Intelligent Design and Science

Interesting find while surfing this morning. The ID people keep claiming they’re all about science, but the never reveal any.

ISSR Statement on the Concept of ‘Intelligent Design’

The authors of this statement constitute a group set up for the purpose by the Executive Committee of the International Society for Science and Religion. Through a process involving consultation with all members of the Society, the statement has now been accepted by the Executive Committee for publication as a statement made on behalf of the Society.

The International Society for Science and Religion is a scholarly society devoted to ongoing dialogue between the sciences and the community of world faiths.  It was established in 2002 for the purpose of promoting education through the support of interdisciplinary learning and research in the fields of science and religion, conducted where possible in an international and multi-faith context.

The society greatly values modern science, while deploring efforts to drive a wedge between science and religion. Science operates with a common set of methodological approaches that gives freedom to scientists from a range of religious backgrounds to unite in a common endeavor. This approach does not deny the existence of a metaphysical realm but rather opens up the natural world to a range of explorations that have been incredibly productive, especially over the last 400 years or so.

The intelligent-design (ID) movement began in the late 1980s as a challenge to the perceived secularization of the scientific community, which leaders of the movement maintained had been coloured with the philosophy of atheistic naturalism. ID theorists have focused their critique primarily on biological evolution and the neo-Darwinian paradigm. They claim that because certain biological features appear to be “irreducibly complex” and thus incapable of evolving incrementally by natural selection, they must have been created by the intervention of an intelligent designer. Despite this focus on evolution, intelligent design should not be confused with biblical or “scientific” creationism, which relies on a particular interpretation of the Genesis account of creation.

We believe that intelligent design is neither sound science nor good theology. Although the boundaries of science are open to change, allowing supernatural explanations to count as science undercuts the very purpose of science, which is to explain the workings of nature without recourse to religious language.  Attributing complexity to the interruption of natural law by a divine designer is, as some critics have claimed, a science stopper. Besides, ID has not yet opened up a new research program. In the opinion of the overwhelming majority of research biologists, it has not provided examples of “irreducible complexity” in biological evolution that could not be explained as well by normal scientifically understood processes. Students of nature once considered the vertebrate eye to be too complex to explain naturally, but subsequent research has led to the conclusion that this remarkable structure can be readily understood as a product of natural selection. This shows that what may appear to be “irreducibly complex” today may be explained naturalistically tomorrow.

Scientific explanations are always incomplete. We grant that a comprehensive account of evolutionary natural history remains open to complementary philosophical, metaphysical, and religious dimensions. Darwinian natural history does preempt certain accounts of creation, leading, for example, to the contemporary creationist and ID controversies. However, in most instances, biology and religion operate at different and non-competing levels.  In many religious traditions, such as some found in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism, the notion of intelligent design is irrelevant. We recognize that natural theology may be a legitimate enterprise in its own right, but we resist the insistence of intelligent-design advocates that their enterprise be taken as genuine science – just as we oppose efforts of others to elevate science into a comprehensive world view (so-called scientism). See the website: Here

Intelligent design is nearly universally condemned as science and as a concept. Most people recognize it for what it really is; a wedge devise to sneak WASP religion into our school systems. The only support for it is from evangelical fundamentalists, Young Earth Creationist (YEC), and some Old Earth Creationist (OEC).

Now proponents of Intelligent Design (ID) are using ‘Stealth Candidates’ who are running for positions on local and state school boards without declaring or admitting that they will advocate teaching ID in schools when elected. They just don’t get it…and they will try anything, including dishonesty, to achieve their goals. That they would use dishonesty in the furtherance of their religious sect speaks volumes about the true value of their faith.

Most people don’t analyze this battle enough, and don’t seem to realize that the ultimate goal of the religious right is to take over our country and remake it into a religious society; kind of like the Dark Ages in Europe when the Catholics ruled, and the strength and direction of your belief…decided whether you lived or died.  A lot of people don’t realize that the religious right has taken control of the Republican Party.

Cognite tute-think about it/use your head.

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To Control the Whole World

The land and the people were once a great force in the blue-green world. They were the ultimate expression of their times.

Schooling was universal among the people of this country. They had perhaps the best medical care and scholarship in the world of their time.  Big universities and research facilities made discovery after discovery in the many fields of science, healthcare, and disease prevention and care. Influential people from all over the planet came for treatment in their hospitals. People from other societies sent their children to this land to be educated by some of the best scholars to be found…anywhere.

The interests of people throughout the country were looked out for by governmental agencies that monitored, and tried to respond quickly to, dishonest behavior by large companies and entrenched interests, whether governmental or civilian. This factor, among others, made the country a place that people from all over the planet wanted to live in and make investments in. The stability of the government and the land was legendary.  The stability of the monetary system was unequaled in the planets history. Law ruled for the greater good, not individual interests.

They were looked upon as the greatest moral force for good on the planet. Their actions and their responses to evil forces or intentions were always measured and intelligent, fair in all possible respects.  The law and the way it was applied to all peoples, was almost always fair.  The government operated under a set of rules that was wrought hundreds of years before, and all the subsequent leaders followed these rules faithfully.

