First of all, let me apologize to regular readers of this site who might have disagreed with me in this debate. It’s just that being called “ignorant” or “close minded” with regards to an unproven, unpublished, non-peer reviewed, and discredited concept gets under my sometimes rather thin skin.
If I went out of bounds (and I did), I’m sorry.
The reason for my passion on this issue has to do with the future of the United States. In the next 20 years, the world will experience a revolution the likes of which it has never imagined. I’m talking about the coming bio-tech revolution and the absolute necessity for the United States to lead the way in creating and developing products and processes that will transform not only the economies of the world but probably the human animal itself.
Glen Reynolds passion for nanotechnology is not some geeky obsession. Mr. Reynolds recognizes the awesome potential of marrying the physical with the metaphysical; of combining man and machine in ways that will affect the quality of life for everyone. Imagine molecule sized robots killing cancer cells or purging the body of free radicals. The life prolonging potential for some of these innovations could mean a doubling of the average life span for your infant child today.
And what about other bio-products like artificial blood or the growing of vital organs, or of limbs, or of new spinal columns that would allow the crippled to walk. This isn’t science fiction. There are legions of scientists and bio-engineers at work on these and thousands of other products as you read this. How about bacteria that “eats” air pollution or genetically engineered plants that are so hardy, they can grow in the driest places on earth?
The only limit to this revolution will be our imaginations. But in order to take part, our children need to understand modern biology. And modern biology is based on Darwinian evolution.
Wanting to teach your child intelligent design is fine. There’s nothing wrong with believing in ID concepts. But in order to participate in the coming world wide revolution, we must not only learn what German, Japanese, British, and Chinese students are learning, we must urge our children to out perform them. Despite protestations to the contrary, the purpose of ID is to supplant evolution as a narrative for origins. Whatever we don’t understand or have yet to find fossil evidence for, must be the result of the “designer’s” hand guiding evolution toward a specific goal.
I’m well aware of the shortcomings of evolution as a total, rational explanation for both the origin of life and subsequent changes in species. The problem is an incomplete picture. We’ve been looking at the process for less than 150 years. Discovery is agonizingly slow as scientists in the field painstakingly sift through the sand, gravel, and dust of 4.5 billion years of life searching for that one in 100 million living thing that died at the right place at the right time under the right circumstances and that allowed it’s skeletal impression to be left on a rock in some remote corner of the planet where bulldozers have yet to make a mark.
Of course there are gaps in our knowledge. Given the circumstances, expecting anything else would be unreasonable.
And yet, ID enthusiasts take these gaps in our knowledge as evidence that the entire theory should be discredited. This is wrong. Smarter and more capable people than I have debunked the main theses of ID and shown that randomness and evolution go hand in hand. To posit anything else is to deny nature itself. In many ways, ID is an anthropomorphic answer to questions that nature doesn’t even bother to ask. “It just happened” could go on a bumper sticker and slapped on every tree and bush and plant and animal on earth. Terribly unsatisfying, yes. But no more so than not knowing whether the next card drawn when I play blackjack is going to be a king or a two.
Lastly, why teach the controversy? Millions of people believe that we never walked on the moon, that NASA faked it. Should we teach that controversy? What possible good would it do to teach a biology course where every time the teacher brought up origins, they’d have to point to the unseen hand of a mythical “designer” as a catalyst for the random combination of amino acids and proteins that gave birth to the first primitive forms of life? It just doesn’t make any sense.
The world is wondrous enough without Intelligent Design. To my way of thinking, there’s no reason to go out of our way to invent answers to questions that the lord, in his own good time, will help us answer ourselves.
8:50 am
Many, many years ago, I had a high school history teacher who insisted that he didn’t believe in dinosaurs – no matter how seriously we students argued about the fossil record, scientific studies, and the skeletons we had seen in museums, he would blithely reply that it all could be a hoax (pointing out correctly that most of the museum displays we saw with our own eyes were plaster casts and reconstructions, painted to look “fossily”). It was only years later that I realized what Mr Poulos was up to – he was forcing us to think about how we evaluate evidence and decide what is true – which authorities we choose to believe and why. I think a clever teacher could very well use ID as a foil to settled evolution theories to help students grasp how we come to believe things are “true”. Unfortunately, I don’t believe proponents of ID are really expecting it to be presented by clever teachers.
9:03 am
With all the propaganda taught to our children, ID would be a cause of concern? Gee, having people believe in something greater than themselves is what created the United States of America. The economic moral hazard of God has a profound positive impact. The idea we are just animals in need of felt needs will only drive us to mud huts.
