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Split Thread Atheism and lack of belief in the afterlife

GDon said:
:) Too many points to summarise in one go, I'm afraid! But I'll try:

1. To say that a group that is against modern scientific consensus is "against science" is wrong. Those who argue against the consensus do so by arguing that it is they who are doing science right, and the consensus group doing science wrong.

2. ID proponents argue they are doing science correctly. They don't "reject science". They believe that the scientific consensus is wrong. But it doesn't mean they think therefore computers and planes don't work (paraphrasing someone's comment much earlier in the thread).

3. ID proponents are following the scientific method by (1) making an observation (flagellum), (2) proposing a hypothesis (IC), (3) submitting into peer reviewed publications. That's all good! That's science at work!

4. ID is a failed hypothesis, since the flagellum doesn't show IC. ID can be rejected as unproven. That's all good also! That's science at work!

This is very important to acknowledge. Science is under attack like never before. When one man can declare "I am the Science! To attack me you are attacking Science!" you know that science is in trouble. When science is devolved into "science is just those things that I agree with", then you get the same result if you devolve free speech into "you are free to say anything I agree with."

There seems to be an ideological line whereby even admitting that ID has had peer reviewed articles presented somehow means that science has failed. It hasn't. Quite the opposite.

It's a small hill, but one that I'm willing to die on. Hope that answers your question!
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Thank you for the summary.

I'd like to note that there is an objectively wrong way to do science, e.g. if you're using a method that will inherently produce faulty results. Anyone intentionally carrying out research incorrectly would rightly be accused of "rejecting science", as would anyone who intentionally ignores the flaws of faulty research or the discoveries of proper research (to a point, as there is always the question of repeatability).

It's good that you reject ID. I assume that you reject it because you know ID is based on faulty science due to objective reasons, e.g. misinterpreted data, rejection of conflicting data, acceptance of data acquired by faulty methods, simple deception, etc.

Wouldn't you agree then that anyone who stubbornly continues to accept faulty research (even though they have the intelligence and resources to educate themselves) does indeed reject science?
 
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Leumas said:
I already gave you that... but of course you did not read it...
Originally Posted by Leumas View Post
Originally Posted by GDon View Post
No, it passed because it wasn't an outright rejection of evolution, but rather a "reappraisal of certain aspects of evolution".

So in other words the writers of the paper yet again obfuscated their REAL AGENDA in order to befuddle and beguile and acquire an inch so as to insidiously steal the whole yard.

Their agenda is a Trojan Horse For CREATIONISM.

And then proceed to hoodwink that the designer is a celestial slave mongering voodoo rituals prescribing witches proscribing human sacrifice commanding ethnic cleansing participating bronze age tribal myth.
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Aparently GDon didn’t read the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District decision.

For the reasons that follow, we conclude that the religious nature of ID [intelligent design] would be readily apparent to an objective observer, adult or child.

A significant aspect of the IDM [intelligent design movement] is that despite Defendants' protestations to the contrary, it describes ID as a religious argument. In that vein, the writings of leading ID proponents reveal that the designer postulated by their argument is the God of Christianity.

The evidence at trial demonstrates that ID is nothing less than the progeny of creationism.
The overwhelming evidence at trial established that ID is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory.

Throughout the trial and in various submissions to the Court, Defendants vigorously argue that the reading of the statement is not 'teaching' ID but instead is merely 'making students aware of it.' In fact, one consistency among the Dover School Board members' testimony, which was marked by selective memories and outright lies under oath, as will be discussed in more detail below, is that they did not think they needed to be knowledgeable about ID because it was not being taught to the students. We disagree. ... an educator reading the disclaimer is engaged in teaching, even if it is colossally bad teaching. ... Defendants' argument is a red herring because the Establishment Clause forbids not just 'teaching' religion, but any governmental action that endorses or has the primary purpose or effect of advancing religion. (footnote 7)

