Casting more pearls before swine (meaning
you, but since you're obviously a Christian I have no doubt that you cannot recognize that reference since you will not have actually read the Bible), but lurkers may benefit from these pearls even though you never will.
Look, the biological world and living organisms are in front of us.. we see them everyday, that is the reality. You do not need ToE to explain biology. You just need reality to explain reality.
Since you have displayed no understanding of science, plus learn something and realize that the purpose and goal of science is to study the physical universe (AKA "reality") and to discover
how it works. That means that when a scientist observes something, his first question will be "How does that work?"
In contrast, "Intelligent Design" (ID) doesn't care how reality works (nor even what reality is), but rather seeks to subvert reality to be subordinate to their religious misconceptions. We see that in their basic argument of
[voice=dull_IDiot]"Duh, this is really complex; I can't figure how it happened so
God must'a dun it!"
[/voice] The problem for ID is that "god-did-it" answers nothing and even serves to stop science from seeking answers (refer to the topic here,
So Just How is ID's Supernatural-based Science Supposed to Work? (SUM. MESSAGES ONLY)).
Amateur geologist J. Richard Wakefield expressed it very well in two articles in which he examined Robert Gentry's bogus polonium-halo claims. He went to the sites where Gentry had obtained his samples and found that Gentry had grossly misrepresented those formations. At first Gentry agreed to work with him, but then quickly backed out as the truth started to come out.
Wakefield concluded one article ("Gentry's Tiny Mystery -- Unsupported by Geology" by J. Richard Wakefield,
Creation/Evolution Issue XXII, Winter 1987-1988, pp 31-32) with:
quote:
Gentry's case depends upon his halos remaining a mystery. Once a naturalistic explanation is discovered, his claim of a supernatural origin is washed up. So he will not give aid or support to suggestions that might resolve the mystery. Science works toward an increase in knowledge; creationism depends upon a lack of it. Science promotes the open-ended search; creationism supports giving up and looking no further. It is clear which method Gentry advocates.
In another article which I must quote from memory, Wakefield's conclusion included:
quote:
When a scientist encounters a mystery, he must do everything he can to solve that mystery. When a creationist encounters a mystery, he equates it with God and so must do everything he can to keep it a mystery.
That describes ID completely.
For example, what about the question of
how biology works?
A basic definition of evolution that I've adopted is that it's the cumulative consequences of what happens when life does what life naturally does, especially what happens to generations of populations of individuals as they survive, reproduce offspring who are very similar to them yet different, then those offspring mature and survive (
or don't), etc, etc, etc. That in its most basic minimalist form is what evolution works with.
ID's basis is "God did it". Doesn't deal with how life actually works, nor with reality itself. Just "goddidit".
ToE is not the reality.
The Theory of Evolution is the best explanation that we have of everything that we see in biology. In contrast, ID explains nothing about biology.
So which is the better explanation? Something that actually offers an explanation or something that can never explain anything?
Now, why should an explanation of biology have any importance? Basically, it's in the difference between knowledge and understanding. Knowledge is nothing but a dry list of facts that you must memorize but which tells you nothing about those facts. Understanding is realizing what all those dry facts have to do with each other and with so much else.
Our first stop in that question is the very famous quote from an article by Theodosius Dobzhansky,
Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution (
American Biology Teacher 35:125-129 (March 1973), p. 129) -- (quoted here a bit more fully than usual):
quote:
Seen in the light of evolution, biology is, perhaps, intellectually the most satisfying and inspiring science. Without that light, it becomes a pile of sundry facts -- some of them interesting or curious, but making no meaningful picture as a whole. . . . Does the evolutionary doctrine clash with religious faith? It does not. It is a blunder to mistake the Holy Scriptures for elementary textbooks of astronomy, geology, biology, and anthropology. Only if symbols are construed to mean what they are not intended to mean can there arise imaginary, insoluble conflicts. As pointed out above, the blunder leads to blasphemy: the Creator is accused of systematic deceitfulness."
In the family I had built, our love of science was based in understanding it and how it worked, a love that we passed on to my sons who also grew up loving science. In contrast, my nephew's experience with science was solely memorizing disassociated facts that made no sense, so he grew up hating science. Many people have similar love-vs-hate relationships with history depending on whether they learned history with the motivations involved or solely as a list of dry and very dusty names and dates.
Decades ago, I attended a talk by Dr. Eugenie Scott, then-Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE). In her talk, she told a story from her personal experience as a Physical Anthropology professor (entirely from memory and placing her in the third person):
quote:
Surprisingly, many biology departments do not teach evolution to their undergraduates -- maybe they're saving that for grad school. So her physical anthropology class would include biology seniors who needed one more science class to meet their general ed requirements and they figured her class would be an "easy A". Poor fools! For one thing, she most definitely taught evolution in her class.
That meant that these biology majors were learning about evolution for the first time. As the semester progressed, she would watch these bio majors for that "aha!" look to show up on their faces as they would suddenly realize, "So that's why ... ". Up to that point, they had had to memorize biological facts with no idea why it was that way. Now they understood why.
Dr. Scott had presented that story to illustrate the truth of Theodosius Dobzhansky's statement that nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.
Now to really blow MrID's mind: ToE is not reality, but rather it
explains reality. That is what a theory does:
it explains something.
ID explains
nothing. If you have any evidence or actual arguments to refute that, then do please present it. Any of it.
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