The central issue, and problem, of this thread, is a subcurrent in contemporary Christianity which is a form of paranoia. For reasons which are often more concerned with personal demagoguery than with doctrinal orthodoxy, influential members of the Christian community have advanced--in the not-quite one hundred and fifty years of the public discussion of evolution--the thesis that acceptance of a theory of evolution will inevitably lead to a denial of the existence of a deity. Certainly, let it be acknowledged there are a great many people who espouse this point of view precisely for reasons of doctrinal orthodoxy. For many, and perhaps most, of the religiously devout who reject a theory of evolution, the appearance of a denial of doctrinal orthodoxy both invalidates the theory, and reveals it for an atheistic assault on their own beliefs.
The member that began this thread placed it in Spirituality and Religion as opposed to Science and Mathematics. Although to the observer not exercised with the question, this may seem quixotic, it is understandable that for those who feel their core belief system is under assault--i.e., those who entertain the paranoia to which i've referred--this is a religious issue. The first two posts of this thread read:
Quote:What makes Evolution so believable. Just because a bunch of scientists tell you it is. It is a theory, an idea, a guess. Why?
Quote:I seem to find a lot more truth from the Bible and not what a bunch of scientists tell me. come on seriously how believable is all the "scientific" stuff they say is right. a monkey turning in to a man? A big bang and the world was formed? How did the stuff that collided get formed?
Obviously, this in a character of a stochastic criticism of a theory of evolution--that it is conjecture, and conjecture only. It is not, however, unreasonable to suggest that a great many genuine practitioners of science would be willing to so stipulate. On such a basis, the religiously devout who indulge the paranoia about an atheistic subtext to a theory of evolution therefore retort that their conjecture, their preferred dogmatic canon, has as much validity, or that it makes better sense than evolutionary biology.
Additionally, despite sneers from the religiously devout that those who accept a theory of evolution as the most plausible explanation for the diversity of forms of life want to consider themselves the superior being in the universe, it is in fact just such a contention which often motivates their scorn and disgust with the notion that man and the great apes share a common ancestor. It is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. In the King James Version, Genesis, chapter 1, verse 26, reads:
Quote:And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
So in fact, for many devout Christians, they are themselves "the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals," and all plant and animal life is inferior to them, God having granted to them dominion over all other life. It is a deep affront to them to be characterized as a cousin to a chimpanzee, because they believe themselves to be the superior being of the universe, saving only the God who created them.
To read the 316 pages of this thread would be to find the same arguments advanced again and again by each side in the dispute, and to see those arguments treated with incredulity and scorn by each side in the dispute. Those who consider a theory of evolution to be the most plausible explanation for the diversity of forms of life on this planet are not likely to be convinced by appeals to religious orthodoxy. Those who consider their preferred religious canon to be the repository of all truth are not likely to be convinced by a contention of the superiority of scientific materialism as an explanation for observable phenomena. So i submit that such a discussion as this is an exercise in futility.
Intelligent Desgn is not a scientific theory by definition; it fails the requirement of naturalism. No debate or peer review on this is required. It's a non-scientific theory, it's dead before it even starts. It's like that parrot on Monty Python who has passed away, deceased, demised... It's a non-starter from the beginning.
Science must be:
1. Based upon results obtained through observations and experiments that can be substantiated by other scientists. (NAS, 1998)
2. Subject to testing because scientists can observe the natural world to see if the explanation holds up. (Ayala, 1974; Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, 1963)
3. "Falsifiable," in the sense that some type of observations could conceivably count against the theory. (Ayala, 1974; Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, 1963)
4. "Tentative," meaning that they are not held absolutely but are held subject to state of the evidence. (NAS, 1998)
Intelligent design theory predicts: 1) that we will find specified complexity in biology. One easily detectable form of specified complexity is irreducible complexity. We can test design by trying to reverse engineer biological structures to determine if there is an "irreducible core." Intelligent design also makes other predictions, such as 2) rapid appearance of complexity in the fossil record, 3) re-usage of similar parts in different organisms, and 4) function for biological structures.
