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Author Topic:   Is Intelligent Design Religion in the Guise of Science?
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 52 of 204 (445503)
01-02-2008 5:06 PM
Reply to: Message 50 by sinequanon
01-02-2008 4:41 PM


Re: Teleological arguments
I don't think Molbiogirl really meant that ID proponents have admitted that ID is actually creationism in disguise, because I don't think they admit that at all, plus ID has a number of positions that creationism objects to, such as an ancient earth and the sufficiency of evolution to explain much, though by no means all, of life's diversity.
What I think Molbiogirl meant is that the distinctions between ID and creationism pale in comparison to their common opposition to evolution, and that this was exposed by the edit history of Of Pandas and People, the ID textbook that received so much attention at the Dover trial. Apparently ID advocates felt it sufficient to turn a creationist textbook into an ID textbook simply by substituting "designer" for "creator" and "intelligent design" for "creationism".
While I do think your point that ID and creationism are different theories is undeniably accurate, that doesn't mean that it is an invalid shortcut for evolutionists to damn ID with creationist associations, because these associations most certainly exist. That's because both creationism and ID exist only as vehicles for fundamentalist Christians to oppose evolution. They are both politically based strategic and tactical responses driven by fundamentalist Christian perception of evolution as a significant secular threat.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 50 by sinequanon, posted 01-02-2008 4:41 PM sinequanon has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 59 by sinequanon, posted 01-02-2008 7:05 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 60 of 204 (445538)
01-02-2008 9:12 PM
Reply to: Message 59 by sinequanon
01-02-2008 7:05 PM


Re: Teleological arguments
Hi Sinequanon,
I think you're getting too hung up on the way different people express the same thing. Molbiogirl expresses things rather directly, and she simply chooses not to acknowledge that IDists deny what is obvious to everyone else. Certainly Dover removed all doubt, not that there really was any for those familiar with the issues, that ID is simply thinly disguised creationism that springs from the same motivation to deny evolution.
But political counter-strategy masquerading as scientific argument and rigour only appears as corrupted science.
Actually, you're describing creationism and ID. Both direct almost all their efforts politically. What effort they exert toward science is devoted to giving a scientific veneer to their religious beliefs with an eye toward bolstering their political efforts at convincing school boards and state legislatures that they really are science. Where ID and creationism do not direct their effort is in conducting actual science.
--Percy

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 89 of 204 (448378)
01-13-2008 8:28 AM
Reply to: Message 81 by Granny Magda
01-12-2008 3:33 PM


Re: Teleological arguments
Granny Magda writes:
There is much in your post that is in error, and some of it is spectacularly offensive, but I will settle for pointing out that not a word you have said refutes my point, i.e. that Darwin was a Christian first, evolutionist second.
The first time you made this point back in Message 64 you phrased it unambiguously, so I just wanted to make clear to people that you're not saying that Darwin's priorities were Christianity first and evolution second, but that he was a Christian before his scientific investigations and in particular the death of his daughter caused him to lose his faith. Supposedly one of the reasons he delayed publication of his ideas for so long was because he knew it would cause his wife anguish if she learned he no longer believed.
--Percy

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 147 of 204 (449244)
01-17-2008 10:09 AM
Reply to: Message 134 by Beretta
01-17-2008 5:31 AM


Re: And Should it be Taught in Our Schools?
Beretta writes:
We don't want the religious stuff in science class either. We want the science in science class.
Actually, what you really want is pretty clear. As expressed in the Wedge Document, the goal of ID is to redefine science to include the non-material, as you make clear later on when you say:
From the ID perspective,...Why don't they accept the 'material only' outlook and what is their take on the situation.
IDists want to redefine science because they understand it doesn't fit within the current definition of science, which keeps it out of science classrooms. To get into science class IDists have to either start doing real science, something they don't seem particularly inclined to do, or they have to redefine science, something that actual scientists aren't particularly inclined to do.
You also claim that science specifically excludes God:
Evolutionists believe that everything can and must be explained in purely material terms (no God or creative intelligence of any kind allowed)...
Science is actually inclusive, not exclusive. It includes everything for which there is evidence detectable by our senses, directly or indirectly by any means available. To the extent that there is evidence of God or an intelligent designer, they are more than welcome within science.
You also abuse the word "prove" quite a bit, for example:
What we want is for teachers to present the evidence that is provable for evolution...
Now, we all know that nothing can ever be proven in science, if "prove" means 100% certainty, because science is tentative, and so nothing in science can ever be proven. But scientists use the word "prove" all the time, because in a scientific context "prove" is just a shorthand way of saying "supported by sufficient evidence."
But your above sentence wouldn't make any sense if we just did a simple substitution, because that isn't the definition of "prove" you had in mind when you wrote it. What you really should have said is, "What we want is for teachers to present the evidence that supports evolution." And this is something I think everyone could agree with.
I'd like to touch on just one more thing, your apparent desire to create two categories within science, those that are "historical" and those that aren't. This isn't a distinction that is currently drawn within science, and so it represents another change that you want to make to the definition of science. Science only cares about evidence. It doesn't make any difference whether the dinosaur bone dug from the ground was put there one year ago or millions of years ago, it's still evidence, and we can learn about that dinosaur bone through scientific analysis.
The reality is that all scientific endeavors study the past, just some study a more distant past than others. What counts is the evidence.
--Percy

