Redstate

What do you expect?  The witnesses are caught lying and even called on it during the trial by the judge himself. And the fact that they lied about their motives and donors in the first place send up a big red flag as to what their objective was.

And in response to the rest of your post:

1. The world is quite confident natural selection occurs.  The most suitable specimen of a species is more likely to reproduce and pass on genetic material.  Seems pretty solid.  Maybe the acedemic elites are right on this one.
   
2.  It's the same conjecture you accuse the "Darwinists" of doing to IDers.  You say they're hiding their true argument, they say you're hiding your true argument.  In some cases, you both may be right.  It the case of serious and honest scientists and teachers, you would be wrong.
   
3.  Exact same as #2, just worded differently.
   
4.  If ID advocates truly wanted to teach the problems with evolutionary theories, they would lobby for that rather than insert their own that cannot be scientifically proven.

The rest of #4 wanders into no man's land.  The connection between Darwin and abortion just isn't there.  A fairly large percentage of abortions every year are carried out by self identified Christians.  And you also assume that everyone that believes in natural selection is an athiest.  Dead wrong.  Even the pope finds the ideas compatible.

5.  Once again, you refer to gaps, which there are, yet assume that a gap means the theory is wrong.  God forbid that we haven't unlocked the mysteries of the universe in the short time we have studied it.  Not that you're argument is valid anyway since the premise is that evolution is being taught as more than just natural selection.  It is being studied and theororized as more than that, but that remains a theory in the works, with researchers actually working to figure out if their theory is valid and publishing results, not making their emotional case in courts and on the blogosphere.

Methinks the creationist doth protest too much.

1. I don't know about "settled science".  It's merely been peer-reviewed to the point that it forms the core of biological sciences.  IDers have yet to produce actual experiments and studies that disprove  or even call into question basic tenets of evolutionary theory.
   
2. Science is indifferent to the existence of God, or of any other phenomenon or entity that cannot be observed.  That's merely agnostic.  (Personally, I find anti-evolution arguments demeaning to God: Is He not perfect?  Shouldn't his creation be so immaculate that He need not interfere with its workings to create the animals and plants He desires?)
   
3. "Intelligent Design" is a term devised by the Discovery Institute; their "Wedge Strategy" document, which they've never disowned, describes a plan to introduce Christian values into science.  The DI thinks that science has become too materialistic, and that reason and rationality have displaced good Christian thinking.  ID is creationism.
   
4. I do think a study of evolution theory's shortcomings would be healthy, but it shouldn't be used in support of an unsupportable hypothesis like ID.  Whatever problems there are simply point out fields that are yet to be thoroughly explored.  
   
5. Evolutionary theory may never complete itself, but ID can never even begin.  ID's fundamental assertion, that the complexity we see in life can only be the work of a intelligence, will never be followed by an exploration of how that intelligence manipulates life.  It will never propose a means of observing that mechanism in action, or ever cohere into a theory about who and what this intelligence might be.

Not that anyone doesn't know already that it's supposed to be God.  For all the chest-thumping about ID being "science", it's ridiculous how quickly its proponents revert to diatribes about "secularists", damning ID as a religious movement.  If ID is ever to be taken seriously as science, it has to cut all ties with religious organizations, and present actual science to back up its hypotheses.

let me get this straight...evolution leads to societies embracing sex, drugs, rock n' roll?  Thanks for the laugh tonight buddy, I really needed it.  As I see the two posters above me have spoken well in destroying this nonsense, I'll just leave it at that with a smile on my face.

in my laughing I accidently put sex for sec - apparently it does lead to sex after all - my fault entirely :)

Last I heard evolution was the cause of socialism and communism. Now it's all the way up to abortion. Next thing you know it'll be the cause of people being left handed.

Oh, wait a minute...I think that one's true.

...a simple and very good point: let ID stand or fall as science. It could take decades or even centuries for this debate to play out.

Meanwhile the diarist has a problem with the cultural power that has accumulated around "neo-Darwinism," by which I think he means the materialist-reductionist view of life in general and human life in particular. That's more of a political debate than a scientific one.

Physics students in high school learn all about Newton's theory of gravitation and about the Bohr planetary model of atomic structure, and may be excused for considering these theories "settled science." (They also may be excused for confusing "settled science" with truth, since that's what they are taught.) Yet both of these theories have long since been superseded by more modern (and presumably more "true") ones.

I think if "neo-Darwinism" should ever fall as science, it's still going to be considered (and taught as) "true" for generations thereafter.

They crack me up.

First they quote the judge.  But did they read the opinion?  It was a screed, not a judicial writing.  Calling people liars and whining that he will be called an activist.

Science promoters?  Yeah right.  You take a theory and cling to it as if it were a fact and not a theory.  Then "in the name of science" refuse to listen to alternative theories.  Theories backed up by rational reasoning.  IE: The classic - If a watch washes up on shore it was likely made by someone and not likely that a bunch of molecules washed together randomly to create a watch thus a "watchmaker".

Science?  Yeah right.  In my science classed (particularly in physics and in engineering) we learned about the absense of "randomness".

As a former teacher (running the gamut from 6th grade primary ed up to graduate school prof) I learned to question "nuetral texts".

My two favorite examples of fraud (both still used today) are the story about the moths in England that survived changes in environment because they adapted to the surroundings by the color of recessive gene moths (long story but perhaps you've heard it).  The story was debunked as a story created by a textbook manufacturer years ago, but is now widely distributed and is justified because it is "such an instrucive example".  My other favorite is the famous pictures that show that human, cow, pig, fish etc embryos look so darn simular.  While the pictures appear in many textbooks they were fraudulent (again a text book publisher).  In fact human, fish, and other mammal embryos look nothing alike and don't go through simular changes (ie "gills) but it is still taught.  Now some nursing schools are calling embryonic sacs "yolk sacs" even though no nutrition is derived from them.  This kind of misinformation is then used in some pro-abortion debates.  So yes, bad science leads to bad policy debates.

This isn't a science versus religion argument, it is a good science versus bad science debate.

We can go from here to punch holes in the big bang by advances in string theory, and to punch holes in Darwinism as many (even athiestic scientist do) by asking for just one fossil record of any creature partway between two species.

But your boy (ahem, I mean judge) doesn't want to talk about it nor does he want anyone's children to hear both sides of any scientific debate.  Modern science has become a set of held beliefs that may not be challenged.

Intellectualists and science apologists indeed.  

...left-handed people are more highly evolved.  ;)

Moe

Notice how I saved a letter? Merry Christmas my Manhattan master muser merchant mogul extraordinaire! I have been sick at Grandmas in SC since Saturday! But did have time to advance my energy in a strong executive theme. Back in HotLanta now. Watched some Burns Civil War last night but I'm not mad. I'm glad we lost. God knew we had the self esteem to handle it! Love Lincoln and his war power example. But I digress...

I know you have read about the Pa case where a federal judge spent 160 pages following the O'Connor 17 point endorsment test in the new constitution. Ongoing madness. Federal judges defining science. I was pleased to hear Fox's J. Napolitano echo my assurance that Allito and Roberts will end this crap.

