The idea behind ID is nonsensical and would have generated no interest whatsoever in the scientific community based on it's own merits. The reason we are discussing it now is because it has a small but extremely vocal set of supporters who are using the media and whatever other ( unscientific channels ) to ram their idea down our throats.
This is why it is legitimate in this case to scrutinise the people who are so fervently supporting such a worthless idea.
"... it's also because we have positive, emperically detectable evidence for an intelligent cause"
No evidence that has been accepted by the general scientific community.
"If we wake up and see "Take out the garbage -- Mom" on the kitchen table, but didn't see someone write it there, we don't decide that random chance, wind, and a randomly occuring box of Alphabits cereal made a formation that happened to contain a message. Previous observations tell us that when we see some sort of message, there's always an intelligence behind the message, so we can safely assume that Mom, though we didn't see her then or now, wrote the message."
This is completely irrelevant to the argument. In this case it's extremely likely that this note was written by someones mother but it has no bearing at all on Evolution or the origin of life on Earth.
If you are walking along a cliff one day and the portion of it you are walking along happens to subside and fall into the sea taking you with it we don't decide that someone came and purposefully engineered that cliff to subside. Previous observations tell us that when we see this kind of subsidence it's always the natural processes of erosion at work and we can safley assume that someone hasn't come along and purposefully engineered that piece of cliff to subside.
"To the extent that a modern scientist can, if the idea of evolution is taken completely out of the picture, an examination of the evidence can reasonably lead to Intelligent Design, just as it could lead to the development of the theory of evolution."
First of all Evolution is a fact in the same way that gravity is a fact so any scientist wishing to "take it out of the picture" is not really a scientist, however over the last few hundred years science has examined all the various theories of evolution and the current overwhelmingly accepted one is not ID.
I think you meant to say "a wild guess" instead of "the obvious conclusion". Obvious conclusions come about when there is a vast ocean of evidence to support the conclusion. In the case of ID there is no evidence whatsoever to support it's conclusion.
I agree that absolutely you can't say that God does or not exist, in the same way you can't say that Mermaids do or do not exist, however when people start making statements such as "If God does exist then x,y,z must be true and caused by God" then there are problems.
The correct position is to deal with God in the same way we deal with everything and assume that he doesn't exist until it is proven otherwise. For example it's perfectly possible that the floor will collapse where I am sitting in the next ten seconds and I will plunge into a 3 mile deep crater surfaced with sharp spikes and die but I am assuming this is not going to happen and I'm not taking any precautions or any action based on the chance it may happen.
"That isn't true. "Life is too complex to have evolved" is a theory; ID research (primarily using information theory) is to try to show that this is the case. If they succeed in showing that the Darwinian mechanism of variation and selection doesn't have the power to generate the complex information found in living things, then the search will be on for a mechanism that can do this."
No, that's not a theory - it's an idea. From your description here it sounds like the sole reason for this research is to prove that the Darwinian mechanism is wrong which is fine because should this be achieved then indeed a new mechanism will be required.
Should ID be successful then it still will have got absolutely no where in justifying it's idea there must have been an intelligent creator, to do this requires the same kind of evidence and proof that the Darwinian theory of Evolution has achieved today which is never going to happen when the main thrust of ID is to point out flaws in existing theories without doing anything to advance evidence, scientific papers or proofs for the idea which it is espousing.
This being the case ID is in the same league as 1001 other ideas about alternative explanations for Evolution the only difference being the amount of funding and backing it receives from Christian organisations which those other theories do not benefit from.
Hmm, I have this argument with my friends quite often.
Friend: "I don't really believe in God so I'm not really religious" Me: "You do essentially believe in the same thing though don't you so you may as well be religious" "No, I just think there's something else out there and I mean when we die where does all the energy go - there must be something" "It would be nice if there was 'something' after death but you have to admit it's just wishful thinking on your part and you may as well substitute God for 'something' just there." "No man, it's no 'God', just something - you know energy can't be destroyed so where does it go ? It must go somewhere, perhaps change into something else" "Your energy goes to feed the worms and nourish the soil, that's it. Admit you are religious" "No, Im not I just believe in, you know something else when you die. It can't all just end" "That's how religions start, admit - go on. Your are religious aren't you. Go on, say it, say it" "No, I'm not man. You just don't get it."
