Missouri puts prayers back in skool...

[FBM]

Who cares what you think? This is about science. You're evading the issue.

Apparently you care what I think. I'm not evading anything, you're spinning with empty rhetoric and red herrings. I'm stating my approach to matters of uncertainty, which is to suspend belief until evidence is presented.

Nothing wrong with that, however are you admitting that the controversy is a scientific one, not an inherently religious and supernatural one?

That's all I'm asking.

Science isn't the only way to knowledge; I'd call this an epistemological controversy. Faith =/= knowledge of anything other than faith, not the object of faith itself.

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[Robert_S]

Should astrology be taught in public schools?

[FBM]

Should astrology be taught in public schools?

Please wait while I consut the charts...

[Seth]

But the scientific controversy over whether an intelligent designer exists, used to exist, and either did or did not interfere in natural evolution sometime in the deep past is a perfectly valid scientific question that has no religious overtones other than those imposed upon it by either Atheists or religionists as a part of a larger political and legal agenda.

When an intelligent design theory that is actually a theory and not a hypothesis, vague notion or wild speculation is put forward by a person or group without a larger political and/or legal agenda, then there will be a scientific controversy.

Until then, there is no real scientific controversy.

Here's a theory: Sometime in the deep past, an intelligent designer intervened in evolution on this planet to guide living organisms down specific evolutionary pathways. Additionally, 65 or so million years ago, that same designer decided that dinosaurs were not proceeding down the pathway towards intelligence as the designer intended, so it perturbed an asteroid, causing it to hit near Yucatan, thereby causing the dinosaurs to become extinct and giving mammals their shot at evolving intelligence.

Since I have zero religious, legal or political agenda in mind, it's now a "real scientific controversy."

Until you have evidence for it, it's not a scientific theory, except in the peculiar usage of theoretical physics. Things that people just sort of speculate about are not theories to be taught in schools.

It would be acceptable if you were proposing theoretical physics and you had actual physics to show us (math), but you don't. So what you have, again, is speculation. That's not a scientific theory and that isn't theoretical physics.

Just to be quick and brief about this -- math is what you're missing when you compare ideas like String and M theory and such with your speculation. String theory, for example, isn't proven by empirical evidence, but there is math that works: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstrin ... athematics

Well, here's some math: The statistical probability of intelligent life in the universe as of today is 100 percent. There is no reason to believe that this probability does not apply to other universes, or this universe at other times.

Here's some more math: The statistical probability of intelligent life designing living organisms by engineering DNA is 100 percent. There is no reason to believe that this probability cannot apply to intelligence in other universes, or in this universe at other times and places.

Here's another bit of information: No human being has ever seen a bacterial lancet evolve into a bacterial flagellum. All of the claims in that regard are based on pure speculation supported only by the notion that some of the same protein building blocks appearing in both mechanisms means that one evolved into the other through random mutation.

But it's just as likely that a designer used intelligence and some of the same protein building blocks to construct the two different mechanisms. The only scientific objection to this is that it is not "parsimonious," and that the evolutionary model is more "elegant" and "simple." But this is just an irrational conceit of scientists and evolutionary THEORY that insists that a more complex answer cannot be the true answer.

I come back to BT corn again and again, and I repeat the example I've used many times of the future biologist (of whatever physical description) looking at the genes of BT corn and discovering a gene sequence that makes the plant resistant to the effects of glyophosate. Absent knowledge of Monsanto's efforts, this future biologist might easily make the fundamental mistake of assuming the "parsimonious" answer to the question "how did these genes get there" and wrongly make the assumption that the plant naturally evolved this resistance because glyophosate was somehow endemic in its habitat as it evolved. But that parsimonious answer would be completely wrong, because BT corn was genetically engineered by an intelligent designer, Monsanto's chemists and biologists.

Therefore, my version of "ID," which I call "OLE" or "Origin of Life on Earth" is a theory that uses knowledge that already exists about living organisms and a rational inference that an intelligent designer could have been responsible for one, some, or many changes in the evolution of living organisms on earth, and might just as easily have been responsible for "seeding" earth with primitive cells in the first place.

That such a designer is not "necessary" according to evolutionary theory, and even if such cells could occur through "naturalistic" evolutionary processes without intelligent intervention does not mean that all organisms did so or that there was never an intelligent designer involved in the evolution of life on earth.

The conceit of evolutionary theory is that it assumes, a priori, that if some other mechanism like intelligent design is not "necessary," that it cannot therefore have been the actual mechanism of organic change. This is just bull-headed denial of logical fact purveyed by those who simply cannot accept the notion that life on earth might be the result of deliberate intelligent design.