10:12 am
Where is Darrow when we need him? For those who may have missed it, Summer for the Gods, The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate over Science and Religion, by Edward J. Larson (1997), is an excellent reminder of how we as a nation dealt with this argument in the last century. Looks like “the decisive turning point” is wobbling yet again, alas.
11:02 am
Now, on a calmer day. Let me ask you something, cuz I’m sure you have more knowledge in the area. I may just be spouting talking points I read somewhere. I’ve debated this whole evolution debate before. I believe in it, I also believe in a creator. The question I had for you was specifically on “Darwanian theory”. I’ve heard that it is full of holes and much of it has been proved completely false, and some of it even as fraud. I believe we evolve, but their must be an intelligent force behind this. I always get stepped over in this debate when I ask where concioussness came from. If we evolved from chemicals of dead matter, how did self awareness appear? Most evolutionists can’t answer this question for me, and say this is biogenesus not evolution. Despite what its labelled I believe its a valid question in the debate of origins.
11:02 am
Hey—I’m all for teaching ‘Intelligent Design’ in CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY classes along with all the other ‘Creation MYTHS’.
One question to all the pea-brained fundatmentalist-extremist-religion fascists: Who decides which version of ‘Intelligent Design’ gets taught?
I for one don’t think you can be hard enough on these small-minded, anti-intellect, anti-scientific inquiry, non-thinking extremists.
And I wish they would go start their own theocratic nation among all the other theocratic dictatorships—elsewhere, far far away since they have no concept of not only scientific inquiry and critical analytical thinking, they have no concept of a democratic republic.
Stupid is as stupid does to quote one of their favorite icons.
11:06 am
Assumption One: the universe, as perceived by us, was created and is sustained by the Almighty.
Assumption Two: the Almighty has decided to remain hidden from direct perception by us for reasons we do not know.
Assumption Three: we know the Almighty only by examination of the works of the Almighty.
Conclusion: to know the Almighty, we must know everything we can learn about the universe.
It is our divine duty to be students of everything for life. One might start with a study of Mathematics, the true language of the Almighty.
Steve
11:43 am
First, it’s important to differentiate between what Darwin postulated in his book “Origin of the Species” and modern evolutionary theory.
Much of Darwin’s book has been proven to be false or incomplete. But building on Darwin’s initial theories, modern biology has come up with a testable, workable hypothesis regarding evolution. Certain predictions made in the lab bear out in the field. The same cannot be said of ID.
Your question regarding consciousness is one that has fascinated me for a long time. I tried to write an article during the Schiavo debate on what consciusness was and just couldn’t find a “hook” for the post. In short, there was nothing I could really get my mind around that made much sense.
A physicist believes that consciousness is actually our mind being in three different dimensions – the past, the present, and the near future – all at the same time! There is some serious attention being given this theory so perhaps a deeper understanding of quantum mechanics and the many worlds theory will help us understand better.
As for the physical properties of consciousness, that too has seen some remarkable work in the last few years. It appears that the brains of mammals – the most evolved creatures on the evolutionary ladder – are very similar in the way they work. And the electro-chemical reactions present in mammalian brains probably impart a small measure of what we humans would recognize as “consciousness” to all mammals.
Where did it come from? Remember the enormous elapsed time involved – nearly 60 million years. Brains as an organ went from being purely regulatory in reptiles (kept the heart beating, lungs breathing, fight or flight – in other words “instinctive”) to a rudimentary thinking machine but it took perhaps 200 million years.
Given how many mutations occur in 200 million years, the chances are very good that the right combination of neuro-chemicals along with the evolution of soft brain tissues like ganglia and receptors that could have been totally doormant or used for something else until by pure chance, they integrated with the neuro-chemicals.
It’s not as far fetched as it sounds – not when you’re talking about hundreds of millions of years for it to happen.
As for self-awareness – that trait has been seen in hominids for only about the last 150,000. The way we know this is modern homo sapiens had self decorative art in the form of small items of jewelry and the like. Such decorations presupposes that the wearer has a self image.
The real mystery is how we got from there to here. About 50,000 years ago a huge expansion in human knowledge occurred. Polynesian ancestors journeyed by boat to Australia and New Guienia. Cave walls in France came alive with realistic paintings of the hunt. Our tools becamse very sophisticated and decorative.
What this suggests to some evolutionary biologists is that our soft pallette developed that allowed a much greater range in vocalizations. It seems that language itself may have driven homo sapiens to where we are today.
