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No, but there is a strong consensus of scientists who work in the field of biology. They, and not 'secularists', determine what is and what isn't biological science. And ID is not biological science. And thus, to teach it as science is a sham.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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Are you saying that teachers should lie to thier students? Teaching ID as science is lying. Why? Because it is not science.

Now there is a nice circular argument - why is it a lie? Because it's not science - because as we all know, science isn't a lie, right?

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As typical as this is of evolutionary logic, the fact is there is no king of science issuing dictates about what is and isn't science.

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As much as evolutionists would like to shield their pet theory from criticism, this is America, and we are allowed to question things here - and evolutionists are going to have to fight for their ideas in classes, the press, universities, and in the public mind, just like the rest of us.

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Also, who cares what the vast majority of Americans believe? The vast majority of Americans don't even understand what evolution IS, how can they possible know if it is a sufficient explanation or not?

As much as some would like a secular science dictatorship, the fact is in a pluralistic society where free expression is allowed and parents pay for schools (and research facilities) with their hard earned tax dollars, and aren't obligated to have a bunch of secularists dictate what is and isn't science.

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And I think many Americans see through a thinly veiled metaphysical proposition attempting to masquerade as science.

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(removed by moderator for personal attack)

It is not science because it relies on the supernatural. ID provides no mechanism of how it could have functioned. It completely ignores ochams razor.

Also, I did not say ID is not science because it is a lie. Read it again. This time more carefully. What I said was that SAYING that ID is science is a lie.

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Again, you, nor any other group, gets to declare what is and isn’t scientific.

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No is preventing anyone from questioning evolution. What they ARE doing, is preventing non-science to be taught in science classes. The fact that you STILL dont understand this simple thing is rather telling.

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it's not science, it is not science. This is so simple, I can hardly believe you are having trouble understanding it. Also, where did you get the idea that only secularists 'dictate' what is science? Many scientists are christians. You have been told this. Many times. How can you still not know it?

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It's really really simple. If you reference the supernatural, you are not doing science. If your theory REQUIRES entities to work, and you don't have ANY evidence for such an entity, you are not doing science. If your theory requires a mechanism to work, and you can't describe the mechanism, you are not doing science. If your theory makes no predictions, you are not doing science.

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The courts certainly had no problem seeing through the thinly veiled metaphysical proposition called ID.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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No, but there is a strong consensus of scientists who work in the field of biology. They, and not 'secularists', determine what is and what isn't biological science. And ID is not biological science. And thus, to teach it as science is a sham.

Science doesn't proceed by consensus either -

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and by and large, evolutionary biologists are secularists of some sort.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud
As much as evolutionists would like to shield their pet theory from criticism, this is America, and we are allowed to question things here - and evolutionists are going to have to fight for their ideas in classes, the press, universities, and in the public mind, just like the rest of us.

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So what? By and large scientists accept evolution. If you can dismiss the many theists who accept evolution, and incorrectly refer to evolutionary biologists and even the plaintiffs in Kitzmiller as secularists and atheists, then I can dismiss the few scientists who are creationists or otherwise 'anti-evolution'. Let me try Jhud's tactic out. Ahem.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud
What I do dismiss is attempts to pretend that evolution is more acceptable because the secularists that promote it have religious fellow travelers.

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This is not a busload of 10 random secularists from Dubuque, and their religious spouses. These are virtually all of the experts in biology on the planet.

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I have not argued here that evolution is more acceptable because many religious people accept it. It was you who smeared the Kitzmiller plaintiffs as 'atheists,' and characterized evolutionary biologists as 'by and large' secularists, as though that made evolution less acceptable.

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I have only argued that, as there is no king of science, the best arbiters of what the best theory is for a particular aspect of biology are the working scientists in that field. Those scientists have spoken, and have spoken nearly unanimously for more than a century. Evolution is not only scientific; it is our best explanation for the phenomena it involves.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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This is not a busload of 10 random secularists from Dubuque, and their religious spouses. These are virtually all of the experts in biology on the planet.

Sure, the vast majority of evolutionary biologists are evolutionists - so what? What else would they be?

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Do you consider being called an atheist a 'smear'?

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Again, you think they are the 'best arbiters' - I say there are no 'arbiters' only gradually modified understandings of the natural world, which is best done in a free, open, self-critical atmosphere, not in a protective bubble of secularists with designs on how education should be shaped in this country.

