Thanks for posting this article. It's very eye opening. The last quote from the article:
If you want to really worry about civil liberties, forget the Patriot Act. Start looking at the other stuff that's on the books, without even the excuse of fighting terrorism. But nobody, on either side of the aisle, really wants you doing that.
C'mon, buy Wikipedia already. "Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," and Wikipedia fits that goal better than Google Groups does.
I first found Wikipedia on Google Search. I think they've done a fairly well job at organizing information that already exists. Google's goal isn't to create more information... there's plenty out there already, and Wikipedia's just one source.
This represents a milestone in consumers getting what they want.
1) This may be the first time a major band sells copyrighted mp3s without DRM
2) This is the first album on media that can be rewritten to since the tape deck
3) I convert them to mp3 to play in my car anyway
I only hope this will be a hit and more bands follow suit.
I'll throw out the chimp argument and while I'm at it I'll toss the whole theory of evolution. Let's assume that the theory of evolution does not exist, or has been discredited or something. Now, we witness the existence of life on earth. You claim that ID is a scientific theory that explains the existence of life. I say that your theory is not scientific. What evidence do you have that you can convince me with? I looked briefly at the site you referenced, but all I could find were attacks on evolution. Either give some evidence in your own words, or link to a page with a specific piece of evidence.
Good, now that that's out of the way...
The problem with the question that you propose is that it's designed to fail: "Apart from a creator, how do you explain how this got here?" If there was indeed a creator, then that possibility must be taken into account in the realm of scientific inquiry. We know science deals with the known, not the unknown, but science first makes assumptions about things that we can not know empirically: We assume that we are capable of solving problems through logic, we assume that if we observe something repeatedly, we can predict that it will happen consistently. We assume that the universe has law and predictability (as opposed to unpredictability). The basic assumptions of science are predicted by ID.
It is known, for example, through scientific inquiry, that cell interactions are complex and interdependent, and that complex structures such as the eye are finely tuned for a specific purpose. Both of these are evidence for Intelligent Design. Sorry, I only used these two because I don't have time to find others for now, but I can find more later.
Intelligent Design is scientific precisely because it operates within the framework of reason. It can be used as the basis for scientific predictions, it can be used as the basis for further tests and discoveries, and it can be falsified by naturalistic evidence. I'll see if I can dig up some sites that attempt to falsify it later.
It may or may not fit your definition of 'theory' because the current definition of theory is based on a naturalistic world view, one where naturalistic explanations are the only ones accepted, but ID is needed precisely because of this bias in the scientific community.
Do you really want evidence, or are you just looking for an excuse to attack me because I falsified the "evidence" that you provided? I did mention a few things in previous posts, but I think you ignored them so that you could say that I didn't present any evidence.
Read some of the many resources at this site if you doubt that ID has scientific merit. And also, I still want to hear your defense of the chimp argument, or you can concede that it wasn't really a good argument and we can move on. If you don't defend it or toss it out, I'll just assume you'd rather attack me than stand behind your words, and our conversation will be over.
Without going further, where did you get the statistic from? Or is it "common knowledge"? I do a great deal of source checking before I make a statement such as this one, because it's a very incredible statement to make. We share 98% of our DNA with chimps?
Please see this article before trying to explain to me why you think we share 98% of our DNA with chimps. And did you even read my argument for homologous structures? This by itself is not enough to prove anything about evolution. If I wanted to make a house, would I not use four walls and a roof? If I wanted to create bones that were light and strong, would I not use the same organic materials in all of my mammal projects?
Don't even get started about Haeckel's experiments on embryos, the data of which were falsified a long time ago. See this biography of him from UC Berkeley if you're in doubt about the validity of his theory of recapitulation (which by the way is sometimes STILL taught in schools as fact despite its rejection by evolutionists).
If you're interested in knowing more about the lies you've been taught, I can furnish you with many more examples. There isn't "a ton" of evidence for evolution.
If the "natural phenomena" that you're referring to is life on Earth, then I would disagree with that statement. I think that it's possible to conclude, scientifically, that life *could have been* designed (in fact the argument would be trivial), but to say that it *was* designed is something else entirely. You would have to find a test that would show that it was designed rather than, say, just suddely appearing because of the highly unlikely arrangement of a buch of atoms. Both of those things are possible, but to argue that one of them is worthy of being a theory requires evidence and testability.
Will you agree that by saying this, you are implying that the Theory of Evolution shows that animals *did* come from other animals, rather than that they *could have*? Earlier, you stated that a theory is unprovable. Therefore, Evolution as a theory is no more provable than ID is. When one gathers evidence it either makes a theory stronger or it weakens it, prompting us to change it to fit the data. Order in a chaotic world is some of the evidence for Intelligent Design. Furthermore, there is evidence that it is very unlikely (statistically impossible) for a bunch of atoms to arrange themselves in a manner that would create life from nonlife. There are two possibilities, they either were arranged by the natural forces that we understand and can measure currently, or they were arranged by a natural or unnatural force or forces that we don't yet understand. Our present knowledge of the laws of the universe is insufficient to explain life from nonlife, and the fossil and biological evidence does not support the transition from one type of animal to another (I avoid using the term species because its definition does not give clarity to the debate, see my previous posts).
