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Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

 
 
cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Mon 7 May, 2007 09:23 am
spendi wrote: "Of course it is obscure."

The problem with this statement are many; it assumes only those with belief systems without evidence has some credibility (which it does not). It's obscure because there is no definable evidence in support of it for people such as yourself - except in your imagination.
0 Replies
 
Foxfyre
 
  1  
Mon 7 May, 2007 09:23 am
OGIONIK wrote:
anyone who hasnt experienced any of those would be what you call, brain dead.


And yet you stated that I haven't presented any facts? Hmmm....are you acknowledging that you are brain dead? Or perhaps you would like to retract your statement that I haven't presented any facts.
0 Replies
 
wandeljw
 
  1  
Mon 7 May, 2007 10:55 am
Here are 2 items about ID as an issue among presidential candidates:

Quote:
Debate shows Darwin split in GOP
(Patricia Cohen, The New York Times, May 5, 2007)

Evolution has long generated bitter fights, but now, a dispute has cropped up within conservative circles, not over science, but over political ideology: Does Darwinian theory undermine conservative notions of religion and morality or does it actually support conservative philosophy?

On one level, the debate can be seen as a polite discussion of political theory among a small group of intellectuals. But the argument also exposes tension within the Republicans' "big tent," as could be seen Thursday night when the 10 GOP candidates for president were asked during their first debate whether they believed in evolution. Three of them -- Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado -- indicated they did not.

For some conservatives, accepting Darwin undercuts religious faith and produces an amoral, materialistic world view that easily embraces abortion, embryonic stem cell research and other practices they abhor. As an alternative to Darwin, many advocate intelligent design, which holds that life is so intricately organized that only an intelligent power could have created it.

Yet it is that very embrace of intelligent design -- not to mention creationism, which takes a literal view of the Bible's Book of Genesis -- that has led conservative opponents to speak out for fear their ideology will be branded as out-of-touch and anti-science.

Some of these thinkers have gone one step further, arguing that Darwin's scientific theories about the evolution of species can be applied to today's patterns of human behavior. They argue that natural selection can provide support for many conservative ideas like traditional social roles for men and women, free market capitalism and governmental checks and balances.

"I do indeed believe conservatives need Charles Darwin," said Larry Arnhart, a professor of political science at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, who has spearheaded the cause.

The arguments have played out in recent books, magazine articles and blogs, as well as at a conference Thursday at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. There, Arnhart was tag-teamed with John Derbyshire, a contributing editor at National Review, against John G. West and George Gilder, both of whom are associated with the Discovery Institute, which advocates intelligent design.

What both sides do agree on is that conservatives who have shied away from these debates should speak up. Arnhart said that having been so badly burned by social Darwinism, many conservatives today don't want "to get involved in these moral and political debates, and I think that's evasive."

West agrees that "conservatives who are discomfited by the continuing debate over Darwin's theory need to understand that it is not about to go away."



Quote:
Mitt Romney's Campaign on Evolution
(David Brody, Christian Broadcasting Network Opinion, May 5, 2007)

Kevin Madden, Mitt Romney's spokesman has responded to The Brody File question on whether Mitt Romney believes in Evolution. I wanted to know his thoughts about it because at the debate the other night only three candidates raised their hand expressing doubt about Evolution. Romney was not one of those candidates. Here's the Romney campaign response:

"Governor Romney believes both science and faith can help inform us about the origins of life in this world."

With all due respect, what does that mean exactly? It leaves me with more questions. I have asked for further clarification which I assume will be forthcoming here at the Brody File. I have now asked the Romney campaign specifically if he believes in Darwin's theory of Evolution or does he take the Creationist view? The answer above suggests that he may believe in both. I'm not saying he does. I'm just saying I'm a tad bit confused by the answer.

Here's the key point. The majority of Born Again Evangelicals take the Creationist viewpoint. Some Evangelicals already have concerns about Romney's Mormon faith. He needs support from Evangelicals to win. That's why this issue is an important one that needs to be cleared up. I don't think this is an issue that Romney can avoid. I believe his views need to be clear.

