I actually have an article about that I just finished writing last night and hope to post today.

Check it out when I get it done.

 

I, very sadly, agree with this.  Everyone should want to contribute to the uncovering of objective data, but most people aren't equipped with the skills necessary to separate objective data from BS.

 

By itself, and utilized correctly, the Scientific Method, is a beautiful thing.  It's a noble thing.  But yeah, there are those scientists with ulterior motives.  The trick is, don't blame science, and don't blame the field they are in - blame the actual people who are doing the wrong thing.  Fortunately for science, there are always lots of other scientists self-policing the outliers.

Ok and Ock's answer to this was that Evolution doesn't pretend to know the answer of origins. It does however offer a tangiable explanation of how we got from microbes to humans. That's not to say its true, but using the Scientific Method things like genetic mutations across generations have been observed (The fruit fly experiment for one, which for some bizzare reason people point to as a means to disprove macro-evolution). So we have Scientific proof of this, observable evidence.

Why Evolution is Science

The Theory of Evolution says that these mutations (which noone will dispute), over a given period of time will lead to certain members of the species branching off and not mating with the rest.

If you apply an even greater amount of time to this and remember the first step of this proceess is happening all throughout this, different branches of a specicies not mating with each other and becomming more and more differnet as genetic mutations are only inherited, eventually you get a new species.

It is a scientific theory that is principly based on a scientific fact (genetic mutations in every generation), with the addition of the logic of time and these mutations will lead to a new species. It may not 100% true, but nor is any Scientific Theory, as if they were, you'd have many Scientists out of the job so to speak. Theories are always there to be tested so long as you test them using the Scientific Method.

Why Intelligent Design is not a Science

Intelligent Design (or ID i'll refer to it as from here on out) observes the theory of evolution and says that due to irreducible complexity shows (or proves) that certain creatures could not have evolved.

The problem with irreducible complexity is that it is essentially anti-science in it's very nature. It has no scientific evidence because it relies on what science cannot prove as it's evidence.

This is quite a claim, but i  can back it up with the very example that ID proponents used when they first looked at Irreducible Complexity.

The bacterial flagellum has a propulsion device (if anyone saw this movie would know of) that is apparently so complex that it defies the theory of evolution, in that in order for every part to have come about from evolution it would of had to of been useful at every stage of the mutation.

If we accepted Intelligent Design as a theory of science, we'd of probably for a very long time just left it at that (not that this doesn't happen in other areas of science admittedly). We'd of said 'God did it guys, let's just leave it at that'.

Instead thanks to the nature of Science and it's boldness to challenge the unkown we came to understand that the propulsion mechanisim actually was reducible, from studies of harmful bacteria we noticed similarities between the propulsion mechanisim of bacteria flagellum, to that of a rather harmful bacteria's toxin delivery device (like needle).

If we had abandoned the Scientific Method and accepted Intelligent Design we'd of probably not discovered this (if at all) for a very long time and as such our understanding of a part of science would have been hindered thanks to ID.

Conclusion

I hope i have shown you the damage that can be caused by introducing these religious and philisophical beliefs into the realms of Science. If even after this explanation you still feel as though ID should be taught as a Science, then i'm afraid we cease to become intellectually compatable as people and fear that any such debate won't reach a reasonable outcome.

Your are trying to enforce your own personal belief on the one thing that tries to deliver an indescriminative truth, but by it's own admitting (and indeed in the hope of it's own perponents) will never pretend to fully have the entire truth.

Ock:

Agreed, it isn't science that is the problem, but the powers that be in science.

I have no doubt that most scientists are ethical people who want nothing more than to advance society through their little corner of the science world. I also have no doubt that, when it comes down to making the choice between ethics and funding, most leaders in science would take the funding.

Scotteh,
If, as you say, the fruit fly experiment proves macro evolution, after all these years of experimentation, exactly what new organism or insect or whatever evolved from the fruit fly?

 

I don't claim to know a *lot* about this - it's really Mari's department.  She's seen the funding crunch so many times it's silly.  This statement does sound, though, as if scientists in general would be unethical in order to get the money they need to continue their research, and, for my little bit of experience, I not only don't see that as true, I see it as almost impossible.

