Scott Lurndal wrote:

SNIP


The religious proponents of so-called Intelligent Design, don't
believe ID is subject to falsification (as it is revealed truth,
donchaknow), therefore it cannot be a theory, but rather is a
folk tale.



This last paragraph is complete baloney. You need to stop listening to
NPR for your explanations of ID and go to the original sources (which I
am doing at the moment). The foundational arguments of ID have nothing
to do with "revealed truth" but rather with what its proponents see as a
fundamental epistemological problem with the current philosophy of
science. The fact that some/many of its proponents also happen to be
"religious" is neither here nor there as regards to this argument.

Again, I am not particularly defending ID as an idea - I'm still trying
to understand its claims. But the kind of self-important ad hominem
bellowing going on in the science community on this topic at the moment
casts grave doubts (at least to me) as to how willing that community is
to ever have a fair discussion on the matter. ID assaults the very
philosophical underpinnings of scientific materialism. ID does not claim
that contemporary science is wholly incorrect. It does claim that it is
not sufficient to completely know what can be known from the physical
evidence.

I'm not getting back into the debate here, but it is truly annoying to
hear people peddle themselves as "objective" or "scientific" thinkers
and then resort to distortions, strawmen, and half-truths to win the
argument. I'm reading some of the ID primary sources at the moment. I
encourage others to do so as well if they truly mean to be objective in
their assessment.


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Tim Daneliuk
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