Tim Daneliuk wrote:
wrote:

Tim Daneliuk wrote:

wrote:


Tim Daneliuk wrote:


...

That's a lovely assertion. Now justify why it's OK to raid
one man's wallet and make him pay for another man's children's
education.


Or another man's security, or another man's road, or another man's
hospitalization, or another man's airport, or another man's levee ...


Exactly


Do you have a alternative suggestion that is distinguishible
from anarchy?


Yes, in this case I do. Use the force of government exclusively as
an instrument for the preservation of individual liberty. This
boils down to the government interdicting only in matters of force,
fraud, and/or threat (since all harm to individual liberty can
be reduced to one of those cases).

That's a lovely assertion. Now justify why it's OK to raid
one man's wallet and make him pay for another man's individual
liberty. Talk about robbing Peter to pay Paul!



BTW, this has to do with GW's Drinking (or not) as GW's Drinking
(or not) has to with woodworking. Shall we call a truce and
end this misbegotten thread?

Don't like the idea of mathematics by intelligent design, eh?
I'll try to finish up this weekend.


I see some of the other wreckers are
disgruntled having never apparently learned the filter and kill
functions ....

Perhaps they prefer netiquette.

--

FF

wrote:

Tim Daneliuk wrote:

wrote:


Tim Daneliuk wrote:


wrote:



Tim Daneliuk wrote:



...

That's a lovely assertion. Now justify why it's OK to raid
one man's wallet and make him pay for another man's children's
education.


Or another man's security, or another man's road, or another man's
hospitalization, or another man's airport, or another man's levee ...


Exactly


Do you have a alternative suggestion that is distinguishible
from anarchy?


Yes, in this case I do. Use the force of government exclusively as
an instrument for the preservation of individual liberty. This
boils down to the government interdicting only in matters of force,
fraud, and/or threat (since all harm to individual liberty can
be reduced to one of those cases).


That's a lovely assertion. Now justify why it's OK to raid
one man's wallet and make him pay for another man's individual
liberty. Talk about robbing Peter to pay Paul!

You should go on the road crew of the Wizard Of Oz - You
just love the Strawman. A man is voluntarily entering into
a compact to protect *his own* liberty. i.e. He derives
benefit from the government's "taking". Morever, the
benefit/taking is the same for *everyone* in society (or should
be/will be until some form of corruption occurs). In every
other form of government-as-the-instrument-of-social-outcomes
(education, housing, poverty, drugs, ...) there are
*winners* and *losers* in the degree of liberty preserved
by government for different individuals.




BTW, this has to do with GW's Drinking (or not) as GW's Drinking
(or not) has to with woodworking. Shall we call a truce and
end this misbegotten thread?


Don't like the idea of mathematics by intelligent design, eh?
I'll try to finish up this weekend.

?




I see some of the other wreckers are
disgruntled having never apparently learned the filter and kill
functions ....


Perhaps they prefer netiquette.

Hmmm - this thread is in keeping with the long established tradition
of the wreck of wandering far OT for extended periods of time.
It is in no way remarkable compared to the many OT threads that have been
launched here over the years. Oh, I forgot - someone had the very bad
manners to stop assisting in the childish GWB bashing conducted by his
drooling detractors and jack the thread in an inarguably more intelligent
and thoughtful direction...


--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

Tim Daneliuk (in ) said:

| Morris Dovey wrote:
|
|| Tim Daneliuk (in ) said:
||
||| Renata wrote:
|||
|||| Just a short reply to some of your comments (I wanna get outta
|||| here)...
||||
|||| On 07 Oct 2005 10:15:58 EDT, Tim Daneliuk
|||| wrote:
||||
||||| Renata wrote:
|||||
|||||| What's your proposal for educatin' the populace, pray tell?
|||||
||||| Why do I have to have one? I don't have a proposal for
||||| instilling religion in everyone else's children. I don't have a
||||| proposal for clothing everyone else's children. I don't have a
||||| proposal for inflicting particular personal values on everyone
||||| else's chidren. These, and a host of other things, are the job
||||| of the *parents* not a meddlesome program of public theft and
||||| wealth redistribution. Government as an instrument of education
||||| is analogous to having Michael Jackson run a day-camp for 12
||||| year old boys.
||||
|||| Education is the responsibility of parents only as far as making
|||| sure the kids get a good one. Most parents aren't gonna be
|||| capable, have
|||
||| That's a lovely assertion. Now justify why it's OK to raid
||| one man's wallet and make him pay for another man's children's
||| education. It's theft plain and simple.
||
|| Individual and group survival is enhanced in proportion to the
|| extent of knowledge and skills held by the individual and the
|| group(s) of which that individual is a part.
|
| So is having a single strong-man dictator to make decisions that
| keep society more efficient. If utility is your moral
| justification,
| you can justify almost anything.
|
|| All societies and cultures of which I'm aware make demands on
|| members' resources. In this society one of those demands is for
|| the resources
|
| At the implied point of a gun ..

I've never seen this - perhaps I live in a "quieter" neighborhood.
Come to think of it, I haven't even /heard/ shots fired. I'm pretty
sure I'd have noticed...

People here have been fairly rational in *voting* school bond issues
up and down. Given that we've voted for additional funding fairly
frequently, I'd have to conclude that people here don't generally feel
as you do.

I spent some time in Florida some years back. People there *voted*
"no" more frequently than here - and the quality of education provided
seemed seriously lacking. So lacking, in fact, that we moved back to
Minnesota where we felt our kids would receive a higher quality
education.

|| to imbue the largest possible number of young people with knowledge
|| and skills that (we hope) will ensure their (and our) survival.
|
| Yes, we've heard many versions of this befo "From each according
| to his ability, to each according to his need". But it doesn't
| work -
| It just creates a new ruling class with lots of serfs to support
| them. *Voluntary* coooperation, however, has been demonstrated to
| work
| far better for the preservation of society as a whole and the
| individiual in particular. I have existence proofs that the two
| assertions above are true.

Non-sequitur. Not sure what you were responding to here.

|| It's theft only to those members of society who feel their personal
|| aims are more important than the survival of other members or of
|| the society itself.
|
| No. It is theft anytime force or the threat of force is required
| to extract the wealth - for example the threat of being jailed for
| not paying for someone else's children to go to school. You, if
| you feel diffently, are always free to support Other People's
| Children with voluntary donations of your own wealth.

Thanks for your permission. I do exactly that every time I pay a tax.

Although my kids are long out of school I earnestly want for present
and future students to have the best education possible. Others
contributed to financing my education and, in turn, my kids
education - for which I'm grateful. I could hardly consider myself an
ethical person if I denied (or even just begrudged) that same help to
others. YMMV.

|| For such individuals, there is an easy remedy: they can remove
|| themselves from that society and refuse (or be denied) any and all
|| all of the benefits derived from the contributions of the willing
|| members.
||
|| I completely agree - you should not be obliged to make an unwilling
|| contribution. The problem is - where can you go?
|
| The problem is that the US *used* be an alternative. It's use
| of government force was constrained to that little necessary to
| preserve individual liberty fairly for all. Now, though, it
| has become increasingly collectivized to the point where most
| people don't even question the morality of using the force of
| government to educate, build levees, and otherwise rescue people
| from their own poor choices.