W.A. Dembski, The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
This book was published by Cambridge University Press and peer-reviewed as part of a distinguished monograph series, Cambridge Studies in Probability, Induction, and Decision Theory. The editorial board of that series includes members of the National Academy of Sciences as well as one Nobel laureate, John Harsanyi, who shared the prize in 1994 with John Nash, the protagonist in the film A Beautiful Mind. Commenting on the ideas in The Design Inference, well-known physicist and science writer Paul Davies remarks: "Dembski's attempt to quantify design, or provide mathematical criteria for design, is extremely useful. I'm concerned that the suspicion of a hidden agenda is going to prevent that sort of work from receiving the recognition it deserves." Quoted in L. Witham, By Design (San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2003), p. 149.
Michael Behe, Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (The Free Press, 1996).
In this book Behe develops a critique of the mechanism of natural selection and a positive case for the theory of intelligent design based upon the presence of "irreducibly complex molecular machines" and circuits inside cells. Though this book was published by The Free Press, a trade press, the publisher subjected the book to standard scientific peer-review by several prominent biochemists and biological scientists.
Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay W. Richards, The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery (Regnery Publishing, 2004).
Gonzalez and Richards develop a novel case for the theory of intelligent design based on developments in astronomy and planetary science. They show that the conditions necessary to produce a habitable planet are extremely rare and improbable. In addition, they show that the one planet we are aware of that possesses these characteristics is also a planet that has characteristics uniquely adapted to scientific exploration, thus suggesting not simply that the earth is the recipient of the fortunate conditions necessary for life, but that it appears to be uniquely designed for scientific discovery.
Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (Adler & Adler, 1985). Denton, an Australian molecular biologist, provides a comprehensive critique of neo- Darwinian evolutionary theory. In a penultimate chapter, entitled "The Molecular Labyrinth," he also develops a strong positive case for the design hypothesis based on the integrated complexity of molecular biological systems. As a religiously agnostic scientist, Denton emphasizes that this case for design is based upon scientific evidence and the application of standard forms of scientific reasoning. As Denton explains, while the case for design may have religious implications, "it does not depend upon religious premises."
M.J. Behe and D.W. Snoke, "Simulating Evolution by Gene Duplication of Protein Features That Require Multiple Amino Acid Residues," Protein Science, 13 (2004): 2651-2664.
In this article, Behe and Snoke show how difficult it is for unguided evolutionary processes to take existing protein structures and add novel proteins whose interface compatibility is such that they could combine functionally with the original proteins. By demonstrating inherent limitations to unguided evolutionary processes, this work gives indirect scientific support to intelligent design and bolsters Behe's case for intelligent design in answer to some of his critics.
John Angus Campbell and Stephen C. Meyer, Darwinism, Design, & Public Education (Michigan State University Press, 2003)
This is a collection of interdisciplinary essays that addresses the scientific and educational controversy concerning the theory of intelligent design. Accordingly, it was peer-reviewed by a philosopher of science, a rhetorician of science, and a professor in the biological sciences from an Ivy League university. The book contains five scientific articles advancing the case for the theory of intelligent design.
setanta wrote:You suggested that i read a certain Mr. Johnson's book. I checked it out, found out who the author is, found out what foundation published the work, and then stated that i might be willing to read it if it were available online, but that i wouldn't spend my money on it. You have sneered and ridiculed ever since. You have done so just above. You deserve no sympathy
Don't try to feign innocence setanta, I never suggested you read anything. I suggested that Lola read the book. You jumped in with this:
setanta wrote:You just found it? You mean you just went to the IDer wellsprings and dug up something you think will seem to have scholarly credentials to underpin your silly arguments?
Correct me if I'm wrong but this sounds a lot like ridicule to me, and if my tone of writing to you ever since that has been less than jovial, perhaps you can understand why.
I never picked a fight with you setanta, if anything, you picked one with me.
You know what, I don't think I ever intentionally engaged in conversation with you setanta. The only times I have replied to you have been when you comment on my posts to other people, and more recently your comments about me to other people.
no i likely did not read any post addresed to someone other than me if i were at that time pressed for time
1) that we will find specified complexity in biology. One easily detectable form of specified complexity is irreducible complexity. We can test design by trying to reverse engineer biological structures to determine if there is an "irreducible core."
