Whereas I think you betray an ignorance of the nature of philosophy.
You’ve got me way wrong. Lemme see if I can explain below.
Okay, here’s what I think you’re saying I’m saying is the position of ID proponents: “nature is too complex not to have been intelligently designed; therefore evolution is wrong.” Okay, so, to be fair, a lot of (stupid) ID proponents really do think something like that. But the position for which I’m being an apologist here is more like “nature is too complex not to have been intelligently designed; therefore evolution doesn’t fully explain it, and I’m skeptical about evolutionists’ claim that the process of evolution is truly random.”
The whole point here is that these people are after answers that science can’t give them. The dumb ones will therefore reject the answers science is giving them (to different questions, obviously) and for them I got no sympathy. But the smart ones will say “okay, fine, you’ve shown me how it’s possible for a gene mutation to result in a fitter organism and how natural selection might lead to the propagation of that organism and etc…, but that still doesn’t fully explain it for me; I still think there’s something more at work somewhere.” What about that makes no sense, period, as opposed to simply making no sense to you? Do you get the distinction?
For you they’ve been explained well enough. Others, even some who fully accept the same scientific results, are still not satisfied.
No, but it is how philosophy works. What is your basis for thinking it’s unreasonable to believe in God, the Clockmaker or whatever you want to call it? What’s unreasonable is to let that belief blind you to the demonstrable facts.
This one is similar to what I have run into in the distant past, as a suggestion (to some direct questions I had) from some catholic contemplative/teaching monks I was learning from (all with multiple PhD’s - Cistercian Order types).
The description I was given sees the biblical account of Genesis as a God-approximation translated into loose human words (somewhat Parabolic). While evolution is the 4D, internal description that also seems to fit well in the limited, but ordered mind of thinking people - having nothing to do with “why”, but more of “how” from a perspective within the confines of universal limitations and rules.
“What is a God-day anyway?” and “What about evolution?” I think were my child-like questions that evolved such answers. I found the explanation quite comforting for years.
Yeah, I understand that, and I think if you look back through this thread I’ve been pretty consistent in sticking up for the philosophy behind it while decrying the selling of it as science.
Just as you can call fascism: Democracy, you can also call stupidity: Intelligence. Note that the words “Fascism”, “Stupidity”, “Democracy” and “Intelligence” were defined by human beings. They were not defined/designed by some higher power.
Even if you dismiss the “words” as mere representation of “the concepts behind the words”, those very concepts were also defined/designed by human beings. So, what makes you “think” there is a higher power beyond humans’ ability to define/design those words concepts and ideas? Please put your finger on exactly what makes you “think” that.
I knew someone would post that, but not so quickly.
But back to the OP, I have had the same question. The Creationism v Darwinism appears to be only in the US, but as other have pointed out, most of the world still remains fairly illiterate with minimal schooling. What is the consensus of India and China, of Kenya and Brazil? What do they teach in their schools? And at what level? Does anyone know this?
Also from my understanding, Buddhism tends to accept scientific reasoning, though that may only be in Western Buddhism. Unfortunately I do not how they view it in Thailand or Sri Lanka. Buddhism also tends to view science as only a small part of wisdom, and not necessarily the important part - similar to Hinduism as even sven showed.
250 years ago creationism was at the forefront of science. Scientists in those days, given evidence of the age of the earth and later fossil evidence, determined that it was wrong. In this they showed a lot more honesty than either creationists or IDers do today.
Is your idea of the philosophical justification for ID that IDers can keep repeating “I’m not convinced?” The real problem with ID is that it has not shown there are any holes the designer has to fill. Any why has nothing to with it. Theistic evolution works fine on the why part while being identical to normal evolution on the how part - since evolution does not address the why part at all.
Then where did the designer come from ? Creationism in any form doesn’t explain origins; it just pushes them back a step and says we shouldn’t think about it. Not only does it lack evidence, ID explains nothing and predicts nothing; it’s quite useless.
Because there’s no evidence for it, and you don’t get to claim to be scientific if there’s no evidence. Because it’s not falsifiable, and that is unscientific as well.
Because there’s no evidence. At best, it’s an empty belief that accomplishes nothing. Since it cannot be related to the real world without evidence, it’s empty philosophy, rather like solipsism.
Dude, no it isn’t. At least by any reasonable definition, philosophy is a bit more than just making stuff up.
