http://ncse.com/files/pub/creationism/The_Wedge_Strategy.pdf
Governing Goals
To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies.
To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.
http://www.uncommondescent.com/about-2/
Uncommon Descent holds that…
Materialistic ideology has subverted the study of biological and cosmological origins so that the actual content of these sciences has become corrupted. The problem, therefore, is not merely that science is being used illegitimately to promote a materialistic worldview, but that this worldview is actively undermining scientific inquiry, leading to incorrect and unsupported conclusions about biological and cosmological origins. At the same time, intelligent design (ID) offers a promising scientific alternative to materialistic theories of biological and cosmological evolution — an alternative that is finding increasing theoretical and empirical support. Hence, ID needs to be vigorously developed as a scientific, intellectual, and cultural project.
At its (theistic) core, ID and creationism is angry with materialism / philosophical naturalism. Denyse, as “News”, is quick to assault any mainstream science she can find through her powers of misunderstanding. KF advocates (but can’t defend or explain) immaterial process that enable minds and contemplation. And yet, like our own WJM, they are all functional materialists.
Of course, in a sense science (and naturalism) is their enemy. It has explained the actual mechanisms of many phenomena previously attributed to the divine and is incredibly successful in a real word / pragmatic way. It has reduced holy books to allegories and myth collection when they were before held as historical accounts. As time progresses, the number of phenomena that have natural explanations increases, the number that we don’t understand decreases and the number that have been shown to have supernatural explanations remains at zero. Of course as knowledge progresses, we’ll discover new things. ID will of course assert they are supernatural, but history teaches us they’ll ultimately be disappointed.
I wish they’d actually try to do that. It would be fun to watch them incompetently building upon vague pseudoscientific misrepresentations.
Instead they do what they’ve always done, bleat and whine about evolution and “materialism,” never learning what science is and how it must be done.
Glen Davidson
I just dont like that term : ‘materialism’. I think its most useful as a term of derision for theists to use against atheists. The reason I dont like it is that I think its mainly defined by its opposite; supernaturalism and I think supernaturalism is a nonsensical idea.
Perhaps some of you have a different take on it but it seems to me that the supernatural is supposed to be a realm utterly outside the natural world and so outside of natural explanations. But the supernatural world interacts with the natural world, and many theists claim to be in an almost continuous 2 way communication with the supernatural. Therefore it can’t be seperate and the definition of ‘natural’ or ‘universe’ should be expanded to include supernatural entities.
Theists invented the notion of supernatural to avoid further embarrassment. When people finally reached the top of Mount Olympus they found no gods there, and now our most powerful telescopes have failed to find the kingdom of heaven. Saying something is supernatural allows theists to make any claim they want about reality with no burdon of proof whatsoever.
RodW,
Then what would you prefer to call something that created the world we see, and all the physics which control it (and yet is inaccessible to us in our current state)?
I agree with your first point Rod, which probably why they don’t use the term Supernaturalists to describe themselves. There are differing views on if we could measure the supernatural (Paging KeithS) but I think to be measured it would have to have an effect that has a physical (natural) manifestation.
I think asserting physics was created is question begging.
No, I have asserted nothing (although I personally can’t see how any reasonable person can deny this).
What I said was, what does he want to call the concept of a (thing) which had the power to create the world and the physics which maintain it)?
We can’t prove aliens exist, but we still have a name for the concept. So what name does he prefer?
Richardthughes,
But isn’t claimed to have a physical manifestation every time theres a miracle or every time God intervenes subtlely with the course of evolution? Even if one claimed the the only connection of the supernatural with this reality is that humans can perceive the supernatural because of our divine spark that would still lead to changes in the world ( via human action) that were caused by the supernatural
phoodoo,
I dont know if I’d use that language to describe how the universe came into existence. The best I could say after struggling through a few books/articles on modern physics is that before time, space and matter existed there was a quantum field. A fluctuation in that field brought the universe into existence. I wouldnt call that quantum field ‘supernatural’
RodW,
You are not getting it. That is your belief. You are objecting to the word others use to describe what is their belief. Its the same as saying, I don’t believe in aliens, so I don’t like the use of the word aliens.
I would also say that someone who believes in quantum fields, but isn’t concerned about why quantum fields exist, or why fields exist, or why physics exists, is sort of stopping their thought process before reaching the final destination. They are saying, well, its enough, I don’t need to be curious beyond that.
