Ok. I really don't see where I compared anyone to anything. All I did was state faith was neutral and could be good or evil. I am earnestly asking you to show me where I did. Please show me.
That's possibly true which is why I'm trying to reduce the level of animosity as I can. Understandibly this is a heated issue and we will no doubt be debating this again and again. As a side note one of the things I've noticed about these ID / Evolution debates is that they are almost exclusively between so called liberals on Clutchfans D & D. Martian Man, Flamingmoe, Grizzled, Rhester and myself are pretty much all in agreement regarding that GW Bush is a terrible president and that it was wrong to invade Iraq yet here we are bashing each other to the point of calling each other "T_J." Oddly enough though T_J, Bigtexxx, Basso and most of the other so called conservatives aren't anywhere to be seen on this subject. I guess there goes the conservatives belief that all of us liberals are in lockstep with each other on issues. I fully believe TMac will come back stronger than ever. Anyone who says otherwise is a blasphemer and heretic who deserves to be burned at the stake.
MM; As an attempt to not entrench this thing further I'm not going to go and parse your previous posts. Lets just say I thought it was an unapt comparison if you don't feel it was so then it wasn't so.
I'm not trying to start an argument with you. You are the third person to feel that my post was offensive to either Relgion or Grizzled personally and I'm very confused. Perhaps the way I read my post, it is perfectly clear to me that I am not talking about any religion or person but when read in a different manner, it is offensive? I just want to know what keyed you into thinking that it was about a person or religion. However, if you just wish to drop the matter, that's fine with me.
In general, I don't think hating Bush makes that person automatically a liberal. The conspiracy theorist in me believes that's the doing of Karl Rove or some other RNC minion. It could almost be offensive to some people to be called a lib just because he's a Not-Bush person. We're definitely seeing politics spilling over. Moderates are labeled extremists in certain topics because this bickering style has shifted into the standard operating procedure. It's a shame and it seems to affect libs more than the supposed rift between libertarian leaners and active gov't conservatives. Those trade Yao and trash for KG threads don't even make me smile anymore.
Catching up ... If you’re telling me that a significant minority still believe that I’ll take your word for it. I was my understanding that punctuated equilibrium had largely replaced it. I’m curious as to how they reconcile the problems that lead Gould and others to propose punctuated equilibrium. Edit: I see IM has done some of this and I look forward to reading his always informative posts. With respect to the main argument in this thread, however, this debate between two very different mechanisms show the uncertainty of both, and even of the theory in general. It doesn’t make either one of them wrong, or the theory wrong, but it illustrates that it’s still a highly speculative theory with major debates about fundamental aspects of it going on even within the field. I’ll pause to point out again that my position is not that evolution is wrong. It’s just that it’s one theory, or several theories depending on how you want to slice it. My problem is with it being presented as a having been proved to a high level of certainly, and the use of that claim to suppress any other avenues of inquiry. The whole ID debate for me is to show that there are other reasonable alternatives, and that children in school should be taught that evolution is one theory, perhaps even the leading one, but only one, of a number of theories. Any good scientist should appreciate the importance of this position, especially when it comes to teaching young minds how to think. Unfortunately the political reality of this issue is that we seem to have two warring sides who are each trying to program the minds of children. It’s interesting that Deckard’s father believed that aliens visited and perhaps populated earth. I wonder how far back he came to believe that. Today there are scientists working on models of how Mars could be terraformed. This begs the question, could Earth have been terraformed? What evidence would there be if it was? You’d expect a level of complexity that was greater that what you would expect under “normal development” whatever that may be. And you also might expect some sudden transitions, some stages of development. And what do you know, this is what we see on earth! Does this mean that this is happened on earth? Of course not, but it is a valid theory to pursue, and it starts with the assessment of a realistic possibly that life on earth may have been intelligently designed in some way. