“Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” isn’t a Hollywood movie.
This is real life in America, the land of the free…and the home of the brave. It isn’t about “religious nuts,” it isn’t about politics… and it certainly isn’t only about science.
It is about America, and the unseen silent hand of repression that is taking hold of science, in our public universities and government laboratories.
That said…we are overwhelmed with gratitude…and hope…to see the outpouring of free, no-holds barred debate that has been generated. It has energized us.
With but one look at the over two thousand or so posts to date – you can see that our film’s central theme has been validated: such controversy as you see displayed here isn’t really only about science, is it? ☺
The scientists and educators in this film who are being kicked around and whose lives and are being destroyed by a cadre of elite “antitheist” scientists aren’t Hollywood actors – they are real people, who have dedicated years of their life the pursuit of knowledge, and the pursuit of scientific evidence, no matter where it leads.
These are not folks who have devoted their lives to chasing the almighty dollar, or to pursuing fame and celebrity. They are better people than that. They receive relatively very little for their dedication and demanding, hard work.
For them…the “silent hand” of academic suppression is all too real.
Sadly, this movie doesn’t end well, for them. They go home to families that need to be fed, and live in houses that are mortgaged and children who hope someday to attend college themselves.
But because they have been “outed” as dissenters who question aspects of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution…the silent and unseen hand of academic intolerance simply “unemploys” them. Denies them tenure. Ends their careers, without so much as even an explanation as to why.
For this – for their belief that science can be furthered by a presupposition of design – Big Science’s elite brands them as heretics and their careers are systematically destroyed.
They are not – I repeat not – simply throwing up their hands and declaring, “God did it.” The accusation that they are substituting religious explanations for scientific proof is an absurd accusation, and an insult to the intelligence of these highly educated and disciplined men and women.
For the “thought crime” of believing that life is purposeful, and designed rather than a random “accident”, the unseen hand simply dismisses them.
Now – I want you to consider carefully what such repression would have meant to the scientist who said this, in 1941:
“Science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion…The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind”
–SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY, AND RELIGION: A SYMPOSIUM, 1941.
It was Albert Einstein. The “silent hand” of Big Science would today give Albert Einstein the flick. He’d simply be written off as a “religious nut.” No question about it.
So - imagine explaining to Albert the “definition” of science and the “box” that it belongs in. The one that has no room for “intelligent design.” Try telling him that he “doesn’t understand” science.
This really should not be happening in America.
These hard-working men and women of science today simply do not deserve the shabby, shameful treatment they are receiving as part of Big Science’s new agenda. It is an agenda that has nothing to do with science.
It important that we all rise to defend them from unfair suppression and defend their right to freedom of academic inquiry, wherever the evidence may lead them.
October 19th, 2007 at 6:56 pm
“It isn’t only about science.”
This is so true. When people debate religion it’s interesting to see how little concrete facts or reasonable points actually matter — to either side of the debate.
Great blog, great project, keep up the good work!
October 19th, 2007 at 7:53 pm
My take on ID here.
October 19th, 2007 at 8:44 pm
quoted from blog here; “These hard-working men and women of science today simply do not deserve the shabby, shameful treatment they are receiving as part of Big Science’s new agenda. It is an agenda that has nothing to do with science.”
Of course it has nothing to do with science. And although I have no idea what this documentary will reveal, I can only imagine the shabby, shameful treatment they are receiving. And for anyone to post that these hard-working people have nothing that wants to be heard outside of Darwinism, are very closed minded and don’t care about freedom of inquiry or what legitimate science is out there that point to design.
So what if something may point to design? Would that be so terrible? Would that mean that atheism isn’t as strong a case as Darwinism? Their agenda is to suppress everyone in the world to atheism, and to push God or a designer out of the picture totally. It’s like communism, and our country is no longer democratic. The ACLU will keep the education system and the public on a unilateral thinking mode, at the expense of our children. They and the Darwinian atheists seem to not care about our future, our children and their future or the world at all. They will continue bullying, and ruining lives outside of Darwinism, and they don’t care at all.
I think that these thoughtless atheists/Darwinians are the ones who should be ashamed. How dare they deceive and continue to deceive. I’d like to know how they sleep at night, not caring at all. And it’s so sad, they actually have ppl that believe their ideas of imagination only. Cause Darwinism is only fairytale and nothing more. It’s science fiction.
It breaks my heart to see this STUPID DARWINISM TAUGHT AT ALL!!! They shove macro-evolution down everyone’s throats with no proof at all to support that or anything else. There was no oozepool, no BIG BANG!!! They continue to make up stories to justify their religious beliefs. Many scientists, who studied and took evolution, to become a scientist/doctor, in whatever field, have came to the conclusion that Darwinism does not have any proof what-so-ever for their idiotic so called theory. And these scientists are just as qualified as the Darwinian scientists. Except these scientists turned their backs on Darwinism, because Darwinism is just a religion that promotes atheism.
Even when evidence is presented, the Darwinians jump in ASAP to dispute or debunk real scientific facts and evidence, because they dare DO NOT want to be exposed for the atheism they are pushing onto the world.
And I can tell you right now, atheism sucks! The attitudes that come form this religion is nothing but a shameful waste of a human being.
And its also shameful ppl cannot communicate at all. It’s the atheist to throw the first hateful word into the bunch that believes in a God or a designer. It’s amazing how the atheist, as I said before, can throw aside morals, and use words that cut sharper than broken glass. As Rodney Dangerfield used to say, “No respect at all.” Oh, you atheists can be respectful, but piss you off, and see where that respect goes. The language and words used to express hate certainly can make their way into the world. The atheist becomes selfish and think me, me, me.
No one has to believe in a God who did create the heavens and the earth, but we sure could use a little more God in this world.
And if anyone wants to say ‘Show me proof of ID, how is it scientific? Etc., etc.’, well, do a google search or use your fav search engine and search ID, intelligent design and even creation science. Do your own homework please. Before you decide to put down another idea, explore it first, hopefully with an open mind. I have explored Darwinism, even was taught it in high school. I don’t believe in Darwinism at all. And I don’t care what evo scientists want to say about it being true or factual. They must really believe, have much faith in it, or know it’s a hoax and do not care. Because if these scientists really opened their minds, not suppress where the evidence leads, may actually see other ideas that are great possibilities to our real origins. It’s also amazing how they let their intelligence be weaseled into a religious faith of Darwinian atheism simply because they do not want to believe in a God/Designer.
Either you believe in Darwinism or a Creator. These two do not go hand in hand.
~M
October 19th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
“These are not folks who have devoted their lives to chasing the almighty dollar, or to pursuing fame and celebrity.”
And yet some IDists do pretty well. Here’s what Dembski has to say about ID’s perks:
“For a movement that is in its death throes, I, as one of its principal advocates, am looking at more speaking engagements than I can fulfill and very generous honoraria (I suspect more than Ken Miller receives).”
“My books sell well.”
Pretty good for a mathematician who has contributed only 1 or 2 papers to the math literature.
And let’s not forget the many millions that the Discovery Institute has received and passed on to IDists, including Dembski.
October 19th, 2007 at 9:49 pm
“The accusation that they are substituting religious explanations for scientific proof is an absurd accusation, and an insult to the intelligence of these highly educated and disciplined men and women.”
Can we assume that your movie will expose this absurdity by finally revealing a tested scientific ID hypothesis that explains the accumulated data better than established theories? Keep in mind that scientific hypotheses cannot be formulated from nebulous philosophical terms.
October 19th, 2007 at 10:13 pm
“With but one look at the over two thousand or so posts to date – you can see that our film’s central theme has been validated: such controversyreationis as you see displayed here isn’t really only about science, is it?”
Controversyreationis? Is that anything like cdesign proponentsists?
And you’re right, it isn’t just about science. It’s mostly about pseudoscience and fraud. If those words accurately characterized ID — and I realize that you think they don’t — would you consider the reactions by science’s “elite” to be justified?
October 20th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
Absolutely. Is free speech available only for those who tow the politically and scientifically correct line? Back in the 1850’s there were plenty of scientists and politicians and even religious folk who swore that a black man was inferior to a white man. Wow, I think that some of these folks are still alive. At least their theories are.
Give this movie a chance. Watch it with the open minds you claim to have.
October 21st, 2007 at 1:00 am
cheryl: “Absolutely. Is free speech available only for those who tow the politically and scientifically correct line?”
Nope, free speech is available for everyone. But the scientific enterprise is not a free-for-all — it’s a meritocracy.
October 21st, 2007 at 5:02 am
Scientists don’t hold on to evolution because they want to be atheists. That’s obviously absurd. They accept evolution because of overwhelming evidence everywhere they look.
Christians don’t suport ID because of evidence. There is none. They support ID because they want to hold on to God. That much should be obvious to anybody in this debate. Think about it.
October 21st, 2007 at 1:01 pm
Wiggy,
Interesting argument. Question for you… Since when do Jews consider themselves Christians? “STEIN?” Get it? Not a Christian name that I’m aware of my friend. And by the way… Religion has nothing to do with I.D. If you did even a little research you’d find that MANY I.D. scientists are agnostic.
I think the new blog hit the nail on the head… This subject matter is about far more than Science. Can we say “prejudiced, bigoted suppression” friends?