]2) rapid appearance of complexity in the fossil record,
3) re-usage of similar parts in different organisms,
and 4) function for biological structures.
Did you not see my long list of peer-reviewed articles and books?
blatham wrote:
.
I think thomas' question points us in the wrong direction. It's probably more helpful to think of American schools not as causal in American religiosity and polarization but rather that American schools simply reflect that particular national religiosity and polarization. There are historical reasons for this (and for differences with Canada) and you might turn to Hofstadter for thorough explication, but I'm betting you won't. Protestant evangelical activism (of a relatively poorly educated and theologically unsophisticated sort) has played a role in US history of far greater significance and consequence than in Canada (or England or Europe).
So I guess that your answer to the question posed by Thomas and elaborated by me is that you will not answer it. Instead, you will answer another question. OK, but I believe the original question still has merit -
thomas wonders how it might be that Canada and the US are notably different as regards evangelical fervor on this issue, and he asks if we might have religion classes in our schools. We don't. Our curricula are very much the same, and nearly identical in maths/sciences. So your thesis here, george, doesn't speak to the differences at all
it involves the absence of a correct intellectual grounding of science in philosophy in school curricula; it appears to be a potential central element in the ongoing public debate; and it involves the resistance of a significant segment of the American population to the intrusive demands placed on it by government authorities.
What grade do you wish to begin instruction in epistemological issues regarding science, george? As a little experiment, I suggest you write up a proposal and take it down to your local school board, or to the education secretary of your home state just to get some idea of the competition you'll immediately enter for "this [pet interest] must be taught immediately in our schools". Like your idea, many others are damned good ones.
Thomas has noted that it was those same Protestant Evangelicals who founded Harvard, Princeton, Yale and the largest fraction of our original University system.
Well, he might have noted it, but he's wrong. Those institutions were set up by the Puritans, a very different breed of early american christian community who brought with them a deep respect for education.
While many (or most) of their visible spokesmen in the current political debate may appear (and, in some cases, be) unsophisticated and poorly educated, it is demonstrably false to imply that they either resist intellectual inquiry or are unintelligent themselves. Indeed if they truly have developed and operated this vast insidious conspiracy that poses such a threat to the established secular order and the apparatus of public agencies, they cannot be mere fools.
Last sentence not worth the ink, george. Get thee to Hofstadter.
Quote:A proponent of some theistic element in the universe does NOT have to be stupid, unthoughtful, or unlettered. There's a lot of sophisticated thought on this question going back even further than christian history. But very little of it has emerged from out of the American protestant tradition. Who here can even name an American protestant theologian of any stature? And if someone names, say, Plantinga, then what following can one point to? The reality of American religious thought sits us down in the company of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and others of the same sort, some better, such as Grapham, but many even less agreeable than those named.
The tradition has been anti-school/education in the main. The cliches and dichotomies we see in modern rhetoric (universities are elitist, feminine, non-practical, and probably destructive to the social good; the simple man is closer to god; etc) are found in American religious writing, ubiquitously, from the very beginning of the nation's history. Can any of us see a phenomenon like the "End Days" theology as popular or ascendant as it is in modern America happening in any other western country?
I don't deny the foolish excess you correctly cite. However you shouldn't ignore the central historical role these same Evangelicals played in the American Revolution and he creation of our democracy.
That's irrelevant to the issue at hand. America would have big troubles getting by without plumbers too. You seem to think I'm suggesting that this portion of the faith communities in early America and later were completely valueless or destructive to the nation or some such. Of course, I'm not. But the anti-intellectual, anti-learning character of that community is pretty easy to see in a historical study.
The chief resulting difference between Americans and Anglo Canadians in those days was that the Americans preferred freedom over order and the Canadians order over freedom. Not a bad choice in my view. (I suspect the Tories who fled to Canada regarded their oppressors as an unsophisticated, unlettered mob. History has revealed the opposite was true.) We later got beneficial infusions of Irish, Polish, and Italian Catholics, German & Scandanavian Lutherans, and Jews from Eastern Europe, but that did not fully displace the original culture.
I'm not even going to begin with you on that foolishness.
I can't think of any particularly prominent Episcopal or Anglican theologians either, and note that the most prominent of them, John Henry Newman was a convert to Catholicism.
