Greatest Story Ever Told"....
Look what happens when an evolutionary notion is debunked after a better notions comes along
Look at what? It hasn't happened yet...
nobody dies from a bad reaction, no bridge falls down, no piece of shuttle garbage explodes.
Yes, yes...kind of like when a biblical story previously thought of as literal truth is shown to be figurative. But some of us can still hold the message as valid; faith doesn't HAVE to be as fragile as you think.
Theory never graduates to fact-hood. A theory is not supposition, nor is it a guess. Perhaps you should spend some time learning what a theory is and how it is developed?
"Evolution should not feel so threatened by ID as to go so far as to censor it. I thought democracy was suppose to be a market place of open ideas."
It sounds as if you are repeating ill understood but heartily desired sound bites from creationist sources.
Evolution is not threatened by ID on the level of science. That is simply not where the battle is taking place. ID attacked not just evolution but the scientific method, the very basis of science, at the political level. Just take a look at the 'Wedge Document' and the writings of Philip Johnson. If ID was traversing the science landscape in the same manner as any other science there would not be such a vociferous outcry from the scientific community. IDists have jumped over this step, simply because of a lack of research and scientific basis, and are now trying to infiltrate the minds of students through purely political means.
Being open to new ideas is a good thing. Accepting new ideas which are bereft of any corroborating evidence is bad. It is this type of floppy thinking that encourages people to believe in homeopathy, astrology, pyramid power, psychics and worst of all, Monday Night Football.
Should we put to vote the acceptance of heliocentrism?
"So far, evolutionists have only proven one theory, that they are scared spitless at the thought of both being taught.
Hardly. It is the Discovery Institute fellows who are afraid of having ID exposed for what it is, a non-science political movement. Aside from that, how exactly would you teach ID in science class?
Would you include Astrology as a serious science in astronomy class, Homeopathy as a serious science in health class (or chemistry class, or quantum physics class), Intelligent Falling as a serious science in Physics class?
Christians believe that the entire universe and everything in it is designed by God. No-one can show that this belief is false. It gives rise to the unfortunate consequence (for Dembski), however, that Dembski's marvellous "design filter" could never provide a false positive if he ever managed to construct such a filter. After all, everything is designed, so the design filter can never be wrong when it says of a particular object, "Yep, Design!". Spectacularly useless.
Indeed? There are so many threads on FR I couldn't count them about "new" ideas in evolution. The latest and most interesting concerned a woman scientist (I noticed that, yes) who found tissue of a dinosaur--not a fossil, but some residual tissue--and calls into question either the assumed age of dinosaurs or the presumed decay-time of said dinosaur.
And the infantile sniggerings about a discovered "new" beaver really did the maturity of the FRevos proud!
Evo ideas are regularly abandoned. But they just fade into the cosmos with little dismay, along with other fairy tales gone stale. A bad pharmeceudical is accountable in a scientific way. It gets tested, it seems to cure, but fails.
Evolution can't fail, therefore it is not science.
A more correct statement would be - 'No but science will enter a public school and censor non-science'.
Why should the scientific community allow a non-science be taught in a science class. You will note that there is no opposition to ID being taught in a philosophy or science history class. Science classes should teach science and only science. Liberal arts can teach the other stuff.
Courtesy of motorized goal-posts.....
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