October 21st, 2007 at 3:15 pm
The natural laws of information show in a purely scientific way that:
1. no material entity can create an immaterial entity
2. information is a non-material entity
3. information is the non-material basis for all biological systems
4. there is no information without code
5. every code is the result of a free will agreement
6. there is never new information without a sender which is intelligent and with a clear will
7. every information can be followed up to the intelligent source
8. the meaning of a set of symbol is a spiritual process which needs intelligent
9. from statistical processes one cannot generate information
…
Evolutionism is a malsane virus which blocks the Scientists in properly interprete their observations in a clear way.
Unfortunately, almost all the scientists which deal with evolutionism work in cultural “Silos” and they do not approach the issue from a information theoretical basis.
If they would do so, they would realise that evolutionism is fundamentally biased.
October 21st, 2007 at 6:01 pm
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hse5BIx-Eltfe-LgCdXhSNXewsAAD8SBSHV01
”
“We’d let them finally do it, but we’d put them through it. We’d say, ‘It should be Stein/Franken because Ben is older. And that’s the proper way to do it.’ And they’d say, ‘But, but, but we can do it as Franken/Stein.’ And I’d go, ‘Oh no, I understand why you’d want to do that, but we prefer Stein-Franken.’”
”
You might not have an alternate option, your’re getting drafted, first.
October 22nd, 2007 at 1:08 am
ID has nothing to do with religion?
I would direct people to read about the ‘Wedge Document’ which is a plan to promote ID authored by the Dicsovery Institute (A federal court recently ruled that the Discovery Institute pursues “demonstrably religious, cultural, and legal missions”).
The Wedge Document outlines a public relations campaign meant to sway the opinion of the public, popular media, charitable funding agencies, and public policy makers. According to critics, the wedge document, more than any other Discovery Institute project, demonstrates the Institute’s and intelligent design’s political rather than scientific purpose.
The document sets forth the short-term and long-term goals with milestones for the intelligent design movement, with its governing goals stated in the opening paragraph:
“To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural, and political legacies”
“To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God”
You can read all about it on Wikipedia. Check it out and then see if you can say ID has nothing to do with religion with a straight face. One side of this argument between science and religion is being dishonest here and I really don’t think it’s science.
October 22nd, 2007 at 2:38 am
For those of you who might be wondering, Luca is paraphrasing the basic theorems of the creationist Werner Gitt’s paper In The Beginning Was Information.
In section 3.2 starting on page 45, he discards Shannon’s definition of information because it lacks “meaning”, then proceeds to use a definition of information that relies on “meaning” or “semantics”, and introduces W (for Will) as another entity to be considered.
Given the difficulty of measurement of the quantities in the paper (section 10 in his paper merely provides suggestions, with little way to figure out quantities that are not zero or one) and the requirement to accept the premise in order to lead to the conclusion, Gitt’s theorems are not going to be terribly useful in this debate. The reliance on the Bible is also a bit problematic here as it cannot be used as a direct support for Intelligent Design, which disavows knowledge of, and indeed will not investigate, the identity of the Designer.
Gitt a priori discards any materialistic cause:
Jason Rosenhouse’s encounter with Werner Gitt at the Creation Mega Conference at LU is instructive, and finds that Gitt does not properly address the known productive biological information source of duplication-plus-variation (be it mutation or crossovers in egg and sperm DNA).
October 22nd, 2007 at 2:36 pm
No. It’s not the “silent hand” it is the “invisible hand” of the free marketplace of ideas. Intelligent design wasn’t expelled, it’s stock simply crashed.
October 22nd, 2007 at 4:12 pm
There is no evidence for intelligent design. Certainly people can find holes in the theory of evolution as it has yet to have been perfected, but that isn’t evidence for intelligent design.
Just because we do not know how something was able to arise in organisms does not mean that the thing in question is evidence for god. This is very similar to how if we cannot make sense of one piece of evidence in a murder trial we don’t just immediately say that god killed the man, especially when 90% of the remaining evidence points to a single suspect. Human are fallible and scientific thought takes that into account. We cannot know everything ever, but we can take the evidence of the world around us and come to logical conclusions.
One of the few things that I think could actually be evidence of an intelligent designer is something like this: http://www.xkcd.com/10/. Saying that because we cannot explain it therefor god (or some mysteroius unnamed, unknown, untestable, “Intelligent Designer that isn’t the god of the Christians and Jews *wink wink nudge nudge”) did it is one of the worst false dichotomies anyone can come up with.
October 22nd, 2007 at 5:56 pm
“It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”
- Albert Einstein, letter to an atheist (1954), quoted in Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas & Banesh Hoffman
October 22nd, 2007 at 6:03 pm
“It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere…. Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.”
- Albert Einstein, “Religion and Science,” New York Times Magazine, November 9, 1930
For more, see:
http://atheism.about.com/od/einsteingodreligion/tp/Einstein-on-a-Personal-God.htm
October 22nd, 2007 at 7:17 pm
Great interview on O’Reilly tonight, Ben! Thank you so very much. I sent my own personal email to my friends and family to watch the trailer and the O’Reilly interview, so it would spark their interest in the movie. They thought it rocked. I concur. God bless you, sir. Kathie
October 22nd, 2007 at 7:38 pm
The Templeton Foundation, which by no means takes god out of any research, and in no way persecutes scientists for their theism, has distanced itself from ID.
In a statement, they said - “Does the Foundation support I.D.? No. We do not support the political movement known as “Intelligent Design.” This is for three reasons 1) we do not believe the science underpinning the “Intelligent Design” movement is sound, 2) we do not support research or programs that deny large areas of well-documented scientific knowledge, and 3) the Foundation is a non-political entity and does not engage in, or support, political movements.”
As stated in a prior post, everyone visitng this blog should read the Discovery Institutes’ Wedge Plan. See Phase II- Publicity and Opinion Making Item # 9 - Documentaires and other media productions. ie - “Expelled”
As to the incredibly uninformed poster above who stated that “religion has nothing to do with ID” -
Here are a few statements from Philip E Johnson, considered the father of the intelligent design movement.
“Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of intelligent design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools.”
“This isn’t really, and never has been a debate about science. Its about religion and philosophy.”
“The objective (of the wedge strategy) is to convince people that Darwinism is inherently atheistic, thus shifting the debate from creationism vs. evolution to the existence of God vs. the non-existence of God. From there people are introduced to ‘the truth’ of the Bible and then ‘the question of sin’ and finally ‘introduced to Jesus.’”
ID is not science, this movie is not about science, its a pernicious attempt to promote a narrow, extreme christian agenda.
October 22nd, 2007 at 8:20 pm
“Luca Says:
October 21st, 2007 at 3:15 pm
The natural laws of information show in a purely scientific way that:
1. no material entity can create an immaterial entity
2. information is a non-material entity…”
So I can’t create this post then, which is information.
Don’t make “laws” up.
I LOVE IT SO!
October 22nd, 2007 at 9:37 pm
After reading many of these entries, I’ve made a few “scientific” observations:
First- It seems as though most of the postings are against any notion of Intelligent Design. This does not lead me to believe that it is any indicator of popular opinion, as multiple polls indicate that Americans (and in fact most of the population of the world) do indeed believe in some type of higher power. No…rather, it confirms my belief that liberals just love playin’ on the computer!
Second- I find it amusing that these disbelievers of ID love lashing out against Christians when the creator, star and driving force behind this film is someone of the Jewish faith! This confirms that the only group that’s safe to persecute these days is Christians. In fact, it’s chic.
Science has done a great job of explaining the existence of the Universe. In fact, I believe in evolution and the Big Bang theory, as most contemporary Christians do. Science has done a great job of explaining nearly everything, all the way down to a super condensed ball of gas floating in an infinite sea of nothingness.
But, I’d like to state a simple truth; that’s as far as science and our finite minds can go. We cannot explain where that super condensed ball of gas came from, why it suddenly decided to explode, how it eventually created our consciousness and where it will eventually take us.
That’s where faith comes in.
God bless you Ben.
October 22nd, 2007 at 9:43 pm
“Ninety percent of [contemporary scientists and philosophers] see their principle task as that of beating religion out of men’s heads. … We are far from being able to provide scientific basis for the theological world view.”
Kurt Gödel
October 22nd, 2007 at 10:14 pm
Seven reasons why Evolution is a fraud.
1. It’s not science. You cannot observe, test and repeat the ever-changing ideas that are little more than wild speculation.
2. It devalues real science. Chemistry, physics and biology don’t have the same problems of legitimacy because they are real sciences, not philosophical wannabes trying to appear legit.
3. Complex engineering. Do you ever drive past a skyscraper and think to yourself ‘Gee, I guess billions of years of random chance could have just as easily assembled all of that glass, steel and concrete as well as a team of engineers, architects, construction workers working from blueprints? Of course not! But that’s what evolutionists would have you believe in when it comes to living organisms.
4. Genetics. The programming code of life, according to evolutionists, is just a series of biochemical accidents and mutations. If you believe this, I have a bridge in New York that’s for sale. The infinitely complex engineering of this code means that it did not come about via ‘natural selection,’ aka random chance.
5. Mathematically Impossible. Basic probability tells you that the odds of a blob of primordial ooze morphing into a man, regardless of how much time has passed, are so remote that mathematicians regard it as impossible. Emile Borel and Fred Hoyle are just two mathematicians who reject evolution on statistical grounds.