 

One of the places Mari worked, there was this guy who ran the show for their research, ultimately.  He didn't do any of the actual science, but he was "in charge" of the operation.  This was the guy who wrote the proposals for the funding and submitted them to NIH.  The research they were doing had to do with determining the presence of proteins (or maybe the lack of them) that would be an early indicator to various kinds of cancer.  They called these "biomarkers."  (Mari will probably be saying "Holy crap...he WAS listening" when she reads this )  Anyway, during the process of this guy having to write the proposals required to get funds for further proteomic research, there was never any question of faking anything in order to get the money.  I got the idea that NIH was too smart to pull one over on.  If your work didn't warrant funding, there wasn't much you could do in the way of "faking it" that wouldn't be discovered.

Plus, the most likely result of "faking it" for a scientist is career suicide. You may get the funding once, but probably not ever again, let alone a job or the respect of your peers.

Ock:

It's not a shot at scientists, or even those who run programs, it is simple human nature. When most people, in any walk of life, are forced to decide between their ethics or the income, pick the income every time.



Actually, fraud is rampant. It's also easy to cover for. Researchers will tell you that there is no real standard of excellence in research. If one bit of research is proven wrong, it is considered part of the research beast. How many pharmacueticals have been exposed for the fraud they were? How much of science is scrutinized as strictly as medication? If they can slip things through, anyone can.

"Evolution" has certainly come to be a confusing term with many different theories out there that compete for public affirmation. Not all "evolution" theory is science. Micro evolution, that is, small change within the same species is the only one that is science.

Naturalistic Evolution Theory, or Macro Evolution, aka called Darwinian Evolution, is unwavering faith that life on earth (including man) evolved over a span of billions of years by the purposeless and natural process. The media, academia and the secular scientific community are convinced that Darwinism is a fact to be accounted for, rather than a set of hypotheses to be tested, and that's why we are dealing with a philosophical belief and not empirical science. You gotta be a true believer because there is no scientific evidence for macroevolution.

SCOTTEH POSTS:

You are describing Darwinianism using mutations as the supposed mechanism for macro-evolution, Scotteh. Quite a fanciful idea. Problem is there are no species that mutated into a completely different one. Furthermore, in such a process as you describe, there ought to be a staggering number of these "different branches" of a mutant species with fossils galore. Where are these genetic mutations which supposedly eventually produced a new species?

Creation Theory attempts to defend the biblical account of the origin of the universe and all that's in it, most importantly mankind. God created each "kind" separately. Those who hold to CT freely admit variations including young earth theory. Archaeology and the fossil record support the Bible rather than Darwinism.

There is no doubt from the movie that Darwinists have a profound problem with what can be observed in the argument from Intelligent Design. Order of the "type" found in biology clearly doesn't reside within matter, but rather is imposed upon it and the very existence of the laws of nature by which all matter behaves suggests strongly that an Intelligence Being has designed the universe and all that's in it, is the Cause of nature's amazing intracicies and caused these laws to function.

There is no doubt that design in nature can be empirically detected, a fact which drives Naturalistic Evolutionists nutty. I'm thinking of our sight, digestion and immunity or the complexity of cells. In this sense, ID is a scientific revolution...and after all, how dare ID enter the scientific realm of biology and raise questions of Darwinianism?

Yep, I think you understand human nature quite well, ParaTed.

I've heard of several cases where Creation scientists who were on to something had to stifle it to go along to get along so to speak. In short, they need to keep their job.

Anyone ever tell you that you repeat yourself quite a bit?  Ok OCK as promised,  I'll reply to what you said above.

You sound like a gold-star member of the Richard Dawkins fan club which is quite interesting given your claims of being open minded.

Dawkins was the one who said: "It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)." ("Put Your Money on Evolution The New York Times  (April 9, 1989)section VII  p.35)

Now am I still an idiot?  According to Dawkins I am.  But I'd say to him.... "A fool says in his heart there is no God." 

This is a difficult topic and you are both right and wrong.  But per usual Ock I find you arguing over the details.   I can vouch that you are very detailed oriented thats for sure. 

While Darwin didn't write a book titled "The Evolution of  Man"  he did write  one titled "The ORIGIN of Species," Darwinian evolution technically does not explain the origin of life. It begins after the formation of he first living cell.  Darwin intentionally remained publicly silent on this subject.

Did you know in the first addition of the book it was written:

"I should infer from analogy that probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed."

The second addition of the book added this to the end of that statement: "by the Creator"

The third addition of the book removed the whole statement.  Why? 