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming There are also people who might say, “Evolution and terraforming both only address the rearrangement of atoms and molecules. Neither addresses the question of where those molecules came from in the first place. That has to be a key part of the equations doesn’t it.” And indeed it is. How do you get something from nothing? Did matter magically appear from a singularity? It’s a theory but a highly unlikely one. Real world behaviour rarely matches what models “predict” at discontinuous points on a function, because real world conditions are never exactly duplicated by the mathematical models. (Further, as far as I know, the production of matter from the theoretical gravitational singularity at the point of the Big Bang is nothing more than a wild guess with nothing else to suggest it’s true other than the fact that it’s at this time that matter appeared. If you know any more about this please feel free to chip in.) So clearly a key step is missing, and step that may well have an impact on later stages. Are there other forces at work here? Are we living within a contained bubble of some sort, and does its reality change at its boundaries? Is there more to be discovered within these boundaries? There are many questions here that may influence origins in one way or another, and which make rigid Dawinian Fundamentalism all the more absurd and unscientific. Evolution pursued as good science doubtless has more to offer, and what it showed in terms of horizontal evolution has been very valuable, but the denial of any other possible theory is nothing less than an attack on science. And for completeness, yet others may ask, is there something more in a different way, something beyond our current understanding from the standpoint of internal exploration and higher levels of consciousness? It would be unscientific to assume that there wasn’t, and there is much evidence that there is. This question may take people on different paths of inquiry into different dimensions of our existence that may lead them to other conclusions about origins. So why would limit the understanding of origins, and worse the teaching of our children, to theories about vertical evolution? Is this appropriate and ethical science? Of course not. As a footnote, while I admit that the timelines in VE are large, it’s a little misleading to say that the critical ones are 3.5 billion years long. Very little happened for most of that time, and indeed it’s the big jumps in the fossil record that lead to the theory of punctuated equilibrium. A huge amount of very complex and advanced life appears to have appeared in timelines as small as 50 million years or less. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian_explosion
I intended to reply to your earlier post regarding my Dad's beliefs. It definitely could be construed as a form of intelligent design, if it occurred deliberately. As I recall, he wasn't convinced one way or the other... whether "aliens" (our ancestors) had (a) been stranded here and tinkered with the local population, creating a mixture of their own and local life that led ultimately to us (a form of ID), if (b) we were a direct descendant of them (not ID, but something else), or if, instead of being stranded here, they came deliberately and "seeded" intelligent life here, either (c) for their own amusement, or in an attempt to spread intelligent life as widely as possible on suitable planets, Earth being one (a form of ID). I think the idea of an advanced species being stranded here, and humanity evolving somehow from them, appealed the most to Dad. He didn't believe in God. I think he may have lost that belief, assuming he ever had it, sometime during his service in the Navy during WWII. He was a radar expert, who could have stayed in the States teaching it to those going into combat areas. Instead, he volunteered for duty in the Pacific, installing radar on capitol ships. Ending up in the Philippines, Dad got involved in a nasty scrap between the B-25 bomber that he and four friends (fellow radar experts) were being ferried in, and a Japanese submarine. It's a long story, but the bomber didn't have any bombs, Dad and his pals were rated to fire machine guns, and the crew consisted of the pilot, the co-pilot and the passengers (them). Someone spotted the sub, and the pilot saw his chance for "glory." The B-25 had some cannon in the nose, and the 50 cal. machine guns to defend against enemy aircraft. The sub out-gunned them something fierce. Apparently it couldn't submerge, and when the bomber began to strafe them, "they poured out of the sub like someone kicked an anthill. As fast as we shot them down, more took their place. We got so close that I could see the expressions on their faces as I hit them. They shot us to pieces. One of the two engines caught fire, and we finally broke off... the pilot realized that he wanted to get as far from the sub as he could before we bailed out. He radioed what he hoped was our position." Like I said, it's a long story. To cut to the chase, one of his friends was killed, the rest of them floated in the water, in 8 foot seas and surrounded by sharks, thinking for hours that they were going to die. As it got dark, a PT boat spotted them and picked them up. Dad was in a hospital at Pearl until he got shipped back to recover in the States. I have a feeling that somewhere, during the course of what happened, he decided the idea of a god was ludicrous. Just a guess. I was in my 20's when he told me about it. I think he felt mortality coming on, and decided I should know. Until then, all I knew about his WWII experiences was that he taught radar, and served for some period of time on an aircraft carrier, the Saratoga. Keep D&D Civil.
