Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

Settin' Aah-aah wrote-



Obviously, if the witnesses are those who are not able to present evidence that it is scientific just as was the case in Dover.

You're going around in circles. wande puts up a quote and you get your anger and frustration with the world off your chest with the same old drivel which is tautological.

What's the scientific explanation of the state authorities in Florida not inviting you all down there to draft their legislation seeing as how they are so hopeless at it themselves. I am truly at a loss to understand such an omission on their part. They bring footballers in don't they?

What happened to the bill to deny plaintiffs the right to recover their costs in cases such as these? Not everybody starts the day off in the same place they started yesterday off. Isn't Able 2 Know designed to stop that sort of thing?

A prominent, highly paid, journalist and TV presenter, not appointed by his Mum and Dad, asserted in the Sunday Times that America, left to its own devices, couldn't build a pencil.

So much for assertions.

And when it comes to judges it seems that a new documentary; Wanted and Desired, has Judge Rittenband call defence lawyers in and tell them "what they were to argue in court." He is asserted to have "loved the limelight and had his baliff keep a scrapbook of his press cuttings." One of the defence lawyers was asked by his client--"Can we trust him?" and replied--"No, we can't trust him. We have no idea what he may do. We've all agreed he can no longer be trusted and what he represents to us is worthless." When threatened with exposure by the defence team the Judge withdrew from the case.

And you lot think that an "Have gavel, will travel" merchant is infallible. You're walking, talking tautologies.

Concerning the two ladies Rittenband had on the go, one was 20, he remarked," I've got one that cooks and one that does the other thing."

The subject has the better of the lot of you. And it is very obvious. Your much blazoned and trumpeted scientific critical thinking flew the coop years and years ago. You're as lop-sided as the wronged woman in a divorce case. You even use the same type of pejoratives over and over.

Science is a mere sprinkling of magic stardust. One light dusting and -hey presto- you're scientists. The bobby-soxers of Science. The enchantments of poly-syllabic unknown words with that mystique of superiority.

PS- I'm sorry fm that I failed to answer your question. I think I've read the book but I'm not sure. I've read a lot of books. I've read a lot about Darwin. Desmond and Moore do the voyage pretty well. I would never dream of undertaking such a journey. And in the position he was in the idea is ludicrous.

spendi, It's obvious you read alot, but you're still in the middle ages with your thinking.

Good!

Matthew Arnold wrote about Oxford-



That's ID.

Teach that.

Don't give it labels so you can talk about it without understanding it.

spendi is so epigrammatic (in his own mind). He will gradually crank up the tersness until hes nothing but a footnote.



No, thats merely spendi yanking a quote in the very fashion of the quote miners society.

Only veteran members of the Namedropper's Union bother about things like that.

Seek and ye shall find.

You AIDs-ers all imagine that you understand the term "critical thinking" when in actual fact you simply respond to the phrase with a pleasant feeling of recognition, due to some happy coincidence, which flatters your ego into believing, and I use the word advisedly, that you are critical thinkers simply by the deployment of the phrase and conjoined with your belief that critical thinking is a virtue and thus by simple logic you are virtuous persons. A superior attribute they say.

It is a socially acceptable way, a convention in some segments of the social mix, of going around shouting "I am a virtuous person" which is considered a bit bad mannered. An extended euphemism if you like.

Of course critical thinking can be a virtue if left to those who can manage it properly but the thought of 300 million critical thinking Americans is one I am not prepared to contemplate until the 3rd pint is underway.

The truth is that you are a bunch of lazy, idle, narcissistic membranes between the agricultural industry and the waste disposal facilities and you have never engaged in one single shot at critical thinking since you were potty trained.

***What a great speech Mr Bush just made on behalf of the American people in welcoming The Pope to your shores.

spendi[quote]The truth is that you are a bunch of lazy, idle, narcissistic membranes between the agricultural industry and the waste disposal facilities and you have never engaged in one single shot at critical thinking since you were potty trained. [/quote]

I have a feeling , from your posts that life has passed you by and your just bitter . Im sorry if "critical thinking " as defined by the rest of the planet disagrees with your fevered one. Perhaps you should just make a stronger effort to "get it"

Your kinda like an old Mother SUperior who, when faced with all the demnads that are placed on students to be able to be participants in this world, only wants to make sure that your penmanship is acceptable.

PREPOSSESSED TWIT

fm wrote-



Get what? A critical thinker would explain what "it" was that I should get. The use of "it" there is a perfect example of what I meant.

How on earth can life have passed me by? What a very silly thing to say. I cannot imagine how life can pass anybody by.

A serious critical thinker would at least have a ponder on what I said and possibly allow that there might be some truth in it. He certainly wouldn't allow his uncritical subjectivity to run away with him to such an extent as to compose a paragraph of that nature which has uncritical thinking in its very DNA.

