Well let’s look at what natural selection is-
“Natural selection is the result of differences in survival and reproduction among individuals of a population that vary in one or more heritable traits.” Page 11 “Biology: Concepts and Applications” Starr fifth edition
“Natural selection is the simple result of variation, differential reproduction, and heredity—it is mindless and mechanistic.” UBerkley
“Natural selection is the blind watchmaker, blind because it does not see ahead, does not plan consequences, has no purpose in view.” Dawkins in “The Blind Watchmaker”?
“Natural selection is therefore a result of three processes, as first described by Darwin:
Variation
Inheritance
Fecunditywhich together result in non-random, unequal survival and reproduction of individuals, which results in changes in the phenotypes present in populations of organisms over time.”- Allen McNeill prof. introductory biology and evolution at Cornell University
OK so it is a result of three processes- ie an output. But is it really non-random as Allen said? Nope, whatever survives to reproduce survives to reproduce. And that can be any number of variations taht exist in a population.
What drives the output? The inputs.
The variation is said to be random, ie genetic accidents/ mistakes.
With sexually reproducing organisms it is still a crap-shoot as to what gets inherited. For example if a male gets a beneficial variation to his Y chromosome but sires all daughters, that beneficial variation gets lost no matter how many offspring he has.
Fecundity/ differential reproduction- Don’t know until it happens.
Can’t tell what variation will occur. Can’t tell if any of the offspring will inherit even the most beneficial variation and the only way to determine differential reproduction is follow the individuals for their entire reproducing age.
Then there can be competing “beneficial” variations.
In the end it all boils down to whatever survives to reproduce, survives to reproduce.
Evolutionists love to pretend that natural selection is some magical ratchet.
So what does it do?
The Origin of Theoretical Population Genetics (University of Chicago Press, 1971), reissued in 2001 by William Provine:
Natural selection does not act on anything, nor does it select (for or against), force, maximize, create, modify, shape, operate, drive, favor, maintain, push, or adjust. Natural selection does nothing….Having natural selection select is nifty because it excuses the necessity of talking about the actual causation of natural selection. Such talk was excusable for Charles Darwin, but inexcusable for evolutionists now. Creationists have discovered our empty “natural selection” language, and the “actions” of natural selection make huge, vulnerable targets. (pp. 199-200)
Thanks for the honesty Will.
Chapter IV of prominent geneticist Giuseppe Sermonti’s book Why is a Fly Not a Horse? is titled “Wobbling Stability”. In that chapter he discusses what I have been talking about in other threads- that populations oscillate. The following is what he has to say which is based on thorough scientific investigation:
Sexuality has brought joy to the world, to the world of the wild beasts, and to the world of flowers, but it has brought an end to evolution. In the lineages of living beings, whenever absent-minded Venus has taken the upper hand, forms have forgotten to make progress. It is only the husbandman that has improved strains, and he has done so by bullying, enslaving, and segregating. All these methods, of course, have made for sad, alienated animals, but they have not resulted in new species. Left to themselves, domesticated breeds would either die out or revert to the wild state—scarcely a commendable model for nature’s progress.
(snip a few paragraphs on peppered moths)
Natural Selection, which indeed occurs in nature (as Bishop Wilberforce, too, was perfectly aware), mainly has the effect of maintaining equilibrium and stability. It eliminates all those that dare depart from the type—the eccentrics and the adventurers and the marginal sort. It is ever adjusting populations, but it does so in each case by bringing them back to the norm. We read in the textbooks that, when environmental conditions change, the selection process may produce a shift in a population’s mean values, by a process known as adaptation. If the climate turns very cold, the cold-adapted beings are favored relative to others.; if it becomes windy, the wind blows away those that are most exposed; if an illness breaks out, those in questionable health will be lost. But all these artful guiles serve their purpose only until the clouds blow away. The species, in fact, is an organic entity, a typical form, which may deviate only to return to the furrow of its destiny; it may wander from the band only to find its proper place by returning to the gang.
