Your thread title kind of says it all: Science versus ID. An ID at odds with science is clearly not part of science. If ID were science then its goal would be to *do* science, but it's not.
The animosity of scientists and science minded folks isn't directed toward the science of ID, because there's no such thing, but toward the efforts of religious fundamentalists to bypass the scientific process and leap right into the classroom. The stark paucity of ID research effort makes clear that their goal is not the advancement of science but the education, indoctrination even, of children in public schools.
While ID does not share the specific tactics of creationism, the basic strategy is the same: lobby textbook publishers for reduced representation of evolution and increased representation of ID, and lobby legislatures and school boards for representation in public school science classrooms. This strategy is unique to creationism and ID, because they are merely different tactical manifestations of the same fundamentalist religious strategy.
The science that is taught in public schools is selected by curriculum designers from the broad body of science. If ID wants to be taught in public schools then it must do the science and become part of the broad body of science. The situation today is that less than 1% of biologists accept ID. No other theory (and I'm being kind in dignifying ID with the label of theory) with such a tiny degree of acceptance is taught in science class, and ID should not be the first. When its evidence and ideas are powerful enough to be scientifically persuasive, only then should it be taught.
Those who think relativity is wrong or quantum theory is wrong or cosmology is wrong are not lobbying school boards to have their theories taught. Most such thinking is on the part lone loons anyway, but even for those ideas that have gained a little traction, such as MOND (Modified Newtonian Dynamics) or perhaps intrinsic redshifts, there is no lobby to get them taught in schools. The advocates of these alternative theories are busy doing the research necessary to convince other scientists, which is what ID should be doing but hasn't, isn't and doesn't.
Someone else already noted that evidence went unmentioned in your post. As a salesman once told me, you sell the product you have, not the one you wish you had, and you do whatever is necessary within ethical bounds to sell that product. The ID movement is trying to sell as science something that is not science, and those efforts are definitely not within ethical bounds, nor, to broaden the scope beyond my salesman analogy, within moral bounds. If ID is feeling some resentment and animosity it is well earned.
Re: Blending? Intelligent Design should be just laughed at.
marc9000 writes:
What justifies practically every thing you say, and what proves false most everything the atheists are saying in this thread, is the ANGER and closed mindedness that is present from those who represent (or think they represent) mainstream science.
The understanding that you seek is impossible because of politics and emotion, nothing else. Why is EMOTION such a large part of science?
If you think anyone in this thread is being inappropriately angry then you should bring it to the attention of moderators by posting to the Report Discussion Problems Here 3.0 thread. It's not usually a good idea to appoint yourself moderator.
The idea that someone who becomes angry is wrong is, to understate the case, a bit of a stretch. If this were true then this video would be proof that Buzz Aldrin didn't land on the moon:
Unethical and/or immoral behavior (or in the case of the Aldrin video, also badgering behavior) does tend to draw an anger response from people. This is due to repugnance at dishonesty and immorality and has nothing to do with any scientific opinions someone might hold.
But none of this is the topic of the thread. If you have any factual or evidential positions concerning the thread's topic that you'd like to argue, you should focus on those.
Re: Blending? Intelligent Design should be just laughed at.
Hi Marc,
I don't know why you think you're close to suspension. Apparently you do not think anyone in this thread is inappropriately angry, but if you did then there's a thread for that. If you think anger is on-topic for this thread, then I don't think that it is. And if you have on-topic comments to make, maybe you could begin making them soon.
I read the thread to be about the anger (from both sides of the debate) that hampers fruitful discussion. From the OP...
I understood the differences he describes before the concluding paragraph to be the thread's topic, and that the passing references to anger and vitriol were an effort to make clear both the degree of difficulty of attaining any resolution and the importance of discussing these differences nonetheless. I think it would be a good idea to have a thread discussing the creationist/IDist impression that science guards its theories jealously and reacts emotionally and irrationally when challenged, but my reading of the OP didn't lead me to believe that was the topic of this thread.
You seem to have a good handle on what's inside your head and have no problem letting that information out, but there does seem to be a bit of a problem when information tries to flow in the other direction.
One indication that you're learning anything from the responses would be to at least stop quoting yourself. It isn't like the markup codes should represent anything difficult for a USC medical school graduate, a US Naval captain, and a retired chief of immunological medicine. But the letters after your name aren't going to learn it for you - you're going to have to learn these things yourself.
Is this an example of the kind of mutual respect, non-toxic language you are talking about.
It might be an example of how easy it is to be unintentionally offensive. I think we all find ourselves in the "I'm sorry, I never meant to hurt your feelings..." doghouse from time to time. It isn't like being unintentionally hurtful is something we're not all familiar with.
Too much insult is laid at the hands of design than to what I believe is its actual origin, unawareness, insensitivity and lack of knowledge. Your suspicions may indeed prove correct, but if acted upon prematurely they become the cause of a breakdown in communication instead of a result.
