I blogged this over on UFO Religions today, but PaleoBabble readers will enjoy the video as well.
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- the single greatest argument against junk science i have ever seen « The Official Blog of Dr. Robert R. Cargill - [...] video makes this point succinctly and in a most entertaining fashion. with thanx to michael heiser for the tip…
This video amounts to Darwinianobabble. To compare ID to ancient astronaut theory is to make a category error. It’s a fallacious argument. ID doesn’t make claims as to who the designer is. It simply asserts that a scientist can and should infer design when the evidence leads to design and proposes a means to make such inferences.
ID proponents have rightly made it a legal issue because of the blatant censorship and outright persecution of scientists and scholars that dare to question the liberal naturalistic bias of the modern university secular magisterium.
Unfortunately most people have bought into the propaganda and do not even understand what ID is. This video is prime example of that ignorance.
@Cris Putnam: I think his point wasn’t to argue in favor of the view he’s poking fun at — it’s that the view could steal the intelligent design arguments and strategy for getting a hearing in schools.
I think you are missing the point of the video. It is an attack against the ID crowd. It is using the idea of Alien Intelligence as a spoof of the ID arguments and methods (or their perception of those arguments and methods anyways). This is an attempt to make ID look silly by relating it to Aliens.
@pocketscholar: I know. While I support ID (it’s amazing how many serious PhD scientists don’t think it’s junk science), the point is well taken — it would be very easy for ancient astronaut nut jobs to use the same arguments. That’s actually already been done – even by Christians who defend ID, suggesting that it may mean intelligent designerS. They do this, of course, to try and remain “religion neutral” but it just doesn’t work.
MSH: I think the idea of religion neutral science is a bit of a naive idea. All science has theological consequences, even materialism. The established science likes to make a big deal about their separation from religion. On one hand they claim that ID doesn’t do research or get peer review but then on the other hand they dismiss it as junk science with no review, fire anyone who publishes ID material and ignore the fact that ID is in its infancy. ID is in a catch 22 of not having published material so they can’t get anything published. Nothing is new though. You just have to read history to see that old ideas fall hard. I really believe Neo-Darwinism and origin of life theories are theories that are in crisis.
All that being said I am not impressed with the use of court systems to get ID into the schools. I think it is wrong to push science into some sort of biblical world view (usually a literal 7 day creation). I think Christians do more harm than good when they try to read Genesis as a science text book without taking into account the views and purpose of the writers. I’ve really enjoyed your stuff on the how early writers viewed their world. I like Dr Walton’s ideas about Genesis being more related to the idea of order coming from chaos.
@pocketscholar: thanks
@MSH – Yes of course I realize he’s poking fun at it. I just think he is burning a straw man. He doesn’t understand ID. ID is not a science stopper. Dembski actually has an explanatory filter process, it’s not God of the gaps – which is the opinion he expresses in his other videos. (I checked him out)
@Cris Putnam: agreed on Dembski