I grew up with a healthy suspicion of religious extremists and their bizarre concerns. I was raised in South Africa, where the main white Christian church stood solidly behind apartheid. They said apartheid was based on the Bible and ordained by God. Although religion can drive a noble cause, like anti-slavery, it's often used to further all sorts of malevolent agendas.…
Article comments
126 - dave
Likewise, Susan.
127 - Steve
Dave's argument with the rest of you reminds me of the fact that whenever the issues of origins come up, evolutionists consistently make theological assumptions all the time!!! They talk about "because this is like this, there couldn't be a God"..it all sounds rather out of place in the discussion if we are only discussing science. However, when talking about origins, I suspect it's unavoidable. Which is why I think the subject of origins goes beyond the boundaries of a science class. I think origins should be taught in a class of it's own, with all the major views represented.
128 - Bob A. Booey
Susan: you're smart, but religious debates are boring. Just click on my name and comment where I do, honey :) that's where the fiesta is on this site.
Dave: your design argument is tautological because you employ a self-serving definition of mind that you then say implies design and creation.
That's circular logic and you're right that most philosophers reject such a notion of mind.
Bergsonian intuitionism is not religious per se and certainly not Christian. The "dissertation" you speak of wouldn't be taken seriously in any respectable philosophy department and perhaps not in a religious studies department either. Divinity, maybe.
Your definition of design as intelligent is also self-serving and somewhat circular as well. How do we know it's intelligent? Because it's designed. How do we know life is designed? Because look at the intelligence around us.
In terms of your odd speculation about transitional species and such things, evolution happens very slowly and requires thousands of years of breeding to naturally select for mutations that are all around us. The reason you don't see halfway-between species currently is that we don't often see those mutations in wild animals and don't know which are being naturally selected. More importantly, we have specific fossil records and the very visual insights you rely on to interpret design to indicate that evolution does have the starts and stops and transitions between various animals that you speak of.
If you're not a philosopher or a scientist, what are you?
That is all.
129 - Steve
So, Bob,
re. "In terms of your odd speculation about transitional species and such things, evolution happens very slowly and requires thousands of years of breeding to naturally select for mutations that are all around us."
Would you say then that you are a uniformitarianist, and that you reject Stephen Jay Gould's theory of "punctuated equilibria".
130 - Bob A. Booey
No, I agree with Gould, but even within those periods where evolution is more rapid, we're still talking thousands of years to see any significant number of new species. No one thinks evolution is smooth and gradual in biology anymore, although I'm certainly no biologist.
And Steve, they already teach "creation" in schools that prepare people for the ministry. People who want to learn that crap should sign up and stop wasting the education of everyone else's children who want real jobs.
That is all.
131 - Steve
Well, Bob,
As far as I know, public schools are funded with govt. (i.e. EVERYONE'S) money, seminaries aren't. I think if you changed that, one way or the other, you'd have alot fewer folks arguing with you about this stuff. Bottom line is, if you're gonna spend other folks' money on things they don't agree with, they're gonna ask lots of questions and maybe even have some objections, I guess that's the price you have to pay when you feed at the public trough.
132 - Mr. O
I didn't know this conversation was still going on. I posted this on another thread. Am I getting through to those of you who feel Intelligent Design is ready for the classroom yet?
David Flanagan
"At the very least, lets teach the controversy. Darwinian Evolution is a theory, and MUST be taught as such. If you want to REALLY confuse kids, try teaching philosophy or religion in the science classroom. That is what proponents of evolution want. They don't want sound, reasoned debate and a realistic look at the science, they want dogmatism."
What a bunch of crap! I just spent the week preparing 8th graders for my State's standard Science test. You want to know what the first thing we reviewed was? The SCIENTIFIC METHOD! It's really simple, try and keep up if you can!
1. Identify your problem
2. Research
3. Form a hypothesis
4. Develop procedures to test your hypothesis
5. Analyze the data
6. Draw concludions
7. Repeat ad nauseum!
The real "controversy" the ID proponents are asking us to teach is, "do we throw out the SCIENTIFIC METHOD or not?!"
Next we reviewed electromagnetism. I explained to them that lightning was, "the handy work of ZEUS, casting bolts of electricity down upon us hapless mortals!" Guess what, they told ME that this was not a scientific argument because there was no use of the SCIENTIFIC METHOD! Then we got down to some good old fashioned scientific dogmatism-we conducted actual experiments in class. I had students generating electricity and turning electric current into magnets in no time. Zeus never showed up though. Intelligent Designers-they just aren't emperical when you need 'em!
133 - D.C.
More hocus pocus of evolution which science itself now is refuting.
134 - Mr. O
Yes, Science by definition refutes "hocus pocus." Intelligent Design is "Hocus Pocus." You see?
135 - Luke
You don't really believe all that crap you wrote do you? ID is dumb, and the world is full of dumb people, that's just a fact of life, there's no christian conspiracy to destroy the world.
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When killing unborn faetuses is deemed morally ok, i'll be the first in line to buy the Mc faetus burger value meal
136 - Luke
in response to daves comment No.121
"earliest of vertebrates who had presumably no need for high acuity vision and in all probability possessed photoreceptors with metabolic rates perhaps one or two orders of magnitude less than those of higher warm-blooded vertebrates today? If the non-inverted retina works so well for the cold-blooded cephalopods why did evolution go to such trouble to invert the retina in cold-blooded vertebrates?"
Regardless if you're a cold-blooded vertebrate or a cold blooded cephalopod, Good eyesight is a handy trait to have, even if all you're using it for is to better see all the female cold-blooded vertibrates that you want to get jiggy with, evolution is designed to help you get more poontang.