[Hydrogen]

Academic freedom has a specific meaning with respect to the use of the term. And no, it does not grant unfettered freedom to teach whatever.

Since Intelligent Design ultimately relies on a god or a creator to provide a first cause, and since tangible proof for the existence of that god or creator is excused from the debate and treated merely as an unverified and untestable belief, ID is merely a faith and not a science.

 

[Art Vandelay]

do you have any idea how hard it is for me to undo all the damage from being brought up in the catholic school system? do you have any idea how much suffering it has brought me? one of the reasons why i am such a critic when it comes to these religious debates is because it's part of the process of undoing all the damage. another reason is because i don't want others to go through what i have.

I'm sorry you feel you were some how damaged by the Catholic school system. I don't know what happened to you but I do many well adjusted, happy Christians who graduated from Catholic schools. The broad brush you paint all religion with does not reflect the reality of hundreds of millions of people.

Expelled is not about religion although I will readily admit that in discrediting Darwinism it opens the mind to the possibility of Intelligent Design which in turn could lead people to accept the possibility of a Creator God.

While I accept there are limits to what we would choose to expose young children to in an elementary classroom the idea that post graduate work shouldn't challenge established orthodoxy is stupid and dangerous.

Who desides what is truth? Who separates fact from fiction? Who decides who is allowed to speak?

Ideas should be allowed to compete in an open and free market. Poorly constructed ideas like bad products will fail. I would rather live in society where academia was exposed to wackly ideas than the intellectual totalitarianism you seem to prefer.

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

I'm sorry you feel you were some how damaged by the Catholic school system. I don't know what happened to you but I do many well adjusted, happy Christians who graduated from Catholic schools. The broad brush you paint all religion with does not reflect the reality of hundreds of millions of people.

and the broad brush the justice system paints drug use with does not reflect the reality of hundreds of millions of people. not everyone that does cocaine will die of an overdose, not everyone that shoots heroin will die, etc. but that is not reason for the government to administer party drugs to the population. the government and its institutions should not be in the business of indoctrinating the population into different faiths. nobody should be forced into a religion or theism, just like nobody should be forced to take a narcotic substance.

Expelled is not about religion although I will readily admit that in discrediting Darwinism it opens the mind to the possibility of Intelligent Design which in turn could lead people to accept the possibility of a Creator God.

expelled is about spreading disinformation to support the religious cause. expelled will not in any way discredit evolution by means of natural selection. what it will do is poison the minds of those who don't know all the facts and take advantage of them. this is what con artists do, they exploit their victims ignorance.

While I accept there are limits to what we would choose to expose young children to in an elementary classroom the idea that post graduate work shouldn't challenge established orthodoxy is stupid and dangerous.

theistic debate does not pose any worthy challenges. it's faith.

Who desides what is truth? Who separates fact from fiction? Who decides who is allowed to speak?

let reason, logic, investigation, observation, etc. decide what is truth, not faith. faith does not provide answers - ever.

Ideas should be allowed to compete in an open and free market. Poorly constructed ideas like bad products will fail. I would rather live in society where academia was exposed to wackly ideas than the intellectual totalitarianism you seem to prefer.

the market is not free. there is always corporate welfare and shitty products keep on movin. in the US, thanks to abstinence programs the rate of teen pregnancies and STD infection has skyrocketed. those taught in abstinence programs were more likely to engage in risky behavior than those taught sex ed. i don't have the dollar figure on me now but it was a huge amount of money spent on telling people not to have sex and wear a ring symbolizing they were married to jesus and it was a total failure and did the opposite of what was wanted. this was not the free market at work, it was geroge bush's religious friends getting government handouts for selling ignorance.


who said i prefer totalitarianism? i prefer we are taught things that are real and can be proven to at least some degree. it doesn't get any more totalitarian than god and religion.

you are free to believe what you want but if you want what you believe to be taught in schools and accepted by your employer, you better provide some evidence. if a geologist gets fired from his job because he believes that the grand canyon was carved out in a biblical flood a few thousand years ago and that the devil scattered dinosaur bones across the planet just to test his faith, well, that's too fucking bad.

