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To: Cicero
There are numerous differences between Creationism and Intelligent Design. ...Intelligent Design, on the other hand, actually is a scientific approach, like it or not.

How do you reconcile these statements with the famous Wedge Document: here?

A sample paragraph:

The social consequences of materialism have been devastating. As symptoms, those consequences are certainly worth treating. However, we are convinced that in order to defeat materialism, we must cut it off at its source. That source is scientific materialism. This is precisely our strategy. If we view the predominant materialistic science as a giant tree, our strategy is intended to function as a "wedge" that, while relatively small, can split the trunk when applied at its weakest points. The very beginning of this strategy, the "thin edge of the wedge," was Phillip ]ohnson's critique of Darwinism begun in 1991 in Darwinism on Trial, and continued in Reason in the Balance and Defeatng Darwinism by Opening Minds. Michael Behe's highly successful Darwin's Black Box followed Johnson's work. We are building on this momentum, broadening the wedge with a positive scientific alternative to materialistic scientific theories, which has come to be called the theory of intelligent design (ID). Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions.

23 posted on 11/29/2005 9:53:21 AM PST by Coyoteman (I love the sound of beta decay in the morning!)
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To: Coyoteman

I say that the "wedge" doctrine is someone else's take on it, not the belief of major ID proponents themselves. Or if, to raise a conjecture, it is their secret belief, that would be no more reprehensible than the opposite, not-so-secret belief of materialists.

You could say precisely the same thing about Darwinism, Marxism, and Freudianism, that they are "wedges" to promote the triumph of materialism and to pretend that a conjecture is an established fact.

How partisans try to make use of one theory or another has no necessary connection as to whether those theories are scientifically probable. Many scientists are ideologues, which is not all that reprehensible as long as they allow their facts to be checked.

For instance, if global warming were real, the question would be what we should do about it. But first, before that question arises, we need to establish that global warming is real.


32 posted on 11/29/2005 10:12:15 AM PST by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: Coyoteman
First, it has to do with the word "consonant", don't you think. The word "consonant" does not mean limiting oneself to a literal interpretation of Genesis. Modern natural science was consonant with Christianity, for example, for three hundred years or so, until the closed system of naturalistic philosophy became the dominant presupposition.

Second, the definitive work on ID is a compilation of essays called Uncommon Dissent, written by a spectrum of scientists and philosophers from Christian to atheist. No one in the group, as I recall, made reference to biblical creationism.

154 posted on 11/29/2005 7:09:56 PM PST by Chaguito
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To: Coyoteman; Aetius; Alamo-Girl; AndrewC; Asphalt; betty boop; bondserv; bvw; Cicero; D Rider; ...
"How do you reconcile these statements with the famous Wedge Document"

Why bother, I.D. is bunk just as much as evolution is, since it merely attempts to put a bandaid on a totally flawed idea. An "intelligent designer" would have to be a moron to invent evolution. Where's the intelligence?

166 posted on 11/29/2005 8:07:12 PM PST by editor-surveyor (Atheist and Fool are synonyms; Evolution is where fools hide from the sunrise)
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