So if we can't as yet demonstrate ESP powers with what we have now then what are all these people who claim to be working with ESP doing ?
When we discovered Radio Waves we were able to prove their existence and everyone throughout the world was able to repeat experiments proving their existence, the same with quantum theory.
What didn't happen with either Radio Waves or Quantum theory was for hundreds of years before their 'official discovery' for hundreds of people to roam the country charging people money to witness the marvel of their amazing Radio & Quantum powers.
So maybe there is a natural mechanism which could explain ESP and other Psychic Powers and maybe in 200 years time we will discover how it works and how to use it but until then supporting hundreds of thousands of con merchants and charlatans who are unable to offer any proper scientific proof for their claims is not helping anybody.
For a few months last summer we were getting calls from Indian auto diallers every couple of hours, mostly there would be no one on the other end but the one time there was they launched into some small talk about how they shared the same surname as me and how this would lead to a better rapport between us in the conversation to follow, all in a very distinctive Indian accent. I thought it very unlikely this character was telling the truth and the conversation ended abruptly.
We have a similar scheme in the UK but I'd say it only has limited success, we still get a lot of calls from auto diallers from call centres in India during the day and maybe a couple of UK telemarketers each month.
In order for them to be fined you have to find out who they are and you tend to find that as soon as you point out they can be fined for calling you and what was the name of their company again they instantly put the phone down.
Perhaps if you phrased questions as questions rather than making accusations and sticking a question mark on the end it would be easier for people to understand what you are trying to say.
It is hard enough trying to work out your point is as it is. On the one hand you seem to be saying that priests are just as good a source of scientific knowledge as scientists because it's all based on how much belief you have in the honesty of either of them and yet on the other hand you realise that it is the scientific process which enables us to improve our knowledge and understanding of the world and not the belief you may have in any particular scientist or group of scientists.
I'm not sure how you intend to reconcile these contradictory points of view but I do hope you have fun trying.
I suspect that out of all studies written there will some that are published and some which aren't and although it's sometimes possible to say that your study will or will not be published sometimes if you do say you may be either wrong or right but you don't always need to say. In the light of this valuable information I can reveal that sometimes I recognise jokes when I see them and sometimes I don't but that it's not always possible to tell at the time whether the joke I am or am not recognising is a recognisable joke or not but this situation arises more often ( but sometimes less often ) when I read entirely the joke as written rather than choosing to read less, or more but not the entirety of the joke than otherwise.
But yes I should do more research because at least I can be sure with research that I will either learn more about the topic I am researching or on balance understand it less than when I started. I suspect I need to research that too.
Simple maths can tell us how many letters both Darwin and Einstein sent every and received every week, based on their letter writing careers beginning at age 18.
Darwin: Sends 2.6 letters a week and receives 2.2 a week Einstein: Sends 4.7 a week and receives 5 a week
On average I send ( not including postcards ) 2 letters every year but receive between 10 - 12 a week.
My goodness, so now I've learned that both Einstein and Darwin recieved mail, some of which they answered quickly, some less quickly and some not at all.
I think I can expand on this and tentatively claim that the entire population of people who receive letters respond in exactly the same manner !
Yes, an amazing revelation I know but I can go further and state for a fact that people who receive e-mail sometimes answer it quickly, sometimes less quickly and sometimes not at all - in EXACTLY THE SAME way as Darwin and Einstein ! Please, this insight should immediately be posted to Slashdot and form the basis for a whole new in depth discussion of it's ramifications.