 

[Art Vandelay]

you are free to believe what you want but if you want what you believe to be taught in schools and accepted by your employer, you better provide some evidence. if a geologist gets fired from his job because he believes that the grand canyon was carved out in a biblical flood a few thousand years ago and that the devil scattered dinosaur bones across the planet just to test his faith, well, that's too fucking bad.

Darwinism is a theory that has yet to be proven. Brillant as it may be it is full of holes and yet people like you cling to it like a religion because it allows you to justify an existance without God. One could say you've placed a great deal of faith in it.

Learned minds more brillant than my own ask questions of Darwinist they can't answer. Should they not be allowed to ask such questions?

You accuse proponents of Intelligent Design of having an ulterior motive of promoting religious faith and therefore should not be listened to or perhaps in some circumstances even allowed to speak because of their bias. But what of your bias and your strong opposition to faith?

You haven't even seen the movie and you have already formed an opinion and seek to influence others simply out of fear that some may be lead to faith by this movie.

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

Darwinism is a theory that has yet to be proven. Brillant as it may be it is full of holes and yet people like you cling to it like a religion because it allows you to justify an existance without God. One could say you've placed a great deal of faith in it.

evolution by means of natural selection is fact. a scientefic theory is an explanation, not a hypothesis. the word theory has two meanings depending where it is used. in science, theory = explanation, on the street, theory = guess.

natural selection doesn't justify an existence without god. i learned about natural selection from catholic school and pope JP2 said it was fully compatible with catholic theology. i'll repeat it again, natural selection doesn't explain the origins of life, it explains the diversity of life. i don't have faith in NS, i have a understanding of it.

one of the things that killed my faith in god is logic.

-(this is the claim made by theists) god is all knowing and all powerful

-(this is the claim made by theists)there is evil in the world because we have free will (god doesn't interfere)

-if there is free will (god doesn't interfere) that means praying does nothing (this is logical)

-if god is all knowing, there can't be free will because if god know all, including the future, there is destiny. it means we are all part of some eternal script. (logical)

-if there is destiny and no free will and god is all powerful, that means god can act against evil but chooses not to. the excuse of free will doesn't apply anymore. (logical)

this doesn't prove god doesn't exist but it proves that just maybe, god doesn't give a shit about us or is not as powerful or knowing as we believe.

don't even get me started on debunking arguments from design!

Learned minds more brillant than my own ask questions of Darwinist they can't answer. Should they not be allowed to ask such questions?

ask questions. nothing wrong with that.

You accuse proponents of Intelligent Design of having an ulterior motive of promoting religious faith and therefore should not be listened to or perhaps in some circumstances even allowed to speak because of their bias. But what of your bias and your strong opposition to faith?

what's wrong with my bias in requiring evidence? i'm not opposed to all faith. if you tell me that you have been a bank manager for 15 years i won't ask you for your pay stubs for evidence to backup your claim. i'll trust you to a degree unless a lie can cause consequences for me in which case i'll ask to see your card or meet you on your job site. making a claim that there is a god is an extraordinary claim and therefore requires extraordinary evidence.

You haven't even seen the movie and you have already formed an opinion and seek to influence others simply out of fear that some may be lead to faith by this movie.

i haven't seen the entire movie but i have seen segments, previews and interviews of ben stein where he repeats the claims and quotes he makes in the movie. the claims are downright lies that are extremely obvious.

 

[theman23]

I'm sure "Darwinism", whatever that is, is full of holes. Which is why the modern theory of evolution is a far more robust and refined model than what Darwin originally presented. But I'm still curious, Art. What exactly are these numerous holes?

 

[Hydrogen]

Darwinism is a theory that has yet to be proven. Brillant as it may be it is full of holes and yet people like you cling to it like a religion because it allows you to justify an existance without God. One could say you've placed a great deal of faith in it.

Darwin's theory has not only been shown to be valid, but has been considerably extended. You have indicated that there are "holes" in it; can you provide some examples?

