Declare, if thou hast understanding

God was little bit of a Nazi to Job though. It isn’t that we can’t understand why God did it; it is that we are too afraid to call God an asshole.

Even worse is this:

The Bible and Public Schools: Report on the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools

resorting to trickery, rather than honest persuasion or the example of your own life, to win converts

Isn’t this what Islam calls taqqiya?

God, of course, if he made us, also made every organic thing, including malaria and HIV. And, as Catholic priests will tell you, he also caused us to make bread so that we could have the Eucharist. But then they start going on about how time is an illusion and past, present and future coexist, and I start thinking about martinis.

There’s something nice about Anglicanism. A statement like ‘God made us’ registers no differently from ‘Mrs Pargeter does the flowers.’

Breaker,

There’s a significant amount in your post that I find faulty, but I’m no genius and thus will attempt to explain why I believe you to be wrong in the most coherent manner that I can.

Today we have pseudo-science or junk science that states a popular theory and pronounces it valid.
The problem here is “today.” As long as there has been science, there have been findings which turned out, upon further investigation, to be untrue. This is a phenomenon that is integral to the process of empiricism. Dealing with imperfect methods and findings does not disrupt the functioning of an empricist paradigm as it does the Christian theist paradigm.

There are two problems with the CFC example: 1) experimentation and replication are not a necessary part of the scientific enterprise. For some fields they are, for some they are not. All scientific explanation contains virtually unlimited “ceteris paribus” statements which hold unless disproved empirically. If there is something flawed in the CFC explanation of ozone depletion, your example does not locate it. 2) The presence of a “polar vortex” explains the accumulation of CFCs in the antarctic. I found this explanation in less than five minutes online. Did you not look for the dominant theory or do you not care? How does a Christian theistic outlook explain the ozone hole?

I think the most revealing thing about your post would be what might constitute “good science.” I agree that I do not find evolutionary biology’s explanation for the origin of life to be much beyond pure hypothesis. If we’re to ask about drosophila mutations or shared human/primate origins, I believe EB’s explanation to be far superior.

For me, the idea of a Christian God seems untenable given an empiricist paradigm. If I am a zealot, I am a zealot for empiricism, for which I do not apologize.

Proponents of so-called “intelligent design” make much of the fact that evolution is a ‘theory’, demonstrating their profound, vernacular lack of understanding of that word. What they don’t get is that a theory is much more than a hunch or a guess. It is a reasoned and systematic means of defining, explaining and understanding observable phenomenon. Gravity is also just a ‘theory’, but that does not mean apples occasionally fall up when they leave the tree.

Finally, “intelligent design” only postulates how life on Earth got here in the first place. It doesn’t even attempt to explain how life progressed after it arose. Conversely, the theory of evolution says absolutely nothing about the origins of life. However, it does explain far better than any other theory, how life progressed after it began. They are skew lines…

Albert,

I agree that scientific findings once thought to be true have historically been found to be false. Just as the world was once thought to be flat and then thought to be the center of the universe and then those theories proved to be wrong.

The concept of “ceteris paribus” is essential to the scientific analysis of hypothesis and experimentation with replication. Under the concept of “ceteris paribus” a competent scientist seeks to hold all variables constant but the one under observation to produce replicated results proving or disproving the hypothesis. Studies of complex systems such as atmospheric studies must seek replication showing constant variables against a dynamic variable to prove a hypothesis or the study is simply not science. In complex systems keeping variables constant and isolating a dynamic variable or variables is exceedingly difficult but the competent scientist seeks modes of replication of results of dynamics against constant variables nevertheless. As CFCs have been reduced in the atmosphere in recent years, the Southern hemisphere ozone hole has actually increased. What does that prove? Actually the system is so complex that the causation of observational results are highly debatable. The physical events of the polar vortex or historical changes in the temperature of the Sun might be significant enough to explain the ozone hole without the influence of man made chemicals.

Notwithstanding significant effort, no biologist has demonstrated creation of a human out of a fruit fly, let alone creation of life out of a random mixture of elements at just the right temperature and a strike of lightning.

