Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

timber wrote-



That is readily available from a look at my posts.

It would be pointless to accede to this-



because it is a well known fact, peer reviewed, that I only do meaningless drivel or any one of a very small number of other similar processes.

And anyway, as I have previously explained, the whole world of natural phenomena is the general field of every scientist and as this entails having a large number of seemingly disconnected specialisations in mind at all times there is a risk that non-scientists, who are impatient under the promptings of the modern weltanschuung, can easily become confused and find explanations incoherent.

As someone once said who's name I can't recall for the obvious reason that it is neither here nor there-

"Study of nature is made possible, for those who are endlessly curious, by a world kept running by those who are not. "

Currently I'm trying to understand the diabolical nature of money and its function in driving sub-textual psychological states starting with the idea that one dollar equals every other dollar. Any ideas welcome.

But I was only defending myself of the accusation of having beliefs. I am aware that I believe things exist though.

And a nice bonus resulted in timber's ace piece which was very funny assuming nobody got hurt.

A scientific attitude is the main thing and it isn't very socially acceptable.
A chap ran off from our company just last night over some offhand remark I made about the cash value of wives a topic which powers the important feminists.

WIZ-Is that anything like "cutting off your Slaussen?"

spendi,

We were all curious about what type of science you do. You have a right to protect your privacy. I realize science is very specialised. I hope you are not afraid that we would consider your work trivial. I myself have had marginal work experience in natural science. In college I had a part-time job as a lab tech for a biology professor doing research in "biological chronometry". Specifically, I recorded data in variations of water uptake in bean seeds. The professor correlated the data with lunar cycles.

I have long been fond of the biological sciences, and in particular, have had a nearly obsessive interest in reproductive biology. But, the problem is, i get so caught up in the process, that i neglect to take measuremens and notes.

setanta,

Your area of research is actually less esoteric than the research of the professor who employed me. Thank you for your honest sharing. I hope we will encourage spendi to share.

So, you called his wife a slut and he got upset. Big surprise.

Actually, I read it more along the lines of Spendi was talking about wives as if they were furniture.

To all appearances, Spenid lives in an unfurnished flat--small wonder.

So he eats off his wife?

Either one wouldn't surprise me.

Setanta wrote-



One doesn't get many chances to study reproductive biology in the ordinary course of events. 2.3 times is the last figure I heard.

But a scientist would have no difficulty observing the process in a cool and detached manner as subjectivity is not part of his method. One needn't take measurements as one can easily video the process and study it later preferably before trying it again as that can lead to confusion. Advanced students of irony such as Gustave Flaubert could also smoke a cigar and discuss aspects of literature with companions engaged in similar investigative experiments close by.

Creationists, of course, even those in denial, are often shocked at such a scientific approach to what they think of as an extremely important aspect of their lives which might explain why they seek to inhibit it in schools where often innocent young people are to be found and I think they are right to do so.

So it wasn't off topic after all.

It does not surprise me in the least to see Spendi purport that one only gets to study reproductive biology 2.3 times . . . i guess he couldn't get it up the .3rd time.

News flash, Spendi--some of us don't hate women, and therefore have normal relations with them.

C'mon, spendi, let us know what kind of work you have done in the field of science!

By the way, the data recorded by me and other college students was used by the biology professor to make the following conclusion: changes in rates of water uptake in bean seeds show a relationship to lunar cycles. Does anyone know if this conclusion was ever refuted?

Setanta wrote-



I think a definition of "reproductive biology" is required there. As that was the phrase Setanta used first I confined myself to remarks dealing with it.

Likewise for "normal relations" with our fragrant companions and in which age ranges,fiduciary settings, experience patterns, epistemology awareness quotients and mood variations are important factors to be taken into account.

Defining one's own experiences as "normal" is rather to underestimate the capacities of others I should have thought. Not very liberal to say the least. And to not take the factors mentioned into account suggests an unchanging experience over the years which is well known to bore the ladies witless.


wande wrote-



I am unable to do that I'm afraid but I did begin with chemistry as you guessed but not in a brewery. After a few years I found it boring and applied my scientific training to the much more interesting and rewarding field of human behaviour in which I am still eagerly learning.

I absolutely find nothing boring. Even boredom itself fascinates me. How it arises. What people do about it. Why they don't like it. What are the effects of relieving it on the individual, on his immediate surroundings and on the social organisation as a whole.

I know one married couple who have been in litigation for five years with all the stress that causes which is all due to them relieving their boredom by perusing brochures for holidays on idyllic tropical islands which I wouldn't go near on any account. There are millions of such things.

I feel sure the late adolescents in Dover schools can hardly wait to learn about water uptake in bean seeds being related to lunar cycles. No doubt they would find a scientific discussion of "reproductive biology" to be quite uninteresting after a few lessons on bean seeds.

