For several years now, I have kept my mouth shut as someone with the same name as myself has periodically written letters to both The Source and The Bulletin about Intellegent Design. As a person who works in the medical field and considers himself a man of science, the whole theory of Intelligent Design frustrates and annoys me. That being said, I have never chimed in on this debate because quite frankly, I believe that ID as a “scientific” theory is such an outlandish concept that it doesn’t even deserve a response. Although I respect the desire for other Source readers to chime in on this debate (if you can call it that), a response just grants the ID theorists more attention. And ultimately, it’s unlikely that someone who truly believes in ID will allow their position to be swayed by scientific argument.
To be honest, I have only responded this time because I am tired of people asking me why I write these things.
I, Scott B Weber, do not believe in ID. But because I believe in Freedom of Speech, Scott Weber can believe whatever he wants. I also believe that faith is a very powerful thing, and if Scott Weber’s faith makes him believe in ID, then so be it. Arguing against someone’s faith is never a good idea.
Scott B. Weber, Bend
This article appears in Jul 17-23, 2008.
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Thank you Scott Weber for clearing up the Scott Weber issue. Never again, in this or any other lifetime, will I confuse Scott Weber for Scott Weber. But for your timely intervention, I would have gone to my grave… Not Knowing.
Where do I mail my firstborn?
Science, we are told, studies natural causes. Natural causes can throw scrabble pieces on a board but cannot arrange the pieces to form meaningful words or sentences. To obtain a meaningful arrangement requires an intelligent cause. The only causitive agent of information (which is defined as being both complex and specified) is intelligence. DNA contains coded information. Chance and natural cannot assemble information. Think about it….and read and the Harris article.
Science, we are told, studies natural causes, whereas to introduce God is to invoke supernatural causes. This is the wrong contrast. The proper contrast is between natural causes on the one hand and intelligent causes on the other. INtelligent causes can throw scrabble pieces on a board but cannot arrange the pieces to form meaningful words or sentences. To obtain a meaningful arrangement requires an intelligent cause. The backbone of DNA contains a vast amount of coded information and the only causitive agent of information is intellignece.
Koosah–
If my memory serves, you are the pooch so designed and endowed by your creator as to be able to tout ID as science–when, in all honesty, you continue to deny the possibility of chance being able to play a part in your existence even when confronted with near endless and infinite possibilities. Even chaos has a pattern.
Infinite monkeys, at infinite typewriters, for an infinite amount of time–I won’t go there. However, even as a young boy eating my alphabet soup I had the casual encounter with chance–words appearing in my bowl or spoon without planning or design. Not exactly DNA–but then what is?
I recommend you stick with what dogs do best: eating, crapping and licking themselves.
…..read the Calvert and Harris article regarding the probablity of chance and natural law alone assembling the information bearing properities of DNA. Information is defined as being both specified and complex and letters in a soup bowl do not meet this criteria. They are specified , but not complex. The same filter that SETI uses to detect information from random radio signals when turned upon the information bearing properties of DNA would yield intelligent causes. The problem with infinite chances for DNA’s information bearing properties to assemble itself is that the universe has a finate age…there is not enought time for chance and natural law to work. Do the math…or read the article and they will do it for you.
An Elder once explained to me that religion is but a tool of statecraft for the suppression of the people. There is no god, there are no gods. Itâ ™s a myth, an adolescent fairy tale to explain away the dark.
To my lifelong study of this phenomenon I find it a far more realistic explanation that space-faring aliens, for whatever their motivations, be it shipwreck survivors desperate to propagate the species, breed slaves to mine a resource rich planet or sheer boredom, genetically manipulated our proto-human ancestors to create us – Human Beings.
And here we are, as Human Beings, regardless the nomenclatures of recording time, poised to evolve to a new level. Look at the placement of your fingertips, and ponder the movement of your mind. We wonâ ™t evolve, we may not even survive, if we donâ ™t abandon these myths, these adolescent fairy tales to explain away the dark.