"Intelligent Design" Clip 'N Save
"To be sure, Darwin's theory of evolution is imperfect," Judge Jones wrote. "However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions."
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7 comments:
"Jones, a Republican and a churchgoer appointed to the federal bench three years ago." Also, Co-Chair of Tom Ridges Governor Transition team, nominated by Bush, and unanimously confirmed. No liberal he.
Just as it was a mistake to keep out the valid possiblity of evolution from the theories of origins, so too is it a mistake to censor the reasonable theory of intelligent design. The notion that science is objective and fueled by open inquiry is silly, if it were then evolution could never be the initial assumption of biology. Materialist reductionism died when E equaled mc squared and at its death a soul was discovered even if it couldn't be defined. Mainstream scientists will catch up...or be replaced. Evolution is unstopable.
"The notion that science is objective and fueled by open inquiry is silly, if it were then evolution could never be the initial assumption of biology."
eXPLAIN, PLEASE
I have to admit that I didn't understand "Materialist reductionism died when E equaled mc squared and at its death a soul was discovered even if it couldn't be defined." Which is a bummer because it sure sounded cool and smart. I can almost picture you with a little beret and a wine glass.
In a scientific inquiry you have to start with what you know. In biology we start with evolution because we don't know. That is not good science. That is conjecture. Biologists are forced to assume evolution to hold everything else together. A cosmologist is a better representative scientist, he holds everything open until he can prove something. A scientist would entertain all possbile first causes of life until one were proven. Cosmologists have felt no need to inflate one of their "origin of the universe" theories as THE answer because they know they can't prove it.*
The theory of relativity showed that there is a link between matter and energy. This means that dismissing the immaterial is an error because it may be no different from the material. Energy, force, spirit, soul are not excluded from scientific inquiry unless we choose to exclude them for non-scientific reasons.
* Disclaimer: By "Cosmologist" I mean the community of cosmologists, clearly there may be some dogmatic cosmologists who consider nothing but their own pet theories.
In biology we start with evolution because anatomical/behavioral differences across the range of species can be observed and measured on levels ranging from the molecular to the organism. We do, in other words, start with what we know.
That this hierarchy excludes the spiritual is not a denial of the spiritual itself, but simply its basis in the material world with which biology--and intelligent design, for that matter--is concerned.
From what I've read it's, in fact, ID, that starts with what we don't know (e.g., how some bacterial flagella could have initially functioned in a pre-developed state), then concludes is "irreducibly complex" and is, therefore, intelligently designed.
In any event, ID, like biology, appears to have a resolutely old-school, material basis (tenuous though it seems) that makes no case that the designer is immaterial (reasonable as I suppose that inference within an ID context would be).
ID, in fact, seems to take great pains to separate itself from anything even resembling theism. It's a masterful tactic that allows lobbyists like the Discovery Institute to simultaneously front secular and out secularists as the theists with their lazy "Darwin on faith" empty headedness.
Lemme out of here with this: You write that ID is a "reasonable theory." Make the case, please.
What Mike3000 says about biology is correct. Micro-evolution, or differentiation, is an observable phenomenon. My argument, which I did not make clear, was in regards to macro-evolution. Macro-evolution is the only thing that could explain the origin of life as being a purely biological phenomenon. Macro-evolution has not been observed, it is an extrapolated assumption.
When one attempts to discuss the origin of life, and not just the behavior of life now that it is here, modern biology fails. It has never been observed that life can come from non-life. So, if we want to consider the origin of life we must assume it either did or did not. Either position is an assumption, however, it would seem a greater probabliity that the system operated the same in the past as in the present, which would mean its more likely life came from life. This would make intelligent design quite reasonable. But if someone would like to have faith in a lightning strike in a primordial pool of base elements, that is certainly allowable. But shouldn't we question how reasonable?
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