theyeti

This is hilarious, or at least it would be if it weren't so irritating:

Let's back up a minute and ask just what prompted Dembski to write this article. This article is about a comment by Kennedy in response to Santorum who is trying to push ID into schools. The language that he tried to insert into the education bill was written by Philip Johnson of the Discovery Institute. So now we've gone full circle. Dembski is claiming that the decision to insert ID into schools should rest with school boards and teachers (presumably without undue outside influence) when Dembski's own institute tried to subvert that process by using a United States Senator to push ID through legislative fiat, the outcome of which prompted this very article. Unreal.

theyeti

Bill Snedden

I apologize if it's too far off-topic, but one thing I've never been able to understand about ID, well, Dembski's "filter", actually, is how it can possibly filter out that which cannot, by his own theories, possibly exist?

We can only recognize design by our ability to compare it to non-design. So, Dembski's design filter can only function if there is non-design present. Unfortunately, it seems to me that if the IDers are correct, then non-design doesn't really exist.

If there is a Creator who created everything, then everything is designed, whether that design is apparent or not.

That means that even those things that don't appear designed (like rocks, or algae) are, in fact, designed. If this is true, then specified complexity cannot be a hallmark of design (and thus something to be filtered out) because non-specified non-complexity is also a hallmark of design.

Am I missing something, here? <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

Bill

S2Focus

Here's my favorite paragraph from Ken Miller's article:


The question period, in which each speaker was given one or two minutes to respond to each question, provided opportunity for us to reiterate and amplify our points. One particularly telling moment came when a questioner asked about the "Santorum" language in the No Child Left Behind Act, which supposedly requires the teaching of alternate scientific theories. Meyer enthusiastically agreed that it did, and urged Ohio to follow the "law". I stepped to my computer, asked for its screen to be projected in front of the audience, and then explained that I had a copy of the law on my laptop and would execute a search for the word "evolution," which supposedly is in the language of the bill. As the audience buzzed (and a few of its members chuckled), the search came up empty. Why? "Because", I informed the audience, "the ID folks have misled you" (I should have been blunt enough to say that they lied). Santorum’s amendment to the Senate’s version of the bill was watered down during the conference committee and then was relegated to its report. The language that Meyer cited is not part of the bill, was not signed into law by the President, and does not have the force of law. The effect on the audience was dramatic. The ID folks had been caught in a lie. How did Wells respond? Incredibly, he simply picked up a copy of the conference report and read the language slowly, apparently on the principle that if a falsehood is repeated often enough, people will begin to believe it. No one was fooled, however, and the ID folks had blundered badly on the most basic issue of all — telling the truth.



These ID proponents are really pathetically ham-fisted liars -- they kinda remind me of a not-so-bright kid named Donald who lived across the street from me many years ago.

One day, for no apparent reason, Donald started bombarding the next-door neighbor's house with rocks. The neighbor (Mrs. Johnson) came storming out a few minutes later (just as the rock-throwing stopped), saw Donald and immediately yelled at him, "Donald, you get over here right now!".

Donald then ran up to the neighbor saying, "Honest Mrs. Johnson, I didn't throw anything!".

Mrs. Johnson shot back, "What didn't you throw?".

"Rocks", was Donald's reply.

Of course, there's one big difference between the hapless Donald and the ID movement leaders. Donald tried to fool someone smarter than he was. The leaders of the ID movement know better than that!

[ March 26, 2002: Message edited by: S2Focus ]</p>

hezekiah jones

No no! In fact their <a href="http://www.arn.org/meyer/smhome.htm" target="_blank">lawyers</a> have gone to great lengths to distinguish "scientific creationism" from "intelligent design."

Now if only their "scientists" could do the same ...

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[ March 27, 2002: Message edited by: hezekiahjones ]</p>