eXpelled!

[Hagbard Celine]

This is the third time that you've brought up magic, yet no one has bought that straw man. It's time to man up on this and admit that the debate is far from over.

Are actually trying to delineate between magic and "the supernatural?" Please. Would you be happier if I used the word "wizardry?"
The only debate that matters is the one that includes rational arguments. The "Creator" argument falls flat in this regard. There can be no argument based on a creator because there is nothing to back it up. The only real debates that exist are the ones inside evolutionary theory.
Come up with some corporeal evidence and that will change.

[glockmail]

Are actually trying to delineate between magic and "the supernatural?" Please. Would you be happier if I used the word "wizardry?"
The only debate that matters is the one that includes rational arguments. The "Creator" argument falls flat in this regard. There can be no argument based on a creator because there is nothing to back it up. The only real debates that exist are the ones inside evolutionary theory.
Come up with some corporeal evidence and that will change.

Magic and wizardy are human tricks and slight-of-hand. I've given you rational arguments that support the existence of supernatural forces which you have ignored.

[Hagbard Celine]

Magic and wizardy are human tricks and slight-of-hand. I've given you rational arguments that support the existence of supernatural forces which you have ignored.

You mean "irreducible complexity?" It's a joke. There's no such thing. It's also been unequivocally exposed as pseudoscience, which means "not science" if you haven't been paying attention.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Behe

Michael J. Behe (born January 18, 1952) is an American biochemist and intelligent design advocate. Behe is professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. He advocates the idea that some structures are too complex at the biochemical level to be adequately explained as a result of evolutionary mechanisms. He has termed this concept "irreducible complexity".

Behe's claims about the irreducible complexity of key cellular structures are strongly contested by the scientific community. The Department of Biological Sciences at Lehigh University has published an official position statement which says "It is our collective position that intelligent design has no basis in science, has not been tested experimentally, and should not be regarded as scientific." [1] Behe's ideas about intelligent design have been rejected by the scientific community and characterized as pseudoscience.[2][3][4]

Behe's testimony in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District is extensively cited by the judge[5][6][7][8] in his ruling that intelligent design is not science but essentially religious in nature.[9]

Behe is married and has nine children.[10]

If any other "evidence" you have to support "the supernatural" is simply holes in evolutionary theory that haven't been filled-in yet, you can leave them out. The theory is sound and is supported heavily by all other areas of science. To suggest that the theory is "wrong" simply because we don't know everything yet is ludicrous.

[glockmail]

You mean "irreducible complexity?" It's a joke. There's no such thing. It's also been unequivocally exposed as pseudoscience, which means "not science" if you haven't been paying attention.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Behe


If any other "evidence" you have to support "the supernatural" is simply holes in evolutionary theory that haven't been filled-in yet, you can leave them out. The theory is sound and is supported heavily by all other areas of science. To suggest that the theory is "wrong" simply because we don't know everything yet is ludicrous.

You're being silly tossing up these straw men. The fact is that there are many, many questions as to the theory of evolution, and to claim that the debate is closed is pathetic.

[JimmyAteWorld]

There seems to be an awful lot of debate on an issue in which the debate is over.

I'd say more, but I'm off to see Expelled.

[Sitarro]

If man evolved from apes, why are apes still around and why haven't they evolved. Why haven't any of the other animals on this planet evolved anywhere near as much as humans have. You would think one animal or another could at least build an adobe house when you consider what humans have been able to build. Even the dumbest shit human, being actively recruited as we speak by the Democrat party, is infinitely more intelligent than the smartest animal....... how is that explained. Is it the old opposable thumbs theory? Why have so few species grown thumbs? Why haven't raccoons built spacecraft?

The only thing evolution and survival of the fittest explains is redesign, not original design.

[dan]

Sounds like a pretty fair and balanced movie...

It's reasonable to expect Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, an intelligent-design documentary starring and co-written by former Nixon speechwriter, game-show host, and "Bueller, Bueller" guy Ben Stein, to address these basic questions with at least a modicum of depth. No such luck. Instead, Expelled is a classic bait-and-switch, presenting itself as a plea for freedom in the scientific marketplace of ideas, while actually delivering a grossly unfair, contradictory, and ultimately repugnant attack on Darwinists, whose theory of life is first described, in frustratingly vague terms, as "unintelligible" and "a room full of smoke," then as a pathway to atheism, and finally as a Nazi justification for the Holocaust.

http://www.avclub.com/content/cinema...igence_allowed

[Hagbard Celine]

If man evolved from apes, why are apes still around and why haven't they evolved. Why haven't any of the other animals on this planet evolved anywhere near as much as humans have. You would think one animal or another could at least build an adobe house when you consider what humans have been able to build. Even the dumbest shit human, being actively recruited as we speak by the Democrat party, is infinitely more intelligent than the smartest animal....... how is that explained. Is it the old opposable thumbs theory? Why have so few species grown thumbs? Why haven't raccoons built spacecraft?

The only thing evolution and survival of the fittest explains is redesign, not original design.

