www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Vatican Official Refutes Intelligent Design

I do not represent the ideas of the Admin nor was I trying to. I first started off by agreeing with the Admin in his feelings towards the media.

The second half regarding Savage was merely my suggestion towards Teen, and mine only.

So no apology is needed for there was no wrong done on my part. I was reacting to the harsh word choice used by teen. That is all.

-uc

I don't think it was harsh at all.

In any case, it was not a personal insult and wasn't intended to be; I do think it's untrue, and unChristian to label the entire mass media as favoring one political party.

As I recall, I got into some hot water by doing the same thing on this Forum just a few months ago.

Logos Teen

djs,

I'm a conservative - and I completely agree with you. I can't stand listening to Savage. Give me a thoughtful (and far more respectful and respectable) cultural conservative (and reformed liberal ) like Michael Medved anyday. I consider the experience of listening to Savage like reading "The Remnant" - that Latin traditionalist paper which broke away from the Wanderer because the editor thought it was too liberal! All bun, no beef. During the times that I have listened to him (or been fored to listen to him) he seems to take a kernel of truth and surround it with angry tirades and rythmic name calling. I'd hardly say that of our Admin!

Logos Teen, are you saying that you actually believe that the majority of the members of the print and television media do not have a political persuasion? Or am I reading you correctly and you are merely feigning offense to make a point?

Goro

Gordo,

I do think that the majority of them have a political persuasion...

Logos Teen

I dont know if anyone else caught what disturbed me about this so called "Vatican Official", and that was his error of "deistic theology"
Any comments?
Stephanos I

Back to Intelligent design THEORY...

The problem with the entire debate is that it is not being debated upon what Intelligent Design Theory IS, but what it is perceived to be. You have two opposing sides that are creating their own definitions of Intelligent Design in order to bolster their own positions. On one hand, we have those who wish to coopt ID as proof of the existence of God (especially the literal interpretation of the Biblical account of creation)i.e. fundamentalist christians. They want us to believe ID backs up their position - it does no such thing, and should not be used as a back door way to get theology into the science class. On the other hand we have those who are so afraid of anything that does not fall neatly into the realm of "naturally" occuring processes, they dismiss it as "junk science" i.e. materialists.

Intelligent Design Theory IS science and is not theology or philosophy. It is the methodology utilized for detecting the presence of design in complex systems. THATS ALL! It is being used in many areas of scientific inquiry already and has been for a long, long time. Archeology, astronomy, and cosmology are fields that have been developing and utilizing empirical methodology for detecting the presence of ID. Another example is the government project SETI. In their search for evidence of intelligent life other than us in the universe, they continually use methods of intelligent design theory in analyzing various detected signals to determine if they are randomly occurring, naturally generated, or if they are produced by an intelligent source. The heated debate did not start until some scientists started applying ID to complex biological systems, which attacked the sacred cow of evolutionary theory and threatened natural selection as the nice neat explaination for everything.

Please, if you want to be able to truly understand this issue I suggest you look to sources other than what the media has printed regarding the subject. I strongly recommend anyone interested in this subject read the book Intelligent Design by William Dempski, or anything else you can find on the subject by the same author or by Michael Behe. They explain the science of Intelligent Design Theory.

Does it belong in the class room? As a scientific method for the detection of the presence of design in complex systems it belongs right there with mathematics and statistical probability. As a method for advancing a political or religious agenda - NO!

But once again, my question is - is the concept of "Intelligent Design" inherently incompatible with the theory of evolution?

Couldn't the Designer have used evolution as a means of design? If not, why not?

Theist Gal,

Intelligent Design Theory in no way proves or disproves evolutionary theory. Again, ID does not identify the cause, it only helps to provide empirical evidence that there is an intelligent cause involved. What or Who is the source of that design can fall into the pervue of theology and philosophy (along with certain sciences).

The problem is that ID has become hijacked by those who have a desire to forward a particular agenda. (Primarily fundamental Christian creationists who want to use ID to discredit evolution). Most of the negative response to ID from scientific circles has not been based upon scrupulous inquiry into the theories, but upon a reaction to the fundamentalists attempt to use ID to interject religion into science education.

Does Intelligent Design point to the existence of a creator? You bet! But that should not discredit it as a valid method of scientific inquiry. Truth is truth. (And we, as Christians, ultimately know Who is the Truth). We should never fear the valid search for that Truth.

Really? That's not what you will find by searching, e.g., pubmed.

There are indeed areas of research that are focussed on complexity. But "complexity" does not necessarily mean "irreducible complexity" which does not necessarily implicate "design" which does not necessarily imply "intelligent design". It is the lack of rigor in defining testable ideas on irreducibility, design, and intelligence" that make ID in its prominent form - an aternative to naturalistic evolution - the stuff of popular press rather than science journals - as a quick look at the CV's of Dembski and Behe reveals. (Suggesting Dembski and Behe as authorities on the science of this field is like citing Dan Brown of Da Vinci code fame as an expert historian.)

