Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

No. I was laughing at the thought that you having a photograph of the guy, who GBS said we might have been better never having heard of, like Napoleon, at the Savoy lunch in his honour, standing in front of a blackboard with equations on it being proof that he was a great mathematician.

Cripes. You might get thinking that Yossarian was a bombadier on dangerous missions or that King Lear had two daughters like those two if you think like that.

Any plonker can get himself photographed in front of a blackboard with equations written on it. A couple of actors have been filmed doing it. Maybe more.

It's amazing what can be done with film.

The actual proof is in another ball-court.

Spendi one of your favorite catchphrases is Spengler, Spengler, Spengler and what a great mathematician he was--historian I can agree with, one who's Decline of the West was an acknowledged influence on National Socialism, but mathematician? Possibly by some training, or interest, but not one of significance to be mentioned in the bibliographies published by St Andrews (UK), When I hit on the eSSes I see Spence (2), Spencer, Sperry but no Spengler. When I hit on the E's , I do see Einstein, along with Eisenhart, and Eisenstein. Trying another tract, I decided to look at mathematicians from Germany and I see a list of 191 mathematicians. Again I see Einstein, but no Spengler.

So OK St Andrews doesn't consider Spengler a preeminent Historical mathematician. So who does (besides you of course). So I tried Oswald Spengler Biography and hit upon Wikipedia listing. Which I'll quote

Speaking of early 20 century Philosopher's with a bent on the political St. Andrews does have a listing on Bertrand Arthur William Russell.

Rap

rap-

I never said, or even hinted, that Spengler was a mathematician. He was more a mystic than anything. He did train as a mathematician though.

It is pointless to discuss him without reading him. He is a bit of an "un-person" I'll admit probably on account of his philosophy scaring everybody out of their wits. There are a host of cobwebs one might get oneself stuck to and Spengler blows them away. The Renaissance for example. People who weave cobwebs will obviously denigrate him but you should take no notice of them.

He had a very low view of Hitler and his writings were banned in Nazi Germany. Burned I think. Spengler said, regarding Hitler, that what Germany needed was a "hero" not a "heroic tenor". He had a long talk with him in 1933 and came away "unimpressed". He thought the Nazis too addicted to marching bands and patriotic slogans and were missing the point. "Immature" he called them.

He is a one man university course and I recommend Decline of the West if you can read it without any preconceived ideas getting in your way and slowly enough. It is a fabulous learning experience and will shift the gears in any mind open to it. And there is a lot of stunning writing in the translation. He is an "acknowleged influence" on much more than National Socialism which is itself a much abused term.

Spengler conceived the notion in 1911, an "epiphany" sort of thing, that the events he was observing around him could be interpreted in "global" and "total cultural" terms. He saw Europe heading for catastrophe. Which duly arrived. He thought that the real meaning of things is often obscured by a mask of scientific, mechanistic, so-called "facts" much as Goethe did in respect of nature.

That history was "cyclical. That the "linear" view, progress from lower to higher, where an upward evolution through Greek, Roman, Medieval, Renaissance, Modern was a conceit of Western man's ego as if " everything in the past pointed to him, existed so that he might exist as a yet-more perfected form". Andy Warhol did that reassuring notion in with his later self portraits where he would have easily fitted in a cave painting.

He would have considered this dispute to be a mere incident and such things as Pandas and People to be trifles. Toys.

But having said that I must add that I entertain a more subtle ambition than using the writers I mention as props for what I say. I have tried to enthuse readers here for them in order to help them run rings around their teachers and to open up vistas of wisdom fit to last a lifetime. The site is Able 2 Know after all and wande's quotes from the daily sheets are hardly suitable in that respect.

So when I am asked to define "intelligent design" it is an impossible request and one that could only be asked by someone who wouldn't be able to understand it anyway. I will say that reading Decline of the West will provide an answer and thus I point anyone who is serious about it to that great book.

One thing is sure though and it is that any comments made about a book that hasn't been read are a complete waste of time from the reader's point of view and anybody who takes the slightest notice of such comments is likely to get their head screwed off their shoulders and that's not what education is about nor, ideally, what Able 2 Know is about.

And with this book I would add that comments stemming from a half-hearted read are pretty worthless as well. It is a difficult book.

One might, being a bit fanciful, suggest that its influence is not unlike that of the influence of certain minerals in soil which affect the quality of wines or smoking requisites. Ya dig?

Also I have quoted Russell on this thread a few times and I dip into his stuff on nearly a daily basis. He was what some coarser ladies call a "shagger" which Spengler wasn't.

spendi
You dont make a very compelling connection between the two points of the above sentences.
It implies that only by reading "Decline" can you somehow understand ID. If that is your proposition, why not enlighten us?
While the rest of the frits eatin world is concerned with biology, biochemistry and forensic evidence, you seem to try to beg the question with simplistic "feel good" comparisons gleaned from your own ,(and may I suggest ,solitary) worldview.

You may suggest anything you like fm. It is a method you use constantly.

I don't think that your opinion that I don't make a very compelling connection between the two points of the above sentences necessarily means that I don't.

I am concerned too with biology, biochemistry and forensic evidence. You shouldn't think I am disqualified from that.

I did not imply that reading Decline will define intelligent design. I offered it as one way into the subject. There are others.

And it is well known that "feel good" is connected to health. Dr Feelgood is the name of a well known rock group and Rabelais stresses the point.

Feel Bad is a media technique. Lack of consumer confidence often being cited as a cause of economic decline. But all that is in the realm of the psychosomatic and thus off limits to AIDs-ers presumably in order to drive people towards their own brand of palliative.

