Ben Stein's movie defending "Intelligent Design" being released April 18th

Just to be clear, I think ID is a fraud. ID cannot be disproved, which is the crux of the science method.

Galileo said: "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect, has intended us to forego their use."

Just to be clear, ID is not creationism and the search for intelligence as an explanation is part and parcel of scientific procedure.

not only that, pwdrskir, but the fact you felt the need to be distanced from ID means Expelled's central point is true...people fear criticizing neo-darwinism out fear of intellectual humiliation.

Hey BooksBrown
Well, if you read the decision by the judge in the case, he quotes ”ID is the Progeny of Creationism”
“The evidence at trial demonstrates that intelligent design is nothing less than the progeny of creationism. What is likely the strongest evidence supporting the finding of intelligent design's creationist nature is the history and historical pedigree of the book to which students in Dover's ninth-grade biology class are referred, Of Pandas and People. Pandas is published by an organization called FTE, as noted, whose articles of incorporation and filings with the Internal Revenue Service describe it as a religious, Christian organization. Pandas was written by Dean Kenyon and Percival Davis, both acknowledged creationists, and Nancy Pearcey, a Young Earth Creationist, contributed to the work.”

You can listen to it yourself, if you have the intellect to do your homework.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/id/judg-flash.html

Ignorance is bliss…

the man who created the Big Bang theory was a priest. even Einstein believed he was merely explaining God's work. Pwdrskir, I don't really care what some judge said, ID is not creationism. You don't have to believe the Genesis story of creation to believe that the universe was created by some kind of intelligent power, force, or entity.

Hey, I’m not condemning God. Everyone can believe what they want to believe. It’s called faith.

But when a Bush appointed US Federal judge conducts a trial in a court of law, I have to believe that all the facts where enthusiastically brought forth. It seems unbelievable to me that you “don’t really care what some judge says” in the United States. He clearly stated that ID = creationism and that it is an “unconstitutional policy.”

Judge Jones - “This case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy.”

Both you and BooksBrown don’t get it. This is about science, not God. ID was proven to be creationism, which is a supernatural explanation. Not a scientific explanation.

George Will said it best.
“"It does me no injury," said Thomas Jefferson, "for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." But it is injurious, and unneighborly, when zealots try to compel public education to infuse theism into scientific education.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...

Yes, Georges Lemaître did predict the big bang, but he did it with SCIENCE and math, not the supernatural. Being a priest and going against the church’s dogma must have been very difficult. Not as difficult as Galileo had it, but still difficult.

I know Einstein believed in a God, but he was more interested in science, not the supernatural, reveling the facts to mankind. Einstein wrote: “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."

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/quotes_einstein.htm...

I am very inpressed with your opinion on the matter Pwdrskir. I agree that it is well and good that all people should have the freedom and the right to believe what the want weather it be ID or creationism, or the Darwinian Theory. I do however think that there should not be a monopoly on what is being taught in the public school system. I think there can be a way to teach both principals and let our youth decide what they want to believe rather than have big science mandate what our childrens education is based on.

I personaly believe that both creationism and the darwinian theory have alot in common. Most funamental Christians believe that the earth was created in "seven days" acording to the Bible. I believe that it was created over a period of millions if not billions of years. Who is to say that God live on the same time table as man. Most fundamentalist Christians also belive that Adam was the first man to walk the earth. Where does that leave cromagnon. We have physical evidence of ancient man who presumably walked on the earth. In the Bible, Genisis Chapter 1 verse 28 God gave his first commandment to Adam and Eve. "Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth" There is one word in that statement that links the darwinian and creation theorys. Replenish!!! The word replenish signifies that there was a man like creature on the earth prior to Adam. Adam was the first intelegent or homosapian being on the earth. That one word is what I think is the key to unifying there to belifes and allowing them to be taught side bu side in the school systems.

David1971, I understand your views and agree that everyone should be allowed to hold their own views.

With that said, your comments about allowing both Evolution and ID to be taught in a classroom as counterviews could only be possible if you could disprove ID.

Currently, Evolution falls under THE scientific mandate that states: “if a hypothesis can be disproved by experimentation, scientists reject it and formulate a new hypothesis that better fits the observed data.” ID is not subject to this test. It relies on the supernatural to explain it’s existence.

