Santorum 2002 on intelligent design

[PoliticalChic]

In this country your allowed to have FAITH in any idea you so choose.

Sure, absolutely. Perhaps I am misinterpreting your comment but I don't think I am disagreeing with you on much, if anything really.

I meant that any who believe that aliens landed here and left detritus that resulted in life, well, there is as much proof of that as any life-origin myth.

Berlinski:

1. As a general explanation, arguments follow from assumptions, and assumptions follow from beliefs, and very rarely- perhaps never- do beliefs reflect an agenda determined entirely by the facts. No less than the doctrines of religious belief, the doctrines of quantum cosmology are what they seem: biased, partial, inconclusive, and largely in the service of passionate but unexamined conviction.

2. Quantum cosmology is a branch of mathematical metaphysics that provides no cause for the emergence of the universe, the ‘how,’ nor reason thereof, the ‘why.’ If the mystification induced by its mathematics were removed from the subject, what remains would appear remarkably similar to the various creation myths in which the origin of the universe is attributed to sexual congress between primordial deities.

 

[Old Rocks]

"The number of intermediate varieties which have formerly existed on earth must be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory." - Charles Darwin 1902 edition.

“…I am quite conscious that my speculations run beyond the bounds of true science….It is a mere rag of an hypothesis with as many flaw & holes as sound parts.” Charles Darwin to Asa Gray, cited by Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin, (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1991) pp. 456, 475.

Since this was written, vast numbers of these intermediate forms have been found. From the Karoo, the feathered dinosaurs of China, to the horses in the beds of the John Day Formations, there have been tens of thousands of intermediate forms found.

The fact that you do not care to acknowledge this, is simply a indictation of your willfull ignorance.

 

[Old Rocks]

Not lot of science involved if you have to say IF ... to prove your point. I would think scientists were deeper thinkers and am a little dissapointed that the theory of evolution is so vague and can only go back so far which in turn disproves itself.

So which is the better theory, from a SCIENTIFIC standpoint?

Evolution, for which there are mountains of evidence?

or Intelligent Design, for which there is absolutely no evidence?

The choice is yours, carby...
...but remember, both are largely based on faith.

Calling bullshit on you PC. Purest of bullshit. Evolution has support from geology, genetics, the physiology of living animals, ourselves included. ID has only the mouthings of a bunch of ignoramouses that have failed to research current biology and would enforce their willfull ignorance on the rest of us.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Familiar with the Frankfurt School?

If you've gone to college in the last forty years or so, you've been exposed....indoctrinated...with same.......

I won't repost the whole thing. Well actually I teach at a college and while I certainly agree that there is some serious liberal indoctrination going on I have yet to see any evidence of a grand conspiracy. More is that the vast majority of professors are liberals who teach from a liberal perspective and with a liberal bias. If there is a grand conspiracy I certainly haven't been invited to the meeting about it....of course everyone knows I am a Republican so I wouldn't be.

1 "I have yet to see any evidence of a grand conspiracy."
Take a look at the Frankfurt School, and look hard at the society over the last..and next few year...you'll see it.

2. “The Death of Feminism,” by Phyllis Chesler:

Academic feminists who received tenure, promotion, and funding, tended to be pro-abortion, pro-pornography (anti-censorship), pro-prostitution (pro-sex workers), pro-surrogacy, and anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist, and anti-American…proponents of simplistic gender-neutrality (women and men are exactly the same) or essentialist: men and women are completely different, and women are better. They are loyal to their careers and their cliques, not to the truth. [In their writing, they] have pretended that brilliance and originality can best be conveyed in a secret, Mandarin language that absolutely no one, including themselves, can possibly understand…and this obfuscation of language has been employed to hide a considerable lack of brilliance and originality and to avoid the consequences of making oneself clear.

3. The same applies to science in general, and global warming theory specifically: "...tenure, promotion, and funding,..."

4. There is nothing that has to be stated in writing...and that may be it's strongest element.
Careful study reveals it.

 

[PoliticalChic]

So which is the better theory, from a SCIENTIFIC standpoint?

Evolution, for which there are mountains of evidence?

or Intelligent Design, for which there is absolutely no evidence?