Evolutionists puzzled by this apparent order and refusing to invoke a Creator have suggested some far out explanations to this: Some have suggested that aliens dropped us off or something to that effect, while others simply let it go as a currently unknown and unexplainable trait of life (which is quite acceptable in the realm of science). ID provides an explanation for this phenomenon, as well as some predictions moving forward about the complexity of life as we discover more about the way the world works, while the Theory of Evolution predicted more simplicity of design.
Speculation: I doubt Darwin would have promoted his Theory of Evolution as it stands if he really knew how complex human cells are, or if he knew that the fossil record would provide us with not one solid piece of evidence for a transitional form (the evidences in our textbooks are quite suspect, although this will sound like paranoia until you really research it for yourself and talk to a forensic anthropologist). I don't doubt that this theory has given us a lot of good and progressive ideas in science (although it has also been ill-used to justify some horrible things in our past like racism), but it's time to move on and consider something that makes more sense.
Of course, you could always buy a second battery... personally, I'm looking forward to fuel cells because as soon as there's an alternative to rechargeable batteries, their prices will go down!
Not that all scientists would label themselves explicitly materialist, but note that it is essentially the view that we can actually make observations and that the explanations of observable phenomena are humanly achievable that lies at the heart of it.
Without trying to repeat myself too much, a materialistic world view isn't necessary for the scientific method to work. In other words, if you have a christian world view for example, the scientific method works because you believe in a sensible order to the universe and to the way things work (which by the way was the original reason why people thought they could understand the universe at all).
Really? The implications of evolution are controversial? Pharmaceutical research and testing, botany, genetic research? These are hardly groundless, unscientific endevours. Or did you mean controversial in some politcal sense?
None of these require the Theory of Evolution as an explanation for how we came to be. They do require an understanding of genetics, chemistry, and other sciences that are completely compatible with the theory of ID. One of the reasons most people don't understand this is because before evolution, scientists thought that fixity of species was law, and other such unproven nonsense. Darwin also thought that the cell was nothing more than a blob of protoplasm, so we move past all that and look at the current theories to judge them, not the past blunders. What I mean by saying that Evolution's implications are controversial is that the Theory of Evolution lends itself to an atheistic world view, because if you can explain how we got here through natural processes, you don't need to invoke a creator except to explain the 'first cause'. ID doesn't attempt to explain the universe supernaturally after that 'first cause' either, it uses the scientific method.
The fact that homologous structures are neither totally different or exactly the same is in fact evidence for natural selection.
Are you sure? Going back to my previous example with cars, most cars have different sized wheels, yet they all have the same purpose. You wouldn't put a human hand on a small lizard, nor would you put a monster truck tire on a bicycle, but you would match the parts with the whole. I don't pretend that this is a perfect analogy, but it should be enough for you to see where I'm coming from.
I have read the article "29 evidences for Macroevolution" already. See This link for a critique of the paper you mentioned above. It clarifies the ID position, because at the heart of the argument, I believe, is a misunderstanding of the difference between evolution as an observable change (the word evolution means change and i have nothing against the word itself) and the Theory of Evolution which accounts for all life being the result of either tiny changes or punctuated equilibrium.
As for speciation, that doesn't pose a problem for ID because of this difference: In ID, there isn't a problem if a bird with existing genetic information and another identical bird go to different regions, their genes become isolated, and their populations become different species as we define species today. However, if we postulate that based on this fact, a bird can add genetic information to the point that it can become, say, a squirrel (through multiple tiny changes over long periods of time), there is just no evidence for this. We have seen mutations occur, where genetic material is added or changed, but not to the point that it is beneficial, and the rate of mutation is always wrong in some way (in bacteria it is too fast, in humans it is too small in studies i've read, yes, i'm generalizing here.)
Here is a good article that explains it better than I did. You can do a search for "speciation".
Note that *no* valid scientific theory is provable
OK, but what I'm saying is that science is by necessity constrained to a strictly naturalistic wold view. Science is the study of what we observe. It is the study of things that can be measured and tested. You can redefine science to include that which is not a part of the material world, but I would argue that it would then become useless.
Science is by necessity constrained to the observable. That does not mean that a naturalistic world view is necessary. Science as a way of observing and forming hypotheses to understand the world was first practiced by the early church, so it's hard to argue that science by necessity takes a naturalistic world view. I don't think I redefined science to include the realm of the supernatural either. I never said God was testable, nor do proponents of ID. What we are saying instead is that a scientist can study natural phenomena and reach a conclusion that it has been designed, just as he/she can reach the same conclusion by studying artifacts of human civilization.
I don't want to be insulting, but wouldn't an unbiased perspective require the same evidence for the existence of God that it requires for the existence of the Earth? Be careful about who you are calling biased -- the whole point of science is to try to be unbiased.
