I saw a car the other day with a Flying Spaghetti Monster log (ala the fish or the Darwin fish) I gotta get me one of them.
For the life of me I don't understand how people can look square in the face of some pretty easy to intrepret evidence and draw the wrong answer. (of course the ID folk say the same thing about our side.)
I could tell by the movie's trailer that there was something wrong with it. From what I can tell, Stein posits that subscribing to evolution is definitionally anethema to faith. To which I say A) no it's not and B) so what if it is?
I know many faithful (even devout) people who are wonderful scientists, and fully accept evolution.
I used to think highly of Ben Stien, used to that is. How can someone so intelligent "fall to the dark side?"I am flabber gasted over him doing this. The quotes out of context. Professor Dawkins gets misquoted and quote mined so often he can't sneeze with out someone saying he is switching to crationism.
PZ Meyers was barred from attending the movie's opening. Kind of makes the ID folk look like a bunch of fascists. Mr. Steins assertion that scientists are standing it the way of truth is laughable, or would be if it didn't gain so much traction. I do science for a living, and its clear that the people who produced the movie simply don't understand what we do.
We have the same fossils and the same evidence. The video, frankly, makes Ben Stein's point. It's very discouraging to reply to posts like this when it seems like everyone is missing the point. The point is that, as far as creationists (like me) are concerned, treating Darwinian evolution as a stated fact *stifles* scientific inquiry. Dawkins et. al. don't realize that THEY'RE the censors who are deliberately hiding facts from our children in science classes by not even acknowleging the possibility of any part of evolutionary theory being wrong. We have the same fossils - but neither side wins! Nothing in ID contradicts evidence. Only our conclusions are different because of different but still unprovable starting assumptions.
The point is that, as far as creationists (like me) are concerned, treating Darwinian evolution as a stated fact
But, see what the ID crowd totally misses is that here in the scientific community there is tons of debate on how, when and why evolution happens. That's one of the reasons that it is science, because we can test evidence. The Discovery Institute isn't open to alternative views in the least. You rely on the book of Genesis and fit all your evidence around it, rather than looking at the facts on the ground and trying to interpret it independantly. Trust me, if there was verifiable evidence that something in the current theory of evolution was wrong, I and most others like me will be more than willing to own up that we were wrong. If you have been told that science teachers are holding back "Facts" disproving evolution please bring them to my attention.
And you can't use the "different starting assumptions argument for all situations. I don't 'assume' that carbon dating is reliable. I know it is based on evidence. The ID crowd assumes its wrong because it doesn't fit into what they "know" because of a 2000 year old book. I have to go now, before I say something I'll really regret.
Professor Dawkins welcomes and would love verifiable proof that evolution is not how things work. If someone could find a higher mammal before dinosaurs, great. If the DNA and physical progressions between fish and amphibians could be found untrue, great, scientists would love to go back to the drawing board. Problem is more research is bringing more evolutionary evidence day by day week by week.
And as for the "THEORY" point of evolution it is taken out of context. A casual conversation theory is no where near as accurate as a scientific theory. The "THEORY"of evolution is equal to the "THEORY" of gravity, the "THEORY" that everything is made up of atoms, and the "THEORY" that life is made up of cells. Proof is only in mathematics.
The huge insult is that the other side says scientists are stifling the truth. If intelligent design was science it would be welcome. Resorting to used car salesman tactics to attempt to become a valid argument defeats the entire process. To make that not so nice statement, the reason creationism/Intelligent Design is not allowed on the same playing field as science, because it is not science it is religion and/or philosophy. You do not play football on a baseball field, you do not teach Chinese in English class. So only science should be taught in science class. Peer reviewed, measurable, repeatable, and tested against the scientific method. It is not some grand conspiracy it is a quest for the truth, it is following the evidence to the answer not vice versa. Since the truth must prevail in the long run, movies like this Ben Stein thing only delay the inevitable.
They like to say that they just want equal time, but clearly they want evolution out of the schools. These debates always start with "ID should be given equal time" and somehow devolve into "evolution is false" I wouldn't presume to barge into Sunday school and demand to be allowed to spout off alternative theories for Noah's flood, nor do I want theology banned from public discourse. But the Discovery Institute does. Maybe not the innocent foot soldiers like the fellows that chime in here, but they are not paying attention to the bigger picture.
They don't get that scientific "theories" get used as models every day by somebody somewhere, and if the model doesn't fit, then the theory behind it is either modified or thrown out. Creation theology has no such weight behind it, it is correct because the Bible was inspired by God. (I have to point out here that when we debate creation the Bible is inspired by God, but when I ask about nasty questions like the story of Lot, the great flood, Biblical slavery, or God telling Moses to stone a man to death for gathering wood on the sabbath, the Bible was written by men, and I'm taking it out of context. You can't have it both ways).
