Summations Only

Is this an example of the kind of mutual respect, non-toxic language you are talking about.If so, I'm down with that. I get to continue my testy examination of and discourse about all things ID.

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.--Percy

I found that remark by jchardy very disrespectful towards a lot of people, too. Along with those other remarks about some scientists being victims of some conspiracy by everyone else (including me). I think his remarks defeat the purpose of his thread.Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.

Ahh, yes, the old favorites from the ID playbook. Downplay evidence by claiming it is not absolute proof. Second tactic, completely misrepresent the theory of evolution. This is why ID supporters lose respect. You do realize that the theory has changed since Darwin's time, right? You do realize that gradualism is not a requirement of the modern theory, right? You do realize that only math and distillation deals in proof, right?Respect is earned. ID supporters have not earned that respect. They have done nothing that deserves respect. I do believe that people have the right to believe as they want, but I do not feel compelled to respect beliefs that are wrong. I do not feel compelled to respect beliefs that cause people to attack evidenced based scientific theories, or to distort those theories in the fashion you do above. I do not feel compelled to respect beliefs that lead the leading ID institute to state that their guiding principle is . . ."To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God" --Wedge Strategy, Discovery InstituteYou think respect should be given because something merely exists. THAT IS WRONG. Respect is earned. Notice how misleading this sentence is. I keep asking for ID research. Stating that some ID supporters do scientific research does not address this shortcoming. You are trying to cover up a serious problem with the ID community. No scientist is doing scientific research ON ID. None. You claim that ID supporters love science, and yet they don't do ANY scientific research on ID. They even feel the need to attack any paper on proposed evolutionary pathways or any new transitional fossil that is presented in the scientific journals. If they love science so much, then why do they feel the need to replace it with religious beliefs and attack it at every turn?We have seen the ID gameplan. It is quite simple. Step 1: take down scientific theories that contradict religious beliefs. Step 2: attach sciency sounding words to your religious beliefs and offer them up as a scientific replacement. It is as anti-science as it gets. Please learn the difference between proof and the scientific method. Those who play the persecution card in this fashion deserve no respect. You asked why their is conflict? It is because of statements like the one above. Stop with the feigned persecution. It gets old really fast. Time after time we have seen ID supporters drum up some incident where there was supposedly some sort of persecution on the part of scientists. When we look at what really happened we find that the ID supporters have completely misrepresented what happened. ID supporters have shown themselves to be dishonest time after time after time.For example, a lot of ID supporters were claiming that Guillermo Gonalez was being persecuted because he didn't get tenure at Iowa State University. What was the real truth of the matter? Gonzalez had stopped doing research. In 4 years he had only graduated 1 student. He had no active research grants. This is why he was not given tenure. Did that matter to ID supporters? Nope. They kept crying and crying, claiming that it was Gonzalez's ID beliefs that kept him from getting the tenured position. Bullshit. It is episodes like this that show why ID supporters do not deserve respect, and it is one of many. Why do people need to attack science in order to find spirituality? So much for respecting other people's beliefs. Is Behe looking for possible evolutionary pathways that can produce IC systems? Is Dembski looking for evolutionary mechanisms that can produce complex specified complexity? Is Stephen Meyers looking for transitional fossils in Cambrian strata? The answer to all of these is no. All they do is attack science without doing any scientific research to support their own claims. That is what ID is. That is what it as always been. Then why do we see ID supporters lying about science? They claim that there are "problems with evolution", but when we investigate these supposed problems they just turn out to be lies on the part of the ID supporters. Why is that? Why should we respect this?I can sum this up very succintly for you. The actions on the part of ID supporters has shown that ID deserves no respect. When and if ID supporters get into the lab and try to support their ideas then we can talk again about whether or not ID deserves respect.

Someone that believes in Intelligent Design might do real scientific research, but anyone that "ensconces" any faith based belief in a final result or intermediary result or preliminary result or in research is simply not doing science. Faith based stuff has no place in any scientific publication.It is not a matter of bias, but of honesty.

Welcome, Rick! Science is not about "the only alternative left"; knowing exactly what that one leftover alternative must be is nothing short of omniscience.Leftovers are fine for casseroles, but not for science.

Hi jchardy, and welcome to the fray.Pardon me for stepping in at this stage of the debate and essentially starting back at the beginning. It seems to me, that what you are describing is Deism rather than ID, especially compared to the way ID is used in debate these days. To my mind the essential difference between IDologist and Deist is that Deists lets go of all previous religious beliefs, and uses science to the fullest extent to understand "life, the universe, and everything" (Douglas Adams) with open-minded skepticism, while IDologists fervently cling to previous beliefs and try to use ID as a crutch to prop up or support those beliefs. This difference causes many adherents of ID to attempt or claim that some findings of science are invalid, rather than looking at the evidence and science to see how we understand the workings of the universe etc.See my thread Is ID properly pursued? for more.Let me know.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : clrty

Perhaps, but the original post is riddled with insulting rhetoric. Knowing my own tendency towards testiness, I've held off from ripping through that screed in the manner that any OP full of nonsense should be critiqued.I have noticed that jchardy has not been all that responsive to complaints that he is presenting a strawman version of science, or that he lumps all opponents of ID or Creationism onto the atheists pile, or that he has seemingly no knowledge of the history/beginnings of ID and blames science for the close ties of ID and fundamentalism.Further, in the post I objected to, it is apparent that jchardy is firmly attached to his own "spiritual connect to the universe" dogma that is apparently not to be questioned.I accept your own observation that the tone of the discussion here is way too often sarcastic and well, testy. But the opposite of testiness must not be avoiding critical analysis of opinions on ID, creationism, or science, or biting one's tongue when untruths are posted.