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ORIGINAL: essentialsaltes

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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This is not a busload of 10 random secularists from Dubuque, and their religious spouses. These are virtually all of the experts in biology on the planet.

Sure, the vast majority of evolutionary biologists are evolutionists - so what? What else would they be?

The vast majority of biologists accept evolution. Just like the vast majority of chemists accept the atomic theory, and the vast majority of physicists accept relativity.
I imagine all evolutionary biologists accept evolution. The number of "non-evolutionary biologists" is quite small.

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The students are not yet equipped with the basic understanding of the material that would allow them to even understand what little debate exists at the level of researchers, and since that amount of controversy is so small, it is not worth wasting the students' time with it.

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ORIGINAL: DanJames

The difference is that the IDist recognizes that this process is not sufficient to explain the arising of specified complexity in certain structures.

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The students are not yet equipped with the basic understanding of the material that would allow them to even understand what little debate exists at the level of researchers, and since that amount of controversy is so small, it is not worth wasting the students' time with it.

Seriously? I'll be sure to tell my high school friends that. "I'm sorry, you're not yet educated enough to understand the creation and evolution controversy. Just shut up and keep your nose in that text book. After your 12 years of indoctrination are over, then we can talk."

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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(removed by moderator for personal attack)

It is not science because it relies on the supernatural. ID provides no mechanism of how it could have functioned. It completely ignores ochams razor.

Also, I did not say ID is not science because it is a lie. Read it again. This time more carefully. What I said was that SAYING that ID is science is a lie.

ID provides as a cause the reasonable assertion that the origination of complex information system driven machinery is best explained as the result of the working of a mind. There is nothing particularly supernatural in that, and it is as mechanistic an explanation as saying that intelligence produced an arrowhead.

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Again, you, nor any other group, gets to declare what is and isn’t scientific.

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No is preventing anyone from questioning evolution. What they ARE doing, is preventing non-science to be taught in science classes. The fact that you STILL dont understand this simple thing is rather telling.

Agreed – and the contemplation of the involvement of intelligence as a cause of life’s origination is not anti-scientific. The fact that you keep arguing in circles making the same points again and again with no factual support is laughable.

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it's not science, it is not science. This is so simple, I can hardly believe you are having trouble understanding it. Also, where did you get the idea that only secularists 'dictate' what is science? Many scientists are christians. You have been told this. Many times. How can you still not know it?

Oh, I understand perfectly – you said it’s not science, so you think that is sufficient to demonstrate it’s not science. What is simple and yet apparently beyond your intellect, is the notion that the reasonable assertion that some structures and systems can’t exist apart from intelligence is not a ‘supernatural’ explanation.

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It's really really simple. If you reference the supernatural, you are not doing science. If your theory REQUIRES entities to work, and you don't have ANY evidence for such an entity, you are not doing science. If your theory requires a mechanism to work, and you can't describe the mechanism, you are not doing science. If your theory makes no predictions, you are not doing science.

The existence of the pyramids requires ‘entities’ to explain their existence – by your absurd argument, we must believe they arose via natural means because of this requirement.

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The courts certainly had no problem seeing through the thinly veiled metaphysical proposition called ID.

‘A’ court – that has no bearing outside of it’s jurisdiction, thankfully.

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ORIGINAL: essentialsaltes

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ORIGINAL: DanJames

The difference is that the IDist recognizes that this process is not sufficient to explain the arising of specified complexity in certain structures.

The IDist proposes that evolution is insufficient, but there does not seem to be any positive evidence for this hypothesis.

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That is not what I said. The basics of the creation and evolution controversy are pretty easy to understand. But the scientific "debate [that] exists at the level of researchers" is not. I'm more familiar with physics students than biology students, but I can say that presenting Brans-Dicke theory, the Pioneer Anomaly, and the repulsive fifth force reported by researchers in the 1980s would not promote 'academic freedom' or lift the 'orthodox cone of silence' that protects materialistic uniformitarian atheistic naturalistic secular gravitation. It would only promote confusion in students who have not yet learned what Galileo, Newton and Einstein had to say about gravity. Even though those 'anti-gravitational' ideas were and are presented and discussed in the scientific literature, it serves no purpose to try to teach them in high school physics.

