Intelligent design. Philosophy of ignorance.

Here's another item of interest, Ed Brayton's fisking of the DI's latest propaganda stunt.The relevance here is that like NJ's "distorton", they refer to "errors" in the Kitzmiller ruling - where "error" is DI code for "contradicting our lies". Fisking the DI's "Study" on the Dover RulingAllegedly refuted by Minnich's references to and this is also relvant to the ongoing discussion

Apparently not. Those documents are what each side wants the court to find. It is apparently normal for the Judge to largely copy material from the winning side when their arguments prevailed. So all it really means is that the ID side lost, badly.If their claims of errors didn't amount to "telling the truth instead of agreeing with us" then that might be a problem - although even that would depend on the significance of the actual errors.Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

I suspect that the findings of law may be more important. It is only the findings of fact that are largely copied. And even they are not completely the same.But there are good reasons why there was no appeal. Firstly the case against the school board was too clear - appealing would only be throwing good money after bad. The original case cost the board a lot of money, even with the Thomas More Law Institute covering their own legal costs. And secondly, the board were elected out of office and the new board had no interest in pursuing the case.

We all know that the ID PR machine insists that ID is non-religious - despite the evidence to the contrary - the evidence that NJ seems reluctant to address.Here's some more.Casey Luskin gets rather upset about the idea that the IDEA clubs were considered a religious organisation. Casey Luskin writes SO they wouldn't be explciitly liinked to Christianity, would they ? Think again.The IDEA clubs used to require that their officers were Christians. When that became embarrasing they changed the rules. To add a requirement that the officers support the mission statement that included a belief that the Designer was the Christian God.Of course they wouldn't have left things unchanged - but there is still evidence lying around: Our Beliefs
And there is a curious attempt to justify the non-discussion over the age of the Earth. Why would the validity of Christianty be a concern ? A Young Earth would provide a strong case against evoutionary theory so why is it not relevant on that score ? Or is it because the IDEA Club wants to include YECs but doesn't want to endores Young Earth beliefs ?Why would a non-religious organisation that wants to promote science not just admit that science shows that the Earth is very old, and that Young Earth beliefs are religious ? A desire to pander to YECs ? Is the fact that YEC John Baumgardner is on the IDEA Cliub "Advisory Board" relevant by any chance ?

Axe was named in the Wedge document as one of the people who was supposed to be doing the science. He did publish a couple of papers cited by IDists as supporting ID - but they didn't.And so far as I know that's it. The Behe and Snokes paer was purely theoretical - and also failed to support ID. The infamous Meyer paper was just a review - no new research at all.(Added)
Ed Brayton comments hereEdited by PaulK, : No reason given.

Barbara Forrest comments on the Kitzmiller case

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Memes cannot be seen or examined thus requiring faith,

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Unless you're going intpo the philosophy of "zombies" you really don't have a point. If you're prepared to make the minimum philosophical commitment that other people have minds then memes are clearly indirectly observable. You can just ask people about their beleifs and where they got them from !Why are you so dead set against the idea of memes anyway ? You keep going on about it, to no good point. Why ?

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Atheists are forever accusing theists of using the argument of "God of the Gaps". I as a theist contend that atheists do exactly the same thing.

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So since you got offended that atheists tell the truth, you want to try to turn the argument back on them. Not a very good idea.

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There is evidence that cultural evolution exists. Why does it exist. A theist would suggest the possibility that maybe this is part of a metaphysical design. Dawkins, the atheist, suggests the possibility of memes. Theists fill the gap with an intelligent designer and Atheists fill the gap with memes. "God of the Gaps" or "Science of the Gaps". Your choice.

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As far as I am aware the gap was filled long before the memes were formally proposed. There is no science of the gaps here - just observations.And equally there is no "God of the Gaps" argument - just an assumption without evidence. Really you are taking a creationist-like position of denying the existence of relevant evidence because you don't like the answers it points to.

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There is no empirical evidence for either thus both positions are positions of faith.

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If you really want to assert that the writings of, say Locke, Mill or Adam Smith - or the U.S. Consitution and the Federalist Papers - don't exist or had no influence then you would be going against the empirical evidence. There is certainly empirical evidence that the writings exist and that people appeal to these writings to justify policies with cultural effects. To deny that cultures can change naturally is simply absurd.

I don't think so - if he did he would have no point. I really think that he would rather deny that people can influence each other's ideas than admit that he could be wrong.At the heart of it, memes are just ideas that people pass on to other people. Sometimes they change in transmission. We could, for instance consider a language as a meme. So I think that memes are largely an abstraction and development of the analogy between biological evolution and the evolution of languages.

Better yet, the idea of memes is itself a meme. Thus if GDR is right he can't know what a meme is. Thus the only way he could possibly be right would be if he didn't know what he was talking about !

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I don't deny for one minute that people can influence the ideas of others.

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But by objecting to the idea of memees you really are saying that ideas cannot be passed on between humans. Sp what exactly is the issue ?

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I don't have a problem with this either. My problem is with those that use a meme as a physical replicator of ideas.

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The "physical" part isn't a necessary part of the idea (although it's probably true that ideas are physically represented in the brain).

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Dawkins in "The Selfish Gene" writes:

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Just as genes propogate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperm or eggs, so memes propogate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain by a process which, in the broad sense of the term, can be called imitation.

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What's your problem with it ? I don't beleive that Dawkins was even trying to be strictly scientific. But I see nothing you could reasonably object to in the concept that ideas are passed around.

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For that matter, a meme could just as easily be metaphysical as it could be physical.

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As I say that isn't an essential part of the concept. Dawkins is probably right but objecting to a peripheral point is hardly a serious issue. If you wan to insist that the mind is metaphysical go ahead. It won't discredit memes at all.

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If one considers the concept of memes to be scientific then they have no argument to use to say that ID isn't scientific.

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Why not ? It seems that there is some genuine science dealing with the concept of memes while ID has come up empty. Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

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Some posters have said that a meme is merely an idea. If that is the case then I would agree that I don't have a point. However, the quotes of Dawkins that I've already given indicate that he believes a meme is more than just an idea. He theorizes that a meme functions in many ways like a gene, as he compares meme pools to gene pools.

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So you DON'T believe that people communicate ideas to each other. You don't beleive that parents and teachers and peer groups can instil cultural values in children with even partial success. You probably don't even believe that languages can be taught. If you really mean what you say, that is.Have you even noticed how your argument keeps changing ?Firstly you objected to the entire idea of memes.Then you admitted that memes existed but took an off-hand reference to Dawkins' materialist view of mind as mening that memes required a materialstic view of mind.Now you're going back to the assertion that ideas cannot be passed on to others.You're making it very obvious that you DON'T have a point.And unfortunately that's it for this discussion. I'll be offline for a week or so from now.Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.