All set in motion with funding voted by elected representatives who
presumably hope to be re-elected. Just out of curiosity, have you made
your views clear to /your/ elected representatives and made them
understand that you will work to get them voted out of office if they
continue to fund education, public works, and disaster relief?

||| Oh ... never mind. Let's not go there. Besides,
||| I've already seen that movie. It's called "collectivism" and
||| was responsible for untold human misery over history ...
||
|| You might have come in late to that movie. There was an important
|| point that you missed: in collectivism, your contribution is 100%
|| of
|
| It *became* that at some point. But most all the forms of
| collectivism - Socialism, Communism, Nazism - started out taking
| something less than
| all and migrated towards the full taking over time (because the
| economics of these system is degenerate and unsustainable without
| force).

Bingo!

|| everything. In extreme cases, that "everything" can include your
|| personal survival.
||
|| But it does offer an interesting insight: Groups that fail to
|| provide for survival of the individual generally don't survive as
|| groups.
|
| That's perhaps the inevitable case in the long-run. But we a long
| and studied history on this planet of collectivist systems that
| enabled the few at a fairly horrid cost to the individual over
| very long periods of time. These would include monarchies,
| dictatorships, theocracies, and pure rule-by-force. While they
| all eventually have their sunset they do a lot of damage in the
| mean time.

That's very true. The only preventive that seems to work is a
well-educated population capable of recognizing past mistakes and with
the intellectual tools to spot new ones - with the courage to use
every power at their disposal to prevent/stop tyranny before
irreparable damage is done.

And you begrudge the cost of this learning that Jefferson called
"informing their discretion"?

I'm done with this thread.

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/solar.html

wrote in message
oups.com...

For a system of arithmetic in which 221/7 = 3.2, actually.

--

FF


It's probably a good thing that it lapsed, given 221/7 is closer to
31.57 , actually ; )

Morris Dovey wrote:

SNEEP

| The problem is that the US *used* be an alternative. It's use
| of government force was constrained to that little necessary to
| preserve individual liberty fairly for all. Now, though, it
| has become increasingly collectivized to the point where most
| people don't even question the morality of using the force of
| government to educate, build levees, and otherwise rescue people
| from their own poor choices.

All set in motion with funding voted by elected representatives who
presumably hope to be re-elected. Just out of curiosity, have you made
your views clear to /your/ elected representatives and made them
understand that you will work to get them voted out of office if they
continue to fund education, public works, and disaster relief?


Yes I have, repeatedly. But the Moochers and Welfare Queens (whether
they are Connie The Crackwhore or Suzie The Soccermom) who want "free"
stuff (i.e. Stuff they have not earned for themselves but want anyway
even if it means extracting it with the government's gun from other
citiziens) far outnumber those of us willing to live on what we
earn for ourselves. So, we live by the tyranny of the majority.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

"Morris Dovey" wrote in message
...
I could hardly consider myself an
ethical person if I denied (or even just begrudged) that same help to
others. YMMV.

Ethics. Isn't that religion without gods?

Trouble is, without divine endorsement, what's "right" and ethical for one
is not necessarily "right" or ethical for another. People who talk about
"human rights" are no different from those who preach their morality
derived from their deities of choice.

George wrote:

Trouble is, without divine endorsement, what's "right" and ethical for one
is not necessarily "right" or ethical for another. People who talk about
"human rights" are no different from those who preach their morality
derived from their deities of choice.


Wrong. We are subject to the same basic ethical rule as everthing else.
If it's good for the survival of the species, it's "right." If it's
bad for the survival of the species, it's "wrong."

Of course it's not that simple. There's long-term vs short-term
survival, the importance attached to a stasble society, etc.. But the
basic rule is there.

"Larry Blanchard" wrote in message
...
George wrote:

Trouble is, without divine endorsement, what's "right" and ethical for
one
is not necessarily "right" or ethical for another. People who talk
about
"human rights" are no different from those who preach their morality
derived from their deities of choice.


Wrong. We are subject to the same basic ethical rule as everthing else.
If it's good for the survival of the species, it's "right." If it's
bad for the survival of the species, it's "wrong."

Of course it's not that simple. There's long-term vs short-term
survival, the importance attached to a stasble society, etc.. But the
basic rule is there.

That rule doesn't stand up to widely varying cultural values for even a
second. Gonna need to come up with a different rule.

--

-Mike-

Mike Marlow wrote:
"Larry Blanchard" wrote in message
...
George wrote:

Trouble is, without divine endorsement, what's "right" and ethical for
one
is not necessarily "right" or ethical for another. People who talk
about
"human rights" are no different from those who preach their morality
derived from their deities of choice.


Wrong. We are subject to the same basic ethical rule as everthing else.
If it's good for the survival of the species, it's "right." If it's
bad for the survival of the species, it's "wrong."

Of course it's not that simple. There's long-term vs short-term
survival, the importance attached to a stasble society, etc.. But the
basic rule is there.

That rule doesn't stand up to widely varying cultural values for even a
second. Gonna need to come up with a different rule.


In what way doesn't it stand up? You make a flat statement without even
a smidgin of proof or a single example.

"Charlie Self" wrote in message
oups.com...

Mike Marlow wrote:
"Larry Blanchard" wrote in message
...
George wrote:

Trouble is, without divine endorsement, what's "right" and ethical
for
one
is not necessarily "right" or ethical for another. People who
talk
about
"human rights" are no different from those who preach their
morality
derived from their deities of choice.


Wrong. We are subject to the same basic ethical rule as everthing
else.
If it's good for the survival of the species, it's "right." If it's
bad for the survival of the species, it's "wrong."

Of course it's not that simple. There's long-term vs short-term
survival, the importance attached to a stasble society, etc.. But the
basic rule is there.

That rule doesn't stand up to widely varying cultural values for even a
second. Gonna need to come up with a different rule.


In what way doesn't it stand up? You make a flat statement without even
a smidgin of proof or a single example.


It's an easy statement to make Charlie. Not all cultures value the same
things. There is no consistent definition of what is good for the survival
of the species. The values across cultures can be extremely different.

--

-Mike-

Mike Marlow wrote:
SNIP

Of course it's not that simple. There's long-term vs short-term
survival, the importance attached to a stasble society, etc.. But the
basic rule is there.

That rule doesn't stand up to widely varying cultural values for even a
second. Gonna need to come up with a different rule.


In what way doesn't it stand up? You make a flat statement without even
a smidgin of proof or a single example.



It's an easy statement to make Charlie. Not all cultures value the same
things. There is no consistent definition of what is good for the survival
of the species. The values across cultures can be extremely different.