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 164 of 204 (449509)
01-18-2008 7:35 AM
Reply to: Message 160 by Beretta
01-18-2008 5:40 AM


Re: And Should it be Taught in Our Schools?
Beretta writes:
Actually Darwinism is what really belongs to the dark ages -it's old, it's tired and it does not line up with reality. New paradigm coming up -you are going to have to throw off the 150 year-old shackles or be left behind.
Others have already pointed out the fallacies in this statement, so I'll just add that this doesn't address the topic. The premise of this thread is that ID is just another fundamentalist attempt to portray inherently religious concepts as scientific in order to counter evolution's perceived threat to faith.
There's only one way ID can prove this premise wrong, and that's by actually doing science. The best way would be to outdo science by producing results that depend upon ID and are superior to existing science. Scientists are convinced by results, not by political efforts aimed at school boards, legislatures and scientifically naive laypeople.
--Percy

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 Message 160 by Beretta, posted 01-18-2008 5:40 AM Beretta has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 167 of 204 (449822)
01-19-2008 9:15 AM
Reply to: Message 166 by Beretta
01-19-2008 6:38 AM


Re: And Should it be Taught in Our Schools?
Beretta replying to faust writes:
Every fossil can be considered a transitional form. Sometimes those transitions went nowhere, sometimes they were passed on with success.
All we actually know is that they died -not that they came from any other form that doesn't look the same.
This is a strange statement to make since obviously a fossil tells us much, much more than just "something died". The question isn't whether or not the evidence exists, because it most certainly does, but what the evidence tells us.
The belief that evolution happened is the only reason you imagine any one creature gave birth step by step to any other creature that is fundamentally different.
Actually, it is ID that is based upon religious beliefs and not upon any evidence. Acceptance of the theory of evolution is based upon mountains of evidence from the natural world.
The rest is based on a belief that small changes will add up to a big overall change eventually.You choose to be believe that based on guesswork - I choose not to based on empirical science - you know observation etc.
This is again a strange thing to say. There is no body of empirical scientific evidence that argues against small changes accumulating over time into larger changes. Rather, the exact opposite is the case, as the evidence argues strongly for this conclusion.
Darwin didn't think he'd shown convincingly that macro evolution had happened -he thought that future finds of endless transitionals of a more convincing kind would improve the picture only it got worse.
The opposite is the case as the sketchy picture of common descent outlined by the fossils available to Darwin has been improved thousands of times over through the wealth of fossils discovered since that time.
Why the need for a theory of punctuated equilibrium if the transitionals were so convincing?
It depends upon what type of transitionals you're asking about. If you're asking about transitionals between the higher classifications such as family and order, then there are enormous numbers of transitional fossils.
But if you're asking about transitionals at the lower classifications such as genus and species, then there are fewer examples of transitionals, not as many as expected. Often times distinct new species just suddenly appear in the fossil record without any apparent closely related predecessors. Punctuated equilibrium is an attempt to address this issue.
You mention Gould, and naturally Gould doesn't agree with you. Your out-of-context quote is the common one that appears at literally hundreds of creationist websites. This has been corrected so many times that it isn't worth doing so again, so I'll mention something that is closely related.
Gould's punctuated equilibria ideas were not original. He merely applied George Gaylord Simpson's ideas about evolution, best described in his book Tempo and Mode in Evolution, to the paleontological fossil record. Gould never hid this fact, and in fact made significant contributions to promoting Simpson's ideas, but he over emphasized the significance of his own contribution in this regard, which I think in retrospect, and even at the time, can be regarded as modest.
And this genetic mutation convinces you that sometime future -we will be morphed into something completely different!That's faith for you with time being the magical element that prevents us from empirically proving any of this. Maybe I understand evolution better than you do or perhaps I just lack imagination.
The fact of imperfect reproduction guarantees that all species *will* change over time.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Fix garbled transitional explanation.
Edited by Percy, : Additional fixes to transitional explanation.

