Video: Jindal supports teaching of intelligent design
posted at 1:37 pm on June 16, 2008 by Allahpundit
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Qualified by the usual caveat, of course. He won’t say which theory he favors (beyond acknowledging some unknown role of the creator), but clearly he’s sufficiently sold on ID that he thinks it merits being laid in front of kids as an alternative to evolution. Which is a dodge, really, in the same way that the Truthers’ irritating “just asking questions” defense is a dodge: It uses the spirit of free inquiry as a way to avoid the threshold question of how credible any theory has to be to end up in the curriculum. Doubtless there are far left parents (and far right, per the Paulnuts) who wouldn’t mind seeing competing theories of 9/11 taught in history class so that kids can “make up their own minds,” but that ain’t likely to happen. Or actually, given the orientation of teachers’ unions, maybe it is. Stay tuned!
The politics of this issue are convoluted — majorities want both evolution and creationism taught, but roughly twice as many voters are less likely to vote for creationist politicians than more likely — so Jindal’s non-answer is the safe way to play it. But can we please, at least, lay off the federalist rhetoric he uses here until it’s settled whether ID violates the Establishment Clause or not? It’s a fine conservative idea that local school boards should have more power than state boards or the DOE, but constitutional violations are constitutional violations all the way down the chain, federalism or no. Jindal surely knows that too, which I guess makes that his second dodge.
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I think many people mistake the various proposed origins of life and the universe put forth by scientists as “faith”. The difference is that all of the scientific hypotheses you will see about such things are grounded in natural descriptions of things. Scientists don’t take the “Big Bang”, global warming, or evolution on “faith”, but rather on evidence that has been gathered coupled with the detailed description of a possible mechanism. There’s nothing supernatural about these theories, so they qualify as science, even if some areas are more solid than others. As soon as you bring a supernatural god into this, it no longer qualifies as science.
Big S on June 16, 2008 at 2:23 PM
tell me why the tuatara, with the fastest evolution ever seen at the DNA level, is a ‘living’ dinosaur? in other words, micro evolution does not add up to macro evolution. there is no evolution.
of course nothing could disprove evolution to the darwiniacs.
right4life on June 16, 2008 at 2:23 PM
What you are saying is true for microevolution, but not one person has observed macroevolution, the evolution of a new species. The fossil record suggests that this occurs, yet there are gaps in the fossil record.
Exit question: Where did DNA come from? Why is it that all living things on earth use DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) as there genetic material? You would expect to see other life forms with something or than DNA as their genetic material. Viruses don’t count. They are technically not alive (and molecular parasites, too!).
Dr.Cwac.Cwac on June 16, 2008 at 2:23 PM
but you don’t have the brains to dispute me. I’ve already made you look foolish on this topic, apparently you’re masochistic!!
truth hurts doesn’t it?
right4life on June 16, 2008 at 2:24 PM
Right; go on living in your Amish 1840s. The rest of us have a future to live in.
Grow Fins on June 16, 2008 at 2:25 PM
Like being elected president? Doesn’t President Bush have his concerns?
albo on June 16, 2008 at 2:25 PM
and yet you cannot dispute what I say. all you can do is try to ridicule me. but you are the one who is proven to be ridiculous. and laughable. can’t even defend your hairygod darwin!!
right4life on June 16, 2008 at 2:26 PM
I agree that this issue is a loser. It just makes you like idiots and alienates potential political allies when you insist that a fairytale like ID belongs anywhere near a school. I think much less of Jindal now.
Ars Moriendi on June 16, 2008 at 2:26 PM
I absolutely agree with short-term evolution. Even long-term in most instances. But the fact that things evolve in no way dismisses that ID might be fact as well. The “big bang” as a chance happening is only one part of evolutionary theory.
I think that by purposefully excluding one theory over another is against it’s educational purpose in the quest for the truth. And ID is a theory accepted by millions of people worldwide, so it’s not some “out there” or crackpot assumption.