The case for teaching ID is still less supported, since it has very little in the way of published scientific research from which to draw. ID is at best a proto-science. Sincere ID researchers should work at making it into science before they can teach it as science. But most ID supporters want to just skip the part where they do scientific research and establish their claims. Teaching first, verdict afterwards.

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We know an arrowhead is designed BEFOREHAND. If ID can only be used to identify design in things we ALREADY KNOW are designed, I call it useless, and redundant.

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Let me ask you this: In your own words, what does it mean for a theory to have a BETTER EXPLANATION of how life diversified than another?

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All your arguments rely on incredulity. How is this scientific? Can you provide me with support for ID that is NOT an argument from incedulity?

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You are welcome to provide your arguments.

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What I said was that if your theory requires the existance of entities, and you are unable to support the existance of these entities using evidence, it is not scientific. Hence, ID is not scientific.

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Example: The theory that the pyramids was built by the Egyptians, requires us to show that the Egyptians existed. The theory that life was created and diversified by a designer, requires YOU to support the existance of this designer. You are unable to do so.

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So Juhd, what do you think the ID supporters did wrong in that case? Do you think there is something they should have done differently in order to win the case? To be more specific, if another case like that one came up, what will they have to do differently, so that the result will not be identical?

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ORIGINAL: DanJames

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The IDist proposes that evolution is insufficient, but there does not seem to be any positive evidence for this hypothesis.

It's astonishing, annoying, and disheartening that after all this time that we have been having this discussion, you still make these grand sweeping claims that "...there does not seem to be any positive evidence for this hypothesis." As if you haven't bee present in the discussion at all.

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In the 1990s, creationism had mutated into ID, and Behe gave us the flagellum as an example of an unevolvable structure, which must therefore have come from a watchmaker. But researchers have provided viable pathways for its evolution.

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Behe proferred the immune system as an example of an unevolvable structure, but he was confronted with a stack of research on the question at Dover.

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Do we know how these structures evolved? Hardly, but the fact that plausible evolutionary pathways exists refutes the ID statement that they are unevolvable.

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And in the present day, Jhud will point at integrated circuits and make the same argument Paley made 200 years ago. Integrated circuits need a watchmaker, and so do animals.

ID has not progressed significantly beyond Paley, and Darwin disposed of that argument 150 years ago to the satisfaction of the scientific community. ID is not science, and therefore doesn't belong in science classes in the schools

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ORIGINAL: Jhud
I have to admit I appreciate the use of the word 'plausible' by evolutionists:

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I appreciate the use of the word 'impossible' by IDists.

Researchers may have failed to provide an evolutionary explanation of feature X to your satisfaction, but that is not the same as proving ID's case that an evolutionary explanation of feature X is impossible. ID is not supported by any incompleteness of evolutionary research. ID does not win if evolution has not succeeded in explaining everything. ID has to push its own case forward, and it has failed to do so.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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In the 1990s, creationism had mutated into ID, and Behe gave us the flagellum as an example of an unevolvable structure, which must therefore have come from a watchmaker. But researchers have provided viable pathways for its evolution.

No they haven't. They have speculated about imagined pathways, but they are far from shown to be 'viable', and absolutely not demonstrated.

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Behe proferred the immune system as an example of an unevolvable structure, but he was confronted with a stack of research on the question at Dover.

*sigh* So much mythology, so little time. He was confronted with a 'stack', on a stand, which no one had particularly evaluated or detailed. There is no 'research' demonstrating the evolution of the immune system.

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He was confronted with a stack of published research on the evolution of the immune system. Research that he had claimed did not exist. What does not exist is any research by ID creationists on how the immune system came about.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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He was confronted with a stack of published research on the evolution of the immune system. Research that he had claimed did not exist. What does not exist is any research by ID creationists on how the immune system came about.

Well, again, no - he was presented with a stack of books claimed by the prosecution to be an explantion of the immune system (one wonders why he needed more than one book if it's explained?) - however it was simply a legal trick, not a scientific presentation or discussion.

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Behe said, "We can look high or we can look low in books or in journals, but the result is the same. The scientific literature has no answers to the question of the origin of the immune system."

One book or one article would be enough to show his claim is false, but would leave him the opportunity to claim he was unaware of that particular book or article. So, he was presented with many books and articles detailing various aspects of the origin of the immune system from the current time dating back to the 1970s. Books and articles he should have been aware of -- especially if he was to claim they do not exist. He must have know about some of them. I can't believe he is that incompetent.