Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

georgeob1 wrote:

Physics remains unable to explain our origins and our fate.

I'm not farmerman, but I'm fine with this. That is, unless you draw the fallacious conclusion that we need religion to fill the void of what science can't explain. If we can't figure out something scientifically, that doesn't mean religion can. It only means we can't figure it out.

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What one "needs" or 'doesn't need" to fill the void is a personal decision. For me, the choice of a void, as opposed to the notion of a creator of this fantastic cosmos, is itself a rather odd decision. On what basis would one prefer it?.. an odd aesthetical preference for the fruitless application of the scientific method, beyond the realm of science???? Very strange, it seems to me.

However, I can't prove my case, and I wouldnt get into a fight over it. (certainly not with a Bavarian who is getting along in Northern New Jersey.) :wink:

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fm wrote-

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And every so often, he actually gets the references correct.

Which is meaningless.

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Weve established that ID is definetely a religious experience and exists in the mental realms of a minority of " scientists".

I presume that the bunny rabbit's ears around scientist are meant to convey that these particular scientists are not scientists at all. Which leaves us with fm defining a scientist as someone who doesn't have a religious experience existing in his mental realms.

Which then not only makes fm the dictator of meanings but defines his arguments as circular and also disqualifies his claim to be a scientist on his own admissions. To avoid that he needs to define "religious experience" in a mirror and define the term the way he wishes.

And "minority" is an unsupported assertion.

So there's nothing of substance in his post which is probably the reason, via the well known psychological circularity known as projection, why he accuses me of lacking substance and he then proceeds, without the slightest justification to link me with rl.

And when it comes to "eye diverting" AIDsers should petition the Olympic Committee to include it in their games so that they will be able to run off with all the medals. He's diverted his eyes from Whiston's comet on this very page. He has diverted his eyes from requests to describe a non-religious future society and such a range of important matters, including the one George just raised, that it would take too long to look up and quote. He relies on viewers not having the time to do the same.

And Godwin's Law is a load of bollocks and I've explained why.

Joe- Deconstructing George's response to your post he means that you can't read properly.

I did make a mistake when I wrote-

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Only the Christian dispensation has ever shown any signs of attempting to eradicate war.

I ought to have made it clear that I was speaking of serious cultural settings. I daresay a few isolated tribes have attempted to eradicate war.

While I don't approve of torture it has to be said that the fuss being made about waterboarding and extraordinary rendition would not have existed in any other culture I know of. That fuss is impossible without the Christian dispensation which, in its pure form, condems them unequivocally. Thus it shows a move in the right direction, and Mr McCain has promised to remove those things, due to Christian thinking and moralities.

But we don't know for sure what will happen in any backs to the wall situation. I would expect that American Christianity would prove to be rather shallow. Our's as well. I don't think the Darwinian dispensation has gone away by a long shot.

But Jesus had his back to the wall.

And many another after him who had a lot more to lose than an itsy-bitsy argument and a few cracks in their prejudices and pompous self-regard.

To which legion of madmen you owe EVERYTHING. History books are written about people to whom we owe nothing. And who appointed the history professors?

Look how you ignored my posts about the first printing of a book. Eye-diversion was at work. Nothing new there.

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georgeob1 wrote:

For me, the choice of a void, as opposed to the notion of a creator of this fantastic cosmos, is itself a rather odd decision.

Oh, yeah?

I was telling another guy that he seemed a bit Manichean, to no avail.

Does it apply to you, George, void or creator?

As I feel no need of a creator, I don't have any feeling of void either..

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I don't feel any need for a creator either. It isn't a matter I feel qualified to even think about let alone discuss. I'd start tittering.

Stendhal taught me that if there's nothing you can do about something there's no sense in bothering about it. My whole 5th form year couldn't match that for useful knowledge. But there was, he felt, something he could do about these uppity Princesses and therein lies a real tale.

If only he could have finished Leuwen.

There are a lot more needs being expressed in religious activities than simply one for a creator. If only to release imagination and our science. But a lot more besides, some of which I've mentioned, and some of which I don't know about.

Can those needs be catered for in a scientific society in the presence of self-consciousness? I could have a stab at saying yes to that so why can't AIDsers? Are they scared witless about where they might end up if they try it.

