Vox Day on canceling Darwin

Jerry, 68: ID says nothing about origins except some look Like the product of an intelligent design as opposed to the product of a natural process You mean they were created? :-) Anyone who believes in a God that created the universe is a creationist. Would you include those who think the designer fine-tuned the universe? Also I maintain ID is not a science but more rather like a subset of logic that leads people to better conclusions. Materialism is a straight jacket predetermining a certain set of conclusions. ID expands this but doesn’t eliminate any conclusion a materialist would validly make. Just that they are unlikely and sometimes extremely unlikely. That's an interesting view. Because of their begging the question constantly, the materialist often makes inferior conclusions. They continually speculate and often their speculation then becomes conclusions because of their self constrained set of possible conclusions. They by definition practice inferior science. Those that except ID are actually practicing better science. It’s just that 99:9% of the topics in science don’t relate to controversial origins. Again, an interesting view. I wonder how many of the other ID supporters would agree with you? JVL

Except that materialism cannot be true... ET

The materialists who show up here at UD are more dogmatic than the most dogmatic religious fundamentalist. As evidenced by their comments above all they are really doing is dogmatically doubling down on a logically fallacious argument: Materialism could be true. No one has ever proved that materialism is false. Therefore, materialism is true. However, the above is nothing more than a fallacious appeal to ignorance. It’s a textbook example of an Ad ignorantium argument (an appeal to ignorance). john_a_designer

Thus regardless of how Steven Weinberg and other atheists may prefer the universe to behave, with the closing of the last remaining free will loophole in quantum mechanics, “humans are (indeed) brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level”, and thus these recent findings from quantum mechanics directly undermine, as Weinberg himself stated, the “vision that became possible after Darwin, of a world governed by impersonal physical laws that control human behavior along with everything else.” Moreover allowing free will and/or Agent causality into the laws of physics at their most fundamental level, as is now required by quantum mechanics, has some fairly profound implications for us personally. First and foremost, allowing the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics, as the Christian founders of modern science originally envisioned,,,, (Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, and Max Planck, to name a few of the Christian founders),,, and as quantum mechanics itself now empirically demands (with the closing of the free will loophole by Anton Zeilinger and company), rightly allowing the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics provides us with a very plausible resolution for the much sought after ‘theory of everything’ in that Christ’s resurrection from the dead provides an empirically backed reconciliation, via the Shroud of Turin, between quantum mechanics and general relativity into the much sought after ‘Theory of Everything”. Here are a few posts where I lay out and defend some of the evidence for that claim:

November 2019 – despite the fact that virtually everyone, including the vast majority of Christians, hold that the Copernican Principle (and/or the principle of mediocrity) is unquestionably true, the fact of the matter is that the Copernican Principle is now empirically shown, (via quantum mechanics and general relativity, etc..), to be a false assumption. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/so-then-maybe-we-are-privileged-observers/#comment-688855 (February 19, 2019) To support Isabel Piczek’s claim that the Shroud of Turin does indeed reveal a true ‘event horizon’, the following study states that ‘The bottom part of the cloth (containing the dorsal image) would have born all the weight of the man’s supine body, yet the dorsal image is not encoded with a greater amount of intensity than the frontal image.’,,, Moreover, besides gravity being dealt with, the shroud also gives us evidence that Quantum Mechanics was dealt with. In the following paper, it was found that it was not possible to describe the image formation on the Shroud in classical terms but they found it necessary to describe the formation of the image on the Shroud in discrete quantum terms. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/experiment-quantum-particles-can-violate-the-mathematical-pigeonhole-principle/#comment-673178 The evidence for the Shroud’s authenticity keeps growing. (Timeline of facts) – November 08, 2019 What Is the Shroud of Turin? Facts & History Everyone Should Know – Myra Adams and Russ Breault https://www.christianity.com/wiki/jesus-christ/what-is-the-shroud-of-turin.html

To give us a small glimpse of the power that was involved in Christ’s resurrection from the dead, the following recent article found that, ”it would take 34 Thousand Billion Watts (34 trillion Watts) of VUV radiations to make the image on the shroud. This output of electromagnetic energy remains beyond human technology.”

Astonishing discovery at Christ’s tomb supports Turin Shroud – NOV 26TH 2016 Excerpt: The first attempts made to reproduce the face on the Shroud by radiation, used a CO2 laser which produced an image on a linen fabric that is similar at a macroscopic level. However, microscopic analysis showed a coloring that is too deep and many charred linen threads, features that are incompatible with the Shroud image. Instead, the results of ENEA “show that a short and intense burst of VUV directional radiation can color a linen cloth so as to reproduce many of the peculiar characteristics of the body image on the Shroud of Turin, including shades of color, the surface color of the fibrils of the outer linen fabric, and the absence of fluorescence”. ‘However, Enea scientists warn, “it should be noted that the total power of VUV radiations required to instantly color the surface of linen that corresponds to a human of average height, body surface area equal to = 2000 MW/cm2 17000 cm2 = 34 thousand billion (34 trillion) watts makes it impractical today to reproduce the entire Shroud image using a single laser excimer, since this power cannot be produced by any VUV light source built to date (the most powerful available on the market come to several billion watts )”. Comment The ENEA study of the Holy Shroud of Turin concluded that it would take 34 Thousand Billion Watts of VUV radiations to make the image on the shroud. This output of electromagnetic energy remains beyond human technology. http://westvirginianews.blogspot.com/2011/12/new-study-claims-shroud-of-turin-is.html

Thus in conclusion, although atheists constantly claim the God has no place in science, the fact of the matter is that modern science is crucially dependent of presuppositions that can only be reasonably grounded within Theism and that, when we rightly allow the Agent Causality of God 'back' into physics, as was originally envisioned at the founding of modern science, then science itself finds an empirically backed resolution for the much sought after 'theory of everything'. Verse:

Colossians 1:15-20 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

bornagain77

As to, “a mind that can choose among the infinite variety of mathematical descriptions and bring into existence a reality that corresponds to a consistent subset of them”, it is also interesting to note that ‘free will’, i.e. “a mind that can choose”, is now proven to play a fundamental role in Quantum Mechanics itself, As Steven Weinberg explains,

The Trouble with Quantum Mechanics – Steven Weinberg – January 19, 2017 Excerpt: The instrumentalist approach,, (the) wave function,, is merely an instrument that provides predictions of the probabilities of various outcomes when measurements are made.,, In the instrumentalist approach,,, humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level. According to Eugene Wigner, a pioneer of quantum mechanics, “it was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to the consciousness.”11 Thus the instrumentalist approach turns its back on a vision that became possible after Darwin, of a world governed by impersonal physical laws that control human behavior along with everything else. It is not that we object to thinking about humans. Rather, we want to understand the relation of humans to nature, not just assuming the character of this relation by incorporating it in what we suppose are nature’s fundamental laws, but rather by deduction from laws that make no explicit reference to humans. We may in the end have to give up this goal,,, Some physicists who adopt an instrumentalist approach argue that the probabilities we infer from the wave function are objective probabilities, independent of whether humans are making a measurement. I don’t find this tenable. In quantum mechanics these probabilities do not exist until people choose what to measure, such as the spin in one or another direction. Unlike the case of classical physics, a choice must be made,,, http://quantum.phys.unm.edu/466-17/QuantumMechanicsWeinberg.pdf

In fact Weinberg, again an atheist, rejected the instrumentalist approach precisely because “humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level” and because it undermined the Darwinian worldview from within. Yet, regardless of how he and other atheists may prefer the world to behave, quantum mechanics itself could care less how atheists prefer the world to behave. For instance, and as leading experimentalist Anton Zeilinger states in the following video, “what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure. Which is a very, very, deep message about the nature of reality and our part in the whole universe. We are not just passive observers.”

“The Kochen-Speckter Theorem talks about properties of one system only. So we know that we cannot assume – to put it precisely, we know that it is wrong to assume that the features of a system, which we observe in a measurement exist prior to measurement. Not always. I mean in certain cases. So in a sense, what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure. Which is a very, very, deep message about the nature of reality and our part in the whole universe. We are not just passive observers.” Anton Zeilinger – Quantum Physics Debunks Materialism – video (7:17 minute mark) https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=4C5pq7W5yRM#t=437

The Kochen-Specker theorem undermines the deterministic worldview of atheistic materialists in the most fundamental way possible in that “it would not even be possible to place the information into the universe’s past in an ad hoc way.”

The free will theorem of John H. Conway and Simon B. Kochen,,, Since the free will theorem applies to any arbitrary physical theory consistent with the axioms, it would not even be possible to place the information into the universe’s past in an ad hoc way. The argument proceeds from the Kochen-Specker theorem, which shows that the result of any individual measurement of spin was not fixed (pre-determined) independently of the choice of measurements. http://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/free_will_theorem.html

As well, with contextuality we find that, “In the quantum world, the property that you discover through measurement is not the property that the system actually had prior to the measurement process. What you observe necessarily depends on how you carried out the observation”

Contextuality is ‘magic ingredient’ for quantum computing – June 11, 2012 Excerpt: Contextuality was first recognized as a feature of quantum theory almost 50 years ago. The theory showed that it was impossible to explain measurements on quantum systems in the same way as classical systems. In the classical world, measurements simply reveal properties that the system had, such as colour, prior to the measurement. In the quantum world, the property that you discover through measurement is not the property that the system actually had prior to the measurement process. What you observe necessarily depends on how you carried out the observation. http://phys.org/news/2014-06-weird-magic-ingredient-quantum.html

Moreover, this recent 2019 experimental confirmation of the “Wigner’s Friend” thought experiment established that “measurement results,, must be understood relative to the observer who performed the measurement”.