6. Evolution is a religion. Yes, evolution is the faith of atheism because it replaces God with man. When you’ve conned yourself into believing that some kind of ancient slime morphed into progressively complex and directional life forms, you are in the realm of faith, not science.
7. Racism. This is the ugly secret that evolutionists don’t want to discuss; that Darwin, Huxley and many of the early advocates of evolution stated publicly that Asians, Africans, Australian Aborigines and other non-white, non-European groups were evolutionary throwbacks. Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton, was a pioneer in the early field of eugenics which was the study of skills by ethnic groups. While Galton’s work was relatively harmless, Hitler’s work — to synthesize natural selection by exterminating a race of people — was not.
We as human beings have to stop taking the theories of men and woman as scientific fact.
October 22nd, 2007 at 10:41 pm
Ah, more god-of-the-gaps filler for our beloved theists neighbors.
Until science fully explains it, religionists of all creeds will cling to it as proof/evidence of the God they happen to fancy.
As recorded history has shown repeatedly — every God has enjoyed one constant: His followers will bend their views to shove him into all scientific gaps… without fail.
As our ancestors once believed that the movement of the sun and the stars were the acts of God; scientific research has since shown otherwise. Or, our ancestors once believed that the earth was only a few thousand years old; scientific research has since shown otherwise.
Ben is an intelligent guy (the other folks behind this film, I can’t speak too)… but most “evolutionists” don’t care if you teach creationism (or ID, call it what you will) — as long as it is taught in the appropriate place… a RELIGIOUS class or at home or at church.
ID/Creationism is NOT science. It is religion.
Posit a theory. Test it. Alter theory as required. Repeat. That is science. ID/Creationism doesn’t meet those simple criteria.
But I digress… I can’t wait to see this film as it certainly has a built-in audience — Mel Gibson can surely speak to this w/ the hundreds of millions he made on his Jesus film.
And one final note:
It looks as though there is evidence that the producers of this film are continuing the ID/Creationism line of flat out lying in any effort to make their point:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expelled:_No_Intelligence_Allowed
Cheers, fellas. It doesn’t work in the science class… so lie to a bunch of scientists in order to get them to sit down w/ you… then edit your interview to suit your needs.
How very scientific of you.
Isn’t this the type of things your are trying to eXpose in your movie?
October 22nd, 2007 at 11:11 pm
My 8th Grade Science Teacher was breathless about experiments with Drosophila in Genetics. Just KNEW transitional species would emerge! Four decades of massive irradiation later - still just Fruit Flies, minus a few features, plus a few stripes and polka dots. Whoopie. Years ago, I worked at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. HPRR Fast Burst Reactor (part of DOSAR)was essentially a “nuclear weapon on a hilltop”. MASSIVE bursts of radiation. We hid in control room bunker under a hill, 1/2 mile away, 2-foot thick Boronated Concrete shell (neutron moderator), surrounded by 1-foot thick reinforced concrete. Ecologists were always combing area for mutants. Nothing, even after EONS of equivalent radiation. So much for theory of “Beneficial Mutation” the Darwinists are always waving. -Allen Young, Registered Professional Engineer, Texas (BS Physics, BSEE, MSEE)
October 22nd, 2007 at 11:26 pm
This is the first movie I have looked forward to viewing in many years. “It is about America, and the unseen silent hand of repression that is taking hold of science, in our public universities and government laboratories.”
October 22nd, 2007 at 11:31 pm
Darwinists have struggled with explaining the “self-organization of life” amidst the increasing entropy (disorder) of the universe at-large. Some have explained this as a “runaway ramp”, a simple pause toward disorder. If only the Thermodynamic element is considered, this might be so. But, they can never explain the equation imbalance left by the huge, negative “Information Entropy” represented within life, itself. The term “Information Entropy” was coined during a conversation between Shannon (information theory and communications) and von Neumann. Thermodynamically, the bond energy in your DNA may be identical for many different arrangements. However, the specific Information Entropy therein is quite important to ensure that your nose is not located on your posterior. Darwinesque views of life do not account for this.
October 22nd, 2007 at 11:47 pm
… or so they say. But God works in mysterious ways as well. It’s amazing how something like this suddenly has those Darwinians dredging up from the bottom of that ‘ol oozepool, to come out and downplay any kind of Intelligent Design/Creator.
But God gave people a sense of curiosity (meow), so I think this documentary may raise a few brows.
In 150 yrs, Darwinism evolution hasn’t proved anything, and of course, there’s that any day now we can still find that proof and evidence that Darwinism evo is true. But, in the mean time, let them have their fit, and that makes many peeps question, why are those Darwinians getting so mad if they have all the facts? They have to wonder if Darwinians aren’t confident, why?
Ah, yes, bad to the bone … and those atheists think they can take over the world? Push God right out of the picture, forever? Under who’s authority? God’s? LOL, you Darwinians slay me.
October 23rd, 2007 at 10:36 am
Wow, you guys are stupifying. If you get it your way, we wont only have to teach one version of ID. We will have to teach every single retardo religious creation story as if it was true. Equal time! I want to see the hindu creation story as fact as well as the native american one. Howcome no one is giving these theories equal time dammit. Or better yet, I just came up with my theory, its called Intelligent Designation - there was this guy, I call him the creator, and he came to earth and little seeds came out of his fingers and turned into simple cells, from there he used a piano and every note he played created a new species. There, that is what we should teach in school, i mean come on, there are so many gaps in evolution that this has to be true. lol
October 23rd, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Evolutionists have only themselves to blame for the general population finally reacting against them. We must ask ourselves, “Why was the objective of the educational system, EVER to prove or disprove the existence of a CREATOR?” The purpose of an educational system is to EDUCATE people regarding WHAT WE KNOW! If Evolutionists INSIST on proving there is not a Creator, people like me will INSIST upon challenging them. My message to educators is, “Teach what you can PROVE, extrapolate to what is PROBABLE, and STOP THERE! You can never prove that my Creator is not real, so quit trying and educate like we’re paying you to do!” -Allen Young, Registered Professional Engineer, Texas, BS Physics, BSEE, MSEE
P.S. The answer to the initial question I posed is that Secular Progressives hope to eventually replace our concept of “Inalienable Rights from a Creator” with “Conditional Rights from Their Concept of Government”
October 23rd, 2007 at 3:44 pm
I am a Christian.
I’m excitied about the release of this movie because it will open alot of oppurtunities to discuss God and His Creation.
Let me just give you a small overview of what I believe.
-God is real. He is eternal. He created the Universe and everything in it according to Genisis 1:1,
“God created the heavens and the earth.”
-Everything is held together by God, as it says in Colossians 1:16-17,
“For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him and for Him: and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist.”
-Despite what evolutionists say, there is evidence for a Creator. Just take a look at the world around you! The ever consistent and changing seasons, the mystery and beauty in the transformation from caterpillar to butterfly or the wonder and complexity of conception and birth. It screams of a Creator! Perform as many experiments, write as many books and engage in as many debates as you like, when it all comes down to it, deep in the soul of every man and woman is the knowledge of their Creator.
Consider, for a moment, if it is even logical to believe in Evolution. This philosophy claims that life came from a series of chemical reactions in a little sludge pool. From that, life somehow evolved into the incredible complexity and order it is today.
With that in mind, imagine you’re walking through the woods. You’re just strolling along, getting a little afternoon excercise before dinner. You look down at the ground to find a watch lying at your feet. You pick it up. “Where could it have come from?”, you wonder. Well, at one point it must have been made by a Watchmaker.Then at some point it’s owner lost it.
It wouldn’t be logical to say “well, over time and through a series of chemical reactions, this watch must have evolved from the dirt.” No! And yet, as far more complex the human body is as compared to a watch, that is what evolution claims happened.
Hopefully, this film will be able to give those believing in Intelligent Design the freedom that they deserve. Also, I don’t mean to hurt anyones feelings or make anyone mad. My only intent is to give the world what they so desperately need, the Truth.
October 23rd, 2007 at 5:55 pm
Darwinism is a pseudoscience that demands blind faith and adherence to the latest paleobabble talking points. You’ll notice that whenever evolution is attacked, the evolutionists will resort to attacking religion as if that bolsters the defense of evolution.
There is nothing measurable, testable or repeatable about evolution and in the 148 years since The Origin of Species came out, none of the countless transitional forms that Darwin predicted have been found.
Keep up the good work! I cannot wait to see the film.
October 23rd, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Charles Darwin was, undeniably, a man with a keen eye for detail. He was by no means, however, a true scientist of great stature like Sir Isaac Newton. While Newton, a Physical Scientist and Mathematician, refined and applied Calculus to the building of modern technology and real knowledge, Darwin was merely an astute librarian. And, while he and his colleagues corresponded in semi-quantitative, Victorian silliloque that begged for reduction to but a few words, its content was AND IS STILL lacking. So, while mindless people proudly display the “footed Ichthus” on their cars, Darwin’s modern-day warriors blink in stunned silence at the results of the Human Genome Project. Their simplistic one-gene-for-one-trait model failed, leaving them to wonder how a Human can be defined with a fraction of those expected. In their conceit, they never expected the beautiful, multiple-order interactions among genes that causes them to subtly modulate the effects of each other. Yes, most Christians have heard about enough of the wonders of Mr. Darwin, a man who had serious doubts about the viability of his own theory. Look at this following, direct quote from Darwin, and ask yourself if your boss would accept such an argument as a substitute for credible performance.
