Re: Ben Stein's Movie EXPELLED - Could we have been "designed" by Space

"Brian E. Clark" wrote:
> 
> In article <481748C0.5A37419D@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, Bill Bonde
> ( 'the oblique allusion in lieu of the frontal
> attack' ) said...
> 
> [...]
> 
> > What if evolution could do it and an
> > intelligence could do it too?
> 
> There are many more such "what ifs" floating around
> us. What if Ra could do it? What if Marty Feldman
> could do it? What if the universe is just a movie-of-
> the-week in some higher-order cosmos?
> 
> We can invent any number of stories and theories to
> describe any phenomenon. The point is to try to find
> the story sup****ted by the evidences. And the
> evidences, so far, point to evolution.
> 
Of course the rules seem to be that we can *only* look at evolution
or it's not "science".



> > What if God did it?
> 
> Okay, I'll bite:
> 
> When did God do it? How do you verify the dates your
> theory puts forth?
> 
Perhaps you can't.



> How did God do it? What are the specific methods God
> used?
> 
Maybe he used evolution.



> How does saying "God did it" provide details about the
> geographical distribution of plants and animals?
> 
> How does saying "God did it" explain why we never find
> the skeleton of a mammal encased in Cambrian
> sediments?
> 
> Make sure your answers are precise, quantifiable, and
> verifiable -- Bible verses do not count. Be prepared
> to deliver additional arguments that can convince top
> scientific minds in a variety of disciplines, if your
> explanations contradict well-established findings in
> geography, cosmology, paleontology, etc.
> 
You might be asking more from "God did it" than just those three
words can provide on their own.



> > You don't leave potential possibilities open when you
> > conclusively insist on one answer before the facts
> > are all in.
> 
> Alas, that's just an old, dishonest creationist
> deceit: trying to blur the line between keeping an
> open mind and accepting that all ideas are equally
> valid. It just isn't so. Sorry, Bill, but facts enough
> have been found to draw reasonable inferences about
> life's past. You just don't like where the evidence
> leads.
> 
I don't like or dislike where evidence leads. 



> Your side lost the battle long ago, before Darwin ever
> wrote a word. Leading scientists of the day, serious
> Christians, did try to align geology and biology with
> the creation accounts in Genesis. They couldn't make
> it work. But they, unlike certain later Christians,
> were honest enough to admit the discrepancy, and wise
> enough to trust the conclusions drawn from the
> evidences above literalist theologies. They did not
> contort science to fit faith.
> 
I don't have a side.




> Despite this, you want science to act as if
> creationist assertions haven't been disproved a
> hundred thousand times already. You want scientists to
> spend eternity attempting to revive a centuries-dead
> horse of creationism.
> 
I don't want science to do that. I want science to accept that
ideas other than evolution can in principle be science.




> But science does not waste time with dead, discredited
> theories. And for this, you accuse scientists of being
> close-minded.
> 
No one is asking you to waste time.



-- 
"Question, two men starving to death decide to eat their hair like
spaghetti. Is that funny?"
"Hmmm, well, it depends on if by funny you want to make people
laugh."
-+Eddie Izzard and Joanna Lumley, "The Cat's Meow"