More Than One Reality Exists (in Quantum Physics) By Mindy Weisberger – March 20, 2019 Excerpt: “measurement results,, must be understood relative to the observer who performed the measurement”. https://www.livescience.com/65029-dueling-reality-photons.html Experimental test of local observer-independence – 2019 Excerpt: The scientific method relies on facts, established through repeated measurements and agreed upon universally, independently of who observed them. In quantum mechanics, the objectivity of observations is not so clear, most dramatically exposed in Eugene Wigner’s eponymous thought experiment where two observers can experience seemingly different realities. The question whether these realities can be reconciled in an observer-independent way has long remained inaccessible to empirical investigation, until recent no-go-theorems constructed an extended Wigner’s friend scenario with four observers that allows us to put it to the test. In a state-of-the-art 6-photon experiment, we realise this extended Wigner’s friend scenario, experimentally violating the associated Bell-type inequality by 5 standard deviations. If one holds fast to the assumptions of locality and free-choice, this result implies that quantum theory should be interpreted in an observer-dependent way. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1902.05080.pdf

On top of all that, although there have been several major loopholes in quantum mechanics over the past several decades that atheists have tried to appeal to in order to try to avoid the ‘spooky’ Theistic implications of quantum mechanics, over the past several years each of those major loopholes have each been closed one by one. The last major loophole that was left to be closed was the “setting independence” and/or the ‘free-will’ loophole:

Closing the ‘free will’ loophole: Using distant quasars to test Bell’s theorem – February 20, 2014 Excerpt: Though two major loopholes have since been closed, a third remains; physicists refer to it as “setting independence,” or more provocatively, “free will.” This loophole proposes that a particle detector’s settings may “conspire” with events in the shared causal past of the detectors themselves to determine which properties of the particle to measure — a scenario that, however far-fetched, implies that a physicist running the experiment does not have complete free will in choosing each detector’s setting. Such a scenario would result in biased measurements, suggesting that two particles are correlated more than they actually are, and giving more weight to quantum mechanics than classical physics. “It sounds creepy, but people realized that’s a logical possibility that hasn’t been closed yet,” says MIT’s David Kaiser, the Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science and senior lecturer in the Department of Physics. “Before we make the leap to say the equations of quantum theory tell us the world is inescapably crazy and bizarre, have we closed every conceivable logical loophole, even if they may not seem plausible in the world we know today?” https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140220112515.htm

And now Anton Zeilinger and company have recently, as of 2018, pushed the ‘free will loophole’ back to 7.8 billion years ago, thereby firmly establishing the ‘common sense’ fact that the free will choices of the experimenter in the quantum experiments are truly free and are not determined by any possible causal influences from the past for at least the last 7.8 billion years, and that the experimenters themselves are therefore shown to be truly free to choose whatever measurement settings in the experiments that he or she may so desire to choose so as to ‘logically’ probe whatever aspect of reality that he or she may be interested in probing.

Cosmic Bell Test Using Random Measurement Settings from High-Redshift Quasars – Anton Zeilinger – 14 June 2018 Abstract: In this Letter, we present a cosmic Bell experiment with polarization-entangled photons, in which measurement settings were determined based on real-time measurements of the wavelength of photons from high-redshift quasars, whose light was emitted billions of years ago; the experiment simultaneously ensures locality. Assuming fair sampling for all detected photons and that the wavelength of the quasar photons had not been selectively altered or previewed between emission and detection, we observe statistically significant violation of Bell’s inequality by 9.3 standard deviations, corresponding to an estimated p value of approx. 7.4 × 10^21. This experiment pushes back to at least approx. 7.8 Gyr ago the most recent time by which any local-realist influences could have exploited the “freedom-of-choice” loophole to engineer the observed Bell violation, excluding any such mechanism from 96% of the space-time volume of the past light cone of our experiment, extending from the big bang to today. https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.080403

bornagain77

Similarly Max Planck himself stated that,

“As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter." Max Planck - The main originator of Quantum Theory - Das Wesen der Materie [The Nature of Matter], speech at Florence, Italy (1944) (from Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Abt. Va, Rep. 11 Planck, Nr. 1797)

Moreover, both Einstein and Wigner are both on record as to regarding it as a 'miracle' that mathematics should be applicable to the universe in the first place. In fact, Einstein went so far as to chide 'professional atheists' in the midst of calling it a 'miracle'

On the Rational Order of the World: a Letter to Maurice Solovine - Albert Einstein - March 30, 1952 Excerpt: "You find it strange that I consider the comprehensibility of the world (to the extent that we are authorized to speak of such a comprehensibility) as a miracle or as an eternal mystery. Well, a priori, one should expect a chaotic world, which cannot be grasped by the mind in any way .. the kind of order created by Newton's theory of gravitation, for example, is wholly different. Even if a man proposes the axioms of the theory, the success of such a project presupposes a high degree of ordering of the objective world, and this could not be expected a priori. That is the 'miracle' which is constantly reinforced as our knowledge expands. There lies the weakness of positivists and professional atheists who are elated because they feel that they have not only successfully rid the world of gods but “bared the miracles." -Albert Einstein http://inters.org/Einstein-Letter-Solovine The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences - Eugene Wigner - 1960 Excerpt: ,,certainly it is hard to believe that our reasoning power was brought, by Darwin's process of natural selection, to the perfection which it seems to possess.,,, It is difficult to avoid the impression that a miracle confronts us here, quite comparable in its striking nature to the miracle that the human mind can string a thousand arguments together without getting itself into contradictions, or to the two miracles of the existence of laws of nature and of the human mind's capacity to divine them.,,, The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. We should be grateful for it and hope that it will remain valid in future research and that it will extend, for better or for worse, to our pleasure, even though perhaps also to our bafflement, to wide branches of learning. http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html

Thus for physicists today to view mathematics as "inhabiting an abstract transcendent realm of perfect mathematical relationships" and for them to hold that mathematics, especially any mathematics that might describe this universe, is not contingent upon the mind of God for its existence is, to repeat, a major step backwards for today's physicists.

KEEP IT SIMPLE by Edward Feser – April 2020 Excerpt: Mathematics appears to describe a realm of entities with quasi-divine attributes. The series of natural numbers is infinite. That one and one equal two and two and two equal four could not have been otherwise. Such mathematical truths never begin being true or cease being true; they hold eternally and immutably. The lines, planes, and figures studied by the geometer have a kind of perfection that the objects of our experience lack. Mathematical objects seem immaterial and known by pure reason rather than through the senses. Given the centrality of mathematics to scientific explanation, it seems in some way to be a cause of the natural world and its order. How can the mathematical realm be so apparently godlike? The traditional answer, originating in Neoplatonic philosophy and Augustinian theology, is that our knowledge of the mathematical realm is precisely knowledge, albeit inchoate, of the divine mind. Mathematical truths exhibit infinity, necessity, eternity, immutability, perfection, and immateriality because they are God’s thoughts, and they have such explanatory power in scientific theorizing because they are part of the blueprint implemented by God in creating the world. For some thinkers in this tradition, mathematics thus provides the starting point for an argument for the existence of God qua supreme intellect. There is also a very different answer, in which the mathematical realm is a rival to God rather than a path to him. According to this view, mathematical objects such as numbers and geometrical figures exist not only independently of the material world, but also independently of any mind, including the divine mind. They occupy a “third realm” of their own, the realm famously described in Plato’s Theory of Forms. God used this third realm as a blueprint when creating the physical world, but he did not create the realm itself and it exists outside of him. This position is usually called Platonism since it is commonly thought to have been Plato’s own view, as distinct from that of his Neoplatonic followers who relocated mathematical objects and other Forms into the divine mind. (I put to one side for present purposes the question of how historically accurate this standard narrative is.) https://www.firstthings.com/article/2020/04/keep-it-simple

Physicists today, especially with the proof of Godel’s incompleteness theorems sitting right before them, simply have no basis for their belief that mathematics, all by its lonesome, can somehow function as a God substitute,

THE GOD OF THE MATHEMATICIANS – DAVID P. GOLDMAN – August 2010 Excerpt: we cannot construct an ontology that makes God dispensable. Secularists can dismiss this as a mere exercise within predefined rules of the game of mathematical logic, but that is sour grapes, for it was the secular side that hoped to substitute logic for God in the first place. Gödel’s critique of the continuum hypothesis has the same implication as his incompleteness theorems: Mathematics never will create the sort of closed system that sorts reality into neat boxes. http://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/08/the-god-of-the-mathematicians

As the following article states, “Kurt Gödel had dropped a bomb on the foundations of mathematics. Math could not play the role of God as infinite and autonomous.”