Suggesting theories without going to the trouble of providing the practical means of bringing them to fruition or of what they will look like is contemptible from any intellectual standpoint. Or so a government minister told Bernard Shaw after hearing him preach real Socialism.

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I'll have a stab.

In a scientific society, where self consciousness is still allowed, when little Johnnie (Doe that is) asks the teacher where he came from it would be in the curriclum for her to say that a stork had brought him suspended in a little hammock of white satin and gently laid him under a gooseberry bush and that his Mom and Pop had found him after wondering what all the squealing was in the garden and taken him inside and wrapped him in warm fleecy blankets and fed him up to be the fine young man he was becoming and of whom we are all so proud.

If he asks where the stork got him from the teacher will point to the windows and tell him from over the hills. The wide blue yonder is okay too with a sweeping hand across all the windows. Storks come from the sky.

If he persists and starts planning to investigate over the hills he is taken to the Service Bay where the chip in his frontal cortex is replaced. A very simple operation due to mass production efficiencies.

The teacher will believe it as well. The link between sex and reproduction having been broken. As it once was for fairly obvious reasons as any biologist will explain.

When she shows signs of having been got with child, when her medication substituted a placebo after she had been identified as B-, she is whisked to the Special Unit where she is dosed for the months remaining, kept in perfect biological order and returns to her post as Geographer First Class none the wiser and with $10,000 back-pay and a free holiday in the destination of her choice as a reward for being such a good patient.

That's half-way to the bottles Huxley envisaged and a damn sight cheaper I should think.

I'm trying to avoid the sperm bank option which seems more likely to me at this time of writing.

Storks will then be trained and no creator is needed anymore. BB says what goes.

Goodbye wills, legacies, inheritances and other restrictive practices like marriage and mourning, and hello sailor, hail pleasant morning.

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Wow, I am so not reading 1600 pages of ID debate. I had quite a bit at the 'Expelled!' blog where everyone I argued with either 1) was pathologically a liar (and possibly insane, like Keith Eaton) or 2) nice, ignorant, and quickly gave up, disappeared.

georgeob1 wrote:

What one "needs" or 'doesn't need" to fill the void is a personal decision. For me, the choice of a void, as opposed to the notion of a creator of this fantastic cosmos, is itself a rather odd decision. On what basis would one prefer it?.. an odd aesthetical preference for the fruitless application of the scientific method, beyond the realm of science???? Very strange, it seems to me.

It's because you have an inaccurate dichotomy. Admitting ignorance is not equivalent to embracing a void, it's being honest and going no further than is warranted. Postulating and believing in a creator in place of such a thing is a shallow belief (in my opinion), unwarranted (I've never seen any half-reasonable argument for His existence), and a fantasy.

As an aesthetic preference, I like to constrain myself to what is reasonable and forwarded by the evidence. If you'd like a less ridiculous example of sticking a nonexplanation where ignorance exists, here's one: transdimensional leprechauns are the origin of photosynthesis.

You probably think I'm making light of your beliefs, but this is actually simpler and less ridiculous than the idea of God that most people throw around, as while it is easily rescued by theistic rationalizations, it is far more specific and thus includes fewer fanciful properties than most ideas of the creator. Funny how it's that specificity that makes it look silly, huh?

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Oh come one Spendius - I don't need any protectors - I've lasted this long without them...whatdya think I am - a wuss? Please always feel free to respond. Laughing

I'd be interested in hearing what you think about abortion. I've never read your thoughts. And I'm sure you've never read mine- as again- I feel that abortion is an intensely private and personal issue. But if you're assuming I'm enamored of the idea of choice simply because I'm a woman you'd be wrong. And if you're assuming I'm against the idea because I'm a Christian - you'd be wrong too. Not everything falls so neatly into place - at least not in my brain.

I think what Francis said about not needing a creator is key (for him).

People fill their 'void' with whatever works for them. I'm reading a pretty interesting book right now - it's a novel and not even a classic - but it's well-written and I particularly liked this explanation of why man might believe - if not in God then in a void or in himself or in possessions:

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It was not enough to ascend a summit of awareness and look around me while ignoring the signal-clotted preponderance of the material world which surrounds us, leans into us, drills us full of numbness and dead air, and then whips those moribund inner spaces into the desire to have and possess. I wanted to possess nothing. I was indifferent to the claims of ownership.
There is a reason all religions, no matter their outlooks converge in the understanding that the visible world is merely a beautiful shawl of energy which we briefly don before returning to its rightful owner. The greatest returns in life are symbolic. Man makes tools but he is a riser and a lifter. He raises crops and lifts his voice in song. And he believes.

