The mission of Uncommon Descent is clearly stated at the top of the sidebar on the blog. It says ...
Materialistic ideology has subverted the study of biological and cosmological origins so that the actual content of these sciences has become corrupted. The problem, therefore, is not merely that science is being used illegitimately to promote a materialistic worldview, but that this worldview is actively undermining scientific inquiry, leading to incorrect and unsupported conclusions about biological and cosmological origins. At the same time, intelligent design (ID) offers a promising scientific alternative to materialistic theories of biological and cosmological evolution -- an alternative that is finding increasing theoretical and empirical support. Hence, ID needs to be vigorously developed as a scientific, intellectual, and cultural project.The Intelligent Design Creationists make a big deal of this whenever they get around to defending their worldview. They claim that Intelligent Design Creationism is a "promising scientific alternative" that deserves respect. They say that Intelligent Design Creationism is not just anti-evolutionism.
There're lying, of course, but what else is new. Here's the latest posting on Uncommon Deescent as posted by that well-known scientist and intellectual DaveScot [Speaking of T-Shirts - this is reputedly by the same designer].
I never really understood the word "materialism". As far as I know, the most "physically" fundamental "thing" is a wavefunction (among a few other concepts). A mathematical function doesn't seem very material to me.
ReplyDeleteThis is not the first time that IDiots have used a faith analogy to denigrate evolution. Yet, it is rather a bizzare thing to do. Probably clost to 99% of IDiots are also 'people of faith' - who unquestionably follow the teachings of their God (mostly the Christian one of course) and hold the tenet of 'faith' very highly. One the one hand they hold 'faith' to be a very good thing, yet accuse evolutionists of having 'faith' in Darwin as if this is a bad thing (and of course the reality is that no evolutionist needs faith whatsoever, let alone in the person of Darwin). Very strange.
ReplyDeleteThat cartoon: don't they get the Everest-sized irony of what they're doing?
ReplyDeleteAre they really that daft?
Creationism, promising for 2000 years.
ReplyDeleteI'll take the facts for 150, please.
intelligent design (ID) offers a promising scientific alternative to materialistic theories of biological and cosmological evolution -- an alternative that is finding increasing theoretical and empirical support.
ReplyDeleteI must have missed this. Do they provide any references for this increasing theoretical and empirical support?
Sure they bitch about 'materialism' corrupting scientific inquiry but do any of them take their cars to a spiritualist for repair?
ReplyDeleteAre IDiots that dumb? Why are they making fun of 'darwinism' by comparing it to the first commandment of god? I thought this commandment of god ("Thou shalt have no other gods before me.") was a good thing ?
ReplyDeleteRegarding the bizarre nature of denigrating evolutionary theory as "faith" in "Darwinism:"
ReplyDelete- ID considers itself a scientific movement. As support for the "science of ID," it marshals pseudoscientific, or less than pseudoscientific, criticisms of evolutionary theory. (Less than pseudoscientific: In the comments to the cited thread at UD, one of the commenters responds to Dawkins' challenge regarding who designed the Designer by saying If the designer is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (which clearly isn’t necessary for ID but dovetails nicely with ID), then no one designed the designer. The designer is “the One Who Is”…whose essence is His existence. Ah, glad that's cleared up, then.) Oddly, no one in ID seems able (willing?) to make the logical distinction between criticism of evolutionary theory and support for ID, nor between cogent scientific criticism (of which there is undoubtedly a great deal, particularly in areas where branches of evolutionary theory are under rapid development) and pseudoscientific or religious claptrap (e.g., the greeting of every transitional fossil form with the twin critiques that it doesn't qualify - plainly wrong, what form *isn't* transitional? - and that there are now twice as many gaps to explain, which is true but unavoidable and quite trivial).
- ID considers itself scientific in the sense of truth-seeking, which unfortunately seems unavoidably conflated in supporters' minds with seeking Truth, as in those bumper stickers where Truth swallows Darwin. There seems to be no distinction drawn between ways of evaluating scientific validity considered wholly legitimate, uncontroversial, and indeed necessary in demonstrating the truth, so far as we understand it, of even very counterintuitive theories like relativity or quantum electrodynamics, and evaluating validity based solely on the degree of support for the notion of a Supreme Being. Or to put it in UD's own words: Materialistic ideology has subverted the study of biological and cosmological origins.... Think of someone, anyone, seriously urging support or lack of same for a particular (non-)religious or political viewpoint as a valid scientific criticism of Einstein's relativity equations. It is clearly a non-sequitur. Yet UD announces the religio-political "grounds" of ID's disagreement with evolutionary theory, and submits that this makes any scientific sense?
- The upshot is that ID supporters conceive of both evolutionary theory and ID as faith-based, evolutionary theory based on faith in "materialism" (or philosophical naturalism, or whatever you'd prefer to call it), ID based on faith in the Truth. Thus the IDers' pity for the poor philosophical naturalists and their "faith" in "Darwinism."
Pardon me while I go give my head a good shaking...