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April 16, 2008

Science and evolution

I was very interested to learn about Ben Stein’s soon-to-be released movie “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” (4/14, Local, “Actor holds special viewing of film for state lawmakers”).

Its topic is evolution, and something I have been aware of for years: Science today has been hijacked by naturalism and atheism.

Today scientists say that by definition science has to exclude all but naturalistic causation in research, so it precludes even considering any scientific facts that point towards life and the universe showing evidence of purposeful design.

Stein’s movie examines the censorship by the science establishment of any evidence outside the naturalistic box that science has put the universe in.

The father of the modern scientific method, Francis Bacon, considered science to be the organized pursuit of knowledge about creation. The father of genetics, Gregor Johann Mendel, was a Catholic monk. The father of physics, Isaac Newton, was a Bible-believing scientist.

There are other groundbreaking and notable scientists who didn’t think science had to focus only on naturalistic causation for everything, but were real scientists who considered science should go wherever the evidence leads, instead of restricting and censoring it.

Curtis Kincheloe



Dan, what you are attempting to mock is called abiogenesis. Go look it up.

Curtis, science is in no way "hijacked by...atheism." No one is suppressing knowledge. What is your fascination with having a persecution complex? The facts are simple: There is no evidence for ID and therefore, it does not warrant time in science classes. Do you really want an ecomonics major to teach you about science?
Not only that, but go here: http://www.expelledexposed.com/. This website was created by the National Center for Science Eduation. It explains the numerous issues with this movie such as copyright infringement, bold-faced lying, wordplay, editing, paid actors to fill Pepperdine's lecture hall and listen to Stein, and interviewing pseudo-scientists on the subject of ID.
Everything I didn't cover about the subject was already covered by Devin.

P.S. If you want to get all churchy about it, even the Pope understands evolution.


Dan Beyer

But DNA can magically appear intact ready to go from a lightning bolt striking mud right?


"science should go wherever the evidence leads"

I agree with that statement completely. The problem is once science allows for unnatural causes, then the evidence frequently leads to a dead end. Everything science has taught us in the last few centuries is because science stopped believing that anything we don't understand must be the work of the supernatural. In doing so, we've discovered all kinds of things about how the world operates that have benefited humanity tremendously. Had we continued to believe in unnatural causes, then we wouldn't have investigated further once the evidence didn't make sense. Rather than seeking alternative explanations to the existing concepts, we would have thrown up our hands and chalked it all up to God's mysterious ways.

You are welcome to believe in Creation. Science can do nothing to prove Creation wrong. Science can also do nothing to disprove the notion the universe is governed by a flying spaghetti monster. But for those of us who want to understand more about the way the universe works, we can't simply stop at any unexplained phenomenon and chalk it up to fairy dust. The problem with ID science, which has been acknowledged by some of its biggest proponents in articles I've read, is that it brings nothing to the table in terms of new knowledge. When we begin with the assertion that things are a certain way and can't be any other, then we've chosen to dwell in a dead-end from which we can obtain no new knowledge. Personally, I reject this dead-end approach to knowledge.
