Some interesting responses to the Dover decision on Intelligent Design:
Center for Science and Culture: Judge Jones follows ACLU, ignores contrary facts
Judge Jones picked up on this assurance and at the end of his opinion stated: “… the theory of evolution represents good science, is overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, and that it in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the existence of a divine creator.” This is like a judge assuring us that it is “utterly false” that Judaism is inconsistent with eating pork. “After all,” a judge might say, “A distinguished rabbi testified that true Judaism no longer emphasizes dietary laws, but focuses on the ethical duties we owe to one another.” Alarm bells should go off when a judge believes that he can resolve hotly contested issues about what someone’s religion does or does not permit.
USA Today: Idea not based on religion
No legal decree can remove the digitally coded information from DNA, nor molecular machines from cells. The facts of biology cannot be overruled by a federal judge. Research on intelligent design will continue to go forward, and the scientific evidence will win out in the end. Still, Darwinists clearly won this latest skirmish in the evolution wars. But at what cost? Evolutionists used to style themselves the champions of free speech and academic freedom against unthinking dogmatism. But increasingly, they have become the new dogmatists, demanding judicially-imposed censorship of dissent.
Slate: Jonesing for science
However, not everyone is gung-ho for Darwin. Jack Rich, a Reformed Baptist at Wrong Side of the Tracks, reprehends the decision and suggests that evolution has some dark spots of its own: “What I’d like to know from some unbelieving evolutionary biologist is this: given that great apes still exist, and have nowhere near the intelligence of homo sapiens sapiens, it’s clear that apes did not and do not need our big, fat, chess club brains to survive. Yet we have them.” And Yaakov Menken at the orthodox Jewish journal Cross Currents draws a distinction between biblical creationism and ID, which he thinks is an inchoate theory made controversial only by its conclusions: “If we employ the same standards of probability that we use in every other area of life—including critical life and death medical decisions—we reach the conclusion that both the formation of life and the development of many structures most probably did not happen by chance.”
Slate: Is creationism destructible?
Is the pseudo-science of creationism ultimately being driven by religion? Or is this brand of religion, in turn, being driven by cultural anxieties? Is it possible to open a conversation with these folks and their kids, not in biology class but in, say, social studies? According to [Judge] Jones, the founder of the ID movement has written that evolution contradicts “every word in the Bible.” Every word? You mean, including the part about not killing or stealing? No wonder so many people cling to creationism. And no wonder scientists and judges can’t make it go away.
Richmond Times-Dispatch: Appeals court upholds Kentucky Ten Commandments display
“This extraconstitutional construct has grown tiresome,” [Federal Circuit Judge Richard] Suhrheinrich wrote. “The First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state. Our nation’s history is replete with governmental acknowledgment and in some cases, accommodation of religion.”
January 23, 2006 at 11:02 pm |
Human beings (including that judge) can be split into two groups: those who believe in a creator and those who don’t. No amount of effort exercised by one group will make the other group disappear. Just like darkness and light must co-exist in order to exist at all, so do evolutionists and creationists.
The evolutionist argument is based on the concept of self-organization and adaptivity. Yet neither of these interrelated phenomena can be considered an exact science. There can be no formal theory of evolution until self-roganization and adaptivity are ‘evolved’ into a formal theory.
Things do self-organize and adapt, but not void of the fundamental properties of the universe that make such self-organization and adaptivity possible (e.g. gravity)
So who defined those basic properties for the universe?
Descartes said that God defined those properties and by doing so allowed creation (which is the same as evolution in this context) to take place.
If the evolutionists would like to think of self-organization as a stand-alone property, that exists by itself without the other properties (or other creations of God, e.g. gravity, light, matter, etc), then they are choosing to be blind on purpose.
March 28, 2006 at 5:33 pm |
Loco, why would you suggest I think evolution is stand-alone in relation to gravity, light, matter, etc? Evolution is firmly couched in these phenomena. I evolved to become a physical being made of matter, which can see and jump up and down when irritated by obtuse nonsense crafted of disparate fragments of poorly understood ideas.
I have been taking part in discussions with RubeRad at wordpress on related subjects. He has a go at working things out, including where I’m coming from in my arguments, and if you have a look, I am successfully following his definitions in broad terms. He hasn’t (yet) twigged that thinking outside the finite framework of a religion may allow us to create more good in the world. This potential for good – and avoidance of the abuse of the powerful effect religion has on people – is the only reason it’s worth my while arguing against a religious basis for leading one’s life.
I will pause in this tirade briefly to point out that I found your post about the 5000 dollar deficit quite beautiful. I wish everyone cared so much for their wife and children.