The choice is yours, carby...
...but remember, both are largely based on faith.

Calling bullshit on you PC. Purest of bullshit. Evolution has support from geology, genetics, the physiology of living animals, ourselves included. ID has only the mouthings of a bunch of ignoramouses that have failed to research current biology and would enforce their willfull ignorance on the rest of us.

Well, then, I'll have to label you as ignorant, and accepting of unproven theory.

University of Cambridge astronomer Fred Hoyle, understood the importance of carbon in living systems, and noted that most nuclear reactions in stars occur when two atomic nuclei, rushing around at tremendous speed care of the searing temperatures, collide and fuse, forming a heavier element.

But carbon cannot be made this way because all the intermediate steps from helium to carbon involve highly unstable nuclei. The solution is for carbon to form from the simultaneous collision of three helium nuclei. But, he chances that three helium nuclei will come together at the same moment are tiny. So Hoyle reasoned that a special factor must be at work to boost the rare reaction and lead to our abundance of carbon. If not, then life in general, and Fred Hoyle in particular, would not exist! Hoyle himself was deeply impressed by this discovery. "It looks like a put-up job," he quipped. "A commonsense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics," he later wrote.
A similar conclusion was reached by the Princeton physicist Freeman Dyson: "In some sense, the universe knew we were coming." Life, the universe and everything | COSMOS magazine

But, Rocks, I can see why you'd be upset....afraid?

 

[Old Rocks]

Hoyle? I read a lot of Hoyle's hypothesis when I was much younger. A brilliant and erratic mind, more often wrong than right. But he questioned well, and often inspired correct answers in others.

And we are talking biology, not astrophysics. Evolution is everything that has occured after abiogenisis. It does not include astrophysics. There is absolutely no need for a 'Creator' during evolution. And, philosophically, it seems to me to be a denigration of whatever Diety you choose to believe in. After all, is your Diety so inferior that she has to constantly diddle with her creation?

 

[PoliticalChic]

Hoyle? I read a lot of Hoyle's hypothesis when I was much younger. A brilliant and erratic mind, more often wrong than right. But he questioned well, and often inspired correct answers in others.

And we are talking biology, not astrophysics. Evolution is everything that has occured after abiogenisis. It does not include astrophysics. There is absolutely no need for a 'Creator' during evolution. And, philosophically, it seems to me to be a denigration of whatever Diety you choose to believe in. After all, is your Diety so inferior that she has to constantly diddle with her creation?

Wow, have you been hoodwinked, Rocks...

1. ". . . no human has ever seen a new species form in nature." Steven M. Stanley, The New Evolutionary Timetable (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1981), p. 73.

2. "There are no fossils known that show what the primitive ancestral insects looked like, . . . . Until fossils of these ancestors are discovered, however, the early history of the insects can only be inferred." Peter Farb, The Insects, Life N "Thus so far as concerns the major groups of animals, the creationists seem to have the better of the argument. There is not the slightest evidence that any one of the major groups arose from any other. Each is a special animal complex related, more or less closely, to all the rest, and appearing, therefore, as a special and distinct creation." Austin H. Clark, "Animal Evolution," Quarterly Review of Biology, Vol. 3, No. 4, December 1928, p. 539.

3. "When we descend to details, we can prove that no one species has changed; nor can we prove that the supposed changes are beneficial, which is the groundwork of the theory [of evolution]." Charles Darwin, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Vol. 2, editor Francis Darwin (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1898), p. 210

4. "But the curious thing is that there is a consistency about the fossil gaps: the fossils go missing in all the important places. When you look for links between major groups of animals, they simply aren't there; at least, not in enough numbers to put their status beyond doubt. Either they don't exist at all, or they are so rare that endless argument goes on about whether a particular fossil is, or isn't, or might be, transitional between this group or that." [emphasis in original] Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe: Where Darwin Went Wrong(New Haven Ct,:Ticknor and Fields, 1992) p. 19. (See my articleThe Coelacanth, Living Fossils, and Evolution).

