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  #71  
Old March 10th, 2006, 01:45 AM
Scott Shimabukuro Scott Shimabukuro is offline
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Default Re: Intelligent Design and Why Not

There is a discusssion regarding Intelligent Design at the Pat Metheny website for you jazz fans. It is clear that no amount of evidence (fossils from other universes withstanding) will change the mind of an IDer or Creationist. I suppose one could argue that this is as it should be for their beliefs are not based upon what evidence tells.
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  #72  
Old March 10th, 2006, 09:30 AM
Fred H. Fred H. is offline
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Default Re: Intelligent Design and Why Not

Quote:
Scott: I suppose one could argue that this is as it should be for their beliefs are not based upon what evidence tells.
Yes Scott, I agree that once someone is convinced that they do indeed find themselves in a pitiless, indifferent universe of electrons, selfish genes, blind physical forces, and genetic replication, that generally no amount of evidence will change their beliefs, to see things differently, say as Einstein saw them—that “Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe—a spirit vastly superior to that of man....”

OTH, that once prominent old atheist, Antony Flew, seems to have changed his beliefs, based on the evidence no less!
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  #73  
Old March 12th, 2006, 12:22 AM
Scott Shimabukuro Scott Shimabukuro is offline
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Default Re: Intelligent Design and Why Not

Point taken Fred and thank you for that information on Flew which I was not aware of.
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  #74  
Old March 13th, 2006, 10:56 AM
TomJrzk TomJrzk is offline
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Default Re: Intelligent Design and Why Not

Quote:
Originally Posted by Scott Shimabukuro
information on Flew which I was not aware of.
If you read all the posts on this forum, you'll find that Fred does not share its majority opinion. Here are Todd's views on this subject, which I agree with:

http://www.behavior.net/bolforums/sh...=2833#post2833

Here is an excerpt:

Quote:
Originally Posted by ToddStark
Although Flew and Dan Dennett were/are both famously atheists, I perceive their reasoning to that stance as completely different. It would be a spectacular conversion for Dennett to take on a deist viewpoint because he is a thorough-going naturalistic philosopher whose whole focus is finding natural explanations for the sorts of things most of us look to the heavens to resolve. Flew's arguments have always been of a more general metaphysical and ethical sort, and it is to me more of a nuance from his principled atheism and anti-religionism to a non-religious sort of philosophical deism.
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  #75  
Old March 13th, 2006, 05:10 PM
Fred H. Fred H. is offline
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Default Re: Intelligent Design and Why Not

Scott S.—thanks for the kind acknowledgement.


Note to TomJ—you keep posting lame stuff like that and I might have to retract my flattering remarks regarding you being Übermensch. FYI, Antony Flew wasn’t just any atheist (and unlike Todd, Flew actually was an honest-to-god atheist). For decades, he was a dominant figure in the philosophy of religion, among the most influential of atheist philosophers. He lectured on philosophy at the University of Oxford and the University of Aberdeen, and subsequently held professorships at the University of Keele and the University of Reading. He is the author of the celebrated essays “Theology and Falsification” and “The Presumption of Atheism”, and many monographs including Atheistic Humanism and Merely Mortal?: Can You Survive Your Own Death?. He has also represented atheism in published oral debates with William Lane Craig, Gary Habermas, and Thomas Warren.
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  #76  
Old March 13th, 2006, 05:28 PM
TomJrzk TomJrzk is offline
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Default Re: Intelligent Design and Why Not

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fred H.
lame stuff like that
But I agree with Todd that Flew is more of a "philosophical deis[t]". And, since you call yourself a deist and constantly tilt against us atheists, Flew's 'conversion' is not what you make it out to be.
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  #77  
Old March 17th, 2006, 12:33 AM
Scott Shimabukuro Scott Shimabukuro is offline
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Default Re: Intelligent Design and Why Not

I've read that recently, Flew retracted the basis for becoming a deist, though he did not retract becoming a deist.

"I now realize that I have made a fool of myself by believing that there were no presentable theories of the development of inanimate matter up to the first living creature capable of reproduction."

I thought it was note worthy.
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  #78  
Old March 17th, 2006, 02:34 PM
Fred H. Fred H. is offline
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Default Re: Intelligent Design and Why Not

Quote:
Scott: I've read that recently, Flew retracted the basis for becoming a deist, though he did not retract becoming a deist.

"I now realize that I have made a fool of myself by believing that there were no presentable theories of the development of inanimate matter up to the first living creature capable of reproduction."

I thought it was note worthy.
Well, as you seem to concede, at least he’s still no atheist—so as I see things, my deist/theist glass is at least half full. But I suppose I’m not surprised that many atheists find some comfort in Flew’s most recently evolved adaptation—his apparent belief that there are “presentable theories” for abiogenesis. Now if Flew’s belief had mutated to a belief that there were “good theories” for abiogenesis—as opposed to merely “presentable theories,” then I think that really would have been noteworthy, and then perhaps atheists could have claimed that their glass was maybe only half empty.

While Wikipedia doesn’t seem to have much on “presentable theories,” there’s this blip on “good theories”:
Quote:
According to Stephen Hawking, "a theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements: It must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model that contains only a few arbitrary elements, and it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations." He goes on to state, "any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis; you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single repeatable observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory."
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