Why thank you, I think I will. The 1978 Nobel Prize in physics was split in 1/2. The second half went to some Russian dude, but that's not important. The first half was split between two Radio Astronimers. Their names were Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson (who happens to be my uncle) and they won for work done in 1965. Here is the long bit about what they did. The short form is that they were trying to eliminate interference from their radio telescope. They couldn't do it. They tried everything. Desperate, they even considered bird droppings as a possible source of interference. Finally, when they were about to give up, upon a suggestion of an aquaintance they calculated that if the theories about the Big Bang were true, and if the initial temprature and timeline were correct, you'd end up with a uniform background residual energy equal to 3 degrees Kelvin. Low and behold, that just happened to be exactly the coresponding temprature of the level of interference which they were recieving from their radio telescope. Of course, this can not be seen as absolute proof, and people are still around trying to provide alternate models which could account for the radiation (I saw an article two or three months ago in Scientific American) but this is generally considered information which makes the Big Bang concept first among theories. Additionally, new results occur which are predicted or fit in with the Big Bang model. Because of this, Physicists mostly accept the Big Bang as if it were true until they find information which proves otherwise. But they don't rule out other ideas. Regarding the precambrian explosion, keeping in mind what you've already mentioned, I understand why that is a major sticking point for you. The difficulty with terraforming in the precambrian as a precursor for the introduction of new life by the intelligent designer is that it doesn't explain why the order of Archaea exists in places like Hydrothermal Vents and other extreme environments. Their existence and their tenuous similarities to other forms of life, would seem to be more supportive of life before the Cambrian? I may be wrong but I can't come up with any reasons why a designer would add forms better fit to pre-terraform conditions that doesn't fail the Occam's Razor test. As an aside, when I talk about the time frames, the 500 bya explosion is a good example. The way that evolution is portrayed, you really don't get a picture that 3 billion of the 3.5 billion estimated years of life exist with only single cell life forms. That's a staggering amount of time. Again I appreciate that the question of the explosion and greater complexity is one that you aren't comfortable with, I just wanted to point out the general understanding is one day life appeared, and next week the dinosaurs were around and the week after that we had people. If the 3.5 billion years is correct, the 100mya figure for the introduction of dinosaurs is correct and if the 10 mya figure for the appearance of man is correct, then man has only existed for 1/350th of the span of life, dinosaurs weren't much older, and almost all of the history life on the planet was single celled.
Jumping forward before jumping back… Hold up a minute there. I take your point about entrenching and entrenched positions, and it’s a good one, but the term Darwin Fundamentalist is not one I can take credit for. None other than Stephen Jay Gould used it 8 years ago in the article I posted in the first page of this thread, if he didn’t use it sooner. Further, he references Darwin’s own frustration during his lifetime with people trying to misrepresent what he had said. The issues in each case are somewhat different, but the rigid, unscientific, “fundamentalist” mindset is the source of the concern in all cases. I share their frustration, and that may not be helpful, but I certainly don’t feel isolated with Gould and Darwin on my side, and of course many many others are too. Wow. This is the polarized America we keep hearing about. There’s politics everywhere of course, but I don’t think it’s nearly that bad here, at least in the schools anyway. And yet it is one of the most difficult and important problems they’ll have to grapple with. As our knowledge and awareness of these and other issues evolves I wonder if it’s time to bring this kind of discussion into the classrooms? It could be taught along with the theories of evolution and a couple of the ID theories. Current affairs and science all in one! No doubt this would be difficult and would face a lot of opposition, but lots of things worthwhile aren’t easy. It would be opposed by fundamentalists on both sides, of course, because they don’t want anyone to think. They deal in coercion and want to control people and have them conform to their standards, not think for themselves and become more aware. Is that a line some groups are using? One of the key issues here is simply the principle of tolerating and understanding and appreciating diverse ideas. If you create an atmosphere where you say that this one theory is right and don’t even dare speak of another theory, kids will learn how to conform. They may even become patriotic about it, but this kind of thinking is conservative, not progressive, and it will tend to box them in and keep them from exploring new ideas and understanding different perspectives in other areas too. I agree that these things right themselves eventually, but I think a lot of damage can be done in the meantime. The narrow mindset that we’re calling a fundamentalist mindset here can be seen in you current administration. They