Now, Collin has said that, even if Lewontin is correct, this does not score any points for ID. Well actually, if Lewontin is correct, then the central argument of ID (that Darwinism rests on the philosophy of naturalism/materialism rather than evidence) is PROVEN.
I think the essential argument of ID has always been that everything (except the designer) has a cause and that cause is an intelligent designer.
Naturalism/materialism is an unproven philosophy that, as Lewontin says, is accepted ‘a priori’, (assumed without experience or evidence). This philosophy is the underlying belief that upholds the Darwinian paradigm and assures its victory over its rivals. This has been achieved because naturalism automatically rules out Darwinism’s main rival – design. Thus, once this fact is accepted, we see that Darwinism is not pure science, rather it is a mixture of science and belief just like creationism.
Let me explain to you what science is about and why scientists are committed to naturalism.
Naturalism is the worldview that says all phenomena can be explained and described by the physical sciences. There is indeed no proof that this is true. This principle also does not rule out a supernatural being or supernatural phenomena per se.
Naturalism splits into different branches. One of the is methodological naturalism, or scientific naturalism. Another branch is metaphysical naturalism. Metaphysical naturalism indeed rules out anything supernatural.
It appears your sources did not make the distinction between these two branches. Like I said before, naturalism doesn't rule out a deity or the supernatural, it merely ignores it, so to speak. It is obvious why scientists subscribe to methodological naturalism.
The reason for this is a logical one. One which I believe I already explained.
The idea behind this commitment to naturalism in science is that natural causes can be investigated directly through scientific method, whereas supernatural causes cannot. If you presume a phenomenon has a supernatural cause we cannot continue the investigation. Indeed we cannot continue our investigation because the supernatural, by definiton, is unconstrained by the laws of nature and we and our knowledge are.
I already gave examples of this, which you did not reply to, or if you did, only vaguely and besides the point.
Let's take a simple example; a disease is caused by a microbe. With the scientific method and our a priori commitment to naturalism we can investigate what this microbe does to the body and how the immune system reacts to it, for example. If this disease is caused by a supernatural cause, the devil or god, we cannot study or research it because we cannot study or reseach the devil or god.
So, scientists indeed leaves god and the supernatural out of science because it is, as shown, pointless to include them.
Funny, isn't it. There's a perfectly logical explanation for it all. But the ID-crowd, in its smear campaign, made it out to look like scientists deliberately cling to a shakey 'dogma' out of fear or hatred in order to oppress ID.
You claim Darwinism is a mixture of belief and science, this again proves you don't know anything about the theory of evolution or science. You jump to false conclusions.
The theory of evolution is supported by substantial, exhaustive, testable and provable evidence. The 'belief' you are referring to is naturalism, that, as I explained, does not change the evidence, however. Plenty of scientist, one of them being Kenneth Miller, believe a supernatural being is behind evolution.
So the a priori commitment to naturalism is completely justifiable, but completely misunderstood, or distorted by ID advocates.
Collin, If you really do ‘Dissent from Darwinism’ and are skeptical about the Darwinian claim that natural selection and random mutations can account for the complexity of life. If you really do believe that Darwinian theory should no longer be accepted a priori, and that instead the evidence that is claimed to support it be re-examined on its own merit without appeals to any prior philosophical commitments, then welcome to the Intelligent Design community.
actually, the buddhism as buddha taught it has no such trappings. you should read the book Buddhism Plain and Simple by Steve Hagen. it explains the stripped down, bare-bones buddhism that i think might appeal to you as much as it does to me.
I think I did read it
I just came to the conclusion that I need to find my own path and I think buddhism helped me with that. I learned a lot from it, but there are many things I dislike besides the mythical stuff too.
Ok.
Step 1. Proffessor Michael Behe OBSERVED that the bacterial flagellar motor has fourty working parts necessary to its function.
Step 2. Proffesor Michael Behe FORMULATED A HYPOTHESIS called 'irreducible complexity'. Behe defined irreducibly complex systems as
‘a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning.’
This observation followed Darwin's own criteria for testing the validity of his theory, as given in 'On The Origin Of the Species':
‘If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.’
Step 3. Proffessor Michael Behe PREDICTED that if individual parts were removed from 'irreducibly complex systems' the systems would cease to function. Therefore, since these systems need to have all fourty parts present simultaneously in order to function, they could not have 'evolved' by 'numerous, successive, slight modifications'. Therefore darwin's theory 'absolutely breaks down'.
step 4. Microbiologist Dr. Scott Minnich has performed many knockout EXPERIMENTS that put 'irreducible complexity' to the test. Minnich's work confirmed Behe's PREDICTIONS, however - oh damn it, heres is where you have won i guess, the mainstream scientific journals refused to publish Minnich's results because they appear to support ID, which we all know is 'not science'. Since they have not been published in the 'peer-reviewed literature', we can safely conclude therefore that Behe and Minnich's work is definitly 'not science' but 'religion'.
Still, if anyone wants to see this research, here it is:
Ah, yes, unfortunately the science was disproven, and not on account of Behe's views.
It seems to me, timsinclair, that you so desperately want to believe in this that you have decided to ignore strong scientific evidence. You try to justify it with all sort of unsubstantiated claims. There is really nothing more people can say. You've clinged onto your belief and won't let go regardless of the evidence.
Yes, ‘Of Pandas and People’ IS an ID book but I’m finding it difficult to believe that you have really read it because it does NOT say that life began ‘some 6000 years ago’. If you would like to quote the page where it says this, we can see if you are being truthful.
The book has been accused of being ‘Young Earth Creationist’ solely because Early drafts used the term ‘creation’, which it defined as:
“Creation means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact. Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, wings, etc.”
However, because people like to associate this term with Young earth Creationism, the authors clarified this misunderstanding by replacing the term ‘creation’ with the term ‘intelligent design’, which means the same thing but avoids the misunderstanding.
The Kitzmiller plaintiffs subpoenaed all drafts, including the unpublished ones, of Pandas.
The first issue of the book was a creationist book. It was called Creation Biology (1983). This is a fact. It is interesting to notice that "Of Pandas and People" is the first source in which "intelligent design" is used.
It is used for the first time in 1987 right after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in 1987, that a Louisiana law that said creation science must be taught in public schools alongside evolution was unconstitutional. That Louisiana law was specifically intended to promote a particular religion, namely christianity.
The drafts reveal that the word 'creation' and words related to it were simply replaced by the word 'intelligent design' and words related to design.
Again, this is something you can verify.
The drafts:
Creation Biology (1983)
Biology and Creation (1986)
Biology and Origin (1987)
Of Pandas and People (later in 1987)
And of course the parts you misquoted:
Creation means that the various forms of life began abruptly through the agency of an intelligent creator with their distinctive features already intact–fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, and wings, etc. (Biology and Creation 1986, FTE 3015, p. 2-10)
Creation means that various forms of life began abruptly through the agency of an intelligent Creator with their distinctive features already intact–fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, and wings, etc. (Biology and Origins 1987, FTE 3235, p. 2-13)
Creation means that various forms of life began abruptly through the agency of an intelligent Creator with their distinctive features already intact–fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, and wings, etc. (Pandas 1987, creationist version, FTE 4996-4997, pp. 2-14, 2-15)
Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact–fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, and wings, etc. (Pandas 1987, intelligent design version, FTE 4667, p. 2-15)
Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact – fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, and wings, etc. (Pandas 1989, 1st edition, published, pp. 99-100)
Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact – fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, and wings, etc. (Pandas 1993, 2nd edition, published, pp. 99-100)
Fair enough, tim, you said it was exactly and soley this that they based their entire theory on. So Forrest did a search for the words 'creation' and 'design' in all the drafts, the entire book.
She made a graph. She then did a similar search in all the drafts, the entire volume, with the words 'creationis' (results for both creationism and creationist would be found) and 'intelligent design'. She did this because the word creation wasn't always linked with creationism and design not always linked with intelligent design.
Sorry, tim. So far it still seems creationism and ID are the same. Again it seems like you were deliberately misled, what you quoted is not what was/is in the books and secondly, it appear you didn't even know of the existance of this rather hard to ignore, hard to disprove evidence that creationism and ID are the same, or at least that Of Pandas and People is really just a creationist book. Perhaps you were misled, perhaps you only read one side, perhaps you are trying to mislead us and are still clinging onto your beliefs despite the evidence. I don't know...
I just came to the conclusion that I need to find my own path and I think buddhism helped me with that. I learned a lot from it, but there are many things I dislike besides the mythical stuff too.
i totally agree. there were many things about buddhism that disturb me. and they all involved some amount of mysticism. it seems to me that no matter how hard i try to find guidance, the answers i seek will only come from within.
hear my name
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
Forgive me if i'm feeling a little patronised by binfrog's post. Some music might be just about entertainment but I think most would agree that PJ's music, like all good music, is more than this - it is the language of the spirit. If I was reading something in to PJ lyrics that wasn't there, wouldn't I still be doing it? Something fundamental changed around the binaural period, maybe it was Ed jumping on the anti-Bush, anti-evangelical bandwagon...who knows. I did not suggest that Ed was 'religious', just that he was clearly open to the possibility of God, and searching for him up until the binaural period. This is seen in songs like 'sometimes' where Ed is clearly singing to God, saying 'You're God and you've got big hands...seek my part, devote myself etc..' On Yield, Ed seemed to reach the end of this quest with given to fly, which despite Ed's comments playing this down, is clearly about Jesus, 'first he was stripped, then he was stabbed...he still stands and he still gives his love, he just gives it away, and the love recieves is the love that is saved etc..' I was listening to one of the recent live albums the other day and during 'faithfull' ed said: 'hats off to belief, belief in something bigger' but when the song finished he felt the need to retract this, saying: 'I said "belief in something bigger, I dont know about that, how about faith that it will all work out"' The songs seem to take Ed back to where he was in the Yield period, but when they are over he is left in the Godless world he has chosen for himself. It's not that i've lost a friend, more that a friend has become lost.