As for your statement: “Dealing with imperfect methods and findings does not disrupt the functioning of an empiricist paradigm as it does the Christian theist paradigm.”

If you mean disruption of the perfection of God, then you may have something but that is something that cannot be demonstrated. If you mean that a finding supporting some aspect of evolutionary theory will disprove Christianity, you are wrong unless it could be proved that the statement at the beginning of the Apostle’s creed is disproved – I believe in God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:

And disproving that God is the creator of the universe would be difficult indeed. The fact of creation of the unniverse by God is essential to Christianity but God’s chosen method of creation is not essential.

As for your purported belief in an “empiricist paradigm,” that has no understandable meaning to me.

If, as I suspect, you believe, as fact, the tenet that life “evolved” from random combinations of favorable events without an intelligent designer, then you are no less a religious zealot than Jerry Falwell or the Rev. Sung Yung Moon because that belief is simply a leap of faith. There is nothing observable to prove that tenet.

Funny, growing up as an Anglican I never knew about this controversy. It was only when I’d lapsed and was reading Victorian poets (the poetry of faith and doubt etc.) that the issue cropped up. And I remember thinking, ‘That’s bloody stupid. Why is Tennyson worried about Darwin’s effect on Christianity? It’s perfectly obvious they don’t clash.’

Stephen and Alex’s posts above set me thinking on this.

As an Anglican, I could not be accused, even by Breaker, of being a religious zealot…

Alex, I think you misunderstand a significant segment of Christian thought. The Bible is the most profound work explaining the flawed human condition, the nature of God and the relationship between humans and God.

Yes, there are those on the fringes that would twist aspects of the Bible to their radical or reactionary views. There are atheist that are just as whacked out and don’t even start on radical Islam.

But belief in an intelligent designer is belief in God. That is essential for any Christian. Belief in intelligent design is not a subtrefuge for putting burkas on women or handling snakes.

It appears CT swallowed my first attempt at making a comment, but I’ll try again:

“Observed thermodynamics reflects entropy – things winding down. Christians say that God wound the universe up. I see no other plausible explanation based on my beliefs. And I see no consistency between entropy and evolution forming the basis of your religion based, as I understand it on raw happenstance.”

Wrong, wrong, wrong! The Second Law only applies to closed systems, as MC Hawking can tell you. T

“The mathematical probabilities just don’t work out any more than a billion monkeys on computer keyboards are likely to produce the assembled works of William Shakespeare.”

You’ve worked out the probabilities? Actually, I’m interested in the information theoretic take on evolutionary algorithms — both George Gilder (eviscerated on Pharyngula) and William Dembski attempted to wield info theory against evolutionary science — but I don’t think I’ll be asking any questions of you.

(After reading a recommendation on CT, I’m currently in the middle of the excellent _Life’s Devices_, BTW)

I think this comment system was intelligently designed to frustrate me.

Breaker breaker:

Unfortunately, Darwinism provides no better answer to explain the creation of life based on the available science than intelligent design.

Actually, modern evolutionary biology does not address the question of the origin or creation of life. It is rather a body of theory, observed and well-verified, that explains the diversity of life, speciation, as we find it.

As for CFCs and ozone depletion:

Paging Tim Lambert

Hodgepodge, I would not postulate intelligent design as anything other than a religious belief. My point is that the essential aspects of Darwinism and related beliefs of the absence of God in the creation of the universe are equally religious beliefs. Teaching evolution as a “science” is faulty junk science and constitutes a preference of one religion over another.

Albert, See comment 14 relative to the Bible. As for the origin of life, other than my belief that God had a hand in the process, I have no frickin idea what happened either.

And yea, the whole climate change and ozone hole thing are beyond my understanding, way too many variables. It is a best management policy to try to conserve the natural environment, that is a responsibility assigned to humans in the Bible too. But I am not giving up flush toilets or toilet paper. Or antibiotics – my son just had strep throat.

Junius, Show me the monkeys.

2 Peter 3:8

If you’ve had a ham sandwich in the last 1000 years, then Horatio is certainly god.

I can’t believe that this was sincely meant:

If you read the statement of President Bush on this issue it is quite brilliant and to make the statement off the cuff – genius.