No offense taken. An unbiased perspective, as I see it, takes into account all ideas and possibilities, and does not outright eliminate any possibility until proven false. Nor does it seek to promote one idea above another, regardless of the pressure of society, media, and community that promote that idea. If you think this is not a fair definition of unbiased, let me know. Now, we obviously promote the ideas that we think fit best, but first we try to form an unbiased, objective opinion about it, and then we use that information to interpret future results. A materialistic world view colors the interpretation of data just like a christian world view, or any other, would. That does mean we are all prone to bias, but it doesn't mean that we can't attempt to be as unbiased as possible when experimenting.
Unfortunately, it's also true that people on both sides will use science to push their agendas, and this is not limited to the realm of ID vs Evolution. I appreciate any scientist who puts their quest for knowledge above their own agenda, but they're hard to find in the realm of origins, since the implications of Evolution and of ID are very controversial. I've been at a point of having to critically study both sides myself to understand where each was coming from, before I took a side on it. I spent months reading articles from talk.origins and true.origin and many related sites, and there is still so much to learn.
I'm a bit confused by your last paragraph. You say that 'ID scientists do not attempt to explain natural phenomena with supernatural theories (such as "it was created to be that way")' but you don't say what their explanation is. I'm pretty sure that the intelligent design explanation either A) invokes the supernatural or B) gives no explanation at all. Can you tell me what the "real" ID explanation is? If you could give an explicit explanation of how something that is supposedly "irreducibly complex" exists without using evolution, then I'm sure I could point out the problems with the explanation. I'll also point out that my argument would probably hinge on showing why a non-materialistic explanation really doesn't provide us with any useful information (i.e. an untestable theory can't be used for anything) and is therefore not considered to be science.
Evolution has been called the "unifying theory" because people have taken it out of its original context to explain everything from variation and adaptation to society's structure to language. While I have no problem with using the idea of evolution to help people to understand these things, I do see a problem with the way the term is used that confuses the issue.
Right there is the fundamental misunderstanding. Science only studies that which is naturalistic. If you want to explain the origins of the universe scientifically, you can't consider the supernatural. If you do, you're not doing science. ID proponents can redefine science if they want to, but that doesn't mean that the "science" that they're doing is the same as what real scientists are doing.
I understand what you're trying to say, but I think you are misunderstanding the position of ID again. Let me try to explain what I mean. If someone refuses to believe in a supernatural beginning, evolution is the only possibility. However, evolution looks very absurd when you look at it from an unbiased perspective. For instance, the probabilities involved, the lack of concrete fossil evidence, mutation evidence, the question of "first cause" and many other irreconcilable facts (that probably don't need to be listed in this response) give people more questions than answers. Many of these problems are glossed over by assuming that "with enough time anything is possible".
What I'm trying to say is, that while evolution is a theory that can account for the present state of things, it is not the only scientific possibility unless you constrain yourself to a strictly naturalistic world view. And if you do so, your assumptions skew the conclusions you will have at the end of any scientific study, further causing bias in the community. This is what has happened over a period of time to the point that evolution is accepted by most people without second thought as fact.
ID scientists do not attempt to explain natural phenomena with supernatural theories (such as "it was created to be that way"). They use the scientific method to observe, formulate theories, test them, refine them, and ultimately arrive at conclusions, just as materialistic scientists do. They may arrive at data that seems to contradict their theories, just as a materialistic scientist does, but the evidence seems to indicate that ID rather than evolution is where we come from. No, they don't change evidence, they look at it with a critical eye. But facts give rise to interpretations, and many interpretations are less concrete than most people want to admit. For example, see the ongoing debate about whether Neanderthals could interbreed with humans or not, and the debates over whether Lucy was a missing link or just another fossil monkey. It's good for science to have people in the field who don't conform to a materialistic bias, because then our perspective isn't constricted by one camp. Sometimes, we catch things that you miss, because you weren't looking in that direction at all (and vice-versa).
The article makes it sound as though Titleserv did not own the copyright to the code. If there was an oral agreement and Krause owned the software, and it was copyrighted by Krause, then Titleserv's claim to own the software is not really correct. If the developer is hired by the company to create software without signing some sort of contract, then why should the company own it? If I pay you to make a program for me, do I own your code?
It seems to me that the company only has been granted the right to the software because it is a company rather than an individual. It seems that there been a lot of laws passed recently that have the effect of passing power away from individuals and toward corporations--I think the DMCA falls under that category. And if this is true, what does it mean for us as individuals?
"THE hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church has published a teaching document instructing the faithful that some parts of the Bible are not actually true."
Probably the part about not needing to confess your sins to a priest to be forgiven?
Well, some people may come off that way because they're angry, but I think you can agree that my post did none of the above. I'm merely pointing out that ID proponents are not very good at separating science from religion, if (as you claim) that's what they're trying to do.
I don't agree. I've read a lot of ID websites that (I think) are very good at presenting their theory without resorting to religious ideas to support it.
By your definition of IC (I'm tired of typing that out!) some things are too complex to be explained by evolution (note: I've never seen an example that wasn't explained by evolution under scrutiny). However, IC does not give an alternative explanation. Without one, it just implies that we need to refine evolutionary theory -- it doesn't offer an alternative.