As usual your comments are consise and correct.

God bless

ID proponents do not simply want students to be taught that evolution can't explain everything - they want students to be taught that a supernatural being may have made life.

Mentioned in a previous post - Newton's theory of Gravity is not the best explaination, but it's still taught. It's taught because it works and it's much simpler to calculate than General Relativity. In fact, you can land a spacecraft on Mars within minutes of schedule using Newtonian theory.

What can I predict with ID? I can predict that the designer might decide to wipe this place clean and design something new - how does that help me? Even if ID is 100% correct - it's still 100% useless.

1) What ID proponents want.

What I believe is wanted by one side is a debate on the merits of the science involved.  The other side has a my-way-or-the-highway mentality.

2) Newton and relativity.

Your weakest point (and my favorite).  By your reasoning one who is a proponent of relativity should be banned from even being heard in a science class because Newton "works" and is simpler?  Newton "works", but it doesn't make it correct.  Simpler? I was teaching 6th graders about relativity.  It can be done.  In fact it's fun.

3) Something is only worth learning if I can use it to predict things?

Huh?

Bottom line: I don't care if one wants to teach ID or not (I never did as evolution wasn't a part of any of my class contents).  But I don't think it is the place of a judge to tell teachers (or even professors) that they can or can't teach critisicm of theory.  Bizzare.

Here's another way to address the point that you seem to be missing. What is the independent design equivalent to the Michelson-Morley experiment that can be used show scientifically that evolution is sufficiently flawed that ID is a better theory to explain the same sorts of biological phenomena evolution attempts to explain?

In other words, what scientific tests can we use to prove or disprove the existence of this designer and how can we observe this "designing" in process in a way that is independently verifiable, repeatable, and measurable?

Also, I think you're making a leap when you equate ID with criticism of evolution, when it's clearly criticism of evolution with an added supernatural component. By all means, schools should be pointing out the weak spots in evolution. On the other hand, they shouldn't be attempting to replace it with something that is as of now, clearly unscientific.

Thanks to the wisdom and foresight of out founding fathers, in writing the Constitution and establishing our court system, it has.

of the theory, but that you cannot teach a "theory" that has no scientific basis other than "rationalizations" done by religious thinkers.  I don't think there is any problem with a scientist saying that holes exost in the fossil record or that evolutionary theory as we understand it today may be modified by science in the future, but there is a problem with introducing a competing "theory" that has no basis in experiment or fact at all and can only be proven by belief (or someone's inability to grasp complexity the complexity of science).  I believe in God (greek orthodox) and I have no problem at all with evolution (I believe that God simply started the ball rolling, because in His infinite wisdom knew what the end result would be).  What is next, the teachings of L Ron Hubbard being taught as theory too?

What is next, the teachings of L Ron Hubbard being taught as theory too?

They teach global warming. L Ron is just as credible.

I believe that God simply started the ball rolling, because in His infinite wisdom knew what the end result would be

Isn't that tantamount to Intelligent Design? God begins the process and the end result is known to Him?

is quite able to be tested.  Whether we are the reason for the warming is a much more difficult task to prove, however, ID is impossible to prove unless the creator (and what if the "creator" turns out to be an alien civilization more advanced than ours that practices polytheism)stops in for a visit and shows us how it was done.

Unless you mean to imply that rather than a government of limited, enumerated powers, the Founders decided that an Imperial Judiciary would be nice.

An interesting idea, if an utterly ahistorical and baseless one.

Calling people liars and whining that he will be called an activist.

The school district's witnesses lied under oath on two occasions.

You're right; he shouldn't have called those people liars. He should've racked them up on contempt and perjury instead.

Actually Newton's theory is still right. All relativity added was to consign Newton's laws to a special case -- when the velocity of an object is small in comparison to the speed of light. As long as the speed of an object below, say 3E6 m/s (a hundredth of the speed of light) then Newton's laws are just as acccurate, when taking into account the limits of current instrumentation.

Yes, if you mean that ID simply means a creator at any point, no if you mean it would compete with evolutionary theory.  Sure, a God(s) (or powerful alien civilization) could have snapped their fingers and gotten the big bang rolling, knowing that in the end (which we haven't seen yet) X would be produced, but I do not see how this kind of belief should compete at all with evolution (which could still happen) or physics or our scientific study of anything.

prevailed over the United States government at Little Bighorn.  Custer bit the dust but the Sioux eventually wound up back on the reservation.

As you are a real scientist, DIR, you know reality will eventually rise to the top.  Why do you kick at the goads?

imperialism.  That's what you get in socialist, totalitarian regimes: Death of the innocents, book burning and speech control.  Just read 1984 (again).

it could be that I never liked people who talked much and said little.

how do you do so without the obvious implication? If evolution doesn't work what other alternative is there? Even without explicitly teaching 'God made the world', that is what is implied if evolution obviously doesn't work.

You contend that ID's goal is the scientific rebuttal to some Evolutionary theories.  Yet in your post explaining ID, you have the following references:

12 Refereneces to abortion or dead babies, which is an absolute red herring for several reasons:

• Many people who believe in ID or stricter creationism get abortions each year.




• Abortions are an example of humans using technology to negate natural selection.  So if natural selection were to have a philosophy, which is does not (being scientific in nature),one would think that philosophy would be opposed to the use of birth control or abortion would it not?
• 
  

• This one cannot be stressed enough, it is that natural selection is not philosophical in nature.  It is simply theory based on observation.

12 seperate references to God, Atheism, or secularity.

Yet all the while you wish to sell the notion that ID is in any way a scientific debate rather than a religious one?

4 references to acedemic elite

Yes those darn people who actually study things.  I fail to see why people would view this as a negative, but envoking the term elite creates an immediate straw man to hide behind.

5 mentions of liberals / left wing

Once again, ID is supposed to be scientific rather than ideological?

4 mentions of a physchotic, drugged-up baby boomer generation

Wow, besides the fallacy of painting an entire generation with one stroke of a brush, it is an inaccurate and stereotypical charachterization that represents a minority of the entire generation.  On top of that, it has nothing to do with ID or science.  Just another big straw man.

Calling nerds unholy

That's just in very poor taste, shows how weak an argument is when the best you can do is call names.

In this post you managed to lump together and insult all liberals, nerds, scholars, conservatives who don't want to force ID into the science classroom, the entire baby-boomer generation, and even mainline church goers.

Good job, you have managed to declare a very healthy majority of the country Godless idiots.  I'm sure you'll win alot of arguments with that strategy.

In this post you have managed to debunk your own arguments that ID is based on science.  You have also debunked your statement that you are trying to inform people of ID, rather you just want to crow about it and baselessly call everyone else names.

As your posts and the court case showed, when you take away the emotionally charged rhetoric, and religion-baiting, there is little to ID.  Evolution researchers, on the other hand, have thousands (if not millions) of hours of work, reports, and studies.  And even a vast majority have the humility and honesty to review theories and test their validity over and over again.

