"Contemporary scientists were aware of the problems, but aether theory was so entrenched in physical law by this point that it was simply assumed to exist."
What killed it off was that special relativity explained the results of the Michelson–Morley experiment. If there was a single similar anomalous observation of something so improbable as to defy the statistics underlying evolution, and a coherent explanation with testable predictions, then evolution would fail just as any other theory.
I love that you brought this up because it shows a part of science that's just a wonderful thing: science is falsifiable. If you can prove any particular scientific theory is wrong, and others can review, reproduce and peer review your findings, then the previous theory is just plain wrong. The original scientist may not like it, but the scientific community will have to come around to the new theory and accept it.
If the ID proponents ever reasonably allowed for a situation in which they would stand up and say "hey, I was wrong, god had nothing to do with the creation of people, the planet, the earth or anything", I'd eat my hat.
"My own belief is that Intelligent Design is in fact true, but that we will never find scientific proof of it"
and later,
"...one cannot discount the possibility that given enough evidence, one could legitimately conclude ID. The evidence so far is that is quite unlikely, and I am pretty unimpressed with the claims of ID proponents, but I am also frequently unimpressed by the responses of numerous scientists in how dogmatically opposed they are to anything religious."
It seems you concurrently believe that ID is in fact true, and that the claims for it are weak. Could it be that you *wish* it were true because it fits with your own entirely legitimate religious beliefs, but that the reasonable and logical person within you finds it rather unlikely? I get the impression you're conflicted here.
I don't want to bash your religion BTW. I think religion and belief is a wonderful thing, for those that need and/or want it... I'm just not in that category and am strongly opposed to those that wish to blend religion and science. Unlike nuts and gum, there is just no synergy.
Perhaps a message from God encoded into the DNA of Earth's lifeforms?
Although that wouldn't necessarily be proof that God designed us.
Does ID account for the possibility that we were designed by space aliens?
If the ID proponents ever reasonably allowed for a situation in which they would stand up and say "hey, I was wrong, god had nothing to do with the creation of people, the planet, the earth or anything", I'd eat my hat.
Why would someone who believes in a supernatural God ever say that? It is much more likely they would shift to "God created the physical and mathematical laws that led to the creation of the universe and the evolution of man. Oh, and he might have tweaked things a little as it went along -- just to get away from the blind watchmaker analogy."
"Intelligent design arguments are formulated in secular terms and intentionally avoid identifying the intelligent agent (or agents) they posit. Although they do not state that God is the designer, the designer is often implicitly hypothesized to have intervened in a way that only a god could intervene. Dembski, in The Design Inference, speculates that an alien culture could fulfill these requirements. The authoritative description of intelligent design,[91] however, explicitly states that the Universe displays features of having been designed. Acknowledging the paradox, Dembski concludes that "no intelligent agent who is strictly physical could have presided over the origin of the universe or the origin of life".[92] The leading proponents have made statements to their supporters that they believe the designer to be the Christian God, to the exclusion of all other religions.[9][10][50]"
It's important, in order to be "scientific" and therefore get it into schools, that ID avoids mentioning God as much as possible, especially as it relates to a specific God: the Christian one.
It seems you concurrently believe that ID is in fact true, and that the claims for it are weak. Could it be that you *wish* it were true because it fits with your own entirely legitimate religious beliefs, but that the reasonable and logical person within you finds it rather unlikely? I get the impression you're conflicted here.
I believe that ID is true on purely theological grounds, and that actual physical evidence would in fact go against my understanding of how God has arranged things. That's because faith is so central in the Bible. I can't say I understand exactly why God has chosen to do that, but there are a lot of questions I don't have the answer to. I could go on about that, but this is a RE blog.
My main concern is to get across the idea that in this country we have religious freedom, and there are sound and beneficial reasons for pointing out serious gaps in the epistemological standing of evolution. The motivation for ID proponents is their belief in the Christian God, but the gaps they are pointing out are sometimes, not always and maybe even not that often, scientifically valid concerns. As a result, their concerns should be able to be stated succinctly in an academic environment, even if they are sometimes flawed in how they are stated.
The fact that ID science is in a poor state might not be due to the underlying facts, but because anything with a religious tinge is excluded from the professional arena, thus forcing all attempts at it to be amateur. The importance to me of religious freedom trumps whatever time real scientists need to take out of their busy, tax-payer funded schedule to deal with the issues that are raised.
The fact that ID science is in a poor state might not be due to the underlying facts, but because anything with a religious tinge is excluded from the professional arena, thus forcing all attempts at it to be amateur. The importance to me of religious freedom trumps whatever time real scientists need to take out of their busy, tax-payer funded schedule to deal with the issues that are raised.
This thought is really the essence of why scientists shouldn't be wasting their government funded time on ID. You make it very clear that your interest in ID is entirely religiously motivated. I contend that this is overwhelmingly the case for people who advocate an ID agenda.
I don't see the funding problem. Darwin didn't have the funding that ID gets, so even if evolution scientists (rightly) get more funding today than ID does, that should not prevent them from coming up with a reasonable hypothesis if their line of reasoning leads to one.
The rest of your argument (which is the general ID argument) is that ID is pointing out legitimate issues with evolution which are otherwise being squelched. I have heard only three questions that ID demands answers for from evolution theory, and they are all bunk.
1) We think there might be irreducibly complex things...we can't find any and our best examples have been disproven, but how do you answer?
