Sometimes very active discussions about peripheral issues overwhelm a thread, so this is a permanent home for those conversations.
The Skeptical Zone
"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken."
Sometimes very active discussions about peripheral issues overwhelm a thread, so this is a permanent home for those conversations.
Well, you do say stuff about science!
But I do demur at Thorton’s generalisation. Although I think there’s a lot of paranoia all round, and one of the aims of this site (not unrelated to the strapline) is to provide a safe place for people to unpack their arguments, and other people’s, and see which bits cancel out, and what is left at the end.
the problem with posing evolution as anti-religion is that this is the same argument that has been used against every significant scientific advance since Copernicus.
It’s a self-defeating tactic. It instantly tags the proponent as a propagandist.
I don’t have any students.
Whatever- as I said not one biology teacher can produce positive support for the “theory” of evolution- well nothing tat also doesn’t fit in with baraminology.
LoL! Will Provide, an evolutionist, has said exactly that- that evolution = anti-religion:
…
…
click here for a hint:
Thank you for your honesty Will Provine.
1- Academe January 1987 pp.51-52 †
2-Evolutionary Progress (1988) p. 65 †
3- “Evolution: Free will and punishment and meaning in life” 1998 Darwin Day Keynote Address 1 2 †
4- No Free Will (1999) p.123
5- Provine, W.B., Origins Research 16(1), p.9, 1994.
Nope. The CSI could still be present in the universe and the agency just tapped it.
Such as?
You might want to think a little more carefully about that, Joe. If the Universe is a giant repository of CSI….. well, I’m sure you can carry on from there.
But not in any way consistent with what (very) little you have told us of your “position”
Well, finally some meat on the table.
Personally, I think that 99% of the Darwinism/ID debate wouldn’t exist if both sides didn’t consider the other side, as you say, “dangerous”. That’s really, IMO, the motivation that fires the passion up and keeps responses going long after they’ve passed the point of reiterative duplication. Watching these “debates” is often an exercise in watching evolutionary descent with modification in action … apparently, people think that if they tender just the right subtle insult, or just the right flavor of condescension, or frame the same basic statement with slight semantic modifications, at some point their side will “win” the evolutionary competition.
However, you didn’t really say what you mean by “dangerous”. In what way is ID theory “dangerous”? If it holds that Darwinism is a theory that promotes immorality, how is that a dangerous perspective?
I’ll provide my perspective why I consider Darwinism “dangerous”, but it is pretty much as you said. I think that Darwinism contributes to the decline of several factors I consider essential to a sound civilization: sound, rational ethics, morality and necessary first principles and of thought. Please note that I said “contributes to”; it is not a sufficient cause in and of itself.
To put that in perspective, even if Darwinism is true, I consider it dangerous. Just because something is true doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous. As I said before, there are some things a person should believe whether they are true or not. Darwinisim contributes to the idea that humans are nothing more than animals that came into being for no purpose; it supports moral relativism and equivalence; it supports a materialistic perspective of existence, which also tends to degrade first principles, right reason, and any sound, rational morality. Darwinism tends to equivocate everything in life as simply being “what material forces happened to produce”; leaving (to paraphrase Dawkins) no fundamental difference between Mother Teresa and a serial killer/cannibal.
While it isn’t necessary that someone who believes in Darwinism (not to be conflated with “evolution”) slide down the slope towards existential and moral relativism and equivalence, Darwinism does provide quite a bit of conceptual framework that can facilitate such a slide.
However, unlike those Christians that argue against Darwinism, I’m not invested in “winning” the argument, which is why I don’t bother engaging in endless reiteration, re-framing, and exchanges of thinly-veiled insults. While I enjoy exploring the argument, I’m not going to retread already-explored territory ad infinitum.
Another thing to keep in mind is something I’ve explained before: it doesn’t matter to me if Darwinism is true or not, I’ve made a conscious choice to believe in ID. That’s probably another reason I”m not emotionally invested in these debates – I’m not trying to shore up my own belief by making a case or by getting anyone else to “convert”. I have no compulsion to convince anyone else because, IMO, what they believe is either (1) their choice, or (2) what they are compelled to believe by physics/biology. Either way, it’s hardly my job to get them to change their choice or to try to reprogram their physiology into agreeing with me.
I don’t believe in hell (other than as some personally-generated psychoplasmic manifestation), so I’m not trying to save anyone from anything.