Everything that disassembles, upsets proportions or becomes distorted in any way is sooner or later brought back to the type. There has been a tendency to confuse fleeting adjustments with grand destinies, minor shrewdness with signs of the times.
It is true that species may lose something on the way—the mole its eyes, say, and the succulent plant its leaves, never to recover them again. But here we are dealing with unhappy, mutilated species, at the margins of their area of distribution—the extreme and the specialized. These are species with no future; they are not pioneers, but prisoners in nature’s penitentiary.
Not such a powerful designer mimic after all.
But there is one thing it can do– it can undo what artificial selection has done.
Would that be your magic GAs that live inside of cells but not in their DNA? The magic GAs that no one’s ever seen, that you have no mechanism for, that you can’t explain where they store their ‘goal’, and that somehow magically can control external selection pressures?
Those GAs?
You sure ran from the last thread where you made all those dumb claims fast enough.
LoL! YOUR position requires MAGICAL MYSTERY MUTATIONS- the mutations that no one has ever seen.
Also, dumbass, that thread was closed- meaning only a coward would say I ran away.
As for dumb claims- no need to look any further than the claims of your sorry position.
The whole purpose of natural selection is explain design without without a designer.
How would you describe the universe prior to life on Earth? Was the universe and/or our planet intelligently designed? Is a designer required to explain the development of the universe as well as its existence? And is the development of the universe best explained by natural laws/processes?
It seems to me that at least some Intelligent Design theorists accept that nature (the whole of science) explains the design within the universe without an interventionist, intelligent designer. So I don’t see the reason to assert that nature (evolutionary theory) is any different in regards to designs within life.
A universe without life on earth.
That is what the evidence says- that the universe and our planet were intelligently designed. We just don’t know how.
That is a possibility. But I prefer a “set it and forget it” approach wrt the universe.
Nature cannot explain nature. Natural processes only exist in nature and therefor cannot account for its origins, which science says it had.
Great. All you need now is supporting evidence.
Good luck with that…
So let’s see if I have this straight.
Evolution does not happen, so there can’t be any evidence for it.
We are challenged to counter this by providing evidence.
But since there can’t be any, it can’t be provided.
Therefore whatever IS provided cannot possibly be evidence.
Which means nobody has ever provided any evidence.
Which shows that there isn’t any, because evolution doesn’t happen.
Yep, nice and circular.
It is a given that you do not.
Who said that?
“That is what the evidence says- that the universe and our planet were intelligently designed. We just don’t know how.” — Joe G.
To quote Stephen Meyer:
ID proponents like Meyer categorically reject the existence of any and all undirected processes. Therefore everything that Science can observe must be directed by God, including randomness, free will, and Nature itself. But then Stephen Meyer refutes himself:
How is it possible that any process is undirected? Surely the absence of evidence for divine intervention can not be equated with an unintelligent author and/or an undirected process? Back to Stephen Meyer:
So there are two fundamental problems that Intelligent Design proponents such as Stephen Meyer and yourself have yet to resolve:
1) On what basis can you assert that random mutations, natural selection, radioactive decay, rolls of the dice, etc. are truly undirected?
2) If said phenomena are in fact undirected, then doesn’t that imply that Intelligent Design proponents accept that God is not omnipotent. Yet if said phenomena are in fact directed, then doesn’t that imply that the whole effort to detect design operates under a flawed assumption that natural selection acting on random variations is an undirected process?
Not true.
If Intelligent Design proponents really do believe that there are such things as undirected processes, then explain to me Stephen Meyer’s assertion:
Elizabeth,
(to a point made in ‘Moderation’)
The trouble is, trying to avoid tying oneself in (more generalised: metaphorical) knots leads to tying oneself in knots! To take Darwin’s phrase, which he clearly intended as a cause (By Means Of) and say that the cause is something else while still retaining that word “Selection”, with its clear connotation of choice, doesn’t help (and, I think, confuses). It’s OK, nothing is choosing, but the result is … ummm … a sel… Something is going on prior to the adaptive result! Here is the first definition I encountered on the Internet:
Selection:
1) The action or fact of carefully choosing someone or something as being the best or most suitable.
