I think the Atheistic Darwinians are beginning to show their true nature. I've written about this before in Atheism's Trojan Horse. The Atheistic Darwinians don't have a problem with ID. They are not even interested in science. Their main focus is to crush the fundies and not give any grounds for the Christians to belief in their mythology. Make no mistake; this is a war of Worldviews for sure. It is not about the purity of science as some Darwinists have claimed.
If this was about the purity of science they would be engaged in a purely scientific evidential debate and not this ID = Creationism propaganda. What evidence do I have that Darwinians are only interested in protecting their religious belief in Darwinism and not science? Mirecki is an example of this religious Darwinism. He wants to create a class with the sole intent of mocking ID, why? Is it because ID is just a ridiculous theory without any scientific basis? Does he feel threaten by ID that it would harm what he view as the purity of science? Maybe, but his intent for the ID course is not to address these concerns of science, but to slap the big fat faces of the fundies.
I believe Mirecki is not alone in his view. I think the majority of Darwinians feel the same way as Mirecki does, but they just have not been caught red-handed exposing their true intention. Let me demonstrate this with another case.
On Oct 21 2005 at the AEI forum Lawrence Krauss made a keynote address on the teaching of Intelligent Design. I want to critique his lengthy talk at a later post and there is a lot to criticize. What is germane to this posting is in the Q&A session after his talk. The first question asked to him was basically how would he reach out to those who fear his talk because they feel that it threatens their basic view of the universe and moral underpinnings?
you are absolutely right I believe, that this is driven by fear and the fear is not completely misplaced.
Steve Weinberg who's a physicist and notably anti-religious have said "Science does not make it impossible to believe in God, it just makes it possible to not believe in God" And that's really important because until we had science everything was miraculous. So science for some people is a threat.
That doesn't make sense does it? Why would the theist fear science if it does not make it impossible for them to believe in God? On the other hand, science seems to be vitally important for those who do not want to believe in God. As a matter of fact according to Weinberg it is not possible to be an Atheist if Krauss' view of science (materialistic naturalism) is not correct. So science is a threat for some? Who are the "some" , theists who have nothing to lose or atheists who has everything to lose?
There are three possibilities to Krauss' assertion. 1. The Atheistic Darwinians are fearful of ID because it threatens Atheism. 2. Krauss is being deceptive because science really is a threat to non-atheists. 3. Although science is not a threat to belief in God but nevertheless the theists are mistakenly fearful of science.
Let's for the sake of argument and rule out possibility #2 and assume Krauss is an honorable man. I think Krauss believes possibility #3 is the underlying cause for the rise of ID. This may or may not be true but it seems that Krauss certainly believes in it. There is one possibility we can be sure of and that is #1. Possibilities #2 and #3 may or may not be true but according to Krauss ID is Creationism, then Atheism is dead if ID is true. If you are committed Atheists you would fight tooth and nail to defeat this onslaught of Creationism wouldn't you?
The picture is becoming more and more clear with each passing day. If their concern with ID is over science, then why don't the ID critics engaged in a scientific debate of evidence? Why say ID equals Creationism? Why worry about an insignificant few (according to the Darwinists) scientists who is waging a PR campaign? The Darwinists certainly is more vocal and capable of drowning out the ID voices. They have more money and more research to demonstrate the science of Darwinian evolution. If Krauss is truly concern about the purity of science then show us the evidence.
The Darwinians will not engage in a scientific debate, but according to Krauss they need to do a better job of PR and become evangelists. The last time I check an evangelist is a religious person preaching the good news (gospel). Is this a Freudian slip? Did he mean that they have to become better at preaching the good news of Atheistic Darwinism? Darwinism is the mechanism for which Atheism requires. As atheistic materialists, we don't know all that there is to know in science. We have gaps in our knowledge of the Darwinism mechanisms, but we need to have faith brother. Faith in materialistic naturalism is all that there is. It is the only way to Atheism. It is the only way to true knowledge. Hear the rallying cry of brother Krauss and join us to become an evangelist for Darwinism.
Darwinism is a religion. It starts out with it's fundamentalist advocates(Dawkins, Gould and Sagan). Then anyone who questions it is put on some form of inquisition. At the rate this is going, I'm happy to say that darwinism will be dead by 2015.
One doesn't even have to be religious to question materialism. "Natural selection" somehow mysteriously organizing a collection of accidents into rationally functioning biological systems is the only materialistic explanation offered by ID critics. Duplicated genes accidentally assuming new functions, etc., are merely versions of RM&NS. The only alternative to an accidental "falling together" is intelligent, purposeful organization.