As for evolution being like a religion, the theory of natural selection is quite visible and testable. As I noted in an earlier post, Darwin spent significant time documenting his evidence, and provided a valuable analog by describing artificial selection in considerable detail.

Explanations that resort to god resort to an untestable hypotheses. Because these hypotheses are untestable, they are not scientific. Darwin provides clear evidence for his hypothesis on how species differentiate and evolve. That evidence has since been greatly expanded and extended. All scientific theories are open to questions of scientific merit - but these questions must offer up possibilities for generating tests and verifiable evidence that can be used invalidate portions of a general theory.

Any assertion that evolution is not a fact is, itself, a belief, in that it neglects by choice that massive body of clear evidence for biological change on this planet.

 

[Art Vandelay]

I'm sure "Darwinism", whatever that is, is full of holes. Which is why the modern theory of evolution is a far more robust and refined model than what Darwin originally presented. But I'm still curious, Art. What exactly are these numerous holes?

Darwinism can't explain the origin of life. From fellow poster Prometheus The Supremo:

"i'll repeat it again, natural selection doesn't explain the origins of life, it explains the diversity of life"

Natural selection explains variation but does not include origin. That's a pretty big hole.

When we look at bacteria or fruit flys we can observe many mutations as generational life cycles are measured in days but we never see new life. A fruit fly is alway a fruit fly.

 

[Hank]

Darwinism can't explain the origin of life. From fellow poster Prometheus The Supremo:

"i'll repeat it again, natural selection doesn't explain the origins of life, it explains the diversity of life"

Natural selection explains variation but does not include origin. That's a pretty big hole.

When we look at bacteria or fruit flys we can observe many mutations as generational life cycles are measured in days but we never see new life. A fruit fly is alway a fruit fly.

But it's not SUPPOSED to explain the origin of life! That's like saying that Darwinism is full of holes because it can't explain why you never win roll up the rim...they're two completely unrelated topics. To suggest that this is a 'hole' in Darwinism is to show a fundamental misunderstanding of what evolution by natural selection is all about.

 

[theman23]

Natural selection explains variation but does not include origin. That's a pretty big hole.

Germ theory also can't explain the origin of life. Is this also a hole in that thoery? No, of course not. They were never intended to explain the origin of life in the first place, so how could it be considered a hole? You're convincing me more and more that you don't have a clue to what you're talking about.

When we look at bacteria or fruit flys we can observe many mutations as generational life cycles are measured in days but we never see new life. A fruit fly is alway a fruit fly.

Fruit fly life cycles are what, 14 days? Not the shortest, but yet we still have seen dramatic spontaneous mutations that have altered their morphology in signficant ways. And your claim for bacteria is laughable.

 

[Hydrogen]

Darwinism can't explain the origin of life. From fellow poster Prometheus The Supremo:

"i'll repeat it again, natural selection doesn't explain the origins of life, it explains the diversity of life"

Natural selection explains variation but does not include origin. That's a pretty big hole.

When we look at bacteria or fruit flys we can observe many mutations as generational life cycles are measured in days but we never see new life. A fruit fly is alway a fruit fly.

Presently, no theory explains how life began; but there is nothing that suggests the process can only be metaphysical in origin. Besides, explaining how life began was never the aim of the theory of natural selection. Reading Darwin would have made this point abundantly clear; he offers no theory on the origins of life, but suggests that it is a natural process on the basis that evolution and the diversity of species is driven by the environment. There is not one single piece of evidence that bars life or the origin of life from being a completely natural process. None.

Again, the supposed theory of intelligent design relies on an untestable and unverifiable source: god. That is a very big hole for ID. Furthermore, believers in ID have no adequate non-Darwinian, scientifically-verifiable theory whatsoever to explain the differentiation of species.

In any case, god's will cannot be seen or measured, and the belief in it is a wholly subjective experience, so those who invoke it are not talking about the existence of god, but trying to play god.