Taking God Out of the Equation – Biblical Worldview – by Ron Tagliapietra – January 1, 2012 Excerpt: Kurt Gödel (1906–1978) proved that no logical systems (if they include the counting numbers) can have all three of the following properties. 1. Validity … all conclusions are reached by valid reasoning. 2. Consistency … no conclusions contradict any other conclusions. 3. Completeness … all statements made in the system are either true or false. The details filled a book, but the basic concept was simple and elegant. He (Godel) summed it up this way: “Anything you can draw a circle around cannot explain itself without referring to something outside the circle—something you have to assume but cannot prove.” For this reason, his proof is also called the Incompleteness Theorem. Kurt Gödel had dropped a bomb on the foundations of mathematics. Math could not play the role of God as infinite and autonomous. It was shocking, though, that logic could prove that mathematics could not be its own ultimate foundation. Christians should not have been surprised. The first two conditions are true about math: it is valid and consistent. But only God fulfills the third condition. Only He is complete and therefore self-dependent (autonomous). God alone is “all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28), “the beginning and the end” (Revelation 22:13). God is the ultimate authority (Hebrews 6:13), and in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3). http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v7/n1/equation#

Stephen Hawking himself, an atheist, honestly admitted that,

“Gödel’s incompleteness theorem (1931), proves that there are limits to what can be ascertained by mathematics. Kurt Gödel halted the achievement of a unifying all-encompassing theory of everything in his theorem that: “Anything you can draw a circle around cannot explain itself without referring to something outside the circle—something you have to assume but cannot prove” – Stephen Hawking & Leonard Miodinow, The Grand Design (2010)

As well, Steven Weinberg, also an atheist, also honestly admitted that, “I don’t think one should underestimate the fix we are in. That in the end we will not be able to explain the world. That we will have some set of laws of nature (that) we will not be able to derive them on the grounds simply of mathematical consistency. Because we can already think of mathematically consistent laws that don’t describe the world as we know it. And we will always be left with a question ‘why are the laws of nature what they are rather than some other laws?’. And I don’t see any way out of that.”

“I don’t think one should underestimate the fix we are in. That in the end we will not be able to explain the world. That we will have some set of laws of nature (that) we will not be able to derive them on the grounds simply of mathematical consistency. Because we can already think of mathematically consistent laws that don’t describe the world as we know it. And we will always be left with a question ‘why are the laws of nature what they are rather than some other laws?’. And I don’t see any way out of that. The fact that the constants of nature are suitable for life, which is clearly true, we observe,,,” (Weinberg then comments on the multiverse conjecture of atheists) “No one has constructed a theory in which that is true. I mean,, the (multiverse) theory would be speculative, but we don’t even have a theory in which that speculation is mathematically realized. But it is a possibility.” – Steven Weinberg – as stated to Richard Dawkins at the 8:15 minute mark of the following video – Leonard Susskind – Richard Dawkins and Steven Weinberg – 1 in 10^120 – Cosmological Constant points to intelligent design – video https://youtu.be/z4E_bT4ecgk?t=495

In fact, there are an infinite number of mathematical theorems that could have described the universe but don’t, As Gregory Chaitin pointed out, “what Gödel discovered was just the tip of the iceberg: an infinite number of true mathematical theorems exist that cannot be proved from any finite system of axioms. ”

The Limits Of Reason – Gregory Chaitin – 2006 Excerpt: Unlike Gödel’s approach, mine is based on measuring information and showing that some mathematical facts cannot be compressed into a theory because they are too complicated. This new approach suggests that what Gödel discovered was just the tip of the iceberg: an infinite number of true mathematical theorems exist that cannot be proved from any finite system of axioms. http://www.umcs.maine.edu/~chaitin/sciamer3.pdf

Mathematics, contrary to what the vast majority of theoretical physicists apparently believe today, simply never will have the capacity within itself to function as a God substitute. As Dr. Bruce Gordon explains,

BRUCE GORDON: Hawking’s irrational arguments – October 2010 Excerpt: ,,,The physical universe is causally incomplete and therefore neither self-originating nor self-sustaining. The world of space, time, matter and energy is dependent on a reality that transcends space, time, matter and energy. This transcendent reality cannot merely be a Platonic realm of mathematical descriptions, for such things are causally inert abstract entities that do not affect the material world,,, Rather, the transcendent reality on which our universe depends must be something that can exhibit agency – a mind that can choose among the infinite variety of mathematical descriptions and bring into existence a reality that corresponds to a consistent subset of them. This is what “breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe.” Anything else invokes random miracles as an explanatory principle and spells the end of scientific rationality.,,, Universes do not “spontaneously create” on the basis of abstract mathematical descriptions, nor does the fantasy of a limitless multiverse trump the explanatory power of transcendent intelligent design. What Mr. Hawking’s contrary assertions show is that mathematical savants can sometimes be metaphysical simpletons. Caveat emptor. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/oct/1/hawking-irrational-arguments/

bornagain77

Retired Physicist at 42, as well as other Darwinists in this thread and numerous places elsewhere, have repeatedly claimed that God has no place in the science classroom. This is an interesting claim coming from Darwinists since, number one, Darwinian evolution itself, since it is devoid of any real-time substantiating evidence,,,,

Darwin vs. Microbes (Where’s the substantiating evidence for Darwinian evolution?) - video https://youtu.be/ntxc4X9Zt-I

,,, since it is devoid of any real-time substantiating evidence, is heavily dependent on faulty theological argumentation in their supposedly scientific textbooks,

Damned if You Do and Damned if You Don't - Steve Dilley- 2019-06-02 The Problem of God-talk in Biology Textbooks Abstract: We argue that a number of biology (and evolution) textbooks face a crippling dilemma. On the one hand, significant difficulties arise if textbooks include theological claims in their case for evolution. (Such claims include, for example, ‘God would never design a suboptimal panda’s thumb, but an imperfect structure is just what we’d expect on natural selection.’) On the other hand, significant difficulties arise if textbooks exclude theological claims in their case for evolution. So, whether textbooks include or exclude theological claims, they face debilitating problems. We attempt to establish this thesis by examining 32 biology (and evolution) textbooks, including the Big 12—that is, the top four in each of the key undergraduate categories (biology majors, non-majors, and evolution courses). In Section 2 of our article, we analyze three specific types of theology these texts use to justify evolutionary theory. We argue that all face significant difficulties. In Section 3, we step back from concrete cases and, instead, explore broader problems created by having theology in general in biology textbooks. We argue that the presence of theology—of whatever kind—comes at a significant cost, one that some textbook authors are likely unwilling to pay. In Section 4, we consider the alternative: Why not simply get rid of theology? Why not just ignore it? In reply, we marshal a range of arguments why avoiding God-talk raises troubles of its own. Finally, in Section 5, we bring together the collective arguments in Sections 2-4 to argue that biology textbooks face an intractable dilemma. We underscore this difficulty by examining a common approach that some textbooks use to solve this predicament. We argue that this approach turns out to be incoherent and self-serving. The poor performance of textbooks on this point highlights just how deep the difficulty is. In the end, the overall dilemma remains. https://journals.blythinstitute.org/ojs/index.php/cbi/article/view/44

Darwinists, with their vital dependence on faulty theological presuppositions, instead of on scientific evidence, in order to try to make their case for Darwinian evolution are, as Cornelius Van Til put it, like the child who must climb up onto his father’s lap into order to slap his face.

“In other words, the non-Christian needs the truth of the Christian religion in order to attack it. As a child needs to sit on the lap of its father in order to slap the father’s face, so the unbeliever, as a creature, needs God the Creator and providential controller of the universe in order to oppose this God. Without this God, the place on which he stands does not exist. He cannot stand in a vacuum.” Cornelius Van Til, Essays on Christian Education (The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company: Phillipsburg, NJ, 1979).

It should not be surprising that Darwinists are heavily dependent on faulty theological argumentation in order to try to make their case for evolution, modern science itself was born out of, and is still crucially dependent on, presuppositions that can only be grounded within the Theistic worldview

Science and Theism: Concord, not Conflict* – Robert C. Koons IV. The Dependency of Science Upon Theism (Page 21) Excerpt: Far from undermining the credibility of theism, the remarkable success of science in modern times is a remarkable confirmation of the truth of theism. It was from the perspective of Judeo-Christian theism—and from the perspective alone—that it was predictable that science would have succeeded as it has. Without the faith in the rational intelligibility of the world and the divine vocation of human beings to master it, modern science would never have been possible, and, even today, the continued rationality of the enterprise of science depends on convictions that can be reasonably grounded only in theistic metaphysics. http://www.robkoons.net/media/69b0dd04a9d2fc6dffff80b3ffffd524.pdf The Threat to the Scientific Method that Explains the Spate of Fraudulent Science Publications - Calvin Beisner | Jul 23, 2014 Excerpt: It is precisely because modern science has abandoned its foundations in the Biblical worldview (which holds, among other things, that a personal, rational God designed a rational universe to be understood and controlled by rational persons made in His image) and the Biblical ethic (which holds, among other things, that we are obligated to tell the truth even when it inconveniences us) that science is collapsing. As such diverse historians and philosophers of science as Alfred North Whitehead, Pierre Duhem, Loren Eiseley, Rodney Stark, and many others have observed,, science—not an occasional flash of insight here and there, but a systematic, programmatic, ongoing way of studying and controlling the world—arose only once in history, and only in one place: medieval Europe, once known as “Christendom,” where that Biblical worldview reigned supreme. That is no accident. Science could not have arisen without that worldview. http://townhall.com/columnists/calvinbeisner/2014/07/23/the-threat-to-the-scientific-method-that-explains-the-spate-of-fraudulent-science-publications-n1865201/page/full Several other resources backing up this claim are available, such as Thomas Woods, Stanley Jaki, David Linberg, Edward Grant, J.L. Heilbron, and Christopher Dawson.

Science it simply impossible without theistic presuppositions. As Paul Davies explains, "even the most atheistic scientist accepts as an act of faith that the universe is not absurd, that there is a rational basis to physical existence manifested as law-like order in nature that is at least partly comprehensible to us. So science can proceed only if the scientist adopts an essentially theological worldview.”