thought their worldview was the one right one and they didn’t even bother to find out how others understood the situation in the ME, and consequently they blundered into a war that was doomed from the start. Most broad thinking, open minded people could see that this war had next to no chance of success from the very beginning, and yet the narrow, righteous mindset that dominates this administration convinced itself it was inherently correct and that they didn’t need to understand the context they were moving into, and the results have been disastrous. I think that first and foremost the issue of what should be allowed to be taught in school about origins is about how children are taught to think. Are they allowed to think and explore different ideas and theories, or are they taught to toe the party line and conform? Well, I don’t think it’s a simple as this. The issue of ring species is an interesting one, but not being able to breed does not mean two organisms are from different species. Great Danes can’t naturally breed with Chihuahuas, for obvious reasons, and yet I don’t think anyone believes that one of them isn’t a dog. I’ve also heard that Beagles and Irish Setters can’t breed either, but I don’t think the reasons for that are known. So much more would have to be known about why one member of a species can’t breed with another. The key to vertical evolution is that useful DNA information that didn’t previously exist in the species would have to be created somehow, and it would have to survive enough generations to become dominant. It would almost certainly have to produce an immediate benefit to the organism, so you’d need something fully functioning to appear. Much more would be needed after that of course because abnormal members of a species are often ostracised and not seen as desirable mates, and for other reasons the probability of one organism changing the species is pretty slight. So I presume that there would be many such mutations for one become established in a species. Have we seen even a single such a mutation in any animal in recorded history? Yes, the timelines are great, but given the probabilities against one mutation becoming established, and multiplying that by the astronomical number of changes that would have to occur to produce the world we see around us, isn’t it reasonable to assume that some instance of a significant increase in complexity (the creation of useful new genetic information) should have been noticed somewhere? Tough question, I know. I appreciate that you’re stating that much of the new theory is pure theory. This is true and there’s nothing wrong with that. With respect to the discussion in this thread, however, you’ve seen people suggest that there is solid empirical evidence for vertical evolution, and this is just not true. It significantly over states the case. Interesting, but isn’t what you’re describing here genetic drift? Isn’t this the result natural selection with the existing gene pool? Is there anything here that involves humans becoming more genetically complex in terms of the addition of new and different and beneficial material to the gene pool? It’s my understanding that the term “missing link” refers to such a step between known species. Good stuff. Neutral mutations do happen but they don’t tend to take root, correct? Much like humans tend to be a little put off by someone with 6 fingers, almost instinctively, when selecting mates animals tend to not prefer “imperfect” members of their species. I don’t have a big point here other than to show some added difficulty that an individual with a mutation would have in making his DNA dominant in the gene pool. You raise another good point, too. For one such mutation to become dominant there would certainly be many many more ill timed mutations, like the big brain in the Jurassic Era. So in effect what we’re looking for in the fossil record, and even in recorded history, is not just one “missing link” but also many many more potential missing links that didn’t establish themselves. In the fossil record there wouldn’t be that many individual animals, of course, because they got eaten by the pea brained carnivore before they could spread their genes, but with respect to recorded history we would expect to see many more of these potential missing links for every one that became established. Do you know of any such animals that had such a mutation that could have, under different circumstances, let to the change of a species? My understanding is that nothing like this has been found. Timelines are still short, admittedly, but still the lack of hard evidence can’t be overlooked. This is essentially a repeat of my question above, I guess. Also, with respect, the stat that our gene’s are 99% similar to chimps is a commonly used one but misleading because it measures the wrong parameter. For example, there are billions of objects in the world and if we concede that 99% of them would fall toward the centre of the earth if dropped (considering no forces other than gravity) does that make it more likely that the other 1% would fall up? This isn’t a great example, but I hope you get my point. Whether we have 99% in common with chimps or 1% in common isn’t the question. If genes don’t add new and beneficial information to themselves then 99% similarity isn’t enough. If they do then 1% is enough to suggest that, eventually, this kind of evolution could occur and a human would result. The percentage is irrelevant. The ability to become more complex and to have that complexity become dominant in the gene pool is the key question. Very good point.
