Ben Stein Expelled

[Cybsled]

Stein was being interviewed on some news show over Thanksgiving. I love how he just started spouting about Darwin this, Darwin that. That's like someone who tries to make arguments about astronomy by citing fucking Aristotle or Galileo. They had some big ideas for the time, but we know considerably more now. And trying to pretend the extent of our knowledge rests with those old foundations exclusively makes you seem like a moron.

[Eomer]

I wonder, has he been bought out by someone for monetary reasons, or is he doing this for ideological ones? I really can't figure it out, it's hurting my brain.

[Millie]

Originally Posted by Eomer

I wonder, has he been bought out by someone for monetary reasons, or is he doing this for ideological ones? I really can't figure it out, it's hurting my brain.

Evidently he really believes this stuff. He has (or at least had) an "open letter" posted on the official movie website in which he condemned the scientific community for "suppressing" intelligent design "research." Exactly what "research" the ID crowd is meant to have conducted is left unspecified, of course.

[Arakkis]

Discovery Institute

This is the place to go to see the scientific research being done in support of ID. A disclaimer, some of the stuff on there is WAY old and has been refuted. One scientist actually saw his 1955 article being quoted on this website and wrote a letter THIS YEAR to the journal it was published in to have it retracted. I think some of their conclusions are pretty tenuous but this is the place to go to get the other side of the argument.

[Asmadai]

Good read from ^ that site:

[MrGraham]

Originally Posted by Asmadai

Good read from ^ that site:

I went through that entire thing. It was very painful. Summary:

Evolution is not 100% wrong.
ID is not 100% right.
We are not mandating that every school teach ID.
Teaching ID will encourage critical thinking as students must decide for themselves what's right.
ID is a valid scientific theory.

All of these points are backed up well except for the last one. They still don't explain why ID is a valid theory. Evolution does not explain everything from life creation to today with zero holes. However, there is a ton of evidence for it. Many of you seem to disagree with that. However, if we teach ID, we are teaching a theory based around the idea that "the other idea isn't 100% definitely right so let's teach this one too" with no other evidence for it. Beside that, let's teach about the Flying Spaghetti Monster too, please?

Personally, I'm agnostic, but I have no idea why people who believe in a god can't simply rationalize things to themselves by saying "Hey, this evolution theory is pretty good, if it's true then it's cool that god put this in place!"

[GrobbeeTrull2.0]

Personally, I'm agnostic, but I have no idea why people who believe in a god can't simply rationalize things to themselves by saying "Hey, this evolution theory is pretty good, if it's true then it's cool that god put this in place!"

It often works out that way except for a few hardcore fundamentalists, but the majority of the argument in this thread is from atheists who simply cannot tolerate that someone wont remove God from their equation 100%. See above.

[Zuuljin]

I'm sorry but LOL:

Is Intelligent Design a Scientific Theory?

Yes. The scientific method is commonly described as a fourstep
process involving observations, hypothesis, experiments,
and conclusion. ID begins with the observation that intelligent
agents produce complex and specified information (CSI). Design
theorists hypothesize that if a natural object was designed, it will
contain high levels of CSI. Scientists then perform experimental
tests upon natural objects to determine if they contain
complex and specified information. One easily testable form
of CSI is irreducible complexity, which can be discovered by
experimentally reverse-engineering biological structures to see
if they require all of their parts to function. When ID researchers
find irreducible complexity in biology, they conclude that such
structures were designed.

The problem I see with this is that "Complex and Specified Information" is not an observable thing, but an interpretation of a set of things. Show me a high level calculus problem and i'll tell you thats fucking complex. Show it to a leading mathmetician and he'll tell me its not complex all.

[Millie]

Originally Posted by MrGraham

However, if we teach ID, we are teaching a theory based around the idea that "the other idea isn't 100% definitely right so let's teach this one too" with no other evidence for it.

Yes, and the reason that argument is horsecrap is because ID isn't a scientific theory. It isn't even a theory. It's a religious belief with no grounding in science whatsoever, and a complete disregard for the scientific method. Teaching it as "science" is hogwash.

The "Discovery Institute," btw, is little more than a creationist propaganda machine that first rebranded creationism as "Intelligent Design" and then set out to deliberately mislead the public by attacking evolution and promoting a religious agenda.

