ID as a Cultural Phenomenon (Humans)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Monday, September 28, 2009, 20:31 (5326 days ago) @ David Turell


> > And David, even though it seems like I "hold my nose" about design, I don't. I hate the politicization of it. You should too. Politicizing *any* type of religious movement is always dangerous, and complicates matters more than they necessarily need to. I shouldn't have to question the political motives of my authors.
> 
> In the previous entry I noted that I use some of the material they present with my own interpretation of it. If I understand their politics I can account for it in my own thought pattern. Remember, I think ID is a reasonable theory, without the politics. You are being too black and white.-Political organizations don't have to obey anything outside of their own specific agenda. The DI is an organization that has proclaimed that its goal is to promote design in an effort to infuse evangelical Christianity into every facet of public life--which as someone who's read the "Wedge Document," you are aware of. Anyone who openly affiliates with the organization implicitly supports this cause, and none have came forward to outrightly deny this facet of the "Institute's" purpose. Anything that spews forth should be viewed as propaganda first. If it wasn't a political entity, I would frankly have a much better appraisal of it. -I think that some arguments deal with ID claims pretty well. Irreducible Complexity = Argument from incredulity. It's not enough to point out life is complex. The complexity argument says "Life is complex, therefore it must have been designed." Roman arches are also complex structures; yet they evolve naturally as well as artificially. -Here's a quote from Dembski:
 http://www.designinference.com/documents/2004.04.Backlash.htm) Dembski wrote, "I'm not going to give away all my secrets, but one thing I sometimes do is post on the web a chapter or section from a forthcoming book, let the critics descend, and then revise it so that what appears in book form preempts the critics' objections. An additional advantage with this approach is that I can cite the website on which the objections appear, which typically gives me the last word in the exchange. And even if the critics choose to revise the objections on their website, books are far more permanent and influential than webpages." -Dembski flat out cares more about "getting the last word" than a scientific approach. The DI has not censured him. -David, if an organization is willing to lie to the public to achieve its goals, it shouldn't be trusted, and neither should anyone associated with it. This isn't a "black and white" issue it's purely one of moral common sense. Unless you claim either moral relativism or consequentialism, wrong is wrong. If a university engaged in the same type of behavior as the DI, it would lose accreditation. -The DI needs to grow up.

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"