College Credits For Trolling the Web? 1164
A user writes "Some undergraduate and masters level courses at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary require trolling as part of their requirements.
In William Dembski's classes on Intelligent Design and Christian Apologetics, 20% of the final grades come from having made 10 posts defending Intelligent Design Creationism on 'hostile' websites.
There seems to be no requirement that the posts contain original writing; apparently cut-and-paste jobs are sufficient. Is this the first case of trolling the net being part of course requirements?"
Wait, wait, wait... (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
Finally a respectable title (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not trolling, I'm _evangilizing_ . Time to wreck my karma with a mess of '-1 Evangilist' mods.
No (Score:5, Insightful)
undergraduate and masters level courses ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nut jobs are nut jobs, troll should be no surprise (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean, if you go to a nut job school, trying to learn how to be a real nut job, the fact that they have to turn you into a troll first should come as no surprise.
Superstitious idiots are going to be around as long as there are cockroaches. Those of us with brains will just have to learn how to live with it.
RAID doesn't even work all that well.
Re:Wait, wait, wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
By the way, notice that defending their position does not include a knowledge of evolution theory. So it's really a pure trolling.
Re:Wait, wait, wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
Last I checked there were no secular biology classes that require students to go find ID websites and defend evolution on them... Unless of course you mean making an ass of yourself spreading pseudoscientific bullshit as one of the tenets of the school's beliefs.
Here is another fun requirement for the class.
Trace the connections between Darwinian evolution, eugenics, abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia. Why are materialists so ready to embrace these as a package deal? What view of humanity and reality is required to resist them?
In fact...my outrage is that the school is actively encouraging these shit for brains to go forth and share their idiocy. Writing a paper about this crap is one thing, but actively going out and finding 'hostile' websites to post on is just being a douchebag. You might also carefully consider the fact they use the word 'hostile' to describe those who disagree with them. Now, if you are ok living under fundamentalist religion rule like the Taliban, by all means, just let them continue their push and growth. Palin 2012!
Re:That shows a serious lack of initiative (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps not, but you'd be fool (and a hypocrite) to not prepare for the possibility.
Re:Wait, wait, wait... (Score:4, Insightful)
What the fuck is that shit? Saying that if you believe in evolution you are for eugenics, abortion and infanticide? Talk about demonizing people to defend your position. What scum write something like that?
Re:Full disclosure (Score:5, Insightful)
I, personally, don't see why the students should have to disclose anything. Their opinions are valid (even if their evidence is... er... patchy), and I don't see how knowing who inspired their comments would do anything but open them up for cheap ad hominem shots.
If they're really so wrong, we should be able to demonstrate it without such disclosures.
Whoa, that site reads like a Scientology manual (Score:5, Insightful)
I was ready to give it the benefit of the doubt - after all, religion without ministry is just jerking off your soul - until I read this gem:
Jeepers, you might as well just write "I spent a full 24 hours giving myself paper cuts with the book while chanting the Lord's Prayer, so I felt I'd leveled up and skipped actually writing the 'reflection.'"
And they keep saying the word "critical review". I do not think that means what they think it means. I think they'd find any actual "critical" writing to be... Suppressive [xenu-directory.net].
Re:Wait, wait, wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
Force feeding ID and Creationism seems a bit extremist to me. Christians like my brother and parents are deeply religious weekly churchgoers and believe in evolution, not ID. My brother is even a Rush Limbaugh/Ann Coultier/Sean Hannity loving hard right Republican (and married to a left leaning liberal wife, which is pretty amusing). I'd have to assume there are many other Christians that share that belief.
The issue at hand is the guy is forcing the students to troll, and to troll with philosophy that isn't shared by all Christians, possibly not even by the students themselves. Even if they do believe it, it is kinda like sending a guy in a blue uniform and police badge and a pistol into a gang house full of people with automatic weapons alone and asking them to surrender without a fight (except without the possibility of literally getting killed... I think).
Re:That shows a serious lack of initiative (Score:3, Insightful)
By that logic, I should prepare for zombie attacks too, because it's about as likely.
Re:Wait, wait, wait... (Score:4, Insightful)
What scum write something like that?
Religious people.
What do you expect? They can not come up with facts to defend their position, so they have to do what all major religions are about: make shit up.
Re:Full disclosure (Score:4, Insightful)
Wishful thinking.
Those of us who have experienced a liberal education know that while professors may have their own preconceived notions, in general, they'll give favorable marks to a well argued contrary position. In fact, these professors are better often positioned to recognize (and reward) a well reasoned critique than even those who hold the contrary positions.
Contrast that to some of the final exam questions for this "teacher's" course:
Shorter: "Please pander to me by knocking down the straw man I've just set up."
This is not education. This is indoctrination. Critical thought, self examination, and probing questions are not welcome. The goal of the trolling requirement is akin to hammering an online poll so that it seems like your view point is more prevalent than it really is.
For the record, I am not of the opinion that a scientific mindset is incompatible with a belief in god.
Re:Wait, wait, wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
Both you and the submitter assume that because the course summary doesn't specify the standards by which the posts will be graded, that means there are no standards. Unless you've taken the course, neither of us is in a position to know if that's true - which suggests to me that you are assuming what you want to believe about those who disagree with you.
Considering that this assignment is 20% of the grade, and (in at least one of the courses) is one of only three assignments for the semester (including the final exam), the instructor could impose very rigerous standards when he grades the posts. Whatever standards may or may not exist, detailed assignment instructions would likely be given in the lecture rather than the course summary; so again I can only think of one reason people rush to assume there are none.
Re:Intelligent Design Creationism? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, no.
Creationism = "god did it."
Intelligent Design = "Something Big (possibly called God) did it."
I have a really, really tough time understanding how these are rather distinct. Even those who first promoted intelligent design see them as the same thing, only removing God from Intelligent design, since that was the major reason why creationism couldn't be taught in schools.
Anyways, Neither creationism or ID have anything to do with young earthers (or at least are only tangentially related). Young Earthers took all the dates/ages in the bible, added them up, and came to 6,000 years, so therefore, the earth must only be 6,000 years old.
Re:Wait, wait, wait... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is an outrage!
Actually, it sort of is an outrage. If that school is taking federal money or students are getting government backed student loans to go out and preach religious dogma as some kind of pop science, I do find that a bit outrageous and a little offensive.
If it's all private money and students are paying their own way, that's a little less offensive. Still, it borders on a fusion of religion and politics. They're not spreading their faith, they're spreading some militant concoction of politics and religious science, including a straw man opposition that they portray as wanting to kill people.
