en.wikipedia.org...

Kenneth R. Miller, a biology professor from Brown University and noted author and commentator opposed to the intelligent design and creationist movements, was the first witness. He testified as an expert witness that "Intelligent design is not a testable theory and as such is not generally accepted by the scientific community." And that while the idea of intelligent design is not subject to falsification, many claims made by intelligent-design advocates have been falsified. Asked what the harm is in reading the statement, Miller gave a two-fold response. 1) "[I]t falsely undermines the scientific status of evolutionary theory and gives students a false understanding of what theory actually means." And 2) "as a person of faith who was blessed with two daughters, who raised both of my daughters in the church, and had they been given an education in which they were explicitly or implicitly forced to choose between God and science, I would have been furious, because I want my children to keep their religious faith."

www.seattleweekly.com...


That no peer-reviewed scientific journal has published research supportive of intelligent design's claims.

That Behe's own book was not, as he had claimed, peer reviewed.

That Behe himself criticizes the science presented as supporting intelligent design in instructional material created for that purpose.

That intelligent design seems plausible and reasonable to inquirers in direct proportion to their belief or nonbelief in God.

And that the basic arguments for evidence of purposeful design in nature are essentially the same as those adduced by the Christian apologist Rev. William Paley (1743–1805) in his 1802 Natural Theology: or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, Collected From the Appearances of Nature, where he sums up his observations of the complexity of life in the ringing words, "The marks of design are too strong to be got over. Design must have had a designer. That designer must have been a person. That person is GOD."

www.seattleweekly.com...

he Web site of the Center for Science and Culture, as it is known now (www.discovery.org/csc), describes the list of fellows as "including biologists, biochemists, chemists, physicists, philosophers and historians of science, and public policy and legal experts, many of whom also have affiliations with colleges and universities." This list avoids mentioning that only seven fellows hold advanced degrees in biological sciences, while 13 profess philosophy and/or theology at such religiously oriented institutions of higher learning as Biola College in Los Angeles, Messiah College of Gratham, Pa., and Billy Graham's alma mater, Wheaton College, in Wheaton, Ill.

www.infidels.org...

"The social consequences of materialism have been devastating. As symptoms, those consequences are certainly worth treating. However, we are convinced that in order to defeat materialism, we must cut it off at its source. That source is scientific materialism. This is precisely our strategy. If we view the predominant materialistic science as a giant tree, our strategy is intended to function as a "wedge" that, while relatively small, can split the trunk when applied at its weakest points. The very beginning of this strategy, the "thin edge of the wedge," was Phillip Johnson's critique of Darwinism begun in 1991 in Darwinism on Trial, and continued in Reason in the Balance and Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds. Michael Behe's highly successful Darwin's Black Box followed Johnson's work. We are building on this momentum, broadening the wedge with a positive scientific alternative to materialistic scientific theories, which has come to be called the theory of intelligent design (ID). Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions."

www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk...

"Never say, and never take seriously anyone who says, 'I cannot believe that so-and-so could have evolved by gradual selection.' I have dubbed this kind of fallacy 'the Argument from Personal Incredulity.' Time and again, it has proven the prelude to an intellectual banana-skin experience." Richard Dawkins - River out of Eden

ncseweb.org/resources


Compared with several thousand papers on evolution, the combined searches produced only 37 citations containing the keyword "intelligent design." A closer look at those 37 references suggests that none reports scientific research using intelligent design as a biological theory. "Intelligent Design" popped up most frequently in the index with the broadest range of topics, the Expanded Academic Index. Of the 30 articles, 12 were articles on computer software or hardware, eight were on architectural or engineering design, two were on advertising art, and one was on literature. The remaining seven were about biology; five were discussions of the debate over using Pandas by various school boards, and two were comments on Michael Behe's (1996) book in a Christian magazine.

www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk...

"Behe's colossal mistake is that, in rejecting these possibilities, he concludes that no Darwinian solution remains. But one does. It is this: An irreducibly complex system can be built gradually by adding parts that, while initially just advantageous, become-because of later changes-essential. The logic is very simple. Some part (A) initially does some job (and not very well, perhaps). Another part (B) later gets added because it helps A. This new part isn't essential, it merely improves things. But later on, A (or something else) may change in such a way that B now becomes indispensable. This process continues as further parts get folded into the system. And at the end of the day, many parts may all be required."

Originally posted by LeftBehind
Thank you Mattison I look forward to your post, it's about time I came back to the origins forum. I've spent way too much time posting about 9-11.

Welcome back man... it is about time.

Boy you're going from 9/11 (Howard the lone gunman now?) to origins... nope no stress here; one big happy family

And while science is not defined by courts or peer-review, neither is it defined by the Discovery Institute, Behe or Dembski.

Agreed all around right of the bat. This is gonna be lovely....

Originally posted by LeftBehind
.....Intelligent design is not science on par with darwinism. ID proponents testified in court that what it really is about is redifing science to include supernatural explanations.

Let's look into what went down at this trial.

en.wikipedia.org...

Kenneth R. Miller, a biology professor from Brown University and noted author and commentator opposed to the intelligent design and creationist movements, was the first witness. He testified as an expert witness that "Intelligent design is not a testable theory and as such is not generally accepted by the scientific community." And that while the idea of intelligent design is not subject to falsification, many claims made by intelligent-design advocates have been falsified. Asked what the harm is in reading the statement, Miller gave a two-fold response. 1) "[I]t falsely undermines the scientific status of evolutionary theory and gives students a false understanding of what theory actually means." And 2) "as a person of faith who was blessed with two daughters, who raised both of my daughters in the church, and had they been given an education in which they were explicitly or implicitly forced to choose between God and science, I would have been furious, because I want my children to keep their religious faith."

Obviously they pretend it's science, but in fact it is nothing but thinly veiled neo-creationism, designed to bring christianity into science.

Theories that need an all powerful being to accomplish something are not scientific. Irreducible complexity attempts to show that things are too complex to happen naturally. While they attempt to scientifically show this as true, it remains a fallacy. It is unscientific to say that since we can't figure out how it happened, that it required some sort of supernatural agent.