Here's a disturbing article in which a science-writer finds himself disturbed by the the Christian Fundamentalists' latest chimera, Intelligent Design, which y'all know by now just drives me utterly batty.
I agree with his basic thesis -- so called "Intelligent Design" is an assault not only upon Biology, but upon science itself. It took Sputnik to scare our native theocrats back into their caves; what will it take next time?
Once upon a time (back when I was a seminarian trying to explain what the hell I was doing with my life), I used to explain to people that matters of faith are not beliefs. Beliefs may be contradicted, whereas matters of faith are "more true" than facts. Sadly, I'm now terrified that I may in fact have been more correct about this than I'd realized. We've all seen the mathematical proof that 1 equals 2, and the division by zero that underpins it. Is religious faith similarly dangerous? How can we convince people that religion belongs in the sphere of morality, not the sphere of facts, before they turn us into a psuedo-Christian version of Iran? Or worse, before the socialist utopianists convince us that all morality is wrong because it leads to fundamentalism?
7 comments:
Please to explain in a nutshell (so I don't have to go hunt for it) exactly what it is that the ID people are claiming?
I ask b/c I am unclear on why it offends people so much?
ID people claim that since evolution is inherently small-scale, that a "more than the sum of its parts" complex organ like the eye could not have occurred via evolution, and that therefore, there is evidence of intelligent design within living organisms.
The difficulty with that line of reasoning is that it
a) has been disproven based on what we now know
b) has been seized upon by people with not the foggiest idea of how science works as a means of teaching fundamentalist creationism-by-another-name in the schools (complete with such blissfully ignorant sayings as "evolution is just a theory like ID, why not teach both," forgetting that there is a profound difference between a theory and a hypothesis.)
Not to mention that they're dead wrong on another point: evolution is a FACT. Not a Law, but most definitely a fact.
I've posted about this one before. This is from Zathras'Projection:
What disturbs the creationist most is the suggestion that man is not the center of the universe, especially when he hears the assertion that the universe has no center and no edge. The creationist maintains that everything that is was created for the sake of man, and that the Divine has a personal interest in the affairs of men. To assert anything that suggests otherwise shakes his belief to the core.
In an attempt to introduce his conceit into inquiry about the universe, he has alighted upon the idea of "intelligent design"--the claim that there is a fundamentally rational telos for the existence and organization of things, suggesting a rational intelligence that made it so. This he sees as a stepping stone to his religious conviction, offering vain hope that he can be the most important creature in the universe again.
However, were he to pursue 'intelligent design' to its conclusion there is a chance he will discover that man is so infinitesimally small, and the Beatific Vision he seeks so vast, that any assertion of an intelligent design centered on man is itself irrational.
Zathras referred to ID as "science by negation."
Another example of science by negation:"We cannot synthesize sucrose, therefore God exists." At its root, a non sequitur.
No kidding. "Man is dead" ticks them off even more than "God id dead". Xenophanes to the rescue!
Yeah, this whole intelligent design thing is really a stupid idea. I don't have a problem if it was taught in its proper context (i.e. philosophy not science), but they have to have it up there with evolution in the biology class where it most certainly doesn't belong. I am really starting to not like Kansas, and now for other reasons aside from the football teams.
I'll go off the great comment "religion is a fine thing when taken in moderation". That always seems best to me.
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