Looking at it from the perspective of a believer, this isn't faith, it's apostate Protestantism trying to justify a political jihad. Probably no surprise their rhetoric sounds eerily similar to some of what's being taught by militant Muslim scholars.
Wolf in sheeps' clothing (Score:5, Insightful)
The term "Intelligent Design Creationism" seems to me a little unhelpful.
Intelligent design and (young earth) creationism are in general rather distinct, although the rather large differences are sometimes blurred both by proponents trying to gather support and by opponents who want to simply ridicule both groups instead of trying to reason with them.
No. Creationists who disguise themselves as scientists call themselves "intelligent design proponents", IDers are just dishonest creationists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Pandas_and_People#Pandas_and_.22cdesign_proponentsists.22 [wikipedia.org]
The term "creationists" was changed to "design proponents", but in one case the beginning and end of the original word "creationists" were accidentally retained, so that "creationists" became "cdesign proponentsists".
The basic metabolic pathways (reaction chains) of nearly all organisms are the same. Is this because of descent from a common ancestor, or because only these pathways (and their variations) can sustain life? Evolutionists think the former is correct, cdesign proponentsists accept the latter view.
Re:It's unclear why this is a bad thing (Score:3, Insightful)
> Besides, we're talking about Science here
No we're not. We're talking about pure fundementalist Christianity trying to
pose as something that it's not in order to gain "legitimacy" and to allow it
better able to be disruptive and invasive.
Flameproof suit on! (Score:3, Insightful)
I may be the first (and only) poster to defend the professor in the article, but here goes.
It is a course at a Baptist Seminary in Intelligent Design and Christian Apologetics. From Wikipedia:
These people are studying to be ministers in a religion. One of their roles is to defend their faith and its tenets. Given the position of the Internet in the world today, how could anyone say they are qualified to do that without having done work on the internet? And, since the focus is on defense of those tenets, the best place to practice that is on hostile websites. So I believe the assignment is appropriate to the course aims.
Note that I am not a Baptist (RC here), I think ID (except as a philosophical experiment) is creationism in disguise, and trolls irritate me too. But lets face it - who here hasn't trolled in order to tweak someone or start a flamewar? Hell, the folks on Slashdot practically invented some forms of trolling (Goatse, anyone?).
So, instead of excoriating the professor, we should invite his students onto here and "help" them with their studies.
Re:Full disclosure (Score:4, Insightful)
Somebody moderate the parent insightful... he's absolutely correct. It doesn't really matter if they're posting on the 'net because they have to for class requirements, and all it really does is open them up to attacks on the fact that they're still students, or attacks on their school.
It's up to the person themselves whether they're going to listen to opposing viewpoints. To a large extent that's dependant on their upbringing and their education. If the school isn't teaching them to listen to what their opponents are saying so that they can understand where they're coming from, then no amount of disclosure is going to improve things for anybody. The problem really comes when people decide that listening to what the opposition says is lending credence to their argument, when the reality is simple: I don't have to agree with what you're saying, but you have a right to say it, and I will show you the same courtesy that I'd expect when I'm expressing my opinions.
It doesn't really matter if you don't convince the ID people that they're wrong. Strictly speaking, we can't actually know whether they're wrong or not, that's why it's a non-theory. But it could still be correct. I don't have to believe it to recognize that as a possibility. But there's far too many people, on both sides of the argument, who refuse to accept even the remotest possiblity that the other side might be right, and that their beliefs might be wrong. When that happens, it stops being about expanding our knowledge, and starts being about dogma and fanatical devotion. And quite frankly, the atheists are just as guilty as the ID people.
Going off on a rant, but I think the problem lies in the education system. No, I don't think you should be teaching religion in schools. Actually, I don't think you should be teaching "knowledge" at all in schools, for the first bit. Teach basic maths and literacy, because you need them to function in contemporary society, but leave history, geography, and such out of it at first. Teach the kids how to think critically, and how to examine every viewpoint they're presented with so that they're capable of producing the truth on their own. Then, and only then, should you present them with the facts and historical details, as such materials are *always* written with a bias.
It's a bad thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you read the article, you'll see that they don't require "discussion" of any kind:
"provide at least 10 posts defending ID that youâ(TM)ve made on âoehostileâ websites, the posts totalling 2,000 words, along with the URLs (i.e., web links) to each post (worth 20% of your grade)."
The only thing this kind of sociopathic requirement causes is hit-and-run troll posts.
Also:
"What ID brings to the table is a new reexamination of facts."
This is wrong. Scientists already reexamine facts constantly. ID does not add anything useful to the discussion, because it postulates a "theory" that can neither be proven nor disproven, and doesn't make any kinds of useful predictions. That's like saying "postulating sock gnomes requires you to reexamine the facts of where you left your socks yesterday." It doesn't.
And finally:
"The other problem with ID is also prevalent in fields such as homeopathy and supernatural research. The attempt to address the issues at hand with a completely open mind leads to bad conclusions."
That, again, is wrong. Scientists are required to have a completely open mind when it comes to everything, even homeopathy. This is precisely why we have useful studies in which scientists tested the claims made by homeopathy and other "alternative" medicine. It's also why we know which of these things work, and which don't.
The ones who don't have an open mind are the people who still believe homeopathy works. Their closed-mindedness makes them unable to accept the evidence.
Re:It's unclear why this is a bad thing (Score:2, Insightful)
What ID brings to the table is a new reexamination of facts.
No, it doesn't. ID is dogma. It is nonsense. It is childish superstition dressed up to look like a little less like the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus. Problem is, no matter how much you dress it up it is still childish superstition.
Re:Seminarys are strange animals (Score:2, Insightful)
"Bill Dembski is a smart guy (I've met him)"
Are you sure you're not mistaking him with McDonalds clown?
Re:They don't require trolling (Score:5, Insightful)
The directive is to make ID arguments in, quote, hostile websites.
Why don't they do something easier, like question President Obama's economic policies or the wisdom of a Governmental takeover of the health care system on a site like Daily Kos? At least then you'd be arguing a position in a hostile environment that may have merit -- there isn't much merit to ID and arguing it is the rough equivalent of the 9/11 truthers or the whackjobs that think Obama isn't a native born American citizen.
Re:It's a bad thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to assume by your denial of sock gnomes that you are trolling. ;p
Re:Wait, wait, wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
>it contradicts reality.
It also contradicts the omnipotence of God, should he exist.
