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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: neolib who wrote (28339)	9/8/2006 8:54:42 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541299

But that is the whole point. The Discovery Institute gets scientists to sign a statement which looks like they oppose evolution, but in reality, any modern scientist could sign it. That is a point, and perhaps an important one in terms of understanding and dealing with the Discovery Institute and its statements, but I don't see how it is really relevant to our conversation. I'm not supporting ID, or relying on the Discovery Institute and its statements. I'm sorry that my specific choice of words, choosing a phrase that didn't list all of the main sources for evolutionary change, might have made you think I was. That's the usual argument but it isn't an inherent part of ID. Strip it out and ID looks even weaker but you can believe in intelligent design without believing evolution is generally impossible or that any specific claimed evolutionary change is impossible. You are incorrect. ID is predicated on somehow proving that at least one piece somewhere bears the stamp of a designer. That's the argument for it. Probably almost universally the argument for it, it would be hard to find any prominent supporter of ID who doesn't use that argument. But it isn't the idea itself but rather the justification for believing in it. It isn't the conclusion. The conclusion of intelligent design is that an intelligent being (again presumably a deity of some sort but they don't say that so they can try to avoid sounding religious, and try to present their claims as science) designed life. If they found a better argument for that conclusion than "Irreducible Complexity" etc. they would use that argument. Irreducible Complexity is the means to the end, of ID, not the end itself. Yes, denying evolution denys FAR more human deaths AND lives than denying the Holocaust. That was not a good example. Denying evolution isn't denying a crime/atrocity against anyone. Evolution has little or no moral component. (Also denying evolution doesn't automatically mean you support "Adam and Eve 6-10K years ago" as the origin of humanity.)