As P.Z.Myers and others have pointed out, the use of the word “Darwinism” is generally a sign that the writer is a creationist. Evolutionary biology has come a long ways in the last 150 years, after all. It’s unsurprising to find the code phrase deployed in an argument that science, or part of it, is in fact a religion.

No part of science is based upon faith, except perhaps for those ignorant of it.

I’m 100% in favour of teaching intelligent design in schools.

Unfortunately, my version of “teaching” it would involve devoting, let’s say, two weeks to breaking down its core tenets and examining each one of them carefully and critically with reference to the available scientific evidence — and somehow I don’t think that’s quite what the people calling for it to be quote-taught-unquote mean.

Breaker, I’m sure you are sincere in your beliefs about science, but they are very wrong. The theory of evolution is one of the most well-documented facts in science, better documented than general relativity. The theory was invented by scientists, many of them Christian, elaborated by scientists, many of them Christian, and verified by scientists, many of them Christian. The vast majority of biologists (many of them Christian) have heard your arguments and rejected them.

The natural world is full of facts that without evolution are mysteries, but with evolution make perfect sense. Why do certain fossils tend to occur in particular strata of rocks? Why were there once dinosaurs, and now there are not? Why do bacteria develop immunity to antibiotics. Why does the human body possess such ad-hoc features such as (in men) a urethra that runs through the middle of the prostate? Why do cells sometimes turn cancerous?

Evolution is far from a random process. It selects for traits that are successful, and selects against traits that are not. We know how the traits are encoded (DNA), and how they are expressed (enzymes build proteins out of DNA). These facts were discovered not by creationists, but by biologists who accepted the truth of evolution.

Bill Cowper: yes, I thought that too. What a disappointment – trolls, not djinni.

My only problem with Declare is that it is so damn convincing, and I find myself reading, say, books about the Arab Revolt or the Soviet Union and thinking “why don’t they mention Machikha Nash more often? She’s key to understanding this whole issue!”

“2) The presence of a “polar vortex” explains the accumulation of CFCs in the antarctic. I found this explanation in less than five minutes online.”

No, it explains why it gets cold enough in the antarctic to cause ice crystals to precipitate out of the upper atmosphere, catalyzing the destruction of ozone by a mechanism inapplicable away from the poles, while isolating that section of the upper atmosphere from general atmospheric recirculation, so that it’s ozone supply can’t be replentished from regions that are getting plenty of sunlight. (Ozone being created by the effects of UV on the atmosphere, not a lot gets created in places where the sun doesn’t shine in the winter.)

In other words, the ozone “hole” is a localized phenomnenon, which can’t occur elsewhere, and which for all we know might have been happening regularly for the last billion years or so.

I was a dual major in college, engineering and biology, and let me assure you that there are enough outrageous “mistakes” in the “design” of the human body, that if ID theory is falsifiable, it’s already falsified, by the presense of features no intelligent designer would admit responsibility for.

For a central site full of refutations of intelligent design/creationism arguments, including many of breaker’s claims & assumptions (such as that the process of evolution is random, a very common misconception), see:

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/

I’d like to refer breaker to http://www.talkorigins.org, where his misconceptions about evolutionary biology, and almost any question he might have about it, and about the reasons why practically all biologists- religious believers included- reject the claims of “ID” and other forms of “scientific creationism”, are extensively addressed.

Allow me to agree with Brett Bellmore for the second time in the history of the world. The design flaws are the big argument against “intelligent design”, unless you posit a brilliant but terribly haphazard designer.

If the human body had been designed for walking erect, we’d have a lot fewer backaches.

When I read about evolution, I read about hundreds of detailed arguments based on physiology, the fossil record, and the environments of the various species. When I read about ID, I read a lot of tendentious quibbles about the work of evolutionists. It’s all parasitical — there is no parallel body of ID science. ID people are mysterians — whenever they come across something hard to explain, they say “God did it”. One size fits all.

junk science

Ha. Someone’s been spending too long on Foxnews.com. Evolution is a theory, not fact. This is a true point that moron creationists like to bring up. Well, electricity is “just” a theory too. No one’s ever seen an electron, but since the theory has behaved according to expectation 100% of the time, we kind of figure it’s true. Same thing with evolution. No one saw it happening, but observable data backs the theory up 100% of the time.

