Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

goodfielder-

The most important point of all is that science is amoral.If we accept,as anything other than a tool,the concepts in Origin, then price gouging say is right and proper along with a whole other load of stuff which most of us would disapprove of.How can one accept nature red in tooth and claw (the struggle for existence/survival of the fittest)and then disapprove of price gouging simply because one has been gouged.Evolution is a war of all against all which has been mitigated by moral precepts and those,to carry weight,require some higher authority than human agencies.The higher authority actually exists if it is believed in just like sub atomic particles are believed in because of the effects they can be shown to cause.They can't be seen either.

If science ruled the field prisons could only be justified on the struggle for existence basis as a class war strategy.I think that is what the Dover board have in mind.

Books are written about this subject so one can't expect much from short posts.

Joe-

I wouldn't wish to disagree with your post except



Science has no such concept.

It was a compound sentence spendi, there were some commas that split thoughts into clearly identafiable parts that we who use English call thingies.

fm-

There's only one comma.

As one who gave 12 months over to a study of Marcel Proust's Aladdin's Cave of compound sentences (in translation admittedly) I think I am well able to grasp the notion of "thingies".

There are sentences in A la recherche du temps perdu which defy the unstimulated mind.

On the geographical thing last night,which I wish I had seen more of,the blurb in the Sunday Times went as follows-

"Horizon:The Ghost In Your Genes.
Peeling away the layers of the genetic onion,this week's episode answers recent accusations of dumbing down by tackling the complex and controversial subject of epigenetics,a relatively new field of study,concerning how genes interact with their environment and how heritable changes in families can be passed on from generation to generation without a change in the genome sequence.The result is a documentary covering all the moral-panic concerns,from stem-cell research to preventitive cancer treatments."

Further-on the programme page-

"---which explores the idea that people's behaviour and physical experiences affect the traits their descendents inherit in their genes."

In the part I saw much stress was laid on the moment of conception.

I wondered if any such patterns might exist in the background of the 11 plaintiffs which,as scientific people,they couldn't possibly object to being investigated.

Also-I got Dover up on Google Earth and it looks very rural and smaller than I thought.We have very similar places here and I am quite familiar with the micro culture of them.Are the plaintiffs incomers who have made enough in an urban setting to repair to the countryside.

My polyandry jest was also a point of departure.

yes, and it separates NEWSCASTS AND JOURNALISM from the rest of the thingy. You misread the entire thought,.
Further, why the hell am I defending Joe, after all , hes a professional writer who is perfectly capable of explaining what he wrote by writing an explanatory post , but seeing as how it is after lunch in UK , you are probably well on your way, wink wink, nudge nudge.

But do they? Your father says, "spendi, you little shitt, the forest is full of wolves and they will eat you, so don't go there To do so is imprudent."

How is that different, in the sense you argue, from your mother advising, "spendi, you darling child, one should not hit another kid with a two by four because bad consequences are likely to follow. To hit another is wrong."?

spendius,

It is difficult to respond to the issues that you bring up. You seem to be extending evolutionary theory into the social arena. Most of us are not interested in jumping from natural science into sociology. (This is similar to our desire to have science taught as science at the elementary and secondary school level.)

For stern moral authority, one cannot do better than a representative of the Royal Canajun Mounted Police . . .

dys-

A Vatican cardinal is one source I would expect sense to come from.

fm-

I didn't even criticise Joe.I simply took an expression he used and pointed to it in relation to this whole argument.I'm quite sure I understood what he meant.It wasn't all that difficult.

I do not start drinking for another 7 hours.And a good job too.

His grandmother, Helga she-wolf of the SS, did it better.

Bernie,

The difference is that I never took much notice of my parents on account of the fact that they were both complete idiots,proof of which is my presence on this earth.If further proof is required I refer you to my two sisters and brother.

And my father never spoke to me in such a tone although I will admit that my mother,bless her, often called me a darling.As did all the other old bags I knew.

On the other hand,the prospect of spending eternity in fiery torment did have a restraining influence on my early behaviour patterns and by the time I discovered it was all a load of bullshit those patterns were imprinted which is why I am such a nice,easy going,friendly sort of chap.I realised that the bullshit was simple a method of eradicating childhood amorality and one which I prefer to the exercise of terror.Or to the continuation of the amorality into adulthood.

are children amoral?

wande-

As Ms Hepburn said in African Queen-

"Nature,Mr Allnut,is what we are put in this world to rise above."

Science tells us that we have selfish genes and thus that virtue is a sham and that we only act morally for protection.

The courtroom is a social arena.The argument in it's pedantic form is not resolvable.I have asked for an SDer to traverse the asymptote to the absolute of reducible complexity and there are no takers and quite rightly so.It is in that narrow space that irreducible complexity lurks as even Darwin admitted.Darwin's theory starts after life started not before.

The social forces in that courtroom,and in this whole debate,are entirely (100%) sociological and psychological.Not everyone is as naive as you seem to wish them to be.

The stuff about epigenetics is quite relevant.

Is there a statistical difference between the place of conception of the plaintiffs and that of the IDers on the board or associated with it.Or,to try to make it simpler,are any of the 11 plaintiffs from Dover families of 3 generations or more.

But please note that the argument is irresolvable technically and everybody has known that for two hundred years at least.Everybody who matters I mean.

Steve asked-



Yes.One of the main functions of education,some would say THE main function,is to eradicate it.Science cannot because it is itself amoral.

why is the material on epigenetics valuable? Its a mechanism, we understand the active fractions of extra DNA transfer. Weve even had a thread here in A2k about it about a year ago. I dont know whether we got down to methylation or mechanisms. Somehow You seem to be having a major problem with the plaintiffs in the Dover case. Yet you fail to realize that the entire case wouldnt have been necessary, had the school board's single representative not tried to get his religious views included in a science curriculum. Why are you being so dense?

fm-

Maybe I am dense.Occam Razor explanation.

I'm aware that other people read this thread besides those who come on it.

You asked this-



Because it is moving us into that area where no-one is accountable for their actions as Mr Manson attempted to prove.We are all the product of social and genetic interaction and "error" is built in.

Andy Warhol referred to his shooting by Ms Solanis as an "accident".A socio/genetic accident.A bit like when a group of circumstances combine to cause a rail crash.

I don't think the case is as simple as you make out.It is an accident waiting to happen and would have taken place somewhere sooner or later in the circumstance of a God fearing President in his second term.It is an ambush.My guess (NB) is that money is the motive.Why Dover?I don't know.

spendius,

I am sure you yourself would admit that your psycho/social/genetic perspective is an idiosyncratic one. (The rest of us have no idea how to respond).

Im totally fascinated and , at the same time, confused by your question. What does the CdG methylation have to do with "no one is accountable for their actions" Is this how you read this bit of information? If epistasis or epigenetics render that conclusion from you, why not the mere information regarding howgenes code proteins? Both are mere chemical reactions, one within a base and one outside of it.




Youve still avoided my question about your apparent lack of respect for the plaintiffs position in the Dover case?

I