Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

We are saying the same thing wandejw.

Both disciplines at bottom are ideologically based. And that is why ID'ers want parity. The tired old argument pertaining to the so called evidence for evolution isnt the issue because the evidence is full of holes regardless of how small you may think they are. Depending on your beginning presuppositions such holes have become wider or narrower with new discoveries. For Id'ers both require faith.

spendi When you achieve a state of clueness, let us know. The rest of your post is, as usual, offal.
fisherperson. Fish'man When you are able to amass these" holes" into a cogent argument that fails to evidence natural selection , please attempt same. I, for one, would be delighted to hear something new on behalf of ID/Creationists. Im afraid that your "full of holes" statement, is spoon fed to you by the Anti-science blobs , that way you dont have to expend any efforts in things like "education" or " OJT learning".


spendi again

I answer what I consider relevant post. However, when you ramble on about middle class morality ,ladies, etiquette and Veblens posterior, I get bored quickly because I know it doesnt lead anywhere except to something from Bob Dylan's song books that 's merely a skug for your fevered mind.

You will agree fm that a woman feels superior in a French fashion house frock (some rags stitched together in a novel way) to a young lady wearing a cheap frock from off the racks ( some rags stitched together conventionally in order to be mechanically efficient?).

What is it that makes her feel superior? Is it a material object.

Forget the insults- they don't wash.

Hi Spendy!

Just dropped by to congratulate you for your perseverance. I've noticed that you sometimes reply within two minutes to a comment. So I've taken the liberty to check your profile.

What a guy! Just over 0.8% of ALL posts to A2K... Total of 19,808 and rising fast... Average of 24.95 posts a day!

I could almost think you think you're on a Mission for God.

My mind boggles.....

Hi Spendy!

Just dropped by to congratulate you for your perseverance. I've noticed that you sometimes reply within two minutes to a comment. So I've taken the liberty to check your profile.

What a guy! Just over 0.8% of ALL posts to A2K... Total of 19,808 and rising fast... Average of 24.95 posts a day!

I could almost think you think you're on a Mission for God.

My mind boggles.....

Whoops... Pushed the button twice...... Sorry.......

Still, it's put my average up a bit.

EEayehadeeoh wrote-




That's f**k all. I almost thought I smelt a rat.

Have the pubs just shut where you are?

Farmerperson wrote;



I would make no such argument. As I have conceded before, natural selection has been well proven by much evidence. Evolution however, from species to species, from cells to man is an ideological jump in my view. A jump that requires considerable faith to maintain given the scant evidence. You will disagree because it is after all the only game in town. Also its easier for you to except rather than challenge your own narrow point of view evidenced by your need to believe that I have not arrived at my point of view objectively but have been "spoon fed".

The human body is cellular in nature, thus your claim of a requisite so-called "ideological jump" is absurd.

So because man is made of cells, therfore he evolved from one?

Do you like anchovies on pizza?

All evolutionary evidence aside (and the weight of the evidence is overwhelming):

As per your claim here you are thus claiming it's not an "ideological jump" to argue evolutionary forces are behind single cellular life, but it's an "ideological jump" to argue evolutionary forces are behind multi-cellular life! If that's not the foundation for an absurdity in basic logic (let alone the weight of evolutionary evidence) I'll fry up a whack o' blastoplasts!

Fisherman, all evolutionary evidence aside (and the weight of the evidence is overwhelming) precisely why would it not be an "ideological jump" to argue evolutionary forces are behind single cellular life, but it must be an "ideological jump" to argue evolutionary forces are behind multi-cellular life?

Precisely what "ideological jump" must be required to have single cellular organisms evolve into multi cellular organisms such that the full weight of the evolutionary evidence of single cellular organisms evolving into multi cellular organisms is negated?

Incredible.

Natural selection has substantial evidence as proof. Macro Evolution does not. ID/creation allows, understandably, for natural selection since it believes that the genetic code for all forms of life were created. You did not know this? I find that incredible. ID/creation accepts that changes within species thru natural selection has been provided for. The theory of evolution has scant evidence although many hypothesis for the development of new genetic coding. It has not proven yet that mutation alone could provide for the incredible diversity witnessed through out the ages. Spare me the few anecdotal cases that you find as support for your presuppositions. The evidence is blatantly lacking.

The King is wearing no clothes.

btw, these easiest course for you at this point would be to assume that I have been "spoon fed".

fisherman-

This is precisely how the AIDsers won the court cases.

The "ID"ers played on the opposition's pitch. By bringing the biological arguments in, which are irrelevant because no ultimate answer is possible until a mechanism is discovered whereby "non-life" proceeded to "life", they threw the case away.

The judge at Dover was given the choice of lining himself up with scientific progress and modernism and thus looking good and being up-to-date without any knowledge of science or siding with a bunch of superstitious reactionary dimwits within the Dover educational establishment. Judges don't like the thought of mystery and things beyond their comprehension.

The argument is entirely sociological, economic and psychological and there are areas within those sciences which these lower courts would be unable to face up to. Human biology is also a factor in respect of immune systems and their relations to stress and contentment.

The AIDsers on here are ordinary Joes, like you and me, and they don't like the idea that real science in the field of human activity has levels which they are necessarily unaware of in the same way that there are levels in theology which are not suitable for ordinary folks. Hence they focus on the biology of animals and the study of fossils which are indeed interesting and useful areas of research but have nothing to say about the social organisation of human society which it is the business of courts and legislators (ultimately voters ideally) to sort out.

To be not party to these higher levels of discourse upsets the AIDser's sense of self-respect.

Until the debate gets focussed on the social consequences of the two opposed positions it will never get out of the hole it is in and due to the repetitiveness of what goes on in a hole will remain somewhat turgid.