We don’t need a name when there is no evidence of it.
phoodoo,
Its not just that I dont believe it. I dont believe in Bigfoot but I have no objection to giving a name to the mythical-or-not creature. I dont like the word ‘materialism’ because no one is materialist according to the way most theists define it and because it exists mostly to describe something which is not supernaturalism, which I think is nonsensical.
Materialism should mean the belief that the world works according to natural laws. Everyone should believe this and it should not need to have a name.. Supernaturalists want to believe there are things that dont operate according to natural laws. That way they can make claims about reality without having to back them up.
Reification! The thin end of the wedge. Crystal healing? Homoeopathy? Aromatherapy?
Phoodoo – let’s try a different track.
Must everything be created?
phoodoo,
I’m very curious about how and why those fields exist and I’ll wait till physicists, and scientifically informed philosophers have an answer – not that I have much hope I’ll truely be able to understand it. I also think it possible that we can never have an answer to those questions. It might be a question far beyond the brain power of the most brillaint individual to comprehend, or it might be a nonsensical question to ask why there is something rather than nothing. You can ask how things within the universe come into existence; its always by a rearrangement of things already there, but that couldnt apply to ‘everything’
Theists think that despite the fact that everything we’ve learned about the universe blows away our most deeply held intuitions the ulimate answer to how things got here can be fully comprehended by any 3-year old : a guy made it.
I’ve said this before on this site, but the claim that within the timeless void a vain angry old Jewish guy created the universe from scratch is the biggest categorical mistake one can make
phoodoo, Then what would you prefer to call something that created the world we see, and all the physics which control it (and yet is inaccessible to us in our current state)?
What’s wrong with “Brahma” or “Ahura Mazda”? Both been around a long time and both have the appropriate piles of barely intelligible weirdness surrounding them.
I would call the inaccessible “indistinguishable from the nonexistant”.
Or “that which it is irrational to believe in”.
Or maybe they’re simply saying that we don’t know what’s beyond that, but making shit up to satisfy a need to have answers isn’t, well, satisfying either. That it would be irrational to start believing in untestable fairytales about magic divine creators before concrete empirical evidence.
We often hear this gibberish that “atheists believe everything just came out of nothing”. Well, no they don’t. Most atheists simply admit that they don’t know how everything came to be. Some particular models in physics propose that it “came out of nothing”(whatever the heck this means), but it’s not like any one is believing these models of faith. At this stage they’re just proposals. In the absence of good evidence, we simply withhold judgement on the matter. There is no good reason to start engaging in gap-theology just because we run into questions we haven’t yet answered.
Richardthughes said:
I don’t really understand how an “ism” can be “angry”. I’m sure there are angry people on all sides of the issue. Characterizing one group or the other as “angry” is just rhetoric.
Not really sure how you’d make that argument. As it is, it’s just an rhetorical characterization.
I doubt many IDists or creationists on these forums consider science an “enemy”. I think they consider naturalism a problematic perspective for many reasons philosophically.
Descriptions of behavioral regularities are not explanations.
I don’t think science has done this; I think ideological naturalism using the imprimatur of science has advanced this perspective.
This is really just a parade of convenient terminology and semantic associations used as ideological cheerleading. The term “natural explanation”, in this context, really is nothing more than rhetoric. One could as easily claim that gravity is a supernatural explanation for the motion of the planets, as some said when Newton first advanced it.
So the demise of ID/YED is predicted here including the great Christian faith.
In reality this forum exists because of a modern powerful attack by ID/YEC on evolutionism or anything deny God’s creation.
We are winning by bringing attention to subjects usually studied by few people.
We are bypassing elite roadblocks and doing very well.
Evolution has not explained anything or rather demonstrated its conclusions are based on biological scientific investigation.
its not a theory of science but a still unsupported hypothesis that simply is desired to replace Christian teachings that dominated civilization.
Your not proving evolution is true more and more well degree ed scholars and not to hugh numbers of the public especially the sharper and more independent people and so especially in the nations that matter more. North america!
if evolution was true and winning then there would not be such a contention. there are no such contentions in actual science subjects.
Where in actual science subjects do scholars and the public aggressively disagree right down to a thousand points.
Origin issues are not like other issues.
People who visit this forum and UD and others are just the most confident and thoughtful thinkers on these things largely. Yet its the tip of a ice berg of historic disagreement on subjects CALLED science ones.
