Posted on 05/09/2005 12:52:08 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
Yeah, let creationists start their own party. We don't want to be identified with the lunatic fringe. Let them all vote for dems or better yet, just stay home so they don't embarrass the true conservatives.
LOL! By this argument, the claim "Bush stole the election" has not been "refuted" until every last DUmmie admits that he didn't.
Actually, the courts and authorities of every age have always taken a keen interest in enforcing particular views of reality, discouraging or prohibiting others, and favoring some with royal, ecclesiastical, or governmental support. You are defending a dogma and an orthodoxy, and the creationists are challenging it.
Your history is backwards. Creationism was the dogma. It was challenged, quite successfully, by evolution. Evolution is now the accepted view of the biological sciences. But some creationists just won't give it up. That's sad, but it's no longer credible to be a creationist. There's been too much research and evidence that supports evolution. Science doesn't go backwards -- even if some people can't keep up.
Bump
It seems to me that Behe and Dembski and their ilk are very much doing what you say they should be doing, i.e., going through a point-counterpoint dialogue as arguments are tested and refined. And I think the public nature of their efforts is a good thing. Too often, changes in school textbooks and curricula - history textbooks, for example - are accomplished through behind-the-scenes maneuvering by lobbyist and pressure groups - gay, leftist, feminist, and so forth. At least this is one battle that's out in the open. It is probably the LEAST sinister of these battles because it is the one most open to public scrutiny.
So called "neo-darwinism" was "new" before the turn of the twentieth century. Neo-darwinism has since been supplanted by the synthesis theory. The modern theory of evolution is called the synthesis theory because it is comprised of synthesis of Darwin's theory of natural selection, Mendel's theory of inheritance, and various theories of molecular biology that have come about since the description of the DNA molecule by Watson, Crick, Wilkins, and others.
Yeah, and the proof is that you can still see their fireplaces up on Black Mountain. Let's see the creationists and evolutionists explain that!
Reading these exchanges, and many similar ones in other corners of netspace, I begin to understand what uncommitted bystanders must have experienced as they watched the gushing of odium theologicum during the creedal controversies of the early centuries of CE. Knock down drag out fights between theologically illiterate or semi-literate partisans for or against the inclusion of the "filioque clause" in the creed, for example.
At the extremes, we have two groups of committed believers, what H.L. Mencken would have called "the simian faithful", arguing for their favorite fundamentalism, either for the 'facthood' of dogmatic Darwinian "just so" stories to explain how mindless uncreated matter organized itself into sentient beings, or for the 'facthood' of the most literal possible reading of the opening chapters of Genesis. In between, we have a wide spectrum of views, with the weaker arguments based on tarring all who hold opposing views with one of the extremes.
One cannot resolve the issue by insisting on Pickwickian definitions of "science" that tuck the desired conclusion into the boundary rules for legitimate scientific discourse. Members of the Darwinian guild and their devotees are attempting to do just this in their critiques of Intelligent Design, but it won't stick (except in the guild journals, MSM, and research funding bureacracies that they control). At the moment, this is nearly all of the above, but that will not last.
It is an interesting question: "What can we say scientifically about the origins of life, and the origins, if any, of the intelligible universe?" The question is far from settled, and I think the Intelligent Design investigators are making useful contributions to the discussion, so far mainly in pointing out the boundaries of what we can intelligibly say about the matter. They are no closer to a definitive answer than the adamant Darwinists, but at least they have the modesty to admit it, sometimes. I suppose that could change if, somehow, they became dominant. The scientific enterprise makes progress only by throwing light on the boundaries of the intelligible, and being an occassion for thought about where and how the boundaries might be extended. Denying that there are boundaries, or pretending one has not bumped up against a boundary, is a formula for invincible ignorance.
It is embarrassing to the authority claims of the scientific community that the currently dominant partisans for a mindless, eternal, uncreated universe are attempting to rule their opponents out of order as a matter of scientific principle. Sooner or later, this over-reaching on knowledge claims will catch up with them, and either dissolve or at least significantly diminish these illegitimate authority claims. The practical results will be less resources available to them to press their claims, and diminished control over the levers of access to research funds. It won't happen overnight, but it will happen.
True, but all those other debates should be carried out in the public sphere as they are social issues. The debate over evolution should be carried out within the scientific literature as it is a scientific issue. And to the extent it has, creationism was found lacking in evidence. Hence the new move to the courts.
It is an interesting question: "What can we say scientifically about the origins of life, and the origins, if any, of the intelligible universe?"
It is a very interesting question. It has nothing to do with the Theory of Evolution, but it is an interesting question.
The question is far from settled ...
Much less the answers (although I rather like "42") ...
... and I think the Intelligent Design investigators are making useful contributions to the discussion, so far mainly in pointing out the boundaries of what we can intelligibly say about the matter.
I don't agree here. If the IDers want to propose scientific theories (as the term "scientific theory" is understood by scientists), they'll have to formulate their theories in a scientific fashion. They haven't done that, and it has been the main stumbling block so far. "Pointing out the boundaries of what we can intelligibly say ... " doesn't contribute much to the discussion. Moving the boundaries of "what we can intellibibly say" about anything is the point of science.
They are no closer to a definitive answer than the adamant Darwinists, but at least they have the modesty to admit it, sometimes.
I don't understand this. If your point is "A becoming modesty trumps science," you can have it.
I suppose that could change if, somehow, they became dominant.
No doubt.
The scientific enterprise makes progress only by throwing light on the boundaries of the intelligible, and being an occassion for thought about where and how the boundaries might be extended.
And how would saying, "This is so incredibly fantastic that it must have been designed, so we don't need to bother trying to figure out if it might have happened in any other way," contribute to any extention of boundaries ... except perhaps extending the boundaries of ignorance. Again, if ID wants to be "science," it has to play by the rules of science. Propose a theory that can be falsified by evidence and we'll see what happens.
Denying that there are boundaries, or pretending one has not bumped up against a boundary, is a formula for invincible ignorance.
The main application of this idea would appear to be that science shouldn't have a boundary keeping out the unscientific.
Heliocentric theory allows the formation of laws; eg., the farther from the center of revolution, the slower the body moves; which are not true under geocentrism.
Makes me want to post a "wedgie" rebuttal.
Your tinfoil hat must be too tight, doc. Conservatives are more than capable of destroying the conservative movement all by themselves.
You started this with the wild, fact-free, unsubstantiated claim that creationists are destoying the conservative movement. What's good for the goose-doctor, is good for the reply. Apparently, you can give it out, but you can't take it, so grow up yourself.
BTW, that carp about not usually replying to such posts just serves to show us that your nose is stuck so high in the air that you'd drown if you went out in the rain. The only reason I insult you is because you so richly deserve it.
I meant what I said, and I said what I meant.
Hope this helps.
Once again, best of luck with all your personal problems.
My college background was in philosophy, not science, although I obviously took courses in modern science, but I've been away from the serious study of philosophy for many years. Because of that background, I think I'm probably more open to looking at the world in different ways than are those with a background in the "hard" sciences. But I'm certainly not approaching this issue from a specifically Christian viewpoint, much less a "fundamentalist" one. When you've studied Buddhism and Vedanta and Phenomenology, and see the progressive "dematerialization" of reality that's been going on on modern physics, you begin to give more credence to the idea that Mind - however conceived - is more fundamental to the nature of the universe than traditional materialism or naturalism will allow. That's where I'm coming from in this debate.
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