Rush Limbaugh Reviews “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” on Talk Radio

Turner Coates, There is a point of view of fighting fire with fire. This does not mean that this is the only tool in the box but I have not seen the other tools work so well. This science tool has got a lot of notice. I prefer just falsifying Darwinian evolution and forgetting about ID which as you see on another thread is already past 500 comments and has gotten nowhere. One objection to the use of science to show the necessity of intervention is just what is phrased in the Kors lecture about the need to repair the system and what that means about the designer. But the elimination of that concept of God repairing the system and exalting him to even greater heights has led us to our current circumstance where God is not needed. jerry

jerry (37):

Just look at how Richard Dawkins proclaims it. He believes it too.

Dawkins is foremost among the Neanderthals I mentioned in 38.

I also believe the incredible prosperity due to science and technology after WW II has contributed immensely too.

I think people today respond psychologically to the "miracles of modern science" much as they would phenomena with supernatural causes. They understand science so poorly that all they can do in response to its feats is to feel awe. And their awe generally leads them to vest faith in scientific claims, provided those claims do not obviously conflict with others in which they've vested faith. Science educators often attempt to motivate students by filling them with awe at what science has accomplished. I strenuously object to this strategy. I believe that educators should attempt to convey honestly what a flawed and highly utilitarian enterprise science is, rather than present it as a noble Quest for Truth. IDists seem to ignore the fact that awe at what science allows us to do is no warrant for accepting scientific explanations as true. They are concerned only when they consider specific claims of science untrue. It seems to me that ID advocates want to make science into something one can believe in, and I must repeat that scientific explanations do not merit this sort of belief. Turner Coates

Side note: People sometimes tell me they believe in evolution, and I respond that I do not. Then I explain that I believe that present evolutionary theory is a good scientific explanation of the diversity of living things on earth, that I expect the main features of the theory not to be falsified, and that I expect substantive modifications to the theory in the near future. I also tell them that I do not believe in any scientific theory. I do believe in creation, but my knowledge of that is utterly private. By direct apperception I see creation as continual. But there's no way to make my subjective experience into an object of empirical investigation. And that doesn't bother me in the least. What I know is what I know. To assert that shared scientific knowledge is categorically superior to individual knowledge is to assault epistemology with a club. There are philosophical Neanderthals among both the IDists and the atheists. Turner Coates

Turner Coates, I do not disagree with you that what Kors has said is common belief in academic and other intellectural circles. However, it was not present in the US 50 years ago even in much of academia. What has happened since to cause the change is certainly debatable. I ascribe the changes as the result of a lack of belief in God or the Judeo Christian story. And I believe the Darwiniån theory is part of this undermining. Just look at how Richard Dawkins proclaims it. He believes it too. But obviously, Dawkins was not there first. There is a long history of small changes that have led to what we see today. I also believe the incredible prosperity due to science and technology after WW II has contributed immensely too. We have traveled from poverty and an incredible awe ot what God has created to the ho hum of that is just how it is and by the way can "I get my IPOD cheaper and my music free." jerry

jerry (33): Thanks for the transcription. What Kors says about Enlightenment thought is common knowledge, but I'm impressed by how much he manages to convey in a few words. As he points out,

This new philosophy believes itself to be deeply religious. It creates problems for religion because it removes theology from things not properly in its sphere. It looks for a theology that is consisting with and evolving with increases in natural knowledge. This leads to further secularizing the West.

And as I said in 23,

Nietzsche’s Zarathustra said, “God is dead, and we have killed him.” There’s a case to be made that Jefferson, with his emphasis on naturalism and Reason, contributed to the death of the god of the herd.

Jefferson was fully an Enlightenment figure, and I see him as helping to "kill" the God that had previously been the focus of Western culture. After Eighteenth Century thinkers essentially "put God in his place" and set Reason and scientific discovery on high, it was easy for Nineteenth Century thinkers to conclude that the notion of God was unnecessary baggage. What most Christians don't understand about Nietzsche is that he offered profound insights into how those who came before him had "killed" God. You say:

My summation of this is that this religious perspective in the 1700’s had the seeds of its own destruction in its beliefs and has been at work for 300 years. The recent results can be seen with the complete secularization of Europe and our intellectual classes here in the US.