Amino acids may indeed be a tiny step, but going from zero to one is the biggest of all tiny steps. Bottom line: intelligent design will never be proved, so it’s up to everyone to use there god-given flippin brains and figure out what physically happened.

BTW, I am not God. Now tuck in your shirt.

I just can’t figure out why ID is so important an arguement for Christians.

It is essential for literalist Christians (which is a contradition in method itself, but nevermind) to pretend that they actually HAVE an argument, when they live in a world made by the science that shows that they don’t.

They hide their god behind their back and accuse anyone maintaining scientific standards of being “dogmatic.” It is an act of supreme projection, hypocrisy, and insecurity. It is also heavily bankrolled politically, which is the only reason we’re having to shoot it down.
.

#44 Being incapable of grasping an argument is not the same as refuting it.

What more can one say but…Fuck Yeah!!!

Brett-

You don’t get any credit from me for not liking ID.

Your modification of my explanation the ozone hole didn’t really help that next statement about not knowing whether the ozone hole has been around before CFCs. Do you have some evidence for that? What would be the mechanism that causes these natural fluctuations? Why are experimental demonstrations of the CFC-induced breakdown of ozone not generalizable to the upper atmosphere? If we’re going to ‘teach the controversy’ on CFCs, let’s see some controversy.

Geeze, Albert, I’m not saying that CFCs don’t destroy ozone. I’m saying that there’s no reason to suppose that they’re the cause of the ozone hole, which just happens to have been around for as long as we’ve been able to detect it.

Your explaination was patently nonsensical; You might concentrate CFCs with a high speed centrifuge, but the polar vortex doesn’t have a prayer of causing a measurable change in CFC concentrations.

On the other hand, the mechanisms I mentioned, (High altitude ice crystals accelerating ozone breakdown, lack of sunlight to generate fresh ozone, lack of air circulation to bring it in from elsewhere.) are both sufficient to cause it, explain why it’s where it is, and nowhere else, and have been around for roughly as long as the planet has had an atmosphere.

Just because something’s causing problems, doesn’t mean that every problem has to be caused by it, you know.

. I think a reference to the 1995 Nobel Prize citation in chemistry for the work on the CFC-ozone depletion connection might be germane:

http://nobelprize.org/chemistry/laureates/1995/press.html

The existence of a winter drop in Antarctic ozone prior to people is not at all controversial. However, the fact that it became much more severe as CFCs were pumped into the atmosphere is also not at all controversial. Nobel prizes in the sciences are not awarded casually or politically. This is extremely solid work, and to characterize it as “junk science” misses the boat utterly. Such an effort is, however, exactly what I would expect from a creationist.

You should also go to section 8 of Parson’s comprehensive ozone faq, which can be found at

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/ozone-depletion/antarctic/

which gives the comprehensive experimental verification of the observational predictions of a link between CFCs and ozone depletion.

I’m really surprised that this is still an active area of debate anywhere. The skeptics were wrong.

cheers,

Marc

grand moff texan sez:

“I just can’t figure out why ID is so important an arguement for Christians.”

Shadia Drury’s recent book (Drury has also written extensively on the Neocon connection to Leo Strauss) “Civilization & Terror” provides some fascinating insights into the nature of fundamentalists’ love affair with literalism. She argues that, rather than terror and civilization being opposites, as Bush and the Neocons have suggested, that terror is the essential civilizing force in Western Civilization. Specifically, she argues that fear of hellfire has been the essential tool used by Christians to literally scare people into acting more civilized.

