Intelligent Design: Coming To A State Legislature Near You

[shinningelectr0n]

Easter Bunny wrote:

<quoted text>
I was asking you because I was curious if you had an opinion about it. Since you come from a different perspective, this would have the potential to be much more valuable to me than if I asked, say, my twin-brother who was looking over my shoulder.
But as far as the Pharisees situation, I don't know what to say because my religious training never really took so I don't know what place that example occupies in the pantheon. Heck, I barely know when ground-hog day is.

Groundhog day is Feb 2nd, a day when all little people can be proud of the dimunitive shadows they cast. I can't celebrate:)

I am not a Biblical guy at all. I only selectively retain those bits and pieces I particularly find interesting. Jesus was hated by the Jewish establishment because he was perceived as a threat to their power. Caesar was Emperor at this time. The Pharisees were a strict, by-the-letter-of-the-law Jewish sect that tried repeatedly to get Jesus to respond to their questions, hoping that he might say something that would land him in jail. Jesus knew what they were up to and treaded carefully in his responses. Once, they tried to trick him into responding to this question: where should we place our ultimate loyalties? To God or to Caesar? If Jesus answered "To God", he'd be arrested for belittling Caesar's authority. If he answered "To Caesar", he'd lose all credibility with his followers. So Jesus asked them for a coin. They handed him one. Jesus then asked them back "Whose face is on this coin?" They answered "Caesar" to which Jesus then made his famous statement "I say unto you, give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and give unto God that which is God's". He beat them at their game.
Thus, my response to your "trick" questions. Give science it's due and give spirituality it's due. This will keep me from being arrested by the Militant Science Police and keeps my credibility intact with others of a spiritual bent.

The Vatican disavows any claims made here by me, my agents or Topix management. All characterizations are fictional and should not be interpreted as real people inside real events.

[Roku Roku Roku]

hexene wrote:

<quoted text>
LOL! This creationist web site is packed with lies, distortions and has anything but the truth.
You need to dig deeper for the truth about the science of evolution.

I checked out that site myself. Now I know what the comedy writers did for spare change when they were on strike.

[Easter Bunny]

shinningelectr0n wrote:

<quoted text>
Groundhog day is Feb 2nd, a day when all little people can be proud of the dimunitive shadows they cast. I can't celebrate:)
I am not a Biblical guy at all. I only selectively retain those bits and pieces I particularly find interesting. Jesus was hated by the Jewish establishment because he was perceived as a threat to their power. Caesar was Emperor at this time. The Pharisees were a strict, by-the-letter-of-the-law Jewish sect that tried repeatedly to get Jesus to respond to their questions, hoping that he might say something that would land him in jail. Jesus knew what they were up to and treaded carefully in his responses. Once, they tried to trick him into responding to this question: where should we place our ultimate loyalties? To God or to Caesar? If Jesus answered "To God", he'd be arrested for belittling Caesar's authority. If he answered "To Caesar", he'd lose all credibility with his followers. So Jesus asked them for a coin. They handed him one. Jesus then asked them back "Whose face is on this coin?" They answered "Caesar" to which Jesus then made his famous statement "I say unto you, give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and give unto God that which is God's". He beat them at their game.
Thus, my response to your "trick" questions. Give science it's due and give spirituality it's due. This will keep me from being arrested by the Militant Science Police and keeps my credibility intact with others of a spiritual bent.
The Vatican disavows any claims made here by me, my agents or Topix management. All characterizations are fictional and should not be interpreted as real people inside real events.

Thanks again for the further clarification. Certainly, parables can communicate ideas of value.

My questions aren't intended to include tricks, but given how carelessly I dash them off, it's easy for me to believe that things get either misstated, misread, or both. I mean, just 'cuz I hold somebody to task for something they said that seems inconsistent to me, and even if my process comes off as crafty, that doesn't mean I'm actually trying to make it so there is no answer.

So, are you saying that you cast a large shadow, and are thus prevented from joining the rest of us in our celebration of Bill Murray's movie?

[shinningelectr0n]

Easter Bunny wrote:

<quoted text>
You might be mis-reading, but you are surely misunderstanding because what you're saying is roughly the opposite of what I said.
By saying that they are 4 different things, to me it's obvious that this means that they are:
1) Science
2) Mad Scientists
3) religion
4) Religious fanatics
And from this, you somehow deduce that I'm suggesting this:
"So ... we CAN blame science for the actions of a mad scientist because ...?"
Your 4 items don't seem to follow from each other, but they surely don't follow from what I said.
Maybe if you weren't so determined to see a boogie-man behind every tree, you'd be able to read my posts more objectively and save us both a lot of time.