Call up one of your theologican buddies and put the task to him...notables out of the Anglican tradition and notables out of American protestantism. Let us know what you hear.
The cliches which you ascribe to these Evangelicals are fully mached by those you and other of their critics cast (with much complacent confidence) on them.
Not cliches, numbnuts. If one can make rational statements regarding any discernible effects caused upon American culture by smaller cultural elements within it (eg, African cultures, Irish culture, Catholicism, Jewish culture, Italian culture, etc) then one can make such discernments regarding the consequences of the evangelical component as well.
Frankly I don't see much difference in the cant of the polar extremes of "Blue State" and "Red State" America today. Both involve roughly equal measures of oversimplification and unthinking accceptance of doctrine. Only the doctrinal details are different - Biblical & fundamentalist on the one hand and secular materialist on the other. Not a particularly attractive menu in my view.
Well, as we know george, your default position (when you don't know how to figure the matter out or if you are too busy to bother studying more) is that this over here is the same as that over there.
By the way - I have made a commitment to read Hofstadter's book - but only after Lola confirms certain conditions have been met. I mean to do it promptly when that happy outcome occurs.
and in the background, a child's chorus breaks into "Tomorrow"
One side can be wrong
Accepting 'intelligent design' in science classrooms would have disastrous consequences, warn Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne
Thursday September 1, 2005
The Guardian
It sounds so reasonable, doesn't it? Such a modest proposal. Why not teach "both sides" and let the children decide for themselves? As President Bush said, "You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes." At first hearing, everything about the phrase "both sides" warms the hearts of educators like ourselves.
One of us spent years as an Oxford tutor and it was his habit to choose controversial topics for the students' weekly essays. They were required to go to the library, read about both sides of an argument, give a fair account of both, and then come to a balanced judgment in their essay. The call for balance, by the way, was always tempered by the maxim, "When two opposite points of view are expressed with equal intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie exactly half way between. It is possible for one side simply to be wrong."
As teachers, both of us have found that asking our students to analyse controversies is of enormous value to their education. What is wrong, then, with teaching both sides of the alleged controversy between evolution and creationism or "intelligent design" (ID)? And, by the way, don't be fooled by the disingenuous euphemism. There is nothing new about ID. It is simply creationism camouflaged with a new name to slip (with some success, thanks to loads of tax-free money and slick public-relations professionals) under the radar of the US Constitution's mandate for separation between church and state.
Why, then, would two lifelong educators and passionate advocates of the "both sides" style of teaching join with essentially all biologists in making an exception of the alleged controversy between creation and evolution? What is wrong with the apparently sweet reasonableness of "it is only fair to teach both sides"? The answer is simple. This is not a scientific controversy at all. And it is a time-wasting distraction because evolutionary science, perhaps more than any other major science, is bountifully endowed with genuine controversy.
Among the controversies that students of evolution commonly face, these are genuinely challenging and of great educational value: neutralism versus selectionism in molecular evolution; adaptationism; group selection; punctuated equilibrium; cladism; "evo-devo"; the "Cambrian Explosion"; mass extinctions; interspecies competition; sympatric speciation; sexual selection; the evolution of sex itself; evolutionary psychology; Darwinian medicine and so on. The point is that all these controversies, and many more, provide fodder for fascinating and lively argument, not just in essays but for student discussions late at night.
Intelligent design is not an argument of the same character as these controversies. It is not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one. It might be worth discussing in a class on the history of ideas, in a philosophy class on popular logical fallacies, or in a comparative religion class on origin myths from around the world. But it no more belongs in a biology class than alchemy belongs in a chemistry class, phlogiston in a physics class or the stork theory in a sex education class. In those cases, the demand for equal time for "both theories" would be ludicrous. Similarly, in a class on 20th-century European history, who would demand equal time for the theory that the Holocaust never happened?
So, why are we so sure that intelligent design is not a real scientific theory, worthy of "both sides" treatment? Isn't that just our personal opinion? It is an opinion shared by the vast majority of professional biologists, but of course science does not proceed by majority vote among scientists. Why isn't creationism (or its incarnation as intelligent design) just another scientific controversy, as worthy of scientific debate as the dozen essay topics we listed above? Here's why.
