Well, the weakness of this anecdote is being glossed over...

1.) A wound is a very poor example of the claim for design. According to Aristotle, form and function are integral parts of "design." The purpose of a knee (the bending of a leg for walking) is clearly designed. It is silly to point to the destruction of such as potentially designed.

2.) The actions described are not the "random actions of a scientist", as the scientist claims. Rather, they were actions guided by intelligence for a purpose. This works against his entire argument.

3.) "How can we know anything for certain?" This is not a Creationist/ID stance. Creationists are not nihilists or "post-modernists", so this example is fallacious.

4.) Taking what we want from great thinkers like Aristotle and Descartes - that is, their "science" and "scientific method" -
while trying our hardest to dismiss the rest of their solid reasoning as "metaphysical wankery" just doesn't add up. It's academically/philosophically dishonest. "Modern Science" has a practical purpose behind it's theories, and it has age-old motivations for proving what it *needs* to prove (namely, that we are subject to nothing but ourselves). Simply abandonding metaphysical dilemmas and ignoring them begs more questions that scientists are willing to admit. Read Aristotle's Physics. It is profoundly clear reasoning on the nature of "things", and better yet, he didn't have to "answer to Darwin."

I was experiencing an odd sense of deja-vu while reading this, until I remembered that the main protagonist in "Dead Air" by Iain Banks used this same argumentative principle in a debate with a revisionist nazi claiming the Holocaust never happened.

Way to drive home a point.

The major problem I see with this argument is that you could very easily reverse the roles, change the dialoge a bit and have it work just as- if not more effectively. The tenuousness of the arguments is being covered up by a clever story, which is a great way to be compelling, but not a great way to be convincing.

Your article made me smile, but further fuels my observation, that people in this country are so obsessed with their own point of view; judging that their point is always morally, ethically or intellectually correct (Simply, always right) as opposed to realizing, understanding or compromising that we only hold parts of the answer that are uniquely intertwined with religious, scientific and cultural beliefs, and unique because we live on a little planet called earth.

ID is not a fact. How can it be? There are personal experiences, belief based emotions, historical proven events. But alas we have no recorded proof of the designer

Evolution is not a fact. How can it be? There are facts within in evolution that we can agree on through scientific method, sexual selection, genetic traits and micro theories are but a few. But as one famous person who titled a book “The theory of Evolution” said, what he could not prove was Macroevolution.

One person though, that has been greatly miss quoted and exploited by both sides yet revered by all peers of our time was really a pantheist, an Akim’s Razor type of guy; Einstein. His understanding at the intricacies of life and it’s gift to us, has some sort of past, present and relative future, and that it is logically somehow in synch, except that these series of events must have been triggered by something far greater than us.

With this knowledge in hand it is hard not to smile because at the end of the day it looks like two kids arguing in the playground.

With all Kudos though there are moments of relief when you read articles by Gerald Schroeder who advocates the relationship needed between the scientific and the religious community.

We know throughout history that two heads are always better than one.

Everything in moderation including moderation (who would be a hypocrite then?)

P

Quote from Steyene

At least there is some intelligent discussion and ideas being put across on that page, as the fact that someone needs to actually justify their beliefs like that on the internet shows just how insecure they are.

Quote from Jeremy

You're all faggots.

Quote from Jeremy

You're all faggots.