Re: Uncommon Conceit


jgrisham@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Nick Keighley wrote:
jgrisham@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
catshark wrote:

it gets a bit tedious correcting Mr grisham but someone has to...

It seems that, back before Bill got cold feet about being potentially
subject to the penalties of perjury in the Dover case without his own
attorney to advise him,

I love the way you glossed over that little fact... Cold Feet... LOL.

In America, you are supposed to have a right to an attorney. Even
Galileo would have been allowed counsel before the tyranny of his
Inquest. However, for reasons beyond reckoning, Dembski could only
testify if he were to forfeit his Constitutional rights in what was
obviously a kangaroo court.

Why was it obviously a kangaroo court? Because you can only rule on
something that technically exists(You guys are supposed to be
rational!). Intelligent Design is not a theory, at this point, it's
barely a partial hypothesis. When was the last time a partial
hypothesis was ever ruled on in a court of law...

when was the last time a "partial hypothesis" based on a small group of
peoples' religious beliefs was put forward as a suitable canidate to
be
taught in a science class.

Oh, I agree, ID has no place in K through 12 educaton. ID doesn't
qualify as a theory, so it doesn't belong. It's really that simple. But
I don't have to give the courts authority to decide what is science and
what isn't. I don't have to advance the conspiracies of Barbara
Forrest. I don't have to suspend constitutional rights for individuals
to add a new twist to the Establishment Clause. In case you hadn't
noticed, this is the prelude to tyranny.

I don't purport to understand your countries constitution but I believe
the
teaching of religion in (public?) school is not permitted. ID is
plainly religion
in a bad disguise so it is not permitted to teach it in school. QED.

Agreed!


how about NEVER! Not
only did Judge Jones rule on a theory that doesn't actually exist, he
ruled that it was "Creationism".

what is the distinguishing feature that separates ID from creationism?
Apart
from creationism being more honest.

If ID is a working hypothesis, it has to follow the scientific method.
Dembski attempts to do this. Behe didn't. Behe's ID is creationism, he
doesn't argue it... actually, he's proud to say so. What's Dembski to
do? Does he start all over again with a new name for the theory? If he
tries to point to the difference, is he dishonest? There's some scarey
things happening in this country's courts concerning honesty.

Dembski has always been aware of Behe's stance and was happy enough to
ally himself with it from the start:

What has emerged is a new program for scientific research known as
Intelligent Design. Within biology, Intelligent Design is a theory of
biological origins and development. Its fundamental claim is that
intelligent causes are necessary to explain the complex,
information-rich structures of biology, and that these causes are
empirically detectable.
http://www.origins.org/articles/dembski_idesignmovement.html

It is the empirical detectability of intelligent causes that renders
Intelligent Design a fully scientific theory, and distinguishes it from
the design arguments of philosophers, or what has traditionally been
called "natural theology." The world contains events, objects, and
structures which exhaust the explanatory resources of undirected
natural causes, and which can be adequately explained only by recourse
to intelligent causes. Scientists are now in a position to demonstrate
this rigorously. Thus what has been a long-standing philosophical
intuition is now being cashed out as a scientific research program.
http://www.origins.org/articles/dembski_idesignmovement.html

Along with this little statement from the top end of the article:

More recently, scholars like Michael Behe, Stephen Meyer, Paul Nelson,
Jonathan Wells, and myself have taken the next step, proposing a
positive research program wherein intelligent causes become the key for
understanding the diversity and complexity of life.
(ibid)

So rather than being several 'theories' of ID there has been a unified
front from the get go. If you can point to where the ID
representatives in chief such as DI have denounced Behe's work as
creationism I'd be interested to see it. So far no-one from the ID
community seems to have roundly challenged Behe's recent stance (which
hasn't changed since since he started).

Which leads to an interesting question in that if what Dembski, Behe et
al was the same scientific endeavour back then and absolutely no new
data has emerged since 98, no change to the actual argument or
evidence, what has happened to make Behe non-science and Dembski
science? Surely someone would have noticed this schism 7 years ago?
It's been remarkably quiet on that front - in fact everyone seemed
quite happy to go along with both Behe and Dembski.

It only seems that since Behe actually testified that the obvious
cracks appeared - of course if Dembski had to do that then maybe we'd
find that he's not so far removed from Behe's idea of science after
all:

"Christ is indispensable to any scientific theory, even if its
practitioners don't have a clue about him. The pragmatics of a
scientific theory can, to be sure, be pursued without recourse to
Christ. But the conceptual soundness of the theory can in the end only
be located in Christ." ... "ID is part of God's general revelation..."
"Not only does intelligent design rid us of this ideology
(materialism), which suffocates the human spirit, but, in my personal
experience, I've found that it opens the path for people to come to
Christ."