–The Origins of Species - Ch 10 - by Charles Darwin–
… Those who believe that the geological record is in any degree perfect, will undoubtedly at once reject my theory. For my part, following out Lyell’s metaphor, I look at the geological record as a history of the world imperfectly kept and written in a changing dialect. Of this history we possess the last volume alone, relating only to two or three countries. Of this volume, only here and there a short chapter has been preserved, and of each page, only here and there a few lines. Each word of the slowly-changing language, more or less different in the successive chapters, may represent the forms of life, which are entombed in our consecutive formations, and which falsely appear to have been abruptly introduced. On this view the difficulties above discussed are greatly diminished or even disappear.
October 23rd, 2007 at 9:15 pm
If Intelligent Design is a scientific theory, what does it predict, and what applications does it have?
October 23rd, 2007 at 9:29 pm
“My 8th Grade Science Teacher was breathless about experiments with Drosophila in Genetics. Just KNEW transitional species would emerge! Four decades of massive irradiation later - still just Fruit Flies, minus a few features, plus a few stripes and polka dots. Whoopie.”
fruit fly URLs
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0403082115.67a4b153%40posting.google.com
October 23rd, 2007 at 9:34 pm
“There was no oozepool, no BIG BANG!!!”
There was a big bang.
The Search for a Loophole to the Beginning of the Universe
in the Big Bang
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/443d6bc0b02dd25e?dmode=source
The Discovery That the Universe Is Expanding: Developments in
Theoretical and Observational Cosmology, 1915-1930
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.LNX.4.44L.01.0308140928380.13996-100000%40linux2.gl.umbc.edu
A primordial soup didn’t exist.
On the Origin of Life
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-39oh33F63riraU1%40individual.net
some 1915-1999 doses of reality
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-33arf3F3vjdggU1%40individual.net
atheism of the gaps
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-1163208112.842963.215980%40f16g2000cwb.googlegroups.com
October 23rd, 2007 at 9:37 pm
“Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton, was a pioneer in the early field of eugenics which was the study of skills by ethnic groups. While Galton’s work was relatively harmless, Hitler’s work — to synthesize natural selection by exterminating a race of people — was not.”
1884 atheism-adherent Galton: “the jews are specialized for a parasitical existence”
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=1176174475.647539.256600%40o5g2000hsb.googlegroups.com
solidification of Galton’s conversion to atheism
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-1152069471.339904.173350%40v61g2000cwv.googlegroups.com
Draft 2 of a chronology of Darwinian thought and the march to the Final Solution
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-1122434358.640904.162640%40z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com
Hitler’s actions make sense given his atheism and eugenic, social Darwinist vision
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-1134145559.645139.229550%40f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com
Multi-Pronged Role of Darwinian Thought in Shoah’s Arrival
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/10ac5d963dfa0eba?hl=en&
October 23rd, 2007 at 9:41 pm
“….Darwin, Huxley and many of the early advocates of evolution stated publicly that Asians, Africans, Australian Aborigines and other non-white, non-European groups were evolutionary throwbacks.”
Buchner, Ludwig. 1872. _Der Mensch und seine Stellung in der Natur_,
2nd edition (Leipzig), 147. Cited in
Weikart, Richard. 2004. _From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics,
Eugenics, and Racism in Germany_ (USA: Palgrave Macmillan), 312pp.,
191. About Weikart’s book:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0407030531.19253d93%40posting.google.com
The white or Caucasian human species is ordained
to take dominion of the earth, while the lowest
human races, like Americans, Australians, Alfuren,
Hottentots, and such others, are proceeding toward
their destruction with huge steps.
1871 Darwin: [CD]”the civilised races of man”– e.g. [CD]”the Caucasian”– [CD]”will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races”– e.g. [CD]”the negro or Australian,” as in Australian aborigine– with the end result being [CD]”man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, than the Caucasian”
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0407060404.711490be%40posting.google.com
Darwin to W. Graham
http://pages.britishlibrary.net/charles.darwin/texts/letters/letters1_08.html
Down, July 3rd, 1881.
==
Remember what risk the nations of Europe ran, not
so many centuries ago of being overwhelmed by the
Turks, and how ridiculous such an idea now is! The
more civilised so-called Caucasian races have
beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for
existence. Looking to the world at no very distant
date, what an endless number of the lower races
will have been eliminated by the higher civilized
races throughout the world. But I will write no more,
and not even mention the many points in your work
which have much interested me. I have indeed
cause to apologise for troubling you with my
impressions, and my sole excuse is the excitement
in my mind which your book has aroused.
I beg leave to remain,
Dear Sir,
Yours faithfully and obliged,
CHARLES DARWIN.
Hitler & Darwin URLs
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/7bb70dd31802664e?hl=en&
Neo-Nazis, I suggest you study the writings of that scientist, and
prophet of Darwin in England, T.H. Huxley.
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-1146056580.480126.106210%40e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com
October 23rd, 2007 at 9:42 pm
“6. Evolution is a religion. Yes, evolution is the faith of atheism because it replaces God with man. When you’ve conned yourself into believing that some kind of ancient slime morphed into progressively complex and directional life forms, you are in the realm of faith, not science.”
1993 Michael Ruse: “for Julian Huxley evolution was functioning as a kind of secular religion”
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-1164729280.977099.300830%40h54g2000cwb.googlegroups.com
1980 John Durant: the secular myths of evolution have had “a damaging effect on scientific research”, leading to “distortion, to needless controversy, and to the gross misuse of science”
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0406081707.2b79a9e0%40posting.google.com
October 23rd, 2007 at 9:45 pm
Someone linked to “Albert Einstein Quotes on a Personal God: Einstein Denied Personal Gods, Prayer”
Einstein: physics was designed
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-37f67dF59po8jU1%40individual.net
Newton was a creationist regarding biology.
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-3877igF5kk9siU2%40individual.net
October 24th, 2007 at 4:37 am
Ah, David Ford is in the house. David, nice to see you are alive… and, um, haven’t changed.
Well, “EXPELLED” folks, any credibility you were hoping for has effectively been completely and utterly lost w/ the arrival of Mr. Ford.
BTW, please — PLEASE — tell me that David Ford is in your movie (or involved in any possible manor) and that he is someone who has been “silenced” or “repressed” by the scientific powers that be.
October 24th, 2007 at 4:53 am
In answer to an earlier question, Intelligent Design is NOT a scientific theory. What most call Intelligent Design is a COLLECTIVE ATTEMPT to highlight a decades-long misuse of educational and governmental resources by Secular Pro(Re)gressives. NEITHER GOVERNMENT NOR PUBLICLY-FUNDED INSTITUTIONS OF LEARNING should allow scientific learning to be extrapolated into concluding that there is NO GOD. I says again, (1) TEACH WHAT YOU CAN PROVE, (2)EXTRAPOLATE to what is reasonable, based upon your proofs, (3) BUT, DO NOT THEN USE JUNK SCIENCE TO ATTEMPT PROOF THAT THERE IS NO GOD. Evolutionists have only themselves to blame for the emergence of “Intelligent Design”. If Evolutionists and their Secular Pro(Re)gressive partners persist in teaching and governing beyond their bounds, so will WE push back to prevent them from doing so.
October 24th, 2007 at 7:31 am
Darwin is the Father of Evolution - Dawkins is the chosen prophet and the Galapagos Islands are Mecca.
October 24th, 2007 at 7:43 am
[Eightbitmage on October 22, 2007]”There is no evidence for intelligent design.”
Do you think biology has the appearance of having been designed by intelligence?
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-1135748125.229401.252690%40g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com
2006 Dawkins: life has “an overwhelming illusion of ‘design.’”
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1172243872.240034.24900%408g2000cwh.googlegroups.com
2005 Dawkins: “the illusion of design”; “things that look designed (like birds”
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1172240834.278579.111180%40q2g2000cwa.googlegroups.com
October 24th, 2007 at 7:49 am
[magilum on October 23rd, 2007]”If Intelligent Design is a scientific theory, what does it predict, and what applications does it have?”
I wouldn’t say “Intelligent Design is a scientific theory.”
I would say that ID can provide for a metaphysical research program.
ID as a metaphysical research program
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-1129317540.779352.231140%40f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com
Do you think the T0E “is a scientific theory”? If so, what does the T0E predict?
///////////////////////////////////
ReMine, and Birch & Ehrlich on the unfalsifiability of the ToE
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.3.96A.990620062330.18490880A-100000%40umbc9.umbc.edu
T0E good for study of morphogenesis?: Goodwin
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0402230503.56fa7a7%40posting.google.com
T0E good for taxonomy?: 1973 Fairbairn (a creationist); 1982 Colin Patterson; 5 November 1981 Patterson
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0402161147.29fee40e%40posting.google.com
October 24th, 2007 at 8:47 am
“For them…the ’silent hand’ of academic suppression is all too _real_. Sadly, this movie _doesn’t end well_, for them. They go home to families that need to be fed, and live in houses that are mortgaged and children who hope someday to attend college themselves.”
