Why would this matter to a non christian? You keep on claiming no religious motivation, but you are the one that keeps bringing a religious bent to everything.
I haven't seen the video so I do not know whether it is antichristian as you say. Can you or Huntard point me to the particular post?
Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
How do you know? How do you know that complimentary holistic treatments wouldn't work better? Documentation would be required for persuasion.
Hmm, so you aren't a fundamentalist creationist IDer you're a nutball woomeister IDer.
As you say it would take considerable documentation, not to mention actual properly conducted research, to convince most medical professionals or researchers that complimentary holistic treatments work better than tried and tested therapies, and that evidence simply isn't there. You may believe that anecdotes from the 'Hippocrates Health Institute' constitute evidence, but then you believe that regurgitating half understood ID propaganda is a form of argument.
Check their website out and listen to their videos and we will see who is winning this argument between you and me.
If we compare their videos to all the published literature on successful cancer therapies developed by medical science then I suspect I am still going to be winning for a long time to come. I recommend you read some of the writings of Edzard Ernst, he is a professor of complementary medicine who previously worked in a homeopathic hospital and takes a scrupulously evidence based approach to testing various CAM therapies. This is a link to his freely available publications on pubmed central.
Just to check, vaccines - lifesaving development or Big Pharma produced toxic poison to turn our children into autistic zombies ?
Just think of what I could do if I took some courses in ID and biology.
You could probably teach bible studies since it is virtually only bible colleges that have courses in ID.
I really wanted to disprove a point that Theodoric made in that other thread. And that was I just go away when things aren't going my way.
Personally I don't see hanging around but not actually engaging substantively in the debate as an improvement, but thats just me.
I let this one pass before (actually I didn't but I lost the lengthy post I had composed when my browser crashed and couldn't be bothered doing it again), but this video misstates and overstates a number of element of the nylon bug story. Most of the problems seem to have come from his getting a lot of his information from the New Mexicans for Science and Reason site on this topic. They make a number of mistakes some of which I have discussed previously at Is the evidence concerning the Nylon bug being exaggerated.
The main dubious thing the video adds to this is his emphasis on duplication, except this is a plasmid! Gene duplication as a source of redundancy is a fairly pointless element in terms of plasmids as there are usually dozens of copies at least in each bacterium. So his emphasis on this seems highly peculiar.
Like science on television, the YouTube manifestations of the creation/evolution debate seem more focused on techniques that draw an audience than accuracy. I love it when the science side corrects itself as you do here. I thought that video was spectacularly well done, but also intentionally provocative, which seems to go with the genre. The EvC Forum version of the same video would use only the graphics with a neutral voiceover.
If I could push one of my new dBCodes, if you use [tid] (for Thread ID) instead of [thread] you get a nice hoverbox.
Why would this matter to a non christian? You keep on claiming no religious motivation, but you are the one that keeps bringing a religious bent to everything.
You misunderstand or just don't understand where I am coming from. This could be my fault as I haven't explained some of my views thoroughly.
Once again, everyone has motives. All the people who post on this forum have motives.
The motives behind someone who wishes to teach or perpetuate ID is based on either religion or the pursuit of truth or science. The motives behind someone who wishes to teach or perpetuate Darwinism could be based either on religion, antireligion, pursuit of truth or science.
What do you have left when works and rituals are taken out of religion? You have faith and beliefs. Since ID does not tell us what kind or religious rituals to perform, all that is left is belief.
If you wish to define science as something that doesn't pursue the truth and ID is something that does pursue the truth then, I won't argue with you. Although, ID can be placed into scientific framework that allows it to be a casual competing explanation for origin of life and the origin of what is beyond life.
Motives behind perpetuating Darwinism could easily come from the faith of antireligion or atheism. (I'm not accusing you of the following.) Darwinism could also be an attempt to build a cocoon or a bubble around your psyche in order to shield yourself from the realities of life or religion. I'm not asking anyone here to be upfront and honest with me. Bubble worlds are somewhat personal and this particular one may require introspection for people to see it within themselves.