America is secularized from top to bottom. You may think that God is alive in America because most people can recite John 3:16 from the KJV and are willing, when asked, to "confess" that they "believeth on Him," but I contend that most of those people are indistinguishable in daily life from agnostics and atheists. The typical American understands neither religion nor science, and holds an awful pastiche of beliefs from the two. As I have said elsewhere, those who care particularly much that evolutionary theory conflicts with their religious beliefs overvalue science. As I see it, the excessive value associated with reason and science in the Age of Enlightenment is at the root of the secularized, lukewarm "religious" belief prevalent in contemporary American culture. I also hold that the ID movement grossly overvalues reason and science, and that it is haplessly contributing to the entrenchment of the spiritual malaise it seeks to remedy. Turner Coates

A clear case of design inference by Jefferson, to which all signatories to the Declaration of Indepedence gave their assent:

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism...

Turner Coates

Jerry, an intereesting perspective on #33, incorporating several interconnected themes. StephenB

Here is what existed in the early 1700's in a lecture on the Enlightenment. I am not so sure there is much new in all this debate. Anti design was at the heart of the Enlightenment. A slight paraphrase from Alan Kors on the beginning of the Enlightenment from a Teaching Company lecture. The new philosophy - the embrace of empiricism, learning from experience. The quantification, nature reducible to mathematical law. In the new knowledge, the more universal, the more general the law, the more powerful the explanation is deemed to be. For example, f=ma or gravity varies inversely with the square of the distance between two objects. Two such simple laws that made much of the universe comprehensible. The new philosophy is also a cultural and religious revolution as well as a philosophical revolution. This coincided with an overturn of witchcraft in the late 17th century of persecutions which were rampant in the early 17th century. A removal of superstition about witches but also much more. One sees this in the location of God's providence to natural law. In the ordinary but wondrous order and operation of nature. For this generation it was like there had always been in the center of town a complex clock. The clock was a mechanical marvel such that each hour a figure came out and struck the proper number of sounds. It was like there was an invisible agent that coordinated all the movements of the clock and figure. There must have been an invisible being to keep things running right for the clock. Similarly there must a similar person who did the same thing for the world to give us the appearance of order. But when one understands the operation of natural law, one realizes that the clock was created with mechanisms that coordinate the actions reflecting the extraordinary intelligence of the creator of the clock. It is very easy to reflect with religious awe from the particular (the clock) to the general, from interventions in the natural order to the creation of natural order itself. It produces what can be ascribed as a new religious aesthetic in what seems most supreme and wise and infinitely intelligent and infinitely powerful about God is not particular providence, intervention in the world to bring about such things as rain or the bodies healing but the very general laws of providence that lead to survival, to the procreation of species to a relationship between human beings and nature in which crops grow and life might flourish. But note that this poses problems for religious belief of Christian Europe that will haunt and obsess the 18th century. For it raises the problems of miracles. If God's providence is to be located in the general laws of nature, if the wisdom is in the self regulating design of the world, then an intervention would be like someone having come and repair that clock in the town square. And if what one admires is the infinite wisdom of the original design intervention poses a real problem for that admiration. Knowledge and science is superior than the ancients and is cumulative. The ancients may have had better poets, playwrights, better architects but science gets better and better. Knowledge creates progress. The more we know the real causes of things, the more we can change the world to the human heart's desire for happiness. This new philosophy believes itself to be deeply religious. It creates problems for religion because it removes theology from things not properly in its sphere. It looks for a theology that is consisting with and evolving with increases in natural knowledge. This leads to further secularizing the West. The new philosophy is to admire not the miraculous from the bible but admire the order in the world. This is seen in the Declaration of Independence with the statement of the pursuit of happiness is self evident from nature and ordained by God Himself. These transformations occurred within Christian culture. Anti religious and anti Christian thought and secularism arise as the unintended consequences of this deep theological perspective. This was from a lecture so the grammar etc was not what would be expected from a written presentation and I did some paraphrasing. My summation of this is that this religious perspective in the 1700's had the seeds of its own destruction in its beliefs and has been at work for 300 years. The recent results can be seen with the complete secularization of Europe and our intellectual classes here in the US. It has destroyed both Protestant and Catholic influence in Europe. In other words, TE's started early in the 1700's and are a dying breed today. They claim intellectual and theological superiority but are really just the small remnant of a dying philosophy. According to Darwinian ideas they are not one of the fittest. jerry

