Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

Setanta blithely speaks of killing the thread and claims that mathematicians are not scientists.

Both claims are ridiculous as is his opening sentence in what is a regurgitation post which he seems unable to move on from.

Schopenauer wrote in The World as Will and Idea-

The will, as thing in itself, constitutes the inner, true and indestructible essence of the man; in itself, however, it is without consciousness. For the consciousness is conditioned by the intellect and this is a mere accident of our being, since it is a function of the brain, and that again (with its dependent nerves and spinal cord) is a mere fruit, a product, nay, even a parasite of the rest of the organism, inasmuch as it does not intervene directly in the latter's activities but only serves a purpose of self-preservation by regulating its relations with the outer world."

In other words, flat out materialism where unconscious and impulsive acts are completely efficient, being evolved to be so with inefficiency having been eradicated, whilst the intellect can only muddle through bungling and botching as it goes. The study of animals, useful in many fields, not least the entertainment and fund-swallowing activities, is thus a study of willed existences and has no relation to the intellectual life of human beings.

The intellect is thus a mere weapon in the struggle for existence and ,in the final analysis, the assertion is a vehicle for its use. Power alone justifying any assertion.

The materialist has no option but to consider man as the only imperfect being on earth and thus to seek to eradicate intellectual activity as a millstone round his neck.

The principle attraction of materialism is that its propositions, which I may well regale you with at some point, are easily absorbed by mediocre minds to whom the assertion is the principle strategy with which to meet opposition.

It is self evident that the internal logic of materialism, easy to follow though it is, is destructive and inevitably concentrates power in the hands of the strongest will which perforce is ruthless.

If materialism is rejected then there must be a significant place in society for belief systems of some sort and Christian theology is the one which has brought us to here and to our ability to dominate all other theologies.

If it pulls the wool over our eyes it does so to provide a veil over the baseness of mankind and this allows us the luxuries we have obtained.

One understands that certain people object to having the wool pulled over their eyes or being stupified with a type of opiate. No-one can object to that but why they would wish to preach materialism instead of living quietly with their views is seemingly incomprehensibe and can only be that they unconsciously, hopefully, seek society's downfall.

Ohhhh, a veterinarian, I thought they said vegetarian. I guess I'll have to reconsider the validity of the review.

Hell, i thought they said Venutian . . .

It was the only "peer review" of Behe's thesis before it was released to the public.

Assuming Behe wanted someone qualified to review the material he would have started at the top and worked his way down to try to find "anyone" with a credential to review it. He landed a Vet.

Aren't they serious people these anti-IDers eh? What?

Don't they just know how to get to the core of a problem?

Look how they face up to the big issues! It takes one's breath away.

What is Behe's thesis? Suppose it is "this is a big fat udder lads full of creamy milk so let's milk it."

Well it might be. It's not as daft as 9/11 being done by some who shouldn't do that sort of thing.

I'm not saying it is but there's a chance. If it is what you call a thesis is a strategy like at the fairground. They do say "follow the money" don't they.

Who was the reviewer who had pre-publication sight of the book?

A peer review hadda be a 'Piscepalian

It sounds posher than a pseudonym or a parrot I must admit.

You are in good company when you refuse to face up to social consequences.

Nietzsche was just the same.

He observed that the Darwinian idea of the Superman brings in the practical aspects of breeding but, either from fear or inclination, he leaves it at that contenting himself with phrases like "new values" or "new directions" and "Superman" itself; nice sounding but easily passed by abstractions, as if there is any point to it without the practical aspects.

Bernard Shaw did pursue the idea in Man and Superman and thereby arose the demand that mankind be transformed into a stud farm. Such a conclusion is implicit in Nietzsche but he was too "sensitive" (shall we say)
to spell it out.

Once this materialistic, utilitarian, scientific, notion of systematic breeding is embraced the question obviously arises of who is to breed and where and how, which Dr Strangelove answered. Huxley copped out with his bottle babies escape, a luxury Orwell let pass.

Nietzsche, like anti-IDers on here, was too romantic to consider such mundane and crude questions and, like the sweet pretty things everywhere, omitted to say that the whole idea, an easy extension of Darwinian thought, not only presupposes Socialism but also socialistic compulsion as the obvious, indeed only, means and this presupposes a socialistic ordering of society and modes of compulsion fierce enough to overcome nature.

Mr Behe &Co might not be milking an udder after all. He might just have hair on his balls.

