Intelligent Design has no Place in the Classroom of Science

Somehow I don't think it will be that easy (see above). Welcome to the Christian camp John 10:10. And remember, if they hate you they hated him first took out useless subtopic - The QueenThis message has been edited by iano, 07-Feb-2006 01:56 PMThis message has been edited by AdminAsgara, 02-07-2006 08:36 AM

There is no need to resent the remark Jazzns. Read the post again and you find nothing for/against ID or supposing that a Christian must believe in ID. I just don't think cases of any description are made that easy here.The welcome and verse quoted was a general note intended to encourage a newcomer to the minority camp - whatever their science/science fiction persuasion

I was speaking to John 10:10 as a Christian of whatever scientific persuasion. You would agree that a person is a Christian first and everything else second I imagine. In so far as that is true then there is a Christian campSorry if it caused offence. None intended

Firstly let me state that I am a Christian. Of the born again kind (is there any other kind?). My views on evolution are not that it happened but that I am not a scientist and so cannot hope to provide scientific evidence that either evolution didn't happen nor that creation did. That I know God created the world and everything in it is not, nor should it be, a argument which is used in addressing this issueI don't think that evolutionists summarily dismiss the argument from design. I think that they are being as honest as they can be. When one stands up here, as they will, and says the reason they believe it is because the evidence points most strongly in that direction they are, I am inclinded to believe, telling the truth to the best of their ability.In the case where evolution didn't happen, the following might hold true. In the same way as a person who has red-tinted glasses placed on them from birth will honestly see everything in the world as tinted red, so too may an evolutionist examine all information in the the light of "evolution happened". By the time he comes to understand the ways of the scientific method which informs him that he should consider it "a theory and not fact" he has had years of inculcation regarding the idea that it is an accepted a fact as that the world is round. "The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world" and all that. I tried this tack in the early days here, the means of escape for my opponants resting firmly in a trust in Scientific Method (the veracity of which as a vehicle to the 'truth' being worryingly provided by... er...Scientific Method)Continuing in this assumption - that evolution didn't happen, the simple reason that it may prove fruitless quoting people who say that evolution is impossible (and beware that if doing so that your sources are impeccable - you might not have seen the sign "sniper at work (..and entitled to be)" here) is that you are talking to people who are blind. The Bible tells us that this is so. It is not that they will not see, it is that they cannot see. You cannot expect of someone that they see something they cannot.For many, a belief in evolution is not something that they have arrived at by personal scientific investigation at a level that would allow them to discern for themselves all the minutae involved in the argument. They can chose to sit at the periphery and simply accept the authoritive sounding, if somewhat bald statement "Science Says" or they may go a little deeper and rely on the fact that impressive looking peer-reviewed papers say so (or more likely; that National Geographic says impressive sounding peer reviewed papers say so). Or they might go still deeper, like many knowledgable people here, and actually inform themselves of the argument in some depth.Whatever they do, they remain blind, for it is not expertise which will ever remove the blindfold, it is Christ and him alone.But by all means argue the toss. I came kicking and screaming into the kingdom and you never know what it will be that you say which our Lord may use for his good purpose. I'm doing the same myself on that same basis.IanThis message has been edited by iano, 08-Feb-2006 02:00 AM

If your ability to expose yourself to argument and arrive at objective and unbiased conclusions was as you suppose it to be, then you might be expected to have noted that twice in my post I emphasised that I was answering the question asked were it the case that evolution didn't in fact happen.I was commenting as to the reasons why folk would think as they do under a certain set conditions. I never stated that I was arguing that evolution didn't happen outside of this assumptionWhether evolution did or didn't happen in fact is neither here nor there in that context

If you care to read my message again, you might notice that there was included a category of people who believe in Evolution because they have studied the arguments in depth. I include you in that category. I then referred to the Biblical argument as to why these people might yet believe in evolution were that not in fact the case. The reason that would be so is that they are blind. All the education and experience in the world cannot make a blind person see.That is the biblical position and it was a hypothetical scenario I was pointing out to John 10-10, who does believe the Bible - not to you, who doesn't.The message hasn't really got relevance to one who doesn't believe the bible so cool it will you? Please?

I'm sorry Crash. Though you might not accept that the post weren't intended to insult your intelligence I accept that they could well be taken up that way. My fault.Night

Can you name one such item ever produced? Maybe something other than a 'radio' which has no speakers or tuning dial and cannot pick up any radio stations. Inserting the word 'potentially' in the sentence above seems like the least of all evils here PY to be honest.Repent

Could the random jumble of accidents called your brain give me an reason why I should believe it is expounding an objective truth?

The goal of me driving to work is to get to work. On the way I take advantage of the slippery road surface, lose the bike in a bend and reconfigure myself into worm food. A complete accident and something which ToE subscribes to as being one of the essential mechanisms of its premise.But there is nothing particularily novel about it nor anything that a human wouldn't have considered had they taken due note of the torrential conditions prevailing at the time. All that seems to be going on in this case is that computers produce options that would take us a long time to work out on our own. There is no such thing as an accident if it can be figured out at any point before or after, what the configuration of the system was which produced it. And if no accident then its not beyond a human to predict it will happenNeither is there any advantage in it except that which leaps out and grabs the human imagination - the basic radio. There were likely untold computations disregarded along the way that missed the original goal but which would have conferred 'advantage' or a very significant sub-step to some even greater 'advantage' in some other, as yet unrecognisable/undiscerned way.Why leap on this one in particular except to support the evolutionary model? It seems to me that the conclusions are being rammed into the theory - precisely my background concern with the whole issue of ToE. Accidents happen all the time and the basis of the theory is that accidents happen all the time thus anything is possible. That "anything could happen" and "it did happen" are two different things however.Not to disparage for the sake of it - truly, but as a journalist friend once remarked to me: "Never let the facts get in the way of a good story" And it's that which I smell going on here. Picking and choosing 'accidents' in order to weave a scenario is relative childsplay, if there are potentially infinite accidents to chose from.And I emphasise the word "chose"This message has been edited by iano, 12-Feb-2006 01:02 AM

I won't go into your post in depth Mod, most of it seemed to miss the point I was making which is summed up by this addressing this piece.There was nothing novel or unexpected about the experiment - except in the minds of the observers. Given the set up, the result was a foregone conclusion. All sorts of 'novelty' and 'unexpected' happened outside these results. Except for a particular arrangement which included something not intended to be included in the experiment. Big deal - what else went unnoticed? This accident happened to produce something recognisable to humans as 'advantage' and it was hopped upon as such.And so my contention: if there are infinite accidents possible and we cannot tell which would be useful (as in: part way to something being eventually useful) - but can only here hop onto the obvious, then are we not simply denying the possibility of falsification?IOW, how could the theory fail if all can be dismissed except something that fits. But with infinite accidents something will always fit.