I understand Evolution can mean different things to different people and it can be a complicated issue. But Darwin's theory of Evolution is more clear cut. It is considered a "religion" of sorts by fundamentalist Christians. I fully realize that a Commander in Chief will not be making any "executive" decisions when it comes to Evolution. But since many Evangelicals are looking for a candidate with solid social issue conservative beliefs, Evolution enters the equation along with abortion and gay marriage.
0 Replies
 
farmerman
 
  1  
Mon 7 May, 2007 11:31 am
foxfyre
Quote:
Have you ever done a math problem in your head? Have you ever had something we call feelings? Have you ever had a rush of inspiration that evolved out of your own thought process and realization? Have you ever been in love? Will you please describe these things in a way that anybody who has not experienced them will know they are facts?
Interesting copout. You claim these feelings as some kind of evidence? Id say that youre a few yards behind. Noone denys "feelings" Ive stated that they just cannot be used as any kind of evidence.
The evidence that would be worth a pinch of snuff would be to reproduce the brain chemistry that defines empathy or love, or what are the neural pathways involved in problem solving and how are they similar to other primates. See the difference?

I think that youre just hanging on to a board thats dangling over the side, or else youre just involved with verbal masturbation like spendi. Whichever, most reasonable people dont buy it.
0 Replies
 
Foxfyre
 
  1  
Mon 7 May, 2007 11:33 am
farmerman wrote:
foxfyre
Quote:
Have you ever done a math problem in your head? Have you ever had something we call feelings? Have you ever had a rush of inspiration that evolved out of your own thought process and realization? Have you ever been in love? Will you please describe these things in a way that anybody who has not experienced them will know they are facts?
Interesting copout. You claim these feelings as some kind of evidence? Id say that youre a few yards behind. Noone denys "feelings" Ive stated that they just cannot be used as any kind of evidence.
The evidence that would be worth a pinch of snuff would be to reproduce the brain chemistry that defines empathy or love, or what are the neural pathways involved in problem solving and how are they similar to other primates. See the difference?

I think that youre just hanging on to a board thats dangling over the side, or else youre just involved with verbal masturbation like spendi. Whichever, most reasonable people dont buy it.


And I think you're a grumpy old man who is totally out of arguments, reasoned or supportable with documented facts, and reduced to an ad hominem mantra in a feeble effort to participate. Of course I can't prove that with anything other than several dozen posts. Very Happy
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OGIONIK
 
  1  
Mon 7 May, 2007 11:39 am
ok i forfeit, i seriously think the only way to deal with ID now that i see what facts they use to back i up, is to ignore it. i dont see how not being able to describe an epiphany is a fact. its easily described. solving a complex problem. presto! if ID is real, then where did "our creator"
come from. he just existed? and thats that?
0 Replies
 
spendius
 
  1  
Mon 7 May, 2007 11:43 am
OGI-

It was this that was silly-

Quote:
if u have any id love to hear about it. im serious if god exists id really like to know.


We all would. There is no chance of us ever knowing.

As Bob Dylan wrote-

"...who sees the invisible things of Him that are hidden from the world".

I expect we might all freak out if we actually knew.

There are consequences to belief and unbelief. It is those one is choosing between. As far as agnosticism is concerned it is difficult to see how the consequences would differ substantially from unbelief or, more accurately, belief that no God exists. It is more than a crossword puzzle.

Would you rather live in a society solely guided by materialist contingencies or one guided by them but mitigated by some religious belief. The muzzling question again.

Will you answer the question fm daren't touch and wande said was "too difficult to handle"?
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farmerman
 
  1  
Mon 7 May, 2007 11:48 am
Quote:
And I think you're a grumpy old man who is totally out of arguments, reasoned or supportable with documented facts, and reduced to an ad hominem mantra in a feeble effort to participate. Of course I can't prove that with anything other than several dozen posts.

Whose issuing the ad homs and then blaming it upon someone else? Good adebate trick.

"Im not going to sink to the depths that my opponent has sunk. He is, after all a weasely atheist who has no m oral notochord."

Ive given you tons of citations, excerpts , information, and data from peer revieweed journals, . All Ive gotten from you is some silly arguments that "experience" is data.


Besides , Im probably way younger than you.
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wandeljw
 
  1  
Mon 7 May, 2007 11:49 am
spendius wrote:
Will you answer the question fm daren't touch and wande said was "too difficult to handle"?


spendi,

I was being sarcastic and you had already admitted knowing that Lola was being sarcastic about "muzzling science". There is no need for people to debate a joke.
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spendius
 
  1  
Mon 7 May, 2007 11:53 am
Foxy wrote-

Quote:
totally out of arguments, reasoned or supportable with documented facts, and reduced to an ad hominem mantra in a feeble effort to participate.


