Evolunism's Censorship of thought and science

You had your debate and lost it years ago. Time to move on.

 

Evolutionists can get quite perturbed by free speech, especially when they designate and classify that speech as 'religious.' Of course, evolutionists are scientists and can always tell the difference between science and religion according to the scientific method.

 

Wait until Christians learn about the intrinsic racism of modern evolutionist theory. Then we'll see how many stay aboard the flood-wrecked sinking ship of neo-Darwinism.

 

Who do you CHOOSE to believe, God or man?

Simple choice that many insist on making complicated.

"God, I know what You said, but Prof. Jones said this, and Prof. Smith said that, and all the scientific data proved you were wrong about the timeline of creation and ---, and, --- and, --- but, -- but, -- but --"

 

The film was shown, was it not? So how was "open debate and free thinking" disallowed?

The Smithsonian didn't want its name and reputation to be used as an endorsement for ID.

 

In fact, the Smithsonian was paid by the DI to let them show the film. The Smithsonian never endorsed it, and will let anyone who gives them money use their theatre.

"It turns out that the DI is renting an auditorium for $16,000, nothing more, and are doing their best to puff it up into something more significant…such as, that the Smithsonian is "warming to intelligent design theory", according to Denyse O'Leary. The NY Times gets the real story from Bruce Chapman, president of the Discovery Institute:

"We are not implying in any sense that they endorsed the content, but they are co-sponsoring it, and we are delighted. We're not claiming anything more than that. They certainly didn't say, 'We're really warming up to intelligent design, and therefore we're going to sponsor this.'"

I loved this one from the cited article:

"That scientists centuries ago had no problem putting science and theism on the table at the same time is historical. That we cannot do so today is degenerative or retrograde."

Turns out, science started getting answers at the same time they took magic and miracles out of the mix.

When we stopped thinking lightning was God's revenge on sinners, and realized that disease wasn't caused by demons, we started making progress.

"Retrograde" would be going back to those dark days.

 

Magic and miracles came out of the mix, Galatian, with Christianity. Check your history. Pearcey and Thaxton, among others, did an excellent job of this in "The Soul of Science", which I highly recommend.

The truth is today that anything the scientific establishment does not like is labeled 'religious,' whether or not it is. Intelligent Design is about as far from religious as you can get, actually, as it uses the same methods forensic science does. But that does not matter to the establishment which feels threatened by logic and the scientific method if they do not go the way said establishment has already determined they should go.

If Darwinism was so truly sure of itself then it would not mind a bit if Intelligent Design were on the table for an honest look at it. Nor would it mind if Darwinism itself got an honest inspection. Of course, that is one of the things Intelligent Design is doing -- taking an honest look at Darwinism. But Darwinism cannot stand up to that. It rests on pure supposition and 'interpretations.' It denies common sense and known data.

Darwinism/evolution is not at all sure of itself when you peel off the rhetoric and shouts and insults and screaming. Like an onion, the further down you go, the more onion you get. The further down you go with Darwinism, the more rhetoric, shouting, and 'declarations' you get. There is not one shred of evidence which supports the idea that any sort of one-celled creature evolved into anything other than other one-celled creatures of similar design.

That is the fact. But evolutionism doesn't care about that. Shouting and legal maneuvers are their tools. A frightened bunch at heart, afraid to look at either themselves or the actual data without their prescription lenses on. Lenses prescribed by the establishment.

By the way, are you sure that God does not plan where lightning is going to strike? Are you sure that demons have nothing to do with some kinds of mental illness? I know a number of very intelligent, educated people who would disagree with your statement above.

What is any darker about a few hundred years ago when you figure that we quietly murder millions of unborn babies each year, quietly kill thousands of elderly even where euthenasia is illegal, experiment with millions more in hospitals without their knowledge or consent? The witch doctors are in white jackets now, that's all.

With my time in hospitals, on both sides of the sheets, and as a parent of disabled kids, I can tell you from first-hand experience that experiment is a way of life in most hospitals and that laziness compounds the problem.