I agree that many scientists believe in their ideas before they have sufficient evidence and mathematical proofs to turn it into a widely accepted scientific theory and that is why science is so important because it allows us to examine ideas and through them draw conclusions about the world in which we live regardless of the various beliefs or predujices prevalent in the society at the time.
Religious belief on the other hand doesn't really tell us anything about the world we live in and is frequently influenced by the beliefs and predujices of whatever environment it is employed in.
The core principle which most religious people seem to share is a belief in some kind of spiritual force beyond the rational world and I have no problem with that at all since it is a personal belief and people are entitled to believe in whatever they choose.
What is irritating is when religious organisations portray their collective beliefs as being the truth and use this belief to attempt to alter the way society works and in this arena evangelical atheism can be a force for the overall good of society.
Perhaps I should have used the word evidence rather than proof so I'll rephrase the question and ask you to name any scientific theories which are widely accepted with no evidence to support them.
My goodness, there is even a link on that page which would provide net predators with a fully up to date mapping facility enabling them to plot their course of perversion from their hiding places to various schools in the area. This is sick !
What is particulary amusing is the links on that website to other websites dedicated to their sports teams, clubs etc where there is posted not only pictures of the children for potential net predators to window shop but also the full names of the students, details of the school they attend and a schedule of when you can come and meet them.
Yes, or even better start up blogs where you pose as fellow students who you don't like and commence lengthy drunken, drugged up ramblings spitting hate and bile at the school, your teachers and all the little whores who have refused to sleep with you. Praise the ones that did.
Slashdot Mirror
The idea behind ID is nonsensical and would have generated no interest whatsoever in the scientific community based on it's own merits. The reason we are discussing it now is because it has a small but extremely vocal set of supporters who are using the media and whatever other ( unscientific channels ) to ram their idea down our throats.
This is why it is legitimate in this case to scrutinise the people who are so fervently supporting such a worthless idea.
"... it's also because we have positive, emperically detectable evidence for an intelligent cause"
No evidence that has been accepted by the general scientific community.
"If we wake up and see "Take out the garbage -- Mom" on the kitchen table, but didn't see someone write it there, we don't decide that random chance, wind, and a randomly occuring box of Alphabits cereal made a formation that happened to contain a message. Previous observations tell us that when we see some sort of message, there's always an intelligence behind the message, so we can safely assume that Mom, though we didn't see her then or now, wrote the message."
This is completely irrelevant to the argument. In this case it's extremely likely that this note was written by someones mother but it has no bearing at all on Evolution or the origin of life on Earth.
If you are walking along a cliff one day and the portion of it you are walking along happens to subside and fall into the sea taking you with it we don't decide that someone came and purposefully engineered that cliff to subside. Previous observations tell us that when we see this kind of subsidence it's always the natural processes of erosion at work and we can safley assume that someone hasn't come along and purposefully engineered that piece of cliff to subside.
"To the extent that a modern scientist can, if the idea of evolution is taken completely out of the picture, an examination of the evidence can reasonably lead to Intelligent Design, just as it could lead to the development of the theory of evolution."
First of all Evolution is a fact in the same way that gravity is a fact so any scientist wishing to "take it out of the picture" is not really a scientist, however over the last few hundred years science has examined all the various theories of evolution and the current overwhelmingly accepted one is not ID.
I think you meant to say "a wild guess" instead of "the obvious conclusion". Obvious conclusions come about when there is a vast ocean of evidence to support the conclusion. In the case of ID there is no evidence whatsoever to support it's conclusion.
I agree that absolutely you can't say that God does or not exist, in the same way you can't say that Mermaids do or do not exist, however when people start making statements such as "If God does exist then x,y,z must be true and caused by God" then there are problems.
The correct position is to deal with God in the same way we deal with everything and assume that he doesn't exist until it is proven otherwise. For example it's perfectly possible that the floor will collapse where I am sitting in the next ten seconds and I will plunge into a 3 mile deep crater surfaced with sharp spikes and die but I am assuming this is not going to happen and I'm not taking any precautions or any action based on the chance it may happen.