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.--Percy

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It doesn't matter if there's logic in your idea, it has to be falsifiable. You have to ask what sort of evidence, if it came to light, would falsify your hypothesis. How would you go about looking for that evidence? That's what science is and does and it is something that ID has notably failed to do.

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Trixie: I agree. The question ---what sort of evidence, if it came to light, would falsify your hypothesis. is a very valid question.
It seems to me that this is precisely what scientific investigation is all about! The goal of science is clarification; affirmation; predictability and explanation of all we see in a verifiable format that is uniformly accepted by all, arrived at by the scientific method.
Irrefutable proof of the origin of matter at the fundamental (sub-quark) level for example might be:
Proof that all matter is energy, stabilized at the Planck level by harmonics, with a clarification of the fundamental structure and mechanism of quark stability, and the strong force maintaining quark adhesion to produce protons and a full elaboration of supersymmetry so we know ALL the particles and antiparticle relationships in our universe INCLUDING dark matter and dark energy; the Higgs; the axion; the Neutralino, --- and that’s just the fundamental physics of the universe; then there’s its laws and possible exceptions or violations of those laws in the special regions of our universe (which may never be accessible) .
We have to know it all! Then we must turn to DNA; its origin; its permutations; the mystery of junk DNA including transposons, retroposons, pseudogenes, and introns.
My point is, complete confidence in our knowledge base such that we are assured there are no possible outside influences we cannot detect or track down. I think this is virtually impossible. We seek certitude in all things. There is no possible certitude I can imagine right now. Perhaps in a millennium? JCH

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Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that ID can never do it, just that they haven't yet. Instead, we get propaganda, sound bites and a lot of hot air about atheistic "evilutionists". We get "refutations" of the ToE based on a comlete misunderstanding of what the ToE actually says and no amount of explanation as to how they've misunderstood the ToE will deflect them from repeating the same pointless strawman refutations.
Science has observed the amazing variety of life on this planet and come up with a testable hypothesis of how that variety of life has come about. Subsequently, much evidence has come to light which fits with this hypothesis. Additionally, no evidence has come to light which falsifies it. It can be falsified, it just hasn't been so far.
Compare that with ID.
ID also observes the amazing variety of life on this planet and has come up with a hypothesis that it has been designed like that. However, they have no way to detect evidence of design. They can't describe how it would look if it wasn't designed, i.e., they can't suggest a way to falsify their hypothesis. Well, to be more accurate, they did in that they said that more than 2 mutations couldn't happen without design, but when that was shown to happen they moved the goalposts and now it's up to four mutations (this is a very condensed version of what they've done).
Instead of testing their hypothesis, they continually try to discredit evolution, but to date their results have supported evolution, even when they've deliberately "loaded the dice" against evolution in their experimental design. For example one experiment on 2 related proteins (common ancestor type thing) tried to turn the 2 proteins into each other. It didn't work so they declared that they couldn't have a common ancestor (again simplistic and brief). Now, me and my cousin share a grandparent. I cannot turn into my cousin and my cousin cannot turn into me. Does that prove that we don't share a grandparent? According to Doug Axe it does because that's the logic he used when he did the work. (See Ann K. Gauger and Douglas D. Axe, The Evolutionary Accessibility of New Enzyme Functions: A Case Study from the Biotin Pathway, BIO-Complexity, Vol. 2011(1) (2011).)
There is no way that science and scientists should be flexible to factually incorrect information, poor science, even poorer understanding of scientific concepts, deliberately misleading information, blatant lies and propaganda and sloppy experimental design and analysis. Why should they hold themselves to one standard, yet be flexible enough to allow those with lower standards to claim that they have the same standards?

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The mistake IDers make is to even try to prove the concept of ID by attempting to disprove natural selection; or evolution in general or mathematically projected information about the course of the universe prior to the Big Bang; inflation or subsequently the evolution of life. They engage in a fools game, and it’s absolutely unnecessary, because if I am correct, fundamental proof of intelligent design can never be demonstrated. It’s not supposed to be provable because to do so would be like proving there is life after death! No matter how many NDE’s are reported, none of them can really produce tangible evidence of survival after death. But that doesn’t disprove the concept. JCH

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Yes, everyone has the right to believe what they want to believe.
However, nobody has the right to teach sham science as "science". Only science should be taught as science.
Religious beliefs should not be taught as "science". Therefore no accommodation of religious beliefs in science classes.
The fraudulence of creationists pretending that Intelligent Design is "science" should be exposed for what it is: dishonesty. That's it. Pseudo "science" should not be taught in science classes.

