Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

You're fooling only yourself.

Thomas, I went back to my Aristotelean and Thomasian references from a paper that was done on the apologias. The Potentia absoluta and Potentia ordinaria are the Acquinas terms that , although a reference to the "underlying cause" is made, we have Thomas making his arguments as a proof to the existence of God. Not that, a God was behind a science. That point was a given to Acquinas.

In its "present usage" , ID has a very short lifespan. AS a religious /political movement, it clearly begins with Phillip Johnson and it was, as set said, to clearly fill a vacuum.(Why wasnt it used in the Arkansas or Louisiana cases if its had an historical precedent of similar meaning) Just as the term "Creationism" had no debate counterpoint until after Darwin, ID has no similar counterpoint until the need for design was summoned as an erzats "proof" that science and Creationism are coequal, with a need , by Evangelicals to preserve their interests in a secular school system .
I think that its interesting that Judge Jones is now being viciously hammered by his own side of Conservatives. Hes being cast as a "judicial activist" when hes delivered a verdict that is in total accord with the framers of the Constitution. Who says theres no agendas on the ID side.


There are new buzz phrases being produced from the Discovery Institute spinmeisters, and these also have precedent but , they also had totally different original meanings. As NCSE stated , on the "pedagogical front" the IDers are in full gyroscopic spin mode. Theyve altready coined a few new terms that they are beta testing in front of select"flyover states". These include
"Teaching the Controversy" so as to imbue students with "Critical Thinking" and thus avoid "viewpoint discrimination and dogmatism". Also a new pseudo -scientific term being floated about is "abrupt appearance". This is to confuse people about evidence for macroevolutionary change.

Common Phrases and Words have long been with us , however the code books are what are changing.

And that was not the question either. You have obviously failed to read or understand the original proposition which is only to be expected as you had no chance of dealing with it unless you did fail in those regards.

And neutrals will not have missed your simple trick and drawn the appropriate conclusion. To invent your own interpretation of the original proposition for the purpose of being able to deal with it in your own way is the objective hallmark of anti-IDers.

The question, to put it more simply, is what do you do if the whole population of an area are in contempt of court as might well be the case in a rock solid religious town or even state.

It has happened here when a prison was surrounded by a baying mob of trade unionists numbering thousands when a small number of union officials were jailed for contempt of court. They were released that very evening and carried out on the shoulders of their supporters and the government was left looking stupid.

You are the doofus mate. Contempt of court only works on isolated individuals who have little support in the community. That would not be the case in a solid religious area with skilled leaders.

Dover has gone to your head. It was a friendly match. And it ended up with liberals saying what a good bloke Judge Jones is which just goes to show how shallow their thinking is and how opportunistic they are.

timber wrote inexplicably-



How do you work that out timber? Who else has put the ID side on this thread. Tell me- I'm eager to know. Surely you are not going to count George's rare contributions which appear with months long intervals between them.

What on earth do you mean? The record is up above for all to see. I have debated single-handedly with an anti-ID hard core of four with a bit of help from a few others taking the same line.

It amazes me how scientific methodologists can twist even the very obvious evidence to be seen above. It makes one wonder about how much they might twist evidence when we can't see it.

Neutrals take note.

spendi, still falling off the melon truck, says The entire civil rights movement in the US during the 1950s is another example of where your dead wrong. The south was on fire from all the good Christians with matches.

Well fm-

I can only apologise for that. My style is my style I'm afraid. I have wrestled with writing styles myself many times because I don't dismiss a writer simply because of my comprehension failings. It took me six months to read Proust and I still have difficulties with the likes of Talcott Parsons and Foucault.Veblen only crystallised after a struggle.

The difference is that I blame myself not the writers.

At the moment I'm trying to understand "Money" and I can assure you that it is fiendish. The smallest unit of currency is now electronic and worth about 0.00001 of a cent and reducing daily and gathering speed.

It paid off too. I deconstructed the theme of Titanic as soon as the hero slipped away into the icy waters and it was only tangentially connected with ships and icebergs. And a great lesson and a great movie. But that was easy.

All the rest of the above post is cream-of-wheat and dilutes any sense. (and wasnt even very interesting or relevant).

Make believe youre a news reporter, not some street corner derelict who mumbles and hollers at people.

fm-

It's in the nature of explication that it is best served when principles are illustrated by examples of various sorts. The more varied the better the writing.

Frank Harris taught me, and many others, that it was always my own fault and his famous book is a treatise on how to make use of such an idea. People who always blame others never learn much of use. How can they when they only have their own resources to draw from which are feeble at the best of times.

Maybe my illustrations will be of use to some. Who knows. The meek will inherit the earth even if it is only when Spiro Agnew types have finished with it.



You ought to have added "IMO". As it stands it isn't necessarily true.



Everybody is a news reporter. I don't live by official labels.

And everybody mumbles and hollers a bit.

It is good to see members newly arrived in this thread.