Sure, evolution provides an explanation that many feel is adequate, but to me it's not enough to explain why things are the way they are. I won't go into all the reasons here, since many people more knowledgeable than i have done so on other sites, but ID has an uphill battle to first show that evolution is inadequate (and most people don't think it is, but there are good reasons why it is) and second to show that another theory explains the data better. ID takes the perspective that there's no need to invent some natural evolutionary means by which the universe was created, if the data more plainly supports the theory that some Intelligent Designer created the universe. This does not mean that we throw up our hands and give up on science. Quite the opposite, it means we are free to study our origins and the laws of the universe without having to either conform to a naturalistic explanation or throw out the data.
Now ID comes along and gives that alternative explanation -- a supernatural creator (please don't go on a tangent about "natural" creators like aliens or something - that just moves the debate to how the aliens developed in the first place). Supernatural creator == not science. It's an explanation, but it's not a scientific explanation, and that's my point.
Agreed, you can't test a supernatural creator to see if it exists. However, you can test the creation, to see if it was created or not. That's the basic idea behind Intelligent Design. Without trying to go into the realm of religion, test scientifically whether or not there is a Designer.
I think I can see your perspective just fine. Can you see mine?
I'll let you be the judge of that. Did I understand you correctly?
My roommate bought a mac g5 recently, to use Final Cut Pro. I don't think these analysts have any idea what they're talking about. He didn't SWITCH to a mac, he just uses it for the great video editing it can do. I told him he could run wow and the other games he plays regularly, and he was pleasantly surprised.;) I'm sure there are many cases like this. (Personally I don't use a mac, if you were wondering.)
If you have windows, use partimage and system rescue cd, and you'll be good as new every 6 months.:)
The trouble is, people sometimes see their view as dogmatically correct and cannot even fathom an alternate point of view. Which is why you resort to insults rather than actually adding anything to the discussion, I suppose.
If you didn't see the value in what I wrote above, then you didn't realize that people are picking apart the definition of "literally" to the point of making the discussion worthless. I attempted to bring clarity to the issue, but if clarity is not what you're looking for, then you've succeeded. You successfully called me 'dogmatic' 'self-righteous' and 'closed minded' without adding anything to the discussion, and now, rather than adding anything else of value to the discussion, I'm having to defend my character and motives as well. Congratulations.
Put this all together and you get a conjecture that says that this "irreducibly complex" entity cannot exist according to the physical laws of the universe. Not the laws as we know them, but any physical laws of the universe. IDers don't say, "Gee, this looks like it's too complex to exist, therefore we musn't have a complete understanding of the universe." No, they say, "this must be the product of supernatural intervention."
This is a logical flaw in your understanding of ID. Proponents of Evolution state that as part of their theory, everything that currently exists is a product of natural processes. Irreducible complexity is the idea that something is too complex to have arisen by purely natural processes (evolution), not that it is too complex to exist.
I love how this forum is full of people ready and willing to unite against ID and call ID proponents everything from fascists to fundamentalists to horrible people who should be silenced at all costs. I personally don't put myself into any of these categories, but you're free to think and do what you'd like. God knows I can't stop an army of angry mutant evolutionists.:)
Ultimately, the hate I see here comes from a deep misunderstanding of our perspective and, unfortunately, a lot of crap throwing from both sides. So maybe when people like me are silenced, you can go back to attacking each other.
One thing I should mention is that ID proponents are VERY concerned with keeping science separate from religion. We also admit, as some evolutionists might not, that a theory about our origins, scientific in nature and well meaning though it might be, does have profound religious and philosophical implications.
So if you take all of the Bible literally, how do you handle things that we KNOW aren't accurate? Like "floodgates of heaven" to explain rain? Or a value of pi that's exactly three? The fact that the Bible pretty explicitly supports a geocentric universe, if you don't allow for any interpretation?
Well, besides the fact that I don't remember the value of pi being defined in the Bible, the text should be interpreted precisely like any intelligent person would interpret text. Determine the purpose first. For example, Psalms are poems, and so they are largely allegory, while Genesis is taken more literally since its purpose is to account history. I hope you can see that in a book designed to recount history, a sentence like:
Genesis 7:11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month--on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.
should be taken as a description, literal in context but not literal in subject (as if there were actual flood gates in the sky). The writer relied on our discernment to understand that. Was he mislead to assume you could tell the difference?
No one would say the Bible is "literally" true if they allowed you to define literally the way you did. But, you found another way to make us spend more time redefining our terms and less time defending a 'literal' interpretation of the Bible. Congratulations.
I wish game companies cared more about making audiences happy and less about locking into a contract with a console.
There have been games that I really wanted to play that were only available on console, and others that were only available on computer (or the "good" version was only available on computer).
Then a select few were good on both, like Final Fantasy 7. Anyway, the industry wants you to buy all of the above, and I would guess that a good number of us who play games have both consoles and computers, and spent thousands on both.
And I go and buy games that look interesting, and then don't have time to play them, but that's another issue altogether...
Slashdot Mirror
The very same peer that resets my connection every 5 minutes.
DAMN YOU PEER!!!