Spendi, I have asked you numerous times to back up your rather false and sometimes rather libellous statements. What I can't stand is your desire to link two unrelated topics together and say A is the cause of B when there's no evidence to support your wild claim.

I mean take Post 3196618, for example. That would be your post regarding Oxford.

That's not ID. That doesn't even fit the definition of ID. In that one post, you have admitted that you are not talking about ID at all, and that therefore, you are indeed off-topic and against this forum's Terms of Use.

ID isn't about keeping away the Philistines. It isn't about ineffable charm. It isn't about beauty or even perfection.

ID is a cynical attempt to discredit evolution. It is a hypothesis that says that an Intelligent Designer must have created these things called irreducibly complex adaptations, because they could not have evolved through natural means alone. ID is bullshit. It has no evidence to back it up, it uses the sort of bizarre logic that would have gotten God convicted of every single crime that has ever been committed, and most of all, it doesn't do what you say it will do.

Nothing about that one post of yours is about ID.

Definitions, spendius, are very important otherwise we won't know what the other person is talking about. You, consistently, blur definitions and refuse to give definitions and use absolutely bizarre definitions that no one else in the entire world would use.

Is it because you are delusional or is it so that whenever someone successfully argues against your point, you can throw up your arms and say, "That's not my position!" I think it's the latter, because nobody's ever been able to pin down your position at all.

Your behaviour consistently gives me the impression of a weasel or a snake. A dishonest person constantly slithering away from arguments, constantly displaying arrogant contempt for everyone on these forums, whilst hypocritically accusing others of arrogance.

Now maybe, you're not actually being dishonest and that this is all a result of the fact that you are absolutely **** at expressing your thoughts. But the one time I said I didn't understand your point, you arrogantly chided my comprehension skills. So, either it's the former or you're not willing to admit that you are atrociously bad at expressing yourself.

All I know is that if ID creates more people like you, then we should fear it, for it won't create critical thinkers capable of seeing through the tricks and guises of those who would oppress us, but the kind of sleazy weasels who would do the oppressing in the first place.

Wolf, spendi has skin as thick as an armadillo and a brain to go with it. HEs been a constant interrupter in a number of threads. He has no life as you correctly pointed out.
I find him like ticks in summer, something that just comes with this environment. Hes really not doing anything technically wrong , hes just a big pain in the ass and he breaks up continuity with his nonsense. He usually has nothing to contribute other than his contrary and impolite jeering. Once in a great while he will come up with something useful, not often enough to deserve any respect, but enough to keep from reporting him.

It's his arrogant attitude that gets me, you see.

WolfOD wrote: What I can't stand is your desire to link two unrelated topics together and say A is the cause of B when there's no evidence to support your wild claim.


That's because spendi lacks logic; but he does impress with his well-read claims of having read all those dead authors.

Wolf- I don't know what "rather false" is. "Rather libellous" is also an odd phrase and I doubt libel can be applied to cyber people. If so I have been libelled many more times than I have libelled anyone else. And I have never complained.

What is A that is the cause of B that I am supposed to have linked together?

I accept that you think of ID your way. It keeps it simple. It will lose every court case where it is the basis of the case. So you are better off sticking with it and then you'll win all the cases.

I just don't think of it that way. The Matthew Arnold post was an attempt to glimpse the way I see it. Not an explanation. It cannot be explained. It is a total educational philosophy which remains beneath the surface when it is being inculcated.

And don't keep blathering about being off topic. I've never seen a discussion thread of any note that isn't off topic half the time at least. You just use that, and TOS, as a stick to beat opponents. You never mention it when an AIDs-er is off topic.



There you go. Defining your antagonist's position and for obvious reasons. ID is about all those and much more.

I've never discredited evolution. I've been reading Darwin half the afternoon. I'm discrediting the teaching of it to part formed minds by teachers who are not up to it and using it to push a personal agenda.



Is it? Not for me. ID pulls to the future. It is not pushed from the past. Evolution theory is pushed from the past.

Where does an evolutionist get the word "crime" from. Crime is a totally ID idea. In evolution there are no crimes. What sort of crimes does evolution theory include?



It mitigates the blowtorch of evolution theory which is getting a bit fierce.

And you can't possibly have any objection to the behaviour of weasels and snakes either. What's "dishonest" (another ID usage) about weasels and snakes? This argument is ID. In evolution we would just snarl and fight and change colour and pump ourselves up with no speech patterns.

It is obvious that I am " atrociously bad at expressing myself" to those who find me atrociously bad at expressing myself. I just simply don't understand what you're trying to say so I suppose I could say that you are atrociously bad at expressing yourself to me. But others may understand either of us.



I see no evolutionists in the presidential race and there didn't look to be so many at the White House this afternoon so on the basis of your remarks you had better prepare yourself for some oppression.