She chronicles the development of this notion from various biblical passages into the teachings of later Christian apologists, down to its current usage by fundamentalists. She further details that, unlike the Old Testament, where actions (obedience/disobedience) are key to God’s favor or displeasure, many so-called followers of Jesus have claimed that God’s displeasure will also be visited on unbelievers – those who harbor wrong ideas or beliefs. (By the way, Judaism still carries this strong connection to righteous and unrighteous works – a concept woven into the many prophetic messages in the Old Testament)

Now, here’s how this relates to ID:

1) Belief in an eternal hell of torment that all unbelievers will end up in is a lynchpin concept of literalist fundamentalists. This is what the “flawed human condition, the nature of God and the relationship between humans and God” revolves around that breaker alludes to in comment 15. In their view, their God, who is somehow also a God of love, enjoys tormenting folks for all eternity. (There must be some upside for God in this deal, right? He must get some satisfaction from this, correct? And yet, somehow he still is the God of love….) Believers will also get a ringside seat to this eternal torment. How fun.

2) This belief hinges upon a certain reading of the New Testament – one that takes certain texts in a literal fashion. (incidentally, many others choose other passages in the Bible to focus on and take the “fire” passages more symbolically) This type of interpretation leads them to a whole series of other beliefs.

3) These same folks have been taught that a wide assortment of other ideas, including evolution, are part of this vast sea of “unbelief”. And since unbelief leads to eternal torment, these folks, following this perverse logic right off the cliff, must repudiate evolution as a godless concept.

All you “secular humanists” should now be afraid. Be very afraid.

So the answer to why this is so important to these folks is simple: they’re scared shitless of God. They think that mere contemplation of wrong ideas will merit their eternal torment. In their view, God not only allows all sorts of mayhem here on earth, but he also provides a torture chamber for all eternity that makes anything any human ever dreamed up pale in comparison. Their “loving” God provides a way out that centers on all their beliefs, from which they may not deviate. Their eternal fate is at stake. No amount of reasoning will overturn this. Talk about a holy terror…. Yikes.

Criticism of intelligent design is particularly effective when accompanied by (i) windy pronouncements on how silly you think religion is, and how silly you think religious people are; (ii) observations to the effect that anyone has bothered to think about the issue would certainly agree that the epistemological standards of scientific inquiry establish the nonexistence of God; and (iii) wildly inaccurate generalizations about Christianity and what Christians believe.

Being incapable of grasping an argument is not the same as refuting it

“in the beginning, so these new myths of science would tell us, there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not matter, or energy, or space or time. Then came a tiny hiccup, a trivial fluctuation that transformed nothingness in to something. Perhaps, our myth would have us believe, the primordial nothingness was unstable.
Remarkable. The universe born out of nothing, of its own accord…
But no – not entirely nothing. For if time itself had its origin with some capricious inaugaral event, then how did that event manage to occur at all? How could the act of creation begin outside of time?”

Sorry grand moff

Sorry Mates, It was nighttime here when all the alchemists showed up and I need my beauty sleep.

Evolution, theory or not, is equivalent of trying to turn lead into gold. A lot of interesting observations turn up but none answer the fundamental questions of how did life originate? Or how did humans as creatures come to be? Or related questions of how did the universe originate and what existed before the big bang?

The big lie taught in schools around here is that “Evolution” answers all fundamental questions and religion is simply fodder for fools – unless of course the religion is practiced mainly by persons of color living in squalor then the religion must be esteemed even if it preaches misogyny and murder. What a bunch of shit.

It takes as much of a leap of faith to assume that God had no hand in the creation process as to assume that God did all of the work. Evolution, Darwinism or what not is simply a form of faith. It is a faith based on extreme arrogance to elevate humankind over God.

There is nothing wrong with efforts to explain things with critical and ethical observation, exploration, experimentation and careful study. That, after all, is what separates Western civilization from the other pack.

There is a problem with the echo chamber currently occupying the academy however. The occupants have simply become a pack of ill behaved children who never developed humility. If someone challenges your dogma, your technique is to shout the challenger down usually with ad hominem attacks.

Show me the rational basis for the mechanism that denies God in creation or admit that your axioms are based on a similar leap of faith. Evolution “theory” is as to science as lead is to gold.

Rather than puffing your chests with PhD stenciled to your hearts, engage in rational debate. (As my dear old Dr. Dad often stated, his PhD merely stands for “Piled Higher and Deeper”). Fortunately, my academic hood for my third degree carries different colors along with the three chevrons on the black robe so I don’t have the burden of the presumptuous title of “Doctor.”

