Tim Daneliuk wrote:
Steve Peterson wrote:

SNIP


So give us your words. How about the first 20 sentences a teacher should
use to introduce the idea that evolution, or some other scientific theory,
has met an impasse, and cannot advance without invoking an intelligent
designer? How about the first lecture of an 8 week section? I still wait
with bated breath. You still the one that wants ID taught in school? How
about giving those poor teachers a little help?

OK:

Science, in its current form, is unable to address the question of
"First Cause" - that is, Science is mute on the question of how the
Universe came into being in the first place. It is mute on the question
precisely because Science (in its current form) has chosen to take a
purely mechanical/materialist/reductionist view of the Universe.

Here I disagree. Can you tell us about ANY philosophical construct
that can, in a meaningful way, address 'the queston of First Cause'?

ISTM the closest any come to that are 'turtles, all the down',
essentially a recursive restatement of the question.

...
"Meta-Scientific" usually (but not always) refers to systems
of thought that *accept* the methods of Science as far as they go, but
propose additional ideas about the nature of what brought the Universe
into being initially. Several common Meta-Scientific explanations
include:


- The Universe is itself everlasting - it had no beginning and will have
no end. This position is held by very few people.

This would seem to include variants of steady state comsmology.
FWITW, the reason they have fallen out of favor is because they
are consistant with either the observed intergalactic expansion,
or conservation of matter and energy, but not both.


- The Universe is a magical place and its origins cannot ever be
known or apprehended. This position is held by a number of mystical
religious and philosophical traditions.


I do not see how being magical would put th eoriigns of the universe
beyond conmprehension.

- The Universe had a "designer" - an intelligent force that brought it into being
by an intentional act of creation.

I do not see how this is any more compreehnsible, or any
less magical than the previous case. In short, I see the
two as a classic example of distinction witout a difference.
Certainly it is a dichotomy without an observable (e.g.
materialistic) difference.

This position [ID, FF] is suggested (but not
demonstrated) by the vast complexity required to create and sustain life
on Earth. People who hold this position argue that such complexity
could never be achieved by random selection processes and that the
complexity itself is prima facia evidence for the presence of a
"designer." This position is consistent with most traditional religious
and philosophical schools up through the 20th Century.

Agreed.

It is enjoying
a resurgence in the 21st Century as serious questions about the
sufficiency of the materialist/reductionist assumptions of Science have
been raised. There is great resistence to this idea in traditional
Science.


Here we disagree. It is enjoying a resurgence as part of a
campaign by a small group of religious leaders, (who really
are 'High Priests') who are trying to regain some of the power
they lost over the latter half of the 20th century.

There is great resistance to this process because it appears
to be backsliding into the Dark Ages. Upon further reflection
it STILL appears to be backsliding into the Dark Ages.

As noted before, you do not seem to be a particularly naive
person. Why not explore that hypothesis a bit?

--

FF