5. There is no fossil record establishing historical continuity of structure for most characters that might be used to assess relationships among phyla." Katherine G. Field et al., "Molecular Phylogeny of the animal Kingdom," Science, Vol. 239, 12 February 1988, p. 748.

6. "And let us dispose of a common misconception. The complete transmutation of even one animal species into a different species has never been directly observed either in the laboratory or in the field." Dean H. Kenyon (Professor of Biology, San Francisco State University), affidavit presented to the U.S. Supreme Court, No. 85-1513, Brief of Appellants, prepared under the direction of William J. Guste, Jr., Attorney General of the State of Louisiana, October 1985, p. A-16.

7. ". . . there are no intermediate forms between finned and limbed creatures in the fossil collections of the world." G.R. Taylor, The Great Evolution Mystery, ( N.Y: Harper and Row, 1983) p. 60.

8. ". . . the gradual morphological transitions between presumed ancestors and descendants, anticipated by most biologists, are missing." David E. Schindel (Curator of Invertebrate Fossils, Peabody Museum of Natural History), "The Gaps in the Fossil Record," Nature, Vol. 297, 27 May 1982, p. 282.

9. "Gaps at a lower taxonomic level, species and genera, are practically universal in the fossil record of the mammal-like reptiles. In no single adequately documented case is it possible to trace a transition, species by species, from one genus to another." Thomas S. Kemp,Mammal-like Reptiles and the Origin of Mammals (New York: Academic Press, 1982), p. 319.
</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000ff" VLINK="#551a8b" ALINK="#ff0000" BGCOLOR="#00ffff"> <P ALIGN="CENTER"><FONT SIZE="+1"><STRONG><EM>NO EVIDENCE FOR EVOLUTION</EM></STRONG></FONT><FONT SIZE="+1"><EM></EM></FONT></P> <P ALIGN="CENTER"

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[Amelia]

I think that recent genome studies may have cast light on the trip from fins to limbs.



Sorry for not having sources to give right now. I listened to a piece about it on PBS and don't remember enough details at the moment. Playing around in google now but might not find what I'm looking for before this phase of the conversation passes by.




"Hoxd" rings a bell. I think this might be related to the story I heard on PBS:

http://www.pnas.org/content/108/31/12782.full

 

[Inthemiddle]

 

[NYcarbineer]

Not lot of science involved if you have to say IF ... to prove your point. I would think scientists were deeper thinkers and am a little dissapointed that the theory of evolution is so vague and can only go back so far which in turn disproves itself.

So which is the better theory, from a SCIENTIFIC standpoint?

Evolution, for which there are mountains of evidence?

or Intelligent Design, for which there is absolutely no evidence?

The choice is yours, carby...
...but remember, both are largely based on faith.

The theory of Evolution is not based on faith. It is a scientific theory based on the scientific criteria for what constitutes and qualifies as a theory.

 

[Old Rocks]

I think that recent genome studies may have cast light on the trip from fins to limbs.



Sorry for not having sources to give right now. I listened to a piece about it on PBS and don't remember enough details at the moment. Playing around in google now but might not find what I'm looking for before this phase of the conversation passes by.

Lobe finned fishes.

Lobe-Finned Fishes: Class Sarcopterygii | Untamed Science

Most modern classification systems reflect evolutionary ancestry. All living representatives of an ancestor are grouped together. All mammals for instance are grouped in the Class Mammalia – they share a common ancestor. However, in this case, the class Sarcopterygii should contain all descendants of lobe-finned fishes including mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and birds. Since mammals are not included in the class Sarcopterygii, this class is considered a paraphyletic group. Mammals, for instance, remain in their own class mostly because of the history of classification.

Observed speciation

Observed Instances of Speciation

Evolution from reptile to mammal

Fossils II

 

[NYcarbineer]

Not lot of science involved if you have to say IF ... to prove your point. I would think scientists were deeper thinkers and am a little dissapointed that the theory of evolution is so vague and can only go back so far which in turn disproves itself.

So which is the better theory, from a SCIENTIFIC standpoint?

Evolution, for which there are mountains of evidence?

or Intelligent Design, for which there is absolutely no evidence?

Neither... for people who think.

Seriously? Are you mentally handicapped?