2) Evolution predicts lots of intermediary fossils...we know you've found many interesting ones, but why can't you provide every single intermediary?
3) Evolution does not require a god exist (nor I might add does it exclude the possibility)...we don't have any logical reason to assume this, but doesn't a theory that operates without the god hypothesis imply that all people must be amoral?
I have a expectation of the results of ID based on religious reasons, but as I learn of new facts I would adjust my theology accordingly because I know my understanding both the physical world and theology are very incomplete.
My interest in ID is actually not religious, but having switched sides I noticed a lot of bias in the statements of leading scientists. The statements are just bad epistemology. It could be ignored in the sense that those statements are outside their area of expertise, but because of the large number of religiously oriented people required to support the funding of science, it really matters when statements are made that are both logically incorrect and dismissive of the concerns of those supporters.
For your specific concerns:
1) Science constantly considers and rejects candidate hypothesis. Some scientist may enjoy the valuable work of reconfirming known results, but others want to try out new ideas. Also, what I have read of ID's challenge to the status of knowledge of the molecular origin of life is scientifically important in my opinion. What was presented in text books was not a valid representation of the true state of affairs there. Regardless of how it is resolved, pointed that out was very valuable. Similarly the incorrect idea that evolution is reproduced in fetal development was based on a single set of diagrams someone once drew. ID advocates perform an important function of maintaining accuracy. No one likes to be corrected, and they may think of that as a waste of time, but it isn't. The overall process of how incorrect ideas are incorporated into accepted dogma is something that is vital to study, and evolution is an excellent vehicle for teaching that.
2) Yes, that is a tiresome argument. Perhaps it appeals to people who are more interested in fossils than I am.
3) The moral aspect of education is very important. Both religious and non-religious people should understand each others' point of view. So that should be freely discussed in all academic environments. That's supposed to be what the benefit of diversity and freedom of expression is.
I have a expectation of the results of ID based on religious reasons, but as I learn of new facts I would adjust my theology accordingly because I know my understanding both the physical world and theology are very incomplete.
What if ID failed to prove that the Christian God was responsible for life in the universe? What if evolution triumphed as the winning theory? Could you accept that result and say "I guess God wasn't responsible for it all". What if we discovered that Allah was in fact responsible for it all and not the Christian God? Can you truly adjust your theology accordingly and accept that the universe was not created by your God? It seems that your expectation of the results of ID coupled with your faith would limit your ability to adjust your theology accordingly if presented with a negative result.
3) The moral aspect of education is very important. Both religious and non-religious people should understand each others' point of view. So that should be freely discussed in all academic environments. That's supposed to be what the benefit of diversity and freedom of expression is.
Yes, there is a place for education *about* religion in schools. When I went to school in the UK we learned all about different religions, their differing Gods, beliefs and history. However, pushing a *particular* religion on students is not allowed in the US constitution and publicly funded schools are not allowed to indoctrinate children with a *particular* religion's views. Evolution is NOT a religion, and neither is Newton's theory of gravity, algebra, or Shakespeare; so they're OK to teach.
ID is a religious based explanation of the origin of life with explicit reference to a Christian God. It parades as science so that it can utilize a supreme court ruling that states that other non-evolution theories can be taught *if* they're science based. If that ruling instead said that other non-evolution theories could be taught if they were bacon-based, then the Discovery Institute would doubtless have morphed Creationism into a BLT sandwich.
I'm not so sure that Creation "science" is a lazy way out. Can you imagine how much effort it would take to explain away everything out there that seems to indicate a world older than 6000 years?
-Fossils
-Fossil fuel (made from fossils!!!!)
-Radioactive dating
-Continental movement and apparent similarities of species between now-separate continents
It seems that an entire area of study has been created (pun intended) in a desperate attempt to explain some things that the old testament did not.
<snip>
Creationism is much easier for a layman who is uninterested in the science behind the history of the world. Consider the question of how old the world is.
Science's answer, 4.5 to 5 billion years (I think 4.55 is accepted now?), requires a fair amount of understanding of radiometric dating, radioactive isotopes and their half lives, and fossil/meteorite records. I couldn't explain how we came about that number to person of average intelligence, and ID proponents could point out that it is merely an estimate (albeit a very well supported estimate).
Creationism's (at least the Young Earth variety) answer is "6000 years". 4000 BC ± 10 years, specifically. When pressed on why there are fossils that appear to be millions of years old, they're easily dismissed by a call to God's creation of a world for his chosen species to explore but never fully understand. Why an "intelligent" designer would create a world for Mankind in which some of the coolest species to ever walk to planet were already extinct is beyond me, but again that's the point - we can't ever possibly understand His ways.
What if ID failed to prove that the Christian God was responsible for life in the universe? What if evolution triumphed as the winning theory? Could you accept that result and say "I guess God wasn't responsible for it all". What if we discovered that Allah was in fact responsible for it all and not the Christian God? Can you truly adjust your theology accordingly and accept that the universe was not created by your God? It seems that your expectation of the results of ID coupled with your faith would limit your ability to adjust your theology accordingly if presented with a negative result.