Physics and the Mind of God: The Templeton Prize Address – by Paul Davies – August 1995 Excerpt: “People take it for granted that the physical world is both ordered and intelligible. The underlying order in nature-the laws of physics-are simply accepted as given, as brute facts. Nobody asks where they came from; at least they do not do so in polite company. However, even the most atheistic scientist accepts as an act of faith that the universe is not absurd, that there is a rational basis to physical existence manifested as law-like order in nature that is at least partly comprehensible to us. So science can proceed only if the scientist adopts an essentially theological worldview.” https://www.firstthings.com/article/1995/08/003-physics-and-the-mind-of-god-the-templeton-prize-address-24 Taking Science on Faith – By PAUL DAVIES – NOV. 24, 2007 Excerpt: All science proceeds on the assumption that nature is ordered in a rational and intelligible way. You couldn’t be a scientist if you thought the universe was a meaningless jumble of odds and ends haphazardly juxtaposed. ,,, the very notion of physical law is a theological one in the first place, a fact that makes many scientists squirm. Isaac Newton first got the idea of absolute, universal, perfect, immutable laws from the Christian doctrine that God created the world and ordered it in a rational way. Christians envisage God as upholding the natural order from beyond the universe, while physicists (today) think of their laws as inhabiting an abstract transcendent realm of perfect mathematical relationships. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/24/opinion/24davies.html

As to Paul Davies's observation that "physicists (today) think of their laws as inhabiting an abstract transcendent realm of perfect mathematical relationships". and that mathematics is not ‘contingent’ upon the Mind of God for its existence, is, philosophically speaking, a major step backwards for today’s physicist compared to the Christian founders of modern science. For example, in 1619, Johannes Kepler, shortly after discovering the laws of planetary motion, stated,

“O, Almighty God, I am thinking Thy thoughts after Thee!” – Johannes Kepler, 1619, The Harmonies of the World.

Likewise in 1687, Sir Isaac Newton, after discovering the law of universal gravitation, (which has been referred to as the first major unification in physics),

Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation Excerpt: The first major unification in physics was Sir Isaac Newton’s realization that the same force that caused an apple to fall at the Earth’s surface—gravity—was also responsible for holding the Moon in orbit about the Earth. This universal force would also act between the planets and the Sun, providing a common explanation for both terrestrial and astronomical phenomena. https://www.learner.org/courses/physics/unit/text.html?unit=3&secNum=3

Likewise in 1687, Sir Isaac Newton, after discovering the law of universal gravitation, stated that, “This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.,,,This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all;”

“This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being. And if the fixed stars are the centres of other like systems, these, being formed by the like wise counsel, must be all subject to the dominion of One; especially since the light of the fixed stars is of the same nature with the light of the sun, and from every system light passes into all the other systems: and lest the systems of the fixed stars should, by their gravity, fall on each other mutually, he hath placed those systems at immense distances one from another. This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of his dominion he is wont to be called Lord God pantokrator, or Universal Ruler;,,, The Supreme God is a Being eternal, infinite, absolutely perfect;,,, from his true dominion it follows that the true God is a living, intelligent, and powerful Being; and, from his other perfections, that he is supreme, or most perfect. He is eternal and infinite, omnipotent and omniscient; that is, his duration reaches from eternity to eternity; his presence from infinity to infinity; he governs all things, and knows all things that are or can be done. He is not eternity or infinity, but eternal and infinite; he is not duration or space, but he endures and is present. He endures for ever, and is every where present”: Sir Isaac Newton – Principia; 1687, GENERAL SCHOLIUM. http://gravitee.tripod.com/genschol.htm

Likewise, Faraday and Maxwell did not view mathematics and/or lawfulness as "inert, abstract, logical necessity, or complete reducibility to Cartesian mechanism; rather, it was an expectation they attributed to the existence of a divine lawgiver."

The Genius and Faith of Faraday and Maxwell – Ian H. Hutchinson – 2014 Conclusion: Lawfulness was not, in their thinking, inert, abstract, logical necessity, or complete reducibility to Cartesian mechanism; rather, it was an expectation they attributed to the existence of a divine lawgiver. These men’s insights into physics were made possible by their religious commitments. For them, the coherence of nature resulted from its origin in the mind of its Creator. http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-genius-and-faith-of-faraday-and-maxwell

bornagain77

Mike Gene had this to say about ID, ID's "critics" and religion:

"What is Intelligent Design? If you ask a critic, he will probably tell you that ID is a disguised version of Creationism and nothing more than a Trojan Horse to get God taught in the public schools. If you ask a typical proponent of ID, he will probably tell you that ID is the best explanation for various biotic phenomena. For me, ID begins exactly as William Dembski said it begins – with a question":

Intelligent design begins with a seemingly innocuous question: Can objects, even if nothing is known about how they arose, exhibit features that reliably signal the action of an intelligent cause?

"The first thing to note about the question is that you don’t have to be a religious fundamentalist to ask it. You don’t have to be a religious fundamentalist to consider it. In fact, you don’t even have to be a religious fundamentalist to answer it."

The answer to that question is of course they can, and do. ET

UB @ 56,

The value, of course, of this whole rhetorical bit (on display yet again and again) is to allow the materialist to avoid the recorded material evidence. Oldies but goodies.

Indeed, we keep covering the same ground with the same people over and over again. For example, Back in June 2018 I had this exchange with Seversky who I believe has been commenting on this site for at least 7 or 8 years. (Why? Who knows?) In a response to an OP entitled, “As Astrology Goes Mainstream, Will Big Science Start To Accommodate It?” I wrote @ #1:

Atheistic naturalism/materialism provides no answers to mankind’s deepest spiritual and moral needs. It is a morally, spiritually and intellectually bankrupt world view, yet many people irrationally and absurdly cling to it. Why? They cannot give a rational explanation. They do not know but don’t even know they don’t know…

https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/as-astrology-goes-mainstream-will-big-science-start-to-accommodate-it/#comment-660948 To which Seversky @ #2 replied, point by point: Me: Atheistic naturalism/materialism provides no answers to mankind’s deepest spiritual and moral needs. Seversky: “I agree. It can’t. But if you assume there is no God then we are forced to confront the reality that we are on our own, we are all we have so where do we go from here?” Me: It is a morally, spiritually and intellectually bankrupt world view, yet many people irrationally and absurdly cling to it. Seversky “If atheism, by definition, cannot provide moral and spiritual guidance then calling it bankrupt for not doing what it cannot do is unfair. That does not prevent us from constructing “worldviews” and moral codes that are atheist.” Me: Why? They cannot give a rational explanation. They do not know but don’t even know they don’t know… Seversky: “As I said, atheists can construct rational worldviews and moral codes. It’s just that they cannot appeal to the unquestionable authority of some deity to support them.” Notice, that Seversky basically concedes each of my points. Of course that brings up a number of other questions like: who is obligated to follow a moral code constructed by atheists? Does it apply to just them or everyone else (society)? Do any human constructed moral codes carry any kind of real morally binding obligations? It’s because of irrational nonsense like this that I have said here many time before, “If I were an atheistic materialist, I would leave other people alone.” Why? Because atheistic materialism has nothing to offer as a world view and therefore nothing to offer to the world. john_a_designer

That is the "big tent" we used to hear about. If Creation is true then ID is true. But ID can be true and Creation be false. There are also different forms of Biblical Creation(ism). YEC is only one of those. And seeing that ID makes testable claims, that would put it within the realm of science. I also submit that materialists don't reach valid conclusions. They don't even know how to test the claims of materialism. What is also false is limiting ID to origins. If the OoL was intelligently designed we would infer it was so designed with the ability to adapt and evolve. Evolution by means of intelligent design. "Built-in responses to environmental cues" ala Dr Spetner "Not By Chance" 1997. ET

Creation is a SUBSET of ID.

This is not appropriate. Maybe a better description would be a Venn diagram where the two overlap on somethings. ID says nothing about origins except some look Like the product of an intelligent design as opposed to the product of a natural process Young Earth Creationists have certainly glommed onto ID. But that does not make the two anywhere close to the same. To conflate the two is a rhetorical trick played all the time as we see on this thread. You notice that those who push the creationist equivalencies don’t use the term YEC but that is what they mean.. But there are numerous forms of creationism. Anyone who believes in a God that created the universe is a creationist. Also I maintain ID is not a science but more rather like a subset of logic that leads people to better conclusions. Materialism is a straight jacket predetermining a certain set of conclusions. ID expands this but doesn’t eliminate any conclusion a materialist would validly make. Just that they are unlikely and sometimes extremely unlikely. Because of their begging the question constantly, the materialist often makes inferior conclusions. They continually speculate and often their speculation then becomes conclusions because of their self constrained set of possible conclusions. They by definition practice inferior science. Those that except ID are actually practicing better science. It’s just that 99:9% of the topics in science don’t relate to controversial origins. jerry

Creation is based on the Bible. ID is not. Creation is a SUBSET of ID. A specific subset. That is what has ID's detractors so confused. The really don't grasp set theory. :razz: ET

Acartia Eddie (meaning Ed George does a great impersonation of the pathological liar and sociopath Acartia Bogart/ William Spearshake):

Just because the modern ID “movement” has a theistic origin doesn’t mean that it is wrong.

