It may help to go back and view that statement within the context of my original assertion, per: “the scientific process as we know it.” I apologize for the lack of clarity; it wasn’t intentional. I was under the assumption that that’s what you were talking about too, as opposed to simple inquiry, “pursuits”, “oral traditions”, “studies” and “questions”.
Well the "scientific process as we know it" wasn't born in a vacuum. Your claim that "it wouldn't even exist without a belief in God" is unsupported. Just because Christian people happened to formalize the most recent incarnation doesn't mean that Christ was responsible. I am aware that many of the philosophers and scientists of the time were fond of invoking religious perspective in their writings, but you haven't shown that this perspective was the catalyst for their work.
You said, "the fact of the matter is that science was building up steam, and that steam was there because of ID scientists such as Newton, etc..." First, let me say that the steam was also there because of non-Christians like the Arab Muslims, the Hindu Indians, etc. My point with the walk through history was that the steam has been building for a long, long time.
Secondly, I don't understand your characterization of Newton as an ID scientist. His religious statements stand in stark contrast to the experimentally verified scientific hypotheses. The fact that many of these statements have since been explained by natural phenomena doesn't seem to help your case!
Debarring God from science is a priori philosophy, period.
Sour grapes! God isn't debarred from science; as soon as he subects himself to empirical analysis, he's in. Despite countless attempts to do so, he remains beyond science's reach. Is that such a bad thing?
I guess what led me to believe that you, too, were discussing this definition of science as the modern process was that it’s what you are claiming creationism, ID and astrology are barred from (in a false comparison of ID and astrology.)
If you have a problem with ID and astrology being given equal footing, you have to take that up with your man, Behe. He's the one stretching the definition of science to include both. You can't have one without the other. Apparently he agrees that the currently accepted definition of modern science bars Creationism and ID.
My intended point was that modern science was birthed by Christianity. It’s true that other cultures may have aided in its conception, but only Christianity had the coherent worldview to standardize it and foster it into its modern practice.
And my point is that just because it happened that way doesn't mean that was the ONLY way it could've happened. As an extreme example, you could just as easily say only white men had the ability to create modern science. [PLEASE NOTE: I am NOT calling you racist or sexist!] Social, economic, and environmental factors all played a part in this recent history. If you go further back, you could say modern science is a direct descenedant of Muslim scholars who pioneered the methods 1000 years ago.
it seems to me that after claiming that ID and astrology aren’t science, you are now claiming that the astrologers and mystics of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia were scientists.
Well, they WERE practicing science to some degree. That does NOT mean that their religious views were science. You are characterizing this as a black-or-white issue. No scientist (modern or historical) is JUST a scientist. Einstein's sex life wasn't science. Nor were Alhazen's political leanings. Same for Aristotle's wardrobe. The distinction now is that our formal processes separate (as much as possible) the science from the non-science. Back in the day, these were just folks writing about life, so lots of topics got intermingled.
...the fathers of modern science, and all of them were creationist scientists working within the Intelligent Design framework!
Again, I dispute the Creationist/ID label there. It's true that their professed beliefs would make them Creationists, but they were not actively investigating creation science topics from that perspective. I can't help but wonder what they might have accomplished if they weren't encumbered by that perspective-limiting "framework". By your statement above, would you consider a mainstream evolutionary biologist today, who happens to be Christian, to be working within the ID framework?
My driving point is against your claim that creationism isn’t science (and that Christianity is hostile toward it). My driving point is that history proves you wrong.
How has history proven me wrong? Just because a scientist held religious views doesn't make those views science. My point has always been that Creationism/ID has no confirmed positive evidence, no active research, and no testable hypothesis.
Your claim that ID is not science is like claiming that the model T wasn’t a car. Relying on the Egyptians and Mesopotamians to try to refute me is like claiming that the horse and buggy was, but the model T wasn’t. Relying on the Muslims is like trying to claim that a model T isn’t a car but a model A is. (Even the Muslim efforts were from a creationist worldview.)
Please try to separate the scientist from the science here. You've shown no direct correlation between the religious opinions and the science performed. Personal worldview doesn't affect the scientific results.
I am confused that you seem to be making the argument that science was saved from the dark age “mysticism” by a reintroduction to the classic “mystics” by an ID group that (by your definition) would be equal to mystics (astrologers, etc…)?
You missed my point. The history of science has been a slow progression, with input from every race, nationality, and worldview. Claiming that Christianity is largely responsible for modern science is inaccurate.
Darwin didn’t produce any evidence to overturn ID science. He gave academia a possibility, a mechanism to bolster naturalistic philosophy— a creation story that it desperately needed.
Are you really saying that Darwin didn't produce any evidence? So it's all just a philosophical and religious charade? Oh, what exactly do you mean by "ID science"? Is that simply the BELIEF that god designed life, or is there more to it?
Newton leaned toward the mindset of “mechanist”... Yet, he held his mechanistic views within a belief in “contingent order”, i.e. that God could and does intervene with His creation, yet created it to work based on order and repeatable laws.
