Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

I've said it often, most IDers are theistic evolutionists.

They believe God designed the process and oversees it to some degree. They widely vary on how much oversight.

A smaller group that could still be defined as IDers would include YECs.

Other smaller views (even deistic or atheistic) also can be found, i.e. panspermia, etc

c.i. wrote-



Which I'm told is very much like wanking with a condom on whilst the wife is nagging about the the leaves blocking up the drains and with a mild toothache.

TKO wrote-



Don't be so daft. We are not telling you our secrets. You haven't put the effort in. You want it laying out on a plate.

No chance.

foxfyre

There should be an even mix of skepticism and open mindedness in everything. Mike Shermer has said that skepticism at its extreme is closed mindedness and open mindedness to its extreme is gullibility. When the preponderence of evidence encircles a single theory , with NO evidence to support your "waiting for the POWERPOINT GUY". I think that defines gullibility at its best.

Panspermia, for those who don't know, is a game sometimes known as "Find the monkey". A sort of universe scale maze.

I think you're right. I believe that God is the master intelligence behind it all because I believe in God. But a science teacher would not have to acknowledge a god or gods in order to acknowledge that it is not irrational to conclude that some form of higher intelligence as involved in the process. He could refer to Plato or Aristotle's reasoning which shouldn't offend anybody.

It is not advocacy for a particular point of view to acknowledge that it exists as one of many theories.

My point here is to object to any attempt to deny the untested theories that exist outside of or in addition to or beyond Darwin, and I think it is wrong to tell students that belief or consideration of ID is irrational or wrong. I think that to do so would be abominable science. We won't advance our knowledge about anything if we aren't willing to believe that we don't know all there is to know.

And mostly, I think it is a moral and First Amendment violation for a science teacher to presume to destroy the religious faith of a child. I think if parents, school boards, and science class could agree on that, we wouldn't see many extremist efforts pushing Creationism in the public schools.

What will happen, if anything, to the christian religion and ID if and when stem cell research produces a human? It seems it's just a matter of time.


Scientists make human embryo clones

By MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer
Thu Jan 17, 4:52 PM ET



NEW YORK - Scientists in California say they have produced embryos that are clones of two men, a potential step toward developing scientifically valuable stem cells. The new report documents embryos made with ordinary skin cells. But it's not the first time human cloned embryos have been made. In 2005, for example, scientists in Britain reported using embryonic stem cells to produce a cloned embryo. It matured enough to produce stem cells, but none were extracted.


Stem cells weren't produced by the new embryos either, and because of that, experts reacted coolly to the research.

"I found it difficult to determine what was substantially new," said Doug Melton of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. He said the "next big advance will be to create a human embryonic stem cell line" from cloned embryos. "This has yet to be achieved."

I'm sorry, perhaps I missed something. Since when did Evolution start requiring supernatural forces?

I love the non-specific answers I recieved on ID. Sounds like it's ready to be taught to children. If you can't answer this question, then it doesn't belong in schools.

T
K
O

To some degree. This is what you want to teach to American children as Science? There's some things we don't know, so we just make up some stuff to make us feel better. We can't answer some questions about the universe prior to the big bang, so here's something we pulled out of the air.

Instead, what is wrong with saying "We don't know."

Joe(They vary on how much oversight, but claim infallibility.)Nation

ID is functionally equivalent to magic, there simply is no other way to consider it. And all magical scenario's are equally probable or improbably. No cultural vision of any God or imp is any more likely or unlikely than any other. Magic is an unknown, anything is possible with magic. Either you believe in magic or you don't, there is no half way, no likely magic or unlikely magic.

If you mention ID to students as "another possibility" outside of science, then you might as well mention Flying Spaghetti Monsters, super advanced ET's, Zeus, Momra and every other magical entity you can think of, they are all functionally the same.

It's just silly to say to anyone, "Evolution is a scientific fact, but keep an open mind because on the other hand, it might all just be magic". That's dumb. It's just pointless, and that's exactly what ID is, pointless. It's a brain dead statement, it means nothing, it reveals nothing, it teaches us nothing, it provides us with nothing.