As a religious agnostic, I personally don't view the organizing intelligence of life as "supernatural". I see it as an innate aspect of all living systems. However, .no one can specifically rule out the possible participation of some god in any intelligent process. Certainly, living systems function intelligently. So intelligence exists. The notion that that their origin was devoid of intelligent organization seems absurd.
I support ID being taught in the religion department, as that might be the only place in a secular institution it can be taught.
I sympathize with teleologist, that doing so may reinforce IDs perception as being religious, that is true, however, I'd rather the class be taught properly, and the students on campus discussing it.
What's more important is not whether it be labeled as "science" or "religion" but whether it is true, and whether students have access to learning more about it.
Welcome Berthajane. You are so right. As a matter of fact you can be an atheist and still question the current explanation from Darwinism. It just seems to me that the Atheistic religious type dominates Darwinism.
I also understand where you are coming from. I just think there are many avenues, such as books, ID videos, conferences, clubs and the Internet, for anyone who truly wants to learn about ID. The only significance for teaching in schools is to gain legitimacy for research funding and papers published.
The Darwinists like to make a big deal about ID not having enough research or peer reviewed papers. The reality is that they are the gatekeepers. If they continue to mischaracterize ID as Creationism then there is no chance of getting funding. People like Krauss are using a circular argument against ID. Krauss claims that if ID wants to be established as science then go do research and get publish. I say, OK, can we get any government funding or any major biological journals to publish ID research? Krauss answers, NO. ID is not science. I wonder what he would say if we cut off all funding to his research and declare that Darwinism is not science. He needs to go and get his own funding and publish with AiG or CRS before it can be accepted as real science. It is preposterous what Darwinians are suggesting.
I will post more on his talk at AEI, but another point that he made was that ID's complaint of Darwinian bias against ID paper is bogus. He claims that he has a lot more rejections than ID. That is probably true but the would mean that he is getting a lot more research funding also. There is another difference between his rejections by scientific journals and ID's rejections. His research topics might not be as interesting as other research topics. It might not be unique in that the subject might have already been sufficiently covered. In ID's case it is just blatant Darwinian bias, as it is in the case of ReMine, Behe, Meyer, Davison, Chavez and Wells.
P.S. I just want to add that I would be willing to forego any criticism of your support to teach ID in religion departments, if that will actually happen. I would even support such effort if it happens. The bottom-line is that we share a common goal of establishing ID as a legitimate scientific discipline.
What we should be teaching is that a past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution is questionable and nobody knows what the mechanism WAS with emphasis on was. Anyone who thinks he understands the mechanism for either ontogeny or phylogeny is living in a fantasy world. Write that down.
I hope other will join me .
"Myth" in academia means a story around which people actually organize their lives — like Christianity, or Islam, or Judaism.
You're taking insult where none exists. These are religion and myth professors, treating your myth with all due respect.
ID is Rodney Dangerfield only in its fantasies.
The Darwinists like to make a big deal about ID not having enough research or peer reviewed papers. The reality is that they are the gatekeepers. If they continue to mischaracterize ID as Creationism then there is no chance of getting funding.
The Arkansas court determined that story is false. It's a lie.
In point of fact every ID article we can find that has ever been submitted to a science journal has been published.
Is there no code of ethics among IDists that stresses any kind of accuracy?
None are so blind as those who will not see. I would like the readers to take note of edarrell's rash judgment that IDists lie and has no code of ethics. Unfortunately, edarrell's reaction is not atypical of Darwinians but he represents his priesthood very well. edarrell is demonstrative of why it is impossible for ID to receive ID funding and therefore publish research papers in science journals.
Before I point out the reality of at least 2 examples and other blatant biases against ID. edarrell can you provide a source for the Arkansas court case and the context of its' findings?
Everything about Darwinism is a lie. Here is a partial list of things they have been lying about for years.
1. Mutation and selection of Mendelian alleles is the basis for speciation.
2. Evolution is in progress.
3. Sexual reproduction is the mechanism for evolutionary change.
4. Populations, not individuals, are the units of evolutionary change.
There are many more but these will do for starters. All genetic changes originate in individual cells in the germinal line of individual organisms, sexual reproduction is impotent as an evolutionary mechanism, natural selection maintains the status quo and so does sexual reproduction and evolution was finished long ago.
Just how wrong can an hypothesis possibly be?
None of there idiotic claims have any substance whatsoever. They are nothing but the necessary fantasies of a mindset that is quite incapable of recognizing that there was purpose and design in the universe.
