Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

Lola has it correctly; secularism is not a religion, and trying to compare religion with secularism is comparing apples and oranges.

If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck ....

Quoting Tailgunner Joe McCarthy, how à propos for you thesis . . .

"I have in my hand a list of 205 communists . . . er, secular humanists employed by the State Department . . . er, Department of Education . . . "

You know, georgeob1, Farmerman contends that "Intelligent Design" is bad science, and can back that up. He contends that it is a false front for "Creationism," thrown out by the Supremes (he can cite the relevant opinion), and he further contends that specific individuals are attempting to further the creationist agenda by foisting ID off on the public--and he can name names.

All we have from you on the topic of the vast and insidious secular humanist conspiracy is your laundry list, to refer again to Tailgunner Joe.

Intelligent Design is not bad science. It is not science at all. There is an analogy here to some elements of medical diagnosis. One applies reliable techniques to confirm or eliminate a set of known possibilities: if they all fail to confirm a cause, one is left with something else.

I have made no quarrel whatever with any of the details he has offered. That there may be some who combine lack of full understanding with a political agenda on one side of this issue is hardly remarkable. It is a safe assumption that the same can be said of some on the other side.

I have made no suggestion of confining my arguments to biology - quite the contrary, I have emphasized the mysteries of our origins as only barely outlined by modern physics, and pointed out that anyone who asserts the diagnosis is complete is no scientist.

You mischaracterize this with your scurrilous and tortured McCarthy analogy. I am bemused, but not offended. (How would you react to such a thing from me?)

Provine is as predictable with his assertions as is Dawkins. PRovine excludes supernaturalism and often makes claims for his arguments by attempting to "put words in Darwins mouth" as if this would give further subbase to his arguments. Thats one thing about all such attempts of validation, they just arent necessary.
For example, Provines statement.

Darwin did no such thing. His entire life was a derived situational hypochondria from his acres of evidence (from barnacles to pigeons) that natural selection works. Darwin was, as we know, a trained minister, and he spent time trying to avoid then soften his publications on evolution.
Darwin , in his letters , takes a position of Faith that is almost 180 of Provines.

That was just for fun . . . and it was highly amusing to me.

farmerman,
Your summary of the hearings would be a great addition to this thread. I appreciate any information you can share on this.

Good! Then I too am pleased.

isn't that nice, we're all pleased. It must be an OMEN!

Oh, and I can name a few names myself...........

Has anyone read this?
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-barash27jun27,0,5530701.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

JLN, One of the important paragraphs of your link.

"But, in fact, the living world is shot through with imperfection.. Ask yourself, if you were designing the optimum exit for a fetus, would you engineer a route that passes through the narrow confines of the pelvic bones? Add to this the tragic reality that childbirth is not only painful in our species but downright dangerous and sometimes lethal, owing to a baby's head being too large for the mother's birth canal."

JLN, Christians will claim that satan is responsible for all the imperfections of life. They have an "answer" for everything.

Self imposed delusion is a handy tool.

Good article.

The problem with the article is that it is itself fundamentalistic; it lowers itself to the level of literalist theology. I have learned from many years debating such issues with a Bob Jones, southern baptist preacher relative that in such debates I sink to a state of rhetoric that is just plain dumb, even though it is far better than that of my preacher relative. The only way to deal with creationists and intelligent designists is politically and in the courts while continuing with REAL science. Eventually, the pseudo scientists will either succumb under the weight of overpowering evidence from real science (remember that science advances; the pseudosciences do not) or they will stick the insane defense of claiming Satan has put that evidence before us.

I was just reading an interesting article in the Reader's Digest about emeralds - and how they were formed over 100 millions of years. It supports evolution not only in terms of this planet, but also about the fauna and flora. There is nothing to support ID except the repeated refrain of "how else?"

Have you ever considered that these flaws were meant to be there? The point of these flaws is to encourage and bring about population control(Hence the reasons for deaths at childbirth). If we didn't have these flaws, humanity would be immortal, the animal kingdom would die out due to overpopulation of the humans and before we know it, we'll all be dead.
Not such a pleasant thought is it!?

nor a particularly original one. (JLN 1/ Divz 0)

PS welcome to A2K divz. You will see that there needs to be a level of continuity with other IDers

1 Because life is so perfectly ordered it had to be ID

2 OR, Whenever rule 1 is not met, then it was done for a reason by the Designer.

"Flaws were intended by the creator." Where does sin originate? From the creator - where else? He's god and satan all rolled into one. You can't have it both ways: he created a perfect, sinless world, or he didn't. Can't then say he planned the flaws. That's how logic gets lost in religious beliefs.