Posted on 08/09/2005 4:42:44 AM PDT by Nicholas Conradin
All this shows is how many people have been duped into believing what is taught is biology and passed off as science. They will believe no facts.
".......but he is a scientist........"
As a Biochemist and Molecular Biologist I'd like to now expound on my theories of Climatological change and Global Warming..............
You statement here displays considerable ingnorance of the scientific thinking process. It actually doesn't matter which discipline you spend most of your working life in, the technique and principles of searching for verifiable evidence are the same, the ability to spot contradictions and lack of evidence arguements are all the same.
This is typical of the modern "expert" attitude. Only so called "experts" can pass an opinion and the rest of us should be told and shut up.
Anyone can use the brains and mind God gave them for any useful purpose
You teach what ID is, an explanation of observed phenomena that cannot be explained by classical neo-Darwinistic evolutionary theories.
ID occurred as a RESPONSE to OBSERVATIONS that COULD NOT be explained Darwinistically.
You teach what these observations are. You teach why Darwinistic models cannot explain them. You teach why, therefore, the idea of ID came about.
In other words, you teach it like you do the various theoretical modifications you find occuring in physics all the time.
Newton's "God of the gaps." Science later filled in the gaps.
Like facts of predicted transitional fossils and ID's lack of prediction?
Your transitional forms can just as easily be interpreted as different species sharing common characteristics.
Given the notoriously imprecise and circular nature of geologic and fossil dating, the organization of fossils into ancestral and descendent can be shown to be the construct of human pre-disposition rather than objective observation. It's a classic case of the assumption forcing the conclusion.
However, that is a matter open to honest debate. What is more interesting to me is the apparent lack of living common ancestors. For example, sharks have existed for 600 million years. They should be the common ancestor of many currently living and extinct species. I am not aware of any study attempting to determine the descendancy of sharks or any other living species. The only work I've seen is an attempt to find common ancestry, and even then, I'm not aware of anyone actually pointing to a fossil and saying: This is the common ancestor of X and Y. It's always X and Y share a common ancestor, Z.
It stands to reason that sharks and other organisms that have existed for hundreds of millions of years should have literally thousands if not millions of species that have them as a common ancestor. Where are they?
So what? ID isn't about the Judeo-Christian God, despite desperate Christian Creationist attempts to make it so.
Because, of course, cross-scientific speculations NEVER led to any sort of scientific advancement at all. Nope, physicists should stay out of biology, and chemists out of geology. Astronomers should shut up about sociology (after all, their mathematical training has NO application to population studies).
The only scientists who can make any meaningful contribution to a field of study are those steeped in the preconceptions of that field of study.
As I'm a scientist and your probably not I think I can safely say what I would like about meteorologists. In fact I have a very good friend that is one and he tells me that most of the time they look out the window and make the weather up. Thats not science its prediction.
Thank you for demonstrating that you don't understand ID in the least.
You should. You might have some insight into biological processes that could affect weather systems that a meterologist would never consider.
Nope, my main point is that creationists are mostly full of it and they grasp onto any straw that lends credence to their lackluster arguments. If they can find one silly scientist in a million to support them, that man in their feeble minds must be a genius above all others.
Well, thanks for clarifying your position. You despise the messengers so reject the message.
Wonder how he feels about global warming? :-)
Bump
Over the past century and a half pure science has sold its birthright for a philosophy known as evolutionism. Today it would apparently extend its line of credit toward the additional purchase of creationism. Frankly, I am beginning to wonder if pure science is capable of keeping its house clean.
As for evolutionism, one does not cast forth reasonable conjecture upon a mountain of circumstantial evidence and call it "science." One does not create a multiplicity of historic concatenations based upon a static record as if it had the same level of certitude as the Law of Gravity. Call it a philosophy, a history, or modern storytelling, but do not call it science in the strict sense.
As for creationism, one does not insert God into science any more than one inserts the director of a play into the play just to make a point that the play has a director. God does not need the help of science. The reverse is true, simply because science could not take place in the first place without an intelligently designed Being placing intelligent creatures in the midst of an intelligently designed creation. It is a comfortable given, not an end for science to pursue.
On the one hand, the philosophy of evolutionism dresses in scientific garb and introduces itself by stealth, not willing to recognize, let alone acknowledge that it begins with a fundamental set of givens that will never fail in finding a piece of circumstantial evidence to fit it. On the other hand, the theology of creationism dresses in a populist hankering for God to be given equal time at the microphone, failing to realize that pure science carries on well without the additional noise.
If the house of science is going to be kept clean, at least one of three things ought to happen. 1.) the adherents of the philosophy of evolution begin to extricate their dubious ramblings from under the label of science while the proponents of creationism take note and refrain from inserting them, 2.) the plenary body of public school customers receives what their tax dollars are paying for: Consideration for all reasonable points of view, or 3.) we honestly acknowledge the presence and implications of commingled thought. The debate has its place in schoolrooms, to be sure, but neither philosophy nor theology constitute pure science.
Based on the past century and a half, it would be no surprise if pure science decides to take on various philosophies inimical to its own good, while parading itself about as a caricature of what it is supposed to be, namely, the engagement of hypotheses that are testable within the realms current history and direct observation.
Since the message is wrong and the messengers are deluded, yes your right, I give them about as much credence as I give the bozos over at the democratic party who are trying to sell their own snake oil or the nuts at peta that want to make gods out of cats.
This is just pure nonsense. If you wanted to design a perfect missing link between reptiles and birds, Archaeopteryx would be it. It has feathers and wings like a bird, combined with a reptilian tail and teeth. The skeleton is intermediate. We have also a number of other transitional forms that are either more reptilian or more avian than Archie.
If the author is going to step outside his field so far, he should know enough to learn something about the area about which he's propounding.
Gobal warming just got a lot more probable for me.
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