A Year In Intelligent Design

I was really surprised to discover this year that a widely respected paleontologist who specializes in dragonfly and damselfly fossils is associated with the Discovery Institute. Several of my colleagues, including some who co-authored papers with him, were also shocked to find out that he rejects Darwinism and believes in ID.

I am unsure if this has noticeably influenced his research.

I was really surprised to discover this year that a widely respected paleontologist who specializes in dragonfly and damselfly fossils is associated with the Discovery Institute.Several of my colleagues, including some who co-authored papers with him, were also shocked to find out that he rejects Darwinism and believes in ID. I am unsure if this has noticeably influenced his research.

I would love to know.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

isn't there only really one way to do science whether one is a believer or not?

isn't there only really one way to do science whether one is a believer or not?

That does seem to be the case, and it is why we do not see research papers that confirm ID. If the Scientific Method is used correctly it never leads to conclusions that involve the supernatural because there is no known way to test things outside of nature.

My understanding about the Discovery Institute is that people associated with it have to sign some sort of declaration that belief in the bible overrides scientific results, or something similar.

Tanypteryx writes: My understanding about the Discovery Institute is that people associated with it have to sign some sort of declaration that belief in the bible overrides scientific results, or something similar.

No wonder Faith is interested in the results. That sort of thinking makes no sense to me, and I am a believer.

If reality was determined supernaturally and overrode the evidence that we can see and measure, it would mean that everyone was deluded and deceived except believers...which I won't buy into. Besides...Belief in God does not need to equate to a belief in the bible....that simply weakens the overall possibility of the argument being true. (Unless of course I am supernaturally being deceived at this very moment.)

I would love to know.

I am going to put you on the spot, and I hope that you answer me....but if you don't it will only fit a pattern of ignoring anything that challenges your belief.

How is it that you always ignore the requests of EvC members to provide evidence for your claims regarding the science of Geology and age of the earth? Also....do you believe that God has allowed secular science to be deceived due to the fact that they won't put their beliefs ahead of dispassionate evidence?

Phat writes: Mr. Dragonfly writes: My understanding about the Discovery Institute is that people associated with it have to sign some sort of declaration that belief in the bible overrides scientific results, or something similar. No wonder Faith is interested in the results. That sort of thinking makes no sense to me, and I am a believer.

I would suspect it is something like the Statement on Inerrancy which says where there is a conflict God's word is to be affirmed over any scientific claims. Which does make sense to me and should make sense to anybody who is really a believer.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

am going to put you on the spot, and I hope that you answer me....but if you don't it will only fit a pattern of ignoring anything that challenges your belief.

Wow what a piece of tendentious snark THAT is. And it's not true either, it's one of those false accusations people throw at me, and you are just playing to your unbelieving friends by aping them, since I know you don't understand anything about any of these things.

How is it that you always ignore the requests of EvC members to provide evidence for your claims regarding the science of Geology and age of the earth?

I don't. I've given plenty of evidence for my claims about Geology. If you mean challenges about claims I don't make, for instance the age of the Earth, it's because I don't make scientific claims about that, because I don't feel I have enough understanding to make them. And I've said so quite clearly. I have certain topics I pursue because I believe I understand them well enough to argue them and I provide lots of evidence for them. Where I don't have a scientific point of view I simply take the position of the Statement on Inerrancy, that God's word stands nevertheless, expecting that eventually there may be a scientific answer as well.

Also....do you believe that God has allowed secular science to be deceived due to the fact that they won't put their beliefs ahead of dispassionate evidence?

Huh? It's simple: I think they are wrong, I'm not looking for snarky explanations for why they are wrong. I'll even say they are honestly wrong, they believe in what they are saying. But I believe they are wrong nevertheless.

And in the future I may well ignore you, Phat, whether you do that particular snark thing on me or not, because I don't like your attitude.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The problem is that science builds on previously accepted findings, and since the findings that fit with the ToE are accepted it is very possible that scientists working from that model will interpret their own work in a way that affirms the ToE, while creationists who don't accept the established findings will come to different conclusions based on their different assumptions.