I guess we’ve exposed a flaw in the term. The take off point for ID is the question of whether life on earth evolved randomly. As we learn more about DNA and how it mutates and we examine the fossil record more closely, more scientists are beginning to question how well the data fits the theory of vertical evolution, and whether it’s reasonable to start speculating about and exploring other theories, a suggestion that meets much resistance from many of the fundamentalist evolutionists. Non-random design implies intelligent design, but it could be inadvertent intelligent interference. You might even be able to come up with a theory that involved unintelligent extraterrestrial interference I suppose, but we’re mostly just playing with words now. For the purposes of this argument the position I’ve been taking is essentially exactly what your father believes, coincidentally. Wow. That’s quite a story. I’m glad you shared that so close to Remembrance Day. Just to be clear about my argument here, however, it’s never been based on faith or creationism. Suggestions by some in this thread that it has been are purely straw-man arguments. My argument has been in favour of teaching alternatives to vertical evolution along with VE, and the position I have been arguing from, coincidentally, is almost identical to your father’s.
Grizzled, Are you saying that it is your belief that modern humans and modern apes do not share a common ancestor, since this would be a case of "vertical evolution"? Is this accurate? If that is the case, what is the origin of the modern human species acording to your belief? Not trying to be confrontational, just curious as to your beliefs specifically on these two issues.
I got the observation wrong. Personally, I'd rather have spirituality taught in a class seperate than physical sciences. Preferably in the form of philosophy or theology. The assumption that they're all related would be optional. The snags would be similar to the next quote... It depends on what function you think public school systems are geared towards in the grand scheme of each country. I might be cynical of the American system but most of the gripes can be applied to other countries. I'm not sure the Japanese system promotes free independent thinking over hierarchical status and honor, yet they're gung ho about science as a means to an end. Plus there has to be tangible gains to what schools ideologically should be. First, we'd need more specialized teachers that will accept lower wages than they can earn. Then, since physical science is an empirical field, it'd make more sense that learning would be more effective on an observable and pratical basis. That'd mean more equipment and resources (field trips, science kits, a premium on good yet controversial books, computers, etc...) to increase that free thinking. Finally, you'd need to allot the neccessary time to allow the weakest link to grasp these free concepts...just as fast as previous course plans that offered the most readily available path outright. Most students are given a barrage of facts. "Know this, this, and that. Here's the whys. Figuring out the why is optional...most importantly ace the quiz." They're more prepared to become glorified Jeopardy contestants than free thinkers who can accept being wrong once in a while. If it's an underlying social issue, Americans are already screwed. Post war Japanese didn't just change their entire infrastructure just because the American way looked better. Most cultures would need something deeply humbling to enact questions about their values and the thinking processes that got them there. As for the last question. I think the atmosphere has gotten better compared to the past. People complain about politics because the good ol days of sweeping things under the rug are gone. It doesn't mean there's an exponential rise or chaos...it's just the chaos is now being noticed, and we are the ones who have been too paralyzed to react. I doubt there would be another Velikovsky affair because there's too many conflicting forms of opinion for "Big Science" to stamp out. Theres always outliers... Who knows if Great Danes and Chihuahuas would evolve into another branch? Chihuahuas were natively found on the New World. Dogs and cats have been the subjects of one giant breeding experiment based on physiology (phenotypes). It's very possible for some underlying genetic corruptions to prevent them from breeding. There could be other barriers that define animals as diff species despite being able to conceive