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Author Topic:   paper against evolution, for intelligent design
:æ: 
Suspended Member (Idle past 7184 days)
Posts: 423
Joined: 07-23-2003


Message 31 of 100 (72349)
12-11-2003 5:12 PM
Reply to: Message 27 by Matt Tucker
12-11-2003 4:57 PM


Re: Close Mindedness - uhhhhhhhh, no.
Since Cthulhu's point cannot be reiterated too strongly, let me also offer you the God and Evolution FAQ at TalkOrigins.
There need be no conflict between Christianity and Evolution. Millions upon millions of devout Christians have no problem accepting the validity of evolution and see no challenge to their faith.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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:æ: 
Suspended Member (Idle past 7184 days)
Posts: 423
Joined: 07-23-2003


Message 32 of 100 (72350)
12-11-2003 5:17 PM
Reply to: Message 30 by NosyNed
12-11-2003 5:11 PM


Re: falsification of the alternatives
NoseyNed writes:
Oh, marvelous! No one else has managed that before. Are you going to supply the data and logic of that? That would be very interesting.
Actually I think that would be worthy of a Nobel Prize if it were indeed true.
[sarcasm ]
Then again, I suppose the henchmen of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy will see to it that all of their research and evidence is sqeulched, and THAT's why Hovind hasn't been awareded his Nobel yet.
[/sarcasm]

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:æ: 
Suspended Member (Idle past 7184 days)
Posts: 423
Joined: 07-23-2003


Message 33 of 100 (72353)
12-11-2003 5:33 PM
Reply to: Message 31 by :æ:
12-11-2003 5:12 PM


Re: Close Mindedness - uhhhhhhhh, no.
Actually, that might be a good idea for a thesis:
Evolution and Christianity are not incompatible.
In a way, you could simultaneously support the notion that God created life and the universe, and also that the evidence indicates that evolution was his tool.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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M82A1
Inactive Member


Message 34 of 100 (72374)
12-11-2003 7:27 PM
Reply to: Message 33 by :æ:
12-11-2003 5:33 PM


Re: Close Mindedness - uhhhhhhhh, no.
quote:
Evolution and Christianity are not incompatible.
I find they are, but that's just me. I think a lot of theists believe that Evolution and the Big Bang are two in the same theories! lol. At least that's what my sister thinks...
------------------
"The only thing necessary for the Triumph of Evil is for Good Men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke

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FliesOnly
Member (Idle past 4144 days)
Posts: 797
From: Michigan
Joined: 12-01-2003


Message 35 of 100 (72565)
12-12-2003 3:29 PM
Reply to: Message 27 by Matt Tucker
12-11-2003 4:57 PM


