Victory for Intelligent Design (In Canada this time)

Victory for intelligent design

1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

History, we are sometimes told, repeats itself. This is arguably true in that whenever we human beings are confronted with a set of circumstances we tend to respond to them in the same way, whatever era we live in. Canada last week provided a classic example.

Close to 600 years ago the established authorities of the Western world – people who everywhere commanded unquestioned respect-- knew as an incontrovertible fact that the sun and all the planets revolved around the Earth.

Not only was it self-evident – you could see them doing it – but the great Aristotle himself had said so, and when the great Aquinas adapted the great Aristotle's philosophy to Christian theology, he embraced Aristotle's science as well. So that was that. The bishops said so. The Bible seemed to say so. Case closed.

But it wasn't closed. When a devout Christian named Copernicus propounded as fact that the Earth and all the planets actually revolved around the sun, and offered mathematical evidence, he was quietly dismissed as deluded.

However, by the next generation other non-conformists – certain Jesuits and an Italian named Galileo – were spouting the same sort of nonsense, so something absolutely had to be done. This kind of talk was eroding respect for established authority, officialdom declared. And when Galileo defiantly offered telescopic evidence for his theory, those in control decided to shut him up.

The revolution of the sun and planets around the Earth was not an assumption, declared the pope of the day, but a well-established fact, and these dangerous meddlers were popularizing their nonsensical views among students, teachers, parents, administrators and policymakers. Galileo was compelled to recant his dangerous claims, and a little later died in comfortable retirement. (He was never persecuted, tortured and otherwise physically coerced, however, as later mythology would claim.)

Fast forward now to the late 20th and early 21st centuries. For more than 100 years the priests of our day, meaning the scientists, have cherished as incontrovertible fact the thesis that all the species of nature, man included, came about by accident. By an astonishing coincidence, the single cell appeared; by millions of further accidents, the cell evolved over countless generations into ourselves and what we see around us.

Nothing directed this process – it just happened. And to demonstrate how man himself happened, various "transitional species" leading up to the appearance of humans were portrayed in realistic line drawings in the best high-school science textbooks. There was no evidence for any of these transitional species, of course; they were invented in order to show how it all worked.

By the 1990s, however, certain non-conforming individuals began to question this so-called thesis. They did not dispute the antiquity of the Earth. They did not claim the book of Genesis to be a scientific document. They were not priests or pastors, or biblical "creationists." They were philosophers and scientists who challenged the infallibility of what's called "natural selection," the notion that everything came about by chance.

When Darwin invented this theory, wrote one biochemist, the single cell, the founding building block of nature, was seen as a blob, a "black box" that could not be opened. But now it has been opened, and found to be of staggering complexity and efficiency. To suggest it happened by chance was frankly preposterous. It had to have been "designed."

The proponents of what came to be called "intelligent design" are naturally being denounced by "respectable scientific authority," and since advocacy of "ID" is obviously a career terminator, only about 10 percent of scientists (many safely retired) have done so. But their number is growing, and the movement is regarded by the scientific establishment as a serious danger.

Since it began in the United States, one McGill University group decided that something must be done to prevent its spread into Canada. They requested a $40,000 federal grant to find ways to prevent ID from "eroding acceptance of evolutionary science in Canada." To McGill's horror, the request has now been turned down on the grounds that it offered no evidence to support the truth of the natural-selection process. No proof is necessary, thundered a McGill spokesman; natural selection is "an established scientific fact."

A government spokeswoman begged, very tentatively, to differ. There are phenomena, she said, "that may not be easily explained by current theories of evolution." After all, the scientific understanding of life "is not static. There's an evolution in the theory of evolution."

You wonder if this notably intrepid woman will go down in history. Like Galileo.

Ted Byfield published a weekly news magazine in western Canada for 30 years and is now general editor of "The Christians," a 12-volume history of Christianity.

So I say let's go ahead and call it religion. It's a religion that gets the job done and in terms of benefits to mankind, kicks butt. Christianity/Islam/Hinduism/Wicca are colossal flops compared to what science has produced.

How about we call it what it really is, science: The study of the material world using facts and theories?