I really haven't thought of Jesus when I first heard GTF. But now, under other peoples influences, I was lead to believe that it was about Jesus. Maybe I'm lost but now found?
Here’s a question you might need to ask
What’s self destruction and how can we last?
"I cannot stop the thought of running in the dark.
Coming up a which way sign. All good truants must decide."
__________________________________________
Hi Collin. I must say you are by far the most interesting opponent on this thread. I see you have gone and looked a little further into the philosophy of naturalism/materialism. However, I think your analysis is flawed for the following reasons: Firstly, and most glaringly, you contradict yourself by, on the one hand, accusing me of being wrong about the presence of ‘belief’ within the Darwinian paradigm, and cite this (rather condescendingly) as PROOF that I am ENTIRELY ignorant about the subject:
You [Tim] claim Darwinism is a mixture of belief and science, this again proves you don't know anything about the theory of evolution or science. You jump to false conclusions. Let me explain to you what science is about and why scientists are committed to naturalism.
Naturalism is the worldview that says all phenomena can be explained and described by the physical sciences. There is indeed no proof that this is true.
Ok. Well if there is NO PROOF that naturalism is true, then it IS a belief. Your PROOF that I am entirely ignorant about ‘evolution or science’ therefore seems a little shaky.
Naturalism splits into different branches. One of the is methodological naturalism, or scientific naturalism. Another branch is metaphysical naturalism. Metaphysical naturalism indeed rules out anything supernatural. It appears your sources did not make the distinction between these two branches. Like I said before, naturalism doesn't rule out a deity or the supernatural, it merely ignores it, so to speak.
If you had read my source on this subject, which is the key text for this whole subject (Darwin on Trial), perhaps you would be in a position to judge whether or not this distinction is made. As it happens, Philip Johnson DOES make this distinction on page 117. Whether or not a particular scientist is a philosophical naturalist is quite irrelevant, since, if he is to study Darwinism, he will do so within the confines of scientific naturalism, which has, as its starting point, the belief that only ‘natural’ causes count as knowledge.
The strongest part of your argument is your belief that naturalism is more reasonable a philosophy than supernaturalism, but remember that this is philosophy, not science. Of course you are certainly entitled to hold this belief, but your attempt to demonstrate it’s superiority falls flat, and I will demonstrate why by quoting your own example:
Let's take a simple example; a disease is caused by a microbe. With the scientific method and our a priori commitment to naturalism we can investigate what this microbe does to the body and how the immune system reacts to it, for example. If this disease is caused by a supernatural cause, the devil or god, we cannot study or research it because we cannot study or research the devil or god. So, scientists indeed leaves god and the supernatural out of science because it is, as shown, pointless to include them.
Your example might, for some, sound impressive. However it is entirely misleading because it hides the distinction between ‘operational science’ and ‘origins science’. Let me be crystal clear, NOBODY in the ID movement is trying to say that the processes and reactions that we observe through telescopes and test tubes are supernatural. This is ‘operational science’, which is based on direct observation, and the principles of ‘cause and effect’ but this is NOT what is in dispute, all are happy to use methodological naturalism in this area. However, when it comes to ‘origins science’, that branch of science that deals with investigating the origin of life and the universe, the great scientists of the past, such as Newton and Einstein, did not agree that methodological naturalism should be applied. Why? Firstly because we CANNOT observe these events, and secondly, MANY scientific discoveries point to these events as being supernatural, thus ID scientists are arguing that in the field of origins science, supernatural causes should not be ruled out. Your example is therefore irrelevant to the real discussion Collin, because it is an example taken from ‘operational science’ and has NOTHING to do with origins. Whilst methodological naturalism is an essential part of everyday ‘operational science’, I think most people see that trying to apply it to such important and mysterious events as the beginning of the Universe and biological life is unreasonable. ID is correctly arguing that both natural, and supernatural causes should be considered, and tested, to see which is more reasonable and more consistent with the evidence we have. As the great philosopher Alvin Plantinga said after the Dover ruling that ID is ‘not science’:
‘If you exclude the supernatural from science, then if the world, or some phenomena within it are supernaturally caused – as most of the worlds people believe – you wont be able to reach that conclusion scientifically. Observing methodological naturalism thus hamstrings science by precluding science from reaching what would be an enormously important truth about the world. It might be that, just as a result of this constraint, even the best science in the long run will wind up with false conclusions.’
p.s Regarding your claim that a designer would have to be ‘observable and testable’ for design to be scientific, this is nonsense. Consider gravity, for example, we cannot observe it but we can observe and tests its effects, that’s how we know that it exists. Peace.
Sorry, tim. So far it still seems creationism and ID are the same. Again it seems like you were deliberately misled, what you quoted is not what was/is in the books and secondly, it appear you didn't even know of the existance of this rather hard to ignore, hard to disprove evidence that creationism and ID are the same, or at least that Of Pandas and People is really just a creationist book. Perhaps you were misled, perhaps you only read one side, perhaps you are trying to mislead us and are still clinging onto your beliefs despite the evidence. I don't know...
Collin. This argument you have made is the weakest, lamest, most ridiculous argument against Intelligent design I have ever heard and I am honestly surprised that someone of your intelligence keeps banging on about it. Let me clear it up once and for all. The ONLY evidence that 'pandas' used to be a 'young earth creationist' book is its former use of the word 'creation' and its derivatives. Let me spell out to you why this has nothing to do with young earth creationism. ANYONE who believes that the universe had an intelligent cause is a 'creationist', even your good friend and fellow ID opponent Kenneth Miller. However I expect that Kenneth Miller, like most other Theistic Evolutionists, gets pissed off when people think that the term 'creationist' means that he has any connection to the movement known as 'Young Earth Creationism'. Now, ID's main architect, Philip Johnson, initially used the term 'creationist' in an identical way to people like Miller and Pennock, to describe his general view that the universe was 'created' or 'designed', rather than being purely accidental. To clarify this, I will quote Johnson from page 115 of his first book on the subject 'Darwin on Trial':
"In the broadest sense, a 'creationist' is simply a person who believes that the world (and especially mankind) was designed, and exists for a purpose."
Now, the authors of the textbook ‘Of Pandas and People’ used the term ‘creationist’ in the same way, as a general term that connotes a belief that life was designed and created, the only difference to Miller and Pennock’s use of the word is the word ‘abruptly’ which is clearly anti-Darwinian. Nevertheless, the ‘pandas’ definition of ‘creationism’ did not say anything about the age of the earth or the identity of the creator. Hence whilst a young earth creationist might define the term as something like ‘the theory that God created the universe in six days, 6000 years ago, in accordance with Genesis chapter 1’, the very first ‘Pandas’ definition simply said:
‘Creation means that the various forms of life began abruptly through the agency of an intelligent creator with their distinctive features already intact–fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, and wings, etc.’
Now, if the definition of ‘creation’ had ‘evolved’ over time from a young earth type definition, to a more open definition, you would have a case that ID is Young earth Creationism in disguise, however, if you compare the definition to all the other definitions, you will see that the definition HAS NOT CHANGED. The ONLY thing that has changed is the replacing of the term ‘creation’ with the term ‘intelligent design’, this does NOT show any link with Young earth creationism, all it shows is that people, whether maliciously or in ignorance, refused to distinguish between different kinds of ‘creationism’. The change to ‘intelligent design’ was a wise and useful move that has clarified the difference once and for all. If you are going to prove your theory that ID is Young earth creationism in disguise, why not show me an example of an ID argument that uses the Bible, or says that the Earth is 6000 years old, or that there was a global flood. Please try, because this is the only way you will prove your case. Peace.
Yes. you did rile me a bit Cosmo, not because of the strength of your argument but because you made claim about me that are untrue. This is the claim that you said I had made:
NONE of the quotes you have given say anything remotely like this.
Yes, ‘Of Pandas and People’ IS an ID book but I’m finding it difficult to believe that you have really read it because it does NOT say that life began ‘some 6000 years ago’. If you would like to quote the page where it says this, we can see if you are being truthful.
The book has been accused of being ‘Young Earth Creationist’ solely because Early drafts used the term ‘creation’, which it defined as:
“Creation means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact. Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, wings, etc.”
However, because people like to associate this term with Young earth Creationism, the authors clarified this misunderstanding by replacing the term ‘creation’ with the term ‘intelligent design’, which means the same thing but avoids the misunderstanding.
...
Okay.. for the sake of not having you go over and over and over this again and again and again... I retract my original statement and replace it with this:
You claim that Ed uses Evolution to justify his Atheism. I say that is a false statement because you don't know.
...
Now, since it is apparent that stand firmly in the belief of Intelligent Design as a legitimate science... and there is apparently, no arguement or point that will dissuade you... just answer me this one simple question...
Is Intelligent Design linked, in any way, to Creationism?
Allen Fieldhouse, home of the 2008 NCAA men's Basketball Champions! Go Jayhawks!
Hail, Hail!!!
In my own spiritual journey Ed has been a constant voice, a co-searcher of truth. I used to be amazed how new albums seemed to reflect my own searchings. But now we are adrift, worlds apart. From Ten to Yield, Ed's lyrics beat a genuine, honest, and real, path to God. After the metaphysical groping of vitalogy and no code,Yield's affirmation of faith and heavy allusions to the crucifixion of Jesus in Given to fly, made it the the soundtrack to my own recent submission to God. However, although remnants remained on Binaural, it soon became clear that Ed had seen the truth, counted the cost, and turned back. Now I am dismayed by the anti-Christian videos on tenclubs activism page and the 'God is a delusion' messages in Ed's lyrics. I feel gutted that ed did not come along for the ride, he's missed the greatest discovery of all - Life as a disciple of Jesus. I feel like I've lost a friend, am I the only one who feels this way?
As I "found" PJ through the song wishlist I can't say that I ever saw or was along for the "I am looking for a faith" feeling/ride/vibe that I can attach myself too. Even though I had heard the tunes on the earlier albums enough. I must say to ingest that this is what a man was getting across to you seems a little too deep for somebody who is not writing the lyrics to the tunes on the album.
