Does ID deserve "respect" as a viewpoint?

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by superluminal, Mar 19, 2006.

  1. superluminal I am MalcomR Valued Senior Member

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    I was reading a newsletter from the university that my daughter attends. The feature article was titled "Intelligent Design - To Teach or Not to Teach".

    It presented the viewpoints of several faculty on the ID controversy and how to handle it at the university level (we happen to live less than 30 miles from Dover, Pa., USA if that means anything to you). It was stated outright at the beginning of the article that the university will not teach ID as science. This is a good thing. What I noticed most about the various faculty interviews was the way they tiptoed their way through the issues.

    We all know, by definition, that ID is not science. Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of how science works knows this. Yet we still treat those who support it with kid gloves. I say, explain to them once what the difference is between science and mystical theology, then if they continue on about it, denounce them publicly as morons. The whole tone of the article was that of an adult coddling a child (the science community vs. local theologians).

    Why do we do this? (I know, I know. It's a politically sensitive subject. Bullshit. It's just moronic.)

    Specifically, does every viewpoint deserve respect? Does ID deserve statements like "It's a viewpoint a lot of people share and we should respect that"? I think that's crap to be blunt about it. I hate the entire ID agenda because it wraps mystical theology in a pseudoscientific package that can easily sway the majority of people who have no scientific understanding. Lying bastards.

    My answer to the general question "does every viewpoint deserve respect" it yes, once. After examination if it is shown to be unsupported by any evidence, then it politely gets shelved. Those who then continue to support it or push it as fact get punched in the nose.

    There. I feel much better. End of rant.
     
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  3. KennyJC Registered Senior Member

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    What do you expect from a country were 48% of the citizens think the Earth is 10,000 years old with man made of dust and clay?

    I will not respect any agenda that represents the racist, war mongering, gun toting, gay hating fascist regime. ID is a part of that sick culture.
     
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  5. cato less hate, more science Registered Senior Member

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    science gets my respect, and ID is misinformation about science to serve the agenda of an institution. it is anti science. people wonder why America is loosing its edge in science and never stop to think about how religion plays a roll.
     
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  7. Cottontop3000 Death Beckoned Registered Senior Member

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    Intelligent design deserves contempt, not respect.
     
  8. i think people should be able to believe ID if they want to and it is their right to ignore science. that being said, keep it out of the public square. dont try to teach it as science because it isnt. you dont teach 18th century literature in science class, why would you teach ID there? its a belief that doesnt have much credibility, sort of like the view that the KKK has that blacks are an inferior race or that jews are bent on a conspiracy to take over the world. its sort of stupid and should be treated as such in the public policy realm. let the minority believe it if they want though.
     
  9. SkinWalker Archaeology / Anthropology Moderator

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    It is pseudoscience and deserves to be treated and ridiculed as such.
     
  10. superluminal I am MalcomR Valued Senior Member

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    Why are we so afraid, as a society, to label a thing like ID exactly what it is - idiotic? We all make mistakes. We all do dumb shit. But we (hopefully) learn. I've read some scientists who are quite open about the idiocy of ID as science. But the majority seem far too polite. PC infuriates me. I'll bet there are many (theist) donors to the university who would stop giving if the professors were honest about their view of ID.

    What a world...
     
  11. Godless Objectivist Mind Registered Senior Member

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  12. Gustav Banned Banned

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    i say..why not?

    postulating a creator for any particular process is not revolutionary. just logic and semantics. it is simple cause and effect. because of this, that. what is unusual is the attempt to exempt a creator from the chain of causality
     
  13. Hapsburg Hellenistic polytheist Valued Senior Member

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    Creationism and ID are not logic. It's crap. Crap rolled in crap smothered in crap surrounded by a crapfield armed with turbocrap-cannons that fire bullcrap at the speed of bullshit.

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  14. Mythbuster Mushroomed Registered Senior Member

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    They mock Darwin.
     
  15. pavlosmarcos It's all greek to me Registered Senior Member

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    it certainly is'nt logic.
    though I agree, that the use of words like god and intelligent design, are just words, why say them at all, it just makes the speaker/writer look foolish, considering that they advance the debate no further for being there,
    thats as maybe, but why put the words there if all they do is aggrevate the situation.
    why, how so, when there is no evidence for a creator, just as I said above, it makes the speaker/writer look stupid, and aggravates the recipent, it is a complete waste of time to continue with this utter stupidness, but unfortunately, the religious will continue to do it.


