Posted on 11/22/2005 12:44:07 PM PST by Michael_Michaelangelo
THE first court trial over the theory of intelligent design is now over, with a ruling expected by the end of the year. What sparked the legal controversy? Before providing two weeks of training in modern evolutionary theory, the Dover, Pa., School District briefly informed students that if they wanted to learn about an alternative theory of biological origins, intelligent design, they could read a book about it in the school library.
In short order, the School District was dragged into court by a group insisting the school policy constituted an establishment of religion, this despite the fact that the unmentionable book bases its argument on strictly scientific evidence, without appealing to religious authority or attempting to identify the source of design.
The lawsuit is only the latest in a series of attempts to silence the growing controversy over contemporary Darwinian theory.
For instance, after The New York Times ran a series on Darwinism and design recently, prominent Darwinist Web sites excoriated the newspaper for even covering intelligent design, insulting its proponents with terms like Medievalist, Flat-Earther and "American Taliban."
University of Minnesota biologist P.Z. Myers argues that Darwinists should take an even harder line against their opponents: "Our only problem is that we aren't martial enough, or vigorous enough, or loud enough, or angry enough," he wrote. "The only appropriate responses should involve some form of righteous fury, much butt-kicking, and the public firing and humiliation of some teachers, many school board members, and vast numbers of sleazy far-right politicians."
This month, NPR reported on behavior seemingly right out of the P.Z. Myers playbook.
The most prominent victim in the story was Richard Sternberg, a scientist with two Ph.D.s in evolutionary biology and former editor of a journal published out of the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History. He sent out for peer review, then published, a paper arguing that intelligent design was the best explanation for the geologically sudden appearance of new animal forms 530 million years ago.
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel reported that Sternberg's colleagues immediately went on the attack, stripping Sternberg of his master key and access to research materials, spreading rumors that he wasn't really a scientist and, after determining that they didn't want to make a martyr out of him by firing him, deliberately creating a hostile work environment in the hope of driving him from the Smithsonian.
The NPR story appalled even die-hard skeptics of intelligent design, people like heavyweight blogger and law professor Glenn Reynolds, who referred to the Smithsonian's tactics as "scientific McCarthyism."
Also this month, the Kansas Board of Education adopted a policy to teach students the strengths and weaknesses of modern evolutionary theory. Darwinists responded by insisting that there are no weaknesses, that it's a plot to establish a national theocracy — despite the fact that the weaknesses that will be taught come right out of the peer-reviewed, mainstream scientific literature.
One cause for their insecurity may be the theory's largely metaphysical foundations. As evolutionary biologist A.S. Wilkins conceded, "Evolution would appear to be the indispensable unifying idea and, at the same time, a highly superfluous one."
And in the September issue of The Scientist, National Academy of Sciences member Philip Skell argued that his extensive investigations into the matter corroborated Wilkins' view. Biologist Roland Hirsch, a program manager in the U.S. Office of Biological and Environmental Research, goes even further, noting that Darwinism has made a series of incorrect predictions, later refashioning the paradigm to fit the results.
How different from scientific models that lead to things like microprocessors and satellites. Modern evolutionary theory is less a cornerstone and more the busybody aunt — into everyone's business and, all the while, very much insecure about her place in the home.
Moreover, a growing list of some 450 Ph.D. scientists are openly skeptical of Darwin's theory, and a recent poll by the Louis Finkelstein Institute found that only 40 percent of medical doctors accept Darwinism's idea that humans evolved strictly through unguided, material processes.
Increasingly, the Darwinists' response is to try to shut down debate, but their attempts are as ineffectual as they are misguided. When leaders in Colonial America attempted to ban certain books, people rushed out to buy them. It's the "Banned in Boston" syndrome.
Today, suppression of dissent remains the tactic least likely to succeed in the United States. The more the Darwinists try to prohibit discussion of intelligent design, the more they pique the curiosity of students, parents and the general public.
Quoting: "And I have no problem with what you believe, unless you assert you can save souls. In which case, I would have to demur."
Reply: Exactly what kind of an idiot are you? I never said anything remotely like I could save souls. This would be an arrogance beyond my comprehension. Why do you accuse me of such a heresy and blasphemy?
You have made a major accusation, and you should apologize.
I merely posted what some Christians have said about ID. I think my postings have been respectful and well meaning in the best traditions of FreeRepublic.
I await your public apology here on this thread.
As do you. I asked you not to post to me anymore. I asked you to stop the name calling. For some reason, either you do not comprehend these statements or you are such an ass that you do not care or you are one who thinks that whoever hurled the last insult carries the logical argument. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming the third. Whichever, you should stop it. Now.
And that goes right into the heart of ID. You say that
ID is a theory or a model.
For ID to be considered as a theory, there has to be hard facts that lead to it's construction. Sure, logic plays a role, but the logic must conform to the observables. Scientific theories are not simply thought experiments. The biggest problem is that there is no data for ID. None. Many others have asked for what facts exists that support ID and would lead to ID to be a logical conclusion. There has yet to be an answer by anyone on these threads.