Correct. Moreover, historically the definition of "good" has be variable
enough to the point where it enabled tribal murder, cannibalism, genocide,
and all other manner of alleged "survival behaviors". The only
policy for bounding public collective action that has consistently
demonstrated its ability to both promote long-term societal survival
AND minimized offense to individuals has been the rule I cited a while
back in this thread: We act collectively only to promote/preserve
personal liberty. Everything else is a private matter.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

Tim Daneliuk wrote:

Correct. Moreover, historically the definition of "good" has be variable
enough to the point where it enabled tribal murder, cannibalism, genocide,
and all other manner of alleged "survival behaviors".

I didn't say "what is good for my particular tribe." I said what is
good for the species. What various societies think is good for them
(often to the detriment of other groups) has no bearing on the matter.

The only
policy for bounding public collective action that has consistently
demonstrated its ability to both promote long-term societal survival
AND minimized offense to individuals has been the rule I cited a while
back in this thread: We act collectively only to promote/preserve
personal liberty. Everything else is a private matter.


OK Tim, you're always defending minimal government intervention so I
suppose you think of market forces as a good thing. Several news
articles in the last few days have pointed out that nobody wants to make
vaccines because the profits are too low. If that's the result of
"capitalism" you can shove it where the sun don't shine.

And I note that our current president, an economic conservative if there
ever was one (at least in public) is trying to convince manufacturers to
change their ways and produce more vaccines.

Tim Daneliuk wrote:
wrote:
Tim Daneliuk wrote:
wrote:
Tim Daneliuk wrote:
wrote:
Tim Daneliuk wrote:
That's a lovely assertion. Now justify why it's OK to raid
one man's wallet and make him pay for another man's children's
education.


Or another man's security, or another man's road, or another man's
hospitalization, or another man's airport, or another man's levee ...


Exactly


Do you have a alternative suggestion that is distinguishible
from anarchy?


Yes, in this case I do. Use the force of government exclusively as
an instrument for the preservation of individual liberty. This
boils down to the government interdicting only in matters of force,
fraud, and/or threat (since all harm to individual liberty can
be reduced to one of those cases).


That's a lovely assertion. Now justify why it's OK to raid
one man's wallet and make him pay for another man's individual
liberty. Talk about robbing Peter to pay Paul!

You should go on the road crew of the Wizard Of Oz - You
just love the Strawman.


Splorf! I just repeated your statement.

A man is voluntarily entering into
a compact to protect *his own* liberty. i.e. He derives
benefit from the government's "taking".

So what if 'a' man voluntarily enters into that cokmpact?
What about another man who does not? What justification
was there to tax a man in in Maine to protect Arizonans
from Poncho Villa?

*I'm* certainly not going to fall for a Nigerian 419 scam,
why should my tax money be spent to fight fraud?

Morever, the
benefit/taking is the same for *everyone* in society (or should
be/will be until some form of corruption occurs). In every
other form of government-as-the-instrument-of-social-outcomes
(education, housing, poverty, drugs, ...) there are
*winners* and *losers* in the degree of liberty preserved
by government for different individuals.

....

I see some of the other wreckers are
disgruntled having never apparently learned the filter and kill
functions ....


Perhaps they prefer netiquette.

Hmmm - this thread is in keeping with the long established tradition
of the wreck of wandering far OT for extended periods of time.
It is in no way remarkable compared to the many OT threads that have been
launched here over the years.

The Nigerian 419ers are keeping up a tradition that goes back
a couple of hundred years.

Oh, I forgot - someone had the very bad
manners to stop assisting in the childish GWB bashing conducted by his
drooling detractors ...


Unfortunately, if he really has been drinking, it's not bashing.


... and jack the thread in an inarguably more intelligent
and thoughtful direction...

I'd argue with that.

--

FF

Fletis Humplebacker wrote:

...

Please name one scientist that gave up on research because
of ID. Maybe this will help you get started, it's a pdf page
that takes about 15 seconds with a dialup ...



http://www.discovery.org/scripts/vie...ownload&id=443


There is no mention of ID in the statment those on that list
ostensibly supports.

--

FF

"Larry Blanchard" wrote in message
...

OK Tim, you're always defending minimal government intervention so I
suppose you think of market forces as a good thing. Several news
articles in the last few days have pointed out that nobody wants to make
vaccines because the profits are too low. If that's the result of
"capitalism" you can shove it where the sun don't shine.

I agree. I propose that George Soros and the Film Actors Guild pool their
money and fund a non-profit corporation to develop vaccines.

todd

Tim Daneliuk wrote:
Morris Dovey wrote:

Tim Daneliuk (in ) said:

| I would suggest that Science build on a materialist-mechanical
| foundation is 'blind in one eye' to *any* First Cause and ought to
| throw up its hands now.

I'd like to suggest an alternative course: that you address the
process of discovery that can lead to more complete sightedness.

"Throwing the baby out with the bath water" doesn't appear to be a
productive strategy.

I don't have an alternative strategy. The IDers think they do - they
might be right or wrong. But wouldn't you agree that suggesting
defects in an existing theory does not require the concomittant
proposal for an alternative for the suggestion to be valid?
That is, I can (legitimately) say "X is possibly incorrect"
without necessarily having a replacement for X.


You can legitimately say that. The 'Iders' do not. The
concomittant proposal for an alternative is paramount to
them. Before 'ID' it was 'creation science'. They are not
in this fight for the science.

Check out their webpages and look into what other issues
they support. Their agenda will be clear.

That does not make 'ID' wrong, but it puts the present
controversy in perspective. Without the Christian Coalition
and its ilk, you would never have heard of ID.

--

FF

Tim Daneliuk wrote:

...

You mean like the "mumbo jumbo" that suggests Everything appeared at the
Big Bang out of Nothing and we are *certain* that this materialist/mechanical
POV is correct? ...


If you feel like taking a break from your reading about ID you
might consider reading a little about Cosmology. The Big
Bang Theory dos not hold that something came out of nothing.

--

FF

wrote:
Tim Daneliuk wrote:

...

You mean like the "mumbo jumbo" that suggests Everything appeared at the
Big Bang out of Nothing and we are *certain* that this materialist/mechanical
POV is correct? ...



If you feel like taking a break from your reading about ID you
might consider reading a little about Cosmology. The Big
Bang Theory dos not hold that something came out of nothing.


Oh really. Then do clarify my obvious lack of cosmological
sophistication. Just where, pray tell, did the massive
amounts of energy/mass/gooey-stuff-that-populated-the-universe
come from? Last I looked, the Big Bang is posited to be
the demarcation of the Beginning Of The Universe -i.e.,
It is the moment in time when things got rolling. So where
exactly did the building materials come from in this massive
construction project? If you have an answer for this question
than reapply it iteratively to the preceding point. This
leads you to the same possibilities I pointed out in my very
first post on the matter in this thread.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

wrote:

Tim Daneliuk wrote:

Morris Dovey wrote:


Tim Daneliuk (in ) said:

| I would suggest that Science build on a materialist-mechanical
| foundation is 'blind in one eye' to *any* First Cause and ought to
| throw up its hands now.