ID's failure would not affect my understanding of God as one who conceals himself except through personal experience, acceptance, and commitment. ID's success would cause me to amend that, but joyfully. As for Allah, as I understand it, the Islamic god does not confine himself to rational behavior. They came to that conclusion because Muhammad had to issue corrections. There also seems to be a different value placed on life, as there are verses in the Koran that allow broad discretion in killing any non-believer, in contrast to the Old Testament that commanded killing some specific tribes that practiced child sacrifice and no longer exist. So those differences could conceivably be detected in the nature of the Universe. I would be very unhappy if Islam was correct.
In regards to falsification of the Bible, I can see where trying to understand Genesis would be extremely difficult within the confines of physics prior to relativity. Now however, there is more flexibility in understanding time, because we know that there is no absolute time, and there are perhaps more than one dimension of time even within our universe. I accept Genesis as a description of events relative to God, who exists outside the confines of our time and space. So if some other conflict were to come up, I would look for something similar. I can't tell how Noah's ark happened, but I can grasp its importance in teaching a message to children. I can only assume there is some sense in which it is an accurate description of something that happened.
As for moral education, you and I seem to be in agreement there. My disagreement is with people who think they have a freedom from religion that overrides others freedom of expression and excludes religious discourse from school. So I disagree with the decision to exclude what the Dover School Board voted to have read publicly.
My disagreement is with people who think they have a freedom from religion that overrides others freedom of expression and excludes religious discourse from school. So I disagree with the decision to exclude what the Dover School Board voted to have read publicly.
In a school in which YOU fund, you have the absolute right to discuss, teach, preach whatever religious message you want. In a public school funded by everyone, including ME, neither you nor I have the right to do the same. The Dover school board did not fund the school - the tax payers did - so they do not get to preach religious messages.
I get the impression that you're unable to separate religion from education or science and see it all as necessarily intertwined. I'm thankful that the founders of this country, while religious themselves, saw the wisdom in the separation of church and state.
Do you disagree with the Establishment Clause in the first amendment? Should we allow for religious teaching in publicly funded schools? If so, which particular religion(s) should we teach? Consequently, which religions should we exclude?
The Dover School Board acted as the elected representatives of the body of taxpayers. One of the things I liked best about the open Town Meetings in Massachusetts is the experience of seeing how democracy works. People cast their votes and the losing side deals with it. Life goes on, no matter how important the philosophical difference seemed at the time. The days of real religious persecution are long gone in the country (but not elsewhere in the world), and so now it just seems a point of irritability that people don't want to hear a prayer now and then.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
The "Congress shall make no law" part is because the purpose of that amendment was to allow Protestant states to make their rules and Catholic states like Maryland make their own rules without interfering with each other. Separation at the state level came years later.
Picking what to present in a school depends on the circumstances and people in that school. So it should be up to the elected bodies who know the circumstances. It would be nice if religion could be separated from education entirely, but there are have been bad consequences of from the 1962 decision to exclude it, in my opinion, that outweigh the simplicity of trying to avoid the topic. Local boards can get out of hand, so State level laws are important to set guidelines, with federal ones to insure protection of basic rights. But the right to not hear something you don't like is not as important to me as reasonable expression of religious freedom.
The Dover School Board acted as the elected representatives of the body of taxpayers.
Yes, they did, and in doing so they over reached and broke the law. Just because you're elected doesn't mean you can make decisions that violate the constitution.
The "Congress shall make no law" part is because the purpose of that amendment was to allow Protestant states to make their rules and Catholic states like Maryland make their own rules without interfering with each other. Separation at the state level came years later.
That's great that states also recognized the wisdom of that separation. Part of school funding, however, is federal and provided by congress.
It would be nice if religion could be separated from education entirely, but there are have been bad consequences of from the 1962 decision to exclude it, in my opinion, that outweigh the simplicity of trying to avoid the topic. Local boards can get out of hand, so State level laws are important to set guidelines, with federal ones to ensure protection of basic rights. But the right to not hear something you don't like is not as important to me as reasonable expression of religious freedom.
Religious freedom and your right to it is entirely different to religious indoctrination and the establishment of a particular religion. It's not religious "freedom" to allow you to go into any school and indoctrinate children with your views. Religious freedom means that you are allowed to practice whatever religion you like. Children, teachers are allowed to pray at school, but they may not lead prayer or establish religious activity in school. You're twisting the meaning of "freedom" to mean "I want to be able to preach to others to attempt to make them believe what I believe".
3) The moral aspect of education is very important. Both religious and non-religious people should understand each others' point of view. So that should be freely discussed in all academic environments. That's supposed to be what the benefit of diversity and freedom of expression is.
Agreed, off the top of my head (out of the box thinking here), I would create a new type of class called comparative world religions. Everyone who takes that class is exposed to not just christianity, but daoism, islam, shintoism, and just about anything else fairly popular. Problem solved, and you don't even have to screw up science education.
Agreed, off the top of my head (out of the box thinking here), I would create a new type of class called comparative world religions. Everyone who takes that class is exposed to not just christianity, but daoism, islam, shintoism, and just about anything else fairly popular. Problem solved, and you don't even have to screw up science education.
In all seriousness, I think there is significant disagreement but within a civil and occasionally sarcastic/humorous framework. That's how I like my debates.
I say we teach intelligent design and creationism in the schools and eliminate any discussion of evolution at all.
Then sit back and watch China, Russian and India wipe the floor with us in biotechnology...
Genetics and Evolution work to explain the world around us and economically those societies which embrace those theories will do better in the future. ID/Creationism is just intellectual masturbation which is an economic dead end after you get done with the book sales.