ID also fails the logic test. ID assumes the universe was designed. But where did this design come from? It had to originate from something more complicated than our universe. But if, as ID claims, complexity is the yardstick of design, then the more complicated designer of our universe must be even more complicated and, by ID standards, must also have a designer. And that goes on and on and on forever. ID cannot explain the origins of the designer or design.
The other problem with ID as a theory is that it does not explain how the designer manipulates the universe in order to implement the planned design. What forces are used? How are they applied? How can they be recreated? ID offers no solution.
Another major point about a theory is that there has to be some test or challenge that can disprove it. Evolution is challengeable, but ID isn't.
Lastly, a scientific theory must make testable predictions. Again, evolution has done so on many, many occasions. How do you test ID? It doesn't have facts in order to give it weight and it does not offer any insight into future observations.
That's how theories, even bad ones, can move forward.
Bad theories don't move forward. THey are abandoned if they do not fit the facts. ID cannot be called a bad theory because, as I mentioned above, it has no facts for it to be constructed around. THe best that can be said about ID is that it is an attempt to fill in gaps in knowledge by assigning an unspecified agent as the responsible party. The problem is that, in the natural world, there is no objective way to distinguish natural processes from designed processes that appear natural.
There may well be an intelligent designer, but that is something that science cannot probe.
Overall, the only way ID can be accepted as science is to change the very meaning of science to include supernatural interference. That's what has most sciencentists howling mad. And the only way proponents of ID can get ID into science is through intellectual affermative action.
Maybe we've taken what angels are doing and used mathematics to explain it. One thing for sure, intelligent design is not an unreasonable, or unscientific means of explaining what we observe.
Furthermore, I would posit that science cannot take place unless both intelligence and design are involved. Without either (or both) of these data is completely inaccessible to human reason. Those who argue against intelligent design as operative and accessible scientifically have offered no alternative as to what it might be, for example, that keeps atoms from randomly changing their attributes. All they can do is rant that it is "nature", and that positing an intelligent cause necessarily introduces superstition into science. In short, all they have are circular arguments, not scientific ones.
Guilt by association has never made a good argument for either the creation or evolution point of view.
"Guilt by association has never made a good argument for either the creation or evolution point of view."
Luckily, this wasn't guilt by association. This was guilt by actions. And, as far as I am concerned, the episode is over.
Well; if you don't KNOW, then there ain't too much chance any of your offspring will be Evolving! ;^)
Do you have a source that hasn't been scientifically shredded in its totality?
You hounded another Freeper over words that have little or nothing to do with the argument at hand, as if those words, however inane they were, should discredit any further arguments said Freeper might engage. That is using the argument of guilt by association.
All heat, no light.
All hat, no cattle.
Meanwhile, I would like to know how science can be "agnostic" and still rule out either theistic or atheistic interpretations of the evidence. Also, how does the intelligent design explanation necessarily lead to a supernatural, or theistic conclusion?
The fact is, Western science has for the most part begun with the primary postulate that God-did-it, and from there inductively sought to make sense of things. That is why science is always uncovering patterns, organized matter, regular behavior and such. Only when we get to the quantum level does nature take on the appearance of gibberish, which begs the question as to how so much potential disorder can manifest itself through orderly processes.
To infer therefrom that an intelligent designer may be involved is hardly unreasonable or unscientific.
[It was Christianity which taught that the universe is rational and comprehensible and that God does not act arbitrarily.]
Doesn't that go back to the ancient Greeks?
I demand equal time for the hypothesis that ballistic objects have a parabolic trajectory because angels are pushing them, not because of Newton's laws.
Since ballistic physics seeks to promote 'no-angels' as a scientific concept, and since all scientific concepts are tentative and refutable, then the disagreement with the hypothesis of no-angels is scientific.
Care to elaborate?
On the surface, this is one of the silliest posts I have read this morning.
Those who argue against intelligent design as causative and/or operative in the universe should explain how particle matter retains its consistency completely apart from intelligence or design.
I didn't know ballistic physics does such a thing. Can you cite a source that "promotes" a "no-angels" concept? I'm sure there are plenty that make no reference to angels. That is not the same thing.
And now for something completely different--science!
Australopithecus gahriSuspicions exist that the East African Australopithecus garhi may represent an evolutionary link between Australopithecus and Homo. The remains are from the time when there is very few fossils, between 2.0-3.0 million years ago. Tim White was the scientist to find the first of A. garhi's key fossils in 1996 near the village of Bouri, located in the Afar region of Ethiopia.
It was "Stingy Dog" being nuked out of existence.
Let me see if I understand you here.
Are you saying God holds every atom intact until he allows one to "fly apart"? Is that you conjecture?
By and large yes, although it would be more accurate to say God designed the universe in such a manner that this detail would be attended to without His direct intervention or involvement, much as an automobile does not needs its designer to accompany every moving part all the time.
He went up on the "Black Wall" last night.
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