I'd like to suggest an alternative course: that you address the
process of discovery that can lead to more complete sightedness.

"Throwing the baby out with the bath water" doesn't appear to be a
productive strategy.

I don't have an alternative strategy. The IDers think they do - they
might be right or wrong. But wouldn't you agree that suggesting
defects in an existing theory does not require the concomittant
proposal for an alternative for the suggestion to be valid?
That is, I can (legitimately) say "X is possibly incorrect"
without necessarily having a replacement for X.



You can legitimately say that. The 'Iders' do not. The
concomittant proposal for an alternative is paramount to
them. Before 'ID' it was 'creation science'. They are not
in this fight for the science.

This is an presumption on your part, and a subtle kind
of invalid guilt-by-association. Morris and the Creation
Science crowd predicated their arguments on their
need to justify a literal 6x24 creation period. That is,
they reflected a rather narrow - and if I may say so -
wooden literal reading of the Genesis account and tried
to find some science to support it. ID makes no
such claim, nor is there any requirment for a literal 6
day anything in ID. Many/most IDers seem fine with
long geological ages. Bear in mind that there is a
substantial difference between "Literal Creationism",
"Theism", "Deism", and "Intelligent Design", all of which
posit one form of an "Author" theory.


Check out their webpages and look into what other issues
they support. Their agenda will be clear.

That does not make 'ID' wrong, but it puts the present
controversy in perspective. Without the Christian Coalition
and its ilk, you would never have heard of ID.


Actually, I would have, because the people who taught me
mathematics and science, also (along the way - separate classes)
taught me philosophy, theology, and history. "id" (note lower
case to separate from current "ID" movement) has been held
in a variety of forms from the ancient Greeks, to Augustine,
to Aquinas, to Spinoza and Pascal, and through today's
thinking on the matter. Materialist Reductionism in its
current incarnation is actually only a couple of hundred years
old (or less) IIRC.


--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

wrote:
"In science, an idea does not rise to the level of a theory
until it can be used to make a prediction. People who use
language to communicate, rather than to obfuscate, understand
that "This theory predicts" means "One may use this theory to
predict". " --FF

You've gone back and forth about predictive power and the like a bit in
this thread. It is ironic to bring up with respect to "evolution"
because that term has been applied to predict everything and given the
systematic thought typical to science that means it predicts nothing in
an unfalsifiable way.

I daresay that human fossils found in the same strata as dinosaur
fossils would go a long ways toward that falsification.

It is like the old scientific notion of
phlogiston, the hypothesizing is so adaptive that it has no predictive
power. For example, if some organisms have long necks then it is said
that they gradually developed a different bone structure as well as the
circulation system, type of heart and so on necessary, by random
mutations acted on by natural selection. If some organisms do not have
long necks then it is said that they gradually developed their type of
neck in the same way. What prediction about adaptations was actually
based on the "law" of natural selection and how can it be falsified?

I seem to recall something about moths.

Another example, gender is said to have originated by the same laws and
processes and men are said to be heterosexual as the result. Is that a
prediction? It cannot be, as the opposite is also said to result from
the same processes and laws because they are said to explain men being
gay too.

"They are said" by whom? The presence of a handful of crackpots
ostensibly within a field does not discredit the field.

The question seems to be, what adaptations or patterns in
Nature can be found empirically that would actually falsify Darwinism
according to Darwinists? It is like the phogiston theorists, there is
always another hypothesis as the "theory"/hypothesizing just goes on to
support the paradigm.


Phlogisten theory died out because thermodynamics did a better
job for pwople working with heat engines. A model that works
better for people breeding animals or studying natural populations
would ein out too.

Compare Darwinism to hard science, which evolutionists tend to try to
merge into and associate their myths with. For instance, if Darwinism
is "just like" physics and gravity (ironic, since the more radical
Darwinian biologists tend to attack physicists now)

I haven't run accross biologists attacking physicists.
Care to enlighten us?

then what is the
equation that represents the main tenet of Darwinism, i.e. "natural
selection"? Is it like gravity?
Why didn't the hard scientists of
his day tend to accept Darwin's theory? How have equations making use
of the law of "natural selection" been used to track the adaptations of
organisms, as certainly as one would track the trajectory of an object
using physics? What adaptations have been predicted using the equation
and then verified empirically, time and again?

I daresay if you peruse the journals in biology you will see how
mathematics is applied in biology. IMHO, not as elegantly
as in Physics or even Chemistry, but it is there.


Proponents of ID are
not the people arguing that the State must support ID in the name of
education or that all of science and perhaps Western civilization too
will just crumble away if their opponents are allowed a voice. It is
the Darwinists making specious and absurd claims about what is
"scientific" and "just like the theory of gravity" which they cannot
back up on the least.

That seems rhetorical.


"Theories are all answers to the question what would the world
be like if these laws are true?"

Well, what would the world be like if "natural selection" were true?
Is natural selection falsified by unnatural selections, naturally
enough? Or is it falsified by natural deselections? How does Nature
make a "selection" for intelligence, anyway? Are you selecting the
text that you write here or should it be reduced to nothing more than
an artifact of the biochemical state of your brain in a moment? It
would seem that you are arguing against the capacity to study an
artifact of the work of intelligence, typically known by its use of
symbols and signs of design to encode information.

That seems rhetorical.


This is not a rhetorical question. What is it that you think that
Darwinian "random" mutation and a supposed law of natural selection
predict?


That's question that would be better posed to someone who has
true expertise in the field but I'll take a crack at it.

I would say those predictions include that there
was a time in the past when mammals were uncommon and a time
before that when there were no mammals at all. The same
would be predicted for all the phyla of vertebrates, and
also a time before which there were no vertebrates at all.

In 1859 Paleontology was in its infancy and geology was
just beginning to work out ways to date rock strata. But
over the next century, as fossils were discovered and
dating methods developed, those predictions were validated.

Now, I don't know if the predictions I suggested were
made in Darwin's time. I do see how they follow logically
from the theory. As Bohr noted, prediction about the future
is especially difficult. It takes longer to test them too.

--

FF

Larry Blanchard wrote:

Tim Daneliuk wrote:

Correct. Moreover, historically the definition of "good" has be
variable enough to the point where it enabled tribal murder,
cannibalism, genocide, and all other manner of alleged "survival
behaviors".


I didn't say "what is good for my particular tribe." I said what is
good for the species. What various societies think is good for them
(often to the detriment of other groups) has no bearing on the matter.

Astonishing. Just who, other than perhaps yourself, do you think
is wise enough to determine what is good for an entire *species*?
As a matter of Real Politk, the self-anoined saviors of mankind
who wish to enslave everyone else to their vision of what "good"
looks like, are only too happy to appoint *themselves* in this
role.



The only policy for bounding public collective action that has
consistently demonstrated its ability to both promote long-term
societal survival AND minimized offense to individuals has been the
rule I cited a while back in this thread: We act collectively only to
promote/preserve personal liberty. Everything else is a private
matter.


