Comments on: More irony from the ID creationist crowd

By: Firings and censorships in academia: More prevalent for evolutionists who offend the religious? « my cat ate my homework

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 03:21:00 +0000

[...] and I’ve also been alerted to the unfortunate case of Terry Gray, a Christian biochemist whose negative review of Phillip Johnson’s Darwin on Trial sparked [...]

By: Chiefley

Chiefley — Sun, 04 May 2008 23:33:12 +0000

What Josh fails to realize is that IC is not an argument for ID. It is a negative argument for ToE. That something is irreducibly complex only proves that it could not have evolved. It doesn’t prove anything about Intelligent Design unless you fall for the false duality con.

(False duality con: If not A, then B. It is false because it assumes there cannot be a C, D, E, etc. In this case, the con is “If something cannot have evolved, it must have been designed.”)

Ken Miller falsifies IC in order to defuse the challenge to ToE, not to falsify ID.

Secondly, there has never been a biological structure that has been shown to be IC.

As for Specified Complexity, SC has never been applied to an organism or part of an organism with any degree of success. I know of no organism that has been proposed by anyone to be SC.

By: People Expelled for their views « Dracil’s BlogJournal

People Expelled for their views « Dracil’s BlogJournal — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 19:39:43 +0000

[...] Murphy – fired from her Seminary because she called ID poor theology and so stupid it wasn’t worth her time. Terry Gray – convicted of heresy by his church for suggesting that humans had primate ancestors in [...]

By: Pete Dunkelberg

Pete Dunkelberg — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 02:59:04 +0000

IF falsifiable not! This means that the basid position – the Designer did it – is not falsifiable. It does not mean creationists are somehow unable to make false statements. They are able. Willing too.
http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2007/04/the-silliest-th-3.html

By: Harq al-Ada

Harq al-Ada — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:28:33 +0000

Ever heard of flying squirrels, DaveM? Your argument from incredulity does not impress anyone.

By: terryt

terryt — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 05:07:51 +0000

OK people. Let’s take Josh Caleb’s comment, “Certain features of biology … exhibit designed properties … that are only known to be the product of intelligent agents or intelligent causation as opposed to unguided processes” at face value.

Surely, Caleb, you should be able to tell us how these features came to be designed. Watch out though. It’s a gigantic leap to just tell us they must have been designed by anything remotely similar to any Judeo-Christian-Muslim God. Unless you can supply us with evidence?

By: DaveM

DaveM — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 01:24:52 +0000

There is a previously unknown heat resistant life form which lives in the sun. You can’t falsify it, but that doesn’t make it true. DNA is a code or blueprint which contains millions of pieces of information. Calling it a chemical is like calling a blueprint for a nuclear submarine a piece of paper.I still can’t figure out how a mouse born with webs between it’s fingers had a competitive edge on the other ones. Not only that, all it’s offspring inherited it. Then, over eons the webs kept getting bigger and bigger, against all odds, until they became wings. While at the same time the musculature and skeletal structure also deformed so as to enhance and enable the capability for flight. They have found fossils of bats dating back 52 million years, but none of the web footed mice that kept getting longer fingers and bigger webs. Maybe a mouse gave birth to a bat, and it mated with a mouse and all it’s genes were dominant.

By: anonymous

anonymous — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 00:53:48 +0000

A secular institution that proclaims itself to be a center of open minded inquiry fires someone for being out of line with orthodoxy, and gets criticized for it.

A religious institution, unabashedly dedicated to a theological position, fires someone for not adhering to that position. This is hypocrisy?

By: dogscratcher

dogscratcher — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 21:04:28 +0000

Josh,
The reason Ken Miller et al take the time to show that individual examples of IC are mistaken is to actually show how the concept of IC isn’t falsifiable.

If it were falsifiable, simply showing that one instance of it is wrong would falsify the concept. But since at it’s core, IC is simply a logical argument from ignorance (a logical fallacy), while individual instances can be shown to be wrong, unless there is nothing left undiscovered, it can’t be falsified in principle.

Paley thought the eye was IC (though he didn’t use the term), he was wrong, and now the more sophisticated creationists don’t use the eye as an example of IC. Behe doesn’t talk much about the blood clotting cascade anymore even though he thought that was a great example of an IC system because it’s been shown to be “reducible.” But neither of these examples has falsified the concept of IC.

Because any instance where there is micro-biological uncertainty about how a process or structure evolved can be plugged into the IC mold, until Biology becomes a “complete” science (no time soon), IC can’t even in principle be falsified. Even then, the argument from ignorance can simply be applied to some other aspect of empirical reality that isn’t well understood, and those guys can sell some more books.

By: Anne Gilbert

Anne Gilbert — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 21:04:02 +0000

I am a writer of what I call a Great Medieval Science Fiction Masterpiece. I have a blog that (mostly) is about the writing process in various forms, but also deals with some human evolution issues from time to time. The blog is called TheWriter’s Daily Grind, and is located at:

http://www.thewritersdailygrind.blogspot.com

The reason I’m writing this, however, is to let you all know that I’m linking this blog to mine. I am extremely impressed by it, just on general principles. And besides, on other forums, I’m constantly dealing with people who think ID “explains things” better than what they choose to call “Darwinism”(where is the Church of St. Darwin, pray tell?) In any case I’m linking the blog, because there’s more to life than writing(even if you’re a Starving Writer)!!
Anne G