The best ID can do is make it so that you can be an intellectually fulfilled theist. ID doesn't say anything about worship. Nothing about the who, how, where and when to worship. It doesn't have any of the hallmarks of religion. It doesn't fit any of the definitions. Just because the modern ID movement was founded, somewhat, by a Christian, that doesn't make it a Christian or theistic enterprise ET

Acartia Eddie (meaning Ed George does a great impersonation of the pathological liar and sociopath Acartia Bogart/ William Spearshake):

The modern ID “movement” was an intentional rebranding of scientific creationism In an attempt to give the perception that it doesn’t have religion as its foundation.

That's your ignorant opinion, anyway. The modern ID movement is NOT and never has been, dependent on the Bible.

And scientific creationism was an attempt to lend credibility to creationism.

It's more credible than atheistic/ materialistic evolutionism. Look, it is obvious that all you clowns can do is flail away at ID with your belligerent ignorance. Which is very telling as the way to refute ID's claims is for you to actually step up and demonstrate blind and mindless processes can account for it. That you choose your cowardly tactic just further exposes you as willfully ignorant and insipid trolls. ET

seversky:

Okay, so let’s say we concede that the genetic code could be evidence of intelligent design.

What else could it be evidence for? We don't have any observations, experiences or knowledge of nature producing coded systems. ET

Sev, you build a computer using smart polymer molecular nanotech then come back and tell me to ignore 70 years of multiple Nobel Prize winning evidence. KF kairosfocus

.

Anyone think this looks like the inside of a machine or a computer?

Sev suggests we ignore measurement and be guided instead by his reaction to an image.. More rhetoric. Upright BiPed

Seversky @58: Had engineers built something like that they would have felt like the masters of the universe. That didn’t happen. Sorry. :) jawa

Kairosfocus @ 57

UB, sadly, yes. Red herring distractor b–> strawman caricature soaked in ad hominems –> set alight to cloud, confuse, poison and polarise the atmosphere. This all too common “trifecta fallacy” political and rhetoriocal strategy is inherently dishonest.

Yup, oldies but goodies. Seversky

Okay, so let's say we concede that the genetic code could be evidence of intelligent design. Then what? Seversky

Anyone think this looks like the inside of a machine or a computer? Seversky

UB, sadly, yes. Red herring distractor b--> strawman caricature soaked in ad hominems --> set alight to cloud, confuse, poison and polarise the atmosphere. This all too common "trifecta fallacy" political and rhetoriocal strategy is inherently dishonest. KF kairosfocus

. The value, of course, of this whole rhetorical bit (on display yet again and again) is to allow the materialist to avoid the recorded material evidence. Oldies but goodies. Upright BiPed

RP, if you are searching for more apt language and find it then use it, that speaks to intent. It is those looking to accuse and applying a wholly improper hermeneutic of unwarranted accusatory suspicion who would then try to force into that sort of conclusion. Just above, for example you tried to suggest that I imagine that little ACGT script is in the cell. Where on earth could such a notion have come from? Is there not a very obvious point that as UNICODE exemplifies, alphanumeric code . . . now including emoticons, playing card symbols and more . . . might mean broader things than our Latin alphabet and a few other associated symbols? If Mahjong tiles can have a code range there is no reason why codons don't, save we commonly use GCAT for them, and context gives enough. Where, digital does not mean binary digital. Alphanumeric code speaks of a recognisable list of standard symbols chained in string data structures to convey meaning. Personalise-polarise-stigmatise rhetoric games notwithstanding, it remains that in the heart of the cell we have machine code deployed in string data structures with start, elongate and stop, sometimes with interwoven code. Algorithms are inherently goal-directed and codes like that (among other coding possibilities) are of clearly linguistic character. Symbolic, verbal language, of course, is a decisive sign of intelligence in action. That is central and sideslips, dodges and toxic evasions are duly noted for what they imply. KF kairosfocus

EG, I seldom have to draw this conclusion, but you have now made yourself a poster child for slanderous liar. Please, reverse that course. It may serve rhetorical advantages to stigmatise, brand and marginalise but it reveals want of accountability to either truth or fairness or both and points to trollishness. You should be a lot better than that. KF kairosfocus

If you can global search and replace two words they’re either pretty synonymous or irrelevant. If there’s a book about Patton, and you global search and replace Patton with General Patton, that might work. If you global search and replace the word Patton with the word Grant, That might work for a sentence or two, but it’s not going to work for the whole book. So I just read the history of this pandas book and some DI people were working on it and while they were writing drafts the supreme court ruled that creationism wasn’t science, and they literally changed the creationisms to intelligent designs etc for the whole book. Come on. How did anyone think that scam was going to work???? Retired Physicist

. Ed, The material evidence of design in biology was recorded in the literature by physicists and biologists regardless of their metaphysical leanings, That whole line of thinking is part of the sociopolitical hustle. Physical evidence doesn't care what you call it. Upright BiPed

The evidence is clear for all to see. The modern ID “movement” was an intentional rebranding of scientific creationism In an attempt to give the perception that it doesn’t have religion as its foundation. And scientific creationism was an attempt to lend credibility to creationism. Before ET does his best impersonation of that moronic and abusive Joe Gallien, Just because the modern ID “movement” has a theistic origin doesn’t mean that it is wrong. Ed George

RP, strawman. . We have a machine code based on 64-state trisymbol elements expressing a prong-height system, quite similar to Yale type Locks. BTW, von Neumann in conceptualising self-replicators, had suggested a prong height system in 1948. The ACGT representation is a transliteration into somewhat human readable code, but in informational terms the system in the cell is just as alphanumerical, using 4-state elements in two complementary pairs [corresponding prong heights] in triplet "syllables" that give the 64 state system. Alphanumerical codes use symbolic elements that function in string data structures with meaning coming from the sequence of the chain; here start, elongate, stop. It is particularly to be noted that the tRNS AA-holding tip is a universal joint, CCA. Physically, any AA can be loaded to any tRNA, it is the loading enzymes that use the overall configuration (not just the anticodon) to determine which AA goes where. And BTW, in recent years, stop codes (there are three) have been used to bring in extra AA's. KF kairosfocus

. Being a materialist ideologue is truly the easiest of all things, is it not? Materialists can happily claim this and that without material evidence, and the very first thing you get to ignore is documented physical evidence and recorded history to the contrary. Too easy. Upright BiPed

You think there is an alphanumeric code inside cells???? You think there are little As, little Ts, little Gs, little Cs in there??? Those are labels for chemicals dude there aren’t any little tiny letters and numbers in there. Wow. Retired Physicist

RP, I have only mentioned Creationism in the context of a distinction that needs to be recognised but has been deliberately obscured for illegitimate ideological reasons, exploiting media access. Creationism, relevant sense, is about Biblical interpretation taken as report of One who was there, God. The design inference issue -- which is where my interest has been -- is different, inherently inductive and evidence based: are there intelligible, observable signs of intelligently directed configuration as key causal factor for entities, systems, networks, processes? This can be and is investigated scientifically all the time, e/g. signal/noise metrics are key in communication systems. The issue is, on origins, we were not there and so infer a more or less plausible to us model on traces we can observe. To do so we need to have an observational and analytic base for causal factors and their traces. We have that, and machine code with associated molecular nanotech execution machinery have been manifest in cell biology for decades. Alphanumeric code, algorithms, execution machinery in the heart of life. Language. Decisive. Where, lies . . . yes, lies . . . about re-labelling Creationism only tell me about the ideological, deceitful nature of those who concoct such tales then use them to poison minds and distract from what is actually decisive. Alphanumeric, linguistic, algorithmic code. In the heart of the cell. Signature of design. KF PS: here is the book you need to see: https://www.krusch.com/books/evolution/Mystery_of_Lifes_Origin.pdf kairosfocus

Evolution by means of blind and mindless processes accomplishes nothing. No one uses it because the premise is untestable and as such outside of science. It doesn't produce any testable hypotheses. It doesn't produce any predictions beyond change and stasis. It doesn't help any research. So why do people still adhere to it? ET

By RP's logic evolutionism = atheism because Dawkins says so- Will Provine also said it. ET

RP:

Kairosfocus, creationism accomplishes nothing.

That is your ignorant opinion, anyway.

I can name you individual scientists who published more last year than the intelligent design movement.

They did NOT publish anything that supports blind and mindless processes ability to create specified and complex structures. It still remains that the claims of ID remain unrefuted. And all it takes to refute ID's claims is for someone to step up and demonstrate blind and mindless processes can produce it. There is a reason why there still isn't any scientific theory of evolution. ET

"Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit, so that we can get the issue of intelligent design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools." -Philip Johnson Retired Physicist

Kairosfocus, creationism accomplishes nothing. If you just rename creationism it’s still scientifically barren. I can name you individual scientists who published more last year than the intelligent design movement. That’s not a successful research program. The Intelligent Design movement publishes approximately the same number of papers as the astrologers do. The father of intelligent design was a creationist lawyer who came up with a legal strategy to try to get creationism in the classroom. It failed. Retired Physicist

daves:

Whatever the ultimate origins of ID are, the current incarnation is certainly blessed with a colorful cast of characters.

