Category Archives: ID

Intelligent Design is Anti-Science.

This isn’t news

No one can

be surprised that the Pope believes in Intelligent Design. He believes he is god’s emissary on earth, for Christ’s sake.

However, his assault on atheists requires a response. Either he doesn’t understand those he disagrees with or, taking a page from the

Radical Right, he deliberately distorts the opposition’s views.

For what it is worth, this atheist — this anti-theist —

believes there is order to the Universe, as well as a lot of chance. There are laws governing it all. Those rules, however, need no god-

in-man’s-image. Why is that so hard to accept?

But, beyond me arguing with the Pope, note that ID supporters agree with him.

Again, no surprise. But it does take some of the edge off of one’s claims to supporting the scientific validity of ID if you offer as

support a papal aside. Or disingenuously hiding this Christian movement behind claims that the “designer” or “creator” could be

any faith’s. Yeah, right. Though this is one area where evangelical Christians and Muslims are arm-in-arm — god is great.

I

wonder how Catholics feel about Herr Schoenborn dismissing the casual remarks of the previous pope while they are told to hold the casual

remarks of the current one in high esteem. mjh

Pope: Universe created by ‘intelligent project’ By NICOLE

WINFIELD, Associated Press

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI has waded into the evolution debate in the United States, saying the

universe was made by an “intelligent project” and criticizing those who in the name of science say its creation was without direction or

order. …

Benedict focused his reflections for the audience on scriptural readings that said God’s love was seen in the “marvels

of creation.”

He quoted St. Basil the Great, a fourth century saint, as saying some people, “fooled by the atheism that

they carry inside of them, imagine a universe free of direction and order, as if at the mercy of chance.”

How

many of these people are there today? These people, fooled by atheism, believe and try to demonstrate that it’s

scientific to think that everything is free of direction and order,” he said. …

His comments were immediately

hailed by advocates of intelligent design, who hold that the universe is so complex it must have been created by a higher power.

Proponents of the theory are seeking to get public schools in the United States to teach it as part of the science curriculum. …

Questions about the Vatican’s position on evolution were raised in July by Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn.

In a New

York Times op-ed piece, Schoenborn seemed to back intelligent design and dismissed a 1996 statement by Pope John Paul II that

evolution was “more than just a hypothesis.” Schoenborn said the late pope’s statement was “rather vague and

unimportant.”

christ’s canker

American Chronicle: Pat Robertson Curses Pennsylvania

Town By Del Williams

Pat Robertson, the televangelist from Virginia Beach has warned (cursed) the town of Dover, PA on his

show, “The 700 Club”. He said,

“I’d like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don’t turn

to God, you just rejected Him from your city,” He went on to say, “And don’t wonder why He hasn’t helped you when

problems begin, if they begin. I’m not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your

city. And if that’s the case, don’t ask for His help because he might not be there.”

As a Christian I am offended that

this man is bent on presenting God as a hater and destroyer. …

I am not hearing the love in this

man, but animosity and anger. If you don’t vote the way he wants then your town is doomed. What nerve. This is one for senility

not God. I guess he overlooks the Scriptures that speak powerfully against wishing harm on another, because it will come to you instead.

Let me make this clear. Robertson is nothing more than a loud angry man who needs to go home and enjoy his

money. … Maybe God will do us all a favor and let him receive back the same kindness that he gave to the people of Dover, PA.

If it’s good enough for them, then it is good enough for him.

ABQjournal: Intelligent Design Has Support

Note, in particular, how many people in this survey knew nothing about ID before the survey. If you actually know what’s going on, you’re less likely to support ID.

With 60% of Republicans in NM supporting ID, it’s no surprise you don’t hear much talk lately about them being the party of “deep

thinkers” (as they called themselves just a few years ago). mjh

NM ID poll

ABQjournal: Intelligent Design Has Support BY JOHN FLECK, Journal

Staff Writer
But poll suggests many don’t know much about issue
Copyright © 2005 Albuquerque Journal

The idea of teaching

“intelligent design” in New Mexico public school science classes has more support than opposition among the state’s registered voters,

according to a Journal poll.

But the support falls just short of a majority, and the poll also suggests that a lot of New

Mexicans don’t know much about the issue one way or another. …

53 percent said they had heard or read about intelligent design,

compared with 43 percent who said they had not. (The remainder didn’t know or wouldn’t say.) …

Intelligent

design opponent Marshall Berman, education director of the New Mexico Academy of Science, said he believes the willingness to allow

teaching of intelligent design alongside evolution was likely a result of “the American concept of fairness.” [mjh: what

a sweet and gracious thought.]

