Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial

Good piece Juantoo, you have been rather quiet of late and I miss your posts, hope this sees your return :)

"Intelligent" design has given us only one thing of value. An absolutely classic example of an oxymoron.

Some time ago I raised the question of religious education for children and my take on it is that children should be free from any religious education, at home or school, till aged at least 14. Some parents cannot be trusted to let their children's minds develop by absorbing facts and seek to make them copies of themselves as though they were possessions rather than people. The excuse of "guidance" or "moral education" is often cited by those that rally to indoctrination but this is a red herring. Ethics and morality can be taught without religious metaphor being packaged as fact. I find the idea of Sunday school and church camps where children are all taught to believe unsubstantiated conjecture, and as often to "fear god" as "love him", to be morally corrupt infringements on the human right of a child to grow up free from brainwashing. If they were outlawed we may well have a far more rational, happy and secular harmony amongst all peoples. Each religion indoctrinating its youth only serves to keep the old divisions strong, and too often at war.

Tao
 
juantoo3 said:
A link to a program on NOVA about Intelligent Design on trial in a court in Pennsylvania. At least now I better understand the comments in the past regarding Dr. Behee in some of our evolution / creation discussions:

NOVA | Intelligent Design on Trial | PBS
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That preview is kinda spooky. Tense music, "The witnesses started dropping like flies." It's like the evening news!

:rolleyes::D
 
Hi Pathless...In case you hadn't noticed lately. PBS stations are relying more and more upon corporate funding these days for operations, and definitely cater to the tastes of upper-middles in their programming choices.

Gotta buy more guns, bombs, and pilotless remote controlled drone aircraft with our tax monies y'know. Can't support something as insignificant as Public broadcasting with Gummint money. Got a war to fight and win. C'mon aren't you a patriot ?

You an extremist ? Maybe a terrorist ? What's the matter Mr. Pumpkin Head!!
What are you waiting for ? Go out right now and shop for stuff !!!

flow....:p
 
Pathless...Don't look at the harshness of what I wrote as directed at you as a person, but as a statement of the absurdity of the situation that we all have been blindly led into. I knew that you didn't watch much on the idiot box, but you gave me an opportunity to vent my non-existent spleen. You know how unpredictable old farts are.

As some of my compatriots in Chicago are fond of sometimes saying ,"don't think of it as something personal, it was only business." Sorry my artistic friend.

flow....;)
 
Kindest Regards, Flow!
flowperson said:
Hi Pathless...In case you hadn't noticed lately. PBS stations are relying more and more upon corporate funding these days for operations, and definitely cater to the tastes of upper-middles in their programming choices.
Click to expand...

Hmmm, my tastes run the same as upper-middles? Perhaps there is hope for me yet?, 'cause I am so *not* "upper" middle, more like upper-poverty.

Of course, your comment (along with previous insight) makes me wonder about the decided slant to the program...it was pretty obviously to me not exactly "balanced" reporting. Quite unlike what I have come to expect from NOVA, but then I'm just a paranoid reactionary looking for the radical conspiracy lurking behind every tree and billboard (and politician). Ah! What's the world coming to? It was so much better in the olden days... ( :rolleyes: yeah, right... )
 
Slanted? Commercial free PBS...nah.

It is time to pull the plug on funding public broadcasting unless they decide to quit being such corporate shills.

They play the game as good as anyone. Public funds created/allowed Sesame Street to flourish so what did they do in response? Form a separate private, for profit merchandising arm which makes millions, if all spinoffs become required to refund public broadcasting and the taxpayer I'll change my tune.

My other pet peeve, watching commercials on commercial free television, and waiting for the fund raising drives to see the real good programming, give me a break.

Oops stop ranting back to OP.

Intelligent Design. Oops, they aren't buying our seven days anymore? Lets see how can we stay literalist and dogmatic and appease the masses? Wasn't this really first produced by SNL or the Onion?
 
I went to the Oxymoron Festival the other day. They served some pretty ugly veggie burgers, but some awful good jumbo shrimp.
 
Dondi said:
Why is it an oxymoron?
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A contradictory figure of speech.

So to me the term 'Islamic terrorism' is an oxymoron because if someone uses terrorism it cannot be Islamic. So terms like 'liquid gas' or 'open secret' are oxymorons. :)
 
Muslimwoman said:
A contradictory figure of speech.

So to me the term 'Islamic terrorism' is an oxymoron because if someone uses terrorism it cannot be Islamic. So terms like 'liquid gas' or 'open secret' are oxymorons. :)
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Namaste MW,

The question was not 'what is' but Why is it an oxymoron?

me thinks dondi knows what it is he just doesn't see why one would not merge the two.

However this is where the divide lies. The three groups all discount the others.
 
Yes, MW, I know what an oxymoron is. I'm just wondering why people believe that "intelligent design" is such a one. Is there a "stupid design"?
 
Hi Dondi,

Evolution is not intelligent, it operates by chance and sheer numbers and in some living organisms by adaptability, (though even adaptability can be seen as random). But in some sense you are correct to question why I call it an oxymoron, it would have suited my argument better and more precisely to have just called it a moronic statement. So it may not be a strictly obvious oxymoron... but I am sure you get my point.

Tao
 
The concept of "deity" at issue here is a "personal" one, who functions like us, except better: we make mental models of possible future outcomes, and choose among them because we "want" certain things and don't want others. The power behind the natural universe (whatever name you choose) does not operate by precalculating future outcomes (lightning follows what at each instant is the path of least resistance, without regard for where that path is going to end up). We have a natural tendency to describe anything we don't understand in "personal" terms, because that mode of conceptualizing is what we have to work with, but it leads to stupid misunderstandings.
 
bob x said:
The concept of "deity" at issue here is a "personal" one, who functions like us, except better: we make mental models of possible future outcomes, and choose among them because we "want" certain things and don't want others. The power behind the natural universe (whatever name you choose) does not operate by precalculating future outcomes (lightning follows what at each instant is the path of least resistance, without regard for where that path is going to end up). We have a natural tendency to describe anything we don't understand in "personal" terms, because that mode of conceptualizing is what we have to work with, but it leads to stupid misunderstandings.
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Sounds to me like designing G-d. Although quite how intelligent may be a matter of perspective... ;)
 
As far as I can see, Intelligent Design won't be accepted because of the perception that it is the slippery slope toward a purely religious outlook. In addition, I am not intelligent enough to fathom how a philosophic and maybe poetic outlook based on observable phenomena can be classified as science.
I could even give some credence to the idea that intuitive, a priori knowledge can rival the scientific process but to call them the same thing seems wrong.
 
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