However, I recognize Darwinism as a concept that facilitates the movement of society away from that which I wish to live in. So, I do spend some time in such media as this providing alternative view and, so to speak, focusing on my preferred alternative as a means of manifesting it. IOW, my sight is set on a more morally rational, first-principle dedicated, conservative (libertarian) society.
When replying, please don’t conflate “Darwinism” with “Evolution”. ID and Darwinism agree on much of evolutionary theory, but disagree on whether or not the course of evolution has (in addition to RM & NS processes) been intentionally manipulated in some way.
Well, this, for instance:
To which several of us (including myself) responded with detailed, closely argued, replies. With which you did not engage!
You keep using this word “conflate”. The fact is that different people use the same words to mean rather different things. That doesn’t mean that they are “conflating” anything – it may just mean that their usage differs from your own.
I know that most ID proponents accept that “evolution” – in the sense of populations changing phenotypically over time, and specifically of allele frequencies changing over time – occurs. They’d be foolish not to, because it’s a well-established fact.
It’s also a well established fact that Darwinian mechanisms (by which I mean heritable variance in reproductive success in the current environment) results in adaptation, and that new variants that turn out to contribute to reproductive success are traceable to specific mutational processes (e.g. recombination; duplication; frameshift; insertion; etc). This has been shown in lab work, field work, and also in computational models.
What some IDists take issue with is the idea that these mechanisms can account for “macro-evolution” (usually ill-defined), or with the idea that the novel sequences are simply serendipitous, not planned. Or with the idea that certain features could not have arisen by Darwinian mechanisms (are on unreachable “islands” in “search space”).
There may be more. But please be specific.
I didn’t say anything about “science”. I said something about the logical ramifications of someone else’s statement about NS.
I don’t argue the obvious with those who deny it.
One can always find danger in someone else’s beliefs. I have participated in these debates for more than a decade not to convince opponents or to protect the world from dangerous ideas, but to refine my own understanding.
Most of the ID arguments have been around since Darwin’s era. It’s interesting to study the history of the debate to avoid getting tied up in old issues.
You are right, I didn’t fully express my thought in the end. I think it’s dangerous because it undermines public understanding of science, which can lead to bad political decisions. We depend on good science for such things as oil-exploration; research into energy sources; global climate forecasts; medical research; food supply research. All these are at political risk if spurious reasons to reject relevant findings are mounted in the guise of legitimate scientific arguments. I understand that churches are concerned about losing young people; it doesn’t bother me they want to evangelise to draw them back, per se. It does bother me, greatly, if they are attracted back on the grounds that good science is wrong. It actually bothers me that they are retained on those grounds as well. If faith is important (and it was very important to me for half a century) is it not better if it is not tied to bad science, then rejected, with the science, when the young person finds out how bad the science is?
It also bothers me because some beliefs are themselves dangerous. The Rapture, for instance – what kind of political consequence follow from the widespread belief (in the US – it’s completely absent here) that the world’s days are numbered and there isn’t much point in worrying too much about our footprint on the planet? Or the consequences for mental health of the idea that there are a set of arbitrary rules about who you can and cannot have sex with, and that those who get them wrong are doomed to everlasting torment?
The idea that religious beliefs are actually supported by science (as opposed to simply being compatible with it) is a dangerous one in itself, it seems to me. It lends legitimacy to the idea that arbitrary divine edicts are objectively knowable. It removes responsibility for ethical decision making from each of us to some edict-vetting institution claiming spurious authority from fake epistemology.
OK, I’m getting on a soap-box now. I remember why I hit submit earlier 🙂
I utterly disagree. If people base bad ethics on Darwinian theory, then that is the fault of their ethical reasoning, not the fault of the theory. Darwinian evolution is, like all scientific theories, morally neutral. We adopt scientific theories because they explain the data, and for no other reason. We reject them if there is a better competing model, and for no other reason. Otherwise we make the mistake the church made when it rejected the Copernican model in favor of the Ptolomaic one.
And, quite apart from resulting in innocent people being burned at the stake, ultimately, the loser was the church. As Augustine says, arguing against something that is true just because it seems contrary to theology just makes theology look foolish.
Well, obviously that is absurd. But the absurdity isn’t in the theory, it’s in the argument that a good scientific model has anything relevant to say about the value of a human life. It’s like trying to measure how much you love your wife by standing her on the bathroom scales.
Bad ethics, bad philosophy AND bad science.
Sure. So does religion. We are all perfectly capable of behaving badly, and justifying it with whatever worldview we have to hand. No one view is any more or less apt for the job than any other, it seems to me.
