Origins - Evolution, Intelligent Design and Creationism

[Spiny Norman]

This origins issue just starting to get traction in Australia, as people watch nervously what is happening in the (much more religiously-inclined) USA. The content of a school’s science curriculum has rarely been the subject of public discussion, however talk of Intelligent Design (ID) theory as an alternative theory to (neo-Darwinian) Evolution theory has attracted a certain amount of attention.

The (then) federal Education Minister, Dr. Brendan Nelson, made headlines last year (2005) when he appeared to advocate giving ID an airing in the classroom.

This Wednesday night at 8:30pm (8th February 2006), the Dateline program on SBS has picked up on this controversy and is giving it an airing. Details of the program here:

http://news.sbs.com.au/dateline/

The program will also be repeated on Thursday at 1PM.

It just so happens that I have also organised a public meeting for this Sunday night at 7PM, so the synchronicity machine is working overtime! Jonathan Sarfati Ph.D., a leading Creationist author, will be the guest speaker.

The public meeting will comprise two 1-hour presentations from Jon, with a 15-minute interval between sessions for refreshments. The topics to be covered in these presentations are:

• Design, Deluge and Dilemma
• The Most-Asked Questions – Answered

Any Chess-Chatters who are interested in hearing Jon's presentation should drop me an email or a PM so that I can reserve you a seat as an "honoured guest"! The venue only holds ~220 people and we are unsure how many will be in attendance ... so a reserved seat might be a good choice.

Venue:
Croydon Christian Church
2 / 34 Research Drive
South Croydon VIC 3136

(map to venue and further details at www.ourchurch.org.au)

[qpawn]

While I admire the chess abilities of Mr Sarfati I will not attend any of this creationist claptrap unless you want someone who is there to vehemently disagree with him.

Let's start with a few basic elements of the issues. What is good science? Good science, first of all, in any attempt to observe, investigate, hypothesise and reach conclusions, defines whatever is being studied. For instance we define "gravity wave" or the number "6" so we know what we are looking for.

How do these creationists define god? As a bearded guy in the sky? Mother earth? Vishnu? Let's take one possible definition: the creator of the universe. Now, this definition which seems to be one commonly used by Christians runs into a second problem: that of circularity. God is defined as the creator of the universe; yet to prove God's existence we have to prove this very definition! In logic this fallacy is called "begging the question" or the vicious circle".

And as for that trollop Brendan Nelson. He will go down as one of this country's worst ever education ministers; he even made Dawkins look good by comparison and that's something I never thought I would say. All that Nelson could cook up in the sphere of imagi nation was to trundle out that old chestnut: all curricula in Australia should be the same because a chemistry unit in a SA school is not the same as a chemistry unit in Vic. Any ideas about states having the right to set their own curricula rather than one that Mr Nelson saw in his tea leaves, or that there are different ways of structuring a curriculum which should be respected, were so foreign to him that a caveman would have stood more chance of enjoying TV.

[Davidflude]

The teleological arguement was refuted yonks ago. If the universe was created by intelligent design then why do we have such things as tuberculosis, Hansen's
disease and Ross River Fever. Of course lots of religous nuts will tell us that aids is a punishment for sexual misconduct and that vaccines that prevent nasty diseases should not be provided to teenage girls as it may encourage them to go off. On this basis frangers, glad wrap, and bachelors and spinsters balls should be banned.

[qpawn]

David, you are right to see that flaw in the teleological argumant for God.

When I was in primary school there was a boy with muscular dystrophy. By grade 6 his voice was starting to slur due to deteriorating vocal muscles. I never saw him again. But I was told by his full time carer [he was in a wheelchair by that time] that he would, if he were "lucky", live to only 16. If he were "unlucky" he would live to 19 with a death you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy: losing control of neck muscles so he would be held up by a pice of foam. Ultimately, he would survive only on breathing equipment such as a cylinder of oxygen until even that would be inadequate and he asphyxiated to death.

Having seen someone like that the whole issue of God's existence is pretty done and dusted to me; God doesn't exist unless he/she/it is a complete sadist who makes Saddam Hussein look as nice and sweet as Mary Poppins.

[Kevin Bonham]

It just so happens that I have also organised a public meeting for this Sunday night at 7PM, so the synchronicity machine is working overtime! Jonathan Sarfati Ph.D., a leading Creationist author, will be the guest speaker.