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 Message 166 by Beretta, posted 01-19-2008 6:38 AM Beretta has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 175 of 204 (450005)
01-20-2008 8:11 AM
Reply to: Message 171 by Beretta
01-20-2008 12:11 AM


Re: And Should it be Taught in Our Schools?
Beretta writes:
The first problem would be with the geological time frame. If you believe as most geologists do that it is representative of time (due to uniformatarian assumptions) then obviously it looks like these large changes must have occurred -so "they weren't there and now, with time, they are." But how about looking back at those assumptions in the first place.
ID doesn't have any problem with the geological time frame. And ID also understands that modern geology is not based upon "uniformitarian assumptions" as creationists understand that term.
Are you arguing for a YEC timeframe? This is an ID thread.
Then - you can breed a mongrel mutt into large dogs or small dogs with time and selection but is there a limit to what you can produce, even given time to accomplish the task.If you breed small, you lose genetic information for large. The whole process involves getting rid of the information you do not require.
ID accepts common descent and believes that evolution was responsible for much of the diversity of life we see today.
You seem to be arguing for creationist YEC views, so I think you're in the wrong thread, but I'll address the rest of your post anyway.
Empirical science only shows that we will get a dog of some kind; same thing with fruit flies forced to mutate rapidly through many generations -did they morph, in some ways but only in negative and destructive ways because that is mostly what mutation does -but they are clearly all fruit flies so can new and useful genetic information build up as a result of mutation over time -we don't know that empirically.
Science is based upon empiricism, meaning that the process of discovery is based upon observations of the real world. It doesn't mean, "Anything that doesn't happen before your very eyes didn't happen." It also doesn't mean, "Extrapolation is invalid."
Creationists argue for these strange ways of thinking when they would never consider using them in their own lives. Extrapolating effects forward in time is something everyone does, a household budget is one very simple example. And figuring out what happened in the past just by looking around is also something everyone does, as any parent whose ever come home and found the living room lamp broken can attest.
In other words, all we're talking about is rational thinking, and creationists only argue against it when it leads to conclusions that conflict with their religious beliefs. They have no problem with rational thinking in all other aspects of their lives.
So we have no absolute evidence that these large scale changes supposedly represented by the geological column are possible and it is not ironclad that the geological column equals time.
If your use of adjectives like "absolute" and "ironclad" is intended to imply 100% certainty, then you are correct. Science is tentative and can never be absolute or ironclad or 100% certain about anything, not in physics, not in chemistry, not in geology, not in biology, not in any field of science.
All science can do is offer evidence in support of a hypothesis, and if that hypothesis is verified through a process of experiment, observation, analysis, replication and prediction validation then it becomes accepted as theory. Nowhere during this process does anything become absolute or ironclad or 100% certain. But it does become the best understanding we have of the natural world at the time.
...but it is based on believing that it has happened in the past, not on empirical science with repetition and observation.
This is another example of misusing the word "empirical." All accepted scientific theories are empirical in that they're based upon study of the real world.
Such perfection, such a random mechanism like mutation, no plan, just voila take that. We have no testable scientific reason to believe this.
You're forgetting selection, which has a much smaller random component than mutation. But the important point here is that the theory of evolution explains the evidence, has been tested innumerable times and has passed every test. We have no scientific reasons for questioning the theory.
I agree that Behe accepts that concept but there are a whole range of individual beliefs accepted within ID.
I think there are many individuals who don't understand ID very well. The ID tent is much smaller than you seem to believe. Behe and Dembski and Meyer (Discovery Institute) are all very clear that ID accepts an ancient earth and the principles of evolution. This is why organizations like ICR (Institute for Creation Research, a YEC organization) have come out respectfully against ID.
You go on to describe the core ID belief that the processes of random mutation and natural selection are insufficient for explaining the diversity of life, and this is a scientifically valid hypothesis, but the ID community has not as yet been able to offer any evidence in its support.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 171 by Beretta, posted 01-20-2008 12:11 AM Beretta has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 181 by Beretta, posted 01-26-2008 7:48 AM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 176 of 204 (450011)
01-20-2008 8:36 AM
Reply to: Message 172 by Beretta
01-20-2008 1:13 AM