But it could be, in whole or only in part. That much is proven by the facts we have before us. Whether we will ever be able to verify that such design occurred is open to question, but what's not debatable is that intelligent design of life on earth is both possible and practical, given an intelligence only slightly more advanced than our own, and the necessary tools at some time in the deep past.

Therefore, "Intelligent Design" formed as "OLE" is entirely scientific, based on known science and rational inference, and comprises a valid competing theory for the existence and nature of life on earth, and it's due just as much consideration in the classroom as evolution is.

[klr]

...

Therefore, "Intelligent Design" formed as "OLE" is entirely scientific, based on known science and rational inference, and comprises a valid competing theory for the existence and nature of life on earth, and it's due just as much consideration in the classroom as evolution is.

Good luck getting that argument past the US legal system. Let us know when you do.

[Seth]

...

Therefore, "Intelligent Design" formed as "OLE" is entirely scientific, based on known science and rational inference, and comprises a valid competing theory for the existence and nature of life on earth, and it's due just as much consideration in the classroom as evolution is.

Good luck getting that argument past the US legal system. Let us know when you do.

Evasion. Do you have any rational argument refuting my claim?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Do you have any rational arguments?

[klr]

...

Therefore, "Intelligent Design" formed as "OLE" is entirely scientific, based on known science and rational inference, and comprises a valid competing theory for the existence and nature of life on earth, and it's due just as much consideration in the classroom as evolution is.

Good luck getting that argument past the US legal system. Let us know when you do.

Evasion. Do you have any rational argument refuting my claim?

I couldn't be arsed at this time of the night. I claim all of science on my side.

You're the one with the grandiose claims. As I usually say in these situations: There's a Nobel Prize waiting for you if you can turn the above into mainstream science. I wouldn't delude myself by thinking that just because I can construct an argument, that it must be true, and all of established science is therefore wrong, utterly wrong.

[Seth]

...

Therefore, "Intelligent Design" formed as "OLE" is entirely scientific, based on known science and rational inference, and comprises a valid competing theory for the existence and nature of life on earth, and it's due just as much consideration in the classroom as evolution is.

Good luck getting that argument past the US legal system. Let us know when you do.

Evasion. Do you have any rational argument refuting my claim?

I couldn't be arsed at this time of the night. I claim all of science on my side.

Really? Any part of science at all, even the tiniest smidgen, refute my claims? Nope, not even one iota.

You're the one with the grandiose claims. As I usually say in these situations: There's a Nobel Prize waiting for you if you can turn the above into mainstream science. I wouldn't delude myself by thinking that just because I can construct an argument, that it must be true, and all of established science is therefore wrong, utterly wrong.

Translation: "You're right, it is a valid scientific hypothesis but I'm not willing to admit it, so I'll just shuffle and jive and evade the debate."

[Gawdzilla Sama]

You're right, it is a valid scientific hypothesis but I'm not willing to admit it, so I'll just shuffle and jive and evade the debate."

[klr]

...
Really? Any part of science at all, even the tiniest smidgen, refute my claims? Nope, not even one iota.

You're the one with the grandiose claims. As I usually say in these situations: There's a Nobel Prize waiting for you if you can turn the above into mainstream science. I wouldn't delude myself by thinking that just because I can construct an argument, that it must be true, and all of established science is therefore wrong, utterly wrong.

Translation: "You're right, it is a valid scientific hypothesis but I'm not willing to admit it, so I'll just shuffle and jive and evade the debate."

Go and claim your prizes, medals, and worldwide fame. What in the blue blazes are you doing wasting your time here?

[Tero]

Good thing Seth is not one pf my peer reviewers.

[Seth]

...
Really? Any part of science at all, even the tiniest smidgen, refute my claims? Nope, not even one iota.

You're the one with the grandiose claims. As I usually say in these situations: There's a Nobel Prize waiting for you if you can turn the above into mainstream science. I wouldn't delude myself by thinking that just because I can construct an argument, that it must be true, and all of established science is therefore wrong, utterly wrong.

Translation: "You're right, it is a valid scientific hypothesis but I'm not willing to admit it, so I'll just shuffle and jive and evade the debate."

Go and claim your prizes, medals, and worldwide fame. What in the blue blazes are you doing wasting your time here?

Evasion.

[Seth]

Good thing Seth is not one pf my peer reviewers.

Probably, if you're as hidebound and narrow-minded as most Atheists are.

[Clinton Huxley]

Let's have one testable prediction made by Seth's "theory".