Fire the IDiots
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0403121312.35d2e0c%40posting.google.com
“the ‘thought crime’ of believing that life is purposeful”
1949 Simpson: “man is the result of a purposeless materialistic process that did not have him in mind”
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0407211226.2988d48b%40posting.google.com
1982 Stebbins: “evolution [i.e. blindwatchmaking] was opportunistic and devoid of purpose”
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0407220448.59612c65%40posting.google.com
a t.o. philosopher on ‘function’ and ‘purpose’ in biology
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-37c9m5F59n45nU1%40individual.net
1962 Oparin: “the universal ‘purposiveness’ of the organisation of living beings is an objective and self-evident fact”
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0407240715.2b0e119a%40posting.google.com
Timeline of Materialism, Spontaneous Generation, and Blindwatchmaking Views
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-348jecF47mfcjU1%40individual.net
October 24th, 2007 at 9:06 am
[Marilyn]”The atheist becomes selfish”
selfish, devout atheist makes a discovery
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1189710468.679694.94610%4022g2000hsm.googlegroups.com
Motivations for Continuing to Cling to Philosophy of Materialism, 1999 Paul Vitz on personal convenience; 2002 Benjamin Wiker
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-35qe6lF4orjsoU1%40individual.net
October 24th, 2007 at 9:08 am
“pseudoscience and fraud”
the fraud known as the fossil horse series
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.3.96A.980816003836.28616B-100000%40umbc9.umbc.edu
godlessness in trouble: science, ‘frauds’ trigger decline in atheism
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-38r8v3F5qkkv1U1%40individual.net
1983 Bruce Alberts; Haeckel’s fraudulent embryo depictions; 1956 Goldschmidt
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-38m3vrF5o7bk2U1%40individual.net
Anthropologist Loren Eiseley concerning Piltdown. Cited in
http://corior.blogspot.com/2006/02/part-8-what-creation-book-says-about.html#t224
I’m looking at this Eiseley in Fix (1984), 13, which is where the
author of that website article apparently got the Eiseley. In looking
at the Fix bibliography, the Eiseley is highly-probably originally in
McKern, Thomas, ed. 1966. _Readings in Physical Anthropology_ (NJ:
Prentice-Hall).
The amount of subjective speculation indulged in for
years over the Piltdown “fossil,” and to which many
leading authorities contributed, can now be viewed
historically as a remarkable case history in self-
deception. It should serve as an everlasting warning
to science that it is not the theologian alone who
may exhibit irrational bias or give allegiance to
theories with only the most tenuous basis in fact.
That scientists in the early years of a new discipline
should have been easily deceived is not nearly so
embarrassing as the rapidity with which they
embraced the specimen solely because it fell in with
preconceived wishes and could be used to support
all manner of convenient hypotheses. The
enormous bibliography in several languages which
grew up around the skull is an ample indication,
also, of how much breath can be expended
fruitlessly upon ambiguous or dubious materials.
October 24th, 2007 at 9:12 am
“finally revealing a tested scientific ID hypothesis that explains the accumulated data better than established theories”
2006 _Creation As Science: A Testable Model Approach to End the
Creation/evolution Wars_
by Hugh Ross
http://www.amazon.com/Creation-As-Science-Approach-evolution/dp/1576835782/sr=8-1/qid=1159838370
October 24th, 2007 at 9:16 am
[Wiggy on October 21st, 2007]”Scientists don’t hold on to evolution because they want to be atheists. That’s obviously absurd. They accept evolution because of overwhelming evidence everywhere they look.”
Meaning of “evolution”?
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-386md9F5lsv5cU1%40individual.net
For what reason(s) do some believe in spontaneous generation?
On the Origin of Life
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-39oh33F63riraU1%40individual.net
Timeline of Materialism, Spontaneous Generation, and Blindwatchmaking Views
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-348jecF47mfcjU1%40individual.net
October 24th, 2007 at 9:19 am
[Wedge Document]”To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural, and political legacies”
Edward Simon, probably originally in his Another Side to the Evolution
Problem, Jewish Press, Jan. 7, 1983, 248,
cited in
http://www.thedarwinpapers.com/oldsite/number12/Darwinpapers12HTML.htm#N_1_
I don’t claim that Darwin and his theory of evolution
brought on the holocaust; but I cannot deny that the
theory of evolution, and the atheism it engendered, led to
the moral climate that made a holocaust possible….
Haeckel and Buchner and a Darwinian, atheistic a-moral climate
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-1118315214.069039.280490%40z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com
Multi-Pronged Role of Darwinian Thought in Shoah’s Arrival
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/10ac5d963dfa0eba?hl=en&
Hitler’s actions make sense given his atheism and eugenic, social Darwinist vision
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-1134145559.645139.229550%40f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com
Draft 2 of a chronology of Darwinian thought and the march to the Final Solution
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-1122434358.640904.162640%40z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com
1868 Haeckel, 2003 Dawkins, 1997 George Williams, 1995 Dennett: Darwinist atheists/ materialists downgrading the value of human life
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-399aluF5uql89U1%40individual.net
Haeckel on killing the disabled
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-3a8etdF65smnrU4%40individual.net
Gould: “Haeckel…. contributed to the rise of Nazism”
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-1158864074.051352.81770%40h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com
October 24th, 2007 at 9:22 am
“in the 148 years since The Origin of Species came out, none of the countless transitional forms that Darwin predicted have been found”
_Paleobiology_ 3: 134 (1977), Gould & Eldredge:
In fact, most published commentary on punctuated equilibria has
been favorable. We are especially pleased that several
paleontologists now state with pride and biological confidence
a conclusion that had previously been simply embarrassing (’all
these years of work and I haven’t found any evolution’).
Essay on Problems with Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.LNX.4.10A.B3.10005310900310.17702-100000%40jabba.gl.umbc.edu
October 24th, 2007 at 9:24 am
“let them have their fit….
why are those Darwinians getting so mad if they have all the facts? They have to wonder if Darwinians aren’t confident, why?”
Simpson on rapidity/ “quantum evolution”; P. Johnson (a creationist) on Dawkins’s bluster
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.4.10A.B3.10001152331430.1317621-100000%40umbc8.umbc.edu
Feynman, R. Reid, and Berlinski on _ad hominems_
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.3.96A.990102235105.11328B-100000%40umbc9.umbc.edu
October 24th, 2007 at 9:54 am
“the known productive biological information source of duplication-plus-variation (be it mutation or crossovers in egg and sperm DNA)”
What are 3 observed instances of the production of “biological information” of which you’re aware?
What are 3 beneficial cancer-inducing mutations in humans of which you’re aware?
///////////////////////////////////////////////
1985 A.G. Cairns-Smith; How did recorded-in-DNA/ genetic information originate?
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-32gv43F3jsrelU1%40individual.net
How does a seeingwatchmakingist account for the origin of
the recorded-in-DNA/ genetic information within:
a human? a bacterium? the first biological lifeform?
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-348nj6F47evohU1%40individual.net
can atheism account for origination of 382 essential genes?
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-1164396926.582303.88630%40j72g2000cwa.googlegroups.com
One literature search for “mutation”; mutation URLs
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-37elv4F5260vbU1%40individual.net
October 24th, 2007 at 11:05 am
I’d like to give my support for a movie of this nature. After studying micro and cell biology I’ve become convinced that random chance is an inadequate mechanism for the development of the incredibly complicated biochemical pathways that exist. I would compare life coming about randomly to the likelihood of aiming a receiver at a star and getting the first season of Alf beamed back by chance. I would personally lend more credence to the idea that aliens tarraformed this planet and set life on it then life came from some kind of ooze. Unfortunately, the alien theory leaves the question, where did the aliens come from? Thus the whole question of origins begins again. It all boils down to either there is a God, or there’s not and both possibilities are truly horrific. If there is no God, then the earth is flying around a self sustaining nucler explosion at an incredible velocity and there is no one in charge. Furthermore, if there is no God, life ultimately has no meaning because on a long enough time scale the universe will be drawn back into itself by gravitational forces and everything will end. No monument to humanity, not a single peace of evidence will remain to prove that humanity even existed. To me, this is a terrible prospect. On the other hand, if there is a God, we better figure out who he is and what he wants. There seems to be no room for certainty in either direction above the faith a person puts into one of the two ideas(creation, chance). This is why I’m so against either idea being completely snuffed out by intellectual elitism. We don’t live in Iran or communist Russia, even though I believe my convictions to be placed in what is absolutely true, everyone should have the right to choose for themselves from ALL of the evidence. A concerted effort to snuff out either idea cannot be permitted in a truly free society. I would personally have everyone come to know what I have found to be absolutely true and edifying but I have no right to withhold information which contradicts what I have found. It is reasonable to point out errors in this evidence but not to conceal it completely. So if a professor wishes to degrade an idea, that is his prerogative, but to conceal an idea because it contradicts his faith in evolution is most unacceptable. It was unacceptable when the church and religious community tried to do it with the birth of the evolutionary faith and it’s unacceptable now. An Ideas truth is self evident, that is how truthful and edifying an idea is does not depend on the people who hold and support it, but rather the idea itself is either truthful and edifying or it’s not, and in America that is for everyone to decide.
October 24th, 2007 at 11:33 am
It is obvious these anti-religious freaks would expel you too Ben!! Thanks for the movie! Can’t wait to see all the push back on this one.
