Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

fm wrote-



Oddly enough fm I'm pro science a lot more than most.

The scope of the trial was limited by the narrow range of sensibilities of the participants and the witnesses. Any attempt to change it will be within the same range.

I would deny ever employing the "top of my lungs" if I take the sense you used that expression correctly. ( But it may be that my much understated style does fit such an expression as the top of the lungs are rather weak. In which case I'm glad you are recognising that and admire your wit in doing so. ) [[[As if????]]]!!!

ID is not the basis of morality. It is a method of making an agreed morality stick. ID allows for tailored geographical, traditional, economic and ethnic variations. Materialism is the same right across the board from sea to shining sea. Materialism only has terror. Or the sort of conditioning Huxley rather naively described. Or caricatured. I'm not sure which.

If 250 million, say, don't require terror being applied to them surely that is better than having 300 million who do. I know that is an opinion. A guy I know drools at the fantasy of him taking over and ruling without any ID bullshit. I'm first for the firing squad and I'll have to beg for that it seems.
There would be winners and losers and, according to Marx, opinions derive from interest, so it is understandable why I'm on the side I am.

I think materialism may well arrive at some point but only under the conditions Huxley gave.

How on earth can morality be a "view from nowhere". That's not only ridiculous but anti-evolution theory as well and revisionist Marxism. It shows a deep confusion.

I found Origins quite funny. A sort of black humour to be expected of a young virile man, and he was a bit virile, being cooped up on a small ship for 5 years. Huxley did some gleeful gloating at it. Some guys just love shocking bluestockings. I'm a bit that way myself. But the jokes were a bit thinly spread. I was, of course, cross referencing with my observations in the pub. I wasn't reading it to pass an exam or anything.

Could you see fashion changes in dress as forms of mutations being selected in or out as psychological environments alter.

So, to you morality is arguably a divinely inspired variable? or did we invent the God youve been leaning on so much throughout your vague posts

Wait a minute, youre just phuckin with my head here. Youve been the one preaching about how the basis for all our sensibilities is derived from "true ID" and without God behind it our abilities to appreciate, among other things, the sunrise, are merely hollow efforts.
To which I ak you.

Lets assume your God's commandments are the source of ethics and morality. Why did he choose those commandments instead of some other means?


1He was screwing with your head -so why pay attention to them in the first place

or

2He had a good reason to choose those commandments. In that case , why dont we appeal to those reasons directly, why labor some poor deity What does His impramatur add?

Just because ID flunks the reason and credibility test wont stop your ilk from lavering it onto everything from morality to musical taste. However, since this last post , youve gone and nicely bifurcated your argumentnicely.

,
Dearest Sherlock, heavens no, that was theway the case was filed and followed. A judge is a gatekeeper and a roadmaster. Its his court. HEs not going to allow Spengler quotes unless someone first establishes that there is even some relevance. Then an espert, under the DAubert provisos will be allowed to expand, and then only after suitable voire dire.
There are no "Rennaissance men" in courtrooms , everyone has an in limne specialty and hed better stick to iot or get smooshed in cross examination, and be impeached or dismissed, or like Dr Behe, totally discredited because he couldnt decide whether he was there as a Christian or a naturalist scientist.

I got a copy of "Monkey Girl" from the Library. Id suggest that you read it before you add any more of the above statements out of ignorance . Its a popular text and its fascinating, the little character flaws that the Christian IDers displayed. It also displays quite readably, how a civil case works.
Now for a more cynical view of our civil court structure, read "A Civil ACtion" by John Harr.

fm wrote-



We invent moralities to suit the purposes of those who do the inventing. We also invent the Divinity to give these moralities a superhuman authority which a human source cannot provide. Then we sell them. It hinges on who the "we" are. The only other choice is reading a morality out of nature or not having one at all which might be said to be the same thing. It is a fiendish problem I'm afraid.

Try sitting down and drafting a morality to suit a property owning industrial democracy which fears anarchy and which is in competition with other powerful societies. Everybody in the pub can do it but none of their efforts fit all the circumstances or are internally consistent. They take one item at once which is an absurd oversimplification.

Anyone at our level who isn't vague is a fool.

I'll come back later.

TEXAS UPDATE

Can we see a copy of this memo? It sounds really twisted

rosborne,
capitolannex.com has made a pdf version of the memo available:
Chisum-Bridges Memo

What a lovely memo, so well written. And that web site is great, but it left out the obvious sexual encounter between Santa Clause and the Martians which led originally to the human race (as everyone knows, the wiccans covered that up).