OK Tim, you're always defending minimal government intervention so I
suppose you think of market forces as a good thing. Several news

They may- or may not be a "good" thing by some measure of "good".
They do not, for example, cause *perfect* results by any definition of
"good". They are simply *better* than appointing the few to manage
the interests of the many and trusting that the few will be wise,
virtuous, hororable, and incorruptible enough to do so for the long
term. No, markets are not always "good", but unless corrupted
(which is "fraud" - a legitimate venue for government action), they
are filled with *voluntary* participants, not slaves working under
threat of force.

articles in the last few days have pointed out that nobody wants to
make vaccines because the profits are too low. If that's the result of
"capitalism" you can shove it where the sun don't shine.

As always, an erudite observation. An incoherent one too. If
profits are "too low" it means one of two things (or perhaps both):

a) There is a free market for vaccines, and the demand is insufficient
relative to the supply. Price is always a measure of relative
scarcity in market systems.

b) Third-party force (usually government) is being brought to bear
to limit the profit potential for the good or service in question.
For example, when the Drooling Do-Gooders (DDG) see the Big Eeeeevvviiiil
Phara Corp (BEPC) invent a new wonder drug (having spent nearly $1 Billion
to get there in many cases), the DDGs scream "gouging" when
BEPC prices their product at point that makes sense to them
economically. Then the DDGs engage the Political Looters (PL)
to write laws to *forcefully* contrain the price of the good in
question so that Suzie Soccermom can get said wonder drug at
a price she can "afford". This scenario is repeated regularly
in energy, healthcare, and the like. This strategy of profit
containment is an economically degenerate (in the mathematical
sense of the word) scheme that leads to shortages and companies
exiting markets entirely because its simply not worth the
aggravation. This is not some concoted theory on my part,
it is a regularly demonstrable example of Econ 101.


And I note that our current president, an economic conservative if
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

You too should join the road cast of The Wizard Of Oz for your
attachments to strawmen. W is lot's of things, but an economic
conservative isn't one of them. He has it half right - cutting taxes -
but he and the rest of the PLs in government never met an absurd
spending initiative he didn't love. Between "Drugs For Aging Hippies Who
Never Saved A Dime For Old Age" and "Let's Rebuild Cities Built Below
Sea Level Even Though People Should Have Known Better", he and the rest
of PLs seem determined to bankrupt the nation.


there ever was one (at least in public) is trying to convince
manufacturers to change their ways and produce more vaccines.

Those manufacturers will do so once there is a profit to be had
there again - or at the point of the government gun forcing them
to do it.

In actual fact, every good material thing you own comes from
the idea that someone, somewhere had a profit motive to its
making. Denying them that profit, similarly denies them the
incentive to pursue its creation - er, I mean evolution -
in the first place or on an ongoing basis.


Sidepoint:

The absence of vaccines might potentially lead to the deaths of
the "least fit" which is, of course, evolutionarily appropriate as I
understand the theory. In fact, people who espouse a purely mechanical
universe have no moral basis for objecting to this sort of thing. If the
universe is mechanical, and evolution all encompassing in its
explanation of how things work, then a few hundred million dead here or
there by natural processes ought to be of no particular *moral* concern
(though it certainly would be one of personal concern if you or someone
you care about is one of the victims).



--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

wrote:

SNEEP


A man is voluntarily entering into
a compact to protect *his own* liberty. i.e. He derives
benefit from the government's "taking".


So what if 'a' man voluntarily enters into that cokmpact?
What about another man who does not? What justification
was there to tax a man in in Maine to protect Arizonans
from Poncho Villa?

There isn't one prima facia. In fact, that's approximately what the
founding documents of the US supported. A relatively weak central
government and the bulk of power/taxation etc. to be vested regionally
(aka the States). Until the end of the Civil War, that's more-or-less
how it was. From the end of that war until this very day, the balance
of power has been shifting from the States (where we have more
direct control as voters and can do things tailored to our
local situtation) to the Federal government which causes the
situation you bemoan.


*I'm* certainly not going to fall for a Nigerian 419 scam,

No, but you might fall prey to a more (or less) subtle one. The laws regarding
fraud/force/threat are typically broader than just any single expression
thereof - well they used to be - and thus potentially protect your
interests of personal liberty by whatever means is used to harm you. No,
you probably won't fall for a 419, but if you do become victimized by a
..357 in the hands of a criminal robbing you, you just *might* want to
legitimate the power of government to interdict and/or remediate the
situation.

why should my tax money be spent to fight fraud?

There is clearly some legitimate debate about just how wide ranging the
whole interdiction of fraud/force/threat ought to be, and just who
(Feds, State, County, City) should do it. Articulating the principle I
did doesn't just make every question of that sort disappear. But we are
so far beyond all that, it doesn't matter. The Elder Moochers and the
City Below The Sea Moochers are just two trenchant examples of many that
demonstrate that the new American Assumption for everything is "It's The
Government's Job."




--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

Tim Daneliuk wrote:
wrote:

SNIP

A more apt analogy would be the modern working *scientist*
the overwhelming majority of whom feed at the public
trough. This is once of the principal sources of the
intertia in the science establishment IMO.


That could become true if the 'science establishment'
backslides to the point where it must placate the
'religiosu establishment' to avoid a fiery demise tied
to a stake.

Hey, if the science establishment wishes to not be
under the scrutiny of populist politics (which I think
we both agree damages science) it ought to find private,
voluntary funding for both research and schools.
Then no elected school board could dictate much of anything.

Populist politics funds _some_ of the 'science establishment'
because it receives a return on that investment. That
return will be reduced if populist politics begins to
micromanage the 'science establishment'.


SNIP

....



The fact that anyone *dares* to now question it
hardly demonizes it. Your level of bunker mentality here
rivals the Evangelical Fundamentalists who also believe
that they are the downtrodden and oppressed in these
matters.


You, for example, are not merely 'daring to question'
evolutionary biology. You accuse 'the science establishment'
in general and in particular editors and peer reviewers
of supressing papers, claiming the motive for this
conspiracy is 'adherance to scientific orthodoxy'.
I daresay demonization is apt.

That's not exactly the emphasis of my accusation.

You've made multiple accusations. 'Adherance to
scientific orthodoxy' is a quote from one of them.

My
emphasis is that the science establishment, faced
with a political environment (public school) has appeared
to be running from the fight rather than confront it.
It makes some of us wonder just why. I do not attribute
any particularly Machiavellian motive to this at all.

The American Cancer Society and the American Lung Association
quite debating the tobacco companies because the tobacco
companies got more benefit from the existance of the debate
than they lost from the content of the debate itself.
That, and the tobacco companies also used the debates
as a platform from which to disseminate outright lies.

One expects the Christian Coalition to do the same.




SNIP

"Intelligent Design" is just a reformulation of Creationism
in which the Creator "guides' the evolution of species rather
than creating them directly by divine will. It is pretty

That's not exactly the case. Some versions of "author"
theories accept evolution as a mechanism, some do not.


But that doesn't change the fact that the esential element
of each is "God did it".

