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Where does disbelief in Darwin lead?

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A commenter to my article about John McCain supporting the teaching of ID in public schools replies that he won’t vote for McCain because of it. The stated reason is the United States is falling behind other industrialized countries in science literacy.

Piffle! The notion that science literacy in the U.S. is substandard is rooted in the results of science surveys that include questions about evolution. Without doubt a much larger fraction of the US populace doesn’t believe in mud to man evolution than compared to any other industrialized nation. So in those surveys they give the “incorrect” answer to questions about the origin of life. In all other category of science questions Americans score as well as or better than non-Americans. But the weight of the “wrong” answers about evolution pulls down the average and makes it appear a few other countries are doing a better job of science education.

Be that as it may I’m a results oriented guy. Instead of presuming that “poorer” science education leads to poorer scientific output I instead look at what America actually produces in the way of science and engineering. Without question America’s output in science and engineering leads the world. Not just a little but a lot. We don’t steal nuclear technology secrets from China, they steal ours. We don’t use European GPS satellites for navigation, they use ours. The list can go on and on. We put a man on the moon 40 years ago while to this day no one else has. America has almost 3 times the number of Nobel prize winners as the next closest nation. That doesn’t support the notion that disbelief in Darwin is causing any problems. In fact it supports just the opposite. Disbelief in evolution makes a country into a superpower – militarily, economically, and yes even scientifically.

Education in America is working just fine, thank you, judging by the fruits of American science and engineering. Disbelief in Darwinian evolution, if anything, leads to greater technological achievements not lesser. If it isn’t broken, don’t try to fix it.

Comments
Hi allanius, I agree with you.PannenbergOmega
February 20, 2008
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Hi Bfast, I honestly, think that much of the criticism ID faces is not to due to the supposed evidence against it. In fact that is alot of evidence in favor of ID. I think some people actually may want there to be no God,and no purpose in the universe. Let's all take a moment to think about what Darwin's theory is actually saying. It's crazy. If it were true, there would be no order or rationality in the world.PannenbergOmega
February 20, 2008
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ID provides encouragement to people of faith because the reality of design in nature is irrefutable. Modernists and lovers of theory have spent the past hundred years relentlessly browbeating believers with the notion that science disproves faith; that believers are naive, deluded, and, worst of all, unscientific. In that sense ID simply confirms what the senses have been telling us all along. The goodness of nature does not comport well with the excessive love of theory seen in Darwin. Nature does not justify the attempt to negate "the good" for the sake of the unifying theory of the survival of the fittest. Life is more complex than our modern philosophers would have us believe.allanius
February 20, 2008
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PannenbergOmega:
What I mean is Christianity needs ID, but ID doesn’t necessarily need Christianity.
ID definitely does not need Christianity. There is nothing I have seen yet in ID that needs a God that seeks relationship with man. Biological ID doesn't even need a God. Cosmological id certainly requires an intelligent agent that is outside of our universe -- as such, in a way there is a requirement of "supernatural", or at least "superuniversal", to coin a phraise. Does Christianity need ID? Well, that depends on how big the ID tent is. I do not see Christianity being steiffled by a single ID event, a the moment of the big bang, that set up a set of laws which, by their nature unfolded into man. This is very much a TE position. I honestly think that nature calls out for ID. Certainly science is by no means far enought down the road to rule ID out. The fact that the scientific mainstream has written ID off without ever having achieved first life in a test-tube is utterly rediculous.bFast
February 19, 2008
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PannenbergOmega, Good point. I'd say that Christianity - to remain relevant in today's world - is dependent on the continued sucess of Intelligent Design's influence in politics, ethics, religion, and science.chuckhumphry
February 19, 2008
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"ID science may be connected with Christianity" I agree with this Chuck. But you don't need to be a Christian to be an ID theorist. What I mean is Christianity needs ID, but ID doesn't necessarily need Christianity.PannenbergOmega
February 19, 2008
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All this stuff about a cyclical universe and multiverses in a bunch of horse crap. Put forth by the secular-'progressive' bloc, because they don't want to believe in God.PannenbergOmega
February 19, 2008
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leo: "In the same vein, why must the causeless cause be the designer (or something deeper into the regress), why not the universe itself?"