I buy into the idea that God set the world in motion.  I buy into the idea that there are unexplained holes in some evolutionary theories.  However, I do not buy into a transparent attempt to discredit actual research with philosophy wrapped in a package of psuedoscience and emotionally baited arguments.  And most of all, I do not buy into the idea that science has an atheistic culture or agenda.  Science is observable, faith is meant not to be.  By the very nature of the two, they are not directly comparable to each other, or mutually exclusive.  Why some people must illogically force them to be is beyond me.

I don't see how it directly follows that if evolution is incorrect that ID is the only remaining alternative. In this case, I don't think you're arguing against the scientific theory of evolution vs. the scientific theory of ID, you're arguing the philosophical point of whether some supernatural being is responsible for the creation of the universe - which is clearly outside the ability of science to offer an answer one way or another.

Yes, I believe Darwin has a lot to answer for, unless it is true, in which case everything happens via natural necessity and morality is therefore subjective and an optional luxury that will ultimately doom human life on this planet.  One cannot have it both ways; but leave it to the Baby Boomers to demand their cake and eat it too.  The ID / Darwin argument exemplifies the psychosis of our wounded generation.  As an optimist, I believe insight will prevail.  But to paraphrase that great Baby Boomer poet David Crosby, "it's been a long time coming; it's been a long time gone".

Well, of course morality is subjective--why is this such a problem? Even the great Christian thinkers believed this. The biggest problem with Intelligent Design as presented in Dover and at DI is the word "Intelligent." "Unnatural Design" is a better moniker, it implies no earthly value system nor 'supernatural' being, only that the natural explanations so far are woefully inadequate to explain the breadth of experience.

The holes in evolutionary theory are fascinating, and it's a shame they aren't taught.

    1.  Neo-Darwinian evolution is a theory that has been deemed

> "settled science" by mainstream scientists, and ardently supported by

> the MSM, not because it is good science but because it carries with it

> the ultimate reality (if it were really true) that there is no God /

> Creator.

Nonsense.  Simply because some adherents to the theory of evolution may be atheists is not to say that the theory itself promotes atheism, any more than than the fact that some IDers may be atheists means that ID promotes atheism. (After all, there are surely some atheist IDers who believe that life on earth was created by aliens, not God).

>    2.  The same Darwinists encourage the rope-a-dope misperception that

> Darwinism isn't atheistic, even though their most notable advocates

> (i.e. Richard Dawkins) laugh up their sleeves that anyone would

> actually buy that nonsense.

See above.

There are atheists as well as believers in all the sciences.

>    3.  The Darwinists repeat the mantra "Intelligent Design is thinly

> disguised Biblical Creationism" over and over; I have every Google news

> post on ID for over 8 months, and they hit daily with many entries; 90%

> of the stories are on that topic:  ID is Genesis/Creationism in sheep's

> clothing.  It is a well orchestrated smear campaign by people who know

> little about science, neo-Darwinian theory and especially Intelligent

> Design. Neal Boortz today parroted the same nonsense on his radio show

> and he knows less about science than I know about his "fair tax" ideas,

> which is a lot (although I'm inclined to like his tax thinking).

More than that, in its present form, it's just plain shoddy science.

> Question:  Where are the Red State truth detectors?  Answer:  Wishing

> this topic would go away because they don't want to face making a stand

> that could get them ostracized by the academic elite as stupid

> Bible-thumpers. (Ground control to Major Tom).

Better question:  Where are the Scientific truth detectors?  Answer: Alive and well, justly demanding that ID fulfill all the requirements that any other theory must fulfill before being taken seriously by the scientific community, or taught in a public classroom.

> 4.  Evolutionists do not want the major problems inherent in their

> theory taught in public schools, which is the only thing true ID

> advocates really want at this time (ID science is new and a work in

> progress).

Biologists do this already, believe it or not.  In fact, they can be quite ruthless in pointing out the mistakes of their peers.  carreers are on the line.  Survival of the fittest, you know.

 

>Darwinian evolutionary theory is junk science that has been

> propagated because of it's cultural impact.

No, It has propogated because because it is the best theory we have to describe what is observed in the fossil record as well as what is observed in living organisms.

If you have a better one, you will have made an incredibly valuable contribution to the collective knowledge of the world.

>(check out a western Europe

> that has gone (vast) majority atheist/agnostic/secularist since WW II;

> check out how many millions of abortions of babies in this country

> since 1973?).  

While you're at it, why not blame all this on the fact that the sun doesn't revolve around the Earth? I'm sorry, but this is ridiculous.  Moreover, it has absolutely no bearing on wether or not the theory of evolution stands up to the evidence, which it does, even with its gaps.

>If Evolution were somehow culture-neutral it would have

> been given-up years ago for the unproven and unprovable pipe dream,

> "just so" story it is.  If it were a new theory today it would never

> make it past the metal detectors of the peer review boards.  But it

> isn't new and it is culturally explosive.  So it is championed by the

> left, and for some reason some otherwise intelligent conservatives

> agree, for fear of being labeled Creationist hicks and hayseeds.

No.  While it's true that there are those who may be motivated to accept or reject a particular theory solely due to their political beliefs rather than the evidence, -(and you appear to be one of them, as you have offered NO legitimate criticisms of the theory which you so vehemently reject, aside from a bellyfull of socio-political indignation)-their opinion on that particular theory is worthless, be it pro or con.

> And yet those same conservatives wonder articulately why liberals can't

> see that aborting a baby is wrong.  It is because the liberals believe

> in evolution, that there is no God and there is no eternal consequence

> to having it "their way".  And that is correct.  If there is no God,

> let's eat, drink, be merry and abort unwanted babies  because after

> all, it's my life and I'll do what I dang well please (now let's all

> sing a rousing chorus of "Imagine").

Again, none of this supports your contention that there is no evidence for evolution, or whatever it is that you're contending.  Neither does it follow that only atheists get abortions, nor that they are atheists because they have been taught evolution, nor that evolution teaches atheism, which it doesn't. it simply doesn't address that question.  I know that drives you nuts, but it really doesn't.

The fact that people misinterpret the Theory of evolution to mean that "Anything Goes" does not change the validity of the theory as it pertains to the phenomenae it actually describes.

> 5. Finally, Intelligent Design science is about complexity.  Darwin

> assumed life was a simple thing, as easy to make as Mary Shelley's

> Frankenstein monster or as postulated by the defunct theory of

> Primordial Soup.  Now, with modern scientific methods (including REALLY

> GOOD microscopes), we see beyond the veil to the details of living

> structure.  Everyone, even the Darwinists, now agree life is

> extraordinarily complex.  

What does this have to do with discrediting the theory of evolution?

Yes life is indeed very complex, and of course we have a deeper understanding of the workings of living organisms than Darwin did.

>ID says "we only see this complexity when it  comes from intelligent sources, like Mt. >Rushmore or a piano or an  apple pie".  

No.  Global weather patterns are extremely complex yet natural.

>ID says the odds of this complexity occurring by  naturalistic explanations are beyond >impossible.The fascinating thing  about ID is that it's not about who the designer is, but >that these  living structures demonstrate what is otherwise known as "information"

> which is only the product of intelligence and never by nature.

