Intelligent design. Philosophy of ignorance.

So basically God wrote the Bible but he wasn't very good at it so we need you guys to come and tell us what he really meant.Or maybe God didn't write the Bible - have you actually READ it ? Can you name one book which claims to be written by God ? Or even one that is written as if God were the author ?It seems to me that you're rejecting the Bible - in favour of the dogma of your church.

It should be stated that any divide between ID and Creationism is largely PR. The original draft of the "ID Textbook" Of Pandas and People was a creationist textbook - even the definition of "creationism" in the original version was used as the definition of "intelligent design" in the printed edition.ID is quite happy to include creationists in its ranks. Even Young Earthers like Paul Nelson. Most of the major figures in ID seem to be Old Earth Creationists. Creationism is certainly part of ID - the largest part.If ID were science it would be happy to try to make inferences about the designer. Yet if you try to ask an ID supporter about that they will most likely refuse on the grounds that such would be theology. If ID doesn't say that the Designer is God, if ID really accepted the possibility that the Designer might be an extraterrestrial then that answer would be nonsensical. If ID really says that the Designer is God then it makes perfect sense.ID's silence of the concept of the designer is a political strategy. They don't want to admit that the movment in general is convinced that the Designer is God. And they also know that if they admit that the question is open to investigation that the conclusions reached will not be the one they favour.But in doing so they shoot down any hope of offering a scientific alternative to evolution. That would have to be based on a notion of the Designer, and offer hypotheses about what the Designer would do. The Designer's capabilities and intention would be central to any theory they could come up with. Instead they want science to stop with the conclusion of design.Mainstream ID really is creationism. They just try to hide it behind PR spin and strategic silences.

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No, it isn't. That is beyond an unfair mischaracterization. ID'ists are tired of being slandered and mischaracterized by a population completely under the radar of what's going on and those fanatically imbued by strict naturalism.

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Translation. IDists are tired of people telling the truth about ID. The DI is one big spin machine so the least people could do is believe the lies. If anyone's engaging in slander it's you - since if you know anythign you know that there are oppomemts of ID - like Ken Miller - who are certainly not materialists at all.

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I thought we lived in the Democratic world were tolerance of others is supposed to be sought in all cases and that suppression is viewed negatively.

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What you mean is that the opinions of those who disagree with you should be suppressed. You aren't complaining about suppression - you're complaining about a LACK of suppression.

I think that if there was a criticism of your post it's that you go to easy on ID.I don't know what Behe's position really is - his statement on common descent in Dawin's Black Box fell short of a full endorsement, although that could have been to avoid putting off the creationists even more. There's good reason to believe that he was a creationist not too many years before before he wrote it, though.Worse, Behe doesn't just fail to disavow the seamier side of ID - he's prepared to support it. For me, ID jumped the shark with the publication of Wells' Icons of Evolution, a mendacious piece of propaganda that didn't even try to advance a scientific case. But Behe was happy to endorse it, even if he should have known better.

Of course you won't answer it because it's true.It is NOT a "distortion" or "slander" to point out that the ID mainstream is thinly disguised creationism. I referred to some of the evidence in my earlier post. It IS slander to accuse others of fanaticism for saying things you don't like. THe more so sice some of them don't even agree with the views that supposedly motivate the,Your opponents presenting their views does not prevent you from presenting yours. Yet you claim that their doing so somehow runs counter to the ideals of Democracy. How can I interpet that as anything other than a claim that in a true democracy your opponents would be prevented from speaking out ?If you can't answer these points then at least try to deal with the evidence. Why is it theology to look into the nature of the Designer if the Designer is not God ? Why is the definition of Intelligent Design in Of Pandas and People identical to the definition of creationism in the original draft ?

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I think there is, at the base level, a very fundamental misunderstanding of what Intelligent Design and Evolution actually are. Neither ID nor the ToE is actually a branch of science. As I stated earlier, they are theories that employ science as a method to corroborate their claims.

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And that's the same line that the "Creation Science" movement used. And it's no more true now than it was then.

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Having said that, we must then distinguish whether or not proponents of both are either suppressing actual scientific evidence or distorting the actual evidence to fit their preconceived notions about this or that.

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I'm sure that the ID movement would like to. But fortunately they don't have the power to do so. But when someone looks at the human eye, and points out that the structure is rather odd for something that was intelligently designed an ID spokesman is happy to claim that such arguments are theology.
Casey Luskin states: (This is, of course, a misrepresentation of Zimmer's argument.)

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Its become apparent to me that people feel that ID smacks of theology.