At least we ain't a bunch of desperate, pathological liars that our opponents are. ET

RP, protein assembling, edited and sometimes interwoven code, fed into Ribosomes as transfer machines using tRNA position-arm devices, with start, elongate in particular ways, stop, then fold etc. KF kairosfocus

Earth to Retired Physicist- Intelligent Design is still the only viable scientific explanation for our existence. You have to be a desperate moron to think ID hasn't gone anywhere due copying errors in a ROUGH draft of a book And it still also remains that "Of Pandas and People" was not responsible for anyone converting to ID. It is irrelevant to the ID of the 21st century. ET

RP, kindly see 32 above on key history of ideas. KF kairosfocus

KF, Whatever the ultimate origins of ID are, the current incarnation is certainly blessed with a colorful cast of characters. :-) daveS

Oh heck. I just learned about cdesign proponentsists. Wow. Well, that explains why ID hasn’t gone anywhere. Retired Physicist

Alphanumeric? What on Earth are you talking about? Retired Physicist

Ds/EG/RP, actually, no. The first founder was Fred Hoyle and the second was a research circle, Thaxton, Bradley, Olsen, in The Mystery of Life's Origin. The time was C1980 - 84. Denton was a parallel development, 1985. Johnson came along later, pulling together people and arguing about reasoning. Behe, Dembski and co were later still. But fundamentally the decisive issue dates to the 40's and 50's, fine tuned cosmos sets stage and on it we find alphanumeric, algorithmic code in the heart of the cell. Language. Game over. KF kairosfocus

Based on the reasoning of some of our regular interlocutors here I think understanding what ID’ists are really claiming is very relevant to the present discussion. ID’ists do not reject the idea of natural causation a priori. Indeed, much of what we perceive in the natural world can be (indeed should be) explained “naturally.” What we do reject is that natural causes are the only kind of causes that could be used to explain the origin and evolution of life. For example, in his book Darwin’s Black Box, Michael Behe asks,

“Might there be an as yet undiscovered natural process that would explain biochemical complexity? No one would be foolish enough to categorically deny the possibility. Nonetheless we can say that if there is such a process, no one has a clue how it would work. Further it would go against all human experience, like postulating that a natural process might explain computers… In the face of the massive evidence we do have for biochemical design, ignoring the evidence in the name of a phantom process would be to play the role of detective who ignore the elephant.” (p. 203-204)

Basically Behe is asking, if biochemical complexity (irreducible complexity) evolved by some natural process x, how did it evolve? That is a perfectly legitimate scientific question. Notice that even though in DBB Behe was criticizing Neo-Darwinism he is not ruling out a priori some other mindless natural evolutionary process, “x”, might be able to explain IC. Behe is simply claiming that at the present there is no known natural process that can explain how irreducibly complex mechanisms and processes originated. If he and other ID’ist are categorically wrong then our critics need to provide the step-by-step-by-step empirical explanation of how they originated, not just speculation and wishful thinking. Unfortunately our regular interlocutors seem to only be able to provide the latter not the former. Behe made another point which is worth keeping in mind.

“In the abstract, it might be tempting to imagine that irreducible complexity simply requires multiple simultaneous mutations - that evolution might be far chancier than we thought, but still possible. Such an appeal to brute luck can never be refuted... Luck is metaphysical speculation; scientific explanations invoke causes.”

In other words, a strongly held metaphysical belief is not a scientific explanation. john_a_designer

F/N: Plato:

Athenian Stranger: [[The avant garde philosophers, teachers and artists c. 400 BC] say that the greatest and fairest things are the work of nature and of chance, the lesser of art [[ i.e. techne], which, receiving from nature the greater and primeval creations, moulds and fashions all those lesser works which are generally termed artificial . . . They say that fire and water, and earth and air [[i.e the classical "material" elements of the cosmos], all exist by nature and chance, and none of them by art, and that as to the bodies which come next in order-earth, and sun, and moon, and stars-they have been created by means of these absolutely inanimate existences. The elements are severally moved by chance and some inherent force according to certain affinities among them-of hot with cold, or of dry with moist, or of soft with hard, and according to all the other accidental admixtures of opposites which have been formed by necessity. After this fashion and in this manner the whole heaven has been created, and all that is in the heaven, as well as animals and all plants, and all the seasons come from these elements, not by the action of mind, as they say, or of any God, or from art, but as I was saying, by nature and chance only . . . . [[T]hese people would say that the Gods exist not by nature, but by art, and by the laws of states, which are different in different places, according to the agreement of those who make them; and that the honourable is one thing by nature and another thing by law, and that the principles of justice have no existence at all in nature, but that mankind are always disputing about them and altering them; and that the alterations which are made by art and by law have no basis in nature, but are of authority for the moment and at the time at which they are made.- [[Relativism, too, is not new; complete with its radical amorality rooted in a worldview that has no foundational IS that can ground OUGHT. (Cf. here for Locke's views and sources on a very different base for grounding liberty as opposed to license and resulting anarchistic "every man does what is right in his own eyes" chaos leading to tyranny.)] These, my friends, are the sayings of wise men, poets and prose writers, which find a way into the minds of youth. They are told by them that the highest right is might [[ Evolutionary materialism leads to the promotion of amorality], and in this way the young fall into impieties, under the idea that the Gods are not such as the law bids them imagine; and hence arise factions [[Evolutionary materialism-motivated amorality "naturally" leads to continual contentions and power struggles; cf. dramatisation here], these philosophers inviting them to lead a true life according to nature, that is, to live in real dominion over others [[such amoral factions, if they gain power, "naturally" tend towards ruthless tyranny; here, too, Plato hints at the career of Alcibiades], and not in legal subjection to them . . . . [[I]f impious discourses were not scattered, as I may say, throughout the world, there would have been no need for any vindication of the existence of the Gods-but seeing that they are spread far and wide, such arguments are needed; and who should come to the rescue of the greatest laws, when they are being undermined by bad men, but the legislator himself? . . . . Ath. Then, by Heaven, we have discovered the source of this vain opinion of all those physical investigators; and I would have you examine their arguments with the utmost care, for their impiety is a very serious matter; they not only make a bad and mistaken use of argument, but they lead away the minds of others: that is my opinion of them. Cle. You are right; but I should like to know how this happens. Ath. I fear that the argument may seem singular. Cle. Do not hesitate, Stranger; I see that you are afraid of such a discussion carrying you beyond the limits of legislation. But if there be no other way of showing our agreement in the belief that there are Gods, of whom the law is said now to approve, let us take this way, my good sir. Ath. Then I suppose that I must repeat the singular argument of those who manufacture the soul according to their own impious notions; they affirm that which is the first cause of the generation and destruction of all things, to be not first, but last, and that which is last to be first, and hence they have fallen into error about the true nature of the Gods. Cle. Still I do not understand you. Ath. Nearly all of them, my friends, seem to be ignorant of the nature and power of the soul [[ = psuche], especially in what relates to her origin: they do not know that she is among the first of things, and before all bodies, and is the chief author of their changes and transpositions. And if this is true, and if the soul is older than the body, must not the things which are of the soul's kindred be of necessity prior to those which appertain to the body? Cle. Certainly. Ath. Then thought and attention and mind and art and law will be prior to that which is hard and soft and heavy and light; and the great and primitive works and actions will be works of art; they will be the first, and after them will come nature and works of nature, which however is a wrong term for men to apply to them; these will follow, and will be under the government of art and mind. Cle. But why is the word "nature" wrong? Ath. Because those who use the term mean to say that nature is the first creative power; but if the soul turn out to be the primeval element, and not fire or air, then in the truest sense and beyond other things the soul may be said to exist by nature; and this would be true if you proved that the soul is older than the body, but not otherwise. [[ . . . .] Ath. . . . when one thing changes another, and that another, of such will there be any primary changing element? How can a thing which is moved by another ever be the beginning of change? Impossible. But when the self-moved changes other, and that again other, and thus thousands upon tens of thousands of bodies are set in motion, must not the beginning of all this motion be the change of the self-moving principle? . . . . self-motion being the origin of all motions, and the first which arises among things at rest as well as among things in motion, is the eldest and mightiest principle of change, and that which is changed by another and yet moves other is second. [[ . . . .] Ath. If we were to see this power existing in any earthy, watery, or fiery substance, simple or compound-how should we describe it? Cle. You mean to ask whether we should call such a self-moving power life? Ath. I do. Cle. Certainly we should. Ath. And when we see soul in anything, must we not do the same-must we not admit that this is life? [[ . . . . ] Cle. You mean to say that the essence which is defined as the self-moved is the same with that which has the name soul? Ath. Yes; and if this is true, do we still maintain that there is anything wanting in the proof that the soul is the first origin and moving power of all that is, or has become, or will be, and their contraries, when she has been clearly shown to be the source of change and motion in all things? Cle. Certainly not; the soul as being the source of motion, has been most satisfactorily shown to be the oldest of all things. Ath. And is not that motion which is produced in another, by reason of another, but never has any self-moving power at all, being in truth the change of an inanimate body, to be reckoned second, or by any lower number which you may prefer? Cle. Exactly. Ath. Then we are right, and speak the most perfect and absolute truth, when we say that the soul is prior to the body, and that the body is second and comes afterwards, and is born to obey the soul, which is the ruler? [[ . . . . ] Ath. If, my friend, we say that the whole path and movement of heaven, and of all that is therein, is by nature akin to the movement and revolution and calculation of mind, and proceeds by kindred laws, then, as is plain, we must say that the best soul takes care of the world and guides it along the good path. [[Plato here explicitly sets up an inference to design (by a good soul) from the intelligible order of the cosmos.]

360 BC. KF kairosfocus

Huh. I just looked it up. Looks like it was written by several Discovery Institute people. Retired Physicist

No one in the world was convinced of ID because of "Of Pandas and People". The book is irrelevant to ID. That ID's loser critics keep bringing it up just exposes their ignorance and desperation. ET

Copy/Paste errors? Retired Physicist

ET,

Phil Johnson was considered to be the father of the MODERN Intelligent Design movement.