The essential elment of the *metaphysics* is "God did it",
but this is not necessarily presupposed in the scientific
claims of such theories - at least some of them.

I don't agree.

Moreover,
Science ought to remain completely mute to the statement
that "God did it" because it has nothing to offer in either
support or refutation. Whether the Universe operates by
magic, having sprung forth from a burst of smoke from
Nothing Whatsoever, or is the product of a creating God
involved in His creation at every quanta is not a question
Science can remotely address.

Agreed. That is pretty much what I say.


This does not keep a good
many Scientists from treating Theists like idiot children.


Certainly being a scientist does not preclude being an
asshole.




"Intelligent Design", like all theologically based philosphical
constructs rests on the premise of some sort of divine
intervention.

Again, you are overstating a strawman. The proponents of ID are
theologically motivated, without question. But they assert that their
*claims* are rooted in science. Why is it so painful to give them the
hearing necessary to refute at least the scientific components of their
claims? I do not get the visceral objection to this that you and others
in the community of scientists seem to have.

Scientific journals have minimum standards for publication. Off-
hand I expect that ID papers typically do not meet those standards.
Scientifc journals do not exist to 'give a hearing' to religiously
motivated zealots even if they *claim* to have scientific
evidence that supports their faith.

Astrolgers *claim* to have scientific evidence to support
their conclusions too.



Asuming for the moment that ID papers are being rejected, why
is it so hard for you to believe that they are being rejected
because they do not rise to the objective standards of the
journals to which they have been submitted.

Because I have read/heard far more ad homina commentary from
people defending establishment science than I have seen/heard
thoughtful refutation. This may be a knowledge problem on
my part. So, if you can direct me to a clear refutation of
ID that points out why it has no merit being considered as Science,
I'm all eyes ...

No, I encourage you to read 'ID' papers that
were ostensibly rejected and compared them to papers that
were published.



You seem to be saying "So what if the paper may be a bad paper, how
could it hurt to publish it." Publishing a bad paper hurts plenty
and that is why journals have peer review.

Oh c'mon. There are plenty of lousy or marginal papers published
in all manner of Scientific journals.

I bet you'll have a hard time finding some examples that compare
to those ID papers that were ostensibly rejected.

....


Don't you think that the people suing school boards would sieze
upon the publication of any paper, no matter how bad or how
thoroughly disproved and present it as proof of an issue in
controversy?

The IDers are desparate to get a paper referring to God published
because they want to use it as a means of forcing religious
teaching back into the public schools.

Again, the foul here is having public schools in the first place.
...

Not a topic I care to discuss.

....

... However, I will point out that there are legions
of scientists who believe in God and practice a variety of religions
who also regard ID as unscientific.

I would be grateful for a cite here.


While I am sufficiently interested in the matter to read
something about a poll of that sort when a headline catches
my eye I am not sufficiently intersested to research it at
this time. As I am wont to say "Google is your friend."

--

FF

wrote:
SNEEP


Populist politics funds _some_ of the 'science establishment'
because it receives a return on that investment. That
return will be reduced if populist politics begins to
micromanage the 'science establishment'.


I see, so the message is, "Pay up and stay out
of our way." Can you see how this might just be
a *teeny* problem?


The American Cancer Society and the American Lung Association
quite debating the tobacco companies because the tobacco
companies got more benefit from the existance of the debate
than they lost from the content of the debate itself.
That, and the tobacco companies also used the debates
as a platform from which to disseminate outright lies.

Interesting you should mention this. There is no question
that inhaling cigarette smoke for many years is correlated
to a statistically shorter lifespan. However, the
anti-smoking zealots (and that's what they are) fail
to mention a few inconvenient facts:

a) There is a strong suggestion of a causal relationship
between nicotine ingestion and reduction of risk
for Altzheimers, Parkisons, and colo-rectal cancer.
(The most recent study I have seen shows no reduction
in the *markers* for Alteheimers for nicotine users,
but it does not address the earlier study that showed
a correlative reduction in the *incidence* of the disease
for nicotine users.)

b) There appears to be no direct correlation between per capita
cigarette smoking rates and per capita lung cancer rates.
If cigarette smoking (i.e., smoke inhalation) causes
lung cancer, then why does the US have a higher per
capita rate than Japan which has far more cigarette
smokers per capita (last time I looked anyway). More
and more epidemologists are coming to the view that
lung cancer is primarily a factor of genetics. That
doesn't stop the ACS and ALA from playing it up as a
"smoking risk."

c) The conclusions about the risks of second hand smoke
where done using "meta analysis" - the attempt to
coalesce the results of individual research results
in a a single, unified view. This is voodoo statistic
which has little or no basis as a matter of mathematics.

The ACS and ALA - like so many of the other so-called "objective"
voices in science - have an agenda. They are part of a larger
do-gooder culture that wishes to jam its agenda down the throats
(literally in this case) of Other People. They tell only one
(quite legitimate) side of the story, but never confess their
own political and agenda bias, nor do they reveal the flaws
in their own methodology. Does cigarette smoking kill? Of
course it does. So does *not* smoking cigarettes. But this
doesn't stop the Professional Behavior Nannies from trying to
outlaw things other people find pleasurable and use a very
stilted version of "science" to justify itself.


One expects the Christian Coalition to do the same.

You're kidding yourself. There's more of them than there
are of you. They pay a lot of taxes, and they donate
to a lot of political campaigns. You jolly well better
have a better strategy than "they'll just go away" or you will
find your funding and independence severly compromised in the
not-so-distant future. That is yet another reason to meet them
on the discussion of ID to *engage* now and either make them
demonstrate the validity of their claims, or slink off to try
something else.


SNIP

"Intelligent Design" is just a reformulation of Creationism
in which the Creator "guides' the evolution of species rather
than creating them directly by divine will. It is pretty

That's not exactly the case. Some versions of "author"
theories accept evolution as a mechanism, some do not.


But that doesn't change the fact that the esential element
of each is "God did it".

Another strawman. An "intelligent designer" did it. They
do not (for purposes of this discussion) imbue that designer
with the specific moral attributes of a Judeo-Christian
God. Quit fighting the fight you understand and look at
the fight you're being offered.




--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

wrote in message
ups.com...

You can legitimately say that. The 'Iders' do not. The
concomittant proposal for an alternative is paramount to
them. Before 'ID' it was 'creation science'. They are not
in this fight for the science.

Check out their webpages and look into what other issues
they support. Their agenda will be clear.

The Creation Science guys (ICR) do have their own agenda Fred. They are
however different from ID.


That does not make 'ID' wrong, but it puts the present
controversy in perspective. Without the Christian Coalition
and its ilk, you would never have heard of ID.


ID has been around for a lot longer than the Christian Coalition. It's been
around for a lot longer than ICR as well. It's not even limited to
Christians. Within that space though, there have been a large number of
believers who also accept the findings of science, acknowledge evolution of
a species, etc. for as long as the theories about evolution have been
around.

--

-Mike-

"Charlie Self" wrote in message
oups.com...