larrynormanfan: thanks for your response. Here are my thoughts on 31. StephenB

I suppose one can look at ID two ways, either as a twenty year old science project in its adolescence, or as a 2500 year old expression of teleology in nature. That means, I suppose, that either of us could be right, depending on which way you look at it. For me, Jefferson was simply an 18th -Century installment in a long history of design thinkers. Some have suggested that, perhsps, he would have abandoned that tradition if he had lived in Darwin's time. I am arguing against that proposition. Obviouly, I can't know for sure, just as you suggest. However, I submit that there are still only four possible world views to consider: YEC, ID evolution; TE evolution, or pure Darwinism. To me, it is clear that Jefferson could only have been at home in the #2 formulation for reasons I gave at post #28. StephenB

StephenB, I don't think anybody's trying to make Jefferson into a TE. Well, at least I'm not. My objection is that neither ID nor TE existed as we now understand them. larrynormanfan

Turner Coates, thanks for your response. Here are my thoughts on #28. StephenB

Consider, if you will, two facts that support the claim that Jefferson was ID: [A] the convoluted nature of theistic evolution and [B] the extent to which this strange mixture of Darwinism and Theism undermines Jefferson’s world view. [A] TE’s begin by accepting the Darwinian formulation of chance and then they plug God into that paradigm as a kind of footnote. To make it work, they insist that God stacked the deck in some indescribable fashion so that life would evolve solely by chance. Somehow, God “designed” a non-design universe, except that the design is inherent in the evolutionary process. As a result, teleology gets twisted like a pretzel: life is designed, except that it isn’t; evolution is directed, except that it isn’t; biology has a purpose; except that it doesn’t. [B] Jefferson would have had none of this cosmological/biological madhouse. For him, teleology was sacrosanct. When he wrote, “We hold these truths to be SELF EVIDENT,” he was referring to the fact nature was “designed” in such a way that rights are "natural" and freedom is warranted. For him, a Divine lawgiver “designed” the “natural moral law” so that the normal person can apprehend it. Under the circumstances, design, for him, could never be "illusory." That puts him squarely in the ID camp and out of the TE camp. To take the TE position he would have had to deny his most famous phrase, “We hold these truths to be self-evident…..” He was steeped in the kind of teleology that neither TE nor Darwinism can accomodate. Go back and read Barry A’s original post, and you will find that Jefferson’s language is unmistakably ID. There is simply no credible way to convert Jefferson into a self-refuting TE. For him, design was real and detectable; there is no way around it. StephenB

Lennon? As in, John? larrynormanfan

StephenB (24) said,

The decisive point is that Jefferson believed that design in the universe is real. That pits him against Darwinists and TE’s, who insist that design is illusory. By process of elimination that means he is either ID or very close to it. There are, after all, only three choices.

As a dialectician I say, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, // Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Your trichotomy includes nothing like my own beliefs. I agree entirely that Jefferson believed that design was evident in the universe, but have emphasized that he totally denied that the Creator did anything but set the universe in motion. The majority of ID advocates believe that the biological information in earth's biota originated after the Big Bang. Jefferson believed that design was entirely front-loaded, and became evident as cause-and-effect played out. The necessity manifest in natural selection (contrasted with the randomness manifest in reproduction-with-variation) is due ultimately to orderly physical "law." Most scientists assume order, and those who deny that natural order has arisen by design are talking metaphysics, not science. Jefferson believed that order was by design of the Creator, and this, too, is a metaphysical stance. It would have been consistent for him to hold that variation in reproduction and natural selection were fully determined by the First Cause. I am unaware of any practical consequence of front-loaded ID for science. In the day-to-day practice of science, the assumption of an orderly physical universe is important, but the question of how the order arose is not. Belief in front-loading may have a huge impact, however, on how one regards one's own life in the universe. Turner Coates

Rude (22), doublespeak:

You may be an embodied intelligence but I dare say that ultimately the you that creates is not the effect of firing neurons, rather it is the cause.