JetBoy on June 16, 2008 at 2:27 PM
do you really think the darwiniacs can answer any questions? they end up like Dawkins in expelled, looking foolish.
right4life on June 16, 2008 at 2:27 PM
Who created the “eggs” inside that goo, from which the first signs of life originated?
One hell of a mistake?
Or did someone plan it?
Chakra Hammer on June 16, 2008 at 2:27 PM
It is DOWNRIGHT embarrassing how ignorant some are, and that they come from my political party.
muyoso on June 16, 2008 at 2:28 PM
Also a good point. Though I don’t know if it’s feasible to completely break down and privatize public education anymore. The system is pretty entrenched. Of course, I’m very open to alternatives like charter schools and vouchers.
We really should be honest about acknowledging the ideological perspective of public education.
TheUnrepentantGeek on June 16, 2008 at 2:28 PM
The creationism thing is not the issue that will doom Jindal’s national political career. Once the public finds out that the former health commisioner believes that exorcism works as cancer therapy, he won’t go anywhere.
Big S on June 16, 2008 at 2:28 PM
@ bonnie_ on June 16, 2008 at 2:11 PM
No, its taught as a theory, since it has not been proven either way. Bone up on how science works. We dont just make up a story and stick to it like religioh.
muyoso on June 16, 2008 at 2:29 PM
Yes, lots of things could. A hominid skeleton in cambrian strata, for one.
Another question: Why would God, er, The Designer, create micro-evolution but not macro-evolution? And why did he take so long until he created humans, the pinacle of creation, instead of messing around with bacteria for a few billion years and dinosaurs for a few hundred million?
albo on June 16, 2008 at 2:29 PM
ID will eventually survive the irrational hatred, and a synthesis between descent with modification and ID will win out in the end. It’s already producing results. Real results.
Whether ID gets taught in public schools is not terribly relevant. Like water, truth eventually finds a way through poorly constructed obstacles.
spmat on June 16, 2008 at 2:30 PM
yeah it is laughable to think there are darwiniacs in the republican party. its like the 9/11 truthers
right4life on June 16, 2008 at 2:30 PM
@ albo on June 16, 2008 at 2:29 PM
Its useless to try and use logic on them, they are devoid of it.
muyoso on June 16, 2008 at 2:30 PM
I certainly agree with this. For those of you equating ID and Creationism, you’re right but mostly wrong. Creationism is a story written in Genesis, something you can easily learn about form your parents or pastor. ID is scientific in nature. Your pastor can’t explain it to you. He hasn’t the proper background. In order to actually learn about it, you need a teacher with at least a background in science.
150 years filled with scandals and outright fabrication. It is science, but that doesn’t mean its 150 years have been free from error.
Esthier on June 16, 2008 at 2:31 PM
The general mechanism (generation of variations + selection, repeat) is the same. If you believe in “microevolution”, there are no grounds for rejecting the plausibility of the mechanism for “macroevolution”.
Big S on June 16, 2008 at 2:31 PM
So, tell me again from whom or where we get those inalienable rights of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness?
Charles Darwin?
Evolution cannot explain creation, and Big Bang had to have an origin. I would suggest that most people who believe in the Biblical account of creation do not think of the seven-day account in Genesis as seven, 24-hour “earthly” days. The media line of “Creation versus science” is also bogus. Science is the study of the creation.
BigD on June 16, 2008 at 2:31 PM
Valid questions, but ID doesn’t offer a scientific alternative. By proposing a supernatural function it doesn’t offer a mechanism for how species are created.
dedalus on June 16, 2008 at 2:31 PM
@ right4life on June 16, 2008 at 2:30 PM
Yes, let us just be a party of COMPLETE ignorance.
muyoso on June 16, 2008 at 2:31 PM
True, but you don’t have Snake. Long live Playstation!
And that’s all I’m willing to contribute to this one.
SouthernDem on June 16, 2008 at 2:31 PM
@ Esthier on June 16, 2008 at 2:31 PM
BS, ID isnt scientific in the least. Every theory they had has been DESTROYED. There is not a single peer reviewed paper on ID. Its NOT science, its creationism.
muyoso on June 16, 2008 at 2:32 PM
But see? You’re asking questions….questions kids in school today cannot ask. Wouldn’t it be a good thing if they could?