I have begun asking these questions of certain Fundies: "Who are *you* to tell God what tools he can and cannot use? God created the Universe and everything in it; the quasars, black holes, galaxies, moons, planets, Earth and even the fossils in the ground. If one of God's tools is evolution, then aren't you committing the sin of hubris by saying it's impossible? You know better than God? Who are you to tell me to deny the plainly evident existence of God's tools like physics, emergent behavior, and evolution?"
It also contradicts Genesis itself. In Genesis, God wanted Adam to look around and appreciate His work. These guys say you shouldn't and that Science is BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD and you will go to HELL and burn for ETERNITY for doing the same.
Groups like this do not offer enlightenment. They only offer a worldview that is blinkered and niggardly.
--
BMO
Re:It's unclear why this is a bad thing (Score:5, Insightful)
"cdesign proponentsists" (Score:3, Insightful)
What ID brings to the table is a new reexamination of facts.
What ID brings is a rebranding of creationism to make it APPEAR similar to science. It's creationism, with less honesty.
Um... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is nothing to do with theology. The examples quoted make it clear that this is a political issue. One of the most depressing things for people like me, who went to a small university in the English fens before deciding that engineering was more interesting and of more benefit to the human race, is that US fundamentalists completely confuse politics and religion. The madness is spreading to the Anglican Church in the UK, where Nigerian politics is now more important than good relations with the Episcopalians.
US fundamentalism takes the form of assigning religious worth to capitalism - if God loves you, you will be materially rich - and also aligns itself with backward notions about Creationism and ID which are more about trying to prove liberals "wrong" than spreading light. The simple fact is that it requires really determined blinkers to believe either that Bible literalism has very deep roots (certainly St. Augustine would have wondered what these people were on about) or that the enormous body of information about geology and biology built up in the last 200 years admits of a fundamentalist interpretation.
To be blunt, if these seminaries were doing their jobs they would be teaching pastoral care, teaching how the New Testament (rather than some cherry picked collection of political positions) can be made relevant today, and preparing their students to heal wounds in society and reduce polarisation between social groups. Instead, they appear to be giving course credits for less violent versions of the activities that give the Taliban a bad name.
You say that seminaries are schools for training pastors, and I agree they should be. But we should then not defend "seminaries" that are training schools for bigoted ideologues who will seek to stir up division in society and spread ignorance. If this man Dembski cannot see why he is wrong on this, he needs to be hit on the head with the Sermon on the Mount till he gets a clue.
Re:Full disclosure (Score:5, Insightful)
Their opinions are valid (even if their evidence is... er... patchy)
An argument is valid if and only if the truth of its premises entails the truth of its conclusion.
They may have a right to their opinion, as idiotic as those may be, but that doesn't make them valid.
RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
I would like to point out that "RichardDawkins.net" is definitely presenting one side of this story, and anyone who takes a brief look at the site can tell which side that is. This is a philosophy course they're referencing and if you look at the tests you'll notice that the questions are just like any philosophy course. They ask you to explain/argue both sides of an issue (one of the test questions even says argue against ID).
Speaking as a student, this is actually a brilliant form of instruction. What better way to make you understand and can use the material you've been taught then to have you defend it against people who will purposely be attacking it vehemently. This course is titled Intelligent Design so I would expect students to learn enough about it to defend it on some level. Why take the course if you're not going to learn the reasoning behind the subject matter.
Also, to everyone who has said that students shouldn't be given an assignment that makes them present/defend a viewpoint outside of their own. Try taking an english class sometime with a christian viewpoint. The stuff they require you to read and write about definitely does NOT fall within my viewpoint most of the time.
We're as primitive as we've ever been (Score:3, Insightful)
Back in the day, you could get a knighthood for attempting to sack Jerusalem in the name of Christianity -- presumably including killing people. If we're down to online trolling, that's a good thing.
Alas, we're not just down to trolling (and that's been going on, in one form or another, since the Inquisition, probably earlier). Killing people over petty religious differences about what the fairy in the sky wants us to do, or how we're supposed to abase ourselves before him, or mistreat our wives and daughters, or whatever is very much alive and well. If you're a medical doctor specializing in women's medicine and willing to provide an abortion, your life as as good as foreit in large swathes of the United States. Of course, you'll have trouble finding such a physician in most of the US, because they've been terrorized out of their clinics, their homes, their communties, and often their careers.
Unruly mobs are already being stirred up to shout down and intimidate our elected officials for daring to consider something most of the industrialized world already has and relies on with great (albeit certainly not perfect) success: national healthcare.
At least one news anchor on Fox has publicly suggested killing the speaker of the house with poison (under the guise of humor, but in a way bound to incite the nutjobs that hang off Fox News' every word).
As for sacking a city on the basis of religion, have you taken a look at Bagdad lately, or forgotten how our then-president Bush claimed to be on a "crusade" and that he spoke with God prior to ordering the invasion.
I'm not so sure things have gotten any better. So far the US has been insulated from the consiquences of our leaders' actions (9/11 notwithstanding), but that is unlikely to continue in even the medium, and certainly not in the long run. And certainly, from the view of much of the rest of the world, it's highly debatable whether the US' actions are any better than those of any other maurading, plundering nation.
Try listing all the countries we've either invaded or bombed over the least twenty-five years or so. You'll find the list surprisingly long (and you'll notice this is all POST Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos, so it hardly includes our most dramatic actions of the last half century). It's profoundly depressing to discover what an out of control bully we've become. But hey, we can keep telling ourselves we're "the best in the world!" and make sure not to listen to the rest of the planet that knows better. Of course, that means we won't be able to benefit from the experiences of others (like the many nations with working and thriving national healthcare systems), but that's a small price to pay for "being the best."
Re:It's unclear why this is a bad thing (Score:5, Insightful)
> especially one as hostile to religion as Slashdot
We're not hostile to religion, we're hostile to bullshit.
> ID scientists
There's no such thing, since ID isn't science. Even your buddy Michael Behe admits that in order for ID to be science, Astrology, Alchemy, New Age, Wicca, etc must also be science.
It's funny how you ID'ers can't stop contradicting yourselves:
> ID brushes away the dogma of science and brings the scientific method back to it.
> The attempt to address the issues at hand with a completely open mind leads to bad conclusions.
People like you need to understand that there is no point refuting Evolution. Evolution is the glue that holds Biology together, and without it we wouldn't have: Paleontology, Micro-biology, Medicine, Genetics, among other fields.
Here's a simple thought experiment: If Evolution is false, what created swine flu? The only other possible explanation is that God is a dick, and I don't believe that.