That last sentence is the most disturbing one in your entire missive.  I'll show it again:

>... these  living structures demonstrate what is otherwise known as "information"

> which is only the product of intelligence and never by nature.

 Aside from the fact that you do not explain what you mean by "information" (I assume you are referring to DNA or RNA) You state that nature cannot produce information, yet you addmitedly see information in nature.

I can see the thought bubble over your head reading somthing like this:  "I see information in nature, but since I don't believe that nature can produce information, an outside intelligence must have done it."

How can you, an obviously intelligent person, possibly contend, with no evidence whatsoever that "information" cannot be a product of nature?

>No one  could make that statement accurately 50 years ago.

Seriously, perhaps I'm misunderstanding you. if so, I apologize, but you must understand that you have yet to offer any evidence that discredits the T.O.E itself.

> Today it is a case  that cannot be refuted.

See above.

> And neo-Darwinian evolution has no proof.  It's "gaps" that are

> downplayed by the elite of academia are not gaps at all, unless you

> think the Grand Canyon is an ant hill.  The gaps are actually major

> flaws and inconsistencies, any one of which would immediately

> disqualify any other culturally-neutral scientific hypothesis.

 I agree that gaps do, in fact, exist.  Any biologist would agree and would be better equiped than either of us to point them out, but if you want a different theory that fills those gaps then you also need one that explains and unifies all of the things that evolutionary theory already explains. 

>But Darwinism is the secular King Kong, the 50,000 pound gorilla that gives

> science nerds standing with liberal politicians and secular trend

> setters, an unholy alliance if ever there was one.

"Science nerds?"  I think I'm beginning to understand why on average, the "red" states show such drastically lower scores on aptitude tests . God forbid we listen to people with an education in their chosen field.

Seriously, you (or ID itself, for that matter) have yet to offer anything that comes close to explaining the wide variety of phenomenae that the current T.O.E. already explains. even with its enormous, grand canyon gaps.  If that theory is ID, churn it into a real scientific theory. In science, a theory is an explanation that binds together various experimentally tested hypotheses to explain some fundamental aspect of nature. For an idea to qualify as a scientific theory, it must be established on the basis of a wide variety of scientific evidence. Its claims must be testable and it must propose experiments that can be replicated by other scientists.  So far, ID does not do this, and therefore, cannot be taken seriously as a scientific alternative to the T.O.E.

> ID will continue to learn how to become persuasive to more and more

> people as the years go by.

Only if it is able to withstand increasing scientific scrutiny.  If you thought it was bad this time around with its unprepared advocates and lying board members....  

>Evolution will not ever be able to prove  itself; the fossil record isn't there and won't be.  In >the meantime,

True, The conditions required for fossil formation are pretty specific, which makes them rare.  The fact that these rare finds back-up evolution makes them all the more convincing.

> as we struggle to end the catastrophe of abortion, remember that what

> we approve (or acquiesce to) WILL lead to consequences we never want or

> expect.  Birth control pills (a very good thing) lead to promiscuity in

> females and the sexual revolution that begat abortion-on-demand.

THIS DOES NOTHING TO DISCREDIT THE FUNDEMENTAL TENET OF T.O.E. WHICH STATES THAT IN POPULATIONS OF ORGANISMS, ALLELE FREQUENCIES CHANGE OVER TIME. I can't put it more simply than that.   I'm sorry for shouting, but your arguement, while fascinating,

IS NOT SCIENCE!  It's Sociology, or Womens Studies, or ANYTHING OTHER THAN SCIENCE! Why can't you see that? 

>It was all catalyzed by the agnosticism of the mainline churches in Europe

> and America driven by the atheism of Darwinism and the philosophy of

> David Hume and his followers.

It is simply science.  Darwin followed the evidence laid out in Gods creation, just as you claim Intelligent Design to do. (Actually, looking back at your post, DO you claim that Intelligent Design follows the Evidence? or do you blame the T.O.E. for every Human failing, rather than human imperfection?)  - Of course, you claim both, with no evidence of either.  

> Reality is a wonderful thing.  People tend to stray from it for a

> season.  Then we look back and realize we were wrong.  Our culture is

> beginning to get it right on abortion; we're going to win that battle

> some day soon, at least in America (not that it will ever completely

> stop, but the abortion industry will die and the mass killings will

> stop).

This is the first time we agree. For real. I believe that abortion is murder, though I must confess that my emotional reaction to news that a woman has had an abortion is considerably less than it would be had I recieved news that that same woman had murdered her mother by shooting her in the throat. perhaps that's because of my "non-fetus" frame of reference.  Anyway, I was a fetus, you were a fetus, and so was every person reading this long-ass post. So will everyone that will ever live.

 In spite of what I'm sure you must think of me, I believe in God. So do lots of "Evolutionists".  Moreover, I believe that Jesus was crucified, died, and was resurected for my sins. I didn't vote for G.W., but I didn't vote for the guy giving speeches on a yacht either.

However, NONE of this should have any bearing on scientific endeavors, because they don't change the evidence that we observe.  

> Intelligent Design is the leading edge of science facing the antagonism

> of the old guard, and facing all the fascism inherent in usurping the

> status quo.  The good news is, if ID is not so, it will go away.  ID is

> playing in the big leagues, with real scientists that do real science.

Once they develop a true scientific theory based on corraborated hypotheses, they will certainly change the world, and will have earned the right to be taught in classrooms across the nation along with Galileo, copernicus, Newton and Einstein

> But Darwinists are hanging on to an antiquated theory that likely will

> fall in a decade.  Ultimately I believe in science, and science will

> prevail.  If it really demonstrates (which I believe it has already)

> that the complexity of life cannot occur by the means of neo-Darwinism,

> so be it.  Even if that happens, it won't mean that Genesis is

> literally true or that God even created the universe.  Remember that

> Francis Crick believed it was space aliens (Panspermia) that seeded

> life on earth.  Faith will still be faith, regardless of what science

> discovers.

> As our culture comes back to reality after a generation of acid-induced

> (secular) schizophrenia, our science will become more scientific and

> less driven by cultural machinations.  That will be a good thing, no

> matter where Intelligent Design and Darwinism land.  No judge's ruling

> in Pennsylvania in 2005 will make any impact on this fight. It is a

> fight about science, and in the end, science will prevail.

> Let's hope that regardless of the outcome, we can never give in to the

> amorality and immorality of the secularists.  

We don't need to. get out and vote. stay in school. formulate your ideas into a coherent plan, theory, mission statement, whatever, but we should never be suprised by the outcome of this case. Understand WHY it failed, and stop blaming the secularist boogieman.  forget about "activist judges" -(this one, incidently, was a conservative judge appointed by President Bush)- for a moment and take some responsibility.  ID failed because in its current form, it is bad science.  Even if the ruling had gone the other way, Intelligent design, as it stands, would still have been bad science and would have crumbled.  NOTHING will change until you address this.