So, stinky mates, I must return to the private sector where they expect results instead of smelly puffery. I have no more time for your manure. I did enjoy chatting with you, Albert. I’ll see you all around the electrons and photons later.

Breaker, you have to actually learn something about a subject before you’re equipped to criticize it, a step I’m afraid you seem to have skipped thus far. You’ve been pointed by two commenters to an excellent, readily accessible source of information. Go then and learn- because contrary to your self-justifying delusions, the hostile response to claims like yours is nothing to do with argument from authority, and everything to do with actually understanding the fundamental scientific principles and arguments involved (and the complete lack thereof on the “ID” side.)

There are a number of evolution vs. creationism threads today. The longest seems to be a Patterico’s Pontifications, but this one has a lot of good posts too.

I would like to comment that people with different views are not engaging each other’s arguments. Demonstrating that evolution is incompatible with a specific view of biblical interpretation is not a covincing argument to a scientist, while demonstrating that creationism is not a valid scientific theory is not convincing to a creationist.

However, I think that creationism is getting an undeserved pass in this discussion. Most Christians do not believe that the biblical account of creation is inconsistent with evolution. The Catholic Church has a fully worked out position that allows for the physical evolution of humanity.

In discussion, please do not blindly accept the position that a “literal interpretation” of an inerrant bible necessarily implies creationism. It does not.

Please do not accept the creationist argument that a “literal interpretation” of the bible is necessary for biblical authority, as in post 10. It is not.

Do not confuse creationism with a scientific inquiry. It is not.

Two cents from a catholic.

Perhaps the most irritating thing about the post-modern fucktardocracy of Bush and Breaker _et_ so very _al_ is that persons persist in asking “Why do Libruls/Yoorpeans/whoever hate America?” as there was any sane alternative.

We rejoice, though, that Brett Bellmore is an ozone hole denier, and recall that Jet is a global warming denier; has anyone, we wonder or muse, seen Eugene Volokh give a clear indication of his views of the causal relation between HIV and AIDS?

Notwithstanding significant effort, no biologist has demonstrated creation of a human out of a fruit fly,

Well no, because…wait for it….
Evolution doesn’t claim that is possible.

Here’s a nifty idea, read a book that doesn’t have the words “Bible” on the cover, for gosh sake.

Dipwaddicus gigantus trollicus

Well, Breaker, I tried to engage your post in rational debate, and you completely ignored my comment. I’m not sure why I expected any differently. I know you’ve read a book on science, and that gives you a deeper insight to the practice of science than actual scientists could hope to achieve, but really, who gives a fuck what your Dad thinks? I know, those stupid Ph.D.’s, what do they know. They only invented the atomic bomb and discovered DNA; that surely pales in comparison to your many fine accomplishments, to say nothing about your Dad’s.

Evolution does not purport to explain the beginning of life on Earth or the beginning of the Universe. At this point, it’s simply not known how life on Earth began (though there are suggestive theories). How the Universe began is the province of physics and astronomy, not biology, and the current theories are not at all like evolution.

And finally, we come to the usually-unspoken conspiracy theory behind it all. Scientists are not in a big anti-Christian conspiracy theory. scientists come from all over the world, and they have a diversity of religious beliefs, including Christianity. Some are militant atheists, but some are devout Christians who feel that they are studying God’s handiwork. This scientific conspiracy theory is the purest of smears, a lie as baseless as the medieval myth that Jews made matzoh out of the blood of Christian babies.

I am responding only to the main statement.

I am always troubled when someone declares that “X is wrong because X is a crackpot”.

I always am left with the sneaking suspicion that the speaker has no factual rebuttal to X’s claims.

So is intelligent design wrong? is there proof? Or are both sides just “proving” their opinion right by the vehemence with which they state their opinion.

I, of course, vehemently defend the space poop theory — life on earth started as the result of the deposition on earth of a chunk of frozen holding tank overflow from an alien spaceship, much like the occasional chunk you read about falling from an airliner.