JetBoy on June 16, 2008 at 2:33 PM
@ JetBoy on June 16, 2008 at 2:33 PM
School should have NOTHING to do with God. We cannot teach our children about some non existance invisible person as fact. That is the parents job.
muyoso on June 16, 2008 at 2:34 PM
The point is that one theory is empirically falsiable while the other is not, even in theory. Thus one fits into the excepted modern concept of science while the other does not. Thus only one should be taught in science class. To teach ID requires one abandon the modern concept of science in favor of a discredited one.
Also millions believe in creationism too; that hardly confirms its truth and it certainly doesn’t mean it is a scientific concept.
phronesis on June 16, 2008 at 2:34 PM
I believe that is the Catholic church’s position also. Only the “Huckabee types” seem to go coco-for-coco-puffs about it.
MB4 on June 16, 2008 at 2:34 PM
Nobody would argue that. That’s science. Mistakes are made. Frauds come and go. Hypotheses are proposed, and sometimes they fail or are disproved by the weight of further evidence. Then scientists move on to different hypotheses.
But at this point the counterevidence is not there for the abandonment of evolution as a theory of biogenesis.
albo on June 16, 2008 at 2:34 PM
those are ‘fakes’, just like the human with dinosaur tracks, they’re always explained away.
ever write software? apparently not. but with software you want to be able to deal with contingencies. so the variability within a genome is a good design decision. The Designer could have created macro changes out of micro changes, but it doesn’t happen. Darwin makes that claim, but is unable to back it up. why? who knows.
I don’t know, why don’t you ask Him?
right4life on June 16, 2008 at 2:35 PM
soon as they’re only darwiniacs in it, it will be.
right4life on June 16, 2008 at 2:35 PM
Key for me, is that just like Global Warming, if you don’t even talk about the holes in a Theory, you silencing dissent, and thus in the long run, scientific progress.
I have no problem at all with talking about Evolution, or Creationism in school… both should be talked about as competing theories, and then let the students decide where they are in the debate.
One of the things which is NOT taught in school are any dissenting opinions. We are not teaching our kids to think, so much as indoctrinating them into a group think.
Men and Women ARE NOT THE SAME (easily observable fact), and yet its hammered into their heads at school that they are, and any dissenting opinion will get you sent to the Office…
We no longer have rational discourse in the public arena, because both sets of extremists (on either side) so demonize the other, that any rational middle ground is considered the enemy.
As Gump said… “I don’t know, but I think maybe their both right… maybe both are happening at the same time…”
Romeo13 on June 16, 2008 at 2:35 PM
Genuine ID theories are every bit as fragile as scientific theories, in that both can be trumped by hard evidence to the contrary. Genuine ID treads only where science has no hard answers. It’s not Creationism.
RBMN on June 16, 2008 at 2:36 PM
This thread and others like it do an excellent job of pointing up the fact that people fight much harder when they feel threatened.
I wonder how much of that perceived threat is a lack of confidence in what they claim to believe? I’d pose that question for people of all ideological stripes.
TheUnrepentantGeek on June 16, 2008 at 2:36 PM
Another exit question:
Chromosomes contain DNA. DNA codes RNA, which codes proteins that are necessary for an organism to function. But proteins are needed to build Chromosomes from free DNA molecules.
It truly is a chicken and egg paradox.
So how did evolution “create” self-replicating life in the first place?
SPCOlympics on June 16, 2008 at 2:36 PM
Dr.Cwac.Cwac on June 16, 2008 at 2:23 PM
Not if they all evolved from the same origins. You actually just made a halfway-decent argument against your own position here.