I don't remember who said this but I like it: Science is about how. Religion is about why.
'Course, both are just words, symbols that have slightly different meanings to different people. I find both Christianity AND science fascinating. Of course, only one of the two has the real answers I am looking for. The other is just a lot of fun.
I don't remember who said this but I like it: Science is about how. Religion is about why.
If they answer completely different questions (non-overlapping questions in fact), does that mean you do not support the teaching of religion in school science courses? Even if the religion is thinly veiled as Intelligent Design?
I don't remember who said this but I like it: Science is about how. Religion is about why.
If they answer completely different questions (non-overlapping questions in fact), does that mean you do not support the teaching of religion in school science courses? Even if the religion is thinly veiled as Intelligent Design?
I really wasn't trolling. If you followed this particular thread, perhaps the main crux of the argument is what is valid to teach in schools. The majority of the people who oppose teaching ID only oppose it in the setting of a science class, because it is not science. In comparative religion, or 20th/21st century history classes they would find teaching about that topic to be reasonable.
Sorry if you thought this was trolling, but I really was serious.
I really wasn't trolling. If you followed this particular thread, perhaps the main crux of the argument is what is valid to teach in schools. The majority of the people who oppose teaching ID only oppose it in the setting of a science class, because it is not science. In comparative religion, or 20th/21st century history classes they would find teaching about that topic to be reasonable.
Sorry if you thought this was trolling, but I really was serious.
I apologise. I had just gotten back from a terrible rehearsal, was sick of the same old tripe on the global warming thread, which I decided to abandon, and lashed out at you. Yea, for me that is what you would call lashing out.
I know you were not intentionally trolling me. However, I did not want to get sucked into the discussion other than to make a statement that I sincerely doubt any reasonable person would really disagree with, regardless of the side on which they fall with this issue.
Fact is, I have a very strong opinion on this whole thing but am very reticent about posting here. I have argued this stuff for approximately ten years on the internet and have found that most people have pretty much made up their minds on these sites. And once I realized I was not the equivalent of an op-ed writer being read by thousand or hundreds of thousands, but just part of a group of five or six guys talking around a water cooler, I stopped getting into it. It just did not warrant the time and effort.
A lot of guys really spewed a lot of vitriol at me as well, but that is like water off a ducks back for me. Nobody can insult me, except my wife, my pastor, my best friend, and God. Those are the only ones whose opinions I respect on the subject.
I will say this just to encapsulate my opinion: I am a firm believer in Creation. But most of what it is based on is not science. I also believe that the more we know, the more we know we don't know. This again supports Creation. There really are valid irreducible complexity arguments as well. Those are also not science, however. But then, science is not God. Heck it isn't even music. It's just one of many of mans endeavors which has been given a label. And there are all sorts of "semi-scientific" things that can creep into the edges of the discipline. For science to do it's best, it must focus on events and observations. Period.
That is why some of the "observations" of ID are clearly not taboo. In fact, they are some of the most important points one can make in a science classroom to hold evolutionists feet to the fire. IOW, the way I see it, in the vein of "innocent until proven guilty", I believe that the creation of life was in fact a creation event until proven otherwise. And the more we know, the less proof of "otherwise" there is, and the more subtle and complex life appears to truly be. Evolutionists are like a kid that thinks he has figured out how a rocket works when he flies his "water pressure rocket" over his house, while totally oblivious to the devil in the details of actually getting a real rocket to work. And yet even that grossly insults the complexity of life.
I am embarrassed by the statements of most "creationists" and "ID proponents". But if I were an evolutionist, I'd be embarrassed by the statements of most of their more outspoken proponents as well. Most of the ones that are really doing the legwork are conspicuously silent in these sorts of debates. And those that do chime in end up looking like fools. It is because it is so specialized, many of these guys don't know squat about things outside their particular area of study. A good example would be Richard Dawkins. He does not even know what he doesn't know, but he is good at his day job...
The problem is the debate is centered around "which one" should be taught in science class. The answer is "neither". What should be taught in science class is science. When one tries to analyze DNA from two similar creatures, it is completely reasonable to say, I think this shows a genetic link. It doesn't mean you think one evolved from the other, nor does it mean you think they were merely created similar. It is a scientifically neutral statement. I could look at the door handle of a Dodge Neon and a Chrysler 300M and say they are identical - because they are, in fact, identical. It doesn't mean I believe one evolved from the other, or that they came from the same sub-assembly plant. It is merely a "scientific observation". It would then be reasonable to say it is possible they were designed that way. That is not a scientific statement, but that does not make it untrue. Nor is it irrelevant.
I have no problem with schools mentioning the full ID agenda. There is no proof against it. I have no problem with schools mentioning the full "evolution" agenda. As proof against it comes in, it merely changes to match the proof, as we know it at the time. But neither is science, so I would like both to be left out of discussions labeled as science. I would then like science classrooms to focus on actual science.
It is by no means 'anti-science" to look at a strand of DNA and its function and say, "gee, this looks very suspiciously like a very well designed computer program." Nor should saying such in ANY classroom be censored, unless one can prove it is untrue. Notice also that this is different from saying "DNA is obviously a very well designed computer program", which is stating opinion as fact. And in those last six words lies the rub. Neither side should do that. Period. And if evolutionists think they are so smart, don't worry; eventually they will prove it is true. Assuming it is provable/disprovable of course.
