On 4/21/2011 15:46, andrel wrote:
> In it's purest form ID does not give an explanation what did happen if it
> wasn't evolution.

Then why is it called "intelligent design" if in its purest form it's not 
hypothesizing intelligent design?

> point in defending that ID in the form stated above

I disagree that ID is "some things didn't evolve." That's backing off so far 
that one is simply searching hopelessly for anything that's non-disprovable.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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On 22-4-2011 1:16, Darren New wrote:
> On 4/21/2011 15:46, andrel wrote:
>> In it's purest form ID does not give an explanation what did happen if it
>> wasn't evolution.
>
> Then why is it called "intelligent design" if in its purest form it's
> not hypothesizing intelligent design?
>
>> point in defending that ID in the form stated above
>
> I disagree that ID is "some things didn't evolve." That's backing off so
> far that one is simply searching hopelessly for anything that's
> non-disprovable.

No, just to the point where it is in principle provable, but in practice 
not. If it is non-disprovable it is not science anymore. So you cannot 
cross that line.



-- 
Apparently you can afford your own dictator for less than 10 cents per 
citizen per day.

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On 4/22/2011 1:22, andrel wrote:
> On 22-4-2011 1:16, Darren New wrote:
>> On 4/21/2011 15:46, andrel wrote:
>>> In it's purest form ID does not give an explanation what did happen if it
>>> wasn't evolution.
>>
>> Then why is it called "intelligent design" if in its purest form it's
>> not hypothesizing intelligent design?
>>
>>> point in defending that ID in the form stated above
>>
>> I disagree that ID is "some things didn't evolve." That's backing off so
>> far that one is simply searching hopelessly for anything that's
>> non-disprovable.
>
> No, just to the point where it is in principle provable, but in practice
> not.

But nobody has even come up with an idea of how you would show a protein 
could not have evolved. "Irreducible complexity" doesn't show a protein 
could not have evolved. So how would you recognize such a protein?

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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> But more to the point, who gets to define what is Christian (which was
> the point of asking for an explanation of that statement), as throughout
> history a lot of things are done in Christianity's name - so who gets to
> decide "yes, that's a Christian thing to do" and "no, that's not a
> Christian thing to do and one who does it isn't Christian".

That's not hard.  Read the Bible and see what it says about how to 
become a Christian, and what it commands Christians to do.  Then compare 
it to the doings of the religious bodies in question.  Time and again, 
at so many points of teaching, we find things taught and practiced that 
cannot be found in the Bible, from even the very basics of becoming a 
Christian, to the organization of the church, liturgy, and so forth.

Getting back to the point at hand:  There simply is no command in the 
Bible for Christians to kill Jews, to make them second-class citizens, 
or to maltreat them in any way.  Those claiming to be Christians who did 
these things were following another authority.

Regards,
John

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John VanSickle <evi### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> > But more to the point, who gets to define what is Christian (which was
> > the point of asking for an explanation of that statement), as throughout
> > history a lot of things are done in Christianity's name - so who gets to
> > decide "yes, that's a Christian thing to do" and "no, that's not a
> > Christian thing to do and one who does it isn't Christian".

> That's not hard.  Read the Bible and see what it says about how to 
> become a Christian, and what it commands Christians to do.  Then compare 
> it to the doings of the religious bodies in question.  Time and again, 
> at so many points of teaching, we find things taught and practiced that 
> cannot be found in the Bible, from even the very basics of becoming a 
> Christian, to the organization of the church, liturgy, and so forth.

  If it were that simple, there wouldn't be something like 30000 different
denominations of Christianity (if I remember the estimate correctly).

  In modern times the interpretation of different denominations is always
colored by what is generally understood as (secular) basic human rights.
In medieval times the Catholic church (and other minor denominations of
the time) had no problem in accepting, for example, the witch killing
statutes of the old testament. Nowadays those statutes are almost globally
dismissed as not applying anymore (the reason varying wildly from
denomination to denomination, and even between individual Christians).
Not because christianity had changed on its own, but because nowadays
the secular notion of basic human rights abhors such statutes, and
christianity has adapted.

  Would you say that the Catholic church was not "true christianity" at
the time when it still persecuted witches? Why doesn't it persecute them
nowadays? What has changed?

  The thing is, when talking about what is morally right and wrong, the
Bible is a pick-and-choose book. Everybody chooses the passages that
conform to their own sense of morality (often colored by secular notions
of human rights) and dismisses the passages that don't (by using wildly
differing justifications on why the passage in question doesn't hold
anylonger).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Fri, 22 Apr 2011 13:08:29 -0400, John VanSickle wrote:

>> But more to the point, who gets to define what is Christian (which was
>> the point of asking for an explanation of that statement), as
>> throughout history a lot of things are done in Christianity's name - so
>> who gets to decide "yes, that's a Christian thing to do" and "no,
>> that's not a Christian thing to do and one who does it isn't
>> Christian".
> 
> That's not hard.  Read the Bible and see what it says about how to
> become a Christian, and what it commands Christians to do.  Then compare
> it to the doings of the religious bodies in question.  Time and again,
> at so many points of teaching, we find things taught and practiced that
> cannot be found in the Bible, from even the very basics of becoming a
> Christian, to the organization of the church, liturgy, and so forth.