That non-material "you" giving rise to phenomena is "unembodied." Design detection is a matter of observing that the "information ledger" of the material universe is "out of balance." If there is more complex specified information in a material entity ("body") than natural (material) causation can account for, then the source of the information must be non-material ("unembodied"). I've read quite a bit of writing by ID theorists, and this is old hat. I'm a bit confused as to why you're contending with me on such basic stuff. Turner Coates

----Turner Coates: "P.S.–To reiterate, “special creation of biological information” is design attributable to some “unembodied intelligence” (to use Dembski’s term for the source of information) at some point in time subsequent to the origin of the known universe" The decisive point is that Jefferson believed that design in the universe is real. That pits him against Darwinists and TE's, who insist that design is illusory. By process of elimination that means he is either ID or very close to it. There are, after all, only three choices. StephenB

Indeed Rude, with a capital R.

I see that Turner Coates purports to know what Jefferson “could not have accepted”

This is a form of the logical fallacy of ambiguity, known as accent. You've placed emphasis on part of what I said to make it appear that I said something quite different from what I did:

What I can tell you is that Jefferson could not have accepted that special creation of biological information accounts for the diversity of form and function in species without huge revision of his belief system.

This is a well founded statement about logical consistency of ideas, and you resorted to accent in an attempt to make it appear that I was engaged in mind reading. You remarked that

Jefferson may not have been a Christian in the classic sense of the organized Church, but his wisdom bespeaks a better historic moment than when our Western elites swooned before Darwin, Marx, Freud, Nitezsche … Guevara and Lennon. My son says it’s time we reduced our dependence on fossil fools.

There are actually strong similarities in the ways Jefferson and Nietzsche regarded Jesus and the corruption of his teachings in the Gospels. Their notion of a "fossil fool" was Augustine. (Do you know how many idiots believe that the Doctrine of Original Sin comes from the Bible?) Nietzsche's Zarathustra said, "God is dead, and we have killed him." There's a case to be made that Jefferson, with his emphasis on naturalism and Reason, contributed to the death of the god of the herd. Turner Coates

I’m not convinced that Jefferson was a Deist (in the modern sense of the word), though I am convinced that the bulk of our modern “theistic evolutionists” are. Also I do not believe that Intelligent Design claims that the designer of biological organisms was an “unembodied intelligence”. When Bill Demski wears his theist hat he may discuss what this might mean, but evidence for design is not itself evidence for an unembodied intelligence. Our theologies may take us in this direction—evidence for design does not. On the other hand that part of us that makes us agents may not emerge from mechanism even though it expresses its agency through mechanism. You may be an embodied intelligence but I dare say that ultimately the you that creates is not the effect of firing neurons, rather it is the cause. Rude

P.S.--To reiterate, "special creation of biological information" is design attributable to some "unembodied intelligence" (to use Dembski's term for the source of information) at some point in time subsequent to the origin of the known universe. Turner Coates

Hmm, I see that Turner Coates purports to know what Jefferson "could not have accepted" whereas I cannot accept what Turner Coates purports to know. Rude

Larry, sorry for the sloppiness on my part. It was Turner Coates who had pontificated on Jefferson. Jefferson may not have been a Christian in the classic sense of the organized Church, but his wisdom bespeaks a better historic moment than when our Western elites swooned before Darwin, Marx, Freud, Nitezsche ... Guevara and Lennon. My son says it's time we reduced our dependence on fossil fools. Rude