When the truth is on your side, there is really nothing to fear, in the long run.
For science to do it's best, it must focus on events and observations. Period.
This is a common error. Facts and observations are cheap. To say these are the primary, let alone the only valid aspect of science is to cheapen the entire field and a detriment to our future (if others agreed). Science is always about theories. Theories are the pinnacle of science. Make a trillion observations about falling objects, but the theory of gravity encompasses them all in one concise formula.
in the vein of "innocent until proven guilty", I believe that the creation of life was in fact a creation event until proven otherwise.
It's not my place to persuade you on this, but you cannot apply civil justice principals to scientific inquiry. In all science, the null hypothesis is the only valid starting hypothesis.
Evolutionists are like a kid that thinks he has figured out how a rocket works when he flies his "water pressure rocket" over his house, while totally oblivious to the devil in the details of actually getting a real rocket to work.[/query]
That actually is how rockets work. Yeah, the real thing combines the oxygen and hydrogen to push water out the back rather than using a pressurized pump, but it's all actually the same science at work...
A good example would be Richard Dawkins. He does not even know what he doesn't know, but he is good at his day job...
Uh, Dawkins is a biologist. He knows enough about biology to hold the chair of Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford. He also coined the term (and described) memes.
The problem is the debate is centered around "which one" should be taught in science class. The answer is "neither". What should be taught in science class is science. When one tries to analyze DNA from two similar creatures, it is completely reasonable to say, I think this shows a genetic link. It doesn't mean you think one evolved from the other, nor does it mean you think they were merely created similar.
So, to take your argument to the extreme. If I drop two weights of differing masses and they fall at the same rate all I am free to say in a science class is that the evidence suggest they share a downward acceleration link. I know that's a strawman argument, but yours was a false dichotomy anyways so I felt justified making it up.
It is by no means 'anti-science" to look at a strand of DNA and its function and say, "gee, this looks very suspiciously like a very well designed computer program." Nor should saying such in ANY classroom be censored, unless one can prove it is untrue.
You are right that such discourse should not be censored. It should however, produce a failing grade. DNA looks like horribly designed computer code. Which is, by no means, proof it was not created by an intelligent agent (I've seen some really bad computer code that I know was created by intelligent people because they put their names on it). You can call DNA remarkably complex and you can call it fascinatingly obtuse, but you simply cannot ever call it well designed. There is so much garbage code in DNA that it is not elegant in anyway one would normally consider to be "well designed" even though it functions remarkably well.
When the truth is on your side, there is really nothing to fear, in the long run.
It depends on your timeline I guess. Societies expand and decline. It is entirely possible that a reversion towards fundamentalism in the USA could harm our children's children's children, but after a hundred years everything could turn out alright. I'd rather see us get it right now though.
For science to do it's best, it must focus on events and observations. Period.
This is a common error. Facts and observations are cheap. To say these are the primary, let alone the only valid aspect of science is to cheapen the entire field and a detriment to our future (if others agreed). Science is always about theories. Theories are the pinnacle of science. Make a trillion observations about falling objects, but the theory of gravity encompasses them all in one concise formula.
I'll go one step further. Science is about making predictive theories. The theories must predict future events based on observation. Evolution theory predicts things like bacteria adapting to antibiotics. We are even getting to a level where we can predict the number of mutations required for bird flu to evolve into an airborne strain that effects humans. In computer science, evolution theory is used to find novel solutions to problems.
Creation science/Intelligent design is not predictive. It does not even attempt to explain how the great engineer that made life (which ID seems to be hesitant to call God), will continue to change life in the future.
Comments
I love that you brought this up because it shows a part of science that's just a wonderful thing: science is falsifiable. If you can prove any particular scientific theory is wrong, and others can review, reproduce and peer review your findings, then the previous theory is just plain wrong. The original scientist may not like it, but the scientific community will have to come around to the new theory and accept it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superseded ... fic_theory
If the ID proponents ever reasonably allowed for a situation in which they would stand up and say "hey, I was wrong, god had nothing to do with the creation of people, the planet, the earth or anything", I'd eat my hat.
Jon, you said:
"My own belief is that Intelligent Design is in fact true, but that we will never find scientific proof of it"
and later,
"...one cannot discount the possibility that given enough evidence, one could legitimately conclude ID. The evidence so far is that is quite unlikely, and I am pretty unimpressed with the claims of ID proponents, but I am also frequently unimpressed by the responses of numerous scientists in how dogmatically opposed they are to anything religious."
It seems you concurrently believe that ID is in fact true, and that the claims for it are weak. Could it be that you *wish* it were true because it fits with your own entirely legitimate religious beliefs, but that the reasonable and logical person within you finds it rather unlikely? I get the impression you're conflicted here.
I don't want to bash your religion BTW. I think religion and belief is a wonderful thing, for those that need and/or want it... I'm just not in that category and am strongly opposed to those that wish to blend religion and science. Unlike nuts and gum, there is just no synergy.
http://www.stuffmagazine.com/articles/i ... nd_gum.jpg
Perhaps a message from God encoded into the DNA of Earth's lifeforms?
Although that wouldn't necessarily be proof that God designed us.
Does ID account for the possibility that we were designed by space aliens?