Science has been under attack for a long time, Galileo is a key example of this. You can quote the Bible all you want, that is not science.

Finally, quoted from the website link listed above regarding the question:
Q: Why not teach intelligent design, or creationism, alongside evolution?

“A: The federal courts have ruled that creationism, creation science, and intelligent design are not science but instead endorse a specific religious belief. Therefore, these topics are not appropriate content for a science classroom. Neither ID nor any other form of creationism has met any of the standards of a science and cannot be tested using the scientific method. On the other hand, evolutionary theory, like all other science, is founded on a growing body of observable and reproducible evidence in the natural world. The state of knowledge in evolutionary biology is the product of 150 years of rigorous challenges using the methods of science, whereas intelligent design is not supported by scientific evidence. Teaching evolution alongside these other approaches would imply that creation science and intelligent design meet these same high standards of testability, and they do not.”

In other words, the US Federal Courts have deemed ID/Creationism an “unconstitutional policy”. If you can get that overturned, have at it. That’s what this country is all about.

Sure!
Let's teach "the controversy"! Let's teach both the theory that:

1) Children are born as a result of sexual intercourse.
2) The stork brings us children.

In fact... what about Holocaust deniers? Maybe we should teach our children the "controversy" over whether the holocaust occurred!

We should teach our children how to think critically and encourage them to question authority. We should also teach them what is known to be true to the best of our abilities. They could (of course) decide to question these truths, but they should investigate these questions based on the available objective EVIDENCE.

The evidence for evolution is simply staggering. There is NO controversy about the validity of evolution. If people want to question it, they have to attack the EVIDENCE compiled over the last 150 years.

As the late Senator Moynihan was fond of saying:
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts."

Well said damsam!

pwdrskir, you make some very good and intelligent points, however, I'm still going to say that ID and creationism are not the same. I agree with you on your other points by the way, that creationism should not be taught in public schools, and neither should ID. but still, here's my point:

creationism is the specific belief in the Christian theory of creation as told in the book of Genesis. it tells the story of God creating the universe in 6 days, of Adam and Eve, and all that jazz.

on the other hand, I don't believe that ID has to be a Christian belief, correct? let's say I believe that some other intelligent being, some other god-like entity created the universe, but I do not believe the Bible's story of 6 days, I do not believe in Adam and Eve, and I am not a Christian. well, that means I believe in intelligent design, but not creationism.

you see, in the strictly American sense of things, ID is associated with Christian creationism, but what about other world religions? what about the Native Americans, who believe in supernatural mythology and that the universe was created by many different god-like entities. same goes for the ancient Greeks, the Romans, the Egyptions. and many modern day cultures, tribes, peoples, religions as well. all of these are indeed theories of "intelligent design" by I would argue that they are not "creationism" in the American sense, which is stricly the Christian theory of creation according to Genesis.

and lastly, as I said, yes I agree that neither ID or creationism should be "tought" in public schools. I do believe that the Big Bang is the truth, but still, you have to admit that its not fact. I believe that schools should at least teach students that the Big Bang account of creation is not entirely proven, and that there are many questions which still need answering. I believe students need to be taught to think critically, they should question accepted theories, shouldn't they? they should be curious, investigative, etc. this is just healthy and normal. in the end, it will take curious, questiong, inquizitive people to finally prove without a doubt that the Big Bang is true and if don't teach students to question then this will not happen.

ID is nothing but Creationism in disguise, a way for the fundies to try to introduce Creationism in Schools in spite of the First Amendment, nothing else.

There is no such thing as "Darwinism" - evolution is a sound scientific theory just as are other scientific theories such as gravity, relativity, etc., it is not a philosophy, a religion, or a cult - the "ism" is out of place and only used by a number of "ists".

The theory of Intelligent Design itself lacks intelligent design, it is pseudoscience.

It is little wonder that the main dissemination of the Intelligent Design theory has occurred not through peer-reviewed journals, but through Web sites and popular-release books.

Evolution is not incompatible with belief in God - one could say that evolution is God's creative process in progress.

