Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

Communism may have been responsible for the killing of millions, but so has democracies, including the US of A. Do a little study on Vietnam and Iraq.

Communists are scumbags? Communists have no morals? What does that have to do with atheism?

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Man has accompllished much during the psat two hundred years. Religion hasn't offered anything except mass killings, religious bigotry, and a whole lot of fearful humans of a god who doesn't understand anything about the complexities of man. Advances in science and progress in technology offers much more than creationism.

CI never ever mentioned atheism in that. He said science and technology.... that's not atheism. It's science and technology. And science and technology have saved lots more than they have killed.

those who don't hold religious beliefs are the only true scientists and therefore are the only ones who have something to offer.

And I've noticed that Setanta attacks Elsie (and Snood) of using the exact techniques he uses… yet no one ever pulls him up? Why is that?

"Philosophically, the notion of a beginning of the present order of Nature [as implied by the Big Bang] is repugnant to me. . . . I should like to find a genuine loophole." Sir Arthur Eddington, Nature, Vol. 127, 1931, p. 450.

"The biggest problem with the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe is philosophical--perhaps even theological--what was there before the bang? This problem alone was sufficient to give a great initial impetus to the Steady State theory; but with that theory now sadly in conflict with the observations, the best way round this initial difficulty is provided by a model in which the universe expands from a singularity, collapses back again, and repeats the cycle indefinitely" John Gribbin, "Oscillating Universe Bounces Back," Nature, Vol. 259, 1976: 15.

"In spite of other successes of the general theory of relativity, the Big Bang, and in particular the idea that the universe had a beginning, was fought bitterly every step of the way." Hubert P. Yockey, Information Theory and Molecular Biology, 1992, Cambridge University Press.

Intelligent design theory + postmodernism = pure science fiction
When the religious Right adopts the epistemology of the multicultural Left -- that truth is relative -- there goes the Enlightenment, writes Noam Scheiber


IN 1993, journalist Jonathan Rauch published a book called Kindly Inquisitors, in which he catalogued contemporary threats to the Enlightenment tradition of seeking truth through logical or empirical discourse.

One of Rauch's points was that, while this (classical) liberal system for amassing knowledge appeared to be under attack from both the religious Right and the multicultural Left, in fact the two groups were making a version of the same argument: mainstream science didn't accord their beliefs the respect they deserved, whether it was creation science on the one hand or feminist or Afro-centric science on the other.

Rauch's book has held up remarkably well in the 12 years since it was published.

This is particularly so in light of the debate in the US over intelligent design (ID) -- the idea, popular on the Right, that life is too complex to have resulted from random variation. Even US President George W. Bush has suggested, as the creation scientists (and multiculturalists) of the 1980s and 1990s did before him, that both sides of the supposed debate be treated as legitimate in public school curricula.

But there was one thing Rauch didn't anticipate. At the time, he suggested that even though creationists had adopted the tactics of the academic Left -- the demand for equal time -- they still believed in objective truths. They just didn't think all of these truths were discoverable by science.

By contrast, today's IDers have gone further and adopted the epistemology of the Left -- the idea that ostensibly scientific truths may be relative.

The animating principle of the postmodern Left is the notion that truth follows from power and not from its intrinsic rightness.

It's a conceit that began in the humanities but eventually spread to hard sciences like physics. "The point is that neither logic nor mathematics escapes the contamination of the social," as postmodern pooh-bah Stanley Aronowitz has put it.

What makes this approach so radical is its implication that the way to win intellectually is to win politically.

The postmodernists rely heavily on the work of historians of science such as Thomas Kuhn. It was Kuhn who famously argued that scientific knowledge proceeds as a sequence of "paradigm shifts" -- revolutions in the way we understand the world -- and that the shifts occur not simply when the evidence in favour of the new paradigm becomes overwhelming, but when the people invested in the old paradigm are in some sense defeated (which may not occur until long after they're proved wrong).

Mainstream science has taken from Kuhn the belief that evidence and logic are necessary, if not quite sufficient, conditions for a paradigm shift and that, in the long run, successive shifts bring society closer to objective truth. Where the postmodernists go awry is in their emphasis on Kuhn's relativism.