Re:It's unclear why this is a bad thing (Score:4, Insightful)
But, since that will never happen, you won't ever get a "fair hearing" (WTF, you think science is a court?) in your eyes.
If you had any brains and not just blind dogmatic stupidity, you would review the laws of thermodynamics and understand them before making your claim. "Devices" don't unseat stuff like that, "new theories" do.
Re:It's unclear why this is a bad thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Contrast that with "Intelligent Design" which offers neither real evidence or theory, nor any opportunity for falsifiability [wikipedia.org]. So as ridiculous as your claimed invention might be, it's still more scientific than ID.
Re:They don't require trolling (Score:3, Insightful)
But the syllabus doesn't require discussion. It merely requires 10 posts. You could hit 10 different web sites on a Saturday afternoon and do that with very little thought or preparation, and then it's Miller Time. If Dr. Dembski wants discussion, he/she needs to say so because many students will do as little as they think they can get away with - which is not something to be encouraged or condoned, but it is the reality and something one should account for.
Re:It's unclear why this is a bad thing (Score:2, Insightful)
All right - propose a test for the hypothesis that there was an intelligent force that initiated the universe. When you figure it out, you can post again.
Evolution does not posit any information about "the beginning of time." It doesn't say "this is a random set of events." It simply explains observations of continuities between species and DNA across millions/billions of years.
Re:It's unclear why this is a bad thing (Score:3, Insightful)
I hope you get a good grade.
Nine more posts and he gets an A!
Re:It's unclear why this is a bad thing (Score:1, Insightful)
Inventing a machine isn't science. You would get "a fair hearing" if you presented a reproducible (i.e. testable) effect that allows you to build a perpetuum mobile. People who build "energy producing machines" don't do that. They hide parts of the mechanism, allow only carefully selected people to inspect the machine and do not reveal the way the machine is supposed to create energy. That's not science. With all that said, there are people who have taken it upon themselves to apply the scientific method to the most outlandish theories and devices, so even if you're not capable of explaining your invention yourself, you will have no trouble finding people who do a proper scientific evaluation and explain to you why you have not built a perpetuum mobile (until someone actually builds one. Don't hold your breath.)
Re:It's a bad thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not about preaching, this is about setting up an Us vs. Them attitude in the students, to make it easier to accept the irrational. After all, the other side is evil, they wouldn't have been so mean to them if they weren't, they must be wrong...
Re:It's unclear why this is a bad thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Is there any difference between the blind dogmatic stupidity of ID, and the blind dogmatic intelligence of darwinism?
Yes, one is blind and dogmatic, the other is supported by evidence.
Re:It's unclear why this is a bad thing (Score:3, Insightful)
First, let's call this "intelligent force" what everyone else calls it: God. Now, the problem with stating that God designed the universe is that its impossible to get into the mind of God. What I say is a "random" event, you could say is part of God's greater plan. In other words, there is no way to disprove your theory.
That is the key problem with Intelligent Design.
Re:Full disclosure (Score:5, Insightful)
This seems to be less about ID and more about not getting civil responses. The professors don't give two shits about convincing anybody in the forums of anything.
Getting the students to do this, takes a retarded worldview and forces them to plop it down where it really wasn't invited with the inevitable hostile responses.
Which in turn, indoctrinates or say... brainwashes the students into viewing the outside, thinking world as a hostile place to their kind.
And, thus insures the students stick to their kind and stop looking at the outside world (especially the Internet) as a place to get good information.
This is simply brainwashing. A clever way to do it granted, but that doesn't change the affect on the student. They still come out suspicious and feeling attacked by the internet and non-whack people, the effect desired by the school administrators.
Re:It's a bad thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
That does seem to be what it is deliberately designed to do.
Going to a message board and having an actual discussion might, indeed, be an interesting thing to do.
But, no, they have to go somewhere 'hostile' and 'make posts'. Not have a discussion on neutral ground, which does, in fact, exist on the internet. they have to show up in a forum where they aren't welcome, and make posts that are going to get nasty responses.
There is no purpose to this except to get nasty responses, and there is no purpose to nasty responses except to make the students feel like they are persecuted, which is a ridiculously common theme in fundamentalist Christianity.
Re:It's a bad thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not a religious man, but I'm going to play devils advocate here.
Ahh.. the old "Prelude to a Troll". Let's see here...
To say that these religious systems don't make useful predictions is false.
No, it isn't. If it is true, you would have pointed to at least one such prediction. Instead, you rambled on about religious domination.
These systems must be useful, or they would have driven their adherents to extinction many generations ago.
See, just like this. You went from "useful predictions" to "useful", and then (later) on to just "full".
Please present the useful predictions that religion has made, or STFU.
Re:It's a bad thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wait, wait, wait... (Score:3, Insightful)
>but he claims he didn't
The Bible doesn't say anything about what we know to be facts about the Universe. It doesn't mean those facts don't exist.
The Bible, and especially the Hebrew Bible is not a science text, in case you haven't noticed.
>creation safaris.
So what you're saying is that looking is fine just as long as you don't look too closely.
Nice. So who made up that rule? It's not in *my* Bible.
1 Thess 1:25, "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good"
ID is worse than pure creationism. It is taking an allegory and dressing it up in intellectual dishonesty.
--
BMO
Re:It's unclear why this is a bad thing (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's a bad thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Religions purpose in the past and now was/is to control the populace. We have less need for religion now since most of society has TV and religiously watches it for hours on end.
Re:Wait, wait, wait... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, it is very convenient to assume that everyone who disagrees with your view simply doesn't understand and, since they are arguing without understanding, is just trolling.
Not effective (outside of preaching to the choir and possibly making yourself feel good), but convenient.
Re:It's unclear why this is a bad thing (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe in an IDEAL fashion science is devoid of fallacy, dogma, and is correct 100% of the time. By realistically, science is still governed by scientists, and therefore subject to fallacy, and dogma.
Science is a methodology, not a church or a collection of people. Science can not, per definition, be dogmatic, since it is in direct contradiction to the practice of science. Science can not be dogmatic any more than in can be out, up can be down or white can be black. It simply isn't possible. Once something becomes dogmatic it automatically and instantly seizes to be scientific.
What science can and can not be is completely disconnected from what scientists can and can not be. Science is not "governed" by anyone. Scientific organizations are. Scientists may be. The concept of science can not possibly be.
Before you infer stupidity, you should make sure it exists.
In two postings you have been trying to convince me that it does indeed exist. How can I infer otherwise?