If to be human somebody can fall back on the human touch and care of people in the living world after supposedly questioning or looking for an answer or whatever the term may be a supreme being that has either let them down for too long, took something that was dear to the heart and destroyed it in front of your eyes over years or even just didn't say hello on a bad day than so be it.
If you felt so dear about his up's and down's to have followed the boy to a man journey through his lyrics and still cast a judgement on it. Well who really is the bigger man?
Hi Collin. I must say you are by far the most interesting opponent on this thread. I see you have gone and looked a little further into the philosophy of naturalism/materialism. However, I think your analysis is flawed for the following reasons: Firstly, and most glaringly, you contradict yourself by, on the one hand, accusing me of being wrong about the presence of ‘belief’ within the Darwinian paradigm, and cite this (rather condescendingly) as PROOF that I am ENTIRELY ignorant about the subject:
Ok. Well if there is NO PROOF that naturalism is true, then it IS a belief. Your PROOF that I am entirely ignorant about ‘evolution or science’ therefore seems a little shaky.
If you had read my source on this subject, which is the key text for this whole subject (Darwin on Trial), perhaps you would be in a position to judge whether or not this distinction is made. As it happens, Philip Johnson DOES make this distinction on page 117. Whether or not a particular scientist is a philosophical naturalist is quite irrelevant, since, if he is to study Darwinism, he will do so within the confines of scientific naturalism, which has, as its starting point, the belief that only ‘natural’ causes count as knowledge.
The strongest part of your argument is your belief that naturalism is more reasonable a philosophy than supernaturalism, but remember that this is philosophy, not science. Of course you are certainly entitled to hold this belief, but your attempt to demonstrate it’s superiority falls flat, and I will demonstrate why by quoting your own example:
Your example might, for some, sound impressive. However it is entirely misleading because it hides the distinction between ‘operational science’ and ‘origins science’. Let me be crystal clear, NOBODY in the ID movement is trying to say that the processes and reactions that we observe through telescopes and test tubes are supernatural. This is ‘operational science’, which is based on direct observation, and the principles of ‘cause and effect’ but this is NOT what is in dispute, all are happy to use methodological naturalism in this area. However, when it comes to ‘origins science’, that branch of science that deals with investigating the origin of life and the universe, the great scientists of the past, such as Newton and Einstein, did not agree that methodological naturalism should be applied. Why? Firstly because we CANNOT observe these events, and secondly, MANY scientific discoveries point to these events as being supernatural, thus ID scientists are arguing that in the field of origins science, supernatural causes should not be ruled out. Your example is therefore irrelevant to the real discussion Collin, because it is an example taken from ‘operational science’ and has NOTHING to do with origins. Whilst methodological naturalism is an essential part of everyday ‘operational science’, I think most people see that trying to apply it to such important and mysterious events as the beginning of the Universe and biological life is unreasonable. ID is correctly arguing that both natural, and supernatural causes should be considered, and tested, to see which is more reasonable and more consistent with the evidence we have. As the great philosopher Alvin Plantinga said after the Dover ruling that ID is ‘not science’:
‘If you exclude the supernatural from science, then if the world, or some phenomena within it are supernaturally caused – as most of the worlds people believe – you wont be able to reach that conclusion scientifically. Observing methodological naturalism thus hamstrings science by precluding science from reaching what would be an enormously important truth about the world. It might be that, just as a result of this constraint, even the best science in the long run will wind up with false conclusions.’
p.s Regarding your claim that a designer would have to be ‘observable and testable’ for design to be scientific, this is nonsense. Consider gravity, for example, we cannot observe it but we can observe and tests its effects, that’s how we know that it exists. Peace.
You know I haven't checked your source yet, so perhaps you could have made that distinction in your initial post as well.
"ID is correctly arguing that both natural, and supernatural causes should be considered, and tested, to see which is more reasonable and more consistent with the evidence we have."
How do you test the supernatural?
Either way, we both know ID is meant to be about god of the bible, not another supernatural entity. If you claim this untrue, that it could be any supernatural deity, we have our 'first' problem. How do you make a succesful hypothesis?
You also mention Newton who was indeed a believer and in some of his works included god. But why didn't you mention Adam Sedgwick. He was priest and geologist and spent much of his time searching for evidence of the great flood of the bible. He never agreed with his pupil, Charles Darwin, and never agreed with evolution. Yet he admitted, as a believer, that the geological evidence did not support the biblical flood and in fact went against it.
I searched a little bit on the web and found that Johnson wrote:
"Creator not only initiated this process but in some meaningful sense controls it in furtherance of a purpose." (p. 4) (correct me if I'm wrong)
The supernatural did not only initiate but also controls it (creation) in furtherance of a purpose, how, then, can you rule out the supernatural in medical science, for example. After all, tim, medical science is is no more or less based on a "dogmatic philosophy" of naturalism than evolutionary biology is. If god can intervene, like Johnson says, you cannot rule out the supernatural in the entire naturalistic scientific field. Unless you know when exactly god decides to intervene, you shouldn't rule out god in any scientific field.
The theory of evolution rests on evidence. We can show with remarkable precision how the genetic mechanisms produce the heritable properties of an organism, and how variation arises that can then be selected for in an environment, producing organisms that are adapted to their conditions.
We cannot show creation, though. We cannot show the hand of god creating something etc. Not even vaguely. And that's interesting because you claim we cannot observe evolution (although we can and have). I think it's only reasonable that your new theory corrects or somehow deals with the problems you have with the 'old' theory. ID makes an assumption about something we cannot observe (your words) by explaining it by something we cannot prove or observe. I think that only adds to the problem, rather than solving it.
A few other problems with reintroducing the supernatural into science is that, well, it's the supernatural. It's above nature, not constrained by nature, and god even makes the natural laws. So he can bend them, break them... (that's why he should be introduced in all fields of study, god is everywhere). The only thing that could even remotely constrain god is logic.
We cannot understand god, we can only apply our natural knowledge to the supernatural. So we can never describe, explain god, nor his actions (the actions being the mechanisms of the ID theory).
I don't think you have made a strong case for introducing the supernatural into science.
Science deliberately limits itself to the phenomena it can study. It deliberately leaves the supernatural out because, the supernatural cannot be proven or tested. The supernatural cannot be predicted, controlled or even judged. It is above us, above the natural laws.
Since you can't do all these things, you have no explanation for the mechanisms of your theory. If your final explanation is god and you agree that we cannot know, test, see, understand, predict, control, judge... god, that god is above our natural knowledge... there's no point in allowing it into science. You could just as easily complement science with philosophy and say god created or designed evolution.
Allowing god into scientific research would aslo stop the research wherever the scientist is stuck or whenever it suit him. You can see this in ID science, 'you don't need evolution to explain this, it was god'. Whereas naturalistic science will continue to investigate.
If we look at Johnson's defintion again it seems god has a purpose. We cannot know that purpose, so how do you research certain things.
Creationist Falwell said the AIDS virus was god's work (purpose) to punish homosexuals, drug users and other people who lead sinful lives. Johnson agrees with Peter Duesberg who says HIV is not the cause of AIDS, but drug use and sexual promiscuity are.
Either way, sexual promiscuity and drug use or HIV, how does an ID scientist handle this?
The ONLY evidence that 'pandas' used to be a 'young earth creationist' book is its former use of the word 'creation' and its derivatives. Let me spell out to you why this has nothing to do with young earth creationism. ANYONE who believes that the universe had an intelligent cause is a 'creationist', even your good friend and fellow ID opponent Kenneth Miller. However I expect that Kenneth Miller, like most other Theistic Evolutionists, gets pissed off when people think that the term 'creationist' means that he has any connection to the movement known as 'Young Earth Creationism'. Now, ID's main architect, Philip Johnson, initially used the term 'creationist' in an identical way to people like Miller and Pennock, to describe his general view that the universe was 'created' or 'designed', rather than being purely accidental. To clarify this, I will quote Johnson from page 115 of his first book on the subject 'Darwin on Trial':
"In the broadest sense, a 'creationist' is simply a person who believes that the world (and especially mankind) was designed, and exists for a purpose."
Now, the authors of the textbook ‘Of Pandas and People’ used the term ‘creationist’ in the same way, as a general term that connotes a belief that life was designed and created, the only difference to Miller and Pennock’s use of the word is the word ‘abruptly’ which is clearly anti-Darwinian. Nevertheless, the ‘pandas’ definition of ‘creationism’ did not say anything about the age of the earth or the identity of the creator. Hence whilst a young earth creationist might define the term as something like ‘the theory that God created the universe in six days, 6000 years ago, in accordance with Genesis chapter 1’, the very first ‘Pandas’ definition simply said:
‘Creation means that the various forms of life began abruptly through the agency of an intelligent creator with their distinctive features already intact–fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, and wings, etc.’
Now, if the definition of ‘creation’ had ‘evolved’ over time from a young earth type definition, to a more open definition, you would have a case that ID is Young earth Creationism in disguise, however, if you compare the definition to all the other definitions, you will see that the definition HAS NOT CHANGED. The ONLY thing that has changed is the replacing of the term ‘creation’ with the term ‘intelligent design’, this does NOT show any link with Young earth creationism, all it shows is that people, whether maliciously or in ignorance, refused to distinguish between different kinds of ‘creationism’. The change to ‘intelligent design’ was a wise and useful move that has clarified the difference once and for all. If you are going to prove your theory that ID is Young earth creationism in disguise, why not show me an example of an ID argument that uses the Bible, or says that the Earth is 6000 years old, or that there was a global flood. Please try, because this is the only way you will prove your case. Peace.
I don't think my argument is weak at all. I think it's clear and strong and anyone with common sense will see it.
"Creation science" was ruled unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court. Creation science already removed biblical references from their books before the ruling.
So you are wrong, tim. The notion that ID and creationism are almost completely the same and both not science is not only based on that little word switch.
I don't think my argument is weak at all. I think it's clear and strong and anyone with common sense will see it.