Close Mindedness - uhhhhhhhh, yes.
Matt:
First, thanks for replying for sweetstuff383.
Now that that's out of the way, let's continue.
Matt writes:
I am sorry, but any attempts to convert Ashley or I to Evolution is fruitless.
Boy, I'm glad you straightened me out on that, how silly of me to think of you as close minded. And I wasn't aware that I was trying to "convert" anyone into an evolutionist. But, you being such an open minded religious fundamentalist (now there's an oxymoron), I guess you have had vast more experience in converting people and can therefore recognize it when you see it. If you go back and read what I have written you will notice that I have only suggested that a great way for her (a creationsist) to learn about the Theory of Evolution would be to research and write the paper from an evolutionary stand point. What's the matter Matt, are you afraid that if someone researched and wrote a paper in that manner that they might notice the complete lack of scientific evidence for, and the implausibility of, creationism? Are you afraid that they might stumble onto an overwhelming amount of scientific evidence independantly collected by all the scientific disciplines over the past couple hundered years? Are you fearful that they might discern that this mountain of evidence completely supports the Theory of Evolution. Are you afraid they would notice that creationists have never successfully refuted any of this evidence?
Matt writes:
It is impossible to convert a true Christian to a theory such as evolution.
I think the Pope might have a little something to say about that.
Matt writes:
The evidence doesn't support the facts for evolution, and our religious beliefes are much more conclusive in our thinking.
Please give me any scientific evidence that doesn't support the Theory of Evolutoin.
Matt writes:
Our school is not that way...
What exactly is "that way"?
Matt writes:
..and the reason we are a religious school is because we have reasonably falsified the "alternatives."
Trust me Matt, your school has come nowhere even remotely close to falsifying any alternatives. Wait...maybe your school has come up with a new scientific discipline called "reasonable science", in which you can simply claim anything to be false that you do not feel is reasonable. Under the rules of this new science, no preliminary reaserch to address your hypothesis (if you even have one) should be done, no repeatable experiments need to be conducted, any conclusion you reach should be neither subjected to any sort of statistical tests nor conflict with the answer you wanted, all evidence contrary to your desired results can and should be ignored, and you're only allowed one source (makes for a nice short Literature Cited section in your publications). Hmmmm, this sounds familiar.
Matt writes:
Oh, and we don't have to meet any State teaching requirements. We would know, My father is the chairman of the board there, and Ashley's father is a Maryland state Delegate.
So am I to understand that in the State of Maryland, private schools can teach whatever they want? They can teach that Santa Claus lives at the North Pole and really delivers toys to all the boys and girls of the world? They can teach that a giant rabbit lays multi-colored, hardboiled, chicken eggs? They can teach that a little green fairy will replace the tooth under your pillow with money? They can teach that the Earth is flat and everything revolves it? They can teach that a six-hundred year old man and his family kept a butt-load of animals alive on a boat for a year? They can teach that the holocaust never occurred?
Wow Matt, I want to go to your school! Could I get in as is, or do I first have to promise to ignore anything that contradicts what the teacher says? Would I get in trouble if I suggested that perhaps we should use a new Biology text book when we "learn" biology and not a 4000 year old religous book? (Oh, and the same for geology, astromony, chemistry, and physics).
Can anybody out there from the state of Maryland confirm this? There truly are no minimum state requirments that need to be met by an organization that claims to be an institute of learning (ie; a school) that (I assume) is going to award some sort of diploma to their graduates that might be later accepted at an accredited university?
Matt writes:
I know you would enjoy those e-mails claiming "hypocrisy!...scraed of evolution!, et al, but it would go unheeded. Sorry!
Why would such an open-minded school flippantly ignore legitimate questions or comments?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 27 by Matt Tucker, posted 12-11-2003 4:57 PM Matt Tucker has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 36 by Matt Tucker, posted 12-12-2003 8:14 PM FliesOnly has replied

  
Matt Tucker
Inactive Junior Member


Message 36 of 100 (72603)
12-12-2003 8:14 PM
Reply to: Message 35 by FliesOnly
12-12-2003 3:29 PM


Re: Close Mindedness - uhhhhhhhh, no.
Primarily, I am sorry for responding for Ashley. I was not aware that people on this site could only post things if the topic was addressed to him/her. Now that I am aware of it, I shall cease to speak without being spoken to. Ha, you happy? And rejecting evolution is not being closeminded. I said it impossible to convert a true christian to evolution, which coincides nicely with your comment concerneing the pope. The pope doesn't quite fit in in my thinking. I don't view Catholics as borna again christians. Maybe I'm passing judgment unjustly, but I do not consider the pope as saved. Also, the reason I said your e-mails would go unheeded was because I was under the impression they were simply a declaration of hypocrisy and unjust judgment passing on part of the school. Therefore, I did not consider the emails as legit questions. Sorry. I misunderstood you. I don't quite see your point in asking whether the school can teach about Santa, the Easter Bunny, et al. So what is we talk about these things in school. If we did, which we do not, what would be wrong with it? We could not get away with the fact that the Holocaust never happenned, because everyone knows it did. You could not get in, due to the fact that you completely deny the existence of God, and that doctrine is the foundation of teaching in every class. Apparently I made myself unclear concerning the subordination of the schools to Maryland state law. We must comply with standards of facilities (i.e., with X amount of people, you must have X amount of lavatories, etc...), but as far as I am aware, there are no teachings compliancies concerning our school.
Matt

