Comment A humble attempt at contributing to the topic... (Score 1) 1347
I'm not even sure if this is worth making an attempt. Scanning this incredibly long thread it's obvious that most of the comments left on this topic are hate filled, so the chances of actually getting to a good discussion of facts are probably slim and none, but we'll see. Some topics cannot be properly addressed in sound bites, and I hope that's not what I'm doing here.
First I think the term "religious" is both over-used and equivocal. (as is the term "faith", but that's another subject) It seems that most often when someone refers to something as "religious" the context of their statement is referring to someone who professes to be part of Christianity in one of it's various forms. While that may be true in some circumstances I think it would be better to use another definition of it: "a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to..." A better application of the concept of being religious would be a person who is faithful to their worldview. In other words everyone has a system of beliefs, and if they hold to them they could be said to be religious.
Now I can hear the first objection. Someone has caught on that that's implying that all systems must be belief systems when all along they thought they believed in cold hard facts. Well that may be, but I'll get to that.
On a side note... I can't figure out why there always so much hate America, blame everything that's bad on us, and give us credit for nothing that's good. Its perfectly understandable that someone probably said or did something stupid in your experience that gave you a bad impression, but hey guess what people aren't perfect. People do stupid things. Does that mean we're going to hate everything about everybody? A lot of people in America for various reasons hate California. I on the other hand can't think of a more incredible place, but then doesn't everyone love where they're from? When did it become a crime to be patriotic, or speak highly of the accomplishments of your fellow countrymen? Don't you do the same? And guess what... when someone from another country shows a little enthusiasm towards their country we tend to look at it a little oddly through the bias of our experience in our own country just as you do. So everyone just needs to take a deep breath and lighten up a little.
I really don't want to waste a lot of time off topic though.
If we're going to determine if ID is good science or not then shouldn't we have a clear idea of what good science is in the first place? It's easy to say this new fangled idea is bad, but is it?
How about Darwinism? Is it good science? Well... maybe. I suppose any belief system can have supporting arguments picked apart, because after all their only purpose is to confirm or deny the accuracy of the primary argument or a portion of it, and as a stand-alone argument it may appear incomplete. However if we can point to conclusive evidence then the debate is over.
Has the belief system that's being taught as fact today in our school, Darwinism, produced this irrefutable evidence? There are two major hurdles that are still unanswered. How does macro evolution explain the necessity of abiogenesis in it's theory and where are the missing transitional forms?
People have attempted to point to transitional forms in the past, but even the best attempts at this are left with gaping holes in the fossil record. For example if you were going to say that fins turned to feet because of evolution which is a gradual process, then you can't show a fin in one specimen, a second specimen that's half and half, and a third that's all foot. Such drastic changes could not be considered evolution. In order for a life form to evolve slowly from one form to another you would see an extensive fossil record where a feature such as a fin changes in very small increments with each new birth. (eg. 99%fin/1%foot, 98%fin/2%foot, 97%/3%, 96%/4%, etc..) We don't see this in the record because such changes would render the item that was evolving useless until enough births had happened to make the item useful again. An animal born this way would not be thought of as evolving, but rather as having a birth defect and would not stand up to the survival of the fitest. The transitional forms that have been paraded out as proof show signs of supposed change that's greater that 25% per transition and if that's the case we're not talking about the slow process of evolution we're talking about miracles.
And what about abiogenesis? Can life really come from nonlife? The answers scientists have proposed to this question sound even less like evolution. Do Big Bangs or the various other lines of reasoning sound like the slow process of evolution or miraculous?
I hope I'm building a good case here. The question is "Is ID good science?" Well how about "Is Evolution good science?" It definitely can't be any worse. It seems to take a lot more "faith", a person being a lot more "religous" about their belief system to believe in evolution then it does to believe in the idea that there might have been a creator of some sort. Mathematically it's a lot more probable for there to have been a creator of this incredibly complex universe then for all this amazing stuff to just have happened by the combination of chance and some sporadic miracles spanning the gaps in the theory.
Ok... so perhaps we're thinking now that there might be something to consider. Maybe the ID free radicals aren't quite as off the wall as they seemed. So the next logical question would be is it right for government to push such an idea?? Probably not...
But wait a minute. They're pushing the belief system of Darwinism. How can it be right in a free country for the government to back a worldview period?? Can this be possible? Wait a sec.... if my decisions stem from how I view the world is it ever possible to get away from pushing a viewpoint in Congress? The answer's no.
Our decisions are all biased by our worldview. There's no getting away from this. Even if we believe that everyone should decide for themselves what's right we're still pushing a worldview on everyone (Relativism). Our forefathers had to have known this, and yet they still wrote that we're all "created equal, endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights". They pushed a worldview on this country, based on the belief in a higher power (regardless of the details of that belief) which has given us the freedom to disagree yet still hold our beliefs while remaining within the laws established by the consensus of our elected representatives in our government of distributed power and responsibilities. It's not perfect because people aren't perfect, but it's better than anything to date.
So should the government back ID? Well a better question is should it back anything at all, and of course the answer is it's going to back something, so we should argue for what belief system we believe is best.