Re: More Palm the Pea con games.
Beretta writes:
So by inference anyone that believes in the God of the Bible and dares to admit is, is unscientific.
In a scientific setting, those who offer religious explanations unsupported by empirical evidence are being unscientific.
Creationists have this weird idea that one can't be religious unless it infuses all parts of their lives, as if someone couldn't be a plumber if he insisted on playing golf with a golf club instead of a monkey wrench. Most people have no problem using thinking appropriate to the problem. No one would consider applying their checker knowledge to a chess game, and why creationists think they should bring their religious thinking to scientific problems is beyond me.
What is being quoted, which is not at all out of context nor misrepresented is the problem which many evolutionists have admitted, exists.
Rrhain provided the full Gould quote. The irony is that the omitted portion includes Gould's complaint about creationists quoting him out of context. Ain't evidence a bitch?
Gould writes:
Why may we not imagine that gill arch bones of an ancestral agnathan moved forward in one step to surround the mouth and form proto-jaws?
There we go, the 'imagine' word again. Well imagine away but don't accuse creationists of being inventive and going beyond the bounds of what is scientific.
Gould is posing a hypothetical question so that he can argue against it, as he goes on to do. You've just done what you've been arguing creationists do not do, lifted a quote out of context to make it seem that Gould is arguing for the opposite of what he actually believes. Oh the irony!
Personally I think it does, except to point out that it seems to me that ID proposes a manner of sticking to the science by critically examining what we know and what we believe to be true by faith. We actually want to impose a limit on how much imagination should be allowed by the faithful of the imaginative evolution religion and show people how to think critically rather than be told that evolution (macro) happened, it's a FACT, you HAVE to believe us even though we've never seen it happen.They want to be allowed to propose an alternative that is equally possible but which you may reject if you feel so inclined, but not on account of the evidence against it, since neither can be proven as it is history.
This paragraph contains so much fiction as to defy concise analysis, so I'll just provide the correct information.
Evolution is a very widely accepted theory supported by mountains of evidence that has undergone countless validations.
ID is a religious concept which has yet to offer any evidence, which does not engage in active research, which has separated and isolated itself from the very scientific community that could provide the review, analysis, feedback and replication they need to qualify as science, and which engages primarily in efforts to gain through political means the scientific status they've failed to earn by doing actual science.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Fix grammar in last paragraph.
Edited by Percy, : One last grammar item.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 172 by Beretta, posted 01-20-2008 1:13 AM Beretta has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 182 by Beretta, posted 01-26-2008 9:03 AM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 183 of 204 (451100)
01-26-2008 9:14 AM
Reply to: Message 180 by Beretta
01-26-2008 7:13 AM


Re: More Palm the Pea con games.
That's an interesting viewpoint on evolution but not really the topic of the thread.
Let me keep the focus on bacteria and ask you for the ID explanation for the origin of all the different types of bacteria, which just like all other life, have been classified into the groupings of kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species. How did all the different bacteria, variously estimated in number at between 10 million and a billion different species, come about?
ID is religious in nature because the answer to this question is religious in nature. If ID insists that life could not have arisen naturally, then either the designer was God, or the designer's designer was God, or the designer's designer's designer was God, and so forth. It's an infinite regression that at some point has to end at God, and that's why ID is religious.
What disqualifies ID as science is not its inherently religious nature but its almost complete lack of evidence. The best that can be said of ID as science is that it is a theory in search of evidence. The fact of the matter is that ID is religion posing as science that is promoted through political machinations instead of scientific research.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 180 by Beretta, posted 01-26-2008 7:13 AM Beretta has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 185 of 204 (451105)
01-26-2008 10:13 AM
Reply to: Message 181 by Beretta
01-26-2008 7:48 AM