Re:It's a bad thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the persecution complex is pretty universal in Christianity, fundamentalist or not. I was brought up a Lutheran, and in the religion lessons in school it was apparently very important to know how cruelly the evil Romans persecuted the early Christians. And later on, the same thing repeats, except it's the evil Catholics persecuting us poor righteous Lutherans.
And come to think of it, it's not only Christianity. Remember that Danish cartoon thing? Lots of people were insanely butthurt by that, resulting in epic lulz.
Bottom line, a persecution complex just seems a very powerful tool to create a us vs. them mentality.
Re:It's unclear why this is a bad thing (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds like dogma to me
Which means that you need to get your dictionary out.
There's at least one true dogmatic believe in science: that the scientific method is a good method to find out how the universe works.
BZZZT! Wrong. There are assumptions in science, but no dogma. An assumption is that there is a relationship between what is observed and what is real and that what "is" can in some way be observed. No dogma. Just an assumption. If the assumption turns out to be invalid, then science is invalid.
Again, there is a big difference between base assumptions and dogma.
Re:It's a bad thing. (Score:3, Insightful)
> the other side is evil
Which kinda clashes with that Jesus guy's attitude, as i understand the Bible.
that's what so great about the bible, if you want that guy's attitude to be good, you can read it. If you want to read he is a brainwasher, you can read that as well. If you want to read he comes with the sword, you're lucky too. Wish my studybooks were that flexible.
Re:It's unclear why this is a bad thing (Score:3, Insightful)
That sadly doesn't work as the religious will explain away anything even vaguely entropic as the work of Satan, and God allows Satan to exist in order to both frame, justify and test our free will as separate from God's own will... or so they tell me.
That doesn't account for the fact that the whole Apple from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil incident was little more than entrapment, and that would still make God a complete dick for giving Adam and Eve free will and then using it against them to kick them out of Eden and blaming them for it in the process.
This still doesn't mean ID is in any way a science and should never be given any credibility as such. Attempting to define or anthropomorphize God in any way is no less ludicrous than suggesting the amoeba on the slide were even remotely capable of perceiving the biologist looking down the microscope - presuming anyone even happens to looking down the scope at the time, or that you're even on a slide - and worthy of examination - in the first place. Much more qualified people than I have tried to discern the nature of "God", and in all cases have completely failed, as proven by a complete lack of any credible or reproduceable evidence thus far. I won't even begin to enjoin any reasonable debate on the nature or possibility or even probability of any such thing, but to refer to an "ID Scientist" and claim that "ID brushes away the dogma of science and brings the scientific method back to it" is... well, blasphemy. ID cannot produce evidence. It provides no system for analysis, prediction or correlation that can be proven or reproduced independently in any way outside a reference back to a book written by people: yes, you dogmatists, people wrote it, fallible, imperfect humans. Since said religious texts are non-obvious observations in that (to date, that I am aware of) no human who has never seen one before has spontaneously reproduced an exact copy of a Bible or Koran, etc. indicating that such texts cannot possibly be used as evidence or justification for the validation of any other observations. People also used to think the moon was made of cheese and that there were little green men on Mars, and I can find you a hundred books that say so: until you can produce observations or evidence that other people can reproduce credibly, go away and stop wasting everyone else's time.
What I *am* qualified to comment on, is the nature of the parent article. "Trolling" was not originally considered a bad thing back in the usenet days, and was often used by long term users or members of a particular group or forum as a guided way or bringing up old threads or discussions that it was felt would benefit newer members. While this type of assignment is debatable on a number of other levels such as its academic validity as a teaching method and whether it is ethically justifiable, the fact is the professor in question has almost certainly achieved their aims - now on a very large scale - where a discussion that might have been long closed or never even done on many forums has now been struck up, whether by the actions of the students, or the media attention now gained in outlets like this one... which has prompted this very discussion. In the realm of science, discussion, with its opportunities for new information, insight and correlation, is *always* a good thing, regardless of how much any given atheists' dogmatic hatred of religion might get their heart rate up and turn them into a human flamethrower for a while: people get offended and stirred up too easily on both sides. Fact is, these days modern trolls don't start discussions except maybe with the express intent of derailing or disrupting them. Even if it's a bunch of Atheists or Satanists on on a forum agreeing with each other, or whether it starts an actual discussion where ideas are exchanged, is it *really* all that bad?
So let's be done with the bullshit that the more rational among us are so hostile to, drop the religion discussion, and get back to the topic at hand.
Re:It's a bad thing. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:It's a bad thing. (Score:2, Insightful)
Religious fanatics rarely follow the actual teachings of their religion, they prefer to make up new ones.
Re:Apologetics (Score:3, Insightful)
I always understood this to mean that we should advertise that we are having church services, and even go so far as to give a brief description of what we're all about (Burger King, UHaul, various universities, etc., do that in their ads, so it's no different, really), and that we're to have services that are open to the public, and that we can even go into the community to do good, and speak of Christ to those who ask why we are fixing that playground or replacing that neighbors roof, etc., and that we can even hold services in public spaces, such as local parks, etc., but that we are not to go stand in front of a porno store or abortion clinic yelling at people that go in there that we think their choices are sending them to hell, regardless of whether or not our understanding of scriptures makes that a true statement from us.
I'm so fed up with the majority of "believers" giving real believers a bad name.
Re:And monkeys could fly out of my butt ;) (Score:3, Insightful)
1) Let's see here... I have done none of the following:
- Taken the course in question
- Spoken to anyone with knowledge of the course about its content
- Chosen to assume, as you have, the position to be taken by the opponant
So I couldn't really tell you what standards would be applied to grading the posts. Again, that doesn't mean there are none, and your use of more condescending terms to claim that it does has no bearing on that.
I can tell you that, being a theological course at a seminary, it is surely not a science course; so the criteria you want to apply about "making predictions", while importrant to viability of a scientific theory, probably have no relevance at all.
2) If you're on a public forum, you don't get to choose whether you "consent" to people disagreeing with you on that forum. If the moderators of the forum wish to set policy that restricts the ID point of view, that is certainly within their power; outside of that, there is nothing that need be "excused". (I sure hope slashdot remembers to cry "censorship" each time that happens, though.)
What you are claiming is that stating a minorty position is "trolling". You are incorrect and should educate yourself as to what trolling actually means. You also might want to rethink why it is you want freedom from hearing the voices of those who think differently than you.
Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit.
The theory of evolution says no such thing. That's a strawman invented by the creationists themselves.
Yes, there is a "social darwinism" piece of bullshit, but it has about as much to do with the real darwinism, as JavaScript has to do with Java. I.e., except for piggy-backing on its name, not much whatsoever.