For those who think only ID answers why animals have eyes, here's an article about "bionic" eyes.

Trials for 'bionic' eye implants
By Jonathan Fildes
Science and technology reporter, BBC News, San Francisco


A receiver under the eye surface passes the signals back to the chip
A bionic eye implant that could help restore the sight of millions of blind people could be available to patients within two years.

Rep Chisum needs a big hug.

fm-

Apologies. I replied, at some length too, and it has vanished into thin air.

Sheeshbloodybutterfingers. I forgot to "copy" before poking the "submit".

Now it's pub time.

fm wrote-



I'm not phuckin with your head. You are.

If you change "efforts" to "effects" then you have, I think, the basic position of Armstrong's A Materialist Theory of Mind.

But I might say that our sensibilities derive from the advent of self-consciousness which is when, in both mankind and in the infant the distinction between the self and the other, the alien, appears and develops.

This would seem to be not far out of the Creationists scenario if it is allowed that language and the ability to write it is given the time required to record things.

But once we are aware of an "I" and then a "We" we start naming objects in order to capture them and also the functional relations between object cause a grammar to arise.

This must lead to questions about who or what we are, where we came from and where we are going and as demand is met by supply storytellers got to work and the best stories became traditional. This is then put to use for social control.

Now the id is what is retained from previous ages. Isn't it neat that Freud used this word which handily fits lower case, and it is a lower case, intelligent design.

So- As Creationism, Materialism and Intelligent Design and many other things are products coming after the creation of self-consciousness they are all equally opposed to intelligent design (id) which might then be said to be the divine essence on which self-conscious mankind erects his many structures of thought.

Until evolutionists can offer even a tentative explanation of the mechanisms by which self-consciousness evolved and thereby separated itself from the rest of creation and went to war on it they leave a gap into which steps the weavers of the winds. And you end up arguing over the forms of the metaphors rather than the substantive matter at hand.

And the materialist story is, though useful, boring and an attack upon imagination and art in general. Stalin's idea of art was a bunch of adverising hoardings.



They were for that time and place in that culture. They may or may not fit others. A sort of-"if we keep to these rules we'll do okay" which is entirely focussed on social consequences. For that "we" of course.



Because people will never fully respect a human authority no matter how much terror is applied. It's for efficiency's sake.

Dover was buttoned up puritans debating abstract ideas in a vacuum. Just rich pickings really.

And I've seen enough of Monkey Girl not to need any books written by buttoned-up puritans on the subject.


Last night's effort was miles better than this crap. I'm hopeless at going over the same ground. It's like warmed up potatoes.

They've been at it - and hardly in "tenative" fashion by any stretch of the imagination - for over a century, spendi; Cognitive Neuroscience is old, old news.


Where the hell you been - in a tavern?

They might well have been at it on fat salaries for over a century but what I asked was what was the evolutionary mechanism out of which self-consciousness and all that goes with it appeared after hundreds of millions of years of organic life.

Show how it wasn't a divine spark and we will all accept it. Being "at it" isn't doing it.

PS- Do you know anything about Lyme's Disease. A friend of mine thinks he has it from a tick-bite in Vancouver countryside.

spendi talks about "fat salaries," but fails to understand anything about economics or supply and demand.

Bullshit, spendi - though you're frequently busy here on A2K talking out your pants about what you say science hasn't done, science for generations on end has been busy out in the real world doing things - things many if not most of which by your posts evidently you have no idea - about that which has been and is getting done.

Another indication of your tenuous grasp of the real state of human affairs is your contention that scientific researchers - the ones who actually do the work and author the papers, not the Chairs of their assorted departments, but the researchers themselves - enjoy "Fat Salaries".

And, yes, I know something about Lyme Disease; its a concern here in Wisconsin, too. There are veterinary vaccinations available (all our 4-footed critters get 'em as indicated), but so far as I'm aware, no vaccination has been approved for human use; treatment with antibiotics immediately upon diagnosis is the deal for people - left untreated, it poses a critical health risk.

See: Center for Disease Control - Learn about Lyme Disease -

Hope that helps your buddy, and fer chrissakes urge him to seek competent medical attention post haste if he really suspects he's been exposed to Lymes - its no trifling matter.

Thanks timber- you make it sound bad. I don't think he thinks it's so bad.
Maybe he's stoical.

If you can get it from a tick bite how come it isn't common. Species of ticks are not noted for being rare at certain times. Could the general health of the bitten person be a factor.