Just because a science is incomplete does not mean that the existing theories are automatically wrong. Classical mechanics are more than adequate when calculating the trajectory of a rocket; you need not employ the more advanced theory of relativity. When you fly on an airplane using GPS, the theory of relativity becomes essential to the accurate operation of that technology. Other technologies exists only because of the theory of quantum mechanics has enabled them. Both relativity and quantum mechanics are incredibly successful scientific theories, but on a fundamental level they don't work together. That fact has not barred them from being immensely useful in explaining a myriad of phenomena found in the universe.

 

[Art Vandelay]

Eureka. Five pages into the debate and a consensus emerges, Darwinism can't explain the origin of life. That being the case how we can dismiss intelligent design? Could we not accept Darwinism as a explanation for bio-diversity and still look to intelligent design as an explanation for its origin?

But lets back up for a moment. If Darwinism can't explain the origin of life can we prove that these mutations are even responsible for the emergence of new life if a fruit fly is always a fruit fly?

 

[Hydrogen]

Art,

Darwin never attempted to explain the origins of life, though he did muse on possible sources. This would all be clear from reading his work. Darwinian processes address fitness, survival and change in species and their specific traits. There never was a need to draw some kind of consensus on whether Darwin or Darwinism explained the origins of life.

In previous posts I have addressed exactly why ID can be dismissed: it is not scientific. There is still no reason to think that life was not a natural process. There is no need to appeal to an unprovable and unmeasurable creator. This is just a case of special pleading.

If you want to understanding the expression of mutations, look to genetics.

 

[Hank]

Eureka. Five pages into the debate and a consensus emerges, Darwinism can't explain the origin of life. That being the case how we can dismiss intelligent design?

For one thing, nobody (except you and Ben Stein) ever said that Darwinism explained THE origin of life. It's a straw man argument you've set up in an an attempt to discredit Darwinism. I'm wondering, though: when you say 'life', do you mean life as in the first life to appear on earth anywhere or do you mean the creation of new species? No one (no one that knows anything about Darwinism, at least) will say that it tries to explain the origins of the first life to appear on the planet. What it does do is to explain how that first early life evolved into the millions of species we see today.

Therefore IF intelligent design's sole purpose was to explain how those first few amino acids appeared and somehow managed to organize themselves into proteins and eventually cells then I'd have a lot less problem with it. I wouldn't believe it, of course, but at least it wouldn't be in conflict with a readily observable and testable theory like natural selection. You might even be right to say that we can't necessarily dismiss intelligent design based on natural selection. The problem is that intelligent design doesn't just try to explain the origins of early life, it goes a lot further. It postulates that humans, fruit flies, and every other complex form of life popped into the world fully-made.

If THAT is the 'origin of life' that you want to debate you're going to have a problem. Darwinism doesn't attempt to explain THE origin of life, but it does explain speciation and as such, is in direct conflict with intelligent design. Either all species evolved from a common ancestor through the process of natural selection or they all appeared on the earth fully-formed. The first theory has boatloads of evidence to support it, the second has none. Do you see why people have a problem with the movie?

In the end the problem is really that intelligent design proponents don't make their own science, they just point out the 'holes' in Darwinism (as you've attempted to do) and try to say that these supposed holes mean that Darwinism can't be right. I think this quote from wikipedia is quite eloquent:

Eugenie Scott, along with Glenn Branch and other critics, has argued that many points raised by intelligent design proponents are arguments from ignorance. In the argument from ignorance, a lack of evidence for one view is erroneously argued to constitute proof of the correctness of another view. Scott and Branch say that intelligent design is an argument from ignorance because it relies on a lack of knowledge for its conclusion: lacking a natural explanation for certain specific aspects of evolution, we assume intelligent cause. They contend most scientists would reply that the unexplained is not unexplainable, and that "we don't know yet" is a more appropriate response than invoking a cause outside science.

 

[Art Vandelay]

Fiction can be fun

Viruses on Voyager rapidly "evolve' into giantic carniverous macrovirouses. Such a nightmare Darwinian scenario has not occurred outside the world of science fiction. Why not?