Everything in the quote above after the word "belief" is describing Newton's religion, not science. He did not provide evidence to support any of that, beyond his professed amazement of the natural world that he couldn't explain. To me, that makes him a theist, but not an ID scientist.
Behe’s major claim is that natural selection is not sufficient to create many of the molecular-level machinery/processes that we find in living organisms.
Where's the evidence, the research? By his own admission, there is none.
What I find are either straw-man arguments against Behe’s definition of irreducible complexity (by far the most common),
Which definition of IC? He's provided several different ones, you know.
just-so stories as explanation (that ignore many of the points Behe raises in presenting his case), or faith that an explanation will be forthcoming.
To be fair here, you'll have to spell out what would satisfy Behe (or you). From what I've seen of his arguments, nothing short of a detailed historical account of the actual evolution of, for example, the entire immune system will do, and that happens to be something he knows is impossible to produce, whether it happened or not. The argument against him is that this standard is unreasonable. Do we have to see a video of the building of the Parthenon to know that the Greeks did it?
But I do reassert that we have observed NOTHING that refutes Newton’s (or Behe’s) actual claims.
Can you really type that with the confidence of capital letters? Have you examined the "fifty-eight peer-reviewed publications, nine books, and several immunology textbook chapters about the evolution of the immune system"? As for Newton, I'll only mention in passing that we've observed plenty that refutes his scientific claims (see: Einstein). His religious claims haven't been refuted because they CAN'T--that's what makes them religious.
I love that you rely on your ill-defined concept of “likely” while relying on “chance” and ignoring probability mathematics :^)
And I love that you continue to interject "chance" as if it were the bedrock of evolution, despite explanations to the contrary. You're just parroting standard creationist boilerplate. No, I didn't miss the smiley--it doesn't diminsh the fact that you continue to use this straw-man. As for probability, I suggest you check Behe's admission about the probability in his paper with Snoke?
I’m very interested… Is that really the point you thought I was trying to make?
No, not at all. They were simple questions. I was trying to make the point that if you enter into scientific study of the world, you have to be prepared for where it takes you. Some specific religious beliefs you might have will be in danger of being shaken or contradicted.
I find it interesting that about the time of Darwinism is when the revolution is dated as ending…
And about the time of George Washington's presidency is when the American Revolution is dated as ending. So what? Revolution is a period of change. After the changes are in place, then the work of advancement begins.
Weed wacking
It may help to go back and view that statement within the context of my original assertion, per: “the scientific process as we know it.” I apologize for the lack of clarity; it wasn’t intentional. I was under the assumption that that’s what you were talking about too, as opposed to simple inquiry, “pursuits”, “oral traditions”, “studies” and “questions”.
Well the "scientific process as we know it" wasn't born in a vacuum. Your claim that "it wouldn't even exist without a belief in God" is unsupported. Just because Christian people happened to formalize the most recent incarnation doesn't mean that Christ was responsible. I am aware that many of the philosophers and scientists of the time were fond of invoking religious perspective in their writings, but you haven't shown that this perspective was the catalyst for their work.
You said, "the fact of the matter is that science was building up steam, and that steam was there because of ID scientists such as Newton, etc..." First, let me say that the steam was also there because of non-Christians like the Arab Muslims, the Hindu Indians, etc. My point with the walk through history was that the steam has been building for a long, long time.
Secondly, I don't understand your characterization of Newton as an ID scientist. His religious statements stand in stark contrast to the experimentally verified scientific hypotheses. The fact that many of these statements have since been explained by natural phenomena doesn't seem to help your case!
Debarring God from science is a priori philosophy, period.
Sour grapes! God isn't debarred from science; as soon as he subects himself to empirical analysis, he's in. Despite countless attempts to do so, he remains beyond science's reach. Is that such a bad thing?
I guess what led me to believe that you, too, were discussing this definition of science as the modern process was that it’s what you are claiming creationism, ID and astrology are barred from (in a false comparison of ID and astrology.)
If you have a problem with ID and astrology being given equal footing, you have to take that up with your man, Behe. He's the one stretching the definition of science to include both. You can't have one without the other. Apparently he agrees that the currently accepted definition of modern science bars Creationism and ID.
My intended point was that modern science was birthed by Christianity. It’s true that other cultures may have aided in its conception, but only Christianity had the coherent worldview to standardize it and foster it into its modern practice.
And my point is that just because it happened that way doesn't mean that was the ONLY way it could've happened. As an extreme example, you could just as easily say only white men had the ability to create modern science. [PLEASE NOTE: I am NOT calling you racist or sexist!] Social, economic, and environmental factors all played a part in this recent history. If you go further back, you could say modern science is a direct descenedant of Muslim scholars who pioneered the methods 1000 years ago.
it seems to me that after claiming that ID and astrology aren’t science, you are now claiming that the astrologers and mystics of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia were scientists.