"Creation science" was ruled unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court. Creation science already removed biblical references from their books before the ruling.
So you are wrong, tim. The notion that ID and creationism are almost completely the same and both not science is not only based on that little word switch.
creation science? now theres an oxymoron if ever ive heard one.
creation require no logic. it requires different thought processes than science. you can not look at creation the same way as you look at science. the level needed to suspend disbelief is too great.
how am i to look at ID and come to a conclusion other than its just another name for God? we cant explain the origins of something so we come to the conclusion that something intelligent must have created it. what is this something intelligent? we dont know do we. hmm sounds suspiciously like God to me. a rose is a rose is a rose people.
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I can't believe this discussion is still rambling on and on and on . . .
Who really cares what Eddie or anyone else on this thread believes (and yes that includes my beliefs too!!!)
No one's belief system is going to change becuase of an over wordy - long winded post.
Show some mercy (whether it comes from God, Allah, Darwin or my great great uncle the lung fish) and euthanize this poor dead horse.
Peace
But this isnt about Ed anymore, its about the battle of two great minds, Tim and Collin. I want to see who's going to concede defeat. My moneys on Collin.
We cannot understand god, we can only apply our natural knowledge to the supernatural. So we can never describe, explain god, nor his actions…Science deliberately limits itself to the phenomena it can study. It deliberately leaves the supernatural out because, the supernatural cannot be proven or tested. The supernatural cannot be predicted, controlled or even judged. It is above us, above the natural laws.
I agree with much of this. Science CAN only study natural phenomena, not supernatural and ID is NOT saying otherwise. What ID IS saying, is that the natural phenomena that we can observe with science exhibits clear hallmark of design, therefore infers a designer. ID does not rule out that the designer could itself be ‘natural’, that is an alien species who designed and created life on earth, however most people find this answer uncompelling since it would only shift the problem to another planet where the intelligent aliens live. Most design theorists find the theory that the designer is ‘supernatural’ more compelling, however a supernatural designer IS beyond the limits of scientific enquiry. I realize that you see this as a problem, and a ‘science stopper’, however if science is to be a search for truth, and if this is where the evidence leads as, so what!!
Well, we cant. That might be frustrating but it’s a fact and ID is not claiming otherwise. However, as I have said, although we cannot observe him/her/it directly, a supernatural designer IS inferred by the design that we see when we study nature. Non-observable causes CAN be inferred by studying their effects alone, the example of gravity, as I said, demonstrates this. We cannot observe gravity but its existence is inferred by its effects on matter, which we can observe. Your example from medical science is a case in point, if an incurable disease was cured by prayer, and this was medically documented, medical science WOULD infer a supernatural intervention. However this kind of thing is NOT what ID is concerned with. ID is concerned with the origin of complex biological systems.
The best analogy for ‘origins science’ is forensics. This is because forensic science, like origins science, is unable to observe the event that it is concerned with, rather it has to make inferences about it from what the event has left behind for us to observe. Lets say, someone has died, the forensic experts come and investigate the evidence that the death has left behind in order the determine whether the person died by ‘natural’ causes, or whether an ‘intelligent’ agent was involved, i.e the person was murdered. Now, in the absence of a murderer to ‘study’, the forensic scientist will probably consider both ‘models’ (murder or natural death) and see which one best explains the evidence. As has been shown on many occasions, the actual evidence can often be interpreted quite convincingly either way, and forensic scientists can often be wrong. Why? Because with forensics, as with origins science, we CANNOT observe the event, therefore there is much room for speculation and all evidence has to be interpreted by reference to a model, or theory, about what actually happened. However, it is also true that 'good' forensic science will be able to establish the existence of a murderer, even if they are unable to observe him/her and cannot discover their identity. Now, regarding ‘origins science’, you have said that have not made a strong case for allowing supernatural causes a place at the table in scientific investigation. I will now make that case, but first consider that if a forensic scientist worked within a rule that stated: ‘all deaths are by natural causes’, nobody would ever get arrested for murder, even if the dead man had an axe hanging out of his head.
If we strictly apply methodological naturalism to scientific investigations into the origins of the universe and Biological life, we are basically saying that, since nobody made it all, it all must have ‘made itself’, which is anther way of saying that it ‘evolved’. In purely naturalistic science, Evolution is therefore a ‘fact’ before we even come to look at the evidence. Sure we can argue about HOW things evolved, but our philosophy DEMANDS that it DID evolve. However, regarding these questions about the origins of life and the universe, there are many good reasons to suspend this philosophy and consider supernatural causation, I will list some below:
From Philosophy we can discern that:
Everything that has a beginning has a cause.
The Universe has a beginning.
Therefore the Universe has a cause.
A cause cannot presuppose what it means to explain.
The Universe consists of time, matter/energy, and space.
Therefore the cause of the Universe is transcendent.
Matter/energy cannot be created by natural forces.
Matter/energy exists.
Therefore the cause of matter/energy was supernatural.
The Universe displays a high degree of order and complexity.
Only Intelligence has been observed to generate order and complexity.
Therefore the cause of the universe is intelligent.
From physics and astronomy, we see that the Universe is ‘fine tuned’ for life, Cambridge astronomer sir Fred Hoyle, for example called the Universe a ‘put up Job’, and current Cambridge Astronomer Royal Martin Rees has said:
‘If you imagine setting up a Universe by adjusting six dials, then the tuning must be precise in order to yield a universe that could harbour life. Is this providence?’
In Biology, even the most hard-nosed Atheist of them all, Richard Dawkins admits that observation of biological systems points overwhelmingly to design, as he says in his book ‘the blind watchmaker’ biology is:
‘the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose’.
Lets be clear Dawkins is saying that this is the VERY DEFINITION of Biology. Now, when you add these things together, you see that being open to the possibility of supernatural causation for life and the universe is not just common sense, it is the direct conclusion of both philosophical reflection and scientific observation. Peace.
In Biology, even the most hard-nosed Atheist of them all, Richard Dawkins admits that observation of biological systems points overwhelmingly to design, as he says in his book ‘the blind watchmaker’ biology is:
‘the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose’.
Lets be clear Dawkins is saying that this is the VERY DEFINITION of Biology. Now, when you add these things together, you see that being open to the possibility of supernatural causation for life and the universe is not just common sense, it is the direct conclusion of both philosophical reflection and scientific observation. Peace.
Man, talk about a mis-quote. Are you ignoring the word appearance in the middle of that quote.
I think the point that Dawkins is making in that book is that, yes, if you look at a highly complicated organism that exists in todays world then it would appear that the only way it could arise in that form (de novo) would be through some sort of design. However, if you put this organism in the context of the absolutely vast amount of time it has had to evolve from very simple origins, then it is not so hard to imagine how such a complicated thing could now exist.
"[Natural Selection] has not vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to be play the role of watchmaker in nature, it is the *blind* watchmaker."
* Richard Dawkins (English biologist,1941-) in The Blind Watchmaker (1986)
And as has been so elegantly put by the legendary geneticist Francois Jacob
"Evolution is a tinkerer"
I have no problem with you believing what you believe. That is your business. But please don't try to make your point by very selectively quoting sources and ingoring the larger context from which they come.
Man, talk about a mis-quote. Are you ignoring the word appearance in the middle of that quote.
please don't try to make your point by very selectively quoting sources and ingoring the larger context from which they come.
Wecome to the thread bookem.
I suggest you look up the word 'misquote' in your dictionary. I have not misquoted Dawkins, he did say this. Of course Dawkins doen't agree that biological systems WERE designed, thats why his statement is even more revealing, and why it gives the point MORE power. I have not, as you suggest, ignored the word 'appearances', but if you like we can examine it further. After making the statement 'biology is the sudy of complicated things that give the appearance of being designed for a purpose', Dawkins goes on to explain that:
'All appearances to the contrary, the only watchmaker in nature is the blind forces of physics'
This is rather like my forensic scientist saying 'ok the deceased person does APPEAR to have an axe embedded in his head but ALL APPEARANCES TO THE CONTRARY, we KNOW that he died from 'natural' causes because, after all, forensic science is: 'the study of things that happened by natural causes'.
This IS what is going on in this debate, thats why the whole argument is about the definition of science. 90% of the campaign against ID does not engage with the evidence, it just keeps says 'science is the study of things that happened by natural causes' therefore 'ID is not science' therefore ID CANNOT have a case. Lets be brave and follow the evidence where it leads, even if it breaks the rules. Peace.
Intelligent Design is to Science as Astrology is to Astronomy.
Hey Cosmo, thanks for your question about whether or not there is a link between ID and creationism, but I am still waiting for you to find me the page number of 'pandas' that says the world is 6000 years old. When you find it we can carry on our discussion.
Wecome to the thread bookem.
I suggest you look up the word 'misquote' in your dictionary. I have not misquoted Dawkins, he did say this. Of course Dawkins doen't agree that biological systems WERE designed, thats why his statement is even more revealing, and why it gives the point MORE power. I have not, as you suggest, ignored the word 'appearances', but if you like we can examine it further. After making the statement 'biology is the sudy of complicated things that give the appearance of being designed for a purpose', Dawkins goes on to explain that:
'All appearances to the contrary, the only watchmaker in nature is the blind forces of physics'
This is rather like my forensic scientist saying 'ok the deceased person does APPEAR to have an axe embedded in his head but ALL APPEARANCES TO THE CONTRARY, we KNOW that he died from 'natural' causes because, after all, forensic science is: 'the study of things that happened by natural causes'.
This IS what is going on in this debate, thats why the whole argument is about the definition of science. 90% of the campaign against ID does not engage with the evidence, it just keeps says 'science is the study of things that happened by natural causes' therefore 'ID is not science' therefore ID CANNOT have a case. Lets be brave and follow the evidence where it leads, even if it breaks the rules. Peace.
Perhaps you are the one who should look up the word misquote in the dictionary. I do not deny that Dawkins says what you have copied here. But misquoting someone is not just writing down the wrong thing, it also extends to using the quote in such a way that it is taken out of the context in which it was originally written.