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I really don’t disagree. Perhaps the best way to look at teleologic ID is as speculation or the proposal of un-testable hypotheses.
I would agree it should never be taught as science, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be brought in to discussion in science as an afterthought based on scientific foundation so long as it is qualified as palpably NONfactual, unverifiable and without more than speculative evidence. But it does not belong in the classroom as curriculum, certainly. JCH

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You're quite at liberty to fantasize like this but without the slightest mote of evidence, it's just more words. I still have no idea what point you're trying to make.

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My point is that there are plausible means by which an agent (far beyond our understanding) might manipulate the evolution both of the physical universe and of life and its evolution.
Of course it’s fundamentally imagination and NO it can never be verified (or disproven). But it’s an interesting concept is it not?
After all, Einstein’s thought experiments were founded in his imagination and not evaluable until mathematically formatted. But Special and General Relativity were simple compared to the concept (fantasy) I propose as a POSSIBILITY (relating to the evolution of life and then intelligence) --- which I do base on the reasonable scientific foundations of Quantum Mechanics; entanglement; uncertainty and the complexity of DNA.
ALL of these concepts are obviously nothing more than prattle --- of course. They go beyond what can be tested at this time (or probably ever). None-the-less, ideas should not be labled as stupid or mindless when proposed as a possibility.
They are (simply speaking) un-testable hypotheses, nothing more.
JCH

OK, so you agree that falsifiability is a hallmark of science. It's what scientists have been doing for donkeys' years. Then along come a bunch of people, proposing unfalsifable ideas which have their genesis in religion. They demand that their ideas be taught in science class as a scientific alternative to the ToE, they repeatedly demand to have their beliefs recognised as science, they demand that science be redefined to incude their pet ideas, since their pet ideas do not qualify as science using the ages old and currently used definition of science.They make false claims about their publication record. They make huge goofs in really basic science and even when corrected they continue to repeat their erroneous information. Now, if you or I continued to make a claim after it was shown to be wrong, knowing it was wrong, we'd be accused of deliberate lying and not believed about much else. On top of all that, certain supporters deliberately concocted lies in an attempt to conceal a money trail for school textbooks. These so-called "Christian" supporters repeatedly lied under oath.These efforts divided a community, resulted in children, from Christian families opposed to the teaching of ID, being taunted with cries of "atheist" and even 7 years on the community hasn't recovered. Some families had to move away because of the verbal abuse by ID supporters.Even after this, ID has continued on it's merry way, attempting to shoehorn ID into science classes, regardless of the fact that, by their own admission, ID is NOT science by the current definition of science. They care not a jot that their claims have been debunked time and time again - they repeat their lies, claim all of science is wrong, that scientists are motivated by an atheistic worldview, that the ultimate goal of science is to disprove the existence of God. You yourself equated science and an acceptance of the ToE with atheism in your original post.If you go to a Facebook page called "Fundies Say the Darndest Things" you will see the state of science education currently. You will see what sort of nonsense is spouted as scientific refutation of the ToE. I'm not "conflating" ID with creationism, I don't need to, since the IDists amply demonstrated the creationist roots of their ideas when the term "cdesign proponentsists" was discovered. Now,I have no problem if people choose to believe in ID, I have no problem if they choose to believe in theistic creation. Where I do have a problem is when they lie and obfuscate to hide the creationist roots of ID, when the fail to correct their obvious mistakes and continue to repeat them and when they try to insert it into science classes.On the basis of that sort of behaviour, they deserve no respect from me. A plea to understanding? I think many of us understand them all too well. We refuse to give respect to liars and religious bigots who are prepared to sabotage children's education, divide communities and cause so much upset and conflict to children!!!

Could you be so kind as to provide the following: 1) define what you mean by such an "agent"; 2) provide empirical, verifiable evidence for the existence of said agent; 3) provide a definition of what you mean by "plausible means" in this instance; 4) provide empirical, verifiable evidence for the existence of those "plausible means"; 5) provide evidence that there is anything else but our "physical universe" and could influence it; 6) define what you mean by "manipulated" in this instance;7) provide empirical, verifiable evidence for this manipulation?Without this the sentence surely doesn't have much meaning. You might as well have said:"My point is that there are kdkdnfndfjldslwelwe by which an ahsbdkjrytgfdh%* (far beyond our understanding) might sjdjdldlrreujewl the evolution both of the physical universe and of life and it's evolution".Edited by Pressie, : Changed last sentenceEdited by Pressie, : Spelling and changed a sentence

Hi again jchardy Agreed.However, it still sounds more like Deism than ID as currently used by the majority of ID proponents and marketeers. And you appear to disagree with the way ID is currently being used and marketed by the majority of ID proponents and marketeers ... And with what current ID proponents are trying to do via politics (rather than science).In Message 157 is said Have you looked into deism?Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : clrty