"Intelligent Design" is a RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY. Here's why.

[Tyler Durden]

Anyone who does not believe that ID is a religious philosophy understands neither.

A few Socratic questions and answers:

Question:
Is it possible to have intelligence, intent, volition and capability for action without being and independent entity with a discernable identity?

Answer:
No, unless you believe that unliving or inert substances or non-entities have these capabilities and influences.


Question:
Proceeding from the first question, if this entity is not a human, then can it be proved that it is a definable entity?


Answer:
No. Non-corporeal intelligences are by definition not provable, and therefore objects of faith or belief system; neither of which is provable as its existence cannot be directly observed. This of course begs the question of all-powerful space aliens, but this is not provable either.


Question:
Is the level of action required to produce speciation or creation of matter within the realm of human capability?

Answer:
No, certainly not yet.


Question:
Can adaptation and speciation be proven without the action of an outside entity?

Answer:
Yes. Certainly. The Galapagos Islands, Madigascar, Tasmania, New Zealand, Hawaii and Australia all have fine demonstratable examples of speciation and adaptation to climate, isolation, and terrain. Viruses in and out of the lab are also a classic example, as is Methycillin Resistant s. Aureus, Tuberculosis, and several s. pneumonia strains.


Question:
What is the definition of "Science?"

Answer:
(American Heritage Dictionary, Second College Edition) The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and THEORETICAL EXPLANATION (MY CAPS) of natural phenomenon.


Question:
Can what cannot be observed or demonstrated by evidence be clasified as "Science?"

Answer:
No.


Question:
Can ID be observed or demonstrated by evidence?

Answer:
No.


Question:
Therefore, does ID belong in a class defined to be dedicated to "Science?"

Answer:
No.


Question:
What is the definition of Intelligent Design?

Answer:
This comes pretty close: the BELIEF that an intelligent entity had something to do with causing creation, adaptation or speciation in the Earth Life Biosphere.


Question:
Can this be scientifically proved?

Answer:
No. Therefore, as a Belief System based on the unprovable premise that there is an intelligent entity controlling the path of Earth Life, ID seems to qualify as a form of Religious Belief.


The courts are not proposing to "ban" the teaching of ID, merely to mandate the teaching of SCIENCE in SCIENCE CLASS and the teaching of Philosophy or Belief Systems to "Comparative Religion."

As to teaching ID, there are a plethora of Religion Based Schools out there. If one's "Belief System" is so fragile that it cannot bear the teaching of Science Based Evolution, I suggest enrolling in one of them.

[DrWeird]

1. "Intelligent Design"'s a trojan horse.

Straight, old fashioned 6,000 year old earth creationism. I don't even know why people are bothering to debate about it.

[ChairOne]

3. Your question contains its answer...

People don't wanna think. Thinking - well - is hard work. They much prefer the easier answers supplied by ID...

Who wants to get get degrees in actual biology? Who wants to even so much as read Darwins Origin? Too hard. Just stick with the idiotic idea that you can't get something greater from something lesser.

(The idea is idiotic because it's been so thoroughly debunked over the last 100 or more years)

The problem is simple - the American educational system. I don't see this drivel be given any play in Europe, Canada, Japan, etc.... Notice that all those places are substantially ahead of the US in scholastic achievement....

[ChairOne]

6. Ooops - misunderstood your post a bit - my bad....

[cali]

2. It's thru the looking glass crazy

that we even have to demonstrate this. Of course it's religious philosophy. It's just creationism tarted up. Disgusting.

[mirounga]

4. The watchmaker

Now since ID teaches that the complexity of creation implies a designer, and man was created in the image of God, then God himself is a complex creation, so there has to be a designer or watchmaker who created God, etc., etc. Then where does it start or stop?? Yes?? No?? Where's Thomas Aquinas when you need him???

[Walt Starr]

5. Intelligent Design begs the question

Where did the intelligent designer come from?

[BrainRants]

7. Now THAT'S the best framing of the debate I've ever heard!

Brilliant!

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

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[Nordic]

10. well that's just the same as saying "where did God come from?"

to which these people will just say "well......it's just ..... it's God!"

[Tyler Durden]

11. All of these responses are missing my point.

On another thread, the question was being begged, "Can the courts legally ban the teaching of ID?"

I wished to logically demonstrate that comparing Scientific Evolution to Religious Intelligent Design was like comparing apples and chair legs, and that ID had no place in a Science class, plus if you want your kid taught ID then go find a Religious School and stop trying to remake Science in your own image.

[ChairOne]

12. Dunno bout all the others, but I'm with you 100%...

Dunno if you can *prove* such a thing, as a matter of formal logic tho....

[The Traveler]

13. ID is not science

because it presents no hypothesis that can be rejected by experiment or observation and hence its formulations are not approachable by the Scientific Method. 'nuff said.

BTW experiement NEVER proves hypothesis. At best it can only support hypothesis. Experiment can only conclusively REJECT or disprove hypothesis. Since one cannot design an experiment that has the potential for disproving the existence of God, one cannot design an experiment that disproves the "created by God" hypothesis.