A misquotation is an accidental or intentional misrepresentation of a person's speech or writing, involving one or more of:
* Omission of important context: The context can be important for determining the overall argument the quoted person wanted to make, for seeing whether the quoted statement was restricted or even negated in this context, or for recognizing hints that it was meant as irony.
* Omission of important parts of the quote.
* Insertion of allegedly implied words or partial sentences: The inserted portions may be specially marked (e.g. by square brackets or cursive font). Using unmarked insertions is commonly deprecated. In order to constitute a misquotation, the implied portions must alter the meaning of the quote in a way that the original author did not obviously intend.
* Incorrect rephrasing: The quote is replaced by one which is only superficially identical in meaning, or one or more of the words in the quotation have been replaced by incorrect ones.
* Misattribution: Attributing someone else's (or no one's in particular) words to a person who did not use them. Misattribution is often found in satire.
* Misspelling, although usually inadvertent, can sometimes be used deliberately, especially with satirical intent, to portray the quoted person as stupid or uneducated.
The following causes are mostly responsible for misquotations:
* Imperfect reproduction, e.g. from memory, in communication or by transcription. Gossip, which involves many consecutive memorizations and mouth-to-mouth communications, can quickly 'mutate' a quote beyond recognition. In those cases, only the 'kernel' of the quote is held while the rest is omitted or simplified. * Misunderstanding, if the person using the quote misjudges the importance of context, partial sentences, or inserts an invalid implication.
* Malice or deliberate deceit (Quote mining).
* Humor or satire.
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misquoting someone is not just writing down the wrong thing, it also extends to using the quote in such a way that it is taken out of the context in which it was originally written.
[Alleged type of misquotation used by Tim according to Bookem ] Misunderstanding, if the person using the quote misjudges the importance of context, partial sentences, or inserts an invalid implication.
Ok Bookem. If this is what you are accusing me of, please explain how I have done this. I have used the quotation:
‘biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose’.
to show that Dawkins regards all biological systems as having the APPEARANCE of design.
I then used the second quotation:
'All appearances to the contrary, the only watchmaker in nature is the blind forces of physics'
to show that Dawkins rejects the notion that biological systems WERE designed.
If this understanding is wrong, please explain why, and give us your understanding of the two quotations I have used.
Wecome to the thread bookem.
I suggest you look up the word 'misquote' in your dictionary. I have not misquoted Dawkins, he did say this. Of course Dawkins doen't agree that biological systems WERE designed, thats why his statement is even more revealing, and why it gives the point MORE power. I have not, as you suggest, ignored the word 'appearances', but if you like we can examine it further. After making the statement 'biology is the sudy of complicated things that give the appearance of being designed for a purpose', Dawkins goes on to explain that:
'All appearances to the contrary, the only watchmaker in nature is the blind forces of physics'
This is rather like my forensic scientist saying 'ok the deceased person does APPEAR to have an axe embedded in his head but ALL APPEARANCES TO THE CONTRARY, we KNOW that he died from 'natural' causes because, after all, forensic science is: 'the study of things that happened by natural causes'.
This IS what is going on in this debate, thats why the whole argument is about the definition of science. 90% of the campaign against ID does not engage with the evidence, it just keeps says 'science is the study of things that happened by natural causes' therefore 'ID is not science' therefore ID CANNOT have a case. Lets be brave and follow the evidence where it leads, even if it breaks the rules. Peace.
if science is how humans make sense of the physical world around them. if we need to be able to observe something in order for it to be understood. and those observations need to be verifable, then what understanding do we gain from ID? and how do we verify what we have observed, if indeed weve observed anything through ID?
this is not about defining science. we know what science is. i want you to define intelligent design.
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if science is how humans make sense of the physical world around them. if we need to be able to observe something in order for it to be understood. and those observations need to be verifable, then what understanding do we gain from ID? and how do we verify what we have observed, if indeed weve observed anything through ID?
this is not about defining science. we know what science is. i want you to define intelligent design.
Hi Cate.
Ok. Intelligent design is a philosphical and scientific movement that argues that many discoveries of modern science should compell us to reconsider intelligent causation for the existence of biological life.
The movement began because Philip E. Johnson wrote a book called 'Darwin on trial', which assesed the empirical evidence for Darwinism and concluded that:
‘As a general theory of biological creation, Darwinism is not empirical at all. Rather, it is a necessary implication of a philosophical doctrine called scientific naturalism, which is based on an a priori assumption that God was always absent from the realm of nature.’
This was a bit of a revelation to quite a few scientists and some began to feel as if, as Proffessor Micheal Behe said, they had been 'led down the garden path'. Subsequently, scientists like Behe began, for the first time to question the validity of darwinian theory and put it to the test. As a result, Behe and many others have become convinced that darwinism is false for purely scientific reasons, and 10 years ago Behe published his book 'darwins black box' to lay out the scientific reasons why he has come to reject Darwinism.
So, in a nutshell Cate, ID is a branch of science and philosophy that, when considering the origins of biological life, suspends the philosophy of 'methodological naturalism' and points to evidence in biological systems that counts as evidence both AGAINST Darwinism, and FOR intelligent Design.
if anyone would like to see a clip of Behe talking about some of the evidence, here you go:
Hi Cate.
Ok. Intelligent design is a philosphical and scientific movement that argues that many discoveries of modern science should compell us to reconsider intelligent causation for the existence of biological life.
The movement began because Philip E. Johnson wrote a book called 'Darwin on trial', which assesed the empirical evidence for Darwinism and concluded that:
‘As a general theory of biological creation, Darwinism is not empirical at all. Rather, it is a necessary implication of a philosophical doctrine called scientific naturalism, which is based on an a priori assumption that God was always absent from the realm of nature.’
This was a bit of a revelation to quite a few scientists and some began to feel as if, as Proffessor Micheal Behe said, they had been 'led down the garden path'. Subsequently, scientists like Behe began, for the first time to question the validity of darwinian theory and put it to the test. As a result, Behe and many others have become convinced that darwinism is false for purely scientific reasons, and 10 years ago Behe published his book 'darwins black box' to lay out the scientific reasons why he has come to reject Darwinism.
So, in a nutshell Cate, ID is a branch of science and philosophy that, when considering the origins of biological life, suspends the philosophy of 'methodological naturalism' and points to evidence in biological systems that counts as evidence both AGAINST Darwinism, and FOR intelligent Design.
if anyone would like to see a clip of Behe talking about some of the evidence, here you go:
so tim, are you a theist or a deist? if you are speaking of God i think you need to be definitive.
how is ID a branch of science?
please use your own words. i want to know what you think and what you believe, not what some scholar or other type person tells you to believe. afterall would you not agree that ones relationship with their God is a personal one?
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so tim, are you a theist or a deist? if you are speaking of God i think you need to be definitive.
how is ID a branch of science?
please use your own words. i want to know what you think and what you believe, not what some scholar or other type person tells you to believe. afterall would you not agree that ones relationship with their God is a personal one?
i think I have explained why ID is science. It is purely empirical, thats why it is science, it just has no commitment to philosophical naturalism.
Regarding my own personal beliefs, I am a philosophical theist. I believe that there is one God, his name is YHWH. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I believe that the Jewish scriptures (both the Tanakh, and the New Testament) are the word of God and historically accurate. I believe that Yeshua (Jesus) is both Israel's promised messiah and the saviour of both Jews and gentiles who accept his sacrifice on their behalf. I believe that Yeshua will return in person and establish a reign of peace on the Earth.
I agree that my relaionship with God is 'personal', but I also believe that what I have stated above is the ultimate truth that one day everyone will be faced with, even if it is too late. I believe that people are important enough to spend time communicating this to them, I believe you are important enough. Peace.
i think I have explained why ID is science. It is purely empirical, thats why it is science, it just has no commitment to philosophical naturalism.
Regarding my own personal beliefs, I am a philosophical theist. I believe that there is one God, his name is YHWH. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I believe that the Jewish scriptures (both the Tanakh, and the New Testament) are the word of God and historically accurate. I believe that Yeshua (Jesus) is both Israel's promised messiah and the saviour of both Jews and gentiles who accept his sacrifice on their behalf. I believe that Yeshua will return in person and establish a reign of peace on the Earth.
I agree that my relaionship with God is 'personal', but I also believe that what I have stated above is the ultimate truth that one day everyone will be faced with, even if it is too late. I believe that people are important enough to spend time communicating this to them, I believe you are important enough. Peace.
how is ID empirical?
jesus is the saviour of the jews? how can this be?
dont know about the important part, but youd be wasting your time, and mine, if you tried to 'save' me.
hear my name
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
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jesus is the saviour of the jews? how can this be?
dont know about the important part, but youd be wasting your time, and mine, if you tried to 'save' me.
I know that most people know this, so forgive me for saying it in this way, (as if I am telling you something you don't already know, but I am quite sure you do), that the thing is that for those of us who choose to believe in Him, again, CHOOSE to believe in Him, He is the savior for all who desire Him. He came for the Jews but ended up saving the gentiles. This is what we are taught anyway.
I think He came and taught us but if we fuck up we are on our own. Sometimes we make our own luck;fortune;blessings, etc. sometimes, not always.
Baby, You Wouldn't Last a Minute on The Creek......
Together we will float like angels.........
In the moment that you left the room, the album started skipping, goodbye to beauty shared with the ones that you love.........
Hi Cate. ID is entirely empirical in its methodology. It observes biological systems, performs experiments and draws inferences and conclusions. If you read ID literature for yourself you will see that ALL ID arguments and evidences are empirical, even if the conclusions have profound metaphysical implications.
jesus is the saviour of the jews? how can this be?
Yeshua (Jesus) was a Torah observant Jew, he said. 'I have come for the lost sheep of the house of Israel' Paul, and all the 1st century disciples were Torah observant Jews. Today there are about 200.000 Jews who accept His messiahship. they are not 'Christians', they are 'Messianic Jews' most observe Torah, all consider themselves Jews and Yeshua King of the Jews. If you would like to know more about Messianic Judaism there are plenty of good websites out there but here is a good introduction:
Comments
I think the essential argument of ID has always been that everything (except the designer) has a cause and that cause is an intelligent designer.