As a trader I have learned that shielding myself from the realities of the world can easily be injurious to my bank accounts. I may not like realities as I suspect many Darwinists don't but, I have to learn to deal with reality. Building a bubble world and isolating myself from it isn't a good way to do this in my opinion.
I wish to bite the bullets of complexity. Stephen Jay Gould seemed to I have a trait that I admire. He seemed to engage what may not have been comfortable. He attempted to bite the bullets of complexity.
Darwinism, symbiogenesis, biological self-organization models, natural genetic engineering, intelligent design, assemblism (my hypothesis) and creationism can be categorized from the most natural to the most supernatural explanations that attempt to explain life.
When you think about it, Darwinism and young earth creationism are the extremes. I think the answers are there somewhere between the middle in some form of a chaotic mixture.
I would have agreed with you if it wasn't his last comments starting at 6:12. Why is he thanking Creationists? He is thanking them for the 11% drop in the amount of Christians in the US. I took him seriously. I guess you think that he was attempting to be facetious. If that is the case then I will give you the benefit of the doubt.
As you might expect, I have researched the nylon eating bacteria in various ID sites on the net.
Because he likes to piss them off. By saying they are helping reduce Christians (something they certainly don't want to do, in fact, they want more of them), he touches a sensitive nerve, which will piss them off, which will lead to funny videos to laugh at (I think).
As you might expect, I have researched the nylon eating bacteria in various ID sites on the net.
But nothing came up that you could counter it with? What a surprise. Or, if you think you do have something, you probably still haven't.
You're better of reading Woundedking's thread (thanks for that!) to find something to "counter" nylon bacteria, then ID/crea sites.
I looked at a those Edzard Ernst links. As far as I know, professions such as homeopathy and chiropractic are not part of intelligent design. They are independent from original design. Substances such as minerals and phytonutrients are part of the grand design.
Now type in these search terms on your site. "selenium cancer double blind" You will see that #6 shows a statistical decrease of cancer incidence of 25% by just supplementing with 200 micrograms of selenium. Do you know of an over the counter drug that can claim the same benefits? How about seaching for the 20 or so other minerals your body needs to play parts in enzyme functions? How about supplementing selenium as well as other minerals in your diet? I wonder how much cancer incidence would decrease if other minerals were used as well.
I can use whatever search term I want. How about "phytonutrient cancer"? Click on the first study that you see.
Once again, everyone has motives. All the people who post on this forum have motives
Given. Everyone in the world has motives, good or bad, beneficial or harmful to the rest of society. The real question is not what someone's motives are. The real question is WHAT is the evidence supporting a certain position and is it verifiable. Someone can be using the wrong motives for advocating a position adequately supported by emperical evidence and which more accurately depicts reality. And vice verse, someone can have the best motives in the world but advocates a position (religious, scientific, moral, political, etc.) which has no credible emperical evidence to back it up and/or does not reflect reality. Motives alone are subjective and honestly have no place in determining whether a proposal adequately reflects reality.
Trader writes:
The motives behind someone who wishes to teach or perpetuate ID is based on either religion or the pursuit of truth or science. The motives behind someone who wishes to teach or perpetuate Darwinism could be based either on religion, antireligion, pursuit of truth or science.
What is 'Darwinism'? If you are going to use an ambiguous term that most scientists disavow you need to define what it means. Are you talking about just biological evolution or are you using this all inclusive to mean naturalism? If so, the proper term is naturalism (rejection of the supernatural) not Darwinism (since naturalism has existed as a philosophy since the dawn of man).
And how is pursuing research in biological evolution religious if this is what I am construing from your statement?
Trader writes:
If you wish to define science as something that doesn't pursue the truth and ID is something that does pursue the truth then, I won't argue with you.
Where do you derive this from? Who is proposing this? So are you saying that ID trumps science? What exactly are you trying to say here?