Rude (16), To summarize what I said in the other thread, both Deism and the philosophical stance that scientific explanations should be completely naturalistic date to the Age of Enlightenment. Thomas Jefferson embraced naturalism, and held that capital-R Reason dictated that the regress of causation end with a supernatural First Cause. The only "challenge" to this in the other thread was the observation that Jefferson was essentially Unitarian (institutional Unitarianism did not exist until the last year of his life). But Deism and Unitarianism are easily reconciled. I did not claim above or anywhere else that Jefferson would have been accepted Darwinian theory as good scientific explanation. What I can tell you is that Jefferson could not have accepted that special creation of biological information accounts for the diversity of form and function in species without huge revision of his belief system. Turner Coates

Rude, you're confusing me with someone else. I have said nothing about Jefferson here and did not contribute to the other discussion you reference. For the record, though, I agree that Jefferson was a Deist. Also, although I missed that earlier discussion, I might as well chime in since you've brought me in by name. So I'll just say that the earlier post's attempt to transform Jefferson into an ID supporter in the contemporary sense was one of the stupidest things I have ever read on this site. (Of course the poster can disclaim responsibility because it's just a quote -- but ID in the modern sense did not exist at the time Jeffeson was writing.) larrynormanfan

Larry Norman Fan, you’re dragging in Thomas Jefferson as one whose supposed Deistic views would be compatible with your Darwinian credentials … wasn’t that thrashed out a bit here not very long ago? As for Dawkins et al, to me these guys are less distasteful than the committed Darwinists who keep harping on how Christian they are. Does “Christian” mean anything any more? If there’s nothing left of the morality and logic of the Book then what’s this label supposed to do? Disarm those who are worried about the present collapse of reason and ethics? Rude

PO- Indeed it is wrong to base your decision about who to support in the presidential election on the single issue of one candidate's affiliation with some obscure individual. Instead you should try to decide whose election would be best for America and the world. You should probably do at least enough research to be able to spell the candidates' names correctly. congregate

Personally, unlike many people in my generation, I have no intention of voting for Barak Obama. I would never vote for a man who is affiliated (and was proud of) his affiliation with a man who bombed the Pentagon as a member of a radical 60s organization. Is it just me or this wrong? PannenbergOmega

jerry [8], I do listen to Rush when I can, though I listened to him a lot more some years ago. He's a very entertaining radio personality, as is painfully obvious whenever he's on vacation and one of his awful substitutes sits in. I'm conservative on social and moral issues, though left-wing on economic and peace issues. One of the reasons I don't listen to Rush as much anymore is his cheerleading of the Iraq war, the worst foreign policy blunder in American history. It's quite depressing. larrynormanfan

johnnyb, The point is that Rush harps on the role of creation in the founding documents of the U.S., but evidently is unaware that Jefferson embraced naturalism completely. It's appropriate to emphasize on this Easter day that Jefferson denied the resurrection of Jesus. I assume you know the difference between creation and special creation. You did not respond to what I wrote. William Dembski argues against complete "front-loading" of design (see, for instance, No Free Lunch). He and other leading ID theorists make much of the proliferation of biological forms and functions in the Cambrian Explosion. Prior to 1987, creation scientists pushed this as evidence of special creation (by an unidentified creator) of life forms. Now leading ID theorists push it as evidence of special creation of information in life forms (without specifying how the information was transmitted from the unidentified creator, or intelligence, to living matter). Regarding methodological naturalism (MN), you've again missed a crucial modifier. The compatibility of MN with a religious belief system is a matter of degree, and I said that MN is entirely compatible with deistic creation. MN is relatively incompatible, for instance, with religious belief that "acts of God" such as floods and hurricanes literally are acts of God. A person who believes that empirically observable events without natural cause occur constantly cannot, as a practical matter, embrace MN. And, from a scientific standpoint, MN is of little utility if many empirically observed events do not have natural causes. Note: The big distinction between naturalism and materialism does not come from mainstream science. Please don't force it on me. Turner Coates

Turner Coates: "The methodological naturalism of contemporary science is entirely compatible with deistic creation." _Methodological_ naturalism is compatible with everything. In addition, there are many non-interventionist forms of ID (though their relation to ID is somewhat tenuous, I think). Michael Denton's views of biology and the Privileged Planet hypothesis are both non-interventionist forms of ID. johnnyb