You don’t even tread it, William, never mind re-tread it.
Except that I thought you were interested in logic. I’m not interested in “reprogramming” you. I am interested in demonstrating to you where your arguments are fallacious. And I do find the idea that one can adopt a view, regardless of logical argument and evidence, simply because of some mind-free “choice”, bizarre. It’s the willful adoption of a delusional belief, in the literal sense (i.e. a belief is delusional, whether true or not, if it is held on grounds that are not based in evidence and argument).
Good. I’m glad at least you have decided not to belief in hell. But why you should be railing against “relativism” while simultaneously propounding a profoundly relativist framework (“it’s not whether my view is right, it’s whether I’ve decided to believe it that matters”) simply baffles me.
Why? What makes you think that “Darwinism” is so adept at this facilitation? Why not “consumerism”?
But you are proposing just the opposite – that we mindlessly (literally, according to your manifesto) adopt whatever beliefs we decide on. Not that the idea of “deciding” independent of a decision-making process makes any sense to me at all.
But thanks for saying what you think, anyway. I’m no clearer, but at least I’m clearer that I’m not clear!
Well, that depends on how you define “belief”. Obviously, I don’t hold my beliefs to be “true” in any absolute sense, or else I couldn’t simply choose believe whatever I wanted. When I use the term belief, it means I hold that model in my mind and act on it as if it were true – but, I don’t actually believe it to in fact be true. All of my beliefs are provisional, conditional models I hold for a purpose. If the purpose isn’t facilitated by the belief (by acting as if the model is true), then I change beliefs. That purpose is (1) to be a good person, (2) to lead a productive life, and (3) to enjoy life.
So, when I say I believe in ID, or god, it has nothing to do with whether or not evolutionary ID actually occurred, or if there is actually a god; it means that I have chosen to act/live as if ID is true, and as if there is a god. Another reason, I suppose, why I don’t fight tooth and nail in arguments about anything, really. I’m not defending “reality” from those who would misrepresent it, because I’m not invested in my beliefs as reality. I expect I’m wrong about many of my beliefs, but that doesn’t concern me as long as they apparently work for me. That my beliefs apparently work well for me is hardly something I need to defend in an argument.
Also, I limit my beliefs to that which doesn’t directly contradict any experiential facts or any necessary logical principles or inferences. That also is a choice of mine.
At the end of the day, one either believes in libertarian free will or not. If I believe in libertarian free will, then I must admit that I am not compelled by anything to believe anything; I am free to believe as I wish. If I am compelled to believe certain things, then my will is not free, but is rather restricted by that which I am compelled to accept as true. As I said in my books, I am free to be irrational, evil, delusional, and nonsensical as much as I am free to be logical and have a sound perspective.
I do not submit my views to logic because I am compelled to; I do so willingly, because I have chosen to. I do not submit my beliefs to experiential fact because I cannot force myself to do otherwise; I do so because I wish to.
I appreciate you sharing with me your concerns about your view about the dangers of ID. I suppose we’re just two soldiers on opposite ends of the battlefield, doing what we have accepted as, or chosen as, our duty in these matters.
William J. Murray,
So it appears that you would agree with those who analyse the modern American I.D. movement as being largely religio-political rather than scientific.
It’s interesting that you’d like America to move in the direction of the conservative religious societies (Examples: Pakistan, The Philippines, Nigeria, Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia) and that you fear the direction being taken by countries like those in Western Europe + Canada and Australia + Japan and others in the east.
Saudi Arabia bans evolutionary theory from the schools completely. Do you think that’s the way forward for the U.S?
IMO, it is both, not “rather than”.
Except that’s not what I said. You’re substituting your opinion of what “conservative” means instead of taking the cue from the parenthetical I used to contextualize what I meant – “(libertarian).”
“Darwinism” is not the equivalent of “Evolutionary Theory”. I think that ID-informed evolutionary theory should be taught in school, not Darwinism-informed evolutionary theory.
Because it is better supported, or just because it is, in your view, less dangerous?
Would it bother you if you figured out it was fallacious?
Because it is better for society if such groundwork is laid in the school system. ID is more supportive of other necessary principles/concepts that need to be instilled in the young for any sound society going forward.
Beside, you can’t falsify ID; it exists. We use it. It can’t be falsified that it helped evolution along towards a purpose. It’s not a falsifiable heuristic.
Joe G,
So the intelligent designer of life is NOT the designer of the universe?