DaveS on June 16, 2008 at 2:36 PM
@ right4life on June 16, 2008 at 2:35 PM
Yes, much more ignorant to believe in what you can see, than to believe in what you can’t.
muyoso on June 16, 2008 at 2:36 PM
Y
You’re trying to get in the “let’s teach the controversy” or “let’s teach both.” There is no controversy–ID is not competing theory of life, it’s a religious and political argument. It has no place in science class any more than the study of the Koranic view of man’s creation does.
albo on June 16, 2008 at 2:37 PM
I is you who look foolish and I have repeatedly provided mountains of evidence that refutes every single nutball claim you parrot. You wouldn’t know that since you never read any of it. You are clearly a moron of the first order who wouldn’t recognize a coherent arguement if crawled up your arrogant dump ass and died. Your claim is not difficult to grep.
The bible is science and science is faith blah blah blah.
I suppose that passes for brilliant insight in your trailer park.
ronsfi on June 16, 2008 at 2:37 PM
@ SPCOlympics on June 16, 2008 at 2:36 PM
Appeal to ignorance, logical fallacy. Just because you cannot explain something does not mean its invalid.
muyoso on June 16, 2008 at 2:37 PM
What fascinates me about this issue is the sheer hysteria exhibited by some that, God forbid, the idea that evolution is only a theory and not the only one! What is there to fear about ID that provokes the kinds of comments that I see on this thread?
highhopes on June 16, 2008 at 2:37 PM
I have said before this guy is the real deal.You tell them Bobby
thmcbb on June 16, 2008 at 2:37 PM
How do you empirically validate the existence of the Intelligent Designer?
phronesis on June 16, 2008 at 2:38 PM
So this Designer is not perfect? He has the power to create but not the power to create creatures that are not susceptible to mutations, changes in habitat, etc?
albo on June 16, 2008 at 2:39 PM
Then why do you believe in evolution? you can’t see it, anywhere! such ignorance!
right4life on June 16, 2008 at 2:40 PM
AP wrote:
constitutional violations are constitutional violations all the way down the chain, federalism or no.
As federalism was originally conceived, AP, this is not correct. The Constitution’s authors saw no difficulty with states establishing an official state religion, and several of them did. It wasn’t until the reconstructionist court imposed the 14th Amendment on the South with an eye toward making them toe the line that constitutional doctrine called for imposing the federal constitution on state or local governments. Quite a few of us regard that as tyrannical, and want the original concept of limited federalism restored to the republic.
Beyond that, the notion that a school constitutes a government is just, plain silly. The notion that a scientific hypothesis that just happens to have similarity to some religious dogma somehow violates the establishment clause in a manner that trumps freedom of speech is even sillier. I’m not going to put it past our current Supreme Court to impose some silliness of that sort on us — read Boumediere if you wonder why — but let’s not pretend there’s actually a valid Constitutional concern on the table. There isn’t.
(Unrelated to this topic, please visit my political blog, “Plumb Bob Blog: Squaring the Culture.” Thanks.)
philwynk on June 16, 2008 at 2:40 PM
@ highhopes on June 16, 2008 at 2:37 PM
Because to equate ID with evolution is effing insane. One has millions of pieces of evidence, one has none. One has been under scrutiny for hundreds of years, one crumpled under scrutiny within the first decade. ID is NOT valid, it has been disproven. ID is religion, and it does NOT belong in our schools. If ID was in the schools, why not teach astrology next to astronomy, alchemy next to chemistry?
muyoso on June 16, 2008 at 2:41 PM
Teaching ID…once again…in NO WAY endorses God or gods, or any religious belief. It is what it means….”intelligent design”. It teaches that life was created by some intelligence…not necessarily the Christian God.
JetBoy on June 16, 2008 at 2:41 PM
we could argue about the nature of the designer, if you wish. but why do you try to impose what you think is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ on the Designer? How do you know the Designer didn’t plan it this way?
right4life on June 16, 2008 at 2:41 PM
I’m well aware of that, and have carefully considered and weighed the risks. I still think expanding liberty is the best solution, I know you rarely if ever agree with expanding liberty, particularly if it benefits conservatives, so I’m not surprised you’re opposed.