Because the universe had a beginning. To suggest that it is the uncaused cause violates the causal principle (which also appears in the Kalam argument) that Whatever begins to exist has a cause. As David Hume wrote, "But allow me to tell you that I never asserted so absurd a Proposition as that anything might arise without a cause". This principle implies that the uncaused cause is eternal, i.e. without a beginning.
leo: "Furthermore, our laws of cause and effect apply in this universe, but do we know that they apply outside?"
We don't know that they apply outside any more than we know whether they will apply inside next week. Nevertheless, since they certainly could be true, it is not unreasonable to consider the implications of ideas such as these.ericB
February 19, 2008
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It's not something that is going to change over night thought. There has been about 50 (more or less, this is subject to modification) years of increasing secularization in the USA. So it may take a generation or two, in my humble opinion, to undo the damage done to our society from social liberalism. This is an optimistic approach to the matter. Things very well might get worse.PannenbergOmega
February 19, 2008
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I agree with you, completely. Hopefully, and this is a big hope, the movie Expelled will help matters.PannenbergOmega
February 19, 2008
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PannenbergOmega, I agree, but I'd go even one step further. ID science may be connected with Christianity, but the Intelligent Design movement - in addition to being an excellent scientific theory with tons of evidence in its favor - is the first step towards the eventual overthrow of the atheistic, nihilistic, amoral culture that surrounds us today.chuckhumphry
February 19, 2008
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"They are shaping the future of the church. Maybe." Let me elaborate a little on this statement. If we believe (as I do) that God interacts with His creation, then we should all recognize that the nihilistic implications of full fledged Darwinism, are totally incapable of being reconciled with Christian theology. Obviously ID is very much intertwined with the future of Christianity.PannenbergOmega
February 19, 2008
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chuckhumphry, Did you even read my post? Let me repeat: -though, of course we cannot know for sure -now maybe there is and maybe there isn’t What I am saying is, it may be more complex, it may be less complex, it may be the same. We don't know, and apparently have made no effort to attempt to find out.leo
February 19, 2008
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>Dr. Dembski may be the Isaac Newton >of theology I agree, I think Dembski may be up there with people like Aquinas or Calvin. They are shaping the future of the church. Maybe.PannenbergOmega
February 19, 2008
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My pleasure, chuckhumphry. If there are more people out there who frequent this website, and are interested in Dembski's philosophical and religious works. Maybe we can form a discussion group.PannenbergOmega
February 19, 2008
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PannenbergOmega, Thank you for posting the link. I can't wait to read them! Dr. William Dembski is clearly the "Isaac Newton of information theory"; I believe that in time, if his work is as revolutionary in philosophy and theology as it is in information theory, then Dr. Dembski may be the Isaac Newton of theology as well.chuckhumphry
February 19, 2008
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Is anyone here interested in Dr. Dembski's philosophical writings? They are very interesting, maybe even groundbreaking. Perhaps someone should start a website, devoted to discussing them. http://www.designinference.com/ I mean, he makes more sense then many of the other theologians I've read. Pannenberg for instance.PannenbergOmega
February 19, 2008
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leo, Tell me, have you ever read Dr. William Dembski's Arguments Not To Use? A short quote from the page should clarify what I mean:
This argument points out that, by inferring a designer from complexity in machines, the designer must also be complexity. Why? Well just because it seems like he/she/it would. This of course then plunges into an infinite loop of who designed the designer. This infinite loop makes Intelligent Design somehow impossible. The really weird part is the argument is broadcast to us using a computer that was the result of intelligent design. Intelligent design does not speak to the nature of designers anymore than Darwin’s theory speaks to the origin of matter.
