How do Intelligent Design People act?

Hi Peg,

quote:

---

But does this mean that all scientists and all students and all teachers must be learning and teaching evolution? Why is evolution the primary discipline and not some other scientific discipline?

---

Evolution is not any kind of "primary discipline". If there is such a thing in science, it is probably physics. Evolution is however, the scientific concept that most upsets fundamentalists. That is why it is singled out in these debates, not because of any primacy within science, but because some people don't like the fact that it contravenes Genesis.Having said that, within the specific field of biology, evolution is the central principle. Without it, nothing would make sense. If you want to teach biology (and why wouldn't you) you need to include evolution. To do otherwise would be to do a disservice to the students.

quote:

---

this kind of sounds like people are forced to learn/teach evolution though... isnt' there something in the USA's constitution that promotes freedom of belief?
This sounds like people are not free to beleive...it sounds like they have no choice.

---

I totally disagree. Students are expected to learn about evolution. They are not expected to agree with it. They are free to believe whatever they like. Wouldn't you want to learn about evolution anyway, even if you disagreed with it? Surely that would mean that you had made an informed choice in rejecting it, rather than dismissing it out of hand.

quote:

---

I wonder if this is why the ID movement has become politicized??

---

ID is politicised for the same reasons that other forms of creationism are politicised; some people just can't handle the challenge that evolution presents to their religious beliefs.I believe that the first law to mention evolution in the US was the Tennessee law that banned the teaching of evolution and eventually led to the Scopes "Monkey Trial". That was religiously motivated and the history of creationism and evolution in the US courts has followed this same pattern.

quote:

---

We agree that the science is the study of many disciplines, why is ID (which seems to be the study of the designs in living things) not considered a science. If they just said 'that is a tree and God did it' and said not more, then i'd agree that its not science. But if they are studying the processes of the tree and determining how the tree functions etc, surely that is a science.

---

But ID isn't interested in determining anything. All they are interested in is propping up creationism.Take Behe's blood clotting argument for example. He claims that the "irreducible complexity" of the human blood clotting cascade presents a difficulty for evolutionary theory. And he's right to an extent; a gap in our explanatory framework is undesirable to say the least. But does Behe attempt to close this gap, by working out how the cascade might have evolved? No. He simply throws up his hands and says "No! I can't work out how it evolved, so therefore it didn't evolve.".A real scientist would attempt to close gaps in our knowledge (and indeed, others have solved Behe's blood clotting problem), but ID types are much happier with the gap itself. Oh joy! A gap! A place for our Gap God to hide!ID isn't interested in determining anything. They are more interested in finding puzzles and deliberately leaving them unsolved, in an effort to bamboozle the general public into thinking that there is a problem with the ToE. This is not science, in fact, it's about as far from science as you can get without actually painting your face and doing a rain-dance.Mutate and Survive

---

"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

quote:

---

they are only threatened by it because they dont understand the bible enough to be able to defend it.

​

The problem I see is that they've become so tangled up in dogma and bad interpretation and bad translating that their understanding is completely out of harmony with known facts ie, 24hr creative day, earth at center of universe etc

---

Well, that is one way of looking at it. I don't quite agree with you here. You seem to be suggesting that any fault in the Bible ust be a translation or interpretation error. To my mind, that is vainglorious nonsense. the Bible was written by fallible humans and it is littered with errors. Some of them are likely to be attributable to translation errors or poor understanding, but not all. We are still left with many false statements.Translation and interpretation aren't going to get you out of every problem. Sometimes the Bible is correctly translated, correctly interpreted and still just wrong. The upshot of this is that sometimes the outlandish claims of creationists do have a solid footing in the Bible, if not reality.Of course, where there is a conflict between the two, I know which side I'd rather come down on.

---

Back to the main topic...

quote:

---

im not taking sides here, but if he was able to determine this why couldnt evolutionists determine this

---

Short answer; they did. On the stand at the Dover trial, Behe claimed that there were few papers on the evolution of blood clotting. He was confronted with around fifty. The truth is that Behe is not interested in knowledge, he is only interested in the gaps. He found a gap in his understanding of blood clotting evolution and - hurrah! - he crowbarred his God in there. Did he do a thorough search of the literature to see if anyone had already answered his questions? Nope. Did he commit himself to searching for a naturalistic answer to his blood clotting quandary? Nope. He went straight for the miracle explanation. That is what makes his approach unscientific.

quote:

---

AND if behe is unable to find the gap, and evolutionists are unable to find the gap, then doesnt this put the evolutionary theory in doubt?

---

You misunderstand me. Behe did find a gap, but it was a gap in his knowledge. Other scientists, more interested in banishing gaps in understanding, have since demolished Behe's claims, providing convincing models for the evolution of the blood clotting system. What Behe could not explain (and made no effort to explain) has been explained by others. The evolution of blood clotting is no mystery.But what if it was? What if we had no explanation for blood evolution?This would be a serious gap in our knowledge to be sure, but it would not be enough to threaten the ToE. There are simply so many independent and mutually supportive lines of evidence for the ToE that our inability to fully describe one single aspect of it is of no great concern. If we can't explain blood clotting, it is simply an indication that we do not fully understand the process. It is not an indication that evolution is wrong and must be thrown out, at least not on its own. If there were many problems such as this, there might be legitimate cause for concern, but there aren't. Even this example has been satisfactorily dealt with (but not by Behe).

quote:

---

and if so, why are evolutionists teaching the conclusion before finding the gap? That is not really the scientific method at work.

---

As I explained above, you have it backwards. Just to reiterate, science looks for answers. When they find an unknown, they attempt to bring it into the realm of the known. Only the ID lobby look for gaps in knowledge. When they find such a gap, they hold it up for all to see, triumphant at having found a refuge for their little god. They make no attempt to banish the gap in understanding by actually seeking more evidence. That would ruin the game. In truth, they worship these gaps as much as they worship any god.Mutate and Survive

---

"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade