Dan

The design issue is not dead because its supporters will never accept any reason or evidence, however persuasive, that it is not science.

Even if Darwinian evolutionary theory were to be disproved, this would not mean that ID would be vindicated. ID and evolution are not rival scientific theories. One is a scientific theory; the other a faith-based rationalisation of no theological merit.

Here’s what’s wrong with ID as (Christian) theology -
• It has no serious biblical warrant – here at least the seven-day creationists deserve credit for consistency
• It is “god of the gaps” theology that whose raison d’être is not even to explain gaps, but to insist that they exist
• It confuses physics and metaphysics
• It confuses the natural and the supernatural, hence both trivialising the divine and undermining the foundations of good science as necessarily naturalistic
• It proposed a God neither fully immersed in the processes of nature nor completely detached from them – a halfway-house god responsible for eyes but not eyelids
• It denies revelation by proposing the natural world as proof of God

Dear ozbib,

The problem of evil is not a problem in that the sense that finding out whether light can be treated as a particle or wave is a problem. Evil is an artificial category. It is what a particular society disapproves of. For the Nazis protecting a Jew would be evil. It is a problem in theology as an omnipotent, omniscient God is postulated, and evil according to the definition of a particular society exists. What is evil or good to me is what I define as evil or good. It is essentially what I prefer. I don't regard the existence of evil as a problem in the sense of something inexplicable or contradictory.

Theodicy is a Christian concern dependent on the Christian definition of God although Jews have asked the question of "Where was God in Auschwitz." The God of the Jewish Bible is not an omniscient being. Abraham can argue with him as he does in Genesis 18:20-18:32. God as a result changes his mind. Evil is incompatible with the Christian definition of God and a particular definition of evil.

I don't believe in any supernatural entity of any kind. However, I believe the mind of humans can imagine a God worthy of worship.

I gather Ghazaali regarded non-theological study as trivial and considered ijtihad, the spirit of inquiry, only relevant to religious questions. In the fourteenth century this attitude caused the Islamic world to enter their Dark Ages. The adoption of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century caused the Roman world and the rest of western Europe to enter its Dark Ages.

Charles Freeman in "The Closing of the Western Mind" describes the latter process.

...Continued

<<Evolution theory also has a little difficulty in explaining why an organism seeks to survive and reproduce anyway...>>

Firstly, because the desire to survive is advantageous and so any species that didn’t care either way would die out pretty quickly.

Secondly, a conscious desire isn’t needed for survival. Either the genetic mutations are right for the conditions, or they are not. If they’re right, they’ll survive, if they’re not, they’ll die out.

And thirdly, unanswered questions are not proof of the negative.

<<I’m no creationist...>>

Yet you use precisely the same arguments and don’t have the slightest clue about what evolution, natural selection, punctuated equilibrium or abiogenesis are.

Hmmm?

<<...there is room for intelligent design in the various theories regards the formation of life on this planet.>>

Forgetting that creationism isn’t even a theory to begin with, why then have you gone out of your way to misunderstand certain sciences?

As for the hypothetical you posed to me, that would have to be one of the most asinine arguments against evolution I have every read. It’s right up there with Dan’s argument that the food packaging industry relies on abiogenesis being false.

That was a doozy!

<<According to the theory of “evolution”, you would walk away and not plant anything.>>

Why?

Dan,

<<The more technology develops to understand the intricacies of biology, the more we marvel at its structure.>>

...and the more we learn about how such intricacies formed from the most basic of beginnings while creationists deliberately and misleadingly perpetuate the myth that scientists believe they just popped into existence from nothing.

<<Scientific literature today is abounding in comments from researchers who, letting the ball slip, use language describing biological structures as being ‘designed’ in certain ways.>>

Creationist literature today is abounding in comments from creationists who, twisting what scientists say, use misquotes to give the impression that they believe biological structures were designed.

<<If it wasn’t for the philosophical implications, we might just follow the evidence to where it leads.>>

Name one observation that bypassed the scientific method and is now widely accepted based on philosophical grounds.

Thanks Dan for exposing the dogmas of 'the science is settled' brigade' even know history tells us they will have a different story in 10 years time (at least among those who hold to the same story).

Oliver,
“life basically runs counter the second law of thermodynamics”

I would agree with the part regards thermodynamics.

According to the laws of entropy, life should reduce in time as disorder increases.

However, according to the theory of evolution, life increases and advances in time.

So the laws of entropy and the theory of evolution do not match, and there must be a special force that is driving life forward against entropy.

If science stays with the theory of evolution, science may never find what that force is. If anything, the theory of evolution is holding science and the pursuit of knowledge back.

Dan S de Merengue
I would agree that CJ Morgan provides nothing to most forums except name calling and abuse of other posters. This has been occurring for a long time, and so much for his evolution.

Perhaps C J Morgan’s continuous and repeated abuse and name calling of other people should be left in, as an example of how evolution does not work.

I think you're on to something, vannakins. Unlike me, you're a truly "evolved" specimen.

When I first joined OLO some years back, you were Timithy. Then you 'evolved' into Timkins, who 'evolved' into HRS, who in turn 'evolved' into vanna. However, while there have been aspects of 'punctuated equilibrium' and 'design', there hasn't been much apparent intelligence, I'm afraid.

I must say that your favourable disposition towards Creationism doesn't add much credibility to your regular pronouncements about science and education.