And that's where the wedge document and copy/paste errors come in. 😛 daveS

Intelligent Design encompasses many things and its origin goes back to ancient times but was obviously not called that then. ID primarily has to do with origins. First the origin of the universe. then the origin of life, then the origin of complex forms of life. It also has looked at other origins such as the origin of Earth and consciousness, specifically humans This goes back to the beginning of time when people speculated on various forms of creators who were responsible for these things. The Greeks, Romans and several ancient civilizations held these beliefs so essentially they were creationists. There have been thousands of different types of creationists since the beginning of time but none are necessarily what we call ID today, including modern versions of creationism. If something has a plausible explanation as the result of natural processes, ID will usually not challenge it though some who endorse ID will. Because some who endorse ID will challenge the natural origin of entities does not mean that that ID does. By the way Richard Dawkins endorsed ID in his interview with Ben Stein several years ago when he said if there was proof of some ancient intelligence in the universe it would explain life.

Ben Stein: What do you think is the possibility that Intelligent Design might turn out to be the answer to some issues in genetics or in Darwinian evolution. Prof Dawkins: Well it could come about in the following way. It could be that, eh, at some earlier time somewhere in the universe a civilization evolved by probably some kind of Darwinian means to a very, very, high level of technology and designed a form of life that they seeded onto perhaps this planet. Ehm, now, that is a possibility and an intriguing possibility and I suppose it’s possible that you might find evidence for that if you look at the um detail, details, of biochemistry, molecular biology, you might find a signature of some sort of designer. Prof Dawkins: Um..and that designer could well be a higher intelligence from elsewhere in the universe Ben Stein: But, but Prof Dawkins: But that higher intelligence would itself have had to have come about by some explicable, or ultimately explicable process, he couldn’t have just jumped into existence spontaneously, that’s the point.

It is a mistake to conflate ID with challenges to Darwin or naturalized mechanisms that supposedly explain changes in life forms over time especially the origin of complex life forms. It is one aspect of ID and far from all it encompasses. In the above Dawkins and Stein were referring to origin of life issues. jerry

And for the record: Phil Johnson was considered to be the father of the MODERN Intelligent Design movement. ET

JVL:

I’m not sure about that. Can you conceive of math being different that what it is?

No, because it was intelligently designed to be the way it is. ET

RP- History and the facts say that telic thinking, ie ID, started with Plato an Aristotle. Your ignorance will NEVER change history nor the facts ET

Kairosfocus, I have two questions for you. 1 who is called “the Father of Intelligent Design”? 2 Was he an ancient Greek? Retired Physicist

EG, a twisted, slanderous rewrite of history. First ID is ancient, the first design inference on record is in the teeth of evolutionary materialism and is cosmological, dating to 2360 BC, in the Laws Bk X, Plato. That Bible thumping fundy, NOT. It is only in C19 that by gradual imposition of a priori materialistic presuppositions, under cover of science that evolutionary materialism was able to gain a dominant position across C20. Creationism in the relevant sense, Biblical, is a different stream in history of ideas though there are intersections. The modern design theory movement simply does not fit the slanderous timeline portrayed by NCSE et al. the fine tuning issue camne up in the 1950s. By the turn of the 80's the lifelong agnostic, Hoyle was openly raising design issues. By the 1982 - 4 frame, given the results from molecular biology, design inference on OoL and further Oo body plans put itself on the table. The book and cases you allude to are much later than that, it is only a hermeneutic of scapegoating that created the lying -- yes, dfeliberately deceitful -- narrative that you cite, which serves only to dodge central issues. Start with, from the 1950's, it was realised that alphanumeric, algorithmic code was in DNA in the heart of the cell, which is a manifestation of language. Language is a key signature of design. KF kairosfocus

@Ed 17: I don’t know what you’re talking about. Retired Physicist

BobRyan: ID explains. . . the existence of math, I'm not sure about that. Can you conceive of math being different that what it is? JVL

Acartia Eddie:

Creationism ===> Scientific Creationism ===> Intelligent Design.

Except for the FACT that ID was here first, of course. Acartia Eddie is just a willfully ignorant troll. It is too stupid to grasp that telic thinking, ie ID, started with Plato and Aristotle. And Darwin's finished and released raft of his book calls on Creator. By Eddie's "logic" evolutionism is Creationism. ET

Ed George: ID explains the origin of the universe, the Big Bang or whatever else may have happened, the laws of physics, the existence of math, origin of life and various species. You are on the side of magic. The universe magically created itself out of nothing and magically put the laws of physics into place. You are on the side that does not believe something should be witnessed and the results replicated to be considered science. BobRyan

Sev

Could it be that it’s not so much the science itself as the threat that science is felt to pose to the core religious beliefs of some?

How could you come to that conclusion? Creationism ===> Scientific Creationism ===> Intelligent Design. It’s not like there is any draft of an ID text book that shows a clear cut-and-paste of Creationism to Intelligent Design. Is there? :) Ed George

seversky:

The other question is why are ID/creationists so obsessed with Darwin?

We aren't. It's just that he is still the only one to propose a mechanism that alleges design without a designer. Yes, science has moved on and nothing has supported Darwin's ideas. Yet his main concept, ie design without a designer, remains. And it remains untested and untestable. It also remains that there isn't any scientific theory of evolution. Why is that? ET

John_a_designer @ 10

The question is, why does Darwin’s theory continue to dominate the biological sciences? It should have been ruled obsolete, except when it comes to explaining minor evolutionary change, decades ago. It persists for philosophical or worldview reasons not scientific ones. Nothing provides a hand and glove fit with atheistic naturalism and materialism like Darwin’s theory. That is because Darwin himself was deeply influenced by 19th century materialism.

The other question is why are ID/creationists so obsessed with Darwin? Yes, his seminal work was a breakthrough in biology but the science has moved on considerably since his day. We don't see the same amount of effort devoted to discrediting "Newtonism" for example. Could it be that it's not so much the science itself as the threat that science is felt to pose to the core religious beliefs of some? Darwin's achievements are acknowledged and greatly respected but he is not worshipped. Worship is for the faithful not atheistic naturalists. Unfortunately, I suspect human beings are going to be wedded to their religious beliefs - there are a lot more than one, you know - for the foreseeable future, although they may evolve over time. Is the Christianity of the 21st century exactly the same as that of the first century or the tenth century? Perhaps it is not the theory of evolution you should fear so much as the natural process itself. Seversky

RP:

Have you considered the possibility that you’re wrong and a million scientists simply know better than you do?

Nice bluff. No one uses evolution by means of blind and mindless processes for anything. Why is Darwin celebrated? His ideas have yet to bear any fruit. Natural selection has been a total bust as a designer mimic. "On the Origins of Species..." isn't even scientific. He had no idea how to test his claims. That problem remains to this day. Obviously RP is a KoolAid drinker ET

Retired Physicist, perhaps instead of off-handedly comparing Darwin's theory to Relativity, you should actually produce some evidence? I would think someone who refers to himself as "Retired Physicist" would have enough integrity to produce actual evidence instead of rhetoric. As to the oft repeated claim from Darwinists that “evolution is as certain as gravity”. Granville Sewell traced the origin of that particular claim to Joseph Le Conte in 1897. In fact Le Conte not only claimed that evolution was as certain as gravity but that evolution was “far more” certain than gravity.

“The law of evolution is as certain as the law of gravitation. Nay, it is far more certain. The nexus between successive events in time (causation) is far more certain than the nexus between coexistent objects in space (gravitation). The former is a necessary truth, the latter is usually classed as a contingent truth.” – Le Conte https://spectator.org/evolution-more-certain-than-gravity/

Dr. Sewell even quotes Le Conte again, in a fuller context, at the beginning of his newly updated video which he just uploaded on YouTube a few days ago

Why Evolution is Different https://youtu.be/aJua-0FpmnI?t=10

As to the claim that evolution is as certain, or even “far more certain”, than gravity, Dr. Berlinski rightly regarded that claim as preposterous,

“On the other hand, I disagree that Darwin’s theory is as `solid as any explanation in science.; Disagree? I regard the claim as preposterous. Quantum electrodynamics is accurate to thirteen or so decimal places; so, too, general relativity. A leaf trembling in the wrong way would suffice to shatter either theory. What can Darwinian theory offer in comparison?” (Berlinski, D., “A Scientific Scandal?: David Berlinski & Critics,” Commentary, July 8, 2003)

Darwinism simply has nothing to offer in comparison. In fact, Winston Ewert recently found the dependency graph (Intelligent Design) model to be “far more certain” than the common descent (Darwinian) model. Dr. Hunter termed the Darwinian model to be “incredibly inferior” to the Design model.