Let me explain to you what science is about and why scientists are committed to naturalism.
Naturalism is the worldview that says all phenomena can be explained and described by the physical sciences. There is indeed no proof that this is true. This principle also does not rule out a supernatural being or supernatural phenomena per se.
Naturalism splits into different branches. One of the is methodological naturalism, or scientific naturalism. Another branch is metaphysical naturalism. Metaphysical naturalism indeed rules out anything supernatural.
It appears your sources did not make the distinction between these two branches. Like I said before, naturalism doesn't rule out a deity or the supernatural, it merely ignores it, so to speak. It is obvious why scientists subscribe to methodological naturalism.
The reason for this is a logical one. One which I believe I already explained.
The idea behind this commitment to naturalism in science is that natural causes can be investigated directly through scientific method, whereas supernatural causes cannot. If you presume a phenomenon has a supernatural cause we cannot continue the investigation. Indeed we cannot continue our investigation because the supernatural, by definiton, is unconstrained by the laws of nature and we and our knowledge are.
I already gave examples of this, which you did not reply to, or if you did, only vaguely and besides the point.
Let's take a simple example; a disease is caused by a microbe. With the scientific method and our a priori commitment to naturalism we can investigate what this microbe does to the body and how the immune system reacts to it, for example. If this disease is caused by a supernatural cause, the devil or god, we cannot study or research it because we cannot study or reseach the devil or god.
So, scientists indeed leaves god and the supernatural out of science because it is, as shown, pointless to include them.
Funny, isn't it. There's a perfectly logical explanation for it all. But the ID-crowd, in its smear campaign, made it out to look like scientists deliberately cling to a shakey 'dogma' out of fear or hatred in order to oppress ID.
You claim Darwinism is a mixture of belief and science, this again proves you don't know anything about the theory of evolution or science. You jump to false conclusions.
The theory of evolution is supported by substantial, exhaustive, testable and provable evidence. The 'belief' you are referring to is naturalism, that, as I explained, does not change the evidence, however. Plenty of scientist, one of them being Kenneth Miller, believe a supernatural being is behind evolution.
So the a priori commitment to naturalism is completely justifiable, but completely misunderstood, or distorted by ID advocates.
See the above explanation.
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I think I did read it
I just came to the conclusion that I need to find my own path and I think buddhism helped me with that. I learned a lot from it, but there are many things I dislike besides the mythical stuff too.
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Ah, yes, unfortunately the science was disproven, and not on account of Behe's views.
It seems to me, timsinclair, that you so desperately want to believe in this that you have decided to ignore strong scientific evidence. You try to justify it with all sort of unsubstantiated claims. There is really nothing more people can say. You've clinged onto your belief and won't let go regardless of the evidence.
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The Kitzmiller plaintiffs subpoenaed all drafts, including the unpublished ones, of Pandas.
The first issue of the book was a creationist book. It was called Creation Biology (1983). This is a fact. It is interesting to notice that "Of Pandas and People" is the first source in which "intelligent design" is used.
It is used for the first time in 1987 right after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in 1987, that a Louisiana law that said creation science must be taught in public schools alongside evolution was unconstitutional. That Louisiana law was specifically intended to promote a particular religion, namely christianity.
The drafts reveal that the word 'creation' and words related to it were simply replaced by the word 'intelligent design' and words related to design.
Again, this is something you can verify.
The drafts:
Creation Biology (1983)
Biology and Creation (1986)
Biology and Origin (1987)
Of Pandas and People (later in 1987)
And of course the parts you misquoted:
Fair enough, tim, you said it was exactly and soley this that they based their entire theory on. So Forrest did a search for the words 'creation' and 'design' in all the drafts, the entire book.
She made a graph. She then did a similar search in all the drafts, the entire volume, with the words 'creationis' (results for both creationism and creationist would be found) and 'intelligent design'. She did this because the word creation wasn't always linked with creationism and design not always linked with intelligent design.
Graphs can be found here: http://www.aclupa.org/downloads/graphswordcounts.pdf
Sorry, tim. So far it still seems creationism and ID are the same. Again it seems like you were deliberately misled, what you quoted is not what was/is in the books and secondly, it appear you didn't even know of the existance of this rather hard to ignore, hard to disprove evidence that creationism and ID are the same, or at least that Of Pandas and People is really just a creationist book. Perhaps you were misled, perhaps you only read one side, perhaps you are trying to mislead us and are still clinging onto your beliefs despite the evidence. I don't know...
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i totally agree. there were many things about buddhism that disturb me. and they all involved some amount of mysticism. it seems to me that no matter how hard i try to find guidance, the answers i seek will only come from within.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
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I really haven't thought of Jesus when I first heard GTF. But now, under other peoples influences, I was lead to believe that it was about Jesus. Maybe I'm lost but now found?
What’s self destruction and how can we last?
"I cannot stop the thought of running in the dark.
Coming up a which way sign. All good truants must decide."
__________________________________________
McCain, America's scariest grandpa!
"Obama's main opponent in this election on November 4th (was) not John McCain, it (was) ignorance."~Michael Moore
"i'm feeling kinda righteous right now. with my badass motherfuckin' ukulele!"
~ed, 8/7
However, elsewhere in your post, you admit that:
Ok. Well if there is NO PROOF that naturalism is true, then it IS a belief. Your PROOF that I am entirely ignorant about ‘evolution or science’ therefore seems a little shaky.
If you had read my source on this subject, which is the key text for this whole subject (Darwin on Trial), perhaps you would be in a position to judge whether or not this distinction is made. As it happens, Philip Johnson DOES make this distinction on page 117. Whether or not a particular scientist is a philosophical naturalist is quite irrelevant, since, if he is to study Darwinism, he will do so within the confines of scientific naturalism, which has, as its starting point, the belief that only ‘natural’ causes count as knowledge.
The strongest part of your argument is your belief that naturalism is more reasonable a philosophy than supernaturalism, but remember that this is philosophy, not science. Of course you are certainly entitled to hold this belief, but your attempt to demonstrate it’s superiority falls flat, and I will demonstrate why by quoting your own example:
Your example might, for some, sound impressive. However it is entirely misleading because it hides the distinction between ‘operational science’ and ‘origins science’. Let me be crystal clear, NOBODY in the ID movement is trying to say that the processes and reactions that we observe through telescopes and test tubes are supernatural. This is ‘operational science’, which is based on direct observation, and the principles of ‘cause and effect’ but this is NOT what is in dispute, all are happy to use methodological naturalism in this area. However, when it comes to ‘origins science’, that branch of science that deals with investigating the origin of life and the universe, the great scientists of the past, such as Newton and Einstein, did not agree that methodological naturalism should be applied. Why? Firstly because we CANNOT observe these events, and secondly, MANY scientific discoveries point to these events as being supernatural, thus ID scientists are arguing that in the field of origins science, supernatural causes should not be ruled out. Your example is therefore irrelevant to the real discussion Collin, because it is an example taken from ‘operational science’ and has NOTHING to do with origins. Whilst methodological naturalism is an essential part of everyday ‘operational science’, I think most people see that trying to apply it to such important and mysterious events as the beginning of the Universe and biological life is unreasonable. ID is correctly arguing that both natural, and supernatural causes should be considered, and tested, to see which is more reasonable and more consistent with the evidence we have. As the great philosopher Alvin Plantinga said after the Dover ruling that ID is ‘not science’:
‘If you exclude the supernatural from science, then if the world, or some phenomena within it are supernaturally caused – as most of the worlds people believe – you wont be able to reach that conclusion scientifically. Observing methodological naturalism thus hamstrings science by precluding science from reaching what would be an enormously important truth about the world. It might be that, just as a result of this constraint, even the best science in the long run will wind up with false conclusions.’
p.s Regarding your claim that a designer would have to be ‘observable and testable’ for design to be scientific, this is nonsense. Consider gravity, for example, we cannot observe it but we can observe and tests its effects, that’s how we know that it exists. Peace.
Collin. This argument you have made is the weakest, lamest, most ridiculous argument against Intelligent design I have ever heard and I am honestly surprised that someone of your intelligence keeps banging on about it. Let me clear it up once and for all. The ONLY evidence that 'pandas' used to be a 'young earth creationist' book is its former use of the word 'creation' and its derivatives. Let me spell out to you why this has nothing to do with young earth creationism. ANYONE who believes that the universe had an intelligent cause is a 'creationist', even your good friend and fellow ID opponent Kenneth Miller. However I expect that Kenneth Miller, like most other Theistic Evolutionists, gets pissed off when people think that the term 'creationist' means that he has any connection to the movement known as 'Young Earth Creationism'. Now, ID's main architect, Philip Johnson, initially used the term 'creationist' in an identical way to people like Miller and Pennock, to describe his general view that the universe was 'created' or 'designed', rather than being purely accidental. To clarify this, I will quote Johnson from page 115 of his first book on the subject 'Darwin on Trial':
"In the broadest sense, a 'creationist' is simply a person who believes that the world (and especially mankind) was designed, and exists for a purpose."
Now, the authors of the textbook ‘Of Pandas and People’ used the term ‘creationist’ in the same way, as a general term that connotes a belief that life was designed and created, the only difference to Miller and Pennock’s use of the word is the word ‘abruptly’ which is clearly anti-Darwinian. Nevertheless, the ‘pandas’ definition of ‘creationism’ did not say anything about the age of the earth or the identity of the creator. Hence whilst a young earth creationist might define the term as something like ‘the theory that God created the universe in six days, 6000 years ago, in accordance with Genesis chapter 1’, the very first ‘Pandas’ definition simply said:
‘Creation means that the various forms of life began abruptly through the agency of an intelligent creator with their distinctive features already intact–fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, and wings, etc.’