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And Luskin's statement is one reason why. If it's a mistake to think that the Deisgner is God, then why is ID spokesman making that very mistake ?

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...if evolution is true, then there is no need for a God, other than to create, perhaps, the first atom.

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That is wrong. Evolution doesn't deal withh the origin of the universe, the solar system or even the first life. It only deals with how life has developed and changed since then.

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And as Richard Dawkins has conceded, Darwin gave atheists the first compelling reason to be an atheist.

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Perhaps you can give a quote. It certainly isn't the usual quote from The Blind Watchmaker I'm certainly not convinced that Dawkins said such a thing.Oh and here we have you casually assuming that the Designer is God - or at least a God.

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If you want the Creator to be the FSM, more power to you. That question is theological in nature.

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If the identity of the designer is a theological question than it must be because the Designer is a God. So whether the designer is or is nto a God is purely a matter of convenience - you try to have it both ways. Why don't you stopp parroting the propaganda and actually think about it ?

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Some anti- ID'ists insist that we must unmask the Designer(s) in order to understand the design at all. That's patently false, however. Was a computer designed? We would say, 'obviously.' But could you obviously know who created it by looking inside the computer?

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No, that's a strawman. We're not asking for a name. We're asking what sort of designer is this - what does it want to achieve, what methods does it have available to it. Only by asking such questions could you produce a real alternative to evolution. We know the methods of evolution and how it operates - so we would need a similar view of he designer to equal the explanatory power of evolutionary theory.

If that was what ID was about, ID wouldn't be attacking evolution all the time. ID is primarily anti-evolution. Behe, Wells, Johnson and Dembski all attack evolution more than anything else.

Behe may have changed his stripes but he still proposes a degree of divine intervention in the history of life - he has simply moved from being (probably) a straight Biblical OEC to allowing that that intervention might be limited to the early stages of that history. His irreducible complexity argument was always an anti-evolution argument with no relevance to cosmological ID.

As I remember it, Behe suggested that the DNA for irreducibly complex systems was inserted at an early point and left dormant until it could be useful. I'm not sure how seriously he meant it because he doesn't seem to have put much work into promoting it and it has a pretty obviosu problem.Anyway Behe's argument insists that IC systems must be produced all at once, and it seems that he does require direct intervention by the designer to do that, one way or another. So maybe he has moved from Designer-as-creator (except, I suspect, for the first life) to Designer-as-genetic-engineer.But if that is all there is then why stay involved in the ID movement. The main focus is to get anti-evolution arguments into schools, without even doing the science necessary to get those established. GDR is completely wrong to talk about taking the politics out of ID because the poltiics IS the main part of ID, and always has been.

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I actually see most ID'ists as trying to disassociate themselves from creation science, not because they are trying covertly bring in the Bible, but because they are embarrassed by some of them over the perception of outright bias.

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Of course this is an evasion because I have been talking about creationism - and made it plain that mainstream ID is an OEC view, while "Creation Science" was explicitly YEC.OECs would not support Creation Science because they disagree with the Young Earth view. And of course Creation Science failed badly in the courts. And that is when ID came in, and [B]Of Pandas and People
Want to know what won the Scopes Trial in the end? It was the appearance of suppression by a biased community-- namely, Christians. [/quote]I would say that it was the fact that the posiiton taken was manifestly absurd and directly contrary to the U.S. Constitution. To forbid the teaching of mainstream science in science classes simply because it is contrary to certain religious views is simply not on in the U.S.So if ID feels "oppressed" because it can't get its views into schools the answer is that they have to do the science. That is what got evolution in. That was what the "Wedge" document said that they were going to do. So why aren't they doing it ?

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Now, 70-80 years later the roles have reversed. No one is saying that opponents of ID shouldn't oppose it, least of all, me. But there is a difference between opposition and total distortion in an attempt to slander your opponents views

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Yes there is a difference. What you are seeing is opposition. The ID movement speaks out of both sides of its mouth on the religion issue. It is not distortion to point out that ID supporters - including you - are quite happy to imply that the "Designer" of ID is God - or certainly a God. Or to refer to the constant statements that ID is against naturalism - and therfore clearly arguing FOR the supernatural.

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And judging by the response I've seen here on this thread alone makes me think that they've done a bang-up job at swooning people over with such disinformation since its becoming increasingly apparent that there is a fundamental misunderstanding.

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And what "disinformation" would that be ? The only disinformation I can see is the ID party line that you're parroting.

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They both believe in a Creator, that's why.

