quote of the day, intelligent design, and the evil deceiver

Today's quote of the day off my google homepage:

Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.
- Michael Crichton

True. After all, one component of science is the creativity to interpret uncertain data. This is something that most of the hard sciences have lost an appreciation of, and only the likes of geologists, astronomers, and meteoriticists (amongst others) retain [even if most won't admit it].
This brings me to Intelligent Design, my current favorite "if I wore panties, they'd be in a wad" topic. Here's a post on the insanity level this has gotten to, and here's another, both by SHG, who's been bloggin' on this today... seems we occasionally have parallel thought processes. OK, more than just occasionally. ANWAY...

Evolution is a fact, not a theory. There is no such thing as the "Theory of Evolution". There is indeed evolutionary theory. The rock record and modern biological data conclusively demonstrate that organisms adapt and change in a systematic, discernible, measurable, manner. We do not necessarily know what the driving mechanism is. "survival of the fittest" is merely one theory as to the driving mechanism. So is punctuated equilibrium. So are many other theories as to the systematic manner of these changes. At a higher level than that perhaps there is some force that guides, drives, or designs the whole deal. Maybe. We don't know. But that would be where Intelligent Design lands. We don't know. It's a very large MAYBE. We don't know whether God exists or not. Or whether the Flying Spaghetti Monster does.



For that matter, Descartes has a hole or two in refuting the Evil Deceiver concept, depending on how you read him.


Speaking of the Evil Deceiver... Most Christians would insist that, in general, God is a loving, caring, compassionate God according to the New Testament and the teachings of Jesus Christ. In other words, He is not the Evil Deceiver. Old Testimant adherents get the vengeful God. But, since Christians by definition are supposed to adhere to the New Testimant, why are so many in this country pursuing an agenda of exclusion, hatred, ignorance and darkness? OK, enough of an aside, but at least I brought it back around to ignorance.

Promoting Intelligent Design as an alternative to empirical evidence of how our world works is just plain wrong and ignorant. Period.