Intelligent Design began as an attempt to promote creationism without breaking American laws that keep religion out of schools.

Just take the human body - if it was created by a Designer, that Designer is singularly unintelligent, otherwise the Designer wouldn't have made all the following mistakes:

1. Female pelvis too small for the human baby's head making birth difficult and prone to perinatal injuries to the baby and the mother.

2. Retinal arteries/veins lying on and in front of the retina of the eyes. Many causes of blindness come from this defective design.

3. Wisdom teeth frequently leading to secondary abscesses, occasionally dissecting up into the cranium - resulting in brain abscesses, meningitis, epidural empyema.

4. Larynx too highly placed, leading to common choking deaths.

5. A bony projection, called the Odontoid Process, an extension of the C2 vertebral body like a long finger up to the end of the brainstem. It can easily fracture, especially in rheumatoid arthritis. That leads to death or paralysis of all extremities and inability to breathe without a mechanical ventilator. A simpler rotatory ball-socket joint would have been better and safer.

6. Semi-soft disc material between vertebrae and just anterior to the spinal cord is suited well to quadrupeds. But in humans the upper body weight compresses these and can cause herniations with mild to moderate trauma. There are 6 of these (none at C1-2) in the neck, 12 in the thoracic spine, 5 (rarely 6) in the Lumbar spine. That is 23 flaws or accidents waiting to happen.

7. Hip joints perfectly suited to support human weight if there were four of them or 4 supporting limbs. In a biped, the stress causes extremely common hip degeneration, femoral neck fractures in women and older people. How often do you hear of that in a dog or horse?

8. Knees similarly are not strong enough with the tibial cartilage in two legs for human weight, jumping down, and running. If we had 4 legs it would not be so bad. How often do you see cats with knee problems?

9. Foot and ankle bones are badly designed. Most quadrupeds walk on their toes or the balls of their feet. This puts more weight on flexible tendons, ligaments and several bending joints spreading the stress. With the human foot, we are walking on what is essentially our leg "wrists" and balls of the foot with an arch that is traumatised by walking and standing. When it falls it has an additional problem of severe foot pain. (see flaw #10).

10. In those fallen arches, the plantar nerves are badly placed. Instead of weaving between or over top of bones to their skin sensory receptors, these course "under" the ankle bones, under the arch to the metatarsal joints. When the arch slowly gives way it stretches those nerves and eventually compresses them. This never happens in dogs or cats.

Continued:

11. Human wrists must extend to provide maximum finger flexion; a major human task is to hold things in our hands. So the wrist flexes a thousand times a day. Problem is that the median nerve runs through a bony trough covered by tough ligaments, the Carpal Tunnel. With every wrist flexion the median nerve is pulled in and out of that canal. The canal is easily narrowed by minor injuries or repetitive use. The nerve is injured causing pain, finger numbness, and weakness in thumb opposition.

12. The Elbow flexes and extends, but an important nerve, the Ulnar Nerve, mostly motor to the muscles of the forearm and hand, goes through the elbow bone. It unfortunately does not go in front of the elbow in the safer soft tissue. It courses behind the elbow which is fine in horses, but human flex the arm at the elbow that pulls and stretches the ulnar nerve in a long course behind the elbow in an "ulnar groove", and additionally, a sitting human often rests his elbows on a table, and that compresses the ulnar nerve. Dogs and cats don't do that.

13. The Brachial Plexus is a cluster of the nerves to the arm that travels through a triangle with the first rib being the bottom, the collar bone in front, and the scalene muscles behind. Also in the triangle is the brachial artery that supplies blood to the arm. Poor posture, hanging by exercise bars from the hands, or throwing balls, cause the triangle to compress either or both structures. This is the Thoracic Outlet Syndrome, the neuronal form when the plexus is injured, and the vascular form when the brachial circulation is impaired.

14. Female urinary opening (urethra), vagina, and rectum all located in a close row so that rectal infection of the urethra/bladder/kidneys, or the vagina is very frequent and can lead to kidney damage as well as damage to the fallopian tubes. The old joke is why is the recreational park located at the sewage outflow pipes?