To put the question as simply as I can does a society embracing a mild system of religious observance and feeling have a better chance of taking us successfully into the future than one which rejects such things.

If the answer is yes, which is my opinion, then evolution theory does not belong in schools because it renders ridiculous all inculcation of the religious feeling. The two are imiscible within a school and a community and within the heads of schoolchildren, parents and teachers who are not party to those levels of thinking I mentioned.

Obviously my opinion is subject to alteration by persuasion but I have seen nothing yet to acheive that, rather the reverse in that the manners of AIDsers are not what I would wish to live in proximity to, and thus I am bound by logic to consider AIDsers subversive.

fish'man

Its quite esy to grab onto a worldview that has no way to evidence itself. Which is what ID does. If you wont admit to evolutionary change among species and will still admit to natural selection as some kind of valid mechanism, you are merely repeating the gibberish from Answers in Genesis. Its an old and tired attempt at an argument for Creation.
Evidence for macro -evolution (another distinction that is without a credible base in fact) is all over the fossil record. However the ID/Creationists need to have something to cling to , so their major contributions to any of the biological or paleontological sciences is denial.
Like ros once said, whenever a gap in the fossil record is filled in (such as in the recent fossil finds in Ellsmere Island), now the Creationists see two gaps where there was only one initially.Mike Behe, who is, arguably the only credentialled scientist in relevant areas has made the following statement:I have no reason to doubt that the Universe is Billions of years old...I find that the idea of common descent(that all organisms share a common ancestor) convincing, and have no reson to doubt it. I respect my colleagues who study the development and behavior of organisms in an evolutionary framework...Although Darwins mechanism--natural selection working on variation-- might explain many things, However, I dont believe it explains molecular life"

In the past 3 years in a runup to the Dover Case, many scientists have demolished Behes "irreducible complexity" argument, to splinters. ALL of his favoured arguments had been so well displayed in an evolutionary context that they were introduced in evidence during cross examination of Behe. He had nothing left of his pedestal upon which to stand.

Its ok if you wish, for some religious reason, not "To believe " in nat selection, but until youve done much more homework, please dont p-lay this belief as something factual. If youve read "Darwins Black Box" you can see that Behe carefully selected his arguments to create an easy pathway so that he could default to ID.
Irreducible Complexity equals ID is an argument, that, on its own, is fraught with wishful thinking and scientific laziness. If we end up in a blind canyon everytime we hit a seeming dead end in our data , wed never get anywhere in science. ID , as espoused by Behe is really an argument from personal incredulity. What Behe has done, in effect, is to purposely stop further work when he got to one of his Irreducible complexity nodes.
For example, he played his argument that "Blood clotting requires a complex exacting cascade of specific enzymes otherwise it wont occur"--summary and conclusion? Its irreducibly complex and therefore a candidate for the ID "Top 10".
A few scientists in haematology didnt take this argument and sit still, they, instead investigated how many mammalian systems affect blood clotting. What they found was that the evolutionary pathway of blood clotting enzymes followed a path that "used existing proteins" to accomplish what Behe claimed was not so. Another of his pet arguments, instead of supporting his story, had actually aided in its razing.

You have to laugh.

Science has untold areas of expertise and yet this one generates so much steam that it is obvious that some important social consideration is involved.

Nobody is arguing about how to teach light or heat or aerodynamics or chemical combination or many other aspects within science. Nor is there much public debate about them.

It is this one area of science which is proven to be "special" by the very fact of the ongoing debate and interest in it.

AIDsers simply ignore this fact and treat of the matter as they might any other scientific topic but that it is this particular one that generates all the controversy is proof of a deeper problem which comes within its scope in relation to socialisation processes.

And the controversy has raged for this very reason ever since Darwin published the results of his studies 150 years ago. The AIDsers cannot but conclude, on their own arguments, that the controversy is a waste of time and has no valid reason for its existence which is reasonable as they can give no valid reason for anything at all.

The only sensible argument they have produced is that American scientific endevour will be damaged by not putting the schools on a sound and rigid materialistic course and they have no produced no evidence that that is the case. It is a mere self-serving assertion.

There is sociological and psychological evidence which shows that certain social phenomena can be linked to religosity. Some of it may be used to support the AIDsers case but that is where the real debate is and the AIDser's pointed avoidance of it suggests they fear it and hide away behind technical and narrow specialities which hardly anybody is aware of but which affords them an opportunity to strut their stuff and try to build up the importance of their work and that of their departments at the expense of others.

spendi continues. If I may remind you, it was the "Creationist Lobby" that even created the term "Intelligent Design"(or needed to). No matter how much you try to deny it spendi your assertions are counterfactual.

Which ones fm?

It is a vulgar assertion to say that my assertions are counterfactual without feeling the necessity to say why. It's just a blurt.

That method of discourse is satisfactory evidence to me that AIDsing should be kept out of schools because it uses a method which is counter to educational principles and the scientific method although it comes well within the scope of indoctrination.

Ive just been employing a bit of spendi logic. You seem to have such an aversion to recent history that I get a kick out of watching you wriggle on your own hook.

At least the "seem" gets you out of the usual difficulty. Nobody can argue with how things "seem" to you.

What about how things "seem" to a pious nun attending High Mass with The Pope officiating.

Her "seemings" are just as valid as yours unless you consider her a lower form of animal life.

And she only "seems" pious to an observer who may possibly be drawing the wrong conclusion.

How do you differentiate between the appearence of piety and the reality of it?

Your "seeming" might be a subjective trick you are playing on yourself in order to enjoy a fantasy of me wriggling on my own hook which, were I to be so doing, I think I would have noticed. Which I haven't.