Intelligent Design

[BubberMiley]

You have to be more consistent about writing in character. You're supposed to accept that the brilliant scientific minds who wrote our public school curriculum know what's best for our students.

[Ash74]

Sure you do. Just as you have a right to question somebody's belief in a living Elvis, homeopathy or that the moon landings actually took place on a Hollywood sound stage. When people seek to use beliefs as the grounds for public policy decisions we are obliged to question them.

Most of us don't really care if a friend or acquaintance believes that positioning their bed so they sleep in the path of good energy will improve their lives. However, when organizations of millions try to enshrine crackpot ideas in law or have them forced on public school kids we have to fight back.

Yes you are correct I have the right to judge free speech and all but I don't. Same as I do not judge people that are gay or a different color. Religious freedom as a must and I may not agree with what is being preached I still insist on their right to believe it.

[Mighty AC]

Yes you are correct I have the right to judge free speech and all but I don't. Same as I do not judge people that are gay or a different color. Religious freedom as a must and I may not agree with what is being preached I still insist on their right to believe it.

As mentioned, there is a big difference between a belief and an action. This week's hot topic of the RFRA in Indiana is a good example of a religious belief being used to discriminate. We also have people actively fighting to limit the rights of homosexuals based on Christian beliefs and also seeking to insert their groundless ideas into the school curriculum. Bad ideas need to be snuffed out, regardless of their origin. I too insist on the freedom of thought and belief and will fight to defend those concepts, while simultaneously denouncing bad ideas.

[Guest]

Egads ! Far better to pass off the Big Bang singularity for the origin of the universe as scientific fact.

At least that led to the most popular television program in Canada.

At least scientists are actively trying to prove the Big Bang didn't happen. You don't see too many religious types trying to prove there is no God.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/large-hadron-collider/11489442/Big-Bang-theory-could-be-debunked-by-Large-Hadron-Collider.html

[eyeball]

Egads ! Far better to pass off the Big Bang singularity for the origin of the universe as scientific fact.

At least that led to the most popular television program in Canada.

No, the Big Bang is what's happened to the universe since it's origin.

Had you paid attention to our programming instead of your own you'd know that.

[Wilber]

Egads ! Far better to pass off the Big Bang singularity for the origin of the universe as scientific fact.

At least that led to the most popular television program in Canada.

There is no such thing as scientific fact, only conclusions reached by scientific method, which can be superceded by other conclusions reached by scientific method. Religion does neither.

[bush_cheney2004]

There is no such thing as scientific fact...

Yep....but the Big Bang (initial singularity) is taught and espoused as accepted fact, despite gaping black holes (pun intended).

[Wilber]

Yep....but the Big Bang (initial singularity) is taught and espoused as accepted fact, despite gaping black holes (pun intended).

No, it is taught as the most probable origin of the universe based on existing scientific knowledge. If future evidence turns up a more probable cause, it will be dumped as quickly as Pluto was dumped as a planet. Religion doesn't work that way.

[bush_cheney2004]

No, it is taught as the most probable origin of the universe based on existing scientific knowledge. If future evidence turns up a more probable cause, it will be dumped as quickly as Pluto was dumped as a planet. Religion doesn't work that way.

Not so...religions change and morph as well. Purgatory is no longer a planet either.

The issue with respect to religion and the initial singularity is that both ultimately cannot answer the ultimate question of original origin(s), but both answer it in the same, unprovable way.

[overthere]

No, it is taught as the most probable origin of the universe based on existing scientific knowledge. If future evidence turns up a more probable cause, it will be dumped as quickly as Pluto was dumped as a planet. Religion doesn't work that way.

Some religions do.

The Mormons, for example, have made several large changes to their public posture due to current events. Not scientific events, but pressure to change made it happen.

1. Officially giving up polygamy, on threat of having every Mormon elder imprisoned and every church burned down by the US govt.

2. Allowing black people to join the Church, again on threats from the US govt during the Civil Rights movements. It was all white all the time until then.

You cannot talk about evidence or probable cause when speaking of religion, it all starts with an act of faith and from there anything is logically possible.

" God created the heavens and the Earth". Accept that, and it all works quite neatly.

[segnosaur]

There is no such thing as scientific fact, only conclusions reached by scientific method, which can be superceded by other conclusions reached by scientific method. Religion does neither.

Actually, there are plenty of facts.... we obtain them through observation. (We look at the sky and see blue... that's a fact. We look at a blood sample and see cells. That's a fact.)

Those facts are then used to support or reject theories/hypothesis/conclusions.

Of course, religion does none of that.

[segnosaur]

If you know anything about the scientific method and how it works, you would not be asking this question, 'Mr, Educator'.

Here's a good description of the scientific method...

http://www.besse.at/sms/smsintro.html

[Guest]

Not so...religions change and morph as well. Purgatory is no longer a planet either.

Damnit! I was relying on that.

[ToadBrother]

On my journey as a life long learner, I continue to tackle subjects that I need to learn more about. I am an evolutionist, but is it possible that ID could also be plausible? I'm sure many members here don't think ID is possible. So let me ask:

Is it fair to say that ID is not a part of science?

I think it depends on what you mean. If you mean the Intelligent Design that guys like Dembski put forth, it's really just a kind of "de-deified Creationism," In fact, the Dover trial revealed that the great ID textbook Of Pandas And People was in fact a Creationist book that someone had done a search and replace of the word "God" on. In other words, it's Creationism intentionally modified to try to past the US First Amendment lemon test.

Now, there is an older strain of thought, what you might call Theistic Evolution, which is a philosophical position that God (however the entity is defined) had some hand in evolution. That was certainly the position of one of the greatest of all biologists, Theodosius Dobzhansky, who was an Orthodox Christian as well as evolutionary biologist. He saw no conflict between evolution and his religious beliefs. But then again, he wasn't trying to lie to school children.