We need to free up the system, even at the risk of encouraging the kind of problems you’re concerned about. They are very legitimate concerns, but I think the benefits of offering up more liberty to the majority of decent people outweighs the risks of giving the same liberties to a small minority of malicious people.
doubleplusundead on June 16, 2008 at 2:41 PM
You can’t see neutrinos, either, but that doesn’t mean they’re not coursing through your body right now, trillions of them.
albo on June 16, 2008 at 2:42 PM
Except that microevolution can be experimentally demonstrated. Macroevolution has not, nor can it be. Morphological phylogeny, molecular phylogeny, embryology, all of these have produced contradictory “evidence” for macroevolution. Unguided neo-Darwinian descent with modification has been looking for a smoking gun for 150 years, sucking up resources and purging the biological community of dissent. The smoking gun has not been found.
Macroevolution is conjecture. Neo-Darwinism in its purest form has been a 150 year bluff.
spmat on June 16, 2008 at 2:42 PM
the same way an archeologist looks at a rock, and decides if it was a brick in a wall, or just another piece of rubble.
right4life on June 16, 2008 at 2:42 PM
What on earth has ID/evolution got to do with this? Are you trying to claim that this scientist asserts that ID is fundamentally underpinning his techniques for designer enzymes? Perhaps this scientist goes to church – maybe that’s why you feel compelled to stick his brilliance in the “ID” column?
How fraudulent.
LimeyGeek on June 16, 2008 at 2:42 PM
@ right4life on June 16, 2008 at 2:40 PM
I have seen ample evidence for it. I have read thousands of pages of evidence. I can see evidence in different animals, different adaptations. You are an ignorant boob who wants to peddle religion in public schools with a failed theory. You people tried to push creationism in, but once the supreme court smacked your asses down, you came up with this ID theory.
muyoso on June 16, 2008 at 2:42 PM
You can’t know. That’s the point. That’s why ID isn’t science.
phronesis on June 16, 2008 at 2:43 PM
Of course, the archeologist has thousands of years of humans making bricks to base his conclusions upon….
LimeyGeek on June 16, 2008 at 2:43 PM
likewise, how do you know the Designer didn’t plan it to happen via evolution?
albo on June 16, 2008 at 2:43 PM
@ right4life on June 16, 2008 at 2:42 PM
What are you freaking talking about? Did you even go to school?
muyoso on June 16, 2008 at 2:43 PM
I have nothing against teaching children about religions in school. I do, however, have a problem with teaching them such things in science class.
Big S on June 16, 2008 at 2:44 PM
A flat Earth once “fit into the accepted modern concept of science”…but it didn’t make it true.
JetBoy on June 16, 2008 at 2:44 PM
Then why not present astrology in school along with astronomy?
MB4 on June 16, 2008 at 2:45 PM
But the problem I see is that evolution should not be taught at the high school level or lower, except maybe at the AP level, and then only in the context of discussing the similarity of the genetic material of different species.
The topic is too complex for those not practiced in the field, which means pretty much every teacher.
SPCOlympics on June 16, 2008 at 2:46 PM
How do you empirically validate the existence of the Intelligent Designer?
This question indicates that you’ve never actually read any ID literature. Allow me to suggest that you obtain, at the very least, “Darwin’s Black Box” and read at least the introductory chapters, where this question is answered amply.
To give you an insanely easy shortcut, the correct answer is “ID does not attempt to validate the existence of the Intelligent Designer. ID merely posits criteria by which systems might be classified as likely to have been deliberately designed.” The theories authors also explain how a design inference might be falsified.
philwynk on June 16, 2008 at 2:46 PM
Again: That is precisely the point. A flat earth was empirically falisified. You can’t do the same thing with an intelligent designer.
phronesis on June 16, 2008 at 2:46 PM
Don’t be paranoid. Take a deep breath.
MB4 on June 16, 2008 at 2:47 PM
I wouldn’t go that far. I think the issue is that we don’t know, and we currently see no way of being able to possibly know, and that any theory being advanced from such a perspective of zero-knowledge does not provide us with any executable information.
God created everything? OK. What use is that to me? Perhaps OogyBoogie created everything? I’m just as far ahead in gaining an understanding of the world around me. If believing in some supernatural being gives you comfort, great – but it is worthless to me with respect to gaining an informational understanding of reality.