Seems to me that if you want to teach kids ID you would have to give them a base to start from... this base would have to be Christian beliefs.. that's religion and ID is taught in churches not schools, but if it ends up being taught in schools who's religion would the base concept come from ? Christian religion is not the only religion... wouldn't the atheist religion have the right to teach their religion as well through science lessons?

Actually, it does teach us something; that people are prone to believe in myths and stories created a few thousand years ago as being true. That much is factual; we can prove it by the number of people, past, present, and future, who will continue to believe in those man-made myths.

Their belief is complete: there is nothing on this earth that will change their minds, no matter their inability to provide any evidence that we normally apply to most other things we build our trust in. It's a human mystery that they can be so completely brain-washed with an unknown.

ros-

You were specifically asked to provide a scenario without Christian thinking, and there are plenty to choose from, which would have led to our way of life. Instead you just gob out your repetitive and infantile claptrap about magic and wierd monsters.

What sort of science teacher would ignore a student's question and go off on a self-sustaining track of his own which the class has seen him go down everytime he's asked a practical question which he doesn't fancy answering or can't answer. This magic/monster thing is starting to look like the sand in which an ostrich burrows its head.

fm was asked what fraudulent claim an IDer has made and he hasn't bothered replying to that either.

Are you intending spending the rest of your lives running on the spot as Classical science did and as monkeys have been doing for, presumably, millions of years.

Taken together, these two non responses make it look like anti-IDers don't take questions.

The total silence which has greeted the Jesus metaphor of the lightning (or the mustard seed)/ Bishop of Brixen/the calculus/electric kettle/Shuttle flights tells me that the anti-IDer knows no real science and is in poseur mode based on rote learned simplicities out of magazines and such like in the service of attacking modes of discipline which are inconvenient to him in respect of his animal urges.

spendia

I have failed to respond havent I. Probably because I canot believe you are that incredibly stupid or commited to your creed of superstition that you dont recall how many times over and over I or someone else has enumerated these fraud claims.

If you want an answer consistent with what weve been talking about, Id suggest you just scroll back a few hundred pages . ABsent your own voluminous ,fevered posts, this thread is quite to the point really. You can use the "Search" function Im sure you can get someone to run a query for you when youre sitting in the Commons Room at the Home.

I said an IDer fm. Not one of your strawmen IDers. The real thing.

So before you go into sarky bombastic mode why don't you consider learning to read properly.

This thread concerns intelligent design not fundamentalism or creationism. And I have pointed that out often enough and so has Foxy recently. Intelligent design is hundreds of years old as a concept and embraced by Darwin, Einstein and many other scientists.

What creed or superstition have I ever promoted?

If you wish to argue with fundamentalists and creationists on the "ease of the bone" principle why don't you argue on those threads where such things are discussed.

And if you really " canot believe I am that incredibly stupid or commited to a creed of superstition" why do you then proceed as if you do believe it?

How can the thread not be to the point? It is the contributions of anti-IDers that are not to the point. You simply wish to wreck what we have which has stood us in such good stead and offer no alternatives nor the possible and logical potential of them nor any serious route to how we get to where you seem to wish to be.

Another of your implicit strawmen is your foolish assumption that kids only learn from classroom lessons. This, again, allows you an easy target and the TV, radio, books, comics, movies, on-line sites, peer pressures, music vids, local traditions, such as monogamy, the dollar bill and many presidential statements are simply swept aside because they present a target you are unwilling to include in another strawman of yours that American science will be dragged down by leaving evolution theory out of school biology lessons as wande said a large percentage of American biology teachers already do.

If you really are concerned about American science being dragged down by religious influences why are you not attacking all of those because I would contend that they are far more powerful influences on kids than a few biology lessons which most of them are hardly paying much attention to and which are, in the main, forgotten within a week by any kid who hasn't got a special interest in the matter.

And I have told you before that you are wasting your time insulting me. My skin is as thick as the walls of hell as depicted in Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man.