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  16. candy Valued Senior Member

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    One should respect another's right to their own religious views but one holding certain religious beliefs should respect that science is defined by scientific method whether or not the technology can explain everything. Scientific method does not absolutely exclude the possibility of ID but that does not imply that ID should be superimposed on the information that can be established by scientific methods. Anything is possible but only somethings are proven.
     
  17. SkinWalker Archaeology / Anthropology Moderator

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    Post-modernist responses like that are best left for the pseudoscience sections, candy. You've demonstrated time and again you lack any qualification to formulate opinions about science.

    "One should respect another's right to their own religious views..."

    Should that include sewing shut vaginas and chopping off clitorises? Should we "respect" these views and practices? Should we also respect the views and practices that force adolescent girls to marry adult males and have sex with them?

    Where is the line drawn on what religious bullshit is acceptable and what religious bullshit isn't?

    'Intelligent design' is simply creationist mumbo-jumbo presented in a deceptive format. The "design" is the way it hopes to trick the under-educated into thinking that it is legitimate. It is pseudoscience -fake science.

    Science is the only valid form of knowing our world. Supernatural mumbo-jumbo has no place in it.
     
  18. candy Valued Senior Member

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    Skinwalker,
    I think that you constantly demonstrate your inablity to repect the right of other people to have an opinion that does not subjugate itself to your world view.
    The question of where to draw the line is very complex. The best basis I can suggest is consent; to respect what someone has consented to be part of. I may find it to be a poor choice but I choose to respect their right to make that choice and if possible offer them an alternative that they are free to decline.
    I do agree that ID is being used as a cover for Biblism but a lack of data does not preclude the possibility that the universe has a design. That ID does not belong in the science classroom does not absolutely mean that it is totally untrue; it is just not science.
    "Our present lives are dominated by the Goddess Reason, who is our greatest and most tragic illusion." Jung
     
  19. what about that is scientific? its not logic to assume an unevidenced cause for something which has an unknown cause.
     
  20. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    ID is not even pseudoscience, it should be studied as sociology. It's repackaged creationism, which itself began soon after the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species. It's the struggle of religion to maintain it's traditional assumptions in the face of evidence that discounts the traditional role of God. They have always been behind the times, but perhaps they will catch up eventually.
     
  21. Godless Objectivist Mind Registered Senior Member

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    How does a baby girl give consent of anything? She's being mutilated by the concent of the parent? She has no choice in the matter. Were the line is drawn is not complicated at all. I'ts either amoral or morally justified. Mutilating kids is not moral is it? Neither should it be to subject them in matters they still don't understand. A child should be presented religious rhetoric when he/she's old enough to refuse such BS!. or embrace it. To teach it, indoctrimate as a child, is nothing more than mutilating the mind. :bugeye:

    Godless
     
  22. SkinWalker Archaeology / Anthropology Moderator

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    I have no problem with others having opinions of their own. They have every right. Indeed, I'll defend their rights to their opinions as well as their rights to express those opinions via free speech to the end, including your own opinions.

    But I'll reserve that same right to speak out in rebuttal and refutation to those opinions that are presented as claims when they are bullshit. Most of your opinions have fit that category to date.

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    Still, you have every right to them. Just don't be surprised when someone like myself refutes or even ridicules them. I'm just exercising my right to free speech.

    I think that's a commonsense place to draw the line. I retract my earlier categorization of your opinions as "bullshit to date." See, I'm willing to revise my position when faced with evidence

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    That's the true definition of open-minded, by the way.

    I think, applying the consent rule, we can say that school children aren't consenting to indoctrination of the supernatural, and therefore only the verifiable and testable should be presented in school. Therefore, 'intelligent' design, which assumes the god-hypothesis, should be omitted from any educational curricula involving science.

    If nothing else, because it excludes those students who are believers of religions that don't include the christian god: wiccans, Native Americans, etc., 'intelligent' design violates this consent rule. But, then, I would argue that indoctrinating a child into the dogma of a given religion violates consent as well and could be construed as child abuse.
     
  23. superluminal I am MalcomR Valued Senior Member

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    Don't know much about the guy. Sounds like a dickwad to me.
     

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