October 24th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
As long as you continue the falsehood that Einstein was a theist, as well as the idea that theists are somehow persecuted for their beliefs, your film will never be more than a polemical rant and a frenzy of quote-mining. In short, a dishonest hack-job.
The problem is, creationists have come to believe that just because they believe in something, that it should be taught in science classes. There is not only no evidence for their claims, but also plenty of evidence against them. Arguing that they should have their views presented as valid science, or that they should get a *pass* on basic competence just because they believe it to be true against all evidence, is absurd.
A persecution complex is what we have here.
October 24th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
-Did you ever ask yourself how one, lone, beneficially-altered Mutant managed to spawn an entirely new species?
-Did you ever wonder if, just perhaps, in the self-assemblage of subatomic particles, atoms, molecules, fats, proteins, cellular structures and finally, organisms, WHETHER THEY REALLY HAD ANY CHOICE BUT TO ASSEMBLE AS THEY DID?
-If we started over at t=0+ (just after Big Bang), would the same laws of Physics not produce the same end result?
-If you say “not”, then why? The Strong and Weak Nuclear Forces, Coulombic Forces, Electronegativities, Valences are NOT A MATTER OF RANDOMNESS OR CHOICE! They simple WORK, and given the chance, WILL PRODUCE IDENTICAL RESULTS
-Just what if, what if Universal, Galactic, Solar System and Planetary conditions simply choose organisms from an index whose inevitability existed, even at t=0+?
-And, given precisely the same initial conditions at t=0+, with the same laws of Physics, what choice did even the planets have in arriving at precisely the conditions we have NOW, that have finally produced YOU, NOW?
-I’ve had (and passed) Quantum Mechanics - I know about Wave Functions - I know about Selection Rules - I also know that far greater intellects than my own are hopelessly mired, daily, in subjective theories, supported by newly-manufactured mathematics and Algebras - BUT NONE OF THIS - NONE OF THIS - PROVES ANYTHING! Even THESE, are based on FAITH.
-So, to the elite Evolutionists, Darwinists and Secular Pro(Re)gressives: LEAVE MY FAITH ALONE!
October 24th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
Allen Young wrote: “In answer to an earlier question, Intelligent Design is NOT a scientific theory.”
Thank you for admitting the obvious. Now the important question: if it’s “not a scientific theory,” why on earth should we teach it in science classes?
In response to your claim that “scientific learning” is being “extrapolated into concluding that there is NO GOD” in public education, I can only ask where you’ve ever seen such a thing. I’ve never had a science class in which a teacher or a textbook even hinted at such a conclusion. It’s not a scientific topic.
October 24th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
I just wanted to throw this out there.
To me there is a difference between Intelligent Design and Biblical Creation. I am one to believe in Biblical Creation because that is God’s word, where Intelligent Design could mean aliens or anything. Am I confused? maybe but lets get real clear on what our beliefs are.
October 24th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
I teach Bioinformatics at a major US research-oriented university and happen to be an atheist. However, I do not expel alternative viewpoints from the classroom. Evolutionary theory has led to statistical models for the analysis of genomes and I teach these models. If intelligent design proponents want to develop statistical testable models for genome analysis and annotation based upon their theory, then I would be very happy both to incorporate such models into lectures and test these models against null models (assuming neither evolution nor intelligent design) and evolutionary models using established statistical methods for goodness of fit of models to data given the number of parameters in the model. My problem with the intelligent design movement is that there seem to be no testable falsifiable hypotheses being generated that are the hallmarks of scientific theory. So, please bring on the statistical models based upon ID.
October 24th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
I used to have a great deal of respect for Ben Stein. He struck me as educated and well informed. Sadly, I must now consider him a deluded fool.
Interestingly enough, if there was evidence for a deity to be involved in anything, scientists would be the first to try to quantify and understand the deity.
How terrible it is that I must keep quiet of my atheism so that I may continue to have a roof over my head, a job, or even hold a conversation with someone simply because of the allowances judeao-christian dogma has placed on destroying those such as myself.
Ben Stein is just another hate mongering terrorist and should be treated as such. Unfortunately, if I recall correctly, he has served as an advisor to at least one president.
October 24th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
Creationism and ID PWNED!
http://www.richarddawkins.net/article,1777,Eugenie-Scott-on-Intelligent-Design-and-Young-Earth-Creationism,Eugenie-Scott-AAI-07
October 24th, 2007 at 5:55 pm
Opsin duplication and variation to give us tricolor vision, Hox gene duplication and variation in vertebrates to let the segments of our bodies vary more than that of insects, and in more recent times, the evolution of AIDS Vpu to create a viroporin, forming pores in the host cells.
I don’t know current cancer research well enough to answer that, and that may be the wrong question to ask. For example, cancer going malignant is often related to managing to turn on telomerase, which is a complex that adds length onto the “shoelace ends” of the chromosome. Otherwise, individual cancer cells grow to form about a four-gram benign mass (depending on where it’s located). Telomerase is necessary in the chromosome for sperm production in particular, or else children would be born with a lot less cell divisions left to them.
October 24th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
LOWELL WROTE: Thank you for admitting the obvious. Now the important question: if it’s “not a scientific theory,” why on earth should we teach it in science classes?
ALLEN REPLIES:
Yes, I stated that the term “Intelligent Design” does NOT represent a single, cohesive, scientific theory. What the term DOES represent, is a shout of defiance against an almost Stalinist educational establishment that refuses to openly acknowledge the shortcomings of its own Evolution theories, then severely chastises its members who question their viability. Finally, to ensure that unbelievers are further threatened, a Federal Judge is prompted to write a dissertation-length decision regarding “Why Intelligent Design Shall Not Be Taught!” It’s not hard for an objective person to see why Christians in our classrooms feel increasingly like a Border-Control-Advocate at a Columbia University forum.
—————————————————-
LOWELL WROTE:
In response to your claim that “scientific learning” is being “extrapolated into concluding that there is NO GOD” in public education, I can only ask where you’ve ever seen such a thing. I’ve never had a science class in which a teacher or a textbook even hinted at such a conclusion. It’s not a scientific topic
ALLEN REPLIES:
To deny that Darwinism has been used for decades to bludgeon Christianity and a general belief in God is to be either naive or disingenuous. As noted on this website, Richard Dawkins of Oxford clearly states that he regards believers in a God as not having even the right to speak about it. Sure, Oxford is not exactly “public education”, but it is the template to which most public education aspires. This bias, overt or not, permeates the halls of nearly ALL institutions of “higher learning”, especially in the Natural Sciences.
———————————————————
DAVID WROTE:
My problem with the intelligent design movement is that there seem to be no testable falsifiable hypotheses being generated that are the hallmarks of scientific theory. So, please bring on the statistical models based upon ID.
ALLEN REPLIES:
I use statistics daily on many things I do not understand. I do not understand WHY radioactive decay that I observe with scintillation detectors is Normally Distributed at higher count rates, but statistics simply provide a good MODEL. Statistics will NEVER be a substitute for Mechanistic Understanding, and in Genetics, the latter is in VERY SHORT SUPPLY! Einstein was NEVER IMPRESSED with statistics, and always believed even the statistical Wave Functions of Quantum Mechanics to be simply a behavioral model that explained nothing. Statistics will never (1) Prove anything, (2) Explain HOW anything works, or (3) Explain WHY anything works. Statistics simply make us feel better about not understanding the unexplainable.
October 24th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
Allen Young regarding your post #31: seems to me that the topic “purpose of an educational system” is perfectly on point for this blog. I do not disagree with your comments, but wish to add the following:
I hope that the movie shores up what I believe to be the primary goal of education, i.e., to teach the student to think! and to think for himself . . . (to subsequently be able to articulate his thoughts, views, etc. in a rational, thoughtful and logical manner would, of course, be a close second and/or a nice bonus — lol)
I also hope that the movie, at least, exposes the current system for what it is — they want our children to be “memorizers”, to toe the “party” line, and to have them score high on their tests so that their livelihoods are not threatened. (At worst, and I speak from personal experience, many of them prefer that many of our children would be prescribed unneeded drugs — therefore, in my opinion, rendering the children more susceptible to, er, “direction,” etc.)
I’ve raised several children, both in and out of the system; most recently a 6 year stint of home schooling. Three of these children are currently “back in the system.” They know how to “think” (for themselves) and they’re all fairly skilled debaters. That being said, these children are young (beginning high school) I’m not really fearful, but more curious, to see how they will deal with the dogma that I know will be shoveled their way on a daily basis.
October 24th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
About proving God. Let’s put this myth to rest.
Kurt Gödel was a twentieth century mathematician listed by Time Magazine as one of the top people of the century.
http://www.time.com/time/time100/scientist/profile/godel.html
He has an ontological proof that God exists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del’s_ontological_proof
Before making a fool of yourself, please review his proof and tell us what you find wrong. Until then, please don’t say there is no God.
Tommy A.
October 25th, 2007 at 1:27 am
Oh-oh…looks like the Random Mutants are in a tizzy over at Panda’s Thumb.It seems that the zacks are in a frenzy over Ben Stein’s appearance on the O’Reilly Factor. The Undead are moaning, because Ben apparently said something that contradicts the Discovery Institue. Oh, My! Freedom of speech rearing it’s ugly head everywhere! “EXPELL HIM,” demand The Stiffs!
