Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

I have a quibble with that Thomas. The "intelligent design" folks have a problem with materialistic data which contradicts a crypto-creationist agenda, and hence, their reliance upon an assertion of "irreducible complexity," and their loud and stout denials of any data which contradicts their "irreducible complexity" thesis--such as denying the validity of data which has been amassed in response to that thesis showing the evolution of the eye.

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farmerman wrote:

OK THomas, Ill put up some serious e-money(100 virtual euros) and bet that there will be a council convened to further study this entire new direction.
Almost Nothing in the CAtholic Church happens in less than a century.

Two problems: (1) Your scenario was, "the Pope does listen to Schonborn and does advance a 180 degree posture shift on this issue[.]" Debating the theological implications of evolution at a council does not amount to a 180 degree turn on anything. (2) I need a time limit. (Which is why I said "in his [Ratzinger's] lifetime.") If there's a council in 100 years, you have won the bet, but you won't be alive to collect it.

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Setanta wrote:

I have a quibble with that Thomas. The "intelligent design" folks have a problem with materialistic data which contradicts a crypto-creationist agenda, and hence, their reliance upon an assertion of "irreducible complexity," and their loud and stout denials of any data which contradicts their "irreducible complexity" thesis--such as denying the validity of data which has been amassed in response to that thesis showing the evolution of the eye.

That's a fair point.

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ID proponents have no quarrel with the data. They have a problem with a materialist interpretation of the data.

Set beat me to it. Good thing I read the last post before posting this.
The fathers and main speakers for ID have had us believe that what you say is true, when , if you look at the history of the ID movement in the last 15 years, it has been almost a "retooling" of Creationist preaching in an attempt to find almost any scientific root.

Irreducible complexity presumes a designer
Abiogenesis is an incorrect interpretation of the science behind the origins of life
The search for "Pattern" in the fossil record presumes a designer
Natural Selection does NOT apply to the molecular level(Behe, '''Black Box... p 6)

They may . like Behe, state that they have no arguments with the facts as we know them, but thats only because these facts are well cross QA'd. They do try to jump on "GAPS" as proof of insertion.
Sorry, aint buying your conclusion there Thomas

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farmerman wrote:

Sorry, aint buying your conclusion there Thomas

That's fine. I'm not buying it myself anymore.

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The archbishop of Vienna and a primary author of the Catholic catechism, clarified again that the Catholic Church does not adhere to the "creationist" theory that takes its information on the origin of life exclusively from the bible. But he said pure materialist Darwinism that precludes the action of God is unacceptable and unscientific.

"The alternative to the process of pure chance is not absolute determinism but rather the interaction between the actions of creatures and the divine creator who sustains their actions," he said.

It seems to me that the cardinal is trying to say that he is not a fundamentalist and is trying to make an intellectual, philosophical criticism of traditional evolutionary theory. The cardinal is mistaken, however, by implying that traditional evolutionary theory relies on "pure chance". An evolutionary adaptation is not passed on by chance but rather by the fact that the adaptation allows the organism to survive in a particular natural environment and then reproduce.

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fm wrote-

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any debates forwarded by ID ers have purposely avoided reliance on anything that approaches evidence or data. Why is that?.

Because-

1- You refuse to countenance the social consequences as offering any evidence or data and rely entirely on non-human manifestations.There are no non-human manifestations of any evidence for the existence of "America" or Pennsylvania or courtship rituals and marriage arrangements and and a host of other things, such as the Constitution, in which I think you believe.

2- There are no possibilities of any evidence coming forth for the existence of an intelligent designer other than the effects of the belief. Take away the belief and you are bound to take away the effects and replace them with the other effects which you have consistently refused to even sketch despite, as you well know, some of them being already quite apparent. Education, hopefully, aims to maximise happiness and efficiency and is not the servant of scientific observations except insofar as they aid that purpose.

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Why study anything,

To increase happiness and efficiency. There has been no want of study as far as I know. Secular materialism has been charged with defeatism many times but, as with your charge, it is a mere assertion and thus not worth considering.

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. Then, by the same sleight of hand, they want to make ID a scientific discipline.

Not me. Not the Cardinal. Maybe some do or maybe you think they do. What would it matter either way. You are choosing you own easy targets.

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This would have to be refuted by EVIDENCE for IDers to make any successful dents in the Facts of evolution.

Ditto. Not me. Not the Cardinal. I accept the facts of evolution. It's as easy as accepting that this lighter will light my fag. I can't imagine why you keep returning to this boring, cliched and useless mantra on this thread. Do you just enjoy saying it or typing it.

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A cargo cult is any of a group of religious movements that occurred in Melanesia, in the Southwestern Pacific. The Cargo Cults believe that manufactured western goods ('cargo') have been created by ancestral spirits and intended for Melanesian people.