The Québec debacle continues to interest me for a variety of reasons. One is that this is not actually an intelligent design issue--it is an outright insistence that evolution not be taught. The article which i linked, and a portion of which i translated not only states the M. April was told that he must not teach evolution, but that students laughed at him and called him a monkey when he did mention the theory. A theory of evolution does not teach that humans are descended from monkeys, and at all events, given the Kativik School Board's stated policy, those students had never been taught evolution. Therefore, a reasonable inference is that they've been told elsewhere that evolution holds that humans are descended from monkeys. The reasonable conclusion from the evidence is that they have been taught this by the Pentacostal missionaries among the Inuit, or by their parents who have been taught this by the missionaries.

Another interesting aspect is that Québec does not, apparently, have a policy on the inclusion of evolution as a part of the science curriculum. Despite vague (and i suspect intentionally vague) statements from the Ministry of Education, Leisure and Sport, there have been no firm statements on the Ministry's stance on evolution. I have several times searched the Ministr' s web site, and have yet to find any statement which asserts that a theory of evolution is or ought to be included in a science curriculum.

The James Bay and Northern Québec Treaty adds another interesting snarl to the issue, as the Canadians are very careful about their relationships with those whom they refer to as the "First Nations." Canadian politicians are always loathe to be seen as unnecessarily imposing a European-derived cultural imperative on the First Nations. Quixotically, though, they see no problem in imposing representative democracy and community-based agencies on the First Nations--hence, the Katavik School Board and its extraordinary degee of autonomy (by American standards, at least).

Which leads to the final interesting aspect of this brew--which is politics. In the United States, at any such time as a leader in either of the parties believes that s/he is in the catbird seat--has the hammer hand over the opposition, s/he will impose with a will. An example is Bush's recent statement that he supports a constitutional amendment to outlaw homosexual marriage. The polls say a majority of Americans oppose homosexual marriage, and therefore he considers that he need only appeal to the majority in order to benefit the Republicans in the mid-term elections.

In Canada, though, provincial parliaments may well have parties represented which are not national parties, and minority government is common. Even when a party has a majority, their affiliation with Federal parties leads them to take care not to offend even a minority of the electorate, for fear of the impact on the Federal party. Jean Charest has a clear majority government in Québec--but the Bloc Québecois is the coalition prop for Harper's minority government in Ottawa, so Charest has to be careful that he does not alienate any portion of those who are considered important to Harper's coalition (Harper relies on the Bloc to prop up his government). Canadian politicians are far more likely to waffle, and far more like to at the least pander to a segment of the electorate who would be ignored in the United States in any situation in which the party in power considered that it had a clear majority.

I'll keep trying to find a Ministry statement on the teaching of evolution--but i begin to suspect that there may not be one, and that that is no accident.

ABRUPT APPEARANCE

Well, back on some sort of point. This phrase appears to be the next Creationist buzz slogan to try to confuse the legislators about the evidence for macroevolutionary change. The NCSE feels that, with enough of the evangelicals keeping their usual run-on mouths shut they could win in some states where ignorance strongly persists. It appears that the Discovery Institute has quickly dropped the "Intelligent Design" bandwagon for something even more amorphous an noncommital. So, I guess, instead of IDers or ID-iots , we need to come up with something that properly identifies AA'ers. :wink:

What is their tack with Abrupt Appearance?

setanta and farmerman,

Myself and others are interested in reading about various anti-evolution tactics (not just ID). Thanks for the new contributions!

They are restating an old Gish point, that a number of taxa appear in the fossil record with (according to them) no antecedent forms and these forms appear "abruptly and fully formed"
No real religion is needed and the scientists who work for the Creation groups can be paraded out to give their "unbiased" views about how these fossils are ndicative of something that suddenly appeared and did not evolve.

FM, do they assert this on a morphological basis? (From my limited perspective, i can't think of any other basis, and wonder if that is not part and parcel of the dodge.)

Can you give an example? What creatures are they talking about?

Setanta wrote-



There are other sources for that which are regularly seen. One of the ads that used to be at the top of the page here used to show a progression from a monkey to a computer nut. But it is quite a common idea generally and a lot of people accept it.

One of the big soccer clubs in Spain was fined heavily by UEFA because their fans did monkey chants whenever our black players got on the ball and one of those players is fluent in four languages and earns about £200 grand a week.

The real question concerns whether the missionaries do or don't do good work in those communities seen in the round. I would guess they are not all stupid.

It was once a "reasonable conclusion" that S Hussein had WMDs and look where that has got us.

fm wrote-



For the benefit of interested observers could you list the states where you assert ignorance strongly persists?

So, Spendi, you felt compelled to demonstrate that you don't know squat about the Inuit, either? There was no need, we have reached the point that we assume such things.

I did think to say that actually but I thought I would prompt you to instead despite it being quite obvious.

I would imagine most people are in a similar position.

But it allowed you not to pass judgement on the value or otherwise of the missionary work seen in the round.

I even provide you with escape hatches.