This message is a reply to:
 Message 35 by FliesOnly, posted 12-12-2003 3:29 PM FliesOnly has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 37 by roxrkool, posted 12-12-2003 8:38 PM Matt Tucker has not replied
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roxrkool
Member (Idle past 988 days)
Posts: 1497
From: Nevada
Joined: 03-23-2003


Message 37 of 100 (72608)
12-12-2003 8:38 PM
Reply to: Message 36 by Matt Tucker
12-12-2003 8:14 PM


Re: Close Mindedness - uhhhhhhhh, no.
quote:
We must comply with standards of facilities (i.e., with X amount of people, you must have X amount of lavatories, etc...), but as far as I am aware, there are no teachings compliancies concerning our school.
I would think there are some educational standards that are required by the State of Maryland, but perhaps not. That's a bit worrisome.
So are you expected to go to a Christian college as well? Where you won't be introduced to anything which goes contrary to Born Again Fundamentalist Christian beliefs?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 36 by Matt Tucker, posted 12-12-2003 8:14 PM Matt Tucker has not replied

Replies to this message:
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Asgara
Member (Idle past 2302 days)
Posts: 1783
From: Wisconsin, USA
Joined: 05-10-2003


Message 38 of 100 (72642)
12-13-2003 1:55 AM
Reply to: Message 37 by roxrkool
12-12-2003 8:38 PM


Re: Close Mindedness - uhhhhhhhh, no.
Thought everyone might be interested in reading the State of Maryland's regulations and standards for private schools.
ED.gov
------------------
Asgara
"An unexamined life is not worth living" Socrates via Plato

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Warren
Inactive Member


Message 39 of 100 (72681)
12-13-2003 11:54 AM
Reply to: Message 33 by :æ:
12-11-2003 5:33 PM


Re: Close Mindedness - uhhhhhhhh, no.
<< Actually, that might be a good idea for a thesis:
Evolution and Christianity are not incompatible.
In a way, you could simultaneously support the notion that God created life and the universe, and also that the evidence indicates that evolution was his tool. >>
I would agree that evolution and Christianity are not incompatible, however, Darwinian evolution and Christianity are incompatible. The distinction between evolution per se and Darwinian evolution is very important to this debate. A good definition of Darwinian evolution is provided by the National Association of Biology Teachers. In it's first draft it said:
"The diversity of life on earth is the outcome of evolution: an unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable, and natural process of temporal descent with genetic modification that is affected by natural selection, chance, historical contingencies, and changing environments."
The NABT doctrine has successfully drawn the line between a non-teleological and a teleological interpretation of natural history. Note that evolution is defined as "unsupervised, impersonal ... natural process." There is obviously no role for any intelligence to guide an evolutionary process.
Intelligent design is an alternative theory of evolution, one that doesn't reject teleological processes.
So far, NoseyNed seems to be the only one on this thread that understands that ID is an alternative theory of evolution and not creationism. Just to make this perfectly clear I submit this statement from Bill Dembski:
"ID is not an interventionist theory. It's only commitment is that the design in the world be empirically detectable. All the design could therefore have emerged through a cosmic evolutionary process that started with the Big Bang. What's more, the designer need not be a deity. It could be an extraterrestrial or a telic process inherent in the universe. ID has no doctrine of creation."
[This message has been edited by Warren, 12-13-2003]

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NosyNed
Member
Posts: 8996
From: Canada
Joined: 04-04-2003


Message 40 of 100 (72682)
12-13-2003 12:04 PM
Reply to: Message 39 by Warren
12-13-2003 11:54 AM


