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| Author | Topic: Are creationists returning to their YEC roots? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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GDR Member  Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
Percy writes: We evolutionists are not really such a bad bunch. If creationists would stop interfering in science education the debate would cease. The thing that gets missed in this is that the argument cuts both ways.Richard Dawkins uses science to support his belief in Atheism. He even invented the idea that we have memes without any scientific evidence for them. ID is neither pro evolution or anti evolution. ID is not science. ID just makes the argument that with everything considered reason should lead us to believe that there is an intelligent designer behind our existence. Richard Dawkins regards evolution and sees random chance and natural selection whereas Francis Collins regards evolution as the handiwork of God. Everybody is entitled to my opinion. 
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
Dr Adequate writes: Only insofar as the validity of evolution removes one of the more popular arguments for the existence of God. Not really. He uses evolution to prove that God is not necessary. This is then extrapolated into; because he isn't necessary he doesn't exist.
Dr Adequate writes: "Meme" simply refers to an idea which passes from person to person. There is ample evidence for their existence: the question is whether there is a good analogy between memes and genes. I think not: memes which pass by vertical transmission (parents to children) are like genes; those which pass by horizontal transmission (amongst a peer group) are more like viruses. But he still trys to make it scientific which is just as wrong as some proponents of ID who try to make ID scientific.
Dr Adequate writes: Not according to its proponents. I would say; not according to some of its proponents. Edited by GDR, : typo Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
nwr writes: Perhaps a bit unfair. The majority of people who consider themselves ID proponents are likely either deists or theistic evolutionists, and they do not spend any time attacking evolution, nor do they try to inject their ID views into the classroom. Actually I would guess that most are like myself. I can't truthfully call myself a theistic evolutionist because I don't have a background that gives me sufficient knowledge to either support or argue against evolution. I am however prepared to agree to the fact that the majority of the scientific community supports it so I'll accept it as having considerable merit. My approach to ID is that reason alone leads me to believe in a metaphysical designer. Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
sidelined writes: As with any new idea the hypothesis is invoked to offer a tentative explanation for an observed pattern and ,hence, is scientific. That memes are succesfully employed to aid in explaining cultural proclivities is invalidated in what way in your view? Can you offer a better model to show that the concept of meme is incorrect and thus wrong? You attack Dawkins idea of memes because you say that it supports his atheism yet fail to elaborate on your assumption. If the world we investigate supports Dawkins position and you disagree because you feel that God has a hand in it then you must take up your disagreement with God and quit executing a arguementum ad hominem against Dawkins. How can you say that memes are scientific. What scientific testing has been done for them. Here is the what wikipedia has to say about memes.
wikipedia writes: The term "meme" (IPA: [mim], not "mem"), coined in 1976 by Richard Dawkins, refers to a unit of cultural information that can be transmitted from one mind to another. Dawkins said, Examples of memes are tunes, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. A meme propagates itself as a unit of cultural evolution analogous in many ways to the gene (the unit of genetic information). Often memes propagate as more-or-less integrated cooperative sets or groups, referred to as memeplexes or meme-complexes. The link Meme - Wikipedia What is scientific about that? As an Atheist he assumes that there is a natural way that cultural information is passed between generations. He used his reasoning to come up with the idea of memes. As a Theist I believe in the concept of there being intelligence outside of the physical world. My reasoning leads me to suggest that we have "spiritual genes" that are part of our consciousness that pass inter-generational information on. One concept is just as scientific as the other but I'm not trying to pass my ideas off as being scientific.