IIRC Sarfati is a young-earth creationist so his view on aspects of ID that conflict with that view may be amusing.

The public meeting will comprise two 1-hour presentations from Jon, with a 15-minute interval between sessions for refreshments. The topics to be covered in these presentations are:

• Design, Deluge and Dilemma
• The Most-Asked Questions – Answered

Two hours of Sarfati and no time for questions? Ouch.

[Spiny Norman]

Two hours of Sarfati and no time for questions? Ouch.

Yeah, all you evolutionists will have to be gagged at the door.
I'll ask Jon about question time ...

[Spiny Norman]

Having seen someone like that the whole issue of God's existence is pretty done and dusted to me ...

I have a seriously disabled nephew and have very recently confronted those same issues. Some of us reach different conclusions.

[eclectic]

Have you ever stopped to think about all the wars and other atrocities which are prosecuted all over the world in the name of various deities to deflect from the fact that such evil originates from within humankind itself?

Furthermore, would you blame such deities if they were to visit upon humankind various afflictions and tribulations to remind the latter that they are sick of copping the blame for matters which are not of their design?

Even Satan, The Devil, etc gets a bum rap in that regard.

[pballard]

The teleological arguement was refuted yonks ago. If the universe was created by intelligent design then why do we have such things as tuberculosis, Hansen's
disease and Ross River Fever.

Isn't that a bit like saying that a watch can't have been designed if its glass face is cracked?

[qpawn]

Please don't get me started on the whole "watch and the watchmaker" arguments. They represent the silliest attempts to prove god's existence.

There are four main arguments that philosophers have used to try to prove God's existence. The moral argument, proposed by Kant, that the human conscience must have come from a higher moral lawgiver called God, the cosmological argument that all cause and effect is finite with a first cause called god [Aristotle, St Aquinas], the ontological argument of gradations of perfection that necessitates the ultimate perfection called god [St Anselm, Descartes] and, lastly, the argument being considered here that teleology shows intelligent design with a creator of it all.

Common foundations for teleologists include the composition of oxygen in the atmosphere, the human brain, conception, predictable laws of physics such as orbiting planets, and the integrated nature of living cells. All of these exmaples, in my view, have serious flaws but I won't elaborate here. I will say that the teleological argument is based upon whatever the teleologist means by "order", "perfection" or "harmony" etc - subjective, emotive terms that are inconsistent with various slings and arrows of life that David has cited.

[qpawn]

Surely it does no credit to Sarfati's views that opposition, dissent, questioning and criticism will not be allowed at his talk.

Again, I return to the scientific methods that I mentioned earlier. Another of them is that all scientific discovery must satisfy the highest level of scrutiny. Recall that some of the greatest scientific discoveries were lambasted before being accepted. Pasteur was ridiculed for proposing immunisation, Roentegen was seen as a nut over X-rays, and calculus was slammed by Berkeley and other empiricists for the "fluxions" that Sir Issac Newton put forward as part of the derivative.

I feel sorry for Sarfati that he is conducting his talk in such a closed way. That said, I don't feel sorry for him in any other respect

[pax]

I just rolled 100 dice, and looked at the result. I did the maths, and worked out that the probability of this result was 10^77. The probability is so small, that it is clearly evidence of divine intervention.

[shaun]

Speakers background
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Sarfati

[McTaggart]

qpawn,don't feel sorry for Sarfati, Frosty and all the others that will attend this meeting because they will be happy in their beliefs. Their explanation for the external world satisfies them although it really strains our credulity. Don't waste your time using logic or other commonsense arguments,they just won't work. It is not that they do not understand what you are saying it is just that they don't want to hear it. Their model of the universe reassures them and I do not think we should endeavour to take it away from them. Primative civilisations looked on at the wonders of Nature and tried to provide an explanation for it all and you will no doubt have noticed that all over the world where any kind of religion prevails,those religions have all got a common theme, ie,the "great God in the sky ", who of course, cannot be seen but take my word for it, started everything. Countless millions through out the ages have been enslaved by these ideas and it is only through the spreading of knowledge can the myths of ignorance be dispelled.

[eclectic]

There ain't no Jesus gonna come from the sky
Now that I found out I know I can cry

- john lennon
'i found out'
plastic ono band*
1970

* a CLASSIC album!! (but that's for another thread, heh)