How Newton used "Intelligent Design"

"Expelled" is nothing but a propaganda piece full of deceptions and outright lies. Full analysis and reviews are readily available.

There is a huge difference between Newton's point of view and "Intelligent Design", the political movement pushed by the Discovery Institute and others as a means to try to get Creationism taught in science classes as a better alternative to evolution through whatever dishonest and underhanded means necessary.

Newton believed in God, and believed that we could learn more about the nature of God through the study of his creation. There are still very many scientists (and others) who believe this, including many who work in fields relating to evolution.

The ID bunch, on the other hand, reject the vast amounts scientific evidence for evolution simply because is conflicts with their own very narrow literal interpretation of the Creation story. they do no actual science, and every supposed instance of irreducible complexity they have come up with has been soundly debunked. All they really have is advertising, misinformation, and the fact that evolution has been so poorly taught for so long that their lies are accepted by many people who simply do not know any better.

Newton was a great scientist. Please don't sully his name by associating it with those unscientific, dishonest blackguards.

outa Ben Stein. However, I haven't seen "Expelled". I HAVE read both the piece and the comment.

I found UofI's piece thoughtful and well-written. I found George's comment both pithy and pissy. (Just a side note that for Barney Frank they are one and the same, but I digress.)

There are posters here on TH who, if asked what time it is, answer by quoting and citing four Bible verses. They tend to memorize and regurgitate in a Pavlovian fashion. Some may well be in a category George calls "the ID bunch".

I see merit in scientifically studying "intelligent design" (lower-case intentional) and "evolution" (ditto). And I don't see that they are mutually-exclusive.

I may be an order of fries short of a Happy Meal, but George seems a bit myopic and knee-jerk to me(in a Pavlovian fashion) here.

though given your Barney Frank comment I have to wonder whether you knew that.

I liked a lot of Ben Stein's work. "Expelled" on the other hand is a disgrace. Since you, drpete, haven't seen it, here are a couple reviews to explain that statement...
Scientific American: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=six-things-ben-stein-d oesnt-want-you-to-know
Roger Ebert:
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/12/win_ben_steins_mind .html

I have nothing against belief in intelligent design (lower-case intentional). I will ask, however, how you believe that it can be Scientifically studied, without getting the Creator to stop by and demonstrate His art. Without such an appearance, we can certainly Believe things to be designed, but we cannot provide any solid evidence to support that belief. Therein lies the problem. Belief in intelligent design and acceptance of evolution are not at all incompatible, but intelligent design can't be scientifically tested, while evolution can.

Adding to the confusion is the fact that for anyone following the "debate", the term "intelligent design" is often seen being taken as synonymous with the upper-cased version "Intelligent Design", which is the anti-scientific agenda pushed by the Discover Institute and its followers.

be both a Coke AND an order of fries short of a Happy Meal, I DO know that pity is a good thing. I also know that pissy is NOT, even for Barney Frank.

I also know that scientists don't prove anything correct. The best they can do -- scientific method -- is to NOT prove something incorrect or false. That is, they can show with X level of confidence that the null hypothesis is false.

Scientists have been unable to show with, say, 95% confidence (or even, say, 80-85% for preliminary research)that there is no God. They cannot, and have not, established how evolution started, i.e., evolve from what?

I found UofI's piece thoughtful and well-written.

It was just the Barney Frank comment that threw me. I really know very little about him.

And isn't that your Coke behind the bag, there?

Had UofI not led into his piece with the Expelled reference, and had he used the lower case form of intelligent design to differentiate what he was talking about from the nonsense Ben and the Discovery Institute were promoting, it would have been a decent article. (I didn't like the intelligent alien who doesn't know what a law is either, but I could have let that slide.)

It is impossible to prove the non-existance of Anything, except in those cases where every possibility can be examined. Since God could, and many believe does, live outside of the universe and/or space-time, there is no way to do an exhaustive examination of the possibilities. All science can say is that there is no solid evidence supporting either the existance or non-existance of God.

The theory of Evolution does not cover the origins of life itself. Despite what Ben Stein and the DI try to make people think, that is not a weakness in the ToE, it is merely science working as it should. We don't know how the first life was formed, though there are some interesting hypothesis being studied. Since scientific theories are constrained to those things which are well supported with evidence and research, and about which we have a high degree of confidence, the origins of life, as yet, have no place in a theory. Then too, we don't know yet whether the same sort of processes were in play. If not, then even if a theory on the origins of life is developed, it will still not be part of the ToE. The ToE starts with the first life reproducing itself, and not before.