Of course, in all societies there are always the criminals, the scum and the lowlifes, who try to subvert the system and take advantage of their fellow countrymen. This country however was unique, in that they looked out for, and quickly prosecuted, these bad elements, and as a consequence the people of the land mostly trusted their government and leaders. So the people and the land were prosperous and multiplied and benefited enormously.

The economy of the land was unmatched by any other society on the planet, past or present, and in all probability…future. Their monetary system was the most admired and stable standard by which all others on the globe were measured.

But, there was trouble ahead. Unknown to most people of this blue-green world, and to this shining country, there were evil things going on.  Influential and tremendously wealthy individuals and great secret groups and many companies were slowly undermining the foundation of the very countries and governments and people they fed on.  They wanted it all, it seems.

They got into positions of power and control by any means they could, including bribery, rigged elections, and assassinations.  And once there, they plotted to gain control of all means of production and wealth- making on the whole planet, and split it up among the elite class. Many people from this wonderful country were involved in and supplied help, money, and leadership to this subversive enterprise…some say they even hatched the plan.

To further their plans they realized that the many, many millions of people on the planet needed to be brought under a heretofore unmatched and unheard of control. There was too much freedom enjoyed by the common people. They could move practically unhindered and untracked around the planet. Advances in the sciences and communications made individuals able to quickly tell others in their own…and other… countries, what was going on. They could conceivably ‘call for help’ as it were, from other like-minded peoples. Money could be moved all over the world easily, and hidden if deemed necessary. People were free to demonstrate and contest the powers that be; they were altogether too unhampered and unmanaged for the purposes of the growing elite power structure.

The plotters desperately needed to change this Weltanschauung. What could be used to change the world dynamic in their favor?  How could they bring everything under elite control?  What possible scenario could be used as an excuse…to control and track all peoples movements and associations, and to track all money flow between people and nations, to keep power from accreting to the wrong people or groups?

They needed the ability to secretly spy on and disrupt any dissent from the common people, to strongly control and track movements of everyone, to have unhindered access to people’s personal affects, money and properties, to secretly remove and imprison anyone who was trying to upset the applecart. To render all dissent powerless.

What possible thing could the elite do to bring this vision to fruition and allow them seemingly legitimate reason to gain this kind of control?  Thereby trashing a brave, relatively new country…and an old world, in the process.

Hmmm.

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Religion Wants to Destroy Science

If the Church wants to be successful in changing society’s attitudes toward abortion, pornography, and homosexuality, it is going to have to fight the issue at a foundational level. The foundational basis of evolution needs to be destroyed and the foundational basis of creation restored to its rightful place of importance. Ken Ham, founder, Answers in Genesis (AiG) (science is the foundational basis of evolution)

Ken Ham is arguably one of the most dangerous men in America. He resorts to lies to achieve his ends. His objective is nothing less than the dumbing down and destruction of the American people and society through smothering the minds of our children and the creativity and inquisitiveness we as a society display. As can be gathered from the quote above he wants the sciences to be destroyed and from his other writings he advocates a kind of primal religious teaching of our children and a religiously controlled government.

Ken Ham is the founder of Answers in Genesis and a firm believer and marketer of “creation science”, or Young Earth Creationism (YEC), both of which are early illegitimate cousins of “Intelligent Design”. His real…ultimate goal is to convert the world to his brand of Christianity…whether they want to or not. He is also the ‘owner/operator’ of the ‘Creation Museum’ in Petersburg, Kentucky, a venue he uses to indoctrinate children and their parent and teacher visitors into his version of the “Truth.”

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Since America has the highest percentage of dupe’s religious believers, he is correct in targeting the US first. It is a sad fact that we have a very high number of really dumb citizens…witness Jay Leno’s “Jaywalking” skit on the Tonight Show.

Ham believes that the first book of the Bible…Genesis, is the very foundation of Christianity and it is the literal truth of all human reality. The universe, earth, and humanity are only 6000 or so years old. This is societal and scientific heresy of the highest order.

This man believes that acceptance of evolution, homosexuality, abortion, pornography, racism, use of drugs, and more are directly related…go hand in hand, so his stated solution to solving these problems is the destruction of science.

This, to my mind, is a problem of the first order. Fundamentalist, Evangelical religions are subtly advocating the destruction of the very foundations of our modern society. They advocate the fulfillment of their apocalyptic visions of life. They are trying to make their vision of life self-fulfilling.

We know from history that Christianity (Islam also) has been associated with, or responsible for, or supported; sexual abuse, torture, murder, fraud, deceit, infanticide, slavery, racism, genocide, and probably more I can’t think of right now. We also know from history that secular controlled governments can be responsible for the above-mentioned shameful behavior, but most secular governments can and eventually do change, unlike religions, which are cast in stone.

Do you really think a God, or Jesus, would approve the kind of deception and dishonesty that Ken Ham…and those like him…are using to delude us? Do you think a true religion and a true God would need the manipulations these people are using?

I don’t.

Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration — courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and, above all, love of the truth. Henry Louis Mencken, American journalist, (1880-1956)

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