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Dumbing Down Of America, 2
Topic Started: May 12 2006, 11:46 AM (5,662 Views)
teryt
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ngc1514
May 22 2006, 09:46 PM
teryt
May 22 2006, 04:41 PM

You used these words: "just" & "guise."  What does that tend to communicate?

It attempts to communicate the fact that ID is just creationism in another guise!

Are you arguing it isn't or just getting all squirrely over linguistics?

"Just creationism" signifies that creationism is another in an almost endless sequence of ex nihilo acts of divine creation offered up by most religions.

"Guise" signifies that the failed attempts of the creationists to get their religious belief into the schools has morphed creationism into something now known as ID. See Chris' quoting of Phillip Johnson to further clarify.

Again, are you offering that creationism and ID are not the same thing?

I don't think of them as the same. Creationism has a particular being in mind, whereas ID doesn't. Kapeche?
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cmoehle
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Chris - San Antonio TX
And now Michael J. Behe, from Philosophical Objections to Intelligent Design: Response to Critics:

Quote:
 
By “intelligent design” I mean to imply design beyond the laws of nature. That is, taking the laws of nature as given, are their other reasons for concluding that life and its component systems have been intentionally arranged? In my book, and in this essay, whenever I refer to intelligent design (ID) I mean this stronger sense of design-beyond-laws. Virtually all academic critics of my book have taken the phrase in the strong sense I meant it.

In the strong sense ID is no longer approved by the National Academy, for a specific reason: “ntelligent design . . . [is] not science because [it is] not testable by the methods of science.” (National Academy of Sciences 1999, 25)



Johnson, Dembski and Behe are the founders and leading proponents of ID. Johnson clearly identifies ID with religion and God. Dembski clearly sees Christ as the foundation of theory and admits it is not science. And Behe, while careful not to identify who the designer is, clearly admits it is supernatural.

If you deny what they say about ID, then you are talking about something else altogether.
Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.
--Barry Goldwater
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ngc1514
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teryt
May 23 2006, 01:34 AM
I don't think of them as the same. Creationism has a particular being in mind, whereas ID doesn't. Kapeche?

You forgot the necessary "nudge nudge wink wink" that's supposed to go along with that assertion!

Are you willing to entertain the notion that the "particular being" in Creationism might have been a creation of the Intelligent Designer in ID? The "I AM" of the Old Testament and the "Logos" of the New are just among the created things along with the ebola virus, dog poop and mosquitos?

Whether you think them the same or not isn't really the question, is it? It's whether those advocating ID as an alternative "theory" think them the same. Can you point to any ID'er who unequivocally states that the biblical god != the Id'er?



Posted ImageEric
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DocInBird
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teryt
May 22 2006, 11:34 PM

I don't think of them as the same.  Creationism has a particular being in mind, whereas ID doesn't.  Kapeche?



So, the ID proponents would have no difficulty with the concept that the ID came from an alien from beyond our universe? Or from Pan Gu, King Gao Xin, Tu Chai Pai, or Brahma? As long as there was a designer, that's all that matters?
--doc
Just Doc and Orson (German Shepherd) wandering around North America.
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ngc1514
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DocInBird
May 23 2006, 11:45 AM
teryt
May 22 2006, 11:34 PM

I don't think of them as the same.  Creationism has a particular being in mind, whereas ID doesn't.  Kapeche?



So, the ID proponents would have no difficulty with the concept that the ID came from an alien from beyond our universe? Or from Pan Gu, King Gao Xin, Tu Chai Pai, or Brahma? As long as there was a designer, that's all that matters?

I cast my vote for Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth. It's all laid out in the Necronomicon for those who can read. There is no doubt in my mind that Shub-Niggurath - the Goat with a Thousand Young - is a fine example of irreducible complexity.

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teryt
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DocInBird
May 23 2006, 03:45 PM
teryt
May 22 2006, 11:34 PM

I don't think of them as the same.  Creationism has a particular being in mind, whereas ID doesn't.  Kapeche?