Anti-ID is feminist to its core which is why media is on board; women being its prime income source.

The men then all get the Jeremy Clarkson syndrome and he is putty in his wife's delicate hands. I think he has three daughters. He began economic life in his parent's Paddington Bear business as a salesman.

He threw a glass of water over Piers Morgan once and you can't get more ladylike than that.

He asserts his machismo with a suspicious amount of emphasis.

We don't refuse to face up to social consequences, we just refuse to listen to you. That's different.

bloody hell footy on tv bye

ros wrote-



I suppose it's fairly obvious that there is a difference but you do refuse to face up to the social consequences of scientific materialism I'm afraid despite the assertion to the contrary which will not only not take in any of the viewers but can do nothing but expose you to ridicule to those who have followed the thread.

I understand, of course, why you turn your back on the potential of your ideas in the social field. It is because you wish to conduct a public debate of no little importance entirely on your own terms and also because if any scrutiny of the social consequences appears you will look, let's say, naive. (At best).

One imagines the "we" is intended to suggest that all the viewers of this thread are of the same opinion as yourself which I must say is a trifle over-exuberant and constitutes an assertion embellishing the original one.

Once again we have an example of the sad irony of someone refusing to look at something he does not already know offering his advice to a national education system which is designed to teach people what they don't already know.

A quite ridiculous state of affairs in my opinion.

spendi, once again exercising his right to be a complete butthole , says

Threads are populated by people who have similar or antithetical views or evidence on a particular focused subject.DO YOU REALLY GET THE THREAD CONCEPT? or are you just so dense that you will annoyingly continue to try to hijack a thread by trying to wedge in those things that interest you alone ? OR are merely thoughts that are the product of your inebriate, misogynist mind?
I suppose only medical science can answer that one..

I'm rather inclined to think,old boy, that it is yourself who continually tries to "wedge in those things that interest you alone " with all sorts of no doubt interesting material to the specialist relating to matters from the really very dim and exceedingly distant past and in contrarian spirit to the famous saying of Mr Henry Ford and those two followers of his Mr Aldous Huxley and Mr Bob Dylan.

I would contend that you do this in order to angle the debate in such a way as to present your expertise as being of far more importance than it actually is to the million of students in classrooms up and down the land and to their teachers and administrators and also to provide you with something to say in the hope, forlorn as it is, that no-one will notice your emphatic reluctance to answer any points raised about the matters pertaining to the classroom and the communities from which their students are drawn.

Naturally, as is the usual way, you then project this characteristic onto my goodself using the standard basic flat-ribbed assertion as a crude and somewhat blunt implement.

Not that I mind of course.

A discussion of the outcome of materialism ought to be of great interest to a materialist.

Evolution seeks no particular outcome. It is a rudderless process that rewards sheer survival only, without respect to any higher values.

It is a fatalistic view, in the sense that if one is committed to it, evolution is seen as irresistible.

So, a materialist who is committed to evolution as an overriding principle of nature may not be very interested in the 'outcome' since he probably cannot affect it in a very significant way. Determinism is not a greatly motivating philosophy.

fm wrote-



This is an assertion which I don't accept in the least and I doubt that anybody else does.

Threads are populated by the people who populate them just as the Galapagos Islands were populated by the finches that Mr Darwin found there. Your statement smacks of "silence in class" to me.

Had some long past finch been able to declare and legislate that only finches which have similar or antithetical constitutions could be the ones to populate those places I think Mr Darwin might have discovered a quite different range of creatures.

Likewise, a topic I might raise may well seem irrelevant to you but that does not make it irrelevant per se. One hopes there are viewers who become aware of its contribution to the debate.

The idea that what is irrelevant to you is irrelevant to everybody is repugnant to any educationalist. I've little doubt that the first man to climb out of the treetops and start trotting around on his hinder limbs was viewed with a great deal of suspicion.

Social consequences of Darwinism you mean?? That's not complicated:

How were communism and Nazism consequences of Darwinism in a sense that laissez-faire and limited government weren't?

GUNGA INVOKES GODWIN"S LAW!!!. By the rules, doesnt that mean that gunga has ended the thread?

RL SAYS BY GEORGE< I think youve got it. Evolution has no plan, it only has results.
Not hard to live with, no mumbo jumbo or burnt sacrifices required. Justa bit of awe and an interest in careful note-taking.

The only thing Darwin EVER posited was a mechanism called natural Selection.