Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Religion & Law Blogs -> Thoughts in a Haystack
(866) 635-2689 for Personal Injury or (866) 635-9402 for Criminal Defense
Find a Local Lawyer
Divorce (866) 635-6190
Personal Injury (866) 635-2689
Criminal Defense (866) 635-9402
Religion & Law
: Thoughts in a HaystackReading the Bible Doesn't Make You Stupid!
By John Pieret
Many evolutionary biologists seem to think that if you can merely imagine a material force or process that could bring about some biological structure, then it's immediately going to trump intelligent design. But is there actual evidence for the creative power of these material forces? Or is the more compelling evidence on the side of intelligent design? It seems to me that really is where the issue should be.And then Heard evaluates Dembski's claims:
This sounds like a promising beginning, but Dembski does not deliver. He repeatedly claims, but does not demonstrate, that evolutionary biologists rest content with "imagining" evolutionary pathways; he addresses neither the fossil record nor DNA evidence, to name but two sources of data that outline such pathways and provide "actual evidence" for the "material forces" that evolutionary biologists study. Nor does Dembski provide "compelling evidence" in favor of ID. Instead, Dembski tries to set up ID as the preferred fallback position should mainstream biology fail to explain?to Dembski's satisfaction??the evolutionary pathways leading to selected biological structures. To be blunt, Dembski does not really play fair. He asks, "[I]s it reasonable to argue that because we don't understand how the design of biological systems was implemented that it didn't happen by design at all?" (19). Yet Dembski offers precisely this argument against evolutionary biology: "if we don't understand how a given biological system (like the bacterial flagellum) emerged by evolution, it didn't happen by evolution at all."Dembski's answer to this is:... Dembski comes off as if he wants ID to be given a pass on the standards to which he holds evolutionary biology. In response to Ruse's question, "What are you ID people actually getting in the biological world that we evolutionists are not?"
I don't think the burden on intelligent design is simply to come up with new experiments, new facts. The important thing is to find new ways to make sense of them. I believe that we are making better sense out of them than the evolutionary biologists. The point of my joke about imagining an evolutionary pathway was that we have not been given any detailed evolutionary pathways.But Heard sees where the trick lies (in all senses of the word):
Dembski's final claim in this quotation is not only false but also somewhat brazen, given his absolute refusal to accept for ID the "burden" of showing detailed design pathways.Which is exactly what Michael Behe did in his testimony at the Dover trial, refusing to give any support for an actual designer or any method the design was implemented but, in return, demanding a level of detail from biologists that IDers have deliberately made it impossible to meet.
So IDeologists have to come up with another excuse.
______________________________
Via Exploring Our Matrix
.
Full post as published by Thoughts in a Haystack on October 14, 2008 (boomark / email).
Dumb Foreign Laws
Stupid Laws of Other Countries
Dumb California Laws
Stupid Laws in the Sunshine State
Dumb New York Laws
Stupid Laws in the Empire State
Dumb Texas Laws
Stupid Laws in the Lone Star State
Albertsons et al.
allegedly injected dye into farm raised salmon to make it appear more palatable.
Holiday Inn Express
Complimentary simplySmart™ "Remove" Make Up Remover Recalled
Cipro
The FDA is seeking to add black box warnings of the risk of tendon rupture associated with Cipro and Levaquin.
The ruptures can involve Achilles tendon, shoulder, hand, bicep or thumb tendons, and is especially increased in patients older than 60, or people who have received kidney, heart or lung transplants, as well as people on steroid therapy...

Supreme Court Declines Bible-Consulting Jury Case
Delaware Prison Says No Bible Reading On The Job
Bible reading results in arrests
Who Says Catholics Don't Read the Bible
Loud Bible Reading On Bus Violates System's Rules
ACLU: Texas School To Stop Teaching Bible Class