Or maybe you would like to defend the makers and purveyors of aspartame, known to cause brain damage and other problems but still the most widely used artificial sweetener. That is economics, eh?

Yeah, we are in a really enlightened time now.

Not.

I have become convinced that one of the major goals of those in power in any area is to keep everyone else ignorant of what is really going on. And no, I am not paranoid. I am not a survivalist. I am simply stating what I have found in fifty-seven years of living here on this earth.

What I have also found is that there is incredible freedom in not being afraid anymore. Let people say what they want and do what they want I know first, that God is in control; second I know I am His; and third, I know I can look at the data myself and come to my own conclusions without someone taking away my livlihood or 'peer respect.' I can make informed decisions when I take the time to dig out the information.

But that takes time and energy. Most people are conditioned by our 'me first' society to simply accept what they are told and try to scrape by as best they can in ignorance.

When the scientific establishment in any of its forms starts to holler, you can bet your bippie that someone is starting to look at the data and think for themselves.

Every time someone tries to turn the light on something, 'science' screams to turn it off. And you call this enlightened?

Technologically advanced, perhaps. Enlightened, no.

 

So let those "very intelligent, educated people" take their kids to exorcists and witch doctors. I'll opt for the science of modern medicine, including preventive medicine, over demons and voodoo, any time, anywhere. Medicine isn't perfect, but it has saved more lives than all the shamans and practitioners of exorcism put together.

 

And common sense often saves more lives than hospitals, too. It is not either a witch doctor or a hospital. The fact is, the two are closer than you think. Both tend to rely on their mystique and tell the patient "just obey". It is also extremely interesting that the witch doctor ideas related to acupuncture and some other garbage ideas are becoming accepted medical practices. "Modern medicine" is finding a lot of good in some of the old common sense folk medicines, too, which have nothing whatsoever to do with either witch doctors or hospitals.

Very often an informed patient does a whole lot better than an ignorant one. That is one basic point. The other is that those in charge often seem quite dedicated to keeping those relying on them in a state of ignorance.

 

I agree with a lot of this, Helen. What I find amazing is that a person living in these modern times can actually attribute disease to demons and devils. This is a cop out that if accepted would mean doctors and researchers may as well not develop medicines for such conditions. Science doesn't delve into the realm of demons, but into natural causes of disease. This has given us many treatments and cures for diseases that once ravaged humanity.

 

But ID is not science. It's philosophy. Even many ID proponents state such. I don't have a problem with ID as a philosophy. It's quite worthy. But don't attempt to pass it off as science. Even Bob Jones U thinks ID as science is a bad idea.

Even if we presume that evolution is bad science, it doesn't excuse the proponents of ID from doing the same.

 

ID, creationism and evolutionism all start out as mere "theoretical" philosophies based on fundamental philosophical pre-suppostions. Science, scientific methods, and scientific techniques and instruments are then employed to persuade such philosophies of the validity of their philosophical pre-suppositions.

This observation is readily confirmed by the fact that anyone can call anything a "science," and everyone is equally entitled to believe in whatever "science" they choose to call science.

Unless, of course, you want the politicians and courts to decide what constitutes "science." In that case, you might as well give them the power to define art, liberty, history, good taste, and everything else for that matter, while you're at it.

 

One of my interests is the history of science and religion and how they interact. Fact is, Christian thinkers in the middle ages severely confused science and religion. Newton had quite a number of alchemical notions. Kepler did horoscopes. It didn't happen all at once, and it certainly didn't happen with the rise of Christianity.

Interestingly, Newton used God to justify something that is anathema to creationists today:

"Newton employed the guaranteeing God to support his use of induction. Natural philosophers can use inference in experimental philosophy precisely because the faithful God of order allows one to expect parsimony in nature and since the unity of creation ensures that specifically observed principles and structures point to universals."
http://www.isaac-newton.org/science.doc

The philosophy of Science only observes that parsimony and induction work. But I think Newton was right about this.

