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aunt dottie
Posts: 2
Joined: Jun 2005
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January 28, 2006 11:40 AM
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Some scientists spend their lives digging in the dirt hoping they will come across an artifact, some shard of pottery or a stone chipped into an arrowhead. When they do they exclaim, "Look, man was here long years ago!" They know that these things did not occur by chance. Some scientists build billion dollar dishes and spend their lives listening to "noise" from outer space, hoping that they will detect evidence that there are intelligent beings on some far star. If they should, perchance, receive a snippet of the DNA code they might discern a pattern or even recognize its significance, and they would dance with joy at having received a sign of intelligence "out there." Some scientists ponder and experiment until they discover the laws of the physical universe�laws of light, motion, gravity, and stuff like that. They appreciate the existence of order and predictability. Sometimes the laws bear their name and they receive awards for discovering them. But what about the lawmaker? Scientists, it seems, are perfectly willing to recognize order and purpose when they can attribute it to other humans. Who would believe that Mount Rushmore was an accidental occurrence? But when the order is on such a grand scale or of such complexity and beauty that it is far beyond what mere humans could ever accomplish, they get all scared inside and say, "No, it must have happened by itself by chance." They are afraid even entertain the idea of intelligent design because it suggests a designer worthy of respect, to whom they might be accountable. They cannot tolerate consideration of a creator behind the whole shebang because they have another religion, called atheism, that they are protecting. There are none so blind as those who will not see.
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spy1
Posts: 26
Joined: May 2004
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February 22, 2006 12:14 AM
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Hello all. One commenter comments that the scientific method by definition cannot include non-material explanations, as if to say that Behe is wrong for criticizing evolutionists for excluding non-material causes. But this is not a valid criticism, because the major tenets of Darwinism are not arrived at by the scientific method. Therefore it is not justified in ignoring all non-material explanations based on the scientific method. Evolutionary theory is PRIMARILY speculative and theoretical, not experimental. Why? It's central assertion is that more or less random, purely material processes account for the origins of life and of new species. Because it is trying to explain changes that occurred so long ago and over such long periods of time...or that may be occurring now, but occur at such an slow pace... there is no way to track, or even to identify and prove the existence of, these changes. It's all very nice to combine compounds and see what happens, and to make statistical models to predict what would or could happen, but that is far removed from an experiment that actually proves something about the first living beings.
Or let's say I look at all the fossils of different hominids, and I see a similarity between the hominids. And I might decide it looks like there are changes in a kind of pattern over time, if I lay these bones out in a sequence based on my estimates of their ages. I theorize that the later hominids actually came from the earlier ones. But these events occurred 50,000 years ago. How am I going to come up with an experiment to test this theory? Impossible. They're all dead. And it will be another 50,000 years before any of us morph into another species, if that's even what happens. It seems I'm stuck. This idea we all have that the skeletons of these hominids line up in such a way as to prove that one descended from the other, and anyone who disagrees is an idiot...this is pure myth. My point though: this isn't the scientific method. No experiment has been conducted. Beyond that, there really are some problems in the theory...but for now I want to only say that nothing but ideology and fear of a non-material explanation can explain the hysteria some scientists scientists or other interested parties exhibit when you question evolutionary theory or dare to suggest that overwhelming order and apparent design suggests a Designer. It's just nuts. I think we all know that such folks would not get so agitated and insulting if they didn't feel threatened in some way by the prospect of God not only existing, but actually doing something in the universe. If a scientist says, "God may exist, but that's not something science address," that is one thing. We can discuss or debate that. But when a scientist says, "I have no explanation, but I know that whatever the explanation is, in the end it will be an explanation that doesn't need God" you can know something is wrong.
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