Hi Nash,
Originally posted by Nash
Intelligent Design aint nothing like that. It's a fully formed idea. It has nothing to do with problem solving. Through it, you wouldn't be teaching kids how to observe, research, and learn... you would simply be telling them: "This is how it is."
Ladies and gentlemen - that aint a school. That's a church.
...
But by mandating Intelligent Design, it's as if you'd want to render mankind incapable of that.
[As you read the following, please try to keep in mind that I'm an ex-evolutionist myself]
Actually, Intelligent Design is anything but a fully-formed idea. At present it is a developing paradigm, a theory being tweaked and worked on that some scientists believe might explain the existing data better than the theory of Darwinian Evolution. The problem they are having, is that with the exception of a few publishers and journals, no one wants to be seen dead discussing this subject, especially in the academic institutions - to do so is instantly to be ostracized and assume pariah status in the scientific community. Nothing short of a pilgrimmage to the grave of Clarence Darrow and 30 or so apologetic papers praising Darwin to the skies will gain you readmittance.
As a result, most scientists who want to pursue development of the theory end up in a Catch-22 situation where the only instutions that will let them do so are either religious or very light-weight and inclined more to philosophy than "hard science."
Although ID is being tarred with the "religious" label its development is being fueled by ordinary non-religious scientists like xrightyx who are simply coming to the conclusion that the Darwinian theory doesn't explain the data. The discipline most responsible for this being DNA research and Biochemistry which is showing to the chagrin of Darwinians that there is no natural mechanism for ADDING information to the DNA sequence that would allow for instance, for a change of species. What this means is that while we can tinker with DNA in a lab, "nature" simply doesn't have a mechanism for changing DNA in the way that would allow for Flatworms to become Field Mice. It simply can't be done, and it doesn't matter how much time or mutation one posits. Then there are other problems like the aforementioned problem of "creation" of DNA, again simple CHANCE+TIME has no biomechanical means of doing it. There is, in short, a complexity to organisms that nothing in the natural order can create or generate no matter how much time is presupposed.
This has left many scientists who are not at all religious, saying in essence,
"Look I don't believe in God, or the Bible, or Church, or any of that other stuff, I just observe and report, that's all I do, and yet what I'm observing leaves me with no other option but to assume that this stuff was designed. I don't know how or by who, but I'm going to keep looking into it."Many more who are aware of the gaps, the problems, the breakdowns, and the impossibilities are simply saying,
"look I know that "evolution" can no more explain the existence of this structure any more than I could explain the existence of a pocket-watch by saying "time and chance" assembled it naturally. But if I say that in public, my career will be over forever, so I'm just going to shut-up and nod my head and keep my grants."Now if you want more complexity of explanation in the Biochemistry area on why DNA is proving to be the death-knell to Darwinian theory, either someone competent like XrightyX is going to have to do it, or I'm going to have to start quoting brighter men than I.
- SEAGOON