It's almost like Darwin was going back and forth about whether he should "throw the Christians a bone." but for the most part he tried to keep out of this controversy. He wrote:

"In what manner the mental powers were first developed in the lowest organisms, is as hopeless as how life itself first originated. These are problems for the distant future, if they are ever to be solved by man." (Descent of Man, chapter 2, 1871).

HOWEVER, evolution is intrinsically connected to the origin of life.  You can go back and back and back in the ancestrial lineage, but you eventually need to come to the begining- life from non-life. thus,  Darwinism forms the basis by which modern science theoreticizes the origin of
life from non-life. for this reason RICHARD DAWKINS wrote: "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." (The Blind Watchmaker, 1996  p.6)

Want more?  Isn't this plain and straight about origins?

"Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is the only workable explanation that has ever been proposed for the remarkable fact of our own existence, indeed the existence of all life wherever it may turn up in the universe." (Forward to The Theory of Evolution by John Maynard Smith, 2000 p.xv)

Why is that?  Could it be no other explanation is wanted or allowed?  Can't share the pie? 

Darwin definately understood that the evolution of species was connected to the origin of species. he wrote the following in a letter to Joeseph Dalton Hooker, 1871:

"It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living organism are now present, which could ever have been present. But if (and oh! what a big if!) we could conceive in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat,
electricity, &c., present, that a proteine (sic) compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes, at the present day such matter would be instantly absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were found."

BTW abiogenesis (term coined by TH Huxley in 1870) is the study of life from non-life. It is technically separate from evolution but completely connected to it at the same time. Evolutionists separate the origin from evolution.   Creationist tend to combine the two ideas.

 

 

 

Cool.  Let's say it is, Lula.  Are you ready to admit that humans were designed by a super intelligent extra terrestrial life form from somewhere else in the universe?  Are you ready to suppose that it wasn't Almighty God after all, but was instead the denizens of the Pleiades that created man?  If you say "Yes" it flies in the face of everything else you've ever said.  If you say "no" it proves that your support of ID is a disingenuously motivated agenda to get god into the science class.  So which is it?  You're in a lose-lose here, girl.  Good luck.

I'm proud, of course, to say my son recieved a $20K grant a few months ago.  Writing grants is still part of his job but he breathed a sigh of relief when he got this one.  Took some pressure off.  Now if he can get another one, he'll be golden. 

And there is fruad or favoritism usually involved in giving of these grants as well.  If someone is on the board reviewing them and gets wind of  a Scientist being Chrisitan or came from a Christian University...good luck in obtaining the grant no matter how good the work is. 

Continuing for Ock:

In the end, evolution is one part of a naturalistic worldview.   Every worldview  has to answer five fundamental questions:

1.  Where did life come from?  (Origins)

2.  What does it mean to be human? (Identity)

3.  What is the purpose of life? (meaning)

4.  How shall I live?  (Morality)

5.  What happens after I die?  (mortality)

Evolution is part of a worldview that attempts to answer these questions through a purely naturalistic POV.   Evolution and creationism as hypotheses are either equally scientific or equally unscientific.

Richard Dawkins understands why the origins debate is vital to both of these two worldviews. for this reason he wrote:   "A universe with a supernatural presence would be a fundamentally and qualitatively different kind of universe from one without.  The difference is, inescapably, a scientific difference. Religions make existence claims, and this means scientific claims." You can't have it both ways: Irreconcilable differences? Skeptical Inquirer  July 1999)

Like I keep harping on over and over (why can't you get this Ock?) neither view (evolution or creationism) has been scientifically proven.  There are scientists who represent both sides of the argument.  You can't refer to one as faith and the other as science.  And the debate is
decided at the level of origins- both sides agree on natural selection.

Either God created life or he didn't.  For this reason, evolutionists typically explain that the first step in the descent into atheism is to believe that there is no Creator.  Dawkins admitted this in the movie.  Thus, this issue is deeply rooted in one's personal worldview. It's no surprise you are hanging onto this belief of Evolution with such a tight grip.  It makes sense. 

So let's totally take God out of the schools and replace with the faith of Evolution.  Because that's exactly what we're doing.  So while we're raising a new generation of atheists don't complain when humanism raises its ugly head.  I believe we're already seeing the evidence of this in our children today. 

 

 

 

 

Do you even read what I write?  I told you I was repeating myself - several times.

 

 

Actually, you just displayed more knowledge of Dawkins than I have.  Are you a gold star member?  I've read one of his books - some of the stuff in it I agreed with, and some of it I didn't.  I plan to read another, and I'll approach it with the same open mind.