Unfortunately, these postmodernist ideas have become a staple of the ID movement.

According to a strategic memo produced by the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, the leading backer of intelligent design, "Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud portrayed humans not as moral and spiritual beings, but as animals or machines who inhabited a universe ruled by purely impersonal forces".

There was nothing particularly objective about this view, according to the IDers. Instead, applying the same reading of Kuhn that the postmodernists embrace, they argue that it was simply the result of a political struggle between insurgents and the establishment.

Probably the clearest example of this comes courtesy of Discovery Institute president Bruce K. Chapman. "All ideas that achieve a sort of uniform acceptance ultimately fall apart, whether it's in the sciences or philosophy or politics, after a few people keep knocking away at it," he recently told The New York Times.

But that's nuts. Germ theory, relativity, the idea that the earth is round -- the fact that all have withstood the occasional challenge suggests that truth counts for something.

Chapman might protest that he's simply proposing a more accurate alternative to evolution, the same way Darwin proposed a more accurate alternative to creationism.

But ID isn't a new theory, just a new attempt to advance an old one, with some new empirical claims thrown in for good measure. Scientists can discredit ID using the exact same evidence they used to debunk creationism.

Once you realise this, it's no longer possible to interpret Chapman as echoing the belief in a steady progression toward truth.

Like all conservatives, of course, the IDers claim to decry relativism and to embrace absolutes. But for them, the claim is logically incoherent in a way it wasn't when it came from their creationist predecessors.

When a proposition is empirically false, as both creationism and ID (to the extent that it makes empirical claims) are, you're free to assert its truth; you just can't call it science.

The creationists had no problem with this; they just rejected any science that contradicted the Bible.

But the IDers aspire to scientific truth. Unfortunately, the only way to claim that something empirically false is scientifically true is to question science's capacity for sorting out truth from falsehood, the same way postmodernists do.

Conservatives were quick to point out the danger of this view in the 1980s and 90s. They argued that a science that rejected the idea of truth was vulnerable to the most inane forms of intellectual hucksterism. And they were right. It's not hard to imagine scams such as cold fusion or the Scientologist critique of psychiatric drugs gaining ground in a world where science's ability to identify knowledge has been undermined. (Among other monuments to postmodern thought was the idea that E=mc2 might be a "sexed equation" that "privileges the speed of light over other speeds", as Belgian-French theorist Luce Irigaray once asserted.)

Americans don't like thinking of themselves as backward. As a result, the risk from science-rejecting creationists hasn't been particularly acute in recent decades. But most people don't have very strong views on the philosophy of science. If, unlike the postmodern Left, the ID movement can enlist mainstream conservatives in questioning science's capacity to produce objective truth, then it's by no means clear the effort won't succeed.

In that case, it will end up threatening a whole lot more than just evolution.

The New Republic

We're supposed to be a christian-leaning country. Doesn't speak too highly about our form of government either

Welcome to the marketplace of ideas, to critical analysis of truth claims and, most particularly, to free speech...
But I'll take you to task on just one issue...the apparently axiomatic belief that religious ideas are somehow exempt from questioning or from satirization...
In a free state, your right to believe as you wish must be considered absolute, equally, your right to worship as you choose, and your right to speak your beliefs. Of course, for such rights to remain in place, they must be applied equally to all others besides yourself and those who belong to your particular religious sect.

But perhaps you consider this a matter of simple manners...that folks ought not to satirize religious ideas of any sort

That is exactly how I consider it. No one should have the right to make fun of something that is held dear to someone.

If I started spreading hate mail, ridiculing or using the name of a member of your family or someone you loved as a dirty word, then perhaps you would understand how it feels to have the same thing happen to your God. I am fed up with hearing my God's name blasphemed, and I am fed up with people thinking they are amusing by taking cheap shots at christians and at Jesus.

As for the right to speak your beliefs and the right to criticise beliefs of any kind, I have no argument with that, in fact I am all for criticism of existing institutions, as you will have noted in my stance on evolution. People should have the right to question and criticise institutions, whether they are governmental institutions, scientific or religious ones. HOWEVER, there is a big difference between having the freedom to criticise and the freedom to ridicule, defame and vilify. No one should have the right to do that.

blatham wrote:

But perhaps you consider this a matter of simple manners...that folks ought not to satirize religious ideas of any sort

That is exactly how I consider it. No one should have the right to make fun of something that is held dear to someone.

