I will articulate the point in one sentence so there will be no misunderstanding. Science pursues truth because there is nothing else to pursue. Materialist/Darwinists {Radical Empiricists, if you like] don’t understand this, so they can’t articulate why they even bother to conduct the investigation. There is nothing incomprehensible about that.

StephenB, I believe I am the best judge of what is comprehensible to me, and I think that we are talking at cross-purposes. You are venting considerable spleen against persons whom you deem reprehensible, which is your privilige, but you are not addressing an issue that I care much about (my current issue is defining science, see below), so I’ll let you off the hook of this thread.

Incidentally, this thread was supposed to be about whether new atheists hurt or help Darwinism. Some of us have already weighed in on that. Why not have go at it. You may even win the prize.

OK, I will say that this particular cultural-religious conflict is irrelevant to the conduct of biological research and the position of evolution among its paradigms. The new atheists can shout all they want and if they discredit themselves in the eyes of their opponents, it bothers the scientists not a whit. They will continue to practice their craft in blissful ignorance of the storms that rage outside of their ivy-encrusted, cloistered laboratories.

(What’s the prize?)

Instead they use mainly negative arguments against religion with the hoped for implication that they will be the winner by default. This is a strategy that could work if they had a good product.

There are countless posts on UD arguing (mistakenly) that all ID has to do is show that orthodox evolutionary theory fails, and ID “wins” by default. And countless more that attempt to deny that ID needs to become a “good product” on its own merit (ie., needs to generate unique testable predictions of its own, and then test them) before it can be taken seriously as a science.

Sauce, goose, gander, etc.

From #36:

Anyone that puts ‘credence’ in ‘darwinian evolutionary mechanisms’ will tell you that they are not explaining how life came into existence.

That’s abiogenesis, a totally different animal! There is aaaaabsolutely no linkage whatsoever. It’s hard to keep it straight I know. But it IS very important to remember.

Read my lips: NDE and Abio did NOT, I repeat, did not have relations

Then, in #47:

Contrary to ND assertions, you cannot break down the development of life into separate, unconnected events….the origin of the human species cannot be pinpointed to a specific location and time…it can only be understood to have originated at the moment of abiogenesis.

It’s admittedly hard to argue against someone who himself argues both sides (and ends up contradiciting himself). I myself was arguing neither in favor of nor against neo-Darwinian evolution. I was merely pointing out that one cannot logically be both a “serious” Christian AND a “serious” proponent of NDE. But I guess some people would rather be antagonistic at any cost rather than discuss the issue(s) at hand.

Darwinism has two common usages; first, a theory that says essentially evolution happened by descent with modification, through gradualistic processes and natural selection.

The second is a philosophical/metaphysical one specifying as Darwin did that there is no need for non naturalistic input in any of evolution. This is not required by the theory but Darwin insisted on it and it is demanded just as strongly by his current day adherents.

The key thing is, that the new atheist arguments never strengthen the grounds for accepting either one of these two concepts. Instead they use mainly negative arguments against religion with the hoped for implication that they will be the winner by default. This is a strategy that could work if they had a good product. But when they use such a negative approach they open themselves up for an examination of their own underlying rationale and the weakness of their own foundation will have the effect that their negative arguments will be lost. Their philosophical argument requires that both of these definitions be correct in terms of how the world works. And the more noise they make, the more this key part of the foundations for their beliefs will be exposed as baseless.

Neither meaning of Darwinism has merit. There is no logical or scientific reason that all evolution must have happened by naturalistic means let alone gradualistic means. In fact it is patently illogical. Just one intelligent act in the history of the universe would obviate this assumption and make their position baseless and there is good reason to believe intelligent actions have occurred. Secondly, the theory itself has no support in the real world when the inquiry is focused on the complexity of life and its transitions through the last 3.5 billion years. For this latter reason, Darwinian macro evolution (origin of complex functional novelties), a key part of their philosophical foundation, should not even be considered a science and should be removed from the textbooks and curriculum .

The new atheists are marketing their product very aggressively. Marketing of anything involves four processes. First, there is the product and both scientifically and philosophically, Darwinism is a bad product. So the new atheists have a bad product and bad product don’t succeed.

Second, there is the price and the price required while not financial is steep. It is that one must abandon a belief system that supported the world for several thousand years for one that has no track record of producing good and many instances of producing extremely harmful results for its adherents. Because of the steep product price more and more people will examine the actual product and this means an intense scrutiny of this obviously bad product.

Third, there is the communication of the product benefits. As the communication level rapidly increases there will be further emphasis on its negatives as well as its so called benefits. It will be harder to hide the negative side of their product. The aggressive communication has provoked competitive communication and the competition has the stronger message for the belief for its product. The competition’s message is based on science while it become clearer and clearer that the basis for the new atheism is based solely on philosophy, and one that has failed when implemented on a wide scale.

The fourth aspect of marketing is the distribution of the product. As the new atheists extend the distribution of their ideas they also open up the distribution channels for their competition as well and the competition have the stronger product. They are extending their product into areas that heavily support the competition and as such the competition will push back with both a better product and more effective advertising because they have a product that works.