Its your side that should be prevailing easily relative to its original dominance for two centuries now.
Somethings wrong!!
Isms (metanarratives) are human constructs, formed and powered by people. I was quite specific, they are angry with “Naturalism”, because its been incredibly successful in explaining things and refuting existing theistic explanations. I’m sure most groups are angry with something, standing for something usually entails standing against something else.
Okay, tell us what an explanation with, along with some examples. Telling me a mouse is not a tractor isn’t very tractor-educational.
This, sadly, is bullshit. There’s a very long list of things that once had supernatural explanations that now don’t (your sophistry regarding explanations not withstanding). Disease, mental illness, fire, thunder, lighting, the sun etc etc etc. Not rhetoric, but empirical reality.
Care to name any that have gone the other way?
Robert, the demise of YEC is not predicted here, its documented here. Once upon a time, everyone was a YEC.
Specifically, the issue of whether humans are “just apes” or not is one that most IDers have trouble dealing with rationally.
Gee, now it looks like we have to give up the word “evolution” if that is your criteria.
Richardthughes said:
An explanation details the how and/or the why of a thing.There is no explanation of how or why things behave in the way that the model “gravity” describes, for example, because nobody knows what causes the set of behaviors we call “gravity”. There are only models that represent the predictable behavior of phenomena. It’s like saying that since something is predictable, you have explained it. Not true. Giving the predictive model a name, like gravity, and then reifying that term as if it is a causal agency doesn’t make it so. A model of a behavior is not the cause of the behavior.
Science doesn’t explain anything; it only describes models of predictable behaviors of phenomena. Why or how that phenomena behaves that way could as easily be assumed to be due to the supernatural as much as the natural.
It’s hardly sophistry to point out that you are confusing a model of a behavior with the cause of that behavior.
This is another reason why Methodological Pragmatism would be a superior terminology/mindset for scientific research instead of Naturalism; under the current terminology, ideological reification is promoted – “gravity” is mistakenly reified as a “natural, causal explanation”, whereas “pragmatism” asserts no such ideological or reification point of view. It’s not about “what reality is” but rather about what works in a practical sense.
This is what happens when you mix ideology about the nature of reality with scientific progress, and it happens on both sides.
William:
Yeah, you didn’t describe ‘an explanation’. And a tractor remains not a mouse. Again, what is a cause? Arguing things ‘aren’t’ without describing what ‘is’, is sophistry.
To Keiths’ point elsewhere, you’ve danced this dance before. You couldn’t come up with non-naturalistic things.
But go write your next book on “Methodological Pragmatism”. It’ll give you something new to backpeddle from.
Tee hee.
Behold: the nonexistant.
Yes, you are. About virtually everything in that post. Perhaps you should just give up and pick a different topic to comment upon, because this is never going to be your thing, Robert.
Why should an observed regularity in the behavior of phenomena be assumed to exist due to “natural”, and not “supernatural” or “artificial” causes? Asserting that such regularities are “natural” doesn’t make them so; it’s just assuming the consequent.
So, what we have over time is an increase in our capacity to model and predict phenomena for practical purposes. Whether those models ultimately represent natural, supernatural or artificial causes is really just a matter of ideologically biased labeling.
Artificial causes can still be natural. ‘Supernatural’ basically means ‘that which cannot reliably be demonstrated to exist’.
That’s good too.
Because there are no criteria for success with “supernatural causes.” “Spongebob made the earth tilt on its axis” is just as good as “Jesus did it” or “Superman did it” or “William Murray did it while bending a spoon at a party with a bunch of other nutjobs.” Because it’s childish and inane. Because people have the ability to reason as well as snivel and shouldn’t act like 5-year-olds their whole fucking lives.
walto said:
Interesting outburst.
If there is no “criteria for success” with “supernatural causes”, then we agree that Randi’s million-dollar challenge is fraudulent.
I think you are confusing scientific criteria for success with a “naturalism” criteria for success – once again proving my point about the problem of using the phrase “methodological naturalism” to describe scientific research.
There is no criteria for determining if a cause is “natural” other than assuming the consequent; that because behavior can be predictably modeled, the cause of that behavior is therefore not supernatural.
Which is obviously a logical fallacy. However, it’s not “assuming the consequent” as I said before, rather it’s circular reasoning/begging the question.
Nonsense. Randi’s challenge is to produce a demonstrable effect that cannot be explained through conventional means, not to elucidate any supernatural cause for that effect.