As proof? — It seems the only theory that adequately explains the state of mankind.

So…why is intelligent design wrong? There is a a proof? Or are these just opinions, vehemently stated, about something not yet knowable.

It seems to me Breaker has a problem with his father. Are there any psychoanlysts out here? I also think he is quite racist when he points out that only Western civilization is capable of “critical and ethical observation, exploration, experimentation and careful study.”

ID vs. EB is a political debate without scientific answers. But the irony is that in order to defeat ID, you have to throw around a lot of science. As the debate is occuring in the political sphere, this is the fight for the minds (and souls?) of the majority and power.

Instead of seeing yourselves above the ID vs EB debate, you need to come out of the ivory towers and show us the benefits of the scientific approach. The reason is that the ultimate target of ID is not EB but science itself.

Don’t blame the media for their silence. Their job is to report, not debate. It’s your job to debate. In your silence, the anti-science Bush gets the vote.

The reason is that if you are a Bible literalist, you expect all its prophecies will be fulfilled. Being self-righteous (or group-righteous), you expect, you hope, and you believe on faith that the prophecies will be fulfilled in your life time.

In order to make sure that happens, you work hard to undermine science since if the world works according to the way modern science describes it, revelations can be very far away (BBC reports that the universe is about 12.5 billion years old).

ID propoents may be entertaining for their scientific illiteracy but the stakes are high. If they succeed, it is hell for the rest of us. Remeber what happend to Galileo?

The spectacular thing is that, if they succeed, it would be hell for them too. Much of modern life owes its existence to scientific progress. If science can no longer sustain it, the result is nothing short of well, revelatory…

The validty of religious beliefs aside, one wonders if the ID proponents are really sincere. As a “Christian” conception, it is rather faulty. If ID is true, there is no free will (no randomness). If there is no free will, original sin, the nexus of Christian theology, is impossible. If ID is true, then the immaculate conception of God. But the fact is God whose image we partake is imperfect in so many ways. For example, in Job, we see a vain, capricious God. The Gnostic gospels is a testament to the this imperfectness with which Christians tried to grapple with the existence of God in their lives, before the Church settled on one reading of the Story.

Charles Park, the proponents of Intelligent Design are not at all sincere. They crafted this ostensibly non-religious nonsense merely to sneak Creationism into the science curriculum without running afoul of First Amendment concerns. They admitted as much in something referred to as the Wedge Document.

Moreover, few of ID’s advocates bother to conceal their ultimate aims, particularly because this particular ploy appears to be failing.

So is intelligent design wrong? is there proof?

It’s unprovable per se. It’s replacing scientific method with ‘ta-da!’ That’s why it’s not scientific: it’s not falsifiable.

Try David Hume for size, though, as a good place to start on the holes in the philosophical argument. As ‘Philo’ notes, pointing to the original post:

I was from the beginning scandalized, I must own, with this resemblance, which is asserted, between the Deity and human creatures; and must conceive it to imply such a degradation of the Supreme Being as no sound Theist could endure.

Read the whole thing, as they say.

Soru:

The sequel, where Powers explains the truth behind 9/11 and the real reason for the invasion of Iraq, is even better.

Wow. I would so buy that book. Given how Powers worked Middle Eastern folklore (djins, ghuls, Noah, the Fall, etc.) into the Cold War–and the older, colder, war–I think he could pull it off.

After Powers mentioned the Artists Rifles regiment (on Ararat in 1948) and then Stross used them in his Atrocity Archives I had to look it up. Yes, the Artists Rifles is the SAS’s reserve. Such a mild name for that group. “Hi, we’re the Artists Rifles.” That’s almost Pythonesque.

ObID: I’m not sure the entities in Declare would design life on this planet to favor humans in any way at all.

Adam and Even required free will to partake of the apple, when God had specifically told them not to. It was a randomness God risked. It was a choice taken, randome act Adam and Even ceased and made their own.

Ken Wilbur’s take on this story, which makes perfect sense to me, is that A&E partaking of the fruit of the tree of knowledge equates with humans making the monumental and irreversible leap from animal awareness to something akin to what we recognize as human self-awareness. With that relatively recent leap inevitably came such concepts as time, abstract thought, agriculture, foreknowledge of one’s own death, religion, fashion, nukes, cloned dogs, and reality TV.