So among thinking people, the preponderance of the evidence is irrelevant to the merits of a theory...

...you win the award this week.

 

[konradv]

Are you familiar with Watson and Crick?
Crick subscribed to a theory that aliens visited and that's how life began.

"[Some scientists offer theories] including imagining ‘aliens’ were responsible for the origin of life on earth: “An alternative to Earthly abiogenesis is “exogenesis”, the hypothesis that primitive life may have originally formed extraterrestrially, either in space or on a nearby planet such as Mars. Such ideas have had many eminent supporters over the years, including Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of the structure of the DNA molecule, and the astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle among others.” Exogenesis - The Beginnings of Life - The Physics of the Universe

When were they on the board?!?!

I can see why a dolt would require that any evidence other than that which they supply should be banned....

....and that would be your thinking?

Just pointing out that you rarely answer questions in a straight forward manner. The question was about board members and you started talking about Watson and Crick! You'd be right about me being a dolt, if I let that slide.

Who's calling for the banning of anything? Not me. As long as there's good evidence, put it forward. If it's just faith, it doesn't belong in a scientific discussion. Evolution has evidence out the wazoo, I.D. ZERO.

 

[BlindBoo]

If life doesn't or hasen't evolved how do you explain the explosion of various life forms after each extinction event the earth has seen?

 

[Old Rocks]

PC is floundering. Her knowledge of science is rather minimal. Her understanding even less.

 

[NYcarbineer]

If a complex living being cannot occur without being designed by another intelligent being,

then God cannot exist unless he was in fact designed by an intelligent being,

unless of course you do not believe that God is a complex living being.

The theory of intelligent design refutes itself by its very nature.

Before you get all wound up, realize that many scientists today agree that the events and parameters necessary to get to where we are today require a confluence that is mathematically improbable...

If you have the time, the article in Harper's Mag should be required reading. In part:

" …the great question, of course, is why these fundamental parameters happen to lie within the range needed for life. Does the universe care about life? Intelligent design is one answer. Indeed, a fair number of theologians, philosophers, and even some scientists have used fine-tuning and the anthropic principle as evidence of the existence of God. For example, at the 2011 Christian Scholars’ Conference at Pepperdine University, Francis Collins, a leading geneticist and director of the National Institutes of Health, said, “To get our universe, with all of its potential for complexities or any kind of potential for any kind of life-form, everything has to be precisely defined on this knife edge of improbability…. [Y]ou have to see the hands of a creator who set the parameters to be just so because the creator was interested in something a little more complicated than random particles.”
The accidental universe: Science's crisis of faith?By Alan P. Lightman (Harper's Magazine)


I challenge anyone to read this piece and still be rock sure about the beliefs in this thread.


If I may go beyond topic...the insistence on a scientific explanation for the universe, and for evolution, is fundamental to a neo-Marxist attack on religion and morality.

I'd be happy to expand on that....

Nothing there offers a counter-argument to what I said.

I reject the argument in your quote. The origin and evolution of life on this planet occurred in 5 billion year timespan -

when you had the random combinations of elements and compounds, in addition to a selection process that determines survivability, occurring over what is to us an incomprehensibly long period of time, BILLIONS of years,

it is not hard to imagine or accept the feasibility of evolution producing all that exists in the various species today.

People who can't grasp the enormity of the time frame within which evolution had to work can't grasp the concept of something complex evolving.

 

[PoliticalChic]

I think that recent genome studies may have cast light on the trip from fins to limbs.



Sorry for not having sources to give right now. I listened to a piece about it on PBS and don't remember enough details at the moment. Playing around in google now but might not find what I'm looking for before this phase of the conversation passes by.




"Hoxd" rings a bell. I think this might be related to the story I heard on PBS:

Appendage expression driven by the Hoxd Global Control Region is an ancient gnathostome feature

1. I understand that this may not be the article you were searching for, but it is rife with escapy words, slippery phrasing as per the examples from the article.


"Comparative genetic analyses have produced ambiguous results..."

"similarities in gene expression between the distal segments of fins and limbs, this functional homology has not been supported"

"Our results support the notion that some of the novelties associated with tetrapod limbs arose by..."