Trader writes:
Although, ID can be placed into scientific framework that allows it to be a casual competing explanation for origin of life and the origin of what is beyond life.
So now you are proposomg ID as science? You just said you agreed that science 'doesn't propose the truth'. So than in your logic, ID shouldn't reflect reality either.
I actually do not have an issue with ID if defined as a philosophy for the supernatural origination of life. However ID is not science and should not be treated as such because it a. is not falsifiable (cannot be refuted) b. it is not substantiable, verifiable or testable (how can one substantiate, test or predict a supernatural, capricious event). ID is really philosophy/religion in the guise of science. This is what most scientists have a beef with.
Trader writes:
Motives behind perpetuating Darwinism could easily come from the faith of antireligion or atheism. (I'm not accusing you of the following.) Darwinism could also be an attempt to build a cocoon or a bubble around your psyche in order to shield yourself from the realities of life or religion.
Nice double-edged sword you have there. It cuts both ways. And again you will have to define 'Darwinism' here. True science attempts to remove motivation out of the equation in order to determine rational, logical and substantiated explanations of natural phenomena. Anything else move out of the realm and role of science and into philosophy and religion and should be treated as such.
Trader writes:
I'm not asking anyone here to be upfront and honest with me.
Do you really think all of us 'pro-evolutionists' are evil people attempting to destroy your religion and will use an dishonest measure to do so?
You do realize many of us are previous Christians (I was one for over 20 years). We have just decided to take a hard, rational look at all the evidence and determine for ourselves where this evidence leads. Do you also realize there are many Christians and other religious people (including Christian scientists) that have no problems with biological evolution and incorporate this into there worldview (it's call Theistic Evolution, look it up).
I myself am an agnostic atheist because I don't see enough evidence to advocate the belief in God or any other supernatural cause. My motive is seeking the truth of reality, that is it. It has to do with an honest look at all I have experienced, seen, read, etc. If I saw evidence for the existence of God and determined he was someone/something worthy to follow, I would.
Trader writes:
Bubble worlds are somewhat personal and this particular one may require introspection for people to see it within themselves.As a trader I have learned that shielding myself from the realities of the world can easily be injurious to my bank accounts.
I may not like realities as I suspect many Darwinists don't about, I have to learn to deal with reality. Building a bubble world and isolating myself from it isn't a good way to do this in my opinion.
Again double-edged sword that can be used against all people including religious people themselves.
Trader writes:
Darwinism, symbiogenesis, biological self-organization models, natural genetic engineering, intelligent design, assemblism (my hypothesis) and creationism can be categorized from the most natural to the most supernatural explanations that attempt to explain life.
Except that symbiogenesis, biological self-organization models, natural genetic engineering are naturalistic explanations of the originiation and evolution of life without resorting to supernatural explanations. How do these constitute supernatural explanations when they are utilizing natural chemical and biological laws and phenomena? Can you say the same for ID? How exactly does God (or any other supernatural 'intelligence'/deity) build life ex nihilo? How did God create DNA? Can you explain this with science? If not than it is not science.
Trader writes:
I hope I didn't ramble too much.
I think good rational, logical and non-emotional interchanges like this are the only ways to bridge these two worldviews.
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Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : Correct grammer and spelling
Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.
"In the beginning, the Universe was created.
This has made a lot of people mad and been widely regarded as a bad idea." Douglas Adams
If you wish to define science as something that doesn't pursue the truth and ID is something that does pursue the truth then, I won't argue with you.
You're ambiguating what I think has been made clear many times. Science doesn't attempt to answer the eternal and timeless questions of philosophy and religion, like "Why are we here?" Science attempts to understand what is true about the real world of the senses. That means we're striving to make our understanding of reality as accurate as possible, not that we're pursuing eternal and timeless truths.
Because of obvious conflation with religious truth, you cannot safely use the words "truth" and "science" in the same sentence without being clear about what you mean. To many people you just said that Theodoric believes that science doesn't care whether it gets things right or wrong.