2) A number of carefully chosen things.
Obviously, nature doesn’t do any choosing, careful or otherwise. So either the word ‘Selection’ is inappropriate as both process and result, or we just go along with 150 years of usage and apply it to both, recognising that, whatever we do, people will seize on our words and try and make some capital out of them.
Same for tautology. It is only a tautology if you express it as such. Definitions are tautologies, as are equations – NS-is-tautology has to be the weakest arrow in the Creationist’s quiver.
If I choose the larger stones from among a pile, I am ‘artificially’ selecting them. I am also, as it happens, selecting the smaller ones by default. It rather depends what I do next.
If, on the other hand, the stones simply fall onto a sieve, and the larger ones remain while the smaller fall through, they are being ‘naturally’ selected. (Who Made The Sieve questions aside 🙂 ). There is still an equivalent process of ‘selection’, and a two-phase result from a mixed input. I could define the sieving process as “passage through the sieve of the things that are able to pass through the sieve”, tautologously. Yawn, yawn and yawn.
Because we now have a better handle on the population dynamics side (though Darwin, typically, anticipated Drift) we have the concept of selective advantage between any two alleles. This differential forms a continuum of possible net states, including zero, and operation of the differential in ‘real’ situations leads to an actual result that may or may not follow mathematical expectation due to stochastic effects. So even with a differential, we can get the slightly paradoxical circumstance whereby the process of ‘selection’ (birth, death, reproduction) can lead to a net result that indicates that no ‘Selection’ has taken place.
So a better terminology, perhaps, might be that the input is Sampling and Natural Selection is Biased Sampling. The adaptive result is a Biased Sample … that helps us none – sampling is also an ‘agency’ activity! Even when done randomly … now, there’s another word to chew over!
YOU have to explain how what he says means there are no undirected processes.
I really appreciate this debate. It now appears to me that, IMO, the major chasm between IDists and Darwinists exists not because of deceit, ignorance or stupidity, but mostly because of deeply-rooted metaphysical assumptions which are so profound that they cannot understand what the other is saying.
When Darwinists use the term “Natural Selection”, in their minds it is inclusive of what the IDists refer to as “intelligent design”, simply because to the Darwinist, intelligence and apparent intention are subsets of the natural world and thus are included in the term (although this is a conflation of two different kinds of “natural” – as opposed to artificial, and as opposed to supernatural). What the Darwinists takes for granted as a subset of “natural” (within the natural world, as opposed to “supernatural”), the IDist holds to be an entirely different kind of phenomena (artificial, categorically different from all other known natural processes). In the Darwinist mind, unless one is referring to supernatural ID, there’s no reason to even mention ID as if it operated outside of RM & NS or otherwise chance events guided by natural laws.
So, when the IDists say that Darwinists haven’t shown RM & NS up to the task, the Darwinists are befuddled because … well, what else is there? This is, IMO, why Darwinists so often leap to the conclusion that IDists are referring to god and supernatural agency, because if the IDist isn’t referring to supernatural intelligence and agency, then whatever else they are referring to when they say intelligence or intent, they must be referring to the natural world – definitionally (according to their assumed metaphysics) subsumed under the phrase “natural selection” and – at the end of the day, for them – even intent must be the effect of chance events, so even intent = chance, ultimately, just a more ordered, constrained chance output.
I can see this metaphysics-driven chasm demonstrated when any media involved is interpreted. It really is a case of both sides simply not being able to understand the other side because, frankly, neither side -for the most part – can set aside their deep metaphysical assumptions that interpret everything said or written.
This has been really interesting.
There is some truth in that, WJM: As you may know, Lizzie demonstrated that by Dembski’s standards, a process requiring no supernatural intervention, foresight or intention could be the Intelligent Designer. As history shows, this was not well received on UD. But it illustrates that ID can be accommodated in an evolutionary framework.