New Paper by Winston Ewert Demonstrates Superiority of Design Model – Cornelius Hunter – July 20, 2018 Excerpt: Ewert amassed a total of nine massive genetic databases. In every single one, without exception, the dependency graph model surpassed common descent. Darwin could never have even dreamt of a test on such a massive scale. Darwin also could never have dreamt of the sheer magnitude of the failure of his theory. Because you see, Ewert’s results do not reveal two competitive models with one model edging out the other. We are not talking about a few decimal points difference.,,, The problem is that the common descent model is so incredibly inferior to the dependency graph model that the Bayes factor cannot be typed out. In other words, the probability of the data set, given the dependency graph model, is so much greater than the probability of the data set given the common descent model, that we cannot type the quotient of their division. Instead, Ewert reports the logarithm of the number. Remember logarithms? Remember how 2 really means 100, 3 means 1,000, and so forth? Unbelievably, the 10,064 value is the logarithm (base value of 2) of the quotient! In other words, the probability of the data on the dependency graph model is so much greater than that given the common descent model, we need logarithms even to type it out. If you tried to type out the plain number, you would have to type a 1 followed by more than 3,000 zeros. That’s the ratio of how probable the data are on these two models! By using a base value of 2 in the logarithm we express the Bayes factor in bits. So the conditional probability for the dependency graph model has a 10,064 advantage over that of common descent. 10,064 bits is far, far from the range in which one might actually consider the lesser model. See, for example, the Bayes factor Wikipedia page, which explains that a Bayes factor of 3.3 bits provides “substantial” evidence for a model, 5.0 bits provides “strong” evidence, and 6.6 bits provides “decisive” evidence. This is ridiculous. 6.6 bits is considered to provide “decisive” evidence, and when the dependency graph model case is compared to comment descent case, we get 10,064 bits. But It Gets Worse The problem with all of this is that the Bayes factor of 10,064 bits for the HomoloGene data set is the very best case for common descent. For the other eight data sets, the Bayes factors range from 40,967 to 515,450. In other words, while 6.6 bits would be considered to provide “decisive” evidence for the dependency graph model, the actual, real, biological data provide Bayes factors of 10,064 on up to 515,450. We have known for a long time that common descent has failed hard. In Ewert’s new paper, we now have detailed, quantitative results demonstrating this. And Ewert provides a new model, with a far superior fit to the data. https://evolutionnews.org/2018/07/new-paper-by-winston-ewert-demonstrates-superiority-of-design-model/

For any other theory in science, this level of falsification would simply be completely devastating to the theory. Indeed, with such a decisive level of falsification, the theory would be rightly relegated to such erroneous beliefs as the moon is made of green cheese. But alas, Darwinian evolution gets a free pass when it comes to falsifying evidence no matter how badly the evidence falsifies the theory. To repeat what I’ve stated many times before, Darwinian evolution is not a testable science, but a unfalsifiable pseudoscience, even a religion, for atheists.

1 Thessalonians 5:21 but test everything; hold fast what is good.

bornagain77

By the way, you should get a copy of on the origin of species and read it. It’s amazing to watch a person 150 years ago sort out often contradictory evidence and find the glimmer of truth of what was happening. Reading that book will really impress upon you how hard it is to do cutting edge science, and how half the evidence seems to contradict the other half. Wallace, too, deserves some credit. He had the same basic realization, at approximately the same time, which is almost always how it goes in science. Retired Physicist

The question is, why does Darwin’s theory continue to dominate the biological sciences?

Have you considered the possibility that you’re wrong and a million scientists simply know better than you do? There’s no end to cranks who will insist that Einstein is wrong about Relativity, and their arguments are garbage, but they can’t understand that. Back in my teens I was a naïve fool and thought that Einstein was obviously wrong. After spending several years studying physics I realized there’s a reason Einstein is celebrated and I was not. Well it’s the same with Darwin. There’s a reason he’s celebrated, and Behe is not. Retired Physicist

The question is, why does Darwin’s theory continue to dominate the biological sciences? It should have been ruled obsolete, except when it comes to explaining minor evolutionary change, decades ago. It persists for philosophical or worldview reasons not scientific ones. Nothing provides a hand and glove fit with atheistic naturalism and materialism like Darwin’s theory. That is because Darwin himself was deeply influenced by 19th century materialism. Unfortunately as long as people are wedded to a naturalistic world view you’re going to have some version of Darwinian evolution. It’s the one thing that’s not going to evolve. john_a_designer

used to sport a Mohawk

I always thought that was his pet mink … daveS

F/N: Vox Day is an iconoclast who delights in making the most outrageous assertions. It is hard to know where satire shades into trollishness then into gasoline on the rhetorical fire. He is of part Mexican revolutionary and Amerindian ancestry, identifies with the latter. . . used to sport a Mohawk . . . and beyond that seems to defy categorisation. Apart from having his own views on just about any topic under the sun. So, to cite him as spotting a problem with the current past erasure panic is not at all to endorse his views in general. KF kairosfocus

BA77, Once we see critical theory of X we are dealing with cultural form marxism. That albatross around the neck tells us all we need to know. KF kairosfocus

It is interesting that the unforgivable sin for the woke left is racism. In fact, in Critical Race Theory it is held that any progress in race relations that has been achieved thus far "is largely a myth" and that "the founding of the United States (was) a project in maintaining and exploiting slavery".

Critical Race Theory Derrick Bell’s Interest-Convergence Thesis, in which he argues that advances have only been made for black people when it has been in white people’s interests to allow them. This causes Bell to argue that progress of race relations is largely a myth.,,, One consequence of this view is that critical race Theory explicitly endorses historical revisionism, as it proceeds from the assumption that history was written by dominant (white) people who have, as a result of their privilege and its influences, not represented it accurately. A contemporary example of this effort is the 1619 Project, which was promoted by the New York Times starting in August 2019, with the explicit agenda of reframing the founding of the United States as a project in maintaining and exploiting slavery (see also, post-traumatic slavery syndrome). https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-critical-race-theory/

Thus, for the woke left, America has not made any gigantic strides in race relations, (i.e. the Civil War and Martin Luther King), but America itself is irredeemably racist since it was founded "as a project in maintaining and exploiting slavery". More interesting still, Critical Race Theory is at war with liberalism itself. In short, the woke left is actually at war with the traditional liberal left.

Another central tenet of critical race theory is the critique of liberalism. This comes as a shock to most American readers who mistakenly identify critical race Theory as something associated with liberals and liberalism, but CRT is openly an anti-liberal theoretical and political project. The liberal approach to anti-racism is to divest race categories of social significance and treat everyone equally. That is, race is to become largely irrelevant and we, as a society, come to see skin color as having no more significance to a person’s worth or abilities than their hair color. This is referred to by critical race Theorists as “color-blindness” and is deemed highly problematic (see also, racism-blindness). A liberal society aims to make sure that everybody is treated equally by ensuring that race, gender, or sexuality and does not prevent anyone from accessing any opportunity and then evaluating each individual on their abilities. This is known as “meritocracy,” which is viewed as a highly problematic ideology white people use to maintain their cultural dominance and justify their own white supremacy. https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-critical-race-theory/

This can't end well for the left.

Galatians 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

bornagain77

The quote that Vox Day highlights in his article is from a recent article by Noah Carl who was a sociologist at Cambridge who got fired from his research position. An editorial in The Times stated that his "main offence seems to have been to challenge the “woke” left-wing orthodoxy",,,

Noah Carl: I’m a sociologist who got canceled – and I fear CHARLES DARWIN might not survive this purge of science & history - 13 Jun, 2020 Excerpt: Up until now, Darwin has been considered something of a hero on the political left, due to the religious right’s opposition to the teaching of evolution in schools (or at least, their insistence that one should“teach the controversy” that supposedly surrounds evolution and creationism). However, it is quite possible there will soon be a reckoning. For Darwin’s writings contain ample statements that would put him far beyond the pale of what is now considered acceptable. First, differences between the sexes. In The Descent of Man, Darwin states that “the average of mental power in man must be above that of woman.” And in an 1882 letter, he states that “women though generally superior to men to moral qualities are inferior intellectually,” and that “there seems to me to be a great difficulty from the laws of inheritance… in their becoming the intellectual equals of man.” He also observes in The Descent of Man that “the male sex is more variable in structure than the female.” This observation has since become known as the greater male variability hypothesis, and has been applied to a variety of human traits including, mostcontroversially, intelligence. Second, differences between the races. Referring to some natives he encountered in South America during the voyage of the Beagle, Darwin observes, “one can hardly make oneself believe that they are fellow creatures.” He dedicates a whole chapter of The Descent of Man, to his study of “the races of man.” In that chapter he states, “There is, however, no doubt that the various races, when carefully compared and measured, differ much from each other… Their mental characteristics are likewise very distinct; chiefly as it would appear in their emotional, but partly in their intellectual faculties.” And in an earlier chapter of the book, he contrasts the “civilised races of man” with “the savage races,” noting that the former will “almost certainly exterminate, and replace” the latter. Third, eugenics. In The Descent of Man, Darwin states, “We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination… Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind.” He then observes, “It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.” However, he also notes, “Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature… We must therefore bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind.” https://www.rt.com/op-ed/491673-sociologist-got-canceled-darwin-purge/ Noah Carl Excerpt: An editorial in The Times was critical of the decision to terminate Carl's post, arguing that his "main offence seems to have been to challenge the “woke” left-wing orthodoxy".[3] Opinion columnists in The Telegraph, Bloomberg Opinion, and The Spectator also criticised the decision.[4][21][22] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah_Carl#Appointment_controversy

bornagain77

If schools, colleges and universities were based around education, we would not see the continual downward trend in areas such as critical thinking. They have been used as indoctrination for communism via socialism. Producing good minds has taken a back seat to producing good socialists who believe whatever lies they have been fed. It has been an attack on western culture and just a matter of time before Darwin is burned at the altar in place of someone else. BobRyan

Witch hunts always end up burning the people with lighters. polistra

His sexist remarks were as positive, man being in a “higher eminence than woman in deep thought, reason, or imagination “ ... “and has ultimately become superior to women..” Belfast

I still don’t get the feeling it will just because I haven’t seen anything on the news about an angry mob attacking anything Darwinian Except for when it involves sex if it involves male and female stuff, that’s when the crap hits the fan, It’ll really hit the fan if they start reading all the stuff about how racist much of its recent past was. But we will see AaronS1978