- John
Food for thought: Someone mentioned that we Christians believe in the Big Bang, we just believe that God did it. Well... that's a well meaning sentiment, and I used to share it, but here's something to think about. Can a God that's supposedly in control of the universe use a chance process? Or maybe a better way to phrase that is, can you be in control if you're leaving things up to chance?
First I think the term "religious" is both over-used and equivocal. (as is the term "faith", but that's another subject) It seems that most often when someone refers to something as "religious" the context of their statement is referring to someone who professes to be part of Christianity in one of it's various forms. While that may be true in some circumstances I think it would be better to use another definition of it: "a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to..." A better application of the concept of being religious would be a person who is faithful to their worldview. In other words everyone has a system of beliefs, and if they hold to them they could be said to be religious.
Now I can hear the first objection. Someone has caught on that that's implying that all systems must be belief systems when all along they thought they believed in cold hard facts. Well that may be, but I'll get to that.
On a side note... I can't figure out why there always so much hate America, blame everything that's bad on us, and give us credit for nothing that's good. Its perfectly understandable that someone probably said or did something stupid in your experience that gave you a bad impression, but hey guess what people aren't perfect. People do stupid things. Does that mean we're going to hate everything about everybody? A lot of people in America for various reasons hate California. I on the other hand can't think of a more incredible place, but then doesn't everyone love where they're from? When did it become a crime to be patriotic, or speak highly of the accomplishments of your fellow countrymen? Don't you do the same? And guess what... when someone from another country shows a little enthusiasm towards their country we tend to look at it a little oddly through the bias of our experience in our own country just as you do. So everyone just needs to take a deep breath and lighten up a little.
I really don't want to waste a lot of time off topic though.
If we're going to determine if ID is good science or not then shouldn't we have a clear idea of what good science is in the first place? It's easy to say this new fangled idea is bad, but is it?
How about Darwinism? Is it good science? Well... maybe. I suppose any belief system can have supporting arguments picked apart, because after all their only purpose is to confirm or deny the accuracy of the primary argument or a portion of it, and as a stand-alone argument it may appear incomplete. However if we can point to conclusive evidence then the debate is over.
Has the belief system that's being taught as fact today in our school, Darwinism, produced this irrefutable evidence? There are two major hurdles that are still unanswered. How does macro evolution explain the necessity of abiogenesis in it's theory and where are the missing transitional forms?
People have attempted to point to transitional forms in the past, but even the best attempts at this are left with gaping holes in the fossil record. For example if you were going to say that fins turned to feet because of evolution which is a gradual process, then you can't show a fin in one specimen, a second specimen that's half and half, and a third that's all foot. Such drastic changes could not be considered evolution. In order for a life form to evolve slowly from one form to another you would see an extensive fossil record where a feature such as a fin changes in very small increments with each new birth. (eg. 99%fin/1%foot, 98%fin/2%foot, 97%/3%, 96%/4%, etc..) We don't see this in the record because such changes would render the item that was evolving useless until enough births had happened to make the item useful again. An animal born this way would not be thought of as evolving, but rather as having a birth defect and would not stand up to the survival of the fitest. The transitional forms that have been paraded out as proof show signs of supposed change that's greater that 25% per transition and if that's the case we're not talking about the slow process of evolution we're talking about miracles.
And what about abiogenesis? Can life really come from nonlife? The answers scientists have proposed to this question sound even less like evolution. Do Big Bangs or the various other lines of reasoning sound like the slow process of evolution or miraculous?
I hope I'm building a good case here. The question is "Is ID good science?" Well how about "Is Evolution good science?" It definitely can't be any worse. It seems to take a lot more "faith", a person being a lot more "religous" about their belief system to believe in evolution then it does to believe in the idea that there might have been a creator of some sort. Mathematically it's a lot more probable for there to have been a creator of this incredibly complex universe then for all this amazing stuff to just have happened by the combination of chance and some sporadic miracles spanning the gaps in the theory.
Ok... so perhaps we're thinking now that there might be something to consider. Maybe the ID free radicals aren't quite as off the wall as they seemed. So the next logical question would be is it right for government to push such an idea?? Probably not...
But wait a minute. They're pushing the belief system of Darwinism. How can it be right in a free country for the government to back a worldview period?? Can this be possible? Wait a sec.... if my decisions stem from how I view the world is it ever possible to get away from pushing a viewpoint in Congress? The answer's no.
Our decisions are all biased by our worldview. There's no getting away from this. Even if we believe that everyone should decide for themselves what's right we're still pushing a worldview on everyone (Relativism). Our forefathers had to have known this, and yet they still wrote that we're all "created equal, endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights". They pushed a worldview on this country, based on the belief in a higher power (regardless of the details of that belief) which has given us the freedom to disagree yet still hold our beliefs while remaining within the laws established by the consensus of our elected representatives in our government of distributed power and responsibilities. It's not perfect because people aren't perfect, but it's better than anything to date.
So should the government back ID? Well a better question is should it back anything at all, and of course the answer is it's going to back something, so we should argue for what belief system we believe is best.
- John
Food for thought: Someone mentioned that we Christians believe in the Big Bang, we just believe that God did it. Well... that's a well meaning sentiment, and I used to share it, but here's something to think about. Can a God that's supposedly in control of the universe use a chance process? Or maybe a better way to phrase that is, can you be in control if you're leaving things up to chance?