However if you ask most ID proponents to characterise – no matter how hypothetically – the source, purpose or nature of the design they advocate, you will get Bible-blitzed. You will also find far more shoddy science and dishonest argumentation in favour of ID than you will against it.
With respect William, this is largely untrue.
The vast majority of those that would style themselves ID believers are unable to conceal (although they sometimes try) that they truly believe or just assume that the Intelligent Designer is the god of the Christians
I think your second paragraph just plain wrong, not least because I do not accept that intelligence and intention are subsets of the whole of the natural world in the way I think you mean, although they may be emergent properties of those parts of the natural world equipped to display and execute those abilities (This is why I don’t agree with Elizabeth when she says evolutionary processes are a form of intelligence – because evolutionary processes have no intent, and I think that the ability to exercise intent is an integral part of intelligence)
So to me, an Intelligent Designer of any form is or was exercising intent, and I think that most IDists would agree with that.
The evidence that heritable variation and NS can “do the job” is of course patchy and incomplete, but it is aggregating, and we have insights because of that, and more experiments to do.
Nor do I agree with your third paragraph, where you say that, to the Darwinist
” even intent must be the effect of chance events, so even intent = chance, ultimately, just a more ordered, constrained chance output.”
I think you’re straining definitions here. To me, at any rate, the thing is quite simple – no part of evolution of life on Earth involves intent; an Intelligent Designer if it exists and designs must be executing intent. If you disagree with that, that I should very much like to know your definition of the words “design” and “designer” – because we may be at cross-purposes.
But I DO agree that this is an interesting debate – at least in parts – and I do agree with your (I think) overall impression that communication of meaning between the two camps is imperfect – sometimes because of deliberate obfuscation and a desire to appear to be scoring points, and sometimes because of the imperfections of language and its users as transmitters of meaning
Speaking as someone with direct access to the mind of a Darwinist, I think that you are incorrect here. And you should grant that your assumption that other people’s minds are clouded by their deep metaphysical baggage is not a claim you can justify. You have no access to anyone else’s mind. So can we drop that one, huh? You believe it to be so, but it appears to stop you listening to what people are trying to convey to you.
I mean no conflation of two meanings of “Natural” when I say “Natural Selection”. Natural here is purely in opposition to what Darwin called “Artificial”. He coined the term, with that explicit distinction in mind, and no-one but you argues that he or anyone else uses Natural in that phrase in opposition to ‘supernatural’. The pre-existing theory was not that Selection proceeds through divine intervention – Selection was a new concept – but that something else was in operation: Creation. The argument to NS was developed via breeding, which happens to include Intent – human intent.
Selection in the biological sense covers any force that distorts the frequencies of ‘qualities’ in a population in a manner causally linked to those qualities. It is not Mutation, it is not stochastic effects, it is not the intent or otherwise behind the distortion, or the generation of new organisms. Now, we can have two forms of Artificial (intent-driven) Selection. There is that performed by biological entities who are selecting with a purpose (and I exclude organisms that are simply doing what organisms do – eating, infecting, escaping – which pretty much leaves us, and even then only some of the time). And there is that hypothetically performed by what you might call ‘supernatural’ entities selecting with a purpose. If a ‘supernatural’ ID breeder were capable of acting upon its intent to distort frequencies, then that would be ‘Supernatural Artificial Selection’. When a human breeder does it, it is “Natural Artificial Selection.” If an unintentional process does it, it is “Natural Natural Selection”. (For completeness, let’s have Supernatural Natural Selection, an intelligent process that does not have a goddamned clue what it’s doing!).
Whether intelligence is part of the Natural or the Supernatural does not matter; Natural Natural Selection is the thing that happens regardless of (and often despite) intent. Unless Intent is ever-interfering, the (assumed) Natural processes of birth, death and reproduction will cause adaptation of a variant population. So, what does Intent need to do?
But ID postulates so much more. The ID creates appropriate mutations that could not arise through the ‘wild’ process, since mutations have no access to the environment in which they will be tested. Or (in what amounts to pure Creationism) The Designer just starts again with an organism that (one must assume) had no biological parent.