And we are the "white people" and it is our "intelligent designer" we are discussing. What on earth did you mean? Was it just another smear relying on your readers taking it as read that it is a negative factor?

You just have your eyes peering down a microscope and the microscope is a product of our particular belief system and it is an assertion to say that the latter is not the cause of the former. A belief. And you see a little world magnified and think that's all there is. Now that is defeatist.

Some of us see wider horizons in which the sciences of sociology and psychology play an increasingly important part and their validity ,or otherwise, is only verifiable in the field of social consequences and thus they are concerned for the future, unless you question their integrity, and not with some muddy old fossils from hundreds of millions of years ago.
The physical sciences are now seen to have more or less done the business. What would the Romans have given for the capacity to see what the buggers were up to in the lands beyond the Danube or even nearer? They might well still be here. Looking at some of your big buildings suggests they might well be.

In that case, which readers might ponder, you fm are the dedicated adherent of a cargo cult. You think all these things just mysteriously appeared after 2 million years of humanity, but without ancestral spirits despite which they are at your beck and call everytime you wipe your bottom and freshen the atmosphere with a spray can.

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The Archbishop is also incorrect in stating that: " . . . pure materialist Darwinism that precludes the action of God is unacceptable and unscientific." The thought might not be something which he is prepared to accept, but that does not make it ipso facto unacceptable to anyone. Furthermore, this joker has absolutely no basis upon which to assert that "materialistic Darwinism" is "unscientific." Science is concerned exclusively with the material, and takes no notice of anything which is supernatural.

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Setanta wrote:

Furthermore, this joker has absolutely no basis upon which to assert that "materialistic Darwinism" is "unscientific." Science is concerned exclusively with the material, and takes no notice of anything which is supernatural.

Good point. The cardinal is mistaken if he believes that his objections are based on science.

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spendius wrote:

Because-

1- You refuse to countenance the social consequences as offering any evidence or data and rely entirely on non-human manifestations. There are no non-human manifestations of any evidence for the existence of "America" or Pennsylvania or courtship rituals and marriage arrangements and and a host of other things, such as the Constitution, in which I think you believe.

Wrong.

There is evidence for the existence of America. However, there is no evidence for these social consequences you speak of, or at least, not the ones you're imagining.

You barely state what it is and then when we challenge you to prove that such a consequence will come about, you fail to prove it. In fact, quite a lot of the time, you state, "Oh you won't understand, so what's the point?" or weasel out of it in some other way.

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2- There are no possibilities of any evidence coming forth for the existence of an intelligent designer other than the effects of the belief. Take away the belief and you are bound to take away the effects and replace them with the other effects which you have consistently refused to even sketch despite, as you well know, some of them being already quite apparent. Education, hopefully, aims to maximise happiness and efficiency and is not the servant of scientific observations except insofar as they aid that purpose.

Except you know science education *IS* the servant of science, because without science education, we won't have scientists that will perform proper scientific observations.

Science education should teach students proper scientific thinking and proper scientific techniques. ID does the opposite. If people say ID is acceptable science, then they are saying, making up any old answer that cannot be proven to be true is acceptable science.

Spendius wrote:

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. Then, by the same sleight of hand, they want to make ID a scientific discipline.

Not me. Not the Cardinal. Maybe some do or maybe you think they do. What would it matter either way. You are choosing you own easy targets.

Yeah, but the problem here is that you don't really state what you believe. You insist that ID be taught, so that it would help slow down the decay in morality. Yet you fail to prove that it will do so and you fail to state where you think it will be taught making people think you go along with pro-IDers in stating that ID should be taught in science classes.

Well, if you don't think ID should be taught in science classes, where should it be taught then, Spendius, because you have stated that you want ID to be taught?

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Some of us see wider horizons in which the sciences of sociology and psychology play an increasingly important part and their validity ,or otherwise, is only verifiable in the field of social consequences and thus they are concerned for the future, unless you question their integrity, and not with some muddy old fossils from hundreds of millions of years ago.

Here's my point. ID is not social science either. You have failed constantly to even prove that it has any of the social effects you claim it does.

Where is the proof that ID will have any of the social effects you claim it does? How can you be sure that ID is linked to the social effects and that it isn't because some preacher somewhere is doing a bad job at keeping the flock faithful?

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wandeljw wrote:

Setanta wrote:
Furthermore, this joker has absolutely no basis upon which to assert that "materialistic Darwinism" is "unscientific." Science is concerned exclusively with the material, and takes no notice of anything which is supernatural.

Good point. The cardinal is mistaken if he believes that his objections are based on science.

It's the same old crap, just coming from a Cardinal now instead of an average creationist.

These people are starting to recite creationist dogma now just as they recite biblical dogma. This is why naturalism is so necessary as a base to differentiate the foundation of analysis.