He said those people did not understand that intelligent design is not scientific and that, in

his view, belief in intelligent design tends to be equated with belief in a creator in contemporary society.

Pollster Brian

Sanderoff, whose Research and Polling Inc. conducted the survey, noted that support for teaching intelligent design in school was

lower among those who had already heard or read about the subject.

Among those who were already aware of the

issue, 48 percent opposed teaching it in school, compared with 46 percent in support.

Sanderoff also noted that the

more educated people were, the less likely they were to support teaching intelligent design in school. Among political parties, Democrats

were evenly split on the issue, with 44 percent supporting teaching intelligent design in school and 45 percent opposed.

Republicans strongly supported teaching intelligent design in schools, 60 percent to 32 percent.

Seemingly Reasonable

I had my own reaction to Quigley’s anti-Intelligent Design

column last week. He seems to have inspired many responses from both sides in letters and a column.

The blatantly bible-thumping

IDers are easier to dismiss. But the intellectual IDers remind me the devil will appear in a pleasant form.

Below, Edenburn

demolishes his own argument with one word: “current”. He seems to allow that someday science will prove ID wrong. But that’s just the

devil seeming pleasant. IDers believe it cannot be proven wrong. Precisely what they falsely accuse evolutionists of believing. mjh

Note: I have added an “ID” category to gather related entries; see link to left.

—–

ABQjournal: Intelligent Design and Finding New Ideas By Mike

Edenburn, For the Journal

Mr. Quigley’s description of ID as a proposition is appropriate. I might expand on it a little by

describing intelligent design as the “proposition” that scientifically derived empirical evidence suggests that design by an

intelligent agent is the best current explanation for the origin of a variety of natural systems, particularly in

biology, and that natural laws and chance alone, the basis for the theory of evolution, are not adequate to explain these

observations. …

[I]nnovation usually comes from looking at things in different ways and adopting new paradigms. Some of

the greatest scientific discoveries in history have come from thinking outside the box, and those have been good for business.

Mike Edenburn is a mechanical engineer, former systems analyst at Sandia National Laboratories for 35 years, and a member of New Mexico

Intelligent Design Network

There’s no box like that little black book. Not to say

great and creative minds haven’t belonged to powerfully faithful believers. Just that fundamentalism by its nature requires closing your

mind.

—–

ABQjournal: Letters to Outlook

You are presenting the study of evolution as being necessary to achieving a quality

education. Somehow I cannot grasp how the study of man’s supposedly evolutionary climb from monkeys is going to help me learn to read,

write and add 2+2. If anything, my observation of our school system is that we are evolving back to the primate era.
Gary Hays

Albuquerque

This one is too easy. Hays doesn’t realize apes (“monkeys”) and humans evolved from a

common ancestor that was neither ape nor human. He also doesn’t realize we ARE primates.

—–

Quigley’s claim

that “ID is bad for business” is just plain laughable. Please tell me what makes more sense in education — simply accepting evolution as

truth, or evaluating evolution in light of a competing theory and then examining the evidence to see which has a greater claim to truth?

Hank Happ
Albuquerque

The devil himself speaks here. Open-minded and well-educated people

— even liberal people — must consider competing theories equally. Then must we allow astrology in the astronomy class?

—–

The scientific support for a creator’s involvement in the origins of life and universe is overwhelming.
Earl

Godwin, M.D.
Albuquerque

Please. An essential tenet of ID is irreducible complexity — that we

cannot grasp that which is most god-like. It is anti-science and anti-progress; it insist we must hit a point beyond which the answer is:

god did it.

—–

The proponents of ID are religious fundamentalists who are taught from birth to believe that the

worldly things of this life are of no importance; that salvation, that is, the life of the world after death, is all that matters. The

total lack of empirical evidence for this belief is irrelevant as Tertullian, an early Christian priest, said: “I believe because it is

absurd.”

The fundamentalist theocrats of all the monotheistic religions will never give up; their self-image depends on

continuing the control over the masses of the deluded faithful. It is this power, not salvation, that is the prime motivation to the

preachers, the witch doctors, and the theistic con artists. George Orwell would have understood.
Ross Milner
Albuquerque

Amen, Brother Milner!