Re: And Should it be Taught in Our Schools?
Beretta writes:
Modern geology is based on uniformatarian assumptions if it believes that what we see now is all that can be used to explain everything we see around us.
The past is the key to the present. That is a uniformatarian assumption.There are catastrophists out there in modern geology but for the most part, uniformatarian geology seems to be the most popular belief.
Geology isn't the topic of this thread, I was just trying to offer a very brief correction. You can either get your information straight by reading up on uniformitarianism (e.g., the Wikipedia article) so you don't make mistakes like getting Buffon's "The present is the key to the past" backwards or like using an incorrect definition of uniformitarianism, or you can propose a new thread.
But anything that you can't see happen is not repeatable so it can't really be science.
Then you misunderstand the nature of science, which like geology is also not the topic of this thread, so either read up (.e.g., the Wikipedia article) or propose a new thread. But perhaps it will suffice to simply point out that your incorrect definition of science would rule out ID as science, since the designer's design efforts can't be seen occurring and can't be repeated.
The bottom line is that if a designer truly created life on this planet, then we should be able, scientifically, to find the evidence telling us that that's what happened.
If there were bacteria in the past and there are bacteria now -does that mean that bacteria stay bacteria or must we imagine that long ago and far away, some bacteria diversified into to something more complex that was no longer a bacteria?
This is a question about evolution. The only way it is on-topic is if once I answer the question you respond with, in effect, "I can't believe it could happen that way, therefore a designer did it," which of course contains a couple significant fallacies. So I'll just stay on-topic and ignore the question.
And figuring out what happened in the past just by looking around is also something everyone does, as any parent whose ever come home and found the living room lamp broken can attest.
Bad analogy.We know bacteria existed in the past, we know they exist now.Do we know they changed into something more complex in the past? No we don't. We can't extrapolate on that either. Just because the lamp is broken doesn't mean we can work out that ,given time everything else will be broken.
I won't get in the way of this freight train of irrationality and illogic, but will simply point out once again that if nothing that happened in the past can be figured out by looking at evidence in the present, then ID can't be figured out either. Obviously your views are contradicted by almost all ID arguments. For example, most of Behe's book, Darwin's Black Box, argues that a designer operated in the past based upon evidence from the present. Specifically, Behe offers his observations about the modern bacterial flagellum and blood clotting in humans as arguments that a designer designed and manufactured these structures and processes in the past.
You have to use materialist assumptions if you're going to believe that it is possible for a bacteria to change into something more complex, something that is not a bacteria.
I don't know what "materialist assumptions" you're talking about, but science is definitely focused on the material. Science is based upon methodological naturalism or materialism. If ID is science that it must be also be based upon methodological naturalism. To require a different definition of science in order to qualify as science would be as if to argue, "My Volkswagen is actually a Ferrari, but I have a special definition of Ferrari."
Percy writes:
Science is tentative and can never be absolute or ironclad or 100% certain about anything, not in physics, not in chemistry, not in geology, not in biology, not in any field of science.
So,on that note we cannot say with certainty that simple things evolved into more complex things in the past.In which case, why are we teaching as fact those things that may have other explanations?
If it conflicts with your belief system (materialism) does that mean it is not true? Shouldn't science allow for other reasonable, evidence-based possibilities? -like ID?
You've already been offered several fairly accurate descriptions of the tentative nature of science, and since the nature of science is not really the topic of this thread I don't think much more time should be spent on this. Suffice to say that the tentativity inherent in evolutionary theory is also inherent in all other scientific theories, from relativity to quantum mechanics to the Big Bang to the standard model of particle theory to the germ theory of disease. Nothing in science is ever 100% certain.
You have to ignore the innumerable anomalies that are not explained by the theory in order to be content with the theory.
These "innumerable anomalies" of evolution would be a great topic for another thread. Why don't you draw up a list and use it as the basis for a new thread over at [forum=-25]?
There are a lot of scientific reasons for questioning the theory.
Same here. Why don't you draw up a list of these "scientific reasons" and use it as the basis for a new thread over at [forum=-25]?
Percy writes:
You go on to describe the core ID belief that the processes of random mutation and natural selection are insufficient for explaining the diversity of life, and this is a scientifically valid hypothesis, but the ID community has not as yet been able to offer any evidence in its support
Or you do not like their evidence or their interpretation of the evidence which goes against the consensus opinion of what the evidence means.
ID declares, "It is impossible for such complex biological structures to have evolved naturally, therefore they must have been designed," then they call that evidence. There are two problems with this. First, it is an unsupported assertion, not evidence. Supported by lengthy arguments from people like Behe, true, but not evidence. But second and much more important, any designer must be at least as complex as anything he designs, right? So by the same logic, the designer could not have come about naturally and so must have been designed, and now we're into the infinite regression I mentioned in my previous post.
If ID is to become science by the same definition of science that scientists use, then they must do science, which means they should definitely avoid proposing a theoretical construct that contains the incredibly obvious flaw of an infinite regression or appeal to a religious deity (your choice). Actually conducting scientific research that gets written up in papers submitted to and published in quality peer-reviewed journals and that is subsequently replicated by other scientists is the only way ID will ever become accepted as science. To put it simply, to be science you actually have to do science. Political efforts directed at school boards and text book publishers are not science.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 181 by Beretta, posted 01-26-2008 7:48 AM Beretta has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 187 of 204 (451109)
01-26-2008 10:55 AM
Reply to: Message 182 by Beretta
01-26-2008 9:03 AM