Intelligent Design: the Bridge Between Science and Theology

Seeing as Behe was even more circumspect about the religious impact of
ID (stating only that the God of Catholicism was a 'likely contender')
he comes off as the less evangelical of the two and the one less likely
to have been eviscerated by the plaintiff's counsel in Kitzmiller.

ID proponents don't like Behe's testimony as it blatantly exposes what
everyone was talking around in the first place. That ID is simply
religion trying to smuggle its way in under the US constitution.
Dembski makes this even more clear in his writing than Behe. If he's
decided that it's no longer a theory supported by Behe's science then
there isn't a great deal left. We can finish the debate now and ask
the ID camp to kindly pack its bags and come back when it has actual
evidence or a workable theory.

Yet they don't seem too keen on buggering off anytime soon despite this
- instead resorting to pointless backtracking about how the 'real' ID
wasn't on trial at Dover. If it wasn't the Judge, it was the school
board, if it wasn't the expert witness' for the plaintiff's it was
those for the defendants.

There is no ID. Nothing worth speaking of in terms of science anyway.
Come back when you have something real to chuck about.


We live in a country where a millionaire, Martha Stewart, was tossed
into jail for lying to the FBI, not that she actually lied to the FBI.
She said she didn't know something. They said she should have known
something and her subsequent actions seem to indicate that she did. She
said it was a coincidence, but she can't prove it. So, since she can't
prove her innocence and clearly we now live in a country that presumes
our guilt, they tossed her ass in jail. Judge Jones is not the only one
operating a kangaroo court.

Shocking. I can't imagine a worse travesty of justice in the world
right now.


The very ruling proves it isn't a
theory, because a theory (a product of the scientific method) could not
possibly be creationism, the terms are contradictary.

you do tie yourself up in some logical knots.

I hesitate to simplify , but if I say theory is white and creationism
is black, it is wholly absurd to say white is black. Is that too
technical for you?

No - but it doesn't make it actually clear what you're talking about.



Dembski was right not to testify, he'd be in jail, now. Any court that
can rule that a non-theory is a theory and is creationism is equally
capable of throwing everyone in jail for perjury that doesn't agree
with the court's view. Obviously, someone's lying here and when the
people lying have the authority to throw you in jail, it's a really bad
idea to give them the opportunity.

Oh, I know, you have your justifcations, but you don't seem to
understand what you've done. You've set a precedent. It is now
allowable for a U.S. court of law to rule on an idea of science

ID is not science. ID is dishonest religion. I imagine god squirms with
embaressment every time someone uses an ID argument.

Behe's ID is clearly not science, it's a single assertion about
irreducible complexity. It's a joke that he was even called to testify.
But as much and as many reasons you might think you have for hating
Dembski's guts, as long as he sticks to the scientific method,
shouldn't you give him the benefit of the doubt? The scientific method
is the line in the sand between science and pseudoscience, isn't it? It
doesn't mean his work belongs in a classroom or ever will.

Behe's 'theory' was, still is, a core part of ID. Dembski was quite
happy to go along with it, still doesn't seem to challenge it, so
what's going on? Whence came the huge ID schism? Or is this all in
your fevered imagination?



JTG 8/9/06

and
suspend the constitutional rights of those who dare to testify. I
imagine the attorneys at the Discovery Institute are putting a case
together at this very moment and lining up a kangaroo court of their
very own. You know what they say... what goes around, comes around.

--
Nick Keighley

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Speculative Design Hypothesis (with predictions)
    ... In science one investigates by testing hypotheses. ... I know that the scientists investigating the subject are doing ... Publications Supporting the Theory of Intelligent Design (Annotated) ... three papers in academic journals. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Uncommon Conceit
    ... Intelligent Design is not a theory, at this point, it's ... taught in a science class. ... Dembski attempts to do this. ... Scientists are now in a position to demonstrate ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: My views on evolution
    ... > have good science but tend to overstate their case. ... Do not confuse information theory with intelligent design. ... > humans evolve from a common ancestor with monkeys/apes; ... How many scientists know anything about Michael Polanyi ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Speculative Design Hypothesis (with predictions)
    ... In science one investigates by testing hypotheses. ... I know that the scientists investigating the subject are doing ... Publications Supporting the Theory of Intelligent Design (Annotated) ... three papers in academic journals. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: More Dembski Predictions
    ... Thought it might be interesting to post these predictions from Dembski ... scientists, one of them a Nobel laureate. ... biology hinges on the evolution of the right molecules. ... insult to Christianity to say that the REJECTION of science in favor of ...
    (talk.origins)