If ID really were a scientific theory, positive evidence for it, gathered through research, would fill peer-reviewed scientific journals. This doesn't happen. It isn't that editors refuse to publish ID research. There simply isn't any ID research to publish. Its advocates bypass normal scientific due process by appealing directly to the non-scientific public and - with great shrewdness - to the government officials they elect.
The argument the ID advocates put, such as it is, is always of the same character. Never do they offer positive evidence in favour of intelligent design. All we ever get is a list of alleged deficiencies in evolution. We are told of "gaps" in the fossil record. Or organs are stated, by fiat and without supporting evidence, to be "irreducibly complex": too complex to have evolved by natural selection.
In all cases there is a hidden (actually they scarcely even bother to hide it) "default" assumption that if Theory A has some difficulty in explaining Phenomenon X, we must automatically prefer Theory B without even asking whether Theory B (creationism in this case) is any better at explaining it. Note how unbalanced this is, and how it gives the lie to the apparent reasonableness of "let's teach both sides". One side is required to produce evidence, every step of the way. The other side is never required to produce one iota of evidence, but is deemed to have won automatically, the moment the first side encounters a difficulty - the sort of difficulty that all sciences encounter every day, and go to work to solve, with relish.
What, after all, is a gap in the fossil record? It is simply the absence of a fossil which would otherwise have documented a particular evolutionary transition. The gap means that we lack a complete cinematic record of every step in the evolutionary process. But how incredibly presumptuous to demand a complete record, given that only a minuscule proportion of deaths result in a fossil anyway.
The equivalent evidential demand of creationism would be a complete cinematic record of God's behaviour on the day that he went to work on, say, the mammalian ear bones or the bacterial flagellum - the small, hair-like organ that propels mobile bacteria. Not even the most ardent advocate of intelligent design claims that any such divine videotape will ever become available.
Biologists, on the other hand, can confidently claim the equivalent "cinematic" sequence of fossils for a very large number of evolutionary transitions. Not all, but very many, including our own descent from the bipedal ape Australopithecus. And - far more telling - not a single authentic fossil has ever been found in the "wrong" place in the evolutionary sequence. Such an anachronistic fossil, if one were ever unearthed, would blow evolution out of the water.
As the great biologist J B S Haldane growled, when asked what might disprove evolution: "Fossil rabbits in the pre-Cambrian." Evolution, like all good theories, makes itself vulnerable to disproof. Needless to say, it has always come through with flying colours.
Similarly, the claim that something - say the bacterial flagellum - is too complex to have evolved by natural selection is alleged, by a lamentably common but false syllogism, to support the "rival" intelligent design theory by default. This kind of default reasoning leaves completely open the possibility that, if the bacterial flagellum is too complex to have evolved, it might also be too complex to have been created. And indeed, a moment's thought shows that any God capable of creating a bacterial flagellum (to say nothing of a universe) would have to be a far more complex, and therefore statistically improbable, entity than the bacterial flagellum (or universe) itself - even more in need of an explanation than the object he is alleged to have created.
If complex organisms demand an explanation, so does a complex designer. And it's no solution to raise the theologian's plea that God (or the Intelligent Designer) is simply immune to the normal demands of scientific explanation. To do so would be to shoot yourself in the foot. You cannot have it both ways. Either ID belongs in the science classroom, in which case it must submit to the discipline required of a scientific hypothesis. Or it does not, in which case get it out of the science classroom and send it back into the church, where it belongs.
In fact, the bacterial flagellum is certainly not too complex to have evolved, nor is any other living structure that has ever been carefully studied. Biologists have located plausible series of intermediates, using ingredients to be found elsewhere in living systems. But even if some particular case were found for which biologists could offer no ready explanation, the important point is that the "default" logic of the creationists remains thoroughly rotten.
There is no evidence in favour of intelligent design: only alleged gaps in the completeness of the evolutionary account, coupled with the "default" fallacy we have identified. And, while it is inevitably true that there are incompletenesses in evolutionary science, the positive evidence for the fact of evolution is truly massive, made up of hundreds of thousands of mutually corroborating observations. These come from areas such as geology, paleontology, comparative anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, ethology, biogeography, embryology and - increasingly nowadays - molecular genetics.