Thanks for posting this article. It's very eye opening. The last quote from the article:
If you want to really worry about civil liberties, forget the Patriot Act. Start looking at the other stuff that's on the books, without even the excuse of fighting terrorism. But nobody, on either side of the aisle, really wants you doing that.
Probably not much. After all, corporations already have more rights and freedoms than individuals. It's not much of a stretch.
C'mon, buy Wikipedia already. "Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," and Wikipedia fits that goal better than Google Groups does.
I first found Wikipedia on Google Search. I think they've done a fairly well job at organizing information that already exists. Google's goal isn't to create more information... there's plenty out there already, and Wikipedia's just one source.
This represents a milestone in consumers getting what they want. 1) This may be the first time a major band sells copyrighted mp3s without DRM 2) This is the first album on media that can be rewritten to since the tape deck 3) I convert them to mp3 to play in my car anyway I only hope this will be a hit and more bands follow suit.
I'll throw out the chimp argument and while I'm at it I'll toss the whole theory of evolution. Let's assume that the theory of evolution does not exist, or has been discredited or something. Now, we witness the existence of life on earth. You claim that ID is a scientific theory that explains the existence of life. I say that your theory is not scientific. What evidence do you have that you can convince me with? I looked briefly at the site you referenced, but all I could find were attacks on evolution. Either give some evidence in your own words, or link to a page with a specific piece of evidence.
Good, now that that's out of the way...
The problem with the question that you propose is that it's designed to fail: "Apart from a creator, how do you explain how this got here?" If there was indeed a creator, then that possibility must be taken into account in the realm of scientific inquiry. We know science deals with the known, not the unknown, but science first makes assumptions about things that we can not know empirically: We assume that we are capable of solving problems through logic, we assume that if we observe something repeatedly, we can predict that it will happen consistently. We assume that the universe has law and predictability (as opposed to unpredictability). The basic assumptions of science are predicted by ID.
It is known, for example, through scientific inquiry, that cell interactions are complex and interdependent, and that complex structures such as the eye are finely tuned for a specific purpose. Both of these are evidence for Intelligent Design. Sorry, I only used these two because I don't have time to find others for now, but I can find more later.
Intelligent Design is scientific precisely because it operates within the framework of reason. It can be used as the basis for scientific predictions, it can be used as the basis for further tests and discoveries, and it can be falsified by naturalistic evidence. I'll see if I can dig up some sites that attempt to falsify it later.
It may or may not fit your definition of 'theory' because the current definition of theory is based on a naturalistic world view, one where naturalistic explanations are the only ones accepted, but ID is needed precisely because of this bias in the scientific community.
Do you really want evidence, or are you just looking for an excuse to attack me because I falsified the "evidence" that you provided? I did mention a few things in previous posts, but I think you ignored them so that you could say that I didn't present any evidence.
Read some of the many resources at this site if you doubt that ID has scientific merit. And also, I still want to hear your defense of the chimp argument, or you can concede that it wasn't really a good argument and we can move on. If you don't defend it or toss it out, I'll just assume you'd rather attack me than stand behind your words, and our conversation will be over.
Without going further, where did you get the statistic from? Or is it "common knowledge"? I do a great deal of source checking before I make a statement such as this one, because it's a very incredible statement to make. We share 98% of our DNA with chimps?
Please see this article before trying to explain to me why you think we share 98% of our DNA with chimps. And did you even read my argument for homologous structures? This by itself is not enough to prove anything about evolution. If I wanted to make a house, would I not use four walls and a roof? If I wanted to create bones that were light and strong, would I not use the same organic materials in all of my mammal projects?
Don't even get started about Haeckel's experiments on embryos, the data of which were falsified a long time ago. See this biography of him from UC Berkeley if you're in doubt about the validity of his theory of recapitulation (which by the way is sometimes STILL taught in schools as fact despite its rejection by evolutionists).
If you're interested in knowing more about the lies you've been taught, I can furnish you with many more examples. There isn't "a ton" of evidence for evolution.
If the "natural phenomena" that you're referring to is life on Earth, then I would disagree with that statement. I think that it's possible to conclude, scientifically, that life *could have been* designed (in fact the argument would be trivial), but to say that it *was* designed is something else entirely. You would have to find a test that would show that it was designed rather than, say, just suddely appearing because of the highly unlikely arrangement of a buch of atoms. Both of those things are possible, but to argue that one of them is worthy of being a theory requires evidence and testability.
Will you agree that by saying this, you are implying that the Theory of Evolution shows that animals *did* come from other animals, rather than that they *could have*? Earlier, you stated that a theory is unprovable. Therefore, Evolution as a theory is no more provable than ID is. When one gathers evidence it either makes a theory stronger or it weakens it, prompting us to change it to fit the data. Order in a chaotic world is some of the evidence for Intelligent Design. Furthermore, there is evidence that it is very unlikely (statistically impossible) for a bunch of atoms to arrange themselves in a manner that would create life from nonlife. There are two possibilities, they either were arranged by the natural forces that we understand and can measure currently, or they were arranged by a natural or unnatural force or forces that we don't yet understand. Our present knowledge of the laws of the universe is insufficient to explain life from nonlife, and the fossil and biological evidence does not support the transition from one type of animal to another (I avoid using the term species because its definition does not give clarity to the debate, see my previous posts).