Good questions – not much in the way of good answers. Whether we’ll find the answers through digging in the earth or whether they’ll come by unlocking the myseries of DNA I don’t know. But I feel confidant we will discover the answers one day.
12:02 pm
Well said Rick.
WARNING:I fully realize I will be talking out of both sides of my mouth shortly, so I don’t need that pointed out to me. Deal?
If I had to tell someone under oath what religion or doctrine that resembles my own beliefs, I would need to answer, Puritan. In that Puritans, and Calvinist in general, believed God chooses those for salvation and not the other way around. And I think I am one of the un-chosen. Or in Ricks’s terminology, an agnostic, although not proudly. I certainly don’t believe in any god that has been put forth by any scripture, nor do I believe in any explanations scripture (of any religion) give for the creation of life. I do, however, find much that can be learned from the meaning of life from such text, principally the bible.
Those two things being clarified, I see no problem with the mention of ID as a possible explaination for the thigs I described yesterady. I say mention because it would be impossible to teach, due to a lack of material. There is none. So why mention something that has no proof, at all?
Increasingly the public school is what losing what focus they may have had with the muddling of social promotion, social relevancy the inability to teach fundamentals and a host of other issues. With the introduction of ID as a precursor to evolution can we not say “we have no idea how things occurred, but some people believe etc…”, that in and of itself may give true relevancy to our own existance within the great expanse. Might it not even compel some to seek answers that science cannot give, in hopes that science may offer those answers. How are we to develop interest if we pretend we already know the answers. I don’t look at ID as being opposed to evolution, but an explanation as to how evolution was started, not necessarily of life on earth, but the evolution of the universe.
One, may insist that is not the place for philosophy, but it seems the more we learn, the lines that divide disciplines become more blurred. Is there any distinction between chemistry and biology? Biology is just a sub field of chemistry. Do we use astronomy to explain the impetus of the earth and therefore life on earth? Should we tell students “if you want to learn anymore you have to wait until you can take astronomy”? Which goes back to the purpose of schools, should they be an institution where people go to learn “this happened on this day, that happened on that day, this happened this many eons ago and then this happened”? Or should schools attempt to foster an environment which pushes for the ability to think. Which is a far cry from just learning different theories and reciting from memory. I have no doubts that if we encourage this ability, the thirst for knowledge would follow.
1:46 pm
I’ve had just about all I can take of this uniformed, head in the sand drivel. Not a single comment poster, nor the author of this blog entry, of whom I am a regular reader, has obviously bothered to take the time to evaluate any real evidence for Intelligent Design theory, and neither have they taken an objective look at the evidence for or against either theory. Every statement regarding ID theory on this page is based on the supposition that it cannot be true because it doesn’t jive with what “I” know of scientific thought on the matter, no matter how uninformed. Assumption of validity is made based on claims of evidence, or a lack thereof, for one theory or another, or based entirely on “evidence” that has been gathered and posited by one WHO ALREADY SUPPOSES THEIR THEORY IS TRUE.
A simple google of intelligent design… (5 minutes, in fact):
“The main scientific objection to the GTE [General Theory of Evolution] is not that changes occur through time, and neither is it about the size of the change (so we would discourage use of the terms micro- and macro-evolution). The key issue is the type of change required — to change microbes into men requires changes that increase the genetic information content, from over half a million DNA ‘letters’ of even the ‘simplest’ self-reproducing organism to three billion ‘letters’ (stored in each human cell nucleus). Nothing in Lerner’s paper (or anywhere else) provides a single example of functional new information being added. To claim that mere change proves information-increasing change can occur is like saying that because a merchant sells goods, he can sell them for a profit. The origin of information is a major problem for the GTE”
http://answersingenesis.org/news/Lerner_resp.asp
...provides a number of examples of sound scientific reasoning that draws into question an Ape to Man evolution as proposed by Darwin and, more vehemently, by his followers. THAT IS NOT TO SAY THAT ALL EVIDENCE PERTAINING TO SPECIATION AND CONTINUALLY EVOLVING LIFEFORMS IS WITHOUT MERIT. Life does, in fact, evolve all the time and every true scientist who believes in Intelligent Design understands this fact. Mainstream scientific observations on the changes witnessed in lifeforms on this planet is fully compatible with the theory of Intelligent Design. If anyone here had bothered to research this, they would understand that fact.
Stop throwing everyone who believes in Intelligent Design into a pre-judged contempt bucket, relegating any intelligent discussion of the Hallowed Religion of Darwinism to a back-corner, night-time ethics class.
