I know it has been a long time since I last posted, I have been busy working for my various employers. I also have a lengthy post on Intelligent Design in the works, I am having difficulty figuring out what I think though.
So in the mean time, David Gelertner had a pretty good
article in the
Wall Street Journal yesterday. I figure that is news in and of itself (for anyone who does not understand why I said that, just go
here, it is written by David's son).
Also, an interesting
article on the Gaza pullout was in the National Review, written by Joel Rosenberg. Rosenberg shows us what to watch out for:
What to watch for in the coming weeks:
Jewish violence against Palestinians. Last week’s reprehensible attack by a Jewish extremist against Arab civilians may be a portent of the trouble ahead.
Refusal of Israeli soldiers to follow orders. Israeli military sources tell me there is very real concern among Israeli generals that a significant percentage of IDF Reservists might not obey orders to implement the “disengagement” by forcibly removing Jewish settlers from Gaza. Few Israeli soldiers see themselves as trained and mandated to fight fellow Jews. Some have suggested the number of dissenters within the military could run as high as 30 to 40 percent. That is probably exaggerated. But the concern is very real.
A Palestinian civil war. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, a.k.a. “Abu Mazen,” is weak and has done little to fight radical Islamic terror so far, though Palestinian Authority forces have engaged in small skirmishes with Hamas and other groups in recent weeks. A giant power struggle is looming. It could get bloody, with thousands of innocent Palestinians caught in the crossfire.
Obviously these are all doomsday scenarios, but it highlights the seriousness of the situation.
-Mr. Alec
1 Comments:
One reason to post your future topics is to give all those strangers in the idiosphere the chance to pre-react. So here gone.
The key idea to keep in mind when considering the issue of intelligent design is the distinction between what science and religion do. Science develops theories, predicts, gathers data, tests predictions, rejects theories in favor of theories that better explains the data, etc. Religion is an organized effort to fathom mysteries which are beyond human comprehension but crucial to understanding what it is to be human. Occasionally science takes a nibble out of religion's turf, for example by demonstrating that the earth does not revolve around the sun. But these are niblbles, the big religious or spiritual mysteries (why are we here?) remain.
So the creationists believed in the biblical account of creation, literally, and pretended that it could be defended scientifically. Poppycock.
The intelligent designists argue that Darwinian evolution, in its various forms, has trouble explaining the evolution of complex structures, like the eye. Darwinian evolution requires some survival advantage for each step in the incremental evolution of complex structures. It is difficult to imagine survival advantages for the many intermediate steps required in the evolution of the human eye because the eye does not work until all intermediate steps are complete.
This is a reasonable scientific argument. It doesn't matter if the motivation of the intelligent design proponent is based in religion. God only knows that Keynes and Friedman were motivated by more than the love of economic models supported by data.
I do not mean to suggest that intelligent design should be taught as a successful science. Evidence in support of the theory, or rather evidence which contradicts Darwinian incrementalism must be offered. No new theory gets a place at the table without compelling evidence.
But it is also equally true that Darwinian evolution does not rule out any notion of God. Science may steal a bit of religion's turf from time to time, but it is useless in addressing the core religious questions.
So the new rule is - no overreaching. Scientists cannot argue that their theories disprove God and religious types cannot argue that their beliefs are scientific. And both should be clear that the occasional turf battles are tiny quibbles in contrast to the core religious mysteries.
Anonymously yours,
DTSI
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