Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
What Are We Arguing About?
Charles Krauthammer’s article flatly states that Intelligent Design is full of crap. Actually, what he’s saying is something I’ve been saying all along, that we’re making a mistake in assuming different theories logically have to be mutually exclusive from one another, when they don’t.
Newton’s religiosity was traditional. He was a staunch believer in Christianity and member of the Church of England. Einstein’s was a more diffuse belief in a deity who set the rules for everything that occurs in the universe.
Neither saw science as an enemy of religion. On the contrary. “He believed he was doing God’s work,” wrote James Gleick in his recent biography of Newton. Einstein saw his entire vocation – understanding the workings of the universe – as an attempt to understand the mind of God.
Krauthammer belongs to the “It Isn’t Science” crowd, those who insist that, being untestable, Intelligent Design cannot be a legitimate scientific pursuit. I’ve been reluctant to sign on to that, because if I were to do so then I’d have to support banishing the following from science:
Krauthammer has inferred that Intelligent Design proponents — all of them? most of them? some of them? I don’t know! — are pushing the theory of the constantly-intervening God. Sorry, Chuck. I find it to be dishonest to link “you have opposable thumbs because Someone designed you that way” to “when you put your right leg into your pants first this morning, it’s because God decided that six thousand years ago.”
It pains me to say this, but Krauthammer has blundered significantly in the arena of clean, organized, critical thinking, which is where he has been known to contribute the most in confounding disagreements like these. The delta between those two assertions he has welded together is not only significant, but it cuts to the quick of religio-scientific principles upon which this republic was founded. When atheists protest against “In God We Trust” being inscribed on our money, they are frequently heard to assert “The Founding Fathers were not Christians, they were Deists!” Little do the most passionate among them realize, that the most accepted definition of Deism is the proposition that the world was created by a non-intervening God.
That a Supreme Being is responsible for creating us, but not for intervening with our day-to-day operations, is absolutely critical to acceptance of the twin assertions that 1) we “are endowed by [our] Creator with certain unalienable Rights”; and 2) it is our “Right, it is [our] Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for [our] future Security.”
Which is to say, we may very well have grown here through a process unguided by any intelligent force, but if that is proven (or accepted) to be the case, then the document I have quoted has been made utterly groundless; and similarly, if we were put here by an intervening Higher Power, that decides for us if we are to part our hair on the right or the left, then it isn’t up to us to do anything at all — let alone overthrow our government — and the document is again made utterly groundless.
Krauthammer is effectively stating that a Higher Power that put us here, by definition, is a Higher Power that, as he puts it, “steps into this world of constant and accumulating change and says, ‘I think I’ll make me a lemur today.'” How can these be synonymous? He’s trying to make the argument that science and religion aren’t enemies. One of the most potent suppositions for supporting that, is the concept of a non-interfering Higher Power that uses evolution as a tool, which is put in motion and then left alone. Much like the little old lady and the tomato seeds.
I’m afraid Charles Krauthammer has lost track of what we’re arguing about. But haven’t we all? Find me a thousand loudmouth idealogues extolling their opinions of Intelligent Design, on one side or the other, and I can find large numbers therein of folks who will sign on to many, a whole bunch of, or most, of the following perceptions of the disagreement:
1. Proponents of Intelligent Design assert that the Judeo-Christian God created everything, opponents assert this is not so.
2. Proponents of Intelligent Design assert that some Higher Power created everything, opponents assert this is not so.
3. Proponents of Intelligent Design assert that some Higher Power created everything and is watching over it all now, opponents assert this is not so.
4. Proponents of Intelligent Design assert that the complexity of nature proves that some Higher Power created everything, opponents assert it does not.
5. Proponents of Intelligent Design assert that the complexity of nature surpasses what can be explained by evolutionary theory, opponents assert this is not so.
6. Opponents of Intelligent Design assert that evolution is a fact, not a theory, and proponents assert that it is a theory, not a fact.
7. Opponents of Intelligent Design assert that they can explain everything in nature with the theory of evolution, without the intervention of any designing agent, proponents assert this is not so.
8. Proponents of Intelligent Design assert that the earth is not much older than six thousand years, and opponents assert this is not so.
9. Proponents of Intelligent Design assert that man shared the earth with dinosaurs, even using them as beasts of burden like Fred Flintstone, and opponents assert this is not so.
10. Opponents of Intelligent Design assert that it is a violation of the Establishment Clause to teach Intelligent Design in the classroom, and proponents assert this is not so.
11. Opponents of Intelligent Design assert that it is outside the realm of science to even consider Intelligent Design, and proponents assert this is not so.
12. Opponents of Intelligent Design assert #11 because Intelligent Design is “untestable.”
13. Opponents of Intelligent Design assert #11 because it might prove there is a God, and religion is an enemy of science.
14. Opponents of Intelligent Design stand guilty of telling everybody else what to think, about something that is unprovable.
15. Proponents of Intelligent Design stand guilty of telling everybody else what to think, about something that is unprovable.
16. #14 and #15.
17. Proponents of Intelligent Design assert that evolution is a canard, and all species were created in the form we observe them today, opponents assert this is not so.
18. Proponents of Intelligent Design assert that evolution is at work only with non-human animals, that man was created in the form we observe him today, opponents assert this is not so.
19. Proponents of Intelligent Design assert that evolution had a hand in creating all animals, including humans, but that a Higher Power is also at work in nature, opponents assert this is not so.
20. Proponents of Intelligent Design assert that nothing in the evolutionary theory can ever be proven, opponents assert some things can be.
21. Proponents of Intelligent Design assert that some things in the evolutionary theory can be proven, and some things can’t, opponents assert all things can be.
22. Proponents of Intelligent Design assert that Intelligent Design can be proven, opponents assert that while it’s conceptually possible, it can’t be proven.
23. Proponents of Intelligent Design have a hidden agenda to inject Judeo-Christian religion into public schools.
24. Opponents of Intelligent Design have a hidden agenda to enshrine Atheism as the state-sanctioned religion.
25. Proponents of Intelligent Design do not assert Intelligent Design itself, quite so much as desire discussion about Intelligent Design.
26. Opponents of Intelligent Design do not dispute Intelligent Design itself, quite so much as desire to muzzle any discussion about Intelligent Design.
27. Proponents of Intelligent Design desire to muzzle any discussion about Natural Selection, since religion is an enemy of science.
28. Opponents of Intelligent Design assert that students should not be taught Intelligent Design if their parents don’t want them to be taught that.
29. Proponents of Intelligent Design assert that students should not be taught the Theory of Evolution if their parents don’t want them to be taught that.
So here’s my point: Isn’t it a rather abundant waste of energy, to start proselytizing one’s own point of view, or to insult and denigrate others, without first arriving at some agreement of what we’re arguing about?
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.