William J Murray,
The “ID” of the ID movement, is NOT the “ID” we use.
We can detect what “we” design because we know what we are, how we work, and what our limitations are.
We cannot detect the “ID” of the ID movement because we do NOT know anything about the designer or its limitations.
The ID movement “refuses” to investigate the designer because the only conclusion they will allow is that the designer is god.
Just like you “choose” to believe in a common purpose for all humans, the ID movement simply “chooses” to believe in the designer.
Neither of you need any supporting logic or reason.
That’s what makes ID dangerous, it does not even attempt to reflect the reality we exist in.
Fair enough. Doing away with state education might be the way forward, then.
Modern evolutionary theory, then, or “naturalistic evolutionary theory”.
It’s hard to see what “I.D. informed” would mean. Realistically, you need to come out with an actual I.D. theory, and that, you’ll find, is impossible. You could try to make a start by getting I.D. advocates to agree on the age of the biosphere that their theory would concern, but immediately theological squabbles would break out. Then there’s the insurmountable hurdle of deciding what in biology is directly intelligently designed and what isn’t, not to mention how the designs are implicated. And the students will inevitably want to know who the designers are and whether they, as a mechanism, have been observed making changes in the way that mutation, selection and drift have been.
Think of the detail that I.D.ers constantly demand of the people they call Darwinists. You would have to apply the same standards to yourselves.
I would completely agree that ID is not falsifiable. But that is precisely why it should not be taught as part of science. By all means teach it as a philosophy, but the issue here is not whether it makes sense as a philosophy or theology, but whether it is a valid inference from our data.
It isn’t – and science is the domain of human cognition in which we infer support for our models from data.
What is dangerous, IMO, is when we try either to claim that ID is science, or, conversely, when we claim that science can tell us anything about theology.
I’m not talking about the theory of ID (FSCI, IC, etc.) as far as how evolution should be taught. I’m talking about an ID heuristic. A way of educating about evolutionary theory that is framed in an ID-friendly perspective. You know, instead of characterizing evolution as the illusion of design but without any, or characterizing it as purposeless, stop characterizing it as such. Instead of employing terminology that implies that there was no purposeful design or that humans are nothing more than animals, either leave that question open or gravitate towards design concepts. Freely employ design terminology instead of trying to rewrite the lexicon in non-normative terms. Freely talk about the purpose and engineering goals of biological features, etc.
If by “state” you mean “federally mandated”, I agree. The federal government is far too involved in the school system, IMO.
As far as the scientific aspect of ID theory, I think it is patently obvious that there is a qualitative difference between some things intelligent agencies design, and **everything else** we know of. Whatever that metric ultimately is (CSI, dFSCI, IC, etc), I don’t see any reason it wouldn’t be scientific.
If this were true, evolution should not be taught as part of science, because it too is not falsifiable. It’s not falsifiable for the same reason I said ID is not falsifiable: because we know that it occurs. I suppose Darwinism (IMO, a philosophical aspect of currently-taught evolutionary theory) is also non-falsifiable, but I’d rather have ID-heuristic evolution taught than Darwinism-Heuristic evolution.
I would like to see a thread on the heuristic value of ID. I think I mentioned this earlier and got some interest.
From where I stand the value lies entirely in its pointing out interesting unsolved problems. You can look at the gaps that current ID proponents are paying attention to and map out a research program to address them. Sometimes you have to wait for suitable technology to develop, but sooner or later, gaps get addressed.
William J Murray,
How can you introduce the “goal” of the designer, without investigating the designer?
Does anyone who supports ID have the courage to look the “designer” in the eye?
William J Murray,
Evolution passes our falsification tests, but ID cannot even be submitted to a test since the designer is off-limits by the ID movement which made the original claim of his existence.
That’s not science and shouldn’t be taught in school.
Egad. Observations are data. They aren’t falsifiable (if properly taken), they are the raw materials from which explanations are derived. It is the explanations which can be falsified, not the data on which they are based. WMJ is switching back and forth between the FACT of evolution (life forms change over time) and the THEORY of evolution (proposed sets of mechanisms that cause such changes), and calling them both “evolution”. This equivocation makes communication difficult.