October 25th, 2007 at 5:03 am
For the love of God (pun intended) Evolution isn’t about the how life originated.
Evolution is how one form of life into another.
October 25th, 2007 at 6:29 am
Theists will always curl up in there little ball and say “oh look at him hes criticizing our religion” yet there more then welcome to criticize same sex marriage, stem cell research, and all those godless heathens that should burn in hell. See a fallacy in there? well do you? So quick to play the “Christ said they will persecute us” card.
If anyone thinks that ID is a science need to know the facts.
http://tinyurl.com/2jruz9
Its just a rehash of creationism, of course there discriminated against they want to teach the world is 6000 years old. That a talking snake told a person to eat an apple, that I need to ask a dead guy on stick to forgive my the sin I was born into that I had no part in deciding. That I should eat of his flesh and drink of his blood… Looking at it outside of the 19 years of Christianity I was raised in. The whole thing looked at without bias all it is, is the Christian equivalent of older religions full of Human Sacrifice and Cannibalism (among stoning your children to death and burning witches :D) HELLO~!? did everyones brains drop completely out of there skulls?
And to those that say “OH its not Christianity its just *intelligent design*” We wanna promote the idea of a designer because we have a agend… I mean we wanna promote alternative view points to Evolution. Well then… Can I say that Jar Jar Binks with his infinite wisdom made the universe. Or is that stretching it? Oh whats that? you say you want me to believe in Yahweh oh-oh really now.
Ok I already stated the talking snake theory.
We’ll go into the we are made of turned butter or something along those lines.(Hinduism)
How about that were all descendants of a ancient race that fled from a distant galaxy and some galactic warlord threw some people into volcanoes and were all have there dead alien ghosts in us… I cant even begin to explain there nonsense, its something along those lines. (Scientology)
That western goods (”cargo”) have been created by divine spirits and are intended for the local indigenous people of southern Pacific islands.(Pacific Cargo Cult)
Ect ect… Insert whatever other variant of your religious belief you want to package in a nice organization or multiple organizations (Intelligent Design) Get some people together that wanna push there religious agenda on people, add in some.
Straw man Arguments
Ad homonym Attacks
Quote Mining
Foundational Biases
Ad Hoc Reasoning
Non Sequiturs
Equivocation
Tautology
False Dichotomy
Arguments from Authority
Argument from Personal Incredulity
Appeals to the Majority
Violation of the Philosophy of Science(Saying you can prove the supernatural with science. Thats like someone with phantom limb syndrome saying they can prove that there limb actually exists…)
Toss them around in a nice big salad bowl and what do you come out with? A organization that sounds like it could be reasonable. They sound intelligent they speak with confidence, they must be right…? Y.E.AH.. Hitler also sounded intelligent and spoke with confidence.
Anything can be argued, ANYTHING with those concepts I listed. So I leave you with these words of wisdom.
“By all means let’s be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.”
~Richard Dawkins
October 25th, 2007 at 7:15 am
Theists will always curl up in there little ball and say “oh look at him hes criticizing our religion” yet there more then welcome to criticize same sex marriage, stem cell research, and all those godless heathens that should burn in hell. See a fallacy in there? well do you? So quick to play the “Christ said they will persecute us” card.
If anyone thinks that ID is a science need to know the facts.
http://tinyurl.com/2jruz9
Its just a rehash of creationism, of course there discriminated against they want to teach the world is 6000 years old. That a talking snake told a person to eat an apple, that I need to ask a dead guy on stick to forgive my the sin I was born into that I had no part in deciding. That I should eat of his flesh and drink of his blood… Looking at it outside of the 19 years of Christianity I was raised in. The whole thing looked at without bias all it is, is the Christian equivalent of older religions full of Human Sacrifice and Cannibalism (among stoning your children to death and burning witches :D) HELLO~!? did everyones brains drop completely out of there skulls?
And to those that say “OH its not Christianity its just *intelligent design*” We wanna promote the idea of a designer because we have a agend… I mean we wanna promote alternative view points to Evolution. Well then… Can I say that Jar Jar Binks with his infinite wisdom made the universe. Or is that stretching it? Oh whats that? you say you want me to believe in Yahweh oh-oh really now.
Ok I already stated the talking snake theory.
We’ll go into the we are made of turned butter or something along those lines.(Hinduism)
How about that were all descendants of a ancient race that fled from a distant galaxy and some galactic warlord threw some people into volcanoes and were all have there dead alien ghosts in us… I cant even begin to explain there nonsense, its something along those lines. (Scientology)
That western goods (”cargo”) have been created by divine spirits and are intended for the local indigenous people of southern Pacific islands.(Pacific Cargo Cult)
Ect ect… Insert whatever other variant of your religious belief you want to package in a nice organization or multiple organizations (Intelligent Design) Get some people together that wanna push there religious agenda on people, add in some. Straw man Arguments,
Ad homonym Attacks, Quote Mining, Foundational Biases, Ad Hoc Reasoning, Non Sequiturs, Equivocation, Tautology, False Dichotomy, Arguments from Authority, Argument from Personal Incredulity, Appeals to the Majority, Violation of the Philosophy of Science(Saying you can prove the supernatural with science. Thats like someone with phantom limb syndrome saying they can prove that there limb actually exists…)
Toss them around in a nice big salad bowl and what do you come out with? A organization that sounds like it could be reasonable. They sound intelligent they speak with confidence, they must be right…? Y.E.AH.. Hitler also sounded intelligent and spoke with confidence.
Anything can be argued, ANYTHING with those concepts I listed. So I leave you with these words of wisdom.
“By all means let’s be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.”
~Richard Dawkins
October 25th, 2007 at 9:02 am
I find it interesting that some of the posts in defense of evolution call it science. In truth it’s more of a faith then Christianity. I would love for nothing more then MACROevolution to be entirely removed from science class and only what is testable and provable to be thought. Sense no scientist can go back and actually test and observe how things came about calling it science is ignorant. If your going to have a class that deals with origins, don’t call it science call it philosophy. The idea that all life came from one ancestor is simply not supported by the data, think cambrian explosion. Before this only truly basic life forms existed, then, in a relatively small period of time a massive amount of diversity and complexity. This is not slow single change adaptation. Evolutionists are blinded by their desire to make themselves gods by removing the possibility of a creator. There is daily being discovered evidence, which supports micro evolutionary process that is evidence for adaptive abilities within the bounds of a genetic program. The sad truth for evolutionists is that the DNA of almost every known organism has checks and balances to prevent random mutation. If anything these checks have a tendency to insure the integrity of the program. This is not random, this is good programming. If a person looks only at the evidence for and against evolution no conclusion can be reached other then it is insufficient to explain the data and needs to be thrown out from science. That’s how science works. It is repugnant how evolutionary fanatics are forcing the data to fit their theory and omitting anything they can’t squeeze into their faith. And evolution is a faith. When a person believes in something that can’t be proven, observed or tested, that’s faith.
October 25th, 2007 at 10:24 am
So according to Allen Young, ID is not a cohesive scientific theory and doesn’t make predictions but rather a shout of defiance that evolutionary models are not perfect. Similarly, the evaluation of statistical models with mechanistic parameters is questioned as an appropriate scientific tool (ignoring that this is common across all of science in evaluating competing models to explain data). So, how is this supposed to go for us professors? Models for molecular evolution are not perfect and therefore evolution never happened and the bible is literally true. So, we teach genesis in bioinformatics class. Now, we have this genome to annotate. We better not use the evolutionary models to describe gene functions from sequences because evolution never happened. But there are no ID models to annotate genomes, so we better not annotate the genome. Oops, we actually wanted to know something about the bacteria whose genome we just sequenced because it causes disease. Well, let’ws just pray instead and shout our defiance at evolution. Sounds like a great plan for both education and medicine. Don’t claim that ID is being expelled from the classroom. As a professor, I would be happy to teach ID-based approaches to sequence and genome analysis in addition to evolution-based approaches. So, stop shouting about being discriminated against and get to work on doing id science that is worthy of inclusion in the classroom, the laboratory, and the clinic. Lots of hype, no substance….
October 25th, 2007 at 10:43 am
About models in genetics not explaining anything, just making us feel good about not understanding. It seems to me as if population genetic models are very good at differentiating selection from neutrality, for examining population dynamics (changes in population size), for detecting recombination, …. Increasingly, the population genetic models for protein-coding genes in populations are being coupled to physical chemical models for protein folding and binding (with additional parameters) to explain gene evolution. These models can also be turned on their head and used for protein design, to design proteins that fold into a given structure and that bind other molecules. That puts the models to the test. It’d be great to see an ID-based model for protein design. Then, let’s see how well it works.
Some description of the genetic models that are claimed provide little mechanistic understanding:
Nature Reviews Genetics 6:678
Current Opinion in Genetics and Development 12:688
BMC Bioinformatics 7:326
Genetics 170:1411
Annual Reviews of Genetics 39:197
…
From reading these papers, you will see that that claim is nonsense and that there is a direct push for more mechanistic models and the evaluation of competing models (nested or non-nested) within a maximum likelihood statistical framework using likelihood ratio tests or AIC. To claim that this gets us nowhere, but shouting defiantly with no models and no tests will actually get us somewhere is nonsense.
October 25th, 2007 at 11:19 am
Ben,
After scrolling quickly through this blog, I see mostly disagreement with you.