And, anyway, the real darwinism doesn't actually say "only the strong survive", and it certainly doesn't say "if you are too weak to survive we shouldn't help you."
Social species and social adaptations are in fact cases where a species survives precisely _because_ individual members who are too weak to survive on their own, are helped by other members. Ants or bees are cases where no individual member could survive and reproduce on their own at all. The workers are asexuate, and the queen pretty much can't forrage and feed on its own. The species survives precisely _because_ there is a high degree of cooperation between the individual members.
Heck, even wolves or lions (predators seem to be a favourite of proponents of "might makes right") actually have a group hunting and group survival strategy built in. Wolves couldn't reliably bag the kind of bigger game they normally feed upon, if they didn't act as a group. So, yes, a weaker member which might not survive on his own, nevertheless can survive in a group that cooperates.
Sexual selection and sexual dimorphism are also cases where evolution favours cooperation and specialization. E.g., the male lion is too big and heavy to be a good hunter on his own, while the females aren't as adapted to fight other predators. (That mane is battle armour, for example. A predator going for the male lion's neck will most often just get a mouthful of hair.) A pride survives by the _combination_ of the two specializations. And sometimes they even find more innovative ways to use that dimorphism: e.g., against bigger game, the male lion lies in ambush while the females chase the prey towards him, effectively allowing him to use his greater mass and strength without the handicap of his poorer sprint performance.
Nature and evolution are full of stuff like that. Resemblance to the "if you are too weak to survive we shouldn't help you" canard: zero.
Second, darwinism doesn't judge "fit" as "strong" or anything else. The only criterion that matters is: fit to make more offspring. Period.
For different species that can mean radically different things. For example for rabbits, the criterion isn't strength, it's just being fast and affraid enough to run away fast enough, and making lots of baby rabbits faster than the foxes can eat them.
But even that doesn't even scratch the surface of how many things can mean "the fittest." E.g., being bitter and bright coloured works just fine for ladybugs. (See, aposematism) There is no strength or speed or anything else involved. You just have to be bitter so the first bird that tries to eat you spits you back, and recognizably coloured so it learns not to try again in the future.
For some species, they don't even go the whole way with that. They don't actually have any defense of their own against a predator, but just mimick the colours of a species that does. The "being fitter" there just means the most resemblance to the real aposematic species you're immitating. That's it. That's the whole survival of the fittest in that aspect.
Re:It's unclear why this is a bad thing (Score:5, Insightful)
>> What ID brings to the table is a new reexamination of facts.
Okay, I'll bite.
>> Why are clam fossils at the top of very young mountains?
Because the "age" of a mountain refers to when the plate material was pushed up, not when the plate material was created. A 10M year old mountain can be made out of 1B year old granite.
>> What is the evolutionary progression of DNA?
I think I speak for the entire board when I say, "huh?"
>> Why are there still discrepancies in the geologic and biologic record where we would expect certain types of data but find none?
Ask a non-specific question, get a non-specific answer. When the IDers complain about "missing data", they usually mean missing links in the fossil record. They often go through great contortions to assert that there is no "intermediate" for a given stage. For example, they'll say "there is no transitional fossil between bird and reptile." When confronted with Archaeopteryx, they'll point to certain features and claim that it's clearly a bird. Or they'll point to other features and claim that it's essentially a reptile.
If an ID'er decides that the form really is an intermediate, he'll simply move the goalposts again and say, "okay, where are the transitional fossils between X and Y, and between Y and Z.
This has zero to do with the scientific method.
>> ID brushes away the dogma of science and brings the scientific method back to it.
ID rejects the scientific method, by posting no testable hypotheses. They simply try to cast aspersions on evolution, in the hopes that if they poke enough holes, evolution will crumble, and "God did it" (an untestable and therefore a-scientific hypothesis) will be the only thing left standing.
To the extent that it forces evolutionary theorists to push forward, ID could be argued to serve a useful purpose. But most of the ID movement involves pushing scientific falsehoods in non-scientific forums, causing people to doubt the basics of science and the honesty of its practitioners without good cause.
Re:It's unclear why this is a bad thing (Score:1, Insightful)
Oh I really like how you've gotten a +5 Insightful, even though you spouted dogma yourself.
Let me start by saying that I'm about as far away from being a christian as one can be, but the way you just acted is on par with any christian fundamentalist.
Personally, I like to keep an open mind. Sure, we've made a lot of observations about how nature works, but given our very limited range compared to the universe, who's to say that there isn't some place where everything we know is worth zilk because our laws of nature have all gone bonkers?
Neither you nor I have been beyond the known universe to see whether there is some dude behind all this. How could we disqualify the idea? Just because it is abused by religious zealots?
What I also don't get is the sentiment around here to prohibit people from having alternatives to the theory of evolution taught in school. How is it wrong to teach our children, using this example and others, that there is always at least one other opinion on a certain matter? How can freedom touting people like Slashdotters go and praise states who prohibit exactly that?
Frankly, this sentiment disgusts me. Some people here are all up in arms as soon as someone tries to prohibit their beliefs (and yes, I count the theory of evolution as well, since most of us are not in that field and parrot only what they've been taught like so many others) but see what happens when someone dares have contrary ideas.
The burning of books is never an event to be proud of. Be it a science book, a religious one or Alice in Wonderland. For as long as we are not omniscient, all of them contain belief and fairy tales to varying degrees.
Martyrdom Light (Score:5, Insightful)
...This is not about preaching, this is about setting up an Us vs. Them attitude in the students, to make it easier to accept the irrational. After all, the other side is evil, they wouldn't have been so mean to them if they weren't, they must be wrong...
Exactly!
And we see that illustrated beautifully in the grandparent's post - "If you take the act of posting on a message board, especially one as hostile to religion as Slashdot..."
Slashdot is not intolerant of religion, per se. However, it can be brutally intolerant of badly reasoned arguments, articles of faith presented as proof, and other forms of stupidity. Only the most disingenuous tool would suggest that such a metaphorical "bringing a knife to a gun fight" as cut-and-pasting some lame intelligent design screed into a forum populated by those well-equipped to refute it's every point, is anything other than some form of "Martyrdom Light". Having seen the same pathetic arguments put forth time and again, often verbatim (cut-and-paste counts, remember), the forum regulars can be expected to pounce hard and fast. That's pretty much the definition of trolling, and it has nothing to do with intelligent discourse.
Re:It's a bad thing. (Score:2, Insightful)
This is true, and it's terrible. I'm LDS, I've always been taught to love my enemy's. Even Jesus when he was hung on the cross asked God to "forgive them...they know not what they do". This should apply to everything, even "hostile" websites.