These are not (4) different things:

1) Science
2) Mad Scientists
3) religion
4) Religious fanatics

They are two groupings:

1.) Science/Mad scientist
2.) Religion/Religious Fanatic.

There are primary relationships inside of each group. Further, there is a secondary relationship between (1) & (2) depicting logical association methods. Logically, you'd find Science grouped with Mad Scientist as you would Religion with Religious Fanatic. It would be illogical to group, say, Religious Fanatic with Science.

They are not (4) DIFFERENT things and this is the point of contention.

If I say cat/mouse we see a relationship immediately.
If I say small rodent/feline we again immediately see a relationship.

The former is an informal description and the latter is a more formal description. Together, the former and latter form another relationship in the method of association.

We cannot logically say "They are four different things."

Semantics has a logic behind it, not boogie-men.

[shinningelectr0n]

Easter Bunny wrote:

<quoted text>
So, are you saying that you cast a large shadow, and are thus prevented from joining the rest of us in our celebration of Bill Murray's movie?

I'll wax poetic here and get real corny by saying that a man casts his biggest shadow when he stands up.

I enjoy Bill Murray and love the movie.

[Haahvad]

"Intelligent Design" is creationism dressed up as pseudoscience.

It is a testament to man's capacity for self-deception and intellectual corruption.

[StopTheInsanity]

Easter Bunny wrote:

<quoted text>
Thanks for the clarification.
I too am pretty skeptical about the drug habits of this country.
I also enjoy humor, but apparently it misses me sometimes.

I'm not sure why MissingSomeElectron's attempts to explain a total stranger's posts should carry any weight. There was no research necessary. Just click on CR8VDO's link and his most recent posts are listed. He appears to be a classic troll, darting into numerous threads with isolated off-the-wall comments, but if he would like to offer explanations for his posts, then perhaps he should be the one to do so. I, for one, would love to see a lucid and self-reflective post from someone such as him, explaining his motives.

[polymath257]

MichiganGEL wrote:

<quoted text>
Except for that last broadbrush accusation, there is much wisdom in your post, John.
If the facts of evolution were taught in such a way so as not to devalue faith and tradition, parents would not be so concerned. I am sure most science teachers and professors hold to their fiduciary responsibility, but there are some who communicate disrespect for religious convictions, saying in so many words: You are evolved animals... Your religion is myth. Too many kids proceed to act accordingly - like the delinquent in your story.
"The [reverential] fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."

There are several different aspects that need to be addressed here. Science can look at the physical world and show what does/did/doesn't/didn't happen. It can find general patterns to how things work in the physical world. In fact, that is its job and it does it very well.

Science cannot speak to values, goals, motivations, etc. If religious faith is oriented to discussion of values and goals and motivations, science can do nothing to denigrate it in any way. It can inform about the consequences that those goals, values, and motivations will have over time, but science itself cannot say whether those consequences are good or bad.

However, when faith and tradition makes claims about history or about the physical world, science *can* have an impact when the facts contradict the traditions. Some people see this as denigrating traditions, when it is actually a rigorous devotion to truth. The solution, for the religious, is to not make historical claims or claims about the physical world. As Gould would say, keep to the religious side of the magesteria. It is when tradition claims there was a historical worldwide flood, or claims the earth is 6000 years old, or claims that we are not biologically related to other animals that science can step in and reveal the falsity of the tradition and show it to be a myth. But it is perfectly possible to have traditions reflecting long-held values in the context of accepting the truths of science. THAT is the challenge for those who are religious.

[truthist]

polymath257 wrote:

<quoted text>
There are several different aspects that need to be addressed here. Science can look at the physical world and show what does/did/doesn't/didn't happen. It can find general patterns to how things work in the physical world. In fact, that is its job and it does it very well.
Science cannot speak to values, goals, motivations, etc. If religious faith is oriented to discussion of values and goals and motivations, science can do nothing to denigrate it in any way. It can inform about the consequences that those goals, values, and motivations will have over time, but science itself cannot say whether those consequences are good or bad.
However, when faith and tradition makes claims about history or about the physical world, science *can* have an impact when the facts contradict the traditions. Some people see this as denigrating traditions, when it is actually a rigorous devotion to truth. The solution, for the religious, is to not make historical claims or claims about the physical world. As Gould would say, keep to the religious side of the magesteria. It is when tradition claims there was a historical worldwide flood, or claims the earth is 6000 years old, or claims that we are not biologically related to other animals that science can step in and reveal the falsity of the tradition and show it to be a myth. But it is perfectly possible to have traditions reflecting long-held values in the context of accepting the truths of science. THAT is the challenge for those who are religious.