I can provide links to studied, PEER-REVIEWED, journals and papers that INTELLIGENTLY discuss why ID theory and what we know of biological processes are COMPLEMENTARY and not exclusive to one another. But something tells me no one would be interested in that, since these resources are readily available. Maybe it’s just that some people are so pissed off that anyone would suggest that ID be taught in schools, they don’t have any desire to understand why.
Since all scientific study relating to our biological origins is pure conjecture (no one was there to witness it, so everything has to be surmised through cause and effect), all scientific evidence must be viewed through some lens to be accurately placed in context. For the Darwinian, the fossil record evinces Ape-to-Man evolution, for the Creationist, it has the opposite effect. Evidence can be interpreted to support both, but the fact that a fossil exists in the ground is neutral, and doesn’t support a conclusion on its own, just because it exists (how did it get there? how long ago? why?).
It’s simply a matter of which filter you’d rather view your scientific evidence through. ID theory is not only scientifically tenable, but well-supported through modern, objective, peer-reviewed, scientific work, by people who have those 3 little coveted letters behind their name, just to make sure. To make a statement that ID is not supportable or compatible with modern scientific thought is to make that statement in complete ignorance of the totality of the research both for and against ID theory.
But to some people, that’s enough. In that case, have a nice day.
2:31 pm
While I believe that the facts of my previous comment are, indeed, accurate, I also feel that my passion for searching for the Truth, my tenacity in not wanting some dogmatic ideologue force-feed me their own interpretations, makes me go over the line of simple civility at times. While I was vehemently attacking the NOTIONS, CONCEPTS, and THOUGHTS expressed, I displaced some of that anger onto the individuals, instead of containing it to the issue at hand. For that I apologize. I meant no personal offense at any one individual, but at the collective misunderstanding that has arisen regarding Intelligent Design theory due simply to lack of understanding, lack of research on the part of individuals, and a certain reluctance to discuss spiritual matters in the context of science.
Again, I apologize for the harsh tone. It was neither justified, nor acceptable.
3:17 pm
Rick: thanks for the well written post. It’s good to see a conservative that does not support “uniformed, head in the sand drivel”. I like this very practical approach to the issue. You are dead right about our need to advance the science curriculum rather than regress it.
To all those people that responded negatively to Mr. Moran’s post: ID is NOT science. Pointing out problems with more traditional theories is fine. It is not a theory in itself. Furthermore, identifying some complex aspect of the universe, be it in biology, physics or cosmology and declaring “this is too complex for anything but intelligent design” is simply giving up finding the actual truth of the universe. It is not science. Also, it is by nature, not falsifiable. How does one prove that some aspect of the universe was NOT designed? One cannot.
Let’s posit that the universe was designed by an intelligence. Also, suppose this intelligence designed things such that there are characteristics of the universe that could not arise by any means other than that design. Nonetheless, there exist processes in biology, physics and cosmology that continue to operate upon matter and energy, changing things. Let’s dub the result of such processes “evolutionâ€. How do we analyze the universe in order to differentiate the designed elements from the evolved? Science. How do we tell the difference between a designed element and an evolved element for which we have yet to fully describe the processes that brought about it’s evolution? We cannot unless the element is in fact evolved and we eventually more fully describe it’s causal processes. Science and reason are our only tools to do. When one declares an element to be designed, further analysis is blocked (at least for those that agree with the designed assessment). This is the end of science with regard to the element.
Thus, even if the universe were designed and done so in the way assumed above, yielding to ID throws up road-blocks to further discovery. It is far better, even in a designed universe, to continue on the road of science.
The tools of science and reason have brought us a long way from the cave and savannah. The tools of myth have brought us the flat earth, the earth as the center of the universe, creationism and now ID. Religion has brought some people comfort and a sense of place & community. That’s great. However, whenever people have attempted to describe the physical universe though the filter of faith, they have been wrong. This has been happening for as long as we humans (and our ancestor species) have been capable of reason. Let’s continue with the science and leave the mythology in the past.
3:27 pm
Intelligent Design & Science: The Debate Continues
Clearly, “Intelligent Design” is a very divisive topic in Republican circles. I intend to do my own longish contribution soon, but in the meantime, here’s a couple of more takes on the matter, from Ryan Bonneville at the Big Tent Blog, and Rick Mora…
3:34 pm
I heard on the radio today that later in life Darwin disputed his own research and admitted he’d made mistakes. How come this has not been mentioned.