 

 

Yeah, guilty.  I think details matter.

 

The rest of your rant has nothing to do with your own topic.  And I'd really love for you to address my assertion that you do NOT, in fact, support ID.  You nor Lula.  If ID were to prove that everything was designed, you'd be ok with it right up until it turned out that the designer wasn't your chosen God.  At that point, you'd be fast and furious in your attempt to discredit it.  C'mon...give us some honesty here and admit at least that.  You don't believe in ID.  You just support it because it's anti-evolution which you see as a threat (for some reason).

 

 

Actually, I can.  Because science does not require that you be successful in proving your assertion.  It only requires that you TEST your assertion.  The results of the test are then recorded.  KFC...will you please show me the ID tests?  Please?  Pretty please?  Pretty please with sugar on it?  One paper?  One experiment?  Anything?  Anything at all?

Oh...I forgot something.  I don't have faith in anything.  You're barking up the wrong tree.

well that's a "duh" question Ock.  How could I say  what I did if I DID NOT read you?

now who's not paying attention here?  Are you even reading what I'm saying?  Really?  How many times have I said I'm not an ID person?  Hmmmm?  Try like almost every article on this subject.  I'm a Creationist.  Pure and simple.  I can't vouch for Lula.  But I'd go out on a limb she's with me as well.  But that has no bearing on the fact that we are ok with them at least teaching the ID theory.  It's still wrong in my book but at least it's more truthful than the other. 

well they do, but sometimes I find you get bogged down in detail.  I'm fairly detailed oriented myself but sometimes you have to stick to the main and plain things and not go off on bunny trails because it just gets us off the track.

no.  Definitely not.  I think it's good to know the enemy.  Don't you?   But tell me have you read any of Dr. Henry Morris?  Ken Ham?  Dr. Philip Johnson?  If you're open minded as you say you'd take turns giving them a look-see at least wouldn't you?  They've all got books out as well. 

look who's talking.  I've been as honest as I know how Ock.  I answer your questions at length and what do you do?  You answer with this?  Are you completely ignoring that I just answered all your questions dealing with origins in detail with quotes from the horses mouths? 

What?  No comment from you other than to go for the personal?   Just ask more questions?  What is this 21 questions?  Why should I keep answering when you totally ignore what I say? 

Com'on. 

I gotta go pick up the husband at work.  It's my day with the car. 

 

Ock:  I'm repeating myself

KFC:  Do you know you're repeating yourself?

Ock:  Did you not just hear me say I was?

KFC: Of course I heard it.

 

Ooookay. :NOTSURE:

 

 

I don't have any enemies.

 

 

No.  But I did go so far as to buy the book you suggested a long time ago.  I still have it and have read a couple chapters.  Did you buy the book I suggested?  Do you even remember what it's called?  Hint:  It has the word "Origins" in it.  You didn't, did you?  Actions vs. words.  You pick.

 

If you aren't an ID person, why would you want it taught in school?  I mean it's cool if you don't dig evolution and don't want IT taught in school, but why would you wish to compound the problem by adding yet one more unfounded theory to the curriculum?

Puh-lease! Am I really? Do you get into an elevator? An airplane? Do you have a thermostat in your home?

Remember you don't have to have faith in God or relgion to have faith. We all have faith in something whether we want to admit it or not. Did you know that there are preceptors in the base of the brain that go off the same way when one either worships God or satisfies their addictions? God made us for worship and that is easily seen throughout all the centuries right from the beginning of time. We will worship something. If not the Creator God of heaven, it will be something or someone else.

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This

faith Audio Help /feɪθ/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[feyth] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun 1. confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another's ability.
2. belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.
3. belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion: the firm faith of the Pilgrims.
4. belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of merit, etc.: to be of the same faith with someone concerning honesty.
5. a system of religious belief: the Christian faith; the Jewish faith.
6. the obligation of loyalty or fidelity to a person, promise, engagement, etc.: Failure to appear would be breaking faith.
7. the observance of this obligation; fidelity to one's promise, oath, allegiance, etc.: He was the only one who proved his faith during our recent troubles.
8. Christian Theology. the trust in God and in His promises as made through Christ and the Scriptures by which humans are justified or saved.
—Idiom 9. in faith, in truth; indeed: In faith, he is a fine lad.