There is no "establishment." The closest you can get to that is a general consensus among scientists. There is no such thing in science as you find in the ICR graduate school, which requires a loyalty oath to YE creationism. From time to time, someone tries that, and gets slapped down. Rightfully so.

In fact, the IDers are very clear about this. From their Wedge Document:
"Governing Goals

To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies.

To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and hurnan beings are created by God."

I do not think any reasonable person would deny that this is a religious movement, seeking to advance religion.

The only attempt at "ID methodology" I know of, is Dembski's "explanitory filter." But it doesn't seem to work, unless you decide in advance whether something is "designed" or not.

"If Creationism was so truly sure of itself, then the ICR would not require a loyalty oath to creationism for those applying to their graduate school."

"If Astronomy was so truly sure of itself, then it would not mind a bit if Astrology were on the table for an honest look at it."

These things are on the table. The question is whether or not we should teach students that astrology or ID is a reasonable alternative to science.

That's been going on for a long time. Darwinism, as conceived by Darwin, has been shown to be wrong on a number of points. By scientists, not astrologers or creationists. And accordingly, science has changed because of the successful challenges.

Unfortunately, "honest" isn't the mark of many of the leading IDers. Jonathan Wells, for example, in "Icons of Evolution", dishonestly asserted that Peppered Moths do not rest on tree trunks, even though he was aware of studies that say they do.

Here's what Kenneth Miller (a Christian) has to say about it:
1) Peppered Moths. For years, Wells has argued that the peppered moth story repeated in many textbooks is a "fraud," and that the moths do not provide an example of natural selection in action. What did I do at the debate? I made it clear that the moths are, as scientists like Bruce Grant (William & Mary) and Michael Majerus (University of Cambridge) agree, a perfectly sound example of natural selection in action. And I also pointed out that Wells is just plain wrong when he claims that the moths don't rest on tree trunks. The latter claim is particularly important, since this is why Wells feels justified in claiming that a photo of the moths on a tree trunk in one of my textbooks is a "fraud."

Wells presents a series of quotes from the literature to support his contention, made in "Icons," that peppered moths don't rest on tree trunks, a claim I rebutted in the debate. Like many opponents of evolution, he argues from quotation rather than from data. At the debate, I presented actual data on the positions in which moths have been observed in the wild, and guess what? Although the literature is clear that adequate studies have not yet been done to pinpoint the places where these moths generally rest in the wild, observations done to date show that most moths have, indeed, been found on tree trunks

Data and cites are here:
http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/wells-april-2002.html

Perhaps you have not read the literature. All it talks about is the evidence. If by "interpretations", you mean "inferences from evidence", you are correct. That is what science does.

In the literature, I've never seen any of that. It is very well reasoned, and good science.

I pointed out that people once thought that lightning was God's revenge on His enemies. That is false, of course. It obeys natural laws like everything else.

I pointed out that at one time, people thought plague and other infectious diseases were caused by demons.

If so, the evidence is subtle. Can demons cause mental illness? Science can't say, because it can't deal with magic and miracles.

I would be pleased to know who thinks lightning is God's revenge, or who thinks demons cause infectious disease.

You think it wasn't common in the Middle Ages? People then thought that if the baby had not yet "quickened", it was OK to abort it.

You think the elderly weren't neglected and left to die? Hundreds of years ago, there were institutions where people could leave newborns in a sort of "night depository" if they didn't want them. The death rate for those foundlings in the first year was horrific.

Did you know that in many places, the insane were regarded as criminal, and locked up? In some places, they were put on display for a fee. Children as young as four were held accountable for criminal acts and executed.

I'd prefer to stay on topic, thank you.

A bit better than the 90s. Most social indicators are going up, or were until the last few years. Murder rates and violent crime are down. More people report God is important in their lives. And the tide is finally turning on abortion. Fewer support it now, and even politicians like Bush and Clinton are modifying their stance on it.

And it's much, much better than the days when you could buy humans for labor or sexual slavery.

No kidding. Humans can't handle power. It inevitably corrupts them. Only strict accountability prevents them from becoming tyrants.

You certainly aren't.

Good observation.

Also good observations.