Evolutionists puzzled by this apparent order and refusing to invoke a Creator have suggested some far out explanations to this: Some have suggested that aliens dropped us off or something to that effect, while others simply let it go as a currently unknown and unexplainable trait of life (which is quite acceptable in the realm of science). ID provides an explanation for this phenomenon, as well as some predictions moving forward about the complexity of life as we discover more about the way the world works, while the Theory of Evolution predicted more simplicity of design.
Speculation: I doubt Darwin would have promoted his Theory of Evolution as it stands if he really knew how complex human cells are, or if he knew that the fossil record would provide us with not one solid piece of evidence for a transitional form (the evidences in our textbooks are quite suspect, although this will sound like paranoia until you really research it for yourself and talk to a forensic anthropologist). I don't doubt that this theory has given us a lot of good and progressive ideas in science (although it has also been ill-used to justify some horrible things in our past like racism), but it's time to move on and consider something that makes more sense.
Of course, you could always buy a second battery... personally, I'm looking forward to fuel cells because as soon as there's an alternative to rechargeable batteries, their prices will go down!
Not that all scientists would label themselves explicitly materialist, but note that it is essentially the view that we can actually make observations and that the explanations of observable phenomena are humanly achievable that lies at the heart of it.
Without trying to repeat myself too much, a materialistic world view isn't necessary for the scientific method to work. In other words, if you have a christian world view for example, the scientific method works because you believe in a sensible order to the universe and to the way things work (which by the way was the original reason why people thought they could understand the universe at all).
Really? The implications of evolution are controversial? Pharmaceutical research and testing, botany, genetic research? These are hardly groundless, unscientific endevours. Or did you mean controversial in some politcal sense?
None of these require the Theory of Evolution as an explanation for how we came to be. They do require an understanding of genetics, chemistry, and other sciences that are completely compatible with the theory of ID. One of the reasons most people don't understand this is because before evolution, scientists thought that fixity of species was law, and other such unproven nonsense. Darwin also thought that the cell was nothing more than a blob of protoplasm, so we move past all that and look at the current theories to judge them, not the past blunders. What I mean by saying that Evolution's implications are controversial is that the Theory of Evolution lends itself to an atheistic world view, because if you can explain how we got here through natural processes, you don't need to invoke a creator except to explain the 'first cause'. ID doesn't attempt to explain the universe supernaturally after that 'first cause' either, it uses the scientific method.
The fact that homologous structures are neither totally different or exactly the same is in fact evidence for natural selection.
Are you sure? Going back to my previous example with cars, most cars have different sized wheels, yet they all have the same purpose. You wouldn't put a human hand on a small lizard, nor would you put a monster truck tire on a bicycle, but you would match the parts with the whole. I don't pretend that this is a perfect analogy, but it should be enough for you to see where I'm coming from.
I have read the article "29 evidences for Macroevolution" already. See This link for a critique of the paper you mentioned above. It clarifies the ID position, because at the heart of the argument, I believe, is a misunderstanding of the difference between evolution as an observable change (the word evolution means change and i have nothing against the word itself) and the Theory of Evolution which accounts for all life being the result of either tiny changes or punctuated equilibrium.
As for speciation, that doesn't pose a problem for ID because of this difference: In ID, there isn't a problem if a bird with existing genetic information and another identical bird go to different regions, their genes become isolated, and their populations become different species as we define species today. However, if we postulate that based on this fact, a bird can add genetic information to the point that it can become, say, a squirrel (through multiple tiny changes over long periods of time), there is just no evidence for this. We have seen mutations occur, where genetic material is added or changed, but not to the point that it is beneficial, and the rate of mutation is always wrong in some way (in bacteria it is too fast, in humans it is too small in studies i've read, yes, i'm generalizing here.)
Here is a good article that explains it better than I did. You can do a search for "speciation".
Note that *no* valid scientific theory is provable
Yeah, I know, I was in a rush
OK, but what I'm saying is that science is by necessity constrained to a strictly naturalistic wold view. Science is the study of what we observe. It is the study of things that can be measured and tested. You can redefine science to include that which is not a part of the material world, but I would argue that it would then become useless.
Science is by necessity constrained to the observable. That does not mean that a naturalistic world view is necessary. Science as a way of observing and forming hypotheses to understand the world was first practiced by the early church, so it's hard to argue that science by necessity takes a naturalistic world view. I don't think I redefined science to include the realm of the supernatural either. I never said God was testable, nor do proponents of ID. What we are saying instead is that a scientist can study natural phenomena and reach a conclusion that it has been designed, just as he/she can reach the same conclusion by studying artifacts of human civilization.
I don't want to be insulting, but wouldn't an unbiased perspective require the same evidence for the existence of God that it requires for the existence of the Earth? Be careful about who you are calling biased -- the whole point of science is to try to be unbiased.