"No" to both questions. It would be folly to have faith in nonsense as this. Genesis makes it clear that God created the universe and the earth as the only location possible for life. God created intelligent visible beings (us humans) and also quite well populated the universe with intelligent extra-terrestrials called angels.



Yes, since I believe in the Genesis record, I'm a Creationist. As far as that goes, Creationists have been documenting "Design", if you will, long before ID Theory came on the scene. Anyway, to me, Creator God is,always has been and will be the "Designer" implicit in the ID concept.

 

Spare me the drama, KFC.  There is a big difference between faith and belief.

 

 

Cool.  Now the biologists can stop trying to figure out why we have knees.  Clearly it is so that we have something to "get on."

 

 

Exactly so.  And that's the truth for everyone that believes in ID.  There aren't any ID people out there trying to prove it was alien species that did it.  It's religious based.  Specifically Christian based.  When you look at it that way, the "ID concept," as you call it, isn't anything new at all.  It's just good ole theism.  Which means...are you ready?  It isn't science.

Well, look closer and you'll see the only ones who have been not only disengenuous but have breached ethics are the die hard Darwinists who refuse to teach anything other than their own anti-science that we are products of random chance over eons of time lacking purpose and meaning. Why has the media, academia, and organizations come down on the side of demonizing scientists who reach the compelling conclusion that a Supreme Intelligence, God, is responsible for us and everything we observe?

I applaud ID theory becasue it's been useful in kicking dogmatic Darwinism out of the 150 year media, academia and scientific limelight. While many may disagree, I'd say that ID theory has helped show that science, particularly biology, points to Supreme Intelligence otherwise known as Almighty God.

Yes, ID theory focus is to seek institutional objectivity in origins science. Up until the ID movement, only those ideas promoting macro evolution were put forward for consideration. That's not science. In a true scientific arena we need teams to develop competing ideas using the scientific method...the job of scientific institutions and education is to be impartial, only that's not the way it's been for a long, long time as the preconception has been that only Darwinism can be accepted and all others must be kept out of the discussion. That's neither scientific nor objective.


What's the relationship among ID, science and religion and why are supporters of ID suppressed were questions asked of John Clavert one of the co founders of the ID Network.

He answered, "Science is theoretical and religion is dogmatic. IN religion, you cannot argue with certain tenets that are accepted by faith. In science, every explanataion should be open to criticism and revision. Science is inherently skeptical--and it should be. For example, evolution's contention that life is not a product of ID should be inherently open to question. When that unspoken rule is used to exclude ID, evolution ceases to be theoretical. It becomes a dogma or an ideology and the use of that unspoken rule actually takes evolution out of science and into theology. For evolution to be scientific, it has to accept the challenge of ID."

As to the second,

"If science allows ID into the equation, it will have a significant effect on ethics, bioethics, government, etc. Becasue if they discuss ID, they might find out they were wrong."

Creation science is an oxymoron. When you can fill in the gaps with God, science becomes useless. Even if it was obvious that we had a designer you would still have to leave God out of it less there would be no point in studying how all this came to be because it could never be explained. Evolution in no way excludes design but with ID, with aliens being the intelligence, there's still nothing to teach. The aliens would have to have used science and most likely evolution to create us so we would be right back where we started, teachiing evolution. 

Otherwise were just going to have to wait for God to teach us and give up all this foolishness of trying to figure it out on our own.

 

Blunder.  Evolution does not contend this.

 

 

Blunder.  The only challenge any science has to take on is experimentation.  That's the challenge ID has to take on, and it can't.

KFC WRITES:

The short answer is that these other ideas might prove them wrong...and if Evolution Theory (that people evolved from lower forms of animals by purely natural processes)is wrong and thereby discredited, then systems like Marxism, Communism, Nacism, Racism and Secular Humanism effectively lose a central premise necessary for coherance. If ET didn't exist, they'd have no "scientific" foundation for their propositions.



Absolutely true. However, they've done a masterful job teaching, molding and propagating Evolution speculation as established scientific fact for over 150 years. The triumpth of Darwinism was so complete and Evolution belief dominated that even liberal Christian "modernists" began adapting doctrines and re-interpretating Biblical Creation to fit the ostensible ET "science" which taught that ape-like beasts evolved into men over millions of years. The guideline was that religion must yield to science.

All that held sway and for the most part went unchallenged until recent findings in molecular science, genetics, etc., proved otherwise. Now, thanks be to ALmighty God, that is changing. We have scientific facts against ET that must be given due weight and consideration.