So, the ID proponents would have no difficulty with the concept that the ID came from an alien from beyond our universe? Or from Pan Gu, King Gao Xin, Tu Chai Pai, or Brahma? As long as there was a designer, that's all that matters?


You guys seem to be all hung up on the "who" aspect. Well - so what!? I don't really give a rat's batootey, but rather just like to look at what ID says on the face of it - the idea that there was a designer! Take one step at a time . . . the best way to eat an elephant . . . don't get hung up on one tree when there's a whole forest . . . don't put your fruit on the waffle until it's cooked . . . etc.
Quote:
 
You forgot the necessary "nudge nudge wink wink" that's supposed to go along with that assertion!
eh? There's proof positive of something, but I'm not sure what!!!

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cmoehle
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Chris - San Antonio TX
Teryt "I don't really give a rat's batootey, but rather just like to look at what ID says on the face of it - the idea that there was a designer!"

That is about all ID says, isn't it? That one single idea.

Have you heard of IDOID? It says as much as ID. WHy not teach it too?

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ngc1514
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teryt
May 23 2006, 12:37 PM
You guys seem to be all hung up on the "who" aspect. Well - so what!? I don't really give a rat's batootey, but rather just like to look at what ID says on the face of it - the idea that there was a designer! Take one step at a time . . . the best way to eat an elephant . . . don't get hung up on one tree when there's a whole forest . . . don't put your fruit on the waffle until it's cooked . . . etc.

Of course because it ain't us that came up with the idea of an intelligent designer, was it?

So, other than saying, on the face, chest, back and bottom, of it that there is a designer (which is all creationism says) - what else does it say?

Notice you have a propensity towards ignoring questions, but that's understandable. These questions seem to make all the ID fans on here uncomfortable.

Ok, you now claim to have a designer (or pretend you do) - what's the next step? Other than claiming this is some scientific theory on par with evolution... Which it ain't.


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DocInBird
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Terryt, my point was more to the motives of the specific groups pushing ID, rather than yours. If those groups were really concerned with the probability of a design, rather than a specific designer, I would be more likely to accept the premise.

Accidents happen and sometimes these accidents result in a superior species. Some of the non-ID explanations seem plausible to me, but I don't have enough evidence one way or the other. Thursday, I'll be driving 10 miles from campus to a NASA research facility to attend a lecture entitled, "Is there life out there? If so, what will be do when we encounter it?" I can't answer these questions either.

A small minority of scientists believe in ID, as defined by the groups promoting it. Why then should it be taught to younger students? It could be a graduate school course in college, certainly, but why teach it to elementary school students? They have a difficult time enough learning what the scientific community accepts.

I have a young relative who was taught that dinosaurs never existed, because they are not mentioned in the bible. Is this science? Should it be taught in the public school system? When I asked him about fossils of dinosaur bones, he told me that they were created by atheists to try to fool people. He also claimed that man never walked on the moon - that it was trick photography. Should that theory be taught too? Oh, and the earth was only 6,000 years old. I asked him how he knew that. He said that people used to live much longer then they do now and his pastor had added up all of the "begats" in Genesis and came up with that number.

My point, again, is that I haven't seen enough evidence. And evidence is required before teaching this concept to younger children. We have absolute evidence that the US and England launched a blind attack against Russia, immediately following WWI, while we were supposed to be allies, and that this was the primary trigger for the "cold war", but we do not teach that to young children. If the meager "evidence" of ID some day reveals that design is the only possible explanation, I would be willing to review the evidence and change my mind. But I doubt that I will still be alive when/if that happens, after all I'm 50 years old.
--doc
Just Doc and Orson (German Shepherd) wandering around North America.
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ngc1514
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cmoehle
May 23 2006, 01:16 PM
That is about all ID says, isn't it? That one single idea.

Have you heard of IDOID? It says as much as ID. WHy not teach it too?

