Intelligent design... bunk built on a lie

[LuckyTheDog]

I have been reading up a bit on “intelligent design.”

The whole movement is built on a straw-man argument: that believing in evolution means ones is necessarily and atheist. That is bunk.

"Intelligent design" is not science. It is not an "alternative" to evolution. On its face, intelligent design seems to be a philosophical movement -- one that, ironically, could easily be compatible with a belief in evolution.

Either these people either totally misunderstand the nature of science, or else the whole IE thing is just a back-handed attempt to smear evolutionary science as anti-God. But either way, IE is non-science, and should be kept out of science class.

Below is a link from a pro-IE Web site. Their own words confirm my view:

http://www.intelligentdesignnetwork.org/NCBQ3_3HarrisCalvert.pdf

[On the Road]

1. One of the Things They Love to Do

is to repeat the name "Darwin." It's much easier to build up antipathy if there's a bogeyman.

And -- they can claim that Darwin was wrong about X, Y, and Z. Perfectly true. Darwin didn't know much of anything by modern standards. DNA wasn't discovered for a hundred years. The fossil record was poor. He was confused about many things, just like you expect from a founder of a discipline before it's been built up.

There is roughly a century and a half of science since Darwin's ideas were formed. If the intelligent design people want to put forward an alternate scientific theory, they better get moving. There's a lot of science to catch up on, and the gap is growing every day.

The ID people don't even seem to have a coherent scenario. It does not come anywhere near qualifying as a scientific theory.

[jedicord]

2. "Creationism is a Theory, too"

That's what this lady said to me yesterday. I tried explaining what makes a theory, and that Creationism wasn't a theory it was faith.

She swore up and down it was theory, and that's why they should teach it in our schools.

My head still hurts from our "discussion", which included "that's what's wrong with our country, our children aren't being taught about God."

Which ended with my statement, "Then take your kid to church."

ARGGHH!:banghead:

[Maat]

3. You're right.

In my faith (Church of Religious Science), religion and science are compatible, hence the name.


If God is within each one of us, and within everything, and, if everything is a part of God, including the System, why couldn't evolution and natural selection be a part of it (and I believe that's the case).

But CRS is my faith (a.k.a. my philosophy, my religion, and/or my belief system)- and my kid can be taught about it in philosophy, religious, or religious history class - it is not appropriate to be taught in science class).

I quite agree.

P.S. I suppose it IS a theory - a philosophical concept - but it is not a scientific theory - and, hence, it does not belong in science class.

You've got me curious - tomorrow I'll look up the definitions of 'theory.' I'm tired, however, and I go to bed.

Good night, DU!

[Doyce]

4. Theory of Evolution

Evolution is a scientific fact. According to what I have
read, the intelligent design people don't have a problem
with evolution. They have a problem with the Theory of
Evolution.

The Theory of Evolution states that all changes to a species
is a result of random changes to DNA and that it is all
internal. No external forces affect the changes.

The intelligent design people feel that this theory cannot
explain all the developments in various species and they are
trying to come up with something to explain away the problems
they see.

I'm not sure they believe an all powerful intelligence is
behind their intelligent design theory, but perhaps I am
wrong. Maybe when they refer to intelligence, they are not
talking about intelligence in the human sense, but a genetic
intelligence, the way a plant turns toward the sun or the way
roots seek out water.

I got the impression that they were scientists trying to explain
problems with the theory of evolution, not people trying to
booster the theory of creationism, even though religious people
may try to use this new idea to booster their creationism.

Am I anywhere near correct? :)

[Maat]

5. Well, I did read that evolution refers to the factual information..

but that 'natural selection' is the theory.

None of this is a problem for my faith because whatever is ... is what Spirit created. So, it is not a problem, no matter what the system.

It matters not - in the sense that I want my daughter taught facts in science, and about the theory of evolution ...

and our religious beliefs in church.

[carl_pwccaman]

6. Philosophy isn't Science

Again, wrong class.

Intelligent design belongs in philosophy class, it is not about applying scientific methods scientifically and dealing with scientific definitions and hypothesis.

The definitions of god are not hard-science scientific, they don't hold up to anything material or testable or clear enough to formulte and speak mathematically about, etc.

The hypothesis is philosophical, it is not based in scientific standards of evidence, method, and analysis/interpretation.

The methodology is philosophical or theological/apologetics, not science.

For something to be in science class, it should involve scientific method, hypothesis, fact-finding, evidence analysis.

Categorical error.

============

Re: intelligent design...

An interesting side of both intelligent design AND evolution, is if you look at each philosophically and ask what can be said about the ethical nature or qualities of the forces at work (for design or evolution) you can come up with things like 'ignorant' or 'mindless' or 'perverse' even 'sadistic'

[Doyce]

7. scientific method and the theory of evolution

The idea that the theory of evolution is hard science may be true up
to a point, but it seems incomplete to me. I'm not arguing against
it. I just don't understand how people can argue so strongly for it,
when no one seems to be able to prove it true.

The scientific method is:
1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.
The theory of evolution follows this first step.

2. Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. The theory
of evolution even follows this second step.

3. Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other
phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new
observations. I'm not sure about this step.

4. Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several
independent experimenters and properly performed experiments. Here's
where the problem is. The theory of evolution, as far as I know,
has never been proved. It may not even be possible to prove it. How
do you conduct an experiment to prove something based on random
changes over millions of years.

Why not just say that the theory of evolution is the best that
science can come up with, but is still just a theory and may have
flaws? That seems perfectly reasonable to me. Why do people seem
to get so upset, whenever anyone questions it. I can understand
people not wanting to confuse religion and philosophy with science,
but it seems to me that people in the scientific community have
overreacted to challenges by the religious community by raising
the theory of evolution to almost the status of scientific fact.