Now, if the definition of ‘creation’ had ‘evolved’ over time from a young earth type definition, to a more open definition, you would have a case that ID is Young earth Creationism in disguise, however, if you compare the definition to all the other definitions, you will see that the definition HAS NOT CHANGED. The ONLY thing that has changed is the replacing of the term ‘creation’ with the term ‘intelligent design’, this does NOT show any link with Young earth creationism, all it shows is that people, whether maliciously or in ignorance, refused to distinguish between different kinds of ‘creationism’. The change to ‘intelligent design’ was a wise and useful move that has clarified the difference once and for all. If you are going to prove your theory that ID is Young earth creationism in disguise, why not show me an example of an ID argument that uses the Bible, or says that the Earth is 6000 years old, or that there was a global flood. Please try, because this is the only way you will prove your case. Peace.
Okay.. for the sake of not having you go over and over and over this again and again and again... I retract my original statement and replace it with this:
You claim that Ed uses Evolution to justify his Atheism. I say that is a false statement because you don't know.
...
Now, since it is apparent that stand firmly in the belief of Intelligent Design as a legitimate science... and there is apparently, no arguement or point that will dissuade you... just answer me this one simple question...
Is Intelligent Design linked, in any way, to Creationism?
Hail, Hail!!!
As I "found" PJ through the song wishlist I can't say that I ever saw or was along for the "I am looking for a faith" feeling/ride/vibe that I can attach myself too. Even though I had heard the tunes on the earlier albums enough. I must say to ingest that this is what a man was getting across to you seems a little too deep for somebody who is not writing the lyrics to the tunes on the album.
If to be human somebody can fall back on the human touch and care of people in the living world after supposedly questioning or looking for an answer or whatever the term may be a supreme being that has either let them down for too long, took something that was dear to the heart and destroyed it in front of your eyes over years or even just didn't say hello on a bad day than so be it.
If you felt so dear about his up's and down's to have followed the boy to a man journey through his lyrics and still cast a judgement on it. Well who really is the bigger man?
You know I haven't checked your source yet, so perhaps you could have made that distinction in your initial post as well.
"ID is correctly arguing that both natural, and supernatural causes should be considered, and tested, to see which is more reasonable and more consistent with the evidence we have."
How do you test the supernatural?
Either way, we both know ID is meant to be about god of the bible, not another supernatural entity. If you claim this untrue, that it could be any supernatural deity, we have our 'first' problem. How do you make a succesful hypothesis?
You also mention Newton who was indeed a believer and in some of his works included god. But why didn't you mention Adam Sedgwick. He was priest and geologist and spent much of his time searching for evidence of the great flood of the bible. He never agreed with his pupil, Charles Darwin, and never agreed with evolution. Yet he admitted, as a believer, that the geological evidence did not support the biblical flood and in fact went against it.
I searched a little bit on the web and found that Johnson wrote:
"Creator not only initiated this process but in some meaningful sense controls it in furtherance of a purpose." (p. 4) (correct me if I'm wrong)
The supernatural did not only initiate but also controls it (creation) in furtherance of a purpose, how, then, can you rule out the supernatural in medical science, for example. After all, tim, medical science is is no more or less based on a "dogmatic philosophy" of naturalism than evolutionary biology is. If god can intervene, like Johnson says, you cannot rule out the supernatural in the entire naturalistic scientific field. Unless you know when exactly god decides to intervene, you shouldn't rule out god in any scientific field.
The theory of evolution rests on evidence. We can show with remarkable precision how the genetic mechanisms produce the heritable properties of an organism, and how variation arises that can then be selected for in an environment, producing organisms that are adapted to their conditions.
We cannot show creation, though. We cannot show the hand of god creating something etc. Not even vaguely. And that's interesting because you claim we cannot observe evolution (although we can and have). I think it's only reasonable that your new theory corrects or somehow deals with the problems you have with the 'old' theory. ID makes an assumption about something we cannot observe (your words) by explaining it by something we cannot prove or observe. I think that only adds to the problem, rather than solving it.
A few other problems with reintroducing the supernatural into science is that, well, it's the supernatural. It's above nature, not constrained by nature, and god even makes the natural laws. So he can bend them, break them... (that's why he should be introduced in all fields of study, god is everywhere). The only thing that could even remotely constrain god is logic.
We cannot understand god, we can only apply our natural knowledge to the supernatural. So we can never describe, explain god, nor his actions (the actions being the mechanisms of the ID theory).
I don't think you have made a strong case for introducing the supernatural into science.
Science deliberately limits itself to the phenomena it can study. It deliberately leaves the supernatural out because, the supernatural cannot be proven or tested. The supernatural cannot be predicted, controlled or even judged. It is above us, above the natural laws.
Since you can't do all these things, you have no explanation for the mechanisms of your theory. If your final explanation is god and you agree that we cannot know, test, see, understand, predict, control, judge... god, that god is above our natural knowledge... there's no point in allowing it into science. You could just as easily complement science with philosophy and say god created or designed evolution.
Allowing god into scientific research would aslo stop the research wherever the scientist is stuck or whenever it suit him. You can see this in ID science, 'you don't need evolution to explain this, it was god'. Whereas naturalistic science will continue to investigate.
If we look at Johnson's defintion again it seems god has a purpose. We cannot know that purpose, so how do you research certain things.
Creationist Falwell said the AIDS virus was god's work (purpose) to punish homosexuals, drug users and other people who lead sinful lives. Johnson agrees with Peter Duesberg who says HIV is not the cause of AIDS, but drug use and sexual promiscuity are.
Either way, sexual promiscuity and drug use or HIV, how does an ID scientist handle this?
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I don't think my argument is weak at all. I think it's clear and strong and anyone with common sense will see it.
"Creation science" was ruled unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court. Creation science already removed biblical references from their books before the ruling.
If anyone is interested here are the opinions of
Barbara Forrest
Kenneth Miller
Kevin Padian
Robert T. Pennock
John F. Haught (a theologist)
So you are wrong, tim. The notion that ID and creationism are almost completely the same and both not science is not only based on that little word switch.
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creation science? now theres an oxymoron if ever ive heard one.
creation require no logic. it requires different thought processes than science. you can not look at creation the same way as you look at science. the level needed to suspend disbelief is too great.
how am i to look at ID and come to a conclusion other than its just another name for God? we cant explain the origins of something so we come to the conclusion that something intelligent must have created it. what is this something intelligent? we dont know do we. hmm sounds suspiciously like God to me. a rose is a rose is a rose people.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
Who really cares what Eddie or anyone else on this thread believes (and yes that includes my beliefs too!!!)
No one's belief system is going to change becuase of an over wordy - long winded post.
Show some mercy (whether it comes from God, Allah, Darwin or my great great uncle the lung fish) and euthanize this poor dead horse.
Peace
But this isnt about Ed anymore, its about the battle of two great minds, Tim and Collin. I want to see who's going to concede defeat. My moneys on Collin.
I agree with much of this. Science CAN only study natural phenomena, not supernatural and ID is NOT saying otherwise. What ID IS saying, is that the natural phenomena that we can observe with science exhibits clear hallmark of design, therefore infers a designer. ID does not rule out that the designer could itself be ‘natural’, that is an alien species who designed and created life on earth, however most people find this answer uncompelling since it would only shift the problem to another planet where the intelligent aliens live. Most design theorists find the theory that the designer is ‘supernatural’ more compelling, however a supernatural designer IS beyond the limits of scientific enquiry. I realize that you see this as a problem, and a ‘science stopper’, however if science is to be a search for truth, and if this is where the evidence leads as, so what!!
Well, we cant. That might be frustrating but it’s a fact and ID is not claiming otherwise. However, as I have said, although we cannot observe him/her/it directly, a supernatural designer IS inferred by the design that we see when we study nature. Non-observable causes CAN be inferred by studying their effects alone, the example of gravity, as I said, demonstrates this. We cannot observe gravity but its existence is inferred by its effects on matter, which we can observe. Your example from medical science is a case in point, if an incurable disease was cured by prayer, and this was medically documented, medical science WOULD infer a supernatural intervention. However this kind of thing is NOT what ID is concerned with. ID is concerned with the origin of complex biological systems.
The best analogy for ‘origins science’ is forensics. This is because forensic science, like origins science, is unable to observe the event that it is concerned with, rather it has to make inferences about it from what the event has left behind for us to observe. Lets say, someone has died, the forensic experts come and investigate the evidence that the death has left behind in order the determine whether the person died by ‘natural’ causes, or whether an ‘intelligent’ agent was involved, i.e the person was murdered. Now, in the absence of a murderer to ‘study’, the forensic scientist will probably consider both ‘models’ (murder or natural death) and see which one best explains the evidence. As has been shown on many occasions, the actual evidence can often be interpreted quite convincingly either way, and forensic scientists can often be wrong. Why? Because with forensics, as with origins science, we CANNOT observe the event, therefore there is much room for speculation and all evidence has to be interpreted by reference to a model, or theory, about what actually happened. However, it is also true that 'good' forensic science will be able to establish the existence of a murderer, even if they are unable to observe him/her and cannot discover their identity. Now, regarding ‘origins science’, you have said that have not made a strong case for allowing supernatural causes a place at the table in scientific investigation. I will now make that case, but first consider that if a forensic scientist worked within a rule that stated: ‘all deaths are by natural causes’, nobody would ever get arrested for murder, even if the dead man had an axe hanging out of his head.
If we strictly apply methodological naturalism to scientific investigations into the origins of the universe and Biological life, we are basically saying that, since nobody made it all, it all must have ‘made itself’, which is anther way of saying that it ‘evolved’. In purely naturalistic science, Evolution is therefore a ‘fact’ before we even come to look at the evidence. Sure we can argue about HOW things evolved, but our philosophy DEMANDS that it DID evolve. However, regarding these questions about the origins of life and the universe, there are many good reasons to suspend this philosophy and consider supernatural causation, I will list some below:
From Philosophy we can discern that:
Everything that has a beginning has a cause.
The Universe has a beginning.