I've thought that since I started on this debate. I've said so many times one way or another.

Anti-IDers are totally defeated. They just can't stop squeaking.

But I would never say fm was a grumpy old man. He has just got himself married to a simple idea and has run with it so long against feeble opponents that it has become ingrained. My mission is to straighten him out. The others are not serious. It's more of a fashion to them like hem lines.
0 Replies
 
Foxfyre
 
  1  
Mon 7 May, 2007 11:54 am
farmerman wrote:
Quote:
And I think you're a grumpy old man who is totally out of arguments, reasoned or supportable with documented facts, and reduced to an ad hominem mantra in a feeble effort to participate. Of course I can't prove that with anything other than several dozen posts.

Whose issuing the ad homs and then blaming it upon someone else? Good adebate tric.


I haven't called you any names. Well okay, 'grumpy old man' but only in retaliation for the insults you built into several posts.

Quote:
"Im not going to sink to the depths that my opponent has sunk. He is, after all a weasely atheist who has no m oral notochord."


A noble goal, but one generally unsuited to those of us who admit to having feet of clay.

Quote:
Ive given you tons of citations, excerpts , information, and data from peer revieweed journals, . All Ive gotten from you is some silly arguments that "experience" is data.


I must have missed the citations, excerpts, information, and data from peer reviewed journals that disputed the concept of ID. Maybe you could refer me to one just to refresh my memory?

Quote:
Besides , Im probably way younger than you.


You could be way younger than me and still be old and grumpy.
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farmerman
 
  1  
Mon 7 May, 2007 11:57 am
(((((yawn)))))
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Foxfyre
 
  1  
Mon 7 May, 2007 11:58 am
Aha! See? It's time for your nap.
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spendius
 
  1  
Mon 7 May, 2007 12:10 pm
wande wrote-

Quote:
I was being sarcastic and you had already admitted knowing that Lola was being sarcastic about "muzzling science". There is no need for people to debate a joke.


Okay wande-

Answer it then unequivocally.

Are you in favour of muzzling science then? (I think it was).

You said it was "too difficult" for you. I can't see how one could now claim that was a sarcasm when the question is too difficult for most people as well. I hope you don't think we are taken in by the "I was only joking" malarky. It didn't read like a sarcasm at all. And you made no comment when I complimented you on your honesty which you yourself are now calling into question after what seems like a fortnight. What else are you only joking about?

What's the point in debating with people who may be only joking and will only reveal the fact when it suits them.

Yes-Lola was being sarcastic but she has not responded yet to my clear and unequivocal answer other than with a grudging agreement which, when translated scientifically, meant that she agreed that science should be muzzled. So that was Lola out of the anti-ID camp for sure. Which might be why she didn't pursue the matter and contented herself with pulling her tongue out and possibly slamming the door.
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wandeljw
 
  1  
Mon 7 May, 2007 12:23 pm
spendi,

I gave an unequivocal answer in my previous post. The issue is a joke
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spendius
 
  1  
Mon 7 May, 2007 01:25 pm
Yeah. What are all these "ethics" committees for then? What's the fuss about stem cells for? Or cloning? What's up with price gouging? Why isn't subliminal advertising let loose and let the devil take the hindmost like evolution does? How does "that woman" belong to that guy? What's the age of consent all about? Why do we avoid torture? What the hell is evil if it's all a joke. Are you up for mass medication (in the water) if the scientists say it will save lives?

You think it's all a joke do you? You are defeated.

It's no joke wande and I'm surprised anyone would stoop to such a tactic bearing in mind the evidence of the legislation.

Unmuzzled science eh? It would scare the living daylights out of you.

I take it you have joined the ranks of those refusing to answer. The previous position, which is now a load of bollocks because you were only joking, is a respectable position. This one isn't. It's the bloody ostrich arse wag.
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wandeljw
 
  1  
Mon 7 May, 2007 01:32 pm
spendius wrote:
Yeah. What are all these "ethics" committees for then? What's the fuss about stem cells for? Or cloning?