I've been fighting the creation/evolution war since 1975, and I gotta admit with the recent events in Florida are really disheartening.
That's good advice, it would keep me from having a stroke.
for real, cause conservapedia/foxnews is just insane when it says that the majority of people who believe in evolution are atheists,
the majority of evolutionists are *theists* who believe in *theistic* evolution - which is basically the same thing they just think god has something to do with it know they cant prove it its their religoius belief and want it kept out of the schools cause they know its not science
I wouldn't presume to barge into Sunday school and demand to be allowed to spout off alternative theories for Noah's flood, nor do I want theology banned from public discourse.
That is an outstanding point!
We do not go to their realm and demand to teach what is against their beliefs in their house. But it seems the "wall of separation" is a pesky barrier, when it is everyone's civil right. Science has to be secular to be science, jsut as the law must be secular to be the law. It protects the integrity of the process, thus protects all fo us.
We do not go to their realm and demand to teach what is against their beliefs in their house. But it seems the "wall of separation" is a pesky barrier, when it is everyone's civil right. Science has to be secular to be science, jsut as the law must be secular to be the law. It protects the integrity of the process, thus protects all fo us.
agreed, keeping it secular protects the religious minority from denominational rule,
oddly, protecting the religious - the atheist the champion so to speak - irony
Thousands of people have devoted their lives—many have given their lives—to better the human condition and to build the intellectual body of knowledge we call science. In describing how the physical world works, it is unsurpassed. In my opinion, use of that knowledge in the kind of deception characteristic of creationists destroys their integrity, subverts their credibility, and belittles the beliefs they try to promote. Is their religion dependent on subterfuge for validation and sustenance? I would rather be descended from the lowest worm than be specially created with great intellectual powers and use them in such a fashion.
. H. Huxley's final statement from his famous debate with Bishop Wilberforce.
If this is so, then how is ID different from the theory of evolution?
The theory of evolution states that all life sprang from lower forms whose lineage can be traced all the way back to, eventually, a primordial soup containing the building blocks of life. According to evolution, each step in the process - from non-living to living, single-cell to multi-cell, multi-cell to multi-organ, etc. - was the result of mutations and random chance. The process is sometimes called "molecules to man". It assumes no supernatural force or "guiding hand" involved in the process.
At the other extreme, Creationists (particularly Young Earth Creationists like me) reject the notion that we are descended from pond scum or from anything else, for that matter. Humans have always been human because we believe we were created that way. In fact, all creature "kinds" were created by God a little over 6000 years ago. We believe that all of the evidence: fossils, radiometric dating, measurements and observations of nature, etc. equally points to either the evolutionary theory or creation accounts of origins. Neither side of the argument is proven OR CAN BE PROVEN with just the evidence alone because of a simple fact that few people recognize: no one was there when it happened.
Now, I'm not going to turn this entire response into a defense of Creationism because 1) that's off topic and 2) it would more than fill a book. In fact, I am in the process of writing such a book (I've written almost 200 pages so far) and I hope to complete and publish it sometime this year or next. The issue here is the controversy exposed by Ben Stein in his documentary "Expelled."
Because I am a YEC, I don't advocate ID any more than I advocate evolution. Both sides actually view ID with some contempt because it is an attempt at reconciling the two sides of a debate that can never be reconciled. The most common position to take in the debate isn't either of the two extremes: the most common position is one in which a compromise is sought. People who believe in God but have also bought into the lie that evolution is a "fact" rather than an unprovable "theory" conclude that God must have had a hand in the evolutionary process. Because of "separation of church and state issues" which are just as prevelant in other countries as it is in the U.S., they are faced with a conundrum when trying to teach "origins science" in public schools - they can't explain it without God but they can't use God to explain any part of nature because that would "de-secularize" it. The answer? Intelligent Design!
Some ID proponents believe parts of the theory of evolution, some IDers believe in none of it or all of it, but the one common element is this: somewhere along the way, there was someone/some thing guiding the process. The Design in nature requires a Designer. Because IDers don't name that Designer, creationists tend to dismiss them. Because IDers believe there is a Designer, evolutionists dismiss them too. The IDers who believe in none or only a small part of the theory of evolution are the ones that face the greatest uphill battle with scientists at university research centers. They are the ones that are the topic of Ben Stein's documentary.
In the end, the difference is this: the theory of evolution doesn't allow for an intelligent designer, named or not named. Intelligent Design requires a designer - a guiding hand or force - though that force is not named in order to keep it secular.
The Original 
Nothing in ID contradicts evidence. 
