lenbrazil
Saturn
Now there's a man with an open mind - you can feel the breeze from here!
Posts: 1,045
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Post by lenbrazil on May 10, 2006 21:34:21 GMT -4
According to her publisher Ann Coulter's latest book shows that "...Darwinian evolution ... is bogus science."
That goes beyond what Michael Behe says and he's AFAIK the only scientist with a remotely qualified background who supports ID.
LOL
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Post by echnaton on May 10, 2006 22:03:37 GMT -4
I used to like reading conservative writers back when Bill Buckley and Jack Kilpatrick were among the leading thinkers. With the TV driven punditry of the day, we mostly get crackpots and yelling dumb blonds not crafters of ideas. Intellectualism is getting scarcer and that is a pity.
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Post by PeterB on May 10, 2006 22:19:27 GMT -4
Echnaton
May I recommend "How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World." I forget the author's name.
It's a fun but depressing read about the rise of anti-intellectual thinking, and it makes the point that the pressure is coming from both sides of the political spectrum.
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Post by gwiz on May 11, 2006 3:16:03 GMT -4
Echnaton May I recommend "How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World." I forget the author's name. Francis Wheen.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on May 11, 2006 11:22:31 GMT -4
Ann Coulter is a little too extreme for me usually, but the idea that a devotion to darwanism could be motivated by "its refusal to admit to God as a possible guiding force," is something that seems at least half plausible to me.
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Post by echnaton on May 11, 2006 12:18:28 GMT -4
I see the term Darwinism thrown around a lot but as far as I know it has a meaning only in politics, not in science. People seem to use it as a synonym for evolution, but evolution exists apart from anything Darwin has written so it is misplaced. Evolution exists and to deny that is little different than denying the Apollo missions.
As far as God being a guiding force. Can anyone define that in terms of science? If one thinks of God as a guiding force then how does He affect the material world in any way that can be objectively detected? ID proponents says it can be detected, but have yet to make even the most basic case for this. If supernatural force cannot be detected then it is of no use to science because it is just guesswork. If it can be detected, then is it really supernatural?
My major objection to Coulter and other politically driven commentators is that they are undermining religious ideas rather than supporting them. They don’t make a case for the positive influence religion can have on people or lead them to new understanding. Rather they use demagoguery to exploit peoples fear and stir up feelings of persecution. This does no good for anyone, and debases religion by tying it closely to politics. I doubt Coulter is really a very religious person, she just knows how to tap into others feelings.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on May 11, 2006 13:03:15 GMT -4
Are you saying, "if God were detectable he wouldn't be God?"
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Post by echnaton on May 11, 2006 14:24:23 GMT -4
No, that is not what I meant, thanks for asking. I’ll try to be more precise.
As far as I know there is no framework to differentiate between the detection of some non repeatable supernatural force and some random happening. ID tried to build a framework to differentiate between natural and supernatural, but failed and became a political movement instead, undermining both the science and religion they claimed to be standing for. On the other hand if we find some repeatable force we do not understand, why should we assume that it has a supernatural origin.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on May 11, 2006 18:31:56 GMT -4
I suppose that depends on your definition of "supernatural", and whether a supernatural phenomenon can be repeatable.
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lenbrazil
Saturn
Now there's a man with an open mind - you can feel the breeze from here!
Posts: 1,045
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Post by lenbrazil on May 11, 2006 22:48:59 GMT -4
Ann Coulter is a little too extreme for me usually, but the idea that a devotion to darwanism could be motivated by "its refusal to admit to God as a possible guiding force," is something that seems at least half plausible to me. Coulter has it backwards, the only people who back ID or doubt evolution are religous zelots who insist God must have had a role in Earth's creation and most of them believe it happened as spelled out in Genisis. They start with their conclusion and work backwards from their. Another problem with her little theory is that there are lots of religious Christians, Jews, Moslems and people who pratice other faiths who see no contradiction between their faith in God and acceptance of evolution and the Big Bang. Len
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Post by Halcyon Dayz, FCD on May 12, 2006 0:00:05 GMT -4
As an aside, I came across this letter-to-the-editor by the Scottish novelist Iain Banks.
From issue 2526 of New Scientist magazine, 19 November 2005, page 24
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Post by DaveC on May 12, 2006 11:38:47 GMT -4
I suppose that depends on your definition of "supernatural", and whether a supernatural phenomenon can be repeatable. Supernatural means operating outside the bounds of natural law. The implication is that supernatural phenomena are not repeatable - that is any given set of inputs will result in a totally random and unpredictable set of outputs because the output is not constrained by natural law. That's why God, and belief concepts such as ID, are not falsifiable. You can't design an experiment that could fail because you can't understand the factors that may affect the result. Personally, I don't accept that there is such a thing as "supernatural". Anything that appears so will have a natural explanation that we as yet do not understand.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on May 12, 2006 12:00:29 GMT -4
Personally, I don't accept that there is such a thing as "supernatural". Anything that appears so will have a natural explanation that we as yet do not understand. I agree. I believe in God but do not believe that He is "supernatural" in the sense that He violates natural laws. I believe that what appears miraculous to us is simply the manipulation of natural laws that we do not fully understand by a far superior intelligence.
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Post by DaveC on May 12, 2006 13:09:15 GMT -4
Not sure what you mean by "manipulation of natural laws". My take is that the laws of nature can't be manipulated - they are what they are. If you mean that God is able to make use of the natural laws (the way we use them to manufacture chemicals, build heavier than air flying machines or send men to the moon) but in ways that are beyond our current ability, I'm OK with that concept. What that implies, however, is that there is no constraint on our (sooner or later) being able to do everything God is able to do. If you believe that God created the natural laws of the universe, it appears that you also believe that He made those laws as binding on Himself as they are on the rest of us. Interesting concept - God removed His own ability to perform supernatural acts by subjecting himself fully to the natural laws He created.
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Post by Fnord Fred on May 12, 2006 14:05:21 GMT -4
I think it's more along the lines that he set up the origional situation and then only interfered rarely, such as in the tale of Christ. He set up the universe with the big bang in such a way as for the end result to be life on Earth, as opposed to handcrafting the planet.
My Biology teacher in High School believed this, it has a term but I forget what it's called. I remember he was fond of the term Natural Processes.
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