Really, do you think IDists are so stupid as to not have thought things through? Don't patronize us. The work of Dr. Dembski and other ID scientists have shown time and again the numerous lines of evidence that support ID theory. Are you not familiar with their work? Read their papers and their books. Download their lectures and debates: ID theory is sceince.chuckhumphry
February 19, 2008
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bFast, It is very likely that physicists do have a much sense of what occurred than me (I should certainly hope so, in fact) and I certainly agree that the universe as we know it and life as we know it seems to be a pretty good fit and may be the only type possible. However, in and of itself, that is not an argument for design. To be circular about it (and somewhat facetious), would not the designer be another form of life, likely different than ours and therefore capable perhaps of living in a different sort of universe... (I repeat, facetious) I'm not pinning any hopes on alternative universes. Alternative universes may or may not exist, I find it to simply be interesting speculation. As I said, I don't know how things started or why we are anything at all and I'm not pretending that the answer is obvious.leo
February 19, 2008
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gentlemen, I'm glad you have both figured me out. Though, thankfully, I'm not a biology professor (shudder at the thought), just a biologist. At least I get my own posters now, so that's pretty exciting - much better than business cards you know. If you would be so kind as to peruse the previous posts, you will notice that the one who was trying to discuss both sides and come to a rational conclusion was me, however, you thwarted me at every turn so congratulations. I suppose it comes down to this:
Any event as unlikely as the formation of the universe must obviously be the result of an intelligence.
You say must obviously, I say -What do we know for sure at this point and what are the likely possibilities that can be derived from that? I don't think any conclusion is obviously the right one and I have said as much above. you say
A rational person has to admit that any astronomically unlikely event is far more likely the result of design.
and I say - Design would require a designer which would be at least unlikely perhaps more so (though, of course we cannot know for sure as probabilities cannot be done on this sort of thing) so why add a middle man when there is no evidence to, why cannot the universe itself be the causeless cause? By your twisted logic, there could never be a causeless cause - now maybe there is and maybe there isn't, but I'm not willing to settle on one position just yet. Of course you use the word dogma on me to secure in your own mind a semblance of balanced thought where none seems to exist. Fine. I'm dogmatic, I'm crouching in my dark little corner, hiding from the light. Strange though, I seem to be the only one questioning all sides. Suppose I have a lot of time in that corner to sit and think.leo
February 19, 2008
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jerry, Of course. A rational person has to admit that any astronomically unlikely event is far more likely the result of design. I don't see how dogmatic athiests like leo can honestly believe such nonsense.chuckhumphry
February 19, 2008
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chuckhumphry, leo is the poster child for atheist irrational thinking which he claims are rational. A rational person would have discussed the pro and cons of each side and if there were chinks in each side would have discussed them. The shame is that leo is biology professor and there are plenty of chances to discuss biology here and inform us where we stray from the facts. That would be another chance to learn more about leo's rational approach to life.jerry
February 19, 2008
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jerry, I completely agree. Any event as unlikely as the formation of the universe must obviously be the result of an intelligence. There is no other logical alternative.chuckhumphry
February 18, 2008
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The real question is why does anything exist? And why does it exist with such exquisite precision. To suggest this is an accident is something that boggles the mind. No one is suggesting that further exploration is out of the question but to a priori exclude an intelligent cause is a folly and the only reason is to stack the decks into one possible improbable explanation.jerry
February 18, 2008
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-----leo writes, "To my mind these morals existed prior to the rise of Christianity and will persist if Christianity ever fades to myth. The “code of living” will go on," No government ever took the natural moral law seriously until the Catholic Church first applied it as its own standard for the “code of Canon law.” Without Christianity, the natural moral law would not have gained currency; as Christianity fades, institutionalized morality goes with it. That is why, in 1947, our own government, having abandoned faith in God, supplanted the natural moral law with public opinion as the standard of jurisprudential wisdom. Even if the people believe in objective morality, that doesn't mean that the government will use it as the standard for jurisprudential wisdom.StephenB
February 18, 2008
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Disbelief in the grand Neo-Darwinian claim (i.e. that Darwinistic mechanisms explain the diversity of life) leads to the freedom to scientifically evaluate the actual limits of Darwinian evolutionary change (cf. Behe's Edge of Evolution). It is only through a hard nosed understanding of those limits that we will be able to evaluate the susceptibility of proposed disease treatments to being defeated by Darwinian change.ericB
February 18, 2008
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leo:
you cannot ascribe probabilities to an event when you do not have the faintest clue as to how that event occurs.