Eli Gottlieb

I think the key to it the signals - everyone reads them differently- depending on what it is they need to or want to believe.

And I think George is right - science has explained so much - but not everything.

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As for the topic of the title, I'll throw in my 2¢.

Intelligent Design is a pseudoscientific movement which arose soon after (hint hint) it was ruled that "Creation Science" could not be taught in public school classrooms. Its vagaries allowed it to borrow from a new set of nonsense-peddlers. Its two major proponents and only contributors of anything approaching worth, Bill Dembski and Michael Behe, are part of it for slightly different reasons.

If "Creation Science" were still up and running, Bill Dembski would be part of it. His nonsense ideas about design coincided with the completion of the basics for an academic career (PhD and postdoc work) and he clearly blurs the line between the "science ID" and "ID as part of his Christianity" when he isn't presenting those ideas to the general public or the occasional scientist he attempts to condescend to.

However, Behe is a bit vaguer and while I believe he is still religious (hint hint), he likely wouldn't have been part of "Creation Science" (he likes that vagueness).

Now, given the Wedge Document, the all-too-convenient time of origins for ID, the book of Pandas and People (Dembski has worked on the newer editions), etc, it is clear that ID is based on religious ideals and a battle against materialism, etc. However, it is also a pseudoscience and we shouldn't forget that while accurately labeling both its origins and true foundations as religious.

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Francis wrote:

georgeob1 wrote:
For me, the choice of a void, as opposed to the notion of a creator of this fantastic cosmos, is itself a rather odd decision.

Oh, yeah?

I was telling another guy that he seemed a bit Manichean, to no avail.

Does it apply to you, George, void or creator?

As I feel no need of a creator, I don't have any feeling of void either..

I agree with what Francis said. The more I learn about religious' beliefs before and after buddhism/christianity/Islam and its effects on humans, religion has done more harm than good to the animal species on this planet. "Void" is meaningless, BTW.

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spendius wrote:

I presume that the bunny rabbit's ears around scientist are meant to convey that these particular scientists are not scientists at all. Which leaves us with fm defining a scientist as someone who doesn't have a religious experience existing in his mental realms.

No. Look at Ken Miller. It's the pursuits these people follow that let us accurately describe them as practicing pseudoscience. It becomes an argument of semantics whether one is considered a scientist once they've not just discontinued researching/validly theorizing but have begun actively violating scientific principles and presenting the results as "science".

spendius wrote:

And "minority" is an unsupported assertion.

Yes, but it's one that is trivially easy to learn about. Look up the DI's list, look up Project Steve. Of course, there are also polls that you could have looked up. Want to guess how hard that would've been? Google "poll intelligent design".

spendius wrote:

And Godwin's Law is a load of bollocks and I've explained why.

Wait, you invoked Nazis? Classic.

spendius wrote:

While I don't approve of torture it has to be said that the fuss being made about waterboarding and extraordinary rendition would not have existed in any other culture I know of. That fuss is impossible without the Christian dispensation which, in its pure form, condems them unequivocally. Thus it shows a move in the right direction, and Mr McCain has promised to remove those things, due to Christian thinking and moralities.

This is one big unsupported assertion, much more so than your earlier accusation. Usurping morality for Christianity (particularly when it has fluctuated so much over its history) is a particularly low tactic. Do you go further, like D'Souza, and claim that atheists act ethically because they grow up in "Christian" societies?

Here's a nice repetition of the collapse of "scientific" creationism in microcosm: unsupported assertion of Christian explanations having value and necessary impact for situations to arise, likely quite soon to be followed (or preceded Wink

) by repeatable and evidenced assertions concerning ethology drawing from non-Christian science and reasoned philosophical arguments which are not contingent on Christianity.

Your labeling of a "scientific society" as part of Huxley's dystopia is noted and ridiculous. There is nothing about valuing science that necessitates inhumanity and lies and that seems to what you be implying by calling this society "scientific".

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Shirakawasuna, Welcome to a2k. Just returned from 17-days in Central Asia/Middle East, and saw your name for the first time today.