I think you have attached your horse to the wrong cart. You need to realize that God is not allowed in science because the idea is not empirical in nature. You clearly miss an important distinction between science and religion. As far as researchers loosing funding for trying to include god in their research, that is a good thing. Goc is the gaps has done nothing to progress science, it only impeeds it. God is welcome in the philosophy, religion, history, ethics classes, but not in science classes. I am very dissapointed.
October 25th, 2007 at 11:32 am
We are told by John Mundy that evolutionary models do not explain comparative genomic data and should be thrown out. It seems to me that evolutionary models explain the data much better than models that assume that evolution never happened. There are no explicit ID models, as iterated several times already. In the scientific literature, the claims of John Mundy are unfounded and the onus is on ID to create models consistent with ID that explain comparative genomic data better than evolutionary models. So far, evolutionary models explain the data MUCH better than any other model and have predictive value for biotechnology and medicine. If ID is right and models based upon ID fit the data better than evolutionary models, then they will not only be embraced by the scientific community, but by the medical community as well. So, stop claiming discrimination and that evolution is faith and start doing science. If you succeed, you will be taken seriously. If not, you won’t.
October 25th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
Scientific data does not need to be viewed through the bear goggles of evolutionary faith to be useful to mankind.
October 25th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
Congratulations At last the biased will be exposed. I love science and always have, but science is not close-ended. Teach Darwinism, but expose its weaknesses as well.
October 25th, 2007 at 5:23 pm
ID is one thing and one thing only Church and organized religion packaged differently. I’m truly disturbed at what these people want to force down peoples throats. Evolution isn’t faith it doesn’t tell people to pray to it. It doesn’t require 10% of your total income. It doesn’t molest quire boys, and it doesn’t profess absolute obedience. ID doesn’t offer ANYTHING to science, evolution might be wrong maybe theres something else I don’t know I’m not a biologist or a scientist. I’m for and scientists are for debating theory’s of all kinds, things are being proven and disprove and new ideas are being come up with all the time in science. But I am not listening to people that I know have a vested interest in bringing god back in the classroom amoung other things. Science does not have time to debate god in science, ID is exactly that G.O.D. They already argued teaching god in schools in the highest courts, and creationists lost. Bruised and beaten they repackaged the deal ie. Intelligent Design
I’m just completely stunned in peoples willingness to take back education 200 years. God and State, god and school do not mix and if you think they can I think you should look at nations that do mix them together, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Iran.
Now take a look at the most secular country’s South Korea, Japan, Finland, Hong Kong there among the most secular nations, and there turning out the best scientists in the world.
If ID has its way with schools, America would drop another few notches in the global science literacy, right below Nigeria, Mexico and Afghanistan.
October 25th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
It’s easy to appreciate and consider opposing views that are vigorously and competently defended. Even God told us, “I would that you were Hot or Cold.”
David’s discussion of marrying Mechanistic or Deterministic Models with Statistics is not an uncommon theme in Sciences and Engineering. The Statistics part of the method gives the Hypothesis Testing and Convergence Criteria to determine if the model is working. Fine and good; everyone’s happy. The disconnect between Athiests and Believers in God is not WHETHER changes are happening; it’s WHY changes are happening. Most believers in God applaud the fine work done by Molecular Biologists and Geneticists to improve health care. We simply don’t believe the studied organisms are randomly evolving. We believe that ALL organisms are changing, AS OBSERVED, by deterministic rules established by the CREATOR. Thus, there is no need for an alternative ID theory of “Biological Evolution”. They are one in the same, and science is slowly progressing toward some day, perhaps without the crutch of statistics, observing the perfection in Design that we believe exists.
October 25th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
Thats the problem, people like myself have with Creationist using current scientific knowledge to bolster your own agenda. Because I cant understand it and I’m clouded by this thing called theism I must insert “We believe that ALL organisms are changing, AS OBSERVED, by deterministic rules established by the CREATOR.” So evolution is correct then? You just reword it to include “Creator”
This is the problem where does a 3000 year old book about stoning people to death and conquering a neighboring tribe in gods name. Have any base in Science? I’m sorry point me to the appropriate verse in the bible that had to do with Biological Evolution? Or maybe that verse about how the earth obits the sun. Maybe something simple a verse about the earth being round. A little mention about that “other” continent across the ocean?
I’m sorry but this is exactly why we don’t want ID in public schools. Keep it in your churches and Sunday schools, take it into politics and education I’m sorry thats where I draw the line.
October 25th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
Welcome one and all to the evolutionary faith. We don’t require money, we don’t ask for any kind of active participation or self-improvement; all that we ask for is for you to believe in nothing. To accept that in the grand scheme of things, nothing matters at all. All that “is” happened by chance. When you die, there’s nothing after because this life was just good luck. When you die, that’s it. You’ll never know if the skyscraper you built stood for eons or was destroyed by war or an earthquake. In fact, anything you do in life will probably be forgotten, or at best stored on a database so that some day, some lucky kid can look up your great discoveries and call you an old dead dude. And after that, well, the second law of thermodynamics takes over, stars burn out and collide with other stars, and eventually the universe becomes an endless array of black holes until at long last gravity pulls everything into an infinitesimally small quantum singularity and it all begins again. But you won’t know any of that; no one will ever know that humanity even existed. The whole grand purpose of propagating genetic information to pass it on to offspring will ultimately end in nothingness. All that humanity has sought and fought for has no purpose and neither do you. So eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you die. Rape, kill, steal, as long as you don’t get caught, and as long as you use a strong enough date rape drug so that the girl you violate doesn’t remember, it’s ok… because there’s no morality above what you set for yourself. Come to us - we are the followers of evolution, you don’t have to do anything because nothing you do matters. Yes, it’s true, evolution is not a religion; religions offer way too much hope and purpose. They benefit mankind and gave birth to science. Better men than walk this earth today know that this universe was created, that it had boundaries, laws, and principles. They know of the cause and effect nature of everything around them and they believed in God. The faith of evolution is a new thing in the history of science, and within my lifetime, people will look back and think, how could we have possibly thought that was true. Yes, evolution is no religion, it is an empty, hopeless, death and I pity those who follow that faith… for when they die, if they are right, then there is nothing on the other side to welcome them and everything they’ve fought so hard for has no purpose.
October 25th, 2007 at 11:41 pm
Allen,
A few things that are wrong about your paragraph (that I wish you would never say again).
1.) We simply don’t believe the studied organisms are randomly evolving
- Neither do darwinian evolutionists. Learn what we actually think before telling us. We do not think it is random at all, which is what natural selection is all about. Learn about things like cumulative change, and maybe one day you will see it to. read The blind watchmaker by Dawkins, as that will give you a good idea what Darwinists “really” believe.
2.)They are one in the same, and science is slowly progressing toward some day, perhaps without the crutch of statistics, observing the perfection in Design that we believe exists.
-I find this comment ignorant for the following reasons. science works by looking at data and drawing conclusions. You have already drawn your conclusions, and are awaiting data. This is not scientific in the slightest.
And finally, to everyone else:
If there is evidence of Intelligent Design, then why not show it and win a noble prize? I mean seriously, there are millions of dollars in prizes awaiting you if you have the evidence, so please do tell. Finally, realize this implication if ID were to be taught in schools.
Say we do as Bush wants, and teach the controversy in schools. If this were to happen, then I would say that EVERY church that gets a tax break, has to teach the controversy as well. After all, you guys care about the truth in those churches, so why don’t you teach the “controversy” THERE. This seems a little one sided.
And don’t bother saying “well intelligent design does not declare a specific designer” Because I can not find a single Atheist intelligent design advocate. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
October 25th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
I also do agree that Ben needs to learn what Einstein really thought. It’s sad that so many people have told him the truth on the matter, yet he still spouts off these silly things about him.
October 26th, 2007 at 12:02 am
http://abstractfactory.blogspot.com/2005/10/only-debate-on-intelligent-design-that.html
The only debate on Intelligent Design that is worthy of its subject
Moderator: We’re here today to debate the hot new topic, evolution versus Intelligent Des—
(Scientist pulls out baseball bat.)
Moderator: Hey, what are you doing?
(Scientist breaks Intelligent Design advocate’s kneecap.)
Intelligent Design advocate: YEAAARRRRGGGHHHH! YOU BROKE MY KNEECAP!
Scientist: Perhaps it only appears that I broke your kneecap. Certainly, all the evidence points to the hypothesis I broke your kneecap. For example, your kneecap is broken; it appears to be a fresh wound; and I am holding a baseball bat, which is spattered with your blood. However, a mere preponderance of evidence doesn’t mean anything. Perhaps your kneecap was designed that way. Certainly, there are some features of the current situation that are inexplicable according to the “naturalistic” explanation you have just advanced, such as the exact contours of the excruciating pain that you are experiencing right now.
Intelligent Design advocate: AAAAH! THE PAIN!
Scientist: Frankly, I personally find it completely implausible that the random actions of a scientist such as myself could cause pain of this particular kind. I have no precise explanation for why I find this hypothesis implausible — it just is. Your knee must have been designed that way!
Intelligent Design advocate: YOU BASTARD! YOU KNOW YOU DID IT!
Scientist: I surely do not. How can we know anything for certain? Frankly, I think we should expose people to all points of view. Furthermore, you should reall