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Ben Stein's new movie about Intelligent Design

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by Smallpotatoes, Apr 14, 2008.

  1. Bill Brasky

    Bill Brasky Active Member

    What really ticks me off about this is you know if someone tried to teach Ben Stein's kids/grandkids about intelligent design, he would yank them out of that school in a freakin' heartbeat. He's just doing this for a paycheck.
     
  2. It's like all of those proletarian-loving conservative pundits we've heard from over the last couple of days?
    Exactly how many of them are moving to Altoona or Scarnton?
     
  3. bigpern23

    bigpern23 Well-Known Member

    I've never understood why anyone would think evolution and the existence of God are mutually exclusive. Isn't it possible evolution was a part of God's plan to allow his creations to thrive?

    And how does one "teach" intelligent design anyway?
    Day 1: "OK, everybody, so before there was anything in the universe, God was bored. So he created the universe and everything in it - including these Rice Krispy Treats. Now who wants some?"
    Day 2: "What are you all doing back here? We covered intelligent design yesterday. Go outside and run around or something."
     
  4. Batman

    Batman Well-Known Member

    Honestly, that's what I thought intelligent design was -- an attempt at a political compromise on the issue. To me, it was a way to tell the evolution folks that your way is right, while also telling the creationism camp that their ideas (wacky as they may be on some points) also have merit. Basically, trying to keep peace in the valley.
    Naturally, neither side would have any of it.
     
  5. That seemingly is what it started as. But forces of nature like Christopher Hitchens and the Dover school board guy - can't remember his name off the top of my head - weren't even willing to patronize the other side.
     
  6. No.
    Intelligent Design was a scam by the Creationists after a court in that liberal bastion of Louisiana ruled that teaching creationism was an unconstitutional teaching of religion. So the creationists at the Discovery Institute pulled back, regrouped, and invented a pseudoscience and tried again. This got slapped down at Dover for the same reason that the earlier case got slapped down in Louisiana.
    One of the lead exhibits in the Dover case was an old creationist textbook that the ID folks had put through a software program so that, everywhere the words "creationism," "creationist," and so on appeared, they'd be replaced by derivations of "intelligent design." The problem was that the program was flawed and, so, some of the replacements ended up like, "creaeligent design" and so on. Hilarious.
     
  7. Yeah, that was in Humes' book. It was called "Of People and Pandas," I believe. And they sure did just find and replace every reference to "creationism." I think the lawyers spent some serious time trying to track down an old version of the book - they subpoeaned the hell out of libraries, etc.
     
  8. dixiehack

    dixiehack Well-Known Member

    Hey, I already did my year in DuBois. And I'm not going back, not even at knifepoint.
     
  9. Bill Brasky

    Bill Brasky Active Member

    I also get a kick about how the ads for this stupid-ass movie are popping up on this Web site. Whatever genius thought that a message board for reporters would be a good place to find an audience for a pro-Intelligent Design movie was sadly mistaken...although it's good that the folks here are making the coin off of it.
     
  10. CentralIllinoisan

    CentralIllinoisan Active Member

    "Big Science" is used in the ad.

    Yeah, "Big Science" is so powerful. Give me a break. Talk about setting up a faux big, bad, villain. Makes me sick.
     
  11. Buck

    Buck Well-Known Member

    1. I don't know anything about Ben Stein's movie.

    2. Just because some people use the idea of intelligent design as a trapping for overtly ridiculous creationist ideas does not, in and of itself, render intelligent design a ridiculous concept. Anyone who believes that a god created existence and set in motions the laws of physics and evolution believes in intelligent design.

    3. At it's root, evolution does not explain anything any better than intelligent design or even flat-out creationism. Following the theory down its logical path leads you to abiotic synthesis, which is a difficult idea for most people to embrace. How does nonliving matter become living matter without a god element? That's hard to fathom for many, and as soon as you introduce a god into that, you've got intelligent design.

    4. There's still a big difference between the concept of adaptation and the concept of species A becoming species B. An arctic fox adapts by turning white in the winter; it doesn't adapt by becoming a seal.
     
  12. Simon_Cowbell

    Simon_Cowbell Active Member

    It's pretty much in the 2+2=4 category.
     
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