Allright, I never wanted this topic to go in this direction in the first place, so keeping this in mind we don't want to turn it in into an ID debate. I would like to further state my concerns that I've most vocally put out in Messages 1 & 38. Allow me to start with a story to segway into this.
One time, at the last speech & debate tournament, me and another person from my school were talking to a Jewish girl from another school. We somehow got onto the subject on how my school and community was too white (which is true) and my colleague described it as mostly white & Protestant (though I really think it's white & Catholic, but that doesn't change the main point). The Jewish girl then mentioned something about how she'd like to show us [I forget what she called the place] sometime. Obviously she wanted to give us a perspective of the real world outside our white & Catholic community. Sometimes I wish I could give some of you a tour of the ID world, of the long version of the FAQs and primers posted on the Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness Center, of the Center for Science and Culture, and through the many scientists who support ID. Just like the Jewish girl wanted to give us a more balanced perspective of the world, some of you need a more balanced perspective of the ID side. Even despite some of ID's shortcomings, it's still come a long way, even among evolutionists.
Access Research Network
How Many Scientists Take This Stuff Seriously?
http://arn.org/...ists%20take%20this%20stuff%20seriously.htm
Intelligent design is still a minority position, but even many scholars who disagree with it are intrigued by the ideaand can’t seem to get it out of their minds.
Elliot Sober, for example, is a distinguished philosopher of science at the University of Wisconsin, and was recently president of the Central Division of the American Philosophical Association. Although he is skeptical of intelligent design, he nonetheless spent much of his 1999 presidential address grappling with it. He also took the time, along with two of his graduate students, to write a long review of William Dembski’s book, The Design Inference.
Others have also become intrigued. In Spring 2000, eminent philosophers and scientistsincluding two Nobel laureatestraveled from as far away as Switzerland and France to attend a conference at Baylor University, in Waco, Texas, where the main topic was intelligent design. Although many were skeptical of intelligent design, they clearly thought it warranted serious attentionand enjoyed the give-and-take with intelligent design theorists.
Biologist and philosopher of science Paul Nelson, who participated in the conference observed, These world-class scientists came to the conference, had a great time, good interaction and, almost to a person, thought the conference was worth doing.
Despite opposition in the culture and in science, Nelson said, the intelligent design movement will continue to grow.
It’s not the kind of thing you change overnight, Nelson said. But there’s a steady, healthy growth of the intelligent design community, where we’re bringing in a lot of people of diverse backgrounds and diverse viewpoints. The little plant of intelligent design continues to flourish.
I wish more of a perspective like this existed on a web site. However, rather than debating specifics on ID, too many are saying ID (not a specific ID scientist or journal, but ID as a whole) is not science, and this is cutting off good debate on a lot of topics. Also, many people have been throwing many other negative stereotypes at ID.
Well, I feel I've done all I can to say my piece. I really need to stop posting on this forum for now and get back to work on some other important stuff (like AP test prep. I'm taking AP Macroeconomics and AP Physics B at school, but AP Calculus AB and AP Computer Science AB isn't offered at my school, so I have to do some really intense text prep for those two exams). So if any of you want to respond, I'll warn you that it will fall on deaf ears (not that I don't care, I'm just too busy). Just think about what I said, and (gasp) maybe even explore some of those websites I've mentioned in my topic.
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