Liberal Hypocrisy about Intelligent Design

Thanx!

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ebrown,
When it comes to language it always evolves. New words appear. New usage becomes accepted. Grammar has rules but those are often bent. A lot of classic literature bends the rules in order to be great. "Tom Sawyer" without the slang and use of dialect wouldn't be the same.

Ebonics is a dialect that in a lot of ways is about as different from standard US English as British English usage is. Consider the rhyming slang of the British Cockney. It doesn't make much sense outside its spoken realm but it is studied and catalogued.

Language is about communication. Sometimes that requires that the langauge not be a standard version in order to achieve that goal. Edgar is right that you need to speak the langauge in order to do business but in most cases the supplier is forced to speak the language of the consumer not the other way around.

That doesn't mean that schools shouldn't teach grammar to try to achieve a standard for all but the standard for grammar or spelling is far from the same worldwide. (color vs colour) That is not true for science. Science is more like math. Science doesn't change from one part of the world to another. The earth revolves around the sun in every science class worldwide. 2+2= 4 in every math class. Science can evolve over time as new things are discovered but it doesn't change the scientific method.

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parados,

But would you agree that there have been cases in which science supposedly proved something long ago and the science of today has disproved that original theory?

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I didn't mention the Big Bang theory. My comparison is with Intelligent Design.

The reason that I chose Intelligent design for my comparison is that the vast majority of scientists accept evolution as proven by "overwhelming evidence".

The people who know the most about biology-- including the scientists at the forefront of genetics and molecular biology who have observed evolution-- say that evolution is "cut and dried" certain.

This is why the Intelligent design folks are really offering an alternative to a discovery of science. Scientists have followed their scientific method and have reached a conclusion that has a wide consensus. The Intelligent design folks are not only attacking evolution, they are attacking science itself.

The question is whether there is room for this alternative way to do science.

There is a complication... modern science has been bloody successfull. Scientists are curing diseases, saving lives, developing disease resistant crops, solving crimes with DNA.

These are all things other systems of thought-- even faith-- has had trouble doing.

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Lash wrote:

I don't shut my mind to science. I embrace proven fact. But, frankly, a lot remains unproven by science, and I think the people who go about snickering about Intelligent Design--or God--should be forced to face the fact that THEY are using faith as well in their beliefs of some scientific hypotheses.

That is a lovely load of crap Lash. Science can't prove beyond any unreasonable doubt in most of what it attempts to decipher. The difference between Science and Intelligent Design is that science requires that the theory fit all the facts and if it doesn't fit the facts then the theory has to be redone. Intelligent design does no such thing. If I have 2 apples and get 2 more apples then I have 4 apples. I have observed this happen. It has never NOT happened. Does that mean I believe that 2 +2 will be 4 because of "faith"? No, I don't. I recognize it is observable and can be replicated over and over and never has resulted in a different outcome. If I suddenly stopped having 4 apples when I added 2 to the existing 2 then I would have to reexplain why I got the new number. Is it possible that at some point in the future 2+2 won't equal 4? Yes, it is possible. Is it likely? I don't think so based on thousands of years of observations. To call it "faith" is complete bunk.

Because something like evolution is the best theory to explain observations doesn't make it "faith" to promote it as the most likely reason. if something showed up tomorrow that could be replicated and reproduced that showed evolution can't happen then the theory would be discarded. Until such a thing shows up it is the best theory to explain ALL of the observed things in the real world.

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Momma Angel wrote:

parados,

But would you agree that there have been cases in which science supposedly proved something long ago and the science of today has disproved that original theory?

What's your point? That is PRECISELY what science is SUPPOSED TO DO.

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Intelligent Design reaches across several science issues--the Big Bang is likely the most central.

Science need not be "done a different way;" what most proponents of ID desire is for the theories we believe to be allowed to stand next to the unproven theories scientists have forwarded.

I'll bring some information on the different problems with the Big Bang theory.

#1--

[...]
The earliest scientific attempts to explain the origin of the solar system invoked collisions or condensations from a gas cloud. The discovery of 'island universes', which we now know to be galaxies, was thought to confirm this latter theory.

During this century Jeans proposed the idea that material had been dragged out of the Sun by a passing star and that this material had then condensed to form the planets. There are serious flaws to this explanation but recent developments have been made suggesting that a filament was drawn out of a passing protostar at a time when the Sun was a member of a loose cluster of stars but the most favoured theories still involve the gravitational collapse of a gas and dust cloud.

