You’ve both made me have a good laugh this morning. May our jousting continue some other time … wearing t-shirts of your own choice. )

I admit to typing those words with great trepidation, almost certain to be refuted! But I went ahead anyway, believing that any such was a matter of parody and satire.

Live by the search, die by the search, I suppose.

I think your last point may be your undoing … Google image “What Would Darwin Do?” t-shirt and there are a few from which to choose.

Mr Nakashima,

I thought Google was your friend!

Honoured? Yes. Revered? Yes.

I think you miss the point. Darwin is celebrated for not only the science behind evolutionary theory, but also the baggage that has been ejected or the societal ‘freedom’ that has come with what evolutionary theory entails.

I seem to see it more than you. Two divergent views of the same scene may be at play here.

You may not have a bust of Darwin on a stand in your own home, but Darwin as an icon of something more than finches and barnacles is obvious to me and others.

I think your last point may be your undoing … Google image “What Would Darwin Do?” t-shirt and there are a few from which to choose.

You may wish to purchase one! ?

Honored yes, revered no. To realize that we are OTSOG to Darwin does not diminish the recognition of his humanity or his limitations. I would be very surprised if even in this year of Darwin celbration you will find a scientific argument being supported by “because Darwin said so”. No one wears a t-shirt that asks “What Would Darwin Do?”.

Darwin is on a pedestal.

No more than Galileo, Newton, and Einstein.

When they have their anniversaries, they will be similarly honored.

Don’t you think?

If Darwin is superannuated, then he is getting well-paid for his long-done services. From a pop-cultural perspective I doubt that anyone can think of movies, documentaries or books that are written from an evolutionist’s perspective that travel down that road of the Darwin was wrong. Anyone from, I’ll say again, the pop-cultural perspective … ie. for most of the world … would not realise the points to which you refer.

In this year of Darwin he is being oh so mightily revered. Of that alone you must concur!

TO GBS, he is warning of the delusions of prophet seeking, but doesn’t that make you think that, in one way or another, that even back then people HAD made Darwin a prophet that allowed them to believe in a way that gave them certainty? Darwin is on a pedestal.

Look no further than post no. 12 for an example of evolution being recast as religion by the pro-ID lobby.

It really is only anti-evolution people who continue to refer to Darwin in religious terms. I know of no scientist who reveres him anymore than they revere anyone who comes up with a great idea or makes a great discovery.

I wouldn’t agree with you. If you wander over to that other site, the antipodes of this one, which dare not speak its name, and ask how many commited evolutionists hold that Darwin should be revered, or his doctrine treated as sounder than any since, you will hear cricket chirping in response. Darwin is superannuated. He is recognised for being wrong on many things. The only time his words are closely parsed for meaning is in response to charges of racism.

Read your longer quote of GBS more closely. He is warning of the dangers of making Darwin a false idol. He is saying you are deluded if you think Darwin was a prophet.

An ironic quote, indeed, given that all the facts on the table at present have come from evolutionary science.

Given that there is only one conclusion allowed, this is hardly a ground shaking observation. I am sure the ideologues get a warm feeling all the same.

Intelligent Design has promised much but it has yet to provide one example of incontrovertible, non-human intelligent design

What exactly is the quality of an observation that makes it incontrovertible? And since “incontrovertibleness” is the straw you’ve chosen for today, let’s just perform a test to see if the concept of incontrovertible really exist to begin with: please make a claim that is incontrovertible. In fact, just to keep pace with the topic of the conversation, make an incontrovertible claim that Life is the result of a purely material event.

Now to be sure, for the claim you make to be incontrovertible, all you need to accomplish is to have your claim pass by all critics without a single objection.

Yes, the whole idea is just as silly as it was when Seversky proposed it.

If one would like to come off the grand strawman routine and talk about rational inferences, then that’s a different animal altogether. In that arena, ID is far and away the strongest explanation based upon the observable evidence.

This fact is made obvious by ID’s opponents, who’ve grown fat and make comments about incontrovertible proofs.