Discovery Institute - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Another good read, which reveals the theocratic/religious goals of the Discovery Institute, and their "Wedge strategy" for accomplishing those goals:

Wedge strategy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

To quote the Discovery Institute's own stated goals, it is trying to "...reverse the stifling materialist worldview and replace it with a scientific consonant with Christian and theistic conventions," and to "affirm the reality of God."

I suggest everyone who is even thinking of believing the Discovery Institute to be a credible source, or ID to be a credible theory, to read up on those links. It's all a load of crap, and it's a deliberate attack on sound science in the name of Bible thumping freaks. And I'm sorry for the harsh language, but that's what they are: Bible thumping freaks. Not all Christians are Bible thumping freaks, but the kind of people who interpret the Bible literally are. They are brain-draining America, and they are a major reason why this country is falling behind in science and other intellectual endeavors.

[Zerai]

Yeah, I scanned that whole thing for a description on ID and that one paragraph Zuuljin linked of pure bullshit was the only thing in it. The rest was just "This is why Evolution isn't 100% right".

No shit sherlock.

[Asmadai]

Wordy excuses to back up your point; both sides have them.

I'm gonna go use my Math book to figure out why Hitler invaded Poland, now. Excuse me.

[Millie]

Originally Posted by Asmadai

Wordy excuses to back up your point; both sides have them.

I'm gonna go use my Math book to figure out why Hitler invaded Poland, now. Excuse me.

What you just said made absolutely zero sense. Are you now refusing to even bother reading refutations of ID because they're "too wordy?" So you're willfully turning off the critical thinking portion of your brain and further entrenching yourself in dogma. That's really spectacular. Way to go.

[Kaosu]

Originally Posted by Asmadai

Wordy excuses to back up your point; both sides have them.

I'm gonna go use my Math book to figure out why Hitler invaded Poland, now. Excuse me.

Are you saying that by using science to figure out how humans started out or came from, its as pointless as using formulas to figure out why Hitler invaded Poland? Great comparison.

Perhaps I'm taking this completely the wrong way. However based off your argument:

Would you use a apple to figure out whats wrong with your car? Drink orange juice to become smarter? I might concede on the Orange Juice point, only because of its godliness, however your comment is pretty asinine.

Would you treat your own flesh and blood, diagnosis them with your armchair doctor skills, and then perform heart surgery in order to fix a supposed heart murmur that you wiki'd and pronounced the night before? Or would you not go to a doctor at all, simply because they couldn't explain all there is to know about humans and their aliments.

No, instead you take a alternative approach to this: You go to the natural healing/modern day snake oil-homeopathic remedies-healing crystals simply because doctors can't explain everything there is to know in life, and others exploit that by using techniques or medicine that can't be explained in any way possible, other than its mysterious and it may or may not work (by the way, in order for it to be true, you have to believe in it!!!111oneoneoneeleven!!!)

Yet when it comes down to it, and your coughing up blood, who do you goto?

Since when does a small series of cockblocks equate divine dick intervention, especially when the best they can come up with in the long run is "Well, this theory doesn't explain everything 100% of the time."

Great. So we can't explain everything. And yet we are trying and so far we've overcame a lot of cockblocks that were originally said to be God originated, so thus unexplainable.

If God is truly exists then I truly doubt he is worried about some of his own creations scurrying about in search of 'truth.' You aren't championing his efforts, by no means are you a knight in servitude. Nor are you helping your own cause.
If all of this is for naught, science will reach its own conclusions and downfall simply by hitting straight into a brick wall, breaking its own body. Science is more capable than anyone else for disproving itself and providing its own destruction.

So thank Evolution for computers, cars, strip poles, porn, anime, games, pants, toast, vegemite, beer, guns, and all the shinies in the world.

You bastard.

[Asmadai]

I really didn't think anyone would bite that, but given they did...

Kaosu's brilliant deduction of how all Christians believe, or rather to say the assumption that they do has given me that of a headache. You would think 'critical thinkers' would have more of an ability to realize that even though 5% of a religion's followers might believe some serious wacked out shit, those same beliefs might not apply to the other 95%.

It's the equivalent to me calling the entire Scientific community a bunch of lunatics, because a small group of them still hold obvious bullshit beliefs that the Earth is fucking flat. Can you imagine how God damned (lol) retarded that would sound? Sure you can.

How can one expect to argue his side against such a one-sided debate? Honestly?

[Zerai]

I've given up on understanding religion. Why anyone believes anything a people who were wrong about pretty much everything else, were right about one of the most important things ever (if a God was true, that'd be quite a major thing) baffles me.