There is an old maxim in marketing. Nothing kills a bad product faster than extensive advertising and good distribution. The faster people realize how bad a product is, the quicker it is rejected. The new atheist movement has accelerated the communication and distribution of their product but in the process open themselves up for intense scrutiny. Witness what has happened on this site. The baseless and irrelevant arguments of the anti ID people are making the acceptance of ID much easier. The more aggressive they are with their bad arguments the easier it gets to make the ID case.

Incidentally, this thread was supposed to be about whether new atheists hurt or help Darwinism. Some of us have already weighed in on that. Why not have go at it. You may even win the prize.

I don’t mind addressing your original points above. Indeed, I applaud your invitation to turn down the temperature and explore these issues calmly.

At the time I first read those points, I passed them by, because I didn’t understand them. I should have asked for clarification.

First, I am unclear about truth as a “destination.” I can grasp this as an abstract concept, but I can’t put flesh on it. Respecting the theory of evolution, it is to me a working paradigm (in the Kuhnian sense) that is now well-integrated among the other working paradigms in biology, for example, population genetics, ecology, molecular biology, paleontology, epidemiology.

As long as the evolutionary paradigm is useful to biologists, they will continue to employ it to direct investigations and to interpret data. This is what I meant by “moving on.”

When the existing paradigm is replaced by a more useful and fruitful paradigm, the new paradigm will attract practitioners and they will then “move on” to exploit it.

So, truth as a “destination” is unimaginable to me. I view truth-seeking as an endlessly evolving process. That process is the joy of science: it keeps yielding delightful surprises.

I hope that explains why your statement, “Darwinists …chose to stop moving by declaring that the matter has been settled once and for all,” didn’t resonate with me. If science is a process, how can there be any permanently settled matters?

Now, on further reflection, I should have realized that “the matter” is, for you, the issue of special creation. If so, then I can see no basis for a scientist to decide that the issue of special creation has been permanently settled. However, he can determine that special creation is currently not a fruitful hypothesis. That is the state of affairs. The challenge for the ID community is to demonstrate the contrary.

No, actually, my original challenge was of quite a different texture, so I think I will return to it.

Challenging fbeckwith, you wrote,

—”Surely you know better, being something of a philosopher.

—“Materialists,” at least those of the empiricist (scientific) stripe, are not looking for “Truth.”

—”They are testing hypotheses. If their tests support their hypotheses, they move on.

—”If their test do not support their hypotheses, they move on.

—”Moving on is key, whereas the anti-empiricist camp wants closure (are you not certain of you viewpoint?), and is content to stop at whatever resting point ”

I responded:

They are, or should be, trying to get closer and closer to the truth, which is why they move on. If there was no truth to pursue, there would be no reason to “move on.” Without a destination [truth], there is no reason to undertake the journey [science and reason]. Under those circumstances, one stopping place is a good as any other.

It is the Darwinists who chose to stop moving by declaring that the matter has been settled once and for all.

You addressed none of this, except to falsely claim that I was arguing by definition, which, of course, I was not, as I made clear. So, if you don’t mind, I think I will return to the my original points, none of which were ever addressed.

“Scientist” works for me. However, a scientist can be either a professional researcher, following where the evidence leads no matter what the result, or a non-professional ideologue, promoting an agenda and using evidence to get the results he wants.

That’s a relief. We’re all off the hook except for an ideological few (who may or may not be nameless).

Back to the labs with StephenB’s blessing!

(Except I’m not clear how a nonprofessional ideologue qualifies as a scientist.)

In any case, the issue is not who I had in mind; the issue is who Dawkins had in mind and chose to rule out apriori, namely a personal God that may or may not be Abrahamic.

Why is it important to you that Dawkins chose to rule out a personal God? The original question you posed was:

Do you know of any Darwinists who admit that life could have been designed?

Do you deny that extraterrestrials qualify as possible designers? If you don’t, then Dawkins has admitted that “life could have been designed,” and your question has been answered, your suppositions about his motives and inner beliefs notwithstanding.

—-“Are you claiming that a demonic force has purposefully introduced diversity into the human genome? Including all those bad mutations that I mentioned: the ones that cause congenital diseases, mental illnesses and cancer?”

You are confusing philosophy/theology [arguments about good design bad design] with science [inferred design detected by observation without respect to its quality].

Forget good/bad design. The money question was: Which is it: unplanned, random mutation or demonic intervention?

Perhaps you have forgotten your original challenge @69:

No one on this site has ever provided a shred of evidence that naturalistic, unplanned forces can create biodiversity. Would you like to break precedence and assume the burden of that task?

I provided an example: human genetic/phenotypic diversity, based on unplanned mutation. You later claimed, in response to one of my questions:

Science supports the idea that random variation and natural selection causes “micro” changes [change within a species] over time. Science does not support the idea that these naturalistic forces can generate new body plans.

May I conclude from the above that you accept a naturalistic explanation for human genetic/phenotypic diversity? (That would be progress.)

If so, I now ask: What empirical or other test did you use to distinguish scientific support for change within a species from scientific support for generation of new species or “body plans”?

“Scientist” works for me. However, a scientist can be either a professional researcher, following where the evidence leads no matter what the result, or a non-professional ideologue, promoting an agenda and using evidence to get the results he wants.