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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J. C. Dithers who wrote (94079)	1/19/2005 10:31:02 PM
From: Win Smith	Respond to of 108807

Really good straw man construction there. It all follows from a Darwinist perspective, indeed. In contrast: The Newest Evolution of Creationism Intelligent design is about politics and religion, not science. By Barbara Forrest Intelligent Design (ID) proponents put most of their effort in swaying politicians and the public. The infamous August 1999 decision by the Kansas Board of Education to delete references to evolution from Kansas science standards was heavily influenced by advocates of intelligent-design theory. Although William A. Dembski, one of the movement's leading figures, asserts that "the empirical detectability of intelligent causes renders intelligent design a fully scientific theory," its proponents invest most of their efforts in swaying politicians and the public, not the scientific community. Launched by Phillip E. Johnson's book Darwin on Trial (1991), the intelligent-design movement crystallized in 1996 as the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture (CRSC), sponsored by the Discovery Institute, a conservative Seattle think tank. Johnson, a law professor whose religious conversion catalyzed his antievolution efforts, assembled a group of supporters who promote design theory through their writings, financed by CRSC fellowships. According to an early mission statement, the CRSC seeks "nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its damning cultural legacies." Johnson refers to the CRSC members and their strategy as the Wedge, analogous to a wedge that splits a log -- meaning that intelligent design will liberate science from the grip of "atheistic naturalism." Ten years of Wedge history reveal its most salient features: Wedge scientists have no empirical research program and, consequently, have published no data in peer-reviewed journals (or elsewhere) to support their intelligent-design claims. But they do have an aggressive public relations program, which includes conferences that they or their supporters organize, popular books and articles, recruitment of students through university lectures sponsored by campus ministries, and cultivation of alliances with conservative Christians and influential political figures. The Wedge aims to "renew" American culture by grounding society's major institutions, especially education, in evangelical religion. In 1996, Johnson declared: "This isn't really, and never has been, a debate about science. It's about religion and philosophy." According to Dembski, intelligent design "is just the Logos of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory." Wedge strategists seek to unify Christians through a shared belief in "mere" creation, aiming -- in Dembski's words -- "at defeating naturalism and its consequences." This enables intelligent-design proponents to coexist in a big tent with other creationists who explicitly base their beliefs on a literal interpretation of Genesis. "As Christians," writes Dembski, "we know naturalism is false. Nature is not self-sufficient. … Nonetheless neither theology nor philosophy can answer the evidential question whether God's interaction with the world is empirically detectable. To answer this question we must look to science." Jonathan Wells, a biologist, and Michael J. Behe, a biochemist, seem just the CRSC fellows to give intelligent design the ticket to credibility. Yet neither has actually done research to test the theory, much less produced data that challenges the massive evidence accumulated by biologists, geologists, and other evolutionary scientists. Wells, influenced in part by Unification Church leader Sun Myung Moon, earned Ph.D.'s in religious studies and biology specifically "to devote my life to destroying Darwinism." Behe sees the relevant question as whether "science can make room for religion." At heart, proponents of intelligent design are not motivated to improve science but to transform it into a theistic enterprise that supports religious faith. Wedge supporters are at present trying to insert intelligent design into Ohio public-school science standards through state legislation. Earlier the CRSC advertised its science education site by assuring teachers that its "Web curriculum can be appropriated without textbook adoption wars" -- in effect encouraging teachers to do an end run around standard procedures. Anticipating a test case, the Wedge published in the Utah Law Review a legal strategy for winning judicial sanction. Recently the group almost succeeded in inserting into the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 a "sense of the Senate" that supported the teaching of intelligent design. So the movement is advancing, but its tactics are no substitute for real science. (from actionbioscience.org, which does a good job of taking apart the ID edifice) People can believe what they want, and if it gives you pleasure to interpret Darwin in a way that reifies your faith, that's your business. It's got nothing to do with science, though.

To: J. C. Dithers who wrote (94079)	1/19/2005 11:49:59 PM
From: epicure	Respond to of 108807

"Doesn't this all follow from a Darwinist perspective?" No, it doesn't follow. Evolution speaks to the evolution of the species, but the close to infinite variation of the species, coupled with the close to infinite variation in how each member of the species is raised, gives rise to a marvelous interplay of nature and nurture- which you seem to have completely ignored. I don't see how you can see holes in evolution and not see the enormous, gigantic, colossal and stupendous holes in your own theory. But there you are. It seems to me that we have free will, but we can't explain it scientifically yet. Why do we bend to pick up a penny one day, and not do it when we see a penny the next day. Why do we chew our food ten times one moment, and 8 times the next? On the other hand, even if we don't have free will (and obviously we aren't anywhere near knowing whether we do or not) the illusion of it is a determinant to human behavior- just as more physical determinants influence us, ideas can also determine how we act. I find your consternation with Darwinism and free will rather amusing, since I was recently reading about free will and the debates in the church over predeterminism, and predestination. If I were hung up on needing to believe something about this issue, I might be concerned. But I am merely fascinated. I'm not sure why you aren't fascinated. Why do you need to make it all a big issue over people not being responsible? Maybe they aren't responsible (although this does NOT follow from Darwin- see education nature/nurture spiel above- and if we find that out, shouldn't we deal with it, if it is true? we will either deal with it by pretending people are responsible, or by funding another way to deal with it). Whatever the answer turns out to be, it's a great question. It may be more fun to have the question hanging out there, then it will be to have the answer. I feel the same way about evolution. Random, or by intelligent design, it's a very cool world, and I'm a happy little organism to be in it. I'll be happy either way, I'm sorry you'll be so bummed if it turns out evolution and natural forces are all she wrote. I think that would be pretty awesome, myself.