8,000 miles they were, the Rector asserted, and nobody can prove him wrong although Mr Joyce's irony left little doubt, in that famous passage, just how far-fetched, not to say ridiculous, such ideas are.

If you think young viewers on here are better served engaging their minds on the "here today, gone tomorrow" publications of your fellow Party members rather than the classics of world literature, The Holy Bible being a front ranker, then you will never understand what real ID is about.

As you can't abide not being able to understand anything you invent your own ID on the sitting duck on the bedroom windowsill principle where you can shoot it whilst still in your charp-pit festering.

That's vandalism in my view.

Anyone who opens The Holy Bible, that source of the wisdom that brought you your sat nav system and your pineapple yoghurt which you claim is over-priced, and reads that story of God's wizardry and says "That's completely stupid in view of the known empirical evidence which has been peer-reviewed. "

In the midst of thousands of salary cheques I might add, to provide a semblance of balance to the discussion.

From this brilliant insight, that it's all a stupid superstition, my imaginary reader, either snorts and reads no further or, if he does read on, he selectively reads for those items which reinforce the stunning and unique flash of inspiration he has previously had and after a while gives up the project.

He has been reading negatively and in a manner which bolsters his own sense of self-importance. And he has missed the wisdom the book contains.

He ought to have said- "Hang on a minute. It's the most famous flipping book in the flipping Western world of which I am, with my feet on the computer console drinking coffee in a -20 ice storm, something of a serious beneficiary. How can I possibly dismiss such a book with a cheap assertion so easy to manage that it makes falling off a log look like rocket science ( never be frightened of reaching for a cliche if it is the right one).

When the curtains open at the Pantomime and the Dame, played by a well known male comic, appears centre stage dressed like an ostrich with a gas-mask and striped underpants she usually has to wait a while for the laughter to abate in order to begin the story at a fancy dress ball.

This does not mean that the theme of the panto, its message, is unworthy of consideration.

If you tried the Bible in that frame of mind, which is the obvious one to be in about a world renowned classic of literature, one might discover other things one of which is that any literature not world renowned isn't worth a blow or, to be more precise, its at least a million to one against it being.

And who bothers with million to one chances when the libraries are full of classic literature? Bloody idiots is my answer to that.

Although if there's a career involved and funds and cheques and gold-lettered titled personal notepaper it could be that they are simply ambitious. Which is pretty idiotic as well in some people's estimation. Like Shakespeare for example and Cervantes.

No, you don't have to start from religious beliefs. All you have to start from is observation of symmetry and incredible beauty and exquisite perfection and otherwise unexplainable diversity, all of which one species is capable of appreciating and, so far as we know, no other species is capable of recognizing or appreciating. And this can suppose some form of intelligence guiding the process. Plato saw this as an 'idea', a cosmic intelligence encompassing all. There is nothing in Plato's writings to suggest a concept of or belief in a god or gods. Even Plato had difficulty in finding the words to describe it as he saw it.

It certainly does not hinge on Christianity as the concept of ID existed long before there was Christianity.

Philosophical inquiries into beauty and symmetry can and are being taught in philosophy classes. No need for science teachers to get involved.

hi Joe,

Good to hear from you.

I've never said that public schools should teach that God guided evolution. Nor have I said that public schools should teach YEC.

You ask 'what about "We don't know" '?

I think teaching them 'science does not provide an answer to the question of the origin of the universe' would be proper.

In addition, I have no objection to children learning what Darwinism is AND what the problems with the theory are.

The sticking point usually comes when hyper-naturalists huff and puff "There ARE NO problems with the theory!!!!!!!!!!!"

Have a great weekend.

Based on your posts, it's clear that what you consider "problems", most scientist don't consider to be "problems".

For example, you often list "lack of transitional fossils" as one of your "problems", yet we know there are transitional fossils. So clearly this "problem" is not a real "problem", but merely an aspect of your self imposed blindness.

Do you have any real "problems" with the theory that you can offer as an example? You've been asked for this before and for two years all you've come up with is bullcrap, so I hope you will at least come up with some new bullcrap for us to talk about this time.