Spengler, writing in the early 2oth century, has this to say-

"Consider our sciences too. Every one of them, without exception, has besides its elementary groundwork certain "higher" regions that are inaccessible to the layman--symbols, these also, of our will-to-infinity and directional energy. The public for whom the last chapters of up-to-date physics have been written numbers at the utmost a thousand persons, and certain problems of modern mathematics are accessible only to a much smaller circle still--for our "popular science" is without value, detraquee, and falsified. We have not only an art for artists, but also a mathematics for mathematicians, a politic for politicians (of which the profanum vulgus of newspaper-readers has not the smallest inkling, whereas Classical politics never got beyond the horizon of the Agora), a religion for the "religious genius and a poetry for pholosophers. Indeed, we may take the craving for a wide effect as a sufficient by itself of the commencing and already perceptible decline in Western science. That the severe esoteric of the Baroque Age is felt now as a burden, is a symptom of sinking strength and of the dulling of that distance-sense which confessed the limitation with humility. The few sciences that have kept the old fineness, depth, and energy of conclusion and deduction and have not been tainted with journalism--and few indeed there are, for theoretical physics, mathematics, Catholic dogma, and perhaps jurisprudence exhaust the list--address themselves to a very narrow and chosen band of experts. And it is this expert, and his opposite the layman, that are totally lacking in the Classical life, wherein everyone knows everything. For us, the polarity of expert and layman has all the significance of a high symbol, and when the tension of this distance is beginning to slacken, there the Faustian life is fading out.

" The conclusion to be argued from this as regards the advances of Western science in its last phase (which will cover, or quite possibly will not cover, the next two centuries) is, that in proportion as megalopolitan shallowness and triviality drive arts and sciences on to the bookstall and into the factory, the posthumous spirit of the Culture will confine itself more and more to very narrow circles; and that there, remote from advertisement, it will work in ideas and forms so abstruse that only a mere handful of superfine intelligences will be capable of attaching meanings to them. "

Does any of that elitist drivel (to save you saying so) help with the definitions of the words in the title of the thread or with what to give the kids in Dover for child minder distractions?

And it is the "normal reproductive biology" of the journalists and the bookstalls which was under discussion earlier.

Only the "second religiousness" which Spengler describes can save Science from the popularisers and intelligent design is its core no matter who or how many use the notion to make money and pull the wool down.

And, again to save you the bother, no, I am not a superfine intelligence but at least I'm working on it. Rome wasn't built in a day. And I know I'll never be but it keeps me young trying.

"May you build a ladder to the stars
May you climb on every rung
And may you stay
Forever young." Bob Dylan.

It seems to me that what he is saying is that the science which it is proposed to shove up the kids fundaments is just another nail in the coffin of Science. And in The Higher Learning in America Veblen backs him up.

Finnegan's Wake as metaphor for the "very narrow circles".

Spengler, Veblen, Joyce and Dylan. That's my idea of peer reviewing.

Load of crap I know. Just something to ponder.

That is a very funny observation, spendi. Nevertheless, my trivial contribution to scientific research made me happy at the time and I learned to respect scientific methodology. Actually, most scientific facts probably are trivial. There is no need for you to fear any scientific conspiracy.

Wande-

You'll have to forgive me not responding today. I am running a bit behind the clock I'm afraid to say what with one thing and another.

I'll try tomorrow but I will just say now that I don't fear a scientific conspiracy. Maybe you should give the passage from Spengler more attention.

Those journalist's efforts you often quote are intended for what he calls "laymen".

wande-

I hope you didn't think that I thought that the water take up of bean seeds in relation to the lunar cycle is an uninteresting subject. I was only referring to 15-17 year-olds in a mixed Dover classroom on a warm late afternoon when release from incarceration is imminent.

It is a very interesting idea. If the take up of water by bean seeds has a variable nature I suppose one might look for other variable phenomena which could be fitted with the bean seed's behaviour. Coffee prices say.

Thinking about it one might think that women's brains had a water take up variation which was related to lunar cycles and that therein lies the explanation of their supposed erratic behaviour at certain points in the cycle. Water on the brain is well known as a cause of erratic behaviour.
Although I must say that I haven't noticed any correlation between these things. The erratic behaviour of ladies seems to be in a steady state to me and if it does vary with the phases of the moon the callouses on my sensibility in this regard are too thick to detect it.

There are nights in the pub when erratic behaviour does go up a notch or two on the average. I'll take notes on it and then check what state the moon was in.

But it might be that other heavenly bodies are the real cause and there's enough of them to garuantee that at least one will be in some sort of accidental congruence with lunar behaviour.

What you are calling "scientific methodology" is nothing more than trial and error. Suck it and see. Monkeys can do it.

I suppose it might provide useful information for bean growers who might water their fields more efficiently if they knew when the bean seeds were thirsty. And if we knew that the cause of the erratic behaviour of ladies was linked to lunar cycles due to water take up by their brains we could predict when it was reasonably safe to ply them with drinks and when it was less adviseable and that could not only save a lot of money but also negate the need to have to replace half of the crockery.

Have you any idea what motivated your mentor to engage in this particular area of research?

spendi Yeh maybe, but that'd take a grant and thats something monkeys cant do,you know, the language thing. Is that where you got "labia majollica"?

fm-

I presume you mean by "grant" the source of the funds. If so then there is a business proposition. An investment with a view to profit. I don't think such things are real, pure science.

I didn't belittle the project. I'm sure the intention was good from society's point of view but it is technology.

I am a keen student of language. I think the gap from monkeys to tabloid readers is smaller than the gap between tabloid readers and Finnegan's Wake from a language point of view. Don't you? Joyce's last words are supposed to be "Doesn't anybody understand?" I can't claim I do yet and I probably never will.

Is there any World Cup fever in Pa? For students of human behaviour it really is a "must see".

I was pumping a British Telecom hot shot in the pub about how this thing works and it's mind blowing. Especially extrapolating a few years on. He seemed to think that your Freedom of Information thing is a key factor.