That was one of the few simple declarative paragraphs Ive ever seen from you spendi. It sounds almost like a paragraph from Frank McCourt .

Outside of the fact that its all horseshit, it was quite readable.

Frank McCourt.

I am on the record on this thread extolling the virtues of sloth for the very reasons Mr McCourt gives.

And it could be the answer the global warming although the Wall St dealers wouldn't thank anybody for it.

dont get all full of yourself spendi, even a bonobo, given enough time on the keyboard, would produce a line that sounded like Frank McCourt.

You introduced the guy to the thread not me. If we take no notice of your leads you end up talking to yourself. Hate is not the opposite of love. Indifference is that.

What's he famous for?

Don't you agree that sloth is the answer to GW if there is such a thing as a lot of scientists say there is?

Three no trumps.

But to be serious for a moment.

Maybe sloth is the answer to everything. Not just GW.

I think Diogenes was the first to go on the record with the idea. I can't see how it would have been unknown earlier.

Auberon Waugh, a man after my own heart and who died before his time from injuries in the course of duty, said that the answer was "goofing off".

And Bob Dylan said that it was "Blowin' in the Wind". Which is the one song Sir Edmund Hillary said he would have on a desert island if he could only have one.

Whatever anybody says that is an impressive list not in the least diluted by Mr McCourt having said it. Or indeed my humble self.

We can't just declare the idea "stupid" or " a load of horseshit".

They were saying, if we take them seriously, that the easy way is what we need to evolve properly.

We already have the carapace of technology and so "down into the easy chair" is the way forward.

Like turtles.

Live 300 years.

But one cannot teach that to kids. Not in lessons about evolution science by lady teachers all togged up in the latest fashions and demanding, demanding, demanding like they do.

Teachers will be the death of us. Selected out. This is a gap period. Presbyterians rule us. Pensioners with the grumpies on.

That's why I don't like rap music.

It is so infantile. It sounds like somebody shrieking about having their diaper changed.

Depends (pun).

Not really Chum. Jack Duckworth's whole character in Coronation Street has been based on the idea for many years.

I've known loads of people who subscribe to the view. Most of Shakespeare's recalcitrants, are the same.

There's a song genre dedicated to it. Gone Fishing. Lucky Ol' Sun. Lazybones.

There's a load of expressions too. Stay cool. Hang loose. Take it easy. Chill out. Rate busters.

Media selects in the hyperactive. It gives you a distorted picture as a result. And the credit crunch. That might be the deep end.

Just to show I'm even-handed.

youre an ambidextrous stroker?

I put it on fm to show how far you AIDs-ers have to go yet because the same newspaper, the Sunday Times, also reported that-



Actually fm, I think it is even more credulous that that. I think that 99.9% of the American public thinks that because the increasingly lurid and bizarre mental scenarios that accompany the act of generation in everybody who has been to college, and which never involve the person with whom this comical act is accomplished, is never mentioned, it isn't happening. The 0.1% are the first time buyers and as such statistically insignificant from a scientific point of view, and self-correcting, and thus inappropriate in a biology lesson concerning these matters.

I recognise that such a scientific fact, according to much research, involves a consideration of the psychosomatic problem and is therefore not applicable because milk bottles and bananas, and drawings on blackboards, don't embrace such matters.

Maybe our loss of religious faith in the UK is linked to the fact that we don't bother about sex anymore as once it becomes pointless, as it must do in a pointless world, we opt for energy saving which, taking everything into account, can be quite considerable.

As rap brought Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS, aka Bertie, to our attention I thought it might be worthwhile to follow the guy's logic for a post.

He wrote, in his essay Inference as a Habit-




Which is of course biological. The infant's biological reflexes are being frustrated.

But later, at about 17, he may take a reflex fancy to a young lady who dresses and comports her person in such a way as to encourage males to take such a fancy to her.

In the muscular biological sphere this young man feels impelled to move towards her and if she doesn't reciprocate the fancy she may well, in order to save his face, use the religious concept of sin to resist his advances. In other words his reflexes seem to him to be frustrated by religious strictures and authority rather than his personal characteristics and he will thus come to hate this authority in the same way the infant did and extend his hatred to the whole religious hierarchy and all their works and doings and seek every opportunity to discredit it which is easy to do due to the historical tradition having been erected in a medieval world and him not having a full appreciation of their function.

In the absence of this type of protection afforded to young ladies, and even older ones, she will be forced to tell him that he is not up to snuff by her standards. He will therefore be driven, by what is a force similar to gravity, towards those ladies who have no concept of sin and are pretty open-minded about what constitutes "up to snuff", and whose compensations are strictly materialistic. As these are commonly reckoned to accomodate numerous husbands every week, sometimes every night, they will have more money to spend and thus be able to boss the marketing system in their favour. Naturally the classified advertising sections which cater for this market will be significant beneficiaries as it expands into unknown territory.

Thus the religious authority protects our young man's self esteem without him knowing.

Obviously, such principles of conditioning that Bertie was writing about will apply to all frustrations of muscular reflexes by any authority and so a general hatred of authority in human institutions will develop and to the signs of it, such as uniforms.

The individual will only be able then to find authority within himself which is bound to cause him to believe that all his assertions are valid and he will, further, tend to give undue authority to mechanical facts in nature but find himself unable to live according to the principles they exhibit.

Also obviously, religious precepts would only ever be brought into service to inhibit strong natural reflexes and without such precepts the natural reflexes would have scope to run amok as those framing alternative regulations could hardly be expected to inhibit their own such reflexes, being the ones who do rather than the ones to whom it is done, as history has proved on a very large number of occasions.