Well, they WERE practicing science to some degree. That does NOT mean that their religious views were science. You are characterizing this as a black-or-white issue. No scientist (modern or historical) is JUST a scientist. Einstein's sex life wasn't science. Nor were Alhazen's political leanings. Same for Aristotle's wardrobe. The distinction now is that our formal processes separate (as much as possible) the science from the non-science. Back in the day, these were just folks writing about life, so lots of topics got intermingled.
...the fathers of modern science, and all of them were creationist scientists working within the Intelligent Design framework!
Again, I dispute the Creationist/ID label there. It's true that their professed beliefs would make them Creationists, but they were not actively investigating creation science topics from that perspective. I can't help but wonder what they might have accomplished if they weren't encumbered by that perspective-limiting "framework". By your statement above, would you consider a mainstream evolutionary biologist today, who happens to be Christian, to be working within the ID framework?
My driving point is against your claim that creationism isn’t science (and that Christianity is hostile toward it). My driving point is that history proves you wrong.
How has history proven me wrong? Just because a scientist held religious views doesn't make those views science. My point has always been that Creationism/ID has no confirmed positive evidence, no active research, and no testable hypothesis.
Your claim that ID is not science is like claiming that the model T wasn’t a car. Relying on the Egyptians and Mesopotamians to try to refute me is like claiming that the horse and buggy was, but the model T wasn’t. Relying on the Muslims is like trying to claim that a model T isn’t a car but a model A is. (Even the Muslim efforts were from a creationist worldview.)
Please try to separate the scientist from the science here. You've shown no direct correlation between the religious opinions and the science performed. Personal worldview doesn't affect the scientific results.
I am confused that you seem to be making the argument that science was saved from the dark age “mysticism” by a reintroduction to the classic “mystics” by an ID group that (by your definition) would be equal to mystics (astrologers, etc…)?
You missed my point. The history of science has been a slow progression, with input from every race, nationality, and worldview. Claiming that Christianity is largely responsible for modern science is inaccurate.
Darwin didn’t produce any evidence to overturn ID science. He gave academia a possibility, a mechanism to bolster naturalistic philosophy— a creation story that it desperately needed.
Are you really saying that Darwin didn't produce any evidence? So it's all just a philosophical and religious charade? Oh, what exactly do you mean by "ID science"? Is that simply the BELIEF that god designed life, or is there more to it?
Newton leaned toward the mindset of “mechanist”... Yet, he held his mechanistic views within a belief in “contingent order”, i.e. that God could and does intervene with His creation, yet created it to work based on order and repeatable laws.
Everything in the quote above after the word "belief" is describing Newton's religion, not science. He did not provide evidence to support any of that, beyond his professed amazement of the natural world that he couldn't explain. To me, that makes him a theist, but not an ID scientist.
Behe’s major claim is that natural selection is not sufficient to create many of the molecular-level machinery/processes that we find in living organisms.
Where's the evidence, the research? By his own admission, there is none.
What I find are either straw-man arguments against Behe’s definition of irreducible complexity (by far the most common),
Which definition of IC? He's provided several different ones, you know.
just-so stories as explanation (that ignore many of the points Behe raises in presenting his case), or faith that an explanation will be forthcoming.
To be fair here, you'll have to spell out what would satisfy Behe (or you). From what I've seen of his arguments, nothing short of a detailed historical account of the actual evolution of, for example, the entire immune system will do, and that happens to be something he knows is impossible to produce, whether it happened or not. The argument against him is that this standard is unreasonable. Do we have to see a video of the building of the Parthenon to know that the Greeks did it?
But I do reassert that we have observed NOTHING that refutes Newton’s (or Behe’s) actual claims.
Can you really type that with the confidence of capital letters? Have you examined the "fifty-eight peer-reviewed publications, nine books, and several immunology textbook chapters about the evolution of the immune system"? As for Newton, I'll only mention in passing that we've observed plenty that refutes his scientific claims (see: Einstein). His religious claims haven't been refuted because they CAN'T--that's what makes them religious.
I love that you rely on your ill-defined concept of “likely” while relying on “chance” and ignoring probability mathematics :^)
And I love that you continue to interject "chance" as if it were the bedrock of evolution, despite explanations to the contrary. You're just parroting standard creationist boilerplate. No, I didn't miss the smiley--it doesn't diminsh the fact that you continue to use this straw-man. As for probability, I suggest you check Behe's admission about the probability in his paper with Snoke?
I’m very interested… Is that really the point you thought I was trying to make?
No, not at all. They were simple questions. I was trying to make the point that if you enter into scientific study of the world, you have to be prepared for where it takes you. Some specific religious beliefs you might have will be in danger of being shaken or contradicted.
I find it interesting that about the time of Darwinism is when the revolution is dated as ending…
And about the time of George Washington's presidency is when the American Revolution is dated as ending. So what? Revolution is a period of change. After the changes are in place, then the work of advancement begins.