Does the study of complexity belong? Of course. And speculative discussions of irreducibility, etc. would also have their place in the advanced university seminar. The controversy of course is not about such classroom exercises, but about what belongs in K-12 science classrooms. And Fr. Coyne is right in his assessment.

The data that I've looked are totally incompatible with this 90-95% atheists charge. The data I've seen suggest that ~ 85% are believers. God is in the lives of most scientists, but not in their scientific deductions, because science, in contemporary practice, is about the search for understanding natural phenomena in natural terms - not supernatural phenomena in supernatural terms.

The design inference may or may not cross that line. Examination of the alignements at Carnac, coupled with the most rudimentary awareness of "natural" human activities, immediately suggests purposeful design without crossing the line. In evolution, however, the "intelligence" cannot be human - can we authentically recognize it - and the "natural" processes are not obvious ones, but arcane molecular ones. Jumping from archeology to evolutionary biology is a gross leap. And in the leap ID proponents tend to cross that line. The writings of Dembski and Behe make it clear that they certainly do.

Cannot intelligent design be explained simply by Darwin's theory of evolution? For example, the eye is extremely complex, but is the result of thousands upon thousands of years of evolution by weeding out those whose eyes didn't work as well as others', and thus halting their procreation.

Logos Teen

Darwinism still has many flaws: Mammary glands; are there any reptiles with nonfunctioning mammary glands? the platypus; no explanation needed, duck bill, beaver tail, poison claw like a centipede; the fact that once animals are breed too far from genetic similarity they become sterile, ie mules, ligers, tygons; the Oparin/Stanley/Urey Hypothesis amounts to spontaneous generation, which was disproved by Pasteur, etc, etc, etc...
I was a former evolutionist.

Dr. Eric,
While your comments have nothing to do with the scientific basis, or lack thereof, of ID, I thought I'd look around the net and see what sort of play such comments have had.

Among the many sites featuring discussion of the the very issues that you raise, you might consider spending some time over here [talkorigins.org] where you will find, with their search engine, numerous very good articles on these topics that directly address the concerns that you likely have.

More on Intelligent Design

Three very interesting articles that deal with Intelligent Design appeared this week in National Review Online. I offer them because I have come across them. Better (from the Catholic viewpoint) information can be found in the many articles at the First Things website (but I have not had time to research them and post the links).

Under God or Under Darwin? Intelligent Design could be a bridge between civilizations. [nationalreview.com]
By Mustafa Akyol

Excerpts:

When President Bush declared his support for the teaching of intelligent design (ID) theory in public schools along with Darwinian evolution, both he and the theory itself drew a lot of criticism. Among the many lines of attack the critics launch, one theme remains strikingly constant: the notion that ID is a Trojan Horse of Christian fundamentalists whose ultimate aim is to turn the U.S. into an theocracy.

In a furious New Republic cover story, "The Case Against Intelligent Design," Jerry Coyne joined in this hype and implied that all non-Christians, including Muslims, should be alarmed by this supposedly Christian theory of beginnings that "might offend those of other faiths." Little does he realize that if there is any view on the origin of life that might seriously offend other faiths � including mine, Islam � it is the materialist dogma: the assumptions that God, by definition, is a superstition, and that rationality is inherently atheistic.

That offense is no minor issue. In fact, in the last two centuries, it has been the major source of the Muslim contempt for the West. And it deserves careful consideration.

�

There are many other attacks on ID in the media, and they are all useful in that they demonstrate the true intellectual force behind Darwinism: a commitment to materialism. The most common argument against ID, that it invokes God and so cannot be a part of science, is a crystal-clear expression of that commitment. Instead of asking, "What if there really were an intelligent designer active in the origin of life?" the Darwinists take it for granted that such a designer doesn't exist and limit the definition of science according to that unproven premise.

The second article is:
Don�t Fear the Designer - Competing philosophies and beliefs [nationalreview.com]
By Tom Bethell

This is more or less a discussion on ID from within the politically conservative camp. It does give a bit of information to refute that the mass media is portraying ID as very much limited to nasty Evangelical Christians who hate science.

And the third article:

The Descent of the Straw Man - In t... �fundies� and Catholic wife beaters [nationalreview.com]
By Denis Boyles

Excerpt:

The evolution debate seems made for liberals. It casts them as thoughtful and open-minded thinkers and conservatives as zealots and simpletons � or at least that�s how it looks through the media prism.

I am not offering these articles as scientific arguments. I offer them merely to underscore that everything � including science � has a political dimension. There are those within the atheistic Darwin community who are more opposed to the scientific method then the worst Evangelical Christian the media can come up with.

How about Larry Flynt?

TG: Brilliant!