Even complete incontrovertable proof of evolution cannot disprove the "created by God" hypothesis, since it can be argued that the Big Bang is merely the first expression of the Word and Idea, and that evolution was a necessary and foreordained process of creation itself ... the Will of God.

Such statements cannot be approached scientifically. They cannot be approached by employment of the Scientific Method. ID may be utterly correct but that will never be established scientifically. Therefore, it should be taught as philosophy or theology if it must be taught at all.

So we agree in our conclusions, but I find your arguments tell me more about your assumptions regarding the nature of things than providing a compelling logical argument. Consider for, example, the following excerpt:

Question:
Is it possible to have intelligence, intent, volition and capability for action without being and independent entity with a discernable identity?

Answer:
No, unless you believe that unliving or inert substances or non-entities have these capabilities and influences.

My questions:

Is a discernable entity ... an ant or an ant hill? The cell or the body? What is "intelligence", "intent", "volition"? My inference is that you do not believe artificial intelligence is possible. That certain has yet to be proven. If artificially contrived quantum mechanical systems (like semiconductor networks) can produce intelligent behaviors (whatever they are) does it follow that nature cannot produce other such systems? Is it further not possible that other physical arrangements (such as oscillating coupled plasma streams) could not produce similar network complexity and behaviors? IF the answer to that last is yes, one would have something closely resembling the common conception of non-corporeal intelligence. Is any of that possible? Beats me ... but I do not see anything in philosophy or science that restricts intelligence to what we would call carbon based life forms.

Follow matter down the subatomic trail far enough, and it disappears into "twists of nothingness". Good old fashioned "reality" becomes an increasingly slippery concept. Things get really weird. One begins to wonder if anything can exist at all without the operation of an observer. The mathematical formalisms of science lead one to questions science is not suited to answer.

Ranier Rilke once observed the most important questions have no answers, but you have to love the questions anyway.

[Tyler Durden]

15. you have to take the question as a whole.

I would respond to you:

Is "Intelligence" required for ID? Yes, by definition.
Is "Volition?" Yes, if the action is involuntary, it is not intelligence based, nor does it move toward a specific action, ie: Man or higher creatures.
Is "Intent?" Yes, it is essential to ID for the intention to be a higher form.
Is "Capability for Action?" Yes, if the entity cannot act (example: a completely paralyzed patient with mind operating only), than nothing toward the INTENT can be accomplished.

My premise is that only an "...independent entity with a discernable identity.." can act within these parameters, therefore, a "Being." I did not stipulate that this being would need god-like power to perform ID; I felt this was moot.

[The Traveler]

20. This proves you are fun to think with

I see your point ... yet analysis is a valid method by which to procede, and so I prefer to take it apart into its pieces, to better understand the whole. The Socratic method also requires we define our terms and understand all their implications.

One of my points is that we really don't understand terms like "intelligence" and "matter" very well. Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP) models of cognition suggest all that is required for behavors we label as "intelligent" is a sufficiently large network of interconnected state machines, neurons being only one example of such a state machine. Other constructs are possible, and it is even conceiveable that systems of particles and fields could do the trick ... thereby implementing a "non-corporeal intelligence". My only point with all this speculation is that intelligence need not be limited to implementations with which we are familiar.

Christian mystics and other heretics have observed: "Beware the passage of Jesus, for He comes but seldom." Even if one could persuade the hypothetical Divinity to manifest for your experimental pleasure once, it is doubtful you could repeat the experiment. Repeatability of experimental results is crucial to the scientific method. Further, no theology claims a procedure by which a manifestation of God can be reliably provoked. For this reason, I claim the existence of God is a question unapproachable by science.

Let science be science and faith be faith ... both are useful in the human experience.

A fun argument, this. One we are unlikely to settle since it revolves around all those big questions with no verifiable answers.

[ProfessorPlum]

14. Intelligent Design is just lazy

"Wow," says the observer of the world. "The world of biology is really complex. I personally can't imagine how it came to be this way (and I'm going to stick my fingers in my ears as others try to hypothesize how it got so complex from simple beginnings). Plus, I have no real concept of the huge immensity of time involved. Therefore, there is a God. QED."

Thus, ID proponents demonstrate the existence of God based on the existence of their own, limited, and lazy, imaginations.

[ChairOne]

16. 1st rule of evolution:

Evolution is smarter than you....

so the anthropomorphic saying goes.....

[ProfessorPlum]

18. That's "Tyler Durden"'s line

First rule is: you do not talk about "evolution".

[ChairOne]

19. ;)

People really do talk about evolution that way tho - in precisely the situation you were describing - the i-can't-imagine-how-this-could-have-happened situations...

[elemnopee]

17. Is ID currently taught in any schools

[immoderate]

21. I'm sure it's not part of any official curriculum

But you can be certain that as sure as there are ignorant teachers, there are some students that are getting a generous helping of ID and even straight Creationism.

As I mentioned in another thread, I would allow discussion of these in classes I taught, to analyze what constitutes bad science. Learning about what's wrong can be very useful.

--IMM

[JunkYardDogg]

22. It's Dogma and Mythology- Not Philosophy