>Our money says "In God We

> Trust", and we are "one Nation, under God", not because of science but

> because of faith in something much bigger than science.

> Our parent's generation has been called the Greatest Generation because

> they stood against the tyranny of secularist ideologies.  Our Woodstock

> / Baby Boom generation is the worst generation.  We have given the

> world millions of dead babies, lost souls and shattered dreams; we have

> lived John Lennon's (Lenin's) song "Imagine", and while imaging there

> is no hell created it on earth in the process.  We were cool in the

> tie-die with our Bob Dylan platitudes. And now that we're grownup we

> are ridiculously rich.  But so many are lost, and so many continue to

> shrug like Atlas while Rome burns and babies die.

> Yes, I believe Darwin has a lot to answer for, unless it is true, in

> which case everything happens via natural necessity and morality is

> therefore subjective and an optional luxury that will ultimately doom

> human life on this planet.  One cannot have it both ways; but leave it

> to the Baby Boomers to demand their cake and eat it too.  The ID /

> Darwin argument exemplifies the psychosis of our wounded generation.

> As an optimist, I believe insight will prevail.  But to paraphrase that

> great Baby Boomer poet David Crosby, "it's been a long time coming;

> it's been a long time gone".

Beautiful, really.  

I've been sitting here for the past few minutes re-reading that last part over and over. I honestly do not doubt your sincerity, but  to blame this on the Theory of Evolution is is to create a scapegoat that cannot be frightened away by eloquent writing or passionate appeals to the worlds sense of poetic justice.  It can only be ousted on the battelfield of its own choosing, under its own terms.  So regroup, learn the lay of the land, study your enemy and his language, and go and meet him.

Merry Christmas,

-Ignatz

Since the time of Newton, most Christians have believed in a "clockwork universe" in which the brilliance of the creator is demonstrated by a creation that does not require his direct intervention. The pope's astronomer knows that ID is not science.

Ground control to Major Tom: most scientists believe in God and most supporters of ID are not scientists, but rather inspired dilettants. As a Ph.D. in biology, I can assure you that the vast majority of my colleagues see no conflict between their faith and science.

This contraversy is ridiculous. Show me one verse in the Bible that absolutely contradicts the possiblity of evolution. Essentially your are saying that unless someone thinks that nothing has changed in the world since the 7th day, they are not Crhistian - who are you to say.  How is it unreligious to believe that there is a mechanism that allows populations of organisms are able to adapt over a timescale of generations (one might even see this as an example of the brilliance and/or benevolence of God). This ability to adapt through the survival and propagation of DNA that is most suited to the environment in which it finds itself is no threat to religion.

There is no sense to the idea that not believing in evolution does anything valuable for a society. The USSR   rejected evolution . They put scientists in the gulag and set their own economic advancement back by decades by ignoring the obeservable facts of the universe. Are you suggesting that we imitate the USSR?

All scientific theories are falsifiable (a single experiment could prove them wrong). ID is not falsifiable (noone can prove that God does not exist - it is impossible to prove the nonexistance of anything). Thus ID is not science. Scientists believe that poor theories will be disproven and rejected, but ID supporters have been unable to disprove anything about evolution, so they resort to polemicism. ID supporters say "Evolution is a theory". This does not trouble people who know the scientific meaning of a theory. To put it plainly, ID is not even a theory because it cannot be proven wrong.

There is a grandeur in this view of life.

-Charles Darwin, Origin of Species

See the diary I submitted today; it began as a reply to your above comments.

How about the test with the "scientific" darwinist model.  Lets use predictable testing there.

1. Create life from nothing.  Oops, can't be done.
   
2. Show any fossil record of any creature passing between two species.  Oops, doesn't exist.

But I'm just a dumb conservative with two masters degrees who thinks that science ceases to be science when it upholds a theory without facts and uses our courts to squelch debate.

When science falls short we rely on philosophy (which requires logical argumentation).  Darwinism isn't based on science unless you fall for the lifetime of brainwashing from the left.  Neither (I conceed) is ID.  However, this is where philosophy comes in, and darwinism's claims fall short in both scientific (proofs) and philisophical (logic) fronts.

The point of what I posted was that the judge's tone was unprofessional and his writing not worthy of an L-1.

Yes, if he truly thought there was contempt it should have been acted on.  But to write a "whiney" opinion reflected on the judge and creats the appearance of emotionalism and bias, not judicial thought.

If we didn't evolve from protein soup and God didn't make us, what other explanation is there? I really can't think of anything else besides aliens (which just moves the problem somewhere else)

Yet another ID thread.  For those of us who are conservatives but not evangelical Christians, this issue is just excruciatingly frivolous and is making our party look wacky.

Theologically, it's a stretch to suggest that Darwin's theory is in conflict with the Bible.  You're not even talking about a universal Christian belief, but an idea that has been wildly extrapolated from scripture.

Scientifically, there really are no big problems with Evolution.  Just because you cannot describe each detailed step of some complex development doesn't mean it is impossible.  I was just reading one of Luskin's articles, talking about guided evolution.  If it is intelligently guided, why is our retina put in backwards, but an octapus's is rightside forward?  Did God make a mistake?  Or was it the result of random processes?  There you go, I found one nit-picking problem, therefore I have disproved ID!  Of course not, but that is the kind of twisted logic you find in the writings of Luskin and his ilk.

By the way, computer simulations of genetic evolution have revealed a much faster than expected convergence to complex systems.  This is especially true when you include cross breeding.  So it has been suggested that the Cambrian Explosion was caused by the development of sexual reproduction, which kicked evolution into high gear.  I know you'll love that idea.  :-)

Yet another contrary comment from the fiscon peanut gallery...

If you are conservative then go read some ID information and see for yourself.  Try to get through all of William Dembski's book "The Design Revolution".  You will see no Biblical references, only discussions of deepwater science that are over the average laymen's head by about the fifth chapter.  Strong readers will get through the whole book and you'll see that Dembski and the detractors he is addressing are both discussing highly technical science and it's ramifications in contrast to neo-Darwinism.

The fact that the judge in Pennsylvania and most of the conservatives who haven't taken to time to read ID keep saying it is creationism demonstrates the effectiveness of the smear campaign by the other side.  The fact that their are sides in a scientific debate demonstrates there is more going on than science.

Homunculus great read.  I agree with you On ID and Neal Boortz aside I hope you will read my posts on the Fair Tax and I hope I can convince you to be an avid supporter of HR25/S25

The liberal Darwinian Jabs just don't get it do they. ID is science, Darwin is more faith with no science.

First you pointed out some of the societal forces and reasons that this Bad science has taken over our institutions with out applying good scientific method to Darwin.  Those young scientists and young science teachers do not stand a chance in most liberal institutions of higher learning and their science departments where a secular belief system trumps the science that is right in front of them.

Key Point #1 - If they admit Darwin doesn't hold water than they might have to admit in a higher power.  You were right on the money.