There’s obviously some good fun to be had with all that abstract thinking, but “God” would actually have been “warning” A&E about the dark side that comes with it all that brainpower. Had Eve — the original scapegoat — just said no to that old snake (or, more accurately, if evolution had taken a different turn) we hominids could have lived in that groovy, animalistic, jungley kinda way for all of eternity. We’d have had no more idea that we were gonna die than my cats have, and that would have saved us from all the insufferable religionistas vying for our precious soooouls and laying down all the ridiculous laws we just gotta follow if we’re gonna escape the boredom of sitting out eternity as a pile of bones in a pine box shoved under the crust of a planet orbiting a sun out in the middle of nowhere. So thanks a lot, Eve/evolutionary twist of fate. I like to think I’d have chosen 40 years of unselfconscious monkey-lovin’ good times over sitting here typing and worrying about the future — nah, who am I kidding…

The flaw in the construction of the A&E/original sin story as it’s commonly related is that humans could never have had a “choice” about whether to become self-aware or to engage in abstract thought. But those crafty religious types were able to frame the issue not only as one of choice but of defiance, thereby enabling them to label it the original sin. They’ve sure gotten a lot of mileage out of that one — today’s pulpit-barons have nothing on the high priests of yore.

Bertrand,

Because the people arguing for intelligent design don’t say anything about intelligent design or produce their own science, but just snipe at the already-existing science of evolutionary biology?

But isn’t that a critical piece of “doing science?” It certainly is in my field of math and economics. Pointing out that “this theory doesn’t work–look at this result” does not require and has never required a better theory, although it leads to better theories.

As I said in #36, intelligent design is not an explanatory theory; it’s a demonstration that in some cases, evolutionary theory isn’t a satisfactory explanation.

And it doesn’t help that in the rare instances when they do try to make some criticism with actual empirical content- viz. Dumbski’s “information-theory” noodling- it’s always laughably incompetent. Which is only to be expected since the whole thing is really a political enterprise and not a scientific one at all.

you’re really claiming that you can attack an accepted theory without offering anything to replace it? I find that hard to believe; don’t you at the least offer a modification and then a revised theory?

Jake–yes–that’s exactly what I’m claiming. I can say, “Your theory X is wrong; look at this case which contradicts it,” even if I have no better explanation.

Think of the experiments measuring the speed of light, which disproved the ether theory of how light moved. After that, the ether theory was known to be wrong, but it was several years and several explanations later until there was a new, well-worked-out theory.

As I said in #36, intelligent design is not an explanatory theory; it’s a demonstration that in some cases, evolutionary theory isn’t a satisfactory explanation.

Er, no. It’s a dodgy critique wrapped up in shiny ineffability.

Actually, most if not all of the claimed “gaps”, like the ones made much of in Behe’s book, are simply phony. Behe made false claims- which he has never publicly retracted AFAIK- about the absence of literature in areas where at the time he wrote there were actually tons of papers. Anyone who wants lots of details can find them on the talk.origins site.

A: How did X happen?
B: I don’t know.
A: Ah-ha! That proves that God did it.

In response to the question of how Intelligent Design has been disproven, I would amplify on #81 a bit:

The main argument of ID is “If evolution cannot explain the development of X, then X must be a product of Intelligent Design.” The main logical fallacy here is that Intelligent Design is the only possible alternative to evolution, which must be defaulted to. Also, the assumption that evolutionary theory cannot explain something is invoked for anything which is currently unknown. The mere fact that something has not been explained by the theory of evolution is not proof that evolution cannot explain it (It is, however, conceivable for some empirical observation to apparently contradict evolutionary theory, but, creationists’ claims to the contrary, this has not been observed in actual fact).

It’s worse than that, though. In addition to merely invoking the genuine unknowns of biological evolution, ID proponents are fond of pretending that things which are actually well-understood are, instead, unknown.

Richard Dawkins explains this and more in greater depth in God’s Gift to Kansas.