The last bit:

15. The appendix is a seemingly useless relic of evolution that easily gets infected and ruptures in a life-threatening peritonitis unless removed quickly. A few postulate that it might have bacteria that make certain vitamins. That is unproven.

16. Large veins in the legs, progressively dilating from standing, walking, run the risk of blood clotting when the human sits for a period of time. These veins send those clots north to the heart's right ventricle and directly into the lungs causing pulmonary emboli (clots and lung infarction) that are often fatal.) Quadruped animals rarely die of this. Many humans do.

17. Venous Cavernous Sinuses at the skull base on left and right are large draining veins from the brain. But inside of the vein there is the carotid artery taking blood into the brain, and several important nerves: III, IV, VI that control all eye movements, pupillary diameter, and lens focusing, and V-1, V-2, and V-3 that supply sensation to the eye and face. This venous structure packed with these important structures is infected by sinus infection or pustules in or on the nose. Infection causes the blood to clot (thrombosis) that injures the nerves, makes the eye bulge and swell, and can cause spreading thrombosis into the brain which can be rapidly fatal.

18. Other cranial sinuses such as the transverse are located next to the middle ear that frequently gets infected in kids. The infection spread to the venous sinus and causes thrombophlebitis, the major effect is increased fluid pressure in the brain, venous strokes, and seizures. If all of those venous drainage pipes were internally situated, there would not be such a risk. (17 and 18).

19. Congenital birth defects caused by structures found only in primitive animals (but still in our genes): gills in our embryonic stage may have some left over at birth and a baby may have a partial gill (technically called a branchial cleft cyst.) These can cause pain as the person grows, or develop abscesses. Another is a chordoma, tumour composed of notochord tissue only otherwise found in ancient animals like Pikaea and Amphioxus. It preceded the evolution of the bony spine. We have one in our early embryo stages but absorb it. Sometime absorption is incomplete and notochord tissue (tumour) unfortunately grows in the clivus at the base of the brain.

20. Our abdomen. It houses our stomach, our liver, our spleen, great vessels (aorta) small bowel, and colon. In quadrupeds it is underneath. An attacker cannot easily get to it. The predator has to attack the tougher back and spine. But in the human the belly is sticking out there for some clawed or toothed predator or knife wielding human criminal to take a swipe and eviscerate us.

So much for "Intelligent" Design!

Remember, God is deemed to be Perfection. Perfection can only create perfection. Humans and animals, and even plants, are eminently imperfect.

Hey Vierotchka,

My use of the term "Darwinism" was incorrect. Thank you for pointing that out.

Evolution is the term I meant to use and will edit my comments above.

Damn, looks like you've been doing some homework...

Vierotchka,

GREAT compilation of poorly designed anatomical structures! Many were new to me.

Hedismembermentplan,

You are correct that "ID" does not necessarily have to be linked to "creationism" (although it's common to do so). I *think* the designer could be (for example) and extraterrestrial being. I submit that MOST people claim the "designer" be god.

The important thing to realize that whatever ID is.... it is NOT a science. It's a religion.

Every time someone abbreviates Intelligent Design as ID, I think of Idaho. It's probably just me.

No, I do that too. Not sure why....never been been to Idaho or know where about it is or anything! Maybe it's just a natural sense...they're up to something!

This debate is more tedious and tiresome than Obama/Clinton.

Well, since I haven't actually seen the movie yet since it's release was delayed a couple of months, I'm making a guess here that Ben Stein and this movie will probably, once and for all, reveal how absolutely ridiculous the 'believers' are as they continue to their fight to put religion in the classroom. I could be wrong, but I trust the American public to be slightly more intelligent and capable of reasoned thought.
btw dismember, those that teach science actually DO teach students to think critically and that science is an ongoing process...not an end product. That's actually what makes it science.
If I ever find myself in a position to be forced to teach ID in my biology classroom, my lesson will be research based on this ID site:
http://www.venganza.org/

Vierotchka: thanks, I enjoyed that. I think I'll fit it into my HS A&P class.

Pwdrskir,

Sorry, I rejoined the party a little late. I was outside looking for transitional forms....