hybrids: time, location, behavior, mechanical (square peg/circle slot), or post coital. Lions and tigers can breed and so can their offspring...doesn't mean they're officially the same species. It's just that study is still a work in progress. Are cockroaches dominant species now? What about after every country launches their nuke stockpiles? Are bacterially resistant bacteria the most dominant of their category? There's probably more helpful bacteria living in your gut alone, so are they even the most dominant among their species? Probably not. It's the drugs they're resistant to that give them the advantage.... My appendix doesn't provide an immediate benefit. Male insects with vestigal wings probably spend more energy during adulthood than those without. An energy intensive larger brain or a brain mutation doesn't need to have an immediate benefit if the rest of the body is performing well. It's like saying you have to need a Barry Bonds or a Bagwell to be healthy in order to reach the World Series because both commanded 10+ million dollar salaries towards their cap. What if as a result of sickle cell, evolution made their victims vessels contract as a downsizing? What if then, after several years bodies became smaller or certain parts became smaller as a result? No noticable freaks. Everyone gets along. Some sickle cell people die, but who cares? I'm alive and malaria hasn't broken out... Another example. The evolution of intelligence In our modern world... Eventually dieing of Tay-Sachs = bad Being a genius = better Don't follow too closely to the zero-sum line of thinking like some evolutionary microbiologists have done. Posted this before, so I won't paraphrase it again. Butterfly unlocks evolution secret It doesn't mean that this is the only path towards speciation (but it does address your question). There's sickle cell in India. Birds and bats independently evoled wings. The world is miraculously diverse. If one size fitted all, there wouldn't be the variety we're seeing. There's matters of coincidence called divergent evolution. If we were talking about simple Creationist paradigms, divergent evolution would go against it. Those species with coincidental features would be more genetically related than animals found in their same geography. It's not. I'm not a mind reader. I don't know if they genuinely believed that or they're picking a position to defend. It's why I mention political biases from the top of the ID foodchain from time to time. I don't know. Some human populations have genes other populations don't have. Humans were said to breed with Neanderthals. Are some of us their byproduct? Are the genetic drifters who survived the ones with the larger brain...or did the "larger brainers" pass on their genetics towards the entire population? Genetic drift happens in limited populations where diversity has been cut off. In a large fluid population, there shouldn't be genetic drift but rather the gradual evolution of traits to the entire population, such as having a larger brain. Again, it's only my idea of the missing link. Who said the Jenga pieces already fell or the next phase would be externally physical instead of being cellular or having inner changes inside organs and systems? Like good bacteria, we don't really know if/when they take root or if they even matter. There isn't currently a one size fits all classification [/i]scheme[/i] as mutations attack/are neutral/benefit on several different levels and fronts. We're still looking for the evil-doers. It'd make most sense physiologically, but it's one of many other fronts on mutations. There's phenotype (genes being shown)/genotype (actual genes given) relationship you should look up. A big book on Mendel/inheritance is the other half towards beginning to understand evolution...which is why it's sneaky to invoke Darwin's name in this political game. BTW, polydactyly is a dominant trait. Why does it affect so few people? I forgot the reason. For big organisms like us, having sex allows all types of things being exchanged. Even judging by physical features, who wants their kid being bald? For male pattern baldness, it's the grandmother's fault. Scientists are looking for the Osama of big mutations. No luck so far on any suspects. I'd love to trash paleontology until it pulls its own weight, but a "missing link" from them would end a lot of debate. How are you going substantially differentiate hairy men from non-hairy men, or lactose intolerant from those without? Let the paleontologist have a crack at it!
