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Topic: Intelligent Design Might Be Meeting Its Maker
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Snuckles
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2764
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posted 04 December 2005 09:38 AM
quote: By LAURIE GOODSTEIN Published: December 4, 2005TO read the headlines, intelligent design as a challenge to evolution seems to be building momentum. In Kansas last month, the board of education voted that students should be exposed to critiques of evolution like intelligent design. At a trial of the Dover, Pa., school board that ended last month, two of the movement's leading academics presented their ideas to a courtroom filled with spectators and reporters from around the world. President Bush endorsed teaching "both sides" of the debate - a position that polls show is popular. And Pope Benedict XVI weighed in recently, declaring the universe an "intelligent project." Intelligent design posits that the complexity of biological life is itself evidence of a higher being at work. As a political cause, the idea has gained currency, and for good reason. The movement was intended to be a "big tent" that would attract everyone from biblical creationists who regard the Book of Genesis as literal truth to academics who believe that secular universities are hostile to faith. The slogan, "Teach the controversy," has simple appeal in a democracy. Behind the headlines, however, intelligent design as a field of inquiry is failing to gain the traction its supporters had hoped for. It has gained little support among the academics who should have been its natural allies. And if the intelligent design proponents lose the case in Dover, there could be serious consequences for the movement's credibility.
Read it here. (login & password here.)
From: Hell | Registered: Jun 2002
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Bobolink
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5909
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posted 05 December 2005 12:21 AM
One arguement against intelligent design is the lack of intelligence in the design. One would better argue for dumb design or incompetant design.Why, as creatures who walk upright, were humans given the respiratory system of an animal that walks on four legs? Our noses drain the wrong way and we are constantly bothered by upper resiratory tract infections because of this. Humans have an appendix and two tonsils. Why? And why is the eye which is often held up as an example of intelligent design so badly designed? Why is it susceptible to glaucoma, retinitis pigmentosa, diabetic retinapathy, macular degeneration, etc? For that matter, why do blue whales have foot bones? [ 05 December 2005: Message edited by: Bobolink ] [ 05 December 2005: Message edited by: Bobolink ]
From: Stirling, ON | Registered: May 2004
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Mr. Magoo
guilty-pleasure
Babbler # 3469
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posted 05 December 2005 01:39 PM
I think that all silliness, absurdity, contradiction or downright stupidity in the Bible has historically been swept under the existential rug with "But God works in mysterious ways".If God wants whales to have exactly the same bone structure in their fins as humans have in their hands and bats in their wings, even though one is for swimming, one for holding and one for flying, well, who are we to question that? Surely He has a reason that is far to Goddish for any of us mortals to even comprehend. And if we try too hard to comprehend That Which We Are Not Supposed To, we might find our Eternal Soul in the crapper.
From: ø¤°`°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°`°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°°¤ø, | Registered: Dec 2002
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Boarsbreath
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 9831
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posted 05 December 2005 07:44 PM
But it has met its maker. It's on intimate terms with its maker, as are we all. It was a foundation myth, then a scripture, then a doctrine, then a theory, then a movement called Creationism (some genetic drift, in the island of America), and now behold! the new species, as 'new' as any species can be, of ID. (A bit of happy convergent evolution with the Freudian term.)
From: South Seas, ex Montreal | Registered: Jul 2005
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Transplant
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 9960
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posted 06 December 2005 05:44 PM
quote: Originally posted by Kassandra:
This isn't science and doesn't belong in a science class.
The only place it belongs is in the dust bin of history. And certain counties in Kansas. Just so we have a precautionary tale that we can point to. [ 06 December 2005: Message edited by: Transplant ]
From: Free North America | Registered: Jul 2005
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Ron Webb
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2256
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posted 06 December 2005 09:06 PM
quote: Originally posted by Bobolink: One arguement against intelligent design is the lack of intelligence in the design. One would better argue for dumb design or incompetant design.
Exactly. I read Michael Behe's book, "Darwin's Black Box", which is often cited as the foundation of Intelligent Design Theory. Behe takes several biological processes, mostly at the cellular level as I recall, and analyses them in great detail to show how "designed" they are.What struck me from beginning to end was not how brilliant and logical the processes were, but how convoluted and counterintuitive they are. Images of Rube Goldberg's inventions kept popping up in my mind... Take the process of blood clotting, for example. Behe starts with the presence of an enzyme to cause the blood to clot -- an essential process if the animal is to avoid bleeding to death from every little injury. But of course, you don't want the blood to clot in the veins, so there's another enzyme (or something) that inhibits the action of the first one. Then there's another enzyme released by damaged cells (at the injury site) that blocks the action of the second enzyme, allowing the first to do its job. And another one that inhibits the action of that enzyme, I forget why. And on and on, with enzymes counteracting each other one after another. All the while I'm thinking, why couldn't God have just squirted some radiator "Stop-Leak" into our veins??
From: Winnipeg | Registered: Feb 2002
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Transplant
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 9960
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posted 15 December 2005 02:42 PM
Meanwhile, in the War on Evolution...Attacks on evolution officially go over the edge The Carpetbagger Report - I've followed the creationist movement for years, and I thought I'd seen just about every attack on modern biology imaginable. Alas, I was wrong. As one very astute reader brought to my attention, Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum published its latest attack on evolution this week with one argument that left me shaking my head — and reaching for the Tylenol. quote: Evolutionists claim that their battle against creation-science is primarily a "scientific" issue, not a constitutional question. But our treasured U. S. Constitution is written by persons and for persons. If man is an animal, the Constitution was written by animals and for animals. This preposterous conclusion destroys the Constitution. The Aguillard Humanists leave us with no Constitution and no constitutional rights of any kind if they allow us to teach only that man is an animal.These subtle and dangerous attacks on God Himself and the Constitution must be repelled.
From: Free North America | Registered: Jul 2005
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