4:55 pm
ID could certainly be taught in Sunday School classes, but following George Bush’s lead on any of his convictions is a very dangerous path. You’re following a blind man.
5:20 pm
Nancy Coshatt:
I remember reading that he was on his death bed and he was also Catholic. I speculate that fear of god, excommunication, and potential damnation influenced his decision.
12:52 am
Darwinism spawned a great number of individuals who used its theories for political purposes. They have created a huge edifice on it to which we are supposed to pay hommage. One only read Margaret Sanger’s works to realize how crazy she was despite the supposedly “scientific” basis of her work.
Our future competiveness will be based on the ability to examine theories and facts and decide for ourselves what is valid and true and what is pseudo science. To proclaim one and deny all others is what the Taliban is about.
I’ve always been told that you can tell false prophets by the fruit they bear. If one believes in evolution why fear the teaching of another doctrine unless of course it cannot complete in the market place of ideas.
As Einstein said, “God does not play dice with the universe.”
8:11 am
The claim that the complexity of the world is not explainable via evolutionary theory is really remarkable. Let’s think about what this means:
Because I personally cannot imagine how the complex interactions of adaptations, over vast periods of time, could lead to the complexity I see in the world, it must be due to an intelligent designer.
The notion that my human imagination may simply be unable to formulate the necessary chains of evolutionary adaptation to create the complexity we see is dismissed without comment. Hey, if I, a totally untrained evolutionary theorist, can’t imagine how an eye evolved, there must be a designer somewhere who did it – there’s no other answer.
It is also not possible that I lack an understanding of the multiplying effect of thousands upon thousands of generational evolutionary changes. I’m good with big numbers, so I’m sure I really understand what this means and have fully addressed every possiblity in my imagination.
It does indeed take tremendous hubris, does it not, to postulate that if my magnificent intellect cannot understand something, that a divine force must be involved?
Here’s an idea. I think the Bernoulli equation (a theoretical description of flow) claims that pressure decreases on the top side of an airfoil because the velocity of the air is higher over the curved surface. This give the wing it’s “lift”. But that’s really just a “theory”. My theory is that some intelligent traveller spirit wants me to get from Boston to LA in five hours.
Because my theory cannot be disproved, it should be taught in my local high school right alongside Bernoulli. Right after the ID course is done. The legitimacy of both claims is pretty equivalent.
9:10 am
And Humans think they’re smart…
Rick Moran over at Rightwing Nuthouse has a followup to his previous IE vs. Evolution post.
11:13 am
Excellent writing. I’ve cited your articles in my blog as the place to catch up on this ID brew-ha-ha. http://mediaspin.com/blog/?p=86
Keep up the good work! – HG
11:14 am
Excellent Post and equally excellent set of comments – Kudos to y’all.
From all this sturm und drang one can conceive of a coordinate from Creationism out to Scientific Evolution to visualize our developmental past. Then in between somewhere drop in Intelligent Design as an attempt to patch up differences and smooth the transitional bump. No wait, that doesn’t work very well—different categories of concepts and embarrassing contradictions. !@#$%^&*
OK start again. Problem is we’re mostly dealing with folks who essentially believe the Genesis Creation story (and there are other such ‘myths’) while rejecting the secular mutterings of Evolution ‘Theory.’ OR We are seeing the Science of Evolution (within Biology) churning along the experimental route while discounting as childish those religious nuts’ beliefs. Intelligent Design really can’t bridge this gap, indeed only intensifies the gulf.
My experience: I remember well decades ago when a fundamentalist Christian type of colleague (patent lawyer) and I, a Catholic and Caltech bred chemical engineer, went backpacking in the high Sierra. Imagine racking out in sleeping bags, looking up into the stars and discussing Creationism vs. Evolution. I drove him nuts positing the reasonableness of both – concurrently. “Not in the Bible,” sayeth he. OK, sez I, but God is a clever Guy and imagine the elegance of setting Creation up like a big ol’ partial differential equation. Set the Initial Conditions (Big Bang?) and the Boundary Conditions (daren’t presume here) and let the equation run through time – but maybe, here ‘n’ there, perturb the system with a shot of self-consciousness and eventually ‘soul.’ That is elegance!
A French Jesuit-Scientist, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was able to capture these concepts in a marvelous fusion of evolutionary science (paleontology) and theologically informed philosophical speculation. His seminal work is “The Phenomenon of Man.”