No offense taken. An unbiased perspective, as I see it, takes into account all ideas and possibilities, and does not outright eliminate any possibility until proven false. Nor does it seek to promote one idea above another, regardless of the pressure of society, media, and community that promote that idea. If you think this is not a fair definition of unbiased, let me know. Now, we obviously promote the ideas that we think fit best, but first we try to form an unbiased, objective opinion about it, and then we use that information to interpret future results. A materialistic world view colors the interpretation of data just like a christian world view, or any other, would. That does mean we are all prone to bias, but it doesn't mean that we can't attempt to be as unbiased as possible when experimenting.
Unfortunately, it's also true that people on both sides will use science to push their agendas, and this is not limited to the realm of ID vs Evolution. I appreciate any scientist who puts their quest for knowledge above their own agenda, but they're hard to find in the realm of origins, since the implications of Evolution and of ID are very controversial. I've been at a point of having to critically study both sides myself to understand where each was coming from, before I took a side on it. I spent months reading articles from talk.origins and true.origin and many related sites, and there is still so much to learn.
I'm a bit confused by your last paragraph. You say that 'ID scientists do not attempt to explain natural phenomena with supernatural theories (such as "it was created to be that way")' but you don't say what their explanation is. I'm pretty sure that the intelligent design explanation either A) invokes the supernatural or B) gives no explanation at all. Can you tell me what the "real" ID explanation is? If you could give an explicit explanation of how something that is supposedly "irreducibly complex" exists without using evolution, then I'm sure I could point out the problems with the explanation. I'll also point out that my argument would probably hinge on showing why a non-materialistic explanation really doesn't provide us with any useful information (i.e. an untestable theory can't be used for anything) and is therefore not considered to be science.
Evolution has been called the "unifying theory" because people have taken it out of its original context to explain everything from variation and adaptation to society's structure to language. While I have no problem with using the idea of evolution to help people to understand these things, I do see a problem with the way the term is used that confuses the issue.
Evolution is used to mean 'change', but
Right there is the fundamental misunderstanding. Science only studies that which is naturalistic. If you want to explain the origins of the universe scientifically, you can't consider the supernatural. If you do, you're not doing science. ID proponents can redefine science if they want to, but that doesn't mean that the "science" that they're doing is the same as what real scientists are doing.
I understand what you're trying to say, but I think you are misunderstanding the position of ID again. Let me try to explain what I mean. If someone refuses to believe in a supernatural beginning, evolution is the only possibility. However, evolution looks very absurd when you look at it from an unbiased perspective. For instance, the probabilities involved, the lack of concrete fossil evidence, mutation evidence, the question of "first cause" and many other irreconcilable facts (that probably don't need to be listed in this response) give people more questions than answers. Many of these problems are glossed over by assuming that "with enough time anything is possible".
What I'm trying to say is, that while evolution is a theory that can account for the present state of things, it is not the only scientific possibility unless you constrain yourself to a strictly naturalistic world view. And if you do so, your assumptions skew the conclusions you will have at the end of any scientific study, further causing bias in the community. This is what has happened over a period of time to the point that evolution is accepted by most people without second thought as fact.
ID scientists do not attempt to explain natural phenomena with supernatural theories (such as "it was created to be that way"). They use the scientific method to observe, formulate theories, test them, refine them, and ultimately arrive at conclusions, just as materialistic scientists do. They may arrive at data that seems to contradict their theories, just as a materialistic scientist does, but the evidence seems to indicate that ID rather than evolution is where we come from. No, they don't change evidence, they look at it with a critical eye. But facts give rise to interpretations, and many interpretations are less concrete than most people want to admit. For example, see the ongoing debate about whether Neanderthals could interbreed with humans or not, and the debates over whether Lucy was a missing link or just another fossil monkey. It's good for science to have people in the field who don't conform to a materialistic bias, because then our perspective isn't constricted by one camp. Sometimes, we catch things that you miss, because you weren't looking in that direction at all (and vice-versa).
The article makes it sound as though Titleserv did not own the copyright to the code. If there was an oral agreement and Krause owned the software, and it was copyrighted by Krause, then Titleserv's claim to own the software is not really correct. If the developer is hired by the company to create software without signing some sort of contract, then why should the company own it? If I pay you to make a program for me, do I own your code?
It seems to me that the company only has been granted the right to the software because it is a company rather than an individual. It seems that there been a lot of laws passed recently that have the effect of passing power away from individuals and toward corporations--I think the DMCA falls under that category. And if this is true, what does it mean for us as individuals?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-1811 332,00.html
"THE hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church has published a teaching document instructing the faithful that some parts of the Bible are not actually true."
Probably the part about not needing to confess your sins to a priest to be forgiven?
Well, some people may come off that way because they're angry, but I think you can agree that my post did none of the above. I'm merely pointing out that ID proponents are not very good at separating science from religion, if (as you claim) that's what they're trying to do.
I don't agree. I've read a lot of ID websites that (I think) are very good at presenting their theory without resorting to religious ideas to support it.
By your definition of IC (I'm tired of typing that out!) some things are too complex to be explained by evolution (note: I've never seen an example that wasn't explained by evolution under scrutiny). However, IC does not give an alternative explanation. Without one, it just implies that we need to refine evolutionary theory -- it doesn't offer an alternative.
