Invoking The Voyagers Against Id Options

[ljk4-1]

Cornell President Rawlings Condemns Intelligent Design

Drawing from sources ranging from Cornell's founders to Voyager
space missions, Interim President Hunter R. Rawlings III condemned
the push to teach intelligent design in public schools Friday. The
attack came during the president's State of...

http://www.cornellsun.com/vnews/display.v/...4/435c7762cf891


"The desire to understand the world and the desire to reform it are the two great engines of progress." - Bertrand Russell

[djellison]

Eeek - not sure I like where this thread will end up going, but let's see what happens. Play nice boys

Doug

[OWW]

Play nice boys

Is this nice enough?

Story

Once upon a time there was an astonomer. Peering Long and hard through his telescope, he noticed strange lines on the planet Mars. To him, this network of straight lines looked very artificial and could only be of Intelligent Design! The people loved the many Books he wrote on the Designers' grand plan to fight a drought of Biblical proportions.

Years later scientists discovered that the astronomer had been tricked by his own eyes. The lines were an optical illusion! No canals on the martian surface! Only craters. The scientists said the craters were made by meteors, not Martians. The people were very disappointed, because they liked the story in the astronomer's Books better.

But then some of the people started to see a pattern in the Rows of Craters and Hills. And some of these hills were shaped like pyramids and even a face! Surely this could only have been Designed by Intelligent martians!

The scientists tried to explain that these shapes often form naturally when hills Erode, but the people didn't want to believe that and accused the scientists of hiding the truth! They wanted science books to include the real story of how the face was Created. The scientists said they didn't like the idea of teaching pseudoscience and resisted. The people were very Creative and claimed the martians used Erosion to Create the pyramids. The people and scientists continued arguing for years.

But in the end, history proved the people right. In 2032 the remains of a obviously very Intelligent martian were found on Mars:

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[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

Is this nice enough? 

[i]Story

Once upon a time there was an astonomer. Peering Long and hard through his telescope, he noticed strange lines on the planet Mars. To him, this network of straight lines looked very artificial and could only be of Intelligent Design! The people loved the many Books he wrote on the Designers' grand plan to fight a drought of Biblical proportions.

Thank you OWW and helvick I though I was alone on this topic


The problem of Mars channels is not the same thing than Intelligen Design. Intelligent Design is the idea that the world was designed by a divine intelligence, a theory which is not yet proven today, so that it is a bit of irrationnal to "believe" in it. But it still remains as a bit of intuition. May the poet be able to find things that science cannot?

The problem of Mars channels was though at the epoch as an evidence of Intelligent Life on Mars, an hypothesis which was legitimate one century ago, but which is completelly disproven today, as the channels turned to be only optical illusions.

The face on Mars was never seriously considered as an evidence of Intelligent Life on Mars: it is a nice and poetical curiosity.

I like very much the story of His Noodliness, as it explains well how dogmatic thinking justifies itself, what is sometimes called circular thinking. But it do not really settle many questions such as a purpose of life, purpose that we have to find in our hearts, for instance loving each others. Dogmatic materialists do not see this (or laugh at it to protect themselves of taking any commitment). Sensitive people see this. Honest people try to put this in practice. Dogmatic religious nuts grasp on it.

Doug, is my sandcastle nicer than OWW's???

[dvandorn]

...Intelligent Design is the idea that the world was designed by a divine intelligence, a theory which is not yet proven today, so that it is a bit of irrationnal to "believe" in it...

Now, here is the crux of the issue. Intelligent Design is *not* a theory. It is a statement of *faith*. And, by definition, a statement of faith *cannot* be proven. It must be taken as truth, even though it is not possible to prove.

As such, ID is not, cannot be, and will never be a theory. It must either be accepted on faith, or not. As it can *never* be proven (as with any matter of faith), it cannot *ever* undergo tests of proof, and therefore cannot be a theory.

Period.

End of discussion.

Now, the reason why some people here in the U.S. want to have ID taught as science, when absolutely no stretch of scientific process can make it such -- that's another matter. The reasons behind it are the stuff of what Doug doesn't want this board degenerating into... i.e., politics. But, no matter how energetically some people may wave their arms in support of their point, ID simply is not, cannot be, and never will be a scientific theory, or *any* kind of theory -- not as long as its basis is a matter of faith.

-the other Doug