Why would someone who believes in a supernatural God ever say that? It is much more likely they would shift to "God created the physical and mathematical laws that led to the creation of the universe and the evolution of man. Oh, and he might have tweaked things a little as it went along -- just to get away from the blind watchmaker analogy."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design
"Intelligent design arguments are formulated in secular terms and intentionally avoid identifying the intelligent agent (or agents) they posit. Although they do not state that God is the designer, the designer is often implicitly hypothesized to have intervened in a way that only a god could intervene. Dembski, in The Design Inference, speculates that an alien culture could fulfill these requirements. The authoritative description of intelligent design,[91] however, explicitly states that the Universe displays features of having been designed. Acknowledging the paradox, Dembski concludes that "no intelligent agent who is strictly physical could have presided over the origin of the universe or the origin of life".[92] The leading proponents have made statements to their supporters that they believe the designer to be the Christian God, to the exclusion of all other religions.[9][10][50]"
It's important, in order to be "scientific" and therefore get it into schools, that ID avoids mentioning God as much as possible, especially as it relates to a specific God: the Christian one.
I believe that ID is true on purely theological grounds, and that actual physical evidence would in fact go against my understanding of how God has arranged things. That's because faith is so central in the Bible. I can't say I understand exactly why God has chosen to do that, but there are a lot of questions I don't have the answer to. I could go on about that, but this is a RE blog.
My main concern is to get across the idea that in this country we have religious freedom, and there are sound and beneficial reasons for pointing out serious gaps in the epistemological standing of evolution. The motivation for ID proponents is their belief in the Christian God, but the gaps they are pointing out are sometimes, not always and maybe even not that often, scientifically valid concerns. As a result, their concerns should be able to be stated succinctly in an academic environment, even if they are sometimes flawed in how they are stated.
The fact that ID science is in a poor state might not be due to the underlying facts, but because anything with a religious tinge is excluded from the professional arena, thus forcing all attempts at it to be amateur. The importance to me of religious freedom trumps whatever time real scientists need to take out of their busy, tax-payer funded schedule to deal with the issues that are raised.
This thought is really the essence of why scientists shouldn't be wasting their government funded time on ID. You make it very clear that your interest in ID is entirely religiously motivated. I contend that this is overwhelmingly the case for people who advocate an ID agenda.
I don't see the funding problem. Darwin didn't have the funding that ID gets, so even if evolution scientists (rightly) get more funding today than ID does, that should not prevent them from coming up with a reasonable hypothesis if their line of reasoning leads to one.
The rest of your argument (which is the general ID argument) is that ID is pointing out legitimate issues with evolution which are otherwise being squelched. I have heard only three questions that ID demands answers for from evolution theory, and they are all bunk.
1) We think there might be irreducibly complex things...we can't find any and our best examples have been disproven, but how do you answer?
2) Evolution predicts lots of intermediary fossils...we know you've found many interesting ones, but why can't you provide every single intermediary?
3) Evolution does not require a god exist (nor I might add does it exclude the possibility)...we don't have any logical reason to assume this, but doesn't a theory that operates without the god hypothesis imply that all people must be amoral?
My interest in ID is actually not religious, but having switched sides I noticed a lot of bias in the statements of leading scientists. The statements are just bad epistemology. It could be ignored in the sense that those statements are outside their area of expertise, but because of the large number of religiously oriented people required to support the funding of science, it really matters when statements are made that are both logically incorrect and dismissive of the concerns of those supporters.
For your specific concerns:
1) Science constantly considers and rejects candidate hypothesis. Some scientist may enjoy the valuable work of reconfirming known results, but others want to try out new ideas. Also, what I have read of ID's challenge to the status of knowledge of the molecular origin of life is scientifically important in my opinion. What was presented in text books was not a valid representation of the true state of affairs there. Regardless of how it is resolved, pointed that out was very valuable. Similarly the incorrect idea that evolution is reproduced in fetal development was based on a single set of diagrams someone once drew. ID advocates perform an important function of maintaining accuracy. No one likes to be corrected, and they may think of that as a waste of time, but it isn't. The overall process of how incorrect ideas are incorporated into accepted dogma is something that is vital to study, and evolution is an excellent vehicle for teaching that.
2) Yes, that is a tiresome argument. Perhaps it appeals to people who are more interested in fossils than I am.
3) The moral aspect of education is very important. Both religious and non-religious people should understand each others' point of view. So that should be freely discussed in all academic environments. That's supposed to be what the benefit of diversity and freedom of expression is.
What if ID failed to prove that the Christian God was responsible for life in the universe? What if evolution triumphed as the winning theory? Could you accept that result and say "I guess God wasn't responsible for it all". What if we discovered that Allah was in fact responsible for it all and not the Christian God? Can you truly adjust your theology accordingly and accept that the universe was not created by your God? It seems that your expectation of the results of ID coupled with your faith would limit your ability to adjust your theology accordingly if presented with a negative result.
Yes, there is a place for education *about* religion in schools. When I went to school in the UK we learned all about different religions, their differing Gods, beliefs and history. However, pushing a *particular* religion on students is not allowed in the US constitution and publicly funded schools are not allowed to indoctrinate children with a *particular* religion's views. Evolution is NOT a religion, and neither is Newton's theory of gravity, algebra, or Shakespeare; so they're OK to teach.
ID is a religious based explanation of the origin of life with explicit reference to a Christian God. It parades as science so that it can utilize a supreme court ruling that states that other non-evolution theories can be taught *if* they're science based. If that ruling instead said that other non-evolution theories could be taught if they were bacon-based, then the Discovery Institute would doubtless have morphed Creationism into a BLT sandwich.