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Hi cicerone imposter, I'm new here. Just to avoid any confusion (people seem to think my nick is Indian), my nick is Japanese and is the term used to refer to the coarse white sand in zen gardens (karesansui style). Shira = white, kawa = river, suna = sand.

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I once knew a guy with the name "Shirakawa," but your extension of "suna" threw me off. I know a little Japanese, because a) I'm Japanese-American, and b) I took three years of Japanese language lessons when a youngster in my teens.

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Shira-

I find it difficult to address and debate with white river sand.

But I will say that I agree, and have it on here, that yes-- atheists act ethically because they grow up in "Christian" societies? I should imagine that Islamic atheists do the same with Islamic ethics.

Your first para doesn't apply to me. I'm not looking at Ken Miller.

All I said was that "minorities" was an unsupported assertion. I was thinking all scientists ever. I did not say the assertion was untrue.

I can't understand your penultimate paragraph.

Nor the last one. But I never said science was inhumane. It is human nature which has that capacity and science cannot check it. Science is disinterested. Dispassionate. Inhumanity engages passions. As does humanity.

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spendius wrote:

But I will say that I agree, and have it on here, that yes-- atheists act ethically because they grow up in "Christian" societies? I should imagine that Islamic atheists do the same with Islamic ethics.

Then we have a confirmed, specific prediction Wink

. I'm doing better than Intelligent Design and it only took ten minutes.

Of course, the problem with your assertion is that it is unsupported. The most support you could find would be a correlation (and I freely admit that socialization can have an impact on our behavior and considerations of what is moral), but it does not elminate the competing, more basic hypothesis that morality flows from our biology as social animals. Luckily, the people who make that hypothesis actually care enough to go out and test it.

spendius wrote:

Your first para doesn't apply to me. I'm not looking at Ken Miller.

Then stop making generalizations.

spendius wrote:

All I said was that "minorities" was an unsupported assertion. I was thinking all scientists ever. I did not say the assertion was untrue.

You're getting out of order here... I noted Ken Miller in response to this:

spendius wrote:

I presume that the bunny rabbit's ears around scientist are meant to convey that these particular scientists are not scientists at all. Which leaves us with fm defining a scientist as someone who doesn't have a religious experience existing in his mental realms.

In other words, not to your assertion about a minority.

And of course, if you're noting that something is an unsupported assertion even though it's trivially easy to figure out, we have an essentially useless statement.

I was going to ask where you were going with it if not to cast aspersions on the accuracy of his claim, but you have just explained that that was precisely the intent: you are talking about "all scientists ever", apparently. However, the context of the very quote you listed about this is Intelligent Design, a movement that's fifteen-twenty years old. Not only that, but fm clearly implied that they were speaking about current scientists...

spendius wrote:

I can't understand your penultimate paragraph.

It's very simple as it is the repeated history of Christian claims about reality vs. those nasty science-types (even since before science was a concrete concept) and their actual studies into reality. I'm not sure what there is to not understand about it... Christian ideas are presented and unsupported, ideas with an actual basis in reality (evidence!) and philosophy pop up and expose the vacuity of the Christian idea.

spendius wrote:

Nor the last one. But I never said science was inhumane. It is human nature which has that capacity and science cannot check it. Science is disinterested. Dispassionate. Inhumanity engages passions. As does humanity.

I still understand your earlier implication quite well, thanks. There is no reason to list the "scientific society" as a hellish dystopia if not to present it as what would happen if we embraced scientific ideals. Do you back out of all your statements in this way?

You clearly implied that valuing science leads to these inhumane results, and I stated it as such. I did not accuse you of saying that "science was inhumane".

I understand that last bit about passion, but I fail to see the relevance. There is nothing about passion that is excluded by valuing science and clearly nothing related to your straw man of storkish ideas.

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Well, I had to work today so Ive missed 2 pages of information, I shall attempt to catch up,

georgeob

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We've discussed this before, but it is perhaps time for my annual suggestion that, while Biblical descriptions of the origin of both the cosmos and mankind are, at best, metaphorically true, (attempts to apply them literally fly in the face of both experience and the real knowledge we have accumulated through science), modern science remains unable to explain our origins, and there is every reason to believe that it will remain unable to do so.