Wrong. We are subject to the same basic ethical rule as everthing
else.
If it's good for the survival of the species, it's "right." If it's
bad for the survival of the species, it's "wrong."

Of course it's not that simple. There's long-term vs short-term
survival, the importance attached to a stasble society, etc.. But the
basic rule is there.

That rule doesn't stand up to widely varying cultural values for even a
second. Gonna need to come up with a different rule.


In what way doesn't it stand up? You make a flat statement without even
a smidgin of proof or a single example.


Devil in the definitions. Euthanasia of the infirm, insane and elderly is
good for the long-term survival of the species, reduces competition for
scarce resources. How's that for a single example?

I know that the one-worlders like to think that there are ethical absolutes,
what they don't realize is that the same arguments they use against
religious justification can be used against their dogma. Is an
anti-religious fanatic any better than a religious one?

writes:

What prediction about adaptations was actually
based on the "law" of natural selection and how can it be falsified?

I seem to recall something about moths.

I was reading about the controvery about the peppered moth. It seems
that many of the criticisms of the study don't hold up to peer review.

The study wasn't faked, in many people's opinion. However, predation
by birds is not the sole factor of natural selection. Now it is
considered to be just one of many factors.

In short - many biological experts feel the charges of fraud are wrong.

http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/Moths/moths.html



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writes:

Scientific journals have minimum standards for publication. Off-
hand I expect that ID papers typically do not meet those standards.
Scientifc journals do not exist to 'give a hearing' to religiously
motivated zealots even if they *claim* to have scientific
evidence that supports their faith.

I was reading about the "science" of Michael Brehe, who is a funded
member of the Discovery Institute. Apparently his book is filled with
distortions and outright lies, according to some biologists.

One author was amused that when he mentioned "irreducible complexity"
in a paper, criticizing the conclusions with facts, proponents of ID
were happy to finally get mentioned in a peer-reviewed paper.

http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/staff/dave/Behe.html

There is another comparison of paper publication - intelligent design
versus evolution:

http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/rnc...12_30_1899.asp


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wrote:
Fletis Humplebacker wrote:

...

Please name one scientist that gave up on research because
of ID. Maybe this will help you get started, it's a pdf page
that takes about 15 seconds with a dialup ...




http://www.discovery.org/scripts/vie...ownload&id=443


There is no mention of ID in the statment those on that list
ostensibly supports.


If they are suspect of random mutation and natural selection as
the cause what do you suppose is left?

snip
The Nigerian 419ers are keeping up a tradition that goes back
a couple of hundred years.

Please note the Nigerian Scam Spammers were awarded this year's IgNoble
Prize for Literature.
http://www.improbable.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html#ig2005

Good to see these efforts recognized.

Steve

"Duane Bozarth"
Fletis Humplebacker
Duane Bozarth wrote:
...
I'm done...finis. If you care to answer the question of the role of the
ID'er in all this, fine.

Their role would be to better understand the universe and the
world we live in, just like regular folks.

I'm not talking about "they", I'm asking about the whoever/whatever is
THE I in the ID argument. What is it's role in all this? I reiterate
that if there is no intervention, then there is no need. If there is
intervention, then there is no possibility for any science to make the
understanding whether it's performed by ID adherents or not.

So, I ask again--in your view, what is the role of the I in ID after the
(we'll assume for sake of argument) initial event? IOW, is it still
making changes or did it do all the design up front or some combination
of the above?


I have my personal opinions on that but they aren't relevent
to the discussion. My point isn't that my particular beliefs be
taught as science but that science can't rule out a designer.
There is no conflict between understanding things as well
as we are able and recognizing the possibility that it isn't
all a happy accident.

"Tim Daneliuk" wrote in message
...
wrote:

Tim Daneliuk wrote:

Morris Dovey wrote:


That does not make 'ID' wrong, but it puts the present
controversy in perspective. Without the Christian Coalition
and its ilk, you would never have heard of ID.


Actually, I would have, because the people who taught me
mathematics and science, also (along the way - separate classes)
taught me philosophy, theology, and history. "id" (note lower
case to separate from current "ID" movement) has been held
in a variety of forms from the ancient Greeks, to Augustine,
to Aquinas, to Spinoza and Pascal, and through today's
thinking on the matter. Materialist Reductionism in its
current incarnation is actually only a couple of hundred years
old (or less) IIRC.


--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

A Google search on Materialist Reductionism turns up about 54,000 hits; I
didn't try to read them all. It started with the ancient Greeks who started
the ball rolling. It has evolved and there have been recent efforts (last
couple of hundred years) to incorporate the latest and best science,
including Darwin's Theory of Evolution.
http://www.google.com/search?q=Materialist+Reductionism

I guess that, if you want, you can isolate just the things you don't like
and say that is what leaves the need for ID. I think the real debate here
is if ID was applied to the universe we see and study today, when did that
happen. If ID is only the initiator of the Big Bang, the hard line anti-ID
folks may not have a problem since everything we observe came after, and the
designer is moved out of the realm of science. On the other hand, if the
designer keeps being involved, the creationists may be happy, especially if
the world is only about 6000 years old. Everyone else can fit themselves in
wherever they want. ID just has to show where there are examples of things
that can only have come about through supernatural intervention. We are
still waiting.

The more practical question is if ID should be taught in the school
curriculum. I think it still has to establish a scientific case before it
can be taught as science.

Steve

Tim Daneliuk wrote:
Larry Blanchard wrote:

Tim Daneliuk wrote:


I didn't say "what is good for my particular tribe." I said what is
good for the species. What various societies think is good for them
(often to the detriment of other groups) has no bearing on the matter.

Astonishing. Just who, other than perhaps yourself, do you think
is wise enough to determine what is good for an entire *species*?

OK, let's take one simple example. When wars were fought with clubs or
swords, the strong and/or smart survived better than the weak and/or
stupid. Thus warfare was, in at least one sense, good for the species.

Once we learned to kill at a distance, with nuclear weapons being at the
current end of that chain, who died became much more random (and
included a lot of non-combatants). So warfare is now, in all senses,
bad for the species.

I don't think it takes a lot of wisdom to figure that one out.



The absence of vaccines might potentially lead to the deaths of
the "least fit" which is, of course, evolutionarily appropriate as I
understand the theory. In fact, people who espouse a purely mechanical
universe have no moral basis for objecting to this sort of thing.

If this were a primitive society, I'd agree with you. But not only has
our current society introduced methods where a disease can spread far
beyond the area it would have in olden times, the disruption of society
would be far greater because of our greater interdependence. So since
we've changed the conditions to the benefit of the virus, we need to use
compensating conditions to combat it.

And what happens to the poorest members of our society if vaccines are
made profitable by raising prices? Surely your beliefs must include
answering the "Am I my brother's keeper" question in the affirmative.

George wrote:

Devil in the definitions. Euthanasia of the infirm, insane and elderly is
good for the long-term survival of the species, reduces competition for
scarce resources. How's that for a single example?


Limiting the number of children to a replacement value would accomplish
the same thing without the killing. But I can hear the screams of the
"go forth and multiply" crowd from here :-).

