New Book Exposing "Intelligent Design"

by AlanF 15 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  AlanF

  I thought some people would be interested in this, since the Watchtower Society has been gradually adopting (but not acknowledging the source) ID-ish ideas for about a decade.

  There's a new book out called Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design (Barbara Forrest & Paul R. Gross, Oxford University Press, 2004). It shows very clearly that so-called Intelligent Design (ID) is nothing more than standard creationism masquerading as something new. ID is really just a jazzed up version of William Paley's "watchmaker" argument, which in turn is a jazzed up version of the argument from ignorance -- "I can't imagine how that happened, so it didn't". The book describes the self-styled "wedge strategy" of modern ID pronponents, which is to use the argument from ignorance to convince enough people (who are woefully ignorant of science) that modern biology is out to lunch with respect to evolution that they'll exercise political power and force schools to teach biblical creationism. The new thing about modern ID, then, is its militancy in trying to get religious belief taught as science.

  AlanF
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  the_classicist

  Is it better than Dawkins' "Blind Watchmaker" book?
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  Cygnus

  Alan I appreciate your many time restraints, work and family responsibilities. I would love for you to take an afternoon and give considerble thought to the paper I URLed in my post and get back to me either on the board or personally. BTW thank you for the book recommendation. Besides my intenet reading I clear 5 books a week. I am suffering from bilateral radial palsy and am pretty much incapacitated.
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  tetrapod.sapien

  thanks alan.

  i have observed for the last year or so, how some of the more "savvy" people in the org have started talking about Behe, so-called irreducible complexity and other I.D. idioms.

  this really shocked me, because i had always thought that truth could not be revised, since we had god on our side.

  of course, in the end, debating I.D.ers is much the same as debating creationists with some souped up arguments from design.

  TS
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  Cygnus

  As I have progressed into adulthood, I have learned to say, "this scholar says this" or "such-and-such proposes that" instead of being dogmatic one way or the other. I'm too tired and sick to debate, and if young witnesses say "my parents dont make me go to meetings or not celebrate christmas, i do it cause i love god", who am I to argue with them? AlanF proved long ago that speaking with Awake! cheif editor and "Creation" book author Harry Peloyan is a waste of time. The study of Jehovah's Witnessism and Creationism occassionally interests me because it's fun to kill a few hours here and there with educated friends who provide fertile grounds for stimulating conversation. Otherwise, the great congregator once purportedly said: "To the making of books there is no end." I found more truth in B,B. King's autobiography which I just completed than any book seeking to prove or disprove either model of our existence.
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  rem

  Thanks for the recommendation... it's now on my Amazon wish list! :)
  
  rem
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  stillajwexelder

  (Ecclesiastes 12:11-12) . . .. 12 As regards anything besides these, my son, take a warning: To the making of many books there is no end, and much devotion [to them] is wearisome to the flesh.

  Hey but books are wonderful - they spread knowledge so thanks AlanF for the recommendation
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  TheOldHippie

  ........ a "thank you". I also read "The Earth shall weep" about the Native Americans' view on history and the origin, and their side of the history as to the meeting with The White Man, and books as those, together with B.B. King and Neil Young, make the day a far better one than coping with evolutionists and creationists (although I also enjoyed both Behe's and Denton's books and felt stimulated after having read them).

  It's like Charles Fort wrote in his books on the inexplicable, that each time someone comes forth and "proves" something, at once ten others come forth and give convincing evidence as to why it is not true, and they "prove" that the opposite has got to be true, only to be met by ten others "proving" that the opposite of thatagain has got to be true etc. It goes on and on. For every bit of "truth" there is sufficient evidence to "prove" it cannot be true.

  Poor Man, stuck in the middle. Hence, B.B. King is the Better Refuge.
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  Leolaia

  This is sad:

  http://news.yahoo.com/s/chitribts/20050807/ts_chicagotrib/museumexhibitsacreationistviewpoint
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  Frog

  I was watching Lehrer a couple of nights ago & there were a few "experts" discussing the subject of Bush's request to have both ID & Evolution taught in the class room?!?! How serious is he about this? How much influence does Bush have on getting this through? Incredibly bizarro, the education minister must be hitting his head against the wall over this.