Elevated to a theory already?
Intelligent design is an alternative theory of evolution
This is a place where I have a problem. In the grand scheme of things I'd have to say ID is closer to a "speculation" than a "theory". It is, if you want to push it a long way, a "hypothosis".
It hasn't progressed any further than the speculative level because it hasn't yet offered any way to test anything.
All the design could therefore have emerged through a cosmic evolutionary process that started with the Big Bang.
This is an example of where something testable would have to be proposed. If all the intelligence is built in at the beginning (which is one way of translating the above, clearly there are others) then where is it stored? To say that God set up the laws of the universe to allow for the understood evolutionary processes to have eventually arisen is not an alternative to the ToE.
To say that it was "guided" all the way through to today requires some suggestion for the mechanism of the guiding. Some detectable, testable mechanism. None has been proposed. So we are still at the speculative stage.

This message is a reply to:
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Warren
Inactive Member


Message 41 of 100 (72685)
12-13-2003 12:44 PM


ID
NoseyNed<< This is a place where I have a problem. In the grand scheme of things I'd have to say ID is closer to a "speculation" than a "theory". It is, if you want to push it a long way, a "hypothosis". >>
I agree. Intelligent Design is not truly a theory, however, there are testable ID hypotheses. The term ID when used by itself refers to a distinct epistemology. ID is a framework for theories and hypotheses, an epistemological underpinning for those theories and hypotheses. ID is an alternative perspective which omits mainstream science’s non-teleological assumption.
Obviously, science is not officially neutral on the issue of metaphysical implications because it accepts an arbitrarily attached and highly corrosive metaphysical assertion right out of the definitional starting gate - the assertion that methodological naturalism proceeds upon an a priori assumption of ateleology.
There is no reason why a methodology that doesn't a priori reject teleology cannot employ an experimental, inductive approach to the world. It is merely an alternative view {viewing things from a different angle}. It is capable of exploring and interpreting scientific data {thus it can use science) and can also generate subsidiary hypotheses and predictions {thus it can guide science}.
A design inference is (or should be) perfectly acceptable for generating hypotheses in science. Deal is, the (neo)Darwinian framework doesn’t allow for design inferences, but imposes an ateleological a priori assumption which is ideological and not scientific. Therefore it is necessary to propose, refine and emplace a teleological framework to cover design inferences. Science can function perfectly well with more than one theoretical framework generating testable hypotheses.
[This message has been edited by Warren, 12-13-2003]

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NosyNed
Member
Posts: 8996
From: Canada
Joined: 04-04-2003


Message 42 of 100 (72693)
12-13-2003 1:43 PM
Reply to: Message 41 by Warren
12-13-2003 12:44 PM


Another thread on ID
Why don't you browse this thread on ID?
http://EvC Forum: A thought on Intelligence behind Design -->EvC Forum: A thought on Intelligence behind Design
I think it has all been covered.
And now your job is to "generate the testable hypothosis" that ID "theory" is supposed to be able to. It needs to be, as any new hypothosis must supply, something which will distinguish between this new theory and the old one. That is the test needs to be something which will give different answers under the two theories.
I'm afraid this has been asked for again and again and nothing has yet been produced.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 41 by Warren, posted 12-13-2003 12:44 PM Warren has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 43 by Warren, posted 12-13-2003 3:06 PM NosyNed has replied

  
Warren
Inactive Member


Message 43 of 100 (72700)
12-13-2003 3:06 PM
Reply to: Message 42 by NosyNed
12-13-2003 1:43 PM