Key Point #2 - Directed at conservatives and red staters not at Pro-choice secularists and liberals. Your references to abortion and social decay are directed at those red staters who generally oppose abortion.  If you are Pro-Life and believe that the science shows life begins in the womb than it is logical, scientific and consistant for Pro-life to be PRO Intelligent Design based on the science and definitions of life and death.

My Point to add to your excellent article is about the clock.

Darwin and the Clock

Take and old mechanical alarm clock and take it apart into all its tiny pieces. Now for Macro Evolution to occur, the Darwinians say that given one million years or so that if you put those parts in a paper bag and shake it long enough it will do the following:

1. Put itself together in exactly the right configuration.
   
2. Be set to the exact and correct time.
   
3. Develop a means of self replicating broken or worn out parts.
   
4. Develop a means to find another clock with the exact same DNA sequence so it can than make tiny baby clocks and perpetuate this species of clock.

You see if it mates with a toaster you get a mutation that dies. Genetic variation occurs within a species

Now if after 1000 years that doesn't work, I will add a magnet or two and maybe that will pull all the parts together and make 1 thru 4 happen?

In Reality Macro Evolution applied using Darwinian theory means you don't even start with the parts of the clock ;

You start with a spoon and the spoon becomes all the different clock parts and than they invent time based on a 24 hour day and 60 second minute and than those spoons figured it all out and became clocks, toasters,Cars and the Space shuttle as they grew in complexity and evolved up the evoutionary ladder.

You say ID is religion?

Come on it take a lot more blind faith to believe the spoon evolves into the Space Shuttle.

You see it took intelligent Design(Human) to transform the metal of a spoon into a clock and than a toaster and finally into a Space Shuttle.

The most Monkeys have developed is a tool like a wood spoon - usualy a stick to get termites. But if you believe in Darwin the Chimp will be making a clock sometime soon.

Good Science with a proven hypothesis is not what we have with Darwin on a macro scale.

Macro meaning amoeba becomes fish; fish become bird; bird become mammal; mouse becomes man. Intelligent Design at a minium explains it and Creation and God actually explain it more fully.

Micro-Evolution does explain finches with different types of beaks, microevolution does explain genetic variation and development with in one species like finches with different food sources on different islands.

microevolution can explain genetic variations in dogs. From Dalmations to Dobermans to Dachsunds.

Is not one of the Universal laws spoken of called ENTROPY. The theory that the natural order of the universe is to trend for less order not to order itself into more complex arrangemnets.

For Me, the earth being an alien Zoo where animals were dropped off " each to their own kind(species)" makes more sense scientifically than applying Darwin to Macro evolution.

For Macro Evolution - Darwin has no basis for its Scientific support.  It has become a Secular religion of faith when it is argued that man developed from lower mammals and those mammals developed from birds or fish or originally from one celled organisms.

If you beleive in Macro evoultion via Darwin than you believe it on your on version of Scientific/Secular faith but not by applying good science.

Intelligent Design has more Science going for it than Darwin applied to the Macro-evolution Myth.

Microevoultion or genetic variations within a species gives you variety and classifications of sub-species. Cross breeding across a species usually gives you a mutation that can not reproduce(sterile).  But most certainly you do not see sustainable new species that can reproduce and go from Water to Land, Cold Blooded to warm blooded.  The nature of mutation is for mutations to not be sustainable or able to reproduce. The science shows that much more to be true than Darwin applied to Macro evolution.

Science promoters?  Yeah right.  You take a theory and cling to it as if it were a fact and not a theory.  Then "in the name of science" refuse to listen to alternative theories.  Theories backed up by rational reasoning.  IE: The classic - If a watch washes up on shore it was likely made by someone and not likely that a bunch of molecules washed together randomly to create a watch thus a "watchmaker".

First, you seem to take the term "theory" as implying that something is tentative or casual. A scientific theory is neither. Atoms, electromagnetism, relativity...all are theories, and none terribly controversial because few people have decided that they're contradicted by a literal reading of the Bible.

Second, watches have no genome and don't reproduce. Not relevant to anything at all.

My two favorite examples of fraud (both still used today) are the story about the moths in England that survived changes in environment because they adapted to the surroundings by the color of recessive gene moths (long story but perhaps you've heard it).  The story was debunked as a story created by a textbook manufacturer years ago, but is now widely distributed and is justified because it is "such an instrucive example".

This is nonsense. The micro-evolution of the peppered moth is well studied and understood. And I've seen plenty of genunine embryos and dissected some myself that bear a striking resemblance to one another. That similarity doesn't prove anything, but it's easily seen and verified and not a matter of "fraud".

The propagation of this sort of drivel arises from creationists reading and repeating each other's nonsense to one another in an echo chamber, while the scientific community remains baffled that settled arguments arise again and again. Enough already.

My humble opinion:

I agree that evolution is the worst but science will not prevail; Christ will prevail. ID will fail because it's trying to appeal to the reprobate mind. Evolution will fail because it is a lie. Ponder this:

 Anti-Intelligent Design

Supporting the sentiment

increments are fine,

but changing depraved hearts

isn't done by Intelligent Design.

Appealing to the intellect

will never work you'll find:

Real change come by repenting,

by renewing the mind:

To come to the end of self

you need a known designer,

design for the sake of argument

dooms many to the refiner:

Christ will judge the masses,

the created or the evolved,

if the thought is no designer

the problem isn't solved:

From nothing to something

as evolution does theory,

allows death to nothingness,

at best both ends are weary:

Until death reveals reality

choices sealed and signed,

no interest in the designer

makes fate self designed:

All will get their wishes

choosing sides and resign,

to stop evolving after death

or start living by design:

Silver, Gold, Precious Stone

no dross that does malign.

Sovereign, Holy saving sinners

and Anti-Intelligent Design.

There simply is no conflict between evolution, science and religion.  The Catholic Church realized this long ago, as has the rest of the world.  Any such conflict is purely manufactured here in the U.S. by political forces.

We all agree we want strong science in our classrooms.  Evolution is a foundation of modern science, expanding far, far beyond Darwin's original revelation, and into a diverse range of fields from anthropology, biology and medicine.  The evidence is simply overwhelming, especially medicine, where evolution has created many of the drugs you probably rely on.  Evolution is also intertwined with the well established data from cosmology, astrophysics and geology.  

To deny evolution is to simply run away from the modern world.

But for all the doors that evolution has opened for us, it doesn't deny, or even address a creator, or higher power.  Science does not deal with such questions.

Someday, I hope to see the people who are against science, particularly evolution, come around.  They'll be joining a beautiful, diverse world full of knowledge and opportunity.  But they'll still have all the benefits and love of their faith.

You seem to imply that there's a link between evolution and atheism but you deny that there is a link between ID and belief in God?  Well as many have pointed out there are many non-atheists who believe in evolution -- possibly including the pope -- but are there any atheists who believe ID is correct?

Francis Crick, the "father of DNA", was a hardline atheist.  Crick and his partner Jim Watson were both atheists and of course won the Nobel Prize for their work in describing the structure of DNA.