Posted Image

Chris,

We both know that the ID'ers ain't gonna touch IDOID with a 10 foot collection basket! Rather than confronting questions that make them uncomfortable, they ignore them. I think we can see the big difference between the intellectual honesty of science and the absurdity of religion posing as science. And they want to teach this in in schools and call it science.

Science looks forward to having cherished theories disproven because that opens up whole new lines of interesting research (and awards a few Nobel Prizes); the "paradigm shift" of Kuhn. Religion and ID as creationism in a new guise don't want to discuss the designer and only put forth this idea of irreducible complexity which is, at the basics, nothing more than a reformulation of the god of the gaps and moving the goal posts. "Ok, you showed that system was not irreducibly complex - but what about THAT one?!"

And they want to teach this in schools and call it science.

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teryt
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ngc1514
May 23 2006, 05:31 PM
Notice you have a propensity towards ignoring questions, but that's understandable. These questions seem to make all the ID fans on here uncomfortable.

Ok, you now claim to have a designer (or pretend you do) - what's the next step? Other than claiming this is some scientific theory on par with evolution... Which it ain't.

I don't ignore the questions, I just don't respnd to them in the way you perhaps would like. If you can ask slanted questions (i.e. biased in favor of your opinion - the particular filter through which you see the universe, which is natural & we all do), then I suppose that I can too.

Hmmm, I don't know that I ever claimed ID was "a scientific theory on par with evolution." No, I don't think I claimed that. I may have thought that, but I'm now considering that this is not quite the case, since ID hasn't had the energy put into it that evolution has. Since we seem to have established on here, that evolution actually doesn't go toward the creation of life itself, perhaps ID should be seen as a good, generally complimenting theory to aspects of evolution.

However, I guess this would tend to erode into evoltions hold on certain things like irreducibly complex structures.

Me thinks you guys maybe protesteth too much - in that ID might eventually be shown (i.e., in scientific terms) to have some solid merit. And this may tend to erode some widely held evolutionary beliefs - perhaps the ones that don't have such an "irrefutable" scientific basis. Do you think this is at all remotely possible?
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teryt
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Could Staunch Evolutionists become Dodos?
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teryt
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DocInBird
May 23 2006, 05:44 PM
Terryt, my point was more to the motives of the specific groups pushing ID, rather than yours. If those groups were really concerned with the probability of a design, rather than a specific designer, I would be more likely to accept the premise.

Accidents happen and sometimes these accidents result in a superior species. Some of the non-ID explanations seem plausible to me, but I don't have enough evidence one way or the other. Thursday, I'll be driving 10 miles from campus to a NASA research facility to attend a lecture entitled, "Is there life out there? If so, what will be do when we encounter it?" I can't answer these questions either.

A small minority of scientists believe in ID, as defined by the groups promoting it. Why then should it be taught to younger students? It could be a graduate school course in college, certainly, but why teach it to elementary school students? They have a difficult time enough learning what the scientific community accepts.

I have a young relative who was taught that dinosaurs never existed, because they are not mentioned in the bible. Is this science? Should it be taught in the public school system? When I asked him about fossils of dinosaur bones, he told me that they were created by atheists to try to fool people. He also claimed that man never walked on the moon - that it was trick photography. Should that theory be taught too? Oh, and the earth was only 6,000 years old. I asked him how he knew that. He said that people used to live much longer then they do now and his pastor had added up all of the "begats" in Genesis and came up with that number.

My point, again, is that I haven't seen enough evidence. And evidence is required before teaching this concept to younger children. We have absolute evidence that the US and England launched a blind attack against Russia, immediately following WWI, while we were supposed to be allies, and that this was the primary trigger for the "cold war", but we do not teach that to young children. If the meager "evidence" of ID some day reveals that design is the only possible explanation, I would be willing to review the evidence and change my mind. But I doubt that I will still be alive when/if that happens, after all I'm 50 years old.