The weight of the evidence has become so heavy that opposition to the fact of evolution is laughable to all who are acquainted with even a fraction of the published data. Evolution is a fact: as much a fact as plate tectonics or the heliocentric solar system.
Why, finally, does it matter whether these issues are discussed in science classes? There is a case for saying that it doesn't - that biologists shouldn't get so hot under the collar. Perhaps we should just accept the popular demand that we teach ID as well as evolution in science classes. It would, after all, take only about 10 minutes to exhaust the case for ID, then we could get back to teaching real science and genuine controversy.
Tempting as this is, a serious worry remains. The seductive "let's teach the controversy" language still conveys the false, and highly pernicious, idea that there really are two sides. This would distract students from the genuinely important and interesting controversies that enliven evolutionary discourse. Worse, it would hand creationism the only victory it realistically aspires to. Without needing to make a single good point in any argument, it would have won the right for a form of supernaturalism to be recognised as an authentic part of science. And that would be the end of science education in America.
Arguments worth having ...
The "Cambrian Explosion"
Although the fossil record shows that the first multicellular animals lived about 640m years ago, the diversity of species was low until about 530m years ago. At that time there was a sudden explosion of many diverse marine species, including the first appearance of molluscs, arthropods, echinoderms and vertebrates. "Sudden" here is used in the geological sense; the "explosion" occurred over a period of 10m to 30m years, which is, after all, comparable to the time taken to evolve most of the great radiations of mammals. This rapid diversification raises fascinating questions; explanations include the evolution of organisms with hard parts (which aid fossilisation), the evolutionary "discovery" of eyes, and the development of new genes that allowed parts of organisms to evolve independently.
The evolutionary basis of human behaviour
The field of evolutionary psychology (once called "sociobiology") maintains that many universal traits of human behaviour (especially sexual behaviour), as well as differences between individuals and between ethnic groups, have a genetic basis. These traits and differences are said to have evolved in our ancestors via natural selection. There is much controversy about these claims, largely because it is hard to reconstruct the evolutionary forces that acted on our ancestors, and it is unethical to do genetic experiments on modern humans.
Sexual versus natural selection
Although evolutionists agree that adaptations invariably result from natural selection, there are many traits, such as the elaborate plumage of male birds and size differences between the sexes in many species, that are better explained by "sexual selection": selection based on members of one sex (usually females) preferring to mate with members of the other sex that show certain desirable traits. Evolutionists debate how many features of animals have resulted from sexual as opposed to natural selection; some, like Darwin himself, feel that many physical features differentiating human "races" resulted from sexual selection.
The target of natural selection
Evolutionists agree that natural selection usually acts on genes in organisms - individuals carrying genes that give them a reproductive or survival advantage over others will leave more descendants, gradually changing the genetic composition of a species. This is called "individual selection". But some evolutionists have proposed that selection can act at higher levels as well: on populations (group selection), or even on species themselves (species selection). The relative importance of individual versus these higher order forms of selection is a topic of lively debate.
Natural selection versus genetic drift
Natural selection is a process that leads to the replacement of one gene by another in a predictable way. But there is also a "random" evolutionary process called genetic drift, which is the genetic equivalent of coin-tossing. Genetic drift leads to unpredictable changes in the frequencies of genes that don't make much difference to the adaptation of their carriers, and can cause evolution by changing the genetic composition of populations. Many features of DNA are said to have evolved by genetic drift. Evolutionary geneticists disagree about the importance of selection versus drift in explaining features of organisms and their DNA. All evolutionists agree that genetic drift can't explain adaptive evolution. But not all evolution is adaptive.
The chief resulting difference between Americans and Anglo Canadians in those days was that the Americans preferred freedom over order and the Canadians order over freedom. Not a bad choice in my view. (I suspect the Tories who fled to Canada regarded their oppressors as an unsophisticated, unlettered mob. History has revealed the opposite was true.) We later got beneficial infusions of Irish, Polish, and Italian Catholics, German & Scandanavian Lutherans, and Jews from Eastern Europe, but that did not fully displace the original culture.