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parados,

My point is this. If something was once proven by science and then at a later date science proved it originally wrong, why should I rely on science? To me, that seems to mean that science is fallible. I think my biggest problem with those that believe so much in evolution is that they don't appear to allow any room for error.

So, suppose today science proves evolution as true and then years from now it proves it wasn't true?

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Momma,

The only way to disprove a scientific theory is to bring up REAL facts that don't fit into the theory. That is how science works. Simply because all the evidence is not there to prove the theory doesn't make the theory wrong.

Case in point. Copernicus said that the earth revolved around the sun. This was a theory that wasn't complete because he didn't have the idea of gravity to support his theory but gravity later added to Copernicus' theory to show with more facts that it was correct.

Because we don't have fossils of every creature that ever lived on the planet doesn't disprove evolution at all. In fact it fits nicely into the theory. Since evolution occurs in small populations that then expand the likelyhood of finding fossils for every missing link are minute. Most biological creatures are not preserved in any way shape or form. If someone has evidence of a creature being created fully formed out of nothing then evolution would have a major problem. No one has any evidence of that so evolution is STILL the best theory that fits the known facts.

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parados wrote:

Lash wrote:
I don't shut my mind to science. I embrace proven fact. But, frankly, a lot remains unproven by science, and I think the people who go about snickering about Intelligent Design--or God--should be forced to face the fact that THEY are using faith as well in their beliefs of some scientific hypotheses.

That is a lovely load of crap Lash. Science can't prove beyond any unreasonable doubt in most of what it attempts to decipher. The difference between Science and Intelligent Design is that science requires that the theory fit all the facts and if it doesn't fit the facts then the theory has to be redone. Intelligent design does no such thing. If I have 2 apples and get 2 more apples then I have 4 apples. I have observed this happen. It has never NOT happened. Does that mean I believe that 2 +2 will be 4 because of "faith"? No, I don't. I recognize it is observable and can be replicated over and over and never has resulted in a different outcome. If I suddenly stopped having 4 apples when I added 2 to the existing 2 then I would have to reexplain why I got the new number. Is it possible that at some point in the future 2+2 won't equal 4? Yes, it is possible. Is it likely? I don't think so based on thousands of years of observations. To call it "faith" is complete bunk.

Because something like evolution is the best theory to explain observations doesn't make it "faith" to promote it as the most likely reason. if something showed up tomorrow that could be replicated and reproduced that showed evolution can't happen then the theory would be discarded. Until such a thing shows up it is the best theory to explain ALL of the observed things in the real world.

That's a lovely load of crap.

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Science can't prove beyond any unreasonable doubt in most of what it attempts to decipher

Now, we both know that.

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The difference between Science and Intelligent Design is that science requires that the theory fit all the facts and if it doesn't fit the facts then the theory has to be redone. Intelligent design does no such thing.

That's why it would be taught as a theory, alongside other theories.

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If I have 2 apples and get 2 more apples then I have 4 apples. I have observed this happen. It has never NOT happened. Does that mean I believe that 2 +2 will be 4 because of "faith"? No, I don't. I recognize it is observable and can be replicated over and over and never has resulted in a different outcome.

Someone tell him science isn't synonymous with math, please. LOL. What are you thinking? We're discussing scientific theories, not math. Weird. And you have the nerve to say what's a load of crap... LOL!!

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Because something like evolution is the best theory to explain observations doesn't make it "faith" to promote it as the most likely reason

Yes it does. If you don't have physical evidence, it requires faith.

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... it is the best theory to explain ALL of the observed things in the real world

To you. Other people have a theory they prefer. Both theories.

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parados,

But, at that time of Capernicus, did they know they were missing information? Didn't they believe they had all the evidence to support their theory?

I admit I don't know much about science so I am having to ask questions that might seem pretty obviously answered to others.

Please bear with me.

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The problems to be faced by any theory
Any theory has to account for certain rather tricky facts about the solar system. These are in addition to the obvious facts that the Sun is at the centre with the planets in orbit around it. There are 5 of these problem areas:

The Sun spins slowly and only has 1 percent of the angular momentum of the Solar System but 99.9 percent of its mass.The planets carry the rest of the angular momentum.

The formation of the terrestrial planets with solid cores.

The formation of the gaseous giant planets.

The formation of planetary satellites.