LimeyGeek on June 16, 2008 at 2:48 PM
Creationists tend to muddy the waters when talking about this. As I pointed out above, “school” is not the same thing as “science classes”. There are plenty of classes in which religions and their beliefs are discussed in public schools. However, these are called “social studies” and not “biology”, “physics”, or “chemistry”.
Big S on June 16, 2008 at 2:48 PM
This is the problem with atheists, they think that they are the supreme beings. Just because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled something doesn’t make it so.
BigD on June 16, 2008 at 2:48 PM
you’re just another wacko darwiniac. your ‘evidence’ is what you want to see. moron. go ahead and prove your evolution then since there is so much ‘evidence’ for it. take a bacteria, and evolve it into a multi-cellar life form….you can even name it!! let me know when you’ve done it!!
you atheist people are just peddling your faith by using ’science’.
the supreme fascists you mean. a bunch of liberal wackos just like you.
right4life on June 16, 2008 at 2:49 PM
By showing the existence of irreducible and or specified complexity in a particular phenomenon. It’s a logical exercise, an inference, that we as humans make every day. Our ability to make design inferences is perhaps our most important survival ability.
Whether or not an intelligent designer exists is akin to the question paleontologists and anthropologists ask every day at dig sites: is this thing that I’m brushing a rock or a bone or a piece of pottery? That’s a design inference.
spmat on June 16, 2008 at 2:50 PM
sure did, and given my ability to make you look foolish, and cause you to foam at the mouth, I made it much farther in the educational system than you did!
right4life on June 16, 2008 at 2:51 PM
You’re comparing apples and oranges. Astrology is not an opposing theory to astronomy. People who’ll support any pandering politician because they’re either religeous or atheist are getting the pandering politician they deserve. It seems like many hysterical posters here didn’t bother to watch the clip or read the whole interview. Jindal is saying that if one theory is taught the other should also be taught. Only a zealot would disagree with that concept.
orlandocajun on June 16, 2008 at 2:51 PM
ID doesn’t make any assumption about the designer. nice straw man, but it just shows you cannot argue the issues.
right4life on June 16, 2008 at 2:52 PM
Bioligists can’t do that any more than you could call down God’s wrath on the guy who drives you to 5th grade every morning. It’s clear you have no concept of what evolution is, and should not be arguing it as if you did.
albo on June 16, 2008 at 2:53 PM
Sorry to jump on this statement because I sense you have your doubts about evolution, as you well should. But to say there are gaps in the fossil record is a bizarre understatement.
Not only is the missing link missing, but all stages of missing links are missing in the monkey to man fossil record.
And all of the missing links from one species of animal to another are missing and all the missing links from one species of plant to another are missing. Billions of missing links are missing.
How many missing links have been found so far? …… ZERO is the answer.
Maxx on June 16, 2008 at 2:54 PM
I don’t even have the patience to converse with you, especially seeing as you’ve missed my basic point and cannot seem to muster even the pretense of basic respect towards other people here.
That’s only because no better theory currently exists, either because no one’s trying or no one’s succeeded.
Evolution isn’t even a mathematical probability.
Esthier on June 16, 2008 at 2:54 PM
and why not? since evolution is all in all according to darwiniacs like you! why do you call something ’science’ that cannot be observed or reproduced? sounds like faith to me.
evolution is nothing more than atheism masquerading as science.
right4life on June 16, 2008 at 2:55 PM
If we teach ID, then we should teach the Inuit theory of life. And the Muslim theory. And the Flying Spaghetti Monster theory. And the Zoarastrian theory.
See where this takes you?
albo on June 16, 2008 at 2:55 PM
Yay ID!!!!
Darwin is Hitler and the satanists at National Geographic are trying to steal your soul!
(with apologies to SaintOlaf).
———————————————
Yay Evolution!
You Bible thumpers live in the past and religion starts all wars!
(with apologies to the atheists).
VolMagic on June 16, 2008 at 2:55 PM
Time and resources are finite in school.