I know all about what science has done and it's great. We are the pleasure generation thanks to science. The id is being let loose. Re-emerging. Our political class look more like monkeys than they did in the old days. Our Deputy PM cracked a joke last week about the PM not having a tie on. He had one on himself. It bespoke a little contempt. Our DPM is Old Labour whereas the PM is New Labour. I know it's only a slight shift. Look at Mr Bush's gait as well. They are both in the simian direction.

We have a Sky Newsreader who has entered the celebrity skating bullshit just so she can show us her bottom.

Do you think I've detected a trend? I could make out a case for it making sense. Fitting evolution theory.

Fat salaries, like beauty, are in the mind of the beholder. I'll bet the researchers have all mod cons. Compared to trailer trash I mean or Louisiana dishwashers to name just two from a very long list.

spendi
Then that brings us back to the artifice that your "divine one" is merely to be respected because he guarantees such things as an afterlife so long as you follow his teachings. Then what follows is the circular reasoning that why do differing teachings permit (or even promote) evil? The basis of ALL your posting has been rather circular.
"It is because it is" sort of a non "summa..." basis of reasoning.

As for Dover being whatever you assert it was, is obviously spoken out of your your own passive aggressive style of communication.

Your friend with symptoms of Lyme disease.


1 You have a Friend? damn

2 Longer you wait to seek competent medical assistance, the more drastic the consequences. He can suffer serious debilitating outcomes such as cardiac problems and very serious arthritic complications, and even , dementias.

I want aware that lyme Disease had reached the west. There are other tickborne rickettsial diseases like Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever which can have similar initial symptoms, and Lyme disease doesnt always display the "ring" shaped inflammation of the skin around the tick bite area.

Blood work is needed to establish the titer






2

Its very bad if contracted and not treated.


He needs to rethink, methinks - the potentialities range from very sick through crippled all the way up to downright stoically, irreversably, stone-cold dead.


First, its more common than most folks realize. Next, the direct vector is pretty much one particular species of tick among the many species out there. Finally, ticks are seasonal critters, more prone to feeding while gravid than at other times - and prone then as well to feed from a succession of different hosts thereby increasing the possibility of infection - and as active feeders largely are absent from the environment from late autum/early winter well into early/mid spring; that's apparently a function both of available daylight hours and general temperature trending. Around here, the tick population seems to peak from around mid May through late August, and by early/mid October, they're pretty much gone 'til next year.


I'm sure it can - but that's no cause for complacency; if the symptoms are there, the options are just about limited to treat it aggressively and as soon as possible or suffer from its increasing, broadspread damages 'til you die ... and apart from its own set of inconveniences, Lymes has an overall negative impact on the immune system of a sufferer as well, rendering the victim more succeptable to other, unrelated infections. Lymes and other tick-borne diseases are no joke at all - you might want to mention to your freind that few are more stoic than the deceased. At the very least, he should get blood work done to make sure one way or the other.

I forgot one thing. The bite was two years ago. He noticed an inflammation under his arm and pulled off this tick. That's how he tells it. It wasn't treated. It was only when he began getting certain symptoms that he remembered it. And he Googled.

Then he got into serious money.

Is it something to do with deer? Why do we have deer? Is it because they are useless unlike a good old fat cow on the Veblen principle that uselessness = status and utility = odium. Is Lyme caused by posh people preferring deer grazing on the paddock because they **** more delicately and prance more entertainingly? As I presume Hindu theology has worked out.

To borrow timber's phrase, they are "pretty nice" shitters.

Going to breakfast at a country house weekend can easily be spoiled by seeing a bunch of cows on the lawn outside the French windows for those who lack a refined sense of humour.

The critter most associated with Lyme Disease is the Deer Tick. A brief, concise Lyme Disease fact sheet can be found Here.

As for deer being pretty nice shitters, I guess that's a reasonably accurate assessment; their droppings typically are smallish, well-formed, fairly firm spheroid pellets, not unlike a large version of rabbit pellets. The droppings of individual deer in the wild generally are deposited relatively contiguously in a distinct pile, somewhat apart from the droppings piles of other deer, with the piles tending to be encountered more often in moderate to heavy forest as opposed to open field (seems deer like their privacy when it comes to that function). Other than the brush cover/open field deal, deer don't use a habitual latrine area; they'll **** just about wherever they happen to be when the urge strikes. Deer **** is not quite so yucky to look at as cow ****, but it doesn't really smell a whole lot different.