Satann Coulter
Out of context: Reply #256
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Ok, sorry for my absence. Now, let me start by obliterating Mimio's claptrap, point by point. I'll respond to others here, later. His stuff is in quotations here:
"Again discipler, ID has no evidence supporting the identity or nature of the "designer". Therefore it fails to satisfy the scrutiny you apply Evolutionary Theory. That makes it philosophical, as the designer must be supernatural or intangible."
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Response:What does the nature or identity of the designer have to do with Intelligent Design (which is the study of patterns in nature which are best explained by a designing intelligence as opposed to blind natural causes)? ID is essentially design detection. is SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) bunk because they are looking for specified patterns in signals, without knowing the nature of that intelligence? The nature of the designer is a second-order philosophical question which science cannot answer. ID is design detection. Please, do yourself a favor and learn about something before you make attempts at dismantling it. Once again, you have conflated the science with it's implications. And once again I ask: what is philosophical about observing cellular machinery which is irreducible? What is philosophical about digital code along the spine of the DNA molecule? What is philosophical about observing a fossil record which flies in the face of Darwinian gradualism and demonstrates a massive influx of specified and novel genetic information? Do tell.
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"Right, it's a supernatural explaination. It claims that the natural world cannot produce life, that it requires a supernatural initiation. That's just not science. Michael Behe is William Paley all over again. Same argument. "-------
Response:There is absolutely nothing supernatural about Intelligent Design. It is design detection. It is, for instance, looking at the 4 nucleotide alphabet in the nucleus of the cell, recognizing it as specified information, recognizing that only intelligent agency produces specified information and then making the logical inference to a designing intelligence. Where is the supernatural in that? Again, mimio conflates the science with it's implications. Methinks you listen too much to the rhetoric of your political gurus and just regurgitate their ignorance.
Secondly, ID does not claime that the "natural world cannot produce life" (assuming I understand what the heck that means). It simply states that Darwinian mechanisms are not sufficient to explain biological systems as they cannot generate Complex Specified Information. Only intelligent agents can produce specified information. You may choose to believe that this teleological agency is supernatural or that some other material intelligence is responsible for said information. This is why there can be agnostic ID proponents. And there are plenty of them.
Michael Behe is a biochemist and one of many many many who embrace ID. He is honest enough to follow the evidence where it leads. And it led him to conclude that Darwinian evolution cannot explain what he observes. How could he possibly be using the same argument that William Paley used in his watchmaker thesis, when Paley couldn't see inside the cell!? Paley's argument was a theological one. Behe's is based on observable scientific evidence. Again, mimio, your political bias is showing.
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"It's trying to give philosophical viewpoints equal footing with science."
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Response:Balderdash. Again, you conflate the science with it's implications. And you do this because you don't like the implications. Just as the Big Bang has implications, so does Intelligent Design.
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"It's dishonest as an idea if it's original conceit is that the scientific method is flawed and inadequate for explaining reality. Claims like that require proof."
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Response:ID does no such thing. It suggests that Darwinian mechanisms are insufficient in explaining the origen and development of phyla. And you don't understand what the scientific method is. If you did, you would understand that Bacteria-to-Babboons Darwinian evolution is thoroughly unscientific as it is an unwarranted extrapolation from observable adaptation within species. Mimio you should try applying your same criticism of ID to the notion of Darwinian MacroEvolution. But you won't because you have a glaring bias that prevents you. The fact is that anybody who understands how biological systems are generated via CSI, understands the fossil record, the Cambrian Explosion, Haldane's Dilemma, etc... etc... knows that MacroEvolution is nothing more than a bed-time story.
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"Also, I see science as a field trying to use the natural world to describe the natural, as it is intellectual agreeable that the natural world exists. If ID is a philosophy, why should public schools offer it as science to their students? And why should a certain religion's fragile beliefs be repected in the realm of science?"
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Response:Almost too amusing to merit a response. More political rhetoric from ignorance. But...
Science is the search for truth based on observable evidence. Science should be seeking the best possible explanation. Period. If the explanation has implications which we are uncomfortable with. Too bad. We should not limit discovery to that which fits in with reductionist material explanations. Follow the evidence wherever it leads. Public schools should teach the controversy about Darwinian Evolution. All of it's glaring holes should be exposed. There should be dialogue. And teleological explanations should not be banned from the free marketplace of learning. Since after all, the evidence points more and more toward teleology in nature.
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"The big bang isn't philosophy it's a scientific theory based on observed galatic red-shift and emissions from the microwave background that permeates the universe, just like light and radiation does."
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Response:No it is not philosophy. You got that part right. But it has philosophical IMPLICATIONS. We know from observing the microwaves and their expansion that there was a beginning. A catalyst. Something outside of time and space initiated it. And it is it's implications that caused many in the scientific community to want to censor the idea when it was first proposed. They were uncomfortable with it's implications. I suspect you would have been among those trying to censor it, mimio.
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"I just think Darwinian evolution is a better explaination than Creationism."
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Response:When did Biblical Creationism become relevant to this discussion? How does the observance of patterns and information in nature which are best explained by a designing intelligence, become the same thing as the Bible narrative of Creation? Please support your answer.
Explain in detail how Darwinian Evolution accounts for:
1. Digital Code in the form of the 4 nucleotide alphabet in the cell. With all of it's error protection capabilites and ribosome coding instructions, etc... etc...
2. Cellular machinery which requires phD's in mechanical engineering to even begin to comprehend and which has specified interlocking components which are required simultaneously or the system fails. How does a blind, gradualistic, unthinking, non-teleological mechanism like Darwin's account for these?
3. The abrupt explosion of novel cells, tissue and body plans during the Cambrian era.
4. A fossil record which shows fully formed phyla without the gazillions of intermediates in between species which should be in abundance if Darwin's gradualism were true. This doesn't even take into account Irreducible Complexity on the molecular level and hurdles for Darwinism there. (smells like teleology to me)
5. The generation and influx of specified genetic information required in generating biological novelty.
6. The impossible precision of the fine-tuning of the cosmological constants such that life is even possible on earth.
The future of science lies in the hands of the hard sciences - Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics. The deeper we peer into these systems in nature, the more the hard sciences are being employed. The stamp collecting that is tentative Biology is a soft science on a good day and an extension of the hard sciences. The stamp collecting should always be interpreted in light of the foundational constants.