“If one theory is taught the other should also be taught” – what about other theories of creation/existence? Shouldn’t they all be taught? At what cost? Should there be any filter applied to sift out the worthless drivel, or should we also cover Jedi Mediclorians?
LimeyGeek on June 16, 2008 at 2:55 PM
Yes it does. It assumes one exists. That’s begging the question.
albo on June 16, 2008 at 2:55 PM
when you ‘evolve’ some intelligence let us know…
right4life on June 16, 2008 at 2:56 PM
as evolution assumes one does not exist.
right4life on June 16, 2008 at 2:57 PM
You can’t see neutrinos, either, but that doesn’t mean they’re not coursing through your body right now, trillions of them.
albo on June 16, 2008 at 2:42 PM
Is this what passes for logic in your circle?
His objection was “We don’t observe evolution in nature.” Yours was “We can’t see tiny particles with the naked eye.” Are you suggesting that we can see evolution if we look through a microscope that’s powerful enough?
Or are you perhaps trying to say that we can see the effects of evolution, therefore it’s there? That’s just lame; the effects we’re seeing are explicable by any number of possible theories. The main reason evolution is the most commonly mentioned is that it’s doctrinaire, not that matches what we observe all that well. One of the complaints about evolutionary theory all along, even from its proponents, has been that most of the work on the fossil record goes into explaining why it does not match the evolutionary theory that proponents assert is true; a more robust and unbiased science would work, instead, to develop a theory that actually explains the pattern we observe in fossils. This was the purpose behind Gould’s saltation theory, and behind Denton’s eventual defection from the evolutionist camp.
philwynk on June 16, 2008 at 2:57 PM
JetBoy on June 16, 2008 at 2:44 PM
And a flat earth obviously can be (and was) disproven, empirically and experimentally.
right4life on June 16, 2008 at 2:52 PM
See if you can spot the assumption in that statement.
DaveS on June 16, 2008 at 2:57 PM
Ad hominems for Jesus!
phronesis on June 16, 2008 at 2:58 PM
Gotcha. No, it doesn’t. It is fully compatible with a supreme being, as it doesn’t seek to prove or disprove one and does not include it, or any element of the supernatural, it the theory.
See the Catholic church references upthread.
albo on June 16, 2008 at 2:58 PM
The supreme court has ruled otherwise and if I’m no conservative, then neither was Barry Goldwater and I guess that Eisenhower was not really a General either.
MB4 on June 16, 2008 at 2:58 PM
right4life on June 16, 2008 at 2:57 PM
No… it doesn’t.
DaveS on June 16, 2008 at 2:58 PM
ID is a contemporary repackaging of a classic ad ignorantum argument for the existence of a supreme being.
We can’t explain certain things, therefore there must be a god.
Once upon a time we couldn’t explain a sunrise. Who knows what we’ll be able to explain tomorrow? As we push the darkness of ignorance back farther and father, the religious zealots will simply say “but how did that get here huh? Gotcha! There must be a god!”
Painful to witness.
LimeyGeek on June 16, 2008 at 2:59 PM
morons for darwin!
right4life on June 16, 2008 at 2:59 PM
BTW, as some of you will soon discover, it is nearly futile to explain logical fallacy to some of these people. About half of the commenters at Hot Air are logical fallacy machines.
DaveS on June 16, 2008 at 3:00 PM
right4life on June 16, 2008 at 2:56 PM
Oh come on. I was just summerizing the arguments so far (and pretty much how they will continue). This isn’t the first ID/biology thread i’ve seen. Heh.
VolMagic on June 16, 2008 at 3:00 PM
Another ad hominem. You’re just proving my point.
phronesis on June 16, 2008 at 3:02 PM
my previous post summarizes darwiniac arguments.
right4life on June 16, 2008 at 3:02 PM
The amount of knowledge we can ever have is finite. The amount of knowledge avaible in the univser is infinte. I think you’ll find that any finitie number divided by infinty is 0. Yay ID!!!!!
VolMagic on June 16, 2008 at 3:02 PM
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