Superb. Thank you.

One hugomongous question is what to do with what comes out science vis a vis good and bad. DDT, Love Canal, etc. I am a concerned scientist. What do you say, my friend, about the management of consequences??

(I can hardly wait for your response.)

[Drew Smith]

bat wrote:

I think its fair to have a discussion of intelligent design.

And you'll find many discussions of intelligent design online.

***

bat wrote:

But it is a philosophical concept worth examining.

And it has been examined repeatedly, and found wanting.

[John]

polymath257 wrote:

<quoted text>
Science cannot speak to values, goals, motivations, etc. If religious faith is oriented to discussion of values and goals and motivations, science can do nothing to denigrate it in any way. It can inform about the consequences that those goals, values, and motivations will have over time, but science itself cannot say whether those consequences are good or bad.
However, when faith and tradition makes claims about history or about the physical world, science *can* have an impact when the facts contradict the traditions. Some people see this as denigrating traditions, when it is actually a rigorous devotion to truth. The solution, for the religious, is to not make historical claims or claims about the physical world. As Gould would say, keep to the religious side of the magesteria. It is when tradition claims there was a historical worldwide flood, or claims the earth is 6000 years old, or claims that we are not biologically related to other animals that science can step in and reveal the falsity of the tradition and show it to be a myth. But it is perfectly possible to have traditions reflecting long-held values in the context of accepting the truths of science. THAT is the challenge for those who are religious.

I disagreed with MichiganGEL and I must respectfully disagree with you also. A principle is a principle. When you say 2 plus 2 are 4, that holds whether you are counting genes, chromosomes, or commandments or Bibles.

Where we are getting into a spat, and a counterproductive one I might add, is becoming confused about principles. Genesis established a principle which is in the Magesterium of the Catholic Church, that all humans have a common ancestor. This is a moral principle: that ID advocate filling this board with spam is MY SISTER and you are MY BROTHER. From this well stated principle, I cannot make distinctions in care or justice against you or her that I can make against my neighbor's dog or the squirrels in a tree.

Now Israeli geneticists have advanced research that indicated the human genetic line began with a woman in Africa who lived 200,000 years ago. So, the principle appears to have gained a genetic as well as a moral dimension.

So first, a competent morality must ask: what is the principle and what is the context. No one knows where the TWO exclusive accounts of creation were written or derived. Jonah appears to have been an account similar to our Op-Ed articles in newspapers.

Then we must ask: what is the principle?

I don't want religion to stay out of the science side of the Magesterium. I don't want one of your colleagues poking me to see how much pain I can endure. I don't want experiments on patients to see how syphilis progresses.

Just like science guides religion indirectly by indirectly showing what is mere tradition, religion guides science indirectly. I am amazed at the self-styled environmentalists who have said we should help Africa by letting famine and disease take its toll on those populations.

Each must also be true to itself. I am amazed at the mean spirit some "faithful" have shown to persons with AIDs or Latin Americans.

Sorry for the tome. Hope it is worth it.

[John]

Polymath, MichigenGEL

I always see my foot in my mouth after a post.

The mere tradition I refer to is extraneous embellishment.

The tradition I refer to is principles that we carry forward, usually in religion.

I hope you can get through my bad terminology.

[Been There]

LWsciencejunkie wrote:

<quoted text>
I was musing about this out in the garden and I guess my usual Malthusian mindset just was overwhelmed by five acres of wildflowers all in a riot of their gorgeous May display of the ol' prime directive. Almost a sensory overload. Anyway...take heart, the US isn't the whole world, and although it is certainly embarrassing and worrying that we have more folks still clinging to the "dork ages" than the rest of the developed world; look at how far we've come. The State of CA just knocked the fundies back a peg or two with the stand on gay marriage. ID was defeated in Dover. Progress is being made, and like the rest of the past 100 or so years, when you look at human history, social change is happening at breakneck speed.
For one thing I can tell you from being in and out of my kids' public schools for fifteen years, the geek/nurd stereotype is dead or dying. My smart kids were respected and NOT given anything BUT respect for their achievements. We don't live in the football-and-Bah-bull belt, but it is a conservative corner of this state.