If you're not trying to make a case for the validity of ID as science then for me personally it doesn't matter what you believe. People should be free to believe whatever they want, and I think you said this, too. But they don't have the right to force their beliefs on others, particularly children.
So if you're not arguing that ID is science and if you're not trying to force ID on children or anyone else, I'm fine with letting you go your happy way.
I do NOT take the position ID should be a science. It utilizes science to affirm its beliefs and those who believe in a teleologic ID. I.e., a PURPOSE for what we see from a spiritual point of view.
If you want to believe that ID "affirms its beliefs" using science then I'm fine with that, as long as you don't try to actually promote it or teach it as science.
You don't believe ID is science, but you think it uses science to verify its hypotheses about such things as purpose in the universe. And you reject God-of-the-Gaps, but state that God will never be "obvious" or "verifiable."
Its beginning to sound to me that you believe the same thing as most IDists, you're just inventing an alternate vocabulary.
It's clear that many things had to be just right for life to evolve in this universe. ... There is no use to discussing the unknowable.
And yet you discuss the unknowable anyway. The life that happened in this universe was life that was possible in this universe. Were this a different universe with different laws then any life that happened would have been life that was possible in that different universe. How many different types of universes could give rise to life? You don't know, yet you seem certain that it is amazing that life arose in this one.
Any other unknowable things you'd care to discuss?
If there are gaps, God already filled them --- otherwise we wouldn’t be here.
You've misunderstood the term "God of the gaps". When people attribute what we do not know to God, their god is called a "God of the gaps", where "gaps" refer to gaps in our knowledge. As our knowledge grows and fills in those gaps the things attributed to the "God of the gaps" becoms less and less. Gods used to be responsible for the motion of the planets, the weather, disease and much else, but as knowledge has increased these Gods have had to cede control of these phenomena to nature. As our telescopes and microscopes increase in power these Gods recede and shrink.
I am a scientist...
You're a physician.
...since I was first a Zoologist...
You have a BA in zoology from MSAC (Mountain State Agricultural College?) and worked one year as a lab technician at Riverside County Hospital before beginning med school. You were never a zoologist.
But the evidence from astrophysics and quantum mechanics strongly suggests a sequential requirement of absolute necessity to get to where we are...It’s the immutable apparently required sequence I find so compelling.
You're running a word salad generator program, aren't you.
My feeling is that, while well intentioned, classical IDers are attempting to do the impossible: To make logical sense out of fable and allegory and to somehow extract science there-from.
Far be it from me to defend IDists, but you seem to have as little acquaintance with ID as you do with science.
quote: So what are these questions, and what experiments can be run to answer them?
The experiments are being run as we common folk dither on. New information is coming forth every day. There is a continuum of both information and hope, and lots of time for mankind collectively to contemplate.
It's great to know that these experiments are being run as we common folk dither on, but to ask once again, what are these questions, and what experiments can be run to answer them?
None-the-less, there will always be those who believe we are simply the result of chaos, entropy and probability and those who believe that, at some layer, our creation and evolution were planned from the beginning by God. Others will sort of mix the two concepts.
How scientific do you think it is to postulate a being for whom you have no evidence?
Any other unknowable things you'd care to discuss?
Apparently not.
This rejoinder reminds of a bad joke I once saw on a TV comedy hour back in the 60's. One guy says to the other, "Ever ride a jackass." "No," the other guy replies. "Well, why don't you hop on your back and give it a try?"
"Oh, that's a good one," the other guy replies. "I'm going to try it on this gentleman coming now. Sir, have you ever ridden a jackass." When the gentleman says no the guy turns his back and says, "Well, hop on."
Yes, I'm an administrator here. In fact, I'm *the* administrator, and I'm also the founder, owner, webmaster, IT guy, chief financial officer, programmer and janitor.
I replied to your PM. It's obvious now that you didn't take the joke the way I intended, and I apologize for that. The point wasn't that you're a jackass, but that like the person in the joke you just didn't seem to be comprehending the situation.
You also don't seem to comprehending or at least responding to much of what people are saying, and this is beginning to raise my concern level, because it causes threads to spiral out of control. As a participant I cannot moderate, though I did step in for technical reasons when you were having trouble with the quoting codes. But if I *were* moderating then I would suggest you focus your attention on the evidence supporting your position.
AbE (Added by Edit): I just noticed this was a reply to the message preceding my joke. If you're objecting to where I rebutted your claims of being a scientist and a zoologist, then all I did was cite facts. If you're objecting to the accusations of word salad, pretty much everyone is accusing you of that. If you're objecting to my pointing out that you have little understanding of ID or science, your words speak for themselves. If you're objecting to the request to answer the question about experiments that would test your ideas, then I don't understand why you object to a request for the information you claim exists. And if you're objecting to the rhetorical question about the qualifications as science of claims for phenomena with no evidence, i.e., God, then I don't understand your objection.
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