Re: More Palm the Pea con games.
Beretta writes:
So then large scale evolution is a religious explanation since it is unsupported by empirical evidence. It is a potential extrapolation but unproven since we cannot do a repeatable experiment.ID suggests that the complexity of life is such that it defies simple explanations such as simple variation adding up to major change.
You're again arguing in the wrong direction. If ID is science it isn't because evolution isn't science.
And as I just pointed out in my previous post, you misunderstand the nature of scientific investigation. All scientific investigation is of past events. Even when you see something happen before your very eyes, you're actually observing something that happened in the past. If the event took place 20 feet away, then you're observing something that happened 20 nanoseconds in the past. If you instead take a picture and look at it tomorrow, it's still valid evidence capable of interpretation. And other people can examine that evidence, too, which is what replication means, not the impossible repeating of history. If your definition of science were correct, then not only is evolution not science, but neither is ID nor any other field of science is science. In other words, if you're right, there's no such thing as science.
If everything was initially created then it did not evolve from simple unicellular organisms.
If everything was initially created, then we should be able to uncover evidence of the means and mechanisms of that creation. ID should be focusing their efforts at uncovering this evidence, instead of on convincing laypeople that ID, an idea shared by less than 1% of scientists and almost no biologists, is actually science. To qualify as science the people IDists have to convince first are scientists, not school board members.
Showing that genetic material mutates doesn't explain the origin of the genetic code.You have to imagine that it came together by chance natural processes -you cannot prove that and to me (and others)it is not a very satisfying explanation for what we observe.
Of course I can't prove it to you. Science is tentative. All I can do is support theory with evidence. If you're unconvinced, then fine. The task for any scientist with a new theory is not to convince everyone, because that never happens, not even for theories like relativity and quantum mechanics. The task is merely to construct a consensus.
So all ID needs to do is present evidence to the scientific community that is sufficiently persuasive as to form a consensus, and then poof! ID will be in the next edition of every biology textbook.
He's doing the same thing many evolutionists do -imagining something must have happened (everything is random and undirected, matter is all there is)and then making up a story of how it may have happened.
As I just explained, Gould is not doing that at all. You've completely misinterpreted that passage. He's doing something very simple and common, presenting an idea for the purposes of showing it isn't true. Here's a simple example of what he's doing: "Imagine that Mars' orbit is actually closer to the sun than the Earth's. But if that were true then we would never see Mars on the opposite side of the Earth from the sun, but we do, quite often in fact. Therefore the initial premise is wrong and Mars' orbit must be further from the sun than the Earth."
Clear now? I know Gould's prose is more complex than this, but if you reexamine the passage you should be able to see now that that's what he is doing.
But the main point was the irony of quoting Gould out of context, thereby making him seem to be saying something he wasn't, while you were in the middle of arguing that creationists don't quote scientists out of context to make them seem to be saying something they weren't.
Evolution is a very widely accepted theory supported by mountains of evidence that has undergone countless validations.
Now where have I heard that before? -in 50 000 previous posts I think -does that make it true, no - except the part that it is a widely accepted theory, that part is true.
The evidence for my statement is the mountains of technical literature that reports the 100+ years of research into evolutionary topics and the accompanying evidence.
Percy writes:
ID is a religious concept
Unless it is the truth and there is an intelligent designer...
Science isn't about truth, so if ID wants to be about truth then that's fine. Science only tries to create models of the natural world that are true (notice I say "true", meaning accurate reflections of reality, not "truth", which concerns ultimate meanings in a religious sense).
...in which case random undirected evolution is the religious concept.You have to believe it is true despite some of its patent absurdities.
Once again you're repeating the mistake of thinking it is an either/or. We accept evolution because of the mammoth amounts of evidence supporting it. If new evidence or insights invalidates evolutionary theory that doesn't make ID the winner. It means we seek a theory which *does* explain the evidence.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 182 by Beretta, posted 01-26-2008 9:03 AM Beretta has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 188 by Beretta, posted 01-27-2008 9:40 AM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 190 of 204 (451372)
01-27-2008 1:47 PM
Reply to: Message 188 by Beretta
01-27-2008 9:40 AM


Re: Science is not Truth????
Hi Beretta,
I tried to address your misconceptions regarding the nature of science as briefly as I could. Obviously you still disagree, but that issue is off-topic, and I don't think we can justify spending more time on it in this thread. If you'd like to explore that off-topic issue further you should probably propose a new thread over at [forum=-25].
You also introduce additional off-topic issues, such as the public understanding of science, the brainwashing of scientists, the publication of the Meyer article in the BSOW journal, the religious nature of evolution, the error of methodological naturalism, the priesthood of science, censorship by scientists, teaching evolution as fact, and that science should be about truth.
You've addressed everything but the topic, so let's return to the topic.
If a designer truly created life on this planet, then we should be able, scientifically, to find the evidence telling us that that's what happened. If ID is to become science by the same definition of science that scientists use, then they must do science, which means they should definitely avoid proposing a theoretical construct that contains the incredibly obvious flaw of an infinite regression or appeal to a religious deity (your choice). Actually conducting scientific research that gets written up in papers submitted to and published in quality peer-reviewed journals and that is subsequently replicated by other scientists is the only way ID will ever become accepted as science. To put it simply, to be science you actually have to do science. Political efforts directed at school boards and text book publishers are not science.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 188 by Beretta, posted 01-27-2008 9:40 AM Beretta has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 191 by Buzsaw, posted 01-27-2008 3:39 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 194 of 204 (451406)
01-27-2008 4:00 PM
Reply to: Message 191 by Buzsaw
01-27-2008 3:39 PM


Re: Science is not Truth????
As CK notes, IDists first have to conduct actual scientific research before they can produce papers about it for submission to scientific journals.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 191 by Buzsaw, posted 01-27-2008 3:39 PM Buzsaw has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 195 by CK, posted 01-27-2008 4:20 PM Percy has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 196 of 204 (451412)
01-27-2008 4:23 PM
Reply to: Message 193 by Rahvin
01-27-2008 3:54 PM


Re: Science is not Truth????
This isn't the first creationist journal. CRS (Creation Research Society, possibly defunct now) used to host an annual conference that produced a journal. And the ICR website has a lot of articles it calls "research".
But this YEC creationist activity is unrelated to ID or the Wedge Document of the Discovery Institute. I think one of the reasons that neither YEC creationism nor ID is mounting a focused effort at the present time is that they're still regrouping after the defeat at Dover. It was only a defeat for ID, YEC creationism having already been dealt several significant legal defeats in the past, but YEC creationism had been sitting on the sidelines hoping ID, which they don't really buy into, would help tear down the barriers to religious viewpoints in science. They hoped that once ID was in the classroom that YEC creationism wouldn't be far behind.
But the defeat leaves significant obstacles for either viewpoint making significant progress. Efforts promoting ID had the side-effect of throwing into stark clarity the progression from banning evolution to promoting creation science to promoting ID, each just going one step further in removing obvious religious associations from an inherently religious viewpoint. ID also made visible efforts at distancing itself from creation science, tacitly conceding the obvious religious associations for what religious fundamentalists had been arguing for literally decades was science, placing that alternative in even greater shame. ID often came across as, "Well, sure, creation science was actually religion, but this time with ID we're talking actual science!" Yeah, sure. The credibility cost has been enormous, not so much with the general public as much as in terms of increased awareness of the obvious religious associations of creationism and ID by school boards, legislatures and text book publishers.
Not telling you much you don't know, just an opportunity to make these particular points.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 193 by Rahvin, posted 01-27-2008 3:54 PM Rahvin has not replied

  
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