That is hardly a massive, unjustifiable leap! A short stroll round UD, ENV, the writings of ID leading lights etc would quickly dispel any notions that they are talking of anything else.
Whatever agency you have in mind, needs to have the capacity of interference in the way you postulate. More than that, it needs to exist. I’m not saying it categorically does not exist – but I see nothing that persuades me otherwise.
I think that is factually untrue. In raw numbers I think the majority of ID advocates think the Designer is Allah. Maybe the same god and maybe not.
But those who wish to see this presented in public schools should be aware of what the majority religion is in the world and what it is likely to become in the United States.
Well, I think that is simply a sectarian apologist’s rationalization.
I have been observing ID/creationism since nearly the beginning of its formal attack on science starting with the founding of the Institute for Creation “Research” by Henry Morris back in the early 1970s. During that entire time, up to the very present, there has not been one ID/creationist who has exhibited a deep understanding of scientific concepts. Every one of them, to a person, either has serious misconceptions and misrepresentations or has no understanding of science whatsoever. You fall into that latter category. ID/creationists are pushing a sectarian pseudoscience that has no purchase in the real world.
That is the main difference.
I think this metaphysical barrier can better be addressed in a less controversial, and more accessible, context.
We all have experience with rolling dice, spinning wheels, etc. be it from board games or gambling. Likely we also all have some introductory knowledge of statistics in relation to these chance events. From the human perspective, these mechanisms are properly called random and can be demonstrated as such with mathematics. We also understand that there is no way for Science to determine if there is a higher purpose to any particular outcome or what that purpose may be.
Now some leap the metaphysical chasm and state unequivocally that chance events are either with or without some higher purpose. You can easily find examples of Christians, atheists, scientists, teachers, politicians who do just that. However Science itself is intentionally agnostic in regards to the possible metaphysical meaning(s) of any phenomena, random or not. There certainly may be a purpose, and most people assume there is, but when teaching probability no one seems to be bothered that discussions about purpose are excluded from the instruction.
So why should evolutionary theory be any different? Or put another way, in the interest of consistency how would you change the teaching of probability so as to include teleology and/or Intelligent Design?
How can God guide an undirected process? It’s not so much a theological problem, it’s just a basic logical problem. – Stephen Meyer
Joe, as I said before, I can only answer that there seems to be two choices:
1. If random events are in fact undirected, then God is not omnipotent for that would mean there are processes beyond his control. Yet as Stephen Meyer implied, God must be able guide any and all processes. Hence the basic logical problem.
2. If random events are in fact directed, then the whole effort to detect design operates under a flawed assumption that natural selection acting on random variations is an undirected process. Hence the basic logical problem.
So Joe, what in your opinion is the “basic logical problem” alluded to by Stephen Meyer?
Forthright, even harsh, words.
But true.
Except ID does not attack science. ID attacks materialism
God doesn’t guide undirected processes.
Citation?
Can you prove it, or are you stating an informed opinion or a metaphysical assumption?
But for the sake of argument, let’s assume that your statement is true. Now does that mean that the outcomes of any and all undirected processes were unknown to God such that he could not know how in the most minute detail exactly how Creation would develop — that is, do undirected processes limit Divine Providence?
And does that also mean the outcomes of any and all undirected processes are: somehow separated from God unlike directed, natural processes, or are not supported by his sustaining will, or are not intelligently designed?
Lastly, please answer my prior question;
Judging from your general behavior and comments, I would estimate that you have considerably less than an eighth grade education in science.
You don’t appear to know the meanings of the words science and materialism.
Pseudophilosophy is not a substitute for understanding; it is a pretentious cover-up for a total lack of understanding.
sez wjm:
As is so often the case, our buddy wjm is just wrong.