Vatican Official Refutes Intelligent Design VATICAN CITY - The Vatican's chief astronomer said Friday that "intelligent design" isn't science and doesn't belong in science classrooms, the latest high-ranking Roman Catholic official to enter the evolution debate in the United States. The Rev. George Coyne, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, said placing intelligent design theory alongside that of evolution in school programs was "wrong" and was akin to mixing apples with oranges. "Intelligent design isn't science even though it pretends to be," the ANSA news agency quoted Coyne as saying on the sidelines of a conference in Florence. "If you want to teach it in schools, intelligent design should be taught when religion or cultural history is taught, not science." His comments were in line with his previous statements on "intelligent design" — whose supporters hold that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power. Proponents of intelligent design are seeking to get public schools in the United States to teach it as part of the science curriculum. Critics say intelligent design is merely creationism — a literal reading of the Bible's story of creation — camouflaged in scientific language, and they say it does not belong in science curriculum. In a June article in the British Catholic magazine The Tablet, Coyne reaffirmed God's role in creation, but said science explains the history of the universe. "If they respect the results of modern science, and indeed the best of modern biblical research, religious believers must move away from the notion of a dictator God or a designer God, a Newtonian God who made the universe as a watch that ticks along regularly." Rather, he argued, God should be seen more as an encouraging parent. "God in his infinite freedom continuously creates a world that reflects that freedom at all levels of the evolutionary process to greater and greater complexity," he wrote. "He is not continually intervening, but rather allows, participates, loves." The Vatican Observatory, which Coyne heads, is one of the oldest astronomical research institutions in the world. It is based in the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo south of Rome. Last week, Pope Benedict XVI waded indirectly into the evolution debate by saying the universe was made by an "intelligent project" and criticizing those who in the name of science say its creation was without direction or order. Questions about the Vatican's position on evolution were raised in July by Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn. In a New York Times column, Schoenborn seemed to back intelligent design and dismissed a 1996 statement by Pope John Paul II that evolution was "more than just a hypothesis." Schoenborn said the late pope's statement was "rather vague and unimportant." http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051118/ap_on_re_eu/vatican_evolution
I’m going to get back to some other posts shortly but this article shows that there are some serious problems with the term ID. If even the Vatican is defining it as another term for creationism then the term has lost its original meaning. Creationism is creationism and ID originally differed from it in that it didn’t specify a designer or any specific method of design and construction. It simply sought to explore the possibility that our origins were non-random. Vertical evolution is theory that continues to have no hard evidence to support it or even a widely agreed upon mechanism whereby it could have happened, and yet it is still widely being presented not only as the only legitimate theory, but as “truth”, even in the schools. This is obviously a big problem and not good science. So we’ll have to come up with a new term to separate the scientific issue from the political one. Non-random origins perhaps (NRO)?
If Intelligent Design isn't about a designer or specific method of design then why name the idea Intelligent Design? That again brings it back to one of my problems with ID is that its more a criticism of Evolution rather than a positive (in the sense of putting forward an independent idea) idea.
So, all of the universe, the earths and the heavens, and all life known and unknown was created in seven twenty four hour periods as we measure them on this planet (even before the cycle of a 24 hour period was created to measure this event)? The big boat with all of the land and air species going two by two to escape the flood is literally true as well? Jonah living inside a whale? If the Bible is not a guide through metaphor and wisdom then it is as worthless as Jean Dixon's prophecies, or a 1981 Farmer's Almanac to me. What I am saying is that the whole house of cards falls down if you insist on the Bible being a logical book of what you call "facts." Where you choose to draw the line between accepting a scientific and mystical view of the world is therefore really arbitrary if you want to stuff the round peg of mysticism in the square space of empirical reason. I am not picking a fight with you, but I just think your insistence on the Bible being some sort of historical document, or demonstration of God's perfection is incongruous. Here's what I think about the Intelligent Design issue: trying to find out and explain scientifically *how* the universe was created should not be mixed up with *why,* or by *whom* the universe was created. The spiritual and philosophical parts of life are important, but they should be seperate disciplines if they are taught in public schools, or universities. Intelligent Design is a product of the crumbling of fundamentalist thought, in a way. The values of science and deductive reasoning, are so ingrained in the West that people are making arguments of pure faith in the jargon of reason and science. When you compare this 21st century reactionary movement to the Scopes Trial, for example, the differences could not be more pronounced. I take the long view that we are in a 50 year blip where fundamentalist thought made one big comeback around the world before burning out like a comet into an obscure little corner of the milky way along with other worldviews that are past their sell by date.
Why is an apple called an apple? I'm not sure I even understand your question. You have, or pretend to have, real problems with some basic language. I'm going to abandon the term ID. If ID has been appropriated to the point of becoming synonymous with creationism by even the Vatican then it’s a lost term. Let’s call the theory non-random origins (NRO) for now until we come up with a better term.