Yes there are, I think Richard Dawkins has some essays on the real scientific work going in this area.
"That isn't true. "Life is too complex to have evolved" is a theory; ID research (primarily using information theory) is to try to show that this is the case. If they succeed in showing that the Darwinian mechanism of variation and selection doesn't have the power to generate the complex information found in living things, then the search will be on for a mechanism that can do this."
No, that's not a theory - it's an idea. From your description here it sounds like the sole reason for this research is to prove that the Darwinian mechanism is wrong which is fine because should this be achieved then indeed a new mechanism will be required.
Should ID be successful then it still will have got absolutely no where in justifying it's idea there must have been an intelligent creator, to do this requires the same kind of evidence and proof that the Darwinian theory of Evolution has achieved today which is never going to happen when the main thrust of ID is to point out flaws in existing theories without doing anything to advance evidence, scientific papers or proofs for the idea which it is espousing.
This being the case ID is in the same league as 1001 other ideas about alternative explanations for Evolution the only difference being the amount of funding and backing it receives from Christian organisations which those other theories do not benefit from.
Hmm, I have this argument with my friends quite often.
Friend: "I don't really believe in God so I'm not really religious"
Me: "You do essentially believe in the same thing though don't you so you may as well be religious"
"No, I just think there's something else out there and I mean when we die where does all the energy go - there must be something"
"It would be nice if there was 'something' after death but you have to admit it's just wishful thinking on your part and you may as well substitute God for 'something' just there."
"No man, it's no 'God', just something - you know energy can't be destroyed so where does it go ? It must go somewhere, perhaps change into something else"
"Your energy goes to feed the worms and nourish the soil, that's it. Admit you are religious"
"No, Im not I just believe in, you know something else when you die. It can't all just end"
"That's how religions start, admit - go on. Your are religious aren't you. Go on, say it, say it"
"No, I'm not man. You just don't get it."
ETC, normally they end up getting quite annoyed.
So if we can't as yet demonstrate ESP powers with what we have now then what are all these people who claim to be working with ESP doing ?
When we discovered Radio Waves we were able to prove their existence and everyone throughout the world was able to repeat experiments proving their existence, the same with quantum theory.
What didn't happen with either Radio Waves or Quantum theory was for hundreds of years before their 'official discovery' for hundreds of people to roam the country charging people money to witness the marvel of their amazing Radio & Quantum powers.
So maybe there is a natural mechanism which could explain ESP and other Psychic Powers and maybe in 200 years time we will discover how it works and how to use it but until then supporting hundreds of thousands of con merchants and charlatans who are unable to offer any proper scientific proof for their claims is not helping anybody.
For a few months last summer we were getting calls from Indian auto diallers every couple of hours, mostly there would be no one on the other end but the one time there was they launched into some small talk about how they shared the same surname as me and how this would lead to a better rapport between us in the conversation to follow, all in a very distinctive Indian accent. I thought it very unlikely this character was telling the truth and the conversation ended abruptly.
We have a similar scheme in the UK but I'd say it only has limited success, we still get a lot of calls from auto diallers from call centres in India during the day and maybe a couple of UK telemarketers each month.
In order for them to be fined you have to find out who they are and you tend to find that as soon as you point out they can be fined for calling you and what was the name of their company again they instantly put the phone down.
I'm not a US citizen so I suspect they may be infringing on my rights !
Perhaps if you phrased questions as questions rather than making accusations and sticking a question mark on the end it would be easier for people to understand what you are trying to say.
It is hard enough trying to work out your point is as it is. On the one hand you seem to be saying that priests are just as good a source of scientific knowledge as scientists because it's all based on how much belief you have in the honesty of either of them and yet on the other hand you realise that it is the scientific process which enables us to improve our knowledge and understanding of the world and not the belief you may have in any particular scientist or group of scientists.
I'm not sure how you intend to reconcile these contradictory points of view but I do hope you have fun trying.
