Tim Daneliuk wrote:
charlie b wrote:
...


One of the arguements the ID folks present is
"this organism is extremely complex, too complex
to merely just happen by accident. therefore
it had to be designed by some intelligent entity".

That is their *conclusion*, but they claim they
have a Scientific case to make to support that
conclusion. We may well never know, because
the Science Establishment today it putting huge
resistance up (dare I say, with "religious" fervor)
to avoid having this debate.

What on Earth do you mean by "we may never know"? They
can certainly establish their own journals, societies and
hold their own conferences just like homeopaths, chiropodists,
astrologers and polygraphers have.

Nobody is silencing them any more than the Southern Baptists
silence a polymer chemistry by not inviting a chemist
to give a sermon about semipermeable membranes.

Just because an 'Iders' _says_ he is not religiously motivated
doesn't make it so. One only has to consider the rapant
dishonest of the overtly religious organisations pushing their
agenda to at least wonder if birds of a feather do not,
in reality, flock together.

That the Soviets supported Lamarckism is not proof that
Lamarckism was wrong. But by the time it came to pass that
the Soviet Government was the ONLY supporter of Lamarckism it
was time to question either the honesty or the sanity as
well as the competence of the Larmackists of that era.

Today, the ONLY supporters of 'ID' are the likes of Pat Robertson,
Oral Roberts (damn I wish that check had bounced) and their
minions. Even you don't claim to support ID, you seem only
to be arguing for 'equal time' based on some sort of misplaced
multicultural sense of fairness that might be appropriate if
they wanted to publish in YOUR journal but certainly not in
someone else's!

You seem to believe that the 'IDers' at least honestly think
they have a legitimate scientific claim but the people you
are asking to publish those claims seem to have a different
opinion, that they are dishonest, deluded, or both.

I certainly do not believe the 'IDers' are honest. I believe
they are as dishonest as their vocal political and religious
supporters.


Even more importantly, there is still some
fair debate to be had about just how many
"iterations" there really were. Evolutionary
theory is still open to a lot of interesting
criticism even without ID or authorship ideas.
That is, criticism within the framework of today's
Science.


Of course.

For example, evolution *within* a particular species,
over time, is demonstrable. But evolution from
less complex lifeforms to more complex lifeforms
is still undemonstrated. These upward jumps in
biocomplexity are *inferred* from observation, not
demonstrated by direct experiment. If they
were, the discussion about Evolution would
truly be over. IOW, all the Science Establishment
has to do to shut up the IDers is to show
(experimentally) an primordial soup becoming
a reptile which, in turn, evolves into, say,
Ted Kennedy.

And that is a self-serving argument because it purposefully
ignores the practical matter of the time required for the
process to occur.

A similar criticism can be made for many other natural processes
like plate techtonics or the stellar lifecycle.

Speciation is inferred from the fossil record and by extapolation
from the natural developement of varietals within a species just
like plate techtonics is inferred from the geological record and
by extrapolation from present day motion.

If the AGU refused to accept "Intelligent Navigation" papers
on continental drift would THAT upset you?

--

FF