Come over and introduce your ideas at my blog edarrell. You will be the first Darwinian to have the guts.
The biggest mistake that Dembski and the rest of the major IDists ever did was to present ID as a subject for debate. Dembski has even been trying to prove it mathematically if you can imagine such a thing. I can't. A past Intelligent Design is an obvious feature of everything in the universe living or dead, past or present. To introduce it as a subject for debate is like debating pregnancy. Just because the Darwinians reject purpose does not mean that you have to talk them out of it. I am developing a sore thigh from slapping it so much. The way to deal with the Darwinian camp is to laugh at their ignorance, their total disregard for some of the finest minds of two centuries and their childish, homozygous naivete.
IMHO, I don't think the IDists are trying talk the Darwinists out of anything. When you have such entrenched religious fanaticism, it is beyond humanly reached. Also I don't think IDists is trying to prove anything. It is my personal goal to point out that Darwinism has been falsified and the evidence supports ID as a better explanation for our observations.
Sorry to disagree but debates are for the purpose of convincing the opposition they are wrong. I prefer my method which is to laugh at them and try to goad them into exposing themselves. Intelligent Design does not require support as it is self-evident to any rational observer. In other words Darwinians are not rational. Stop wasting your time with them.
Dr. Davison, I respect your disagreement and besides I agree with you to a point. Reasonable people can disagree, it is with the religious Darwinian fanatics that we have no communications. I think IDists like myself are reaching out to those who are more neutral and have not been indoctrinate by the Darwinian cult.
Found this article on Google. Thanks for the laughs. ID receiving scientific funding? Sorry, but religion under the guise of science is ,in fact, not science. No wonder then that the rest of the world's scientific community views us a laughing stock.
ID isn't scientific and it isn't an alternative to natural selection or any other scientific idea. The universe would appear the same to us whether it was designed by God or not. Science tries to explain how the world works, not why we have this world rather than some other world. It is not part of science to try to prove the world was or was not designed by God. It is not the job of science to try to explain the probability of biological developments happening by chance or not. If anyone wants to speculate about such matters, they are free to do so– as metaphysicians. ID is not scientific, but metaphysical. The fact that it has empirical content doesn't make it any more scientific than, say, Spinoza's metaphysics or so-called creation science.
ID is a pseudoscience because it claims to be scientific but is in fact metaphysical. It is based on several philosophical confusions, not the least of which is the notion that the empirical is necessarily scientific. This is false, if by 'empirical' one means originating in or based on observation or experience. Empirical explanations can be scientific or non-scientific. Freud's idea of the Oedipus complex is empirical but it is not scientific. Jung's notion of the collective unconscious is empirical but it is not scientific. Biblical creationism is empirical but it is not scientific. Poetry can be empirical but not scientific.
On the other hand, if by 'empirical' one means capable of being confirmed or disproved by observation or experiment then ID is not empirical. Neither the whole of nature nor an individual eco-system can be proved or disproved by any set of observations to be intelligently designed.
Science does have some metaphysical assumptions, not the least of which is that the universe follows laws. But science leaves open the question of whether those laws were designed. That is a metaphysical question. Believing the universe or some part of it was designed or not does not help understand how it works. If I ever answer an empirical question with the answer "because God [or superintelligent aliens, otherwise undetectable] made it that way" then I have left the realm of science and entered the realm of metaphysics. Of course scientists have metaphysical beliefs but those beliefs are irrelevant to strictly scientific explanations. Science is open to both theists and atheists alike.
If we grant that the universe is possibly or even probably the result of intelligent design, what is the next step? For example, assume a particular eco-system is the creation of an intelligent designer. Unless this intelligent designer is one of us, i.e., human, and unless we have some experience with the creations of this and similar designers, how could we proceed to study this system? If all we know is that it is the result of ID but that the designer is of a different order of being than we are, how would we proceed to study this system? It is presumptuous to assume that an intelligent designer would create an eye the way a human engineer would design a similar system with a similar function. By appealing to an "intelligent designer" to explain some complex phenomenon is to explain nothing about that phenomenon's relation to its alleged designer. The theory illuminates nothing.
Hi pagan, you are new to this blog so it is understandable that you are showing your ignorance about ID. You did a great job of beating up an ID strawman. Darwinian bravado and thuggery will not work against those who are intellectually informed like the people here in this blog. If you are interested in learning about ID instead of the Darwinian strawman please read these articles first.
If you were able to comprehend the above articles and still have disagreements or questions. Please address your remarks or questions specific to information in the articles.