See the following definitions (from a google search, with additions from this thread):

Theory: a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena; "theories can incorporate facts and laws and tested hypotheses." Addendum: "Theories do not grow up to be laws. Theories explain laws." (Courtesy of VadeRetro.)
Theory: A scientifically testable general principle or body of principles offered to explain observed phenomena. In scientific usage, a theory is distinct from a hypothesis (or conjecture) that is proposed to explain previously observed phenomena. For a hypothesis to rise to the level of theory, it must predict the existence of new phenomena that are subsequently observed. A theory can be overturned if new phenomena are observed that directly contradict the theory. [Source]
When a scientific theory has a long history of being supported by verifiable evidence, it is appropriate to speak about "acceptance" of (not "belief" in) the theory; or we can say that we have "confidence" (not "faith") in the theory. It is the dependence on verifiable data and the capability of testing that distinguish scientific theories from matters of faith.
Hypothesis: a tentative theory about the natural world; a concept that is not yet verified but that if true would explain certain facts or phenomena; "a scientific hypothesis that survives experimental testing becomes a scientific theory"; "he proposed a fresh theory of alkalis that later was accepted in chemical practices."
Proof: Except for math and geometry, there is little that is actually proved. Even well-established scientific theories can't be conclusively proved, because--at least in principle--a counter-example might be discovered. Scientific theories are always accepted provisionally, and are regarded as reliable only because they are supported (not proved) by the verifiable facts they purport to explain and by the predictions which they successfully make. All scientific theories are subject to revision (or even rejection) if new data are discovered which necessitates this.
Law: a generalization that describes recurring facts or events in nature; "the laws of thermodynamics."
Model: a simplified representation designed to illuminate complex processes; a hypothetical description of a complex entity or process; a physical or mathematical representation of a process that can be used to predict some aspect of the process.
Speculation: a hypothesis that has been formed by speculating or conjecturing (usually with little hard evidence). When a scientist speculates he is drawing on experience, patterns and somewhat unrelated things that are known or appear to be likely. This becomes a very informed guess.
Guess: an opinion or estimate based on incomplete evidence, or on little or no information.
Assumption: premise: a statement that is assumed to be true and from which a conclusion can be drawn; "on the assumption that he has been injured we can infer that he will not to play"
Impression: a vague or subjective idea in which some confidence is placed; "his impression of her was favorable"; "what are your feelings about the crisis?"; "it strengthened my belief in his sincerity"; "I had a feeling that she was lying."
Opinion: a personal belief or judgment that is not founded on proof or certainty.
Observation: any information collected with the senses.
Data: factual information, especially information organized for analysis or used to reason or make decisions.
Fact: when an observation is confirmed repeatedly and by many independent and competent observers, it can become a fact.
Religion: Theistic: 1. the belief in a superhuman controlling power, esp. in a personal God or gods entitled to obedience and worship. 2. the expression of this in worship. 3. a particular system of faith and worship.
Religion: Non-Theistic: The word religion has many definitions, all of which can embrace sacred lore and wisdom and knowledge of God or gods, souls and spirits. Religion deals with the spirit in relation to itself, the universe and other life. Essentially, religion is belief in spiritual beings. As it relates to the world, religion is a system of beliefs and practices by means of which a group of people struggles with the ultimate problems of human life.
Belief: any cognitive content (perception) held as true; religious faith.
Faith: the belief in something for which there is no material evidence or empirical proof; acceptance of ideals, beliefs, etc., which are not necessarily demonstrable through experimentation or observation. A strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny.
Dogma: a religious doctrine that is proclaimed as true without proof.

Based on these, evolution is a theory. CS and ID are beliefs.

[Last revised 2/23/06]

(1) In the early 1960's the best and the brightest in cosmology arrogantly maintained that the universe was static. Anyone that said anything about creation or even a beginning of the universe was immediately dismissed as an ignorant rube. Then along came the big bang theory and the static universe crowd has never been heard from since.

(2) Then there was the old Laws of Thermodynamics (note we're talking laws here not theories...laws are supposed to be proven facts). In a nutshell the original laws of thermodynamics said that Matter and/or Energy could not be created or destroyed. After we entered the atomic age the laws changed to in essence: Matter and/or energy cannot be created or destroyed except in nuclear reactions. In other words matter and/or energy can be created/destroyed and science had it wrong again.

Given your lack of knowledge of even rudimentary science, you must be a creationist!! Did I guess right? It is so easy.

The Hubble expanding universe was established in 1928. The only "static" universe in 1960 was the possibility that the universe might be asymptotically stable. Moreover, science is about continual learning and refinement. As astronomical observations improved, and spectral analysis became possible, and very accurate measures of time became possible, the expanding universe could be observed. By contrast, the creationists of their day thought that the earth was the center of the universe.

Matter cannot be created or destroyed. That is still true. Moreover, it is not created or destroyed in a nuclear reaction. Even a freshman in physics knows this much. So here is a simple question for the typical creationist ignoramus. If you believe that matter is "destroyed" in a nuclear reaction, I would like to know what matter. Take a typical nuclear fission reaction, such as uranium-235. Exactly what is destroyed????

Go back to high school, sport.

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