After a searching review of the record and applicable caselaw, we find that while ID arguments may be true, a proposition on which the Court takes no position, ID is not science. We find that ID fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is science. They are: (1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation; (2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980s; and (3) ID's negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community. ... It is additionally important to note that ID has failed to gain acceptance in the scientific community, it has not generated peer-reviewed publications, nor has it been the subject of testing and research. Expert testimony reveals that since the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries, science has been limited to the search for natural causes to explain natural phenomena. [for "contrived dualism", see false dilemma.]
[T]he one textbook [Pandas] to which the Dover ID Policy directs students contains outdated concepts and flawed science, as recognized by even the defense experts in this case.
ID's backers have sought to avoid the scientific scrutiny which we have now determined that it cannot withstand by advocating that the controversy, but not ID itself, should be taught in science class. This tactic is at best disingenuous, and at worst a canard. The goal of the IDM is not to encourage critical thought, but to foment a revolution which would supplant evolutionary theory with ID.
Accordingly, we find that the secular purposes claimed by the Board amount to a pretext for the Board's real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom, in violation of the Establishment Clause.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District
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ID is not science. It is only masquerading as science.
 
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Olmstead said:
Wouldn't you agree then that anyone who stubbornly continues to accept faulty research (even though they have the intelligence and resources to educate themselves) does indeed reject science?
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No, that's painting with way too broad a brush, in my opinion (fair enough if you disagree). Someone who fiddles the books doesn't reject book-keeping. They may well be happy with the process and practice of book-keeping. You'd have to elevate the term "book-keeping" to some abstract ideal in order to turn it into "rejecting book-keeping".

The comment I was reacting to originally earlier on this thread was "They'll attack evolution and science which amuses me since, they use computers, cars and cell phones." Attacking the scientific consensus on a subject doesn't mean one can't accept the use of computers, cars and cell phones. And it went from there!

What constitutes "accepting and rejecting science" is an interesting subject in its own right. In today's world it has been turned into a political cudgel that is used to push against anyone questioning the consensus. But that has to be anathema to science if it is to remain self-correcting.
 
GDon said:
Perfect! Science at work! :thumbsup: Thanks for that, acbytesla.
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The point was, the proponents of ID, people like Behe, Meyer and the Discovery Institute are NOT doing science even if they do manage to publish an article in what is a peer reviewed journal. You argued that they/religion weren't attacking science.

Yet the evidence says something entirely different. It shows a total disrespect for the scientific process. An accepted tenet of science is methodological naturalism. You are not practicing science if you are appealing to supernatural causation
 
acbytesla said:
ID is not science. It is only masquerading as science.
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To be completely clear: yes, peer reviewed papers have been published in journals. They were reviewed by reviewers who were sympathetic to intelligent design, and published in journals that were established specifically to publish intelligent design material. There has never been a paper supporting intelligent design that was both peer-reviewed by genuinely independent reviewers, and published in a high impact scientific journal.

Intelligent design cosplays as science, but it is not science.
 
arthwollipot said:
To be completely clear: yes, peer reviewed papers have been published in journals. They were reviewed by reviewers who were sympathetic to intelligent design, and published in journals that were established specifically to publish intelligent design material. There has never been a paper supporting intelligent design that was both peer-reviewed by genuinely independent reviewers, and published in a high impact scientific journal.

Intelligent design cosplays as science, but it is not science.
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That would appear to debunk the notion that ID was published in a peer reviewed journal and thus render all of GDon's arguments moot.
 
acbytesla said:
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ID is not science. It is only masquerading as science.
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Masquerading and dissimulating and Concern Trolling to deceive and more readily hawk for Jesus is the modus operandi of Christian apologists and proselytizers... right from day one of the first Christian cult all the way till today and onwards Christian Proselytizers march.


  • Matthew 4:19 And He said to them, Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men[/HILITE]. [*]2 Corinthians 12:16 ....nevertheless, being crafty , I caught you with guile [*]Romans 3:7 ... God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory... [*]Philippians 1:18 ... whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached… [*]1 Corinthians 9:20-23 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews.... I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might [peddle Jesus].... [*]Bishop Eusebius -- "... it will be necessary sometimes to use falsehood as a medicine for the benefit of those who require such a mode of treatment." [*]Martin Luther -- "What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the good and for the Christian church … a lie out of necessity, a useful lie, a helpful lie, such lies would not be against God, he would accept them."
 
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psionl0 said:
That would appear to debunk the notion that ID was published in a peer reviewed journal and thus render all of GDon's arguments moot.
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Indeed.

