This is not a post about Intelligent Design. I have read not more than a paragraph about the subject. Ever. Science is a terrible bore. I do believe that the highly intelligent God of the Bible designed both the heavens and the earth. As to the scientific merits of the theory known as Intelligent Design, however, I am quite agnostic.
Just to get that out of the way.
Now, does it seem to anyone else that the decibel level of attacks on ID people is getting just a bit shrill? I can't remember this level of hysteria about anything since the Republicans cut the school lunch program by increasing spending on it by 8 instead of 12 percent.
Do you know what the ID people are being treated like? Heretics. Only heretics can inspire the sort of venom I see directed at the ID crowd. The scientific community, and those who take their cues from it, are reacting exactly like a religion which senses an internal threat.
It's ironic that the academic community, which prides itself on open inquiry, seems to have declared a specific line of inquiry beyond the pale. This from the people who brought you Masters and Johnson and cloned sheep. My understanding is that academicians with even ID sympathies are being persecuted.
Again, I have no idea if the IDers are right or not. But it would be a rare thing for an ideally totally bereft of power to elicit such a McCarthyist counter-reaction. It makes me wonder if maybe they're on to something.
UPDATE: Jared Bridges at True Pravda is blogging on the scientists as a priestly caste.
Posted by Discoshaman at novembre 17, 2005 02:29 AM | TrackBack
First, the reason there is such an attack against ID is because Evolution is a religion. One has to believe in it by faith. For a scientific theory to become a scientific fact it has to be observed.
Evolution is based on simplistic where as ID is based on complexity. Years ago the idea that the smaller the life components the simpler. Then the big bang of the electron microscope and the discovery of DNA, chromosome and such. All of a sudden small was not simple but very complex. The probability of goo producing life is several trillion to one. In other words impossible.
That's right, Gene. The ID controversy, like many of the Big Issues, operates on two levels. Only on the surface is it actually about the empirical scientfic evidence for or against evolution/ID. That's only the occasion for Two Worldviews to collide and that's what generates the real friction and sparks.
But this is where my own feelings are conflicted. Because I'm not sure that in the public debates in places like Dover that the worldviews in conflict are Creationism vs. Atheistic Evolution. I'm inclined to think that it's more of another battleground for the clash of Anti-Christian Secularism vs. advocates of American fundamentalist civil religion. It doesn't seem like a battle being fought by conservative evangelical Christians as much as the Jim Dobson/Pat Robertson crowd.
Posted by: cu buffalo 86 at novembre 17, 2005 01:48 PMEveryone...don't forget to check out an equally valid theory called
Flying Spaghetti Monsterism over at:
http://www.venganza.org/index.htm
And, don't forget, as a newly converted Pastafarian, yours truly, sean, a.k.a. Fresh Parmesan, has received the first of many divine revelations regarding FSM'ism in the form of "Book One: The Pastafarian Revelations," to be found at:
http://pastafarianrevelations.blogspot.com/
We are doing the open minds of the world a great disservice if we fail to consider the implications of the above!!!!
peace n whatnot,
sean,
aka Al Fraydoe's First Prophet,
Fresh Parmesan
"Science is a terrible bore."
Bite your tongue man!! Science is utterly fascinating. The process of photosynthesis is arguably the foundation of all life on earth. How can you not find that interesting?
/enraged science nerd rant
Welcome back by the way.
Posted by: Samantha at novembre 17, 2005 05:51 PMSam!
Hi pal. . . I'm going to have to disagree with you about this:
"The process of photosynthesis is arguably the foundation of all life on earth."
Actually, that would be Guinness Stout.
Posted by: Discoshaman at novembre 17, 2005 06:06 PMMmmmm Guinness....Oh yeah? Where would Guinness be without barley and hops? And a little scientific process called...[que singing angels and eerie lighting] fermentation.
Posted by: Samantha at novembre 17, 2005 07:28 PMFor what it's worth, I heard Os Guinness is descended from the same Guinness family. That's something a select group of people would appreciate.
Posted by: Jeremy Pierce at novembre 17, 2005 10:07 PMMmmm. . . Guinness. Something we can agree on. :-)
Really, Jeremy? Wow. My respectometer just went up for old Os. Shame about that name though. Vanna, I'd like to buy a syllable?
Posted by: Discoshaman at novembre 17, 2005 11:44 PM