intelligent Design

[darkkazier]

It looks like " congressman sorcerorston" has been doing a good rallying job on captial hill.

 

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/103/31.0.html

[Anjruu]

Just out of curiosity, what gaps does evolution have?

 

And what data is Mr. Richard Thompson refering to here: "This is not a case of science versus religion, but science versus science, with credible scientists now determining that based upon scientific data, the theory of evolution cannot explain the complexity of living cells"?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

I vote we make a book that explains evolution, then mail it to the idiots. Or provide it for free, like the Bibles you find in hotel rooms everywhere.

[Hellbender]

How can you be taught intelligent design? There is very little to learn as it is so vague.

[Mokele]

Just out of curiosity, what gaps does evolution have?

 

Mostly ones of minor mechanisms and how often what happens, like "What drives sympatric speciation?", "How do parasites affect sexual selection?", "Why do large multicellular asexual organisms occur so infrequently and have such poor survival?", "Is extinction truly random with respect to phylogeny?". There's also more mundane ones that exist due to gaps in the fossil record or things that don't fossilize, like "Did birds begin flying by gliding from trees or leaping from the ground?" and "Did snakes evolve from aquatic, burrowing, or brush-living ancestors?"

 

There are still questions, but there are no serious logical shortcomings.

 

And what data is Mr. Richard Thompson refering to here: "This is not a case of science versus religion, but science versus science, with credible scientists now determining that based upon scientific data, the theory of evolution cannot explain the complexity of living cells"?

 

Some ID proponents cliam that there is "Irreducible Complexity", mechanisms within cells that cannot function without all their parts, and therefore could not have arrisen by evolution. First, this is arguement from ignorance, since just because we can't think of how they could function with less doesn't mean they couldn't, but rather that we have limited imaginations. Second, it ignores exapation, in which one aspect of an animal is adapted to a new purpose later. Third, every example they've used of this, and I mean *every* one, has been shot down in flames.

 

No serious scientist holds to ID or Irreducible complexity.

 

Mokele

[MetaFrizzics]

I vote we make a book that explains evolution, then mail it to the idiots. Or provide it for free, like the Bibles you find in hotel rooms everywhere.

That would require atheists and agnostics to be as generous and charitable as Christian laypersons. Good luck on that one.

[Ophiolite]

That would require atheists and agnostics to be as generous and charitable as Christian laypersons. Good luck on that one.

At last we've found a practical use for some of Bill Gates billions. Who's going to e-mail him the plan?

[DQW]

From darkkazier's link :

 

All but one of the district's science teachers refused to read the required statement that said evolution is only a theory. "We believe that reading the ['Intelligent Design'] statement violates our responsibility as educators as set forth in the code," science teacher Jen Miller said. "Students are allowed to opt out from hearing the statement. We should be allowed to opt out from reading it."

All is not lost. There is still hope...

 

...but on the other hand, there's this : http://politics.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050802/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_intelligent_design

 

[darkkazier]

^^Yeah that's what i was looking for.

[Phi for All]

I vote we make a book that explains evolution, then mail it to the idiots. Or provide it for free, like the Bibles you find in hotel rooms everywhere.

If idiots read books, it would solve many problems.

 

Do we know who coined the term Intelligent Design? It just sounds so slick and spin-doctored, a million dollar sound byte that came from some right-wing religious think-tank, probably paid for by taxpayer dollars.

[PhDP]

I think it's Phillip Johnson who coined the term, and he's not a scientist... The concept is strongly linked to the Discovery Institute, who is trying to make ID look like a serious scientific idea, defended by objective individuals.

[SHtRO]

Yeah, it looks like Philip Johnson.

 

Here you go: http://www.origins.com/

 

Rip 'em a new one...

[SHtRO]

This is from the Washington Post:

 

Essentially intelligent design posits that the human cell, among other organisms, is too finely tuned to have developed by chance. "The human cell is irreducibly complex -- what we find in the cell is stuff that looks strongly like it was designed by an intelligence," said Michael J. Behe, a biology professor at Lehigh University and leading advocate of intelligent design.

Now, considering that I personally have noticed an abundance of synchronicity in my personal life regarding information whenever meditating heavily on the nature of the center of the galaxy and black holes, I refuse to exclude the idea of "higher consciousness". Nevertheless, there is nothing balanced about I.D. as it stands in the school curricula of mention, any theory of Intelligent Design must be predicated on ideas such as strange loops and the abundance of "junk DNA".

 

Does anyone think that Behe (as opposed to the theologians) makes a valid point here? I am undecided.

[john5746]

That would require atheists and agnostics to be as generous and charitable as Christian laypersons. Good luck on that one.

 

I wonder, can an atheist "church" be tax exempt?

[Mokele]

Does anyone think that Behe (as opposed to the theologians) makes a valid point here? I am undecided.

 

As I said above, no. To quote myself:

Some ID proponents cliam that there is "Irreducible Complexity", mechanisms within cells that cannot function without all their parts, and therefore could not have arrisen by evolution. First, this is arguement from ignorance, since just because we can't think of how they could function with less doesn't mean they couldn't, but rather that we have limited imaginations. Second, it ignores exapation, in which one aspect of an animal is adapted to a new purpose later. Third, every example they've used of this, and I mean *every* one, has been shot down in flames.

 

It's pretty much a logical fallacy compounded with a lack of understanding of evolution.

 

Mokele

[fuhrerkeebs]

That would require atheists and agnostics to be as generous and charitable as Christian laypersons. Good luck on that one.

 

What do atheism and agnosticism have to do with evolution? Yeah, and that whole generous and charitable Christian layperson thing doesn't go too well with the whole uber conservative Republican thing that Christians tend to be into.