ID critics don’t say that ID is religious because of the critics’ metaphysical presuppositions; rather, ID critics say that ID is religious because ID-pushers themselves say that ID is religious. To be sure, ID-pushers are not overly concerned with presenting their alleged ‘theory’ in a consistent manner, so it’s not difficult to find quotes from ID-pushers which say things like gosh, we’re not talking about God — the Designer could be a space alien, for all we know — nothin’ but good old science here, folks! So the question is, when are ID-pushers lying: When they say that ID is religious, or when they say that ID is not religious?
From the Wedge Document, the ‘manifesto’ of the ID movement, with emphasis added by me:
According to ID-pusher William Dembski, creator of the so-called Explanatory Filter (again with emphasis added by me):
From Phillip Johnson, author of the seminal ID tract Darwin on Trial (with my emphasis added):
wjm, and those like him, can make all the noise they like about how unfair it is that ID is widely regarded as religious dogma with a thin disguise, and about how ID is nothing but science, and about how saying that ID isn’t science is just scientific dogmatism, and yada yada yada. Such arguments can be effective when presented to people who don’t know the track record of the ID movement… but to anyone who is actually aware of the ID movement’s well-documented track record, complaining about how ID is “unfairly” dismissed as religious dogma marks the complainer as, at best, one who is ignorant of ID’s well-documented track record, or at worst, one who is ‘in on the scam’ and actively working to spread pro-ID lies.
Thanks for the false accusations and otherwise typical evobabble.
But anyway judging by your comments you can spell science, but that is about it.
Prove it? It what follows from what Meyer said.
I do not care about divine providence, nor providence rhode island.
And lastly, no opinion.
LoL! Not one IDists says that ID is religious. The definition of religion doesn’t fit Intelligent Design.
ID does NOT say anything about worship- nothing about who to worship, what, when, why nor how to worship.
IOW the only way ID is religious is by redefining the word religion.
Fascinating. In that case, joeg’s ‘definition of religion’ does not fit the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, because that doctrine ‘does NOT say anything about worship- nothing about who to worship, what, when, why nor how to worship’. Therefore, by joeg’s definition of ‘religion’, the only way the doctrine of transubstantiation is religious is by redefining the word ‘religion’.
Joe:
LOL! Atheists don’t say that atheism is religious. Scientists don’t say science is religious. The definition of religion hardly fits those positions. Yet you yourself, along with Uncle Cornelius and all, are constantly banging on about how ‘religion drives science and it matters’, and that materialism’s ‘religion’ is being forced on our poor defenceless kids. You can’t have it both ways.
ID supporters are almost exclusively, self-identifingly, religious. Therefore, the assumption that the Designer they have in mind is their religion’s Creator is entirely valid. If they, individually, choose to deny that that is the case, I will actually take that denial in good faith. Who am I to tell them what they ‘really’ think? But most, in my experience, do not deny it.
But if we are talking of intentional interference in the historical progress of successive generations, or even the complete skipping of the ‘generational’ process in favour of something a little more abrupt – well, what else is there? Aliens?
William J. Murray,
Hey william, your buddy joe g says:
“Since evolution is a purely natural process, invoking magic has to be an anti-evolution idea.
A targeted search is also natural.”
And:
“Design is natural.
A targeted search is natural.
IOW evolution by design is natural.”
On this page:
http://intelligentreasoning.blogspot.com/2009/09/intelligent-design-is-not-anti.html
——————-
He also says elsewhere (in a massively contradictory way):
“Also science started out as a way to understand “God’s” handy- work- read about a chap named Isaac Newton.
Kepler, Galileo, Kopernik, Linneaus, Pasteur- they all saw science as a way of understanding “God’s” Creation.
And ID doesn’t go that far. And design is a natural phenomenon.
ID does not require the supernatural.”
LoL! Catholism says quite a it about worship.
More drivel- what the individuals are does not mean that is what the theory is.
Geez by that “logic” the “theory” of evolution is an atheistic “theory” and as such is subject to the separation of church and state.
As for atheism and religion, well it is obvious that atheists worship mother nature, father time and some still unknown natural process
Hey maybe some evo will try to write a GA that has a bacteria evolve a flagellum via natural selection.