Which is 2AM BST and means an extra hour of boozing !
I suspect that out of all studies written there will some that are published and some which aren't and although it's sometimes possible to say that your study will or will not be published sometimes if you do say you may be either wrong or right but you don't always need to say. In the light of this valuable information I can reveal that sometimes I recognise jokes when I see them and sometimes I don't but that it's not always possible to tell at the time whether the joke I am or am not recognising is a recognisable joke or not but this situation arises more often ( but sometimes less often ) when I read entirely the joke as written rather than choosing to read less, or more but not the entirety of the joke than otherwise.
But yes I should do more research because at least I can be sure with research that I will either learn more about the topic I am researching or on balance understand it less than when I started. I suspect I need to research that too.
I am just wondering what other options there are for dealing with mail other than answering it quickly, slowly or not at all ?
Simple maths can tell us how many letters both Darwin and Einstein sent every and received every week, based on their letter writing careers beginning at age 18.
Darwin: Sends 2.6 letters a week and receives 2.2 a week
Einstein: Sends 4.7 a week and receives 5 a week
On average I send ( not including postcards ) 2 letters every year but receive between 10 - 12 a week.
I can't see anything eerily similar in those dates ?
My goodness, so now I've learned that both Einstein and Darwin recieved mail, some of which they answered quickly, some less quickly and some not at all.
I think I can expand on this and tentatively claim that the entire population of people who receive letters respond in exactly the same manner !
Yes, an amazing revelation I know but I can go further and state for a fact that people who receive e-mail sometimes answer it quickly, sometimes less quickly and sometimes not at all - in EXACTLY THE SAME way as Darwin and Einstein ! Please, this insight should immediately be posted to Slashdot and form the basis for a whole new in depth discussion of it's ramifications.
"So you believe anything a person in a lab coat tells you, even if you personally can't reproduce it?"
... ? Replaced ! Replaced ! How will that happen ? Some process surely is at work here, but what ? What could it be ?
Do I ? Have you any evidence of this ?
"So why trust a man in a labcoat but not one dressed in a priests robe?"
Is this a joke ? A rhetorical question ? Would you ? Do you ?
"The results are close apprioximations that may get replaced over time when someone thinks up some better ones"
Close approximations to
I agree that many scientists believe in their ideas before they have sufficient evidence and mathematical proofs to turn it into a widely accepted scientific theory and that is why science is so important because it allows us to examine ideas and through them draw conclusions about the world in which we live regardless of the various beliefs or predujices prevalent in the society at the time.
Religious belief on the other hand doesn't really tell us anything about the world we live in and is frequently influenced by the beliefs and predujices of whatever environment it is employed in.
The core principle which most religious people seem to share is a belief in some kind of spiritual force beyond the rational world and I have no problem with that at all since it is a personal belief and people are entitled to believe in whatever they choose.
What is irritating is when religious organisations portray their collective beliefs as being the truth and use this belief to attempt to alter the way society works and in this arena evangelical atheism can be a force for the overall good of society.
Perhaps I should have used the word evidence rather than proof so I'll rephrase the question and ask you to name any scientific theories which are widely accepted with no evidence to support them.
My goodness, there is even a link on that page which would provide net predators with a fully up to date mapping facility enabling them to plot their course of perversion from their hiding places to various schools in the area. This is sick !
What is particulary amusing is the links on that website to other websites dedicated to their sports teams, clubs etc where there is posted not only pictures of the children for potential net predators to window shop but also the full names of the students, details of the school they attend and a schedule of when you can come and meet them.
/ 2005_varsity_roster.htm
http://athletics.popejohn.org/GirlsTennis/Rosters
Can you name one of these scientific theories for which there is no proof but which is nonetheless widely held to be true ?
Yes, or even better start up blogs where you pose as fellow students who you don't like and commence lengthy drunken, drugged up ramblings spitting hate and bile at the school, your teachers and all the little whores who have refused to sleep with you. Praise the ones that did.