Intelligent Design

Intelligent Design is something I feel quite strongly about because it's where christians step right over the mark from "I believe bullshit" to "Everybody has to believe my bullshit"



ID is where christians turn into seriously hypocritical liars.

They want to get their beliefs into the classroom so they try to pretend that ID isn't religion. So to the outside world they go "Oh no we don't mean God - the ID could be any supernatural being" but of course to their fellow christians they go "Well of course it's God we mean, but we have to pretend or they'll know we're just trying to shove our religion down their throats"



There was an important court case in US 2004 which blew ID right out of the water

Dover Trial

In 2004, the Dover Area school board ordered science teachers to read a statement to high school biology students suggesting that there is an alternative to Darwin's theory of evolution called intelligent design - the idea that life is too complex to have evolved naturally and therefore must have been designed by an intelligent agent. The teachers refused to comply. Later, parents opposed to intelligent design filed a lawsuit in federal court accusing the school board of violating the constitutional separation of church and state.

The judge in the trial, John Jones, is a staunch Christian and a Republican appointed by George Bush.

He ruled that:

Intelligent Design is just Creationism with some of the labels changed. As such it is a religious belief, not science, and so cannot be taught as an alternative to evolution. ID is not a genuine scientific theory but rather, "creationism in a cheap tuxedo."



Intelligent design, which cannot be tested by any scientific method, is a belief that asserts that a supernatural entity designed some complex organisms. Witnesses have demonstrated that such an assertion is inherently a religious argument that falls outside the realm of science.



Because evolution is fundamental to understanding both living and extinct organisms, it must be taught in public school science classes. In contrast, creationism is religion rather than science, because it invokes supernatural explanations that cannot be tested. Because science involves testing hypotheses, scientific explanations are restricted to natural causes.



Creationists have not been able to produce any evidence to support their belief.



Since there is no positive evidence, all they can do is trot out a negative list of things they don't like about evolution.

Their problem is that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming. Imagine your whole school - every room - is lined with bookshelves, full of books. Those books are full of all the evidence that confirms that evolution is the best scientific explanation we have been able to come up with. Miles and miles of books, full of EVIDENCE.

And down on the floor are the Creationists, with their crayons and a colouring-in book that says "I Don't Like Evolution" and with a whole lot of drawings to cheer them up. It's an insulting description, but it's accurate. That's the difference between the evidence supporting evolution and the pathetic claims made by the creationists.

The Dover Trial provides an excellent case study of evolution in action; ironically, in this case how the language of creationists has adapted to changing cultural environments. The defense argued that Intelligent Design is an entirely new species unrelated to creation science, and the plaintiffs expertly demonstrated both the clear ancestral relationship between creationism and ID and the selective pressure of higher court decisions that caused the speciation. With that phylogenetic relationship clearly established in the trial, the judge evidently decided that creationism had not mutated enough to survive as the new species of Intelligent Design.

Whenever someone says "I don't believe in evolution" ask them to give you a better explanation that fits all the facts.

To be sure, Darwin's theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions.



Which is best guide to real world? Science or Religion?
Dispute between the 2 was settled when churches put lightning rods on their steeples in late 1700's (after giving up on the power of prayer to save them and their bell-ringers from thunderstorms

Point out that not science or religion that has caused ills - it's those who insist on their dogmatic views of either

Sir David Attenborough "Every society has its creation myths. How do you decide which one to believe? The answer is not to look at the written word but at the world. Whether you're in Australia or Austria the facts revealed are the same. That's what the truth is."

Attenborough has revealed that he gets hate mail from viewers for not crediting God in his documentaries. The veteran broadcaster said that he has received letters telling him to burn in hell because of his views on evolution. He told Radio Times that he is often asked why he does not credit God when talking about some of the creatures featured on his shows: "They always mean beautiful things like hummingbirds. I always reply by saying that I think of a little child in east Africa with a worm burrowing through his eyeball. The worm cannot live in any other way, except by burrowing through eyeballs. I find that hard to reconcile with the notion of a divine and benevolent creator." He also said he wasn't in favour of creationism being taught alongside evolution in schools. "It's like saying that two and two equals four, but if you wish to believe it, it could also be five," he said.

Folk Science - Folk astronomy told us tat the earth was flat and that we were the centre of the universe and the planets were gods who determined our fate Folk biology sees us as so complex we need a designer.

Not all Christians choose to ignore evidence...This is from The Clergy Letter Project: We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as "one theory among others" is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children.