Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

Ladies and Gentlemen, It's obvious that IDers will never accept evolution as the last word, because anything that questions the bible as untrue must be fought with all their energy. Their total life's belief is at stake, and they must continue to find answers that refutes evolution at the cost of negating all the evidence we now have through science and technology. They know that if they give an inch, everything else they have believed will crumble. That's a very frightening prospect for anybody - whether it's religion or politics. It's obvious that those arguing against evolution are desperate; they're hanging onto every bit of thread they can hang on to - that's now a small piece of rag full of holes.

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well, ci, its patently obvious from statements of those on these threads , that confess an ID belief, dont even know what its main "clubhouse rules" are.

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They don't have "clubhouse rules." It's the blind spot of IDers who continue to argue against evolution; they just ignore anything that will remove another piece of thread from their rag.

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adele_g wrote:

Funny, it makes me wonder why you even bother to debate on this forum. Unless it is that you are feeling that "desparation" to defend your faith in evolution that you try to pin on us.

I don't "have faith in evolution." I consider evolution to be the best explanation for the rise of diverse life forms on this planet because of data which underlies such a claim. Equally, no other plausible explanation has been advanced. Were such a plausible explanation advanced, i would have no brief to continue to "believe in evolution." It is nothing new here, however, to see the creationists disguised in ID clothing attempt to advance the silly notion that creationism and a theory of evolution are equivalent.

But you folks are entertaining.

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Elsie_T wrote:

adele_g wrote:

Funny, the title implies otherwise, The Blind Watchmaker : Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design

Elsie_T and adele_g, I just went back to the book, and I have to grant you that I misremembered Dawkins' terminology. In his terminology (but not mine), "design" means something like "having been designed with foresight, with the intent of achieving certain effects." To describe the structure of biological entities, he uses the words "complexity" and "apparent design", which is where I use the word design. So I'll grant you that I made a mistake there.

But the mistake I made is one of semantics, not content. Dawkins spends the whole book affirming that biological structures are awfully complex, and that these structures solve advanced engineering problems that were beyond our capabilities until just a few decades ago. (Especially the sonar in bats he describes throughout chapter 2.) He affirms that one can gain useful insights into biological organisms through reverse-engineering. He affirms that this problem-solving complexity is in desperate need for an explanation. Finally, he even affirms that he himself could not have been an intellectually honest atheist before 1859, when Darwin published The Origins of Species. When it comes to the substance of creationist objections, he acknowledges pretty much all of them, and recognizes his duty to answer them plausibly.

adele_g wrote:

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males would have lower genetic variability on their y-chromosomes, compared to the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which is passed on exclusively through women

This is a logical prediction based upon that claim.

Maybe, maybe not. It's a prediction if it was made before the various forms of DNA were actually compared. But if the prediction was made after the comparison, it's just after-the-fact rationalization. You can get my attention by showing me that this prediction was made from the Biblical record before the relevant experiments. You can convince me by also showing that a) no conflicting prediction was made based on the Biblical record, and b) the prediction was made before biologists made it based on other foundations. But so far you have nothing to show in that particular matter that would be inconsistent with Monday morning quarterbacking by the ID community.

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ci

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They don't have "clubhouse rules."

In fact, they do. Intelligent Design is predicated on a single guiding intelligence that started everything and made minor or major tweaks so as to assure a predetermined outcome of the designers wish.
EVERYTHING ELSE, including evolution itself, is stipulated to by the "real" IDers. Dembski doesnt like that but guys like Austen and Behe communicate their acceptance of almost all the principles of evolution and some natural selection. The basic laws of geophysics, cosmology, radiochemistry, tectonics, geochem etc etc, they also accept and make it their own (Some go so far as to adopt an attitude like adele-g wherein they state that the ID moda of thought was the very first to "recognize" the usefulness of "junk DNA"). It sort of establishes by precedence, a false credibility to what the IDers are tring to push

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farmerman, What you say is true, but everything else they spew in defense of ID has no "clubhouse rules."

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I use the term to mean an "Initial Code" or "Prime Directive" maybe my use of a gold term shows my ignorance of golf.

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I use the term to mean an "Initial Code" or "Prime Directive" maybe my use of a golf term shows my ignorance of golf.

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I've just been thinking...

Aren't IDers just taking what Darwin stated and redressing it as their own ideas? After all, didn't Darwin talk about a creator in his own "Origin of Species"?

If so, I find these IDers abhorrent. They are coming up with a so-called new idea, dressing it up as their own, when in reality they did none of the hard work and are trying to take all the credit.

And even so, the central point of Darwin's proposal was not that God was behind evolution but that evolution existed.

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Darwin's reference to Creator first appeared in the 6th edition of "Origin", and it was after he had received harsh criticisms from creationists on the first edition.

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Thomas,
yes, mathematics is optional in the second stage of the Scientific Method, but the option is still there. Causal mechanisms themselves are largely treated by way of mathematics also, especially in fields such as physics. By the third stage, in the quantitative prediction, mathematics is no longer optional. Observations of phenomena are measured by way of mathematics, tested by way of mathematics, and put up against mathematics. An epistemological a priority of mathematics is necessarily presupposed thereof.

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BOTTOM LINE: After you've "taught"...."and of course, there might be a God who designed and made all this"...

...just what is there to "teach" about "intelligent design?"

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In a Philosophy or Social Studies class, that it exists as a belief of a growing number of people.

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snood wrote:

In a Philosophy or Social Studies class, that it exists as a belief of a growing number of people.

That makes two sentences that have to be "taught."