Therefore the Universe has a cause.
A cause cannot presuppose what it means to explain.
The Universe consists of time, matter/energy, and space.
Therefore the cause of the Universe is transcendent.
Matter/energy cannot be created by natural forces.
Matter/energy exists.
Therefore the cause of matter/energy was supernatural.
The Universe displays a high degree of order and complexity.
Only Intelligence has been observed to generate order and complexity.
Therefore the cause of the universe is intelligent.
From physics and astronomy, we see that the Universe is ‘fine tuned’ for life, Cambridge astronomer sir Fred Hoyle, for example called the Universe a ‘put up Job’, and current Cambridge Astronomer Royal Martin Rees has said:
‘If you imagine setting up a Universe by adjusting six dials, then the tuning must be precise in order to yield a universe that could harbour life. Is this providence?’
In Biology, even the most hard-nosed Atheist of them all, Richard Dawkins admits that observation of biological systems points overwhelmingly to design, as he says in his book ‘the blind watchmaker’ biology is:
‘the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose’.
Lets be clear Dawkins is saying that this is the VERY DEFINITION of Biology. Now, when you add these things together, you see that being open to the possibility of supernatural causation for life and the universe is not just common sense, it is the direct conclusion of both philosophical reflection and scientific observation. Peace.
Man, talk about a mis-quote. Are you ignoring the word appearance in the middle of that quote.
I think the point that Dawkins is making in that book is that, yes, if you look at a highly complicated organism that exists in todays world then it would appear that the only way it could arise in that form (de novo) would be through some sort of design. However, if you put this organism in the context of the absolutely vast amount of time it has had to evolve from very simple origins, then it is not so hard to imagine how such a complicated thing could now exist.
"[Natural Selection] has not vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to be play the role of watchmaker in nature, it is the *blind* watchmaker."
* Richard Dawkins (English biologist,1941-) in The Blind Watchmaker (1986)
And as has been so elegantly put by the legendary geneticist Francois Jacob
"Evolution is a tinkerer"
I have no problem with you believing what you believe. That is your business. But please don't try to make your point by very selectively quoting sources and ingoring the larger context from which they come.
What he said.
Sydney - 11.03.1998
Melbourne - 18.02.2003
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Hail, Hail!!!
Wecome to the thread bookem.
I suggest you look up the word 'misquote' in your dictionary. I have not misquoted Dawkins, he did say this. Of course Dawkins doen't agree that biological systems WERE designed, thats why his statement is even more revealing, and why it gives the point MORE power. I have not, as you suggest, ignored the word 'appearances', but if you like we can examine it further. After making the statement 'biology is the sudy of complicated things that give the appearance of being designed for a purpose', Dawkins goes on to explain that:
'All appearances to the contrary, the only watchmaker in nature is the blind forces of physics'
This is rather like my forensic scientist saying 'ok the deceased person does APPEAR to have an axe embedded in his head but ALL APPEARANCES TO THE CONTRARY, we KNOW that he died from 'natural' causes because, after all, forensic science is: 'the study of things that happened by natural causes'.
This IS what is going on in this debate, thats why the whole argument is about the definition of science. 90% of the campaign against ID does not engage with the evidence, it just keeps says 'science is the study of things that happened by natural causes' therefore 'ID is not science' therefore ID CANNOT have a case. Lets be brave and follow the evidence where it leads, even if it breaks the rules. Peace.
Hey Cosmo, thanks for your question about whether or not there is a link between ID and creationism, but I am still waiting for you to find me the page number of 'pandas' that says the world is 6000 years old. When you find it we can carry on our discussion.
Perhaps you are the one who should look up the word misquote in the dictionary. I do not deny that Dawkins says what you have copied here. But misquoting someone is not just writing down the wrong thing, it also extends to using the quote in such a way that it is taken out of the context in which it was originally written.
A misquotation is an accidental or intentional misrepresentation of a person's speech or writing, involving one or more of:
* Omission of important context: The context can be important for determining the overall argument the quoted person wanted to make, for seeing whether the quoted statement was restricted or even negated in this context, or for recognizing hints that it was meant as irony.
* Omission of important parts of the quote.
* Insertion of allegedly implied words or partial sentences: The inserted portions may be specially marked (e.g. by square brackets or cursive font). Using unmarked insertions is commonly deprecated. In order to constitute a misquotation, the implied portions must alter the meaning of the quote in a way that the original author did not obviously intend.
* Incorrect rephrasing: The quote is replaced by one which is only superficially identical in meaning, or one or more of the words in the quotation have been replaced by incorrect ones.
* Misattribution: Attributing someone else's (or no one's in particular) words to a person who did not use them. Misattribution is often found in satire.
* Misspelling, although usually inadvertent, can sometimes be used deliberately, especially with satirical intent, to portray the quoted person as stupid or uneducated.
The following causes are mostly responsible for misquotations:
* Imperfect reproduction, e.g. from memory, in communication or by transcription. Gossip, which involves many consecutive memorizations and mouth-to-mouth communications, can quickly 'mutate' a quote beyond recognition. In those cases, only the 'kernel' of the quote is held while the rest is omitted or simplified.
* Misunderstanding, if the person using the quote misjudges the importance of context, partial sentences, or inserts an invalid implication.
* Malice or deliberate deceit (Quote mining).
* Humor or satire.
Sydney - 11.03.1998
Melbourne - 18.02.2003
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Nijmegen - 28.06.2007
New York - 24.06.2008
London - 18.08.2009
London - 25.06.2010
Ok Bookem. If this is what you are accusing me of, please explain how I have done this. I have used the quotation:
‘biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose’.
to show that Dawkins regards all biological systems as having the APPEARANCE of design.
I then used the second quotation:
'All appearances to the contrary, the only watchmaker in nature is the blind forces of physics'
to show that Dawkins rejects the notion that biological systems WERE designed.
If this understanding is wrong, please explain why, and give us your understanding of the two quotations I have used.
if science is how humans make sense of the physical world around them. if we need to be able to observe something in order for it to be understood. and those observations need to be verifable, then what understanding do we gain from ID? and how do we verify what we have observed, if indeed weve observed anything through ID?
this is not about defining science. we know what science is. i want you to define intelligent design.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
Hi Cate.
Ok. Intelligent design is a philosphical and scientific movement that argues that many discoveries of modern science should compell us to reconsider intelligent causation for the existence of biological life.
The movement began because Philip E. Johnson wrote a book called 'Darwin on trial', which assesed the empirical evidence for Darwinism and concluded that:
‘As a general theory of biological creation, Darwinism is not empirical at all. Rather, it is a necessary implication of a philosophical doctrine called scientific naturalism, which is based on an a priori assumption that God was always absent from the realm of nature.’
This was a bit of a revelation to quite a few scientists and some began to feel as if, as Proffessor Micheal Behe said, they had been 'led down the garden path'. Subsequently, scientists like Behe began, for the first time to question the validity of darwinian theory and put it to the test. As a result, Behe and many others have become convinced that darwinism is false for purely scientific reasons, and 10 years ago Behe published his book 'darwins black box' to lay out the scientific reasons why he has come to reject Darwinism.
So, in a nutshell Cate, ID is a branch of science and philosophy that, when considering the origins of biological life, suspends the philosophy of 'methodological naturalism' and points to evidence in biological systems that counts as evidence both AGAINST Darwinism, and FOR intelligent Design.
if anyone would like to see a clip of Behe talking about some of the evidence, here you go:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGGC-1g4S3Y
so tim, are you a theist or a deist? if you are speaking of God i think you need to be definitive.
how is ID a branch of science?
please use your own words. i want to know what you think and what you believe, not what some scholar or other type person tells you to believe. afterall would you not agree that ones relationship with their God is a personal one?
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
i think I have explained why ID is science. It is purely empirical, thats why it is science, it just has no commitment to philosophical naturalism.
Regarding my own personal beliefs, I am a philosophical theist. I believe that there is one God, his name is YHWH. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I believe that the Jewish scriptures (both the Tanakh, and the New Testament) are the word of God and historically accurate. I believe that Yeshua (Jesus) is both Israel's promised messiah and the saviour of both Jews and gentiles who accept his sacrifice on their behalf. I believe that Yeshua will return in person and establish a reign of peace on the Earth.
I agree that my relaionship with God is 'personal', but I also believe that what I have stated above is the ultimate truth that one day everyone will be faced with, even if it is too late. I believe that people are important enough to spend time communicating this to them, I believe you are important enough. Peace.
how is ID empirical?
jesus is the saviour of the jews? how can this be?
dont know about the important part, but youd be wasting your time, and mine, if you tried to 'save' me.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
I know that most people know this, so forgive me for saying it in this way, (as if I am telling you something you don't already know, but I am quite sure you do), that the thing is that for those of us who choose to believe in Him, again, CHOOSE to believe in Him, He is the savior for all who desire Him. He came for the Jews but ended up saving the gentiles. This is what we are taught anyway.
I think He came and taught us but if we fuck up we are on our own. Sometimes we make our own luck;fortune;blessings, etc. sometimes, not always.
Together we will float like angels.........
In the moment that you left the room, the album started skipping, goodbye to beauty shared with the ones that you love.........
Hi Cate. ID is entirely empirical in its methodology. It observes biological systems, performs experiments and draws inferences and conclusions. If you read ID literature for yourself you will see that ALL ID arguments and evidences are empirical, even if the conclusions have profound metaphysical implications.
Yeshua (Jesus) was a Torah observant Jew, he said. 'I have come for the lost sheep of the house of Israel' Paul, and all the 1st century disciples were Torah observant Jews. Today there are about 200.000 Jews who accept His messiahship. they are not 'Christians', they are 'Messianic Jews' most observe Torah, all consider themselves Jews and Yeshua King of the Jews. If you would like to know more about Messianic Judaism there are plenty of good websites out there but here is a good introduction:
http://www.messianic.com/articles/basics.htm
I cant 'save' anyone but if God is calling you, he will pursue you and never give up. Peace.