I like to compare it to politics. Republican vs. Democrat. Stereotypical republican might say "You darn pinko hippy, you need to quit threatening our values!" And the stereotypical democrat might say, "Silly bible thumper, it's time for a change!" But neither will change there minds on the issue because of contention. And the spirit of contention cannot see reason.
So if you want someone to believe as you do, you can't challenge them to defend there side, because they will defend there side. You also can't force your side on them. Engaging someone to change there mind, when they already made it up, doesn't work if you make your side like just as hostile as these "hostile" websites.
Re:It's a bad thing. (Score:3, Insightful)
Germanic tribes values virginity so suddenly Mary was a virgin when Jesus was conceived and husband Joseph was tossed to the curb.
Suddenly?
That quote looks really... I dunno... Englishy for something that predated the conversion of the germanic tribes...
Re:It's unclear why this is a bad thing (Score:5, Insightful)
The issue with intelligent design is it isn't science! There is nothing falsifiable about intelligent design, it makes no predictions, it's not useful to anyone outside of spreading dogma, and has no potential to be useful for any other purpose.
There is no research done on intelligent design, you can't design an experiment to prove or disprove it, in a biology classroom you can't teach anything about it outside of saying "there are some holes in evolutionary theory that we can't explain yet, so some people think a magic man in the sky waved his hand to create these things."
The only leg Intelligent Design has to stand on is that proponents pretend there are only two possible explanations for the origin of life, Evolution and Intelligent Design. They claim that if Evolution is in any way false, then Intelligent Design must be true.
This is absolutely ridiculous.
Re:It's unclear why this is a bad thing (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps none of these qualify as "proof", but they are evidence; which is all you asked for.
Circumstancial evidence is a very tricky thing. It may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different. -- Sherlock Holmes
Re:Agenda to promote ID (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually I'm pretty sure it's simpler than that. Christian parents got tired of sending their kids to public schools and then having them come home and explain how they learned that the Bible is wrong.
Personally I'd have gone a different route: just get rid of evolution. There's no reason to teach it in schools. You can teach science, genetics even, without using evolution at all. Stuff that supposedly happened billions of years ago has very little relevance on learning about chromosomes and zygotes. I mean, really... we're still trying to get elementary school kids to wrap their minds around the simple concept that unprotected sex makes babies, and we're going to also try to teach them about natural selection?!
Of course the problem with that is that all the science books are completely steeped in evolution. You'd have to write new ones, but I maintain that it could be done.
everyone behaves badly. (Score:1, Insightful)
First let me start by saying that, as the science editor of http://www.counterknowledge.com/ and having written several articles for that site about "intelligent design" and evolution, I've seen the phenomenon of online debate on this topic close-up.
And when it comes right down to it, teh internetz people are all m0r0ns.... on BOTH sides.
When I posted articles debunking claims of ID, I got people cutting and pasting long lists of links from the same website telling me "READ ALL OF THESE PAGES AND YOU WILL KNOW YOUR THEORY HAS ALREADY BEEN DISPROVED!"
But, when I wrote an article criticizing some of the arguments used in support of evolutionary theory (e.g. "If god made everything, why aren't bodies designed better?"... which is a terrible argument), I had people on the other side calling me names and claiming that I MUST BE a religious zeolot troll in disguise.
So the bad behavior is everywhere. Let's not pretend that it isn't.
The real PROBLEM here isn't what ID is or isn't, or the validity of any theory. The problem is a course giving credit for spreading propaganda.
I mean, can you imagine an English professor saying, "20% of your grade will be based on demonstrating that you have posted to 10 websites and argued that Shakespearean Sonnets are superior to Spenserian Sonnets"?
Re:Wait, wait, wait... (Score:3, Insightful)
>As far as usefulness goes, its main service is that it would allow Christian parents to send their kids to public school without them coming home and telling mom & dad how they learned in science class that the Bible is wrong."
Then those are pretty poor parents, aren't they? Threatened so by science. If scientific theory can so shake one's faith, then that faith wasn't very strong to begin with, was it? I keep saying it, and it keeps flying over your head: The Bible Isn't About Science. It's About Something Else Entirely.
From your other message:
>You can teach science, genetics even, without using evolution at all
Evolution and genetics go hand-in-hand. You cannot have one without the other.
>and we're going to also try to teach them (elementary students) about natural selection?!
I didn't hit natural selection until 9'th grade biology. I suspect it's still that way. And since ID and Creationism is not science, it does not belong in a science classroom at all. If we are going to teach religious concepts in public school, then they are not to be taught as science. A comparative religion class is fine. Include all of the various genesis stories of the major religions and their basic philosophies and treat each one with the same respect.
That would be fair.
--
BMO
Re:It's unclear why this is a bad thing (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, Jews exist. And Mithraists do not (they were killed off by the Christians, as it happens). So what exactly is your point? That some groups of people have vanished over the course of the years, wbhile some others have not? And that proves that universe was created... how, exactly?
And what about DNA? Yes, it's complex. So what? Are you saying that something so complex could not happen through evolution? Why not? The odds against it are too great? Well, evolution has been at it on countless planets through billions of years. So even if the odds for complex life appearing on some particular are miniscule, the odds of life taking shape somewhere are pretty damn good. So the fact that complex life exists does NOT prove creator in any shape or form.
"A planet in our solar system supports life complex enough for people to actually debate on the internet whether this post was made by a random chemical reaction reacting obscurely to photons, or a conscious human being."
And there are several planets in our solar system that do not. And there are zillions of planets in the universe where is no life. So how exactly does the existence of life on this particular planet somehow "prove" the existence of a creator?
Like I said, if we look at the universe, we are talking about countless planets. Probability of life forming on some specific planet might be tiny, but when we talk about billions of planets of billions of years, there will be life on some of them.
"Perhaps none of these qualify as "proof", but they are evidence; which is all you asked for."
They are neither proof or evidence.
Re:It's unclear why this is a bad thing (Score:2, Insightful)
Completely separating the issue of religion from science classrooms is the best idea, in my opinion.
That's where the problem is at. How does one separate it so that the evolutionists and the creationists are happy about it? You can't. Someone is always going to be mad about it one way or the other. Just like Vi Vs Emacs, Gnome Vs KDE, Tastes Great Vs less filling. Personally I think that there's too much else to be concerned with at this point to be concerned with the debate. I teach my children about God and the Bible at home and church, because that is what I believe. It's called faith for a reason. I have no problem with them learning about evolution and other so-called bad things in school. :) When a child is old enough they can decide for them selves what and how to believe. I just give them both sides of the discussion.