Wrong.
From JREF:
Wrong.
Gralgrathor,
Gralgrathor,
I think William has fun using words like ‘natural’ and ‘science’ and ‘methodolgical’ and ‘fallacy’ and ‘explanation’ without having a very clear idea what any of them means. And he enjoys ‘discussing’ his ‘ideas’ about them here. That’s unsurprising, I guess. What I don’t get is why anybody else might be interested in this type of colloquy. Same deal with phoodoo. It makes most of what goes on at this site continuously mysterious to me. Really weird and pointless.
My take on it is as follows.
Most of the people here are contributing in their spare time, waiting for a program to run, on a break etc. A bit of amusement.
For your average ID proponent this is it, this is their full-time day job and their comments are actually the cutting edge of ID “research”.
So while it seems sometimes that it’s a battle of wits where one side has come armed with a banana, in fact it’s a little more then that. The undecided lurkers can see for themselves the “quality” of the arguments of the ID proponents and decide for themselves who has the better case.
Having said that, there are many threads of obviously knowledgeable people discussing (arguing even) with other knowledgeable people. So it’s not all “brought a banana to a knife fight” all the time. But the more serious discussions, by their very nature, don’t involve ID/UD because there is no actual substance there to argue over in any case.
That makes sense. Thanks.
OMagain,
That’s about the size of it!
its not like that YEC/ID are new intellectual movements.
In the old days it was simply confidence in the bible or in a creator.
there was no defence or attack by Genesis or other creationists.
A little assertion before the 1800’s but it still was just presumed .
only since serious attacks against god and Genesis, say two centuries, has slowly a defence built uo in these small circles that study origin issues.
Seeds were planted only since Darwin really and now trees are sprouting up.
to bring a demise to us would have to start very soon and then some time.
We only now have scaled the walls and are occupying some buildings.
yet we will take the whole fortress Lord willing.
As political ideologies dedicated to the preservation and promotion of a belief in biblical creation, they are new. But the belief itself is not new; it is as old as the religions and scriptures that codify it.
A few centuries ago, most Europeans believed in a literal creation, some time in the not too far past. And then we started learning, and developing the mental tools for further learning.
That’s nice. But reality is what it is, no matter what you want it to be. So perhaps it’s best if you apply rational thought to find out what reality is actually like, and then adjust your beliefs to your findings.
We have names for lots of non-existent things, or placeholder concepts.
Those are particular theories about the supernatural.
{tunes cosmic data coupling}Hmm.
{reharmonizes syntatic transference}We agree
{erp... szz}with phoodoo.{adjusts intercategory eludicator}Wow. Not sure how that happened.
Anyway, the term supernatural has little utility in science (especially if one defines science methodologically), but it is certainly something people can philosophize about.
phoodoo asked what name we should give to the creator of the universe (or something along those lines). I proposed two names that have been used for such alleged entity for a long long time. If these names have an odor of the obscure to them (which I don’t deny), I think that’s fitting. I mean, if we want a “scientific name” we could try “big bang”–but I don’t think that would be considered sufficiently “non-natural” for phoodoo.
Edit: Or, I suppose if these seem to particular, we could use “the X such that X is claimed to have dome precisely what Brahma has long been claimed to have done.”
If you try “real” as anything detectable, however remotely, and “imaginary” for anything else, then I suggest there is no problem. Human imagination is a wonderful thing – the trap is in thinking when you have invented a name, you have found something real.
Its not political ideologies . Your just trying to discredit.
We are rational as any humanoid.
Saying we ain’t AIN’t making your case.
You must defeat us on the evidence. We are defeating your side on the evidence.
Everybody knows about the threat of the modern creationist movement.
The threat will lead to the defeat of evolutionism or the defeat of the threat.
However the threat is alive and well as we speak. This forum exists because of it.
Give 10 such examples?
Ok, just one will do then. Go on. Otherwise retract your claim.
If you honestly think that, then I suppose there’s not much hope for you.
The threat to the nation’s education and ability to contribute to the world’s scientific progress? Yes, most people have recognized the threat.
Robert reminds me of the Iraqi press minister.
http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/yfAeMtcURg0/hqdefault.jpg
The word of God says what happened.
Complexity is so great that those”primates” who figure things out are called geniuses. Such complexity can’t come from chance bumpings in the night.
Such greatly different looking biological agents could only come from a creator tweeking biology in definite directions.
etc