This Scientific American article should also prove informative.

As you know Cali, CharlieM isn't interested in all the knowledge we have accrued on the topic - he needs it to be an impenetrable mystery because it's only in that void of knowledge where he can squeeze his Super Being.

Amusingly, his appeal to the impenetrable complexity of a bird is precisely what he shouldn't be doing given that he claims that it is possible to calculate design.

Instead of appealing to incredulity, he should be showing us the calculations of designedness; instead we get a peasant-like awe - it's complicated, therefore god. And that's really where Creationism / ID thrives - in ignorance.

So yeah, about that calculation, CharlieM!

Spearthrower wrote:As you know Cali, CharlieM isn't interested in all the knowledge we have accrued on the topic - he needs it to be an impenetrable mystery because it's only in that void of knowledge where he can squeeze his Super Being.

Amusingly, his appeal to the impenetrable complexity of a bird is precisely what he shouldn't be doing given that he claims that it is possible to calculate design.

Instead of appealing to incredulity, he should be showing us the calculations of designedness; instead we get a peasant-like awe - it's complicated, therefore god. And that's really where Creationism / ID thrives - in ignorance.

So yeah, about that calculation, CharlieM!

To be fair, I was too busy dealing with one of his manifestly false assertions, to notice this rampant inconsistency in his apologetics, so I'll offer a hat tip to you, for pointing out the disparity between his claims on the one hand, that CSI is purportedly calculable (along with a complete absence of any demonstration of this), and that it's all a big mystery needing a magic man on the other.

Meanwhile, I'd like to see this "calculation" myself as well, along with the presentation of full working. I don't expect him to oblige, however.

I also note with interest, how every time creationists think they've arrived at a "gotcha" question, scientists have not only provided an answer, but moved on to questions that creationists are frequently too stupid to think of themselves. Questions which, when finally acknowledged by creationists, are simply pressed into yet more duplicitous apologetic service, to keep propping up the Magic Man myth.

As usual, it's not important that the intended target of your posts will not pay them any attention, because others most certainly will. I'm currently re-reading Climbing Mount Improbable (I've run out of new books!) and I am on the section on flight, so your posts were really interesting for me as they provided some recent real world examples of the breakdown Dawkins offered.

This is rather amusing (courtesy of Jerry Coyne):

In a recent discussion on Uncommon Descent, (the webforum devoted to the purely scientific - and not at all religious, no sirree Bob! - concept of Intelligent Design), regarding the historicity of Jesus (a key biological concept, as we all know), someone touches on the very issue that we have have been discussing here:

william spearshake wrote:Before anyone jumps all over me, I think that a rabbi existed who may fit the description of JC. But agreeing that he existed is not the same as saying that he is god.

There are plenty of chronological discrepancies in the biblical story. But, leaving that aside, what else do you have?

And, while you are at it, you can explain how UD is a supporter for ID without being religiously based.

Interesting question, which provokes a series of denials regarding the religion nature of the ID enterprise. However, in that regard, probably the most revealing comment is one that occurs just a few posts later. Actually, it's not the comment itself that is revealing, because that comment can no longer be read. What is revealing is the reason it can no longer be read:




Hmmm.....

This is right up there with Harun Yahya's fishing lures.

There are just so many aspects of fail in this. Including, but not necessarily limited to:

[1] Why would any genuine attempt to portray ID as "scientific" have any interest in the historicity of Jesus? Surely it's a complete irrelevance?

[2] Even if we assume that this thread was some sort of tangential diversion, being indulged simply for the sake of curiosity and learning, why would anyone genuinely interested in the requisite questions, and the answering thereof with reference to any evidence that may be present for the purpose, care one jot about whether the discourse conforms to doctrinal diktat?

[3] Who, other than a completely pathological Torquemada wannabee, would shut down and kill debate using "blasphemy" as an excuse? Because that's precisely what "blasphemy" is - a synthetic purported "offence", erected for no other purpose than to stamp out all that does not conform to doctrine. The use thereof is an open admission, that one is so scared that scrutiny and evidence might point to one's pet doctrine being a hollow vessel, so insecure in one's own adherence thereto, that one has to treat even the barest prospect of said scrutiny and evidence, as some sort of "abomination" to be exterminated.

But then Dembski and his cohorts have provided plenty of signs in the past of being Torquemada wannabees, yearning with a inhuman, psychotic craving, to subject the rest of us to their inquisition. These are people who look back upon religiously driven inquisitions, and the accompanying horrors, not with the revulsion that the rest of us share, but with outright lust. The thought of "treading the heretics" gives these people a hard on.

Shrunk wrote:This is rather amusing (courtesy of Jerry Coyne):

In a recent discussion on Uncommon Descent, (the webforum devoted to the purely scientific - and not at all religious, no sirree Bob! - concept of Intelligent Design), regarding the historicity of Jesus (a key biological concept, as we all know), someone touches on the very issue that we have have been discussing here:

william spearshake wrote:Before anyone jumps all over me, I think that a rabbi existed who may fit the description of JC. But agreeing that he existed is not the same as saying that he is god.

There are plenty of chronological discrepancies in the biblical story. But, leaving that aside, what else do you have?

And, while you are at it, you can explain how UD is a supporter for ID without being religiously based.

Interesting question, which provokes a series of denials regarding the religion nature of the ID enterprise. However, in that regard, probably the most revealing comment is one that occurs just a few posts later. Actually, it's not the comment itself that is revealing, because that comment can no longer be read. What is revealing is the reason it can no longer be read:




Hmmm.....

There's no question ID is in bed with Christianity. Whenever I channel surf on the radio and hear anyone talking about ID, it's on a religious station. Today is a good example, Stephen Meyer was on Point of View. A religious radio broadcast. He was giving the usual ID talking points about DNA being a code, just like a programmer's code, no new mutations, and other glaringly IDiotic assertions, with a nudge, nudge, wink, wink to Christianity. When Christianity is brought up in the conversation, Stephen Meyer just rolls with it making no delineation between the "science" discussion and the religious discussion.

In case you think this was just a one time interview, here's a link to summary of a debate with theistic evolutionist Karl Giberson and ID proponent Stephen Meyer on the Point of View website.
"Should Christians Embrace Darwin?"
http://www.pointofview.net/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=26594&security=1&news_iv_ctrl=1201

Guess who POV is rooting for? A theistic evolutionist or an ID proponent who says, evolution is wrong, magic man did it?

This is what point of view is about

Point of View is a two-hour, issues-oriented live talk radio program heard daily nationwide. Kerby Anderson and the Point of View team cover the full spectrum of issues and current events that affect our faith, family, government, education, and basic freedoms from a Christian perspective