Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

It seemed to me that Kenneth Miller refuted all of Behe's examples by saying that the examples show complexity but not irreducibility.

wande-

The next question is how are the two sides funded and what are the predictions of final costs.

Is it all really based on that President's statement?

Does he not know there were crucifixtions all over the place in those days?He must believe Jesus was the son of God.Plenty of Christians don't believe that.

spendius,

I am not sure about the funding or the costs. The school board is being represented by a religiously affiliated law center. The parents are being represented by the Pennsylvania chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (a non-profit advocacy group).

The president of the school board (and his wife) exerted a lot of influence over the school board according to trial testimony.

The school board president expressed a hatred for "Darwinism" based on his specific religious beliefs. Not all Christians are anti-evolution.

wande-

We have a system called The Surcharge.It is designed to prevent officials costing taxpayers with frivolities.I think if the Pres. loses he would be slapped with it here i.e.he pays.

spendius,

The Dover school board president retired last month. He said he was doing so on the advice of family and friends.

spendius-In the US, school boards are nonpaid elected positions. The boards are staffed by volunteers in Pa. They receive an expense check for their personal hardships. They wield an amountof power disproportionate to their capabilities. In Pa, these 'burgs have school boards that are staffed by7 special interests all thetime.
In my school district we have a 9 board member mix of people from farmers to physicists. Noone is a professional educator. The school superintendent is an unelected member of the board and takes all the heat .
Its a lousy system but its what weve bought into.

ci-Im not defending ID. I think that it is often an attempt to skirt religious teaching and the USSC decision but, what really steams my shorts is that the people affected by the subtlety of the supposed "science" are ignorant of the argument and its middle grounds.
If we believe that life began by seeding from outer space microbes, that is sort of a basis of ID origin and moves the argument back and to the right on another planet of origin.

As to following Intelligent design plans, the IDers argue for the basic "bauplan " structure wherein only about 5 to 9 basic body plans are available (more if we include plants). All life had to have followed this (they say)

I go back to the fossil record and state that evidence is strong that "form followed some kind of function" and the function was imposed by the environmental conditions. I feel that, although this is heresy, all major evolutionary changes were adaptive to some new environmnet. The argument that ID follows is almost one of predestination. BUT, were dismissing Mike Behe for his attachment to one thing and were ignoring his other important work in applied molecular bio.

I think that Russ Humphries is also dead wrong about his Creationist beliefs , but I cannot find any faults (sorry) in his geophysical techniques in 3-D seismic tomography.

Im just jumping in after a brief hiatus to caution against sweeping judgements.(My trip to LAbrador has mellowed me on this subject)

PS, if anyone wants to get a quick understanding of the sense of earth history relating to the mechanisms of sea floor spreading, go to a library and find a copy of a book entitled"The Last Billion Years" It was published in 2001 by the CAnadian Geologic Society and I found it to be a really good yet readable synthesis of plate tectonics and North America (seen from the Tim Horton side). Its written by a whole slew of Canadian geologists and its worth being in a professionals library and also the library of interested non professionals or even high school kids. I had it given to me by a colleague last week and was quite impressed in its content.
Most US geological organizations publish based upon a micro scale and dont ever attempt to "tie it all together".

farmerman,

It is always better to take a "mellow" approach, in my opinion. However, in court this morning, Dr. Behe attacked methodological naturalism. Isn't that taking sides with the Discovery Institute's "wedge" plan?

wandel.
I read the Ken Miller piece and dint see anything in it that even mildly refutes the specific cascade of enzymes in blood clotting. While I respect Kens stuff in dismantling the flagella as an example of Irreducible Complexity (IC), he has not gotten into the biochemistry realm in any fashion that is compelling

I know the answer is "out there" and its gonna come from sources that will probably have more to do with medical devices than evolution.

Nevertheless, I always enjoy a good ripping article by Miller. Thats why hes a great bio textbook guy. He is instructive and entertaining and he pisses off the fundamentalists no end..

wandeljw said. If you follow his reasoning, he is trying to occupy the stable ground of science by saying that "multiple hypotheses" trumps the scientific method. Multiple hypotheses is a method of problem solution within the scientific method .
Yes, hes parroting the wedge strategy, but if the lawyers are good enough, they already know that what follows in the entire "wedge documemnt" is a return to a section of their own document that clearly says
""Design "theory"promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialistic worldview and to replace it with the theistic undertsanding that nature and human beings are created by God"

Hes been well coached but hes dancing on a fine enough line that, in cross, Ill bet hes gonna be asked the very question that you alluded to.