An explanation of Bode's law which states that the distances of the planets from the Sun follow a simple arithmetic progression.
Bode's law takes the form of a series in which the first term is 0, the second is 3 and each term is then double the previous one, to each term add 4 and divide the result by 10. This yields a series of numbers which may be compared to the mean distances of the planets from the Sun in
the agreement for all but Neptune and Pluto is remarkable. The lack of a planet at 2.8 led to the discovery of the asteroids.

There are 5 theories which are still considered to be 'reasonable' in that they explain many (but not all) of the phenomena exhibited by the solar system.

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Momma Angel wrote:

parados,

My point is this. If something was once proven by science and then at a later date science proved it originally wrong, why should I rely on science? To me, that seems to mean that science is fallible. I think my biggest problem with those that believe so much in evolution is that they don't appear to allow any room for error.

So, suppose today science proves evolution as true and then years from now it proves it wasn't true?

Science rewrites its theories when FACTS show it needs to be rewritten. That is what it is supposed to do. Science IS FALLIBLE because people are fallible.

The conundrum is the idea that God is NOT fallible because people that ARE fallible say he isn't. It is a circular reasoning that can't be supported with any facts at all.

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The Accretion theory
This assumes that the Sun passed through a dense interstellar cloud and emerged surrounded by a dusty, gaseous envelope. It thus separates the formation of the Sun from that of the planets thus losing problem 1.

The problem which remains is that of getting the cloud to form the planets. The terrestrial planets can form in a reasonable time but the gaseous planets take far too long to form. The theory does not explain satellites or Bode's law and must be considered the weakest of those described here

One of the unproven theories of the formation of the universe.

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The Protoplanet theory
This assumes that initially there is a dense interstellar cloud which will eventually produce a cluster of stars. Dense regions in the cloud form and coalesce; as the small blobs have random spins the resulting stars will have a low rotation rates. The planets are smaller blobs captured by the star. The small blobs would have higher rotation than is seen in the planets but the theory accounts for this by having the `planetary blobs' split to give a planet and satellites.

Thus many of the problem areas are covered but it is not clear how the planets came to be confined to a plane or why their rotations are in the same sense.
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Maybe we should refer to this as the "blob theory." Lots of interesting stuff happening. In the beginning, there was dust. The dust...somehow made blobs. The blobs began doing random stuff...

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parados,

You are the first person I have run across that will admit science is fallible because man is fallible. Thank you for that!

Ok, I understand your last paragraph there. And that is where the faith has to come in. I have faith that the Bible is the infallible word of God.

Woo hoo! Feel like I just won a prize!

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Momma Angel wrote:

parados,

But, at that time of Capernicus, did they know they were missing information? Didn't they believe they had all the evidence to support their theory?

I admit I don't know much about science so I am having to ask questions that might seem pretty obviously answered to others.

Please bear with me.

At the time of Capernicus they made OBSERVATIONS. Those observations have since been duplicated, replicated and repeated time and time again. Since those observations other facts and theories have been advanced that explain why the sun is the center of the universe. Because the explanations have gotten better doesn't change the initial observations.

Science NEVER has all the answers. Finding one answer only raises 10 more questions. That is what science is all about. Because the earth revolves around the sun raises the question of why. We have now answered part of that with Newton and gravity which raised further questions that were in part answered with the unified field theory which has raised other questions and on and on an on.

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The Theory of Evolution is not a "cut and dried" fact. That's why it is still a theory. It is a well tested theory, and there are no other scientific theories, at present, to rival it. Intelligent design, on the other hand, is simply not science.

ebrown_p...
You stated earlier in this thread that the intelligent design people are attacking science, itself. I agree. Why then are trying to push their way into science classes and textbooks? Is it a coup attempt?

And why is there this attack on Evolution Theory, anyway? Is there some perceived conflict with the ID crowd's idea of God? I am a spiritual person and I have no problem with evolution. Am I missing something?

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The Capture theory
This theory is a version of Jeans's theory in which the Sun interacts with a nearby protostar dragging a filament of material from the protostar. The low rotation speed of the Sun is explained as being due to its formation before the planets, the terrestrial planets are explained by collisions between the protoplanets close to the Sun and the giant planets and their satellites are explained as condensations in the drawn out filament.
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So, the sun was just there....? And, the protostar was just hanging about, as well? Aren't we trying to form hypotheses about the origin?

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Did someone attack evolution?

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Liberal Hypocrisy about Intelligent Design

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