For instance, if you believe the dragonfly has evolved over hundreds of millions of years you are going to think of its current form in different terms than if you believe it was created no more than 6000 years ago, or perhaps microevolved from an insect Species that was appreciably different at Creation or perhaps at the time of the Flood. If you believe that mutations are the source of normal alleles you will think differently about all creatures than if you believe the DNA was built into a Species at Creation. If you believe that fossil dragonflies and damselflies record what lived before the Flood rather than being the result of an evolutionary history that goes back millions of years, you are going to have a different view of the current species as you encounter them.

I can't guess how these differences would play out in a particular research project but it's pretty clear that they could lead to very different conclusions. Even from the same undisputed set of observations or facts.

Since scientific journals adhere to the accepted framework of the ToE, they are not going to consider anything that comes to them from the creationist point of view, at least if it involves the kind of assumptions I've mentioned above. That is, the scientific thinking IS different even if the basic facts are the same wherever these different assumptions are important to the research.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

microevolved from...that was appreciably different

*snort* Words, eh! What are ya gonna do...

I can't guess...

And yet... your post...?

Faith writes: The problem is that science builds on previously accepted findings, and since the findings that fit with the ToE are accepted it is very possible that scientists working from that model will interpret their own work in a way that affirms the ToE, while creationists who don't accept the established findings will come to different conclusions based on their different assumptions.

The time to make this argument wad 150 years ago. Virtually no scientists are working on confirming the ToE - they use it. It's confirmed, nobody but a few religious crack-pots think otherwise. So it's up to you lot to show us the alternative *scientific* explanation.

Of course no science journal will publish religious garbage but they will publish anything backed by evidence.

Faith writes: I can't guess how these differences would play out in a particular research project but it's pretty clear that they could lead to very different conclusions. Even from the same undisputed set of observations or facts.

Such an idea is impossible in Science.

If you have an undisputed set of observations or facts... then they only ever lead to one single Scientific conclusion.

The only other possibility is that you haven't done a test yet.
If there's no test - then there's no agreement on the outcome of that test - how could there be unless someone can read the future?

Many different scientists can have different ideas on what tests to do - and what the possible-outcomes of those tests may be.

But once a test is done - it's done for everyone.
The only way for Science to disagree on the conclusion of a test is to do the test again and show an error in the previous test (generally resulting in Nobel Prizes for catching an error.)
Which would still result in only 1 valid test - and only 1 valid conclusion.

Any differences scientists have are always on future ideas: possible-tests and possible-conclusions-from-those-possible-tests.
And all scientists know that without a test - you cannot claim that something "is known" to be a part of reality.

Therefore - if you have an undisputed set of observations or facts (aka "conclusions")... then, Scientifically, you always only have 1 answer that every honest person will acknowledge.

That's how you know that when a Scientist says something is part of reality - you know it's been tested and you know that all honest people agree.

When anyone-else claims something is part of reality - that's why they're always asked "what's your evidence?" (What's your test? What's your honest approach? What's your conclusion?)

When those questions are left wanting... so is the claim's veracity.

All I meant was that I'd need to know something about a particular research project to consider whether or not the assumptions of YEC would affect it. They wouldn't in all cases, but wherever the time factor is considered to be relevant they might.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You are missing the point. I think there's sufficient evidence for the young earth but the journals don't, just as you don't. So the young earth is an assumption in YEC science that is always going to disqualify any scientific work that assumes it from publication in the standard journals.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Faith writes: microevolved from...that was appreciably different *snort* Words, eh! What are ya gonna do...

I should remember not to use the term "microevolution" and instead stick to "variation within the Kind or Species." Yes there can be dramatic differences between variations even on that level alone, though not structural differences.

I can't guess... And yet... your post...?

?

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.