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They both beleive in Creationism, that's why the definitions are the same. You should have taken the time to find out the facts before guessing at a - wrong - answer. Found hereThat IS creationism

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Here's the key difference: One group wants to codify a particular science by marrying those principles with its theology. The other group wants nothing to do with that except recognize that life certainly appears to have been designed. One wants to push theology, the other does not.

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No, the key diifference is that one group took an all-or-nothing approach, while the other will settle for less. Both want to sabotage the science curriculum in schools by changing it to fit with their religious views rather than the mainstream science that should be taught.
The reason they want to each that "life appears to be designed" is because they don't want people knowing that science is not coming up with real evidence of design (and in fact has come up with evidence against the idea that life was designed).

So you say that it is a distortion to say that ID is about God.But you also say that ID implies God.ID'ers won't allow the arguement that the vertebrate eye so poorly "designed" that we should question whether they were really designed at all - because the Designer is God.Apparently you even want to bring theology and God into science (after arguing that theology shouldn't be allowed in science).ID certainly includes creationists - even YECs like Paul Nelson. And you admit that they don't discuss the age of the Earth - which is rather odd if they actually want to offer an alternative to evolution. Don't you think that the difference between a few thousand years and over a billion is significant in working out the history of life ? In identifying what can be attributed to unintelligent natural forces and what must be the result of intelligence ? And it's not as if there were any scientific controversy over the idea that the Earth is more than a few thousand years old.So apparently it seems that the "distortion" is no distortion at all. ID is all about religion. It is meant to be the basis of an argument for the existence of God. The Designer is assumed to be God. ID at the least panders to the unscientific religious belief in a Young Earth and puts that ahead of doing real science.So why are you accusing detractors of engagining in distortion. It's simple - you are using slander to try to suppress criticism. Maybe - IMHO probably - you aren't inventing this yourself, instead parrotting the PR of the ID movement without even thinking about the contradictions. So stop repeating ID PR without thinking. Start to deal with the evidence - including the evidence in your own words.

And yet again we see that ID is religiously inspired. Philip Johnson was in many ways the founder of the ID movement and his motive to do so is because he believes that evolutinary theory denies the existence of God. At heart ID is a religious apologetic invented to counter the scientific evidence against Philip Johnson's religious beliefs.Isn't it odd that this so-called "distortion" keeps coming from ID supporters ? Ever wondered why that might be ?

NJ can't even work out that he is arguing that ID is based on God. Even though I have pointed it out several times. Rather than engage the evidence he jsut goes on citign the ID party line. He is apparently not prepared to discuss the issues. His nasty remark to fallacycop would be more fairly directed at himself.

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So what? See, what you're doing is basically trying to make it either illegal or taboo to even mention God. I believe that the Designer is the Judeo-Christian God. But that's just my belief.

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That really is a ridiculous distortion and slander. All that Percy is doing is pointing out that ID'ers frequently argue on the basis that the designer is God, even when dealing with supposedly scientific arguments.You are quite free to go around saying that the Designer is God and Percy did not even remotely suggests changing that situation in the slightest. What you can't do is get away with saying it and then accusing others of distortion for saying the same thing that you do.[queue]
Proponents of ID can't make substantive arguments by saying that God is the Designer. [/quote]But we have seen that they DO make arguments that imply that God is the Designer.

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What they can do, is show people that something of a Higher Cognizance is most parsimonious.

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So you now admit that ID is at least arguing for the existence of A God, if not a particular one ?

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What they can do, is show people that something of a Higher Cognizance is most parsimonious.

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I think you will find very few who are not Christian. And most of them will be fringe figures. Can you find a major figure in ID who is not a Christian or a member of a closely related religion ?

Here is what a Christian, favouring cosmological ID has to say about his treatment by the ID establishment. The first Tme Dembski Booted meInteresting points:1) The ID establishment is very much against discussion of the age of the Earth.
Unfortunately most cosmological ID arguments assume an old Earth. So it is certainly a relevant issue - so why not allow discussion ? In fact if ID is really scientific why would there need to be discussion. The Earth is old - end of story. And why is Dembski so sensitive on the matter ?2) David Heddle, the author of the post - an ID supporter - holds the view that ID is a "science-based apologetic".
He also understands that simply keeping quiet on the age of the Earth is problematic if ID is to be considered to be truly scientific.So to GDR what do you say to this evidence that ID is NOT mainly about cosmology ?And to NJ what do you say to Heddle's views that ID is an apologetic and not science ? He isn't an "ID detractor". And how do you explain why the ID movement would need an enforced silence on the age of the Earth - unless it is primarily a religious-political movement that needs to pander to YEC views, even when they conflcit with science ?