Re: Another thread on ID
NoseyNed<< I think it has all been covered.
And now your job is to "generate the testable hypothosis" that ID "theory" is supposed to be able to. It needs to be, as any new hypothosis must supply, something which will distinguish between this new theory and the old one. That is the test needs to be something which will give different answers under the two theories.
I'm afraid this has been asked for again and again and nothing has yet been produced.>>
I totally disagree with what you say. First of all, I thought we agreed that ID isn't a theory. ID is a teleological perspective for generating testable hypotheses. So your suggestion that "ID theory" is out to replace the old theory is wrong. Why can't science function perfectly well with more than one theoretical framework for generating testable hypotheses? I tend to favor the view that for ID to be useful it need only help us understand the natural world. If it does a good job at this, often asking and answering questions that follow from the logic of the teleological approach the rest will take care of itself.
I previously referenced, (in another thread} a web site that presents a bunch of testable ID hypotheses but you evidently think that none of this counts toward the usefulness of ID unless one can demonstrate that these hypotheses couldn't possibly have been produced via the non-teleological approach. This is nonsense. ID theorists don't need to prove it's impossible for any other perspective to generate the same hypotheses. If the ID perspective produces testable hypotheses that no one else has proposed and they have the potential to help us understand biotic reality then ID is useful. Who cares that some non-teleologist could come in after the fact and declare, I could have thought of that too.
Now that testable ID hypotheses have been presented {something the ID crtics on this forum said it couldn't do} the goal posts have been moved and now the critics are saying that ID hypotheses need to be hypotheses that non-teleologists couldn't even imagine. This makes no sense to me whatsoever.
[This message has been edited by Warren, 12-13-2003]

This message is a reply to:
 Message 42 by NosyNed, posted 12-13-2003 1:43 PM NosyNed has replied

Replies to this message:
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NosyNed
Member
Posts: 8996
From: Canada
Joined: 04-04-2003


Message 44 of 100 (72715)
12-13-2003 3:50 PM
Reply to: Message 43 by Warren
12-13-2003 3:06 PM


Another thread on ID
I previously referenced, (in another thread} a web site that presents a bunch of testable ID hypotheses but you evidently think that none of this counts toward the usefulness of ID unless one can demonstrate that these hypotheses couldn't possibly have been produced via the non-teleological approach.
I've lost that, and can't find it. Could you link to it please?
As for the request for a difference, how useful is an additional approach that does nothing but give the same results as an existing one? I don't get that.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 43 by Warren, posted 12-13-2003 3:06 PM Warren has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 45 by Warren, posted 12-13-2003 4:14 PM NosyNed has replied

  
Warren
Inactive Member


Message 45 of 100 (72719)
12-13-2003 4:14 PM
Reply to: Message 44 by NosyNed
12-13-2003 3:50 PM


Re: Another thread on ID
NosyNed<< I've lost that, and can't find it. Could you link to it please?>>
Here's the link.
Welcome idthink.net - BlueHost.com
NosyNed<< As for the request for a difference, how useful is an additional approach that does nothing but give the same results as an existing one? I don't get that. >>
I think the ID approach does generate different hypotheses from the non-teleological approach. The web site I just linked you to presents several unique hypotheses. What I'm saying is that it's always possible for someone to come along after the fact and claim that they could have produced the same hypotheses using a different approach. So what? Who really knows if they would have? This just seems to me to be a worthless line of speculation. I think the person who first comes up with a hypothesis should get credit for it. And the approach they used to generate the hypothesis should also get credit.
Besides, ID is just getting started. Who knows what insights into biotic reality this perspective might generate in the future. This is important to keep in mind because many expect ID to adhere to a much higher standard than origin of life research, whereby an initial ID hypothesis is supposed to have the properties of a scientific theory that has matured at the hands of thousands of scientists working over decades. The web site I referred you to is produced by a college professor that works with ID in his spare time {which isn't much}. I might be more skeptical of ID if there had been hundreds of ID scientists working for decades without results. But that's not the case. If one professor working a few hours a month on ID for two years can produce several testable ID hypotheses I think the future for ID looks promising. Especially if I compare it with the results of origin of life research and all the money, personnel and time devoted to it.
[This message has been edited by Warren, 12-13-2003]

This message is a reply to:
 Message 44 by NosyNed, posted 12-13-2003 3:50 PM NosyNed has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 47 by NosyNed, posted 12-13-2003 6:43 PM Warren has replied

  
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