At any rate, I think dsmbrmt clearly pointed out ID (the notion that intelligence counts as a scientific explanation) does not necessarily entail creationism (understood as a Christian fundamentalist view). In fact, there are proponents of ID from across the religious spectrum (atheist - pantheists). So change your mind, or quiet your mouth (or both!).

To think a Judge an expert in matters of the history of science, philosophy of science and practice of science is ridiculous. In fact, critics of the Kitzmiller ruling have pointed out the Judge copied verbatim from anti-id briefs. Any real student of the issue knows this debate cannot be settled by judicial fiat. The issue is a matter of the philosophy of science.

Most of the comments here are confused and repeated rumblings from half baked approximations of the issue.

Of course, those serious about the issue can do their own reading and thinking.

http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id...
http://uncommondescent.com/
http://www.idthefuture.com/

BooksBrown,

I agree that there is a lot of rambling and confusion on this topic so I shall endeavor to be brief.

1) You can find information on transitional fossils here :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossi...

2) It doesn't matter if ID is creationism (although it was clearly established in the Dover trial that it is. Whatever ID is.... it's not science. It offers no evidence.

3) The judge is not supposed to be an expert in evolution. That's why we have the testimony of experts. As to the charge that Judge Jones "copied" ACLU briefs : this is a mis characterization. It is TYPICAL for judges to incorporate experts' opinions into their decision. Are you suggesting Judge Jones was biased? Or was he simply convinced by the overwhelming EVIDENCE?

Any reasonable person could see that the Dover trial revealed ID to be a poorly re-packaged version of creationism.

Dansam,

Re: 1
As you might be aware there is a sharp division in neo-darwinian circles about the role (and existence) of transitional forms. Gould held to the view of punctuated equillibrium, in part to explain the incredible gaps in the fossil record. Suffice it to say, if the theory of descent by modification is true, we would expect to see fossil evidence end over end. We dont.

But I'm not as interested in discussing fossil evidence as I am in arguing for a robust view of the scientific enterprise. Restricting appeals to intelligence as the source of information is unscientific.

Re:2
You second point of course turns on your definition of science. You should be aware that most philosophers of science have given up on the 'demarcation' question, as there is real difficulty in creating a definition of science that allows for the history and future of scientific practice. You seem to suggest that a theory is only scientific if it has evidence. You don't explain what you would count as evidence, so its hard to say what kind of condition you are requiring for a thing to be science. In times past, there have been several conditions propped up as requirments for true science (e.g., repeatability, falsifiability, etc.). None have stood the test of time.

As far as evidence goes, though, you would be wise to peep two Behe's argument for irreducible complexity and Bill Dembski's mathematical argument for determining whether there is order and intelligence in a given artifact.
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-downloa...

Re:3
As the above link demonstrates, Judge Jones frequently and uncritically relied on the Anti-Id experts while neglecting counter evidence presented by ID experts.

Central to Behe's point in the linked the piece is the distinction between a theory and the philosophical implications of a theory. While the Big Bang might have philosophical (and theological) implications, it doesnt mean its not a scientific theory. Similarly, simply bc ID might have some philo/theo implication, doesnt mean it isnt science. You have to divorce a theory from its implications and Judge Jones seemed incapable of doing that.

Someone can accept Intelligent design, some part of evolution and have a strict scientific approach.

The debate between Darwinism and Creationism is about something else. It is the same old story between people who believe in God and those who don't.
Who can control the power ? That is what the court case came down to.

Religion focuses on internal truth and Science focuses on external truth. It does not have to be divided. We divide everything because man is divided, our spirit and body are divided.

That is where the real problem is. The isssue is not about science.

Booksbrown,

I just want to understand your position:

1) Do you think evolution is true.
2) A scientific hypothesis with no objective evidence is little more than a philosophy. When I say "evidence", I am referring to a collection of objective facts that are supported by logical explanation. An important aspect of scientific evidence is that it be subject to experimentation and verification. While this is somewhat more difficult to accomplish with evolutionary theory, it has been done (evolving bacteria, large breeding studies using mice (or other animals with short gestation periods), and simulated with software). That's the experimentation part. Of course the other empirical evidence is overwhelming.

3) What evidence is there for ID? I thought Behe was ripped a new orifice in Dover! ;-)