Re:It's unclear why this is a bad thing (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Um... (Score:3, Insightful)
That you think the defense of Intelligent Design is foolish is frankly utterly irrelevant, because they don't, and it's their opinion that counts.
Why? We all have to live with the "bigoted ideologues who stir up division in society and spread ignorance" who are the products of these seminaries. Why shouldn't we get a say?
Re:It's unclear why this is a bad thing (Score:3, Insightful)
Be careful what you're fighting for. You may just get it.
Re:One wonders (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's a bad thing. (Score:3, Insightful)
That is a very good point. In fact, I can't count the number of times I've ended up on the wrong side of an argument, because some crazy Christians came in raring for a fight and assuming people who responded to them in a critical manner were 'hostile' 'atheists', often making them doubly wrong.
Look, fellow Christians: Stop the persecution bullshit. You live in a country where 80% of the citizens are at least nominally Christian. You can argue they aren't very good Christians, or are Christians in name only, but they certainly aren't running around persecuting you, and, at the majority of 80%, certainly aren't letting others do it either.
The fact someone stopped some taxpayer funded school somewhere from singing worship songs does not make us 'persecuted'. Neither does the fact people will argue with you on the internet. People will argue about anything on the internet. People will call people names over the damn text editor they use.
You want to have a serious and courteous discussion about religion on the internet, head to a site that does that. Like BeliefNet. A whole site dedicated to talking about whatever religion you want.
Stop the persecution claims. Stop it. Just...stop it. You're turning people away, and making Christians look like idiots who can't tell 'People disagree with me, and the Constitution says governments shouldn't support a religion' from death and torture like actual persecuted Christians are subject to.
Re:It's unclear why this is a bad thing (Score:3, Insightful)
Nonsense, there is overwhelming evidence that the earth is over 6,000 years old. If by "proof", you mean "There isn't 100% prove, we could be brains in a vat or maybe God/the FSM made it look that way", then by that logic we can't prove anything. Should nothing be taught in schools then?
there is evidence that can suggest a much shorter time too
Such as?
Re:Science lessons must tackle Easter Bunny (Score:3, Insightful)
ID has no place in biology classes, because it is not science. It makes precious few testable predictions that differ from conventional biology, and there are no cases where ID does better than evolution. ID isn't even good enough to qualify as a failed theory, like inheritance of acquired characteristics, or geocentrism, or the luminiferous aether.
Your physics class should have taught of the experimental and physical evidence that made believing in luminiferous aether untenable. As well as the dismissal of the caloric theory of heat.
The sum total of biological evidence supports evolution first, last, and only. Evolution, in the field of biology, has attained a similar foundational status to the periodic table and the atomic theory of matter in chemistry, or the notion of the planets orbiting around the sun, and the sun orbiting around the center of the galaxy, in astronomy. All three are overwhelmingly supported by evidence, and organize and explain that evidence simply and elegantly. They could not be replaced by anything radically different, because anything radically different could not explain all of the observations that have been made.
Re:It's unclear why this is a bad thing (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, you can't prove anything to someone who wants to remain willfully ignorant.
Re:It's a bad thing. (Score:2, Insightful)
Likewise, my atheist peers think I'm a fool for my faith.
I don't think any atheist would disagree with using the Bible as a historical text (which, like any historical text, may or may not be true, and should be carefully judged like any other work).
We're atheists (or specifically, not Christians) because we don't believe in God, and we don't believe in Jesus as the son of God.
I wouldn't call you a fool in the strict sense of being unintelligent, because there's plenty of evidence to show that even people who are generally very clever have beliefs in gods or other superstition. But I do believe what you believe to be untrue. I can imagine someone might call you a "fool" in a more general sense of "accepting something not supported by evidence". Similar to "he's a gullible fool" - this isn't meant to imply a lack of intelligence, nor would I say it's meant to be that offensive, despite the derision.
If the most disgusting thing in the world was "some people thinking some other people to be fools", I'm not sure that's really that bad!
Re:You don't understand what science is (Score:2, Insightful)
What other mechanism is there for leading us to "truth" about how the Universe works?
If I were wrong, we would never abandon any discovery made through the scientific process, ever. The fact that we do indeed disprove things that were considered scientific fact a scant generation ago is mute evidence that your position is wrong.
Such as what? Anyhow, just because a process isn't 100% accurate, doesn't mean you aren't getting closer to the truth. Newton was mostly right. Einstein was even more right - how is that not getting closer to the truth? How is that not gaining knowledge about the universe?
The sad irony is that hundreds of years of scientific progress have resulted in advanced technology like computers and the Internet, just so people like you can spout how it's all rubbish, and we're better off obtaining knowledge by magic. If you really believed that, why not come back when you have a computer powered by such knowledge?
Re:An ID'er *could also* believe in evolution (Score:4, Insightful)
I would say that you are a thinking person who uses faith to fill in the knowledge gaps in the scientific view of the world.
There is a lot of knowledge about specific ways of evolving (eg, point mutations, trans-locations, recombination, etc.) that explain how genetic diversity can be created, and there is widespread evidence of how the process of natural selection sorts through this genetic diversity. At the same time, no scientist worth their salt would claim that the full picture of step-by-step evolution from simple organic molecules into Cindy Lauper is fully understood. The fossil record incomplete and will always be incomplete.
So, we hit a question of faith and logic. In light of the scientific evidence, it is a reasonable extrapolation to believe in the mechanism of evolution and to believe that this is the way by which life changes.
Currently, though, science has nothing very satisfying to say about why, in a random world, some things happen and some things don't. Yes, we can describe very well the probabilities of this and that, etc., and if I flip a fair coin 100 times, you expect that I will get about 50 heads and about 50 tails. At the same time, we can't say why I get a sequence of four heads followed by 3 tails and two heads. Yes, we can make statements about subtle air currents, minor differences in flipping forces, etc. but as the systems get more complex and the sizes get smaller and smaller, we eventually hit molecular events which behave truly randomly.
Now, for a truly random system (like is the case for many the molecular interactions that make up life), you can choose to believe that God or some such force is driving the specifics of these random events, which is fine, especially if you recognize that this is a religious belief and not a scientific one.
It sounds like you realize this distinction.
The trouble with ID, is that when confronted with any hole in the evolutionary theory, they immediately jump to the conclusion of a God, which is absurd and is much different from using faith to explain things that are (currently?) outside of the scientific understanding of the universe.