I'm not even going to begin with you on that foolishness.
you responded to a post of Lola, in which she quoted my post preceding hers.
At all events, there is no rule which denies me the right to comment on anyone's post.
If you considered it improper of me to have "jumped in" when you were replying to Lola, how was it proper for you to have "jumped in" when i was replying to Miss Elsie?
Page 75, Setanta (commenting on a post of Miss Elsie): Posted: 24/8/2005, 11:15 pm Post: 1533179.
I find it significant to see the desparation with which IDers attack evolutionary thoory. Were one comfortable in one's belief, in one's faith--one shouldn't feel threatened by scientific research which only seems to contradict the core theses of one's dogma. I strongly suspect that those who put so much energy into discrediting evolutionary theory, and who make the specious claim that science is out to "disprove" the existence of god--are people with sufficient intelligence to see the flaws in adherence to dogma based on folk tales from millenia ago, and they object so strenuously in order not to be obliged to face their own doubt.
Then again, maybe not . . .
Karen Rogers, the science curriculum program director for the Indiana Department of Education, is willing to accept intelligent design or creationism in classes such as religious studies. But she said it has no place in science classes because it simply is "non-scientific."
Evolution, she said, is more than what the street use of the term "theory" conveys. Rather than just a guess about who is going to win the Super Bowl, it is something that has been "tested and retested and continues to be supported by the evidence," Rogers said.
She contends that intelligent design fails in this regard. "It can't be tested," she said. "So to pretend that it could be would not be helping students see the distinction about what is science and doing what science truly entails."
So, you'll find that your facts are incorrect and that I responded only to a post that was addressed to the general forum community.
It is you who have no case.
Setanta wrote:It seems more than a little absurd to contend that the modern world wanting a deeper and more complex explanation for the intricacy of the universe is a problem. It is the characteristic of the human mind constantly questioning the world in which it is located which makes the human race successful.
You are either wilfully misunderstanding me, or lack comprehension. It is definitely not a problem that the human mind wants to 'constantly question the world in which it is located'- I think this is a fantastic thing. The only difference I put forth is that some scientists no longer find it valid to be confined by the 'chance' propositions that evolution holds to. Yet when they seek to go deeper, Evolutionists cry bloody murder.
Your defenses are straight out of a 'Guide to Discrediting Intelligent Design': ie-
1.)Conflate intelligent design with creationism: Emphasize science as a great force for enlightenment and contrast it sharply with fanatical religious fundamentalism. Then stress that intelligent design is essentially a religious and political movement.
2.) Argue for the superfluity of design: By artificially defining science as an enterprise limited solely to material mechanisms, one conveniently eliminates design from scientific discussion.
3.) Achieve a scientific breakthrough: Provide detailed testable models of how irreducibly complex biochemical systems like the bacterial flagellum could have emerged by material mechanisms.
You know, these may have worked in the past, but it's getting a little stale now . One can moan about how the IDers have no credibility, how they are only in this because they stand the possiblity that doubt might creep in, or that there must be only one IDer on here because 'no one could possibly be as daft as to think it's actually a credible theory', but the crux is- you keep coming back to 'shut us down'. Why? If we are so 'eccentric' and not worth it? I'm sure you'd love it if it was a boy's club, all patting each other on the back for thinking exactly the same thing. Sorry. (emoticon removed in the interest of good taste)
Elsie_T wrote:You are either wilfully misunderstanding me, or lack comprehension. It is definitely not a problem that the human mind wants to 'constantly question the world in which it is located'- I think this is a fantastic thing. The only difference I put forth is that some scientists no longer find it valid to be confined by the 'chance' propositions that evolution holds to. Yet when they seek to go deeper, Evolutionists cry bloody murder.
Your use of the term "evolutionist" is very revealing. A theory of evolution is not an example of ideological dogma. Creationist is valid because those who purport creation are acting from a dogmatic point of view. Those who practice science, and study evolutionary biology are not dogmatic propagandists, despite the attempt of creationists and IDers to so portray them.
Quote:Your defenses are straight out of a 'Guide to Discrediting Intelligent Design'
I'm not defending anything, i'm just pointing out how ludicrous your arguments are.
