Darwinist's Dilemma (Are I.D. Biologists Legit?)

An unnamed mainstream biology supposed-expert here at SciForums was asked this:

Q. "Are there legitimate biologists in the I.D camp?"

A. "Yes, they are, though I do not find support in their paradigms."

Aside from answering the question with bad English for the way the question was posed, do you see the problem of this Darwinist? He says that I.D. biologists are legitimate, but that their ideas should not be taught. What is wrong with this picture?

First one to guess which forum member I'm referring to gets a free weekend with Genji on a remote tropical island.

 

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Would the first letter of this eminent scholar's user name be "G" and would the last letter of this most noble, contemplative polymath's user name be "P"?

"Q. 'Are there legitimate biologists in the I.D camp?'

A. 'Yes, they are, though I the bigoted bigot do not find any bigoted support in their quite accurate and carefully articulated paradigms.'"

 

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Even legitimate biologists can have theories that aren't well supported. I don't see the contradiction.

 

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The contradiction is those legitimate biologists who dissent from Darwinism are called all sorts of derogatory names, and prevented from presenting their views in the classroom and often in the media, so much for intellectual honesty, but it will get better.

 

Perhaps they are being intellectually dishonest in learning science for the sole purpose of promoting creationism in a pseudo-scientific guise (I.D.).

 

No, many science people were reared with Darwinian dogma, and then snapped out of it, after becoming more educated.

 

It's not dogma, yo.

 

What is it if not dogma?

 

A scientific theory. A set of well-founded deductions based on evidence that no one has shown to be incorrect.

 

Then why do biologists doubt its veracity?

 

What the fuck is ID?

 

Very few of them do. Mostly they work on figuring out details.

 

Most workings of evolution (and of inanimate matter to animate) agree fully with prior scientific achievements and correlations. Most of the theories themselves have been tested continually, the only problem is time and environment (scientists have to work on the latter).

while there are few biologists that support the idea of a type of god, and while it is true that they are generally put down for their ideas that evolution is false, there is also something to be said about how they go about proving their ideas.

The biologists I've seen that have disowned evolution, usually don't even know what evolution exactly is. While this may seem quite the audacious clam, it's markedly true. for if you ever care to looking at the writings of these particular scientists, the degree in which they get things wrong about evolution is astounding for their level of academic achievement.

I believe this is the result of dogmatic beliefs clouding their judgment so much that they leave the methods of science behind. Assuming they ever used them to begin with. this is, in part, why the majority of the scientific body is very quick to prevent them from teaching in schools, and everything else.

"legitimate biologist" does not translate to "one that abandons the scientific method in favor of dogmatic beliefs that completely ignore evidence".

Therefore, if you would be so kind as to point to me in that direction of a biologists that is disagreeing with evolution on a scientific standpoint, I will give you a better analysis of the situation.

 

There are some legitimate biologists who maintain belief, or faith, in various forms and extensions of ID.

To my personal knowledge, there was and may still be at least one biologist at Cornell - a very respectable institution - who held the belief that human beings were Intelligently Designed (by the Christian God), but that all other beings evolved in Darwinian fashion.

This is not because he was raised in Darwinian dogma and "saw the light" - it is because he was raised in fundamentallist Christian dogma and is unwilling to give it up completely, regardless of evidence. It was a conscious decision on his part.

btw: whether or not ID should be taught is a separate matter from biologists' "belief" in some form of it. Until there is an ID theory there is nothing to teach. So far, even ID adherents lack a theory - their arguments are confined to various (widely various) rejections of evolutionary theory.

There are respectable physicists who believe that quantum theory is fundamentally flawed as well. This does not mean that the "other theories" should be taught, because there are none as yet.

 

ID is "Intelligent Design". A remarketing - rebranding if you will - of Creationism.

ID biologists are simply folks that are biased towards supporting their theisms and have decided to employ their profession to set out to find facts that support their forgone conclusion.

I imagine IAC will jump up and say "evolution is also a foregone conclusion". It is merely the theory that best encompasses the evidence that scientists have found over the centuries. Note the fine difference there...evolution was only postulated by Darwin after examination of evidence that was observable. ID is still the "cart before the horse" claim of creationism.

 

Darwin saw variable beak sizes in finches, big deal.

 

And a small taste of the remarkable diversity of life on earth.

 

A very small taste, for a misguided wishful conclusion.

 

Theories abound.
Some theories find correspondence in reality, in a shared experience that can be replicated, studied, analyzed and used to predict and to alter it.
Other theories find more correspondence in the needy human heart, fed by imagination and rooted in fear.

In the first case the senses feed the imagination, sparking in it curiosity, seeking understanding.
In the second case the process is reversed. The senses simply provide problems to be overlooked or explained away in the pursuit of a pre-existing, already present understanding which just requires justification.

 

One can easily, and actually more accurately, say that the second case is the predicament of the Darwinian dogmatists.