Crick was greatly disturbed (as many of the great 20th century, atheist scientists were) by his findings.  After nailing down the details of what DNA is all about, Crick said (I don't have the source hand and I'm cooking right now so Google it and you'll find all of this) DNA was so ridiculously complex that it could never occur spontaneously via naturalistic process.  One reference I read quoted him as setting the statistical odds of DNA happening by chance as one chance in ten with 2 billion zeros.  To put that in perspective, the odds of anything happening since the Big Bang (13 billion years ago) is one chance in 10 with about 150 zeros.  So you do the math.  Crick did, and didn't like the results.

Regardless of the impossibility of DNA occurring via naturalism, Crick's atheism was even more stringent.  After careful study he decided that the theory of Panspermia was more likely.  That theory holds (in short) that space aliens from a super-advanced society seeded the earth with original living material 2-3 billion years ago.  OF course, this solution begs the question.  But atheism is about a fear of there being a God that holds men accountable for their behavior.  Atheism is a religious belief, not science; it is impossible to prove and requires far more faith to believe than does any theistic religious belief.  

Other former atheists that changed their minds due to the discovery of "complexity" in science (be it physics, biology, chemistry, cosmology, etc) are Einstein, Hubble and most recently Antony Flew, the 20th century's most famous and influential atheist.  Last year (about this time) Flew announced that he could no longer hold his position as an atheist due in part to the recent findings of the science of.......Intelligent Design!!!

You will notice that none of the ID bashers want to discuss the conversion of Flew, and when they do there is enormous equivocation.

Go to this site to see what Flew really said just one year ago.

Have a Merry Christmas

...although he appears to have done nothing more than rediscover the Enlightenment.

<Show me one verse in the Bible that absolutely contradicts the possibility of evolution. <p>
Try Genesis 2:4-7 to see if you can discern any contradiction between that account and Darwin's claim of man and apes evolving from the same species.

(I realize I utilized 4 verses, but in Bible study the law of COE always applies (COE = Context is Everything)).

Either God scooped up some Garden Dust (must've been some sticky dust) and then personally breathed into his human statue and the dust-man became alive, or I have misread it.  Nothing about evolution there.

Now I'm not saying this is Intelligent Design.  It is Biblical revelation of truth.  It can only be believed by a supernatural process, the Holy Spirit must indwell and give spiritual life to an individual.  Otherwise it is nonsense:  see my signature below.  It is not science and cannot be proven by science.  It can only be legitimately "believed" by the gift of faith.  And we're out of the realm of politics, which is what the ID / Evolution debate is all about.

See my earlier diaries in answer to most of your other comments.

Merry Christmas

knows history better than most of us.  But understanding is often a function of time and experience catalyzed my new information.  ID was the new information.

Habermas has been evangelizing Flew for years (they have become close friends).  Amazing that a man of this stature is 'evolving' at this advanced age.

He seems to have taken the results of modern molecular biology and decided that they indicate too much (uh oh, what word shall one use? Order? no... complexity? no good... particularity? can't use that either) something that is incompatible with a view of life that is built up from random, undirected processes. (At this point, one is tempted to sarcasm: Bravo Dr. Flew, and welcome to common sense.)

But this leads him to the old deistic view (he approvingly refers to Jefferson) that our world was set in motion by a master watchmaker and has followed deterministic rules ever since.

He continues to reject any notion that there are unseen forces in the world which may engage in any kind of transaction with us whatsoever. He rejects any notion of human immortality as unsupported by evidence, and he continues to reject Christianity (the religion of love and charity) as fatally flawed by the existence of evil in the world. He does have the good taste to appreciate the literary quality of the Bible. He rejects Islam out as hand as fundamentally inimical to peace.

Definitely an interesting guy, but you can see why I think he's gotten up as far the Enlightenment and stopped.

believing in absolutely no kind of deity, I would say Flew's acquiescence to the necessity of a supernatural intelligent entity is 'mas que nada'.  It required him to rewrite the forward of his masterwork "God and Philosophy".

Best of all it is requiring a lot of tap dancing with the atheist establishment; that's a good thing, they need the exercise.

than Darwinism.  But science is not intended to be revealed supernatural truth.  ID observes flickers of God's glory in His Creation from far, far away.  Darwinism is man's desire that there is no god.  Both are science-oriented and not related to His revelation.  But ID is vastly superior in that it is emperical science (Darwinism plays with loaded dice) and it is willing to make politically incorrect hypotheses from it's observations, going where the evidence leads.  

Darwinism is a disaster for the cause of Christ because it indoctrinates school children into  believing there is no God.  ID says we see His fingerprints all over creation, thereby not encouraging atheism.  It is not the stumbling block leading children astray like Darwinism does.

Peace

My point about there being no biblical verse that would directly contradict evolution was essentially this: nothing in the Bible says that life stayed exactly the same from the time it was created. It is the fault of certain scientists and theologians who mistakenly think that only one viewpoint could possibly be right. Evolution is an observable fact, i.e. evolution of antibiotic resistance in bacteria or drug resistant strains of HIV. Evolution occurs at the population level, hence an increase in antibiotic resistance is an instance of evolution, even though the genes for antibiotic resistance existed before widespread use of antibiotics (in fact this is what evolution would predict).

Happy New Year

Your point about faith is right. This is really not so different from what I was trying to say, basically that science and religion are two different spheres, and there is no reason why one person couldn't be comfortable in both. Science can't define morals, and Religion cannot teach us anything new about the physical nature of the universe. ID cannot be science because it requires a "leap of faith" and science cannot replace religion because it lacks the ability to inform us in the moral sphere. The idea to pit one against the other was never a good one. I see no reason to feel less special as humans if we evolved. The Bible does not require us to believe in any particular worldview to obtain salvation, only that we belive that: # We are all sinners

# The penalty for sin is death

# Jesus Christ died on a cross and shed His blood to pay the death penalty for everyone who ever lived

# Jesus Christ will save you today if you just ask Him

So my point was what is all the contraversy?

check out my first diary on ID, see the 4th & 5th paragraphs regarding the difference between micro and macro- evolution.

You said:

< ID cannot be science because it requires a "leap of faith" and science cannot replace religion because it lacks the ability to inform us in the moral sphere.>

ID is science.  It does not require any more faith than does Darwinism (I understand it to require LESS faith than Darwinism; I'm pretty sure after almost 2 years of almost non-stop reading on the subject that Darwinism is defunct but is defended due to the cultural ramifications).  

Check out Bill Dembski's interesting and readable article describing why ID is science.  Spend time on the section entitled "Methodological Materialism", page 8.

If you are correct about salvation and Christ, it is because you were given the ability to understand that reality by the Holy Spirit.  But if there is a Holy Spirit that indwells people and gives them eternal life, then the Bible must be inerrant.  Why would the God revealed in the Bible tell the truth about Jesus, the resurrection, and man's destiny, and lie about how He made the universe and man?

You see, if "religion" is about something we keep off to the side so we can behave morally, then it's really a human inspired document dressed up to be religious "truth".  But then it is not really the "Word of God" that it claims to be from cover to cover.