I have commented often on the close analogy of "winning back America for God" and "winning back science for God." It seems to me that most American advocates of the latter are also advocates of the former. I find it interesting that the two causes are thoroughly entangled in Rush's rhetoric. It seems that Rush does not understand that when Thomas Jefferson referred to creation, he did so as a deist. Jefferson believed in God as the First Cause of nature, not an entity intervening in nature. The methodological naturalism of contemporary science is entirely compatible with deistic creation. And the notion that diverse biological species have appeared without special creation of information (intelligent design) is as American as... Thomas Jefferson. Turner Coates

Obviously Rush is very impressed with the movie- the may he quivered in his voice when he called it "powerful"- I really hope that he and Sean Hannity (while I do disagree with both of them at times no doubt) use their shows as much as possible to help advertise and get out the word about the movie. I for one am seriously excited not just for the release of the movie but for whatever public or mainstream shockwave might occur in light of its expose. The mainstream media is really blacklisting any information on the movie itself. That is I haven’t seen much news about tit aside from conservative slanted radio or TV shows. This needs to change and the change needs to start with us. Tell all of your friends and anyone you know about the movie and encourage them to go see it. Call local radio shows if possible to talk about the subject as well- send emails to media, write about the movie at various blogs etc. We’ve got a few weeks and that is plenty of time to increase people’s awareness about the movie and hence the core issues involved- especially the corrupt and dangerous intellectual climate. I say thanks to Rush not simply for agreeing with the movie but for taking the time and effort to talk about a substantive issue that our nations intellectual climate has to face. And this "climate change" is one that you can count on being real. Frost122585

larrynormanfan, "So, as usual, a class act from Rush." I didn't know you listened to Rush Limbaugh. That is interesting for someone with your opinions. jerry

A good book on the theology is Darwin and Darwinism is Darwin's God by Cornelius Hunter. It is a fantastic book and very readable. johnnyb

Also, as a Christian, I don’t think Darwinism threatens my faith in the slightest. Given how Darwinian reasoning is often based on Christian theology of course it doesn't threaten those who agree its type of theology. The ironic thing about Darwinian theology (no tinkering for God, panda's thumb arguments, etc.etc.) is that it apparently allows some to think that they are "strong" intellectually and theologically when in fact they are weak and ignorant when it comes to theology. Why else would then need a protected form of theology which allows for no criticism? Darwinian theology simply avoids all threat because its proponents declare that theology must be "separated" from science even as they allow their own. Given that one might think that those with the Darwinian urge to merge are "threatened" by anything which might possibly separate them from their Mommy Nature. mynym

idnet.com.au, I'm not happy to see anybody make a fool of himself or confuse the issues. I saddened by some pro-evolution literature (Daniel Dennett's books, for example). As for the ID I'd much prefer a solid, honest presentation in favor of ID as science than a movie about ID that apparently talks about God all the time. While I'm not convinced by ID literature, I learn from some of it. Also, as a Christian, I don't think Darwinism threatens my faith in the slightest. larrynormanfan

Larry "I don’t see how it will advance the cause of ID.” With your so frequently repeated views, you should be happy if something will not advance the ID cause. It is precisely because it will advance the cause of ID, that you and so many other Darwinists, are so afraid of Expelled. idnet.com.au

shaner74 What you say can be seen clearly here http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10875666 where "Science and religion have often been at loggerheads. Now science has decided to resolve the problem by trying to explain the existence of religion." idnet.com.au

"If this movie is really about God, I don’t see how it will advance the cause of ID." Larry you missed the point entirely. It's not that ID is "about God" but rather that Darwinism *is*. That is, one of the main reasons darwinism is so wide spread is not due to any science, but rather because of a commitment many hold to a philosophy which must exclude God at all cost. shaner74

That's an interesting clip. Rush seems to view the movie as being primarily about God (while he mocks panspermia). He also manages to get in a dig at Obama at the end. So, as usual, a class act from Rush. If this movie is really about God, I don't see how it will advance the cause of ID. larrynormanfan