Man didn't evolve from apes. Man and apes evolved from a common, siman-like ancestor. You're ridiculing the theory when you don't even fully understand it. How does that make any sense? There is evidence that there have been other hominids that did evolve alongside modern homosapiens (neanderthal for instance) but they were either hunted into extinction or they were bred-out by humans into extinction. And ape behavior has changed. Chimps have recently been observed making and using spears to hunt bushmeat. This is new behavior--they're learning.
The reason that drastic changes haven't been observed is because the theory is only a century-old. Hell, recorded history is only a little over 2000 years. In the evolutionary timespan, this is less than a blink of an eye. The eras and epochs we discuss like the jurassic, cretacious, tertiary, etc.--these are millions of years. Besides, you can't act as if evolutionary theory is ridiculous when there has never been a single instance of credible supernatural phenomenon documented in the history of mankind.

[diuretic]

The currently accepted theory of evolution - as the theory exists today - is the best explanation for observed phenomena. At least in the scientific community and I have to say in the broader general community it's accepted and understood. In those who have a fundamentalist approach to religion it's rejected. And that's of course anyone's right.

But don't try and say that ID or Creationism is anything else but religion. It's not science and that's a fact Jack.

[diuretic]

Sounds like a pretty fair and balanced movie...



http://www.avclub.com/content/cinema...igence_allowed

It sounds like a really stupid movie. It's being dismembered in reviews. I doubt it will make it here as the ID thing is treated as a joke but I have to say I wouldn't piss my money away on it.

[glockmail]

The currently accepted theory of evolution - as the theory exists today - is the best explanation for observed phenomena. At least in the scientific community and I have to say in the broader general community it's accepted and understood. In those who have a fundamentalist approach to religion it's rejected. And that's of course anyone's right.

But don't try and say that ID or Creationism is anything else but religion. It's not science and that's a fact Jack.

So how did life begin then?

[Hobbit]

The currently accepted theory of evolution - as the theory exists today - is the best explanation for observed phenomena. At least in the scientific community and I have to say in the broader general community it's accepted and understood. In those who have a fundamentalist approach to religion it's rejected. And that's of course anyone's right.

But don't try and say that ID or Creationism is anything else but religion. It's not science and that's a fact Jack.

How would you know if you never looked into it? I do not accept ID due to religious concerns. If evolution is true, then it doesn't shake my belief that it was guided by God and is another of His awesome mechanisms. However, I followed the evidence and arrived at the conclusion that life is too complicated to have been a random string of chemical reactions that happened to result in us being here.

I would also really like to know what makes it 'not science.' The only answer I can get that doesn't require simple, blind acceptance that Darwin was 100% correct is that it implies a being that we have not discovered, but isn't the unproven assumption that there is no higher intelligence just as, if not more crippling to scientific thought as the assumption that the Earth is only 6000 years old?

[diuretic]

So how did life begin then?

I can't tell you until after I get my Nobel Prize


Just kidding.

Right now we don't know.

Next question?

[diuretic]

How would you know if you never looked into it? I do not accept ID due to religious concerns. If evolution is true, then it doesn't shake my belief that it was guided by God and is another of His awesome mechanisms. However, I followed the evidence and arrived at the conclusion that life is too complicated to have been a random string of chemical reactions that happened to result in us being here.

I would also really like to know what makes it 'not science.' The only answer I can get that doesn't require simple, blind acceptance that Darwin was 100% correct is that it implies a being that we have not discovered, but isn't the unproven assumption that there is no higher intelligence just as, if not more crippling to scientific thought as the assumption that the Earth is only 6000 years old?

H you are free to believe whatever you wish and I don’t mean that in a dismissive or offhand manner. On that I have to say I’m surprised when anyone with strong religious faith – usually a Christian – finds the scientific theory of revolution threatening to their faith. I’m not directing this at you by the way, just reflecting on the ideas.

You’ve explained why no person of faith should be threatened by the theory of evolution. As far as I’m aware no scientist has actually formally expressed the idea that the theory of evolution, accepted in the scientific community as a valid theory for observed phenomena, disproves the existence of a creator. The theory of evolution simply seeks to explain phenomena and it does it very well. To date it hasn’t been overturned. You might want to compare this to Lamarckism to see how ideas can be challenged in science.

ID isn’t science, it’s religion. What really gets to me are the attempts of those who should know better to dress up what is essentially a matter of religious faith as science when it patently isn’t and that has been found in a court of law which is a pretty good tribunal of fact. This is why ID is considered “non-science”

ID doesn’t meet the Daubert Standard –

http://www.apsu.edu/oconnort/3210/3210lect01a.htm

http://www.daubertontheweb.com/progeny.htm

I’ll reiterate. You’re free to believe what you wish. You can believe ID is science but I’ll show the evidence to anyone who wishes to read it which shows that ID isn’t science.

It seems to me that ID is an effort by some to prove the existence of a creator. As such it's just another manifestation of the teleogical arguments. Aquinas did this with his five proofs. But Aquinas proved nothing in actuality, he simply constructed five arguments, valid in terms of logical structure, but which had absolutely no value as proofs of fact. Having said that I still admire his elegance of argument.

ID can't prove the existence of a creator in just the same manner Aquinas couldn't prove the existence of a creator. ID pretends to use science to do so but it's exposed as a sham and isn't to be taken seriously.

My argument is with the ID'ers who dishonestly insist that they have a scientific case for their claims. They don't.

[dan]

It sounds like a really stupid movie. It's being dismembered in reviews. I doubt it will make it here as the ID thing is treated as a joke but I have to say I wouldn't piss my money away on it.

I'd say it's like your average Michael Moore movie: it'll be seen only by those who already support its claims and it'll change nobody's minds... which was probably what the filmmakers expected anyway.