Im inclined to believe that,for the sake of the entire nation's failing education system, itd be better for the IDers to win in PA, thus forcing another Aguillard style case (and quickly) where the issue of how ID is really a religious dodge will be adjudicated for good.(But that's just me)

My my fm-you have mellowed.There's new tone there alright.Didn't spend a week with an Eskimo bunch did you?

Thanks for the info.I have that book but I never read it.I looked but I go for style and it lacked that.
It looked informative though.

wande-if he's resigned are they not retreating.Still, the way fm describes them I don't suppose anybody could predict what they'll do next.Are they not out of control.One could expect that the way they seem set up.It does goes to people's heads does a bit of power aligned with stupidity.

spendius.
I havent reallymellowed, I happen to like Behe.

farmerman,
No matter what you say, you are unusually mellow today. Anyway, thanks for providing perspective on Miller's refutations.

spendius,
In my opinion, the board president "saved face" by retiring instead of resigning.

from the bbc website

The head of the American Association for the Advancement of Science says that intelligent design "is not even a theory".

It's not a theory because it can't be confirmed in any way. It's only a guess by religious folks that believes in the bible god.

It's a good laugh and that's for sure.

farmerman,
In your opinion, would Dr. Behe admit that it would be wrong to give high school students the impression that intelligent design has equal standing with evolutionary theory?

wande-

Dr Behe would probably ask "what do you mean by 'wrong' ".Assuming he's a wise man of course.

Then you're back at Square One which it seems you and c.i. are desirous of returning to at every opportunity.

Evolution,more or less correct as it probably is,is a crazy theory for humans to assimilate at this early stage in their mental development.Even thinking about the past in any way was considered crazy by the ancient Greeks and their best brains are often quoted on these threads for reasons I find difficult to understand.They mythologised the past.And the Romans didn't get much further.They lived in the here and now.It is the message in all their art.The past was quickly merged into a timeless myth in which Ceasar himself was enabled to trace his descent from the Gods.

In the last chapter of Origin Darwin says this-

"It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as the "plan of creation","unity of design"&c.,and to think that we give an explanation when we only restate a fact.Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of a certain number of facts will certainly reject my theory."

But what is wrong with admitting our ignorance on these matters and having done so taking the easy way out?Does not the law of conservation of energy mandate taking the easy way out.Some might say it was masochism not to and unnatural.

And there is that "certain number of facts" to contend with.That's a long way short of all facts.

And-are you aware of the consequences of the real spirit of the evolutionary approach.It is all very well for amoral nature to cull in the "struggle for existence" and thus select the fittest but are you up for that in human culture or allowing daughters (and wives even) to mate where and when their instincts drive them.Some evolutionists I have read accomodate both notions without a blink.They have no alternative.They are not vicarage tea party evolutionists you see.They are the real thing.

Now please don't go saying that "unity of design" is not science.Again.We know.We knew before you and c.i. told us and told us etc.

We are trying to run a culture not a scientific theory.

spendius,

By "wrong" I mean "blatantly dishonest".

All major science organizations have issued statements supporting evolutionary theory and rejecting intelligent design. Normally, in the United States, a scientific theory is not taught at the high school level unless it is accepted by a consensus of scientific experts. It is necessary to rely on a consensus of experts because science is very specialized.

Since intelligent design proponents have failed to achieve a favorable consensus among science experts, they are bypassing the normal way by which a scientific theory is introduced into high school science curriculum.

As we discussed yesterday, the Dover school board's decision had nothing to do with expert scientific opinion.

wande-

What is "wrong" with being "blatantly dishonest" in evolutionary terms.All's fair in love,war and the struggle for existence surely.

"A consensus of scientific experts" eh?What a lovely phrase.
An elite you mean?Dr Stranglove for President.
The Supreme Soviet.The North Korean High Command.

I know all that.The first long sentence could be switched around for the other side.It's meaningless.
They would wouldn't they.

What about the female mating instinct?Why have you refrained from dealing with that highly pertinent point?




That's a bit of a wild assertion I should have thought.Isn't democracy counter to that?

Why are you seemingly frightened of the social function arguments and constantly retreat into these cliches which we all know already?

You're on the record here wande.There are viewers reading this.Why wouldn't you trust a daughter's evolved mating drives and selection methods?Is it because you are worried about the social effects and now can't admit it.Veblen said that the illegitimacy rate represented the triumph of the hormones over the proprietries.How does evolution get onside with the proprietries.I'm not even sure ID can do that as I have understood it so far.