Larry Blanchard wrote:

Tim Daneliuk wrote:

Larry Blanchard wrote:

Tim Daneliuk wrote:



I didn't say "what is good for my particular tribe." I said what is
good for the species. What various societies think is good for them
(often to the detriment of other groups) has no bearing on the matter.

Astonishing. Just who, other than perhaps yourself, do you think
is wise enough to determine what is good for an entire *species*?


OK, let's take one simple example. When wars were fought with clubs or
swords, the strong and/or smart survived better than the weak and/or
stupid. Thus warfare was, in at least one sense, good for the species.

Once we learned to kill at a distance, with nuclear weapons being at the
current end of that chain, who died became much more random (and
included a lot of non-combatants). So warfare is now, in all senses,
bad for the species.

I don't think it takes a lot of wisdom to figure that one out.

I stipulate that on particular issues what is good for the species may
be self-evident. But as a general matter, no single person or even
group of people is going to be able to make this call for an entire
species on every issue.




The absence of vaccines might potentially lead to the deaths of
the "least fit" which is, of course, evolutionarily appropriate as I
understand the theory. In fact, people who espouse a purely mechanical
universe have no moral basis for objecting to this sort of thing.


If this were a primitive society, I'd agree with you. But not only has
our current society introduced methods where a disease can spread far
beyond the area it would have in olden times, the disruption of society
would be far greater because of our greater interdependence. So since
we've changed the conditions to the benefit of the virus, we need to use
compensating conditions to combat it.


And what happens to the poorest members of our society if vaccines are
made profitable by raising prices? Surely your beliefs must include

Some would die (or become quite ill). Some would benefit from private
charity.

answering the "Am I my brother's keeper" question in the affirmative.

The real question is "Am I my brother's keeper at the point of a gun,
where 'brother' and 'keeper' are defined by other people, not me?"

It's not "my beliefs" (which I have largely kept to myself as regards
to religion, morality, etc.) that are on trial here. You cannot
consistently hold an entirely mechanical universe absent any intelligent
cause AND at the same time argue for "morality". In the absence of
any ultimate teleology for the Universe, the only moral code consistent
with that position is one rooted purely in self-interest. Now,
"self-interest" may in some cases mean helping others. But broadly,
there is no particular imperative to be your "brother's keeper" if the
Universe has no author, no purpose, and no meaning beyond its mechanical
self.

One *can* construct a consistent basis for human law using the
rule I suggested previously in the thread: Use law to maximize personal
liberty. This is, however, is entirely utilitarian. It has no real
"moral" basis, merely a demonstrable history of serving more people better
and faster than any other known system of human governance. The problem
even here, though, is that in a mechanical Universe without first and
intelligent cause, there is no particular reason to believe that the
strong shouldn't conquer the week. That is, that social and behavior
'evolution' ought to mirror the claimed biological evolution.

I always find it entertaining when mechanical reductionists on the one
hand, argue for the "morality" of collectivist government action, even
by force, to "help the downtrodden." Given the philosophical starting
points of mechanical reductionism/materialism, there is simply no basis
for "morality", "help", and "downtrodden" except for the narrow self-
interest of the speaker.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

Fletis Humplebacker wrote:
wrote:
Fletis Humplebacker wrote:

...

Please name one scientist that gave up on research because
of ID. Maybe this will help you get started, it's a pdf page
that takes about 15 seconds with a dialup ...




http://www.discovery.org/scripts/vie...ownload&id=443


There is no mention of ID in the statment those on that list
ostensibly supports.


If they are suspect of random mutation and natural selection as
the cause what do you suppose is left?

Everything else, of course.

The statement reads: "We are skeptical of claims for the
ability of random mutation and natural selection to account
for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence
for Dawinian theory should be encouraged."

No mention of ID or any other variant of creationsim nor any
mention of any of the variations on transmutation theory.
Not being an expert in the field, I don't now how many others
there may be.

Evidently you don't either.

--

FF

"Steve Peterson" wrote in message
ink.net...


If ID is only the initiator of the Big Bang, the hard line anti-ID
folks may not have a problem since everything we observe came after, and
the
designer is moved out of the realm of science. On the other hand, if the
designer keeps being involved, the creationists may be happy, especially
if
the world is only about 6000 years old. Everyone else can fit themselves
in
wherever they want. ID just has to show where there are examples of
things
that can only have come about through supernatural intervention. We are
still waiting.

The more practical question is if ID should be taught in the school
curriculum. I think it still has to establish a scientific case before it
can be taught as science.

Steve

Tim Daneliuk wrote:
wrote:
Tim Daneliuk wrote:

...

You mean like the "mumbo jumbo" that suggests Everything appeared at the
Big Bang out of Nothing and we are *certain* that this materialist/mechanical
POV is correct? ...



If you feel like taking a break from your reading about ID you
might consider reading a little about Cosmology. The Big
Bang Theory dos not hold that something came out of nothing.


Oh really. Then do clarify my obvious lack of cosmological
sophistication. ...


The Big Bang Theory presumes the sum of mass and energy of the
universe was always the same and always will be.

--

FF

Fletis Humplebacker wrote:

"Duane Bozarth"
Fletis Humplebacker
Duane Bozarth wrote:
...
I'm done...finis. If you care to answer the question of the role of the
ID'er in all this, fine.

Their role would be to better understand the universe and the
world we live in, just like regular folks.

I'm not talking about "they", I'm asking about the whoever/whatever is
THE I in the ID argument. What is it's role in all this? I reiterate
that if there is no intervention, then there is no need. If there is
intervention, then there is no possibility for any science to make the
understanding whether it's performed by ID adherents or not.

So, I ask again--in your view, what is the role of the I in ID after the
(we'll assume for sake of argument) initial event? IOW, is it still
making changes or did it do all the design up front or some combination
of the above?

I have my personal opinions on that but they aren't relevent
to the discussion. My point isn't that my particular beliefs be
taught as science but that science can't rule out a designer.
There is no conflict between understanding things as well
as we are able and recognizing the possibility that it isn't
all a happy accident.

OK, I'll try again--paraphrase the view of the ID'ers on what the role
of THE "I" in ID is playing in the development of speicies since the
beginning as observed by a presumed impartial observer---I'm trying to
find out that role and was assuming your view would be the view of the
movement and could explain it in your own words.

IOW, does this "nonaccident" have consequences that aren't explicable by
known physical laws?

Tim Daneliuk wrote:
wrote:

...

That does not make 'ID' wrong, but it puts the present
controversy in perspective. Without the Christian Coalition
and its ilk, you would never have heard of ID.


Actually, I would have, because the people who taught me
mathematics and science, also (along the way - separate classes)
taught me philosophy, theology, and history. "id" (note lower
case to separate from current "ID" movement) ...

Note *I* used upper case. Crediting God with authorship of
natural law, such that the study of that natural law itself
does not depend in any way on a belief in God, is NOT the sort
of 'id' under discussion.

--

FF