They all refer to restrictions on how science is used. That is not the same as muzzling science.
0 Replies
 
Setanta
 
  1  
Mon 7 May, 2007 01:37 pm
Foxfyre wrote:
I must have missed the citations, excerpts, information, and data from peer reviewed journals that disputed the concept of ID. Maybe you could refer me to one just to refresh my memory?


Your problem is that you jumped in after this thread was more than a thousand pages long--and didn't bother to read it. Typical.
0 Replies
 
spendius
 
  1  
Mon 7 May, 2007 02:01 pm
wande wrote-

Quote:
They all refer to restrictions on how science is used. That is not the same as muzzling science.


It is to most people. You are descending into cheap sophistry. There are areas where research is banned by overwhelming public consent. Maybe you don't know what they are but I am aware of some of them though doubtless not them all.

Your problem is that you think if you don't know about something it doesn't exist.
0 Replies
 
Foxfyre
 
  1  
Mon 7 May, 2007 02:05 pm
Here's another point of view that Conservatives NEED Darwin and it is mostly Liberals that are at odds with it. There are interesting considerations to be found here, but one must get out of the pure scientific mode to deal with them. The unanswerable questions (via Darwin) come at the end:

But Is It Good for the Conservatives?
Darwinism and its discontents.
by Andrew Ferguson
05/14/2007, Volume 012, Issue 33

They only had two and a half hours to settle some knotty questions--Does reality have an ultimate, metaphysical foundation? Is there content to the universe?--so they had to talk fast. But not fast enough. By the time the formidable panel discussion was over last week, I, as a member of the audience, had even more questions about the nature of reality than usual.

This hardly ever happens at a think tank, even Washington's most audacious and interesting think tank, the American Enterprise Institute. One reason AEI stands as the capital's premier research organization is that it alone would think to assemble a quartet of intelligent and accomplished people to debate the implications of Darwinism for political thought and public policy. Specifically, the panel's title was "Darwinism and Conservatism: Friends or Foes?" Its moderator was Steven Hayward, the biographer of Ronald Reagan, and in the quartet he conducted were Larry Arnhart, a political scientist from Northern Illinois University; John Derbyshire, an author and a blogger for National Review Online; John West, a political scientist formerly of Seattle Pacific University and now of the Discovery Institute; and his colleague at Discovery, George Gilder, the legendary author of Wealth and Poverty, Microcosm, The Spirit of Enterprise, and Life After Television. (Gilder is routinely and correctly called a visionary, partly because he's the only man on earth who can imagine life without television.)

In the yin-yang, either-or, whose-side-are-you-on language that we Washingtonians prefer, you could say that Arnhart and Derbyshire are pro-Darwinians--defenders of Darwin's theory of the origin of species and relatively satisfied that it explains most of the things that need explaining. Gilder and West are anti-Darwinians, who work hard to point out the theory's limitations, both scientific and philosophical. And all four of them, to one extent or another, are men of the right. Note, though, that the subject of their panel wasn't the primary question of whether Darwinian theory is true; it was the secondary question of whether Darwinian theory and political conservatism abet each other as ways of understanding and shaping the world: "Does Darwin's theory help defend or undermine traditional morality and family life? Does it encourage or discredit economic freedom?"

In his remarks, Derbyshire objected that such questions, which were after all the point of the panel he had traveled to Washington to be on, were nonetheless pointless. "Conservatism and Darwinism are orthogonal," he said. "Neither one implies the other."

That sort of party-poopery could easily have ended the discussion right there--except that, as Hayward said, the commingling of Darwinism with political theory and practice has a long and unavoidable history. The relationship has waxed and waned. Most obviously and infamously, Darwinism spawned Social Darwinism, or so Social Darwinists claimed. Its pitiless principle of survival of the fittest was, Hayward pointed out, invoked by the Confederacy's most articulate theorist, Alexander Stephens, and also by the champions of unregulated capitalism in robber baron America. Throughout the late 19th century, Social Darwinists assumed that Darwin's theory had disproved the liberal (in the old sense) tradition of natural rights and natural law that inspired the Founding Fathers. John Dewey argued for Darwin's relevance to social and political arrangements, and so did most of his fellow Progressives: Woodrow Wilson, for instance, who said that "living constitutions must be Darwinian in structure and in practice." Traces of Social Darwinism can be found too in Hitler and Stalin, both of whom were even worse than Woodrow Wilson.