Oppression is built into the evolution theory. It's a given. As is differential fertility a primary mechanism of natural selection and thus sexual activity not aimed at reproduction reduces the frequency of the participant's genes in future populations and in respect of the mindless range of evolution a failure. Genetic suicide. And if group evolution is a conscious objective then other matters besides biological ones are in play.

For goodness sakes fm!

Get me reported.

Don't hint at it.

Hinting at it, as if not reporting me is a function of your kindness and even temper, is neither one thing or the other. It's wimping it and trying to preen at the same time.

Explain Mr Bush's speech and the loss of the court cases without saying that the plaintiffs are going about it the wrong way.

On your arguments Mr Bush should be impeached for that classy speech and the audience rounded up and sent to re-training camps a la Pol Pot.

Naw....we have Gitmo.

George Bush gave a speech about the pope? and it was wonderful? wow, now there are two dispshits even more irrelevant than spendi.

amen!

It's not my way. It is the way that everybody thinks about it. Everybody except for you, that is. You have assigned a completely new definition of ID and you have decided not to tell any of us what that definition is, merely alluding to it.

Your excuses for not defining it properly are rather pathetic. It can be defined if you decide to put the effort into defining it, but either you can't be bothered or won't be bothered for fear that if you do define it, people will be able to actually argue against you.

As for the A linked to B, you know full well. There are countless attempts, such as that incident of the man having sex with a table with a hole in it to being against ID (or was it for teaching Evolution?). At some point in the past, you also attempted to link that mass masturbating event to being against ID.



That's because you've been the only person to deliberately go off topic. Every other person who went off topic was discussing things relevant to the topic, unless they were of course challenging you.



No, that is what ID is about. You merely decided to redefine ID. It's not my fault that you decided to give your ideology the same name as the one that is currently being debated in this topic. If you don't want this to occur, perhaps you should give it its own name, instead of inventing names for other people and defining your antagonist's positions. And perhaps you should define it such that we can understand what the Hell you're talking about and perhaps even sympathise with your position.

But no, you decided that we aren't to be privy to your little world.



No, ID isn't about all those and much more. Perhaps your nameless ideology is about those and much more, but not ID. In fact, I refuse to play your game anymore.

I will not refer to your position as ID and will rename it for you, just as you decided to rename us as AIDs-ers. Your position will now be Spendius' socio-religious theory or SR for short. If you want, it can be SSR or SSRT.

When you finally admit that what you're talking about isn't ID, then perhaps we can actually get somewhere and discuss your ideology.



And what would this be? You never say what it is. You never say what the danger is. You allude to it, but you never say what it is. Spit it out, man! How can we take you seriously, how can we sympathise and agree with you, if you won't even make your point?

That's what frustrates me, that's what I'm asking for. But you never make your point and you never do it clearly, concisely and to the point. You have to hide your point in ambigious phrases that could mean anything, including the complete opposite of what you intend to say (if your reactions to my replies are anything to judge by).



Well, you're not talking about ID, then. You have never been talking about ID.



Evolution isn't a moral code, Spendi. I'm surprised that no one in the past 1550+ pages has pointed this out and in fact, I do believe that someone must have pointed it out before, because it is absolutely unbelievable that none of the regulars haven't pointed it out.



What does that even mean? You don't define anything and you aren't even using the same vocabulary as the rest of the world. What is the blowtorch metaphor about?

How does SR mitigate this "blowtorch" and why would you want it to, anyway?

Unless, of course, you are suggesting that Evolution leads to eugenics and to a breakdown in moral society, in which case I have already argued that it doesn't. In which case, you are guilty of linking A with B, where A and B are completely unrelated and have no proven links.



I do when such behaviour is apparent in a human being such as yourself.



Except where I differ is that I am willing to clarify, whereas you are not. The only reason I got angry with you, is because there is no damned possible way I could have made myself any clearer. You however can make yourself clearer by getting to the point.



Yeah, except the Democratic candidates are pretty much against ID, so you're wrong. And luckily for me, if you haven't noticed, I live in England, so what happens in the US doesn't concern me too much.



That is so ******* wrong, I don't know where to begin.

One does not need to reproduce to ensure the future of one's genes, so long as those who share your genes reproduce. Altruism, is also inherent in evolution, spendi, because altruism ensures the survival of one's genes. It also ensures the survivals of one's genes in that it reduces competition in a way.

If I help you, you are more inclined to help me. You might not help me in reciprocation, but there are ways to punish that behaviour.

As for oppression, it is not a given in evolution theory, neither is it built in. Altruism is also selected for, but it is also not a given. Neither are built in.

That you don't know this, makes me wonder how you think your SR could mitigate the Theory of Evolution's effects.

Just admit you're not talking about ID, start a new thread about your idea and discuss it. But wait, you don't want to do that, because... Hm, well, why don't you tell me? I don't want to put words into your mouth.