Oh, that’s right, we do not have enough INFORMATION to be able to write such a GA.
The Design Revolution”, page 25, Dembski writes:
In his book “Signature in the Cell” Stephen C. Meyer addresses the issue of Intelligent Design and religion:
He goes on say pretty much the same thing I hve been saying for years- ID doesn’t say anything about worship- nothing about who, how, why, when, where to worship- nothing about any service- nothing about any faith nor beliefs except the belief we (humans) can properly assess evidence and data and properly process information. After all the design inference is based on our knowledge of cause and effect relationships.
joe g (as “ID guy”) says:
“Attacking people as opposed to substantiating your claims is a sure sign of a crackpot.”
And:
“Opinions? Opinions are meaningless if unsupported.”
On this page:
http://telicthoughts.com/berlinski-stirring-the-pot/
I wasn’t talking about the entire edifice of Catholicism. Rather, I was talking about one specific doctrine which is part of Catholicism, a specific doctrine which doesn’t say one blessed thing about who, what, when, why nor how to worship. Therefore, by your it’s gotta say sumpin’ about worship definition of ‘religion’, the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation is not religious. Reductio ad absurdum FTW!
That one doctrine does not stand in isolation. The doctrine is part of the superset which does say quite a bit about worship.
IOW you still have serious issues…
Indeed. The point was that you have frequently insisted that atheism and materialism are religious positions. Now, irony of ironies, you insist that “the definition of religion does not fit intelligent design”. Which may be so, but it sure as hell doesn’t fit atheism or goddamned science either, then!
Which is precisely the logic that you and many IDists have attempted to pursue. You have a whole mine of quotes in support of that very thesis (fortunately, of course, the rest of the world doesn’t give a shit about formal separation of church and state, so that argument does not travel). Like I say – you cannot have it both ways. You insist ID is not a religious position – fine, then stop bangin on about how materialistic science is a religion.
Yeah, of course we do, Joe. All hail … things that happen.
LoL! materialsim is NOT science- and you do not hail things that happen- you hail imagination
Also I understand the rest of the world doesn’t care about the spearation of church and state- that means what cannot be taught as science in the US, can be taught as science outside of the US. You are correct that science cannot be legislated nor adjudicated.
And when materialsim has something more than faith to hang on, I will stop saying it is a religion.
Joe
I realise that consistency is not your stong suit, but you did say this:
So if you replace references to ID in that paragraph with “materialism”, what makes you think that what is true for one is not true for the other?
You’re out-of-context quote-mining. All major ID proponents have said it is not a religious theory, and have also pointed out that they are free to have metaphysical opinions about what the theory of ID means, even as Darwinists may have metaphysical opinions about what Darwinism means. Everyone can separate what a theory actually claims from what any individual believes it means philosophically or what the metaphysical/religious ramifications are.
The big bang theory was considered a religious theory when it first came out, simply because it comported with religious views about a beginning of the universe.
IDists and creationists aren’t attacking science. They’re attacking materialism. The two are not the same.
You mean, besides the fact that they explicitly deny that to be the case? You are conflation what they say about ID philosophically with what they say about it scientifically. Because some philosophers believed that Darwinism meant that the white races were superior doesn’t mean that was what Darwinism as a scientific theory meant.
William J. Murray,
“You mean, besides the fact that they explicitly deny that to be the case?”
LOL
William J. Murray,
If people could be taken on their claims only, no one could be convicted in a court because they would explicitly deny guilt.
That defense of ID just won’t do.
Materialism’s “un”holy trinity is father time, mother nature and some unknown process. You have faith that that trinity can explain the universe and all that is in it. Faith is a form of worship.
LoL! Your case against ID just won’t do as all it boils down to are evo-claims, only.
Well there’s certainly no doubt that you’ve never learned any science in a classroom or anywhere else, and you’ve never learned to tell the truth about your IDC agenda either.
I agree that IDC only exists in the minds of the willfully ignorant, but not in the way you think I agree. 😀