The FACT of ID, the body of observations on which a theory might rest, is currently the null set. There ARE no such observations. Needless to say, there is no theory derived from this null set of no facts. WMJ needs to go out and do some observation, rather than merely asserting. But science has been awaiting any such observations for many decades now. I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Yet observation tells us that humans are animals. What’s wrong with animals? You seem to be misunderstanding science. It would be all very well teaching about “purpose” if we could find a purpose, but you have to do that first. What’s a giraffe for? What’s an E Coli bacterium for, and why would the designers want to grant it motility by special direct design of an elaborate flagellum? If, as Michael Behe says, the malarial parasite would have been designed by his own arguments, what’s it for from the perspective of the designers?
What were dinosaurs, mammoth and dodos for, and why did they cease to be useful?
What science is like is that you have to find out the purpose, or develop a good observation based theory of purpose before you can teach it. On current evidence, I’d suggest that the best hypothesis is that the designers were just doing art for art’s sake, because there’s no apparent objective practical use for life from their perspective at all. They don’t even eat it (or not that we know of).
And how can we freely talk about the “engineering goals of biological features” when we don’t know what they are? Please don’t confuse function with intended purpose. Because a river can function as a transport route for us and other creatures, that doesn’t mean it was purpose built, like our canals.
The FACT of ID rests upon the body of observations that human ID can (and does, regularly) produce phenomena that is qualitatively unlike any other phenomena we know of (excluding phenomena under debate). The scientific theory of ID draws from that body of fact to propose a metric of some sort for examining suspect phenomena that are not known to have been produced by human intelligence.
Thinking about the malice aforethought that would have been required to design parasites is rather disturbing.
But apparently thinking that these were not deliberately created is even more disturbing to some people.
Apologies to cephalopod fanciers.
Dr Who:
You don’t “have” to do any such thing. Humans can define science however they want, and teach it however they want, including straight out of the Bible or the Koran if they wish. Such conventions exist at the discretion of society.
If you wish to believe that ideology can be separated from science, you are free to believe that. I do not share that belief. IMO, ideology cannot be separated from anything. So, if we’re going to have some sort of ideology in science class anyway, I prefer it be the ID variety.
As has been pointed out, ID does not have a theory and does not have a metric.
You like to point out that some things seem obvious. One does not need bogus probability calculations to believe life requires some explanation other than instant assembly of complex things by chance.
The question then becomes not one of probability, but one of teasing out the regularities in chemistry that can account for the history of life. To the best of my knowledge, Behe is the only ID proponent who understands the general requirements for discussing this. He has managed to make proposals that can be analyzed and tested within the framework of science.
Most biologists think his analysis is wrong, but at least his argument makes sense.
IMO, ideology cannot be separated from anything. And there it is. EVERYTHING must first pass througth WMJ’s ideological filters, and what comes out the other end is ALWAYS ideologically interpreted or vetted to meet his ideological needs. By projection, this is how science must work. Evidence not supporting WMJ’s ideology simply is not evidence.
And quite obviously, every observation, argument, or explanation anyone makes is subjected to this same process, and NONE of it comes out the other side making any sense to WMJ at all. Which of course means it makes no sense! Long, patient, detailed explanations are either totally ignored, or single phrases are extracted which, by some stretching, can be misinterpreted as needed. And that’s as close as anyone has come yet to communication.
In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is deformed, and needs to be cured.
Scariest radio play of my childhood. Kind of dates me that I heard it live. I’ve got it on tape now.
William J Murray,
So if “human” ID cannot produce the phenomena under debate, what ID can do that?
William J Murray,
What do you know of the designer that would make you think he could design life?
I’m quite interested in this particular question. I’m not aware of any theory of design or af any theory at all that would enable design of living things from scratch.
In particular I doubt that any designer could do the things that ID proponents say evolution can’t do, such as poof 500 bit functional sequences into existence without using evolution.
This is a very good question you have asked many times and I think it is something that the ID camp shouldn’t be allowed to avoid.
How would a designer know that in two centuries from now, the climate in any particular region would require an adaption to the life there now.
How fast can the designer work, in other words, what are the lead times?
How can the designer know beforehand, what will be required and nail it in one attempt?
“Flint” above has already mentioned projection, and I think you ought to seriously consider that point. You’re beginning to sound a bit like Cornelius Hunter, who lives in a world in which scientific theories and views are things decided by the direction religion and philosophy takes. Things like variation, selection, drift, speciation and common descent are concepts that come from observations that can be repeated, not from anyone’s ideology. Indeed, they didn’t fit the ideological preconceptions of Darwin, Wallace and other 19th century naturalists at all. Those observers came from a traditionally creationist culture, and started off with a heavy bias towards the intelligent design of individual species.