Motives behind perpetuating Darwinism could easily come from the faith of antireligion or atheism.
Except that most people who accept evolution as an explanation for the diversity of life and natural causes as an explanation for the origin of life are religious.
Darwinism could also be an attempt to build a cocoon or a bubble around your psyche in order to shield yourself from the realities of life or religion. I'm not asking anyone here to be upfront and honest with me. Bubble worlds are somewhat personal and this particular one may require introspection for people to see it within themselves.
Those who accept evolution come from all cultures and religions. This is an extremely diverse group. Any non-scientific motivations for accepting evolution would have to be equally diverse and likely do not exist beyond some tiny minority.
The vast majority of those who reject evolution are evangelical Christians. This is an extremely homogeneous, uniform and insular group. Their motivations are religious, and they insulate themselves from what they feel are the evil influences of the secular world. This is the epitome of, to use your words, "shielding [yourself] from the realities of the world."
When you think about it, Darwinism and young earth creationism are the extremes. I think the answers are there somewhere between the middle in some form of a chaotic mixture.
Scientific answers are not found somewhere between science and religion. They're found in science.
And how is pursuing research in biological evolution religious if this is what I am construing from your statement?
It isn't necessarily religious. I'm just leaving some room for religious pathways such as forms of new age who may wish to embrace Darwinism. Interestingly, Kenneth Miller says that Darwinism reinforces his faith in Catholicism. I suppose his thinking is based on the hierarchal structure of this religion and the steps people should take to ascend up the ladder of evolution to sainthood.
Where do you derive this from? Who is proposing this? So are you saying that ID trumps science? What exactly are you trying to say here?
I'm saying science does not directly pursue the truth. It attempts to explain through falsification and testable methods. It attempts to compare competing hypotheses and theories to each other. Traditional scientific explanations automaticall resist or disqualify any inference to designers that cannot be found through empirical means. "You can't put God in a test tube", they say. I say, "You can't put Attila the Hun in one either."
So now you are proposomg ID as science? You just said you agreed that science 'doesn't propose the truth'. So than in your logic, ID shouldn't reflect reality either.
I think that science does reflect reality many times but not in all senarios that attempt to explain reality. Maybe taking something written from Michael Behe can help explain it.
"Intelligent design makes the cathedrals but Darwinism decorates the spandrels." - paraphrased from Behe
You do realize many of us are previous Christians (I was one for over 20 years). We have just decided to take a hard, rational look at all the evidence and determine for ourselves where this evidence leads. Do you also realize there are many Christians and other religious people (including Christian scientists) that have no problems with biological evolution and incorporate this into there worldview (it's call Theistic Evolution, look it up).
That is cool with me. Maybe I would seek to listen to their reasoning instead of listening to reasoning from people like Richard Dawkins.
Again double-edged sword that can be used against all people including religious people themselves.
That doesn't bite the bullet of complexity.
How did God create DNA? Can you explain this with science? If not than it is not science.
That is probably the best simple refutation that ID is not science that I have seen. But I will state it again here. Why does ID have to break natural laws and be something totally inclusive of the supernatural? Obviously, when people design objects from intelligent processes, they didn't have to break natural laws or evoke the supernatural.
I think good rational, logical and non-emotional interchanges like this are the only ways to bridge these two worldviews.
As far as I know, professions such as homeopathy and chiropractic are not part of intelligent design.
What is your point? That you were off topic going on about cancer being irreducibly complex and mainstream therapies being ineffective? You were the one saying the evidence supported your claims that holistic complementary therapies were better.
How about "phytonutrient cancer"? Click on the first study that you see.
I see Kim, et al., (2006) which is an in vitro study using a green tea derivative. Are you saying that aspirin, originally a willow bark derivative, is a complementary therapy?
I have no idea what your argument is supposed to have to do with ID. You certainly haven't shown that 'complimentary holistic treatments ... work better', if that is even relevant.
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