So that's why there's only one sect of Christianity, then?  (Oh, wait, 
there isn't).  So whose interpretation is "correct"?

That's kinda the point, John.

> Getting back to the point at hand:  There simply is no command in the
> Bible for Christians to kill Jews, to make them second-class citizens,
> or to maltreat them in any way.  Those claiming to be Christians who did
> these things were following another authority.

Maybe not in your interpretation, but I'm sure there are others who 
interpret it as being there.  So it again comes down to *whose* 
interpretation are we using.

Just like with the Qu'ran the question is *whose interpretation* is being 
used - the one that says 'kill the infidels' or the one that says 'Islam 
is peaceful'.

That's the problem with having a holy book that's used as a 'set of 
directions' where it's been translated, re-translated, interpreted, re-
interpreted, and heavily edited over a couple millenia.  Not to mention 
the books that have been removed over the centuries because they didn't 
fit with the politics of the time (or whatever other excuse was given).

Jim

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On Fri, 22 Apr 2011 00:46:37 +0200, andrel wrote:

> On 21-4-2011 7:06, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Thu, 21 Apr 2011 00:26:31 +0200, andrel wrote:
>>
>>>> And what is the hypothesis? That a particular protein didn't evolve?
>>>> Or that some intelligence actually created that protein?
>>>
>>> That there are proteins (etc.) that didn't evolve by natural
>>> selection. Or even weaker that their presence is easier explained by
>>> design than as a result of natural selection. (hijacking Occam's
>>> razor).
>>
>> No, that's not correct.  Just because something can't be explained by
>> evolution (assuming it were found) doesn't mean ID is how it occurred.
> 
> In it's purest form ID does not give an explanation what did happen if
> it wasn't evolution.

Um, ID (by its very name) does attempt to explain what happened. "God did 
it".

>> What it means is we don't understand the process by which it occurred.
> 
> yes
> 
>> Leaping to the conclusion that it's ID because it isn't evolution is a
>> poor application of Occam's razor (at best) and lazy rationalization
>> (at worst).
> 
> See above. you are again assuming you know what the alternative should
> be. That almost everybody publicly defending ID shares your assumption,
> indeed moves them into the camp of easily proven to be non-scientific.
> My whole point in defending that ID in the form stated above can be a
> scientific hypothesis is that you have to forget about all the people
> that claim God did it.

No, I'm not assuming what the alternative would be.  There's a difference 
between "God did it" (or more precisely "An intelligent being created us 
out of nothing") and "I don't know."

That's what I mean by "it's ID" is lazy - whenever humans have reached 
the limits of their current understanding, the default answer for some is 
"God did it".  Then later, someone discovers, "Wait, it wasn't God, it 
was a natural process that we can now explain."

Jim

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On Thu, 21 Apr 2011 18:45:49 -0400, Alain wrote:

> Le 2011/04/21 17:14, Jim Henderson a écrit :
>> On Thu, 21 Apr 2011 17:12:02 -0400, Warp wrote:
>>
>>> Orchid XP v8<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>>>> The title says a revolution is happening. What's the opposite of a
>>>> scientific revolution? (Or should we just call it an "America"?)
>>>
>>>    Pseudoscientific revolution?
>>
>> I wouldn't even give it that much credit.  That puts it on par with
>> homeopathy.  It's even lower than that, because it doesn't even pretend
>> to be scientific (homeopathy isn't scientific, but it tries to pretend
>> to be).
>>
>> I'd call it an 'anti-science revolution'.
>>
>> Jim
> 
> How about:
> Pretend-science
> Moron-science
> Jackass-science
> Unscience
> 
> Take your pick.

I like it. :)

Jim

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On Thu, 21 Apr 2011 18:30:19 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> I was thinking of something else (but of course I can't remember what
>> now).  You are correct that ID does try to pretend to be - I guess I'm
>> having a problem with "scientific" being combined with "religious
>> belief" and that's what led me to say "anti-scientific" - as I see
>> 'religious belief' as being antithetical to 'knowledge'.
> 
>   The whole idea with the "intelligent design" movement is to mask the
> fact that it's simply repackaged creationism, by removing all mentions
> of "God" and other theistic claims. 

Yes, but a rebranding of creationism as "intelligent design" doesn't mean 
it's not religiously motivated.  I guess for those who don't see through 
that deception and who have a very limited understanding of what 
scientific discovery actually is might think it was 'an appearance of 
science'.

>   In the worst case scenario the whole schooling system could get
>   sabotaged
> to a catastrophical point. Science, technology and progress would suffer
> enormously.

Yes, and I think ultimately this demonstrates the real danger of this 
type of theistic thinking - not to mention that when it enters the public 
schools, it violates the establishment clause of the US Constitution.  If 
a public school is teaching religious theology about the creation of the 
universe (whether they use religious metaphors or not), I'm sorry, that's 
state-sponsored religion, and that's unconstitutional.

Jim

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On Thu, 21 Apr 2011 15:35:20 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> On 4/21/2011 15:30, Warp wrote:
>> start demanding to "teach the controversy" in geography class, and so
>> on.
> 
> http://www.joeydevilla.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/
teach_the_controversy_t-shirt_designs.jpg
> 
> I'm sure you've seen that stuff.

I love it. :)

Jim

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