in my Catholic school biology class we learned about the big bang and how the earth cooled and life began. i think the irrational christian zealots have gotten very cocky after having "one of their own" "elected" president twice. i think they are attempting to turn this opportunity to a chance at changing things how they want them.

i don't think intelligent design or creationism will be taught in classrooms, this is among the main reasons that homeschooling is shooting through the roof.

worst case scenario: creationism is taught in a few classrooms, these kids go home and tell the "christmas is mostly santa not much jesus" parents what they learned, parents flip the fuck out, creationism no longer taught in classrooms.

i'm all for intelligent design. what, would you rather have stupid design? exactly!

shagboy wrote:i'm all for intelligent design. what, would you rather have stupid design? exactly!

Most rational people would rather have neither.

look, all i know is this salami sandwich i'm eating right now is too good to have been made by man! the meat... so tender. the bread... soft yet hard.

i am a BELIEVER!

shagboy wrote:look, all i know is this salami sandwich i'm eating right now is too good to have been made by man! the meat... so tender. the bread... soft yet hard.

i am a BELIEVER!

'cue Neil Diamond'

The Dutchman Cees Dekker, one of the world's leading researchers in biophysics, is also a creationist, and quite verbal about it.

He usually says that he has been looking through microscopes at the tinniest level of natural mechanisms for all of his life, and simply cannot believe that all of that came to be through a process of random selection.

A few of his points (recently made in an article titled: "A critical evaluation of ID is just science"):

"ID is science despite the lack of mechanism", for "science is full of non-mechanical assumptions".

"The complexity of a biological cell implies a design".

"Challenges of evolution that the Darwinistic scenario has no answer for".

This is followed by the assertion that "ofcourse we don't want to take evolution out of biology". Dekker claims his view merely presents a "warning against scientific orthodoxy".

(http://home.planet.nl/~gkorthof/korthof64.htm, but only in the Dutch.)

Be aware that he is no idiot savant. Any attempt to write him of will make a fool out of you.

This man Cees Dekker makes engines out of molecules. Robots. Automatic doors. He manifactures flushing toilets for bacterias. If anything, he himself is making intelligent design a fact.

toomanyhelicopters wrote:yes steve, you're right, my statement as made is bullshit. if you replace the word "science" with "the fruits of science", then is maybe not so bullshit.

I think you better justify this statement as well. I'm trying to understand how the "fruits of science" can be equated with the a believe system that has not a single scrape of evidence to back it up: for example, all religious faith. And how this is related to a method of enquiry.

The simple way to debunk all "faith" based "knowledge" is simple: religion starts with an answer that is an "absolute truth" all questions therefore must match with the original "truth" or are invalid. This is not only obvious philosophically untenable but inherently stupid. Since a god –according to any right minded person- is highly unlikely and there is not a single piece of evidence in the history of human existence that one does exist, all of the teaching, ethics and philosophy of religion is actually written by humans. Therefore we should be patting ourselves on the back and stop thanking a non-existent pan-dimensional super-being for all of mans success, equality stop blaming our faults as a species on a devil.

Science is a method of enquiring about the universe around us: and therefore isn't a "faith" or just another belief system. Rational enquiry starts with a question and then looks to find the most likely and independently repeatable explanation. As for the “fruitsâ€

sunlore wrote:The Dutchman Cees Dekker, one of the world's leading researchers in biophysics, is also a creationist, and quite verbal about it.

He usually says that he has been looking through microscopes at the tinniest level of natural mechanisms for all of his life, and simply cannot believe that all of that came to be through a process of random selection.

Two things:

1) Just because you are uncomfortable with the conclusion (you "cannot believe" it) that the evidence points to, that doesn't mean you should not accept the conclusion. Einstein "could not believe" in quantum physics and uncertainty. He was wrong. All the evidence points toward a conclusion, and what we are capable of "believeing" at the moment is immaterial.

2) There's nothing "random" about it. Even frequency of mutation is not random, but falls into species- and condition-specific norms.

A few of his points (recently made in an article titled: "A critical evaluation of ID is just science"):

"ID is science despite the lack of mechanism", for "science is full of non-mechanical assumptions".

This is a bizarre notion of science. Anything "assumed" in science must be testable (falsifiable), eventually. If not, it cannot be science. To equate the existence of God with, another -- testable -- hypothesis is silly

"The complexity of a biological cell implies a design".

At what threshhold of complexity is "a design" no longer necessary? How simple a thing will he concede can arise without being directed? Why is the threshhold there, and not one molecule to the left, where the cell begins?

"Challenges of evolution that the Darwinistic scenario has no answer for".

I am aware of none. I whish I could read Dutch.

This is followed by the assertion that "ofcourse we don't want to take evolution out of biology". Dekker claims his view merely presents a "warning against scientific orthodoxy".

Other than a method (definition), science has no orthodoxy. Scientists prove each other (and themselves) wrong all the time, destroy old preconceptinos, propose alternate theories, etc. That is their principle occupation. That is how we have developed the understanding of the world that we have, one that fits the evidence around us more and more every day. The orthodox position (which came from religion) was that "God made everything." That orthodoxy has been relegated to those who willfully ignore evidence and cling to it, because they "cannot believe" the conclusion that is staring them in the face.

Be aware that he is no idiot savant. Any attempt to write him of will make a fool out of you.

This man Cees Dekker makes engines out of molecules. Robots. Automatic doors. He manifactures flushing toilets for bacterias. If anything, he himself is making intelligent design a fact.

No, he is demonstrating that an intelligent designer (especially one of infinite wisdom) wouldn't need a bajillion years and many intermediate steps (and evolutionary dead ends) to create species diversity. If anything, he is proving how simple it is to create complex microscopic structures -- even a mere mortal human can do it -- and that the evidence suggests something much more haphazard and un-directed.

i don't even nearly believe in intelligent design, but there is something miraculous about the human body. the way tiny processes add up to larger ones so well, the way hormones interact, the way cells work on their own and in chorus, the way new cells are grown and selectively killed....

there are all sorts of inefficiencies and vestigal systems in the human body that shoot phat bullet holes in the ID blimp, but life is pretty fucking crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!

wide-eyed semi-rant of the day

Gramsci wrote:

toomanyhelicopters wrote:yes steve, you're right, my statement as made is bullshit. if you replace the word "science" with "the fruits of science", then is maybe not so bullshit.

I think you better justify this statement as well. I'm trying to understand how the "fruits of science" can be equated with the a believe system that has not a single scrape of evidence to back it up: for example, all religious faith. And how this is related to a method of enquiry.

i don't think i need to justify it. if you have read and understand the point i've made, you wouldn't be asking this. my point is that you are comfortable operating on the tacet assumption that the fruits of science, the resultant products we have in our lives, are good things. you cannot nor will you ever prove this. it is, i think, a very flimsy assumption. science-as-good is a notion i think you take for granted. and i think it is very easy to argue that the perils society faces following scientific breakthrough after scientific breakthrough are *much* worse than those of religion.

religion leads to holy wars, to witchhunts, to ignorance, you'll say. and i'll say that conflict of that nature is not *caused* in any way by religion, it's *caused* by human and even animal nature to seek dominance and power. religion is an afterthought. SCIENCE, however, is what has us in a world where a very tiny number of people could press buttons that would annhilate this entire planet.

that's what i'm getting at. i imagine few if any people actually read my whole post though, for one reason or another. oh well. you think religion is crap. the vast majority of humans disagree with you. granted most of them aren't amish, so, whatever.