Cubist
Posts: 558
Joined: Oct. 2007
|
I am definitely not expecting bjray to show up again. But he's managed to surprise me on this score once, so perhaps he might do so again. So just in case you are hanging around here, bjray, I would recommend that you make up your mind what you're really trying to do here.
If you're trying to drum up sympathy for ID: In this case, you would be well advised to never bother with us again. Because the regulars here have already examined the claims and substance of ID, and having weighed ID, found it deplorably wanting. So any time someone makes noise about how real scientists ignore ID, our reaction (which may or may not be publicly expressed) is going to be something in the neighborhood of Yep, real scientists sure do ignore ID. Sucks to be an ID-pusher. And making noise about how real scientists are mean to ID-pushers isn't going to engender a whole lot of sympathy towards ID or change our minds, either, because we've seen how you ID-pushers operate. We've seen how ID-pushers say that ID is genuine science, no religion need apply, no sir -- and then, in the very next breath, they say that the Intelligent Designer is the God of Abraham. We've seen ID-pushers complain about how people who refuse to give a platform to the scientific theory of ID (and ID is a scientific theory, just ask any ID-pusher!) are guilty of religious discrimination. We've seen how the people who made the pro-ID propaganda film EXPELLED: NO INTELLIGENCE ALLOWED fucking lied to the real scientists they got on film; and they fucking lied about having lied to the victims of their deceit; and they fucking lied about the ID poster children who they falsely presented as innocent victims of a dogmatically intolerant Darwinist mafia/establishment; and when one of the scientists who appeared in EXPELLED was, himself, expelled from a screening of the film, we saw how the filmmakers fucking lied about that, too. We've seen how ID-pushers complain about both how the scientific theory of ID is never given a fair hearing by real scientists, and how cruelly unfair it is for real scientists to ask them what the fuck this 'scientific theory of ID', that real scientists are supposed to give a fair hearing to, even is. We've seen how ID-pushers insist that science itself must be fucking redefined to accomodate ID.
As I noted before, this is not virgin territory. There is an awful bleeding lot of history here, and this history does not reflect well on ID. If it was just a matter of ID being a failed scientific theory, that would be one thing; in science, it's okay to be mistaken. But given the sheer quantity of misrepresentations, evasions, and outright lies which ID-pushers have disgorged and continue to disgorge... well... begging for sympathy for ID is a tactic which can only work when you're talking to people who are ignorant of ID's voluminously ignominious track record.
And we are not ignorant of ID's voluminously ignominious track record.
If you're trying to persuade us that ID is a genuine scientific theory, and that it's better than evolution: In this case, you're gonna need to tool up for a whole different game than you've been playing thus far.
You're going to have to answer questions about ID.
Not evade those questions with non-responsive verbiage, but answer them. And you're going to have to answer those questions honestly.
And when an argument or assertion of yours is refuted, you should not repeat that refuted argument or assertion. You say that the refutation of your argument was invalid, hence your argument wasn't really refuted at all? Okay, fine: Demonstrate that the refutation was invalid. Don't just whine about how [insert name of person] got it wrong, show us exactly how and where [insert name of person] got it wrong. Because if all you have to say is just the bare assertion that "He got it wrong", without any specific details of how he got it wrong, I can guarantee you that nobody here is going to give a tenth of a tinker's damn about your unsupported assertion.
And don't bring up irrelevant information, either. If you're trying to establish that ID is correct, what you need to do is bring up information that is actually relevant to the question of ID's correctness.
If you don't know the answer to a question, admit it. A good, honest "Um, I don't know..." will get you infinitely more respect in these parts than any amount of obfuscatory verbiage that's designed to conceal the absence of an answer.
As best I can tell from your posts here, bjray, you approach the ID/evolution debate from a basically religious perspective -- but that ain't gonna fly in this context. In scientific debates, it all boils down to the empirical, objective data; if that empirical, objective data fits your theory better than it fits the other guy's theory, your theory wins. But in religious debates, there is no empirical, objective data! Rather, religious debates are all about personal revelation. In a debate where objective data isn't available, it makes perfect sense to look at the beliefs and preconceptions and yada yada of the particular human beings involved... but in a scientific debate, objective data is available, so it's kind of beside the point to appeal to specific aspects/qualities of the particular human beings involved. In a religious debate, it makes sense to point out that one's opponents do not behave in a manner consistent with their morality, because morality comes from God and yada yada yada; in a scientific debate, as long as John Doe's got the objective, empirical data backing him up, Doe's personal behavior doesn't fucking matter.
So as I said, religious debates are very different from scientific debates. And if you happen to be in a scientific debate, the use of tools and techniques peculiar to religious debate is not likely to yield any results you might enjoy.
|