Sure, evolution provides an explanation that many feel is adequate, but to me it's not enough to explain why things are the way they are. I won't go into all the reasons here, since many people more knowledgeable than i have done so on other sites, but ID has an uphill battle to first show that evolution is inadequate (and most people don't think it is, but there are good reasons why it is) and second to show that another theory explains the data better. ID takes the perspective that there's no need to invent some natural evolutionary means by which the universe was created, if the data more plainly supports the theory that some Intelligent Designer created the universe. This does not mean that we throw up our hands and give up on science. Quite the opposite, it means we are free to study our origins and the laws of the universe without having to either conform to a naturalistic explanation or throw out the data.
Now ID comes along and gives that alternative explanation -- a supernatural creator (please don't go on a tangent about "natural" creators like aliens or something - that just moves the debate to how the aliens developed in the first place). Supernatural creator == not science. It's an explanation, but it's not a scientific explanation, and that's my point.
Agreed, you can't test a supernatural creator to see if it exists. However, you can test the creation, to see if it was created or not. That's the basic idea behind Intelligent Design. Without trying to go into the realm of religion, test scientifically whether or not there is a Designer.
I think I can see your perspective just fine. Can you see mine?
I'll let you be the judge of that. Did I understand you correctly?
My roommate bought a mac g5 recently, to use Final Cut Pro. I don't think these analysts have any idea what they're talking about. He didn't SWITCH to a mac, he just uses it for the great video editing it can do. I told him he could run wow and the other games he plays regularly, and he was pleasantly surprised. ;) I'm sure there are many cases like this. (Personally I don't use a mac, if you were wondering.)
:)
If you have windows, use partimage and system rescue cd, and you'll be good as new every 6 months.
The trouble is, people sometimes see their view as dogmatically correct and cannot even fathom an alternate point of view. Which is why you resort to insults rather than actually adding anything to the discussion, I suppose.
If you didn't see the value in what I wrote above, then you didn't realize that people are picking apart the definition of "literally" to the point of making the discussion worthless. I attempted to bring clarity to the issue, but if clarity is not what you're looking for, then you've succeeded. You successfully called me 'dogmatic' 'self-righteous' and 'closed minded' without adding anything to the discussion, and now, rather than adding anything else of value to the discussion, I'm having to defend my character and motives as well. Congratulations.
Put this all together and you get a conjecture that says that this "irreducibly complex" entity cannot exist according to the physical laws of the universe. Not the laws as we know them, but any physical laws of the universe. IDers don't say, "Gee, this looks like it's too complex to exist, therefore we musn't have a complete understanding of the universe." No, they say, "this must be the product of supernatural intervention."
This is a logical flaw in your understanding of ID. Proponents of Evolution state that as part of their theory, everything that currently exists is a product of natural processes. Irreducible complexity is the idea that something is too complex to have arisen by purely natural processes (evolution), not that it is too complex to exist.
I love how this forum is full of people ready and willing to unite against ID and call ID proponents everything from fascists to fundamentalists to horrible people who should be silenced at all costs. I personally don't put myself into any of these categories, but you're free to think and do what you'd like. God knows I can't stop an army of angry mutant evolutionists. :)
Ultimately, the hate I see here comes from a deep misunderstanding of our perspective and, unfortunately, a lot of crap throwing from both sides. So maybe when people like me are silenced, you can go back to attacking each other.
One thing I should mention is that ID proponents are VERY concerned with keeping science separate from religion. We also admit, as some evolutionists might not, that a theory about our origins, scientific in nature and well meaning though it might be, does have profound religious and philosophical implications.
So if you take all of the Bible literally, how do you handle things that we KNOW aren't accurate? Like "floodgates of heaven" to explain rain? Or a value of pi that's exactly three? The fact that the Bible pretty explicitly supports a geocentric universe, if you don't allow for any interpretation?
Well, besides the fact that I don't remember the value of pi being defined in the Bible, the text should be interpreted precisely like any intelligent person would interpret text. Determine the purpose first. For example, Psalms are poems, and so they are largely allegory, while Genesis is taken more literally since its purpose is to account history. I hope you can see that in a book designed to recount history, a sentence like:
Genesis 7:11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month--on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.
should be taken as a description, literal in context but not literal in subject (as if there were actual flood gates in the sky). The writer relied on our discernment to understand that. Was he mislead to assume you could tell the difference?
No one would say the Bible is "literally" true if they allowed you to define literally the way you did. But, you found another way to make us spend more time redefining our terms and less time defending a 'literal' interpretation of the Bible. Congratulations.
Which is ironic because you not only had time to read it, but you also bothered to post about it. ;)
I wish game companies cared more about making audiences happy and less about locking into a contract with a console. There have been games that I really wanted to play that were only available on console, and others that were only available on computer (or the "good" version was only available on computer). Then a select few were good on both, like Final Fantasy 7. Anyway, the industry wants you to buy all of the above, and I would guess that a good number of us who play games have both consoles and computers, and spent thousands on both. And I go and buy games that look interesting, and then don't have time to play them, but that's another issue altogether...