Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Coffee!! Intelligent design and evidence

Share
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email

Coffee!! Intelligent design and evidence

I note where the folks at ENV have been talking about Mike Behe’s still-spun flagellum = a bacterial motor assembly that cannot have been the result of chance.

Read the discussion by all means, but first, pause a moment, and ask: So? So what?

What kind of agenda does one need to have, that a big problem arises if the flagellum is not the result of chance?

What kind of science – I use the word loosely here – is at stake? What would design stop us from doing that we should otherwise do?

Now, as for evidence, this much I know is true: Few people actually pay any attention to it.

The Darwinist has only one aim: to refute evidence for design. And it is a slam dunk, because – insofar as he knows that design cannot be true – all he need do is heave arguments against it, no matter how stupid, irrelevant, or unlikely. He gets funding, tenure, etc., and just keeps on heaving. And any argument he can muster against design is preferable to just accepting the evidence. And you pay.

Now, think how much of the edifice currently called “science” is built on his nonsense. No, seriously, walk with me a moment.

Here’s an example: I’ve heard people earnestly strive for an “explanation” of the placebo effect. Every doctor knows what it is. Many patients recover when given any remedy. Medical research studies are explicitly constructed to allow for this effect (= the control group mostly gets better – on sugar pills alone).

Okay, what is the function of an “explanation” for this fact? Only one function: To rule out the reality of the mind. Why do we need to do that?: Well, we don’t, unless we are fronting atheist materialism to the public. Absent that, the placebo effect is just another calculable effect in medical studies. Do things cease to make sense if we just accept it as a given? Well, let’s see: It explains why the researcher may need to recommend treatment for the advertised “side effects” of the “medication” received by control group members. Now, suddenly, everything does make sense, except materialist atheism.

Comments
"Okay, what is the function of an “explanation” for this fact [of the placebo effect]? Only one function: To rule out the reality of the mind." Exactly; it's all about 'Science!' and asserting a materialistic worldview, rather than about actual (and far more modest) science.Ilion
March 18, 2011
March
03
Mar
18
18
2011
10:04 PM
10
10
04
PM
PDT

Leave a Reply