Quote:1.)Conflate intelligent design with creationism: Emphasize science as a great force for enlightenment and contrast it sharply with fanatical religious fundamentalism.
No conflation is necessary--intelligent design purports a designer. Changing the term creator into designer is just a dodge. 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.
Quote:Then stress that intelligent design is essentially a religious and political movement.
When you attempt to introduce a religious concept into scientific teaching, it is more than a little silly for you to complain about people pointing out that your agenda is religious in nature. The concerted efforts of IDers to use political methods to force state boards of education to adopt ID in science curricula, including the full panoply of applying electoral pressure to members of legislatures makes it quite reasonable to ascribe political tactics to IDers.
Quote:2.) Argue for the superfluity of design: By artificially defining science as an enterprise limited solely to material mechanisms, one conveniently eliminates design from scientific discussion.
I have not in fact made such an argument, however, i find it hilarious that you inferentially suggest that science is capable of studying anything other than material mechanisms. Unless, of course, you have proof of a reliable method of demonstrating the immaterial--in which case your fortune is assured, and it is ridiculous for your to waste your time posting here.
Quote:3.) Achieve a scientific breakthrough: Provide detailed testable models of how irreducibly complex biochemical systems like the bacterial flagellum could have emerged by material mechanisms.
Once again, i've not made that argument. You'll need to address that silly quibble to FM, who is more than suitably qualified to make a shambles of your attempt to suggest that this is a false contention. Your use of the term "irreducibly complex biochemical systems" is a pathetic attempt to suggest that such a term has meaning outside the propaganda of IDers.
Quote:You know, these may have worked in the past, but it's getting a little stale now (emoticon removed in the interest of good taste).
That's rich--we've had the creationists and IDers coming out of the woodwork since this site was established, and their arguments haven't changed in the slightest. This thread was posted to Science and Mathematics precisely because this is a scientific issue. However, the great majority of threads on the subject of evolution are to be found in the Religion and Spirituality forum, because the god squad has their panties in such a twist over the topic.
Quote:One can moan about how the IDers have no credibility,
You've heard no moaning from me, although i understand how important it is to you to belittle your opponent in debate when you're losing on all fronts.
Quote:how they are only in this because they stand the possiblity that doubt might creep in,
This is a rather incoherent fragment of a sentence, but assuming you mean to write "they cannot stand, etc."--yes, dogma admits of no doubts. Those who doubt dogma are branded heretical.
Quote:
or that there must be only one IDer on here because 'no one could possibly be as daft as to think it's actually a credible theory',
No, it has simply been pointed out that we get a few at a time, they get shot down, and after a while, a new batch shows up. There are plenty more where you came from. H. L. Mencken wrote that no one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public. I'd extend that to point out that no one ever went broke relying upon the credulity of the dogmatically religious--or political, for that matter.
Quote:but the crux is- you keep coming back to 'shut us down'. Why? If we are so 'eccentric' and not worth it?
Because there are many here who read but do not post, and many young people come here seeking information. Therefore, many of us consider it important not to let your nonsense pass unchallenged. 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.
Quote:I'm sure you'd love it if it was a boy's club, all patting each other on the back for thinking exactly the same thing.
Gender, of course, has nothing to do with it. One of your sharpest critics here will be Lola, who assures us that she is all woman, and the evidence of the eyes of many who post here is that she is not lying. Again, you deploy sneers for lack of a credible argument.
Quote:Sorry.
Yes you are, and you should apologize.
Setanta wrote:Someone new will show up with the same shop-worn arguments, false claims, half-truths and misrepresentations, and anyone with the energy and the time to dispute them will be obliged to go through the list once again. It grows tedious.
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. Let me return your statement to you:
Setanta wrote:Were one comfortable in one's belief, in one's faith--one shouldn't feel threatened by scientific research which only seems to contradict the core theses of one's dogma.
Historians are notorious for presenting events in the past in a light which will please one section of the community.
georgeob1 wrote:Thomas has noted that it was those same Protestant Evangelicals who founded Harvard, Princeton, Yale and the largest fraction of our original University system.
Well, he might have noted it, but he's wrong. Those institutions were set up by the Puritans, a very different breed of early american christian community who brought with them a deep respect for education.
