5 Comments
Published by Jeff
on Friday, September 07, 2007 at 4:05 PM. 
The whole Evolution vs Intelligent Design issue has got me on edge. The non-intelligent design folks are in the "if you don't see it my way, you MUST take the radical opposite of my view" camp. They accuse the other side of wanting to teach the Bible in science classes at public schools. It is the classic straw man argument and it grows weary.
The whole Evolution vs Intelligent Design issue has got me on edge. The non-intelligent design folks are in the "if you don't see it my way, you MUST take the radical opposite of my view" camp. They accuse the other side of wanting to teach the Bible in science classes at public schools. It is the classic straw man argument and it grows weary.Here is the debate: The Evolutionists believe that man evolved from lower animals over millions of years. Ultimately, we are the ancestors of wet rocks. The extremists on this side think that it should be taught as fact in our schools - period.
The intelligent design folks say that the world and life is too complex for it to unfold by chance, so logic demands that there is/was an intelligent designer. The extremists want the Genesis account being taught in school.
If one cuts off the extremists on both ends, the mainstream view is still pretty extreme in the pro-evolution camp. Here is why:
Conventional thinking believes that there is no place in the "science" classroom for intelligent design. As a matter of fact, there is no room for bringing up the problems in science that Evolution has. They don't want the students to be confused into thinking that Evolution is anything but fact, despite some evidence to the contrary.
Basically, the mainstream intelligent design people want is the leeway to talk about the problems in Evolution and "mention" that there is an alternate theory of "Intelligent Design" in which some people adhere. They are not interested in advancing a particular religious ideology, just a small portion of the class to state this view. How is that destructive?
My view:
Science should be about discovering the truth. However, the scientific method procludes the possibility of certain truths even before the investigation gets started.
This method looks only for naturalistic reasons and causes which makes sense to a degree. After all, one can't follow scientific rules or laws to explain the system of things if one can merely chalk it all up to magic or God. However, scientists go as far as to discount anything that is not naturalistic, they run incredibly dangerous to doing the thing they claim to despise - creating myth.
For instance, no one as of yet can scientifically prove the existance of God. However, no one can prove that God does not exist, either. It follows then, that if God does exist and is responsible for ANYTHING, then science missed it from jump. Each day that passes with science chasing the white rabbit farther down the path, is one more day farther from the truth. If science is truly interested in the truth, they should leave this door open. Science could get so far away from truth that even intelligent people could believe that we came from wet rocks and those rocks came from nothing.
Thank you for visiting my blog. I do agree with you. I'd like to come here again.
I think extremists on both sides are incorrect to assume that you have to be on one extreme side.
When I started looking for this quote on the net I thought it was by Francis Bacon, but it's actually J. Oppenheimer, "There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry. There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors."
In this day and age one could argue there should be ethical barriers, but that's not the point. The point is, if you want religious answers you look to the revelation of God (the Bible). If you want scientific answers you use scientific method. If you come to a scientific conclusion then that's good - you've extended your knowledge. One of the worst things (in my eyes) is when those conclusions become dogma themselves, disallowing change and creating falsehoods.
The idea that an observation of evolution, that species change over time, infers that it's random and that there can't be a god is absurd. Observations in science lead to more questions that can be investigated - unfortunately this one can't be investigated further by science... you have to accept that you can either believe there's a god or you can't know whether there's a god. I don't think you can ever say that evolution proves the absence of god.
Interesting that Science will believe in aliens, but not in someone beyond the Earth who could have directed our processes. I find this particularly amusing given that lately Science seems to be all about playing God - cloning, genetics, etc.
I have always found evolution a bit harder to swallow. Not all of it...adaptation of species is perfectly logical...but some evolutionary jumps have always seemed too big to be random (eg eyes, lungs). Intelligent design seems a reasonable middle ground. I also read an interesting question on a blog a few months back that made me think: basically she was noting that mutation results in loss of information, not gain. Therefore how can random mutation lead to features that did not exist before?
My theory is a little different. I think it was a learning process. If you were learning to create life, wouldn't you start with single-celled organisms and then work your way up? Makes sense to me anyway.
Enemy: You are welcome! Please do come back by. Of course if you are reading this, then you have already. ;)
kristarella: I agree with you to a point. I don't think it is a question of looking for religious or scientific answers. To me, it is just looking for answers and following that WHEREEVER it leads.
chosa: Are you saying that God was learning; therfore He started with one-celled organisms and worked Himself upward?
Evelotion is stupid