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Setanta wrote-

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The Archbishop is also incorrect in stating that: " . . . pure materialist Darwinism that precludes the action of God is unacceptable and unscientific."

When I read that I automatically assumed, it being a public statement, that it meant unacceptable to the Church and thus to the "us" to whom he was addressing his remarks. Others may make of it what they will.

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, but that does not make it ipso facto unacceptable to anyone.

Obviously. A union leader will say that the offer is "unacceptable" and nobody, not even a kid, thinks it means unacceptable to anyone.

Did you try to teach your Grandmama to suck eggs.

And is it too much to expect you to desist from referring to someone you don't agree with as a "joker". We are grown ups on here.

And while you are practicing the art of desisting try to include this sort of thing-

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Science is concerned exclusively with the material, and takes no notice of anything which is supernatural.

We all know and have done for a very flipping long time. If you could define science it would help though.

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fm wittily quoted as he jumped on the bandwagon-

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AND IT DONT MATTER IF N THE WEATHERGETS HAIRY
SO LONG"S I GOT THE VIRGIN MARY
NEXT TO JESUS ON THE DASHBOARD OF MY CAR

Scoffing at the Virgin eh? And an age of consent at 18. Good grief!!!

And a breakdown in marriage.

Hey-I can quote too-

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Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Made everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It's easy to see without looking too far
That not much
Is really sacred.

Guess who? 1965 too. Cripes.

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Wolf-

Not to put to fine a point on it you haven't a clue what I'm saying. You're right from your side and I'm right from mine.I've told you before.

I can't answer posts which tell me what I've said and have it all wrong and quote me missing out essential words so the meaning is changed to suit you.

Forget it. Don't bother with my posts. Think of them as being in Urdu. Others do.

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Oh, I do understand what you're saying about ID and it's an assertion without proof.

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VATICAN UPDATE

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Pope ponders evolution
(ITN, August 30, 2006)

Pope Benedict XVI will be getting together with some of his former theology students this weekend for a debate on evolution.

This is nothing unusual for Benedict XVI, who has pondered weighty ideas with his former PhD students at annual meetings since the late 1970s without any media fuss.

But his election as pope last year and controversies over teaching evolution in the US have aroused lively interest in this year's reunion on September 1-3 at the papal summer residence of Castel Gondolfo outside Rome.

Religion and science blogs are buzzing about whether it means the Vatican will take a more critical view of evolution and possibly embrace "intelligent design", which claims to have scientific proof that human life could not have simply evolved.

But Father Stephan Horn, a German theologian organising the Pope's meeting with 39 former students, said that reflected a misunderstanding of how the so-called "student circle" works and what the Catholic Church teaches about evolution.

"We've never drawn any conclusions in our student circle," he told said by telephone from Rome.

"This is an open exchange of ideas that does not aim for a conclusion. "It has nothing to do with creationism," he added, referring to a fundamentalist Protestant view that God created the world in six days as described in the Book of Genesis. "Catholic theology does not endorse creationist views."

Charles Darwin's theory of evolution has long been rejected in the US by conservative Christians who want to have a Bible-based view of creation taught in public schools, where the church-state separation bars the teaching of religion.

More recently, Darwin's critics have campaigned to have "intelligent design" taught as a scientific alternative to evolution. President George W Bush and other conservative politicians support this drive to "teach the controversy."

The "ID movement" does not name the designer as God, but its opponents - including scientists who are believing Christians - call this an unacceptable bid to sneak God into the teaching of science, which should only focus on empirical knowledge.

Catholic teaching accepts evolution as a scientific theory and does not read the Biblical story of creation literally.

But it disagrees with what it calls "evolutionism," the view that the story of life has no role for God as its prime author.

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That's an interesting article, Wandel--it strongly suggests that the original reports were predicated upon false assumptions, and i wonder if there'll be any retraction or qualification by those who have claimed he intends to weigh in on the "intelligent design" issue.

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I fully expect the ID-iots will find this upcoming conference's actual product to be of far less comfort to their cause than at present they disingenuously presume to suppose. The Creation Clowns are setting up for themselves nought but yet another pratfall. The one thing these medeival-minded boobs do well is slapstick.

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http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bd/KeystoneKops.jpg

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Setanta wrote-

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and i wonder if there'll be any retraction or qualification by those who have claimed he intends to weigh in on the "intelligent design" issue.

No need for either. Nobody of interest would take any notice of such claims so retractions and qualifications are as useful as the claims i.e. no use.

You like to imagine the contrary so that you can have something to gnash your teeth on and that's equally useful.

Beating your brains against the Church is something even Winston Churchill didn't bother doing. They have too much in their armoury for you lot. Why aren't your thoughts being beamed around the news wires?

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Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

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