Creationism is much easier for a layman who is uninterested in the science behind the history of the world. Consider the question of how old the world is.
Science's answer, 4.5 to 5 billion years (I think 4.55 is accepted now?), requires a fair amount of understanding of radiometric dating, radioactive isotopes and their half lives, and fossil/meteorite records. I couldn't explain how we came about that number to person of average intelligence, and ID proponents could point out that it is merely an estimate (albeit a very well supported estimate).
Creationism's (at least the Young Earth variety) answer is "6000 years". 4000 BC ± 10 years, specifically. When pressed on why there are fossils that appear to be millions of years old, they're easily dismissed by a call to God's creation of a world for his chosen species to explore but never fully understand. Why an "intelligent" designer would create a world for Mankind in which some of the coolest species to ever walk to planet were already extinct is beyond me, but again that's the point - we can't ever possibly understand His ways.
It's an easy way out.
ID's failure would not affect my understanding of God as one who conceals himself except through personal experience, acceptance, and commitment. ID's success would cause me to amend that, but joyfully. As for Allah, as I understand it, the Islamic god does not confine himself to rational behavior. They came to that conclusion because Muhammad had to issue corrections. There also seems to be a different value placed on life, as there are verses in the Koran that allow broad discretion in killing any non-believer, in contrast to the Old Testament that commanded killing some specific tribes that practiced child sacrifice and no longer exist. So those differences could conceivably be detected in the nature of the Universe. I would be very unhappy if Islam was correct.
In regards to falsification of the Bible, I can see where trying to understand Genesis would be extremely difficult within the confines of physics prior to relativity. Now however, there is more flexibility in understanding time, because we know that there is no absolute time, and there are perhaps more than one dimension of time even within our universe. I accept Genesis as a description of events relative to God, who exists outside the confines of our time and space. So if some other conflict were to come up, I would look for something similar. I can't tell how Noah's ark happened, but I can grasp its importance in teaching a message to children. I can only assume there is some sense in which it is an accurate description of something that happened.
As for moral education, you and I seem to be in agreement there. My disagreement is with people who think they have a freedom from religion that overrides others freedom of expression and excludes religious discourse from school. So I disagree with the decision to exclude what the Dover School Board voted to have read publicly.
In a school in which YOU fund, you have the absolute right to discuss, teach, preach whatever religious message you want. In a public school funded by everyone, including ME, neither you nor I have the right to do the same. The Dover school board did not fund the school - the tax payers did - so they do not get to preach religious messages.
I get the impression that you're unable to separate religion from education or science and see it all as necessarily intertwined. I'm thankful that the founders of this country, while religious themselves, saw the wisdom in the separation of church and state.
Do you disagree with the Establishment Clause in the first amendment? Should we allow for religious teaching in publicly funded schools? If so, which particular religion(s) should we teach? Consequently, which religions should we exclude?
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
The "Congress shall make no law" part is because the purpose of that amendment was to allow Protestant states to make their rules and Catholic states like Maryland make their own rules without interfering with each other. Separation at the state level came years later.
Picking what to present in a school depends on the circumstances and people in that school. So it should be up to the elected bodies who know the circumstances. It would be nice if religion could be separated from education entirely, but there are have been bad consequences of from the 1962 decision to exclude it, in my opinion, that outweigh the simplicity of trying to avoid the topic. Local boards can get out of hand, so State level laws are important to set guidelines, with federal ones to insure protection of basic rights. But the right to not hear something you don't like is not as important to me as reasonable expression of religious freedom.
That's great that states also recognized the wisdom of that separation. Part of school funding, however, is federal and provided by congress.
Religious freedom and your right to it is entirely different to religious indoctrination and the establishment of a particular religion. It's not religious "freedom" to allow you to go into any school and indoctrinate children with your views. Religious freedom means that you are allowed to practice whatever religion you like. Children, teachers are allowed to pray at school, but they may not lead prayer or establish religious activity in school. You're twisting the meaning of "freedom" to mean "I want to be able to preach to others to attempt to make them believe what I believe".
Agreed, off the top of my head (out of the box thinking here), I would create a new type of class called comparative world religions. Everyone who takes that class is exposed to not just christianity, but daoism, islam, shintoism, and just about anything else fairly popular. Problem solved, and you don't even have to screw up science education.
That's just crazy talk. CRAZY.
Are you a communist?
And we didn't even mention "you know know".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
In all seriousness, I think there is significant disagreement but within a civil and occasionally sarcastic/humorous framework. That's how I like my debates.
BTW, I thought we said "Interwebs" now, no?
Pipes. It's all pipes.
Ya wants we should fix that for ya? No? OK.
And dumptrucks.
Then sit back and watch China, Russian and India wipe the floor with us in biotechnology...
Genetics and Evolution work to explain the world around us and economically those societies which embrace those theories will do better in the future. ID/Creationism is just intellectual masturbation which is an economic dead end after you get done with the book sales.
'Course, both are just words, symbols that have slightly different meanings to different people. I find both Christianity AND science fascinating. Of course, only one of the two has the real answers I am looking for. The other is just a lot of fun.
If they answer completely different questions (non-overlapping questions in fact), does that mean you do not support the teaching of religion in school science courses? Even if the religion is thinly veiled as Intelligent Design?