So either the Bible is 100% inerrant like it claims to be and man must live accordingly or face eternity in the lake of fire, or it is a secular document written by liars looking to  civilize the world through sweet lies or something worse.

Given this, either Genesis is 100% correct or the Bible is bunk.  I know this is politically incorrect even for most Christians (only 7% of us believe this according to a Barna Group study).  

But here's the deal.  If the God of Everything really did write every word of the Book, really does indwell believers by the Spirit of Jesus, really suffered on the Cross and really is coming again, and we ignore it or minimalize it, designing our own 'virtual Jesus' in the process, what kind of faith is that?  

People who claim they are Christians but don't believe the Bible is inerrant are primarily in the business of re-making God in their own image.  This begets abortion, divorce and the other horrors of Romans 1.18-32.  

ID is a glimmer of God's activity, made available courtesy of the science He's allowed man to discover.  ID doesn't claim it's revealing our God, it just says intelligence is discernible through the modern science and technology.  It just says "all this stuff looks exactly like other stuff we observe that we know was designed by intelligence (from an ant hill to a bird's nest to the Space Shuttle; anything produced by an intelligent agent yields an example of Intelligent Design).  When Behe describes the bacterial flagella in "Darwin's Black Box", you see a picture of something that could never occur by Darwin's theories.  Darwin acknowledged it.  But neo-Darwinists have "evolved" the theory, not because of "good science" but because it fit's their atheistic world view.

Enough.  Glad you're a believer!

Great!,I see that you genuinely understand microevolution. from my perspective, the most important thing as a scientist is that kids don't get cheated out of understanding the concepts that underpin modern biology and medicine, like antibiotic resistance, mutation, environment, selection etc. My purpose in entering the debate was to point out that the two ideas are not absolutely opposed to one another. You obviously have done your homework. No hard feelings, and Merry Christmas.

-Signing off.

is about whether micro-evolution has ever demonstrated that it can generate new species from existing ones (MACRO evolution).

Naturalism's flaws (as I've studied in the last 2 years as a person with plenty of science background but not a "scientist")

1. no fossil record
   
   
2. Cambrian explosion
   
   
3. specious, "just so" theorizing to "prove" Darwin's premises (punctuated equilibrium, etc)
   
   
4. foundations of Methodological Materialism which discount empirical results if they don't give the "correct" answer.
   
   
5. continued use in text books of false science (Archaeopteryx = lizard/bird intermediate, Haeckel's embryos, Java Man, etc).

Those come to mind off the top of my head.

So again, the first duty of new scientific inquiry (ID) is to review the literature.  OF COURSE micro evolution is established as fact.  In fact, that is part of the rhetorical incongruity of Darwinists; they go around saying "evolution is settled science", knowing they mean MICRO evolution and knowing MACRO evolution is an unproven premise at best.  Joe Sixpack doesn't know the difference.

In empirical science rhetoric doesn't come into play; it's about "going where the evidence leads".  Science needs to get back to it's foundations and away from agendas and cultural engineering.

I've enjoyed our conversation.  Never was there anything to have hard feelings about (I don't even get upset with DIR; it's all in good fun and learning every day.  Hopefully truth and reality will make inroads to the indoctrinated).

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48102

But if intelligent design is creationism or fundamentalism in drag, how does Judge Jones explain how that greatest of ancient thinkers, Aristotle, who died 300 years before Christ, concluded that the physical universe points directly to an unmoved First Mover?

As Aristotle wrote in his "Physics": "Since everything that is in motion must be moved by something, let us suppose there is a thing in motion which was moved by something else in motion, and that by something else, and so on. But this series cannot go on to infinity, so there must be some First Mover."

A man of science and reason, Aristotle used his observations of the physical universe to reach conclusions about how it came about. Where is the evidence he channeled the Torah and creation story of Genesis before positing his theory about a prime mover?

http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=9128

That's an interesting argument against the standard rejoinder to the question of whether the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics undercuts the basis of the Theory of Evolution. Frankly, I'm not qualified to evaluate whether or not it holds water, but I'm glad the questions are still being asked.

...read the article. I've never been convinced by postulates that the Second Law contravenes neo-darwinism, but I'm still thinking about this one. If anything interesting occurs to me I'll respond here.

IN A LOT OF WAYS. I'M NOT A SCIENCE PERSON PER SE AND REALLY DEPEND A LOT ON PEOPLE LIKE YOU FOR GUIDANCE. THE DISCUSSION HERE WITH SUCH A DIVERSE GROUP OF CHRISTIANS, AGNOSTICS AND SECULARISTS HAS REALLY CAUSED ME TO THINK ABOUT THE WHOLE ISSUE MORE THAN EVER IN MY LIFE.

I EVEN CALLED MY PHD THEOLOGY PROFESSOR BROTHER AND HE CONFIRMED HIS INTUATIVE AGREEMENT WITH ME THAT WE NEVER ACCEPTED THE YOUNG EARTH THEORY AND DONT THINK THE BIBLE IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH A VERY OLD EARTH OR EVEN CERTAIN MEANINGS OF EVOLUTION. WE ARE SOUTHERN BAPTISTS WHO BELIEVE THAT GOD CREATED THE WORLD AND MAN IN HIS IMAGE BUT DO NOT DEEM IT ESSENTIAL TO BELIEVE IN HOW. WE HAVE FAITH IN GOD. WE DONT RULE OUT A YOUNG EARTH AND I DONT EVEN RULE OUT THAT HE MADE US IN HIS IMAGE WITH A TADPOLE AS THE EGG!!!! BUT I DO DOUBT THAT.

I GUESS THE REASON I AM WRITING YOU IS THAT SOME GREAT CHRISTIANS, ESP LEON, WHO I GREATLY RESPECT AS I DO MANY THAT DISAGREE WITH LEON ON THE CENTRALITY OF THE YOUNG EARTH AND LITERAL DAY IN GENESIS.

AND OF COURSE I RESPECT YOU AS MUCH AS ANYONE HERE AT RS.

MY MAIN ISSUE HAS BEEN THAT FED CTS HAVE NO BUSINESS IN THIS AREA AND ESP NOT TO RESTRICT FREE SPEECH. AND I ALSO FAVOR ABANDONING PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND HAVING VOUCHERS FOR PRIVATE SCHOOLS, BUT WE WAIT.....

BUT I ALSO CARE A LOT ABOUT BIBLICAL DOCTRINE, ESP IN SO FAR AS IT RELATES TO ESSENTIALS LIKE THE RESURRECTION!!!

I HAVE NEVER BEEN CONVICTED IN MY EHART THAT THIS YOUNG EARTH VS NON-YOUNG EARTH ISSUE RISES TO THAT LEVEL.

we ramble

I'm thinking about maybe doing a diary on some recent writings by Pope Benedict, and it occurred to me that you might understand the Creation in the Biblical accounts to be coterminous with the Awakening of human beings into consciousness. The time scales just about fit, too.

I'm a practicing Catholic (born and raised that way) but I'm heterodox in that I don't think we have immortal souls. Or at least it doesn't matter whether we do, in relation to the demands that Christian faith makes on us.

More later.