Many years ago, while I was in a very boring job, I actually did read all of the transcripts of the Kitzmiller vs. Dover trial, which were at the time published on the website of the NCSE. Yes, all of them, not just the decision. When I met Eugenie Scott at TamOz in 2010, she said that I might be the only person other than those directly involved who did.
 
GDon said:
...
What constitutes "accepting and rejecting science" is an interesting subject in its own right.
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Do you know anything about it?

GDon said:
In today's world it has been turned into a political cudgel that is used to push against anyone questioning the consensus.
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No it has not... only the attackers of science (whom you deny exist) and the promulgators of pseudo-science say that.

And for the umpteenth time already... science is not by consensus... only the attackers of science (whom you deny exist) and the promulgators of pseudo-science think that it is.


GDon said:
...But that has to be anathema to science if it is to remain self-correcting.
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Leaving one's door ajar for all nefarious pretenders and pseudo-science peddlers to come in and poison the well is not a rational or sane or healthy mode of operation.

Scientists have to be wary and vigilant against the religious proselytizers following the modus operandi of the Christian TRADITION OF Lying For Jesus who are funded by BILLION$$$$$ and can afford to keep attacking science with their lies and pretenses and dissimulations and subterfuge and Concern Trolling etc. etc. etc.
 
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psionl0 said:
That would appear to debunk the notion that ID was published in a peer reviewed journal and thus render all of GDon's arguments moot.
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Which is what I told him on page 15 of this thread and repeated numerous times since.

Leumas said:
GDon said:
There are qualified academics producing peer reviewed articles for intelligent design. In what way is that not science?
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It is not scientifically peer reviewed if they "peer" review their own claptrap by their own religious "scientists" and publish them in their own fake journals.
It is a hoax just like Jesus was... articles about Jesus flying on a cloud to outer space "peer" reviewed by religious seminary school "scholars" and published in religious journals does not make Jesus a cloud-spaceship astronaut.
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arthwollipot said:
To be completely clear: yes, peer reviewed papers have been published in journals. They were reviewed by reviewers who were sympathetic to intelligent design, and published in journals that were established specifically to publish intelligent design material. There has never been a paper supporting intelligent design that was both peer-reviewed by genuinely independent reviewers, and published in a high impact scientific journal.
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I'll refer to my noble adversary acbytesla on this point. He was going to look at the list of journals I provided earlier with peer reviewed articles by ID proponents.

Here is a review I provided earlier of one such paper from back in 2004:
https://pandasthumb.org/archives/2004/08/meyers-hopeless-1.html

“Intelligent design” (ID) advocate Stephen C. Meyer has produced a “review article” that folds the various lines of “intelligent design” antievolutionary argumentation into one lump. The article is published in the journal Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. We congratulate ID on finally getting an article in a peer-reviewed biology journal...

It is gratifying to see the ID movement finally attempt to make their case to the only scientifically relevant group, professional biologists. This is therefore the beginning (not the end) of the review process for ID... Only through this route – convincing the scientific community, a route already taken by plate tectonics, endosymbiosis, and other revolutionary scientific ideas – can ID earn a legitimate place in textbooks.
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GDon said:
I'll refer to my noble adversary acbytesla on this point. He was going to look at the list of journals I provided earlier with peer reviewed articles by ID proponents.

Here is a review I provided earlier of one such paper from back in 2004:...
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Amazing!!!:eek::eye-poppi

I think you ought to read your own words and take them into consideration...

GDon said:
In a similar vein, and to paraphrase CS Lewis: Nothing worse than trying to defend weak arguments in defence of your worldview. ....

Sometimes people continually using bad arguments do more harm against their own side than anything the other side can do....
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GDon said:
ID was torn apart, showing it had no validity.
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But yet you are indefatigably CONCERNED to defend it by incessantly claiming wrongly that it is science if only the nasty unfair religion-like "scientific consensus" would let it shove itself through science's back door.
 
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I think this entire discussion went off the rails. My point is that sience is being attacked by those promoting religion. People are dismissing science because it contradicts the stories that are foundational to religion. Especially by believers in the Abrahamic religions.

I live in a small town that has 10 churches as well as a Creation Museum. The museum is sadly ten times larger than the public library which is about the size of a 1 bedroom apartment.

I think science and education is more important than religion. So it annoys me seing it attacked by charlatans like the Discovery Institute .
 
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