If I started spreading hate mail, ridiculing or using the name of a member of your family or someone you loved as a dirty word, then perhaps you would understand how it feels to have the same thing happen to your God. I am fed up with hearing my God's name blasphemed, and I am fed up with people thinking they are amusing by taking cheap shots at christians and at Jesus.

As for the right to speak your beliefs and the right to criticise beliefs of any kind, I have no argument with that, in fact I am all for criticism of existing institutions, as you will have noted in my stance on evolution. People should have the right to question and criticise institutions, whether they are governmental institutions, scientific or religious ones. HOWEVER, there is a big difference between having the freedom to criticise and the freedom to ridicule, defame and vilify. No one should have the right to do that.

That [a matter of simple manners] is exactly how I consider it. No one should have the right to make fun of something that is held dear to someone. If I started spreading hate mail, ridiculing or using the name of a member of your family or someone you loved as a dirty word, then perhaps you would understand how it feels to have the same thing happen to your God. I am fed up with hearing my God's name blasphemed, and I am fed up with people thinking they are amusing by taking cheap shots at christians and at Jesus.

For example if I tell you I disagree that there is a deity then that's not mocking or meant to be offensive, it's what I believe

Also surely it's okay to point out the ridiculousness of the Intelligent Design argument is it not? And to suggest that it should be taught in religous classes (if an education system allows for that) or in current affairs or current controversies, but not in science as it's not science?

adele_g wrote:
As for the right to speak your beliefs and the right to criticise beliefs of any kind, I have no argument with that, in fact I am all for criticism of existing institutions, as you will have noted in my stance on evolution. People should have the right to question and criticise institutions, whether they are governmental institutions, scientific or religious ones. HOWEVER, there is a big difference between having the freedom to criticise and the freedom to ridicule, defame and vilify. No one should have the right to do that.


Why is that?

What if I think the god of the Bible is a savage...a jealous, vindictive, quick-to-anger slow-to-forgive, tyrannical, retributive, petty, murderous, barbarian? Why should I not be allowed to mention that...and to point out the passages in the Bible that shows the god to be exactly that?

Why, if I consider religion to be little more than superstition....and one of the most dangerous elements in society...should I not be allowed to point that out?

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blatham wrote:
But perhaps you consider this a matter of simple manners...that folks ought not to satirize religious ideas of any sort


That is exactly how I consider it. No one should have the right to make fun of something that is held dear to someone.

Why?

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If I started spreading hate mail, ridiculing or using the name of a member of your family or someone you loved as a dirty word, then perhaps you would understand how it feels to have the same thing happen to your God. I am fed up with hearing my God's name blasphemed, and I am fed up with people thinking they are amusing by taking cheap shots at christians and at Jesus.


Sounds like you may be in the wrong place! If you don't like heat and cooking odors...you should not be hanging out in the kitchen.

Ironic, isn't it.

You apparently do not like YOUR religious notions or your particular religion satirized

What do you think Jefferson meant in his letter?

if you were to confide as to which particular christian sect you share allegiance, dollars to donuts I can quickly find examples of your sect's leaders/spokespersons satirizing or ridiculing other religious ideas. Care to share?

Many things are held dear by many people. Political ideas and political parties are held dear by many. Ought there to be some law disallowing criticism and satirization of political parties?

If such a person were to suggest that astrology ought to be taught in science classes - or suggest that government policy ought to be determined by astrological readings, should such suggestions be allowed to pass unimpeded by satirization?

You may well be tired of hearing your god's name blasphemed. Tough luck. There's nothing which gives your god or your faith special status over that of others.

But why even be concerned? Obviously, God can handle sticks and stones without damage.

That is exactly how I consider it. No one should have the right to make fun of something that is held dear to someone.

If I started spreading hate mail, ridiculing or using the name of a member of your family or someone you loved as a dirty word, then perhaps you would understand how it feels to have the same thing happen to your God.

I am fed up with hearing my God's name blasphemed, and I am fed up with people thinking they are amusing by taking cheap shots at christians and at Jesus.