Thanks for your reasonable & thoughtful response!

I like the idea that evolution should not presented as the infallible, do-all, cure-all, explain all - a position that it seems to enjoy now. I hope for a more critical approach, whereas other ideas could at least be presented and considered.

I remember looking through Jr. high textbooks 15 years ago, and seeing evolution presented totally without question. That is, there was NO mention whatsoever that this was a theory. It went immediately into how life came outa soup, we all decended from apes, and so forth. It was done in a very mater-or-fact way, with NO room at all left for any disagreement.

My opinion is that many people have grown tired of what they percieve as arrogance - not appearing to be open to any opposing thoughts (this is done under the aura of any seemingly contary thought must be according to strict & established & accepted "scientific systems").

In some respects, I suppose this is similar to what more scientific minds thought about deeply held religious beliefs. Now that pendulum has swung far the other way I suspect.
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ngc1514
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teryt
May 23 2006, 02:22 PM
I like the idea that evolution should not presented as the infallible, do-all, cure-all, explain all - a position that it seems to enjoy now. I hope for a more critical approach, whereas other ideas could at least be presented and considered.



I remember looking through Jr. high textbooks 15 years ago, and seeing evolution presented totally without question. That is, there was NO mention whatsoever that this was a theory. It went immediately into how life came outa soup, we all decended from apes, and so forth. It was done in a very mater-or-fact way, with NO room at all left for any disagreement.

My opinion is that many people have grown tired of what they percieve as arrogance - not appearing to be open to any opposing thoughts (this is done under the aura of any seemingly contary thought must be according to strict & established & accepted "scientific systems").

In some respects, I suppose this is similar to what more scientific minds thought about deeply held religious beliefs. Now that pendulum has swung far the other way I suspect.

But evolution ISN'T presented as all those things you mentioned. It is presented as the best explanation that seems to fit all the data. That's what a scientific theory IS!

You will notice that no scientist worth his salt says the theory of evolution is true. (Hint - that's why it's called a theory.)

If you can understand why those two statements are not mutually exclusive, you will have come a long way in understanding science.

Arrogance? Anyone can present any theory they wish. If the theory does a better job of explaining the data that current theory, the scientific community will take a look at it. But you must realize that science is about as conservative as the College of Cardinals and it takes a lot of work and clout to get a hearing if you don't have some credentials.

The unwillingness of the ID'ers to admit to the same thing - the willingness to look at other theories and, perhaps, throw out the idea of ID and the designer. Well, I've never heard one admit to being so willing. Have you? (Is that a question you can answer?)

A Jr. high school textbook is no more a valid source of what science says or how it works than a junior high school text on world history or a children's book of bible stories is a serious discussion of theology. Is your MBA based on high school level economics? I would be surprised if it were.




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abradf2519
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teryt
May 23 2006, 11:56 AM
I don't ignore the questions, I just don't respnd to them in the way you perhaps would like. If you can ask slanted questions (i.e. biased in favor of your opinion - the particular filter through which you see the universe, which is natural & we all do), then I suppose that I can too.

Hmmm, I don't know that I ever claimed ID was "a scientific theory on par with evolution." No, I don't think I claimed that. I may have thought that, but I'm now considering that this is not quite the case, since ID hasn't had the energy put into it that evolution has. Since we seem to have established on here, that evolution actually doesn't go toward the creation of life itself, perhaps ID should be seen as a good, generally complimenting theory to aspects of evolution.

However, I guess this would tend to erode into evoltions hold on certain things like irreducibly complex structures.

Me thinks you guys maybe protesteth too much - in that ID might eventually be shown (i.e., in scientific terms) to have some solid merit. And this may tend to erode some widely held evolutionary beliefs - perhaps the ones that don't have such an "irrefutable" scientific basis. Do you think this is at all remotely possible?

:clap: :clap: :clap:

Good response! I agree completely.
Alan
Milan, New York, USA
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