We should morn the ruling from the California court. Not for the results but the method. You don't want to live under the rule of the church and you sure don't want to live under the rule of 4 unelected judges who make up law as they go along

[Been There]

shinningelectr0n wrote:

<quoted text>
It's too much mental work to blame all those people in Congress. Instead, it is much more expedient and theatrically effective to place all bad things on one person or group. This might be called the personifying of evil. Racists use it, smear campaigns use it, Madison Ave. uses it, ABC News uses it and small minds use it. This is not the Scientific Method of discovery but the Josef Mengele version.

Sic em

[Been There]

Easter Bunny wrote:

<quoted text>
Thanks for laying out your position. If you had posted this before, I didn't catch it.
I suspect that the resistance that you think is over-done comes from the fact that the history of spirituality has been the history of the church, when considering things on the scale that has political implications. In other words, there may have always been plainly spiritual types, but they have about as much impact on the world as peaceful Muslims.
People are legitimately concerned that whenever people with a god-of-the-bible agenda are trying to push their doctrine into schools and the rest of society, this has a bad track record that has proven much more dangerous than if we make a mistake about the atmosphere of Io and have to change it later.
So, if you advocate teaching ID, it doesn't matter to me if your personal beliefs about spirituality are much more sensible than a shouting preacher. It only matters that you'd be supporting a movement that I see as an attempt to enslave our kids.
By contrast, if somebody wants to try to find the origin of the Universe, that's fine with me, and I don't care one bit if it turns out to have been built by some supernatural being. But that's nothing like starting with an assumption "that you know cannot be disproven" and then looking for spurious arguments to support it.
If you don't support teaching ID to kids in public schools, then none of that applies to you as far as I'm concerned.
But your general bashing of science and scientists seems over-wrought if the only thing you're referring to is their strong rejection of ID no matter if it comes from your "reasonable spiritualist" type or a raving fundamentalist.

The history of spirituality is the history of man. All cultures have believed there was something greater. When you go to the horse track you can't beat the wisdom of all the people. No one no matter how knowledgeable they are has a higher long term percentage of wins than the group

[No Taqiyya]

common sense wrote:

Oh heck guys and gals. I think God just "poofed" everything into existence just as it is. What's so hard to believe about that? Poofed the earth first. Then the solar system and the sun after the earth. Poofed the waters before the light! Poofed man. Poofed the genetic structure of all those animals and plants before man came along. Got tired along the way and duplicated most life's cell structures, but "poof it" He did! Poof. Poof. Here a there. Everywhere a poof poof! Makes sense to me. Enough so that I think we can pretty well discount the sum total of scientific discovery. Don't cha think?

It would be easier for God to create something from nothing than for something to create itself from nothing.

[Drew Smith]

John wrote:

Israeli geneticists have advanced research that indicated the human genetic line began with a woman in Africa who lived 200,000 years ago.

Which Israeli geneticists were those? There's not enough information to go on here in order to identify this study.

[John]

Drew Smith wrote:

<quoted text>
Which Israeli geneticists were those? There's not enough information to go on here in order to identify this study.

It is posted on Topix, so I will try to find it.

One caution about this, genetic research yields THEORY, not fact. So their results seem to coincide with the teachings of the Catholic Magisterium. They are neither affirming or refuting it.

[John]

Drew Smith wrote:

<quoted text>
Which Israeli geneticists were those? There's not enough information to go on here in order to identify this study.

My apology for the earlier post. You appear to know more than I on the subject.

http://www.dailyindia.com/show/240870.php/Hum...

[Been There]

truthist wrote:

<quoted text>Superb. Thank you.
One hugomongous question is what to do with what comes out science vis a vis good and bad. DDT, Love Canal, etc. I am a concerned scientist. What do you say, my friend, about the management of consequences??
(I can hardly wait for your response.)

As Beethoven's wife said when Beethoven said he would be great." Ha Ha Ha Haaaaa. DDT was an invention that saved thousands of lives and would be saving thousand more today if it was politically correct. In our wisdom we give mosquito nets and accept unnecessary deaths. Love canal was a gross exaggeration in the press of damages that were actually in the norm. It is like the FACT that Alien flights have caused pits in your windshield. You will find them because you never looked for them before. The press reports thousands of bodies floating in the streets in New Orleans and then gives itself awards