If it’s any clearer, I’ll say that ID is not and cannot be science and insofar as it is philosophy of some sort or other, it is vacuous and contrary, since it isn’t really interested in gaining wisdom or knowledge, or pursuing truth by any means. It is (at least the ‘mainstream’ ID of Behe, Dembski, etc) a system of denial, avoidance and obfuscation. In many ways the opposite of philosophy.
I’m wondering if ** Pietro ** and the others are debatting of the same thing. Pietro seems to refer to the general concept that evolutin could have been guided by god in some way or another (which is indeed not a scientific issue) while the other posters seem to discuss the theory currently called ID in the USA, which is way more specific, makes precise claims and pretends to be scientific.
Eh? I understand many Muslims and Hindus have problems with evolution, or at least with straight neo-Darwinism without a chaser. I would be very surprised if there were no one other than Christians in the U.S.A. who had taken up the cudgels on behalf of I.D.
But there’s no need to choose ID over Creationism unless your goal is to get it taught in science classes. Since AFAIK there is no great effort by Muslims and Hindus to get ID slipped into science class there is no benefit to going the whole ID route. The only advantage of ID over Creationism is that you can try to fool people into belieiving that it’s a scientific theory, which it isn’t.
Obviously I was being a little flippant, although really, where else but their own minds do philosophers get their ideas?
I’m gonna go ahead and fess up to not actually knowing with any precision what these guys have written/said. But the main idea they clearly have in common is some form of the teleological argument - nature is too complex/beautiful/etc. to not be designed. This fits squarely within the mainstream of western philosophy. It’s not vacuous, and it doesn’t represent a disinterest in the search for truth. If you are convinced the truth is X, the fact that X is not scientifically verifiable doesn’t make X a cop-out.
I’ll say again that I am firmly on board with the opposition to the movement which is trying to get ID taught as scientific theory in our nation’s high schools. In science classes, theories pretty much get taught as fact, and it’s therefore pretty clear that the ID movement is seeking to indoctrinate kids. If, however, there was an established primary school philosophy curriculum, it would be a no-brainer that kids would at some point read some version of the theory of intelligent design (noncapitalization intended.) And I don’t think that would be a bad thing as long as the teachers understood the distinction between “accepted scientific theory” and “untestable philosophical theory.”
In this respect evolutionary theory and purely scientific cosmology do no better and arguably do worse, depending on what you’re interested in. They strive to push our understanding of origins back incrementally through several steps investigating the “how,” but don’t even want to think about the “why.”
Your entire reply betrays the attitude “if it isn’t scientific, it’s worthless.” That’s fine for you, but why can’t you let others judge for themselves?
It seems to me that to you, all religion and most if not all philosophy consists of “empty belief[s] that accomplish nothing.” Religious people disagree, as do philosophers. You should let them, and instead of decrying their beliefs and ideas, you should worry about keeping them from teaching your kids that their beliefs and ideas are Facts.
Well, quite - in fact scientists have to do the same; scientists test their ideas by experiment and empirical observation, philosophers test their ideas by, I dunno, pondering them deeply. ID does neither; it just throws its hands up and says “this is too difficult to explain, so we should stop trying and just make up the answer”. Bad.
It does make it unteachable though; there has to be something to set it apart from potentially infinitely many other bits of fanciful nonsense.
Oh, I think I agree; we briefly covered the phlogiston hypothesis in chemistry and geocentrism in physics; it was useful.
I don’t think we’re talking about the same kind of ID though; the ID I’m talking about is a political movement, promoted almost exclusively by people or agencies with religious affiliation, aiming to have it taught ‘alongside’ evolution/mainstream cosmology, as if there is some kind of factual controversy in these disciplines.
If you have some time on your hands, I’d invite you to read all my posts in this thread. I think I’ve made it quite clear that I’m not defending that movement.
Or maybe the IDists *have *pondered it deeply rather than just stopped trying and made up the answer? I’m not saying I know for any given ID theorist which is the case, but clearly there are people out there who feel strongly about this. I’d like to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that at least some of them have done some deep pondering about the matter.
I disagree, actually. “How” is descriptive, yes, and careful observation of the cosmos and fossil record are essential to answering “how”. But I believe that evolutionary fact/theory and cosmology do answer “why” also. They explain what we see, deeply and rigorously, to the extent that we understand the reasons for things not being different. For evolution, the continual process of copy-vary-select must give rise to diversity and complexity. In cosmology, the could-it-be-different answers are admittedly rather more protoscientific, but are still deep explanations. Heck, even teleological elements of “why?” could be explained as inevitable anthropomorphising from our evolving brains.