This work outlined a sweep of ongoing creation, of a developing universe. In particular, he speculated on the progression of an inanimate earth to the generation of simple life and then the growth of cognition and finally the ultimate complexity of spiritualization. From alpha to omega, Himself (Herself?). This is indeed the flight of time’s arrow, pointedly urging onward the upright ape, scampering up-slope to human heights and embracing ultimately beatific holiness and the union of all creation with God. Now, that is quite a mouthful and mindful!
And get this, boys and girls, we see here no animosity between Creation and Evolution, but by thinking outside the box Teilhard de Chardin has encompassed both and taken them to a higher level. Unfortunately atheists and agnostics deprive themselves of the big picture.
9:41 pm
Cap’n Wolff Larsen,
That was a very impressive post! Thank you for bringing actual facts to the discussion. Emotion tends to rule this discussion (for reasons that will be left unsaid), hmmm…
10:40 pm
Thank you Rick, for launching this valuable debate, and the other commentators. I especially thank folks like Jay, Thomas (really spot on, Tom!), Cap’n Wolff, and my colleague Bergbikr, who held firm and argued their reasonable points against the buffets and spitting from those who dismiss ID as kookish at best, and scientific blasphemy at worst.
I am a molecular biologist, an honorary medical geneticist, and a dedicated Roman Catholic, who sees Genesis stories as just that: valuable myths told to Man by God about his origins, the right story at the right time. (Plenty of other cultures have their parallel creation stories, and all in context.) What has unfolded as Scientific Objectivity vis a vis Man’s growing capacity to understand his own vast domain called Universe has, basically since the enlightenment (give or take), increasingly striven to deny God a role in this Universe other than perhaps a silent observer. (Though Darwin and Einstein, the two fathers of 20th Century science, were fierce believers, if I’m not mistaken.)
To deny God a role in Creation is, for a Believer, illogical. And, there are ever so many believers out there… so what to do? Simply find that all believers must be illogical? Are we all wrong, because there is no “objective” proof of God’s existence? (Yea, and I’d like to see some objective proof for String Theory, or it’s latest mathematical enabler, Membrane Theory.) Or shall we believers simply hush up, go underground, pretend there is no God when it comes to Science?
Methinks we who care about this issue should, as Bergbikr suggests, go read Teilhard. Me also thinks, as Rick does, that biomedical science is clearly the very backbone of our economy ca. 21st Century.
However, as a scientist I see utterly no threat from ID. The argument that fundamentalist zealots will undermine science education is hogwash. Science is about being excited by your world and wanting to learn more. Both my children are terribly fascinated with their world, as my wife and I were as kids, and we both read plenty of Bible Stories as children… as ours do now.
Maybe it’s because I’m a Believer that I have faith in Mankind’s power to put the puzzle together in the ways that are necessary to cure cancers, better understand what genetics are behind predisposition to heart disease and stroke, help the Parkinson patient to walk again, create bioprocessors far faster than silicon chips, engineer crops to feed a hungry third world (if the freaking moonbats will let us do it, that is!).
And improbable as it may seem to some, I guarantee it’s true that none of this future technological glory will be threatened or precluded by a belief that God Himself intervened with that last, crucial step that got those monkeys to figure out that the bone was a tool, after all. Because that’s what I see this whole argument is about, after all: becoming human. And human pride.
Do I resent those who have summarily dismissed me and my brethren as ignoramii? Not really. The intellectual challenge is fun (more so when free of insults, but no matter). Rather, I am cheered to imagine God smiling down, watching with love and pride as we little humans, with all our egos, pick around His wondrous creation and piece the puzzle together, in between bickering.
I’m also pleased to know of so many biologists, physicians, chemists, engineers, and mathematicians who are Believers and even still don’t let it get in the way of their goal: to be the very best they can be at pushing back the frontiers of the Scientific Enterprise.
7:10 am
[...] SHUT YOUR YAP!” (Started it all off; 103 comments and counting.) 3 Aug 2005: “ [...]
4:06 pm
The Hissy Fit Over Intelligent Design
What is the problem? Learning, especially about science, includes the free and open exchange of information and ideas. There is nothing wrong with including some philosophical debates as the Theory of Evolution will never answer every question.
10:25 pm
Neo-Darwinian Evolution: Dead as A Hammer
I admit that I got a little pissed off the other day when I commented on a post over at the RightWingNutHouse on the continuing debate over President Bush’s desire to see Intelligent Design taught in public school alongside evolutionary theory.
I …
5:10 am
[...] ialog on Evolution There’ve been a lot of words flying around here and at [...]
10:35 am
[...] amp; Spiritual04 Aug 2005 08:07 am
Intelligent Design in Translation
The writer at [...]