"Genomic sequence comparisons reveal that CsB exhibits high conservation between mammals and teleost fish (Fig. 1C). This observation raised the intriguing possibility that fishes may be..."

"Fin expression in mouse CsB-injected embryos..."

"...and injected in fertilized mouse pronuclei, generating multiple independent transgenic embryos for each construct injected."

"...could recapitulate the expression patterns..."

"This finding implies that expansion of the Hoxd expression domain is associated with the enhanced distal endochondral skeleton of tetrapods. Additionally, these data support the hypothesis that the distal fin of teleosts,..."

2. Consider the following: Philosopher Michael Devitt explains that “there is only one way of knowing, the empirical way that is the basis of science.”. Discuss. (An interesting quote from Michael Devitt)
Therefore, theology cannot be considered in the same terms as science, as belief is not knowledge.

a. This echoes David Hume, “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding:” “If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.”

b. By the Devitt-Hume guidelines, not mathematics, the law, not even the greater part of ordinary human discourse can be considered as anything substantial. And, with due respect, notice that Hume’s argument itself contains no “abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number,” nor “contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence.” Well then, Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.”

3. My point? Shouldn't we expect more than the 'could be' or 'support the hypothesis' language if Hume is correct about the difference between science and theology?

Shouldn't one be suspicious of the Left's (I include NPR there) attempts to persuade with such flimsy material? They selected the work as scientifically significant....

a. At the same time, I conclude no dishonesty on the part of the investigators, and see the article as merely pointing in the direction of future study.

 

[NYcarbineer]

If life doesn't or hasen't evolved how do you explain the explosion of various life forms after each extinction event the earth has seen?

Eventually you're going to get the response that God in his omnipotence simply made it look like plants and animals evolved, and simply made it look like the Earth is more than 6000 years old,

all done, apparently, to **** with the minds of the doubters and weak of faith.

 

[manifold]

Calling all nutters, calling all nutters... olly olly oxen free!

Nailed it!

 

[PoliticalChic]

If a complex living being cannot occur without being designed by another intelligent being,

then God cannot exist unless he was in fact designed by an intelligent being,

unless of course you do not believe that God is a complex living being.

The theory of intelligent design refutes itself by its very nature.

Before you get all wound up, realize that many scientists today agree that the events and parameters necessary to get to where we are today require a confluence that is mathematically improbable...

If you have the time, the article in Harper's Mag should be required reading. In part:

" …the great question, of course, is why these fundamental parameters happen to lie within the range needed for life. Does the universe care about life? Intelligent design is one answer. Indeed, a fair number of theologians, philosophers, and even some scientists have used fine-tuning and the anthropic principle as evidence of the existence of God. For example, at the 2011 Christian Scholars’ Conference at Pepperdine University, Francis Collins, a leading geneticist and director of the National Institutes of Health, said, “To get our universe, with all of its potential for complexities or any kind of potential for any kind of life-form, everything has to be precisely defined on this knife edge of improbability…. [Y]ou have to see the hands of a creator who set the parameters to be just so because the creator was interested in something a little more complicated than random particles.”
The accidental universe: Science's crisis of faith?By Alan P. Lightman (Harper's Magazine)


I challenge anyone to read this piece and still be rock sure about the beliefs in this thread.


If I may go beyond topic...the insistence on a scientific explanation for the universe, and for evolution, is fundamental to a neo-Marxist attack on religion and morality.

I'd be happy to expand on that....

Nothing there offers a counter-argument to what I said.

I reject the argument in your quote. The origin and evolution of life on this planet occurred in 5 billion year timespan -

when you had the random combinations of elements and compounds, in addition to a selection process that determines survivability, occurring over what is to us an incomprehensibly long period of time, BILLIONS of years,

it is not hard to imagine or accept the feasibility of evolution producing all that exists in the various species today.

People who can't grasp the enormity of the time frame within which evolution had to work can't grasp the concept of something complex evolving.

Your testimony "...it is not hard to imagine or accept..." is exactly my point.
Accepting sans evidence is known as FAITH.

Amen, brother.