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First of all I'd like to apologize for conflating my arguments and not making it clear who I was speaking to in my last post. The first part was for Setanta, however the defences from the 'Guide to Discrediting Intelligent Design' was intended as a more general observation.

Ok, where were we:

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Setanta wrote:
A theory of evolution is not an example of ideological dogma.

In your opinion. There is much evidence to suggest that it is more of an ideology than many acknowledge. For instance- with the highly recognisable 'icons of evolution' (ie. Miller's experiments, Java man, the embryos), these were all the primary 'proof' that evolution was a valid theory. However, when scientific discoveries found them to be incorrect, there was too much at stake to let the entire theory go, so scientists started using the theory of evolution to justify the 'proof'. This is circular reasoning at its' finest, and a suggestion that, perhaps, those with a stake in evolution (athiests, perhaps- after all, evolution is incredibly important for them to be able to feel 'intellectually honest'), are less than willing to let go of their ideology.

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The rise of "intelligent design" can be directly traced to the defeat of attempts by religious fundamentalists to have creation myths introduced into school curricula.

Again, your opinion, and your (somewhat biased) assesment of the situation. Some statistical evidence to satisfy your points might be useful here.

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I find it hilarious that you inferentially suggest that science is capable of studying anything other than material mechanisms.

This simply reveals your ignorance of science.

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This thread was posted to Science and Mathematics precisely because this is a scientific issue.

Agreed, the only people desperately reaching for religious connotations are you guys!

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...although i understand how important it is to you to belittle your opponent in debate when you're losing on all fronts.

Obviously you do because this is your primary tactic.

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This is a rather incoherent fragment of a sentence.

Thanks for the spelling lesson, I'm sure you have never made a typo in your life.

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no one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.

I'm not American.

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You see, i could care less what a fanatic like you thinks, i just want to make sure the silent readers get more than just your narrow views.

Ha ha ha!!! How noble of you! You are tirelessly typing away, day in, day out, all for the 'naive young readers' who won't be able to make up their own mind on the issue. I give people who read this forum more credit than that. Obviously you are also under the illusion that you have the 'qualifications' to 'set people straight' on this issue- I'm afraid this is just a forum, Setanta- a sharing of ideas. And while I'm sure in some cultures it may be a valid qualification for one to shout out his opinion 22,000 times in the same place... where I come from it's called 'self-obsessive' and indulgent.

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Gender, of course, has nothing to do with it.

Quite right. I'm sure, though, you realised that the phrase 'boy's club' has greater connotations than gender.

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InfraBlue wrote:

Thomas,
yes, mathematics is optional in the second stage of the Scientific Method, but the option is still there. Causal mechanisms themselves are largely treated by way of mathematics also, especially in fields such as physics. By the third stage, in the quantitative prediction, mathematics is no longer optional. Observations of phenomena are measured by way of mathematics, tested by way of mathematics, and put up against mathematics. An epistemological a priority of mathematics is necessarily presupposed thereof.

Well, which alternative approach would you suggest to explaining the observed phenomena? And how would you demonstrate that an explanation is telling us something we don't know already?

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georgeob1 wrote:

I don't think it is fair to pounce on him for the mere juxtaposition of "presupposition" and "the Scientific Method".

Infrablue made a claim about the scientific method which I think is false. So I cited a description of the scientific method that is consistent with my understanding of it, and asked him where he finds the presupposition he thinks underlies it. I don't think that's pouncing.

georgeob1 wrote:

This thread abounds with very unscientific assertions (from the materialist side of this debate) that science (or certain branches of it) provides the exclusive path to irrefutable truth, and that nothing outside of its domain of inquiry is knowable.

Perhaps we both agree that this is a regrettable distortion of the scientific method.

I'm not sure that the assertions you describe are as abundant here as you say. Speaking for myself, I don't think there are any irrefutabable truths out there -- only some things we know with greater certainty than others, and some methods that have a better track record of figuring things out than others. I would also assert that the scientific method has the best track record in this domain than any alternative we know. Indeed, I find its competitive advantage over all other methods overwhelming in the natural and engineering sciences; overwhelming enough that the alternatives can be safely neglected on a high school level.

I agree with you that there are truths that we cannot figure out scientifically. Somewhat ironically, in the 1930s, Kurt Gödel has mathematically proven this for the field of arithmetics, arguably the hardest science there is. This limits the scope of insights we can hope to gain with science, and suggests there may be other methods for finding truths. But creationists and ID proponents aren't claiming that they are gaining useful insights outside of science. They are not advertising their results as a contribution to metaphysics. Instead they are claiming they have made a contribution to biology, and that they are in the business of science. They haven't, and they aren't. The claim that the world was created with forsight, even if true, is not a scientific one until it's established by the same rules that apply to every other scientist.

But I agree it's important that highschool students be taught about what is knowable and what is not. In Germany, are taught these things in "religion" and "ethics" courses, one subject of which students have to choose, and both of which have in practice evolved into all-purpose philosophy classes. I agree it's regrettable that the American highschool system has nothing like it.

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I'm afraid Canadian high school curricula are without any address to philosophy as well. That is unfortunate for a number of reasons, but one obvious reason is that too many kids 'complete' their educations with little or no experience in 'thinking about thinking', or in reflection on how we might tease apart knowledge claims. I was utterly amazed a couple of weeks past to find that one American member here, with a degree in law, had completed his degree with no courses in formal logic or even of logical fallacies.

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The practice of criminal law as it presently exists in America has little to do with logic.

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Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

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