I really wasn't trolling. If you followed this particular thread, perhaps the main crux of the argument is what is valid to teach in schools. The majority of the people who oppose teaching ID only oppose it in the setting of a science class, because it is not science. In comparative religion, or 20th/21st century history classes they would find teaching about that topic to be reasonable.
Sorry if you thought this was trolling, but I really was serious.
I know you were not intentionally trolling me. However, I did not want to get sucked into the discussion other than to make a statement that I sincerely doubt any reasonable person would really disagree with, regardless of the side on which they fall with this issue.
Fact is, I have a very strong opinion on this whole thing but am very reticent about posting here. I have argued this stuff for approximately ten years on the internet and have found that most people have pretty much made up their minds on these sites. And once I realized I was not the equivalent of an op-ed writer being read by thousand or hundreds of thousands, but just part of a group of five or six guys talking around a water cooler, I stopped getting into it. It just did not warrant the time and effort.
A lot of guys really spewed a lot of vitriol at me as well, but that is like water off a ducks back for me. Nobody can insult me, except my wife, my pastor, my best friend, and God. Those are the only ones whose opinions I respect on the subject.
I will say this just to encapsulate my opinion: I am a firm believer in Creation. But most of what it is based on is not science. I also believe that the more we know, the more we know we don't know. This again supports Creation. There really are valid irreducible complexity arguments as well. Those are also not science, however. But then, science is not God. Heck it isn't even music. It's just one of many of mans endeavors which has been given a label. And there are all sorts of "semi-scientific" things that can creep into the edges of the discipline. For science to do it's best, it must focus on events and observations. Period.
That is why some of the "observations" of ID are clearly not taboo. In fact, they are some of the most important points one can make in a science classroom to hold evolutionists feet to the fire. IOW, the way I see it, in the vein of "innocent until proven guilty", I believe that the creation of life was in fact a creation event until proven otherwise. And the more we know, the less proof of "otherwise" there is, and the more subtle and complex life appears to truly be. Evolutionists are like a kid that thinks he has figured out how a rocket works when he flies his "water pressure rocket" over his house, while totally oblivious to the devil in the details of actually getting a real rocket to work. And yet even that grossly insults the complexity of life.
I am embarrassed by the statements of most "creationists" and "ID proponents". But if I were an evolutionist, I'd be embarrassed by the statements of most of their more outspoken proponents as well. Most of the ones that are really doing the legwork are conspicuously silent in these sorts of debates. And those that do chime in end up looking like fools. It is because it is so specialized, many of these guys don't know squat about things outside their particular area of study. A good example would be Richard Dawkins. He does not even know what he doesn't know, but he is good at his day job...
The problem is the debate is centered around "which one" should be taught in science class. The answer is "neither". What should be taught in science class is science. When one tries to analyze DNA from two similar creatures, it is completely reasonable to say, I think this shows a genetic link. It doesn't mean you think one evolved from the other, nor does it mean you think they were merely created similar. It is a scientifically neutral statement. I could look at the door handle of a Dodge Neon and a Chrysler 300M and say they are identical - because they are, in fact, identical. It doesn't mean I believe one evolved from the other, or that they came from the same sub-assembly plant. It is merely a "scientific observation". It would then be reasonable to say it is possible they were designed that way. That is not a scientific statement, but that does not make it untrue. Nor is it irrelevant.
I have no problem with schools mentioning the full ID agenda. There is no proof against it. I have no problem with schools mentioning the full "evolution" agenda. As proof against it comes in, it merely changes to match the proof, as we know it at the time. But neither is science, so I would like both to be left out of discussions labeled as science. I would then like science classrooms to focus on actual science.
It is by no means 'anti-science" to look at a strand of DNA and its function and say, "gee, this looks very suspiciously like a very well designed computer program." Nor should saying such in ANY classroom be censored, unless one can prove it is untrue. Notice also that this is different from saying "DNA is obviously a very well designed computer program", which is stating opinion as fact. And in those last six words lies the rub. Neither side should do that. Period. And if evolutionists think they are so smart, don't worry; eventually they will prove it is true. Assuming it is provable/disprovable of course.
When the truth is on your side, there is really nothing to fear, in the long run.
This is a common error. Facts and observations are cheap. To say these are the primary, let alone the only valid aspect of science is to cheapen the entire field and a detriment to our future (if others agreed). Science is always about theories. Theories are the pinnacle of science. Make a trillion observations about falling objects, but the theory of gravity encompasses them all in one concise formula.
It's not my place to persuade you on this, but you cannot apply civil justice principals to scientific inquiry. In all science, the null hypothesis is the only valid starting hypothesis.
It depends on your timeline I guess. Societies expand and decline. It is entirely possible that a reversion towards fundamentalism in the USA could harm our children's children's children, but after a hundred years everything could turn out alright. I'd rather see us get it right now though.
I'll go one step further. Science is about making predictive theories. The theories must predict future events based on observation. Evolution theory predicts things like bacteria adapting to antibiotics. We are even getting to a level where we can predict the number of mutations required for bird flu to evolve into an airborne strain that effects humans. In computer science, evolution theory is used to find novel solutions to problems.
Creation science/Intelligent design is not predictive. It does not even attempt to explain how the great engineer that made life (which ID seems to be hesitant to call God), will continue to change life in the future.