In light of such unhappy history, Hayward said, "I sometimes wish there could be a separation of science and state to go along with a separation of religion and state."

It's a nice idea, but it too might have ended the discussion right then and there, except that Darwinism is once again being used by partisans of a particular political philosophy. This time the lucky philosophy is contemporary American conservatism, and the foremost proponent of the conservative-Darwinian dalliance is Arnhart. He offered a quick summary of his position, which has become popular among right-wingers of a libertarian stripe and has found its fullest expression in Arnhart's book Darwinian Conservatism.

"Conservatives need Darwin," he said. Without the scientific evidence Darwinian theory offers, conservative views would be swamped by liberal sentimentality. The left-wing view of human nature as unfixed and endlessly manipulable has led to countless disastrous Utopian schemes. Hard-headed Darwinians, on the other hand, see human nature as settled and enduring and stubbornly unchangeable, and conservatives can wield the findings of Darwin to rebut the scheming, ambitious busybodies of the left and their subversion of custom and tradition. (I'm paraphrasing, by the way.)

Darwinism, he said, supports the conservative view of sexual differences and family life. Left-wingers see these things as social constructions, mere conventions that can be overridden in the quest for personal liberation; Darwin anchors them in nature. Darwinism supports the conservative view of private property and the marketplace, because our innermost desires, shaped by natural selection over thousands of years, include an unstoppable need to own property and to find gratification in trading our property with others. And Darwinism supports the view of limited, decentralized government, since the selfish human nature revealed by Darwin requires that no single authority be trusted with unchecked power.

West, the anti-Darwinian, began his rebuttal by pointing out that many leftists have criticized Darwin, too, so no one should think that anti-Darwinism is exclusively an obsession of religious primitives on the right. Kurt Vonnegut, oddly enough, spoke against Darwinian evolution, so anti-Darwinism is an obsession of overrated novelists on the left as well. West's most important point, though, is that Darwinism is an intellectual package deal. Accepting its larger scientific claims about the origins of life, and about how human nature came to be the way it is, requires acceptance of its much less appealing philosophical suppositions: that the universe is a random, directionless process, that human existence has no point or purpose, that free will and the sanctity of the self are ultimately illusions.

The amorality built into Darwinism, West said, explains why it has so easily been employed by eugenicists of both left and right. Reduced to the material processes of chemistry and physics, life as it is, even human life, no longer seems terribly worthy of respect. "Why not use reason to direct evolution to produce a new kind of human being?" West asked, in devil's advocate mode. "What's so sacrosanct about existing human dispositions and capacities, since they were all produced by such a purposeless process?"

As anti-Darwinians like to do, West has combed the vast corpus of Darwin's writings to find the creepiest possible examples of the great man's cold-bloodedness. Darwin himself apparently didn't believe that scientific questions of natural selection and political questions of human social arrangements were wholly unrelated. In pointing out how vaccinations had saved thousands of otherwise infirm people from death, he wrote:

No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.
So Darwinism, viewed one way, can easily be considered morally disastrous. But, responded pro-Darwin Derbyshire, Is it true? "The truth value of Darwinism is essential," he said. "The truth value always comes first." If Darwinism is true--and its undeniable success in explaining the world suggests that it is--and if Darwinism undermines conservatism, as West had claimed, "then so much the worse for conservatism."

It was left to Gilder to provide a way out of this dilemma, if it is a dilemma. He noted that extremely complex explanations of physical processes can be thoroughly accurate, yet still incomplete--or even beside the point. Consider the microchip, he said. Like the human mind, it is often "presented as a thinking machine."

"But," he said, "you can know the location of every molecule and atom in a microprocessor, you can know their movements and how each gate within it is flipping, without having any idea at all of the function the computer is undertaking." You can explain all these things, in other words, without explaining the most important thing: What's it doing--and why?

Thus Gilder offered a concession by way of a compromise: "Darwinism may be true," he said, "but it's ultimately trivial." It is not a "fundamental explanation for creation or the universe." Evolution and natural selection may explain why organic life presents to us its marvelous exfoliation. Yet Darwinism leaves untouched the crucial mysteries--who we are, why we are here, how we are to behave toward one another, and how we should fix the alternative minimum tax. And these are questions, except the last one, that lie beyond the expertise of any panel at any think tank, even AEI.
SOURCE
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