Topic: Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

[hans]

I just watched this last night on my Netflix viewer. I see there was a little bit of discussion of it in the election thread and cheez got a bit excited about it.

I actually liked the movie. Being that I'm a religious person in addition to being a science geek I thought it did a reasonable job of trying to separate the concept of I.D. from being purely religious.

I liked the part at the very end where he lead the atheist guy into an I.D. theory for the beginning of life on earth. It's aliens man!!! hehehe.

Clearly it's slanted toward I.D. but I think it makes a good point that academia doesn't take kindly to fringe ideas. Funny though that over time some fringe ideas eventually become mainstream, yet the same community keeps shunning the fringe (out of which I think all the cool stuff comes).

[Govtcheez]

Academia doesn't take kindly to fringe ideas with no scientific evidence.

[hans]

Academia doesn't take kindly to fringe ideas with no scientific evidence.

Where's your scientific evidence for the creation of life? They're not saying it's fact, they proposing a theory (part of the scientific method) and trying to find supporting evidence. For all we know it actually might be the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which would be included under the I.D. theory (I think they believe FSM is intelligent).

[Steve]

And here we go.....

[Govtcheez]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_urey

Intelligent Design is Christian creationism masquerading as science or anything else.

[Perspective]

> They're not saying it's fact, they proposing a theory (part of the scientific method) and trying to find supporting evidence.

That's not the scientific method if the theory is based on arbitrary assumptions. For it to be scientific (in the academia sense), the theory needs to be well founded. The big bang theory explains the existence of matter in its current scientifically recognized form. The theory of evolution explains how animals can be in there current state based on scientific observations.

Intelligent design doesn't explain anything, it just says everything is here because God put it here. There's nothing scientific about that.

[Govtcheez]

Intelligent design doesn't explain anything, it just says everything is here because God put it here. There's nothing scientific about that.

No it doesn't, it says everything is here because something put us here that we can not possibly understand.  It doesn't specify god, even though the only people that espouse it are Christian creationists.  There's nothing unscientific about that!

[hans]

Intelligent Design is Christian creationism masquerading as science or anything else.

That might be largely true, but I would like to think that there are also the few that take Christianity out of the equation and base the idea off the belief that existence is not merely a statistical anomaly.

[hans]

The big bang theory explains the existence of matter in its current scientifically recognized form.

And what explains the big bang? I'm holding out for that one.

[Govtcheez]

> base the idea off the belief that existence is not merely a statistical anomaly.

"I can't figure out why we are here" is not science.

[hans]

And if it turns out to be a black hole I'm gonna be pissed.

[Perspective]

The big bang theory explains the existence of matter in its current scientifically recognized form.

And what explains the big bang? I'm holding out for that one.

The existence of matter in it's current form. It's a plausible theory because of that, there's nothing that will ever be able to confirm or deny it. Creationism argues that you can't ever confirm or deny I.D. either, but it's still missing the scientific support. The big bang theory has precise explanations as to why our universe is as it is today. I.D. simply says, it's that way because it was made that way. There's nothing scientific there.

[charlie]

The big bang theory explains the existence of matter in its current scientifically recognized form.

And what explains the big bang? I'm holding out for that one.

Are you asking for what came before or led to the big bang? If so, I'm not sure there are any credible scientific theories about that, because there's not much evidence to lead to a decent theory. I think that's the difference. Science says it's unknown until we get evidence to form a theory. So until there is evidence of Intelligent Design it's hard to considered it a proper theory.

[Steve]

This is why im agnostic. I dont believe there is a god or any sort of a higher power. But i do respect others rights to their beliefs and i acknoledge the possibility of a higher power on the grounds that i cannot prove it doesnt exist. Some say its a cop out, but its simply open minded equality.

For example you tell me you just saw a guy in a banna suit dancing in your living room. He spoke all kinds of things to you, and you believed him. An athiest would tell you its impossible and your an idiot, with no proof or rational reason for their position. I would tell you i dont believe there was a dancing bannana guy in your living room, but i believe that you believe because i wasnt there and i cant prove it didnt happen.

It's a nice position because while i dont believe in god, the church nuts cant really say anything to me because i still respect and support their beliefs.

[Govtcheez]

You can be an atheist and still think people are allowed to be religious.  It works out pretty well for me.