sidelined writes: However, Richard is fully capable of giving an account of how random chance and natural selection are sufficient and in most cases necessary to explain the world we observe while Francis Collins offers only his belief that it is otherwise.Since the facts tend to support Dawkins empirically one must wonder why a God would put roadblocks in the pursuit of evidence for its existence. Since the contention that a God exists is not demonstratable you cannot hold a position that the world need be created by God{ though you are free to consider it on as a matter of faith} since you have neither logical nor empirical support for your contention. Random chance and natural selection can only provide opinions on why things are as they are. What scientific evidence is there that random chance or random selection is responsible for the first cell. There is considerable evidence of the evolutionary chain of events but there are only opinions of why the process even exists. One can look at the evidence and reason that random chance is responsible for the universe, life and consciousness but that is no more scientific than using reason to come to the conclusion that there is an external intelligence behind all that we see and experience. I have decided that Theism is a much more reasonable conclusion than is Atheism. You have concluded otherwise but neither conclusion is scientific. Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
PaulK writes: You could substitute "scientist" for atheist in that sentence and it would be equally reasonable - and true. If Dawkins view were as unscientific as YEC you certainly couldn't do that. Why would that be? If a scientist is simply agnostic why would he be any more likely to propose something as unscientific as a meme than he would a hypothetical spiritual gene. Here is what Dawkins writes in "The Devil's Chaplain".
Richard Dawkins writes: Another objection is that we don't know what memes are made of, or where they reside. Memes have not yet found their Watson and Crick; they even lack their Mendel. Whereas genes are to be found in precise locations on chromosomes, memes probably exist in brains, and we have even less chance of seeing one than of seeing a gene. Doesn't this sound like believers talking about God? Something that is invisible, unverifiable and is beyond empirical investigation. My point is that Atheism, which Dawkins tries to sell as being scientific, is no more scientific than Theism. Science is agnostic. To go beyond Agnosticism to either Atheism or any form of Theism is a decision based on reason and faith. (I would also add to that, from a Christian perspective, spiritual experience but that is also of course outside of science.) Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
I have to say. You guys are really something else. You'd just have students not even exposed to anything but your view of things. You're more close minded than the YEC crowd ever have been.
I agree that ID isn't science and shouldn't be taught as such; but why on earth shouldn't it be taught as philosophy? Why should students only be exposed to the materialistic view. Heaven forbid that students should be given all sides of the discussion so they can actually make an informed decision. 
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
Well the you guys things was directed specifically to a couple of our posters. If you put YEC up against anything scientific then YEC stands no chance as you are contrasting something that can be scientifically demonstrated against a position of pure faith.
However if you contrast the Theistic position (ID) against the Atheistic postion (naturalism) from a reasoned point of view it is my contention that Theism wins hands down. Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
PaulK writes: Do you mean the Theistic Postion - including various forms of Theistic Evolution or do you mean ID I mean Theism period which is in my view the same thing as ID. It is not about how God did it, but a matter of did He do it. Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
NosyNed writes: There are commonly accepted definitions of these terms. Using those most of us non-believers have no arguements with theism. However, ID is not (using the common defintions) theism. For those involved in the debate politically that may well be true, but for those of us who aren't so involved, (which would be the vast majority), we take the term at face value. At face value all that intelligent design infers is that there is an intelligence behind creation whether or not evolution is a part of that creation. Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
kuresu writes: perhaps you should look at that curriculum. That isn't any philosophy. That is a anti-science curriculum. If wants to be taught as a philosophy, then it should be more focused on Paley, who did introduce it as a philosophy, and not a science. Also, why the negativity towards evolution and geology if it's a philosophy study? It should be focused on what, how, and why it's a philosophy, not what is "wrong" with evolution and geology. Mick and Rev. don't want this "science" class purporting to be a real philosophy class. That is just one particular agenda. It's not how I would like to see it done. I would just like to see open and reasoned discussion around the issue. It should be a discussion of things like why is there anything, why does natural selection exist in the first place, does the uncertainty principle tell us about why things happen the way they do etc. Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
kuresu writes: it's cool you think that. it just came out that you were blaming Rev and Mick for disallowing any free thought in studying philosophy, when they were actually condeming the curriculum that was attempting to look "philosophy". I just wanted to make sure you saw what they were condeming. You do. better yet, you agree with them on that part. If you are right I owe them an apology.  My reading was that they didn't want the concept of non-scientific ID discussed in any class at any time, however, I may have it wrong. Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
Sounds like a good class and sort of what I had in mind.
As far as the OP is concerned I do think that ID belongs in a philosophy class. I think Paley made a good point that is a position based on reason and not science. Science however does not have all the answers. Science can only tell us what happened, it can't tell us why anything happened. I am convinced that reason supports Theism over Atheism and that is an issue of philosophy. Much beyond that however you are into theology. Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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