I don't have the faintest clue as to how the big bang event occurs. It sounds like you don't either. However, I have listened to mainstream physicists discuss the topic. They seem to have much better sense that I have. It is possible that physicists actually do have a clue, but you don't? I understand that if the four fundimental forces had slightly different values, our universe would either collapse on itself very quickly, or spread apart so broadly that everything would cool to near absolute zero in no time. It may be a huge presumption on my part, but absolute zero is a very unlikely place to find life, and a certain fairly significant amount of time is required to produce intelligent life via natural mechanism (most here would argue that the amount of time extends well beyond infinity.) (172)
Nor do we know whether this is the only universe or our type of life the only possible.
We don't know if this is the only universe. That is true. However, we do know something about whether our type of life is the only one possible. We know that there are some very interesting characteristics, flexibilities, in the protein molecule. These flexibilities allow this one molecule to play a plethora of different roles in our bodies. It is the majic of this molecule that makes life as we know it possible. What we also know is the nature of a lot of chemical reactions -- a lot! No other chemical reaction we have found yet comes anywhere close to offering the range of properties that protein does. Further, the difference between proteins is totally based upon the order of the amino acids that make it up. If we were to locate another molecule that had the variety of properties that protein has, if it did not obtain its properties from a digital organization, then the other life you propose would be very different from ours indeed. I am pretty darn sure that super-cold, approaching absolute zero, is no place for life. Everything of necessity must move very slowly in such environments, or heat happens. We have had some opportunity to explore "really cold, but not super-cold" here on earth, and in comet tails. We haven't found a unique form of life in these environments. The most noteable remaining possibility is really hot. What we know, however, about really hot is that matter decomposes to plasma. As such, it does not produce molecular bonds. Further, if there were life in the most proximate hot place -- the sun -- we would probably have figured that out by now. So, while it is conceivable that there are other forms of life, science has examined millions of hypothetical possibilites, and eliminated all but the one we know (and possibly a variant, the RNA world.) You can pin your hopes on an alternative universe, or a different form of life if you wish. However, the view that our kind of life is the only kind possible is a pretty darn respectable theory.bFast
February 18, 2008
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----leo: In the same vein, why must the causeless cause be the designer (or something deeper into the regress), why not the universe itself? Furthermore, our laws of cause and effect apply in this universe, but do we know that they apply outside?" We know that the laws of cause and effect begin with the causesless cause and know that there are a finite number of causes in the causal chain; that is all we need to know. Aristotle's prime mover argument is just a legitimate now as if was over two thousand years ago. Anyone who does not believe that is not a rational person.StephenB
February 18, 2008
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jerry, And as I said, you cannot ascribe probabilities to an event when you do not have the faintest clue as to how that event occurs. Where do you get your numbers from? How do you define the parameters? Do you take the broadest possible values for each constant and decide that there is an equally likely chance that any of those values could exist? It's a preposterous notion to apply statistics to a situation where virtually everything is an unknown. I suppose I should take it from you when you call me disingenuous, you seem to have a broad experience with the notion. I'm not trying to convince you of anything. I have no vested interest in you, what you think, or why. Try to pass this off as a grand atheist conspiracy if you must, but it is in fact the most simple, straightforward explanation that we have at this time. It may turn out to be totally and completely wrong, and if we continue to use reason, evidence, and sound logic we may get closer to what the real truth is. It certainly beats angry diatribes based on faulty arguments that add nothing to the debate. Here's hoping that culture based on reason arrives some day, the sooner the better.leo
February 18, 2008
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leo, As i said one has to subscribe to infinitely low probabilities that certain events have happen to be an atheist. And then to say the simpler choice is that no designer exists is one of the more disingenuous statements I have ever heard. I would not call that the product of a reasonable person. What is happening here is a game where atheists tries to figure what kind of half assed rationales we can dream up that will support our beliefs because there are some uncomfortable facts out there. Then the atheist insist that these low probability beliefs be taught as dogma in science classes. I find this incredibly arrogant. Believe what you want and keep the faith. But please do not give the hypocritical lecture again on reason being the wave of the new culture.jerry
February 18, 2008
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