I do understand that this is your belief .However, does that mean that it requires an automatic default to the lands of Real Life? I think not. To say that "we will remain unable to explain our origins" is not the realm of science. We dwell in, , and love our ignorance , its the reason to get up in the morning and go whistling to work. I think that, no matter what the consesnus is at this point in time, just add another25 years, and 25 after that.
"Art is a passion pursued with discipline, Science is a discipline pursued with passion"

You are perhaps confusing the burden of proof required for a capitol crime V the burden of proof for a civil judgement. (ie ,Unanimity, without any doubt v preponderance of evidence). SCience never proves anything, it evidences the best argument, and if the argument and evidence behind it can be utilized by applied guys like us, badabing, thats synonamous with proof.

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welcome back CI, Shira is a new guy whose posts make sense and some of our folks dont like that Very Happy

ci

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I once knew a guy with the name "Shirakawa,"

I think your friend was just doing a riff off of Michael Ansara' s character, who was a Chiracawa Apache (spelled differently though)

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Shira wrote-

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but it does not elminate the competing, more basic hypothesis that morality flows from our biology as social animals.

I don't accept that. Biology is a science. All biological happenings are predictable. There would not be different moralities unless there were different biologies. That is almost proved by my noticing when I had typed that that I had never seen the plural of biology before. It even looks odd. A caligraphic paradox. Maybe other have seen it before. I accept that different landscapes cause variations in the manner which the basic biology (which includes a self conscious mind as not separate) reacts to them. Which, I suppose you could say were distortions caused by socialization. But then we're on the Nature/Nurture roundabout which is playtime and a distraction.

But we are getting close to race issues there.

Marriage customs have been traced to landscapes but it's very complex and I know little about it. Do I need to know the technical details though?

The principle is enough to be thinking about. Details can easily shift your focus as you get rewarded for having expertise in the matter.

And there's sibling rivalry. And sexual complexes which are beyond the scope of this thread.

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Then stop making generalizations

It's not as bad as giving out orders. I'll make generalizations anytime I feel like it until some judge says I can't. This thread is riddled with those.

Language is riddled with them. Do you think any two protons are exactly the same.

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And of course, if you're noting that something is an unsupported assertion even though it's trivially easy to figure out, we have an essentially useless statement.

Very true. But some viewers on here might take an unsupported assertion to be true. We discussed assertions at great length a long while ago. I'm trying to cure serial unsupported assertionists. Often cures do consist of repetition. This is a stubborn case we have on our hands. You'll have to make allowances. One doesn't stop kicking one's opponents at football because you've kicked them a few times earlier.

I might suspect that Mr Miller is a good ol' boy who saw a chink of light and went for it.

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I was going to ask where you were going with it if not to cast aspersions on the accuracy of his claim, but you have just explained that that was precisely the intent...

No. You have the wrong impression. I was examining fm modes of thinking. I don't think I cast any aspersions on his claim. Had he not used those inverted commas I might have taken another tack. I can duck and weave about a bit. How am I supposed to know about the religious beliefs of the world's scientists. Anyway--it's off the page now.

Intelligent Design is donkey's years old. I was concerned with what he said not with what he might have implied.

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It's very simple as it is the repeated history of Christian claims about reality vs. those nasty science-types (even since before science was a concrete concept) and their actual studies into reality. I'm not sure what there is to not understand about it... Christian ideas are presented and unsupported, ideas with an actual basis in reality (evidence!) and philosophy pop up and expose the vacuity of the Christian idea.

Which reality? Your's?

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I still understand your earlier implication quite well, thanks. There is no reason to list the "scientific society" as a hellish dystopia if not to present it as what would happen if we embraced scientific ideals. Do you back out of all your statements in this way?

I did say "hello sailor--hail smiling morn" or something. When did I say my brief caricature was of a dystopia let alone a hellish one. Didn't my tail wag at the end suggest to you that I might quite fancy what I described. Improved upon of course but I hadn't time for the details?

It's pub time. See you shortly.

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c.i.-

Your effusive welcomings of White River Sands is way off topic.

Are you volunteering to be the doorman? How Red Were His Carpets?

They jump in in the pub. We don't start any stuff about just having returned from 17-days in Central Asia/Middle East, and haven't seen you before and welcome to the discussion.

It could look like we were trying to say that having been in Central Asia/Middle East (I span the globe) is a big deal when in actual fact it's more like a skinned banana. Only browner.

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Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

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