Anyway, what’s your basic ideological disagreement with prominent historical shapers of naturalistic evolutionary theory like Wallace, Fisher, and Dobzhansky?
Everything must first pass through anyone’s filters, unless of course you are claiming that you are a truly objective observer, and interpret everything you observe objectively.
I guess my apparently damning (in this forum) feature is that I admit my bias and don’t try to act like it doesn’t exist.
I don’t have ideological “needs’, because I believe as I wish, not as I must. My beliefs are not dependent upon evidence supporting them, so I have no “need” to interpret evidence favorably to my beliefs. Again, I guess the qualitative difference is that I am aware of it and consciously choose my mode of interpretation.
If you mean, by projection, this is how humans are and how they operate, then yes. Humans are not objective, IMO. They filter everything through ideological biases.
I have no problem accepting evidence that doesn’t support my views as evidence. Why would that bother me? My beliefs aren’t based on evidence.
There is no belief so pernicious as one held as objective fact, and no ideology more fanatically obeyed than one mistaken for objective reality. I don’t mistake my beliefs for facts, nor my ideology for reality.
I think it’s more basic than that. Emergence is a well established phenomenon.
How does the designer overcome the difficulties of knowing how complex molecules will behave? How does the designer know what the product of a sequence will be? And given that one could solve the emergence problem, how does on account for the thousands of dimensions involved in fitness?
ID advocates just smile and say that future technology will overcome these hurdles.
In other words, magic. No problem because — wink, wink — we know who the designer is.
Dr Who,
You see, this is what I’m talking about. The disconnect that often exists between Darwinists and IDists is very interesting to me. You read Hunter, you interpret X; I read Hunter, I interpret Y. In my view, Hunter isn’t interpreting variation, drift, mutation, etc. in and of themselves as ideological designations, but rather how they are assumptively characterized through the inferential process (and in the text of papers and textbooks) that is driven by ideology – and, I agree with him. Drift isn’t an ideological designation; the assumption that it only occurs haphazardly is.
It’s one thing to point out changes and call them mutations and variations; it’s another thing to point out changes and ideologically characterize all of them as “random” or “purposeless”. First, you don’t know that they’re random, and second, you don’t know that they are purposeless. Those are ideological characterizations which are unnecessary to the theory, and may or may not be true.
I think that is Dr. Hunter’s overall point.
William J Murray,
And that makes you no different than Dembski.
When Dembski was told that the global flood must be accepted as literally true, he accepted that even though it went against his evidence.
That’s what’s wrong with ID, that It tells us what we must accept as being TRUE in spite of “anything” that points us to the contrary.
Why do you use logic if it’s meaningless to your acceptance of an idea?
And therefore, knowledge is impossible and everything is uncorrectably subjective. Uh huh, you describe yourself well.
But amazing as it may sound to the unaided ear, science is well aware of the problem of confirmation bias, and takes a good many steps to neutralize it. Things like intersubjective validation, replication, peer review, consiliance with related findings and with subsequent findings, accuracy of implied predictions. You might even be able to think up a few more techniques the enterprise of science deploys in an effort to make explanations of observation more nearly correct. You might even reflect that technology based on these explanations WORKS, which you’re using just to write posts denying it!
But as usual, when we get right down to it, you are obliged to retreat into abstract philosophy, to deny that actual knowledge is possible, to pretend that learning is impossible, that all is subjective, and that there’s nothing anyone can do about it.
Except I notice that you are able to feed yourself, you seem able to look both ways before crossing the road, and in fact you are perfectly able and willing to rely fully and completely on observational data to live momemt to moment through your life. You only run away from knowledge when it becomes obvious enough to you that knowledge refutes your obsessions. THEN, and only then, do you start patting yourself on the back for being unable to learn. How very convenient.
William J Murray,
You don’t know that they “have” a purpose, but you claim “purpose” because it serves your unfounded conclusions to accept it.
It’s not meaningless. As I’ve said, I’ve chosen not to have any beliefs that violate any fundamental principles of logic, contradict experiential facts, or are internally inconsistent. I use logic to argue because I’m not fond of rhetoric.
About once a year I look back to see if the ID movement has gained any legal ground. this is, after all, the only metric that counts in the internet debate.
I am optimistic that perhaps in Tennessee, teachers will gain the right to present the strengths and weakness of creationism. I think it would be fun to teach science without fear of stepping on the toes of Biblical literalists. I think the Tennessee law protects any teacher who wants to stack the evidence for Genesis against the evidence for astrophysics and geology.
Let the games begin.