Silver Flu Bullets

Silver Flu Bullets By Anne Applebaum

Americans and their leaders

will have to get over their love affair with intelligent design. Polls show that most don’t believe in evolution. But

it is actually impossible to talk logically about bird flu, or any other rapidly evolving and constantly changing virus, without

using the language of evolution — specific words such as “mutant,” “recombination,” “genome” and “selection.” Without that

language, a sensible popular or political discussion, let alone a scientific discussion, is impossible: We’re stuck talking about the

virus “jumping” from birds to humans, as if it were a magic bug with a mind of its own. We’re stuck thinking that a virus is a hex that

can be lifted with a single lucky charm, not something that will change over time.

We’re also stuck with magic solutions: silver

bullets, protective amulets, Tamiflu prescriptions. And until we are willing to elect the politicians, pay the businessmen, and support

the scientists and science educators who can come up with something better, that, I’m afraid, is all the flu preparedness we’ll ever

have.

Don’t Bank on ID Fading

I don’t read Winthrop Quigley every week, but I have found a

couple of his columns informative and worth reading. He’s not just an AmeriCog stoking the Capitalist Machine. That’s why it’s too bad

his column today is effectively buried in Business Outlook (it’s standard location). Though he includes a business reference, his topic

transcends it.

Quigley offers his own decent take on the fallacy of equating Intelligent Design with science. I consider it anti-

science new-speak — “dumbing down” taken to a new aggressiveness. Still, I’m happy to see Quigley weigh in on the side of light in the

struggle against the New American Dark Ages (NADA).

ABQjournal: Why Intelligent Design Is Wrong in Science Class By Winthrop Quigley, Journal Staff Writer

Intelligent

design has no long-run future in America’s science curricula because the dominant philosophy of the United States is not evangelical

Christianity, it is capitalism.

American business simply will not tolerate the further dumbing down of its future workforce’s

science education with metaphysical speculation masquerading as biology. It cannot afford to. …

Regardless of any spiritual

angst one might feel, the fact remains that ID is bad for business.

Corporate America, especially its technology companies, is

very worried about losing its competitive advantage over India, China and other Asian countries because of a poorly educated workforce.

And here is Quigley’s logical flaw, made worse by ignoring the true meaning of the quote he then

takes from Friedman.

Thomas L. Friedman in his book “The World Is Flat” said every major company he interviewed for

the book “is investing significantly in research and development abroad. It is not ‘follow the money.’ It is ‘follow the brains.’

In our current global economy, it is cheaper to go to the PhD’s than hire them here. Heartless and

soulless, corporations build their headquarters where the tax structure benefits them (which is also where their executives and boards

live) and they build their offices and factories where they find the optimal combination of cheap but just-adequately skilled

labor.

While Rio Rancho schools are working to put non-science into their science program, a kid in India is

preparing to take our kids’ technology jobs. I promise you, the Indian kid is not wasting his time studying ID. …

[Intel] will

build its new plants where the workforce is properly trained.

When that happens in enough communities, watch ID quietly leave

the science classroom

Though I enjoyed and respect the piece and encourage you to read the whole

thing, I think Quigley makes an important mistake. He believes Capitalism will save the day (perhaps he is an AmeriCog, after all).

Yes, business will realize that slack-jawed workers aren’t good for the company. Unfortunately, Quigley overlooks the value of slack-

jawed consumers (isn’t that why we have Channel One in schools?). It may be that it is in business’s interest to employ cheaper and

smarter Chinese PhD’s to come up with new products for rich and ignorant American buyers.

Or, perhaps we should look to Evangelical

Colorado Springs for the model of business in the NADA. Super-zealot

employees and consumers must yield the highest profits.

Get your authentic replica of Jesus on a

dinosaur now! mjh

See BugMeNot.com if you are not a Journal subscriber.

Majority of Americans Reject Theory of Evolution

Most Americans do not accept the theory of

evolution. Instead, 51 percent of Americans say God created humans in their present form, and another three in 10 say that while humans

evolved, God guided the process. Just 15 percent say humans evolved, and that God was not involved.

For

the record, I am with that 15 percent. And, though I sincerely believe in a diversity of views and mutual tolerance, I see that 51

percent as part of a New American Dark Ages (NADA). I know they aren’t all bible-thumping literalists who believe there were dinosaurs

in Eden and on the Ark; but a frightening number of them are and this ignorance is clearly contagious and

spreading.

This poll was conducted among a nationwide random sample of 808 adults, interviewed by

telephone October 3-5, 2005. The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample could be plus or minus four percentage

points.

On the other hand, I’ll believe in god before I put too much stock in divining the views of 300

million people from the responses of 808. Those who trust polls and statistics are welcome to explain their validity in comments. You’ll

find me as hard to move as Jesus on a dinosaur. mjh